Sea of stars - Litcube's Universe/X3AP DiD
Posted: Sat, 2. Jul 16, 00:07
I made a thing!
A bit of warning for all those who have been waiting - this is probably going to be updated somewhat infrequently, as I'm up to my ears in work nowadays. I'll try to update about once a week, but since I only have a few hours every weekend to play and/or write I can't make any promises.
With that said, I give you ...
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Chapter 1 - Setting sail
"How you guys holding up back there?"
The appropriate answer would be 'barely', but despite the fact that we were forty people stuffed into the cargo hold of a transport ship designed to operate at peak capacity with a five man crew, no one complained.
"We're doing all right," someone replied. "How much further?"
"We're approaching the hangar on autopilot as we speak." came the answer.
"Oooh," the guy next to me said to everyone and no one. "Showtime!" Looking around at the band of misfits surrounding me I didn't quite share his optimism, but in a worst case scenario we would at least die quickly.
"… aaand touchdown." The pilot, a grizzled old ex-marine named Leo, unstrapped himself and peeked into the cargo bay.
"All right, ladies. Time to get your asses off the floor." he said. "Hayla, you take point once we got eyes and ears. Gaga Pa, Hebalisos and Tupmanckulot, you cover her ass. Uma, you start working on the sensors. We need intel, and we need it yesterday. The rest of you spread out and cover anything that looks like a door. Now move!"
An "Ooh-rah!" echoed through the ship, then the hatch opened and forty marines fanned out and started pointing guns at anything that looked like it could open and let a hostile through. That is … Forty marines and me.
"All right, hot shot." Leo said as he turned to me. "Work your magic." He then turned to a young girl who looked way too young to be there.
"Uma, you follow her," he said, pointing at me. "She'll show you where to go." The girl turned and saluted me. I snorted a laugh.
"At ease, kid." I said. Funny enough it failed to make her more relaxed. "C'mon, we got a terminal to hack."
We made our way to a maintenance shaft at the back of the hangar, where I opened up a hidden panel and pointed at the terminal behind it.
"This is a low level maintenance station," I said. "It isn't much, but it should give you access to the internal sensors. Think you can get in without alerting the entire ship?"
She just gave me an insulted look and started hooking up her gear to the panel.
"Pardon me for asking, ma'am," she said as she connected the last wire. "But how come you knew where to find this terminal?"
I winced behind her back as old memories came rushing back.
"I … served on one of these ships a few years back." More precisely, I was the captain. But that was none of her business.
"And you ended up here?" 'Here' being the Oort Cloud mining operation, where they put people that Terra wanted to forget. Officially we had 'volunteered' to work at the mines out there. Unofficially they were basically slave camps, and the last stop for Terran criminals, captured pirates, the unlucky ones and those who lacked the financial means or political clout to get them selves out of a pinch. They worked you to the bone, and then tossed you out the nearest airlock when you stopped being useful.
"Yeah," I said. "I had some … disagreements with my commanding officer." She didn't need to know that the officer in question was the commander-in-chief for the entire ATF fleet, rear admiral Anastasia Nikoleva. My mother.
"Oh." I think she managed to put two and two together and get five and a half, but I wasn't about to spur her on.
A few minutes went by, and I could feel the tension in the air. Our chances of being detected increased with every second, and if someone alerted the bridge we would most likely be screwed. Suddenly …
"Got it!" Uma exclaimed. Her enthusiasm rubbed off on me, and I couldn't help but smile.
"Chief!" she said over the comlink. "We got eyes and ears. Two hundred and fifty people on board, most of them in the crew quarters. We got fifteen on the bridge, ten in the engine room, four guarding what appears to be the core, and … oh, shit! Two heading this way! Main entrance, ten seconds!"
I heard the sound of feet running across the deck as the point team took up positions to neutralize who ever was about to enter. The door opened with a soft hiss, and a man and a woman walked in.
"– and then I tell Simmons … Holy crap!"
An EMP carabine, a light repeater, a pair of pulsar rifles and a huge assault cannon met them as they stepped into the hangar.
"Hello," Hayla said. "Just drop those toys, and we can solve this peacefully." She pointed the barrel of her EMP carabine at their sidearms.
