The Stellar Wild - Chapter 6
In Chapter 5, our fearless captain and the lovely lieutenant commander were preparing to board a ship in the middle of pirate-infested space. Now we get to find out exactly what Miranda Rackham wants with the ship, and what it's doing so far out in the middle of nowhere.
The Dutybound was dark, save for the soft glow of the red emergency lighting panels every few meters.
Cole brought his carbine up to the low ready, reaching forward with his supporting hand to turn on the flashlight mounted along the side of the barrel. A quick scan down the main corridor towards the cargo area revealed nothing; it was empty save for him and the NID analyst. That could change the farther along you go, he reminded himself silently, before he motioned over his shoulder to follow behind him. In a single file, they made their way down the corridor.
The RMS Dutybound was a standard medium-weight freighter craft, with a central corridor that lead out to crew compartments and a mess on one side, and equipment and work rooms on the other side. At one end, next to the airlock that Cole and Miranda had entered from, was the command section, and at the other end was the cargo hold. Miranda had her eyes fixed to that end of the corridor, but to keep Cole from throwing another tantrum about her not being tactically sound, she followed behind as he went to clear the crew quarters first. She shot him a look as he nudged her behind him against the corridor wall, adjacent to the first door.
"Ever clear a room, ma'am?" The question was whispered back to her over his shoulder. She rolled her eyes and gave his shoulder a nudge with hers; this wasn't her first space ride, and she was ready to handle whatever happened to be on the other side of that door. With the ship on emergency power, the doors didn't automatically open, so he'd have to activate it manually. After a three second count in his head, he pressed the button and ducked through the doorway as it opened, bringing his carbine up to clear the area. This particular room had been the bunk bay, with rows of bunks stacked two high and lining the opposite wall from the doors. Everything was where it had been left; some bunks were folded neatly, while others look like they were abandoned in the middle of someone sleeping in them. The footlockers were, for the most part, undisturbed, which Cole found odd. Normally pirates left no stone unturned when pillaging for loot.
They made their way down the length of the bay and opened the far door, stepping back out into the central corridor. A quick scan back and forth revealed no new surprises lying in wait for them, so Cole hurried them across to the other side to clear the equipment and work rooms that lined the opposite side. They cleared them in turn the same way they'd cleared the sleeping quarters, but they were also empty and mostly intact. Some pieces of more expensive fabrication and repair machinery had been taken from their mounts, but otherwise, very little had been stolen. That the ship was left mostly intact was beginning to bother Cole on a much deeper level.
"Pirates don't do this," he muttered, heading back out into the corridor to approach the cargo hold.
Miranda looked at him, but he kept his eyes forward. "Pirates don't leave valuable stuff lying around. Even if it's only worth a few units, they'll take it and hock it. Something's not right about any of this."
Miranda said nothing, but she was beginning to think the same thing. She'd been careful not to hint at what the Dutybound was supposed to be carrying on the other side of the cargo door directly ahead of them, but she was starting to suspect that this hadn't been some random pirate raid. She fell in behind him quietly as the cargo doors slid open, motor straining under the reduced power capacity to get them open. The interior of the hold was bathed in that same dim red light, but what struck Cole immediately was that it was empty. It hadn't been ransacked and left barren; this ship had only been carrying one container to begin with. That was it, and it was right in the center of the hold, strapped down to the floor with the doors blown open by what were likely breaching charges. He scanned left and right to make sure they were still alone, and, once he was satisfied, lowered his carbine and approached it.
Miranda moved past him and made it to the cargo container first, looking it over and bringing up her wrist-mounted interface. Sure enough, this was exactly the container she was expecting to find, and this was exactly the way she didn't want to find it. Nuclear payloads were an antiquated weapon system, even with the advances in fusion technology and delivery that had followed their invention almost five centuries ago, but this particular payload had been a high-yield nuclear payload for planetary defense; this was not some peashooter. The last people in the world that needed their hands on this kind of weaponry were pirates.
"What was in the container, lieutenant commander?" The tone made her jump more than the words. He's more clever than he needs to be, she cursed in her head. Finishing what she was doing, she turned to head past Cole, ignoring his question entirely. He narrowed his eyes and repeated his question, a bit more firmly. "What was in container, ma'am?"
"Not now, Cole. We need to get to the bridge and download the ship's logs. Might have some information on who raided the ship-" she was cut off by his hand grabbing her upper arm.
"You owe me and Edward an explanation, and you owe it to us now," he snapped. She stared at him for a long moment, defiance giving way to cool calculation.
"I'll explain it to you when we arrive back on Krixus for debriefing, captain," she replied, cold as ice. He kept his grip on her arm for a moment longer, staring her down with a fury that mirrored her detachment. Finally he let her go, and she pushed past him, heading back the way they came. Cole cursed quietly to himself before falling in step behind her, hurrying to match her pace as she strode toward the last door they needed to open on board the Dutybound. It opened quietly, and Cole made his way in first, bringing his carbine up to clear the bridge the same way they'd cleared the rest of the ship. That's when they found the crew.
There had been a firefight to take the bridge, evident in the position of the lifeless bodies strewn about behind consoles, chairs, and anything else they had managed to find cover. A cursory look over the room told Cole that they'd likely been disoriented by a concussion grenade and picked off before the fifteen-man crew even had a chance to effectively mount a defense. Miranda furrowed her brows as a thought crossed her mind, but she pushed it aside and got to work. Her first order of business was confirming the identities of all the crew members. Thankfully, her wrist-mounted assistant picked up the identifier chips embedded in the identity tags worn by each of the deceased, accounting for the all fifteen that were supposed to be there. Without a word to Cole or to herself, she moved past the bodies on the floor to the flight recorder and navicomputer. Entering a few virtual keystrokes on her assistant, she began to download the contents from the flight recorder and on-board surveillance.
Without warning, the lights across the command consoles lit up, and the holographic navigational display in front of the pilot and co-pilot seats popped up, beeping insistently. Cole snapped his eyes to it, the color draining from his face. Without a word, he grabbed Miranda's arm and started dragging her from the cockpit, bolting for the door.
"Get your hand off me! What the hell-" she started to protest, before being cut off.
"Blind jump. We need to get off! Now!" She managed to wrench her arm free, but at this point Cole was beyond caring if she wanted to die. "Ed, get ready to make some space between us and the Dutybound!" Edward radioed an affirmative over Cole's earpiece. Miranda looked at the console only to find confirmation of what Cole had just tried to warn her about; in fifteen seconds, the Dutybound was going to execute a jump to a random set of coordinates. Eyes wide, she nearly tripped over a corpse on her way to the door, sprinting after Cole and meeting him at the airlock. He swung around, slamming his fist on the airlock door switch to shut it. No sooner had the airlock doors snapped shut then he was opening the interior door, bolting for the pilot's seat. Edward was already detaching from the cargo freighter, gunning the sublight engines to maneuver the Hound out of the effect range of the Dutybound's FTL drive. With less than a second to spare, they were clear as the Dutybound executed the jump command, warping spacetime around the ship and sending it to an unknown destination.