We Happy Few: The Leviathan Universe 2138 Read online

  Captain Fenwick drew himself to the position of attention and rendered a salute that even Horatio Nelson would envy. “Godspeed commander… and thank you.”

  The commander’s image straightened, and he returned the salute. He nodded. “Paladin Six, out.” And his image dissolved.

  Billy gasped, suddenly realizing what commander Ellis meant. Those brave bastards.

  “You heard the man. All ahead flank speed. Get us into that nebula right now,” the captain barked.

  “Aye, aye, captain.” Pete turned the nimble liner broadside to the attackers and poured on the speed the Pegasus could muster. Unfortunately, she might be maneuverable for her size, but she was not fast by any means.

  “Captain, Mr. Borikoff is reporting that the passengers are becoming aware of the activity outside,” Billy reported.

  “Well, there’s nothing for that now. Tell security to get everyone out of the area around the main lock and the promenade deck,” he ordered.

  “Yes, sir.” Billy relayed the captain’s order.

  The captain activated the ship’s loudspeakers. “This is Captain Fenwick. I request that all passengers return to their cabins with due haste whilst we sort this out.”

  “Paladin Six is under heavy fire from the medium freighter,” Billy said. He watched the screen intently, like a train wreck in slow motion he could not pull his eyes away.

  “ETA to the nebula, Mr. O’Brien?” the captain asked.

  Pete’s hands were a blur. Small impacts sent a shuddering vibration through the hull when mass driver bolts slammed into the side of the ship. “Two minutes, sir.”

  Fenwick exhaled. “Let’s kick this pig, shall we?”

  CHAPTER 9

  Billy scanned through a dozen holo-screens. He used his command authority to tap in to Paladin Six’s internal audio and video feeds. A new set of windows appeared and two-dimensional screens showed many different angles from the internal security cameras. The Paladin Six crew moved quickly and efficiently, pulling weapons from racks, performing functions checks, and collecting ammunition.

  Paladin Six sped towards the unidentified frigate. Billy had never seen anything quite like it. It looked like it would be an even match for an Imperial destroyer. Her rail guns tracked and fired relentlessly. The little escort’s mass drivers had successfully destroyed all the incoming missiles so far, but their luck could not hold much longer. The pirate frigate was more than a match for the little security ships.

  The frigate launched a missile. It sped towards Paladin Six shedding its outer case, then dropped off radar. As far as the ship’s AI could tell it was destroyed in space. Instead, the missile attached itself to the hull just over the reactor and between the engine nacelles. The pirates called this device a vampire. It tapped through the outer hull and interfaced directly with the data membrane that lies beneath the hard surface on every ship. The dark frigate, the name Inferno blazed in fiery letters across the broad side of her hull, now had direct access to Paladin Six’s AI cortex and all her functions.

  Billy heard her commander gave the order to seal suits, in case of a hull breach. The lights blinked, and a moment later they were plunged into darkness.

  Billy was startled when the security cameras went dark. They returned a moment later, now grainier and with green tinged images.

  “Report,” he heard someone say.

  “Sir, main power offline. Backup power will fail in a few minutes,” the engineer replied.

  “Looks like a vampire, sir. Ship A.I. is not responding. Helm control has been diverted. We are slowing down.” He paused. “Paladin Five also has a vampire on her back.”

  He watched Commander Ellis turn to the weapons locker at the back of the bridge, and pull out a rifle. “Prepare to be boarded.”

  The ten man crew of Paladin Six started falling back to its small shuttle bay. Billy switched camera views to follow them. Two of the crewmembers grabbed medium auto cannons and covered the airlock. The engineer and pilot readied the small shuttle to escape.

  Billy looked up to focus on 3D tactical map at the center of the bridge. The large frigate pulled alongside Paladin Six. A docking arm reached out and grabbed the much smaller security vessel and pulled their ships together until the airlocks mated. Inside the security ship, the crew were thrown off their feet. “We’re docked! Won’t be long now, get ready,” someone yelled.

