Star Traders (Corporate Marines Book 3) (7 page)

Eight had just started taking steps into the engineering control room to check the two dead saboteurs and cannot twist around fast enough to effectively get a shot.

The saboteur continues pushing Terry ahead of her. “No talking, and don’t try it. These damn pistols fire on a blink! Sorry, but I took out my first hostage when I touched the trigger. Luckily they weren’t as important as the ship’s second hand.”

The couple inches forward as Terry’s arm is levered up behind her back and she grimaces at the stabbing pain as she is jolted, and then grunts when the saboteur yanks on her.

The weapon comes away from Terry’s head and is used to gesture at the unmoving group. “I said
move it,
or I will blow this bitch away! I am going in there and—”

The ‘shhhsnap’ comes as a surprise and the sudden gaping hole in the saboteur’s head shows where the shot had gone. Her body slumps down to the side, pulling Terry on top of her, and the pistol clangs on the mesh flooring.

Terry is grunting in pain while lying on the saboteur’s body, which still has a firm grip on her wrist. The features are slackening in death from an angry snarl to blankness. The rest of the crew members are frozen. Eight steps into the control room.

Everyone stares at Two, who is still holding the weapon at her waist, pointed toward the body.

Two grunts and moves forward. She takes a knee next to the two bodies lying there and breaks the death grip that the saboteur had on the engineering officer. She then offers a hand and helps Terry stand up.

Terry nods at Two with a blank look on her face and says, “Thank you, Two.” Her voice starts emotionless but then begins to crack with the stress that she has been under.

Two nods at her and then the computer’s voice comes on. “
Two minutes to shield overload. Evacuate the ship now. Two minutes to overload.”
Then the message clicks off again. Two thinks that the computer’s voice sounds just a bit more urgent.

Eight calls from the control room. “Terry, you need to get in here now and shut down the reactor, or we are all toast.”

Terry nods, more to herself than anyone else, and shakes off Two’s helping hand. “Yes, I’m coming.” She walks quickly into the control room, stopping only to take a shuddering breath when she sees the three bodies on the floor.

Then she moves into the control room and bends to work over the control panels at a feverish pace.

Patroe stands up and looks at Two. He sticks his hand out. “Thank you for that. You saved my wife and, likely, most of the crew. I don’t know how you made that shot, though, from the hip without aiming.”

Two takes his hand and smiles. “Training with lots of time on the ranges, and the sensor balls were able to give me two different vectors so I could estimate where the shot was good. I couldn’t have done it, though, if she hadn’t moved the pistol from Terry’s head. They fire so easy that a death reflex would have caused a long shot.”

Eight comes over to the other two and looks at Two. “They are going to be coming. I’m amazed that they have not docked yet and blown a hatch.”

Two nods while the rest of the crew in the hall just stare at them. “Yup, I am guessing they are coming up on full burn right now, likely landing within the next ten minutes. We need to get our armor up and running.” She turns to Patroe. “Can you get that released quickly?”

The announcement system clicks on.
“Reactor has been stabilized. Shield failure will not occur. All personnel, report to stations and verify current status.”

Patroe nods at Two. “I need to get on the different department heads and we have to fix everything currently going wrong with the ship. Terry, how is it going?”

Terry calls back in a harassed tone, “I corrected the reactor. They did not really know what they were doing, and that was easy. But ship sensors are offline and the rear-facing ones have been offline for a while.” Two and Eight look at each other while Patroe curses.” The rest of the crew is mostly locked down and I can override the internal ship locks, but the shuttles are both sealed and that is under an encryption that I have nothing on.” She pauses for a second. “I also have an open transmission line and it looks like we were beaming recorded footage from sensors and cameras out into space somewhere behind us. I should have almost full control back within an hour.”

Patroe takes off for the security centre with the two members of the security contingent. Both boys are still standing to the side, quietly twitching, and Two and Eight still need permission to unlock the armor.

Two looks at the two boys. “Terry, we are going to take Derek and Snyrl and head for our armor. When you get the system running well enough, I need you to close and secure the engineering door.” The door slams shut and its locking bars click shut.

Over the announcement system, Terry’s voice cheerfully announces. “I am the second hand on the ship. Door locks are open and under local control for now. Engineering is secured and will stay secure. Get hunting.”

Eight gestures at the boys and they all start at a slow jog toward the Marines’ quarters. Two starts talking to the boys. “You know this ship much better than us. Where are the pirates likely to land and board?”

Derek immediately answers. “The hull would be too much of a hassle to cut through. They are going to want to take the ship intact and useable, and if they cut through, they could damage something. Best bet is to use one of our existing hatches with airlock. Mag-lock ships together, run a boarding tube against it. Cut through and then they are in.”

