The Honour of the Knights, Stephen J. Sweeney [reading women .txt] 📗

saw Enrique and Chaz pulling up beneath the three of them. “How you guys doing down there. Any further damage?”

Silence.

“Chaz? How we looking,” Enrique prompted.

“Same. Minor structural damage. Shielding is still at sixty percent,” Chaz replied.

“You okay, man?” Enrique's voice came after a pause.

“Yeah,” Chaz answered. “Just need to make sure we're good for the rest of the patrol.”

Estelle noted that the man sounded somewhat distracted. She began to ponder.

“What now, Estelle?” Dodds asked after a moment.

“We... er... transfer a report of our findings and the battle back to Spirit Orbital,” she said, watching as what remained of the Dart continued to tumble, short and explode ahead of her. “Chaz, Enrique, could you... please send them a detailed report of your damage so that... they... er... so they can be prepared to handle it effectively upon our return. Kelly, ensure you have a record of the fighters you took down; just their USIDs will do. After we're done... we'll continue with the patrol. We still have a while before quitting time.”

Estelle turned to one of the TAFs, the pilot watching her closely. She saw them turn back to the front and then heard a private channel open.

“Are you okay?” It was Dodds.

“I'm fine, Dodds.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Please set yourself back on the patrol route. I'll join you in a moment, I just need to make a note of something,” Estelle said before cutting off the link. She watched as Dodds pulled away from her, Kelly following after him, before placing her comms on mute and putting on her over her chest. She could feel her heart thumping hard. The words of the man were still running around in her head.

“Calm down, Estelle. Calm down,” she said to herself, exhaling a deep breath. “He only did it to freak you out and you took the bait. You didn't have to bail out and you've had worse than that before. Calm down. Finish the patrol, get home, have some food, a drink and a good rest.”

It was the first real combat she had experienced in months, but it somehow felt a lot more real than usual. She closed her eyes and counted slowly to ten, distancing herself from the event.

“Everyone ready?” she asked once she believed she had given them adequate time to send their reports. The others reported that they were and Estelle led them back along the patrol route.

VIII

— The Cardinal and The Thief —

Not long after returning to their designated route, the White Knights received new orders: they were requested to assist CSN Cardinal, a mobile research facility vessel, which had been attacked and boarded by a raiding party. As the Knights arrived within the vicinity of the Cardinal they found it drifting, damaged, and apparently powerless.

“Have you ever seen that ship before?” Estelle asked of her team. There was a resounding answer of “no” from all as they approached. Large quantities of debris drifted around the area, some of which appeared to belong to the Cardinal, the rest no doubt the remains of whomever had attacked her. From the looks of things the Cardinal had been equipped with some offensive weaponry and had made a conservative effort to defend itself.

“I'm unable to establish a comms link with Cardinal,” Chaz reported. “Failure on all standard protocols.”

“I'm going to head in and give the ship a quick sweep,” Dodds said.

“Dodds, wait,” Estelle said, as she saw him begin to pull away from the rest of the group. “Our orders are to secure the area and wait for backup to arrive.” Though there did not appear to be any other craft in the area, Estelle ordered the others to hold their current position and keep a watchful eye on their radars.

Sometime later two Confederation search and rescue vessels arrived; they only recognised one: the Merekat.

“Area is secured,” Estelle informed the captain of the Merekat as the search and rescue vessel approached the Cardinal and pulled up alongside it. The other vessel held back, waiting to serve any support requests.

“Affirmative, de Winter, we're going to send over a landing party. Please continue to monitor the area,” the captain of the Merekat said as his ship closed on the Cardinal and deployed a boarding tube.

“Think anyone is alive in there?” Dodds asked of his wingmates.

“From the looks of things they're all dead,” Kelly said. “We probably got here a little too late.”

“At least they put up a decent fight,” Dodds commented.

“Not good enough though,” Estelle answered, raising her eyes up from her radar and looking at the lifeless ship they had been requested to assist. She watched as another piece of wreckage drifted toward her TAF before bouncing harmlessly off the shielding. She could see somewhere further off what appeared to be the remains of a small vessel, perhaps a one-man fighter craft of some sort. She assumed the Cardinal must have been attacked by a small group of raiders, each in their own individual craft. She dropped her eyes back down to her radar and wondered what might be going on inside.

* * *

“What are you doing?” Enrique asked Chaz. The big man was fiddling with the Ray's on-board computer, his fingers tapping away at the small keyboard underneath one of the screens.

“Finding out what's going on,” he said. He continued pressing buttons and tapping at the screen, the computer issuing an occasional bleep in response. Enrique didn't recognise anything that was being displayed on the screen Chaz was accessing. The general lack of finesse in the layouts and aesthetics of the data representation suggested that the man had accessed something that was only to be used by maintenance and systems workers, and was not supposed to be readily available to the pilots.

A moment later voices filled the cockpit and Enrique gave a start.

“This is Williams. Docking tube fixed and stable. Moving towards airlock,” a voice came.

“Copy that, Williams. Scans indicate some internal damage to the Cardinal. Proceed with caution,” another voice answered.

“Will do, Captain. We will maintain an open channel,” Williams said.

“What's that?” Enrique said as he listened to the chatter.

“It's the communications link being used between the boarding party and Merekat,” Chaz said.

