Galactic Freighter: Scourge of the Deep Space Pirates (Contact) (5 page)

"Unknown ships stand down—we're coming aboard," Buck said. He doubted that the trailing ship was capable of continuing the fight and directed his attention to the lead vessel.

"She's turning," comm said in a voice that sounded hopeful he added, "Looks like she'll make a run for it."

Now less than two thousand meters away, Buck ordered Tommy to fire but to avoid the engines. "If she runs, target the bridge. Just enough to let them know what could happen."

As expected, the ship tried to disengage and head for friendlier space. As Danko maneuvered Phoenix away from the pirate's engine exhaust, Tommy targeted one cannon on the ship's forward section.

It was enough to convince them. Buck ordered crews to board both ships.

***

A T-week out from Grisham, Phoenix towed the captured prizes to their destination. It didn't take long to sell the ships ‘as is’ and the captured crews became wards of the local authorities.

Buck's reputation preceded him and that meant questions. He managed to avoid the newsies, much preferring a low profile and not wanting to make Phoenix's armament general knowledge although once the reports became public secrecy would be limited.

In his cabin, he hit the button as it buzzed and the hatch opened. "Come in Molly."

Dressed in coveralls, she looked trim, her brown hair well coiffed. He guessed that she'd taken off at least ten kilograms since coming aboard. He admired how she comported herself. Instead of distracting the men as he had feared, they brought problems to her. He suspected that to many she was a mother figure. So be it.

"Two more down," she said, her manner approving. "Thought you'd want to listen to this." She handed him a data chip.

He inserted it into the computer's display slot.

"Damn. I knew it. Sent our coordinates, course, speed, time, manifest, everything," he said now standing fists jammed against his hips satisfied the earlier attempts to jump Phoenix wasn't coincidence.

"Who it is?" An ominous tone laced his words.

"Finsterman."

Buck nodded. "Just knowing gives us the edge." Finsterman’s assignment to maintenance gave him access to the ship at all hours and he was part of the original Phoenix crew. "If he suspects that we're onto him, he can sabotage almost any piece of equipment and we'd never know until it was too late.

"That's how the pirates knew with precision where we were and when we'd be there. That includes the ship we took after leaving Broken Rock. Since you've no bullet holes in you, whoever's doing this doesn't know," he said jokingly.

"Nope, it's a copy. If you're wondering, I got it before it was transmitted," Molly said putting the emphasis on the last word making it sound like a coup d'état and inevitable. She didn't try to hide her elation.

"Molly, excellent work. Keep it quiet and let the man continue his dirty work. Maybe we can get us another pirate." He thanked her, she stepped through the hatch into the passageway, and Buck breathed a gigantic sigh. For whom did Finsterman work? Jarred Mahoney?

Both crews transferred the load dirtside and Buck declared a few days of liberty. He knew most of the sailors would come back drunk.

Lording it over the crew as housemother, Molly had laid down the law. Any man who got sick had to clean his own mess. Those too far gone to follow her rules, she assigned to deck cleaning and scullery work in the mess hall.

There was the expected grumbling but no one said a word to her.

Buck thought back to their first run when he’d almost put her off the ship and was glad it worked out as it had.

Tommy tinkered with the engines as the yard dogs repaired the damage to the hanger door and rear hull. When the captain went dirtside, it gave the engineer time to finish the repairs without having to ask for a delayed departure.

Once on the planet, Buck called on Grisham's Governor. Entering the grand looking building, he thought it the latest in futuristic architecture with sweeping curves and arches that seemed to reach to infinity. A good sized man, the governor sported an ancient style Van Dyke goatee on a face that looked cherubic.
Quite a contrast
, thought Buck.

The governor seemed pleased with his arrival. Learning there were thirty Marines that needed transport to their base on Borcom, almost a parsec distant, Buck understood the enthusiasm. He had already planned on an en route liberty stop at the planet Marmon, convincing the governor that his was a good decision.

The pay for this service, while not all that good, was adequate, and a favor done for the Marines was always a good idea.

