Revolutionary (The Athena Lee Chronicles Book 4) (11 page)

The remaining two teams were attacking the lower portions of the station. My team was going to hit the power station. The other was going to try for the communication switching station at the stations core.

For ‘my’ team I had Sergeant Yannos and Dar’s best squad. It wasn’t really my team, it was Yannos’s team. I was going as one of the techs.

___

The blast of weapons fire and the station shaking due to explosions woke Governor Norton from a sound sleep. The Governor had indulged the previous evening with a young woman who was not his wife. Blurry eyed and stumbling, he started yelling. “Cole! COLE! What in the hell is happening? COLE!”

His personal aide came running into the room. Confronted by his boss wearing lingerie and weaving, he turned away, right into a half naked woman. Cole promptly turned to face the wall. “Sir, What is the matter?“

“What is going on? What were those explosions?” The governor sat on the bed and threw on a robe. “Turn around and look at me! I don’t like looking at the back of your head.”

Cole turned to see his boss and sighed in relief. Privately he thought that the governor was scary enough with his clothing on. “Sir, we attempted to arrest the Militia leaders daughter on the James Cook this morning. The ship broke out of the dry dock area and escaped.”

“What! You let her escape? Damn it Cole we needed her. We need some kind of leverage on those hicks! Why didn’t you tell me you failed?” The Governors ranting brought a slight squeal from the escort in the lavatory. “Cole. Pay her off and get rid of her.”

“Governor, you left strict instructions NOT to disturb you. Especially when you are having ‘play time.’ The last time I bothered you I didn’t get paid for a week!”

“That doesn’t matter, Damn it! You should have woken me!” From behind the lavatory door sounds of water running could be heard. “Damn it Cole, what did I say? Take care of her and get back here. I haven’t finished yelling at you yet.”

Grumbling under his breath Cole knocked on the lavatory and door and spoke with the escort. She exited the room several hundred credits richer.

Thinking hard Cole needed to find something to say that would allow him to keep his job with the Governor.

“Sir, we still have possession of the Laffey. That is the Destroyer with the broken drive. The only other ship in the sector is the Paney. That ship is still out on patrol. The XO is on our payroll and is ready to take over anytime that we want the ship.”

Mollified by the new information the Governor forgot about yelling at Cole. He turned and stared down at the little man. “How damaged it that cruiser that escaped? Did our people hurt it?”

“Our engineers say that the damage was only superficial to the hull. The cruiser is holding position relative to us but out of weapons range of the station.”

His anger back the Governor glowered at his aide. “Damn it Cole you need to do better than that! Get with those tech geeks and figure something out. That director over there, Kip something, he is on our payroll right?” At Cole’s nod the Governor continued. “Bring him over here and work something out. He’s a genius he should know how to stop one little ship.”

Cole left the Governors room and called the ESS security team. They needed to take a short trip over to the scientific station and bring back a scientist.

___

Kip Wilson was working late. The project notes that his small group of scientists had put together were lengthy. It was highly unusual for a navy lieutenant to have a hand in changing navy policies. This Lieutenant Lee had definitely thrown a sprocket into the works in that regard. He really didn’t care about what the navy felt. Kip considered himself just a ‘cog’ in the machine. Director of the Navy Brad Johnson had sent him a memo asking for details of the new revolutionary designs. Maybe if he sent him all of these notes he would stop asking. Kip looked up from his work when the door to his office chimed. Thinking it was his aide he said “enter.”

Two large black clad ESS agents entered his office. “Dr. Wilson you need to come with us.”

“What? How did you get in here? I’m not going anywhere. Get out of my office!” Kip pointed at the door and glared at the agents. He had a lot of work to do and they were interrupting.

The agents smiled and said “I guess its the hard way then.” The larger of the two agents grabbed for Kip as the scientist ducked under his desk. The other agent kicked the desk over to one side and pulled a short barreled weapon from his belt. Kip seeing this scrambled on all fours trying to escape. He jerked back in pain as 350,000 volts arced through his body. The shock of the stun weapon stopped his heart and he slumped to the floor.

The larger of the two agents looked at the scientist’s body and then back at his companion. “Oops? I think the governor is going to kill us.”

His companion looked back and said “I think you are right about that.”

___

It was third shift on the station when we started our attack. Min and her squadrons buzzed the station shooting at targets of opportunity such as sensors and communication nodes. Her task was to draw off the fighters and keep the station distracted. The James Cook drew closer just inside the stations attack envelope. Captain Gorshin began peppering the station with laser fire. The four shuttle craft had taken us out toward deep space then looped around to come at the station space ward. Hopefully those watching for such a move were concentrating on the fighters and cruiser attack.

We could see on the sensors that there was a huge fight around the station planet side. Min’s fighters were being attacked by what looked like two full squadrons of mixed spacecraft. According to Wilson, the attackers were a mercenary company. Not the navy squadrons that we were expecting. Not that I was complaining, but where are the full squadron of Navy fighters?

“Everyone hold on back there this is going to get a little rough!” The shuttle pilot saw on his readout that we had been detected. The co-pilot fired counter measures and held on as the pilot maxed out the speed. The shuttle jinked left and then a hard right trying to lose the torpedo that was after us. Skimming the surface of the station our pilot whipped the ship around a gun battery, the pursuing torpedo hit the battery destroying it in a flash of light. The shuttle that had been with us carrying the third attack squad had not been as lucky. The torpedo salvo that we avoided, hit them full on destroying the ship with all hands. Our pilot reversed his course. He stayed as close to the station as possible, until we reached the reactor ventilation tubes.

