A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4 (69 page)

              “I said something stupid to the Major and he clocked me one,” she said ruefully, her voice hoarse from the choking.

              The medic looked at her knowingly.  “Idiot.  Won’t do that again, will you?”

              “No.  No I will not.”

              Robert Kreighton groaned as he read over the latest on the repair estimates.  These engineers from
Equinox
had several more months of actual shipboard service as compared to Kreighton’s people, but up until now, they’d had little to do outside of regular maintenance of the destroyer’s systems.  Doing a full rebuild, even a temporary one of a corvette’s hyperdrive was a new experience for everyone and it showed.  The rebuid was plagued with errors over the last two days, slowdowns, teardowns and just a general frustration pervading the engineering teams as well as
Kingston
’s crew.

              It was giving him a headache, especially since the messages from the
Equinox
had stopped.  Captain Voxtun apparently had grown tired of demanding status updates every hour, something Robert figured should actually make him feel better.  On the contrary, he now felt worse because he could just feel the negative energy radiating out from the destroyer, Voxtun seething because of the amount of time this was taking.

              He checked the external sensor feed, putting the engineering report down for the moment.  Scopes were clear of any nearby anomalies or strange phenomena, not counting the alien ship nearby.  It was a small dot in the gas giant’s atmosphere by comparison and mostly buried by swirling clouds and storms, yet somehow it still seemed to dominate one’s view of the planet.  Only two of the collection of freighters had made any sort of move since
Equinox
and
Kingston
came back here.  They were moving off at a ponderous pace toward the hyper limit.  Soon others would follow suit and perhaps more ships would come here later to take their place.

              His comm panel beeped and he sighed. 
A captain’s work is never done, for however much longer my tenure as captain lasts.
  He pressed the control on his desk.  “Captain here.”

              “Sorry to disturb you, sir.”  The sensor officer, Ensign Karen “call me Shel” Sukowski was usually a no-nonsense individual.  She was getting stronger with her instruments and he’d learned to listen when she spoke.  “We’re getting a strange return on close-in sensors.”

              “What kind of return?” he asked, sitting up a bit straighter.

              “It’s a very small reading of neutrinos, Captain.  I only just picked it up out of the all the background interference a few moments ago.  The only reason I even spotted it at all is because
Equinox
is between
Kingston
and the star.  The destroyer’s hull is providing a degree of shielding from some of the background radiation and that’s when I saw it.”

              He blinked in confusion.  “So what does that mean?”

              There was a pause.  “Well, I’m really not sure, sir.  It might be nothing.”

              “But you think it might be something.”  He wasn’t asking.  The ensign wasn’t known for flights of fancy or so he’d seen in his admittedly short time in command.  She paused again and he let out a breath.  “Damn it, Ensign, what do you think it is?”

              “As I say, Captain, I really don’t know,” she hedged.  “But it’s coming straight at us on a completely straight course.  With such an energy signature and with the course it’s on, that can’t be a natural phenomenon.”

              “I’ll be on the bridge in a minute,” Robert said, slapping the comm panel and hustling out of the compartment.  He was on the cramped bridge less than thirty seconds later.  “Report,” he ordered.

              “Still showing that signal, Captain,” Shel replied, not looking up from her console.  “It’s still closing on our position.  At current speed it’ll intercept in forty-six seconds.”

              “Comms,” Robert ordered, dropping into his command seat.  “Open a channel to all hands; make sure you include any work parties that are out on the hull.  Helm, get ready to move us to a new position one thousand kilometers below us.”  The helmsman repeated the order and readied his controls.

              “Aye, sir.”  The comms operator pushed a control, then nodded.  “You’re on, Captain.”

              “All hands, there is an unknown object moving toward us and we will be making a minor course change to avoid it.  Any teams out on the hull: make sure that you are locked down and hold on tight.”

              “Time to intercept?”

              “Twelve seconds, sir,” Shel reported, her voice getting tense.

              Robert opened a display window, showing the ensign’s sensor feed.  She had an icon tagged “Unknown neutrino emission” that was moving closer to the other icon in the center of the screen “
Kingston
”.  The distance counter was scrolling down.  At five seconds remaining, he gave the order.  “Helm, go now.”

              “Aye, sir,” the zheen sitting at the helm replied, easing the control levers forward.  The ship moved forward at twenty percent power, which was more than enough to move the ship out away from the incoming anomaly.

              Kreighton nodded in satisfaction as the anomaly passed right by, continuing along on its original course.  “Well, that’s that,” he said, sitting more comfortably in his command seat.

              But Shel had her eyes glued to her displays, slowly shaking her head.  “What the?  No, no, no.”

              “What is it?” Kreighton demanded, turning to look at her. 

              “The… thing, sir, the anomaly,” she said.  “It’s turning!”

              “It’s turning?” he said, bringing the sensor display back up.  Sure enough, the… whatever it was
was
turning around to chase the corvette.  “Comms, get everyone inside the ship, now!”

              “Lieutenant!  I think we’ve been detected,” the pilot said, sending the message through their implant comms.  It was confirmed a moment later when the corvette did a slight course change and acceleration which just forced the shuttle to miss the capture.  The pilot barked and steered the shuttle around for another pass. 

              Yanakov swore.  “
Kors! 
Get us within grappling range of that ship.  If need be, we’ll do this the hard way.”

              “With their engine damage, they can’t possibly outrun us.  Well, not if we bring our own engine power up to full.”

              Yanakov nodded, snarling.  “Do it.  No more screwing around; let’s get latched on and aboard.  This one is not getting away from us.”

