Seeker of Moons (Cassidy's Command Book 1) Read online

  At this point the crew of the Seeker seemed totally oblivious to their predicament, even though Ash Shapour was screaming down his transmitter which was only broadcasting static. Ash could not just sit back and watch he feared a terrible outcome and turning the shuttle around headed straight for the alien arrival with the small Ionprop engine whistling at maximum speed.

  The boarding party were spellbound and full of impending doom as Ash and O’Hara continued their flight to oblivion. O’Hara fired the shuttle’s forward plasma canon towards the alien intruder but the blasts petered out before hitting the target.

  In slow motion one of the legs of the alien craft manoeuvred upward towards the shuttle and across space an orange beam shot forwards, lit the little craft briefly then it was gone and with it two brave comrades.

  Simultaneously the other downward pointing legs of the alien intruder emitted blue light which bathed Seeker, the energy beams joined together, flashed and went out. At that moment the running lights of their mother ship went out as did all its power systems.

  Kyle could not guess what was going to happen next but the alien craft retracted its legs and with a shimmering glow it disappeared as quickly as it arrived.

  Esther screamed into her microphone again, “Seeker for god’s sake answer, Seeker please answer me!” No reply came and the remaining crew on board Seeker had been rendered unconscious by the recent energy blasts.

  Kyle peered into the darkness of space, he thought he had seen something else and he had. A silvery shape moved towards the stricken Seeker, growing larger and more visible with every passing second. Kyle who collected card sets of famous spaceships as a boy recognised it as a military vessel. It was certainly a class of corvette, but the insignia on its three rear fins spelled even more trouble as it was the universal sign of the buccaneer, a laughing skull over two crossed missiles. The new arrival pulled alongside the Tug and almost immediately its boarding tube pushed out towards one of the personnel air-lock doors in the Seeker’s hull. A vacuum suited brigand could be seen moving along the transparent tube and after a very short time, he had activated the seals to engulf the access door. There was another delay and then many running figures could be seen moving quickly from the pirate ship towards the Seeker.

  As the first wave of pirates burst through the air lock they encountered a number of the Seeker’s crew stirring groggily from their torpor. The pirates were armed and many armoured in personalized body armour stolen during raids on half a dozen planets. They did not need it, certainly not at the beginning of the raid. The Seeker’s crew and engineers in their light blue overalls were just clubbed down without a shot being fired. As the pirates spread out they started to meet resistance on the port side corridor. Captain Wang had three crewmen with him and although they had only light arms they were laying down a fire pattern that stopped the incursion in its tracks. Similarly on the starboard side, Sub Stahl and two crew had managed not only to get the plasma carbines from their lockers, but also each had a plasmet personnel shield to deflect incoming fire and this group had already inflicted a number of casualties on the pirates.

  News of the delay reached Darian Kurko, Admiral of the Walendian Pirates, his nickname, “Darian the Destroyer,” was richly deserved. He raised himself from his command chair on the bridge and shouted in rage to his squad leaders, “Khask, Rhadian come with me and bring the gas canisters with you.”

  Kurko was resplendent in his decorated silver and scarlet armour. Together, with his henchmen he pushed through his cowering ruffians who were taking refuge against the fire directed against them.

  “Pull back to the mess area now, move you cowardly dogs, you are like little girls, move, now, now, now!”

  Once he had his raiders together he explained that he planned to take down the portside defenders with gas and detailed a dozen of his men to drop the visors on their helmets and initiate their armoured suits life support systems. This group edged forward, when in range of Wang and his defenders they fired off a salvo of nerve gas grenades and with no protection, Wang and his men quickly succumbed in a state of paralysis. Then urged on by Khask they moved past the fallen defenders working their way round and behind Stahl and his party.

  On the starboard side the rotund Rhadian led his party to face Stahl’s trio at the front where they were still putting up a stiff resistance from the engine room entrance, so much so that a plasma bolt hit the man next to Rhadian in his unarmoured armpit area, taking his arm clean off. The wounded man fell back screaming and spraying blood over his comrades.

  That was the last offensive action of the Seeker crew, as all three of the defenders took hits from Khask’s group of infiltrators, who had finally outflanked them. Stahl himself was still alive having been hit at the top of his shoulder, which was now oozing blood and gore, his two shipmates or what was left of them lay lifeless beside him.

  Stahl knew the game was up, there was no hope of rescue and the prospect of a tortured death did not appeal so he made his decision. Slipping painfully through the engine room door, he bolted it quickly behind him to buy a couple of extra minutes and making for the ‘grey matter Ionprop reactor’ he found the control unit he was looking for. Behind a cabinet door requiring his officers access code was a large red button etched with the simple message ‘SHIP DESTRUCTION’. Stahl knew that he had little of his life left as his wound was now taking its toll but with his last reserves of energy he pressed hard on the destruct button. His job done, he sank to the floor and with a smile on his face he passed to the next world.

