Wings of Steele - Flight of Freedom (Book2) (5 page)

A Corporal stepped forward raising his hand, “That'd be me, sir, Draza Mac.

“
OK, Corporal, let's go, you too Sergeant. Lieutenant, we'll stay in touch, once we get some power running, you'll need to initiate some of the systems from here.” He headed for the open doors to the corridor and paused, “Maybe you can find a place to store these unfortunate folks...”

Their weapons holstered and slung, the group moved with purpose down the corridor they had just traversed, passing the intersecting corridor with the elevators and access tube. Past the open blast doors, the corridor
did
pitch up, curving right toward the center of the narrow ship and meeting the corridor from the other side of the ship in the center, a duo of metal troughs stretching out into the darkness towards the stern of the ship.

“
Looks like we're on top of the ship,” said Steele stepping down into the closest trough, “this air-car system must be in the spine of the ship.” Closely resembling a subway tunnel, there were few features on the walls or ceiling, the unpowered lights flush with the smooth surfaces. The distance would have begged to be run or at least jogged under normal conditions, but that was impossible without the artificial gravity. Walking in the magnetized boots was laborious and time consuming. With the air car system operational, the trip to the stern would probably take a total of three minutes tops. About every quarter of a mile there was a service platform to either side of the system and it begged the question what for, but Jack hazarded a guess that they provided maintenance access to the mechanisms that held the external cargo containers in place against the hull.

“
Is that a light ahead...?”

Jack squinted, “I think you're right, but what could it be coming from?” He concentrated on the light, still walking. He remembered an old trick of looking fifteen to twenty degrees to the side of the object for low light detection and the light became more defined but there were no other details.

“I've got movement...!”

Jack tried unsuccessfully to identify the voice as weapons were immediately produced, all forward movement stopped, the Marines dropping to a crouch, prone or flattened against the wall of the trough, blading their bodies.

“I don't see it, which side?”

“
No target, no vis...”

“
It's
there
, I saw it!”

“
Easy guys... easy
, our eyes are playing tricks on us... it's just us and the ghosts...”

“
That doesn't make me feel any better, Captain.”

Steele motioned them up and forward, “C'mon guys, shake it off, let's keep going.” He checked the meter on the bottom of his wrist, its glowing green face showed it was a little warmer here, 5° Fahrenheit and that, for whatever reason, there was a little atmosphere remaining, though it was high in carbon dioxide content. They came upon an air-car stalled in the trough, a lone occupant strapped in with a seat belt. Jack stopped to examine the man who appeared to have been beaten to death, a large blood-encrusted wrench floating above his lap. His face and skull had been bludgeoned, his arms broken in an obvious attempt to protect himself. “What the fuck went on here...?” He turned to the others, “Was this what you saw?”

“No sir, it was much further down the tube.”

“
Alright, keep moving.” Their helmet lights and hand-lights played odd moving shadows on the narrow tube and they were all becoming increasingly on edge, their eyes constantly deceiving them. It seemed they had been walking for far longer than the thirty-odd minutes it actually had been, but finally reaching the end of the air-car system, the men climbed out of the trough onto the platform, which was wider here than the tube of the spine. The massive blast doors beyond the platform told Jack they'd reached the stern and the engine room. Turning sideways to fit through the partly open doors, the men made their way through into the engineering area of the ship. Just beyond the doors Jack plucked a dimly lit flashlight floating at about eye level, “Psch,” he snorted, “here's our mystery light...” he tossed it aside. “Let's find the generators...”

“
Movement...!” the Marines were shouldering weapons and taking defensive positions and Jack drew but visually fought the shadows to see what they had become fixated on. Tools, crates, rags, parts, dust and possibly a corpse in the right hand corner hung suspended in the zero gravity... all casting shadow upon shadow, the odd forms and shapes overlapping and shifting with the slightest movement of any of the dozen-plus lights they carried.

“
Easy guys...” Jack's voice was calm, even though the hair on the back of his neck was standing up and the little voice in his head was screaming,
Danger! Danger!
He moved slowly forward, followed by a Marine on either flank. Something moved across his peripheral vision and he swung the muzzle of his pistol to follow it, but it was gone in the shadows. “Anybody see that...?”

“
I'm seein' all sorts of shit, Captain, I can't tell what's real or not,” the Marine on his left moved up. “Let's just get this shit up and running, before we all go nuts.”

Weapons out, they moved cautiously about the engineering section, dodging the floating objects, trying not to create a chain reaction of moving and bouncing debris. Examining the control panel, the generators refused to respond, the panels and controls completely without power, the ship's power cells totally drained. “Dammit...” Jack wanted to pull off his helmet and scratch his head, “what the hell do we do now..?”

Marine Corporal Draza Mac was rummaging through a caged tool room, “We can do a manual startup, Captain... if I can find the fucking tool. Here it is!” He drug the heavy unit over to the control panel, “Somebody find a pry-bar” he said, kicking the access door on the bottom of the control panel's pedestal. It popped open and he pulled hard, several times before succeeding in tearing it open.

