Ep.#4 - "Freedom's Dawn" (The Frontiers Saga) (23 page)

The remote missile complex, being guarded primarily by automated systems, was not heavily manned. The base commander had recalled all off-duty personnel to return to the post during the crisis, but many had been unable to find a way to report. Most of the main roads were ruined, and much of the public transit system was either damaged or otherwise overloaded. Most of the men had simply reported to the nearest military post they could reach, awaiting transportation to their normal duty stations.

The remote vehicle burst through the front gates, exploding a few meters past the fence line. The explosion collapsed the guard post and decimated all three layers of security fence for fifty meters in either direction. The heat from the blast had been so intense that most of the fencing, as well as the fence posts, had melted into heaps of red-hot metal that lay on the ground, still bubbling after the initial blast cleared.

Moments after the blast, at least thirty armed men dressed in civilian attire came charging in, weapons firing indiscriminately in all directions. Chaos ensued as the dozen guards that had come rushing out of the main building to reinforce the missing gate guards were mowed down by enemy fire before they had a chance to defend themselves. Oddly enough, the incoming fire from the civilians had been so poorly aimed that it had not been anywhere near the scrambling guards. The shots that had killed them had been precise, from a different angle and from some distance away.

The eyes of the base commander and his subordinates behind their consoles widened as the angry hoard rushed into the command center. They pulled their side arms to return fire, ducking behind consoles, chairs, and any other cover they could find. While they did manage to kill at least a half dozen of their attackers, they were quickly overwhelmed and eventually cut down in a stream of red and green energy bolts.

The squad leader of the attacking forces made his way through the cheering men to the main console, checking that everything was still intact. Their siege had depended on the reflective nature of the Corinairan console designs, and by using lower energy settings on their weapons, they had managed to kill the defenders without damaging the delicate equipment. By using the built in override functions required by the Ta’Akar of all Corinari military assets, he now had full control of all the missiles left in the launchers.

The squad leader picked up his comm-unit and keyed it to transmit. “Command, Four. Objective achieved. This position is go.” He turned to the cheering men. “Tobias!” he called out. “Get over here!”

Tobias made his way through the cheering men to join his squad leader, sitting down at the console beside him.

“Re-target these birds,” he ordered. “I want them ready to launch in twenty minutes.”

“No problem, sir.”

The squad leader turned back to the cheering men. “All right! Everyone outside! I need perimeter guards until we get the turrets back online. Move it!”

* * *

Vladimir had never spent much time this deep inside the service tunnels of the Aurora. Now that the invaders had sealed the entrance shut, there was absolutely no illumination to be found. The inky blackness was all consuming to the point that he could no longer see his own hands.

Despite the fact that the tunnels had their own air circulation systems, it felt stuffy to him. He wasn’t sure if it was warmer in this part of the tunnels or if he was just hot from all the excitement. It also smelled of hydraulics, rubber, silicone, and of course, of the black soot that was to be found everywhere inside these tunnels as a result of the shipboard fire that had occurred during one of several battles they had been in over the last week. Vladimir was no longer sure which battle it had been. In fact, it seemed as if they had all run together in his mind, like they were all one long battle. All the fighting, the killing, the struggling to keep the ship together—just trying to stay alive—was really starting to get to him. All he really wanted to do right now was lay quietly in the darkness and wait for it all to pass. Unfortunately, he knew he didn’t have that luxury. Even if he did, it simply wasn’t in his nature. Deliza’s sobs served to remind him of that fact.

“Try not to cry,” he said as sympathetically as he could. “We will be safe here.”

“I know,” Deliza sobbed.

“Then why are you crying?”

“I don’t think I’m cut out for all of this,” she admitted between sobs.

“For what? Being trapped in a dark, dirty, smelly, service tunnel? Who is?”

“No, not that. All of this.” She continued to sob.

“It is not so bad,” he tried to joke.

“I just killed a man,” she half whispered, not wanting to admit it to herself.

“Nyet, nyet, nyet,” he insisted. “It was in self-defense.”