  Klaxons sounded the alarm all over the ship and the accompanying message was not really necessary, “This Ship will self-destruct in ten minutes and counting”. The boarders stopped in their tracks and understanding the danger there was a stampede back to their own craft. Rhadian was one of the first back to the boarding tube but his size was such, that jammed in with the others fleeing he caused an impassable barrier. Unfortunately for him Admiral Kurko was one of those blocked behind him and being a man of zero patience Kurko raised his energy pistol and shot his subordinate in the back. The unfortunate Rhadian’s dead body was shoved backwards to clear a passage, Kurko said under his breath, “I told you, your weight would be the death of you.”

  He shouted back into the Seeker’s interior “Khask, Khask no oldies!”

  Khask looked over the dozen survivors of the Seeker who had been split into two groups. Khask nodded to their guards and the first group of six were marched through the boarding tube. He looked at the guards of the remaining six who were older in age and within seconds of his nod the prisoners were no longer people just a composite pile of ash.

  “This ship will self-destruct in six minutes,” was announced as the last pirate ran through the air lock to their ship. On the count of four the pirate ship had disengaged from its prey and was building up to multi light speed.

  In Seeker’s final few seconds Captain Wang raised an eyelid but on zero he and the dead and wounded of both sides were atomised in a grey rushing mass. Seconds later there was nothing left where the old tug had been and there was no evidence that it had ever existed.

  Chapter 2

  Marooned on the Seven Moon

  The five members of the Seeker’s boarding party just stood looking at the giant monitor which had displayed the tragedy. One by one they took their eyes away and just looked at the floor, nobody wanted to speak.

  Kyle looked at his colleagues and he saw the devastation on their faces, he particularly looked at Esther and saw that his Sub, who was normally ‘ice cool’, was struggling to hold it together. Although his shipmates had named him Getaway because of his convicted crime, Kyle was probably the most intelligent of the group and he knew something would have to be said to break the silence.

  “Sub, we are all out on our feet and we need some rest so that we can try to consider our options with a clear mind.”

  “What options?” asked Shiner.

  Before Kyle could answer, Esther interrupted, “T
here may be no options but we do need to think clearly. Getaway, are you up for first watch?”

  “Sure Sub.”

  “That’s a start, I will take the second watch then, Shiner can take the third. Those off duty can use the cabins formerly belonging to the bridge crew, as they are the nearest, I doubt that they will have a need for them now. Use your pistols on laser to etch your names on your cabin door so that I know where you are. You can remove your helmets as the air quality is holding up, but stay in your ‘astro suits’ and keep your weapons and shields close by. I will message you when it’s time for our meeting. When you are on watch, stay on the bridge, keep the viewing monitors on and use my pane computer to send an alarm if there is any emergency situation developing. Is that clear?”

  Four heads nodded, “That’s a plan then, here, Getaway, take the pane,” and she handed over the transparent glass pane, which she had removed from her backpack. The ‘Samashua’ pane was a robust military grade personal computer that had massive power, with the ability to interface with nearly all other known computers.

  The others solemnly trooped off the bridge to find a bed and there was still no conversation about the loss of their old ship, it was just too painful to contemplate. Kyle looked around the devastated bridge of The Moons and settled into a workstation which had not been torched and still had a comfortable chair, but also allowed him a good view of the monitors.

  He sat down, unclipped his helmet and felt the weight on his head decrease. The helmet was carefully placed on the floor and he then removed his back pack. Now he felt more comfortable, he concentrated on his orders and pushing his chair back he placed his boots on the desk whilst thoroughly scanning all the viewing screens to check for new arrivals or dangers. When he had established there were no immediate threats, he changed his focus to the computer pane.

  After entering Esther’s security details in the pane computer, he wondered what he should do first, it wasn’t as if he could listen to any news channels so far from civilisation. Kyle went through the desktop icons and the one entitled ‘Seeker’ led him to a number of options. ‘Confidential’ was highlighted in red and he thought that would be an interesting place to start.

  Again there were a number of folders but the one named ‘Squad Details’ caught his eye. A wave of his hand over the mouse sensor opened a folder displaying the names of Esther’s squad in alphabetical order and there, at the top, was ‘K Cassidy Engineer Third Class’. Should he open the folder or get on with something more productive, no he would just have a quick peek and so he read on.

  Kyle Cassidy continues to develop as a key member of the squad, his ability in assessing ship engineering problems and finding solutions is amongst the best in the whole ships compliment.

  In regard to the combat classes, he has passed every assessment with flying colours and on the basis of his overall ability he could be recommended for re-grade to Engineer First Class.

  He was quite elated when he had read the initial comments, but the next paragraph brought him back to earth with a bump.

  Although of recognised ability there are a number of issues which have to be considered prior to promotion.

  1. Cassidy was accepted by the Company in the ‘Service for Sentence’ programme and as such his ambitions and motives will require continuous assessment over at least a five year period, before we can have long term confidence in his employment.

  2. During his period of service he has displayed an underlying cynicism best regarded as having ‘a chip on his shoulder’. Until this is eradicated a promotion in the eyes of his peers and seniors would be seen as unwarranted.

  3. There are also reports of Cassidy shying away from work details and a longer term view of his motivation appears necessary.

