Lisa Ralston watched her squad leader closely as the inner airlock doors were pulled out of the heavy jamb and moved aside. It was her first boarding action and none of the drills had prepared her for the reality of it.
The interior of the earth ship was in perfect darkness. Her sensor kit picked up less than one lumen and no heat signatures ahead. To her surprise all the systems were cold, there was no power running through the surface circuitry.
"Is it true that this tub was built on Earth, Sarge?" Asked Nott, the most talkative of the squad.
"Intel says it's stolen. You getting anything, Ralston?"
Lisa rechecked her hand scanner as she stepped over the threshold. "Just picking up fifty three life signs now, three decks down."
"Can you get a read on what they're up to?" asked Sergeant Tate.
She looked at the thermal outlines and zoomed in on the image. "It looks like they're sitting still in some kind of long hallway."
Parker, their field technician, took a look over her shoulder. "That looks like a main control room. The power plant is just past it."
"Looks like they're the ones we're going to see. You're on point Nott."
"Lucky me," he grumbled, brandishing his rifle and stepping in front of the fifteen soldier unit.
"Control, this is Sergeant Tate reporting in. We have no contacts but we found a group of individuals three decks down in engineering. Proceeding there now."
"Control to Tate. Our scans are picking up an emergency shaft. Marking it on your screen now. Proceed with caution."
"Command, how many people were we supposed to be meeting here?"
"The last scan we took before they cut power indicated fourteen hundred souls aboard."
"Now?"
"Pardon, Sergeant?"
"How many people are you reading aboard now?"
"We're still trying to determining that, stand by."
"Great, just like Command to send us in with old intel and bad scanners," griped Shelly Rapp.
Lisa couldn't help but grin at her best friend's crack. She was the first person she'd met when she arrived on Battlecruiser 1128, and they had been inseparable ever since. The nearest shaft wasn't simply for ladders as Command had assumed, it was a dormant horizontal and vertical ship transport car. Parker had no problem using a power cell to activate the door and open it.
Unlike the main deck there was no artificial gravity in the shaft. They made their way down towards the main engineering section, pulling themselves along using the emergency ladder rungs set half a meter apart. "I'm guessing these shafts never have artificial gravity. The cars that move people around the ship must have independent gravity and momentum suppressors," Parker commented.
"You don't say. More useless shit I don't need to know, thanks," quipped Nott.
"Sorry Nott, I know you have limited storage space. I'd hate to overwrite memories of polishing your gun, disassembling your gun, cleaning your gun, assembling your gun, jogging, eating, sleeping, polishing your-"
"Anyone ever tell you you're too smart for your own good?" Nott interrupted.
"I don't hear anyone else complaining, in fact, I got promoted at the end of last tour, I don't see any new dashes on your collar, Private."
"Stop poking him and get to work Parker. We're on the main engineering level," Sergeant Tate ordered.
Parker drifted into the lift door and used his hand scanner to find the seams of the service panel beside it. He found it and had it open in short order. After repeating the actions he'd taken with the entrance above them, the hatch slid open smoothly. "Whoever stole this ship knows how to take care of her. These systems are tip top. Even the electromagnetic backup rails are in good shape."
"Who the hell steals a carrier anyway? Biggest pirate crew I've ever heard of was four hundred," Shelly asked no one in particular.
"Someone more organized and dangerous than I've met. Steadman's in my ear telling me there's no one on the bridge. We get the pleasure of making first contact, so keep your head on a swivel and remember your training," Tate instructed. "Safeties off,"
"Are you getting any information on the lifeboats? How many are missing?" Parker asked Lisa quietly.
"Command's intel says they estimate nine lifeboats are gone. That leaves one hundred five hyper jump capable and four hundred fifty suspension pods that would fit four or six people depending on configuration."
"So they could have taken their chances and abandoned, but didn't. What are they planning?"
"Keep actively scanning the way ahead Ralston, Parker. This is all wrong," Tate ordered.
The squad carefully made their way through the lift door. Stepping from zero gravity to single unit gravity was strange. Lisa always thought it was like part of her was falling while whatever wasn't affected by the gravity was still floating free. Everyone else seemed to make the transition so easily, and when it came to her turn she felt awkward. Shelly caught her by the collar of her heavy breastplate and balanced her as she found her feet. No one in the squad noticed, in fact, many of them needed the same kind of assistance and wordlessly offered it to each other.
Her scans turned up nothing out of the ordinary. "Everything ahead is dead, no light, no sound, even sonic sensors are just bouncing off walls."
