Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (88 page)

              The shuttles landed in the cargo bays and the troops closed up their skinsuits, sealing the head covers before the shuttle ramp opened.  The troops inside hustled out, weapons ready, moving in cover formation.  The gravity was still active, but the gaping maw of the main doors still yawned behind them.  The bay itself was clean, surprisingly, though the decking was scratched and dinged from the cargo have been flung out into space.  The two combat engineers lugged the magshield generator out of the shuttle.  Within two minutes it was set up and running and a shimmering wall of light appeared at the open end of the bay.

              “Magshield active, but atmo is still zero,” one of them said over the comms. 

              The leader nodded.  He pointed to the main interior doors leading into the ship, the wide double doors.  “Kes’sen, get that door open.”  Then he waved his arm to the others.  “Get clear of those doors.  Atmo’s gonna come rushing in and that field,” he pointed, “only holds the
atmo
in.  You will go tumbling through without even slowing down.”

              The others nodded, already aware, but it was serious enough that no one minded having it repeated.  They all moved away from the door, except Kes’sen who was hooking up a datapad to the door controls to bypass the safety lockouts.  His boots were magnetized to the deck as was a tether and anchor near one of his fellows.

              “They’re attempting to unlock the interior cargo doors for Bay Three,” George reported.  “I can’t keep them out.”

              “Warn Corajen,” the captain told him.  “Make sure all teams are advised.”

              “Ready!” Kes’sen called.  Everyone braced.  He leaned to the side, double checking his tether.  “Opening!” he said, pressing the activator. 

              The doors slid open and a roar of wind thundered through the widening gap.  The troopers dug their feet into the deck, straining as the rushing air threatened to knock them over.  Unidentifiable objects sucked from the corridors beyond in the ship flew out of the doorway, one of them bouncing off the shuttle fuselage and through the magshield and into the void.

              But no people, none of the ship’s crew were sucked out.  It look less than a minute for the bay to air up and the pressure to equalize and the wind to die down.  The instant it all became manageable, the leader hustled his troops forward.

              “Bangers!” he shouted and two of the zheen tossed flash bang grenades through the open doorway to give his people cover for entry.  A pair of detonations went off in the corridor and the zheen rushed through, weapons ready.

              Security officers from the
Grania Estelle
were disoriented, desperately trying to recover.  The zheen moved through the doorway, firing as they moved.  One of the security officers took a blaster shot in the thigh and a second in her lower side.  She shrieked in agony and collapsed, clutching her side, gun clattering to the deck.  The officers fired back; one of the zheen took a round in the shoulder, and another center mass in the thorax.  Greenish ichor spewed out and a high pitch squeal emitted from the zheen as he slumped down and flopped on the deck, dead.  The others continued firing and another of the security officers dropped, a trio of hits in his chest.  The remaining two security officers threw slimer grenades and retreated down one of the corridors.  Two of the zheen were caught in the goo that expanded to foam and then hardened.  The security officers unloaded on them with their weapons.  The ferocity of the attack caused the zheen to hesitate, giving the defenders a chance to fall back in good order, hugging the bulkheads, firing as they went, keeping them pinned down in the doorway.

              “Move!” Saiphirelle shouted, urging her team up the corridor.  “Run!  We’re going to bay seven!”  The four of them hustled out from the boat bay, running pell mell for the cargo bay to stop the group from escaping.  This would be the best chance the defenders would have to bottleneck the attackers and keep them from getting too deep within the ship.  The bridge had already reported another wave of shuttles coming from the cruisers and the ones in the bays were heading back out, most likely to make another run.  And with the weapons on the port side of
Grania Estelle
trashed, the shuttles would be able to take off and land with impunity.