  He switched video feeds to the main airlock. The door snapped open. Billy stared in horror when he saw hulking skeletons with glowing red eyes burst through the door with their guns at the ready.

  Billy stammered, “Look at this.” He waved the video feed to the middle of the bridge. The rest of the bridge crew stared in awe. Apparently, the undead were attacking. Billy knew these had to be men in power armor, but deep down in his lizard brain, that fact was lost.

  Captain Fenwick grew pale. “Dear God. What manner of devils are these?” he said, just above a whisper.

  The Pegasus rocked hard from a missile impact on her aft quarter. “Number one engine is down,” Colin stated matter-of-factly.

  François directed Nanos to the engines to repair the damage. “Number two engine damaged, we’re losing thrust,” The assistant engineer reported. Pete wrestled with his flight controls, they were increasingly becoming more sluggish. He cursed.

  Billy turned his attention back to the security camera feed on Paladin Six. He saw their commander speaking with two of his men at the entrance of the small shuttle bay. A thick, white smoke clung to the deck plates.

  “Sir, we will cover your exit,” one gunner said. The commander nodded solemnly. He pulled off his glove and shook each of their hands.

  “Unleash the fires of hell on them,” Ellis said.

  The remaining eight crewmembers scrambled into the shuttle. They strapped in as the pilot brought the power plant of the lightly armed shuttle online, the deck shattered from a grenade blast. The gunners stepped out of the shuttle bay and sealed the doors behind them.

  Auto cannon fire reverberated down the corridor. The two gunners laid down suppressing fire towards the airlock. The inhuman roars and devilish laughter of the pirates filled Billy’s audio feed. What are these things? The doomed gunners pushed forward towards the pirates, auto cannons blazing.

  Ship’s diagnostics reported several fires. Ship systems rerouted power and data around the damaged areas. The nanos were starting to break down, the bulkheads near the firefight stopped auto-healing. The small craters in the walls grew deeper and wider as more bullets impacted.

  Billy brought up the health stats for the Paladin Six crew. Everyone’s heart rates were up. He tried to guess which two of the stats belong to the gunners that were sacrificing their lives for their mates. It didn’t take long to figure it out. Two of the windows started blinking red as bullet and shrapnel wounds peppered their extremities and torsos. The holo-screens showed an outline of the human body. Angry red dots appeared and spread where wounds were received.

  The names on those windows were Finn and Williams. The names of the brave men burned into Billy’s mind. They would be remembered, if only by him.

  “Prepare to go dark as soon as we’ve cleared the shuttle bay,” said the commander, directed at the pilot. The pilot acknowledged as his hands flew across holo-screens. The pirates pushed forward. Gunfire from the corridor intensified. The outer shell of the shuttle turned black its surface rippled as the stealth feature kicked in. The ship would still appear on active sensors, but visual tracking would be very difficult.

  Billy brought up the audio and video feed from the shuttle. The commander watched a holo-screen with his gunners’ vital stats and ammo counts, both now wounded and their ammunition dwindled. He bowed his head.

  The docking bay hissed as it depressurized, the hangar bay door slid open to reveal the black of space. Ellis nodded to the pilot. There was a metallic click that was felt more than heard as the shuttle released his docking clamps. They shot into space and raced away from their ship.


  Billy’s screens reported that the gunner’s vitals had both flatlined. Commander Ellis punched buttons on an engineering display, and a red bordered countdown timer appeared. Ten seconds and counting. The autodestruct sequence was underway.

  Billy checked to see if the pirates were giving any indication of following the escaping shuttle. Telemetry from the ship stopped. All interior feeds went blank. The last images Billy received were pirates sprinting back to their ship. What the hell? He switched back to the shuttle’s feeds.

  “Get us into that nebula as fast as you can before they’re able to detect us. Hopefully, the explosion will help mask our departure,” Ellis said.

  “Commander, are you seeing this?” the pilot said. “The pirate vessel is detaching and moving off. They must have detected our reactor burn.”

  Commander Ellis squinted at a display. “Our reactor is shielded, how the hell did they detect it?” Ellis shook his head. “I hope we still take a good chunk out of these bastards.” he said, grim faced.

