Ep.#4 - "Freedom's Dawn" (The Frontiers Saga) (35 page)

“
Come in from the forward end of the bay!” Bobby told him. “You’ve got good cover and you’ll be able to pick them off easily!
”

“Copy that!”

Doctor Chen leaned out the doorway into the corridor. She could hear the sounds of energy weapons fire coming from the hangar bay. “I hear something.” She turned to see crewman Davies limping over with the rifle in his good hand.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It sounds like weapons fire.”

Davies listened for himself. “It’s coming from the hangar bay.” Then he heard something else. “Someone’s coming,” he said as he quickly closed the hatch. He listened as the footfalls passed them by, then cracked the hatch just enough to see two of the enemy soldiers running towards the hangar bay. “Two bad guys just ran past. I think they’re headed for the hangar bay.”

“Do you think our guys are fighting back?” Doctor Chen asked.

“Probably,” he said as he stepped through the hatch.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.

“Those two guys running toward the fight can’t be good news for our side,” he said. “Maybe I can sneak up behind them and take them out.”

“You can barely walk! You should be in bed!”

“I can go back to bed later, Doc,” he insisted as he started limping down the corridor.

Doctor Chen turned to Cassandra. “Keep everyone inside and lock the hatch after I leave.”

Cassandra, her eyes wide, nodded agreement.

Andre and the Takaran nobleman entered the hangar deck and took up positions behind some cargo crates. After sizing up the layout, Andre immediately opened fire, picking off the Corinari volunteers with ease. The nobleman tried as well, but was not as successful. Within seconds, another four men had fallen to Andre’s marksmanship.

“We’ve got new shooters at twelve o’clock!” Weatherly hollered over the comm-set. He was stuck behind one of the forward most upright beams along the port bulkhead of the hangar bay, and was having a hard time getting any shots off without revealing himself so much that he might get hit himself. Normally, he would’ve charged forth into the jaws of death. However, other than Marcus and Loki—both of which were still in the medevac shuttle—he was the only member of the group that even knew where the bridge was located. “Their angle is too good. We’re getting torn up out here.”

“They’re getting slaughtered,” the copilot exclaimed. “We’ve got to do something.”

“Hold on,” the pilot announced. The pilot quickly fired up the shuttles engines again. “Ensign Willard!” the pilot called over his comm-set. “Tell everyone to get down!”

“
What?
”

“I’ve got an idea!”

“What are you going to do?”

“You’ll know it when it happens!”

The pilot began inching the ship slowly forward, moving deeper into the hangar bay. As he progressed, he angled the ship to the right. He continued rolling forward until he was just about even with the port and starboard hatches from which the enemy troops were firing. Moments later, he turned sharply to port, coming to an abrupt stop when his nose was facing the port hatchway.

“Disengage the automatic thrust pod controls and go manual,” he ordered his copilot.

She quickly began punching buttons on her side console. A moment later she responded. “Thrust pods set to manual.”

“Swing the forward pods straight ahead and the aft pods to the rear!”

“Yes sir,” she answered as she realized what he was up to.

The pilot looked out the forward window directly into the eyes of the enemy shooter in the port hatchway. He watched as the shooter’s eyes widened when he saw the thrust pods swinging up toward him. The shooter started firing madly at the cockpit windows, shattering them.

“Get down!” the pilot ordered as he ducked to his left onto the center console.

The copilot was not fast enough and took an energy blast straight to her face, killing her instantly.

“Everyone get under the middle of the ship!” the pilot ordered over the comm-set. “NOW! NOW! NOW!”

Outside the shuttle in the Aurora’s hangar bay, the surviving volunteers all began firing wildly as they made a mad dash toward the middle of the shuttle, which now sat astride the hangar deck with her nose pointed to port and her tail pointed to starboard. Her forward engine pods had rotated up and forward and her aft pods had rotated up and back. As the men scrambled to her mid section, she fired all four of her thrust pods at once. They weren’t even at one tenth of their maximum power, but the roar inside the hangar bay was deafening.

