Battleship Furiosa (25 page)

"The militia, they're here!"

As one, all of the pilots drew their
weapons, and at that moment, a great warning siren sounded
throughout the cavernous ship.

Byotai Imperial Battleship
'Furiosa'

Serpentis System, Deadlands

24 December 2472

Alliance ships would activate red lights
during an emergency, but this was not always the case on alien
vessels. The lights stayed on as normal, but the siren continued to
send its wail through the ship. It was an uncomfortable sound that
drew the danger to the attention of every soul on board. Even now,
Nate could hear the sounds of shouting continuing off into the
distance, even though they must have been several compartments
away. They stopped for a moment, and then a few seconds later
started up again, though less frequently and much quieter.

Not again. We've been through this
before.

Nate pulled himself close to the
inside of the passage before tapping his Secpad bracelet. To
his surprise, the unit blinked and then
connected to the Byotai secondary data cortex. The Alliance pilots
had been granted full access to this part of the networked system,
but not to the detailed security layer only available to Byotai
officers. It was not perfect, but it at least put them on the same
footing as the rest of the ship's crew.

"I'm still connected," he said
quietly,
"countdown says just over two
hundred minutes till we reach the Rift. The ship is already out of
the slingshot and on the automated flight path. We couldn't turn
back even if we wanted to."

Billy panted as though exhausted,
but Nate knew it was stress. They weren't soldiers, not even close;
just teenagers with a knack for flying spacecraft in computer
simulations that had been thrown into battle.

"And now we have another problem.
Convenient timing, don't you think?" said Matilda.

Nate looked ahead and watched as
Svana searched the fallen Byotai soldier. At the same time, the
rest of them tried to be as quiet as possible. They had all been
well trained in what to do in such circumstances, and being ready
for whatever came next was imperative. Although they had trained to
defend themselves, they were very lightly armoured, carrying little
more than sidearms. Nate's pulse quickened as he remembered the
last close encounter with the enemy. He'd seen fully armoured
Byotai soldiers, and even militia cultists, but never the kind of
numbers that could be a threat to a ship like this.

There must be
hundreds of them on
board,
and that means they had help...a lot of help!

Svana grabbed his Krokspjot
carbine that lay uselessly on the ground and checked its mechanism.
Her fingers moved effortlessly alon
g the
housing, much as Prince Kratha's had. Nate glanced back at his
Secpad and shook his head at the news.

"What's going on?"
Billy whispered.

Nate kept shaking his head as he read
the announcement as quietly as he could manage.

"Multiple compartments are
off-line. The command deck and the bridge have been sealed by the
orders of the General."

He eyes lifted from the device and to
the other pilots who looked equally nervous, even the Byotai among
them. They wanted answers, and there was no easy way to explain
it.

"We've been boarded."

Lilija snarled in reply, but as
she spoke, she could see that the humans had no idea what she was
saying. She snorted and then managed to explain herself in broken
English.

"Boarded, or we have been betrayed by
our own people."

She clenched her fists in
frustration.

"This is not the first time this has
happened. We can never hope to reclaim the Empire if we cannot rely
on ourselves."

Her left fist opened and closed as she
hissed in anger.

"I knew it would happen again. It
is no wonder our Empire is lost."

"Svana!"
Valdis shouted.

The female pilot turned from the
fallen soldier and began to move towards the other eight pilots.
Then she stopped and inched back to the body. She removed a piece
of cloth and then dropped it in the growing pool of
blood.

"What is she..." started Billy.

Nate lifted his finger to his mouth to
silence him.

Svana took the blood soaked cloth
and then inched along the passageway in the opposite direction,
letting the blood drip profusely from the saturated material. Then
she stopped and threw it off into the distance before moving
quickly back towards her comrades. She stepped carefully, doing her
best to make as little noise as possible. Several gunshots rang
out, but they were muffled and could have been a very long distance
away. The sound was then replaced by shouting, and the voices
continued to get louder.

"Get back to the infantry deck."

Dogg started to move back, with
Fletcher right behind her, while keeping close to the left. The
infantry deck was not too far away, and the mixed unit of ground
troops would probably still be there, conducting their drill. Nate
felt a moment of relief knowing that so many of them were
nearby.

"Hurry!" said Valdis.

Svana made it halfway when a trio
of scruffy looking people emerged from the doorway. She instantly
threw herself to the wall and then froze. Like most advanced
species, the ancestry of them all was from hunters. Their brains
were wired to detect changes and movement, and by staying still she
gave herself a chance. One grunted and bent down to lick the start
of the blood trail from the fallen soldier. Several more militia
moved out from the doorway, and though the shadows obscured their
features, they were clearly not Byotai, but a number of clan
warriors from one of the many Anicinàbe tribes.

"This is not good," said
Cassandra.

Nate finally released the catch
on his holster and pulled the M6 Navy autorevolver out. It felt
huge and heavy, and he nearly panicked when it almost slid from his
grasp.

Get with it, idiot!

It took a moment of panic to
remember he'd loaded it shortly after being debriefed from his last
mission. He slid off the safety and rested it against his leg, the
muzzle pointing to the ground. The M6 was a beast of a weapon, and
the last thing he wanted was to discharge it by accident and end up
hurting one of his comrades. Nat would use the gun if he had to,
but only as a matter of last resort. He was hardly the best shot in
the unit, and nothing compared to the trained soldiers and
marines.

"Look at them, what are they
doing?" Billy asked.

Nate leaned out a fraction and
watched as they sniffed around the body. The race was little
different in height to the Byotai, but there the similarities
ended. The Byotai were often quite substantial and muscular, the
Anicinàbe thin, lithe, and pale.

