The Prisoner of Eldaron: Crimson Worlds Successors II (24 page)

Wait…

She felt a flush of energy…not hope perhaps, but not despair either.

“What is the status of the reactor?” she snapped back to the AI. Then she looked around the bridge, her mind deep in thought, estimating the elapsed time since the last enemy shot. Forty-five seconds to recharge…and another fifteen to reconfigure for our attitude change, maybe thirty. The force from the blown compartments had sent
Zephyr
into its nasty roll, and that had been enough to trash the enemy’s firing solution. At least without a hurried update.

“Reactor appears to be undamaged, however, a full diagnostic will require thirty-seven point five minutes to complete.”

“That’s thirty-seven minutes longer than we’ve got,” she snapped back. “Flash start the reactor. Now.”

“Commander, a flash start under current conditions is ill-advised. I estimate a twenty-two percent chance of critical failure if…”

“Just do it,” she barked. “That’s an order.” She gripped her armrests again, more of an instinctive action that one that served any purpose. She tried to ignore the wild gyrations of her ship, and her years of experience as a spacer came through for her. She couldn’t say the same thing for the other two officers on the bridge. There were chunks of vomit floating around and plastered to the walls. Her eyes darted over to her tactical officer’s station. She’d never seen a human being’s skin as sickly white as Megan Berry’s.

A few seconds later she heard a strange sound, one that went through her like a banshee’s howl. Her mind raced, wondering what chilling death cry her vessel was making, but another few seconds later it stopped. An instant after, the lights went on, and the nonessential displays came back to life.

“Emergency restart completed, Commander. The reactor appears to be functioning within acceptable parameters.”

“We didn’t blow up,” she said softly to herself. “I’ll take that.”

She glanced down at the screen on her workstation. “I want 2g thrust along current facing.” She had no idea what vector changes would result.
Zephyr
was spinning out of control, which meant her engine facing was constantly changing. She didn’t know where her ship would go, but she didn’t care. She just knew she didn’t want to be where the pirate had aimed his lasers at what he’d thought was a helpless target.

“Enemy vessel has fired, Commander. The laser blasts were approximately 800 meters from our port hull.”

She let out a long breath. That was too close. But now we’ve got another minute.

“Charge the lasers. And stabilize the ship. Maximum efficiency without regard to crew comfort.”

“Yes, Commander,” the AI replied smoothly.

A second later the ship pitched hard…and again as the thrust vector moved. Then there was a series of smaller nudges, the compressed gas positioning jets, methodically canceling out the momentum causing
Zephyr’s
spin.

Wheaton sighed softly as the wild roll slowed, and her ship returned to its normal bearing. “One gee forward thrust,” she snapped. The forward movement might throw a curve to the enemy’s targeting, but mostly, she just knew some Earth normal gravity would help her people maintain whatever efficiency they had left to offer.

Her eyes dropped down to the status bar.
A little over half charged
, she thought.
Sixty-one percent
. She was squinting to see the small number next to the illuminated bar.
Not enough…

“Hold thrust now,” she yelled suddenly. Bypass safety regulator…open the conduits to the laser turrets to one hundred percent.”

Two can play this game…

And two can blow their ships to bits trying it…

“Commander, I advise stron…”

“Do it!” she roared. “Now!”

We have to fire first. Or blow ourselves to bits trying…

*  *  *  *  *

“I need you to pay fucking attention!” Yulich was in a rage, and it was clear to everyone else aboard
Black Viper
. “You can’t miss in this kind of battle, you imbeciles. Every shot we take at this power level could be our last. And that ship is perfectly capable of blowing us into dust.” He paused, staring down at the com unit, fists clenched in frustration. “You miss again, we die. You understand me?”

He knew he was being unfair. The sudden evasive maneuvers by the target—just when he’d thought they were helpless and without power—had taken him by surprise as well as his gunners. And the targeting AI too. But there was no room for reason or understanding. This was a fight to the death…and it wasn’t going to last much longer, whoever won.

