Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (72 page)

              The zheen looked over at him, white scratches all over his exoskeleton.  He was scorched and his right plating on his thorax was pitted from corrosive chemicals that had splashed on him during their tussle with pirates.  He was the only engineer left on the ship, this poor beleaguered ship and even then he was barely a power tech.  He had a feel for engines but up until his rapid promotion, he’d had only six months of experience.  He was learning the ropes very fast but there was so much to do and not enough crew to help him do it.  He was starting to buckle under the strain.

              “They’re up, Captain,” he said, body and antennae drooping with exhaustion.

              “Yes, thank you, Kay’grax, I know that.  But will they hold?”  The Captain glared at his engineer as well. 

              “No,” the young zheen stated bluntly.  He shook himself as the Captain’s stare intensified.  “Those ships fire on us?  The ones I’m seeing on the sensor feeds?  No, the shields will collapse.  The shields are at…”  He rechecked the feeds.  “Twelve percent.  They might withstand one hit.  Maybe.  But the next one would rip through them like tissue paper and with the hull the way it is…”  He trailed off.  “So if you’re asking me can we try to outrun that ship closing on us the answer is no.”

              The Captain sighed.  He’d already known the answer, but was hoping that the engineer would have a different answer for him.  “All right.  Thanks.  Where’s Marcos?”

              “Here, Captain!” the burly cargoman replied, coming up the ladder from the cargo area.

              “What kind of small arms do we have left?”

              The big man shrugged.  “Not much, Cap.  I got this stunner here,” he gestured to the pistol in a holster on his hip, “two more of the same and one shotgun.  Ammo is pretty low too, only one box of shells for the shotgun.”

              Four guns.  Very low on ammo and three of those were only stunners.  If a team from that ship tried to board them, and he had every reason to believe they would, he and his crew would have no chance.  Most likely they would come aboard with heavy weapons and just blast their way on board.  Stun blasts from those pistols wouldn’t slow the boarding party down very much.

              “Are you planning to fight them?” Jolene demanded, her voice trembling nervously.  The last time they had fought boarders hadn’t turned out well.  They’d only just barely escaped with their lives and even then, two thirds of the crew had been killed. 

              Vosteros sighed.  “I don’t
want
to fight anyone.”  He pointed to the front viewport over his shoulder.  “I don’t think they’re going to give me a choice.”

              One of the consoles beeped and Jolene whirled to access it.  “Captain, the incoming ship is hailing us.  Again.”

              “Answer them this time.”

              The ship had been trying to speak with them ever since the
Emilia Walker
had exited hyperspace.  At first, Vosteros had declined to answer because it had taken all three of his crew and himself to get the ship moving under sublight power.  The sublight engines had been damaged by pirates before they had jumped into hyperspace but the myriad of other essential repairs had eaten up all their time and effort during the trip to Ulla-tran.  Four people trying to do the work normally for ten meant there had been a lot of sleepless nights during the long haul through hyperspace.  He had ignored the calls since then because he didn’t like the look of the local security ships hovering around the fueling station.  They didn’t look all that friendly and he was just being cautious.

              This probably hadn’t been the best strategy, upon reflection.  Ignoring communications requests would probably only
increase
their interest in the
Emilia Walker
.  It would also make him look a bit
more
like a tempting target. 

              “Unidentified vessel, this is Vanku Sobris Maakan, of the Ulla-tran Defense Forces.  Our sensors are showing a great deal of damage to your vessel.  We are moving in to assist you.  We have medical and engineering teams aboard.  We request you cut your acceleration, lower your shields and allow us to board and assist.  Please respond.  End transmission.”

              “That was sent four minutes ago, Captain,” Jolene reported, rubbing her cheek and smearing grime on her skin.  She looked up at him, clear worry in her eyes.  “You really think they’re coming in to try and help us?”

              He looked at her.  “Do you?”

              She hesitated.  “I’d like to.  But no.”

              “Yeah, me neither.  Keep an ear out.”

              “Do you want me to send a reply?”

              “Not just yet.  Let’s pretend we’re really damaged and we’ve lost a lot of crew.”

              She frowned at him.  “Captain, we
are
really damaged and we’ve lost a lot of crew.”

              “Good!  That’s the way to look at it,” he replied with forced cheerfulness.  He clapped her on the shoulder.  “Then you’ll be able to make that silence convincing.”

              Jolene gave him a look, but then went back to her instruments.  The cockpit was designed to be operated by three, two in a pinch.  There was simply too much to do if only one person was at the controls, though it did make things easier that they were on a ballistic course, which meant no course corrections were needed on the helm.  But if something did pop up, someone would be needed to fly the ship, which meant someone flight certified.

              Vosteros checked the console, looking at
Emilia Walker
’s weapons.  She wasn’t a heavily armed ship to begin with, only a pair of laser cannon turrets, one ventral, one dorsal.  The fight with the pirates had damaged both, but during the trip in hyperspace, Vosteros himself had managed repairs on the ventral cannon.  They needed to get someone outside to so some spot repairs and it was probably a good idea to get to that now before that incoming ship got them in their crosshairs.

              “I’m going outside,” he told her.  “I’m going to try and get the ventral gun online.”

              “Are you kidding?” she nearly screeched.  “You’re going outside now?”

              He didn’t answer, just went into the main part of the ship, leaving her alone in the cockpit to stare at the displays and the local ship growing ever closer.