              They pounded down the corridor, the lupusan’s fur standing up in excitement, panting, though not from exertion.  Finally, she was being given a chance to cut loose, to do what she loved to do: to fight and to kill.  For a brief while she could shed these civilized trappings and behaviors others were forcing on her and she could just give in to instinct.   Well, not completely to instinct.  While it would be intensely satisfying to tear apart the boarders with her claws and teeth, Saiphirelle knew that she wouldn’t be able to let herself go that far.  There was a reason Corajen had been training her using these new weapons, it would allow her to kill quickly and at range.  Getting in close while the boarders were shooting at her would probably be the definition of A Very Bad Idea.

              It was only a matter of minutes for them get to the entrance to Bay Seven.  A mixed group of humans and zheen were just coming out of the doors when Saiphirelle spotted them.  Holding down her trigger, she sprayed the corridor with bullets, killing one and wounding another.  All the rest ducked or dove out of the way, but there was nowhere to hide.  The lupusan roared in delight as the two men dropped to the deck, the survivor writhing in agony.  The rest of her team opened up with their own weapons, cutting down the remainder.  The screams and report of all the weapons echoed off the bulkheads but it was all music to the lupusan.

              “Let’s go,” she said to the team.  Getting in close to the bodies, she went among them and made sure they were all dead.  There was no time to start worrying about prisoners.

              Corajen wasn’t having nearly as fun, or as much luck.  Her team was pinned down under near constant fire from a group of attackers that were slowly getting out of Bay Five.  Two of her team were down, probably dead from a grenade the attackers had thrown.  She had a cut along one arm from shrapnel, which stung, but she was doing her best to ignore it.  A well-aimed shot hit one of the attackers, a human, in the forehead and he flopped backward, blood spraying out behind his now dead body.

              The others didn’t hesitate.  They kept up their fire, pinning Ygris and Corajen against the bulkhead.  Bullets and energy blasts were coming in a storm down the corridor at them, while the two tried to fire back as best as possible.  It was a standoff, but one that Corajen knew that she couldn’t win.  All it would take was for one of them to get a lucky shot and she would be done, or if they figured out they just needed to lob a bunch of grenades down here.  She cursed her own short-sightedness.  If she’d thought to have Samair replicate her a string of her
own
grenades, she might have been able to even things up.  Of course it was far too late for that now.

              “Bridge, this is Corajen!” she shouted over the sounds of the gunfire.  “My position is about to be overrun!  I’m down to one left in my team, but I can’t hold here.  I’m going to have to fall back.”

              “Understood,” the Captain replied.  “I’ll update the rest of your teams.  We’ve got another wave of shuttles coming in, ETA in six minutes.”

              Corajen swore.  Leaning forward from behind the support strut, she fired off a three-round burst, catching one of the men in the chest.  He pitched over, hitting the bulkhead and falling on the deck.  That brought the odds a little better, but Ygris swore behind her.  She looked over, and the big man was clutching his belly, blood running from between his fingers.  He dropped the rifle, but he pulled out his stun pistol.  “Sorry, boss,” he growled.  “But I’m not out just yet.”

              She nodded to him, then turned away, baring her fangs.  Popping out from cover, she shot her weapon dry, but only one got hit, the rest had pulled back along the bulkhead.  Grabbing one of the slimer grenades, she pulled the pin and lobbed it down the corridor, then grabbed another, pulled the pin and threw it too.  Grabbing her last clip of ammunition off her vest pocket, she changed out her weapon and racked the bolt.  “Come on!” she rushed over and pulled Ygris’s free arm over her shoulder and heaved the big man up off the bulkhead.  “I know it hurts but move!”  They hustled as fast as they could down the corridor, away from their attackers.

              “Captain, I’m pulling back,” Corajen yelled.  “They’re breaking through.”

