******
Through sheer brute strength, Julius had managed to muscle the double doors of their elevator jail another inch apart. He stopped to catch his breath while peering through the crack. On the other side he could see a little more of the bridge. His command module hung floating a few feet off the ground, unoccupied. A brief moment of paranoia hit him as he imagined one of the crewmembers sitting in it, taking over as captain and issuing orders—taking over his ship, the Sea Wolf.
“What’s wrong with you?” Laina said.
Julius snapped out of it. “Nothing… Jared!”
Jared stepped directly into view from the side of the elevator doors, slightly startling him. He did not realize he was still trying to work the control panel on the other side of the doors.
“What are you still doing working on that? You should be at your station!”
“Sorry, sir,” Jared turned around and began to return to his module.
“No wait, come back,” Julius said. “I want you to bring my command module to the door.”
Jared looked back at his captain with a puzzled expression. “Sir?”
“Just do it,” Julius said. “And bring Laina’s module over as well.”
“What?” Laina said.
Jared brought the command module up to the double doors as ordered.
“Tilt it to its side,” Julius said. “No, not like that. Position it so the top of the chair is inside this crack, at an angle.”
Jared did as instructed, struggling to keep the chair angled despite the anti-gravity motivator fighting him.
“Good, good,” Julius said. “I want you to turn off the motivator now. Go get Laina’s module and position it the same way.”
“No, wait! What are you doing with my module?” Laina asked, but Julius ignored her.
Jared gave a slight nod of understanding and called over Garval to hold Julius’ chair in position while he went for the other one.
“Are you insane?” Laina said.
Jared returned with the sub-command chair and positioned it as Julius instructed.
“Okay, perfect,” Julius said. “Now I want you to overload the motivators on my mark. Make sure it has a one second delay.”
Jared and Garval began fiddling with the controls on the modules.
“Ohhhh,” Laina said finally. “You’re going to force the doors open with them? Very clever!”
“Yes,” Julius said, stepping back away from the doors. “You’ll want to get back and duck down.”
“How do we know which way these things are going to fly?” Laina said, eyes wide. “And what about the doors? Will they come flying off and hit us?”
Julius gave a silent shrug and then positioned himself flat on the ground.
“Okay, sir,” Jared said. “I think they’re ready, but we’re going to have to jump off these the second the motivators kick in. I don’t know if we’ll be able to accurately control their trajectory at that point.”
“Or if we’ll be able to jump off in time,” Garval added.
“Then we’re all on the same boat,” Julius said. “This will either work, or we’re in for some pain.”
Jared and Garval looked at the chairs that they were riding on top of and then gave each other a nervous glance.
“Don’t worry, boys,” Laina added. “If you lose a limb or suffer some other debilitating condition as a result of this, you’ll double your shares of the plunder! Well, provided you survive, of course.”
They both glared at Laina.
“On my mark,” Julius said. They all braced themselves. “Now!”
They touched a control on their respective modules then jumped off. For a split second, the chairs began to tilt to their normal upright positions, and then there was a loud whine followed by a hard clang as the motivators kicked in. One of the command modules had embedded itself into the door, leaving a noticeable dent, but did little else. The other flew upward into the top of the doorframe, causing debris and dust to come flying down on them.
The particles showered both Julius and Laina, blinding them for a moment. Julius could hear the sound of the motivators sputtering off as the debris settled down on the floor. It took a moment before he could see through the fog of dust. One of the doors was dented, with Laina’s command module stuck into it. The other door looked unharmed, except for the top of the frame where Julius’ command module had demolished a good section of it. Where the module itself was, he could not tell; it was not visible anywhere.
Julius stood up slowly and approached the doorway. He pushed the seemingly undamaged door with his hand, and it began to tilt forward, falling to the ground with a loud thud. Jared and Garval, fortunately, were not in its path. They both appeared unharmed on either side of the bridge. He walked onto the bridge, Laina in step behind him.
Surveying the damage, Julius saw that nobody appeared to be hurt, but he did discover the final destination of his command module: it was now a permanent fixture on the main viewscreen.
“Shit,” he growled. The viewscreen was completely dark in all directions. “Status report.”
Jared and Garval quickly returned to their stations.
“Contacts are nearing the edge of the kill zone,” Ramey reported. “We don’t have much time left to initiate attack.”
“Sir, I’m picking up something unusual,” Jared said, as he frantically began operating the controls on his station.
“What is it, Jared?” Julius said.
“I was picking up some distant chatter on the Ocean from the Martian military channels. I was monitoring them to make sure they were not alerted to the attack. Now there’s nothing. They’ve suddenly gone dark.”
Julius did not like the sound of that. Going dark was the typical protocol prior to an imminent offensive.
“Ramey, what do you have on the scope?”
“Nothing, sir. Same as before,” Ramey said, and then he paused. “Wait a minute.” He ran his hands across his station and studied the results. “I think we have a problem. I’m picking up something in the shroud, and it’s not Wolf Squadron.”
