Remember the Yorktown (Gravity Book 1) Page 3

  The Admiral glared at her. “Send the message again, commander,” he hissed.

  Adrianna spun and selected ‘resend.’

  “Unknown vessel,” her voice repeated over the audio. “This is the DASS Yorktown. Our weapons are trained on your coordinates. Power down your engines and await further instruction. Please comply.”

  There was silence.

  “Sir, they are not responding,” she said.

  “Life signs?” he asked in return.

  One of the technicians working the sensors spoke up: “We still have life signs showing on the sensors. There’s life, though they might be unconscious. Oxygen levels are reduced.”

  “He’s just fucking toying with us,” the Admiral scoffed. “Fire a plasma round off the nose to get his attention. Fire when ready. And pull up a visual.”

  Adrianna watched a large holographic image of the small ship materialize at the center of the bridge. The image appeared just in time to watch the plasma blast move quickly past the ship’s bow.

  “I repeat,” Adrianna said more seriously into the communicator. “Power down your vessel immediately. Comply, and you will be spared.” She wanted to believe that it wasn’t a lie.

  “I’m sorry,” Haden’s voice replied through an audio transmission. “My ship has been malfunctioning. I have been unable to gain control of my engines. I may have just finished my repairs.”

  Adrianna had a momentary flashback. She brought her hand up to touch the pocket holding his picture. Almost as quickly she brushed it off as nerves and instructed: “You will need to power down to dock with us. We have reason to believe you are smuggling alliance goods.”

  “Sorry, my docking clamps are broken,” Haden replied.

  Adrianna turned around again to face the Admiral. Sarcastically, she suggested, “we could just destroy him and be done with this.” She wished that they would just do it. It would tighten the case against the Admiral, even if she suggested it.

  The Admiral laughed. “Nonsense. We’ll get him. He’s outmatched. His games won’t last.”

  Rolling her eyes, Adrianna continued to the communicator: “Your ship will tie to the Yorktown to accompany us to the nearest port. The Democratic Alliance is placing your ship under impound.”

  “Sir!” the technician said alarmed. “The ship is spinning around and targeting us.”

  The Admiral bellowed with laughter.

  They all watched as the weapons-fire from the small ship bounced off of the ship’s hull.

  “Electromagnetic shielding,” the Admiral bragged. “Rail-guns are ineffective! Fire a Level 1 plasma round directly at him. It should reverberate the kid’s skull a bit… knock some sense into him, then message him again.”

  They watched the blast impact the ship. Adrianna spun back around to the communicator and instructed: “You have been warned. Disable your engines and weapons systems. Prepare your ship for loading aboard the Yorktown.”

  “The ship is turning its course to intercept and increasing velocity,” the technician stated.

  “Fire again,” the Admiral commanded.

  Another shot hit the small ship.

  “Systems are –“

  Suddenly a loud boom sounded throughout the bridge as the gravity systems went offline. Forgetting all about the ship hurtling toward them, everyone was now focused on trying to get back down to their seats.

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” the Admiral started yelling.

  Adrianna quickly gripped her seat before trying to propel herself towards the Yorktown’s steering. She saw everything clearly while everyone else seemed preoccupied with the loss of gravity. The ships were going to collide.

  She was midway there flying through the air when it hit and she went unconscious.

  ***

  There was a faint signal that came across the scanner. Probably just debris he thought to himself. More and more of it seemed to appear in even the deepest sectors of the solar system.

  Most of the debris was useless scrap. Giving it any attention would be nothing more than a waste of energy. Occasionally though, what was floating out there was a failed ship. Those are infinitely useful.

  And that’s what it was in this instance.

  Scarrad looked discerningly at the readings from his ship’s scans. He was curious, but worried. Something about the debris called for his concern. There were still faint signals coming from the wreckage.

  Alliance.

  He was sure of it. But what they were doing out this far, he didn’t know. Their presence was a bad omen.

  “Bring us about,” he ordered his pilot.