"Boron hope you resist, though." Babu Mo shot in. The always chipper sound of her translator unit almost made it sound like a joke, but her twin pulsar rifles made sure no one thought she was joking.
"Logical choice be surrender," Tupmanckulot rumbled. "But your species not always as wise as name implies."
"Uhm …" The man and woman looked at each other, then they dropped their sidearms and raised their hands.
"Smart move," Hayla said. "Stuff 'em in the Baldric, and let's move.
"Be careful out there," Leo said over the comlink. "We don't want to alert the rest if we can avoid it. Uma, you have to guide them and keep the crew of the ship in the dark."
"Will do, chief." Uma replied.
"Mind if I join?" I said. "I know a shortcut."
"No," Leo said. "You're too valuable."
"Aw, come on. Pretty please? I promise I'll be careful."
"Yeah, and I'm the president of GEOSS. No."
"You're no fun at all."
"I know. I also know that unless we get the hell out after we hack the core we're gonna be screwed, and since you're the one who is at all capable of running this ship you're staying put."
"Yes, Pa."
I sat down against the wall and stared into the air. The feeling of restlessness I had in me decided to stick around, and I couldn't really find a comfortable position. I was about to get up when an unmarked hatch suddenly opened and a man came crawling out.
"What the …Freeze, asshole!" He got to his feet, drew his pistol and pointed it at Uma. For a moment I was stunned, not sure what to do. He hadn't seen me, which meant I could probably let him shoot her and get away with it. On the other hand he represented a system that had tried to bury me when I refused to commit murder in its name. A system I had spent the last four years learning to hate. Guess some choices are easier than others …
The man was closing in on Uma when I came up behind and kicked him right across the kidneys. He hit the floor like a ton of bricks and got a foot in the face for good measure.
"Uma! Your gun, now!" He shook his head and got up on his elbows and knees, and I knew I would lose the next fight unless I had some extra leverage.
"Whoaaaaaah …" Great. My pet hacker was freaking out. Wonder if she had seen any action at all before she ended up in that hellhole …
"Uma!" I repeated. "Sidearm! Now!" Damn, this joker was coming around way too fast. Finally she reacted and tossed me her EMP pistol, just in the nick of time.
"Urrrh …" The man on the floor growled and clutched his lower back. "Ya kick like a frakkin mule, kid." he mumbled.
"Yeeeeah … Spending four years in a prison where roughly ninety five percent of the population wants to get in your pants, preferably by force, tend to teach you a few tricks." That, and Ma dearest had started training me for the military career she wanted me to pursue at the tender age of seven. I learned to think on my feet and improvise the best I could, and it had kept me alive so far.
"Leo," I said, activating my comlink. "Got an unwanted visitor covered here. You might want to pick him up."
"Copy that. Soa t'Lt and Lolo Go are on their way."
About half a minute later I heard the slightly metallic clanking of a Boron enviro-suit as it plodded across the floor on its six metal legs. Never send a marine with arachnophobia to fight the Boron …
"Move, human." Lolo said. "And don't try anything funny. Boron has six hundred friends in the mags, and they can all run a lot faster than you." The man in front of me groaned as he got up, still clutching his back.
"Relax," Soa said as he poked the man in the back with his repeater. "We won't hurt you unless you give us a good reason." Which, Split being Split, could get you shot for farting at the wrong time.
"Nice to know." he mumbled as they escorted him away.
I sort of zoned out after that. I halfway overheard Aylin giving orders to our team, directing them around patrols and stuff, but I wasn't really paying attention.
"Yes!"
My pet hacker was jumping up and down, which I assumed meant that Hayla and her team had reached the core without waking the whole Gunne damned ship. Kind of amazing, actually. Especially when you considered the fact that most of our forces were greener than kale, and would probably trip over their own feet and shoot them selves in the face if given the chance.
"They made it! They made it!!!" My pet hacker was still jumping up and down, something that probably meant Hayla and Gaga Pa were busy breaking into the core. Any moment, now …
"We are in," Hayla reported over the comlink.
"Good," Leo replied. "Lock down the ship, but keep the bridge in the dark til we can get there and take control.
