A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4 (68 page)

              Compartment doors were forced open, either by hacker boxes known as skeleton keys to pop the locks, breaching charges or with a servo-assisted hammerblow from an armored fist.  Terrified crewmen were either gunned down if they tried to resist or hauled out of the compartments and herded by ferocious, barking lupusan into one of the larger multipurpose rooms.  Those who protested or tried to delay were hit.  Any further protests were answered with gunfire.

              Major Nezerek, in his protective combat suit led the team pushing to reach the ship’s bridge.  There was surprisingly little resistance.  There didn’t seem to be any actual fighters in the whole crew, much to his annoyance. 
What happened to the Republic I remember?  Boarding actions back during the war were harrowing experiences.  Every crew member carried at least a sidearm.  There were fully armed security teams on every deck.  Damn, that was a good time.
  Most of the crew on this ship were either human or zheen, both soft races, though the bugs did make a satisfying crunch when you cracked their carapace.  Despite his own order to his wolves, he himself shot five crewmen as they tried to run from his advance.  He checked his fire as they approached the bridge.

              Grabbing a stun grenade from his belt, he readied himself as two of his troopers pulled the heavy blast doors to the ship’s command center open a crack.  He tossed the weapon inside.  The wolves all ducked to the side as the grenade went off; the blast of light and sound caused shouts of alarm and confusion from within.  More human and zheen voices.  The wolves yanked the heavy doors open and a squad rushed in, their assault rifles held at the ready.

              A moment later, the major stepped into the bridge, followed by two more of his skinsuited grenadiers.  The CA800 stayed outside in the corridor, turning around to face back out.  The remains of the zheen (operator?  specialist?  officer?) slid down the gore covered sensor station and slumped to the deck, riddled with needles.

              “Surrender!” he shouted unnecessarily.  The surviving bridge crew either had their hands in the air or were down on their knees with their hands on their heads, all of them in submissive positions.  He quickly scanned the room.  “Where is the commander of this vessel?”

              One of the humans, a male, spoke up.  “The captain left the bridge.  Said he was going to his stateroom.  That was over a half hour ago.”

              Nezerek turned to him, his weapon pointed at the deck.  One of the wolves was covering him, so he wasn’t worried.  Not that the unarmed meatbag was any real threat.  “And who are you?”

              “Lieutenant Devon Morris, XO,” he said crisply, but more in a tone of a man delivering a report to a surperior rather than a defiant or broken prisoner.

              Nezerek grunted at the man’s courage, or was it discipline?  It was also possible the man had brains made of gelatin and simply didn’t realize his predicament.  “This ship is under my command now.  My troops are moving throughout the ship and securing all the compartments.  Any resistence will be met with lethal force.  What survivors of your crew are left after will operate this vessel for me.”  The wolf moved forward, not even needing his weapon.  “You will order your crew to surrender.  I repeat, those that do not obey will be killed and we will still have the ship.  Am I clear, Lieutenant?”

              The man nodded, no emotion on his face or body language whatsoever.  It was as though the major had asked for a routine status report.  “Yes, sir.  If I may use the communications console?”

              “Don’t try to be heroic,” the major told him, sounding bored.  “I’ll just kill you and the next person in line will do what I order and your death will serve as another warning to this crew.”

              “I understand, sir.”  The man stepped up to the console and pressed a key, activating the ship’s intercom.  “This is the XO,” he said, speaking slowly and clearly.

              Nezerek nodded to himself as the lieutenant ordered the stand down and unconditional surrender of the crew.  He was a good liason; he made things go smoothly.  He checked his HUD.  So far not one of his soldiers had been killed in the action, though four were showing mild injuries, nothing serious.  Another check in the win column.  He waved one of the troopers to one of the consoles, who immediately sat and began checking the ship’s internal sensors.

              Once the lieutenant signed off the PA system, Nezerek called to his group leaders over his communicator.  “All teams, report.”

              “Enviromental secure.”

              “Damage control secure.”

              “Engineering secure, minor damage,” the gruff voice of Master Sergeant Bazhir came back.  Bazhir was very good, but he was always hard on equipment.

              “Major, this is Corporal Grachus,” another voice came on.

              Corporal Grachus was a solid trooper with a good head on his shoulders.  “Go ahead, Corporal.”

              “We’ve secured the living quarters, sir.  Looks like the area I’m in is the officers’ quarters.”

              “And?”  He tried not to get irritated.