  Just as Kyle was about to exit the document he noticed a personal annotation that Esther must have added. Sometimes he’s full of it, sometimes charming, sometimes lazy and sometimes brilliant. If only this man had ambition he could be interesting!!

  He closed down the document and went back to the main menus, but thought to himself that his dossier was dead right, though at this moment in time survival would be more important than opinions in his appraisal.

  He decided to link the pane through to the spaceships computers, he searched for data on the viability of the ships systems and also the readout for the ships Inventory, which he expected to be several thousand pages. The support systems were classified as ‘Optimised Minimum Functional’ and fuel cells 24 percent power remaining. When Kyle opened up the results of the Inventory Search, he found that all the items appeared to be described in Hebrew or a derivative and all the stock levels were recorded as zeros. Another enigma for the team to deal with and he wrote a note of his findings on the pane’s diary page ready for discussion at the forthcoming squad meeting.

  The rest of his watch went quickly and dead on time Esther walked slowly on to the bridge, “Hi Getaway, I thought that I may have found you asleep.”

  “No Sub, I’m holding out so far.”

  “I’d kill for a mug of Kaffoo,” said Esther and it almost sounded like she meant it. She had obviously not had much sleep but even so he noted how good she looked in her silver astro suit, helmet attached to her belt and her raven black hair tied back.

  “Ok,” said Kyle, “would madam please take a seat?”

  Esther was a little puzzled but did as she was asked. He made some finger passes over the pane computer and then turned and walked away from the bridge.

  In less than five minutes he returned with a steaming hot mug of Kaffoo in each hand and passed one to Esther, whilst grinning from ear to ear.

  “Getaway, where in the universe, did you get those from or shouldn’t I ask?” queried Esther

  Kyle picked up the pane and swept his fingers over the sensory keys before answering, “I was checking the status of the reserve energy cells powering the ships systems and found that there was a set energy output but it could be split and diverted to meet the ship’s needs, whilst the main reactor-powered cells are offline. Then after a little practising, I found that I could switch off some functions and move the power to other purposes, so I just switched power from the lifts to the bridge galley and restarted the vending machines, so there you go.”

  Esther asked rhetorically, “Presumably I just watched you reset the lifts and if that is the case I have a bit more hope that we can get out of this awful situation, although, we have still got to work out whether we can escape or communicate with any good guys in the area.”

  The two of them gradually relaxed in each other’s company and realised that they had not really talked before. The conversation gradually moved from their predicament to more personal questions and Esther held off being the officer in charge to being friendly and more likeable. Kyle was more than taken aback when she came out with, “Kyle, what do you think of me?”

  The question was a definite challenge to answer and she had never used his proper first name as far as he could remember. “Esther,” he opened not knowing whether he would be shot down by his normally strict officer. “I am not sure why you are asking but I think you are efficient, I think you are driven and sometimes I think that you are a pain in the butt. I know you don’t suffer fools and the only time I have ever seen you as a mortal was when we lost the Seeker.”

  “Does that mean that you err, that people don’t like me? Look, if we don’t get out of this I don’t want to die hated. I don’t know why it’s important but it is.”

  “Firstly, thanks for letting me call you Esther, I enjoyed that, it’s a nice name and it suits you. I do think that at this moment in time somebody has to be in charge and there is nobody in our group better than you to get us out of this. Sure we can individually come up with possible ideas and plans but somebody has got to make sense of it all and make the best choices.” Kyle was quite pleased with his speech and he continued, “Esther, until we are out of this you are my Sub. You were probably born for this situation and you will get
us through. Ask me what I think of you when we are finished with this and don’t confuse hatred with respect.” He could not believe that he had just said that, especially as he usually thought she was a self-righteous pompous bitch but now was not the time for home truths.

  “Thank you,” said Esther, “I know you said what I wanted to hear and that was nice of you, maybe I will ask you again when we are out of here. You had better get some sleep, I want everyone together again at 6:00am ship time so that gives you four hours. One more thing, we have marked your door at your quarters so look out for it, oh and one last thing Getaway, thanks for the Kaffoo.”

  Kyle nodded, smiled and took one last look at his mug to make sure it was empty before heading off with a cheery, “See you later Sub.”

  He wandered off towards the quarters for the bridge crew and soon found the doors with etched marks, ‘Shiner’ for Shola, ‘Buzz’ for Kenzo Watabe, ‘Bambi’ for Rachel and simply ‘Sub’ for Esther. He went into the room marked ‘Getaway’. The lights although only dim, activated as he crossed the threshold.

  When he had become used to the light, he looked around and could see a comfortable but small cabin with a large bed behind a screen, then in front a couch, table, wall mounted entertainment system, a small but usable kitchen area and a very nice bathroom. He tried to ignore the personal effects of the previous occupier but he guessed that they, whoever they were would not be coming back to collect them.

  Although he wanted to peel his bulky kit off and shower before turning in, logic told him that he should stick to Esther’s instructions and keep his outer suit on just in case there was a sudden crisis, besides he would rather have the twenty minutes it took to remove his suit as sleeping time. The helmet, gloves, belt and backpack were thrown on the couch and his carbine, shield and pistol placed on the floor by his bed.