Ep.#6 - Head of the Dragon (The Frontiers Saga) Read online

  The men responded with a simultaneous, “Yes, sir!”

  “Team leaders, review your primary and alternate routes to your targets. I want them memorized by the time we breach, which should be in about fifteen minutes.” Lieutenant Waddell turned to his corporal, one of the few Corinari that appeared to be young enough to never have served the empire before enlisting. “Let’s get them loaded up, Corporal.”

  “I have a question, Lieutenant,” Jessica stated. The lieutenant looked at her. “Where did you get that cool intel?”

  “You mean the layout of the Loranoi?” he asked. “Hell, we’ve got layouts of nearly every ship in the imperial fleet,” he bragged. “Remember, many of us have served aboard imperial ships, and many of us were smart enough to bring back as much intel as we could. We’ve been preparing for this for decades, sir.”

  “Great,” Jessica said, “that’s good to hear. But I was talking about that sweet, little holo-projector. That thing is nice.”

  The lieutenant grinned. “I’ll see to it that you get one, sir.”

  “One more question, Lieutenant,” Jessica said. “Which shuttle do I ride in?”

  “You are going with us?” the lieutenant asked, somewhat surprised.

  “You bet. Is there a problem?”

  “Yes, sir, there is. These men have trained for this mission.”

  “Trust me, Lieutenant; I’ve trained for this as well,” Jessica insisted.

  “Not with us you haven’t,” he protested as politely as he could manage. “And you of all people should understand that, sir.”

  “I do, Lieutenant, but I’m afraid you’re just going to have to suck it up and deal with it.” Jessica could see the frustration in Lieutenant Waddell’s face. She had worked with the Corinari long enough to know that they took their jobs seriously and that they had the skills to get the job done. “I promise; I’ll hang back and let you run the show.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Waddell agreed. “Just don’t get yourself killed, sir, or the captain will have my ass.”

  Jessica smiled again. “I’ll do my best, Lieutenant.”

  “Shuttle two then,” the lieutenant instructed, pointing toward the appropriate shuttle. “You’ll go in the midship hatch with me.”

  * * *

  “Captain in CIC!” the watch officer announced. Nathan made his way over to the center display table where Cameron, Tug, and Mister Dumar were examining the holographic image of the Loranoi provided by the Corinari. It, too, was being displayed not by the holographic systems built into the CIC’s display table, but rather by one of the little black portable holo-units used by Corinari field teams.

  “The detail in this image is amazing,” Nathan observed as he stepped up to the table. “We really have to see about getting some installed for our own use.”

  “I’ve already inquired,” Cameron told him. “It can be done, but it will require tearing the entire podium apart. But it’s not just the image that we need; it’s the entire system. All these black boxes are synchronized through a real-time tracking system. The thing will even calculate and display time lags due to distance. It’s like having a CIC-in-a-box.”

  “Then it definitely would be worth the effort,” Nathan commented. “Maybe after we get back to Earth.”

  “Commander,” one of the Corinari technicians reported, “the shuttles are ready for departure.”

  “Any change in the Loranoi’s status?” Nathan asked.

  “No, sir,” Cameron answered. “As far as we can tell, she’s still without power and adrift, and there are still no indications of active or passive sensors in use. Her arrays haven’t moved a centimeter since she went dark.”

  “Very well, let’s get this over with,” Nathan ordered, trying to hide his nervousness.

  The shuttle rocked slightly, tilting briefly to port as it lifted off the Aurora’s flight apron and rotated to starboard before thrusting forward away from the ship. The small assault shuttle barely had enough room for the two five-man assault teams, the breaching box technician, and Jessica. As it was, they all had to stand in order to fit inside the small passenger compartment. Jessica was the only one carrying a projectile weapon. The Corinari had offered her an energy weapon, but she had chosen to stick with what she knew. Thus far, her guns had served her well enough, and she hadn’t the time to become proficient with an entirely different type of firearm.

  As she scanned the faces of the men in the shuttle, she could tell by the look in their eyes that most of them had seen action before today. They had not seen it while serving in the ranks of the Corinari, but rather while serving the empire. She wondered how many of these men might have killed members of the Karuzari during their time in the ranks of the Ta’Akar. She also wondered how these men might react if they suddenly found themselves staring down the barrel of a weapon held by a familiar face in a Ta’Akar uniform: an old schoolmate, a childhood friend… a brother. It was a chilling thought, one that she hoped none of them would have to face. She had read of such events from Earth’s history. Over the last thousand years while the Earth was recovering from the great bio-digital plague, there had been many wars, both big and small. Most of them had been local conflicts: clans against clans, tribes against tribes. Some of them had escalated into full-blown regional conflicts. In some rare cases, they had even become continent-wide wars. But since the plague, the Earth had never experienced another world war, and certainly not a interstellar war.

  “Five minutes!” the copilot called from the cockpit.