“
Got one...”

Draza Mac looked up over the top of the control panel, “Good, stick it in there,” he pointed, “and turn that generator armature - it'll be frozen so don't be gentle.”

The generator in front of them was the size of a bread truck, with another like it and three more the size of a semi truck trailer, “You can rotate those by hand?” queried Jack.

“
The small ones, yes,” answered Draza Mac without looking up.

Two Marines were standing on step plates on the side of the unit, “Where, here?”

Draza Mac popped up to look, “No, not there idiot, in the inspection slot on the side...” he shook his head inside his helmet, popping the cover off the hot box and jumpered the leads to the power feed at the base of the power control panel. He pulled another set of leads and drew them out of the box to the first generator, using his duty knife to wedge open a door on its side. He watched two Marines struggle with the pry-bar as he plugged the leads into the side of the generator. “Keep going,” he told them, “get it rotated at least one full rotation.” He moved back to the hot box and the control panel, “OK, here we go.” The Corporal powered up the hot box and the control panel lit up like a Christmas tree,
mostly in red
. “Good, now the hard part...” he said pointing to the panel, “as soon as you get a green light on the first set of bars, punch the button...”

“
Captain...”
Steele recognized Myomerr's voice.

“
Go ahead Ensign,”

“
Sir, patrols have reported activity in the sector near the gate to Klinghoffer...”

“
The Archer and Bowman?”

“
No sir, the Freedom confirmed they were still in gate transit. Commander Smiley believes they may be hostile, they have not responded to any hails, but he has no clear identification yet either.”

“
Dammit
, this is not a good time for this... have Smiley pull back toward the Freedom...
scratch that,
he knows what he's doing. Have the Freedom prepare additional fighters to launch to support his flight.”

“
That's already been done sir, and the second Zulu has been launched. I just wanted to update you.”

Steele turned back to the task at hand, “OK guys, let's speed this up, shall we? I don't want to be stuck in this tin can if it turns into a shooting match out there...”

Climbing to the top of the generator's body, the Marine Corporal had fitted a firing tool to the top of the first generator and the two Marines with the pry-bar had moved on to break loose the next generator. Draza Mac looked down at Steele from the top of the unit, “Here we go Captain, watch the panel.” He loaded the impact tool with what looked like a shotgun shell, locking it. Pulling the mechanism’s lever and firing the charge, the generator spun up but the panel never registered more than halfway into the yellow. “Still cold...” he added, reloading the tool. He pulled the lever firing it again; the generator spun up but fell short of the green. “Dammit,” cursed Draza Mac, reloading the tool. “Third time's a charm...” It fired again; spinning up enough to flicker the green light but didn't catch when Jack mashed the button. “Son of a bitch! This is my last charge...” said the Corporal, reloading the device.

Jack looked up, “W
hat?
That's all we
have...?”

“
Captain...!”
called Myomerr.

“
Whaaaat...”
he groaned.

“
Commander Smiley has identified the ships as two Pirate destroyers approaching from the direction of the Klinghoffer gate, the Freedom is launching additional fighters...”

“
Oh,
fuck me
...” He looked up at Draza Mac, “This better work Corporal, or we're in
deep shit...”
The Marine fired the final charge into the generator flywheel, spinning it up into the green, Jack mashing the button. The generator readings undulated up and down hitting the yellow and jumping back up into the green. Jack released the button and the readings almost immediately dipped precipitously toward the yellow, lights around the engineering room flickering.

“
Hold it down skipper, don't let it go!”

Jack mashed it down again and the readings continued to rise and fall. “She doesn't want to catch...”

The Marine kicked the side of the generator casing, “C'mon you bitch,
fire up!”
He kicked it again harder,
“C'mon!”

“
She's starting to drop again...”

“
No you don't...”
he growled, kicking the generator so hard Jack could swear it moved, “
start
you stubborn whore...” the lights around them continuing to flicker.

The Sergeant stepped up and whacked the casing from the other side with a small sledge hammer, making the readings jump; they began to stabilize as the armatures warmed up. Steele hadn't realized how hard he was holding the button down until he released it and felt the cramp in his hand. The Sergeant was winding up for another swing when Steele stopped him,
“Hold on
Sarge... I think that last one did it.” Readings on the panel showed the ship's power cells slowly taking a charge and the generator smoothing out, the lights around the engineering and engine room bright, flicker free.

Draza Mac climbed down, pulled the hot box leads off the generator and the control panel pedestal, watching the generator readings and the increasing power cell health. “Five minutes and the power cells will have enough balls to crank the next one up with the control panel. After that, the other three will be no sweat...”

CHAPTER THREE

FREEDOM
, HARUNA TIER:
HIDE N' SEEK

Commander Edgars had three screens up on his command chair, reviewing the video information coming from the shuttle on one and the other two displaying the data from the fighter patrols. “I feel like a lone duck sitting in a pond during hunting season...” he muttered to himself.

“A heavily armed duck...” added Ragnaar. He wasn't sure he knew exactly what a duck was, but he got the gist of what Walt Edgars meant.