Chapter 24

Lydia’s voice came over the comm system. “Battle station.”

The crew reported to the bridge, Vlad took back the helm and Lydia went back to her captain’s seat. Ezi monitored the engine and assisted Piet on checking the secondary systems. Simona was checking the screens and weapon system. Faith was in the torpedo room, waiting for special orders from Lydia.

“We will be coming out of jumpstream in sixty seconds,” Lydia informed the crew.

“They aren’t going to know what hit them,” Simona boasted as she made final checks on the weapons.

“Keep a steady hand, Vlad,” Lydia warned.

“Just because you are a better pilot than me,” Vlad joked. “Doesn’t mean I forgot to fly.” Vlad made some final adjustments. “Exiting the jump.” The location was perfect, the Enigma exited the jump less than a hundred kilometers from the Hannibal.

“Damn, that’s close,” Piet said.

“We can admire my tracking skills later,” Lydia kidded. “Vlad, make a pass over the ship.”

“Torpedoes ready, ma’am,” Simona said.

“Fire!”

The torpedo raced to the back end of the Hannibal struck the screens. No damage was one to the ship, which was expected, but the Hannibal screens were affected.

“Their screens down eighty percent,” Simona reported.

Vlad did a quickly fly-by and position the ship for another pass.

“Fire!” Lydia ordered again.

Another torpedo struck the Hannibal’s screens.

“Down forty percent,” Simona stated. A series of loud rang out for her console. “Weapon’s lock, Ma’am.”

“Evasive maneuvers,” Lydia ordered her pilot.

“Rodger that,” Vlad said. The Hannibal’s fired it plasma cannons in the direction of the Enigma. The ship broke hard right and the dark blue beam flew harmlessly by.

“There response time is lagging,” Piet said.

“I noticed,” Lydia said. “Fire!”

The size of the Hannibal made it difficult for it to maneuver to avoid the torpedoes. The third one hit the screens.

“Down ten percent,” Simona reported. “One more shot should do it.”

Vlad took the ship for another pass as the weapon lock alert rung again, but this time it was an incoming torpedo. Vlad rolled the ship to the left to avoid the torpedo and his skills paid off again as the torpedo passed by.

“Faith,” Lydia called over the comm. “Get in position.”

“Are you sure about this?” Faith’s voice could be heard over the comm.

“It worked in simulation, little one,” Ezi added, “about seventy-five percent of the time.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Faith asked.

“We will always have Kargak,” Lydia answered.

The Enigma’s torpedoes were two meters long and one-meter wide cylinder. Ezi modified them with a dampening program designed to drain Hannibal’s screens. One more hit would disable Hannibal’s screens, but the torpedo following that had a more unique designed. It was a hollow hulk with a strong protective shell, which Faith had climbed in through the nose of the torpedo and locked it shut. Lydia called it a ‘Trojan torpedo.’ Faith armed with her katrat and twin Shedder pistols. She was wearing her ballistic suit, but this time and wore the additional armored plating and full helmet with life support. Faith was in there tight and patiently waited to hear the order. She let out several slow and shallow breaths. ‘This isn’t a common way to travel,’ Faith thought to herself.

While in the torpedo, Faith couldn’t hear anything outside of the torpedo. She turned on her comm in her helmet to hear Lydia’s orders.

“Fire!” Lydia shouted. It wasn’t for the torpedo that Faith was in, it was for the one before her. Faith felt the force of it shooting out of the tube.

A strange feeling came over her body, her hands were getting sweating and legs shook a little. It felt like small energy discharged going off in her stomach. She let out several breathes to calm herself. The last thing she wanted was a panic attack in a very small place.

“Screens are down!” Simona reported.

Lydia set her earpiece to privacy mode so only Faith could hear what she had to say next. “I love you,” she whispered.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Faith answered back. “I love you too.”

Lydia gave the order to Simona and hoped that did just send Faith to die in a torpedo coffin.

The torpedo raced out of the chute at high velocity. The g-force would at least made the rider unconscious, if not dead. But Faith’s body and her mind could take the strain. The goal was to strike the Hannibal in a small tender spot of the port side before they could get their screens back up, which could be a matter of seconds.