"Understood."
"Santana, get your ass back here and join us. There's a show we need to get rolling, and you're the star."
"Will do, chief." I replied. Then I turned to Uma.
"All right, kid." I said to her. "Time to wrap up and move."
"Yes, ma'am." I snorted a laugh.
"I certainly ain't no ma'am. Call me Alice."
"Sure. Ma'am." I sighed and rolled my eyes. She tried to hide a giggle and failed miserably.
"Whatever. Let's go."
I met up with Leo in the main hangar as he was gathering the troops.
"-re's the plan. I take a team of fifteen and head for engineering. Sansi and Monisessas, you go with Uma and find the backup systems. Hayla will guide you. Fifteen go with Alice and take the bridge, and the rest of you stay put and guard the Baldric. Understood?"
A resounding 'Yes, sir!" echoed through the hangar, and for a moment there I was worried someone would hear us. Leo then took his team and wandered off, leaving me with fifteen pairs of eyes staring at me. It made me feel more than a little uncomfortable, despite the fact that I had commanded crews far larger than this. Guess it had something to do with the stakes involved. On the other hand, it might let me hit something. Or someone …
That thought sent warm tingling vibrations down my spine, and I couldn't help but smile.
Now, getting from the hangar, which is at the bottom of the ship, to the bridge, which is at the very top, on a ship that is the better part of five kilometers long, can be a hassle. Especially when you can't use the lifts, as bridge access is highly restricted and you have to go through a biometric scanner to get inside. It is of course possible to disable this, but only from the bridge. So yeah, we walked. And climbed. And swore. And climbed a bit more.
"Contact, left corridor." Hayla warned us. "Thirty meters and closing." At last, some fun.
"I got this," I said. "Stay back and cover me in case there are more of them."
"But Leo –" One of my guys started protesting. I scowled at him, and he shut his mouth so fast I heard his teeth click together. My guys stayed put, and I wandered around the corner.
"Hi," I said, looking at the human brick wall in front of me. "Excuse me, could you tell med the way to the mess hall?" Yep, he was huge. Guess I could stun the frakker, but where's the fun in that?
He blinked a couple of times. I smiled and looked at him with my baby blues, something that for some odd reason made him look a bit green around the gills. I blinked back and asked again.
"Excuse me, mister … Could you point me to the mess hall, please?"
"Uhm … You're not supposed to be here, ma'am …"
"Oh? Why not?"
"Well … Uh … This is a restricted area, and …"
I stepped closer and looked him straight in the eye. My grin grew wider, and now he was looking really uneasy.
"Is something wrong, officer …?"
"Uh, I –"
He got cut short as I clocked him in the jaw. He did a full one-eighty and hit the floor, and moments later four of my team mates were on him like gadflies on an argnu's ass.
"How the frak …" One of my team mates, I believe her name was Jo, looked at the man on the floor. He was still counting stars, and that jaw would probably need medical attention.
"Healthy eating and lots of lifting of heavy ore crates," I replied. "That, and knuckle dusters." I held up my hand and showed her the dull gray metal bands on my fingers. "Never leave home without," I said as I put it back in my pocket. She just shook her head and concentrated on our hostage.
The rest of the trip was surprisingly quiet, and it was quite obvious they were traveling light. If this ship had been fully combat ready we would probably have hit patrols every fifty meters, not to mention that blast doors, force fields and internal sentry lasers would have made progress … difficult. Instead this magnificent ship was reduced to an oversized cargo- and prison transport. Guess the ATF guys had to burn their budget on something …
Ah, the bridge. The monkey cage. The brain of the ship. I watched as my team positioned them selves around the exits, then I called up Hayla.
"Okey, Hayla. Work that hacker magic of yours."
"Hold on … Yeah, okey. In three, two, one, aaand go!"
The doors slid open, and fifteen slack-jawed wankers turned and looked at us.
"Listen up!" I said. "Ladies and gentlemen, you now have two options. One: you sit your asses down and we do this nice and quiet. Two: at least one of you decide to go full retard, and we find out just how good you are at dodging stun bolts at point blank range."
They looked at us, and for some very tense moments I thought one of them was going to lose it. Then they all just … folded.