  “Faceplates down and locked,” Lieutenant Waddell ordered. “Everyone to internal life support and comms.”

  Jessica closed the faceplate on her helmet and activated the locking mechanism. There was a small hiss of air as the suit adjusted its pressure. She could feel the breathable air blowing through her helmet. She was wearing the same boarding suit as the Corinari, the only piece of unfamiliar equipment she had been willing to use on short notice as their suits were far superior to those carried by the Aurora.

  Lieutenant Waddell squeezed past one of the men standing near Jessica to get in front of her. “Sir,” he called over the suit comms, “I’ve set your visor display to show the tactical view. You can control it by tapping the visor and sliding your finger around on the outside of it.” The lieutenant tapped Jessica’s faceplate visor where he knew the image would be displayed, not being able to see what was displayed on the inside of her faceplate from the outside. He dragged his finger across it, causing the map to scroll, then used his thumb and forefinger, first spreading them apart and then drawing them back together to cause the map displayed inside her visor to zoom in and out.

  “Sweet,” Jessica exclaimed. “What else does it do?”

  “It’s extremely intuitive,” he insisted.

  “Play with it for a few minutes; you’ll get the hang of it.”

  “How do I make it go away?”

  “Double-tap to switch it on and off.”

  Jessica did as he suggested, double-tapping her faceplate and causing the image to disappear completely. Repeating the action brought the image back again. “Sweet. I’m assuming the green dots clustered around me are friendlies.”

  “Correct. Enemy targets will show up as red,” the lieutenant answered. “We won’t see them until we breach. Our suit scanners aren’t powerful enough to penetrate the hulls. But once we’re inside, they’ll work great.”

  “We’re gonna need some of these as well,” Jessica joked.

  “I’ll add it to the list,” Lieutenant Waddell responded with a smile.

  “One minute,” the copilot announced over the suit comms.

  “The shuttles are moving into position to breach now, sir,” Cameron reported.

  Nathan stared at the holo-graphic display hovering in front of them. “How are they going to get through those hatches?”

  “It depends. Sometimes they can be bypassed electronically from the outside,” Mister Dumar explained. “They can also use a chemical th
at melts the hatch seals, then inject an explosive foam into the empty space that will blow the hatch free.”

  “The problem is that if the crew of the Loranoi knows they’re coming, they might blow the hatch outward,” Tug added. “If they do, it could knock the breaching box off the hull. It could even damage the shuttle. We have lost many men this way.”

  “And we have no real way to be sure whether or not they know we’re coming,” Nathan commented.

  “We’ll know in a moment,” Cameron stated.

  The Corinari technician rapidly ascended the ladder through the shuttle’s topside hatch into the breaching box, the hatch closing behind him after he passed. As he peered through the small windows on either side of the breaching box’s main hatch, he could see the hull of the Loranoi passing by less than a meter away. A moment later, the shuttle’s maneuvering thrusters fired once more, and the shuttle came to a stop. Another small blast and it moved closer to the Loranoi, the apron of the breaching box bumping against the Loranoi’s hull.

  The shuttle rocked slightly with the contact, despite the pilot’s best attempt to be gentle. The hydraulics hissed as the walls of the breaching box’s sealing apron adjusted their shape to conform to the minor variations of the enemy frigate’s outer hull. A few moments later, a green light came on next to the hatch. “Good seal,” the technician reported. “Opening the hatch.” The hatch split down the middle and slid to the sides, disappearing into the walls to reveal the outer surface of the Loranoi’s topside, midship EVA hatch. It was considerably smaller than the breaching box hatch, but more than adequate in size to allow them to pass through with ease.

  The technician immediately attached an electronic device over the digital control pad for the Loranoi’s hatch. “Attempting to override hatch controls now.” The technician began furiously punching buttons, his brow furrowing as he concentrated on his task. If he failed to open the doors electronically, they would have to either cut them open or blast them open, both of which carried significant risks as well as delays which might allow the crew of the Loranoi to prepare for the assault. “The entire system is down,” he reported happily. “The control system doesn’t even have backup power.”

  “Maybe they didn’t think it was necessary on an EVA hatch,” Lieutenant Waddell’s voice commented over the suit comms. “Or maybe they have a manual activation system inside.”

  “Who cares,” the technician stated. “All I know is that this is going to be easy.”

  “Maybe the other hatches will be just as easy,” Jessica wondered aloud.

  “Doubtful,” the technician disagreed. “The aft hatch, maybe, since it is just a maintenance hatch. But team one is going through the main forward boarding hatch. That one is bound to have its own backup power, not to mention a much better encryption on the control system.”

  “Why is that?” Jessica asked over the suit comms.

  “That’s the hatch used when they’re in port or when ships dock with them,” Lieutenant Waddell answered.

  “That’s it,” the technician reported. “I’ve got control of both the inner and outer hatches here.”

