The Token by Kevin Bird (the little red hen ebook .TXT) 📖

moving quickly to narrow the distance that any help would have to cover to reach them.
“No, sir. They don’t seem to be expecting any resistance from us.”
“On my mark, fire a blast at their engines.” He waited only a few seconds to give his men time to prep their weapons; after all they had not been expecting to have to use them. “Mark!”

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A blast of light appeared on the screen in front of Drake. “Shields up!” As he shouted out his order he had a moment to see how foolish he’d been to trust someone else and allow himself to be expecting an easy and disabled target to come out of shift. He also had time to realize his order would come too late.
With that thought, a powerful explosion rocked his ship. For a second everything went dark then low lights, running on stored energy, came on.
“Report!” He was alive and his ship, though clearly hit, still sealed him and his men from the death of airless space.
“Our starboard engine has been hit but the emergency seals worked and contained our atmosphere. Shields are now up, and we should be able to resist any more shots from them.”
“Good,” he was relieved. “Open a line to Cale.”
“Open, captain.”
“Cale, are you OK?” He was worried the blast and any debris might have reached his men. On Drake’s orders, Taren had sent out five, two-man teams ready to ambush the expected vessel from several sides at once. While the Collectors would be concentrating their efforts on defending against the pirate vessel the ten men would gain access via openings created by the spy.
“We’re all fine, captain. What about radio silence?” He was annoyed at his captain and was in a precarious spot floating around in space where he didn’t feel like hiding his emotions.
Drake ignored the immediate rebuke that came to his lips, as he knew he had broken his own orders. “Cale, we hadn’t expected them to fire on us so the situation has changed somewhat and in any….” Another blast from the container vessel hit the Harpy, but was only felt slightly with their shields now up. “In any case we…”
A bridge member interrupted him. “Captain, the hull lights are off, shields are gone, and their weapons are powering down!”
The spy had finally done his job then. Drake silently thanked him for his success and, at the same time, cursed him for the delay. He wouldn’t forget the fear he had felt, and who, in the pirate’s mind, had caused it by being inefficient. “Can you see the strobes, Cale?” The line was still open.
“Yes, captain. We’re moving in now. Out.” The connection was broken.

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“Now what?” New alarms had sounded and the captain of the Cargo 1 was in shock. This wasn’t something he had been trained for. Emergencies and pirate ships were for soldiers to deal with. After the two shots his ship had been able to fire he was out of ideas, and now he had been told most of the ship’s systems were faulty or completely off-line.
“Sir, readings show the exterior access hatches on level twelve are being opened from outside. We may be experiencing a boarding!” The man’s voice was shaking with fear.
“Get a security detachment down there on the double.” The captain felt like he was losing control, and he hated the feeling; things were moving too fast for him now and he knew it.
“Tell them to report as soon as they get down there. I want to know what’s going on.”
His crew apprised him of the other malfunctions and shutdowns that seemed to be occurring to all of the important systems. Even their ability to move had now been taken from them. They were stuck here till help came, if they could last that long.
After a few moments a voice came over the speakers on the bridge, “Captain, Lieutenant Swit here sir. My men and I have entered the corridor that accesses all the exit hatches on level twelve and they’re all closed. There must have been an error in the readings. What would you….” His voice was broken off by a loud noise.
“Swit, come in!” His voice was rising higher in his panic.
The Lieutenant’s voice came back obviously frightened. “Sir, the corridor doors have sealed behind us and we can’t override the controls. It looks like the computer has been tampered with.”
Another noise came over the speakers. This was quieter than the last but more ominous, everyone recognized it. It was a mechanical voice repeating over and over something that the captain couldn’t make out.
“The hatches are opening! Oh, God, please close them!” The terror in Swit’s voice was compounded by the sound of the other security men’s screams as they were all instantly blown out to the cold of space.
Their pressure suits would keep them alive for no more than an hour and they all knew it. The sounds came through the bridge speakers and sent shivers down the spines of those on the bridge. The captain ordered the connection terminated and the sudden silence washed over the frightened remaining crewmembers.
A man at a bank of controls behind him said, “Sir, I can’t close the access hatches again.”
“Don’t worry about them now,” the captain almost screamed, “So long as the corridor door is locked no one can get in and we won’t be losing atmosphere either. Anyway, we’ve more important things to worry about.” He was looking up at his screen as the pirate ship began to move closer.