  Billy looked back up at the 3D tactical map. The pirate frigate detached from Paladin Six and all thrusters burned at one hundred percent. “Captain, eight men from the Paladin Six crew have escaped in a shuttle. They just punched into the nebula and I can no longer track them. It appears they’ve set the auto destruct, that frigate is burning hard away.”

  Captain Fenwick smiled grimly and mumbled something Billy could not hear.

  The upper hull plating of Paladin Six glowed white and exploded in a bright flash. Flames licked out of the seams as oxygen burned off. She was blown in half, jagged metal blackened and curled outward. The forward section of the ship tumbled and over and struck Inferno in her aft portside section. The impact made the pirate ship change course, but a quick correction allowed her to right herself. The forward section of Paladin Six was small enough that it did not punch any holes into Inferno’s hull. Nanos swarmed to the damage site. Burnt and buckled metal reformed and straightened at the molecular level.

  “Was the frigate damaged in the blast?” Fenwick asked.

  Billy’s hands flew over the controls. “Minimal damage, captain. That ship is nano capable, and healing fast. I estimate two minutes till she has returned to one hundred percent structural integrity.”

  The captain scowled. “Damn them all to hell.” He turned towards the pilot station. “Mr. O’Brien, ETA to the nebula?”

  “Sir, we only have twenty-four percent thrust from the number two engine. If course and heading continues…” Pete turned his head towards another display. “We should enter the nebula three and a half minutes,” he reported.

  The captain glowered. “That’s too long. It’s too damn long.” He turned towards the engineers. “Mr. Burton, can we get any more power to the engines?”

  “Engine one is beyond repair, sir. We’re sending every available nano to engine two. We might be able to coax a little more power out of her,” Colin replied.

  Billy stared out of the front viewport. One of the pirate ships had skull and fire animations rippling over its surface.

  There will be no good end here today.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Captain, the frigate is maneuvering to dock with Paladin Five,” Billy reported.

  Captain Fenwick paced in front of the forward view screen. “Do we have access to their internal video and audio feeds?”

  “Yes, sir, for the time being,” Billy said, bringing up a bank of internal video monitors from the security ship.

  Paladin Five’s main power was down, they were running on battery backup. Billy watched the feed just outside the main airlock. The door slid open and a hoard of undead pirates burst through. The muzzle flash from their weapons blotted out the cameras from time to time, replacing the dark grainy picture with green-white flashes.

  The pirates quickly overwhelmed the five Paladin guards stationed outside the airlock. The camera whited out by multiple muzzle flashes again. Billy swiveled his head to look at the health readouts. The ten man crew was quickly cut in half, as five windows went black. Then a sixth.

  He cycled the camera views. The crew retreated to the aft of the ship. Three guards took up position outside of engineering, the fourth man bolted into the engineering section, cycling the door shut behind him.

  What the bloody hell? Billy watched the feed from engineering. The man was doing something next to the fusion reactor. He must be the engineer. Billy looked up from his holo-screen. “Captain, I believe they are trying to scuttle Paladin Five.”

  Fenwick nodded grimly. “Under the circumstances, I’d say that is the correct course of action.”

  “Captain.” Colin Burton called out. “They are trying to slice into our network.” Two engineers frantically laid down firewalls and threw up countermeasures to block the pirates from gaining full access to their ship.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Billy saw three more crew med screens go black. The video feed showed three guards lying on the floor, pools of blood forming underneath them. The pirates fired additional bullets into the bodies as they passed. Bloody savages. Billy shook his head.

  He cut to the video feed from engineering. The engineer worked feverishly, bent over a console. Billy watched the man slam his fist down on it. He went to a panel, nearly yanking it off its hinges, and started digging around inside it. He grabbed a tool off a console and went back into the panel. Billy wasn’t sure what exactly he was doing, but he imagined he was trying to disable the magnetic containment of the fusion core. When the magnetic containment failed, the fusion core would turn into a small sun for a fraction of a second.

