Loman took the cell and pried the access panel open. “Man, they made this ship rugged. I bet I can jack this in full charge and she’ll power up just fine.” It took him seconds, with the main power down on all but the engineering level, the security on the ship seemed to be out of order. After a few more seconds he had the microcell in place and was accessing the panel that controlled the lift.
"Can you confirm that this thing’s going to take us where we want to go?" asked Sgt Cumberland.
"Looks like this one can travel through most of the ship, hooks up with that main transit hub we saw earlier, but there are other express cars in the way, so we're limited to up or down."
"Does it go to deck twenty one and the upper mooring point?"
"It does."
"Good, get us there."
"This is Major Cumberland to Command. We're still being rushed by hold outs, I saw about fifteen during our last engagement, but they’re part of a larger group — at least fifty, accounting for casualties."
"We hear you; did you get that lift back up and running?"
The first of their pursuers started firing around the corner, they were blind shots, but there were hundreds. They were burning through ammunition as though they had an armoury following them around, and the scorch marks on the wall were close enough to make Major Cumberland swear he'd be retiring from the service if he survived the Triton.
"This is Colonel Ratner, with the Nineteenth Incursion Unit. We just came aboard and have been listening. Get to us and we'll be glad to cover you."
"Thank you Colonel, were on our way."
The express car arrived and Major Cumberland shouted, "get aboard and get us moving!" as he fired down the hallway. His rifle was on full auto, filling the dark corridor with hundreds of bursts of energy. The return fire was terrifying, including several shots that were fired using some new weapon they hadn't seen before, like a rocket propelled grenade that carried an impact shock, rattling the thick deck beneath their feet. Cumberland had gotten lucky twice, shooting two of the slow moving mini-rockets with his weapon, but his luck wouldn’t hold out. It was as if the whole crew had decided that preventing damage to the ship was secondary to causing as much harm as possible to the boarders.
The express doors started to close, and Private Farrar was right in front of him, grinning at their good fortune when he took a full burst of pulse rounds up the back and across his head. He was dead before he hit the floor.
The express car moved swiftly, covering the vertical distance between decks in seconds. He couldn't help but have a very bad feeling as the express car came to a gentle stop and the doors opened onto a massive, flat deck that covered a third of the dorsal section of the ship.
The darkened chamber was divided by bulkheads that had risen into place when sections became open to space. Major Cumberland could see the Command ship through the heavily damaged transparent hull, it was a welcome sight. It was moored to a primary docking point, helping to hold the Triton in place. From the large, heavy duty airlock extended a long emergency ramp way.
Colonel Ratner and his men were there to greet him. The group were surrounded by the eerie glow of personal lights as they approached. The darkened deck looked too big, there were too many shadows even though they could see the long lower hull of Battlecruiser 1009 above. They had deployed from a Battlecruiser hard docked to the port side of the Triton. There was one more battlecruiser on the opposite side, and between the three of them they had more than enough power to maintain full control of the ship from the outside. Escape for the Triton was impossible, why her crew fought so hard could only be explained by loyalty, or perhaps they had a plan to escape. Impossible. We can order reinforcements. There was nothing about this ship's record that suggests that they can expect help from anyone.
"Major, I hear you have a resistance problem. Do you think the resistors will follow you up here?"
"Colonel, there's a seriously frustrating issyrian with about five hundred armed men and woman from what I can tell. I haven’t seen the bug in a few hours now, but I’m sure he’s still directing his men from somewhere."
"We are aware. We're bringing a whole unit of heavies right now. It's time to bring the resistance to a halt. This acquisition has already cost us too much in equipment and manpower, not to mention we're due to join the eleventh Order of Eden Fleet in five days with this vessel in tow."
"So they finally did it, we're all signed up with Regent Galactic and that little prick prophet of theirs?"
"That's our lord and savoir you're talking about, Major. Looks like our outfit's finding religion whether we like it or not so the big bad Holocaust Virus doesn't take us out all together."
"Our AI's have been wiped, we're safe in case you forgot how that thing works."
"Seems the virus has evolved, now there's an AI built in. Unfirewalled machines are waking up with a digital soul and looking for anyone not listed in the Order of Eden database to kill. It's a whole new ball game now, so you'd better kneel and praise the child prophet like the rest of us sheep, or at least learn to pretend real good."
"I hear you. Just needed to know why we were getting on with the zealots.”
“We’re getting on with the Order of Eden because Regent Galactic was nice enough to pick up our tab so Caran Enterprises doesn’t go belly up and leave us grunts twisting in the wind. That’s why, as if it makes a difference one way or another.”
“Mind if I ask why this ship is so important?"
"Since we've got a minute, I'll fill you in. This ship was captured by the man who started it all, so they say. Jonas Valent."
"The hero of Enreega?"
"The deserter of the Aucharians. He forced a whole section to desert when they needed him most and left Enreega wide open. You'd best check your history."
"Yes, sir."
"Seems Jonas changed his name a while back to Jacob Valance, probably because he designed the virus that started all this when he unleashed an un-safe guarded artificial intelligence into one of those great big Overlord command ships."
"I heard about that. Does Command think he's aboard?"
"They didn't see him leave, so chances are he's holed up in that great big vault in the centre of the ship. He’s not on the bridge, let me tell you. We just took the command deck, killed a lot of Triton soldiers and there was still no sign of him."
"How did it end?"
"They had to use four squads of heavies, took heavy fire but burned everything inside to nothing. Rumour is that the Captain has been popping up and killing people with an elite unit, but then, those cloak suits have been making everyone as twitchy as hell. No way of knowing if any of the attacks were the Captain’s unit or someone dressed like him. Either way, they're not acknowledging our demands for surrender, so we're taking further steps. The order to execute the captives has been given on an open channel. Should flush him out if he's any kind of leader."
Another unit of fifty soldiers started running down the incursion ramp to join the total of seventy already on the deck, reinforcements were coming, for whatever reason the efforts to take the Triton intact were redoubling. Major Cumberland looked back to the Colonel and asked; "When do the executions start?"
"Five minutes ago."
The words seemed to echo across the hollow deck. It was like looking at some dead creature from the inside, the gunnery turrets hung down like dormant organs and the thick, transparent hull overhead was like delicate, translucent skin. Under the muted lights from the Command ship the slower, heavily armoured soldiers looked like dark insects with man shaped carapaces, the regular soldiers looked smaller, and even though there were so many gathering, they didn’t fill enough space on the deck to obstruct the view.