With Molly overseeing the effort, it still took the better part of two days to get the Marines aboard and situated. That done and Tommy's engines ready, the hole fixed in the hanger bay, Phoenix spaced for Borcom, better known to the Marines as
Boredom
.

***

Two days out, the comm operator keyed Buck. "Captain, an incoming from Grisham," and transferred the message to Buck's cabin.

"Phoenix, we received a message a few minutes ago from the tour ship Delightful Voyage. Slavers, the Greystone, boarded them and took over one hundred women captive. Seventy passengers and crewmembers along with the ship's captain died trying to stop them. There is no Ionian naval vessel in the area. By my order, in the Emperor's name, you are to pursue and rescue these people and deal with the criminals as the situation requires. The slaver's
coordinates, speed, and vector are included at the end of this message."

The nature of the order and coming from the Governor-General, it carried almost the same weight as if issued by the Emperor. Buck told the comm operator to acknowledge receipt and for astrogation to lay in an intercept course best speed.

"Lieutenant Garibaldi, please come to my cabin," Buck said and released the comm switch. He'd seen women taken by slavers and shuddered at the thought.

Minutes later, the Marine, dressed in field khaki's entered. Having received a similar comm, he had his detachment preparing for a fight.

Buck commed Danko Ravits and asked him to come to his cabin.

Danko entered and the captain brought him up to speed on the slaver.

"Lieutenant Garibaldi, I want you to lead," Buck said. "Have you ever been through a hot boarding."

Garibaldi related his experience. He had extensive training in boarding's but had never been on a live hot one.

"You have trained fighters and Danko has boarded a number of ships. You two work out how you're going to pull this off. Once you have control, Danko will be responsible."

"Lieutenant, I'm not enthusiastic with the prospects," Danko said not wasting time pondered what they would face. "Slavers are the dirtiest of bastards. They won't hesitate to put the women out an air lock to cover their tracks. No matter how this goes down it won't be pretty. We need to school your people."

Based on the information Grisham provided, the astrogator estimated they would overtake the ship in about twenty T-hours.

Danko and Garibaldi made the best use of what time they had. Assembled in the cargo bay, the two drilled the Marines relentlessly, and reminded them of the horrors they would face. As the time drew near, they donned their spacesuits, full armor, grav-boots, blasters, and lasers. No flechettes.

Buck watched from the back of the hanger deck as Danko put the wraps on the preparations and then returned to his cabin and pushed an icon on his desk. "Danko, you, and the Lieutenant come to my quarters." He wanted a few minutes with them before taking the slaver.

The two men cleared the hatch, accepted the offered coffee, and took chairs facing the captain.

"How do you want to handle it," Buck asked over a sip of his brew. His manner seemed casual: it was anything but.

"Well Sir, I think we would minimize the number of women spaced if we went in hot, Danko said "I've researched that ship. Has a crew of eleven, three on the bridge and two in the engine room. The rest will be guarding the women and doing other chores. The ship's close to one hundred T-years old. Has two forward cannons, both fixed." That meant the slaver had to reverse in order to shoot Phoenix, and that wouldn't happen, as the ship was too old for the maneuver. Escape would be their only thought. "Registry shows it hasn't had much maintenance. Six years since any work done on it and fifty T-years since an engine overhaul. It has to be on its last legs. It carries one shuttle and that pretty well fills the hanger. Have our cannons put a hit on that area. Keep the power low and it should warp the door; we want to seal it, keep them from putting all the women in there and venting.

Pleased with Danko's thoroughness, Buck sat silent as his lean and mean number two filled in minor details to his plan. When Danko received the First Mate appointment, Tommy had raised no objections and seemed satisfied with the Captain's decision.

"We take our two shuttles, put Marines aboard both." Danko's plan was to open Phoenix's cargo bay, have them go out the aft end and once clear of the ship, go to full power. "That should cut our forward velocity by fifty percent," he noted. The shuttle pilots would have to do some fancy maneuvering to match the slaver's speed but it was doable in his judgment. "We attach to their hull at the aft and forward main hatches, blow them, and fight our way in."