"We surrender," the man in the captain's chair said. "Just don't hurt us."
"You have chosen … wisely. Boring choice, but wise." Dang, I was so hoping for some action.
"What can I say," he replied. "Guess I want to see the next sunrise more than I want to die some six hundred billion kilometers from home."
"The pragmatic kind, eh? I can certainly understand that."
"More like covering my own ass, but I guess that qualifies as some sort of pragmatism."
I couldn't help but smile a bit. For whatever reason I liked this guy, although he was playing for the other team so to speak. However, I had work to do, so I left him in the hands of my team mates. Now, let's see …
A few minutes later I had access to the mainframe, which meant I could start doing things my way. First thing was to get the ship to acknowledge me as its new owner, something that usually required a thirty two character access code. Or in our case, cheating.
"Leo, you got engineering yet?"
"Yes."
"Hayla, how are we doing down at the mainframe?"
"Ready when you are."
"Uma, how are we doing on the backup systems?"
"Almost there. Just need a few more seconds … And there. We're in. Ma'am."
I sighed audibly and could hear her snicker over the comlink.
"All right, people," I said. "Shutdown in three, two, one aaand go!"
The screens on the bridge flickered for a few moments as the mainframe went offline, before the backup systems booted up and returned things to normal.
"Uma, did you get it?"
"Yeah. We're in."
What I was about to pull was considered impossible, but since we had control over engineering, the mainframe and the ship's backup systems it would work. The theory behind it was simple; add a few commands in the startup sequence as the mainframe rebooted, and it would give us access to the very heart of the system. It was supposed to be impossible to do this on the mainframe, but since we had access to power and the backup, which was significantly weaker and only designed to keep the ship running in an emergency, it was doable. It was a back door that only a select few knew about, but as a former captain I was one of the select few.
"Let's get this show on the road … Leo, hit it!"
The screens flickered once again, and then turned black. A few moments later a marker popped up, followed by a flurry of code. A few seconds later, and I got what I wanted …
[root@localhost /]#: Awaiting input
A couple more commands, and I now had full access to the mainframe. I sat down in the captain's chair, put my hand on the palm reader in the command console and typed in the command, then hit enter. The scanner did its thing, and voila. I was now acting captain of a Terran dreadnought. Another reboot, and the system was set and ready to go. Now for one last thing …
"Attention all personnel," I said, turning on the PA system. "My name is Alisiya Nikoleva Santana, but you can call me Alice. I am, as of now, your new captain."
I paused a moment and took a breath, steadying myself.
"I can imagine what you're thinking, and yes, a bunch of Clouder* misfits managed to steal the pride of the ATF fleet. Cause every fortress has a weak spot, and I know this particular fortress very well. But that is not why I'm talking to you. I'm talking to you because you need to make a choice. The choice is simple, yet oh so hard. Do you want to follow the system, or do you want to follow me?
"If you want to follow the system there is a Baldric with cargo life support in the hangar, and it can easily hold each and every one of you, should you choose to leave. If you want to follow me I can promise only one thing; freedom. Freedom to do as you please, not as others have told you. The system will hunt us, and the system will probably try to kill us. They may try, but I will fight tooth and nail, to my very last breath, to keep that from happening. Make no mistake, though. If you jeopardize the safety of this ship and its crew there will be consequences, and if you frak up badly enough I'll use your rotting corpse as a hood ornament. The choice is yours. But choose now."
"Sooo …" the former captain said. "A pirate ship?" He looked at me, and I gave him a nod.
"Basically, yes."
"Sounds like fun …" He looked out through the thick NCC** windows, then his eyes lit up and he grinned to himself.
"Sound like you've made your choice, mister …"
"Alan. Alan McCairn. At least this should be more fun than backwater border patrols, so I guess I'll come along for the ride."
I gave him a brief smile, then I offered my hand. He grabbed it and shook it, all the while looking like this whole thing tickled him immensely.
"Well then, Alan … Welcome aboard the Arcadia."
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*; Clouder - person living in the Oort Cloud. Often used as a derogatory term.
*; NCC - Short for NanoComposite Ceramic, a transparent material often used in windows and viewports where high strength and durability is required, such as in space ships and -stations.