              Going out in an EVA hardsuit was never fun, even under the best of conditions.  Frederick Vosteros was trained in doing repairs in one (
Emilia Walker
’s crew was so small that there was a large degree of cross-training, and everyone needed to know their way around a wrench, a welding torch and a datapad) and he’d kept up his skills by going outside every few months.  Now, however, trying to get a gun turret online with an enemy ship bearing down was the textbook definition of nerve wracking.  It wasn’t easy to concentrate with that ship literally hanging over his head, but there was nothing he could do about that now.  He needed to focus.

              With a will, he opened up his toolbelt and stopped before the turret.  The cannon itself looked to be in decent shape.  Two hits wreathed in carbon scoring punctured the base of the turret, which had disabled the movement actuators and the targeting systems.  There wasn’t going to be time to do a proper fix here and even with on the fly repairs, the actuator repairs were going to take more time than he had to get the cannon its full range of movement.  But there was nothing for that now.  Simply getting the weapon operable was going to take some work.  Once that was done, if needed, they could turn the ship itself to try and line up a shot.  Certainly not the best of the alternatives, but it was the only one they had at the moment.

              “Try it now,” he ordered over his suit’s communicator.  “I think I’m done here.”

              “Copy, Cap,” Marcos replied.  There was a pause.  “Targeting systems are up. Looking good there.  I’m going to start moving the gun around.  Stand back, Cap.”

              “I’m clear, Marcos.  Just do it,” he snapped irritably.  He looked up.  He couldn’t see the incoming ship, but he knew it had to be close.

              The cannon rose up and began to turn, tracking imaginary targets as the gun swiveled around.  It stuck a bit as it rotated and he pulled out a spanner to try and smooth it out.

              “Captain, they’ve closed to five hundred thousand kilometers,” Jolene’s voice came over the comms.  “We’re out of time.”

              “All right,” he said grimly, trying to control his breathing.  He began the walk back inside, which was strenuous in the bulky suit.  “I’m coming back in.  Get the cannon online.”

              “Captain, are you sure that’s the best idea?” Jolene asked.  “I mean, we’re not in the best of shape and I’m not even sure that gun can really do much damage to that ship coming in.  That assumes we can even hit it.”

              “Just do it, Jolene.  Stop arguing with me,” he huffed. 
Damn this suit is heavy!
 

              “Yes, Skipper,” she said, sounding contrite.  He wondered if she really was.  It was hard to tell with his people, especially after the tragedy they’d all lived through.

              He was barely inside the airlock and out of his suit before Jolene called him up to the cockpit.  “They’re hailing us again, Skip,” she said, leaning over the console.  The seat right behind her was perfectly useable, and Vosteros was surprised she wasn’t sitting in it.  She turned to him as he entered and he could see the fear there. 

              “Anything new?”

              “They’re demanding we cut accel, drop shields and prepare to be boarded.  And they weren’t so benevolent about it this time.”

              “Oh?  They’re not on a mission of mercy anymore?”

              “Oh, they’re still saying they’re going to help us,” she replied, though bitterness was coating each word.  “But now they’re telling us if we don’t stop and let them board they might be forced to fire on us.”

              He frowned.  “That ship, even if it’s got military grade propulsion doesn’t have the legs to drag us all the way to the fueling station.  He’d be straining against us for days just to get us moving in the right direction if they hit us and took out our engine.”  Now he was the one who was bitter.  His poor ship.

              “Are you really going to shoot them?”

              He considered this.  He wanted to.  He didn’t have much of a punch, not with only one laser cannon, and while the enemy ship’s shields were raised they had no chance of hurting them.  But once they got close enough to board, they’d have to lower their own shields to mate the two ships together.  They might have to wait until they were right on top of each other, but they could do it.

              “I am, but we’re going to wait.  Keep the cannon powered up, but cut acceleration and lower our shields.”

              She grumped.  “They’re so low in power and coverage, there’s almost no point in having them up at all.”

              Vosteros chuckled.  “No, I suppose not.  Helps keep the solar radiation off, I guess.”

              “Skip, we’re far enough out that it’s pretty diffuse.  I think we’ll be okay.”

              It wasn’t all that diffuse, to use her word, but the star’s radiation was relatively low enough that they should be all right for a while.  He wasn’t worried.  It was far more likely that he and his crew would be dead from “lead poisoning” than they would from excessive radiation exposure.  That wasn’t a ship full of medics and engineers coming over to lend assistance.  It was a boarding pinnace, packed with troops.  Even if they could only hold eight soldiers, stuffed in tight, that was double the complement of the
Emilia Walker
.  All they would need to do was mate with the ship, toss a few stun grenades inside and storm the cargo ship.  His handful of stunners and a single shotgun wouldn’t be able to stop them from getting aboard and taking what they wanted.

              Which in all likelihood was the ship itself.  Sure she was beaten bloody, but
Emilia Walker
could be salvaged.  Eamonn and his people had proven that.  These people didn’t even need replicators; if they had machine shops to fabricate the parts, they could fix her up again.

              “They’re not taking my ship,” the captain vowed, staring at the sensor display, which showed the local ship, the pinnace, growing ever closer.  The time it would take them to mate airlocks and lock the two ships together could now be measured in minutes.  “Not much time before they’re here.”

              “What do we do?” Jolene asked, looking up from the displays to her captain.

              “Once they get a little bit closer, we’re going to fire on them.  They’re saying they are all good and helpful people, and yet they’re doing nothing but issuing demands.  Have there been any attempts at visual communications?”  He pointed.  “I know it’s working on our end.”

              She shook her head slowly, a small smile spreading over her face.  “No, Captain, there hasn’t.  They just sent messages from far out so they didn’t have to send visually.  Now that they’re closer, they haven’t said a damned word.”