"I can't make a connection with any of them. It's like all their comms are deactivated."
"Raise Chief Vega and the Cold Reaver," Captain Valance ordered as he checked the status of his command crew. Jason and Laura were already awake, having breakfast in the observation lounge. He put him on high alert, knowing that his command and control unit would flash red and direct him to the bridge immediately.
"I can't get them either."
"Are we being jammed?"
"No, it's like they're not answering," sir.
"Start a general repeating hail to the station on all frequencies. If there's someone with a working comm over there I want to speak to them." Jake ordered the night communications officer, he was a younger fellow, recently qualified. "Commander Everin is on his way, he'll handle the signal scanning and more advanced work." He looked to his right and saw that Oilimae, the night tactical officer was at her post. The issyrian had been trained by Agameg, and had good numbers from simulations and qualifications. "What does the station look like right now?"
Oilimae made the station the primary focus of the bridge's main holographic tactical display before replying, centring on the section that Ayan's team was last reported in. "Our readings indicate that thirty five percent of the station now has life support. Commander Ayan's teams and the Cold Reaver are within the repaired section."
"How much of the station had life support before?"
"Before the Commander's team arrived?"
"Yes."
"Less than eight, sir."
"Well, she did a good job."
"Reporting as ordered, Captain," Jason said as he ducked under the heavy bridge door behind the command seat. "When I brought Crewcast online last week I didn't think I'd be seeing an alert level summons for a while, what's up?"
"Ayan's team is overdue and unreachable. My comm says her last check in was a little over two hours ago."
"That's not like her," Jason commented as he took the lead communications position.
"You have ten minutes to get us in touch before I take a team station side," Jake informed him.
Chapter 14
"Do you know who those people are? It's like we jumped out of the frying pan and landed on the sun! We can't hold their people! They're trying to communicate, it's only a matter of time before they send someone over and then we'll wish the raiders were still trying to break in!" shouted an unshaven man in a stained white smock.
"Shut up Brad! Your panicking isn't helping!" A bald woman shouted back, bringing her hand down hard on the common room table. The emergency communications terminal rattled. The display blinked green and blue, indicating that a general transmission was coming in. "I don't know for sure who that is, and neither do you! All I know is that they just came in and took out a whole fleet of raiders like it was routine cleanup and they're not from the company. Now that we have more doors to close, we're closing them until we can get a supervisor on comms or an emergency frigate in range."
"That's the Triton! You ever hear of the Triton? Maybe you heard of Captain Valance? He sent his people here to help us and thanks to you lot, we've shut the doors and trapped them inside! Do you know what someone like that does to someone who crosses him? We're done, Larissa, bloody finished!"
"It's a myth, ten times the bark to once the bite. What we have here is too important to let someone who isn't with the company to see, and if more of his people come aboard they will see what we're sitting on!"
"Shut your yaps! Both of you! We've got everything locked down tight for now. It's a pity we have to keep the repair people they sent over under wraps, but we knew it would be necessary when they offered their help," a woman in a heavy vacsuit said calmly. "Oberman should have the MWorm generator reconnected any minute and then we can contact the company. They'll have someone here in a day or two."
"Seventeen hours, that's how long it takes a rescue ship to get here, seventeen hours," Brad specified. He sat down in one of the old steel chairs so hard it creaked. The common room was furnished to seat many, but not too comfortably. Stark white and grey speckled flooring, bare metal walls and a dozen utility tables with chairs made for a dingy recreation area, but it was effective. One wall was spattered with dried blood, against it were the remains of a cafeteria serving bot. Its six arms hung limply and the cables that had been torn free when they managed to get to its power cell and remove it remained as they had been since the Holocaust Virus had struck the station.
"We'll be fine 'till then. We just have to keep our heads, keep whoever's out there away from us and we'll start rebuilding."
"Rebuilding? You can start rebuilding. I'm transferring out," Brad scoffed. "That's if they don't just open fire until we crumble and drop out of orbit."
"Even if they are who you think they are, why would they? We have at least thirty of their people plus whoever's trapped in that gunship in the secondary landing bay."
"Okay, fine. So you rebuild. With who? Before all hell broke loose this station had what? Six hundred indentured miners and support personnel?"
"Actually, it was a little over a thousand including the station crew and technicians," Larissa corrected as she sat down at the table.
"Okay, one thousand. How are you going to staff up? We're down to fifty three."
"I won't have to worry about that, this operation is so important that the company will leave anyone half way qualified here. Besides, when they see we have eleven tons of raw diamond ready to ship, they'll have to."
"But the Triton has got to have gotten a scan off on the core of the station. There's no way they've been sitting out there this long without finding a way to scan through the magnetic barrier."
"Have you ever gotten a scan to read through the barrier?"
"No, Amanda, I haven't. That's a bloody big carrier out there though, unlike I've ever seen. Who knows what they can do?"
"Oberman here," the intercom crackled overhead. "MWorm gennie is up and running. Are we talking to the repair guys who fixed the power yet?"
Amanda activated the intercom switch on the neck of her loose vacsuit. "No. Make sure that line is secure and go help everyone else secure the station. I'm calling the company. Oh, and if you can get power to those cannon mounts so they can look operational…"
"That's doable. I can even get them rotating but they'll never fire."
"As long as it looks like we can fight, we just have to make sure they keep their distance."
"Right. On my way."
She took the portable console from Larissa, brought a listing of primary contacts up on the screen and initiated communications. The display turned a light shade of green as it verified that the micro wormhole generator was online and creating a high compression wormhole to a relay station light years away. The lights dimmed noticeably. The three station officers waited patiently, Brad absent mindedly tugged on his goatee.
A brown Caran Enterprises screen came up. The square, diamond and circle logo hovered just above the lettering. Amanda selected a rotating exclamation point. It moved to the centre of the screen and rotated for several seconds before a squarish face appeared. "You are recognized, Amanda Dimitri. The senior Foreperson on Ossimi Ring Station. You're declaring an emergency?"
"Yes. A virus infected our primary systems and our automated workforce after Eden Fleet disabled our defences. We recently fended off some raiders and are currently under siege by a new, unknown threat. The ship's name is Triton."
"That ship is wanted in connection with violations of several galactic laws. Are you being coerced in any way right now?"
"No, I'm not being forced to communicate with you and no one's telling me what to say."