“He wasn’t trying to kill me.”

“But he was trying to kill your friends, and take your ship—”

“Oh God,” she exclaimed, as she suddenly remembered. “My little sister.”

Even in the total darkness, Vladimir could tell that she was quickly becoming more distraught. “She was helping in the kitchen, yes? She will be fine. Why would they hurt her?”

“Who were they?” Deliza asked as she tried to calm herself down.

“I do not know,” Vladimir admitted. “I have never seen those uniforms before.”

“They said the other team had taken the bridge,” she told Vladimir as she realized that although he would have heard them speaking, he would not have understood their words.

“You understood them?” Vladimir asked.

“Yes, they were speaking Takaran,” she told him. “We had to learn it in school. Everyone does.” Deliza then realized what was going on. “If they have taken the bridge and engineering, then—”

“They have taken control of the ship,” Vladimir finished for her.

“Then we are going to die in here?”

“No,” he said resolutely.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I am to good looking to die in this grimy tunnel,” he joked, “as are you.” He could tell his joke had not helped. “And because I am a very lucky man. I always have been.”

“That’s it? Because you’re cute and lucky?”

“You do not think I am cute?” he asked, trying to distract her from the apparent hopelessness of their situation.

“I don’t know. I can’t see you,” she responded, a bit of her usual sarcasm sneaking back into her voice.

“Wait, I have an idea,” Vladimir said. He struggled for a moment to reposition himself in the dark, cramped tunnel. He reached into the utility pocket on his thigh and pulled out his trusty little data pad. The engineering version was designed to be more rugged than those carried by the command and medical staff. If it hadn’t, his would’ve surely been damaged beyond use by now. He felt his hands along the side of the unit until he found the small slider switch and turned the unit on. The little screen was only about ten centimeters wide and twenty high, but the light from the display was enough to provide illumination out for nearly a meter. It was faint, but it was enough for them to see their surroundings as well as one another. “There, that’s better,” he said as he held it up like a flashlight. He pointed the screen toward Deliza to see her face. What he saw made him chuckle. Her face was covered with black soot. Her tears had run down her face and created lines that she had then wiped away, causing big smudges across her cheeks. It reminded him of the way they used to paint their faces when he was in the European Infantry to blend in with their surroundings.

“What?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, but your face is very dirty.”

She instinctively put her hands to her cheeks, not realizing that they were even dirtier and only compounding the problem, causing him to giggle even more. She reached out and grabbed the data pad, turning it toward him to light his face. Now it was her turn to laugh. His face was nearly all black. Only his eyes and his neck were still relatively clean. “You should see your face,” she giggled.

Vladimir stopped laughing, noticing something on the data pad’s display screen. He hadn’t cleared the view from his last use. The screen displayed the schematic showing the rerouting patterns that he had given to Deliza and Allet to perform. “Deliza, did you finish rerouting the command and control signals like I asked?”

“Yes,” she told him, recognizing the change in his tone. “It was easy. Why do you ask?”

“Because I think I know way we can stop them,” he told her as he scrambled to turn around and head back out the way they had come. “But we have to hurry, as we a have long way to travel.”

“But we can’t see, at least not with that thing.”

“There are emergency chemical flashlights in the main tunnel,” he told her as he repositioned himself flat against one wall. “Now squeeze past me and I will boost you back up to the main tunnel.”

* * *

“
We have secured engineering,
” the leader of the second team reported over the hardwired comm-system. “
But we lost three men in the attack.
”

“How many of them were there?”

“
Two that we saw, and a young girl.
”

“Two engineers and a young girl managed to kill three heavily armed Takaran soldiers?” Captain de Winter said, anger in his voice.

“More like three nobles playing soldier,” Andre mumbled, just barely loud enough for the captain to overhear. He recognized the voice of the man reporting as one of his own, and was quite confident that the other agent had survived as well.

Captain de Winter did not respond to the sergeant’s remark, choosing only to cast a sidelong glare in his direction as he continued his conversation over the comms. “I trust you eliminated the offending combatants?”

