Ep.#4 - "Freedom's Dawn" (The Frontiers Saga) (20 page)

“Where are you going?” Marcus asked.

“We’ll take him back to the brig for now. It’s also on the port side and right up against the hull, so we might be able to make contact from there. Call me if you make contact first.”

* * *

“Two men is not exactly my idea of an effective strike team,” Andre whispered as they made their way up the ramp to the command deck, crouching low with their weapons held high and ready as they advanced.

“I count five,” Captain de Winter said.

Sergeant Tukalov looked behind himself and his partner at the captain and the two noblemen following him. The captain looked calm and relaxed. He was either ignorant or truly thought that he was too important to be injured. The two noblemen behind him, however, appeared to be on the verge of an anxiety attack.

Andre smiled. “I only count two.”

“Funny,” de Winter remarked, feigning a smile. “Besides, you heard her. There are only thirty of them left, and most of them are busy trying to fix their poor little ship. There can’t be more than a handful of them left on the bridge.”

“I just keep thinking of the words of my CO,” the sergeant said as his head came to deck level. He halted momentarily as he checked to make sure there was no one that would notice them as they crested the top.

“And what words of wisdom did your esteemed commander offer?” de Winter asked.

Andre smiled. “Never trust a noble.” Andre and the second agent continued up the ramp onto the command deck.

De Winter turned and looked at the two nervous noblemen crouched behind him. For a moment, he thought he saw their weapons shaking. He turned back around and continued to follow the sergeant. “There might be some truth to that,” de Winter mumbled to himself.

They quickly made their way to end of the main corridor, which split to either side at the end.

“Left or right, sir?” Andre asked.

“Left.”

Andre looked at the captain, surprised that he sounded so sure of himself.

“A hunch,” Captain de Winter admitted.

Andre went around the corner on the left and continued down the hall, the second agent and de Winter following him. They immediately came to a right turn, at which Andre stopped to peek around with a quick, smooth motion. Andre looked back to the second agent, communicating the presence of one armed guard with hand gestures. The second agent nodded his understanding. Andre followed with another set of gestures indicating his plan, which drew another nod of confirmation. He held up three fingers, then two, then… suddenly there was a noise. Andre held up a flat hand indicating a hold.

“Excuse me, corporal,” a women's voice said from the open hatchway. “Could you help us move this console?”

“Yes ma’am,” the guard at the hatchway answered.

Andre peeked around the corner again, just in time to see the guard at the entrance to the bridge turn his back to them to step through the hatchway. He quickly gestured for his teammate to go.

The second agent came charging around the corner with surprisingly little noise, walking at a near jog along the left side of the corridor with his weapon up high and pointed dead ahead at the man entering the hatchway with his back to them. Andre came around at the same time, staying along the right side of the corridor as they advanced. If they were lucky, they would get close enough to take down the unsuspecting guard from behind without even firing a shot, which would have alerted others on the bridge, and Andre had no idea how many of them there were or if they were armed as well. Unfortunately, Captain de Winter decided to join them, and in not as quiet a fashion.

The guard turned his head to look back as he noticed the sound of footfalls. In a split second he saw two armed men advancing toward him. His eyes widened as he tried to bring his gun around, but he was too late. A flurry of energy blasts struck him in the face and chest, knocking him backwards into the bridge.

Andre heard a woman's scream followed by the sound of at least two male voices shouting as he ran down the hallway toward the bridge. Not three seconds later he was stepping gingerly over the dead guard’s smoking body. Andre sensed a man moving to his left and went into a roll as he landed. He came up firing, striking the moving man in the shoulder.

The second agent came in right behind him, but stopped and crouched, using the dead guard for cover as he sized up the situation. There was a terrified blond woman on the far side whose hands were already up in the air. There was another equally terrified woman in a uniform to his left. Her hands were also up, as were the hands of the young man standing next to her.

“Nobody moves!” the second agent ordered as he slowly rose from his crouched stance. He glanced to his right. “I’ve got another room to my right.”

Captain de Winter came in next, holding his miniature energy pistol. “Check it out,” he ordered.

