The Delkar Job Part V
08 Mar 2017Jellicoe
"Skirvings orders come directly from Admiral Sleer." Harry Soames told us as we sat in the Brig corridor."What?" I replied incredulously.
"Exactly that. When I heard what had happened I took the rest of the marines to arrest him, then he showed me his orders; take command of the ship, arrest you and hand you over to Rickard who's to take you to some secret naval facility."
"Rickard? Working for Sleer?" I asked, my brain swimming.
"Looks that waty, look I don't know the details, I don't think Skirving does either. Anyway what do we do now? As soon as Claude and I don't show up on the bridge Skirving will smell a rat."
"What does he need me for?" Claude asked.
"He rebooted the scanners and they're not working." Harry answered, Claude smiled knowingly and opened his mouth to sleep.
"I think I've got it." I jumped in. "Harry where are the rest of the crew? The marines in particular?"
"Skirvings watch are on the bridge with four marines, another marine is in that cell, two are in engineering helping Jock and the other is in my quarters pumped full of sedatives. The rest of the crew have been told to stay in their quarters to save power."
"Right. Do you know what the Delkar Ltd ship is?"
"Keelback I think."
"Right, orders. Harry and Claude get on to the bridge then pull guns on them, are they carrying anything more than batons?"
"No." Harry answered. "Skirving's a lot of things but he's not a murderer, and besides he needs you alive."
"Do you think they'll resist?" I asked Harry again.
"I doubt it. They know Skirving's orders are illegal, they might follow them because they're from Sleer but I'm pretty sure they won't take a bullet for him."
"And if they do?" I pressed. "Can you shoot your own men?"
"I made my choice." Harry said his face hard and voice tight. "A soldier must be more than just a drone who unquestioningly obeys, if I must fire then I shall." I nodded and clapped him on the shoulder.
"We must take the bridge, if we can't then this is all for nothing, Vik, follow up and support them as soon as they get inside. Mira and I will get to the fighters and take out this Keelback."
"The fighters are drones skipper, there's no power and they have the control stations." Vik put in.
that's so, but the Condor was built as manned fighter, though ours are rigged for remote piloting, and they still have manual flight controls and their own power cells. We'll have to hand-crank the launch bay open but they'll work fine. The only problem is we won't be able to dock again without power, can you spacewalk back?" I asked Mira.
"Sure." She sounded as confident as ever but I'm sure I saw fear in her eyes.
"Alright, we won't come back aboard at the hangar, there's a maintenance hatch by the main guns we'll use that. Any questions?" Four heads shook. "Good. All we have to do then is fix the engines and get out of here." I said with a grin.
Sneaking about as a fugitive on board your own ship is not an enjoyable experience and not one I would care to repeat, every corner we turned, every door we opened risked bringing us face to face with an armed marine. The power being out meant that every door had to be opened by hand and to compound that the explosion had caused the emergency bulkheads to deploy so what should have been a five minute walk took over half an hour but the hangar was unoccupied and for the first time I was grateful that Sleer had cut my marine complement from platoon to section strength. We put our helmets on and Mira began prepping the two alert fighters for launch while I set about opening the launch doors, it was hard, exhausting work but fifteen minutes later I was sitting in the Condors cockpit ready for take off.
"Now what?" Mira's voice buzzed through my earpiece.
"Follow me." I said gently thumbing the manoeuvring thrusters to guide my fighter out of the bay. "As soon as we're clear of the ship go dark, if they spot us they'll smell a rat."
"Roger that Commander." Mira replied and we made our way to the rear of the ship taking care to stay out of sight of the bridge, then I powered down my craft and settled in to wait.
Sitting in a powered down fighter in deep space is not something I would wish on anyone, the temperature plummets and while your suit will keep you alive the numbing cold seeps into every fibre of your being yet you must remain alert knowing that the target could appear at any moment as the all pervading cold numbs your brain and strips your senses.
"Looks like this is it." Mira's voice roused me from my torpor as without the on board computer to synthesize sound I had entirely missed the entry cloud of a ship jumping in.
"Wanna take him now?" Mira asked.
"No, let him get closer. I want them mass-locked before we open fire." I replied. The Keelback manoeuvred alongside the Resolution, her pilot skilfully matching the slow spin of the drifting Corvette.
"He's putting a docking tube across." Mira said and a white corridor began to extend towards my crippled vessel. "Does that mean Skirving's still in control?"
"Looks like it." I said grimly. "Which means that Keelback could be our only way out of here." I mentally ran through ways we might take the ship, boarding her with two people was out of the question though if we could blow the canopy we might be able to force the ships surrender and still have an operable vessel, but it would require pin point accuracy and mean our fragile fighters staying down range of the Keelback's main guns. The other option was to target their engines before demanding the ships surrender, the danger with that was the damage destroyed the ship before the engines blew but it was still the best chance we had. "Target their engines then they can surrender or die. Go, go, go." I brought the Condor's systems back online and squeezed my trigger sending a long burst of plasma rounds slamming into the Keelbacks shields, seconds later Mira's own burst raked the enemy vessel. I held my position under the Resolution's hull, reckoning the Delkar Ltd pilot would be reluctant to fire close to an already damaged ship holding men he was ordered to take alive while Mira swooped round behind the target, both of us pumping fire into the enemy. The Keelback though had made no attempt to move to engage us, holding position close to the Resolution despite the hail of incoming fire.
"He must have men in that docking tube." I shouted and felt a surge of relief as my shields came back online with a synthesized buzz. "He's a sitting duck."
"Turrets deployed commander, get some chaff down." Mira's warning came a fraction too late, I had been so fixated on putting as many rounds as possible into the ship that I had missed the beam laser turret that now seemed to be pointing straight at me. I frantically jinked, gunned my engines and dropped chaff but not before a searing beam of super heated light had burned away my shields and bitten deep into my hull until my desperate manoeuvring and cloud of chaff brought me some respite.
"Get clear commander, I'll draw his fire." Mira's voice sounded worried and I pulled my fighter behind the Resolution's vast hulk before flicking on my external camera to see Mira giving a virtuoso display of flying as she bobbed and wove in and out of the swarm of laser fire, all the while maintaining a wicked rain of molten plasma into the enemy. The Keelback was manoeuvring itself now, trying to bring Mira into its forward arc while its turrets kept up their stinging fire. With a welcome buzz my shields came back up and I gently moved into firing position. Largely thanks to Mira the Keelbacks shields were almost gone, a full burst from my guns finished the job.
"Good of you to join me Commander, now hit those engines." We targeted the Keelbacks Frame-Shift Drive but it is hard to be that accurate with fixed weapons against a spinning, jinking target while dodging a storm of defensive fire and for every hit we scored on her engines at least two more slammed into the hull. It was hopeless.
"Keelback this is Commander Jellicoe. Surrender your ship or we will destroy you." It was worth a try. No response.
"Commander I'm picking up an energy surge, he's trying to run." Mira said, concern dripping from her voice.
"Keep trying to hit those engines and pray." I snarled in reply. We fired, vainly hoping that the engines would go before either the ship blew or the pilot completed his jump. A brief bloom of brilliant light followed by the synthesised sound of the Keelback exploding announced our failure. I punched my console in angry frustration fighting to control my rising panic at the knowledge we may just have destroyed our only hope of getting out of this when another voice buzzed in my ear.
"If you two have quite finished out there would you care to join me on the bridge?" Claude asked apparently without a care in the world.