A bit of warning for all those who have been waiting - this is probably going to be updated somewhat infrequently, as I'm up to my ears in work nowadays. I'll try to update about once a week, but since I only have a few hours every weekend to play and/or write I can't make any promises.
With that said, I give you ...
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Chapter 1 - Setting sail
"How you guys holding up back there?"
The appropriate answer would be 'barely', but despite the fact that we were forty people stuffed into the cargo hold of a transport ship designed to operate at peak capacity with a five man crew, no one complained.
"We're doing all right," someone replied. "How much further?"
"We're approaching the hangar on autopilot as we speak." came the answer.
"Oooh," the guy next to me said to everyone and no one. "Showtime!" Looking around at the band of misfits surrounding me I didn't quite share his optimism, but in a worst case scenario we would at least die quickly.
"… aaand touchdown." The pilot, a grizzled old ex-marine named Leo, unstrapped himself and peeked into the cargo bay.
"All right, ladies. Time to get your asses off the floor." he said. "Hayla, you take point once we got eyes and ears. Gaga Pa, Hebalisos and Tupmanckulot, you cover her ass. Uma, you start working on the sensors. We need intel, and we need it yesterday. The rest of you spread out and cover anything that looks like a door. Now move!"
An "Ooh-rah!" echoed through the ship, then the hatch opened and forty marines fanned out and started pointing guns at anything that looked like it could open and let a hostile through. That is … Forty marines and me.
"All right, hot shot." Leo said as he turned to me. "Work your magic." He then turned to a young girl who looked way too young to be there.
"Uma, you follow her," he said, pointing at me. "She'll show you where to go." The girl turned and saluted me. I snorted a laugh.
"At ease, kid." I said. Funny enough it failed to make her more relaxed. "C'mon, we got a terminal to hack."
We made our way to a maintenance shaft at the back of the hangar, where I opened up a hidden panel and pointed at the terminal behind it.
"This is a low level maintenance station," I said. "It isn't much, but it should give you access to the internal sensors. Think you can get in without alerting the entire ship?"
She just gave me an insulted look and started hooking up her gear to the panel.
"Pardon me for asking, ma'am," she said as she connected the last wire. "But how come you knew where to find this terminal?"
I winced behind her back as old memories came rushing back.
"I … served on one of these ships a few years back." More precisely, I was the captain. But that was none of her business.
"And you ended up here?" 'Here' being the Oort Cloud mining operation, where they put people that Terra wanted to forget. Officially we had 'volunteered' to work at the mines out there. Unofficially they were basically slave camps, and the last stop for Terran criminals, captured pirates, the unlucky ones and those who lacked the financial means or political clout to get them selves out of a pinch. They worked you to the bone, and then tossed you out the nearest airlock when you stopped being useful.
"Yeah," I said. "I had some … disagreements with my commanding officer." She didn't need to know that the officer in question was the commander-in-chief for the entire ATF fleet, rear admiral Anastasia Nikoleva. My mother.
"Oh." I think she managed to put two and two together and get five and a half, but I wasn't about to spur her on.
A few minutes went by, and I could feel the tension in the air. Our chances of being detected increased with every second, and if someone alerted the bridge we would most likely be screwed. Suddenly …
"Got it!" Uma exclaimed. Her enthusiasm rubbed off on me, and I couldn't help but smile.
"Chief!" she said over the comlink. "We got eyes and ears. Two hundred and fifty people on board, most of them in the crew quarters. We got fifteen on the bridge, ten in the engine room, four guarding what appears to be the core, and … oh, shit! Two heading this way! Main entrance, ten seconds!"
I heard the sound of feet running across the deck as the point team took up positions to neutralize who ever was about to enter. The door opened with a soft hiss, and a man and a woman walked in.
"– and then I tell Simmons … Holy crap!"
An EMP carabine, a light repeater, a pair of pulsar rifles and a huge assault cannon met them as they stepped into the hangar.
"Hello," Hayla said. "Just drop those toys, and we can solve this peacefully." She pointed the barrel of her EMP carabine at their sidearms.