              “No casualties, Major.  But we captured an officer.  Claims he’s the captain.”             

              “Excellent,” Nezerek said, grinning.  “Is he injured?”

              “Graze on his leg, sir,” Grachus drawled.  “But he’s fine, sir,” the corporal said hurriedly.  “He can walk.  Problem is, sir, he’s already been secured and the lads got a bit… enthusiastic.”

              The major laughed.  “Just leave him for now, post a guard.  Move your teams on.  And that guard is not to speak with the prisoner.  If he talks too much, he has my permission to shoot the bastard.”

              “Yes, sir.”

              “Status?” he asked, turning to the trooper seated at the sensor console.

              The trooper looked up at him and grinned.  “Major, I don’t know if this is an example of current Republic practices, but these people are just incompetent.”

              “How so?” he asked, slightly concerned.  He didn’t want a ship so plagued with maintenance issues that it was more burden than asset.

              “It took a while to get up here to the bridge,” the trooper reminded him.  “Not at that long, considering, but still a bit of time.”  Seeing Nezerek’s irritation growing, she rushed on.  “Well, sir, this bunch of incompetents didn’t lock
anything
down.  I have access to everything.  The whole computer core.  Well, there are still things that require codes, but that’s just items in the database, secured information.  We have full operational control over the whole ship!”  Her eyes glowed.

              The major’s grin spread until he was positively beaming.  “Well, then.  Let’s get things rounded up and head back home.”

Chapter 22

              Getting the General’s new destroyer up and operational was proving to be a bit of a chore.  It wasn’t that the boarding teams had done
that
much damage while they grabbed the ship, but there was some.  Getting the engineering crew to assist was also turning out to be a problem, because it turned out that a good portion of them were over on the nearby corvette.  Nezerek had only been in command an hour and he was already running into problems. 

              “All right, so of the original one hundred ninety-six crew, there are one hundred and twelve effectives, four wounded, the rest are dead,” he said, looking to his officers.  He had senior noncoms watching over the various departments, though his own combat engineers were manning Main Engineering at the moment.  “Are our own people running everything?”

              “We’ve got the crew all locked either in the brig, two of the multipurpose rooms or a section of the berthing areas,” Lieutenant Yanakov, one of the team leaders replied.  “I know you didn’t trust them, Major, so we just locked them up for now.  But if we only use our own people for operating the ship, we’re going to be completely strung out by the time we make it back to Esselon-Moor.  If that’s what we need to do, we can do it, but I’m hesitant about employing that plan.”

              He nodded, looking over the heads of the officers in the conference room, to the edge of the overhead.  “So am I.  Unless we just butcher the crew and fly it back ourselves, we wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

              “Do we want to do that?” Yanakov asked, curious.  He added a belated, “Sir?”

              Nezerek gave a short bark.  “Do I want to?  Yes.  They’re a liability.  We’re going to have to be on the lookout for constant sabotage and mutiny.”

              Yanakov and one of the other lieutenants, Perechon, exchanged glances and chuckled.  “Major, we’re the ones with all the guns.  There are seventy-three of us to their one-sixteen.  Yes they have us outnumbered, but not by that much.  And certainly not enough to actually overpower any of us.  Especially if we keep them in manageable groups.”

              The major considered this.  It would make the trip a bit more enjoyable if he didn’t have to have all of his people standing watches and manning equipment, so that was certainly a good argument for using the original crew.  Of course, he didn’t trust any of them to do the job without trying to retake their ship.  But it wasn’t as though he was going to let them all go unsupervised.  “All right.  We’re going to have to move quickly here.  I want to make sure that we have things locked down tight here.  We’re also going to have to deal with that corvette that’s been hanging around nearby as well.  Do we know why twenty of the engineering crew from this ship is over there?”

              “No, sir,” Yanakov replied sourly.  “The only information we’ve been able to get so far is that they went over there to assist with some sort of repairs.”

              “Well, it isn’t as though the general couldn’t use another ship,” he mused.  “I’m just concerned about what kind of repairs they’re talking about over there.”

              “And, sir, if I may?” Perechon put in.  Nezerek nodded.  “If they’ve got teams over there, eventually they’re going to be reporting in over here.  And even if the teams take a day or two to do so, eventually someone is going to call over to this ship and expect someone to answer.  And if they don’t…”

              “It isn’t as though that ship poses any threat to us,” Yanakov scoffed.

