Chapter 10

It was chaos. Before there was time to react, the shields, such as they were, failed. Lee swallowed hard.

The blackness beyond the canopy was filled with the lights of ship thrusters in the distance. They darted around like a disturbed nest of angry bees—bees with lasers. The swarm aimed their weapons at a single point. Lee couldn’t quite make out what the target was. The target’s movement caught light from the star revealing an elongated wedge shape. Lee guessed it had to be Jackson, hopelessly outnumbered.

The sensor display packed more than a dozen signals. Lee found a Fer-de-lance in the contacts panel, but before he could open a channel, he felt an impact rock the ship. It was the unmistakable impact of a plasma accelerator followed by the sound of pulse lasers that sizzled along the hull. Sparks shot out from the panels in front of him, and smoke began to fill the cabin.

“Shields offline. Thrusters offline,” the COVAS reported.

“Oh come on, baby. Hold together,” Lee coughed out through the smoke, trying to encourage the battered old ship.

Another hit rocked him, followed by some crunching metal sounds somewhere distant. The ship lurched, throwing him against the flight chair harness. They were moving, but not under the Nightcrawler’s power—something was pulling them.

“We got tethered. They’re towing us!” Lee realized, shouting to no one in particular. Xohn was still down in the hold of the ship with his invention.

With no thrusters, there was no way to escape. The cabin lights went off for a moment before flickering back on.

Lee was reminded of Vic’s first troubleshooting lesson on the Nightcrawler. The old man’s voice rang out in his mind, “Look, kid, if she ain’t working right, try turning her off and back on again.” It was, of course, the age-old solution to any technical problem. He turned to the system panel and initiated the restart sequence with a smirk.

The battle outside the canopy captured his attention while he waited for the restart sequence. Lee counted flashes of about a dozen more ships dropping into the system. Then an enormous hole opened in space some six or seven kilometers away. A mega-ship emerged. Lee guessed it must have been the Vilant, the mega-ship he’d scanned before jumping. Whoever had been hunting them had arrived to find themselves immediately under attack.

It left Lee confused. He thought whoever tethered them were the same ones going after Xohn. That no longer appeared to be the case. Another group was attacking their pursuers and reeling the Nightcrawler in at the same time. Whoever it was had a substantial force, with enough hardware and pilots to overwhelm the small fleet that had been chasing them. The Vilant and its support forces were routed and falling back.

The Nightcrawler finished its start-up sequence. Lee started to look through systems when he heard banging around behind him. Xohn came through the doorway of the bridge.

“Finally! When all the power went out, I got trapped down there. Where are we? What happened?”

“We’re getting towed, by someone.” His voice sounded ominous even to himself.

“We’re what?”

“They took out our shields, then the engines. Now they’re towing us.”

“You mean they found us?” Xohn sounded more desperate.

“I don’t think so. Seems to be someone else.”

“Who else is after us?” Xohn said, exasperated.

“I don’t know! Could be pirates. Could be a faction upset by Meat Man’s Takko Tuesday rations. I have no idea,” Lee raised his arms and went back to looking through the damaged systems. The Nightcrawler was a mess. The shields were gone. The thrusters didn’t come back. There was damage across multiple sub-systems.

“Actually, I don’t think it can be pirates,” Lee realized. “There aren’t any big pirate groups operating out in this region of the Hyades. At least none that I know of with this many ships. It has to be a faction. Maybe the Resistance?”

“The Resistance! I could talk to them! They were trying to help me at that outpost.”

“I don’t know which ship to contact. You’d have to do it over wideband. If you’re trying to lay low, that’s not the way to do it.”

“Well, what are we going to do? Sit here until they pull us in?”

Lee smacked the console in front of him in disgust. “Nothing we can do. Thrusters are offline until we get some repairs. Unless you have engineering magic up your sleeves?”

Xohn appeared thoughtful and rubbed a hand across his bald, tattooed head for a moment before answering, “It depends on the damage. I can take a look.” His voice trailed as he moved down the ladder to the lower flight station.

They continued getting dragged backward while the battle continued at a distance. Thin strips of beam lasers flashed and converged on the ships that had dropped in. Lee targeted the Anaconda. The sensors showed it had taken heavy damage. It looked like they were in retreat, beaten back by the overwhelming force. No sooner had it arrived than the Vilant made a hasty departure. Lee couldn’t help but wonder who they were and what they wanted with Xohn. But there were more pressing questions now, like who was reeling them in, what did they want, and more importantly, could they escape?

He turned his focus back to the ship’s systems. The damage was significant, and his credit balance wasn’t the healthiest. He hoped Xohn had some good news for him and climbed down the ladder to check on him.

“How’s it look?” He asked, hopeful.

