by J. F. Holmes
“Go on,” said Meric, from his chair. He was idly wondering if there was a way to use the French ship for his ultimate quest, but could come up with nothing. What good would a research ship do?
“Well, due to movement of the Earth, movement of Sol system, all that, they are due to shift out of there and move to another point about eleven hours after we get there.”
“What about escort?” asked Guns. “There’s got to be a Frigate or at least a Corvette hanging around there.”
“Good question,” answered Meric. “Our source in Jamesport said there WAS a Frigate in escort until two weeks ago. RFF Petan. However, she was seen recently at the shipyard in New Turin with her reactor access plate stripped off. She will be off station for at least another two weeks. We’ll keep our eyes open, but with RFF forces stretched thin and the offensive being conducted by the Brits to take Port Mahon, I don’t expect anything. The Petan was detailed there because she’s over fifty years old and in no shape for combat.”
He paused to let anyone else chime in, but they all seemed satisfied. “Easy enough, then. We have both the shuttles out and waiting, Knife goes in on the attack run, and Poison stands back in case reception is too hot. Banshee, straight for the air lock. We’re not trying to kill anyone, just steal some data. Jumper, be prepared to drop your team at a spot in the hull away from crew quarters. Again, we’re not trying to kill anyone. SGM Stedham, make SURE your guys know that.”
The Team Knife pilot sighed and said, “Yes sir, aye aye, Captain. Frenchie Martel ain’t gonna like it.”
Chief Spark grinned. “He’s not paid to like it, and if he REALLY has a problem with it, he can come talk to me.”
“Um, no, he’ll be fine.”
****
The waiting was, as the old song said, the hardest part. Tension built up as the clock ticked away, till it was almost visible in the air on the bridge.
“Ensign Box, stealth systems sitrep,” asked the XO.
“Slight fluctuation in the heat shifters. It’s tough to maintain with the engines on standby.”
“Do what you can. Just a bit longer.” Meric hoped so; wearing a full pressure suit, even with the visor up, was uncomfortable. Itches he couldn’t scratch, and the waste tubes were… annoying.
In the shuttles, riding high between the engine nacelles, the teams were making their final pre-combat checks and inspections. Shuttle Knife was crowded, with Sergeant Major Atkinson for demo, and Chief McCann, the commo officer, riding along.
“Hey McCann, have you got your combat nerd groove on?” asked medic Elizabeth.
The Warrant Officer shut down the tablet he was running a last-minute system cracker simulation on. “Hey, Doc, before I became a combat nerd, I was a Spaceborne Sniper Special Ranger Forces Operator. Anytime, anywhere…”
“…as long as I don’t leave my chair!” finished the rest of the team with a laugh.
“Thirty seconds till umbilical disengage,” echoed the shuttle’s AI in the cockpit.
“Good luck, sister!” came Zlatcov’s voice over the coms. When the cables connecting the shuttle dropped, they would be on radio silence.
“You too, girl. Thanks for the workouts, helped my ankle a lot,” answered Jenny O’Neill.
“Just take it easy, milk run.”
“As if I would let that child Schmetzer touch my baby. See you in a few.”
Zlatcov laughed, and closed with, “Jumper, Out!”
O’Neill answered her with “Banshee, Out.” She keyed her intercom and called out to the assault team. “BUCKLE UP, PEOPLE, TIME TO ROLL!”
The AI for the shuttle wasn’t as complicated as, say Buckley. It could fly the ship, but had little to no personality. O’Neill liked it that way; it gave her the feeling that she was in charge. She did depend on it to be her copilot, though. They ran through the dropship checklist together, getting a green light on all systems. She felt a bump as the umbilical detached. When attached to the Lady Lex, an airlock allowed access to each dropship. Serious maintenance could be done in the larger ship’s hanger, but ordinarily they rode nestled in between the engine nacelles and the ship’s main hull. Thrusters kicked the shuttle forward, and O’Neill initiated a slight turn to the left, watching on her monitors as she cleared the arc of the Drive Ring. On the other side, Poison mirrored her flight, peeling off to the right. They completed their turns and fell in next to each other, accelerating toward the research ship, plotting an intercept course not far from their location.