Before Two can ask the next question, Snyrl continues what Derek had started. “Any hatch they are going to enter would probably be cut as it is faster than trying to override our codes. So they are going to need to seal that after they have the ship. Therefore, they aren’t going to want to use the primary hatches. I also wouldn’t want to do that through the cargo hatches as that does nothing for them except put them into cargo areas that are full of vacuum and no access to the ship.”

Eight grunts his agreements. “That’s a good tactical analysis, guys.”

Two carries on. “So I only know of two personnel airlocks. Are there more?”

Derek shakes his head. “No, just the two airlocks that everyone knows about. But the better of the two is on the far side of the ship. The hull is open and there is nothing sticking out from the ship there that could be a problem. If they go to the closer airlock, they are going to have to do a much better job of piloting as there are several large protrusions that are big enough to do damage to a shuttle, especially if we are moving. Any slight mistake would have the impact of two earth trucks slamming together head-to-head on a transit way.”

Two smiles. “At least we have a good idea of where they will have to enter.”

Eight looks at her like she has lost her mind. “Two, you
never
take the easy route. They should go through the vacuum in the hold to get to us. It is what would be harder for us to fight against. What are you basing your guess on?”

Two laughs. “The pirates know that most of the crew is incapacitated and that there are only a few humans able to move around the ship right now. They know their saboteurs did some good for their plan. If they come straight at us, we should not be able to muster a strong defence and they will have won quickly. If they go through the loading hatch and transit the empty spaces and then cut into these spaces, we would have enough time to get most of the crew out and into armor with weapons. Plus, that bigger hatch will take more repair work later. They’ll come at us direct and we can lay out some surprises for them. If they do come from another angle, we can shift those surprises.”

They arrive at the Marine quarters and proceed inside. Two grabs a carrying case and pops it open, pulling out small round metal balls and two belts. She throws the belts to the boys. “Here, put these on. Then attach these devices to the belt. You need to hold each one for three seconds. That will allow me to unlock the biometric lockout. Otherwise they are just small, hard metal balls.”

Eight moves past and unlocks the door to the storage compartment, opens it, and steps inside. Sounds of him moving equipment can be heard in the room while Two explains to the boys what she is doing.

“Okay, boys, these are the same equipment that I let you use in the sim. Explosive charges that are variable and can be dialed up and down. Remember, these act as a tamped charge. Throw it at the target and when it hits, it mag-locks on. No matter how you get it on the target, the charge will rotate and blast into the target. This can take out half an inch of our best armor when dialed up to the max and just singe a medium-weight truck panel at its lowest. Too much is better than not enough in this case. But do
not
go to the max unless you need it. Do you understand?”

Both boys nod hesitantly as they load six each onto their belts.

Eight calls out from the other room. “We have a problem. The armor is still in lockdown mode. I keep querying it and it comes back ‘corporate permission required for release’. What the hell is the chief doing? Calling Earth for permission?”

Two calls back, “Work on the rest of our gear. I’ll get ahold of the chief.”

She activates her in-unit comm unit while starting to strip down. Both boys turn red and head out the door, closing it behind them very quickly.

Two is stripped down and climbing into the armor bodysuit when the chief finally answers over the com. “Two! I have been trying to get people organized to get more people out of lockdown and was hoping to get the shuttles opened up but no-go. They are held onto the ship, but—”

Two interrupts him. “Don’t care. Why is our armor not released yet? It is going to take us at least five more minutes to get fully armored up from release time. The pirates should be here by now, so they messed up. We can’t rely on that for long.”

Patroe pauses. “The captain has not yet released control of the armor. In his words, the threat is not real. It may have simply been saboteurs trying to take the ship for themselves. He doesn’t have all the information and the ships comms are still messed up. He’s also trying to sort out all the rest of the issues. Not his fault—bad communications.”

Two glares at the wall and then composes herself before continuing. “Patroe, we need that armor and we need it now. Whatever is coming will be here in a few minutes, and we may not be able to stop it without our armor or we’ll face a lot of casualties. Make the call, security chief.”

There is a pause. “All right, Two, I am using Corporate override codes. You can access your armor now.”

Two calls over to Eight, “Are we good?”

There are clicking sounds of armor being clicked on in the next room and Eight yells back, “Affirmative! Ten minutes to full warm-up!”

There is a clang that echoes throughout the passages on the ship.

The comms line stays silent for a second. Before anyone can say anything, Two starts. “They are here. It will take a few minutes to cut through the hull. We will have armor running in less than ten minutes. We will move to interdict after that and slot in with your plans, security chief. You are going to have to hold them till then.”

