Insurrection (Athena Lee Chronicles Book 5) (3 page)

“Attention please!”

“Can I have your BLOODY attention!” The XO pulled his weapon and shot one of the half dressed crew members, a male ensign.

Amid cries of surprise and of fright, he tried calling attention again. This time they listened.

“Let’s get a few things straight, shall we? We are now in charge. My name is Richard McCoy. I am the second officer for the Bad Pennies mercenary group. This ship is now in our possession. You will do as you are told or we will kill you.” The crowd settled down and were silent but for a few murmurings. “Now, where is Captain Pigot?” The group was silent, some looked around as if to search for him. McCoy pointed at one of the armed men. “Go and search his cabin. Check the Ready Room too!”

After a few minutes the armed man returned looking excited. “Sir, the captain isn’t here! We searched the whole bow, no sign of him.”

“Damn it! We need the Captain!” Yelling at his men he pointed them toward the mess hall. “Take these prisoners to the mess hall. Make the cooks prepare food, then lock them up too. Get moving!” He watched as his men shoved the people forward. Grabbing one of his men he said “Separate out all the good looking women. We need some fun and sport later, after we capture the captain.” The now smiling mercenary laughed, rubbing his crotch with excitement. He turned and trotted after the prisoners.

The former XO grinned at the thought of having a little fun time after the weeks he spent playing nice for the unsuspecting captain. One of his men exited the bridge and ran up to him. “Sir, we searched the entire bow area. We even put on suits and peeked outside. The Captain is not here. It’s possible he went aft. You did say he was friends with the engineer.”

McCoy nodded his head. “It’s out of character for him, but that might be the answer. Get with the armory team and make sure he isn't hiding in there. What’s the status of the crew? Did we get everyone in the bow?”

“No, sir. Including the captain we are missing about 20% of the crew. About half of that should be in engineering. We know from ships orders that they were conducting an engine tear down. It’s possible that the Chief called in crew early to get it repaired.”

Looking sharply at his man, McCoy asked “Just who else is missing besides engineering crew?”

“Sir, all of the Marines, Dr Smith and his orderlies, and several of the older officers.”

“So basically everyone from the aft section? We may have a leak! Put more men on the armory door, we need those weapons NOW!” The mercenary crewman ran toward the armory grabbing a few others as he went.

“Sir! Sir! All the kitchen staff is gone!” The man he sent for the women was yelling at him.

“What are you saying? Who is gone?” This day could not get any worse.

“I did as you told me and started rounding up all the women when we noticed that the kitchen area was dark. All the cook staff is missing and the food stores are gone. We checked, even those nasty emergency food bars are missing!”

“Damn it to hell! We have to have a traitor among us! When I find him I'll frighten his whole family! Send an armed party aft. We need to know what we may be facing.” Bracing himself, he headed toward the bridge, he now had to tell his boss the bad news.

___

Captain Pigot, along with Marine Lieutenant Mutai were watching the mercenary force that was on board their ship via closed circuit cameras. The captain had gotten lucky so far. The mercs had chosen to consolidate the bow section first before moving aft. As Lieutenant Mutai had predicted they were trying to break into the armory. That will be a surprise to them. The captain regretted not being able to save more of his crew. That decision was already haunting him.

Chief Kościuszko’s engineering crews were working overtime getting the fighting positions built. Working with the kitchen staff, they managed to find a storage place for all the food and ammunition. The small Marine force was outfitting the crew with body armor and giving basic shipboard fighting refreshers. The medical staff had set up a small aid station in CIC and the main hospital in engineering. The various other crew were laying out supplies and arming the weapons.

The captain called his officers together in Chief ‘Tad’s’ office. On the screen in front of them was a map of the ship.The sections had been delineated by color. All of the bow section including the holds were marked in red. Everything aft of hold three was marked in blue.

“We don’t have a lot of time, so listen up. We have defensive points here, here, and here.” The Captain was pointing on the map to the hatch to hold number three, the main corridor, and the access tube down the center of the ship.

“There are small units covering the emergency exterior access ports. I don’t expect them to hit us from outside. But we need to be covered. So far they have not spotted the cameras we set up. When they do, we will lose all intelligence so watch them closely. They have the rest of the crew locked up in the mess hall.” His face grew grim. “They separated out the women and have them locked up in hold number one.” He motioned to Lieutenant Mutai.

“Of the crew with us only about 10% have any kind of battle experience. Those that do are now our front line of defense. My Marines will be floating between stations when the fighting begins. Regardless of rank when they give you an order obey them. They are the professionals here.”

One of the engineering crew came into the room. “Sir, we have movement. A small force of 5 armed men is making their way down the corridor toward us. Orders sir?”

Lieutenant Mutai looked at the Captain. “I guess that finishes what I had to say. Good luck all of you. Kila la kheri!”

“Team leaders get moving, everyone else to your stations. Move people!” Captain Pigot was fired up now.

___

Wylie O’Malley was happy to have the ruse of being a navy crewman out of the way. Once a pirate always a pirate was his family's

motto. The boss had told him to check out the aft section and look for the missing crew members. He had grabbed four of the other pirates and was making his way toward engineering. He had been told that there was crew in engineering. The engineers had been working on a disassembled engine. But where was everyone else.

