The corporal lined up on their breaching point. At about two hundred meters out, he passed, “Cut impulse.”
They drifted in, with the corporal giving little nudges with his lateral jets to keep them on target. All that training on how to move their bodies didn’t have much relevance here with them latched onto the breaching tube.
The ship loomed over them, taking up their horizon. Rev suddenly felt small, inconsequential for a moment.
What the . . . ? You’re not taking on the ship. You’re taking on pirates, and they sure the hell aren’t Marines . . . or troopers. They’re pirates!
With renewed determination, he let his warrior stir. Once in the ship, he was going to let it emerge full force. Too many civilians were at risk for him not to be at his maximum fighting capacity.
“One hundred meters. Stand by to reverse, Impulse 2.”
“How are we doing, Pelletier?” SFC Gamay asked on the P2P.
Rev had to smile. He’d just backed off the corporal, and now he wanted to tell the squad leader to back off and let them do their job. The irony was not lost on him.
“Looking good. Akkeke’s got us on track.”
“We’re in position for the moment you’ve got the breach.”
Rev activated his rearward-facing camera for a moment. The rest of the platoon was moving up behind him, the lead troopers only twenty meters away.
“Reverse Impulse 2 . . . now!”
Rev switched back and hit the reverse. The tube wanted to keep going forward, but they had good holds on it. They slowed down as they got closer. Akkeke had this down pat. He and Gingham rotated their feet forward as they closed the last few meters, gently absorbing the impact and stopping the tube.
“Contact. Initiating anchor,” he passed as he and Gingham started to close the sealing mechanism. The red light at the front of the tube started circling around until a few moments later, the two ends met, and it turned green. Akkeke positioned his boots flush on the hull of the ship, grabbed his handle, and flexed his legs. The tube didn’t budge.
“I’ve got seal!”
Rev turned on the blades. With the back of the tube closed, he couldn’t see the blades cut, but he could feel the vibration as they went to work. Ships hulls, even non-military hulls, are tough. They have to be. But Nightingale’s Song’s hull was no match for the tri-carbon blades. Rev watched the display as it indicated the progress.
“Twenty-five percent,” he passed on the platoon net.
That meant they’d be through and ready for passage in about 115 seconds. That’s all, and they could board and take care of business. Rev felt a thrill of upcoming combat. He didn’t like the idea of fighting fellow humans, but he’d make an exception for these scum.
At least the Children of Angels, while wrong, were fighting for a belief. The pirates were just looking for profit.
He watched with anticipation as the progress reached 40%.
“Get that thing open now!” the lieutenant shouted. “She’s running!”
Rev tore his eyes away from the display. It was difficult to tell, but the ship was beginning to accelerate from her previous course and speed.
That had been their biggest fear. The company had hoped that the pirates would react too slowly at best, but at worst, that the three platoons would be on board before the pirates would run. It wasn’t as if the ship could get away. The Takagahara was too close for that to happen. A single hit would cripple the Nightingale’s Song. But pirates usually used civilians as shields, putting them in the engine spaces and on the bridge. That is why Fox Company was assaulting in the first place.
But if the troopers didn’t make it inside the ship, the Takagahara would have no other option. The ship would not be allowed to reach bubble space.
A ship this size has a tremendous amount of mass, and it couldn’t just scoot out of the gate and away from the station like a sportshover. It looked as if it was barely moving, but that was an optical illusion. Holding onto the breaching tube, Rev’s team could stay with the ship until it entered bubble space. But the rest of the troopers didn’t have that connection. They could keep up for the moment, but as the ship picked up speed, their Oscars wouldn’t be able to match it.
Unless they had their own anchors. The lieutenant immediately ordered the entire platoon forward to latch onto the hull in any way they could.
“Get that damned breach open!” the lieutenant screamed as the troopers approached the ship.
“Sixty-three percent,” Rev passed.
There wasn’t much he could do. The breach was automated at this point. All around him, Fox Company troopers were getting closer, but the ship was picking up speed. Within twenty or thirty seconds, the rest of the squad had reached the hull and were holding onto protuberances or had locked their boots.
But the rest were not making much progress. In retrospect, they should have been closer before Rev’s team started the breach, but the SOP was for them to hold back in case of anti-boarding defenses. Except this was a civilian liner, not a ship of war.
A few of the nearest troopers reached the vessel, but Rev watched in dismay as the rest didn’t seem to get any closer. One trooper had to be only three or four meters away until the ship started to pull away, leaving them behind.
Three or four troopers managed to connect further aft, but that was getting into dangerous ground. The ion stream being emitted from the engines was directional, but there was some bleeding, and if anyone got too close as the ship passed, they’d be cooked.
And then, they were through. Rev activated the curtain, then opened the far hatch, only at the last second remembering to slip back from the tube’s rear opening. Good thing, too. A shape appeared on the forward-looking display screen, and a blast lit up the tube. Rev couldn’t see nor hear the rounds fire out, but he knew he’d been centimeters from eating one.
Without consciously thinking about it, Rev swung Pashu around and fired into the tube twice. There was no return fire. Rev waited five seconds, then swung himself around to look at the screen. There was what looked to be part of a human body, but nothing else.
