The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (18 page)

She was
regretting her actions and now wanted nothing more than to have
brought the man back to Spirit for questioning. She looked to her
radar and saw Enrique and Chaz pulling up beneath the three of
them. “How you guys doing down there. Any further
damage?”

Silence.

“
Chaz? How we looking,” Enrique prompted.

“
Same. Minor structural damage. Shielding is still at sixty
percent,” Chaz replied.

“
You okay, man?” Enrique’s voice came after a
pause.

“
Yeah,” Chaz answered. “Just need to make sure we’re good for
the rest of the patrol.”

Estelle
noted that the man sounded somewhat distracted. She began to
ponder.

“
What now, Estelle?” Dodds asked after a moment.

“
We… er… transfer a report of our
findings and the battle back to Spirit Orbital,” she said, watching
as what remained of the Dart continued to tumble, short and explode
ahead of her. “Chaz, Enrique, could you… please send them a
detailed report of your damage so that… they… er… so they can
be prepared to handle it effectively upon our return. Kelly, ensure
you have a record of the fighters you took down; just their USIDs
will do. After we
’
re done… we’ll continue with the
patrol. We still have a while before quitting time.”

Estelle
turned to one of the TAFs, the pilot watching her closely. She saw
them turn back to the front and then heard a private channel
open.

“
Are you okay?” It was Dodds.

“
I
’
m fine, Dodds.”

“
Really?”

“
Yes. Please set yourself back on the
patrol route. I
’
ll join you in a moment, I just need to make a note of
something,” Estelle said before cutting off the link. She watched
as Dodds pulled away from her, Kelly following after him, before
placing her comms on mute and putting on her over her chest. She
could feel her heart thumping hard. The words of the man were still
running around in her head.

“
Calm down, Estelle. Calm down,” she said
to herself, exhaling a deep breath. “He only did it to freak you
out and you took the bait. You didn’t have to bail out and
you
’
ve had
worse than that before. Calm down. Finish the patrol, get home,
have some food, a drink and a good rest.”

It was
the first real combat she had experienced in months, but it somehow
felt a lot more real than usual. She closed her eyes and counted
slowly to ten, distancing herself from the event.

“
Everyone ready?” she asked once she believed she had given
them adequate time to send their reports. The others reported that
they were and Estelle led them back along the patrol
route.

VIII

—
The Cardinal and The Thief —

N
ot long after returning to their
designated route, the
White Knights
received new orders: they were requested to
assist
CSN Cardinal
, a mobile research facility vessel, which had been attacked
and boarded by a raiding party. As the
Knights
arrived within the vicinity
of the
Cardinal
they found it drifting, damaged, and apparently
powerless.

“
Have you ever seen that ship before?”
Estelle asked of her team. There was a resounding answer of “no”
from all as they approached. Large quantities of debris drifted
around the area, some of which appeared to belong to
the
Cardinal
, the rest no doubt the remains of whomever had attacked her.
From the looks of things the
Cardinal
had been equipped with some
offensive weaponry and had made a conservative effort to defend
itself.

“
I
’
m unable to establish a comms link
with
Cardinal
,”
Chaz reported. “Failure on all standard protocols.”

“
I
’
m going to head in and give the
ship a quick sweep,” Dodds said.

“
Dodds, wait,” Estelle said, as she saw him begin to pull away
from the rest of the group. “Our orders are to secure the area and
wait for backup to arrive.” Though there did not appear to be any
other craft in the area, Estelle ordered the others to hold their
current position and keep a watchful eye on their
radars.

Sometime later two Confederation search and rescue vessels
arrived; they only recognised one: the
Merekat
.

“
Area is secured,” Estelle informed the
captain of the
Merekat
as the search and rescue vessel approached
the
Cardinal
and
pulled up alongside it. The
other vessel held back, waiting to serve any support
requests.

“
Affirmative, de Winter,
we
’
re
going to send over a landing party. Please continue to monitor the
area,” the captain of the
Merekat
said as his ship closed on the
Cardinal
and deployed a
boarding tube.

“
Think anyone is alive in there?” Dodds asked of his
wingmates.

“
From the looks of things
they
’
re
all dead,” Kelly said. “We probably got here a little too
late.”

“
At least they put up a decent fight,” Dodds
commented.

“
Not good enough though,” Estelle answered,
raising her eyes up from her radar and looking at the lifeless ship
they had been requested to assist. She watched as another piece of
wreckage drifted toward her TAF before bouncing harmlessly off the
shielding. She could see somewhere further off what appeared to be
the remains of a small vessel, perhaps a one-man fighter craft of
some sort. She assumed the
Cardinal
must have been attacked by
a small group of raiders, each in their own individual craft. She
dropped her eyes back down to her radar and wondered what might be
going on inside.

* * *

“
What are you doing?” Enrique asked Chaz.
The big man was fiddling with the Ray
’
s on-board computer, his fingers
tapping away at the small keyboard underneath one of the
screens.

