Ep.#4 - "Freedom's Dawn" (The Frontiers Saga) (30 page)

The Takaran anti-insurgency agent spun around and saw the two noblemen cowering behind the armored wall. “What are you doing?” he shouted. “Return fire!”

The nearest noblemen looked at the agent like he was crazy.

“Through the firing ports, you idiots!”

The nobleman realized his error, lifted his weapon to the nearest port in the armored wall, and took aim, firing rather indiscriminately but at least in the general direction of the incoming fire.

For a brief second, Enrique thought the enemy was not going to return fire. That moment had passed rather quickly, and now red bolts of energy were raining down from the firing ports in the wall above. The energy rounds struck near neither him nor any of his men, but they were frequent enough and within close enough proximity to keep them all pinned down for the moment.

Enrique swung out again and opened fire, but was forced back by return fire almost immediately. The two men with boomers hiding behind the center station out in the middle of the courtyard rose up anyway and fired their big guns. The sound was horrendous, creating a thunderous slap-back effect as it echoed off the metal bulkheads in the courtyard. The energy blasts raining down from the command balcony did not stop and one of the men firing the boomers was hit directly in the face before he could get a second shot off.

Enrique had hoped that the boomers would damage the armored wall. If so, a few more shots might reduce the amount of usable cover the boarding party had up there. However, the blasts appeared to reflect off the armored balcony walls, most of their energy bouncing up into the ceiling above and causing considerable damage to those unarmored sections instead. While it did send metal and panels falling from above, it fell nowhere near the command balcony where the Takaran boarding party was still free to fire upon them at will.

They repeated the process two more times, but with similar negative results. The fourth attempt only got the second boomer shooter killed as well.

“I need two more boomers out there!” Enrique ordered. He swung out yet again, Ensign Willard stepping behind him to join in the covering fire. Another boomer carrying volunteer went scurrying out, but was cut down before he reached the cover of the center station. The Takarans firing through the ports in the armored wall had become more accustomed to the incoming fire, and their cover fire no longer seemed to have the desired effect of making the enemy pause to take cover.

“This is not working!” Enrique announced angrily.

* * *

“They are in position,” Corporal Eckert announced from his position just outside the Yamaro's port hangar bay.

“How do you know?” Marcus asked.

“Because I can see them.” The corporal rose. “It is time.”

“I still think this is a dumb idea,” Marcus insisted.

Corporal Eckert strode out into the hangar bay toward the front of the medevac shuttle at a rather leisurely pace, his weapon held across his chest. Reluctantly, Marcus, Loki, and the rest of the team followed.

“This is dumb,” Marcus continued to mumble.

“All right, we all heard you the first five times you said it,” Loki objected.

“Just making sure everyone is fully aware of my feelings on the matter.”

They continued to walk toward the medevac shuttle for another few meters until Corporal Eckert stopped.

“They ain’t doin’ nothin’,” Marcus said. “Do they even see us?”

“Who are they?” the pilot asked no one in particular.

The guard jumped up from his seat at the back of the medevac cockpit, where he had been sitting, nervously waiting for word from the boarding party. He looked at the five armed men standing in a line not more than ten meters from the front of the ship.

“What are they doing?” the copilot wondered.

Nearly at once, the five unknown men raised their weapons and opened fire. Not a single shot struck the shuttle. Instead, the bolts of energy slid close to the sides and above the ship. It was enough to startle the guard inside who reflexively raised his hands in defense.

The copilot saw her opportunity and jammed her right elbow hard into the guard’s abdomen, causing him to double over. With both hands clenched together, she swung them upwards into the guards nose, knocking him backwards.

The pilot, his eyes wide from shock at his normally demur copilot’s spontaneous attack, quickly climbed out of his flight seat and dove aft on top of the stunned guard. His copilot quickly followed, slapping the button to deploy the rear loading ramp as she rose from her seat.

“Cease fire!” Corporal Eckert ordered. He could see through the medevac's cockpit windows that something was going on inside. The people had disappeared from view, although he could see an occasional head or fist—even a foot he thought—appear from time to time. Then he noticed that the rear ramp was coming down. “The rear ramp is opening!" he shouted. "Lewis, move in!” he ordered as he took off running toward the rear of the ship.