“Breach made,” he passed on the platoon net.
Normally, at this stage, SFC Gamay and the rest of the squad would enter and secure the breach. They would be followed by the rest of the platoon, and only then would Rev and the other three board the ship, leaving the breach for the Navy engineers to secure.
But the plan had gone to hell. No one was waiting just off the hull, ready to dive through the breach. Other than Rev and his team, those who had managed to reach the ship were scattered over the hull.
“Pelletier. Take your team and board. Secure the breach until the rest of us make our way to the tube and inside,” SFC Gamay passed.
“What about the lieutenant?” Rev asked.
“You’ve received your orders, Staff Sergeant,” the lieutenant cut in, sounding royally pissed. “Just get inside the damn ship now.”
Rev grimaced at the rebuke. From the tone of the lieutenant’s voice, Rev was pretty sure the platoon commander was one of those who’d been left behind. He motioned to the other three to follow him, then pushed his way through the breaching tube opening.
As he reached the breach itself, the ship’s artificial gravity kicked in, and he fell from what had been his “up” to the ship’s “down.” He dropped a meter-and-a-half and hit his head on the deck before sliding around. He whipped Pashu up, ready for anything.
There were two bodies, or at least parts of bodies, at his feet. His fan beamer had been pretty effective with its first shot fired in anger.
A body crashed into him, and for a moment, Rev’s warrior started to lash out, but it was Corporal Acevedo.
Stupid! Gravity, Reverent!
He scrambled out of the way, pulling the corporal with him as Gingham hit the deck with a thud. He pointed down the passage to the left, and Acevedo moved down it several meters and knelt, her RP-5 at the ready.
If the pirates knew where they we
re going to breach, then why hadn’t they sent more than two of them to hold the site? It didn’t make too much sense.
Akkeke landed feet first, unlike the other three. Rev sent him down the passage opposite Acevedo.
Four of them had made it onto the Nightingale’s Song. The question was how many others were there to take the ship back from the pirates.
20
“That’s eighteen of us on the ship and twenty-three from Second Platoon,” SFC Gamay told Rev and Ting-a-ling.
“Nobody from Third?” Rev asked.
“Never got their breach finished. No, it’s just us. Captain Chokra is the senior officer who made it aboard, so he’s taking command.”
“And what are our orders?” Ting-a-ling asked.
“Same as before. We’re to take back the ship.”
Rev had expected as much. If no one from Fox had made it aboard, the Takagahara would be taking out the ship’s drive, trying for as little damage as possible. But with troopers aboard, they had a better chance of rescuing the passengers. Even if the shot to take out the drive didn’t kill them, then the pirates would have plenty of time to take out their anger on them.
And notwithstanding that they had not entered the ship at full strength, forty-one Home Guard troopers were nothing to sneeze at. They didn’t know how many pirates were on board, but for a ship this size, they could seize and hold it with as few as thirty. They probably had twice that in order to handle the passengers, though.
Minus the two Rev killed, of course. He spared them a brief glance. They were too blasted to tell much about them, the water in their cells expanding with the force of an explosion. His fan beamer had performed as advertised.
In a force-on-force assault, the pirates would stand no chance. However, with the civilians in the mix, that changed the equation. No matter how confident the troopers might be as to their military skill, they had to take into account the vulnerability of the passengers and crew.
“But time is a factor. We don’t have word whether the Taka will let the ship enter bubble space, if it gets that far. That gives us about forty minutes if we’re going to end this before then.
“So, here’s where we’re at. Pull up your interior scan.”
The Takagahara had run several heat and bio scans of the ship and created a hotspot image. There were at least fifteen people on the ship’s bridge, which was to be expected. A mass numbering in the high hundreds was in the ship’s theater, another group of thirty were in the engine room, and more were scattered throughout the ship. Unfortunately, there was no way to tell which were pirates and which were prisoners.
“Captain Chokra and Second will both take the bridge as well as secure the main group of people. Our mission is the engine room, the life-support system, and the propulsion chambers. Listen, you two. Nothing’s really changed. Pelletier, you’re going to take your three and secure life support. Be ready to move to the engine room, however. Tjivyrtzlin, you’re taking the rest of the squad to clear the propulsion tubes. I’m taking the four from Second Squad to clear the engine spaces. Got that?”
Rev and Ting-a-ling nodded.
“About the passengers. They’re not your worry right now. We need to secure the ship and keep it from jumping. I’m serious about that. Got it?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” the two said.
“OK, then. Time’s a’wasting. I want you moving in sixty seconds. Face shields sealed.”
Troopers, like Marines, had a habit of cracking open their face shields or visors. Rev guiltily closed his before he wheeled around and gathered up his three troopers. He gave them the condensed version of the order, then with a route mapped on his Oscar’s face shield, he took point. Normally, he’d have one of the other three take point, but in the confines of the ship, if they ran into pirates, the survivor would be the one who shot first. And without ego, Rev knew that he could clear the corridor with Pashu far quicker than any of the others.
They were on the outer deck of the ship, the H-deck. Their objective was on the C-deck and about fifty meters aft. Without opposition, they could reach it in five minutes. Moving tactically, it might take twice that long, but that would be well within their window.