"You're going to overheat that thing if you run the sonic repeater all the time," Parker advised.
"Then you'll fix it for her. Let's move. Nott-"
"I'm on point, I know," Nott said as he started down the broad, darkened main hall, his rifle raised.
His fourteen squad members followed behind in a double column, all ready for the worst. Lisa did her job. Monitoring the few energy patterns and watching as her scanning tool populated with a more and more detailed map of the compartments ahead. "Sir, the life signs we detected are behind the next door."
"Are they still just sitting there?"
"Yes, no energy or trace identifiers indicating they have weaponry of any kind either."
"All right. Parker, go ahead and get it open. It's about time we got some face time with a crew member."
Parker started to move ahead but the door opened at his approach. He stepped back into position behind the first five squad members and drew his sidearm.
The long corridor ahead was lined with engineering control stations. Above was some kind of main engineering room with a semi-transparent floor and at the end of the hall were a pair of heavy armoured doors. The room above was empty, but lined up in double file were all the crewmembers command had detected and marked for her earlier. They were sitting calmly, cross legged behind a transparent security bulkhead. At the front of the assembly sat a serine, square shouldered man in thick blue robes. Lisa could see he was wearing a heavy protective vacuum suit beneath, much like the people behind him.
On the chest of each crewman's black and grey uniform was printed a silver skull with the ship's name written beneath it; Triton. The word was positioned as the death head's teeth. They wore their rank on their cuffs in the form of slashes.
The gentleman sitting closest to them opened his eyes slowly and looked directly at Nott, whose shoulders were already relaxing. "I'm unarmed. There's no need for hostility."
"Under the authority of Caran- I mean, Regent Galactic Peace Keeping Forces, I'm placing you and every member of this crew under arrest. You have a right to a trial with a networked third party, basic life provisions until sentencing, and may record a message for posterity in the event that your sentence is long term or fatal," announced Sergeant Tate mechanically.
The gentleman smiled gently at them. "I am Liam Grady, a man of peace and Chief Engineer of this ship," he spoke gently, as though he was welcoming them aboard. "Any harm we have done was the result of self defence, and I’m sorry for any injury we’ve caused. Why have you pursued us since Ossimi Ring?"
"Get him to his feet."
Two squad members secured their rifles and moved to the gentleman's sides.
The fellow stood in one smooth, effortless motion and presented his wrists. "You can arrest me, but I'll never be your captive. I suggest you take your people and leave." His eyes scanned over the eye openings of all the squad's helmets and came to rest on Lisa's.
He didn't mean them any harm, she could see that as plainly as anything. He stared at her as though he could see straight through her white tinted eye piece.
Ommalman pulled a set of restraints from his belt. He hesitated for a second before moving to put them on.
Liam Grady's eyes never left hers as he deftly caught the restraints the instant before they were on his wrists, clapped one loop around Ommalman's wrist and secured the other around the next nearest soldier's wrist.
Nott fired his rifle a second too late as the Engineer ducked and stepped behind one troop. The man’s movements were so easy, quick and graceful, one motion flowing into the next as he stole one guard's sidearm, threw it behind him and pushed both men hard, knocking them back a step, forcing them off balance. He slammed into them shoulder first and the tethered were sent flailing into the squadron, getting in Nott's way and forcing the whole group back.
The Engineer's headpiece came up and covered him like a hood made of metal slats with a black face plate beneath.
Lisa's muscles strained and her back ached for a moment before her and the entire squad were pressed to the deck under the force of more gravity than she'd ever experienced. They were utterly immobilized. She strained to see her hand scanner but couldn't. It was difficult to breathe, like something was sitting on her chest and her knee was twisted at an awkward angle.
Liam stepped into the gravity field and non-nonchalantly collected their weapons and equipment, placing them in a pile. The door behind him opened and his engineering team got to work on something she couldn't discern. When the Engineer collected Lisa's sidearm, scanner and other tools he carefully repositioned her leg so her knee wasn't under such a terrible strain. "That's got to be a relief," he said to her comfortingly. He did the same for everyone else, straightening them and making them reasonably comfortable. "I'm going to leave you here for a while, there are other things to attend to and I can't have you under foot. I'm sorry it's come to this, but in a way you're lucky," he told them. "I'm the resident humanitarian. The rest of your people are going to start running into Triton soldiers soon."
Nott managed an angry, incoherent wail from where he was sprawled, pinned to the floor.
"Don't try to get the last word in, just lay there and concentrate on breathing," the Engineer told him. Lisa could hear him smiling around the words.