Faith braced for impact as the torpedo slammed into the maintenance’s port of the third deck. Only half of the torpedo penetrated the hull, which was by design. The nose of the torpedo was kicked open and Faith slid out.

“On the ship,” Faith communicated with the Enigma. “There is no hull breach alarm going off and the maintenance’s port was empty.” She looked back at the torpedo, which was wedged into the side of the ship. It created a tight seal that the Hannibal didn’t detect any pressure loss or a breach of the Hannibal’s hull.

There was a big smile on Lydia’s face once she realized that Faith was alive. “Make your way to the shuttle bay,” Lydia ordered. “It’s two decks down.”

“On my way,” Faith answered.

Lydia ended the call and instructed her crew. “Piet, Simona, and Ezi, suited up and report to the airlock.” She looked at Vlad. “Make sure they stay off our ass and wait for my call.”

“Not a problem,” Vlad answered.

Faith checked her gear and everything was in working order. She looked around the large rectangle-like room. It was full of spare engine parts and repair equipment. She activated her carpus. A holographic screen appeared and she pulled up the full schematic of the Hannibal. It showed the fastest way to the shuttle bay was through the vents. The only problem was that the vent was fifteen meters up in the ceiling. Faith was a strong jumper, but fifteen meters was out of her range. She looked at the engine parts and they were in ten meters high piles, but they were too far from the vents. Faith needed to get to the shuttle bay soon, or the plan would not work.

Faith looked at the schematic and decided that she had to take a risk and open the main door. Her carpus had the code programmed into it, if the code wasn’t changed, it wouldn’t be a problem. She entered the code into the keypad and the huge door slid open. There were a couple of SINDRI’s crew members running by the room and they quickly turned around when the heard and saw the door opening.

Faith quickly drew her pistols and fired. They weren’t really crew members. They were part of the maintenance team. The poor bastards didn’t stand a chance. The only protection they were wearing was their overalls. They were unarmed as well. The razors ripped through their clothes, their flesh, and internal organs. Blood and body’s matters were splatter all over their clothes and the walls. ‘The poor bastard didn’t stand a chance,’ Faith thought as she looked down on to their bodies, ‘but they could have signaled an alarm just as well as armed crew members.’

Faith grabbed their bodies and tossed them into the maintenance’s port and closed the door. She ran down the hall and located the door to the emergency access service tunnels or EAST as they were commonly called. These tunnels provided the crew with access to certain areas of the ship for repairs and movement around the ship if power was lost. They were cramped and poorly lit. They were a series of long ladders in small cylinder tunnels one-third of the ship and one would have to be in top physical shape to navigate. None of the tunnels led to the bridge. Doors to the EAST were secured and blended into the bulkheads of the ship. They weren’t easies located unless one had the schematic of the ship. Faith entered the code and manually opened the door. An alarm went off as she opened the door. It didn’t matter if she had the code or not. An alarm always went off if any of the EAST doors were opened. But it wasn’t a loud sound, but a low muffled one. Faith closed the door and the alarm stopped, grabbed both rails of the ladder and quickly ascended down two decks and slowly opened the EAST door.

There were five crew members patrolling the area with side arms. They just passed the EAST door when the alarm went off. They turned back around. By that time, Faith already shot two in the back. They stood a slightly better chance than the maintenance’s team, due to their ballistic uniform, but the rounds still ripped through them. The other three were able to get a couple of shots off but missed. Even though, Faith was fully armored; her reflexes were still faster than anything they had witnessed. She jumped and kicked him the face jamming his nose into his brain’s cavity, killing him instantly. Faith sidekicked one in the ribs and heard them cracked in several places. He collapsed onto the floor. The last one attempted to call for backup, but Faith punched him in the jaw with an uppercut and nearly took his head off. The blow broke his neck. It left him paralyzed. Neither one would be able to call for help, but Faith wasn’t going to take any chances. She shot both of them in the head. Their blood and pieces of skulls flew back covering Faith’s faceplate of her helmet. She ran to the shuttle bay door.

“Lydia,” Faith called through her helmet comm. “About to go enter the bay, get ready.”

“Roger that,” Lydia answered.

Lydia, Simona, Ezi, and Piet were in the Enigma’s airlock. They were their full ballistic suits with additional armored plating and full helmet. They were armed with Shedder rifles. They added booster belts to the suits. They were going to do a spacewalk to the Hannibal.