Andre and the nobleman saw what was happening. The thrust from the medevac shuttle was preventing any of those men from even sticking their guns through the hatch to fire.

Andre rose up and started pouring fire under the sideways shuttle in an attempt to kill the men now scrambling underneath to get into position to open fire on the port and starboard hatches. As he also stood to fire, a blast from behind sent the nobleman next to Andre flying forward, falling over his cover to land in a smoldering heap on the other side. Andre quickly spun around and fired madly, charging back through the hatch into the corridor in pursuit of the assailants.

The shuttles engines died down again and the volunteers charged forward toward both the port and starboard hatches, firing madly as they advanced. Several more of them fell to enemy fire as they charged through the hatchways, but within seconds the Takaran agents were cut down by overwhelming numbers.

More volunteers charged forward toward the hatchway at the far end of the hangar bay where only moments ago a third set of shooters had been firing.

“Regroup! Regroup!” Willard shouted. Now that the bay was clear he knew he needed to get his men back together in order to complete their mission.

“We’ve gotta push forward and get to the bridge!” Sergeant Weatherly told him. “The other shooter went back into the forward corridors. Give me a few guys so I can chase him down.”

“Give me a minute to regroup,” Willard said. His men were scattered about, and the entire bay was in chaos, with small fires having broken out due to the thrust from the medevac shuttle’s engines.

“We don’t have a minute,” Weatherly argued. He looked about and spied Marcus and Loki coming down the ramp of the medevac shuttle. Their assignment had been to guard the ship and prevent any un-friendlies from entering. “You two,” he yelled, pointing at Marcus and Loki, “Come with me!”

Willard watched as Marcus and Loki went jogging past on their way forward in pursuit of Sergeant Weatherly who was nearly to the hatchway at the forward end of the bay by now. He looked about and spotted Dexter, Sal, and the Omotossan returning through the starboard hatchway. “You three, follow them!”

Andre came charging down the corridor in pursuit of the people that had shot the nobleman next to him from behind. As he turned the corner, he saw two people duck into a side room.

Doctor Chen suddenly found herself tumbling forward into the darkness, her momentum carrying her forward as she floated about a meter and a half above the floor, rotating head over heels at a forty-five degree angle to the deck. It had never occurred to her that while the ship was powered down, not every compartment would have gravity
.

There was just enough light coming in from the open hatch behind her to see the rows of plush, high-backed chairs just before she slammed into them shoulder first. She managed to grab hold of the back of the first chair and prevent herself from careening over the top of them and continuing across the room. She looked around quickly and saw crewman Davies scrambling to push himself down off the ceiling.

The darkness was pierced by a sudden flash of light and the sound of an energy weapon being discharged. She screamed briefly as she saw crewman Davies go tumbling across the room, smoke and blood wafting from his smoldering chest wound. She turned toward the hatch and saw the same Takaran soldier that had tortured her earlier. Her gun still in hand she raised her weapon and fired several times, but she found it nearly impossible to get a good aim while floating in zero gravity.

Despite her poor aim, Andre felt it best to duck back from the hatchway in case she got lucky. He peaked carefully around the edge of the hatch, speaking calmly to her. “Relinquish your weapon and I will let you live.”

“Fuck you!” Doctor Chen declared in anger as she raised her arm and fired again.

Her shots were even more off target this time, as her body movements were causing her to rotate away from the hatch slightly. Andre peeked around the edge of the hatchway again and saw that she would no longer have a good angle to fire until she finished rotating back around.

He stepped into the hatchway and took aim, responding to her declaration. “I think not,” he stated as he moved his finger to the trigger button to fire.

It was too late. An energy blast struck him in the back of the head, blowing the back side of it clean off, sending bits and pieces flying in all directions. With the force coming from behind him, most of the blood and tissue sprayed into the weightless room, drifting toward the doctor.

Doctor Chen whimpered in disgust, her eyes closed as the dead Takaran’s blood and tissue began striking her about her face and upper body. When she opened her eyes again, she found that the dead man’s body was floating toward her. In a gruesome fashion, the dead Takaran’s body continued floating forward, passing by her and travelling across the room until it reached the far side where it collided with the floating body of crewman Davies. “Oh God,” she mumbled in disgust.