Patroe comes back. “Affirmative, we will do that. All personnel to cease using comms systems and switch to hardwired landline from this point on.”

“C
ommander, we have successfully mag-locked with the enemy ship.”

“Yes, fool. And you have made enough noise in doing so to make everyone on board that ship aware that we are coming, giving them even more time to prepare a reception for our boarding party!”

“Assault commander!”

“Yes, commander?”

The commander pauses before continuing. “The enemy combatants will be expecting you. Ensure that the second wave is ready to go, and have the armor finalized and ready to go with them. This fool of a navigator hit hard enough that the dead will know we are here.”

“The saboteurs were not successful in irradiating part of the ship, then, commander?”

“No. The humans have failed and have likely been killed off by now.”

“If they have survived, do you want them collected?”

“No, they do not matter. Have the engineering crews use the fast-burn charges to get through the hatch as fast as possible. Less time to prepare means less casualties, and will keep the costs down and keep high command happy. This must occur so that the master plan stays on track. Failure would mean that command is very unhappy with us and our clan will suffer.”

“Very well, commander. We shall not fail. Engineers! You will use the fast-burn charge and have us through the hatch in one Earth minute. We will breech at that time. Move or suffer!”

The AI’s voice breaks the silence with an information stream.
“The number two airlock has a ship docked and has mag-locked to us. Sensors indicate that the other ship crew is setting up a fast-burn charge on the hatch door to gain access to the ship. Analysis indicates that this is a pirate crew that will kill all crewmen and take the ship for themselves. Analysis complete. Stand by for additional analysis as it becomes available.”

Patroe contacts the engineering control room by hard-wired line. “Terry, can you possibly turn off the nice computer voice that could potentially give away all our tactical information before the bad guys get anything useful?”

“No problem, Patroe. As soon as I ensure that the reactors aren’t going to blow, I will get on it.”

Two and Eight are both scrambling to get the armor up and running. System checks need to be run and everything properly set up before they can operate.

The enemy forces are burning through the hatch faster than it seems possible using a barely controlled explosive charge that burns instead of explodes.

The ship’s crew is scrambling to armor up, grab weapons and prepare some sort of defensive and ambush positions to deal with the invaders.

High-powered lasers will cut through normal armor very quickly and the purpose of armor is really lost. It still works against shrapnel, and if the laser hit is so fast or ‘off’ that it is really more of a glancing hit, then armor will do something. Otherwise, it’s not much use. Armored ship suits will protect against exposure to hard vacuum, and that is what the pirates could possibly do: blowing out the atmosphere to decrease the mobility of the unprotected crew.

Desperate crewmen are rushing to stations and pulling out armored bulkheads for use as hardened defensive points.

With a massive clang, the heavy outer hatch burns through and collapses onto the floor in the outer airlock. One member of the assault team moves in and quickly attaches another explosive charge on the thinner inner airlock door and moves back into the boarding tube, pulling up an armored shield as it does so.

The command-detonated explosive goes off, shattering the inner door and sending a hail of metal splinters down the passage, which would have eviscerated anyone foolish enough to be in that passage. Neither side expected to have any impact on the other side’s fighting capability by trying to hold the inner airlock door.

The first assault team moves in, operating in two-member formation. The initial assault is fast and at a run. The lead fire team would split at every intersection and hold as the rest of the seventeen aliens moved forward into the ship. As the last team passes them, the guards fall into the rear, keeping up an all-around defence.

At the airlock, the second team moves out. There are six figures in heavy-powered armor with another six in the same armored ship suits that the first team wore.

The heavy-power-armor-clad figures split into teams of two and face down each of the three open passages. Using them as cover, the ship suit-wearing members take the best defensive positions that they can.

Heavy power armor would normally be used as the point of an armored spear to break defences, given the heavier weapons that they can carry along with their speed, and of course, armor that will turn most light weapons. Unfortunately in shipboard combat, heavy power armor is too large in most cases to move down a ship passage in anything other than single file, and therefore becomes a target for crewmen who know their ship better.

The tradeoff in speed and vulnerability limits them greatly. However, if they can be moved into location, they can act as hardened defensive points down which nothing can advance against the massive firepower they bring to bear.

Nothing was going to get past them onto their ship in the way of a counterattack. With careful spacing, any attack would be doomed to fail. Heavy power armor can carry up to two weapons in the “hands” and has three hard points where extra weapon systems can be loaded.