The platoon had entered the ship just aft of frame 104. Forward of the frame were the bridge and the passenger spaces. Back here, there was no need for art or the other niceties of comfort. The passage was bare and gray, which made it easier for the four troopers.
They went up two levels to the F-deck, then continued aft, seeing no sign of the pirates. It was as if the ship were deserted—which they knew it wasn’t.
The one advantage to this mission when compared to some other hostage situations was that this time, the hostages had value. Other terrorist or religious groups, such as the Children of Angels, wanted to leave a message with their actions, and killing hostages was the most impactful way of doing that. The more dead, the better. Pirates and slavers needed the hostages alive. They might kill some, but only when necessary. They might—probably would—kill hostages if it was evident that they were going to be caught and executed, but short of that, they would want to keep their money-makers alive.
The presence of the civilians kept the Navy from disabling the ship with its cannons, but it also limited the pirates’ options. Fox Company was going to try to take advantage of that.
The pirates managing to get the ship underway had kept all of Fox from boarding. Rev didn’t know if the pirates knew how many of the company made it aboard. Hopefully, they’d be overconfident in their abilities to hold off the troopers. An overconfident enemy made mistakes.
Sustained firing echoed down the passage. Rev hesitated, his instincts telling him to turn back to assist. But his mission was the ship’s life support system. He kept going, only to come to a stop ten meters farther down the passage.
“Am I reading this wrong?” he asked Punch.
“Wait up a second,” he told the other three troopers.
Every ship moving through human space was required to have complete ship’s blueprints registered. And at the moment, on F-deck, aft of frame 124, there was a bulkhead where there shouldn’t be one. He moved to where the bulkheads met, and there was a fine seam there. The Nightingale’s Song had been modified, and the new plans had never been submitted or at least recorded.
“Fox-one-actual, this is One-Alpha. I’m on the F-deck, but our way aft is blocked. The ship’s been modified.”
“Find your way around,” was the curt reply.
Of course, Rev was going to find another way. He’d just thought it appropriate to inform his squad leader that the ship’s diagram they’d downloaded wasn’t accurate. Looking at the diagram and thinking that one direction was secure when it wasn’t could lead to avoidable casualties.
“Reroute us,” he told Punch.
A new route appeared. Rev turned this small team around
“What’s up?” Akkeke asked.
“The ship’s been modified, and the ladder we were going to access is on the other side of the bulkhead blocking our way. We’ve got to backtrack to get access to the interim spaces.”
As with all commercial ships, artificial gravity oriented the ship so that down was proximal, toward the center of the ship. Rotational gravity was the opposite, but with both methods, the larger compartments tended to be medial, on the horizontal axis, surrounding the corridors. In between decks, though, there was interim space that wasn’t accessible to the public. This space could be used for conduits, air tubes, and the like. But wherever small compartments could be jigsawed in, they provided extra storage space, control rooms, or even hydroponic farms. They could also provide shortcuts to other decks, and that was what Rev wanted to do.
“According to the ship’s diagram, we’ll be able to exit onto E-deck from inside the space.”
“But you just said that the diagram is wrong,” Corporal Akkeke said.
Crap. I hate it when he’s right like that.
“Well, not everything’s wrong, so let’s hope this is right. Otherwise, we’ve got to go all the way back to where we started.”
They backtracked about thirty meters to the non-descript access panel at the base of the bulkhead. Rev had Gingham open it while he covered it with Pashu. There was no sign of anyone, so Rev edged his head in, surveyed the area, and then lowered his body inside where he crouched and listened for any sign of life before he signaled the other three to join him. Low running lights illuminated the space, but it wasn’t bright. Rev could see fine with his augmented vision, but that was not the case for Gingham and Acevedo, who needed their mechanical night vision option on their helmet displays.
At a meter and a half high, the space was not made for augmented Marines. Rev had to crouch and crabwalk back to where hopefully another access would lead them to the E-deck.
Rev passed the first of what looked like two double racks. They were cramped with tiny shelves at the head. These had to be for low-level crew members, and Rev swore he’d never complain about his beehive cells back on Enceladus.
As he passed the second set of bunks, he froze. A man, dressed in only a pair of black ship shorts, was on his back, his eyes open. Rev didn’t need to see the blood soaking the thin mattress to know the man was dead.
That told him two things, though. The pirates would kill, and they knew about the interim spaces.
There was nothing Rev could do for the crewmember, but he told Punch to note the space for a later recovery. He moved past the four racks to the inside of the access hatch. Once again, he signaled for Gingham to do the honors with him providing the cover. As with the entry, there was no sign of anyone, which was getting a little eerie, if Rev was honest with himself. His warrior was in full presence, and Rev wished for the relief some action would give him. This constantly being on point with nothing there expended nervous energy.
The four moved farther aft where another ladder would lead them all the way down to the C-deck and their objective.
“Soldiers, thank you for coming to our little party,” a high-pitched, taunting voice rang out over the ship’s loudspeakers.
An Uneasy Alliance: Book 4 of the Sentenced to War Series Page 17