  “Great,” Waddell stated. “Rig it so I can pop them both at the same time with a single button.”

  “Already on it, sir,” the technician promised. A moment later, he was done and coming down out of the breaching box and back into the shuttle. Despite the fact that the breaching box was securely sealed to the hull of the Loranoi using extremely powerful electromagnets as well as negative pressure seals, until the box was hard-fastened to the enemy frigate’s hull, it could still dislodge.

  As soon as the technician was down, the first two Corinari troops went up the ladder, followed by two more.

  “Remember,” the lieutenant reminded them, “as soon as you cross the threshold, the direction of gravity will change and will be Takaran standard, so make sure your feet are oriented in the right direction.”

  The lieutenant moved into the breach box, squeezing past his four men to get to the control panel next to the hatch. He looked back at his men to ensure they were all in position. “Charge weapons. Safeties off,” he ordered. A moment later, all four of his men had their weapons fully charged and ready, all aimed at the hatch that the lieutenant was about to open. If there were armed Ta’Akar troops on the other side of the hatch, they had little chance of surviving. Their only hope was to hug the walls of the breaching box and hope no one on the other side would have a clear shot.

  “Opening the hatch,” the lieutenant reported as he hit the button. The outer hatch moved slightly, dust from the numerous light years of space the frigate had traveled through breaking free of the hatch seals and falling to the floor. The outer hatch retracted away from them before sliding into the hull. A moment later, the inner hatch swung inward, giving them direct access into the ship. There were no shots fired from within the enemy ship, no signs of commotion.

  Lieutenant Waddell peered in through the hatch. The space between the outer and inner hatches was nearly two meters, creating a tunnel they would have to traverse. There was a ladder leading through the tunnel into what appeared to be a small chamber. He took a carabiner from his belt, unclipped it, and tossed it gently forward through the Loranoi’s outer hatch. As soon as it crossed the hatch threshold, the Loranoi’s artificial gravity grabbed it and accelerated it toward the deck of the small chamber at what apparently was the bottom of the ladder.

  “Down is that way,” the lieutenant advised his men, pointing in the direction the carabiner had fallen. “First two,” he ordered waving them past.

  The first man moved feet first through the tunnel, using the ladder as the frigate’s gravity pulled at him. Just before his feet were about to clear the tunnel and enter the chamber at the bottom, he paused, took his energy weapon in his right hand, and jumped free from the ladder, dropping the last three meters to the deck. Realizing he was facing the wrong way, he quickly spun to his right to face the inside airlock hatch. It, too, was locked.

  “Hold,” he told the second man who was waiting for the first man’s signal to descend. “Hatch is locked, Lieutenant,” the first man reported.

  “No time to get fancy,” Lieutenant Waddell said. “Blow it.”

  The first man let his snub-nosed assault energy rifle hang from his shoulder as he pulled a small canister from his thigh pouch and sprayed a foam-like substance along one side of the hatch. The substance quickly hardened into a firm paste, into which he inserted a small, flat, electronic device. He flipped the small switch on the device, turned, and quickly ascended the ladder until he was back inside the transfer tunnel between the inner and outer hatches. With his right hand, he pulled out another electronic device, a remote detonator, from his thigh pocket. He armed the device and called out over his suit comm, “Set.”

  “Do it,” Lieutenant Waddell ordered.

  “Fire in the hole,” the first man announced.

  From inside the shuttle, Jessica smiled. It seemed that some Earth expressions still managed to survive over a thousand light years of space and a millennium of time.

  There was a small explosion in the distance. Jessica could feel a slight wave of air pressure as it translated through the transfer tube, the breaching box, and into the shuttle. It wasn’t much, but it was noticeable. She wondered if it were enough to shake the breach box loose from the hull of the Loranoi, but immediately dismissed the thought, knowing that if it were, the lieutenant would not have used it. It was undoubtedly some sort of specialized explosive compound that directed its explosive force in a predetermined direction. “Add that to the list,” she muttered to herself.

  “You’d better start writing them down,” she heard the lieutenant say over the suit comm.

  The first man dropped into the chamber once more, immediately advancing forward through the blown open inner airlock hatch to make room for the next man coming down the ladder behind him. He stepped through the hatch and moved to his left, dropping to one knee with his energy rifle held h
igh against his shoulder. He scanned quickly back and forth, peering through the lingering haze left over from the explosion and finding no opposing forces. “Clear,” he reported.

  The second man appeared through the blown inner hatch next, moving to his right and dropping to one knee in similar fashion. Both men remained alert and ready, their weapons in firing position, as the remaining eight Corinari troops made their way from the shuttle, through the breaching box, and into the enemy frigate. Jessica was the last one through, closing the hatches on either side of the breaching box so the next shuttle carrying teams five and six could dock with the box and make their way in to join them. “Breaching box is secure,” she reported over the comms to the flight crew of the shuttle.