Read Scourge: Book Two of the Starcrown Chronicles Page 22

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  Jimmy and Bruce had been waiting by the bridge stairwell for only a few minutes when Clive appeared from the port side passageway. He lowered himself to one knee beside them and consulted his forearm screen briefly before he spoke. There was no need to discuss the status of their individual missions. The fact that they were here told him what he needed to know.

  “There are six tangos on the bridge, including the primary objective,” he said quietly. “We’ll go in as planned. Bruce, you take the port entrance and I’ll cover the starboard side hatch. Jimmy, you hang back and provide back up support if necessary. Needlers only. We have to take the PO alive.”

  The three of them silently checked their pistols and gave the ready sign. They had gone over the plan several times before leaving the Prometheus and each man knew his part. Although it had a similar layout to the command center aboard the Prometheus, the bridge of the pirates’ ship was larger than theirs. And unlike their ship it had two entrances, one on the port side and one to starboard. Once they controlled those points of egress the pirates would be trapped.

  Clive pulled a small infrared light from his equipment harness and clipped it to the barrel of his pistol. He slid his goggles down over his eyes and led the way up the stairs into the command superstructure, holding the needler out in front of him in the classic two handed combat grip.

  Soon they were stepping into the small foyer behind the bridge. Clive and Bruce separated and crept toward the open hatches at the opposite ends of the foyer. They could see the wash of flashlights being played around the interior of the bridge and they switched their headsets to low light mode. Jimmy took up a position beside the stairwell where he could watch both hatches. He was their insurance in the unlikely event that one of the crew managed to make it off the bridge.

  Clive and Jimmy pressed their backs against the bulkhead and slid silently up to the edges of their respective hatches. Clive reached for his harness, tugged free a stun grenade and twisted the activation ring. He looked back over his shoulder as he held up his free hand and silently counted down with his fingers.

  Three ... two ... one...

  He pressed the firing stud with his thumb and swung his arm in an arc, tossing the flash-bang around the edge of the hatch. As soon as Clive released the grenade he and Bruce turned away from the hatches, squeezed their eyes shut and pressed their palms over their ears. Jimmy hunkered down in his position and copied them. In the weightless environment the grenade continued in a straight line trajectory toward the middle of the command center where it drew the attention of one of the pirates.

  “What the hell–” they heard a voice say from inside the bridge.

  In the airtight confines of the ship, even with their eyes closed and their ears covered, the three of them still saw the flash of the grenade through their eyelids and heard the loud report of the explosion. Following on the heels of the explosion, Clive and Bruce sprang into the hatchways with their guns at the ready. Inside the command center they found that the grenade had done its job. All of the pirates were floating helplessly around the room, their hands clamped either across their eyes or over their ears as they groaned softly to themselves.

  Clive and Bruce casually began shooting the stunned men. Within seconds the last of the pirates was unconscious. Then Clive stopped suddenly as he realized something was wrong. He quickly counted the incapacitated pirates. One was missing. Just that quickly their plan had hit a snag.

  Clive darted his eyes around the compartment. He looked into the shadowed corners where a man could hide but he couldn’t see anyone. He got Bruce’s attention, pointed to his eyes then held up one finger. Bruce nodded and moved cautiously deeper into the room as he searched for the last pirate while Clive stayed in his doorway and covered him.

  As they searched for the missing man, Jimmy stood guard in the foyer. Clive hadn’t given him the all clear signal so he continued to remain on alert. His attention was so focused on the open hatch where Clive was that he never saw the shadow steal up behind him.

  If his hearing had not been compromised by the recent flash-bang explosion he might have heard the pirate when he opened the door to the refresher compartment. In spite of clamping his hands over his ears, the concussion from the blast had temporarily dulled his hearing and he never knew anyone was there until he felt the muzzle of a blaster being pressed into his temple.

  As soon as he felt the gun at his head Jimmy froze. The pirate reached around him without a sound, took his pistol out of his hands and shoved it into his own waistband. Then he wrapped his arm around Jimmy’s throat and stood him up.

  “Put your guns down or you man dies!”

  Clive spun around and had his gun trained on him in an instant. In that brief moment he had also switched weapons. The pistol he was holding was no longer a needler but a powerful hand blaster. He assessed the situation quickly and took a step into the foyer toward them. His weapon never wavered.

  Bruce appeared from the other hatch a moment later with his needler aimed at the pirate as well.

  “Stay back!” the pirate warned. He placed his back against the rear bulkhead to try and keep Jimmy’s body between them like a shield as he started sliding closer to the stairwell.

  Jimmy was calm as he watched Clive take another step toward them. He knew that he was in a serious situation but he had faith in his teammates.

  “I said put your guns down!” the pirate repeated.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Clive said calmly. Then he spoke to Bruce without taking his eyes off the pirate. “You got him?”

  “Got him,” Bruce said as he spread his feet and steadied his aim on the pirate.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” Clive said to the pirate. “If you harm that man there won’t be a damned thing you can do to keep me from climbing up in your ass and causing you a world of hurt. That’s a promise. Your only chance is to let him go.”

  The pirate heard the uncompromising resolve in his voice and pressed the muzzle of the gun harder into Jimmy’s temple, driving his head over onto his shoulder.

  “I’ll do it,” the pirate said, watching the dim forms of the two men who had him trapped in a cross fire. “I’ll do it!” He was now only a few steps away from the stairwell.

  Clive considered his options for a moment then calmly shot Jimmy in the chest. The whining report from the blaster seemed unnaturally loud in the foyer and the bright flash from the shot burned the scene into their retinas.

  Jimmy spasmed from the impact of the shot and went limp in the pirate’s grasp.

  For the briefest instant the pirate was stunned by the realization that the invader had just shot his own man. In that moment his hold on Jimmy relaxed. It was all the opening Bruce needed. He fired off three quick shots. The first struck the pirate in the forearm that was across Jimmy’s throat, the second hit him in the opposite shoulder, and the third caught him in the neck.

  Injected with three times the normal dosage, the pirate immediately lost consciousness. As his hold on Jimmy relaxed, Clive stepped up to him and casually plucked the blaster out of his hand.

  “I believe you,” Clive said.

  Life flowed back into Jimmy at that moment and he looked up at Clive and smiled.

  “Thanks,” he said as he shoved the pirate’s limp arm away from his throat. He looked down and brushed his hand slowly over the area of his chest where he had been shot. The flexible bodysuit was thickest around the torso and had turned aside the blaster bolt, even at point blank range.

  Jimmy searched the pirate’s limp form, retrieved his pistol from the unconscious man’s waist band, safetied it and returned it to his holster.

  “A little different than we planned,” Bruce said as he joined his teammates. “But that’s the last of them. All we need to do now is figure out which one of these jokers is the captain.”

  Jimmy turned and reached for the pirate that
had been threatening him, snagged him by one wrist and held up his arm. Four captain rings circled the end of his sleeve.

  “That makes things easy,” Clive said. “You two secure the rest of the prisoners and I’ll notify the ship.”

  As Bruce and Jimmy entered the bridge and began binding the pirates’ hands behind their backs, Clive reached for the comm-link in his ear.