Aurora: CV-01 (20 page)

“We didn’t have a fight with the big one either, but that didn’t stop them.”

“Maybe they thought we came to help the smaller ships?”

“It’s possible.”

“Then shouldn’t the smaller ships be thankful we helped them out?”

“Maybe. But what if they’re pirates, they could be coming back to board us right now.”

“Space Pirates? Come on, Cam.” It sounded too silly to him. But then, the more he thought about it… “Ya think?”

“I don’t know what to think,” she admitted with a sigh.

Nathan thought he saw a bit of desperation in Cameron’s expression. And he knew how she felt. “Let’s just think positive thoughts, okay?” he encouraged.

Suddenly, a crackly voice came across the comm at tactical. A crackly voice with a Russian accent.
“Nathan! Can you hear me?”

Nathan jumped up and ran back to the tactical station. “Yes! Vlad! I can hear you! What’s your status!”

“Well, I’m okay,”
he joked, causing Nathan to smile.
“But the ship, she is not so good.”

“Can you get power restored?” Nathan knew that they could only go for so long without power.

“Yes! Soon! We are working on it now! But Nathan, I had to hot-wire the comms to tell you something. There are ships approaching us from behind. I think they are going to land inside the hangar deck.”

Nathan’s mind began racing. Who were they? Was it the same ships that had been attacking the warship that nearly destroyed them? If so, why were they coming here? Were they coming to board them? If not, why else would they try to land? Maybe some of the smaller ships were from the bigger one. Maybe that’s who is coming to land.

Nathan managed to break from his out of control thoughts for a moment. “How do you know?” he asked Vladimir.

“We have power here, and I have a man on sensors. He saw them. He says if they are landing, it will be in a few minutes.”

Nathan knew one thing for sure, no matter who they were, he couldn’t just let them walk onto the ship unescorted. And if they were another boarding party, which seemed the most likely scenario, they needed to be stopped at the flight deck, before they got deeper into the ship.

“I need to get someone to the hangar deck,” Nathan said to himself. “Vlad! Can any of you keep them from entering?”

“We don’t have any weapons, Nathan!”

Nathan thought furiously for several seconds, his eyes dancing around the room as if looking for inspiration. “Is the wireless working?”

“Yes! I tried calling you on it before, but you did not answer,”

“Sorry, I didn’t have them on.”

“What kind of commander doesn’t wear wireless?”
he said to someone near him.

“I gotta go, Vlad! Get power up as soon as you can!”

Nathan grabbed his headset and put it back on. “Master Chief! You still with me?” he inquired urgently through his headset. “Master Chief! Bridge! Do you copy!”

“Bridge, Ensign Nash here.”
The was a pause.
“The master chief is dead.”

Nathan had only met the man once, when he tricked Nathan into touching the outside of the ship as a joke. But for some reason, the news of his death startled, causing him to lose his train of thought.

“Jessica?”

“Yeah.”

“How many of you survived the shock wave?”

“If you mean that last wild ride you gave us, then just me, Sergeant Weatherly, and two other tech specialists.”

“You’re still armed, right?”

“Uh, yes,”
she answered sarcastically.

“Get everyone you can to the hangar bay! We’ve got ships coming in with unknown intent!”

“What? Who the hell are they?”

“I don’t know! Just get over there and don’t let anyone from those ships leave the flight deck!” he ordered. “Now move it, Ensign!” He wasn’t sure why he threw in that last part. Maybe it was because that’s what he thought the captain would say. Maybe he was trying to act more like a leader. Or maybe he was getting tired of being questioned. He didn’t want to be in charge, especially now. But command had fallen on his shoulders and he wasn’t about to shirk away from his responsibilities, not this time.

“On our way,”
she obeyed, hearing both the urgency and the desperation in his voice.

“And stay on wireless, the hard-lines aren’t reliable right now!”

“Yes Sir!”

CHAPTER 6

Jessica stepped carefully around the storage crates that had been repositioned at the forward end of the hangar bay. It had been slow going making her way from the entrance to her present location about halfway into the massive compartment. Still only illuminated by emergency lighting, it was difficult to see where she was going. Many of the smaller containers had been knocked about by recent events, creating a maze of sorts, composed of crates of varying size and shape, strewn about in no discernible order. She had noticed, however, that they would make good cover in the event of another firefight, which is what she was expecting.

Following her were Sergeant Weatherly, the two surviving technicians that had fought off the first boarding party, and three other crewmen they had picked up and armed along the way. As they broke out into the open, she looked about, glancing up to either side of the bay. There were catwalks located about 2 decks up, running the entire length of the bay.

“Sergeant,” she whispered as she stopped. “Put two up on each side,” she instructed, pointing to either side of the bay. “Tell them to open fire if our guests start shooting. You stay with me.” The sergeant turned to deploy their remaining forces, sending the two that had fought with them earlier to the starboard side, while the other two that had just joined them were sent to the port side.

Jessica took up a position crouched on one knee behind a crate out in the middle of the bay, the sergeant joining her. About one meter high and three meters long, it would provide good cover for their confrontation.

“As good a spot as any,” she whispered. “They’ll have to come through that smaller personnel hatch built into the bay door,” she explained, pointing at the large bay doors at the opposite end of the bay. She had been through this entire section only an hour ago, on her way to board the Jung patrol ship back in the Oort cloud. “There’s no decent cover between them and us, so they’ll have no chance. As long as those guys on the cats can shoot straight,” she added.

“Bridge,” she whispered over her comm-set. “We’ve established a defensive position in the hangar bay. No one’s getting through here without some serious fire power.”

“Don’t shoot first and ask questions later,”
Nathan warned over the comm-set.