The target itself had been slowly accelerating under about one gravity of thrust, moving out to clear the planetoid’s gravity well before translating into nullSpace. WO Stueben tracked it on passive sensors, watching the electromagnetic fireworks being given off by the antimatter reactors. He was looking for any changes that meant alteration of thrust or course.
“Captain, they’re nearly in range to get a return on the shuttles,” said Box.
“McCann, open up… whoops. Box, jump on McCann’s terminal and open up a channel on international.” The crystalline creature unfolded an appendage and reached across six feet of cabin to precisely tap out a code on the console. Then he gave a sort of thumbs up.
“Attention French Research Ship Ecouter. This is the Privateer Lexington, carrying letters of marque from his Britannic Majesty King William. You are a legitimate prize of war, heave to and prepare to be boarded.” Over the speakers he heard, "Attention, navire de recherche Ecouter français. C’est la vengeance du Privateer Lex, portant des lettres de marque de sa Majesté britannique. Vous êtes un prix de guerre légitime, pilonnement trop et se préparer à être arraisonné!"
Just for kicks, he told the computer to retranslate back into English. "Beware, French research vessel Ecouter. This is the revenge of the Privateer Lex, wearing his Majesty letters of marque. You are a legitimate war of prices, too heave and prepare to be boarded."
The bridge crew broke out into laughter, relieving some of the tension. “Buckley, you have to work on your French a bit.”
“Suck it, you English pig. I am a native French speaker, and your own English is atrocious.”
Stueben broke into the conversation. “Captain, target is not changing velocity or acceleration. No response to our hail. Knife is deploying their team now.”
Chapter 19
Peter Martel felt his magnetic boots clang onto the surface, and he swept his rail gun around in an arc, covering all the visible parts of the hull. The rest of the team exited and the assault shuttle rolled out and away, swinging around to cover the team with its chin-mounted Gatling gun.
“CLEAR! CLEAR! CLEAR!” echoed around the team radio. The research ship was based on a standard French medium sized merchant hull, so Sergeant Atkinson already had a set charge for this kind of airlock. He slapped it down on the hinge, then moved downward and placed another.
The charges were small, and there was no atmosphere to transmit the shockwave, but they felt it through their boots. The hinges shattered, and the interior air pressure blasted the door off and into space.
Martel threw a flash grenade in, followed by an EMP stick to disable any hardsuits that might be waiting for them. Both went off with a sizzle of light and a screech over his own electronics. He jumped into the airlock with both feet and rolled as the expected artificial gravity took over, coming up on his feet and covering each corner of the room.
“CLEAR!” he called, and McCann followed him into the airlock. He slapped a box over the entrance console as the rest of the team piled in, crowding into the small room. Behind them, the last man sprayed a temporary patch over the hole created by the missing door panel. It prevented anyone from coming over the hull and hitting them from behind, as well as sealing the ship.
McCann typed in some digits on the key pad of the box, and it started running numbers. Martel stood behind him with his hand on his shoulder, ready to jump through the inner lock door as soon as it opened.
On the bridge of Lexington, Lt. Commander Solbliatski leaned ove
r Stueben’s sensor console.
“What is this?” he said, pointing to a display.
The young Warrant Officer, discharged from the Prussian Navy, answered back in his thick German accent. “I noticed it before, but it faded. Now it’s come back, it looks like scatter from a tight band radio transmission. Not sure of the point of origin, but the backsplash seems to be coming off the planetoid. No, gone again. Could just be distortion or reflection of our transmissions.”
Solbliatski rubbed his grey beard, then walked over to the signal console and keyed the assault channel. “Knife, status.”
SGM Stedham’s voice came back right away. “We’re in, about to open the inner lock door. No resistance yet.”
Meric leaned forward in this chair, and exchanged a look with the intelligence officer. “Frenchie, have you encountered ANY activity yet?”
“Negative Captain. Door is opening now.” A long ten minutes followed, with no reports from the boarding team other than that they were meeting no resistance. In fact, they had met no one. The entire team had made their way in the central ship’s corridor, advancing by overwatch.
