Warpath (22 page)

Ayan rushed forward,
the skitters around her heels. By the time she got to the panel, the
skitters had pulled a line from the console free. They held it out so
she could connect it to her command and control unit. “Installing
our flag software, here’s hoping the operating system here is close
enough to the Barricade’s for this to work.”

Jake checked what was
happening through his command and control unit. The flag software
uploaded seamlessly and overwrote the permissions files for the ship
in seconds, replacing them with new files that made the ship property
of Triton Fleet, locking out all but two security codes. If it
weren’t for the surrender of one of their enemies with an access
code, it would have taken much longer to work. How much longer, Jake
could only guess, but with two minutes and one second left on the
clock before the Pontos exploded, he guessed it would have been too
much. “I need someone to do the calculations here,” Ayan said.

Minh-Chu and Ashley
both rushed forward under the protection of several boarding team
members. “Can you just get us out of the solar system please?”
asked Frost. “No fancy calculations necessary, just get us far
enough.”

“Shush, that’s the
plan,” Ashley said. “Here, Minh, check my math,” she said,
stepping away from the console.

“She’s done?”
asked one of their new prisoners. “That’s too fast, that can’t
be right.”

Jake nudged him in the
side with his boot as he passed. “Silence is survival,” he
growled. He didn’t want to kill anyone else, but he didn’t have
to let his captives know.

“It’s good,
generating wormhole, tipping the ship into it, and catching the
Warlord against the port wing,” he said.

Jake flinched and
sucked air in through his teeth as he heard a distant collision and
scraping sound.

“Don’t worry,
Captain,” Frost said with a chuckle, “It’ll buff right out.”

* * *

“All fighters
recovered,” Chief Mendle announced from the flight deck beneath
Oz’s feet. “All but one of our gunships are out of the danger
area, rescue operations on Ripsaw’s gunship were successful, he and
his Senoir Operations Officer are stable in stasis.”

“Bring them aboard as
soon as the Triton is clear,” Oz said. He looked back to the
tactical hologram in the centre of the bridge. He was on his feet,
staring at the Blessed Mission as it slowly collided with the
Warlord, heading for a wormhole it had just generated. “I wouldn’t
have thought of that,” he muttered.

“C’mon, Jake,”
Victor said from beside him, startling Oz.

He looked back to the
tactical display in time to see the Blessed Mission slip into the
wormhole. The Warlord was precariously balanced against a port side
section of hull that jutted out three times as wide as the smaller
ship. “Minh, if that works, you’ll be the talk of the Pilot’s
Den for weeks.”

“He’ll be the talk
of the pilot’s den for months if it doesn’t,” Victor remarked.

The battlecruiser and
the Warlord disappeared from sight as they finished transitioning
into the wormhole, leaving two Order of Eden destroyers and their
carrier behind. The destroyers manoeuvred in front of the carrier,
shuttles moved from them to the larger ship at a frenzied pace. The
thick landing bay doors closed, leaving several shuttles stranded.

The timer estimating
when the Pontos would explode counted down from one minute and ten
seconds. “How accurate is that?” Victor asked.

Oz looked to his
analysis team. Henrietta and the analyst beside her both shrugged.
“Could be off by as much as thirty seconds,” she said.

“Fifty, maybe even
more,” added the officer beside her.

She shot him a
withering look.

“Well, true, right?”
he whispered back.

She only had time to
nod once before the sensors aboard the Triton were overloaded with an
antimatter explosion larger than anyone in that solar system had ever
seen.

“I’m sorry,” Oz
said before the light diminished.

‘It’s all right,’
Hausgiest replied in his thoughts. ‘The Pontos was so consumed with
hate, and so corrupted by the cause of Citadel, that there was no
saving him.’

“Hausgiest, could you
determine the enemy ship’s cause? Why are Citadel getting involved
with the Order of Eden?” he asked as the bridge crew watched their
systems reset. Oz wanted the crew to hear the answer, it had already
made its mark on his mind.