“
One of them, yes. The other one and the girl escaped into a service tunnel, which we secured. There are no other exits from that tunnel in this area, so as far as we can tell, they are trapped in there for now.
”

Captain de Winter rolled his eyes and turned toward Andre. “Any suggestions?”

Andre stepped up to the comm station to speak. “I will send someone to you. Two of you will sweep forward while the third one stays behind to hold engineering.”

“
Understood.
”

Andre switched off the comm and turned to Bobby, who was standing near the exit keeping an eye on the corridor outside. “Go to the hangar bay and deactivate the jamming pod, then meet up with them in engineering and conduct the sweep yourself.”

“And if we encounter anyone?” Bobby asked, already knowing the answer but needing to hear it from his sergeant first.

“Kill them,” Andre ordered without hesitation. “We don’t have the manpower to deal with prisoners.”

“Understood.”

Andre grabbed Bobby’s arm as he turned to leave, adding, “I don’t care who they are: man, woman, or child. Kill them where they stand.”

“No problem,” Bobby answered, seeing the serious look in the eyes of his friend.

Andre turned back to de Winter. “Any objections?” he asked, more as an offer of cooperation than an actual concern.

The captain smiled. “You’re beginning to grow on me, Sergeant.”

De Winter turned back toward the center of the bridge. “Now, which one of you was the pilot again?” He looked at Josh. “Ah yes, the young lad with the quick tongue. You might want to take your station and prepare to get underway.”

Josh didn’t move, instead crossing his arms in defiance. Captain de Winter could see the hesitation in his eyes. “Are you sure you want to do this, young man?”

“I’m not flying you anywhere,” Josh said, his voice slightly cracking.

De Winter thumbed the safety on his small handgun into the off position as he began to raise it toward Josh.

Josh’s eyes grew wide, his voice trembling as he spoke. “I’m the only pilot left on board this ship,” he said, swallowing hard. “If you kill me, who’s going to fly it?”

“You might be surprised to know,” the captain began as he moved closer to Josh, “that I’m a pretty fair pilot myself. I’m sure I can figure it all out, given time.” The captain stopped his advance, his gun now pointed directly at Josh’s trembling face. “Fortunately for you, I don’t have that kind of time.”

De Winter spun around and fired his weapon at the wounded comm-officer sitting to his left, next to Kaylah. The tight beam struck him in the chest, burning a thumb-sized hole in the front and out the back, spraying blood and tissue from the exit wound and striking the comm station behind him. Sparks flew from the damaged displays as the comm officer fell to the floor in a heap. Kaylah screamed and jumped, but froze instantly when the captain’s gun moved to point toward her next.

“Will you perform your duties as pilot, or do I have to execute her as well?” de Winter asked Josh coldly.

Josh said nothing, looking at Kaylah’s terrified expression. He dropped his hands, turned, and took his seat at the helm, ready to pilot the ship.

De Winter turned back toward Andre. “You know, I’m starting to like this little gun after all. It’s really quite effective.”

“Maybe you could dial it down a little, Captain,” Andre advised, trying to control his anger. “I believe you also killed the communications console.”

“Sorry,” the captain said. “I guess I got carried away.”

* * *

Marcus looked at Loki as they walked down the wide, angular corridors of the Yamaro on their way back to the midsection of the ship where the port and starboard hangar bays were located. “You do know how to use that thing, right?”

“Works the same as ours, doesn’t it?” Loki said.

“Sort of. It’s just got a bit more of a kick,” Marcus told him. “And it’s louder.”

“Just squeeze this, right?” Loki asked, pointing the weapon upward.

“Just keep the damn thing pointed away from me,” Marcus insisted.

“If this is the safety, then what’s this other one for?”

“It ejects the thing in the handle. I think they called it a ‘magazine’.”

“What’s a magazine?”

“It’s the thing that holds the bullets.”

“What are bullets?”

“The little pieces of metal that shoot outta the end of your gun, dumbass.”