For shipboard action like this, one shoulder hard point was taken by a medium tri-barreled laser and set to auto for targeting. Hand weapons, unless mission-specific, were up to the individual’s preference with the important focus on ensuring that critical ship systems could not be damaged by the weapon. In this case, the assault commander has ensured that all his boarders are armed with lasers to minimize that damage, and against the unarmored humans, it should not be a problem.

The first team is heading for engineering to knock out systems before moving to clean up. They hit their first problem when they pass their sixth passage. During ship design, certain passages are set up to ambush effectively with lasers. By offsetting the occasional passage, an ambush from both sides could catch the enemy in a defilade and there would be no chance of the ambush teams hitting each other.

This is one of those passages. As the security personnel move to the front to cover down the wider main passage, the rest of the assault party advances at a run. That’s when the ambush team opens up with laser pistols, engaging in sweeping arcs from opposite sides. The security fire team is out of luck. From down the brightly lit corridors, the ambush team sweeps up and left across the security fire team members. The laser just cuts through the boarders’ armored ship suits, dropping them as their atmosphere hisses out of their breached suits. In one lucky case, the laser bites into a running member’s suit, causing a severe breach but only giving the equivalent of a sunburn to the flesh below. The next fire team steps to the side of the passage and sends short bursts of fire down the hall. The ambushing crew members are already gone.

The pirate has been well trained and moves out of line of sight before reaching for the suit patch kit, which most would not have thought to do. His partner stops next to him and assists in pulling the patch out, applying it and sealing it over the suit. It only takes a second to patch and then over-pressurize the suit to clear the toxic human atmosphere. By that time, they are the second-last team and start moving slowly on. Every pirate crewmember is needed, but none could be carried during an assault. Everyone has to make their own way.

It is lucky for that fire team that the damage was minor. It is also lucky for them that they were as far back as they were. When the anti-personnel charge goes off in the corridor ahead, it takes out the two teams farther back from the point.

Large quantities of high explosives are never used on star ships as that tends to do severe damage to the ship and may result in everyone dying in another star system. In fact, small quantities of explosives are also discouraged as ship systems do not need explosions going off in small enclosed spaces. The Corporate tacticians realized that in a straight fight, a pirate crew had an advantage in arms, armor and training over a star-ship crew. The answer to gaining the advantage had been simple.

There are regular sections of corridor and other ambush points where no primary, secondary or even tertiary systems are running through. In fact, while the intersection looks like every other one on the ship, they are in fact built-up armored boxes that could have special demolition charges installed that will create a kill zone over almost the entire intersection but leave the surrounding area undamaged. All conduits, if important, are always heavily armored, and smaller splinters won’t have the penetration capability to cause any damage.

Every alien race that humans have met to date have been in space longer. Several of them have nastier weapons and every one of those races has a different perspective on how everything within their universe works. One of the bigger differences between humans and the alien races out there now is their home world’s geography.

The planet Earth has been split into different continents with separated groups of humans. Every group has evolved codes of conduct in warfare. Humans have the most flexible codes that are sometimes just thrown into the garbage, as in the case of the mined intersections. No other race would plant high explosives on their own ship, as no alien race would ever willingly destroy a star ship, given their cost to manufacture and maintain.

The Corporation had done a lot of research before investing in star ship-building past some small scout ships. Every nasty trick that they could come up with had been put into the ship designs to ensure that personnel in light armor would not be able to take over the ship without suffering heavy casualties.

The pirate crew is now learning just how nasty humans can be.

“Assault commander!”

“Yes commander?”

“How goes the clearing of the human vessel? Are you on schedule and succeeding?”

“Commander, I am aware that you are tracking all of the assault teams from the command bridge and likely have a clearer picture of what is occurring than I do. The AI can also evaluate statistically much more accurately what is going to occur than I can, being in the middle of combat with the fog of war. My digestive tract tells me that we may win, but it will be close, and if the humans continue to act counter to how we were briefed, they may well win.”

“Assault commander, you are correct that I have much more information than you do. The AI can give statistically relevant data, yet a single soldier in the right spot can turn the effects sideways and win the war. I am looking for your digestive tract evaluation as an experienced assaulter who knows more than just numbers. The AI seems to be more positive than you do, but I am not preparing to celebrate yet. We will begin to prepare the failure option now.”

“Yes, commander. We will do everything we can to win for the clan.”

“Of course you will, assault commander. If you are not successful, make sure you are back on board the ship as we will need experienced warriors if we are to survive the fallout of the failure.”

“Yes, commander.”

“Assault commander?”

“Yes, commander?”

“In future, no matter how direct our race is, if you wish to be more than just a successful assault commander of a platoon, you will need to learn to be less direct with superiors. Fight well and win.”

“Yes, commander.”