Instead of moving straight down the middle of the room Rhett hugged the wall and passed through the kitchen area. He saw that the supply stores were all but exhausted, or had been moved elsewhere, and upon seeing the lack of supplies began to wonder what exactly these smilers were living on. Six months on the drift would be enough to draw the supplies of any ship down to just about nothing.
The trooper swept his rifle back and forth over the mess hall, taking in the signs of past struggles and realizing that while there were multitudes of trays, silverware, cups and the like floating in the dark, there wasn’t a scrap of food to be had. They’ve picked the ship clean, he thought, and sickening thoughts of where the rest of the crew might have gone began rising up from the depths of his mind. Despite the nightmare unfolding in his imagination, the trooper was prepared for battle, so when a series of duct covers slid open to reveal two smilers he was on guard.
The first smiler slid out of the hatch and got off two shots that went wide, before Rhett mercilessly punched three rounds through the attacker’s chest. As the dead madman flew backwards from the force of the impact, another, this one wearing mag-clamps, leapt over an upturned table and hurled what appeared to be a hull bolt that had been converted into something like a javelin.
Rhett threw himself backwards and winced as the self-driving bolt hammered into the deck plating right between his legs. Had he been a moment too slow or just a few inches too short in his movement, the trooper would have been impaled just below the navel and pinned to the deck. Rhett’s combat rifle barked several times, the sound muffled by the harsh environment, and the smiler jerked wildly as the bullets pierced suit and flesh.
“Vultures, sound off!” shouted Rhett through the comm-bead, suddenly realizing that he’d heard no radio chatter in some time, likely the result of how fearful and fiercely focused the fighting had been. “I’m at the command hatch, rally on me!”
As the rest of the bounty scrappers made themselves heard, Rhett activated a red strobe light that was mounted on his waist. Moments later Dante and Drago appeared in the doorway and took up overwatch positions as Quinn and the remaining cutters moved as a group into the mess hall. It looked to Rhett as if nobody else was worse for the wear, which was a miracle considering the hellish fighting they’d just encountered.
“Doak, you and Sparks are up, get me a pressure seal on this hatch and get us inside on the quick,” growled Rhett as he swatted an empty food tray that was floating near his face. “Dante, what did we just get through here? I confirm six kills between myself and the cutters.”
“We accounted for nine here, along with yours and the four from engineering, that’s seventeen, minimum,” responded Dante before adding, “We had two unconfirmed, likely only wounded, from Vader’s skirmish earlier, though either of those could be corpses here.”
“Manifest puts the crew roster at ninety-seven individuals,” came the voice of Captain Estrada, as if anticipating Rhett’s line of questioning. “Based on equipment specs and ship configuration there would have only been three designated arms men with sidearms and access to the weapons locker, though in case of hostile boarders the armory was stocked with a dozen more shotguns. Based on what you have encountered so far, I would obviously advise caution, though I think you’ve seen the worst of it as far as traditionally armed opponents.”
Rhett shook his head and kept his rifle at the ready, choosing to keep his mouth shut rather than remind Estrada about the combat effectiveness of power drills and energy beams. Doak and Sparks got busy setting up the pressure seal, which was a standard item in the cutter’s scrap kit.
Doak carried a pressure seal that was folded into a container roughly the size of a military rucksack. Rhett watched as the cutters carefully unfolded the device and spread it across the bloodstained hatch. The trooper could see from the latch and still active lockpad that the deck was both sealed and pressurized. Doak and Sparks held the seal up over the hatch, which reminded Rhett, for a moment, of an inflatable life raft. Doak depressed the activator on the side of the seal and in seconds the pressurized foam inside the veins of the device expanded to create a plastic faux hatch over the actual metal one, which would allow the team to open the hatch, rush in, and close it again without losing too much of whatever meager cabin pressure and life support remained. It was a single use device, so if the team had to make a hasty exit they’d depressurize the deck most likely, as the seal would have lost most of its structural integrity. Then again, bounty scrappers usually vented any ship they encountered anyway.
“Seal is good, Calibos,” announced Doak after the man checked a small keypad that was the only non-inflatable part of the device.
“Alright, folks, we don’t know what’s waiting for us in there, but we do know it won’t be friendly,” said Rhett.
“Can’t be any worse than what’s out here,” observed Quinn with a voice more upbeat than seemed appropriate compared to their grim surroundings. “Somebody locked themselves away from all this.”
Rhett gave the signal and Doak opened the faux hatch to allow the team to pack themselves into the small space. Once he’d closed it behind them the cutter gave Quinn the thumbs up, and then the engineer slid a small tool from her diagnostic kit into the lockpad of the actual hatch. The young woman’s face was aglow from the light of her wrist mounted screen for a few seconds before she smiled wide, pleased with herself about how swiftly she’d been able to hack the lock’s security. Quinn gave Rhett a thumb’s up and the trooper squared his shoulders to prepare himself.
“Open it up,” Rhett said in a low voice, and in response Quinn hit a button on the lockpad.
The hatch slid open quickly and a gentle rush of air swept over the team as the atmosphere of the command deck expanded to fill the faux hatch. Dante and Rhett plunged into the compartment head with their guns at the ready, followed by Drago, and then the cutters. Quinn was the last in, and she swiftly closed the hatch behind them. The team fanned out and immediately Rhett took notice of the fact that the emergency track lighting was still active, bathing the room in an off-white indirect light. He could see that they were in an officer’s rec room, though it had seen better days, as much of the casual décor had been stripped away and old blood was splattered across the walls and floor in a few places.
“Calibos, we have breathable atmo in here,” said Quinn as the group secured the room.
“Twenty-seven bounties and not once has that happened,” said Sparks, holding her pistol at the ready while she followed the others across the room. “Not to mention those bodies in the aft section, crucified against the ship’s engine.”
“It’s a day of firsts all right,” retorted Rhett as he kept his weapon pointed at the open doorway that lead towards the bridge. “Twenty-seven bounties and not once have we had to fight the original crew either.”
Rhett and Dante moved through the corridor together, as the trooper checked ahead of them for possible traps or duct work that might allow the enemy to ambush them. Once he reached the bridge, the trooper realized he would have actually preferred a firefight to what greeted him there.
The corridor ended at a set of platforms, one that lead upwards and another that led down, creating two small levels inside a single large chamber that had several viewports and defunct observation screens. The bridge was situated just above the pilot’s deck, so that the captain and officers could look down into the pilot’s work area, creating a physical reminder of the captain’s position of authority while also giving him or her a clear view of all bridge staff.