  There were 17 in the crew on the ship that Scarrad commanded, the Regalia. It was tight quartering, but what room they did have had to be preserved for whatever they scavenged. Two large cargo bays were especially useful for this. Even as captain, Scarrad only kept to a small 8X8 foot room for himself.

  All of the men that served Scarrad did it for the shelter and the money. Though it seemed like squalid living conditions and meager pay, it was far better than the alternatives of being planet-side or worse: on a station.

  Slow in approach, Scarrad’s ship circled the wreckage of the Yorktown. “Light and visual,” he commanded.

  On the screen in the front, an illuminated image of the wreckage showed. As they turned about, he noticed the smaller ship tangled in the mess. He recognized it right away and he wasn’t happy.

  “Haden Rashid,” he mumbled discerningly to himself. Haden and he had met on several occasions. Each of the two had a mutual respect for one another, although they often found themselves fighting over the same treasures. He hated the man, although he tried his best to pretend as though he didn’t.

  Haden was easily the better of the two, though his small ship kept Haden as the least successful between them. Haden’s skills only served to fuel Scarrad’s jealousy.

  Looking more closely at the wreckage, he was curious of the other ship. “Are there any signs of what that other ship is?” he asked his pilot.

  “It looks like nothing I’ve seen,” his pilot commented back. “No ship by that design on the waves.”

  “Get us in closer.”

  With the ship edging ever closer to the wreckage, Scarrad stood and moved closer to the visual screen. He studied the image closely looking for anything that would tell him what this other ship was.

  “DASS Yorktown,” he said aloud reading the name of the other ship as they turned around the side of the wreckage. “Shit, he took on the damned Alliance,” he laughed. The idea amazed him.

  Off from the side, his first mate, a young scrappy looking kid with a squeaky voice called Hedge, called out, “nothing on the non-military waves about a Yorktown. It doesn’t exist.”

  Scarrad’s eyes widened and he quickly walked over to Hedge to see what he was looking at.

  Pointing at the screen, “See? Nothing is coming up on search about a Yorktown vessel. There hasn’t been one in commission of any type since the 21st century, Captain.”

  “It’s a prototype. It has to be,” Scarrad said excitedly. “What else would a secret ship be doing here this far out? Haden, you finally left me with something to take from you.” Turning away he announced: “Boys! Looks like we got ourselves a profitable salvage.”

  He knew that there would be some valuable technology aboard this strange ship. It looked massive too. He would also get much needed weaponry to modify his own ship or sell for high prices on the black market.

  But this was all too big to be taken apart here. The wreckage needed to be towed to someplace secure, and his tow capabilities were disabled.

  “Captain,” a large, brooding man with short black hair and a full beard called over from the sensor displays. “There’s still heat coming from both ships. I think we have live ones. There’s a few readings on spaces where there could’ve been survivors.”

  “Haden’s ship too?”

  “Think so, Captain.”

  He wasn’t disappointed but rather pleased t
o hear his rival was alive. He hadn’t allowed himself time to think about it: that he was dissatisfied about the idea of Haden Rashid being lost in that way. He would much rather just kill Haden himself were it ever necessary.

  “We’ll need to dock to the larger ship. The airlocks might still work. Doesn’t look like it took much of a hit. Haden’s ship we can probably separate and pull into our hold. Billy,” he instructed to the larger, bearded man, “grab Trike and Gail. I want you three to suit up and see if we can separate the ships.”

  It took nearly two hours until they were able to separate the two ships. There were some breeches in the hull of the Yorktown, but otherwise, the two ships held together.

  Once the ships separated, a few bodies, presumably from the Yorktown’s crew floated out, each a solid block of ice thanks to the wretchedly low temperatures of outer space. A scream came over the communicators from Trike, but the others didn’t seem to be bothered. One might see such things in ship salvages.

  Scarrad climbed to the cockpit and saw that Haden was alive looking directly back at him. Haden mouthed “cut them” while pointing to the latches that appeared damaged. It took only a few minutes before he was free.