“Vlad,” Lydia called on her comm. “Are their screens still down?”

Vlad checked his monitor. “Yes, they are still down. I’ve been giving them a couple of love taps on their screen generator with the plasma cannons. It should keep the screens offline. If we had more torpedoes, this fight might even be fair.” The Enigma moved in closer to the Hannibal.

“Understood,” Lydia answered.

“I thought the Trojan torpedo was a crazy idea,” Piet commented, “but this is downright insane.”

“Understand your concerns, Piet,” Ezi explained, “but our odds are better than the Trojan torpedo.”

“The hanger door is open,” Faith reported on her comm to the crew.

Vlad moved a hundred meters from the Hannibal. “With our screen down,” Vlad added. “We are vulnerable, so make it quick.”

Lydia opened the airlock and the four jump out. They activated their booster belts flew towards the Hannibal.

“We cleared the ship, Vlad,” Lydia informed as the group flew in a single file line. “Get the ship out of here.”

“Wait a minute.” He quickly shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You want me to leave before you get on the Hannibal?”

“That’s an order,” Lydia said. “Get the ship out of here. I will contact you.”

“Rodger that,” Vlad said. He wasn’t happy with the decision, but it was part of Lydia’s plan. The Enigma barrel rolled away from the Hannibal. The Hannibal didn’t presume or fired onto the Enigma, which puzzled Vlad. ‘I guessed I’m small potatoes to them.’

It was still peaceful in the vacuum of space. The crew noticed minimal damaged to the Hannibal. There was some smoke, but no real hull damage. The attack wasn’t designed to bring it down. The purpose was to get the crew aboard the ship. The crew flew closer. The hanger was underneath the ship, so the crew directed their flight in that direction. As they arrived at the belly of the ship, they saw the open hanger and with a small humanoid figure standing between two shuttlecrafts.

“I hope that is you,” Lydia said with a small smile.

“Yeah,” Faith answered, “hurry up!” Red lights were flashing in the hanger. The whole ship was aware that the hanger door was open and would likely to send people to investigate.

The crew turned up their boosters and raced faster towards the hanger. The hanger’s door control was overridden by the bridge crew of the Hannibal. The door started closing.

“Shit!” Faith’s gravity boots made a suction sound as she ran to the console.

“Why the door closing?” Lydia asked.

Faith quickly hit buttons on the console trying to override the override. “I’m locked out.” She informed. “I can’t stop the door, so hurry the hell up.”

“Double time,” Lydia ordered to her team.

They increased their speed and five mini-comets rushing faster to the ship. The hanger’s door was half closed. The crew couldn’t risk flying faster, because they might black out. They flew closer and closer. The rate of the door closing was off by a couple of seconds. There was only a two meters gap when Lydia and the rest of the crew slipped through. They put the booster in reverse, creating a braking effect, and braced for impact as they slammed into the wall. The hanger’s door closed and the familiar hissing sound of the room pressurizing.

They lifted themselves off the floor. They were sworn and no real damage was done to them. Their armor suits absorbed most of the blunt and they were able to slow down enough to prevent further injuries. They performed a quick weapon check. They split into two teams. Lydia and Faith were going to bridge and the others were going to engineering.

Simona took the lead flanked by Ezi and Piet. Engineering wasn’t far from the shuttle bay. Alarms flashed and rung throughout the ship. Amulius and Captain Jackson expected a small boarding party and their beliefs confirmed by security cams. They dispatched two squads to intercept the invaders and placed the ship on lockdown. Alpha and Beta squads were two twelve-person units. They were known for their efficiency. The Beta squad was ordered to stop Simona’s team and Alpha was ordered to stop Lydia’s.

Since the ship was placed on lockdown, the corridors were empty and all doors sealed. The team would have to hack their ways to their destination. Simona’s team arrived at engineering. Piet activated his carpus and attempted to hack the door. He wasn’t making any progress and to make thing worse, Beta squad arrived. Simona and Ezi fired their Shedders at the squad to provide some cover fire for Piet. Their armor provided some protection from the Shedder’s rounds, but they got hurt by some of the blazes. The squad fired back. They missed Ezi and Simona but clipped Piet in his left thigh. The shot knocked him back a couple of meters and caused some bleeding. He cried out, but it only a flesh wound.