All five of them charged along the port side of the medevac shuttle as the ramp came down at the aft end of the ship. Corporal Lewis and his men charged in from the other side of the hangar bay, approaching directly toward the aft end of the shuttle with their weapons up and pointed straight ahead, ready to fire. They leapt up on to the lowering ramp even before it touched the deck, charging up into the ship without delay.

They continued charging forward, their attention drawn to the sounds of a scuffle coming from the cockpit. They paid no attention to the wide-eyed crew chief, bound and gagged as he was to his aft-facing jump seat in the cargo area.

“Do not move!” Corporal Lewis shouted repeatedly as they charged up the narrow corridor that led from the cargo area into the cockpit. “I said do not move!” Corporal Lewis stepped to his left to make room for the man behind him. “Hands where I can see them!” he shouted at what looked like a pile of three people on the deck of the cockpit. “Take them aft!” he ordered his men.

One by one, the copilot, the pilot, and finally the Takaran nobleman that had been guarding them, were half dragged down the narrow corridor to the cargo area in the back half of the ship. Corporal Eckert came up the boarding ramp, followed by Marcus, Loki, and the other two members of their team. “What’s your status?” Corporal Eckert inquired as he entered.

“We found this one tied up in his seat,” Corporal Lewis started, “and these three wrestling in the cockpit.”

“Any of them armed?”

“Just the guy in black,” Lewis said. “I’m pretty sure the rest of them are the flight crew for this ship.”

The medevac pilot looked up from the deck at all the armed men now in the back of his shuttle. They were all wearing Takaran military uniforms, yet they had stormed the ship and were taking the Takaran officer captive as well.

“Who are you?” he asked, somewhat confused.

“We are Corinairans serving on this ship,” Corporal Eckert explained. “But we have mutinied.”

“Really?” the pilot asked, a bit surprised. “Well, there are six more of them out there,” the copilot informed them.

“Four,” Marcus said with no small amount of pride.

“We are aware of the others in your party,” Corporal Eckert told her.

“It’s not
our
party,” she corrected. “We were hijacked before we even took off from Aitkenna.”

“It was your captain,” the pilot added.

Corporal Eckert’s expression soured. Corporal Lewis reached down and rolled the guard over to see his face.

“Commander Tomlinson,” Corporal Lewis said, recognizing the man who had been one of his superiors only hours ago.

“Release me and I’ll see to it that all of you are spared,” the nobleman sputtered.

“I don’t think so,” Corporal Eckert stated coldly. He pulled out his handgun and dialed it down to its lowest deadly setting and took aim. “Takaran justice for a Takaran nobleman.” The corporal fired his weapon, sending a beam of reddish orange into the commander’s face, burning a massive gap where his nose had previously been located.

The cargo area was silent. Only the sound of the commander’s still sizzling face could be heard. “Get rid of him,” the Corporal ordered.

“Are you crazy?” the pilot said. “You can’t just execute a man in cold blood like that—”

“I just did—”

“It’s not right—”

“Not right?! That man killed three of us during the mutiny. He would’ve spaced over a hundred others in the blink of an eye. He hijacked your ship, threatened your lives.”

“He should’ve been brought back to face charges,” the pilot insisted.

“That’s what they did the first time, and look where it got us… fighting for our lives, yet again! No! This is the only thing they understand, strength and force!”

“I’m with you,” Marcus chimed in.

“That man was a noble,” Corporal Lewis reminded him. “There will be consequences.”

“We are already way beyond mere consequences,” Corporal Eckert told him.

Two of the volunteers dragged the dead nobleman’s body out the back of the shuttle, dumping his corpse unceremoniously on the deck outside.

“I think you should know,” the pilot began, “they had us deliver twelve other troops, including your captain and one of our doctors and a nurse, to the other ship, the one from Earth.”

“
One
of your doctors?” Corporal Lewis asked. “Where are the others?”

“In there,” the pilot told him, pointing to the port cargo storage lockers.

Corporal Lewis opened the locker and saw two men in their underwear. They weren’t moving. “Are they dead?” he asked.