Xohn shook his head. “About forty percent of the power relays are shot. No way to get power to them. A full outfitting bay is needed to…” His voice trailed off and he continued to sit in distant thought. “Wait a light-second! We could hook up the ThermARC!”

“The what?” Lee had a puzzled look and slipped in repeating his companion’s accent.

“No! The ThermARC! My experimental module.“

“I don’t care what you call it, I’m not hooking up your experimental tech to the Nightcrawler. Her systems are already experimental enough as it is. What’s a ThermARC anyways?”

“ThermoAcoustic Resonance Cogenerator. It’s a transducer that converts thermal energy into sound waves with almost no loss of energy. Then the sound waves get converted into power!” He stood up and smacked a fist into his other hand.

“Okay, wait,” Lee held up both hands. “Pretend I’m stupid. What does that mean, and how does it help us?”

Xohn’s smirk said pretending he was stupid wasn’t going to be hard. “The heat output will route into the acoustic resonance chamber when turning the power plant on. The power it generates then can be shunted back into the engines! The engines will get running again. At least power enough to maneuver, I think.”

Lee hesitated, but remembered Xohn’s Pulse Wave Analyzer modifications. “Alright, but be careful. You mess up the Nightcrawler any more than she already is and you’re going for a nice long walk.” He followed Xohn off the flight deck toward the aft of the ship.

It took half an hour to install the ThermARC. Lee got a lesson in module installation that gave him a new respect for Zee. The thought gave him another pang of guilt for not taking her with him. He wondered how she was doing, then just hoped she was still “doing”.

Step-by-step, Xohn added new connections to integrate the ThermARC. The ship’s thermal exhaust rerouted into it. If it worked, Lee admitted it would be a smuggler’s dream.

“So let me get this straight,” Lee crossed his arms, furrowing his brow. “This thing will give power to the engines generated from the heat turning to sound, and sound turned to electrical power?”

“Yes, exactly!”

“That’s amazing, Xohn! That means none of the waste heat goes to the vanes.”

“Right. The system interconnects close the heat vanes when you activate the ThermARC.”

“So you get silent running and more engine power? That’s unbelievable, Xohn! It’s a silent running turbocharger!” Lee was impressed. If it worked, and he survived this, it would make smuggling easier than ever.

Xohn nodded as if to take a slight bow. “Thank you. It is nothing but my life’s work.” Xohn ran a series of tests with each new connection point. After scores of connections into the ship, Xohn reported “Okay, we are ready for the calibration, I think. Then we can bring the system online.”

“Nice. I’ll head back up to the flight deck and leave you to it. Let me know when I can bring it online.” Lee headed back to the bridge to monitor ship systems leaving Xohn to his work.

By Lee’s guess, their trip covered at least a megameter, but he had no idea where they were headed. Scanners were in and out as Xohn’s work kept the power cycling off and on. They were in the dark, figuratively and literally.

The noise of the power ramping up and systems coming back online just to get cut off again was grating on his nerves.

He better not screw up the Nightcrawler. He breaks it, he buys it, Lee thought.

The power continued cycling. Up and down, over and over. Just as Lee was about to get up and shout at Xohn, the power stabilized, and ship systems came online, including the engines and the sensors.

The sensor display showed a cloud of ships behind them. Lee checked the contact panel and found a long list of small and mid-sized ships and a giant cargo hauler.

“Well, what do we have here,” he said to himself and scooted closer to the sensor display. He trained the scanners on the freighter for a passive scan. Its transponder responded as the Athos, a James-class bulk cargo ship. His gut told him that was where they were being towed.

Out of the corner of his eye he began to see lights from other vessels that passed by them go ing the opposite direction. The grappling tether was pulling them at the right rear corner of the ship, causing them to be dragged at an off-angle. He could see the edges of the massive ship’s forward nose come into view as they neared it. Then two habitation rings, a smaller ring followed by a slightly larger one, came into view.

A rather loud sound of metallic tightening rattled through the cabin. One of the tethers swung into view with a creaking sound. A well-worn Diamondback Scout with a rugged bumblebee shape moved in front to pull the opposite direction and slow their momentum. The cable echoed with coiled tension that could be heard throughout the ship.

“Lee!” Xohn’s voice came through the internal comms. “We’re ready to bring it online.”

“Too late, I’m afraid. Cover up your work and get up here. We don’t have time to escape. We’ll have to save it for another time. They’re moving us to a cargo ship. Try to hide the module the best you can.”

“Right, I can use some of the deck plating we pulled to mount the ThermARC.” The sound of tools clanking against the deck and bulkheads in the background indicated the degree of Xohn’s scrambling.

The small Diamondback pulled against the cable, thrusters firing in short bursts to control their momentum. Lee felt each as a recurrent tug at the ship. The line reached its full extension in front of them, causing the Nightcrawler to spin the opposite direction. The superstructure of the Athos came into full view. A half-dome connected to the four out-jutting structures at the nose. Past that, the forward habitation rings became obscured by a large, roughly hexagonal section of enormous cargo pods.

