“Can we go now?” Tobin asked the squad leader.
“Give them two minutes, then lift off and proceed to the insertion point,” he ordered.
Tobin took a deep breath, rolling his eyes as he rubbed the sweat from his hands on his pant legs.
“Commander,” Ensign Yosef announced. “The cargo shuttle is on approach.
Cameron had no interest in the cargo shuttle, until an idea hit her. “Comm, see if you can contact the cargo shuttle.”
A moment later, the comm officer reported back. “Cargo shuttle answers comms, sir.”
“Then the problem is only long range. Did you check the comm array?”
“Yes, sir, ran the diagnostics three times. It checks out.”
A painful thought suddenly occurred to Cameron. “Are we being jammed somehow?” The question was directed at the communications officer.
“I don’t know, sir. This console doesn’t have the capability to determine the cause of the loss of signals. But if we were being jammed, wouldn’t I hear static or something?”
“I’m not really sure,” Cameron admitted. Their electronic countermeasures officer had been killed when his console had exploded in his face when they had rammed a Ta’Akar warship days ago. And the ensign now manning communications from an auxiliary console also lacked the proper training for his current position. It was the same way throughout the ship. Key positions were being filled with anyone remotely capable. Right about now, Cameron was sorely in need of both those particular skill sets.
“Did you hear that?” Jessica asked as they strolled across the compound. She stopped dead in her tracks, trying to listen more intently.
“Hear what?” Nathan asked, stopping as well.
“I thought I heard a ship,” she told him.
“I don’t hear anything,” Nathan said.
Jessica listened intently for a moment longer. “I could’ve sworn I heard a ship coming in.”
“Are you sure it is safe?” Vladimir asked, standing at the top of the boarding ladder next to the cockpit.
“Of course,” Deliza promised with excitement. “My father and I have been working on this for years. We have powered up the reactors many times. It is completely safe, I assure you.” Deliza opened a small access panel on the underside of the ship, revealing externally mounted controls for the starboard reactor core. In a few moments, the panel came to life as the small ship began to hum almost imperceptibly. “See, I told you. The starboard reactor is now running at ten percent.”
A steady beeping sound began to emanate from the cockpit next to Vladimir. He leaned down to locate the source of the alert, and found a large red lamp along the right side of the forward console, flashing repeatedly in time with the beeping. “What is this flashing light?” he asked, unable to decipher the symbols that identified the light’s meaning.
“What light?” Deliza climbed up the boarding ladder, squeezing in next to Vladimir to look for herself. “That’s the proximity alert. But it should only go off when an enemy is nearby.”
Vladimir froze as he noticed a distant sound. Within seconds the sound became louder-the engines of an approaching ship. “Go find your father,” he told her, pushing her down the ladder.
“It’s just a malfunction,” she insisted.
The sound of a ship descending to land in the middle of the compound became quite evident. Vladimir recognized the sound of Tobin’s whiny engines, and they were working harder than they should for an empty ship. “Go now!” he barked. “And stay within the tunnels. Do not go outside!” he added as he jumped down the ladder behind her.
— 8 -
Tobin’s ship came in low over the large barn at the opposite end of the sinkhole from the main house, immediately descending into the middle of the compound.
Jessica watched in surprise as Tobin’s ship touched down rather quickly, without rotating first as he had done before. She had a terrible feeling that something wasn’t right-she just couldn’t figure out what that something was.
Tobin’s rapid touchdown kicked up far more dust and debris than before, which told Jessica that he was heavily loaded. The dust wash from his landing thrusters forced the others down behind the Tug’s flatbed cargo hauler. As the engines wound down somewhat and the force of the thrust-wash subsided, they came out from behind the vehicle to greet Tobin. At the angle at which Tobin had set down, they could not see him in the cockpit.
Through the unsettled dust cloud and between the underside Tobin’s ship and the ground, Jessica could see the cargo door on the opposite side come down into its fully deployed position. She noticed movement to her far right and glanced to see Vladimir as he came charging out of the barn at the far end of the compound, his weapon in hand as he made for a good firing position to his right behind a trough of fertilizer. Instantly, alarms went off in her head as she looked back towards Tobin’s ship. Peering under his ship, on the far side, she could just make out the black, armor-clad feet of troops as they quickly disembarked and began charging toward either end of the ship.
Vladimir, having a clearer shot, opened fire as he dropped down behind the fertilizer trough, spraying the enemy troops with bullets that seemed to bounce harmlessly off their armor.
Jessica pushed Nathan and Jalea back behind the vehicle. “GET DOWN!” She swung her weapon up as she back stepped around the vehicle, flipping her safety off in one smooth motion as she opened fire, aiming under the aft end of Tobin’s ship. Although she did not expect it to pierce the oncoming soldier’s armored boots, she hoped it would make them think twice about sticking their heads around the aft end of the ship to fire on their poor defensive position.
From all four sides of the sinkhole, pinpoint energy weapons fire began to rain down on them from the snipers above. Danik’s head exploded as a sniper’s energy-bolt struck him, spraying blood across Jessica as she dove behind the vehicle for cover. Vladimir saw that one of the snipers was directly behind them. He swung his weapon to his left and blasted away at the sniper above and behind Jessica and the others.
Jalea peeked under the vehicle and saw Danik lying motionless on the ground, face down in a pool of blood, most of his head missing. “DANIK!”
“Inside! Move it!” Jessica ordered as she scrambled to her feet. She knew Vladimir was providing the cover fire needed for them to get to safe cover. Nathan and Jalea scrambled for the door on the small transfer shack between the two nearest greenhouses, falling through the door. Jessica scooted backwards, firing on the far ridge line behind Vladimir to keep the opposing sniper from picking him off before he could return to cover. Vladimir realized her target, and log-rolled several times as he continued to fire small bursts at the sniper above Jessica as she too reached the relative safety of the nearest doorway.
Jessica continued firing to provide cover for Vladimir, who managed to crawl inside the transfer shack between the barn and the first greenhouse on his side of the sinkhole.
“What the hell is going on!” Nathan yelled.
“It’s a fucking ambush!” Jessica told him.
Ensign Mendez was on edge. He wasn’t sure if it was the anxiety in his XO’s voice over their lack of radio contact with Tobin and the landing party. Of course, it also could have been all the coffee on a stick he had munched on to stay awake. Either way, he was more alert now than he had been in days.
He watched as the cargo shuttle pulled into its usual position in the Aurora’s hangar bay. As her engines wound down, the workers approached to begin loading her for her next run. As the vapors from the shuttles engines cleared, and her rear cargo ramp began to deploy, he noticed something odd on her hull just beside the side hatch on her port side. There was scarring, a sort of rippling of the hull’s skin, like it had been melted. Mendez remembered seeing that same pattern on the walls in the corridors on C deck, where Jessica and the late master chief had repelled the boarding party.