Black Dawn (16 page)

“
The shuttle,” Drake reported. He scanned the rest of the information.
“Looks like Burney is on board the ship. Medical
shows…heartbeat up a bit, but okay.”

Bon and Lamont caught each other’s eyes for a moment. “It’s
him. Your Boogeyman,” Bon stated.
Coy gave a small nod. “I can only assume your tinkering has
kept them from being able to access everything. They could’ve bled
our air a long time ago and avoided all of this.”
“Three cheers for remodeling,” Butler’s voice came over the
com, where he’d been eavesdropping.
Lamont grimaced in unspoken agreement and looked again at
the vid.
The
Nighthawk
maintained its defensive maneuvers, soaring in
and out of the battle zone surrounding the
Raven
. It continued to be
harassed by fifteen of the attack fighters. This time, when it came into
range, the big cruiser unleashed a terrible volley of fire upon it, battering its shields in a few swift strokes.
“Shields down to 37 percent on the port/bow quarter,” Hendricks reported. “We’ve taken out a number of the fighters, and are
continuing to attack, but we need some help here. We’re not going to
be able to maintain for long.”
“Rebel,” Coy spoke over the com, “Can you get a shot at the
big cruiser from here?”
“We can try.”
The
Raven
rocked again.
“This is not good,” Bon peered at his information. “Those
damn fighters.”
The
Nighthawk
circled around the big ship, attempting to get
into the blind area behind its engines. But the enemy ship spun about
wildly in its fixed position, denying the shot. Meanwhile, it continued
to hammer at the ‘
Hawk
and the
Rook
as well.
The
Rook
fired repeatedly at the enemy vessel. It was also
attempting to deflect some of the shots taken by the passing fighters.
However, by maintaining position in protecting the
Raven
, it was taking a real beating itself.
“Great,” Rebel said, holding onto his chair for support as his
ship rocked. “ And I didn’t think that it was possible for this ship to
look any worse.”

The
Blackbird
now sped through the battle outside the
Raven
.
It added its firepower to that of the
Rook’s
broadside guns in targeting
a fighter. The small craft was instantly vaporized. Pedula swung the
armed yacht around the
Raven’s
bow, chasing another one. Yacht and
fighter craft traded shots. After several more moments of the pursuit,
all of the
Blackbird’s
combined weapons fired, then again, hitting their
target. The fighter’s shields flared and overloaded. The
Blackbird’s
next shot shattered the enemy craft into fragments.

Other fighters noticed the new entry into the fight for the first
time. Now seeing the
Blackbird
as a threat, they began to fix on it.
Drake hung on, as three fighters rocked their ship with repeated hits.
The ‘
Bird
continued firing at them, even as it dove back toward the
Raven
, giving chase to still another small group of the fighter craft
which were heading toward the flagship. The enemy craft returned to
skimming close along the black ship’s outer surface, firing continuously at the hull.

Lamont swore again.
“They’re staying under the
Rook’s
guns.
Drake, lead some away from us. Rebel, Hendricks, try to clean some
of these things off of each other.”

There was a very slight pause.
“Aye, sir. Nathan says he only
hopes Bard is as good a shot as he is.”
The
Blackbird
looped away from the flagship, firing all the
while at two of the fighters, and drawing three more away in the process. Again, the enemy fighters targeted the small ship.
At the same time, the
Nighthawk
, with a cloud of fighters still
surrounding it, sailed toward the area where the
Rook
and
Raven
hung
in space. It flashed directly past the
Rook
, where, for just a moment,
both ships had a few of the fighters in a crossfire. Three more of
them were destroyed. However, the large enemy ship began to hit the
‘Hawk
, as it came once more into range.
Lamont watched their light cruiser’s evasive maneuvering
with growing concern. The dotted blue outline around the
Nighthawk
showed a dangerously low level of shield power to both its starboard
and port aft quarters. Suddenly there was an emergency from another
front in the battle.

“
No,” the major told it. “ He met up with us a minute ago. It’s
Knepp.” Walter leaned over to check Knepp’s readouts. With their
armor on manual, he couldn’t access it from his command helmet.
“Tony?”