“Captain, I have burst radio traffic between Sierra One and an unidentified source on the planet surface,” said Stueben
Meric jumped out of the chair just as gunfire sounded over the radio, and yelled, “IT’S A TRAP! GET OUT!”
“CAPTAIN, TWO SHIPS APPROACHING FROM BEHIND THE PLANET!” yelled Stueben.
Meric sat down in his chair, thinking hard. “Recall the shuttles, prepare for null Space and-”. He was interrupted by a giant CLANG and the entire bridge went dark, accompanied by the whistling of air from a hull breach. Emergency lighting came on, bathing everything in a blood red glow. Meric slammed his helmet down and sucked in stale suit air. The hatch to the rest of the ship slammed shut, cutting in half a crewman who was running into the bridge. Blood and viscera splattered and started to float as the artificial gravity cut out. The whistling air stopped as the hatch closed.
“BUCKLEY, WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING!” yelled Meric into the coms net.
“Sorry, Capt..ain. Min…Mines…EMP, HIGHHIGH EXEX,,,, comppppppppuuter virus fffiitringkdsf me. Goiinnnggg mPrivatemmmPrivatennuuall need warrant officer MCCCCCANNNN.” Buckley’s voice evaporated in his ear with a mechanical scream.
Meric pushed himself over to the communications station, taking a second along the way to shove a crewman who was milling through the air toward a solid object. Once there, he plugged his suit cord into a jack. Immediately screams and yells sounded over the headset. He clicked over to the engine room and called for Commander Lynch. It took several seconds to get him on the com.
“Talk to me, Pat. Buckley crashed, you’re on manual now.”
The big man was out of breath, and Meric hoped he would hook into the ships supplementary air system before he passed out. He waited patiently and listened to the report, shrugging off the bridge crewman who was tapping his shoulder.
“I’m bringing the engines back online under manual control. I can give you enough energy for a jump to nullSpace in maybe thirty minutes. Fifteen minutes to be able to provide thrust. I gotta be really careful to watch for fluctuations in the power gradient. I’d say I’ll tell you if we have a problem, but I’ll be dead a nanosecond before you. What the hell happened?”
“Smart mine, probably placed on Miranda, and we have two French ships coming after us. They’re hacking our systems, too. The research ship was a decoy, and I heard gunfire over the team radio just before the coms went dead.”
Through the plastisteel windows, a bright light suddenly blossomed, illuminating the cabin. Meric’s sense of direction, honed out in space collecting salvage, told him it was coming from where the research ship had been. “Damn, that was the Ecouter. I hope Jenny got them away. We won’t be able to tell until our systems are back up. Buckley is screwed. Gotta jump.”
He closed the connection and switched over to ALL SHIP, ignoring the chaos around him. “LEXINGTONS, THIS IS THE CAPTAIN. I WANT AN ALL SHIP REPORT BY SECTION NOW.”
Reports came in sequence. They were dead in the water, not even ballistic. The ship had been sitting still, imitating a hole in the water, when the mine had detonated. One compartment was completely open to space, directly above the heart of the ship’s computer bay, on A deck behind the bridge. The rest of the ship was airtight.
“OK, Lieutenant Williams,” he said, speaking to the starboard watch commander, currently charged with ship repairs. “Get that hole fixed and restore atmosphere to the ship. Then I want your whole crew out walking the ship’s hull, looking for any other mines.”
He switched the hardwire intercom system off and turned back to the bridge crew. The bulkheads prevented his suit radio from reaching other parts of the ship, but would work in this compartment. He started to speak, but was interrupted by a call over the ship’s radio.
“Pirate Lexington, this is Captain Jean Muschad of the French Republic Navy. We have disabled your ship systems and will be coming alongside,” spoke a voice with a thick French accent. “Surrender your ship and your crew may live. Try to fight and you will all be suit-chained.”
“Talk to me, Guns. What do we have?”
The fat man wheezed, constricted by his suit. “Well, we can fire a spread of random missiles. I know their general direction, but it would be like spitting in the wind against a heavy cruiser with point defense.”
