A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4 (11 page)

              The tactical team activated the point defense clusters and they opened up, filling space with a storm of coherent energy.  Energy bolts blasted out in waves and as the missiles drew closer they started to fall.  Shots struck the incoming ordnance, vaporizing some in puffs of shrapnel, others triggered the various warheads making blossoms of nuclear fire.  But more kept coming.

              “Twenty-two down.  Twenty-six,” one of the zheen tactical operators called out.  “Thirty-two.”

              “Come on,” Tyler said, tapping a fist on the back of the tactical officer’s chair.

              More energy blasts fired from the point defense clusters and more missiles fell.  Space approaching the heavy cruiser was lit up with nuclear fireballs, each one a little closer than the last.

              “Thirty-five.  Thirty-seven!”

              The point defense lasers were swinging almost wildly, the ship’s gunners trying desperately to take down the incoming weapons.  They were spraying the area with energy blasts and a moment later the heavy lasers and turbolaser batteries opened up, but it didn’t help.

              “Forty-one!” the tactical officer shouted, breaking into a sweat.

              “Come on!” Tyler cried, his face twisted with anticipation.  He stepped away from the console, running his hands through his hair.  It seemed that he was getting more silver in his hair with every passing day.  And having a blizzard of warheads bearing down on him wasn’t helping.

              “Incoming transmission, my Lord, in the clear,” the comms officer cried, turning to face the pirate lord.

              “What?  Put it through.”  Verrikoth clacked his mandibles in irritation.  This was not the time for General Typhon to be issuing decrees from the other side of the planet, or crowing about how he’d managed to destroy those irritating corvettes.  He
had
gotten one, without the wolf’s help.  The zheen pirate hissed in satisfaction.  And this battle wasn’t over.

              “One vision!” came the call over the speakers.  The voice was zheen, Verrikoth could easily tell that, but he didn’t recognize the voice.  Or the significance of the words. 

              “Forty-six!”

              And then it was too late.  Sixteen missiles made it past the last of the point defense, the energy weapons and the railguns and slammed into
Nemesis
’s shields.  All of the FP fighter pilots had targeted on the same point, which was just below the center line of the starboard side of the heavy cruiser.  Explosions rocked the ship as missiles impacted at different times, but all within seconds of one another.  A few were prematurely detonated by the fireballs of the ones to hit sooner, but the energy and the radiation from the warheads still washed outward onto first the shields and then the hull of the ship.  Two missiles actually shot through a hole in the shields and detonated straight onto the hull directly.  A great hole was torn into the side of the ship, hull metal boiling and tearing off, energy flooding into the interior of the ship, causing secondary explosions.  Atmosphere ignited, crewmen burned and then were swept out into the void as what little atmo was left rushed out.  Emergency bulkheads slammed down, sealing off the damaged sections.

              “Damn them!” Verrikoth raged, his mouthparts writhing in fury after the ship stopped shaking.  “Damage report!”

              “Massive shield damage on the starboard shields, my Lord,” the damage control operator started to say, but Verrikoth interrupted.

              “Yess, obvioussly,” he said dryly.

              “Yes, my Lord.  Hull breach on decks five through seven, emergency bulkheads are in place and holding.  Two shield nodes are destroyed and four plasma conduits are breached.  We’re attempting to reroute.”

              “
Sketzk, sketzk, sketzk
!” Verrikoth swore, hammering the arm of his command seat.  He turned to Tyler.  “Fight your ship, Commander.”

              “Yes, my Lord.  Roll the ship,” the man ordered the helmsman.  Both of the commanders checked their displays and were surprised by how minimal the damage from that salvo was.  Yes, with the plasma conduit damage, their combat performance was diminished, but the ship’s heavy armor had held, better than Verrikoth had expected.  This ship was certainly slower than his last flagship, but it was far tougher.

              Verrikoth activated his display, checking the sensor feeds.  “Ssensorz, where are the cargo sshipss?”