Knepp looked up at him.
“I’m fine. Leave me.”
Schiff instantly understood and muttered, “G’luck Kid.” Then,
shaking his head at the ‘loss’, he turned to the rest of his team. “Move!
They’ll pay for this!”
Even though they moved quickly, they were outnumbered.
Schiff realized they were being herded, but at the moment couldn’t do
a bloody thing about it. They retreated down a long corridor, hoping to
regroup at the far end. Opening a large door, they fled through it.
Suddenly, the door slammed shut behind them and the corridor was
plunged into darkness. The vid feed from them was cut.
Coy clenched its jaw, shaking with the effort of fending off its
emotions until a more appropriate time. It stared at the Tac vid, trying
to take in information from all of the ships. The access from the
Raven
caught its attention.
“Is the bay door closed yet?”
“They seem to be having trouble...”
Before it could wonder why that would be taking so long, its
thoughts were immediately interrupted.
“We’re being hailed,” Aziza announced.
“Alright,” Lamont straightened and looked directly into the
vid.

A strange man was on the other end; not anyone that Coy had
ever seen before. Just how many people were in the Boogeyman’s
employ, anyway?

“
Well, well, the infamous Commodore Lamont at last,” he
said. “You seem to be having more trouble saving yourself than you
do others.”

“It’s far from over,”
Lamont said coolly.
“Oh, really? We have your boarding party. Some of them are
still alive, too. It would be a shame to lose the rest.” He shook his
head in mock regret at the waste. “ Now, let’s talk, shall we?”
They were interrupted by a panicked voice from the hanger
bay. “They’re coming in! They’re com...”
The man on the other ship smiled. “You were saying, Commodore?”
Bon scanned the internal monitors. A heavily armed boarding
party of several dozen invaders wearing space armor had come in
through the hangar bay doors before they had been fully closed. The
vid showed them rushing toward the lifts.
“They’re in alright,” he said. “And on the way up.”
The smiling face on the vid disappeared as Lamont cut off the
outside communication and channeled its next remarks to wrist coms
only.
“Lamont to Bridge. Fall back to Emergency Bridge. Evacuate
Sick bay. Now!” With a swipe it turned off the Tac vid and said gravely to Bon, “Let’s go.”
Sealing the doors behind, and sprinting down the corridor to
the aft lift, the Bridge and Tac room crews crowded in, and the lift took
them swiftly to Deck D. A similar sprint down that corridor followed.
Then, up a flight of stairs to the engineering area on C Deck. They
manually sealed the stairwell behind them. The access panel outside
the Emergency bridge scanned Coy’s retina pattern and fingerprints,
then the security door slid open. As with their drills, three minutes and
twenty seconds later, everyone was assembled there.
“Status report,” Coy ordered.
“Hangar bay under control of hostiles,” Butler said. “They
have now arrived on G deck, making for the bridge. We still have no
weapons, shielding, or maneuvering. We appear to be locked out of all
other systems except the new communications systems, and the internal vid systems; we have nominal environmental and power systems
control.”
Lamont reestablished communication with the rest of the Fleet,
hoping their guests would not hear them on this frequency. Or if they
did, would not make sense of the messages.
“Attention : code V.”
“
Shadow Two
, check,” came the reply from the
Nighthawk.
Hendricks had received the coded message on the emergency frequency, understood, and would respond only in code for the duration of the
emergency. The other ships also replied in short order.
“Message coming in from the derelict,” Aziza said. “Voiceonly frequency. It’s Tony Knepp.”
“Situation red,” Knepp’s voice came over the console. “Condition Lambda. Please enable.”
“Damn,” Butler muttered. He knew as well as Coy the meaning of that code. Tony was the only member of the boarding party
free.
“Is Lambda Option seven-oh-seven available?” Coy asked in
response.
“Yes.”
Coy thought for several moments, weighing the possibilities.
Then it reached a decision.
“Execute seven-oh seven; variation
cobra
, repeat
cobra
.”
Someone on the bridge gasped.
“T. M. twenty-three,” Lamont continued. “Pinewood retrieval.
Copy?”
“Copy.” Knepp replied and immediately cut the communication.
Butler leaned close to Lamont. “Tell me you’re not doing what
it sounds like you’re doing.”
“I’m doing whatever it takes,” it said in a level voice.

The boarding party had sped effortlessly through the
Raven
,
meeting token resistance and beating it back easily. They arrived at G
deck, and made their way to the bridge. The leader held a remote transponder, and as he held it up, keyed in a sequence. Security doors
parted and the group rushed in, guns at the ready. That sequence was
repeated at the bridge hatch, and it too, opened easily to the invaders.
To their amazement, the bridge was completely deserted. The group’s
leader set his men immediately to work. Then he threw back his head
and laughed.