"Anicinàbe. They have the
markings, look," said Billy.

Matilda recognised some of the
symbols immediately and pulled herself against the wall so that
little of her body protruded from the nearest bulkhead. At the same
time, Valdis interrogated the ship's computer system via her own
personal communication device. She pressed it several times and was
rewarded, but a number of the lights flickered and then cut
out.

"Nice," said Nate,
"We need to get out of here."

Matilda nodded towards the three
strangers and whispered in little more than a hushed
murmur.

"One of those is a clan warrior,
maybe one of the Kolchan tribes, the beast riders that have been
fighting on Karnak."

For all the danger they were in,
Nate looked in at the three enemies with intrigue. They might have
easily been mistaken for malnourished humans. Their skin was as
white as alabaster and their hair shaved completely. All three bore
marks and tattoos, with most covered by their matching clothing.
The Kolchan Clan was one of the many primitive Anicinàbe tribes
that formed part of the population of the multi-race and
multicultural Star Empire.

Kolchan riders? The dragon riders that
Valdis talked about?

Valdis lifted her firearm,
and
Nate could see her trigger finger
moving when the sound of more voices forced her back into
cover.

What's that?

Another four
milit
ia moved out from the doorway, but
these were much bulkier, more like Byotai in overall stature. Nate
lowered his hand to his side and felt for the pistol. He'd
practiced this so many times, but now, in the dark light it proved
so difficult. He was sure a Marine like Valentine could have done
it without thinking, but right now it seemed to be the most
difficult task imaginable. He leaned out for a moment and checked
on the group.

They are Byotai rebels, and what are
they wearing? Police riot gear?

Then it all became clear to him.
These weren't just militia, they were a mixture of militia fighters
and released prisoners from the massive facility that had attacked
them. Nate already knew the place was a Super-Max unit, and that
meant they would be the toughest, strongest, and most violent
people in the Empire to have been locked up.

This is not good!

They were
moving in the opposite direction, and one kept bending down
and sniffing the trail of blood left by Syana's quick thinking
action. Another carried two thermal shotguns under his arms and
made whistling noises while looking for signs of
trouble.

They really are like the books say.

Nate had read articles from
explorers and Xeno-biologists that had travelled through the many
systems controlled by the different tribes. It was a strange part
of space, teeming with life, yet little central control or
authority. He recalled that some of them claimed the links between
the Anicinàbe, Khreenk, T'Kari
, and
Helions were all minor, showing a shared ancestry. Whereas, the
Byotai and Klithi had major differences with the other races in
their region of space. From what Nate could see, that seemed fairly
accurate. When carrying similar looted weapons, they acted and
behaved much like each other.

"Who are they?"
Cassandra asked.

Nate grabbed her and forced her
closer to the sides of the passageway. There was only limited
protection, with bulkheads extending out little more than thirty
centimetres on either side. On an Alliance ship it would have been
much easier to hide, but this vessel was designed to be as sleek
and sophisticated as possible. No expense had been spared, and that
meant good quality lighting and smooth, aesthetically pleasing
internal design.

"Stay back, can't you tell who they
are? They have to be prisoners from the Super-Max."

Cassandra shook her head. She'd
seen the facility torn apart during the battle, though if she
recalled more carefully, only a small part of the massive site had
actually been damaged. The bulk was still intact.

"They can't be. How did they get here,
by transport?"

Even as she said the words, a
number of different explanations appeared to Nate. They might have
indeed hidden spacecraft on the base, and somehow avoided sensors
on the ships to reach them. Or, more likely, they had essentially
hitched a ride with the cloud of debris. The idea was possible, but
also incredibly dangerous.

If they used sealed
suits, or EVA gear
, it could
have been done.

Nate shook his head at the insanity of
such an attack.

Surely not?

Another of them
bent down to check the body of the fallen
soldier, the rest moved out into the corridor. The second group
spread out, while two more dragged the body to one side. Then a
flash at the far end of the corridor caught their attention. Svana
used it as her moment and broke from cover, temporarily blocking
the line of sight from the pilots to the militia. Her dash
increased to a run as a Byotai security patrol entered the corridor
and was quickly suppressed by gunfire from the militia. One soldier
was knocked down before they were able to fall back around the
corner. Several of the militia gave chase, and all shouted
excitedly, pumped up with blood lust.

"Opinn eld!"

Matilda and Dogg opened fire, but
were only able to manage a handful of shots due to Svana blocking
their view. Valdis cursed at being unable to fire, and Nate lifted
his own autorevolver to find the same problem.

"Svana! Behind you!"
Nate yelled.

The young Byotai pilot hesitated,
perhaps because of the language barrier. Then something inside her
clicked on. She dropped to the ground, sliding on one side, and
then looked backwards. At the same time, she lifted her Krokspjot
and fired. Nate had never seen anything like it as the pilot
skidded along the floor while blasting away. The introduction to
the weapon by Prince Kratha had not been wrong, and he watched in
astonishment as the super-heated bolts struck the backs of the
militia soldiers. Two fell down screaming, and the others scattered
in panic.

"Hit them hard!"
Valdis cried in clear, perfectly accented
English.

Nate stepped out in a wide
stance, doing his best to ignore the wild shots coming towards
them. Had he thought about it, he would have realised that even a
single hit would put him out of the fight, or more likely kill him.
In the circumstances, none of this seemed to make any difference,
though. A thermal bolt missed his face by centimetres and embedded
in the wall to his side. As it struck, it sent up a cloud of
sparks, hissing and fizzling like an angry bug.