'We'll see what this inspection turns up,' the Colonel said as she activated a holographic display that projected from the palm of her hand. Rain drops made small spots in the image for a moment as they passed through. She nodded to herself as she read the information on the Clever Dream, satisfied that it was registered to Ayan and moved on to the Samson. 'Sold to you by Captain Jacob Valance yesterday. How is it that his ship is here and I don't see him?'
'I took it while he was in the shower,' Ayan sneered. Her patience was already beyond frayed.
The Colonel smiled thinly and looked down at her with a raised eyebrow. 'You know, I almost believe you. Did you take it in our space?'
'No.'
'Then I suggest you get a registry slip printed for each of that and each of your ships. The fighters especially. It says here that they were manufactured for your use on a vessel called the Triton.'
'Our larger ship.'
'Well, we don't have any record of it, so you'll have to get those tied to you on secure slips so we have something more difficult to counterfeit next time you run into us. Do you have any kind of receipt of sale to prove that you paid for these or had any kind of command authority to order their construction?'
'I'm a senior officer on the Triton.'
'Do you have any evidence of that? A manifest? A service record?'
Ayan couldn't stand it any longer, and brought up the senior officer list for the Triton. In the space of seconds it was hovering between them on a large hologram. At the top were Jacob and Ayan.
'Can you pass the record on to me please?'
'No, you don't have the rank,' Ayan said quietly. 'If you can get me in front of someone who can approve a multi-role close combat carrier and a crew of two thousand or more for Privateering, like a representative of the Governor’s Office, then I'll be happy to cooperate.'
'You know, I could revoke your landing rights and send you on-'
'No, you won't. Your government needs privateers with the means and equipment to fight. The Order of Eden is everywhere, Regent Galactic is closing in along with them, and you don't have enough ships,' Ayan growled.
The Colonel pretended to ignore everything Ayan said, straightened up and announced; 'The scan didn't pick up any illegal materials, only a few weapons that won't be permitted within the city limits of Greydock. Here's a list, along with our laws. Be sure that your crew, even the refugees, gets a copy.'
'We need clearance for a ship to go to Greydock so I can negotiate the terms of a privateering contract,'
'You won't be getting it. All your vessels are forbidden to leave this area. If one takes off, we'll be forced to destroy it from orbit. Have a nice day, Commander.' The Colonel smirked.
'I was instructed to visit the Office of the Governor upon landing.'
'If you come with me I'll be more than happy to provide you with transportation. You and your aide are welcome.'
'They come with me,' Ayan said, nodding towards two of the armoured Triton soldiers behind her.
'They leave their rifles here. Sidearms only.'
'Thank you,' Ayan forced.
One of Triton’s security personnel walked to Ayan's side hastily and handed her a courier bag. 'Someone said you'd need this,' he told her quietly before retreating back to his place beside Jake and Stephanie.
'Follow me please,' said the Colonel as her small skiff turned towards the large customs ship.
Chapter 18
The constant flaring of muzzle flashes filled the broad outer hallway. Major Cumberland watched as two of his soldiers; Faltia and Mazurek, dragged wounded back around the corner. His helmet command display showed him the desperate scene in all its gore. The enemy were holding the outer hall as though their lives depended on it, firing from side rooms, from behind heavy crates that had been dragged in for cover. They were losing as many or more people as Cumberland was.
How many Triton crew members were left was a mystery to everyone, but each was fighting tooth and nail to keep Major Cumberland’s people from moving towards the interior sections of the ship. 'These aren't like the ones on the command or engineering levels, they don't have stealth suits,' reported his second in command, a young officer named Loman.
'I know, but they're fighting like I've never seen,' Major Cumberland said as he watched his people fall back. He had arrived on the scene with five squads and he had lost sixteen men, reducing their number to thirty four.
“Is it true that you bagged a whole squad of stealthers when you got on board sir?” Asked Sturges, a young private.
“We caught them coming from the fighter deck as we were sealing a section off. A little luck and a lot of cover fire did the job. Keep your head on a swivel and you’ll bag one too, Private,” Major Cumberland reassured with gritty enthusiasm. He knew his people had gotten lucky though. If his scanning officer wasn’t using his sonic system tuned really high, they wouldn’t have noticed the Deck Chief slowly surrounding them. When he fired it was instinctive, and at first he thought his people were panicking, firing at shadows and ghosts. When the Deck Chief’s corpse dropped, he knew better and closed ranks. They filled the corridor with cover fire and when the smoke cleared, Major Collins had lost eight of his people, killing only seven of the stealthed defenders. He returned to the moment as he realized that a few of his men were too busy trading war stories.
'I just watched one of the normals break cover,” one was recalling, “He tossed a whole handful of incendiary grenades and dive behind a crate. His face… it was like… I've never seen so much hate in my life,'
Narrow Field Incendiary grenades, they burned for several white hot seconds in a small space and went out, the kind of hardware only a real infantryman knew how to use. 'That's what got Gerbagio and Sams. I saw it. '
'An issyrian is leading them. I caught sight for a second. What do we do sir?'
Sgt Cumberland looked at Loman for a moment then checked the energy level on his rifle. Morale was already a problem when they arrived. The boarding teams had won several straight on fire fights and taken over one hundred crew members into custody. For that hundred in custody they had killed fifty. The ship was a death trap. The engineering levels had killed or disabled four squads. The fire fight on the command deck was a day old and everyone was getting paranoid, afraid of the defenders they couldn’t see.
Major Cumberland had been in hard fights before, he'd seen people cut in half by pulse weapon fire right in front of him, but that didn't prepare him for what had been happening around the medical bay. He was listening to Lieutenant Sascha Linares when people from her squad started disappearing. There was no warning, no fire fight, two of her people simply disappeared from all sensors and when they reappeared around a corner several meters up the corridor they were dead, decapitated cleanly.
They held their ground, scanned with sonics and everything else they had and just as their scanning officer thought she glimpsed something Lieutenant Linares was killed. She was standing right in the middle of her squad; and whoever was after them, toying with them, ran a micron thick blade into the top of her head and left it there. He didn’t watch the playback.
Then the assassin left them alone for over an hour.
They almost made it out of the medical section, but as they were just about to enter a narrow service hatch they were killed, two by two. It happened so quickly anything the squad said was unintelligible. It wasn't an explosive; they had a chance to fire their weapons. They had a chance to scream. Medical had claimed more than one squad, and if what he was overhearing from command was any indication, they would be going in full force next time, and he knew when they cleared the hallway ahead, command would be sending them inward, to prepare to take the infirmary.
Someone like Private Loman might crack as soon as he realized they were headed that way. 'We're going to rush them. Tell the heavies that we'll need their concussive charges. We can't afford to use anything else or we could break a seal and start venting atmosphere.'