“The Citadel crew had
the Pontos’ intelligence fully convinced that once the Order’s
enemies were defeated, they would turn towards the Sol System. The
Order of Eden has promised Citadel their assistance in taking control
of the home world. The Pontos believed that we were allied with Sol
Defence because of our involvement with the Lorander Corporation.”

“Why would our
connection with Lorander make anyone think we were with Sol Defence?”
Victor asked.

“I plan on asking
them that as soon as we’ve finished securing orbital space. Have
our allies checked in?” Oz asked.

“The British Alliance
and the Barricade have checked in,” Agameg replied. “The rest are
coming in slowly as they recover from the blast.”

“The carrier group?”
Oz asked as he watched the tactical display slowly repopulate and
update.

“The enemy carrier is
severely damaged. Main thrusters are destroyed, their transponder is
broadcasting an automated emergency signal. The battlecruiser and the
destroyer that were holding position in front of the carrier are dead
in space, sensors are still resetting, but I doubt we will find
survivors.”

“Any report from
Tamber?” Oz asked.

“They were on the
other side of Kambis,” Henrietta said quietly. “Haven Shore is
fine, they had a minor flash, only two of our military installations
are down as far as I can tell.”

“I think its safe to
assume they lost power in the flash,” added Lieutenant Commander
Erron. “Their emergency drills put reset time at roughly nine
minutes for the eastern-most base, and six minutes and thirty two
seconds for our base at Un-Tam. I’ll tell you as soon as they
report in. Cursory scans forwarded from British Alliance Command
confirm that our bases are still there, life signs are consistent
with their expected compliment.”

“That’s something,”
Oz said. “Did our British Alliance or Lorander friends lose
anything in the blast?”

“The British lost a
minor orbital platform, but everyone got out in time. Lorander is
fine,” replied Lieutenant Commander Erron.

“Flight,” Oz said,
looking through the floor. It did not become transparent, and his
seat did not rebroadcast his voice to the level below. He walked to
the ramp instead. “How long until we can get ships to the Blessed
Mission?”

“I don’t know,”
Chief Mendle said. “Everything’s still rebooting, the Triton may
have weathered that pulse fine, but our fighters will take a minute.
I’m not going to launch anything without a diagnostic. Our new
gunships are all fine though, Clever Dream already checked in and
wants to go after them.”

“Tell Leiutenant
Garrison to go ahead. He can have any gunship that’s still in
fighting shape to go with him,” Oz replied.

“British Alliance
Navnet just went down,” one of the Flight Crew announced. “Critical
transmitter failure.”

“What about Haven
Shore?” Oz asked.

“They’re good, but
three of the communications satellites they use to forward commands
are down,” Chief Mendle said. “Looks like we’ll have to move
into position and become a relay until we can get satellites in
position around what’s left of Kambis.”

“Let me guess,
everything on that side of Kambis is-“

“Obliterated!”
Chief Mendle said, throwing up her hands. “Ka-frikkin-boom!”

“All right, looks
like the Triton is stuck here for a while, coordinate with the
Barricade, see if we can get some help,” Oz said.

“What? From those
untrained monkeys? The only place I wouldn’t take directions from a
Ranger is space, especially when they’ve barely had time to learn
to point their
own ship
in
the right direction. No thanks, we’re fine, Admiral. We’ll keep
ships from colliding into each other and get temporary relay
sattellites back in orbit by the end of our shift. But hey, while
we’re talking about help, why don’t you open communications with
the Lorander ship over there? Maybe they’ll give us a hand with
clean up after staying out of a fight that cost us a resource-rich
planet and nearly burned Tamber back into the stone age.”

“Tell me if there’s
anything we can do,” Oz said, returning to the bridge.

“I love how she takes
an attack on the ship personally,” Victor said. “Not that I
don’t.”

“I know, I’m just
glad her language has improved since she became a mom,” Oz replied.

‘You would not be so
impressed if you could hear her thoughts,” Hausgiest told him
telepathically. ‘I have never sensed such irritation. It goes
beyond what language could share.’

“Let’s see if we
can get a few more people down there to help her direct traffic,”
Oz told Victor.

“Good idea,” he
replied, standing up and starting for the Flight Deck.