              “They are approaching the tank farm, my lord,” the zheen replied.  He pressed a few commands.  “
Fletcher’s Dolly
is moving in, and it should be there in less than thirty minutes.  The rest are lagging slightly, but no more than five minutes behind.”

              The pirate lord hissed, waggling his antennae.  “Keep in contact with them.  Once the sshipss are loaded, we are leaving.”

              Tyler turned to face him.  “Leaving, my Lord?”

              He nodded.  “Yess, Commander, leaving.  We came here to fill the cofferz, not to wasste sshipss and perssonnel.  I have losst enough today already.”  He buzzed out a hiss.  “No, once they are filled with the fuel, we are going.”

              The human commander stood and stared at the pirate lord for a long second and then nodded.  “Of course, my Lord.  I heartily agree.  As you say, we’ve lost enough already.”

              “Make ssure that damage control teamz are getting thoze plazma conduitss patched,” the pirate lord ordered.

              Tyler nodded.  “Yes, my Lord.  I’ve got teams moving now.”

              “Good.  Tell them to move quickly.  And tactical,” Verrikoth said, leaning forward in his seat.

              The man turned to face the pirate lord.  “Yes, Lord?”

              “The next time those fighterz launch a sstrike like that againsst uss again,” he said, his voice so menacing that the temperature on the bridge plummeted and the bridge crew immediately went silent, “and if thoze missilez get through our defensez again, if we ssurvive that hit, I will perssonally have your kneecapss sshot out and have you thrown sscreaming out of an airlock.  Am I clear, tactical officer?”

              The man visibly gulped.  “Yes, Lord, you are perfectly clear.”  Verrikoth turned his head, presumably looking back at the displays, but with his compound eyes, he could still see the man seated at the tactical station.  He meekly turned back to the controls, trying to keep his back ramrod straight and immediately began reprioritizing his remaining weapons.

              “Open a channel to
Ganges
,” Verrikoth ordered.  “Inform Commander Hesstian that he iz to cover the cargo sshipss while they procure the helium 3 fuel for me.  And unless they fire on him, Hessitan iz
not
to fire on or desstroy their gass mining sstation in the atmossphere.”

              “Pardon, Lord,” Tyler replied.  “But he isn’t to fire on them?”

              “No,” the zheen pirate lord answered, steepling his fingers.  “I do not want to damage their production of fuel.  I want to be able to return here in a few monthss, a year, and be able to get our holdz filled up with fuel again.”

              Commander Tyler nodded, giving a smirk.  “Understood.”  He turned and nodded to the comms officer, who began sending the pirate lord’s orders.  “Hestian might not be too happy with those orders, Lord.”

              Verrikoth gave a low growl.  “Hesstian will do az he iz told.”

              Tyler nodded again.  “Yes, Lord.”

              “And contact Commander Ssokann.  Hiz fighterz are to continue to harasss the local sstarfighterz and keep them off us and the tranzportss.  I do
not
want them to line up another ssalvo like that lasst one again.”

              “Would you look at that!” Hama exclaimed, looking at the sensor display of the assault transport.  “The fighters really tore a hole in her.”

              “Good,” Marat replied.  “Make our job easier.”

              Ekaterina nodded.  “Marat’s right.  We don’t need to worry about damaging her, but we do need to get aboard.”

              “Trash the shuttles,” the male bodyguard said.

              “Too right.  We’re ready to jump over in less than thirty seconds,” she said, getting to her feet and checking her gear, one last time. 

              “Right up to the hole in the hull?” Hama demanded.  “What about the ship’s defensive weaponry?  We’ll be shot out of the sky!”

              “None of the weapons are tracking our shuttle’s movements,” Ekaterina told him.  “And the fighters that blasted the hole in the ship for us are hanging back, ready to make a strafing run on the transport to blast their weapons if I call them.”

              “Then call them!” the wolf told her, clearly nervous.  “I can’t just sit here and wait to get blasted apart.”

              Ekaterina clapped him on his shoulder.  “That’s the beauty part, Hama.  You
won’t
be sitting around waiting to get shot.  You’re going to be jumping with the rest of us through that hole and into the ship.  We’ve got some shuttles to slag!”