“Fry them,” Simona told Ezi.

Ezi’s body was engulfed in a field of electricity, which provided her protection from the rounds. She released a strong wave of electricity that knocked out Beta squad. If it wasn’t for their armor, they would have all been dead.

Ezi collapsed to her knees and took off her helmet because she had trouble breathing.

“You’re okay?” Simona asked.

“No,” Ezi answered. “I need a minute.”

“I’m sorry,” Simona responded. She took the butt of her gun and clocked Ezi in the back of the head and knocking her out.

“What the hell?” Piet cried as he reached for his gun.

“Don’t even think about it,” Simona threatened. She aimed her gun at his head.

Piet raised his hands over his head. “I know when I been had.”

“You always were a smart man,” Simona said, “I always liked you.”

Piet laughed. “The feeling isn’t mutual.”

Warren and four other soldiers came out of engineering. “Well done, Ms. Pierno.”

“Shut-up, Warren,” Simona replied back. There was a small sense of regret in her voice. She looked at the soldiers. “Take them to the brig.” The soldiers grabbed Ezi and flanked Piet and took off his helmet.

“You don’t give orders, Simona,” Warren said with a sense of entitlement. “They take orders from me.”

“You’re right,” Simona answered. He couldn’t see the sinister smile beneath her faceplate. She pointed her gun to his head and fired. The razors ripped his head in half. His blood splatted on the ceiling of engineering and pieces of skulls crashed into the wall. “Now, they do.” His lifeless body fell to the floor.

Lydia and Faith raced down the corridors. They faced no resisted until they ran into Alpha squad. Alpha squad was rebuilt after Faith wiped them out on the prison camp. Now, the new Alpha squad wanted payback. They had orders to take them alive, but they were willing to defy that order. They wanted that blue-eye butcher dead. The squad fired on them. There weren’t any hiding places in the corridors and all the rooms were locked. The fighting area was tight, but Faith had four planes with to fight one and the squad could utilize one. Faith charged them bouncing off the walls and at times the ceiling to avoid their shots. The squad was hellbent on killing Faith, they lost track of Lydia. Lydia took advantage of the situation and mowed down three soldiers before they knew what hit them.

Faith drew her katrat and used it more like a shield than a sword. She blocked their shots causing loud ringing sound throughout the corridors. Faith wanted to turn this fight into hand to hand combat. So, she got in closer and closer to the group. Lydia kept firing rounds into the squad to keep them off balance. Once Faith got into melee range, she cut loose, literally. She hacked, kicked and chopped her way through the squad as Lydia fired and killing what Faith missed. The squad attempted to use their guns as melee weapons, but they were no match for her strength and her katrat. Even though they wearing body armor, Faith attacked them in the vulnerable parts, like the joints, where there were less protected. By the time the smoke cleared, Alpha met the same faith as the first one. No surface was spared; the walls, floor, and the ceiling ran red with their blood.

Simona called Lydia in the helmet comm. “We fail to capture engineering and Piet and EZi are dead. I barely escaped.”

“Meet us at the bridge,” Lydia ordered. “We are taking them down.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Faith looked at Lydia. Both of their faces were covered by the faceplate. The two couldn’t see each other expression, Lydia didn’t have to see Faith’s face to know that Faith was saddened by the news. “We’ll mourn for them later. We got a job to do.”

“I know,” Faith said. Tears ran down her cheek. “Let’s kill them all.”

Amulius and Captain Jackson were standing on the bridge watching on the monitor.

“They’ll be here soon,” Captain Jackson said as he adjusted his jacket. “Why don’t to just move to Plan B?”

“No,” Amulius answered. “For now, I need them both alive.”

“This isn’t going to be a problem,” the Captain added, “since they killed everybody, expected support staff and security.” The Captain sat in one of the chairs on the bridge.

“Don’t worry my dear Captain,” Amulius ensured. “I’m always a step ahead.”

Lydia, Faith, and Simona met just outside of the bridge. Lydia activated her carpus.

“There is no need to hack the lock, my dear Lydia.” Amulius’s voice was heard over the comm. The bridge’s door slid opened. “Come on in, my old friend.”