With the first group of
captives taken and bound behind them, the crew moved on, leaving a
single stealthed squad to watch over their prisoners. Jake, Minh-Chu,
Alice and Ayan were exploring corridors well behind one of the
forward groups. In his current condition, Jake couldn’t bring
himself to inconvenience one of the forward boarding teams by joining
their number. Stephanie, Alaka and Remmy had it well in hand.
Besides, he wanted to stay near Ayan, Minh-Chu, and the least
armoured members of his crew behind them.

Three heavily armoured
soldiers took the lead as they carefully traversed the central
section of the ship. Most of them hadn’t been on a simulated
boarding operation, let alone the real thing. Jake knew they were the
safest group with Alaka’s squads ahead, Stephanie’s to the right,
and Remmy’s Rangers to the left. Alice’s squad moved behind them
as a rear guard.

The first minutes after
exiting the wormhole were the worst. The ship was silent except for
the diminishing hums of systems powering down. It took only minutes
to get everyone organized into their squads and moving. They all
scanned rooms as they moved. Alaka’s boarding teams across the
front of their formation took the most captives as they went, killing
only five soldiers, stunning and binding thirty-seven crewmembers.

Jake listened in on the
action, which was quick in every case, wishing he was at the front.
Everyone in command knew that would be a mistake, including him. He
was being kept on his feet by stims, his balance was assisted by his
suit. He could still give competent commands from the centre of their
troops formation. That was his best role.

The first escape pod to
launch was the most startling. It happened just ahead and two decks
above them, a loud ping and the blast of a booster firing against the
interior door. It was followed by several more, Jake lost count after
seventeen. “How many people per pod?” Jake asked.

“Twenty eight,”
Ayan replied. “Every fifth one has a micro wormhole generator.
It’ll take them about an hour to charge.”

“That explains why
we’re finding so few crew,” Alaka said. “There is no fight
here, our scans show nineteen life signs aft.”

Jake looked at the
tactical readouts of the rear of the ship in time to see the nine
life signs move rapidly away from the ship, obviously in a pod.
“There they go,” Jake said. A movement in the corner of his eye
caught his attention, and he looked up just in time to see a trio of
grenades bounce across the hallway in front of them. “Everyone
down!” Jake said as he raised his rifle and tried to fire at the
grenades with a gel suspension round, meant to expand around a target
and affix it to a surface. He didn’t know if the gel round would
help in the least, but it was all he had time to do.

The explosion struck
him and the three soldiers in front of him before he could tell if he
got the round off. Smoke and fire filled the broad causeway after the
initial explosion, and Jake was immediately on his feet. His heads up
display informed him that painkillers had been administered locally,
nanobots and recovery injections were administered before he was
fully on his feet. One of the soldiers in front of him was already
being put into emergency stasis, the other two were unconscious, and
their automated medical systems were treating them. Ayan’s life
signs were solid, but her armour was ruptured on the left hand side.
Her arm was broken and burned, something the nanobots and recovery
meds were already taking care of. Everyone else got off lucky.

A shadow moved towards
them through the black smoke at great speed. Jake was almost fully on
his feet, and lowered his shoulder into the oncoming shape. “Get
back!” Jake said as he felt the heavy form collide with him hard
enough to knock him onto his back. The enemy soldier’s shields were
up, the sensation of a shield clashing with metal was unmistakeable.
He could feel the stock of a rifle trapped under his left leg, and he
scrambled for it as he saw the shape of an Order Knight in full
armour.

The hallway was filled
with bright flashing light from his right, Ayan was down on one knee,
firing a rifle loaded with anti-framework rounds on full automatic.
He could hear her screaming through her clenched teeth as the nearby
explosions of dozens of rounds on her enemy and the wall behind him
immediately raised the temperature of that section of the hallway
past what normal skin could tolerate. Her bare arm and a small
section of her shoulder were scorched by the time her suit created a
thin emergency seal.

The Order Knight was
across the corridor before Jake could stop him, knocking Ayan’s
rifle out of her hands and sending her several metres down the
hallway. By the time he turned towards Jake, he had the rifle that
was trapped under his leg in hand, and he opened fire.