“There must be hundreds of pirates on board. And more are coming, from what I overheard. They’re all carrying standard particle pulse rifles and antimatter explosives. A direct engagement right now would be extremely dangerous.”
Or futile, Aaen mentally noted.
The Commander pointed at the blue technical side cutaway of the ship on the screen as he spoke. The technical cutaway showed integral and key areas and components throughout the interior of the hull. “The primary and secondary main computers were never locked down. The transporters are offline, but they can still easily dock their smaller ships on the external docking ports or land them in the shuttle bay. Captain, I suggest we divide into two teams: team one will proceed into take main engineering; team two will begin sabotaging key areas of the ship.”
“’Sabotage’ our own ship?” the first officer skeptically quipped. “Won’t we need the ship to fight back?”
The Commander snapped, and spoke sharply, “First officer. You don’t know this enemy. They will-not-respond to diplomacy as you and the Ambassador understand it. Their diplomacy is simple and archaic: find what you want, take it by any means of force, even if that means killing your own. We survive this by fighting fire with fire.”
The first officer got the Commander’s point quickly and replied, “Very well,”
“We need to slow them down until we can mount a direct counter-offensive. Once we take main engineering, we can begin working to free our people, and then cut off the pirates’ reinforcements, then retake the ship. And then we fight back,”
The short-range communications officer took a step forward, “Why not just signal the fleet to come in and blow their ships out of space?”
The Commander turned his head skeptically, “Too far away, and too many ships to get through the bottleneck, much less in time, and the pirates would have likely predicted that and so they would have most likely jammed long-range communications to keep us from calling for help. We’re on our own until we can get out of this area of space,”
“. . .Yes, sir,”
“Delta Force will be team two. The rest of the crew will be team one. We will maintain an open comm-link, using secure tactical channel Bravo.”
“What if we’re detected?” said the left-wing power distribution officer.
“Then they’ll shoot at you, then they’ll call in the fact to the bridge, or a peripheral command ship they might have in the nebula, and then we’ll have a really big firefight on our hands.”
The entire bridge crew got the memo, and every crew member reinforced their grip on their rifles in anticipation of what might be to come. The captain ordered the deputy, long-range communications officer, and the bridge engineer to watch the door they entered from.
“Now, the best way to get to main engineering is through these corridors, down to this deck, and then take Jeffries tubes—“
“SOMEONE’S COMING!” the deputy whispered loudly with a shocked look on his face. “Probably five or six people coming from the left!” he pressed his ear firmly against the door.
“Okay. Team one: get ready to move out. Hurry!”
“How?” the left damage control officer asked frantically, uncertain of where to go.
“Up there!” The Commander pointed to a corner of the ceiling behind him and to his left.
The crew began moving tables to form a climbable obstacle leading to a ventilation duct. One-by-one, team one quickly crawled inside in a frantic single-file line.
“Deltas: follow me!”
The Commander turned the lights off in the briefing room. Aaen held his rifle over his shoulder as the rest of Delta Force followed The Commander into an adjacent room that appeared to be some kind of cargo storage area, very different than the cargo bays. Aaen’s gut told him team two was going to have a firefight on their hands before long. In a way, he was weary of that possibility; at the same time—he almost wanted to take a few shots at their captors. He was anxiously and nervously looking forward to that. In the back of his mind, he figured the Pirates would eventually realize that the bridge crew had escaped. When they find out, the cold chill down his spine said they would start looking for the crew, and would likely find the crew. He almost cracked a grin at what that would likely mean. . .
The Commander turned around sharply and gestured for the rest of Delta Force to gather around. A semi-circle quickly formed in front of him, only a tactical light on The Commander’s uniform jacket made each of their faces visible. “We will need more armed crew members to help us take back the ship. The bridge crew will not be enough, and we don’t have time to wait for reinforcements to arrive, especially after Maddog comes on board. Our first objective will be to breach-and-clear several rooms on this deck to free some other crew members who have been taken captive. Our job will get easier from that point. Once we are able to get out of this region of space, we will be able to signal the rest of the fleet for help, and then really show these monsters who they’re dealing with. Let’s do a quick gear check, and then we’ll move out.”
Delta Force checked their rifles and explosives. Everything was working exactly as it was expected to: rifles were on maximum stun, the explosives were not yet armed, and their tricorders were functioning. Delta Force was good to go and nodded to each other to indicate they were ready to engage the enemy. The Commander noted these gestures, nodded back, and then sharply, darkly commanded, “Move out.”
After a brisk crawl through a short series of Jeffries tubes, Delta Force emerged single-file, rifle-first from a square opening of a hatch whose locks were malfunctioning for reasons their tricorders identified as a simple technical malfunction with the hatch’s locking mechanisms. The Commander gestured for them to take up a rectangular tactical formation, staying low, and peering around the bulkheads surrounding the space around a pair of turbolift doors. The corridor lights were at less-than-full illumination. Delta Force exchanged a hand gesture indicating they were hearing footsteps from both directions. The footsteps were getting closer.
*****
Steve H. told Jordan Foutin, "You are the next Tom Clancy. You really are a gifted writer."
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