              Nezerek glared at him.  “A threat to this destroyer?  No.  But if we’re not careful they could scatter or damage the freighter prizes that we came here to secure.  And I don’t want that.”  He stared at the conference table for a few seconds before making up his mind.  “Yanakov, take two teams and secure that corvette.  If you’re detected, tell them that we’re sending over additional parts.  If this ship couldn’t see us, then there’s absolutely no way that the corvette will, but just in case.  Minimal casualties over there.  And find out what the story is on their repairs.  I don’t want a lame duck.”

              “Yes, sir!” the lieutenant crossed with enthusiasm.  The officer saluted and hustled out of the conference room.  The other lieutenant looked on with pure envy, then his fur smoothed out and he flicked his ears, obviously trying to bring himself back under control.

              “And me, Major?” Perechon asked, trying to sound calm.  He mostly succeeded and Nezerek chose to overlook it.

              “You, Lieutenant, are to make sure that this ship stays locked down.  I will have no mutiny on this vessel.”  He moved away from the conference table, heading for the hatch.  “And I’ve decided to bring the regular crew back into it.  But we’ll start in small batches; make sure that the rest of them are locked down securely.  I want no one getting access to control systems or the mainframe without one of our people looking over his shoulder.  You’re down to sixty effectives, Lieutenant.  Get to it.  I’ll be down the corridor.  I want to meet this ship’s former captain.”

              Perechon grinned and followed the major out of the conference room.  He went the other way down the corridor, moving to where the largest clump of prisoners was being housed.  He’d sort them out.  The grenadiers were not actually all that concerned about a mutiny, but sabotage would slow things down to an unacceptable pace.  Some of them, probably twenty or thirty of the destroyer’s crew would have to be transferred over to holding cells on TC2741, which would thrill Lieutenant Braelock, but that ship had the facilities that could easily be converted over to prison cells.  That would require the wolves to do more of the day-to-day tasks of actually managing and running the ship, but it might be better than constantly checking on the captured crew.

              Nezerek took the few staps down the corridor, arriving at the door to the captain’s stateroom.  There he was greeted by a somewhat shocking sight.  One of his troopers was standing guard just inside the compartment, her assault rifle leveled at the prisoner.  It was really unnecessary, the captain wasn’t going anywhere, but apparently she decided that it was better to be safe than sorry.  He nodded to her as he stepped inside the hatch.

              “Major,” the she-wolf acknowledged, her weapon not moving one centimeter from her target.

              The target was, presumably, the ship’s former captain.  The officer was a fellow lupusan, much to the major’s surprise.  But it was the state of the prisoner that surprised Nezerek the most.  The lupusan was completely secured to a chair in the small compartment.  When the corporal had mentioned the lads had gotten enthusiastic, he hadn’t been exaggerating.  Someone had found a roll or two of high density reflective tape and trussed the former captain up like a holiday beast.  His wrists, arms, knees and ankles were all secured with tape and judging by the strength and duration of his struggles, as well as the sardonic look on the trooper’s face, told Nezerek that the captain wasn’t going anywhere.

              They’d even wrapped tap around his muzzle to keep him silent.  He was a pitiful sight, one that caused Nezerek to yip in delight.  “So you’re the former captain of this ship. 
My
new ship, or rather, my General’s new ship,” he corrected.  The lupusan thrashed in the chair, but he was bound fast.  “I’m disgusted with you.  The humans and the cats and the bugs, I understand why we took them down so quickly.  But you,” he spat, leaning in close, remaining far enough away that the captive couldn’t reach him if he flailed. 

              “You are a wolf, a superior being.  You didn’t even put up so much as a token resistance when we stormed this ship.  You weren’t even armed.  I hear that my soldiers caught you in bed of all places and when they burst in here, you didn’t even fight them, not really.  What kind of an alpha are you?” he demanded, not caring about the saliva that dripped from his mouth.  “The Republic officers I remember weren’t so soft and weak.  They were worthy foes, worth killing.  But you?  What happened to your Navy?  If this is the best the Republic has to offer then I need to speak with the General about a strike into their territory.  We’ll all be kings in a week.”

              The prisoner was struggling less now, but he was making a wuffing sound through his nostrils as he tried in vain to speak.

              “I should just leave you like this,” Nezerek said scornfully.  “Worthless pile of garbage that you are.  Oh you’re trying to speak?  Think your honeyed words will cast a spell on me?”  He laughed, throwing back his head and guffawed mightily, mockingly.  Then he stepped forward, drawing a knife from his belt.

