The entrance to the berthing quarters was wide and open; on impulse, Riyad tucked his weapon under his cape and casually stepped inside. The room was open bay, with thirty sleeping modules forming three long rows. Each module consisted of a large, rectangular box measuring about three meters tall by about four meters long. Doors were slid to the side, revealing the interiors of several of the units, where a number of aliens of a variety of species sat on padded cots, each engaged in idle activities. The Juireans in the crew would be housed in more luxurious accommodations in the forward section of the ship. These quarters were for the non-Juireans.
The aliens seated on their beds looked at Riyad with no apparent curiosity. His orange and green recharge uniform stood out, but no one seemed to be that concerned with his presence there.
He backed out of the room without incident.
The rest of the team quickly slipped past the door and toward stairway leading upward on their right, with Tobias leading the way and Tindal bringing up the rear.
Another alien appeared at the top of the stairway and began to step down. He looked up and noticed the team, a blank expression crossing his face. Tobias jumped, scaling half the stairway in a single bound. He was upon the alien in a second, his knife drawn. He spun the alien around and slit its throat in a quick, smooth action and then tossed the now-dead alien down the stairway and into Riyad’s waiting arms. The blood from the alien stained the front of his uniform as Riyad stuffed the now-limp body into a corner under the stairway and then joined the rest of the team at the landing above.
Another flight up and they were on the same level as Medical. A wide glass window on their left showed they were in the right place and the team moved quickly, entering the room beyond. There were six aliens inside, and they all looked at the odd menagerie of uniformed aliens as they entered.
There was also a Juirean here, a green-maned Guard who seemed to react faster than the others. With their respirators and goggles now off, the faces of the Humans were fully exposed. The eyes of the Juirean grew wide and he dove toward a comm unit on the wall. Rutledge cut him down with a short blast of the MP7, the rounds literally cutting the alien in half.
The others in the room then panicked, scrambling away in all directions. The Humans had no choice; they all opened up, the 4.6-caliber rounds easily ripping through the thin flesh and bones of the variety of aliens. Their blood and shattered flesh sprayed around the room, leaving a scene of utter death and devastation rivaling any to be found in a Freddie Kruger movie.
Tobias and Tindal sprinted across the room and through a doorway into the area where the quarantine cells were located. They looked through the small window into the first unit. It was empty.
They moved to the next one and looked inside. There, sitting on a cot, staring straight at the window, was a smiling Captain Adam Cain, USN.
Tobias stepped back, and not bothering with trying to figure out how to unlock the cell, blasted the controls with his weapon. The metal shattered; Tobias reached into the hole he’d made and pulled, ripping the door open.
Adam remained seated as Tobias and Tindal entered the cell.
“It’s about time you got here,” Adam said, his smile growing even wider.
“Better late than never, sir,” Tobias said, returning the smile. He unhooked another MP7 he carried on his left shoulder and tossed the weapon to Adam. “Care to give us a hand?”
“Love to. It’s been a couple of months since I killed any aliens. I think I’m having withdrawals.”
He rose from the cot and joined the other two SEALs at the door to the cell. Sherri and the others had moved up, and when she saw Adam, she pushed her way through the crowd and embraced him passionately. They shared a hard kiss and then stared into each other’s eyes for a tender moment. There were tears in Sherri’s eyes.
Tindal leaned over toward the Chief. “Fucker not only gets rescued — but he also gets the girl. I think we’re doing something wrong.”
All the rest of the team then spent the next ten seconds patting Adam on the back and shaking his hand. After that, Tobias put a stop to the reunion.
“Enough of this mushy shit,” he said. “Now we have to disable the ship, and from the inside out.” He turned to Adam, “You ready to exact some revenge on these stinkin’ bastards, Captain Cain?”
“More than you can know, LT. The J’s are all forward of here. Let’s start there.”
“Lead the way, Mr. Cain.”
Chapter 40
The plan called for the team to disable the ship from the inside so that it wouldn’t be able to pursue them during the getaway. Ideally, the damage would be so extensive that even communication links to the outside would be affected. There were still a large number of official entities, both on the surface and in orbit, what wouldn’t take to kindly to a Juirean ships being attacked in their jurisdiction.
One of the simplest and most direction means of attaining that objective was to kill every last alien onboard. If that wasn’t possibly, then at least a high enough number of them to scare the shit out of all the survivors.
First, they would have to find the bridge and destroy all the controls. The Class-3 also had an auxiliary control room located near the aft generator rooms. They would take this out on their way back to meet up with Kaylor. But first they had real live — at least temporarily — Juireans to contend with.
The Juirean compliment of a Class-3 battlecruiser was usually around twenty-five out of the total crew of ninety-five to a hundred. They would all be Guards, trained military professionals, and once the assault team was discovered, they would be the first to react.
The team moved out of the medical center, past the horrific scene of death they had caused only moments before, and as they entered the main corridor, their luck ran out.
Suddenly sirens sounded, and a voice came over the ship’s 1-MC system.
“Alert! Alert! The ship has been breached. All security forces converge on the Medical Facilities region. All crew to be armed immediately.”
The SEAL team moved up the corridor, Tobias and Adam in the lead, Tindal and Rutledge at their six, with Sherri and Riyad in the middle. At an intersection, a force of six Juireans, all armed with Xan-Fi flash rifles, met up with them. The SEALs opened fire before the Juireans could get off a shot. Three of the Juireans were torn to shreds, while the remaining three opened up on the Humans. Juireans do not rely on computer-assist for aiming — just like the Humans — so their shots were more accurate. But still the initial bolts were fired in haste and missed badly.
Adam dove forward, sliding on the metal floor. He rolled to his left, bringing the weapon to bear on the three Juireans hiding around the corner. He opened up and the bullets ripped into the flesh of the Juireans as if they were made of cardboard. This was more like it, Adam thought, watching the Juireans be torn to shreds. It’s good to be back in the shit!
The team moved past the intersection, weapons glued to their cheeks.
Just then a blaze of bolts came from behind. One of the bolts struck Riyad in the back and he fell forward, his body alight with a blue electric glow. The aura quickly faded as the rest of the team sent a deadly and deafening shower of metal in the direction of the attackers. They could hear the screams of pain as some were hit.
Riyad regained his feet and moved up next to Adam. “That’s my one mulligan,” he said to the SEAL.
Adam looked at the orange and green uniform Riyad wore. “Are you all wearing the diffusers under the uniforms?”
“All except you. Be careful. We didn’t come all this way just so you could get yourself killed.”