Enrique took a moment to understand. “Wait, hold on. Did you just hack...” he began, stunned by what the man had just done.

“Shhh! Listen.”

Enrique fell silent and the two men listened in to the conversation between the boarding party and the Merekat's captain.

* * *

The party leader, Williams, stood by the Cardinal's airlock door turned to a member of his team. “Kate, would you do the honours?”

Kate produced a small portable device and connected it via a number of cables to the exterior airlock control panel. The door lock gave a short buzz, a little red light on the control panel changing to green.

“Open, sir,” she said, stepping to one side.

“Excellent. Right, remember everyone: no energy weapons,” Williams told his team. “We want to minimise damage to the interior if we encounter any hostilities.”

His team was made up of seven, clad in dark blue, lightly armoured suits and wearing protective helmets. On their feet they wore magnetic boots that could be activated in low and zero gravity situations. Most of their larger weapons were also equipped with a torch, for circumstances where they might have to work in the dark. Aside from the weapons, the team also carried maintenance gear, and medical supplies.

The seven men and women stood to either side of the airlock, so as not to expose themselves to anyone who might be waiting on the other side. Williams gave Kate the signal to open the airlock, and as the door slid open they were met by nothing except for an empty corridor, pitch black save for where the falloff lighting from the boarding tube illuminated the entrance.

“Archer, Fisher,” Williams indicated to the two men closest the entrance to enter first. One after the other they ran in, shining their torches around the immediate area. They determined that the corridor was empty, but even so they stalked forward cautiously, still met by neither opposition nor crew members.

“Clear,” Fisher declared. The rest of the team entered the thin corridor. Another member removed a device from his belt and scanned the area.

“Minimal power on this deck; gravity and life support are functioning as usual. There does appear to be more power in the direction of the upper decks, though,” he reported.

Williams nodded. “Pair up and spread out. Get in touch as soon you encounter survivors or hostile forces.”

The group paired off as ordered and proceeded to explore the darkened lower deck of the ship, carefully checking possible hiding places in various rooms and ensuring they illuminated all unreachable areas well. With the exception of a hacked airlock door - which they assumed the invaders must have used to get inside - they once again came up empty-handed. The team soon regrouped by the lift to the upper deck and found the doors burnt and pock-marked by multiple weapon blasts.

“Lift is operational, sir,” reported Kate and, at the request of Williams, pressed the call button. The lift arrived and the doors parted, greeting the team with the slumped body of a dead man. Blood was splattered over his clothes and interior of the lift. The multiple lights of the investigators fell upon a shotgun the man still grasped.

“This is Williams: we've found a body. Judging by the way this guy is dressed, it isn't one of the crew,” Williams reported to the Merekat. “If the state of the lift is anything to go by, there has been one hell of a firefight in here.”

“What're we looking at?” the captain asked.

“Definitely a raiding party,” Williams said, edging forward and examining the dead man's body. He pushed aside the beaded dreadlocks that covered part of the raider's face, revealing a tattoo of a spider's web on his left cheek. “Cheap body armour. Didn't do him any good,” Williams muttered, then, “We're proceeding to the upper deck.”

The upper deck of the ship told a different story to the lower. Bodies, trails of blood and other clear signs of battle were in evidence throughout. Shorting electronics lit the dark corridors with bright bursts of spark light.

“Be careful of those,” Williams pointed out some wires that hung inconspicuously from the ceiling.

Williams divided the team, instructing one half to accompany him towards the bridge, and the other to spread out along the upper deck and continue to search for any survivors. They moved with care, ensuring they ducked under the loose wires. The team encountered yet more bodies as they went, none of whom displayed any signs of life. A scattering of clothing styles suggested that the crew and their attackers had taken an equal number of casualties.

The team discovered most of the bodies on the bridge, some appearing to have died as a result of close quarters combat; the unfortunate crew of the Cardinal marred by stab wounds all over their bodies, some having had their throats cut. It was a horrific scene.

“Looks like the crew tried to barricade themselves inside the bridge,” Williams reported once more to Merekat.

“Any sign of what they could have been looking for?” came the reply in his earpiece.

“Nothing yet, but I'm guessing they may have been scavengers. Looks like the Cardinal was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Williams and his team pressed on into the bridge in an attempt to gather more information. Following a short inspection of the bridge area, Kate began examining the ship's logs.

“Some data has been downloaded from the computers,” she said, running through them. As she spoke a screen next to her sprang into life and began churning out information.

* * *

Estelle's eyes flashed down to her radar.

“Estelle!” Dodds started.

“I see it!” Estelle said.

From beneath the Cardinal a small craft emerged. Being so close to the ship it had escaped notice by both the radar systems and the Knights' own eyes. But with the activation of shielding, computer system and engines, the vessel announced its presence to all in the vicinity as it accelerated away from the Cardinal, keeping in line with the ship's original heading.

Estelle cursed herself for not performing a proper sweep of the Cardinal.

“I'm going after it,” Dodds said.

“Stay put, Dodds,” Estelle answered.

“I can catch it,” Dodds insisted, manoeuvring his TAF toward the escaping craft and preparing to give chase.

“Lieutenant, you will hold your position. That's an order!” Estelle barked. With her own orders and duties clear in her head she was not prepared to allow Dodds to play the hero. Dodds had met with disaster the last time he had done so and