“Crew of the Regent Galactic Cargo Hauler Lilla. We have decompressed the bridge of your ship and disposed of the command crew. We also have an armed party boarding your vessel. You are hereby ordered to abandon ship. Any resistance will be met with lethal force,” Captain Valance sealed the airlock of the maxjack onto the hole he had made and pressurized it. “You're clear to board Stephanie. Ramirez, see if your team can use internal sensors to tell Stephanie where to expect trouble.”
“Aye sir.”
They waited for several minutes. Stephanie got through the airlock with her mixed team of experienced boarding crew and members recruited from the Aucharian port. “There's no welcoming committee, moving inside,” she reported.
“We have three small craft leaving the cargo hauler,” reported navigation.
“Get a profile. Are they fighters or escape craft?” Asked Captain Valance.
“Here, let me show you,” Ashley said, leaning over to the navigator's station. “There, now your scanners are linked with our database.”
“They're escape craft sir,” the navigator reported. “Looks like five aboard each and a fourth just came up with three aboard.”
“Well, that's pretty much all of them, time to get the hell out of here,” Captain Valance said as much to himself as to anyone else as he double checked the maxjack's status. “Boarding crews; report secure when you've managed to get behind a bulkhead.”
“Meeting resistance further inside sir,” Stephanie shouted as she ducked behind the first corner after entering the airlock.
“They're not on internal sensors,” she heard Ramirez report through her subdermal communicator.
“Their vacsuits most likely block out any passive scans and conceal thermal profiles,” she replied, peeking around a corner using the electronic eye on the end of her rifle. It sent the images it was recording to a small semitransparent display in her faceplate. Their opponents were in military vacsuits. They weren't just crew members trying to keep boarders off the ship. A moment later they fired at the tip of her weapon, missing but making their point regardless. “Sir, they're in a better position than we are. I'll try to fix that.”
She pulled two round devices out of her thigh pocket, activated them both and rolled them around the corner. The soldiers behind her, four new recruits and one crew member from the Samson didn't even recognize the little machines. A moment later the hallway was filled with pulse weapon fire and after ten seconds an explosion rang out. Before the dust had settled Stephanie rolled out into the hallway and began firing. “Take the next corridor!” She shouted.
Only three of the enemy soldiers were down on the floor, two of them had been killed by the pulse grenades energy bolts, the third had been caught by the fragments when they exploded. Stephanie ordered two of the younger boarding crewmen ahead. “Fire on anything that moves.”
They rushed the next corridor and a grenade came sliding down the hallway at them. Stephanie reacted immediately. “Back!” She shouted as she was almost around the corner. The rear view display on her headpiece showed that one of the new recruits was just about to kick the grenade back down the hall. “No! Don't!” Just as she got around the corner the toe of his boot hit one of the detonation triggers dead on.
He and the crewman beside him were killed instantly. That left her with two new recruits and March, the only experienced boarding crewman she had brought along. She looked to him and nodded. “Grenades. We'll push them back and seal ourselves in.”
“Good idea.”
“Give us your grenades,” ordered the new boarding party members, they both looked terrified. After a moment one of them handed three standard fragmentation grenades to Stephanie and the other handed one to March, who looked at him in disbelief. “Really? One grenade?”
The corridor came to life with cover fire, making the corner impassible. March shrugged, set the grenade he had been given on a two second timer and tossed it with a flick of his wrist, leaving their opponents no time to react. The explosion put an end to the incoming pulse weapon fire.
“-unning out of time!” Stephanie heard through her communicator, it was the Captain.
“Working on it. We're almost safe!” Stephanie called back. She fired around the corner blindly with her rifle on full automatic, filling the hallway with energy rounds. March followed her lead and moved around the corner. When he started firing she moved in place beside him. They started walking down the hall slowly and stopped firing. One of the soldiers peeked around the corner. Stephanie and March both caught him in the forehead with a single shot.
Stephanie bounced a grenade against the far wall and around the corner. The sounds of shuffling ahead told her that it was a good shot and before two seconds had passed it went off. “Newbies! Move up!” She called out.
The new boarding crew members ran up behind them with rifles ready. Instead of peeking around the corner herself she tossed her last fragmentation grenade down the next hallway on a three second fuse.
“Everyone back!” They heard someone shout, but it was far too late. The abrupt explosion silenced all the shuffling in the next hallway and when they stepped around the corner they could see that the charge had taken out at least five soldiers.
Stephanie and March didn't let their guards down, but took the next hall in a rush. It was clear. She activated a basic control panel at the far end of the corridor and closed an emergency blast door. “You get the one at the other end, March.”
He nodded and hurried to close the blast door at the other end of the hallway, sealing them into the section so they would be safe in hyperspace to plan their next move.
“Secure!” Came Stephanie's report through the bridge sound system.
“We'll be a minute,” Ramirez said.
“Finn, how are we for entering hyperspace?” Asked the Captain.
“Fine, we lost three up here though. We'll be in cramped quarters as well. We lost the aft berth.”
“I have wireless noise incoming,” Cynthia reported. “Looks like several ships.”
“I don't see anything on gravitational sensors,” said Ashley's copilot.
“Well, something's coming in. Our intelligence might have been wrong about that ship being alone,” Captain Valance commented. “Anything yet, navigation?”
“Wait. Big gravity coming in!”
“Ramirez! We are out of time!”
“We're just getting secure now sir, give us ten seconds.”
“Ashley, fire it up, get ready to head into hyperspace,” Captain Valance ordered.
Just as he finished a much larger ship arrived from hyperspace right behind them. “Regent Galactic deep space destroyer, the Cray right behind us sir,” navigation reported.
“Ramirez?” Captain Valance asked impatiently.
“Secure!” He replied.
“Are you sure? Because we could just wait here to be boarded.”
“I'm sure sir.”
“Get us out of here.”
Ashley fired the engines and gradually brought them up to full power, turning the large hauler and her cargo train into their planned course.
“Incoming communication from the Cray. They're demanding we power down and prepare to be boarded or they'll be forced to destroy us.” Cynthia reported.
“You know, for once I wish they'd just call to say hello,” Ashley said as she made some fine adjustments. “Hyperspace in three, two, one.”
Rarities
The Clever Dream emerged from a wormhole at the edge of Euphoria Universal space. It was a solar system with twenty three terraforming operations under way and more bases than anyone could count.