“
Sir,” Penway said. “I had the ‘virus’ isolated before we had
to evacuate to the emergency bridge. I started a program to purge it
from the systems. But now, something they’re doing on the main
bridge is keeping that program from running. I can’t seem to get at it
from here.”

Blackbird
on coded channel.”
“Coming right up, sir.”
Coy checked its chrono. Once the connection was made, it

One. T. M. twenty-one. Copy?
”
“Copy,” came the reply, and the connection was cut.
“I hope they remember their training,” Butler sighed.
“So do...,” Coy began and then turned to look at Ken. “Training,” it repeated slowly, then spun around to Bon. “Training exercises.
Do we have library access?”

“
Hold on that a moment,” Coy responded, then motioned for
the Chief engineer to continue.
“Library access? I suppose we do. But why..?” but Bon was
thinking even as he spoke. “Oh, man, do you think they’ll buy it?”
“It’s worth a shot. File T-107. Call it up fast, and pipe it
through to the engineering console on the bridge.”
“Yes, sir. I think that I can use our nominal systems control to
make a power spike or two. At least for a few seconds.”
“Do it,” Coy said. Then it quickly tapped its wristcom and
said, “Palo, Code Amber, section two.”
“Copy,”
“Okay, put me on with him,” it said to Aziza. The com officer
touched a button and the visage of the attack commander came up on
the holovid.
“Commodore Lamont, I have grown tired of your useless attempts. My men have your boarding party surrounded and disarmed. I
have your men, and I have your ship. Cease all resistance immediately
or I will be forced to execute the captives. “
Lamont paused for just a moment, as if searching internally for
some solution.
“Well, Commodore? I’m hardly bluffing. Your answer.
Now.”
“Get me the rest of the fleet,” Coy told Aziza.
The com officer nodded sadly, and complied with the order.
“This is Commodore Lamont to all BlackFleet ships. Cease
fire. I repeat, cease fire. Stop all hostilities, and stand down weapons
systems.” They did so.
“That’s much better,” their opponent said. “Now, you will
immediately surrender yourselves to my crew in control of your
bridge. Any further resistance from you will bring the same results I
promised. No tricks, and you may actually get to live.”
Commander Bon had finally gotten the requested file downloaded to his screen. He looked to Lamont. Coy gave a nearly imperceptible nod, and Bon’s fingers flew over the console, executing implied orders. Coy again glanced at its chrono, waited just a few seconds, then turned again to the com.
“No one takes this ship from me,” it said with a snarl. Without
another word, it cut the connection.

In the
Raven’s
main bridge, the invaders jumped suddenly as
loud alarms began sounding. “Sir,” one of them said to the leader.
“Here, on the engineering console!”

The man strode over to find that the panel was informing them
that the fusion reactors had gone critical. The computer displayed a
countdown to reactor breach. The count read one minute, fifty seconds.

“Sir, we’ve got to get out of here!”
the underling shouted.
“They’ve done something--blowing up the ship! We’ve got to go!”
The leader seemed unnaturally calm, and merely held up the
remote transponder he’d been carrying.
“You forget, we’ve got all their codes. This is probably some
self destruct sequence, and I’ll just call up all those options and turn it
off.”
He made some adjustments to his device, scanned for all possible self-destruct codes. There it was. One specific destruct code,
designed to bring the ship’s reactors to critical. He keyed in the cancellation sequence, and pointed the transponder toward the console.
“Just like that, no more problem,” he said. “I simply use their
own....” he stopped, realizing that the alarm hadn’t shut off yet. “Must
have hit the wrong sequence. I hit this, then this, then this, and...” he
pointed again, waited.
The alarm continued to blare.
The leader leaned over the console, hit a few buttons there.
Tried the remote once again. Again no result.
“No,” he said finally. “It’s--it can’t be----we have all their
codes! How can---” he stopped dumbfounded.
“Hold position!” The attack leader’s voice bellowed from
their wristcoms. “We’re checking it out. Hold there!”
“What’s happening? What can you tell from outside?”
“Nothing definite. As I said, we’re checking it. But you are to
stay in position! That’s an order!”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing definite?” But there was no reply. The attack leader had cut the connection. Panic swelled. The
count now read one minute, 20 seconds. One man broke, ran out of the
Raven’s
bridge. Then two more. Finally they were all in a panicked
flight down the corridor back to the rear lift, fleeing for their very
lives.