Read Scourge: Book Two of the Starcrown Chronicles Page 21
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Clive Mayweather was making his way silently along the port side companionway on A deck as he headed toward the forecastle compartment. As he crept along the passage he could hear the sound of access panels being opened in the avionics bay ahead. He kept his assault rifle trained on the open doorway he slid his feet silently along the deck, his light amplification headset pushed up on his forehead as he crept along. The pirates had set up portable work lights in the compartment to help them as they checked for damage and the light spilling out through the open hatch was more than enough for him to find his way. But it also meant that he had lost his advantage. They would see him coming long before he could get close enough to take them out quietly. He needed a new plan.
After taking a few more paces he stopped when he was still several meters away from the hatch. Any closer and he would step into the light spilling into the companionway. As long as he stayed out of the light he would remain invisible to them. Unfortunately, the pirates were not in his line of sight, leaving him with no shot. They had stepped away from the doorway and were working somewhere behind the bulkhead to his right. He needed to get closer.
He thought for a moment, then looked up at the overhead. The entire ceiling was concealed in shadow. He flexed his legs and pushed off from the deck, rolling to his toes in the practiced movement that would disconnect the magnetic soles of his boots from the flooring. As soon as he was free he tucked his legs and performed a slow motion somersault until moments later he was standing upside down on the ceiling. Clive crouched low to keep out of the light and crept silently along the deeply shadowed overhead as he made his way to the open doorway. As he approached the door he slung his assault rifle and reached for the blaster pistol on his hip. He hesitated, then decided to draw the small needler from the holster under his left arm instead. If possible he would take them alive. But one way or another he needed to neutralize these men so he could continue with the main objective of his mission. He thumbed off the pistol’s safety and stole up to the edge of the hatch to carefully peer inside.
From his position Clive could see two of the pirates as they were examining components in one of the equipment racks just inside the bay. The other three men had to be somewhere deeper in the compartment out of sight. He could take out the two by the doorway now if he wanted to, but he still needed to somehow draw the others closer without alarming them. The problem was the portable work lights the pirates had set up in the compartment. One of them was just inside the doorway. If he tried to enter the bay he would be spotted easily and any chance of surprising them would be gone.
One obvious solution presented itself. He raised his pistol and carefully sighted into the bay over the edge of the hatch frame.
“This isn’t good,” one of the pirates was saying as he examined the control chip he had just pulled out of its rack. “Half the components on this board are completely fried. Even if we reset the breakers we’re not going to have power to any of the systems. We need to swap out the chips in all of these control boards.”
“What do you think could have caused it?”
“The only thing I know of that could do something like this is an energy surge of some kind, like an EM pulse.”
“An EM pulse? But from where? The only thing anywhere around here is that old transport we’re locked onto. You don’t think ...”
“I don’t know. But somebody better let the captain know–”
At that moment the work light behind them erupted in an electrical flash and went out.
“What the fu—ow!” The pirate reached for his shoulder where he felt a sudden sharp jab. Just as his fingers clamped down on the spot his sight started to dim. As the drug pressed him down into unconsciousness, the pirate’s gaze drifted toward the open hatch. Just before his vision darkened completely he saw the blurred shape of something hanging upside down from the passageway ceiling.
“Hans?”
The second pirate was reaching for his partner when he felt a sting on the back of his neck. A cold numbness spread quickly from the spot and he felt himself going lightheaded. Moments later his eyes rolled up into his head and he lost consciousness as well.
“What’s going on over there?” a voice asked from the far side of the avionics bay. When there was no reply, the three men started back toward the other end of the compartment.
“Hans? Davy?”
The trio exchanged baffled looks as they cautiously pulled themselves across the bay through the maze of circuitry towers. The closer they came to their stricken comrades the further they moved away from their own work light and the deeper into shadow they came. One of them stopped as soon as he saw the shadowy forms of the two unconscious men floating near the bay entrance.
“Hold up. Something’s wrong. Quentin, you hang back while we check this out.”
Two of them slowly pulled themselves toward their unconscious crewmates while the third man remained behind an equipment rack watching. His attention was so focused on his partners that he failed to notice the shadowy form creeping amid the tangle of power conduits and support braces over his head. With the artificial gravity off there was no true up or down in the ship. But the human brain is hard wired to think in terms of up and down and it never occurred to the pirates to search the ceiling. As the two pirates reached for their helpless crewmates, the shape unfolded itself from where it was hiding beside one of the overhead support struts and reached for the lone crewman. Before he knew anyone was there a hand clamped over the pirate’s mouth and he was jerked upward into the tangle of bundled trunk lines that snaked across the ceiling. He struggled for a few moments before succumbing to the pressure across his throat.
When they couldn’t rouse their unconscious crewmates, the last two pirates started backtracking toward the place where they had left their companion.
“Quentin, I think we need to… Quentin?”
The pair searched for their missing partner but could find no trace of him.
“Where’d he go?” one of them asked and turned to his partner. In the dim light it took him a moment to realize that his partner wasn’t looking at him but was staring at something on the ceiling behind him. Following his gaze he looked up and saw an indistinct shape huddled amid the tangle of conduits and bundled cables.
“Jesus! What the—”
The needler in Clive’s hand spat two times in rapid succession. The darts found their targets and within seconds the last of the pirates joined their unconscious crewmates.