  A group of pirates stood in the corridor outside engineering. It seemed to Billy they were having a conversation. One of the pirates put his hand to his ear then started tapping at the side of his head. They all looked at one another, nodding their rotting skulls, then turned towards the door, weapons raised.

  The heavy engineering door slid open and they rushed in. The pirate reached out with massive skeletal hands, grabbed the engineer by his coveralls and heaved him off his feet. The other pirates laughed. Billy felt dread at what was coming next.

  The engineer’s eyes went wide. Billy could see the color draining out of his face, even though the grainy green surveillance video. Billy tried to adjust the audio gain. Nothing. Audio was gone.

  The hulking, undead skeleton held the engineer off the ground with one hand. His other hand reached for a large shiny pistol and brandished it. His mates appeared amused by this. Monstrous brutes.

  The undead skeleton jammed the muzzle into the engineer’s mouth and pulled the trigger. Blood, brains, and skull splattered the side of the fusion reactor. The pirate threw his limp body to the floor and raised his arms in victory. Billy closed his eyes and bowed his head.

  He glanced at the med stat screen. All ten windows were black. Pirates had taken Paladin Five intact. Billy was numb with revulsion and fear.

  He continued to watch in horrified awe as the pirate celebrated. One of the pirates looked directly into the camera. Billy leaned back in his seat involuntary. The pirate looked back at his mates and then pointed at the camera with his pistol. The pirate’s horrifying face got closer. His mouth opened in a scream—Billy was glad he couldn’t hear. The light glowing from his eyes intensified.

  The last thing the video feed captured was a large pistol muzzle, then a bright flash, then blackness.

  Billy slumped into his chair at his station. He let out a deep breath. “Captain, Paladin Five has been captured,” he said tonelessly.

  Captain Fenwick stopped pacing and bowed his head.” Damn it.”

  “Missiles inbound. Two… No, three,” Pete O’Brien reported.

  Billy struggled to maintain his composure. He briefly wondered if Pete had a switch in his head to turn off his emotions. He watched the missiles track towards his ship. Ten kilometers out. Three red dots on his screen drew ever closer.

  Five kilometers out. His breath quickened, sweat beaded his forehead. Oh, bloody h
ell, please be quick. Two kilometers. Billy closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable.

  “Two missiles are projected to impact our engines,” Pete called out. He turned in his seat and looked at the captain. “One is aimed at the bridge.”

  The captain acknowledged. He turned to face the viewscreen with his chin up and his chest out, hands clasped behind his back. He marveled at the captain’s poise. In truth, it helped Billy steel himself.

  The missiles struck the engines in rapid succession. The ship rocked hard. Captain Fenwick and Colin fought to stay standing. The lights blinked out momentarily.

  “Engines one and two are gone. The nanos are unable to make repairs.” Colin said.

  “Where’s that third missile?” Fenwick demanded.

  “It’s gone!” François exclaimed.

  Billy’s eyes snapped open. François was right. The angry red dots were gone.

  “No, wait.” Colin began. “That wasn’t a missile.” He was interrupted by a metallic thud against the hull. Collin cursed.

  “It was a vampire.” Billy said just above a whisper.

  “Captain, we’re losing our systems,” Colin exclaimed.

  “Pegasus,” Captain Fenwick said, addressing the ship’s AI. “Lockout all command functions by my authority.”

  The ship did not respond, its system had been hacked.

  “Sir, that Merchantman class freighter aims to dock us. She’s angling in, they have command of the airlocks now,” Colin reported.

  Billy scanned his screens. One by one, his screens started flashing access denied. Dammit!

  Fenwick strode to the back of the bridge. “Mr. McAndrews,” he said, motioning Billy to join him. The captain put his hand against the wall. A rectangular seam appeared and opened. The weapons locker only contained pistols, Billy decided it was better than nothing.

  Billy and the captain handed pistols to the bridge crew.

  CHAPTER 11

  The pirate flagship, called the Hell’s Bane, was a heavily armed Merchantman class medium cargo freighter. Captain Lex stood in the center of his bridge. It was cool gray metal and an exterior viewscreen took up the forward third of the space.