'Are you getting any information on the lifeboats? How many are missing?' Parker asked Lisa quietly.
'Command's intel says they estimate nine lifeboats are gone. That leaves one hundred five hyper jump capable and four hundred fifty suspension pods that would fit four or six people depending on configuration.'
'So they could have taken their chances and abandoned, but didn't. What are they planning?'
'Keep actively scanning the way ahead Ralston, Parker. This is all wrong,' Tate ordered.
The squad carefully made their way through the lift door. Stepping from zero gravity to single unit gravity was strange. Lisa always thought it was like part of her was falling while whatever wasn't affected by the gravity was still floating free. Everyone else seemed to make the transition so easily, and when it came to her turn she felt awkward. Shelly caught her by the collar of her heavy breastplate and balanced her as she found her feet. No one in the squad noticed, in fact, many of them needed the same kind of assistance and wordlessly offered it to each other.
Her scans turned up nothing out of the ordinary. 'Everything ahead is dead, no light, no sound, even sonic sensors are just bouncing off walls.'
'You're going to overheat that thing if you run the sonic repeater all the time,' Parker advised.
'Then you'll fix it for her. Let's move. Nott-'
'I'm on point, I know,' Nott said as he started down the broad, darkened main hall, his rifle raised.
His fourteen squad members followed behind in a double column, all ready for the worst. Lisa did her job. Monitoring the few energy patterns and watching as her scanning tool populated with a more and more detailed map of the compartments ahead. 'Sir, the life signs we detected are behind the next door.'
'Are they still just sitting there?'
'Yes, no energy or trace identifiers indicating they have weaponry of any kind either.'
'All right. Parker, go ahead and get it open. It's about time we got some face time with a crew member.'
Parker started to move ahead but the door opened at his approach. He stepped back into position behind the first five squad members and drew his sidearm.
The long corridor ahead was lined with engineering control stations. Above was some kind of main engineering room with a semi-transparent floor and at the end of the hall were a pair of heavy armoured doors. The room above was empty, but lined up in double file were all the crewmembers command had detected and marked for her earlier. They were sitting calmly, cross legged behind a transparent security bulkhead. At the front of the assembly sat a serine, square shouldered man in thick blue robes. Lisa could see he was wearing a heavy protective vacuum suit beneath, much like the people behind him.
On the chest of each crewman's black and grey uniform was printed a silver skull with the ship's name written beneath it; Triton. The word was positioned as the death head's teeth. They wore their rank on their cuffs in the form of slashes.
The gentleman sitting closest to them opened his eyes slowly and looked directly at Nott, whose shoulders were already relaxing. 'I'm unarmed. There's no need for hostility.'
'Under the authority of Caran- I mean, Regent Galactic Peace Keeping Forces, I'm placing you and every member of this crew under arrest. You have a right to a trial with a networked third party, basic life provisions until sentencing, and may record a message for posterity in the event that your sentence is long term or fatal,' announced Sergeant Tate mechanically.
The gentleman smiled gently at them. 'I am Liam Grady, a man of peace and Chief Engineer of this ship,' he spoke gently, as though he was welcoming them aboard. 'Any harm we have done was the result of self defence, and I’m sorry for any injury we’ve caused. Why have you pursued us since Ossimi Ring?'
'Get him to his feet.'
Two squad members secured their rifles and moved to the gentleman's sides.
The fellow stood in one smooth, effortless motion and presented his wrists. 'You can arrest me, but I'll never be your captive. I suggest you take your people and leave.' His eyes scanned over the eye openings of all the squad's helmets and came to rest on Lisa's.
He didn't mean them any harm, she could see that as plainly as anything. He stared at her as though he could see straight through her white tinted eye piece.
Ommalman pulled a set of restraints from his belt. He hesitated for a second before moving to put them on.
Liam Grady's eyes never left hers as he deftly caught the restraints the instant before they were on his wrists, clapped one loop around Ommalman's wrist and secured the other around the next nearest soldier's wrist.
Nott fired his rifle a second too late as the Engineer ducked and stepped behind one troop. The man’s movements were so easy, quick and graceful, one motion flowing into the next as he stole one guard's sidearm, threw it behind him and pushed both men hard, knocking them back a step, forcing them off balance. He slammed into them shoulder first and the tethered were sent flailing into the squadron, getting in Nott's way and forcing the whole group back.
The Engineer's headpiece came up and covered him like a hood made of metal slats with a black face plate beneath.
Lisa's muscles strained and her back ached for a moment before her and the entire squad were pressed to the deck under the force of more gravity than she'd ever experienced. They were utterly immobilized. She strained to see her hand scanner but couldn't. It was difficult to breathe, like something was sitting on her chest and her knee was twisted at an awkward angle.
Liam stepped into the gravity field and non-nonchalantly collected their weapons and equipment, placing them in a pile. The door behind him opened and his engineering team got to work on something she couldn't discern. When the Engineer collected Lisa's sidearm, scanner and other tools he carefully repositioned her leg so her knee wasn't under such a terrible strain. 'That's got to be a relief,' he said to her comfortingly. He did the same for everyone else, straightening them and making them reasonably comfortable. 'I'm going to leave you here for a while, there are other things to attend to and I can't have you under foot. I'm sorry it's come to this, but in a way you're lucky,' he told them. 'I'm the resident humanitarian. The rest of your people are going to start running into Triton soldiers soon.'
Nott managed an angry, incoherent wail from where he was sprawled, pinned to the floor.
'Don't try to get the last word in, just lay there and concentrate on breathing,' the Engineer told him. Lisa could hear him smiling around the words.
Chapter 15
'Are you all right Minh?' Came Ayan's voice over the comm.
They had been in hyperspace for five hours, and for the whole time Minh felt naked, vulnerable, like he was in nothing but his vacsuit and at any moment the energetic particles that covered the hull of his small fighter could dissipate unevenly and he'd be torn to shreds. His instruments told him everything was fine. When he turned off his head's up display and looked to his right, his left, he saw the dark confines of the cockpit around him. He could feel the adjusting rests on his stomach, his chest, his back, legs and shoulders. They fit snugly, perfectly, but it didn't help. Every time he brought up his head's up display all he saw was a gossamer of statistics and stars. He tried to think of something else, anything else, but his mind wouldn’t settle on anything.
His breaths came in shorter and shorter gasps, he could feel sweat collecting as quickly as it could be soaked away by his vacsuit. Then an image came to him; Ashley, sitting at the bar with her drink after she’d stopped by his table in the Pilot’s Den. He had one brief conversation with her, but would never forget her smile, her dark eyes, or the light curiosity she'd approached him with. That's all it was, he was sure, curiosity, but if he had just approached her, taken the time to look her up on Crewcast during his off hours, or chat with her during a simulation, there might have been more.
From her last known condition and the situation the Triton was in he knew it was more than likely that she