“Try and get me a firing solution.” Right at that moment, the ship’s gravity returned at three G, smashing them all to the floor. Meric actually felt his right arm go SNAP just above the wrist, as his normally two hundred plus pounds with spacesuit turned into more than six hundred.
“I Amm ffiiigggggghhhttttiiinnnngggg THE VIRUS,” screamed Buckley’s voice, a mixture of primal rage and electronics. Gravity disappeared again and they resumed floating.
“Stueben, I know you’re not a computer geek, but try to help Buckley out. Dump the entire system if you have to. Alex,” he said to the flight operations commander, fighting down panic, "try to get an optical on the shuttles. Solbliatski, what have we got coming at us?”
“I got a glimpse of a heavy cruiser and a frigate.”
Shit, thought Meric. Even if engines came online, there would be no way to run from them. A heavy cruiser could put a grav round right through the hull without blinking, and the frigate could outrun them.
They were well and truly screwed.
Chapter 20
Midshipman Amanda Schmetzer’s duty position in combat was in the hangar bay. She was to prepare to receive any shuttles with casualties and assist in directing their entrance into the hanger. When the lights went out and she found herself floating in the darkness, a sense of fear she hadn’t known since childhood welled up in her. She breathed a sigh of relief when the emergency lighting came on, and listened as the section reports came in to Captain Meric, giving her own in sequence.
“Hangar bay, no power, zero casualties.”
There were zero casualties because she was alone in the cavernous space. The rest of the hangar crew was split between Starboard and Larboard watches, detailed for maintenance or operations as needed. Right now, she was alone, just keeping an eye on things while the action was elsewhere. Fortunately, when the gravity cut out, she was able to hold onto a workbench that was bolted to the floor.
When it came on again, briefly, she was slammed to the floor along with the rest of the crew. She heard Buckley’s mad ranting over the intercom, and the French Captain’s surrender demands. Schmetzer felt small and helpless, the youngest officer on a dead ship about to be pulverized. She knew that Meric, along with the rest of the crew, would go down fighting rather than be taken prisoner.
Looking about the hangar bay, she saw Commander McHale’s pet project, the battered F-8C fighter that she’d been training on, strapped down to the deck. A germ of an idea came to her, and she looked around her for some cable or rope.
****
Sergeant Peter “
Frenchie” Martel had fled his home world one step ahead of the Republic Secret Police. His people had always been a thorn in the government’s side, serving as often in the various rebellions as in the Republic Forces. Martel, along with his brother, had been Gunner’s Mates in the Legion, and like Rob Knight, he had also been forced out of the service. His retirement had come, not from a wound, but from a doctor’s diagnosis of “Sociopath” after carrying the fight too hard to the enemy, resulting in a murder conviction from a military tribunal.
It wasn’t that he was a sociopath. Frenchie loved his fellow soldiers and his family. Hell, he’d even had a dog that he cared about. It was just that, well, he didn’t know how to switch it off sometimes. He loved combat, sometimes more than life itself. When it started, he blanked all his emotions except for a fierce, unrelenting joy. He had pushed it too far, one final time. While leading a boarding party during a battle with a Russian fleet, a backhand swing of his axe in the madness of battle had caught a French soldier, cutting him in half. An accident, common enough in the small confines of ships’ compartments. This time, though, the French authorities had wanted to make an example of someone from the Martel clan.
Sergeant Martel had been charged with murder, and scheduled to be executed. The night before he was to be guillotined, his brother had broken him out of prison, and Frenchie Martel had fled off world. When word of the reprisals against his family, the wholesale slaughter of everyone with the Martel name, reached him, he had joined Meric’s crew and swore vengeance. His wish, it seemed, was about to be granted.
The team itself had been advancing slowly through the ship, finding it deserted, up until they had gotten into the central corridor. Then a spacer wearing a civilian jumpsuit had appeared ahead of them, and the team had given chase as he ran. They wanted to get to him before he warned the small crew and they locked all the hatches. He dove sideways into a compartment, and steel doors slammed down on either end of the corridor, trapping Team Knife.