  “Everything but environmental was gone,” Haden said immediately when Scarrad would be able to hear him. The hatch was loose and pulled away and Haden begun to climb out. “And I don’t know how my ship held together like it did. Strangest fucking thing if you ask me.”

  “Can’t say I am happy to see you alive,” Scarrad remarked sarcastically as he helped Haden out. Shaking Haden’s hand, he said with dripping sarcasm: “don’t think for a moment that I am sharing any of this with you.”

  “I’ll let you get something,” Haden said with a smile.

  Another hour later, Scarrad was docked with the Yorktown and a small boarding crew let by the second mate, Jibbles moved cautiously through.

  The entire ship was darkened with the smoke. It seemed that everyone was dead. There were small pockets of areas that could support life, but most of the ship was depressurized. The breach protocols failed to contain the relatively minor hull breach suffocating the crew. There were no signs of survivors. Not that they were intending to allow any survivors to continue surviving. Not the Alliance. Haden was a different matter. Though competition, Haden was still one of them. Scarrad would wait to deal with Haden.

  It took nearly an hour to finally reach the bridge. It was sealed completely. There would likely be survivors inside.

  “Should we just blow through it?” one of the men asked.

  “No,” another replied. “Scarrad wanted the captain of this ship alive if he still was to start.”

  “Give me a minute,” the small, nimble boyish second mate called Jibbles said as was looking for something along the wall. “This ship has to have controls for this somewh – Aha!” A bright screen lit up in front of him. On the screen was flashing Pressure Lost and below was a selection to seal off corridor and re-pressurize.

  He selected it and suddenly a door came down between them and where they had all come from. Air began to rush in, and indicators that each man wore of the sleeves of their suits began to flash green as the atmosphere around them returned to its intended state.

  “Most of these halls have this,” Jibbles said confidently. “Wonder why they didn’t activate automatically?”

  “Oh you’re so sure they come standard,” one of the others joked.

  There were 5 of them now aboard the Yorktown. After they determined the whereabouts of the captain, they were to collect any intelligence from the ship: weapons codes, craft specifications, blueprints, etc. The remainder of the crew was either trying to help repair the Yorktown’s breach from the outside.

  Jibbles pulled off his helmet and took a deep breath. “See, guys, no problems.”

  The rest of them followed Jibble’s lead and removed theirs as well.

  “We still need to cut through this to get to the bridge,” one of the 5 said.

  “Easy enough. Kay,” Jibbles said turning to a larger man. “Can you take care of that? Shape charges would be ideal.”

  Within minutes Kay had a circle detailed out on the door with a wire leaving from the door to a switch Kay was holding. A nod from Jibbles signaled them to hold back as Kay pushed the button to see a small, bright light flash from around the charge. Then, a block of metal from the door in the same shape fell with a loud thud.

  The hole left by the charge was big enough for each of the guys to squeeze through into the bridge. Once inside, they began to scan around the bodies and debris left from the crash. Instantly they could see that there were a few survivors, though they were all unconscious. Their instructions were clear though: no one except the captain was to be allowed to live.

  Jibbles pulled a large pistol from a holster as they moved through. He checked to make sure it was loaded once more even despite his remembering loading in the bullets prior to suiting up. “Check their uniforms for the ranks,” he instructed. “We only want the captain of this ship. No one else is to live.”

  Each of them separated out. Kay had immediately found the commander, laid out against the edge of the center console that held the holographic displays. Noting that her rank was not high enough, he hadn’t bothered to even check if she was still alive before pointing his pistol towards her head. A second of hesitation in pulling the trigger led to Kay’s glancing down to see a small picture that had nearly fell out of the shirt pocket. He held his fire.

  “Jibbles,” Kay called waving Jibbles over. “Check this out.”

  Two gunshots rang out as Jibbles came around to where Kay was. Two crew confirmed dead. “What’s wrong? Did you find the captain?”

  “This is only the ship’s commander, but look at this,” Kay replied as he pulled the picture out and handed it to Jibbles.