"Boron hope you resist, though." Babu Mo shot in. The always chipper sound of her translator unit almost made it sound like a joke, but her twin pulsar rifles made sure no one thought she was joking.
"Logical choice be surrender," Tupmanckulot rumbled. "But your species not always as wise as name implies."
"Uhm …" The man and woman looked at each other, then they dropped their sidearms and raised their hands.
"Smart move," Hayla said. "Stuff 'em in the Baldric, and let's move.
"Be careful out there," Leo said over the comlink. "We don't want to alert the rest if we can avoid it. Uma, you have to guide them and keep the crew of the ship in the dark."
"Will do, chief." Uma replied.
"Mind if I join?" I said. "I know a shortcut."
"No," Leo said. "You're too valuable."
"Aw, come on. Pretty please? I promise I'll be careful."
"Yeah, and I'm the president of GEOSS. No."
"You're no fun at all."
"I know. I also know that unless we get the hell out after we hack the core we're gonna be screwed, and since you're the one who is at all capable of running this ship you're staying put."
"Yes, Pa."
I sat down against the wall and stared into the air. The feeling of restlessness I had in me decided to stick around, and I couldn't really find a comfortable position. I was about to get up when an unmarked hatch suddenly opened and a man came crawling out.
"What the …Freeze, asshole!" He got to his feet, drew his pistol and pointed it at Uma. For a moment I was stunned, not sure what to do. He hadn't seen me, which meant I could probably let him shoot her and get away with it. On the other hand he represented a system that had tried to bury me when I refused to commit murder in its name. A system I had spent the last four years learning to hate. Guess some choices are easier than others …
The man was closing in on Uma when I came up behind and kicked him right across the kidneys. He hit the floor like a ton of bricks and got a foot in the face for good measure.
"Uma! Your gun, now!" He shook his head and got up on his elbows and knees, and I knew I would lose the next fight unless I had some extra leverage.
"Whoaaaaaah …" Great. My pet hacker was freaking out. Wonder if she had seen any action at all before she ended up in that hellhole …
"Uma!" I repeated. "Sidearm! Now!" Damn, this joker was coming around way too fast. Finally she reacted and tossed me her EMP pistol, just in the nick of time.
"Urrrh …" The man on the floor growled and clutched his lower back. "Ya kick like a frakkin mule, kid." he mumbled.
"Yeeeeah … Spending four years in a prison where roughly ninety five percent of the population wants to get in your pants, preferably by force, tend to teach you a few tricks." That, and Ma dearest had started training me for the military career she wanted me to pursue at the tender age of seven. I learned to think on my feet and improvise the best I could, and it had kept me alive so far.
"Leo," I said, activating my comlink. "Got an unwanted visitor covered here. You might want to pick him up."
"Copy that. Soa t'Lt and Lolo Go are on their way."
About half a minute later I heard the slightly metallic clanking of a Boron enviro-suit as it plodded across the floor on its six metal legs. Never send a marine with arachnophobia to fight the Boron …
"Move, human." Lolo said. "And don't try anything funny. Boron has six hundred friends in the mags, and they can all run a lot faster than you." The man in front of me groaned as he got up, still clutching his back.
"Relax," Soa said as he poked the man in the back with his repeater. "We won't hurt you unless you give us a good reason." Which, Split being Split, could get you shot for farting at the wrong time.
"Nice to know." he mumbled as they escorted him away.
I sort of zoned out after that. I halfway overheard Aylin giving orders to our team, directing them around patrols and stuff, but I wasn't really paying attention.
"Yes!"
My pet hacker was jumping up and down, which I assumed meant that Hayla and her team had reached the core without waking the whole Gunne damned ship. Kind of amazing, actually. Especially when you considered the fact that most of our forces were greener than kale, and would probably trip over their own feet and shoot them selves in the face if given the chance.
"They made it! They made it!!!" My pet hacker was still jumping up and down, something that probably meant Hayla and Gaga Pa were busy breaking into the core. Any moment, now …
"We are in," Hayla reported over the comlink.
"Good," Leo replied. "Lock down the ship, but keep the bridge in the dark til we can get there and take control.
"Understood."