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Cale knew the Collectors would be too worried about the reducing distance between the two ships to scan for any tiny threats right under their nose. He was right. His men had been drifting under the bigger vessel when it appeared and hadn’t been noticed as they slowly moved closer to the hull. They were guided to the hatches by the planned violet strobes and there they had waited. Once they had seen the security team blast out of the hatches, they knew the way was clear for them to board in secrecy. Once inside, they used the code Marshall had given them to gain active control of the ship. The first thing Cale did was to close the hatches behind them. Once the seal had been confirmed and the atmosphere brought back to normal they all climbed out of their cumbersome suits and prepared for a scrap.
“Frem, you’re with me.” Cale pointed to a tall broad-shouldered man who stepped to his side. “Once I get this door open, all of you get going. You know your jobs, so do them and keep in touch with me.”
The nine men around him nodded their assent and stood, weapons in hand, ready for the doorway to open. Each of them had a smile that exuded confidence and a thrill about the coming hunt. Cale’s fingers hit the keys in a short sequence, and the door slid to the side with a quiet rasp.
“Get going!”
The men moved off in their teams of two surrounded by the blare of sirens and annoying red lights flashing overhead.
Cale and his partner headed for the bridge while the rest went to the engine room, living quarters, storage areas, and other parts of the ship where they expected to find crewmen. Their only job was to find and destroy everyone on board.
The Collector security teams had been split between investigating the outer hatch breach and trying to find a way to get Clayton out of his room. The first group were already out of the picture, and the last were shot down from behind just as they had finally cut through the steel door and found Clayton was not even there. Now only the regular crewmembers stood in their way and the pirates easily outmatched the unarmed and mostly overweight men.
Cale and Frem stepped cautiously from the elevator that had taken them to the level of the main bridge. They had not seen any life on board since separating from the other pirates but now was not the time to let down their guard. Cale had already received updates from all his men informing him that their missions had been almost completed. Now it was just a mopping up operation. No one on his team had been injured; Drake would be very pleased.
“Frem, we’re here. Go round to the other entrance and wait for my signal."
There were two doors to the bridge; Cale stood by one and Frem moved to the second. With a quiet word of warning over his radio to get ready, Cale pressed some buttons on a keypad and both doors slid open simultaneously. So much was happening on the bridge and so many people were talking at once, that the entry of the pirates went unnoticed for a moment. But only for a very short moment.
“Fire!” Cale leapt into the room his gun blazing. Frem followed his lead and also opened up on the thoroughly surprised crew and captain. With the first shot the pirates became the center of the Collectors’ attentions. However, seeing the pirates did nothing to help them deal with the situation. Unarmed and unprepared, all they gained from the sight was maybe a brief second to realize they were going to die. Within less than five seconds the two pirates were the only ones left alive in the Cargo 1’s command center.
In rapid succession the reports came in that no other crew members or security personnel were alive, and still none of the pirates had been injured. Amazing! Cale thought that maybe it was the recent practice against the Hoppers that had so improved these men’s close quarter fighting abilities. Maybe those weird creatures had been good for at least one thing after all. Once all the men had gathered on the bridge, Cale opened up communications and Drakes grinning face showed on the screen.
Cale grinned back. “Captain, the cargo vessel is ours.”


Twenty Five

The small pod hadn’t moved far from the cargo ship before Clayton shut down the engines and let the craft drift. When asked why, Clayton answered, “I think the Collectors will be quite busy with the pirates for a while, but I don’t want to take any chances. By now they must have a pretty good idea that I had something to do with this attack. If they track a pod from their own vessel, they’ll guess it’s me and try to do something to stop us. It’s just better they don’t know to even look for us.”
Sean was nervous, “But who’s going to find us out here?”
“This is a homing device,” Clayton held it out to the boy to look at, “and the pirates will pick us up when they’re through with the Collectors.”
Jacob had never been this close to a space battle and he felt grateful that it was apparently a short one. He had always felt his decision to stop sending men to war was a just one and this proximity to danger in the cold of space only reinforced it. The small pod was rocked by a shockwave when the cargo vessel fired and hit the pirates for the second time. They all panicked a little thinking the pirates, and thus they themselves were doomed; but after a few