The second agent backed away toward the entrance to the captain’s ready room at the back of the bridge, making room for the two nervous noblemen to join the party from the corridor.

“Is that a gun?” Josh asked, trying not to laugh at the captain’s tiny pistol.

Captain de Winter did not take kindly to the crack and immediately fired his weapon, narrowly missing Josh’s leg and striking the back of the navigator’s chair.

“Whoa!” Josh yelled.

De Winter looked at his weapon, then back at Josh. “Yes, I suppose it is a gun.”

“It was a joke!” Josh defended. “I was kidding!”

“Please refrain from shooting people, Captain,” Andre advised as he rose from the floor. “One of them might be the pilot.”

“Yeah!” Josh agreed. “Don’t shoot the pilot!” he declared, pointing at himself. “That’s me, the pilot.”

De Winter looked disappointed. “You got to shoot someone.”

“Pilot’s don’t usually guard the entrance,” Andre said as he reached down and grabbed the close-quarters automatic weapon from the dead guard, “with a gun.”

De Winter ignored the sergeant as he strolled into the middle of the room, looking around the bridge. “Not much to look at,” he commented, “very… functional.” He looked at his two officers, still standing just inside the entrance, waiting for something to do. He gestured for them to take up positions, a look of complete dissatisfaction on his face. "Get him over there with the others," the captain ordered the fumbling noblemen, gesturing toward the wounded comm-officer laying on the floor, holding his injured shoulder.

“You,” Andre said, pointing to Josh, “which console is your tactical station?”

Josh pointed hesitantly toward the tactical station not more than a meter in front of the sergeant.

“Josh,” Kaylah scolded under her breath.

Andre stepped up onto the center command platform and sat down at the tactical station directly behind the captain’s chair. He spent several seconds examining the console.

“Is there a problem, Sergeant?” de Winter asked.

“It’s in Angla, I think.”

“You don’t speak Angla?”

“I am Takaran,” he growled. “We don’t need to speak Angla.”

De Winter moved over behind him and looked at the console. After a few moments spent looking over the controls, he spoke. “This one operates the hangar bay doors.”

* * *

Vladimir reached the end of the central corridor and started up the main ramp that led up one deck and emptied into the main circular corridor that encircled the Aurora’s hangar bay. Although there were still weeks, maybe months, worth of work to be done before the ship would be in decent shape again, he welcomed this little break. After he ensured that Cameron was safely in the hands of the Corinairan doctors, he would visit his quarters, take a quick shower, and change into clean clothes. On the way back, he thought he might even get something to eat. Although most of their meals still involved hefty servings of molo, when combined with some of the emergency meal kits that had been scavenged from the forward escape pods, it made for a pretty decent meal.

He was a little worried about Nathan and the others still stuck on the surface below, especially with the reports he had received from Naralena about riots in the streets of Aitkenna. The multilingual Volonese woman—who had been stranded on board as a result of their hasty departure from the Haven system—was working in their newly formed signals intelligence office and had turned into quite an asset.

Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do to help his friends at the moment. He had sent Loki to retrieve their shuttle, and after that, all he could do was wait for Nathan to call in to be picked up. Besides, Jessica was with him on the surface, and if anyone could protect him, it was her.

Vladimir stopped halfway up the starboard ramp leading up to the main deck as he heard strange sounds. Some sort of energy discharge, and several of them. It was faint, but very reminiscent of the weapons used by the troops that had attack them on Tug’s farm back on Haven. Next, he heard two faint thuds. He instinctively crouched down low, his mind racing. He had no weapon, and the armory was on the other side of the noises. That’s when he heard a voice. It was in a language he didn’t understand. However, he was sure of two things: they weren’t friendlies, and they were headed his way.

“The doors,” the agent guarding the medevac cockpit announced. “They’re opening. Prepare to take off.” he ordered the pilot. He turned and yelled down the short corridor that led from the cockpit to the cargo area. “They made it! They took the bridge!” Cheers erupted from the back of the shuttle.