              The captive went very still, his breath coming in little shallow puffs.  The blade drew closer and the grenadier’s grin grew wider and more cruel until he reversed the killing stroke and with his free hand gripped the former captain’s muzzle.  “If you bite me, you bastard, I will rip out your cowardly tongue,” Nezerek promised.  He slit the tape on first one side and then the other of the wolf’s muzzle, freeing him to speak.  The tape itself was still stuck to the top and bottom, but the lupusan could now move his mouth again.  He stepped back.  “You wanted to talk, so talk.”

              The lupusan captain tried to lick his chops and stretch out his mouth.  “Thank you, sir,” he said after a moment as he regained his speech.  “But to your earlier comment, I am not part of the Republic.”

              “Lies,” the major spat.  “You’re on a Republic destroyer.  We’ve confirmed it.  Don’t you dare tell me that filth.”  Nezerek felt his blood boiling again.  He threw the knife to the deck, bringing his claws close to the other lupusan.

              “It’s not a lie!” the captive shouted back, the edges of the tape flapping against his gums.  “This is a vessel in the Seylonique Navy and I am a Captain in that-“

              Nezerek swung a fist and connected, snapping the lupusan’s head to the side.  “The Seylonique Navy?  We crushed that months ago.  General Typhon and his allies crushed it months ago with its handful of corvettes and a destroyer like this one.”

              The former captain’s head lolled for a moment before his vision cleared and he looked at his tormentor.  “You fought ships in our system, that’s true,” he agreed, shaking his head, flicking drops of blood in all directions.  “But those were not Navy ships.”

              “More lies!” the major shouted, backhanding the captain again.  The lupusan’s head rocked back and more blood flew out of his mouth.  He turned back to his captor, looking slightly dazed.  “Not Navy ships?  That is absolute rot!”

              “It’s true!” he said as Nezerek reached in and grabbed his ear, piercing it with his clawed thumb.  It was a small twinge of pain, barely noticeable until the major wrapped his fingers around the appendage and yanked, tearing the flesh.  He howled in pain.  “I swear it!  It’s the truth!”

              “You’re going to tell me all about Seylonique,” the major informed him.  “If I think that you’re lying to me, or trying to conceal something, this will happen.”  He raked his claws over the captive’s chest, eliciting another cry of pain.

              A while later, the major stepped out of the compartment, his hands, claws and the front of his combat suit splattered with blood.  “That looked fun, Major,” the female trooper commented, impressed with her officer.  “Glad to see you’ve still got it in you.”

              Nezerek whirled, snarling.  His movement was fast enough that he caught the younger lupusan by surprise.  One hand knocked her weapon out of her hand, the other wrapped around her throat and slammed her against the bulkhead.  She was dangling several centimeters off the deckplates, his hand nearly crushing her windpipe.  Her breath came in strained gasps as she scrabbled at him, unable to gain purchase on the bulkhead, against him and he batted away her hands when she tried to claw at him. 

              “Don’t you ever question my resolve!” he told her coldly.  He gave one last squeeze then dropped the trooper to the deck.  He kicked the gun several meters down the corridor.  “Get up,” he told the gasping, slumped soldier.

              Without a word, her eyes staring down submissively.  She climbed to her feet.  “Sorry, sir.  Never again.”

              “Good,” he said, his voice softening.  “Get a medic in there for that craven little toad.  The general will want to question him again.”  He paused as he saw her searching the deck for her lost weapon.  “Next time, be ready,” he chastised.  “I don’t want to see any of my soldiers lose their weapon that easily again.”

              “Yes, sir,” she replied.  “Medic will be on the way.”

              “Make sure he lives,” Nezerek said harshly.  “I don’t want to have to explain to the general that an information source died under interrogation because one of my medics was delayed.”  Without another word, he strode off down the corridor.  She watched him go, then scooped up her weapon while she got on the comms to summon a medic.  She kicked herself for her stupidity.  General Typhon required discipline among his troops and while they were given a lot of leeway so long as they followed orders and fought like devils, he didn’t tolerate disrespect to his chosen officers.  Mouthing off to senior officers was a good way to get killed and she would have deserved it.

              The medic came trotting down the corridor a moment later, a kit in his hand.  He saw her rubbing her neck and gave her a look.  “What’s wrong with you?”