“
Finding out what
’
s going on,” he said. He continued
pressing buttons and tapping at the screen, the computer issuing an
occasional bleep in response. Enrique didn’t recognise anything
that was being displayed on the screen Chaz was accessing. The
general lack of finesse in the layouts and aesthetics of the data
representation suggested that the man had accessed something that
was only to be used by maintenance and systems workers, and was not
supposed to be readily available to the pilots.

A moment
later voices filled the cockpit and Enrique gave a
start.

“
This is Williams. Docking tube fixed and stable. Moving
towards airlock,” a voice came.

“
Copy that, Williams. Scans indicate some
internal damage to the
Cardinal
. Proceed with caution,”
another voice answered.

“
Will do, Captain. We will maintain an open channel,” Williams
said.

“
What
’
s that?” Enrique said as he
listened to the chatter.

“
It
’
s the communications link being
used between the boarding party and
Merekat
,” Chaz said.

Enrique took a moment to understand.
“Wait, hold on. Did you just hack…” he began, stunned by
what the man had just done.

“
Shhh! Listen.”

Enrique fell silent and the two men listened in to the
conversation between the boarding party and the
Merekat
’
s
captain.

* * *

The party leader, Williams, stood by the
Cardinal
‘s
airlock door turned to a member of his team. “Kate, would you
do the honours?”

Kate
produced a small portable device and connected it via a number of
cables to the exterior airlock control panel. The door lock gave a
short buzz, a little red light on the control panel changing to
green.

“
Open, sir,” she said, stepping to one side.

“
Excellent. Right, remember everyone: no energy weapons,”
Williams told his team. “We want to minimise damage to the interior
if we encounter any hostilities.”

His team
was made up of seven, clad in dark blue, lightly armoured suits and
wearing protective helmets. On their feet they wore magnetic boots
that could be activated in low and zero gravity situations. Most of
their larger weapons were also equipped with a torch, for
circumstances where they might have to work in the dark. Aside from
the weapons, the team also carried maintenance gear, and medical
supplies.

The
seven men and women stood to either side of the airlock, so as not
to expose themselves to anyone who might be waiting on the other
side. Williams gave Kate the signal to opened the airlock, and as
the door slid open they were met by nothing except for an empty
corridor, pitch black save for where the falloff lighting from the
boarding tube illuminated the entrance.

“
Archer, Fisher,” Williams indicated to the two men closest
the entrance to enter first. One after the other they ran in,
shining their torches around the immediate area. They determined
that the corridor was empty, but even so they stalked forward
cautiously, still met by neither opposition nor crew
members.

“
Clear,” Fisher declared. The rest of the team entered the
thin corridor. Another member removed a device from his belt and
scanned the area.

“
Minimal power on this deck; gravity and life support are
functioning as usual. There does appear to be more power in the
direction of the upper decks, though,” he reported.

Williams
nodded. “Pair up and spread out. Get in touch as soon you encounter
survivors or hostile forces.”

The
group paired off as ordered and proceeded to explore the darkened
lower deck of the ship, carefully checking possible hiding places
in various rooms and ensuring they illuminated all unreachable
areas well. With the exception of a hacked airlock door - which
they assumed the invaders must have used to get inside - they once
again came up empty handed. The team soon regrouped by the lift to
the upper deck and found the doors burnt and pock-marked by
multiple weapon blasts.

“
Lift is operational, sir,” reported Kate and, at the request
of Williams, pressed the call button. The lift arrived and the
doors parted, greeting the team with the slumped body of a dead
man. Blood was splattered over his clothes and interior of the
lift. The multiple lights of the investigators fell upon a shotgun
the man still grasped.

“
This is Williams: we’ve found a body.
Judging by the way this guy is dressed, it isn’t one of the crew,”
Williams reported to the
Merekat
. “If the state of the lift
is anything to go by, there has been one hell of a firefight in
here.”

“
What’re we looking at?” the captain asked.

“
Definitely a raiding party,” Williams said, edging forward
and examining the dead man’s body. He pushed aside the beaded
dreadlocks that covered part of the raider’s face, revealing a
tattoo of a spider’s web on his left cheek. “Cheap body armour.
Didn’t do him any good,” Williams muttered, then, “We’re proceeding
to the upper deck.”

The
upper deck of the ship told a different story to the lower. Bodies,
trails of blood and other clear signs of battle were in evidence
throughout. Shorting electronics lit the dark corridors with bright
bursts of spark light.

“
Be careful of those,” Williams pointed out some wires that
hung inconspicuously from the ceiling.

Williams
divided the team, instructing one half to accompany him towards the
bridge, and the other to spread out along the upper deck and
continue to search for any survivors. They moved with care,
ensuring they ducked under the loose wires. The team encountered
yet more bodies as they went, none of whom displayed any signs of
life. A scattering of clothing styles suggested that the crew and
their attackers had taken an equal number of casualties.

The team discovered most of the bodies on the bridge, some
appearing to have died as a result of close quarters combat; the
unfortunate crew of the
Cardinal
marred by stab wounds all over their bodies, some
having had their throats cut. It was a horrific scene.

“
Looks like the crew tried to barricade
themselves inside the bridge,” Williams reported once more
to
Merekat
.