  “Your mother must hate you giving you a name like Jibbles,” Adrianna moaned as she awoke to the two men standing over her. Another gun shot rang out. None of the three appeared startled by it.

  “How do you know Haden Rashid?” Jibbles asked as he leaned down to show the picture to her.

  From behind them, one of the other men yelled that they had found the Admiral, and he was alive. Jibbles turned away from Adrianna and instructed Kay to go over and help them dig the Admiral out.

  Adrianna’s heart skipped a beat. She didn’t know what to think by the questions. “He was my fiancé a long time ago,” she answered, her words barely above audible, although Jibbles heard her. “How do you know him?” she retorted.

  He turned again to face her when they heard a scuffle break out and three more shots rang out. “Jib! He’s armed!” one of them men exclaimed. “Kay’s down!”

  Not wanting to let Adrianna out of his sight, he chose to grab her and use her to keep the Admiral at bay. “You’re going to help me right now, miss,” he commented as he pulled her on to her feet.

  Now, holding the pistol to her head, he saw Kay dead on the ground, two of the shots went through his skull, one of which tore off a large chunk of his head.

  The Admiral stood behind one of the control panels with one of the remaining men held at gun point. Another was on the ground unconscious and bleeding. “Don’t move, young man,” the Admiral husked as he made his way back around. The last of the five men was trained on the Admiral with their weapons drawn.

  “Seems we’re at an impasse, Admiral. If you kill my man, I kill yours. And likely we’ll kill you as well before we get any further.”

  Breaking in over Jibble’s comm unit, Scarrad was asking for a status report. Reaching around to press the mic button, Jibbles replied, “we’re a bit tied up down here. Kay’s dead, Mike’s down, and Gullet is up shit’s creek here in a minute.”

  “Do you know where Haden is?” Adrianna asked, cutting in.

  “Yeah, why?” Jibbles replied a bit unsure of the question.

  Suddenly, Adrianna drew a weapon from her holster and fired a shot that hit the Admiral through his left eye.
He fell, releasing Gullet who just stood in place with an astonished look upon his face.

  “Nevermind, captain,” Jibbles remarked into his comm unit feeling happy to have the issue resolved and foolish that he forgot to disarm the woman. But, after realizing what the Admiral’s death meant Jibbles yelled: “the captain wanted him alive! Dammit!” Jibbles then pushed her back to the ground.

  “He’d just as soon die anyway. He was just trying to take out as many of you as possible before you killed him,” Adrianna explained. “It’s what we’re all trained to do.”

  Unsatisfied with the explanation, Jibbles ripped the pistol out of Adrianna’s hands and pointed it as well as his own at her. “You better know something. Whether or not you know Haden, I’ll kill you right here.”

  “Look in the Admiral’s quarters. They might still be out. There should be a box of files on the ship and the mission. You’ll also get the schematics on the ship in a few data caches. There’s also a large stash of alcohol there, unless he drank it all.”

  Jibbles eyes widened. Alcohol was a pleasure that was rarely enjoyed out this far. It normally cost such a premium to smuggle out that it was often simply avoided. Many of the colonies and stations had small brewing areas, but they were normally reserved simply to numb feelings rather than for true enjoyment, though many had eventually acquired the taste for it. “Show me,” he said, waving one hand for her to get up.

  Cautiously, Adrianna pushed herself up. Her body was dreadfully sore and she was just beginning to realize how bad she felt. The conversation about Haden, the chance of answers kept her moving. For a moment she wondered how the gravity drives were functioning despite failing right before the impact of that ship.

  “So what class of citizen to you consider yourselves?” she asked as they reached the Admiral’s quarters. Everything pointed towards pirates in her mind. She wondered how far out they had been when the Yorktown crashed and if they had watched the entire scene before pouncing.

  “We’re a transport service,” Jibbles dryly responded.

  The door to the Admiral’s quarters jammed midway. Jibbles easily pushed it out of the way. Though he was lanky, he was strong.