“I know, Sir. We could use some intel.”

“Exactly. But don’t take any unnecessary chances, either. We’re running out of crew.”

Just then, the hatch lock turned and the hatch swung open. She watched across her gun sights, waiting for someone to step through the hatch. It was at least ten seconds before a helmet leaned in and peeked through briefly before disappearing again.

They’re not stupid
, she thought. She tightened her grip on her weapon, her entire body tensing up in preparation to fire as the first visitor stepped cautiously through the hatch. It appeared to be a man, dressed in a pressure suit similar to their own. He was still wearing his helmet, the interior of which was lit, but from this distance she couldn’t make out any facial features. He was however, carrying a weapon that looked exactly like the ones carried by the enemy boarding party they had just defeated. And to her, that wasn’t a good sign.

“You notice that weapon, Ma’am?” the sergeant whispered in barely audible fashion.

“Yeah,” she whispered back. “Just hold, let’s wait for a few more to step through.”

They watched as the first one took a few steps into the bay, after which he stopped and twisted his body about, scanning the dimly lit interior. He turned back toward the hatch as three more stepped through, two men and a woman. As they began to move forward, Jessica and the sergeant popped up from behind their cover, weapons held high in firing position. “That’s far enough!” she shouted.

Two of the male visitors immediately raised their own weapons in preparation to defend themselves.

“DON’T DO IT!” Jessica insisted, leaning slightly forward to not only prepare herself for her weapon’s recoil, but also to emphasis her point, the sergeant imitating her posture.

The man at the center of the group of visitors raised his hands up slowly, stopping about chest high. He turned his body right and left, leaning back slightly to see the four others, two on each side, their weapons also trained on them. Realizing Jessica and her team had the tactical advantage, he motioned for his men to lower their weapons.

“That’s it!” Jessica instructed, as she watched them stand down. “Put them on the deck!” she continued, sweeping her weapon in a downward fashion to indicate her meaning. The two armed men slowly placed their weapons on the deck, before standing upright again, hands held out and up to communicate their cooperation.

The leader of the group slowly removed his helmet. He was a rugged looking fellow, perhaps in his late forties to early fifties, with light brown hair and dark eyes that looked both sympathetic and fiercely determined at the same time. He looked at her for a moment, as well as at the others under her command, after which he said something unintelligible to Jessica, something in another language. He repeated himself one more time before realizing that she did not understand him. It was apparent by his expression that her lack of comprehension was a bit surprising to him.

The other two men removed their helmets next. Both were considerably younger than their leader, one with black hair and eyes, and the other with similar features but of considerably darker complexion. Neither of them smiled, however, only glancing upwards out of the corner of their eyes to assess the guns trained on them from above.

The fourth one to remove her helmet was, as Jessica had observed, a woman, young enough to be the daughter of the leader, but not possessing any similar features. She was of similar complexion, with long straight black hair, and green eyes that held the same determination as their leader’s.

“Bridge, Engineering,”
Vladimir’s voice came across the internal comm system. Nathan was instantly encouraged by the improved clarity in the hard-wired comms.

“Go ahead.”

“Main internal communications are fully operational again,”
he announced proudly.
“We are working on getting full power restored to command decks.”

“Great…”

“…Bridge, Nash,”
Jessica’s voice interrupted over the wireless.

“Hold on, Vlad,” Nathan told him, switching back to Jessica. “Go ahead.”

“We’ve got four, uh, visitors in custody down here.”

“Who are they?”

“No clue, they’re not speaking English.”

“What are they speaking?”

“No clue there, either, Sir. What do you want us to do with them?”

Nathan thought for a moment. Somehow, he needed to speak with these people, to find out who they were and what had just happened out there. More importantly, he needed to learn their intentions.

“Bring them to me, I guess,” he said, not really knowing what else to do.

“To the bridge? I wouldn’t advise that, Sir,”
she warned.
“Too risky.”

He could tell she was trying to hide that last statement from their guests, even if they didn’t appear to speak the same language. But he didn’t see what harm it could do, especially considering their current inoperable state. But he also knew that being a graduate from the spec-ops school meant that Jessica probably knew better about such matters.

“You’re right,” he admitted. “Bring them to the main briefing room on deck C. I’ll meet you there.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Vlad?” Nathan asked after he switched back.

“Yes.”

“How are you for crew down there?”

“I’m not sure,”
he admitted.
“There are six of us, including myself. We have found four dead, two of them we cannot identify, and three more are missing.”

“What about Chief Patel?” Nathan asked. At some point in time, he was going to have to figure out who should actually be in command. Surely, somewhere on the ship there was a higher ranking officer who was still alive and could relieve him.

“He is still missing,”
Vladimir answered, a touch of sadness in his voice.

After a respectful pause, Nathan made his first battle-field promotion. “I guess that makes you chief engineer, Vlad.”

“Yes,”
he answered soberly.
“Then I guess I should be getting back to work,”
he added before clicking the line off. Nathan knew that Chief Patel had been important to Vladimir, as he had talked about him often and had been looking forward to learning from the chief. So he had to figure that the loss was difficult for his friend.

Nathan stood straight and straightened his uniform. “I’m going to the briefing room to meet our visitors,” he announced as he turned to exit. “You have the bridge, Cam,” he added.

“Me?” It caught her slightly off guard. “Why me?”

Nathan looked around the bridge. Other than Doctor Sorenson and Ensign Yosef, Cameron was the only other person in the room. “Why not?” It wasn't much of an answer, it was just the first thing that came out of his mouth.

Cameron had no response, her mouth just hanging slightly open in shock as she watched him exit. She couldn’t see the smile on his face as he exited, as it was the first time he could remember that she had been left speechless.