“Understood, sir.” The voice on the other end of the com failed to inspire Yulich. He knew his people were near the end of their ropes. Pirates attacked freighters…and they didn’t take the kind of losses his people had boarding one. They certainly didn’t take on Patrol ships. They ran when confronted by the authorities…lived to fight another day.

Only it was looking very much like his people wouldn’t have another day. There was nowhere to run. He’d made a gamble transiting through the warp gate, a bet that the mysterious contact had not been pursuing
Black Viper
…and he’d lost. The Atlantian had been waiting just inside the system, too close for him to make a run for it.

His only hope now was to disable that damned Patrol vessel. And for a brief moment, he’d thought his people had done it. He’d have bet his five biggest hauls that last shot had scragged her reactor. But less than a minute later, she had power again…and his gunners’ shots missed by almost a kilometer when she unexpectedly fired up her engines.

He looked down at the display.
Ten seconds until full power…until another shot. Probably our last
, he thought grimly,
so make it count, you guys…

Five seconds.

His mind was focused on the Patrol ship, as if he could will his laser bursts to hit. He felt the knot in his stomach, the unmatched tension of a deadly battle, a fight to the death.

But whose death?

He focused on the countdown. Three…two…

Black Viper
shook hard, and a second later he could hear a series of muffled sounds.

Secondary explosions
.

His eyes dropped to the display. The power was out, the screen dark. But he knew it was past time for his guns to have fired. “Shoot,” he yelled, grabbing hold of the com unit. “For shit’s sake, fire the damned lasers!” But he knew…he knew even before he got the response from the gunners. The lasers were out.

Black Viper
was doomed. He and his people were as good as dead.

*  *  *  *  *

“I repeat, you are ordered to surrender immediately.” Wheaton’s voice was firm, thick with anger.

She knew she’d come within a hair of losing her ship and that only a desperate gamble—and enough good luck to win that wager—had saved them all. She’d been careless with this pirate, failed to anticipate what moves his own desperation might induce. Her skill hadn’t brought her people through the fight. Luck had.

Her body was still tense, but she could feel the fatigue pressing in, the utter exhaustion that followed a close escape from death. The adrenalin rush was fading away, but the tightness remained in her gut. The worst of the crisis had passed, at least for
Zephyr
and her crew, but those feelings subsided slowly. There was a familiarity to it all, one that flashed her thoughts into the past. It had been almost fifteen years since she’d been in combat this intense, but now the recollections began to flood back into her mind.

It’s like nothing else, that feeling. Terrifying, horrible, unimaginably awful…and yet there is something else there too. An exhilaration? No, not exactly…

She hated battle, despised the danger and the death that accompanied it. But she’d never felt quite so awake, so alive, as she did during a desperate struggle. It was almost as if…as if she knew that those instants were her at her best, her mind clear and capable, her focus almost total.

Is that it? Do I really believe my best moments are those when I stare back into death’s cold eyes?

She was disturbed by the thought, but she refused to indulge an argument with herself, at least not now. She still had work to do. If she could get the pirates to surrender, Elias and his people wouldn’t have to forcibly board.

And risk getting killed…

“Still no response, Commander.” Berry’s voice was hoarse. The young officer was trying—and failing—to hide her exhaustion.

Wheaton held back a sigh. She couldn’t say she was surprised. Pirates didn’t tend to surrender. They knew what awaited them, and most of them thought dying in battle was preferable to humiliation and public execution. Normally, Wheaton wouldn’t care. She’d be just as happy blowing away another pack of cutthroats and murderers. But this time was different. They needed a prisoner.

She shook her head and leaned down toward the com unit. “Captain Cain,” she said, pushing every bit of formality she could muster into her weary voice, “there is still no response.” She’d become quite informal with her passenger and ally, but now she felt she should put all that aside. Cain was going into danger, and the more he thought like a soldier, the better chance he had of coming back. The thought of distracting him in any way, of being even tangentially responsible for his death or injury, was extremely upsetting to her.