              The pilot grinned over his shoulder to where the lieutenant was seated in the front of the troop compartment then looked back and increased the shuttle’s velocity.  It took an additional twenty minutes of the shuttle moving to get into range and the corvette
just
managing to evade.  Finally, in a fit of supreme irritation, the pilot jinked a turn at the last minute and both grapples launched, clanging on the metal of the small warship.

              “Got it!” he crowed in satisfaction.

              “Bring us in,” the lieutenant ordered, then turned to the troops.  “Thirty seconds!” he commed.  It wasn’t as visceral as a bellow across the battle field but it did allow for ease of communication.  He received rapid-fire response messages from the twenty soldiers aboard.  Everyone was ready.  Fighting aboard the cramped confines of a corvette, especially a damaged one would be interesting, but they were trained for this.  It wouldn’t be the first time any of them had done this before.  Up until Seylonique, the General’s troops had captured three vessels of that class from local space defense forces.

              “Sir, we’re showing a ship docking with us at airlock 4,” Shel cried, pointing at her display.

              Kreighton’s throat went completely dry and his heart dropped all the way down to his stomach.  His mind, filled with fear and confusion, was convinced that heard his heart plop in the pool of acid in his stomach.  Thankfully, his sense of responsibility overrode his fear and he spoke.

              “Alert status one!” he barked, slapping a control on his chair.  Cherry red lights began flashing and the general quarters alarm started screaming throughout the ship.  “All hands, prepare to repel boarders.  Arm yourselves.”  It was an order no one in the Seylonique Navy had ever uttered in the history of its existence. 

             
This is insane.  Where the hell was the pirate ship? 
Doing a quick double check, Kreighton looked over the sensor feed and confirmed it.  Aside from
Kingston
and the
Equinox
the only other vessels in the system were freighters, not counting the alien ship. 
The freighters, is that where the invaders came from? 
Then he shook his head. 
Investigate later
. 
If we don’t save this ship, it won’t matter where they originated.

              “Hail the
Equinox
.  You!” he demanded, looking first to the comms officer to a specialist at the auxiliary damage control station and stabbing a finger at him. 

              “Sir?” the young man, still a boy, really, squeaked.

              “Seal the bridge.  Do it now!” Robert snapped when the boy didn’t move.  The young man, eighteen years old and just weeks out of Basic training leapt out of his seat and was at the hatch and in two strides.  With a few keystrokes, the bridge door sealed, heavy bolts locking into place.

              “No response from the
Equinox
, Captain,” the comms specialist called, sounding worried.

              Robert bit his lips, thinking.  Then he turned to the sensors.  “Shel, you said that the anomalous signature was detected only once the
Equinox
was between us and the star, correct?”

              She nodded.  “Yes, sir.  That’s right.”

              “And it was moving straight at us once the destroyer was positioned nearby,” he continued, his voice serious.

              Shel turned back to her station as realization struck.  “They came from the destroyer,” she stated, double checking the sensor feeds and the captain’s hypothesis.  “Yes, sir.  The neutrino signature came at us on a vector straight from the destroyer.  Not around it, but right from it.”

              “Macklin to the bridge!” a frantic comm signal interrupted her report.

              Kreighton passed a control.  “Go ahead, Master-at-Arms.”

              “We’ve got over a dozen armed boarders in armored skinsuits that forced their way in from airlock 4!  Three crewmen down!”  The sounds of weapons fire could be heard over the comm channel.  “I need immediate backup!”

              “Help is coming, Chief,” Kreighton promised, though he wasn’t sure where that help was really going to come from or how his crew was going to fight off the heavily armed boarders.  Internal cameras confirmed the master-at-arms’ report: black clad figures with heavy assault weapons moving in from the airlock.  They were both broad and wiry, and very distinctly shaped.

              “Are those lupusan?” he asked, squinting.  Then he shook his head.  “See if you can shift people from the forward section to help out aft.”  Looking at the assault rifles and grenades the boarders carried, he knew the crew of the
Kingston
was in serious trouble. 
Kingston
had a small armory which included three gauss rifles (miniature rail guns capable of magnetically accelerating metal slugs with a high rate of fire, similar in performance to the assault rifles carried by the invaders), a dozen needler pistols, and ten stunner pistols.  His entire armed force was outclassed by sheer weight of enemy fire, not counting the stunners, which might not even affect the armored boarders.  The armory was more suited to customs, inspection and patrol work than standing off against a heavily armed foe.  But they had to try.

              “Helm, shift course, take us toward the hyper limit heading back home.  Don’t push the engine too hard, but get away from all the other ships.”

              “Aye, aye, sir,” the zheen pilot replied, slewing the corvette around setting a course and lumbering off for the hyper limit.  It would be days at this rate of speed and acceleration to get there, but soon the
Kingston
would be going fast enough that the freighters would not be able to catch them before she escaped over the hyper limit.  The problem was the
Equinox
.  The destroyer’s engines were powerful enough to easily overtake the corvette, especially since
Kingston’s
propulsion units were trashed.  If she indeed had been taken, there was nothing Kreighton could do.  He could try and evade, but it would be only a short matter of hours before the destroyer overtook the corvette and managed to capture her or simply blasted her to component atoms.  They’d have to make the necessary repairs and rebuilds to the hyperdrive once these boarders were dealt with, but the parts and supplies were already aboard.  It wasn’t a great plan, as far as plans went, but Robert was determined he wouldn’t be an officer who froze up.  Indecision in battle killed just as often, if not more, than rash decisions.  But better he do
something
than just sit back and let the end come.