“Send me your claim and I'll pass it on to security for you sir,” responded the talking head pleasantly.
Jake pressed a button on his arm unit and waited a moment as the agent reviewed the file.
“There we go, Port Security is now aware of your claim.”
“Thank you Kala.”
“Now, back to your initial problem. The airlock scanner reports nothing illegal and no dangerous contaminants. I'll try to unlock it for you.”
The outer door quietly clicked several times but nothing happened. “Nope, looks like it may be a little more complicated than that.”
“All right, please hold while I send a maintenance team out there,” said the talking head before disappearing. A slowly rotating graphic of a bunch of bright green jungle flowers appeared in the head's place.
“We don't have time for this,” Captain Valance said, reaching into an inside pocket, producing some fine tools. He tapped one spike into the control panel beside the inner door and the back of the implement lit up dimly. An illustration of the circuit board inside the door control came up on his command console and he instructed it to bypass the damaged circuits. “They did a number on this,” he jammed the second thin black tool into the door control right beside one of the buttons and worked at his arm console for a moment before the outer doors opened.
He pulled both the thin tools out of the door control and put them back into his coat then walked through. Frost was close behind, Finn tried to keep up as the Captain strode out into the open.
“Hey you! You're not supposed to be out here!” Shouted one woman in a heavy vacsuit. It had hard impact and radiation shielding. The ship she was working on was in it's takeoff cycle.
“Captain Raines?” Jake Valance called out.
“No, I'm his Bosun.”
“He's aboard?” He asked as he made to walk straight up the rear gangway onto the ship.
“No sir, he's not aboard!” Replied the Bosun as she tried to step in front of him.
Jake drew his gun with his right hand and practically walked through her as though she weren't there. She fell to the ground awkwardly. There were several crew members inside arranging and securing crates in the cluttered rear cargo hold. Jake levelled his sidearm at the nearest and pointed his arm console to someone who looked like the senior officer. Frost followed suit and pointed his own stun pistol at the woman who had just been knocked down. “I've been hired to reclaim this ship by order of the dealership for non-payment. Her commanding officer is so served and all crew are to disembark immediately. I am permitted to use all force and will be rewarded regardless of the vessel's condition on its return.”
Finn didn't raise his sidearm, he had barely gotten it out of his holster before the Captain started up the ramp.
Everyone in the cargo hold stood stock still, in utter shock for the better part of a minute.
Then the oldest of them, nearest the interior door leading into the rest of the ship tried to quick draw his sidearm. Jake Valance fired, stunning one worker, and shot another bolt of energy from his arm command unit, missing the older fellow narrowly. Frost shot the woman on the ground, and dove behind a crate inside the hold of the ship.
The older fellow returned fire as he backpedalled up the stairs, missing the entire time. Jake kept firing in his general direction with his arm unit as he took careful shots at the other three workers inside the cargo hold. One dove for cover while the other two fell limply to the deck, stunned.
Finn was terrified but mesmerized at the sight of Jake Valance striding up the length of the cargo hold towards the inner door and the man who was hurrying to get up the stairs. There was no fear, no hesitation, only a confidence so impenetrable that his success, his victory seemed an inevitability as he took shot after shot and after taking out two other crew members he made a carefully aimed shot at the older man's knee just before he escaped behind the interior door.
Captain Valance took the stairs three at a time and tried the door. “It's over Captain Raines! If you hand over the command codes for your vessel and disembark now I won't haul your ass back for grand theft and collect the bounty on your head!” He moved to the side of the closed doorway and a second later the sounds of small arms fire impact could be heard from the other side.
Frost managed to shoot the last conscious crew member and ran up the stairs. “Finn, get under cover and wait for further orders!” he shouted over his shoulder.
Finn did exactly as he was told, still going over what he had just seen in his head.
“How hard did you hit him?” Frost asked the Captain.
“Minor stun shot, he won't be able to walk on that knee for about four hours.”
“Surprised you didn't set your arm unit higher.”
“That thing only knows two settings, mild jolt and big hole. Can't set it to anything but mild jolt here or alarms start going off.”
“What's our next move?”
“We have to disable the ship. He's going to try to pilot this rig into space with the cargo bay doors open.”
“How do ye know?”
“It's what I'd do.”
“Ah.”
“Hey Finn, get into that panel there and pull the port side power. It should be about six meters up the crawlway,” Captain Valance shouted.
Nothing happened.
“Hey kid! Get your ass into the crawl way or I leave you here!”
“Yes sir!” Finn replied as he ran from behind his crate and opened the panel hiding the service crawlway his Captain had pointed out. It was stuffed with wiring, but he could see a way through.
The engines were powering up, the low rumble of the antimatter reactor was unmistakable. “That was quick.” Frost said as he watched Finn crawl into the service hatch.
“That's why antimatter is popular even though it's so expensive. Starts up quick, unlike a mass drive. Thirty seconds and you're at full power, one minute and you're in the air.”
“Well, unlike most mass drives.”
“Right, ours is a little modified, never really turns off. How are you doing Finn?” Captain Valance called after his young engineer.
“I think I see it,” He shouted back.
A worker they hadn't noticed peeked up from behind a crate and fired at Captain Valance, catching him in the shoulder with a vicious particle energy weapon. It knocked him right off his feet and down the stairs. Instead of worrying after him, Frost turned and fired back at the crewman, catching him full in the face with his stun shot.
He ran down the steps after his Captain.
Jake turned over slowly, one side of his face was a deep red, and his long coat showed a scorch mark. “Get him?”
“Got him. You all right sir?”
“A little singed,” Jake checked with the medical readout on his arm unit which confirmed that he had surface burns on his face, but they weren't deep. “Stings but I'll be fine. It's what I deserve for taking the strong arm tact here. Do a sweep of the cargo bay,” he said as Frost helped him to his feet.
“That's how ye take the hard targets, get aboard afore they know what's goin' on.”
“Thanks for reminding me, next time I'll bring half the crew with me and they can go first.” He turned to the crawlway hatch. “How is it going Finn?”
“I see it! It'll take me just a few seconds to decouple.”
Captain Valance opened a channel to the Ferret III on his command console. “Captain Raines, last chance, turn your ship in. We've stunned all but one of your crew and he's probably in there with you.”
The main lights went out, emergency lighting came on and the ship stopped humming. “I got it!” Cried Finn from inside the crawl way.
“Good lad!” Frost replied.
“Well, there goes your starboard power and your reactor is off balance so it's on automatic shutdown. I'm calling the port authority right now so they can crack your bridge and take you into custody for not keeping up with your lease payments. That's a capitol offence here. They might hang you.” Jake waited a few seconds and his patience was rewarded.