"Santana, get your ass back here and join us. There's a show we need to get rolling, and you're the star."
"Will do, chief." I replied. Then I turned to Uma.
"All right, kid." I said to her. "Time to wrap up and move."
"Yes, ma'am." I snorted a laugh.
"I certainly ain't no ma'am. Call me Alice."
"Sure. Ma'am." I sighed and rolled my eyes. She tried to hide a giggle and failed miserably.
"Whatever. Let's go."
I met up with Leo in the main hangar as he was gathering the troops.
"-re's the plan. I take a team of fifteen and head for engineering. Sansi and Monisessas, you go with Uma and find the backup systems. Hayla will guide you. Fifteen go with Alice and take the bridge, and the rest of you stay put and guard the Baldric. Understood?"
A resounding 'Yes, sir!" echoed through the hangar, and for a moment there I was worried someone would hear us. Leo then took his team and wandered off, leaving me with fifteen pairs of eyes staring at me. It made me feel more than a little uncomfortable, despite the fact that I had commanded crews far larger than this. Guess it had something to do with the stakes involved. On the other hand, it might let me hit something. Or someone …
That thought sent warm tingling vibrations down my spine, and I couldn't help but smile.
Now, getting from the hangar, which is at the bottom of the ship, to the bridge, which is at the very top, on a ship that is the better part of five kilometers long, can be a hassle. Especially when you can't use the lifts, as bridge access is highly restricted and you have to go through a biometric scanner to get inside. It is of course possible to disable this, but only from the bridge. So yeah, we walked. And climbed. And swore. And climbed a bit more.
"Contact, left corridor." Hayla warned us. "Thirty meters and closing." At last, some fun.
"I got this," I said. "Stay back and cover me in case there are more of them."
"But Leo –" One of my guys started protesting. I scowled at him, and he shut his mouth so fast I heard his teeth click together. My guys stayed put, and I wandered around the corner.
"Hi," I said, looking at the human brick wall in front of me. "Excuse me, could you tell med the way to the mess hall?" Yep, he was huge. Guess I could stun the frakker, but where's the fun in that?
He blinked a couple of times. I smiled and looked at him with my baby blues, something that for some odd reason made him look a bit green around the gills. I blinked back and asked again.
"Excuse me, mister … Could you point me to the mess hall, please?"
"Uhm … You're not supposed to be here, ma'am …"
"Oh? Why not?"
"Well … Uh … This is a restricted area, and …"
I stepped closer and looked him straight in the eye. My grin grew wider, and now he was looking really uneasy.
"Is something wrong, officer …?"
"Uh, I –"
He got cut short as I clocked him in the jaw. He did a full one-eighty and hit the floor, and moments later four of my team mates were on him like gadflies on an argnu's ass.
"How the frak …" One of my team mates, I believe her name was Jo, looked at the man on the floor. He was still counting stars, and that jaw would probably need medical attention.
"Healthy eating and lots of lifting of heavy ore crates," I replied. "That, and knuckle dusters." I held up my hand and showed her the dull gray metal bands on my fingers. "Never leave home without," I said as I put it back in my pocket. She just shook her head and concentrated on our hostage.
The rest of the trip was surprisingly quiet, and it was quite obvious they were traveling light. If this ship had been fully combat ready we would probably have hit patrols every fifty meters, not to mention that blast doors, force fields and internal sentry lasers would have made progress … difficult. Instead this magnificent ship was reduced to an oversized cargo- and prison transport. Guess the ATF guys had to burn their budget on something …
Ah, the bridge. The monkey cage. The brain of the ship. I watched as my team positioned them selves around the exits, then I called up Hayla.
"Okey, Hayla. Work that hacker magic of yours."
"Hold on … Yeah, okey. In three, two, one, aaand go!"
The doors slid open, and fifteen slack-jawed wankers turned and looked at us.
"Listen up!" I said. "Ladies and gentlemen, you now have two options. One: you sit your asses down and we do this nice and quiet. Two: at least one of you decide to go full retard, and we find out just how good you are at dodging stun bolts at point blank range."
They looked at us, and for some very tense moments I thought one of them was going to lose it. Then they all just … folded.