His boys were having a grand time searching the storerooms and cabins along the way. Lots of loot to be found. They had already filled their pockets with small bits of jewelry and other valuables. Engineering should be ahead right around the next corner. The boys laughing and joking were passing around a bottle they had found in a cabin. One of them called “I get the next one!” and jogged around the corner right into a hail of gunfire. His torn body was thrown backwards sprayed his companions with blood.

Wylie yelled at the others “Down, down ya fekking idiots! Get your guns out and fire back!” Ducking into a doorway Wylie grabbed his communicator and started screaming into it. “Taking fire, taking fire!”

___

“Taking fire!”On hearing this the pirate commander cursed. So much for taking this ship without a fight! How in the nine hells did they know? He swore to cut the balls off the traitor and feed them to him when they caught him! Alvin, the leader of the Bad Pennies, had not been very happy to hear that the Captain and others were loose on ‘his’ ship. If McCoy had not been needed, he might be floating in space right now. He needed to check on those idiots at the armory. Without those weapons… well, he didn’t want to think about it.

Entering the armory and Marine area McCoy started yelling at his men. “Status report, got that door open yet?”

“No, sir. We were about to blow it open.The cutting torch wasn’t working. Someone switched the acetylene tank with a carbon dioxide one.” Several men were lining the edges of the door with plastic explosive instead.

Waving the men to cover McCoy ducked down behind a desk with his ordinance man. “Fire in the hole!”

With a loud explosion and a bright flash the door crashed inward striking the floor. Smoke billowed out of the armory. Several of his men rushed forward with fire suppression devices and sprayed through the door. The smoke now had a chemical ‘taste’ to it. It began to dissipate allowing access to the room. With a yell of victory several of the pirates rushed into the now open armory.

“Well, what’s in there? Are the weapons undamaged?” One of his men stepped out of the armory, he was dragging a large container behind him.

“Sir, there seems to be ammo aplenty, but as for weapons? Here look for yourself.” He pointed down.

McCoy looked into the container and cursed. “Fekking bastards! Are all the weapons like this?”

“This is all we can find, sir. All of the armor is gone and a large chunk of the ammo. Since we’ve never been able to get in here before we have no idea what they have.”

“My question is how? How in the nine hells did they manage to move all of this without our seeing them? How?”

His face blotched red with rage the pirate commander had to shake his head to clear it. “Put your men on getting this mess straightened out. I want those guns reassembled and reissued as soon as possible.” Taking a huge breath of air McCoy braced himself and headed back to the bridge. He, yet again, had to take bad news to Alvin.

___

Alvin was not a man to be trifled with. First this upstart of a navy captain thought he could get away from him and try to fight him? And now he though it funny to mock him by making them build their own weapons. He would show this ‘captain’ a thing or two about being funny!

“Someone get McCoy here a first aid kit. Next time you will do what I tell you to! Sending those idiot O’Malley clan bozos was the wrong move. It will cost you the whole hand if there’s a next time. Go fix your finger and get the men together. We are going to have to assault those positions now.”

Alvin-the-taker tossed his second in commands finger into the cryo box he kept strapped to his hip right next to the sheet metal shears. The first finger he takes is always a warning. The trick was to not let him take more.

___

His stub of a small finger wrapped and sealed in gauze, Commander McCoy was red faced with both pain and anger. He would follow his orders. Having crossed Alvin once he had no desire to do so again. He gathered his men, making sure that all were armed. “OK boys, it seems that we have found our missing captain! He and some others are hiding in the aft section. The Boss, has set us a task. Capture that engine room and then we’ll all have a little fun. We saved all the women for one big ‘party’ after the battle!”

Shouts of glee and smiles were everywhere. Usually only the bosses got the ‘fresh women’- the men got what was left over.

Breaking the men up into squads of 5, McCoy’s lieutenants started moving everyone down the corridors. McCoy had an inspiration and pulled his chief lieutenant Seth, aside. “Seth take one of the squads and go down the engineering access tube. You should be able to get into one of the side compartments and flank them. If nothing else you will draw off some of their fighters.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do that.” Seth approached the small group that had been hanging back. “You five will do nicely, follow me.” They just stared at him like they were deaf. “What did I just say! Get your asses over here NOW! When I say NOW I mean right this fekking minute!”

The five men wandered over to the lieutenant. They stared at him and the taller one said “Sorry sir, we didn’t hear you.”

Pissed off now Seth glared at all of them and growled “What names do you go by? Tell me as we walk. We’re going down the engineering access tube. Our job is to flank the enemy and end this thing. I have a nice blond all picked out.”

The men’s names were Flint, Barnaby, Duke, Cooper, and Charlie. All of them had a dusty, rural sounding accent.

“Are all of you from the same planet? I don’t remember working with you boys before.”

“No, sir. We all signed on when our family joined the clan last year. Our ship the Willy Moran was destroyed by the Feds just before we joined y’all.”

All Seth could think was that add some cowboy hats and these hicks could be western vid stars. Whatever. “OK, the access point is over there. Let’s get moving.” Taking out a small kit of hand tools the lieutenant pried off the access cover. Just big enough for two men side-by-side the tunnel was dark and filled with electrical conduits. The smaller of the group went first, followed by Seth and the rest.

____

Chapter 4

The sounds of gunfire echoed down the corridor. So far only the pirates had taken damage but the day was young.