Insurrection (Athena Lee Chronicles Book 5) (11 page)

Damn that man! He is another one that intelligence needs to take a hard look at. Too many officers in the navy these days act like orders given are only a suggestion. Maybe a few executions are in order. Oh well I can only dream.

___

Commodore Vakulinchuk was the commander of Task Force 25. This group of ships was his baby. He had conceived of a anti-piracy fleet that would jump into a system wipe out the pirate ‘nests’ and then jump out. The local forces would take care of clean up. His goal was to take the fight to the pirates, not the other way around. He had a personal grudge to settle, pirates had killed or enslaved his whole family on Tendra 2 in the Rus system. Unfortunately, in his rush to put the fleet together and find targets, he made a few political enemies. Because of that, his recent assignments for the fleet had been very quiet systems, not a pirate in sight.

His new orders took him completely by surprise. He carefully read his new orders noting the fine print about contacting higher authority. He had heard rumors about corruption charges and other crimes surrounding some members of the government. He was from Rus, that sort of thing was not that unusual there. He alerted his aides to sound a recall of all crew members from liberty. He should be able to get there in a week or so.

Chapter 8

I held my briefing during the shuttle ride out to the destroyer. I looked at Sergeant Yannos and his two squads. The ten of us were about to enter the unknown. Should be fun!

“OK boys and girls here is what I know about the EOM Paney.” I typed a quick message to Wilson on my tablet and a holographic representation was beamed out of it.

“It is a pre-war Fubuki class destroyer. It was originally configured as a pirate fighting ship. Things you might need to know. It is bigger than most destroyers by about 30%. Most of that is in length and girth. It has more armor too. According to the fleet records that I was able to access, it has double the armor and more compartments than newer vessels. This is one tough ship. From talking to the fighter squadron shadowing it, I learned that the ‘pirates’ left the hangar bay open. We should be able to get in from there. If not we could use the fusion vent tubes, again.” I heard audible groans after I said that. “So hangar bay it is. The special code that I gave Yannos should work on most doors. If I can get to the computer system and access it, I have a few other tricks I can use.”

I looked at the time counter. “We have just under four hours before this ship makes contact with the moon and is destroyed. Don’t get bogged down. Any questions?”

Corporal Anton raised his hand. “Yes, corporal. Do you have a question?”

“Yes, Ma’am. This feature here,” he pointed to the hologram. “Does that tunnel go the length of the ship?”

“It does. It is similar to our engineering tubes back on the station. When this ship was built, shipboard engineers did most of the repairs, not shipyards.”

“My question is, can we use it to access the ship?”

“Of course you can, I thought I said that. If you do, be very careful. Most of the ship’s electrical conduits run through there as well as the navigation and communication lines.” I left the hologram up, so they could map out routes and look at the ship.

“One more thing. I got this information from fleet engineering records. Not every ship’s engineer reports every modification that they do. There may be differences when we get inside the ship. Be very aware of that.”

“Excellent briefing Lieutenant Lee. More information that we were expecting. Where did you get so much of that information?

“Sergeant, it is in most Empire databases. I am not a computer expert. You would need to ask one of the station techs, try either DI or DJ. But, why I know is because every network on the major ships and stations are linked. When they update everyone gets the same information. You do need special access keys to see some of it, but the information is there.”

“That surprises me, because any time that we had asked for information about a target we were always told that it was unavailable or hard to obtain.”

“I’m sorry Yannos. Most likely your briefer was unaware of the system or just too lazy to go and look it up.”

“Attention back there we are five minutes out, five minutes people!”

In a loud voice Yannos got his group’s attention. “OK everyone. Suit up! Let’s get ready.”

___

Lieutenant Mutai had a new hope about his predicament. He and his squad of Marines, were still trapped on the bridge. None of the controls were functional except for life support and they did not dare tamper with that! Private Ascot had seen movement outside the ship. Kinno had ordered the men to scrape off some of the smoke and fire residue that coated the bridge windows. A squadron of Fuglies and one strangely, evil looking ship was now escorting the destroyer. Unable to see very clearly, the Marines concluded that they must be a pirate group come to finish them off.

If there were more pirates his men would fight them to their last breaths. Better to go down fighting than work yourself to death in the radiation mines.

___

Seth and the five idiot cowboys were still alive. When the fire alert had started the tube they were in lit up like a casino sign. Bright, flashing lights everywhere. Recognizing them Seth forced the first hatch they came to open and pulled the cowboys in after him.

“Seal that hatch you flaming idiot. This is not the time to go lallygagging around getting your breeches all knotted up, shit fire.” Seth stopped talking and covered his mouth with his hands. What is association with these hicks doing to him?

Looking around he realized that they were in one of the quartermaster storerooms. Prying open a crate he hoped that maybe they stored alcohol here and he could get rip-roaring drunk. Fate is cruel. Paper products and and cleaning supplies. Seth checked the air tight door to the corridor. It was warm to the touch and sealed up tighter than a minister’s daughter on Sunday.

He had to get away from these five cowboys. He just had to.

Turning around he saw that they had placed boxes in a circle and were telling stories to each other. They were passing around a bag of chewing tobacco. Sighing, Seth sat down next to Flint as he told his story. When the bag came around he just stared at it for a while. Finally he took a chunk and started chewing.