“No, just drugged.”

“Why are they in their underwear?” Lewis asked as he removed the medevac crew chief’s gag.

“They switched places with them, took their clothes,” the medevac crew chief explained.

“That’s how they got on board the Aurora,” Loki realized.

“Why would a Corinairan medevac shuttle be going to your ship?”

“Our XO was badly injured,” Loki explained. “That’s why our captain took the prisoners down to Corinair. He hoped that by presenting them to the Corinairans as prisoners, it would buy him a favor; medical care for Commander Taylor.”

“He’s trying to capture the Aurora’s jump drive,” Marcus surmised. Loki looked at Marcus in shock. “What? I can put a few brain cells together now and again.”

“We’ve gotta tell Ensign Mendez,” Loki said as he turned and headed quickly down the boarding ramp.

“Wait, kid!” Marcus called out after him. He turned and looked at Corporal Eckert as he started backing down the ramp to follow Loki. “Can you spare a couple guys, least ways so we don’t get lost?”

“You two,” Eckert said, pointing to two volunteers, “get them back to command.”

* * *

“It’s no use!” Willard shouted. “The energy from the boomers are just reflecting off the armor. If we could just hit it head on, we wouldn’t lose so much energy to reflection!”

Enrique scanned the foyer. The only way they could get a straight on shot would be from the second level at the far end. “What about from the back balcony?”

“The only way up there is the far stairs!” Ensign Willard told him. “They would cut you down before you got half way up!”

Enrique continued looking as he fired at the balcony. “What about the floors?”

“The what?”

“The floors! What if we used the boomers to shoot upward from underneath?”

“It’s too dangerous!” Willard protested. “You’d never make it there alive! Even if you did, the balcony might collapse on top of you when you opened fire!”

“We need this ship!” Enrique insisted.

“It won’t even fly; the engines are shot!”

“The tech on this ship alone is worth saving. It could give the Aurora a chance! It could give Earth a chance!” Enrique knew what he had to do. “Cover me!” he shouted as he made a mad dash for the center station. Willard jumped out and opened up on the balcony again, firing as rapidly as his weapon would allow.

Enrique ran for the center station in the middle of the courtyard, bending over and grabbing the boomer that the previous man had dropped when he had been gunned down moments ago. As he neared the center station, an energy round caught his left shoulder, spinning him around as he fell, his momentum carrying him the last meter to safety behind the big circular metal security station in the middle of the courtyard.

Enrique winced at the pain in his shoulder. He looked at the wound, pulling at his uniform. He was lucky; it had just grazed him. It hurt, and he doubted that he could lift that arm above his head, but he could still use it. He was still in the fight.

He looked around. There were at least six bodies lying around him. Each of them volunteers, members of the Yamaro’s crew that had mutinied. They had fought to prevent the death of the rest of their crew still locked in the cargo bays. Those men had not participated in the mutiny; they hadn’t even known about it.

Enrique realized someone was yelling at him. Someone on his left. He looked and saw Sergeant Weatherly. He was yelling something, but he couldn’t quite make it out above the noise of the energy weapons, and the rounds of energy destroying some things and ricocheting off of others. “GRENADES!” Enrique yelled as he reached for another boomer from one of the dead men’s hands. “GRENADES!” he yelled to Willard this time. He looked back at Sergeant Weatherly. He was pulling grenades from his pockets. Enrique looked back to Willard. He was doing the same.

Enrique grabbed two grenades of his own, pulled the pins, and tossed them blindly over his head toward the balcony occupied by the enemy. He looked over at Weatherly and saw him tossing a few more. Enrique rolled to his right, using his still good shoulder to struggle to his knees. He closed his eyes as the pain in his shoulder intensified with movement. As luck would have it, the grenades he had just thrown went off, creating a blinding flash and sending a deafening thunder, as well as a sonic shock wave, across the room.

Enrique’s hearing had disappeared. Still rising, he opened his eyes just enough to see Willard’s arm come down after throwing his own grenades. He closed his eyes tight and grabbed the counter to steady himself, knowing there were a few more grenades yet to go off.