"Risky," Buck said as he searched for a better way. "You handled one something like this as I recall."

"Yes, Sir. Aboard the picket. Not quite like I've suggested but I really think if we go in low and slow, by the time we get there, all the evidence will be gone." The evidence: at least one hundred women. "There won't be a captive aboard that ship."

Buck thanked the two men as they stepped into the passageway. On the bridge, all eyes stayed locked on the plot board. He rocked back and forth on his toes, reconciled to Danko's plan. Phoenix's velocity, twice the slavers, had him concerned. Sending the Marine's out the back of the ship was another concern and reducing their velocity in close quarters could be a problem. He agreed that anything less and the chances of finding any women alive would be nil. He had assigned his most experienced pilots to the shuttles and they would have to be at their best to pull this off.

"Hanger doors open," said the comm.

"Release in one minute," the astrogator added.

Buck counted off the seconds.

With each white puff trailing the slave ship, his gut roiled knowing another woman had gone out an airlock.

Buck had checked the airlock cycle time at four minutes. To kill any more made no sense. It wouldn't stop Phoenix, there was no way for them to dispatch all the captives without putting the crew at risk, and he knew the slavers would fight before venting the ship to space. That would mean certain death for most of the crew and all of the women although they would be of no concern to the pirates.

Ten thousand meters from their target, the shuttles eased out the aft end of Phoenix, reversed, and cut their velocity.

Buck watched as the shuttle pilot's jockeyed their thrust to match the objective's vector, placing the small ships be on top of the slaver. Any mistake the pilots or Marines made could destroy the assault and most likely cost the women their lives.

Phoenix closed to within two thousand meters, nearer than Buck liked. At twice the slaver's speed, they moved faster than Tommy could manually handle the cannons. Instead he tied them into the computer, targeted the slaver's hanger door with the setting on low power fired.

Buck watched as the large door turned a dull red and buckled. "Good shooting, engineer.

"Turn on our forward and aft external cameras," he ordered.

Except for the astrogator, all eyes on the bridge watched as the shuttles locked onto the slaver's hull.

Phoenix, already well past the Greystone, heeled over for an emergency stop. The ship shed delta v as fast as it could take it. Even at that, they were ten thousand kilometers beyond the fight and their velocity something less than the slaver's.

Buck waited. The ship would overtake Phoenix in ten T-minutes.

Two flashes, almost simultaneous, told him the Marines had blown the hatches. Apparently, and for some unknown reason, the slavers had stopped ejecting the women even though Tommy's shot damaged only the hanger door leaving the airlock operational.

Buck had no way of knowing if Danko took the lead, understanding whoever it was, they would be the first to die.

***

Shrapnel and flash grenades preceded the Marines through the blown hatches.

Danko dove through the opening, hitting the deck with his weapon set on full automatic. He didn't bother to aim, spraying the area with his blaster as he rolled across the access compartment.

The enemy defended from the passageway and that left the entry area open to the Marines. The slavers had made a major mistake. Limited by the narrow passageway, the four slavers made easy targets and were the first to die.

Danko saw bodies torn apart and continued to blast the area as Marines dropped through the opening. Next to him, a Marine took a hit, and died never firing a shot.

In less than a minute, they had control of the entry and worked their way toward the cargo bay and the prisoners. He commed the second unit led by Lt. Garibaldi. They were in, had taken three casualties, and had yet to secure the bridge.

Danko sent six Marines to assist in the assault on the bridge. Approaching the prisoners, the noise lever dropped. A shudder went through him over what he'd find.

As they neared the cargo area, the silence was ominous.

Unopposed, they entered the cavernous bay. What he saw made him want to puke.

Bodies lay all over the place; slavers and slaves intermingled. Some women cried, others stood silent staring at nothing. In all the fighting he'd done, nothing had prepared him for what he faced.

Phoenix's shot against the shuttle bay door told the women someone was after the slaver. The captives turned on their captors. With two pirates as guards, the women outnumbered them almost forty to one: they attacked their captors, and overwhelmed them. Many women had died in the assault against their enemy but they’d killed the slavers brutally—butchered.