___

Surprisingly, no one contested our landing inside the hangar bay of the Paney. We knew that it was not a dead ship because Commander Conrad swore, that someone was on the bridge. We parked our assault shuttle for best possible exit with the bow facing outward. Depending on what we found inside, we might have to leave in a hurry. The two shuttle pilots were not part of out group and stayed behind. They had been assigned personal weapons and space suits, but we told them to stay safe inside their ships. If we did not return within one hour from the destroyer’s impact on the moon. They were not to come look for us. They had orders to save the ships and their lives first.

We decided to leave the hangar bay doors open. They were shuttles not tanks. If we had to leave in a hurry, we might not have time to open the doors. Crashing through the doors would destroy the shuttles and us.

The airlock controls were covered in what looked like dried blood. There was a story here. I said a prayer to Jenny and punched in the override numbers. The airlock door hissed open. Sergeant Yannos and his team entered first with me last. I punched in numbers again and the door closed. There was a hissing and blowing noise as the air inside the airlock equalized. I was about to open the door when Yannos grabbed my hand.

“Hold on Lieutenant. Let me check the door first. The interrogations that intelligence did said something about white smoke or gas killing some of the pirates.” He pulled out a sensor package of some kind and affixed it to the door. Lights began to blink rapidly then settled into a pulsing pattern.

My hands started to itch. I really wanted to examine that little thing. I subvocalized to Wilson. “If you get a chance, scan that thing and get the spec’s on it. I want to build one of those!”

“Did you say something Lieutenant Lee?” Sergeant Yannos was looking in my direction.

“Sorry sergeant. I was mumbling to myself I do that sometimes.” Quickly, I changed the subject. “What does your little ‘toy’ say about the door?”

“This?” He held the gizmo up, then quickly put it away. “ That is something that was made for special forces, it isn’t that important. The door is fine. Oxygen levels on the other side are a little low and there are large amounts of phosphorus pentoxide in the air. I would suggest we keep our space suits on just in case.

“Phosphorus pentoxide,” I thought for a moment. “You only get high concentrations of that when you use phosphorus munitions like smoke grenades. Who would use something like that on a spaceship? The effects would be horrific.”

The whole team was looking at me with surprise visible on their faces. “Oh, very good Lieutenant. I didn’t know that you knew combat engineering, too.”

I laughed at the special operations team. “You look at me and all you see is a short, but cute, blond playing dress up. Don’t you? You forget that I had 15 years to do lots of reading and studying on a variety of topics out in my little ‘retreat’ in Diablo sector. I am smarter than you think I am Mr. Yannos.” I had moved close to him and was poking him in the chest to make my point crystal clear. “Any more comments any of you would like to make?” I looked around the room at the others. “Good. Let’s go find some people shall we?” Reaching over I pressed the open button.

The airtight door opened with a whoosh. Lying on the deck, directly in front of the door, were the remains of five or six pirates. From the amount of dried blood and gore it appeared that several had been shot, the rest cut into pieces during some sort of fight. There was a blood trail leading off to starboard. Someone had crawled away from this.

Yannos motioned to two of his squad to go check it out. We didn’t touch the bodies, except to move them out of the way of the door. The two men returned, they found one dead pirate about twenty feet away in a pool of blood. Staying together, we headed toward the bow of the ship. We knew that someone was alive on the bridge. Ahead of us was another airtight door, this led to the main corridor running the length of the ship. Once again Yannos used his scanning device to check for danger.

In my head I heard Wilson. “Athena that little thing he has is pretty cool. It has more computing power than three of your engineering tablets. I got a good scan off of it. I think I can tweak the system a little and build you a better one if you like.” I nodded my head, you bet I wanted one of those things.

Yannos motioned me over to him. “Lieutenant the main corridor is highly contaminated with phosphorus pentoxide. Can we go around?”

I pulled out my tablet and brought up the schematics for the ship. If my map was correct, the only way to get to the bridge was through the main corridor There were a few air ducts that might work but we would not fit inside in the spacesuits we had on. I explained all of this to Yannos to get his opinion.

Carefully, I opened the door to the main corridor. Using an override code I slowed the door. Wisps of white smoke and flakes of ash rolled through the doorway. The fire had gone out with the lack of oxygen to fuel it. Battle damage was evident in both directions. Since we knew for a fact that people were alive on the bridge, we went there first. As we approached the bow we found more dead pirates. The effect of the phosphorus pentoxide at full concentration in a sealed corridor, caused many of these people to choke and die on their own vomit, the bodies were surrounded by dried pools of it on the deck.

We skirted past the dead, trying not to look too closely. The battle damage to the walls was worse here. This is what had killed the pirates. My skilled eyes could trace where the explosion occurred. From my reading, I knew what a grenade blast in an armored corridor was supposed to look like. Only a fool would use a grenade on a ship! Especially a phosphorous one. The remains here were only the charred outlines of people. Their bodies incinerated completely, something that you would find in an ancient city. Not a spaceship in the modern age. Hot burning metal had struck containers of ammunition causing secondary explosions that had scarred the corridor in both directions. Only the absence of oxygen had stopped this disaster from getting much worse.

The doors to the bridge were closed and locked. The flashing lights above the door proclaimed it to be combat sealed. Impenetrable to most attack weapons. It could only be opened from the inside.

Staring at the door I had an idea. “Wilson, is it possible to hack the door using that gizmo of Yannos’? Tell me if I get it wrong. That tool he has can scan through a solid object and detect minute traces of whatever is on the other side. Plus, I bet it can scan for signal waves and other forms of communication. If it can scan, it should be able to sent too. Do I have the tools and equipment on me to change it from a receiver to a controller?”