Sergeant Weatherly appeared in the hatchway a moment later, his weapon raised. “Are you okay, Doc?” the sergeant asked as he checked the room for any other threats.

“No,” she replied weakly. “I’m not.”

“Are you injured?”

“Not physically,” she told him.

“Push off and come to me, Doc,” the sergeant instructed as Marcus and Loki came up behind him in the corridor.

 “Damn,” Marcus exclaimed, seeing the blood and bodies floating around the dimly lit room. Loki said nothing.

Doctor Chen managed to push off the chairs and float back toward the hatch, where Sergeant Weatherly reached in and grabbed her, pulling her back into the corridor and into normal gravity once again.

“You two get her back to medical, then meet me at the entrance to the bridge.”

“Sure Sarge,” Marcus answered.

Sergeant Weatherly released the Doctor, gently handing her over to Marcus and Loki as Dexter, Sal, and the Omotossan caught up to them. “You three follow me,” he told them as he started jogging down the corridor again, headed forward.

* * *

“We have still not been able to contact your ship,” the Prime Minister’s aide told Nathan. “However, we will continue to try.”

“Is there anything you can do? Can you shoot down those missiles somehow?” Nathan pleaded.

“We do not have any anti-missile assets available in this area. They have either been used, captured, or destroyed.”

“Jesus,” Nathan exclaimed, feeling utterly helpless. “There has got to be some way to contact them—”

“Wait,” Jalea interrupted. “The comm-unit. I had one on me when we came.”

“What comm-unit? What are you talking about?” Nathan asked.

“When we first came to Corinair, I purchased comm-units so that we could communicate. I purchased one for Tug, one for myself, and one for Marcus. If he still has it on him, we might be able to contact him that way.”

“Where is it?”

“They took it from me when the removed our weapons, at the security checkpoint on the way in.”

Nathan turned back to the Prime Minister’s aide. Before he could ask, the aide was already in motion.

“I will send for the device immediately,” he assured them before turning to assign the task to one of his subordinates.

Tug stared at the main display on the far wall down below. “Excuse me, sir,” he said to the Prime Minister’s aide, “but those interceptors—the ones that just destroyed the Aitkenna missile installation—are they for atmospheric flight only?”

“No, they are multi-role interceptors. They are capable of operating in space as well, but their range was limited by our treaty with the Ta’Akar. They can only reach high planetary orbit and cannot depart the orbit of Corinair without first refueling.”

“But they can achieve escape velocity,” Tug stated for clarification.

“Yes, quite easily.”

“Can they catch a missile?”

The Prime Minister’s aide looked at Tug for a moment as his mind pondered the idea. “Yes,” he finally said somewhat tentatively, “I believe they can.” The aide turned to the Prime Ministers and began translating the idea. The Prime Minister quickly agreed, gesturing for his aide to stop wasting time talking to him and get on the task. The aide relayed the orders to the military leaders in the room, who in turn began communicating instructions to their communications technicians.

* * *

The pilot of the lead interceptor had just watched his missiles destroy the Aitkenna missile installation. Unfortunately, it had been about a minute too late, and he was already watching the contrails of four nuclear missiles climbing into the light of the dawn. The surreal sight was interrupted by his comms.

“
Black Dog One, Command. Standby to copy action orders.
”

“Command, Black Dog One. Go with action orders,” the pilot responded.

“
Black Dog One, Command. Pursue all missiles launched from Aitkenna missile base and destroy if possible. Repeat. Pursue and destroy all missiles launched from Aitkenna missile base. You are weapons free and cleared for maximum force.
”

“Black Dog One copies action orders. Pursuing Aitkenna missiles, weapons free for max force. Don’t worry, Command, we’ll get ’em.” The pilot quickly toggled his comms to speak to his wingman in the second interceptor flying to his starboard and slight behind him. “Two, Leader. Did you copy?”

“
You bet, boss,
” his wingman answered over the comms. “
Let’s put it to the stops and head for the black.
”