“Very well,” came the sharp reply. There wasn’t a trace of hesitation in Cain’s voice. “We’re going in, Commander.”

“Understood, Captain,” she replied, trying hard to match the crispness of his tone. “Good luck.”

Be careful…and come back in one piece.

*  *  *  *  *

Elias Cain stood next to the bulkhead, right at the front of his small team of agents…waiting. He was clad in black, a heavy suit of body armor over his survival suit. There was a carbine in his hands, and a belt slung over his shoulder with extra clips. But he was most conscious of the heavy pistol hanging from his side. The stun gun didn’t have a lot of range, but it was the most important piece of ordnance his boarding party possessed. If he’d wanted the pirates dead, he could have sat back in
Zephyr’s
wardroom and watched as Jamie Wheaton blasted the helpless vessel to atoms. But he didn’t want them dead, not all of them at least. He needed information. And that meant he needed a prisoner.

He tried to keep his mind focused as he waited for the shuttle to dock with the enemy ship, but he was distracted by something inside, a feeling in his stomach. Fear, tension. He’d been in combat before, when his team had raided various criminal enterprises, but he’d never seen anything like the action his father and brother—and even his mother—had. This would be a real battle, a fight to the death against an enemy that had nothing to lose. A situation far more like war than the police actions he’d experienced before.

“Ribis, as soon as we get in, I want you to take Tiergen, Jalte, and Zimmer. You’ve got one job. Find the reactor and secure the containment equipment. As quickly as you can. The last thing we need is some desperate pirate blowing the magnetic bottle just to take us with him.”

“Yes, sir,” the agent snapped back. He turned and moved back toward the others to relay the command.

Cain knew the enemy reactor was damaged, but his gut was telling him it wasn’t completely scragged…and that meant a loss of containment would be disastrous. He had no idea where the reactor was on the pirate ship, but he knew his people would have to find it or they would all risk destruction. Portable radiation detectors would point his people in the right direction, but without any idea of the ship’s layout, there was no way to be sure how long it would take them to get to the control area. They would just have to do their best. And if they failed, win or lose the battle, it was as likely Elias Cain was leading his men into a nuclear holocaust as anything else. He suspected the pirate captain would destroy his ship as a last act of spite against a force that had defeated him. He wanted to be repelled by such a senseless act of destruction, but he suspected he might take the same action in the pirate’s position. And he
knew
what Darius would do…

“Everybody else, we have to win this fight, first and foremost, but we also need at least one prisoner. So blast away, but when the enemy fire dies down, hold back until I can assess the situation. If we scrag them all, we will have wasted the entire boarding effort…and any of our comrades who fall will have died for nothing.”

He looked back over the twenty agents of his team, wondering for a moment how many they would face on the pirate ship. By all accounts, the enemy had suffered heavily when they boarded
Carlyle
…and it was likely they had suffered additional casualties to Wheaton’s laser cannons.
There could be just a few survivors…or we could be outnumbered and outgunned
. He just didn’t know.

There was a loud noise, the clang of metal on metal. A few seconds later, the com line crackled to life and the voice of the shuttle’s pilot blared from Cain’s headset. “We’re docked, Captain. Just give the word when you’re ready, and we’ll blow the enemy’s outer hull.”

And then we’ll be in combat…

“Alright,” he said onto the main com line, “it’s time. We’re here to get information on a potential plot that affects not only Atlantia, but possibly all Occupied Space. I want every one of you at your absolute best, and I know that’s what I will get.” A short pause. “Lieutenant…you may proceed. Blow the hull.”

He stepped back a meter and waited for the charges to blow…and an instant later the bay shook hard as the carefully-positioned explosives detonated. Then he could hear the mechanism in the shuttle activate, extending the umbilical through the hole in the enemy’s hull and sealing it off from space.

About twenty seconds later, the lieutenant’s voice was back on the com. “You’re good to go, Captain Cain. You should have life support in the enemy ship, but I’d suggest survival gear anyway.”