“Can you do a passive identification?” Julius said.
“Not all of them,” he said. “But I do have a near 100 percent positive identification on an old friend. The Martian Confederate destroyer we encountered in our last battle.”
Julius stared at the black viewscreen—and his chair protruding from it. It annoyed him to be completely in the dark.
“Can you make out number or type of vessels for the rest of the force?”
“Not positively,” Ramey said.
“I don’t expect a positive identification. Can you please guess?” Julius said.
Ramey grimaced. “It looks like a mixture of UEP and Martian forces. A joint task force, sir. Approximately eight destroyers and possibly some smaller craft as well.”
“Would the Martian destroyer have a similar signature for the Sea Wolf, you think?” Julius asked.
“Possibly,” Ramey said. “But they haven’t seen us yet. However, that gives them an edge in targeting the moment we engage. They will be able to target us as easily as we will them.”
“Except,” Julius said, “they have greater numbers.”
“And if they are linked…” Ramey continued the line of thought.
“What’s all this military techno babble mean, please?” Laina said.
“It means,” Julius said, “that the pirates you were expecting are actually a UEP and Martian task force. They are underwater with us, in the shroud. And we will have at least eight destroyers shooting at us all at once the minute we reveal ourselves. We may have to change our plans.”
“No!” Laina exclaimed, getting in Julius’ face. “We can’t abort! We need that—”
Julius raised his hand. “Calm down! There may be another way. Garval, Ramey… Is Wolf Squadron in a better tactical position under the circumstances?”
Garval and Ramey excha
nged looks, and then nodded in unison.
“Their stealth is much harder to detect,” Ramey said.
“But they would need some kind of diversion,” Garval said. “They can’t just move in on that convoy and—”
At that moment, an alert claxon began to sound.
“Proximity alert!” Ramey said. “Something is coming out of the shroud.”
“The task force?” Julius said.
“No, something else. Look like interceptors. Unmarked!” he said.
The crewmembers stared intently at their consoles; flashes of light reflected off their faces from whatever they were seeing.
“What is happening, men?” Julius said, feeling his frustration rise at operating blind.
Ramey shook his head. “They attacked the convoy escort—they’re down! The escort is toast!”
“Sir, there is a message being beamed from the interceptors to the two convoy ships,” Jared said.
“Turn on audio,” Julius ordered.
“… and your escort has been destroyed,” the voice said. “You will now come to a complete stop and eject your cargo. Failure to comply will result in your destruction. Eject your cargo now.”
“Hm, so there were pirates after all,” Laina muttered.
“I don’t know where you get your information from, Laina,” Julius said. “But I think it may have saved the ship.”
“A simple ‘thank you’ would be nice,” she said.
“Sir,” Garval said. “Wolf Squadron is requesting orders.”
“Put Reece on audio,” Julius ordered.
“Julius—I mean, Captain,” Reece said. “We can take them; just give the word.”
“You know about the task force hidden in the shroud?” Julius said.
“Yes, I overheard,” he said. “We can still do this. They won’t be expecting us.”
“I’m not so sure,” Julius said.
“I have a plan,” Reece said.
“That plan won’t work anymore.”
“It’s a different plan,” he said. “Trust me. We’ll wait for the task force to engage, then we’ll do a shrapnel bloom in the middle of the chaos and jump away with the cargo.”
“You don’t even know which container it is,” Julius said. “Plus a shrapnel bloom in the middle of all that… You’ll wind up with half your squadron impacting against the Sea Wolf.”
“Not if you take her out of here. You can’t do anything against those destroyers anyway.”
Julius thought about it. “No. It’s too risky. Without knowing which container it is, you’ll be cut to pieces.”
“Well, we can’t just sit here,” Reece said. “We have to do something!”
At that moment, the alert claxon began to sound again.
“The task force is attacking,” Ramey said. “They are targeting the interceptors.” There was a pause. “Most of them are already down, including most of the cargo.”
“Are the gravity amps ready?” Julius said.
“Yes, sir,” Jessen said. “Charged and ready.”
“Plot a course to rendezvous point A. Execute on my order.”
“Only one container left,” Ramey said. “And they aren’t trying to kill it.”
Julius’ eyes squinted. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir,” Ramey said. “Those flak cannons of theirs could take out the whole system of fighters if they chose to. They have a ton of firepower here. Eight destroyers and two torpedo boats. A mix of UEP and Martian ships. Impressive.”
“Reece,” Julius said. “You can act on your death wish. We’re going to move out. We will monitor you remotely. Good luck.”
“I’ll make my luck, Captain,” Reece said.
“Execute jump now, Jessen,” Julius commanded.
Before both Julius and Laina could brace themselves, the vertigo hit them hard, and they both fell to the ground as the gravity amplifiers of the Sea Wolf bent space-time, moving them in zero-time to their destination and away from the chaos of the battle that followed.
Chapter 15: Artistic Sacrifices