              “Now wait just a minute!”

              Ekaterina turned her face to the whole group.  “All right, ten seconds.  Make sure your helmets are secured and your air turned on.  Once that’s done, we’re popping the hatch and we’re jumping.”

              The four deputies all looked nervous, displaying various tics and ear flicks marking that nervousness.  They all secured their helmets and slung their weapons. 

              “Radio check.”  The others all acknowledged; Marat clicked his comms.  “All right.  I’m depressurizing.”  Ekaterina pressed the control that vented the atmo from the aft section of the ship.  Once the ship was in vacuum, then she pressed the other control that popped the aft cargo hatch.  Shoving hard with both hands, the door swung down.

              “Ready to roll!” the female wolf said in to the comms.  “Remember, we’re there to damage the shuttles.  Plant the charges and get out.”  And with that, she pushed off and floated over to the hull of the transport.  Gun slung over her shoulder, she reached out with both hands and grabbed a piece of metal, miraculously avoiding slicing open her gloves on the ragged piece of hull.  Using her momentum, she swung around and into the hole.  Once inside the ship’s gravity field she landed lightly, feet first on the deck plating.  Not that it mattered, her landing with any sort of stealth; the vacuum in the bay meant that there was no sound to be heard.  A moment later, the others joined her and then they were moving.

              Marat moved like a fish through water, as though he’d been working in microgravity his whole life.  He and his team, which were far clunkier in their suits than he was, set the charges on the first blocky shuttle in the row.  Its forward end was battered in from the explosion, but Marat was taking no chances, he planted some explosives on the port engine nacelle.

              Ekaterina wasn’t quite as smooth as Marat, but it didn’t stop or slow her down.  Marat went to the right; she and her team went to the left.  Coming to the first shuttle in the row, she slipped under the armorglass port and attached the round explosive charge to the underside of the engine nacelle and then signaled to the rest of her team.  They had agreed, no comms while this was on, not wanting to give away their positions or alert the enemy that they were aboard.  She waved her hand to the others in her team, indicating that they should spread out, each take a shuttle.  Looking around, she saw that there were twelve assault shuttles in this bay, presumably there were an equal number in the opposite bay, and with eight more in each of the smaller aft bays.  There was a lot of work to do.

              It was the work of two more minutes to plant the charges on these shuttles and they were ready to move on to the other bays.  This, however, presented a problem.  The bay was decompressed and there was no way to open the main doors into the ship since there was no airlock.  Even with Samair’s electronic key, they couldn’t get the door open.  And if they blasted the door open, any thought to surprise would be gone, as an explosion would alert the whole ship.

              About to give in to despair, Hama pointed to the far end of the bay.  There was a control station up near the top of the bay, with a set of stairs leading up to it.  As a group, they headed out that way.  More than once, they had to stop to duck behind one of the shuttles as a skin suited lupusan trotted by.  Luckily, the FP skinsuits were dark blue, with the galactic spiral in white on the left breast, but that was covered by their armored vests.  The pirates, at least the few running around in the bay, had a motley assortment of suits, but all of them were patched and had splashes of color, possibly to make them look more menacing.  The blue skinsuits didn’t exactly blend in, but it was a better color than the light gray ones that the personnel on the orbital used. 

              Twice, Ekaterina needed to bluff through pirates using hand gestures because her strike teams didn’t have the proper channels for their communicators.  Luckily, there was enough confusion with the missile strike and the damage to the bay that none of the crew in the hangar paid much attention to a small group of well-armed lupusan.  Both of those times, the two bodyguards needed to make gestures to the deputies to avoid an overreaction and an incident.  The last time was very close; Huw was very jumpy and nearly raised his weapon but luckily everyone here in the bay was amped up at the thought of the pending shuttle drop.  In moments, the group had made it to the control station, which at a gesture from Marat, the technician inside nodded and opened the door for them.  Once inside, the technician waited until they were all inside before sealing up the room.  Thirty-five seconds later, the room was aired up again and the tech was looking to them.