After he had dropped the jamming pod into the hangar bay, the agent ordered the pilot to depart the Aurora and head for the Yamaro. With its engines already spun up, the shuttle was able to immediately begin its roll out into the transfer airlock. Wasting no time, the pilot eased the shuttle forward, sliding just under the inner doors as they rose. As he rolled to a stop, the doors began to close behind him. In a few more minutes, the transfer bay would be depressurized and the outer doors would open. Then he would begin the second phase of the worst mission of his career.

Allet and Deliza were busy reconfiguring the routing nodes to redirect all signals between the bridge and engineering to their new transmission path.

Vladimir came running into the middle of engineering, causing Deliza to jump, a small squeal erupting from her mouth. “Everyone! We’ve been boarded!" he announced. "Go now! Get out! Get out! They will be here any moment!”

Two crewmen that were working on repairing one of the damaged consoles immediately dropped their tools. “Where do we go?”

“Anywhere!” Vladimir instructed. “Go down one deck, try to circle back and reach the armory.”

“I don’t even know where the armory is!” one of them said.

“We’re civilian technicians, remember?” said the other.

Vladimir rolled his eyes. “Then just hide! Go!”

Allet looked confused, until Deliza excitedly translated. He grabbed her and pushed her toward the other exit, yelling orders at her in his language.

Deliza ran to the other exit across the room, stopping at the doorway and turning around. “What are you doing?” she called to Vladimir.

“Where is my gun belt?” he cried. “I left it in here!” Jessica had ordered all fleet personnel to carry a side arm ever since they were first boarded back in the Taroa system, but Vladimir had taken his off while climbing around in the service tunnels. Now he cursed himself for not putting it back on.

Deliza looked quickly around the room but saw nothing except loose tools and equipment. She looked toward Vladimir and Allet who were both frantically searching for a weapon of any kind.

“Look in there!” Vladimir shouted at Deliza, pointing to the room behind her.

Deliza spun around and frantically searched the room. Finally, she spotted the gun belt draped over the edge of a seat at one of the systems monitoring consoles. “I found it,” she yelled as she ran toward it.

Allet had already taken up a position to the left of the hatchway holding a large piece of damaged metal pipe. It wasn’t a weapon, but it was better than nothing. Unable to find anything suitable, Vladimir took a position on the other side of the hatchway. He looked at Allet holding the pipe across the hatchway from him. “Go low,” he whispered, motioning with his hands. “I’ll go high.”

A moment later, the first member of the boarding party entered the room. He came in at a slow walk, crouched low. He immediately turned toward Allet to his right, not because he saw him but rather because that was the direction he was supposed to check. Allet was already crouched low, expecting to swing his pipe at the attackers knees, but the attacker’s already crouched stance required a different tactic. Allet swung the pipe upwards, striking the enemy hard under his chin, driving his head up and back and sending his weapon flying out of his hands. Allet immediately dove toward the loose gun that had landed deeper in the room.

The second boarder came in right behind the first one, but went left instead of right. Vladimir lunged into, letting out a groan as he and the enemy agent went tumbling over. They wrestled for a few seconds, but Vladimir was quickly able get behind the man. His old infantry training kicked in, and in a quick motion he yanked the enemy agent’s chin around, snapping his neck.

The third boarder was right behind the first two, and immediately opened fire through the hatchway, spraying the room with red bolts of energy that instantly burnt holes in any organic matter and ricocheted off the bulkheads, decks, and overheads.

Allet dove for cover behind the nearest console as the energy blasts danced around the room, the enemy weapon still in his hands. Vladimir managed to roll, pulling the body of the man whose neck he had just snapped over on top of him. The dead man’s body armor absorbed the energy blasts, preventing them from reaching Vladimir.

Gunshots rang out in rapid succession. At least a dozen or more sounded, ricocheting off of everything. Everything except the enemy that had been standing in the hatchway spraying the room with energy blasts. His armor was designed to dissipate energy, not stop solid projectiles, and the three rounds that struck him blew right through his torso, killing him instantly and dropping him where he stood.