They were coming in close to the sizable main fuselage. As they closed in, Lee noticed two crane-like arms mounted on rails that ran to the cargo pods. In concert, the arms extended toward them. An extended pull from their tow-vehicle slowed the rest of their momentum. Then, with a choreographed motion, the crane arms reached out toward different points of the ship. They connected with a clunking sound on the hull. Lee felt a slight bump from the contact.

After a few moments, the ship spun to a new orientation and sped down the track toward an opening in one of the massive cargo pods. Lee realized they were being loaded.

As they transited across the rails, Xohn entered the forward cabin. “The ThermARC is dressed to look more or less like a standard module reinforcement. Well, a well-used, busted module reinforcement. Whoa,” Xohn caught sight of the massive looming structure of the cargo pods ahead.

“Nice thinking, they won’t give it a second look if they inspect the ship.” Lee remarked while watching out of the canopy. Lights blinked at the corners of the pods to help smaller ships navigate the superstructure. The massive vessel looked well-used. Lee pointed out weapon scarring and even some buckling across the hull to Xohn.

“What do you think, Lee? Who are they?”

“I don’t really know. I didn’t see any emblems. I’m guessing they repurposed an old freighter. I’ve heard of large pirate operations using them as a moving base of operations. We’ll know soon enough.”

They passed through the opening, and the stars above them were replaced with the half-lit interior of the cargo hold.

“Jackson,” Lee pointed. “They got him, too.”

Beside them sat the scarred up elongated wedge of the Para Bellum. It sat amongst several large containers and cargo modules scattered about and anchored to the deck. The lighting inside the pod seemed dim and flickered at random. The inside looked even worse than the outside with dark green tinted stains on the bulkheads.

“Do you think he’s still alive?”

Lee leaned to look over the ship before it went out of their line-of-sight. “Well, the canopy’s still there. The landing ramp’s down, too. It doesn’t look like he bailed in an escape pod, but who knows.”

They came to an abrupt stop with more metallic clanking sounds. Lee looked over at Xohn. “Mooring clamps.”

“What now?” Xohn asked, a nervous edge in his voice.

Lee shrugged. “We wait. Maybe we can talk ourselves out of this. Try to stay quiet and let me do the talking.”

Xohn nodded.

They both sat waiting, watching, and listening. Lee was anxious, anticipating them forcing their way onboard. He hoped to avoid a physical confrontation, if possible. The waiting was excruciating. Whoever it was, they were in no rush.

Outside the canopy, a sled filled with military types approached the Nightcrawler and came to a stop below. Lee motioned Xohn below, and they both climbed down the ladder to the lower level. Below them, figures in full military pressure suits and combat RemLok helmets jumped over the side of the sled with elegant zero-G flips. They landed with their magboots locked to the deck, then stomped up to the ship.

A central figure walked forward. They raised an arm and tapped on the forearm controls of their suit.

The PA system inside the cargo bay echoed with a rough, raspy, masculine voice. “You have one minute to come down your landing ramp before we start cutting through your hull. This is your only warning.”

Lee looked over at Xohn, “Probably best not to put up any resistance to meatheads.”

Xohn nodded back in agreement. “Those don’t look like pirates.”

Lee led Xohn out of the forward cabin, through the ship corridors to the ramp’s airlock.

“I know it’s not pirates. And the matched uniforms don’t look like mercenaries. But, they’re not Federation, Imperial, or Alliance colors. It must be a well-funded faction.”

When they reached the ramp bay, Lee went to a compartment. He rummaged through it for a moment and pulled out an old RemLok helmet that he tossed over to Xohn. “You’re gonna want to put that on. Just slide it inside your flight suit’s collar.”

After Xohn was set, Lee showed him the button on his flight suit’s collar and pressed it. Both of their helmets flipped up and surrounded their heads. Adrenaline was coursing through him, but he powered through it to stay in control—to survive.

Lee smacked the large triangular button on the ramp controls to lower it. The amber lights spun in the bay for a few seconds before a hissing sound turned to an all at once rush as the air left the chamber.

When the ramp neared the deck, it revealed a dozen combat-ready military waiting for them, laser rifles strapped about them and held at the ready. Lee gave Xohn a sideways glance and walked forward down the ramp before it stopped on the deck. He went slow, trying not to make any sudden movements.

“Hey, you guys look like a solid piece of gear. What can we do for you?” Lee held his arms out in a welcoming fashion.

One of the soldiers in the front made a hand gesture. Before he could react, several soldiers rushed him, grabbed his arms, bent him over, and deactivated his magboots. In an instant, he was stuck staring at the deck while getting floated somewhere, only able to catch a glimpse of where he was from the sides of his helmet. He flailed his arms and legs in a vain attempt to regain some measure of control.