The ventilation tubes were only used in case of a reactor scram. The tubes were kept open to space to prevent accidents. If the reactor had to vent, for any reason, and the vents were not open it would cause an explosion that would destroy the station. The tubes, like most things in engineering, needed to be inspected and maintained on a monthly basis. What most non-engineering people did not know was that there were controls on the inside of the vent to allow a trapped crew member access to engineering. The codes to get in were universal to engineers. Knowing was half the battle.

In single file with me at the head we crawled up the ventilation tubes. We used our anti-grav units to get halfway into the tubes. At that point was a build in ladder. The access port controls were built into the side of the hatch. I entered the universal code 8675309 and the access hatch opened to a very quiet engineering. It was too quiet as we carefully climbed out of the tube.

___

Sergeant Yannos was starting to like this navy wonk. She had gotten them inside the station without having to fight their way in. He had no idea that there were “universal codes’ that worked on ships and space stations. When all this was over he needed to get with this Lieutenant Lee and pick her brain. Creeping around the consoles trying to stay hidden Yannos could hear voices coming from the offices to the right. A navy chief and a couple of crewmen were locked in one of the offices. Standing outside the door were two bored looking ESS troops armed with submachine guns.

Yannos signaled his small team he pointed to his eyes, then pointed to the direction of the ESS and signed two. Using silenced weapons they shot and killed the two guards. With weapons raised they unlocked the office door. The three navy personnel raised their hands as if to surrender. Lieutenant Lee peaked around the corner spotting the crewmen. She looked at the chief and said “ report!” The Navy personnel looked relieved to see a Navy officer.

“Ma’am, Chief Cledus Snow and a party of two reporting.”

“At ease Chief Snow. Why do the ESS have you locked in here?”

“Ma’am, when the James Cook blasted its way out of the dry dock the ESS started interrogations of everyone in engineering. The computers had been overridden and they were trying to find who did it. Commander Justice died under interrogation. After that none of us agreed to cooperate. Only a few were helping the ESS. Those few are traitors who were being ‘Paid’ to help. They locked up the rest of us. They only let us out if we need to fix something. Hey, how did you get in here anyway?” The lieutenant just smiled.

Thinking for a moment the chief remarked “you used the Vent tubes? Cool!”

Yannos just shook his head. Was there anyone else besides him that didn’t know about the hidden stuff. He needs to keep an eye on this engineer.

___

With the flip of a switch the station went dark. Emergency power kicked on in vital areas such as hydroponics, medical, and the emergency shelters. Everywhere else was on battery power. Because of the on-going battle the batteries were draining fast. Before Yannos’s team had left Engineering they had removed vital parts of the control equipment. Only a trained engineer would be able to spot what had been removed. It is a good thing we had one of those with us. The navy pukes we gave a choice, escape of stay with us. Only the Chief stayed. The two crewmen went back down the tubes to the waiting shuttles. Assuming that ESS troops would be rushing to engineering, we used the access tubes and worked our way to the communications room. Hopefully the other teams were faring as well as we were.

___

Dar was beyond pissed. Getting through the topside repair hatches was really easy with the code that Athena had given her. The problem had been the observation lounge and “Mile High Club” that was in it. It seems that during the attack all the Station big wigs were having a party in the club. Including the Governor with his full security force.

BA- BOOM!

Splinters rained down all over Dar and her team as a grenade exploded against the bar they were hiding behind. Flames licked up a nearby wall spreading to the finery around the doorways. The Governor and his protection were pinned down in one of the ‘fun’ rooms. Her team’s original mission was to disrupt communications and just ‘raise hell’ as Yannos put it. Capturing the Governor would be the icing on the cake. Team one had originally been tasked with grabbing the governor but had been killed while entering the station.

Dar signaled her team and everyone threw stun grenades at the guards. The concussion of the resulting explosion threw several of the defenders against the walls. Everyone else was knocked out cold. She and her team carefully approached the pile of guards and began tying them up. Dar found the Governor huddling in the closet with two naked ‘party’ girls. Her team grabbed the governor putting a hood over his head and tying his hands. Success. Dar decided to backtrack and take Norton back to the shuttles. They had created enough mayhem for now.

Chapter 11

With the loss of the Governor the ESS troops became desperate. The station was growing dark as battery backups ran out. The only engineering team that they had brought with them had been with Captain Ridgeways team on the planet. No one knew how to repair the generators and the Navy prisoners were not volunteering to help. With life support at 15% the ESS commanders sent a signal to the rebel ships. Colonel Alexander Lee on board the James Cook took their surrender.

Once the generators were repaired and power was restored Colonel Lee and Captain Gorshin formally received the surrender of the ESS troops. Lights and power made all the difference. The now former Sector Governor Norton was not present at the ceremony. The Governor and his aide were bound hand and foot in the deepest, darkest cell block that Colonel Lee could find. They were guarded day and night and allowed no visitors.

The Navy personnel had been released. To their dismay they discovered that their rescuers were mutineers. Officially they should have arrested, or tried to arrest the officers of the James Cook. A station filled with angry militia nipped that right in the bud. The navy was officially asked to leave by the Hong Kong Government. Governor Roy Stoner and the Planetary Government had voted to break the charter that tied them to the Empire. Legation Station was now theirs as a prize of war. Until transport could be found the Navy crew would be interned on the planet.