industrial diamonds in the hold. I'll trade them for ten slaves so I can properly man a hyperspace capable ship I have in the hold I'll be out of your hair-”
“Kneel.”
The little hope in Captain Gammin's eyes died, panic threatened as he stood struck still.
“Kneel.” Captain Valance repeated. He wasn't yelling, he didn't seem out of control, only deeply, irrecoverably angry.
Captain Gammin did so, his pristine velvet pants picking up dust the moment his knees touched the deck. “Okay, take everything! I just need a ship.'
Captain Valance placed the amulet in his coat interior pocket slowly and rechecked his aim. The long pistol was levelled at Gammin's face. The barrel was as steady as a structural beam, unwavering.
'You said I could-”
“I lied.” Captain Valance pulled the trigger only once, obliterating Captain Gammin's face and everything behind it.
Nerine and David flinched when the shot went off. As she watched her Captain's corpse slump to the floor, steam and flickering light rolling out of his ruined head she realized that most of the boarding crew around her had jumped as well. No one expected him to actually kill Captain Gammin in cold blood. She didn't know what she felt, she was numb as she watched Captain Valance casually shove his sidearm back into its holster and turn to face the boarding crew. “Treat her injuries.” he pointed straight at her. “Patch into the ship systems and inform the crew that we've taken control and we'll be injecting them with nanobots to destroy their implants. I'll determine if the ship is safe and worth taking with the help of the existing staff.”
“Yes sir,” two of the boarding crew replied emphatically.
“And get them out of restraints. We're trying to make friends here,” he added.
Chapter 9
Ayan tried to look at ease. It was difficult. The captain's seat wasn't the intimidating part of being the centre of the Triton command structure, it was the array of informational holographic displays that appeared as soon as you sat down. Her engineering status setup remained but it was surrounded by an all encompassing semi- transparent cloud of displays that kept her informed on all the most important operational details.
It was different in the simulations. Everything looked just as real but the feeds weren't real, you could ignore something and people wouldn't die because they were waiting for a decision or extra information. Stephanie and Jacob's separate boarding actions, Minh's fighter squadron and the situation on the Triton itself were all current, everything was happening right in front of her. The parties delegated to overseeing each act were listed along with an available history of their decisions.
The centre of the display held a three fold tactical map, one for the outside of the obscuring field they had passed through, another centred around the station and another that showed a greater view of everything inside the obscuring field. It was a slow moving maelstrom of wreckage, rogue meteors from the asteroid belt and other difficult to identify flotsam. Triton’s defensive systems were functioning perfectly, the gravity shield kept all the smaller dangers at bay and the lower gunners were effectively keeping a path clear so their ships could land safely. Triton was hidden, at long last. If anyone did a long range sensor sweep of the asteroid field they'd be blocked by the obscuring field. Considering many critical resource cultivation operations used similar technology to hide their activity and inventory levels, they would be passed over. Just another cultivation operation that didn't want to reveal it's central structure or stock levels.
“I found it intimidating at first too,” Agameg whispered from the tactical command station. “They use a different kind of system where you're from?”
Ayan nodded as she settled in and looked at the status update of the boarding actions. “More simplified, but I'm also not trained on carrier operations.”
Agameg Price paused a moment, cocking his head. “I didn't find it was that complicated when I was keeping watch on the bridge. May I see the display?”
Ayan made the command display public for a moment so everyone could see the half circle of holographic interfaces that surrounded her. Jason shook his head and chuckled. “Now I know why Oz disappeared for three months for up training before he took command of the Roi De Ceil. Multi-Mission Interfaces are no picnic at first.”
Agameg’s green eyes stretched open into perfect glimmering circles and he made a chuffing sound of surprise. “The bridge watch status displays are much simpler. I understand your surprise and apologize.”
Ayan smiled as she made the display private again, glancing at a few others on the bridge who looked up long enough to see the myriad of images and information that the Captain was expected to monitor. She hadn't had much of a chance to get to know Agameg, or anyone else aboard for that matter, but she had to admit he was one of her favourite crew members so far. She'd never met a shape shifter who remained in their native form before, and there were times when she caught herself staring. He'd just smile and wink, as though he knew she meant no harm. “It's all right. The systems on Triton are a lot easier to use in some ways. This much information on a Freeground terminal would be a lot more…” she searched for the word, distracted by the holo feed of Jacob's boarding action. They were almost completely through the inner airlock door.
“Raw,” Jason finished for her. “I know, the operating system on this ship is amazing. It's only a little intelligent without an AI, something it has in common with Freeground software, only it's like the Sol system programmers are about a hundred years ahead.”
Ayan tried not to react as Jake neutralized the pair of slaves that had been marked as volatile. The nanobots he injected them with interfered with the chemical reaction taking place in their breastbones with no time to spare. Jake's heart rate dropped as soon as he was sure they were the only two walking bombs he had to deal with.
Her eye was drawn to Stephanie's mission status. She led her squads into a primary airlock and they immediately engaged a group of enslaved raiders. The firefight seemed desperate at first. Suddenly the enemy stopped firing, someone out of sight screamed and Ayan realized that the Captain aboard the Palamo had somehow activated the detonation sequence for the raiders aboard the station.
“I need you to retreat, Chief Vega. Now.” Ayan said quickly and clearly.
“Backtrack!” Stephanie called out. They made it just around the corner before the halls ahead of them exploded, rocking the point of view perspectives on her holographic display. Ayan brought up the summarized status displays for the squads and breathed a sigh of relief as she saw Chief Vega's people had gotten to the minimum safe distance. “Thank you Ayan. Glad to have you in transmission range.”
“This is the Cold Reaver. It looks like the raiders pinning us down committed some kind of suicide. One of our landing struts are damaged but we're all right.”
“Your guess isn't far off Cold Reaver. Let Chief Vega do a sweep of the area before you begin loading the injured.”
“Aye, sitting tight until we get the all clear.”
“Chief Vega, do a sweep between the Cold Reaver and the people we have at the inner door. When you arrive at the inner door I'd like you to affix a conductive wire to the superstructure of the station then connect it to your reserve comm unit. We might be able to get a signal through the electromagnetic field they have set up.”
“Will do Ayan,” Stephanie replied.
“Ayan, what's going on?” Jake asked over his private comm.
“It looks like the remainder of the raiders were just killed,” Ayan's eyes went wide as she saw the Jake's boarding mission from his perspective. His sidearm was perfectly aimed at a wealthy looking fellow's head.
“My scan of his slave control unit tells me there's one more on the ship but the detonation order came from this one. He killed thirty one of his own people before handing it over to me.”
She listened as Jake told the Captain to give him the password. “Ask him why he's killing his own people on the station,” Ayan directed quietly.
Jake was interfaced with the amulet the Captain used to control his slaves and the first password attempt