“Hey guys, come on, we only jumped in the system. It’s not permit locked. What gives?” He fought enough to test how he was being subdued, hoping not to antagonize his captors. He got a rap to the helmet from the butt of a rifle for his efforts.

“Settle down,” the raspy voice said from behind him.

He got dragged across the bay and forced into the sled. Once seated, two soldiers climbed in to sit on either side of him, rifles drawn to his chest. He watched Xohn get roughly handled into the sled a row ahead of him. A few soldiers stayed behind and walked up the ramp into the Nightcrawler. It made Lee upset, confused, and annoyed at the same time. Who the screb were these people?

The sled took off and floated along the deck toward the central axis of the ship. The journey was short, and they stopped at a large room that adjoined to a curved bulkhead running the length of the bay. Their “hosts” offloaded them from the sled and floated them to a set of double-doors. A soldier worked the control pad to open the doors, and they were pushed inside. When the doors shut behind them, a short, but solid-looking soldier tapped the inside panel. The doors closed. Air rushed into the chamber. As soon as the atmosphere light turned green, they retracted their helmets.

They were in a large room filled with storage lockers and assorted bins anchored to the deck plating. The bulkhead to their right curved out toward the ceiling, connecting to the larger structure seen in the rest of the bay. An inset region of the ceiling provided soft lighting, but like everything else, a couple of segments weren’t lit, and one blinked at random. The same dark stains seen in the cargo area were in various spots in the room with a much larger concentration of stains near the doors.

Then it hit. Xohn threw up chunks that flew into the zero-G room like a fountain of tofu textured jello. Lee almost lost it too, but managed to control his stomach.

“Grottdiggit!” one of the soldiers cursed while the rest moaned in unison.

Lingering in the room was a smell so rancid it burned at Lee’s nose and eyes—an unholy mix of rotting meat and feces left to ferment for decades. The smell began to creep into Lee’s throat. He could almost taste it, and his stomach flipped. Between the smell and the floating chunks, the soldiers were collecting into mylar baggies, it took all his strength to keep from losing it. Xohn, hunched over in a ball, continued to dry heave.

“Hey,” Lee tried to console him, coughing a little and squinting his eyes. “You okay?”

Xohn nodded, but more spasms followed.

With the major chunks collected, Lee felt a hand firmly grab hold of his arm. Two other soldiers grabbed Xohn up to a mostly standing position. They were escorted through a door along the curved bulkhead and stepped onto a large transit lift. They rode the lift for what seemed to be almost a full minute before they were shoved off. Their escorts pushed them along a disheveled corridor littered with junk all over. Lee had to duck several times to avoid the large conduit tubes drooping low into the passage.

They came to a door at the end of the corridor, and both sides slid open to another lift with handholds on the “floor“ and the “ceiling”. It was a flip-lift—a lift that traveled on a different orientation. A soldier on each arm of Lee and Xohn forced them into the lift.

The raspy-voiced lead soldier spoke to the rest of them. “Head back to the barracks and clean up, then get some R&R.”

The soldiers left in the corridor flashed smiles and turned back as the doors shut. Inside the lift, the soldiers released their magboots and stepped onto the right ”wall” of the lift, pulling Lee and Xohn with them. It was disorienting. They pointed at the floating, looped handholds and Xohn awkwardly tried to hold two at once. Lee grabbed one and looked down, or right, or whatever direction his boots were now, and felt the lift start to “drop.” During the transit, Lee felt a heaviness come over him—the tug of artificially generated gravity weighed him down. It was less than 1G, but not nothing. The soldiers released their magboots, and Lee followed suit. Xohn kept both hands on the grips. The lift came to a stop, and his new weight caused Lee to bend his legs to absorb the shock. He hadn’t been in gravity for a while, but his body began to remember his station legs.

The doors of the lift opened this time floor to ceiling. The soldiers pushed him off into a somewhat cleaner corridor. The smell was much improved, at least. After a series of turns, they came to a small area with adjoining rooms.

As they passed the rooms, Lee spotted Jackson strapped in a chair under a single dim light looking drugged out of his mind. Blood caked on the side of his head. His head drooped to his chest. A tray full of instruments sat beside him.

Lee’s mind put it all together. “Oh, hey, guys,” he said, a desperation coming over him. “Seriously, come on. Who are you? Why are you doing this?”

The soldiers shoved Xohn into one of the small rooms before Lee felt a hand on the back of his head push him into a room of his own. The door slid shut, and he heard the ka-chunk sound of locks engaging. A single dim light burned overhead. Then flickered as if to mock him.

“Well, great,” Lee sighed. “Torture. That’s something to look forward to.”