              Tamara was listening to the report coming from the lupusan, and felt ice come down her spine.  It was happening again.  She remembered the desperate fight at Instow, but this time it was different.  This wasn’t a snatch and grab.  This was a dedicated boarding operation.  They weren’t going to stop until they were all dead or until they took the ship.  Security officers were dying and it just wasn’t enough.  The Captain wouldn’t be able to hold off the inevitable for much longer.  He would have to surrender.  She was standing in the bay with replicator one, at a loss of what to do.  It was currently offline, and she had no intent of powering it back up.  In fact, she was thinking of locking it down permanently, to make sure that these pirates didn’t get it and its twin in the other bay. 

              “I know what you’re thinking, Tamara,” Stella’s voice came over her implants, her face appearing in the corner of Tamara’s HUD.  “You’re thinking of trashing my replicators.”

              “Better that than letting the pirates get them.”

              “Is it?  If they knew you had functioning replicators on board and that you destroyed them, Commander Tyler might do horrible things to you and the rest of the crew,” the AI pointed out, looking worried.

              Tamara sighed.  “I know, Stella.  But I think that Commander Tyler and his friends might do those horrible things anyway once they’ve got the ship and then they’ll use these replicators to do horrible things to others.”

              “But they can’t make any serious equipment without your access codes,” Stella reminded her.  “They’ll lock down or melt if they try.”

              “Can we risk that?  What if Tyler or someone on his crew is former Republic Navy?” Tamara shot back.  “What if they’ve got rank codes and the implants needed to unlock these machines?  I can’t risk that.  And we’re not getting out of this unscathed, Stella, you know that.  They’re going to take the ship.  And then
you
will be working for the pirates also.”

              “What do you mean?” the AI asked, bristling.  “They kill my crew and I’m supposed to work with
them
?”

              “And if you don’t?” Tamara asked.  “They’ll just pull back their ships to a safe distance and unload with their weapons.  They won’t let a rogue AI in command of a massive ship like this run loose.  If they can’t bring you to heel, they’ll get rid of you.  I’ve asked around and I know you have too.  How many AI are there in the Argos Cluster at this time?  Hmm?  Other than you?”

              The AI darkened, literally lowering the light setting on her image on Tamara’s HUD to show her displeasure.  “None, as far as anyone knows.  But there might be some at Byra-Kae!” she said petulantly.  “That’s the Republic base in this Cluster.  They might have at least one.”

              “Okay, one in all of the Cluster, other than you.  If they even know you exist, they might just go down to the computer core and start blasting, Stella.  They don’t need you throwing a wrench into their plans.  So I need you to keep hidden and keep quiet.  If anyone refers to you by name, or tries to access your systems, you need to hide.  I want you to just pretend you’re part of the ship’s mainframe.”

              The AI lowered her eyes.  “All right.  I understand.  Just until we take the ship back.” 

              But Tamara shook her head.  “Stella, we’re not going to be able to take the ship back.  I would disconnect you from the mainframe, transfer your core matrix into a portable, but I’m afraid we’d lose the fusion bottle if I did that and everyone would die.  I don’t have time to reprogram the computer to balance the fusion reactor without you monitoring and get you transferred out.”  She could feel her eyes burn.  “And even if I could, there’d be nowhere to go.  Even if I could get us off the ship on my fighter or a shuttle, we’re trapped in the system.  They’d find us.  And they’re a lot faster and meaner than we are.”

              “Than I am, you mean,” the AI replied, with a weak smile.

              Tamara chuckled.  “I’m sorry, Stella.  I truly am.  I don’t know how this all fell apart like this.”

              The thunder of more gunshots could be heard down the corridor.  Tamara sent a command through her implants to the replicator systems, ordering a full meltdown and destruction sequence of the constructor matrix and computer files.  Lights began to flash on the LCD screen on the front of the device, warning of the self-destruct in progress.  Thirty seconds later, the screen went dead and she could detect the unmistakable smell of burned electronics. 

              “That’s that, I guess,” Stella said.  “Going into burrow mode.  I’ll keep an eye on you, Tamara.” 

              “Discretely, please,” Tamara warned.  “Don’t tip them off that you’re on board.  Don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself.”