"We surrender," the man in the captain's chair said. "Just don't hurt us."
"You have chosen … wisely. Boring choice, but wise." Dang, I was so hoping for some action.
"What can I say," he replied. "Guess I want to see the next sunrise more than I want to die some six hundred billion kilometers from home."
"The pragmatic kind, eh? I can certainly understand that."
"More like covering my own ass, but I guess that qualifies as some sort of pragmatism."
I couldn't help but smile a bit. For whatever reason I liked this guy, although he was playing for the other team so to speak. However, I had work to do, so I left him in the hands of my team mates. Now, let's see …
A few minutes later I had access to the mainframe, which meant I could start doing things my way. First thing was to get the ship to acknowledge me as its new owner, something that usually required a thirty two character access code. Or in our case, cheating.
"Leo, you got engineering yet?"
"Yes."
"Hayla, how are we doing down at the mainframe?"
"Ready when you are."
"Uma, how are we doing on the backup systems?"
"Almost there. Just need a few more seconds … And there. We're in. Ma'am."
I sighed audibly and could hear her snicker over the comlink.
"All right, people," I said. "Shutdown in three, two, one aaand go!"
The screens on the bridge flickered for a few moments as the mainframe went offline, before the backup systems booted up and returned things to normal.
"Uma, did you get it?"
"Yeah. We're in."
What I was about to pull was considered impossible, but since we had control over engineering, the mainframe and the ship's backup systems it would work. The theory behind it was simple; add a few commands in the startup sequence as the mainframe rebooted, and it would give us access to the very heart of the system. It was supposed to be impossible to do this on the mainframe, but since we had access to power and the backup, which was significantly weaker and only designed to keep the ship running in an emergency, it was doable. It was a back door that only a select few knew about, but as a former captain I was one of the select few.
"Let's get this show on the road … Leo, hit it!"
The screens flickered once again, and then turned black. A few moments later a marker popped up, followed by a flurry of code. A few seconds later, and I got what I wanted …
[root@localhost /]#: Awaiting input
A couple more commands, and I now had full access to the mainframe. I sat down in the captain's chair, put my hand on the palm reader in the command console and typed in the command, then hit enter. The scanner did its thing, and voila. I was now acting captain of a Terran dreadnought. Another reboot, and the system was set and ready to go. Now for one last thing …
"Attention all personnel," I said, turning on the PA system. "My name is Alisiya Nikoleva Santana, but you can call me Alice. I am, as of now, your new captain."
I paused a moment and took a breath, steadying myself.
"I can imagine what you're thinking, and yes, a bunch of Clouder* misfits managed to steal the pride of the ATF fleet. Cause every fortress has a weak spot, and I know this particular fortress very well. But that is not why I'm talking to you. I'm talking to you because you need to make a choice. The choice is simple, yet oh so hard. Do you want to follow the system, or do you want to follow me?
"If you want to follow the system there is a Baldric with cargo life support in the hangar, and it can easily hold each and every one of you, should you choose to leave. If you want to follow me I can promise only one thing; freedom. Freedom to do as you please, not as others have told you. The system will hunt us, and the system will probably try to kill us. They may try, but I will fight tooth and nail, to my very last breath, to keep that from happening. Make no mistake, though. If you jeopardize the safety of this ship and its crew there will be consequences, and if you frak up badly enough I'll use your rotting corpse as a hood ornament. The choice is yours. But choose now."
"Sooo …" the former captain said. "A pirate ship?" He looked at me, and I gave him a nod.
"Basically, yes."
"Sounds like fun …" He looked out through the thick NCC** windows, then his eyes lit up and he grinned to himself.
"Sound like you've made your choice, mister …"
"Alan. Alan McCairn. At least this should be more fun than backwater border patrols, so I guess I'll come along for the ride."
I gave him a brief smile, then I offered my hand. He grabbed it and shook it, all the while looking like this whole thing tickled him immensely.
"Well then, Alan … Welcome aboard the Arcadia."
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*; Clouder - person living in the Oort Cloud. Often used as a derogatory term.
*; NCC - Short for NanoComposite Ceramic, a transparent material often used in windows and viewports where high strength and durability is required, such as in space ships and -stations.