Chapter 27
As the Forward arced around the planet, the Freedom drew ever closer. The Colonel sat on the edge of his chair, watching the cargo vessel in his monitor and wondering what they were thinking. They should have known they couldn’t match his speed, even with a boost from this world’s gravity. It was only a matter of time before they were in range of his weapons and his scrambler, and every minute added to that inevitability gave Freedom’s men another minute to complete another repair.
An alarm sounded on several of the consoles. It was a familiar alarm, heard only an hour ago.
“We have incoming!”
As their circle continued around the world, the star’s light crossed the horizon and cast reflections off several large metallic objects.
“Hard to starboard,” Freedom cried out. His ship turned hard away from the planet’s surface, but it was not quick enough. As before, the objects were stationary in space, but his own speed gave them a ballistic nature. The ship heaved as several of them struck.
The Colonel caught a glimpse of the cameras before he slipped from his chair, and spotted what looked like a medical bed pass just behind their engines; one of the few objects they managed to avoid.
“Damage was minimal that time,” Dorsey announced. “These weren’t the same objects they scrambled before.”
Magnus had scrambled whatever he could find programmed in the cargo ship’s scrambler memory. Since it was designed to construct a new mining colony when it reached its destination, he had thrown at them objects that were more domestic in nature. Some were heavy enough to breach the cargo pods, while others merely disintegrated upon impact leaving nothing more than a few scratches.
Riggs brought the ship back around and cut closely across the planet’s orbit. But reaching the backside, they saw no sign of the Forward escaping. Freedom called for a sensor sweep to find the ship, but it was too late.
The slingshot maneuver had been a ruse, and the objects in their path were the distraction. The Forward had broken off from the planet and circled around. Anders launched a strafing run with their cannons, watching from his own screens as the first shots dissipated on contact with the inhibitor field. Persistence found the hole and a couple of the shots landed, pounding through the cargo pods.
“Pittman,” the Colonel called out, trying to hold onto his seat, “fire at will on that ship!”
“Yes, Sir!”
Pittman, having already relocated himself to the armory, taking Murillo with him for support, launched his missiles toward the hostile vessel as fast as the two of them could reload the tubes.
Flash tried to pitch the ship under the volley, but like his opponent, he wasn’t fast enough to avoid the first strikes. Those first missiles struck empty cargo pods to the rear of the ship. The explosions were violent enough to force the rear of the ship downward, and the nose upward into the path of another missile.
With their pods largely empty, the Forward saw them stripped away from the central mass faster than those of the Freedom. The loss of certain pods let disruptions in their inhibitor field, allowing the Freedom’s crew to take advantage. More pods were scrambled from their ship, but the heavy use of Freedom’s scrambler meant a vulnerability on their part.
Magnus went to work with his scrambler. He ignored the cargo pods and went directly for the living space, dissolving away outer walls to vent atmosphere where he could. He couldn’t yet lock onto any people, but at least he could cut them off from each other.
Pittman and Murillo continued firing missiles on one hand, and scrambling with the other. Riggs worked furiously to try and keep the ship out of the line of fire from those phase cannons, but there was nothing he could do to avoid the disappearing act all over the ship.
Colonel Freedom accessed the communications network. Both ships were crippled and bleeding to the other. He was determined to create an advantage before one was created against him.
“Colonel Fortune,” he ordered down to the planet, “find yourself five armed men and prepare for transport.” This had to be ended and Freedom was confident he could get a team aboard.
Fortune and his five volunteers collected in the middle of the central chamber. When they signaled they were ready, the white flash surrounded them and spirited them into the Forward’s engine room. Twice as large as the rest of the habitable space on this tiny ship, it housed a massive energy reaction chamber toward the back wall, tying into the thrusters outside the ship.
The men fanned out to make sure the room was unoccupied, passing dozens of safety posters warning of the dangers of radiation poisoning and plasma burns. Fortune himself spotted the portrait of Einstein that hung in every engine room in the fleet. “Idiot,” he cursed the man according to tradition. It was a constant reminder to all the engineers that the light barrier had been broken without the time dilation problem he theorized about.
Satisfied the room was secure, Fortune opened the door to the hallway and peered cautiously out. Dirk peered his own head from the scrambler room. Before he could call out in warning, Fortune put a bullet in his left eye. Magnus spied his friend fall. He shouted into the corridor as loud as his lungs could carry, taking a bullet in the throat for his efforts.
Fortune’s team pushed onward, peeking into the two crew quarters. He found Roxanne, still reading her book, oblivious to the shooting and gunfire and turbulence. Being nearly naked and unarmed, Fortune decided to keep her alive, opting to knock her unconscious with the butt of his rifle instead.
On the bridge, Anders and Remy understood the shouting from behind.
“We’ve been boarded!” Anders raced to bring the scrambler controls to his console.
“It’s over,” Remy lamented, but his friend was not ready to give up.
“No, we have to get back to the Freedom before they get through this door.”
But Flash turned to both of them, alarmed. “What do you mean you have to get back there? I thought you said it was under Confederation control.”
“I may have lied about that,” Remy admitted, while Anders tried to load coordinates into the system.
“You’re telling me we’ve been firing on our own ship and our own people all this time!” He brought the ship to a full stop and took over scrambler controls to keep Anders from leaving. “There is no way you’re leaving me to answer for treason.”
As Anders tried to protest and explain himself, the door dematerialized behind them. Remy threw his hands up before the guns entered. Realizing defeat, Anders and Flash followed suit.
Colonel Fortune removed his helmet and studied Remy’s face closely, very closely. “Well, well, Colonel Freedom suspected you might try to interfere with this operation.” Then he went nose to nose with Anders. “I’m surprised you let yourself get dragged along with him, Lieutenant.”
“I found out about the experiments Major Sadile was running. I couldn’t look the other way while those miners were dissolved like his test subjects.”
“You can take that up with your CO.” He looked to Flash with a tinge of interest. “And just who are you?”
“I’m the ship’s pilot. The computer woke me when they disrupted the auto navigation. They told me you were Confederation troops in a captured ship.”
“Well then, once we clean up this mess and properly decommission the facility on the planet, you can restore the auto navigation and return yourself to storage.”
“Don’t let them,” Remy warned him. “They’ll wipe your memory.”
Fortune dug the butt of his rifle into Remy’s stomach to quiet him.