Chapter 79: Chapter 9: Hostile Boarding

“You’re an idiot!” Henrik shouted, standing outside the engine room. Brock and Rosalie had their arms around the chief engineer, holding him back as he seethed at Dash. Draug stood to the side, hands pressed together, its bulky body shivering with anxiety.

“No, you’re the idiot! It blew because you installed it incorrectly!” Dash shouted back at his chief engineer. Gaius stood in front of him, his lean frame barely able to hold Dash back.

And in between the two groups, wondering how in the Lords he had ended up in that situation, was Wesley.

The arguing and blaming continued back and forth despite Wesley's attempts to broker a truce. It was further derailed when Brock suggested they could always fight the boarders, and Dash had to admit that he’d pawned off his ammunition on Terminus. All they had now were two low-powered pistols. Neither side could get over their frustrations with the other, and every second left them closer to a horrible fate at the hands of the incoming shuttle.

All of which compiled and ultimately inflamed Wesley’s patience, until his torso grew unbearably tight, his forehead ached, and he shouted, “Please, for Lords’ sake, shut up!”

An instantaneous silence clapped through the compartment like a shockwave. Every pair of eyes shifted to Wesley. He realized his deep breaths left him borderline snarling like some enraged beast. He held the next one in, feeling his pounding pulse dip from its peak, and let the hot air gradually slip from his lungs.

“He’s right,” Dash said, his eyes turned downward, as if hiding embarrassment. He raised them to the crew. “Doesn’t matter what happened, or whose fault it is. We need to come together right now to figure out a solution, or we’re all screwed. Now, does anyone have a suggestion?”

“We can’t fix it in time,” Henrik snapped.

“But can we at least attempt the repair, in case a miracle occurs?” Wesley said.

“Sure. Your Lords going to provide that miracle?” Henrik said, his voice dripping with condescension. He bit his lip, as if to rein it in.

“I can give it my best shot, if you do as well,” Wesley answered, and meant it too. Henrik hesitated, then nodded. “Worst-case scenario is we fight. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Dash said. “They’ll be suited up in boarding kit. Without Betsy, we’d need multiple lucky shots to find a hole in the armor they’re sure to be wearing.”

“What if we rotate the ship with the maneuvering thrusters and smack them away?” Gaius said.

“They have the maneuverability advantage. It won’t help,” Dash said.

“So we’re screwed then,” Henrik said.

“Maybe not,” Dash said. His eyes drifted, unfocused, as he grasped onto a thought.

Gaius looked to his captain. “We’re really not going to like this, aren’t we?”

Dash glanced around at his crew, a glimmer of hope in his expression. “Not at all.”

---

The Stardancer loomed ahead of the tug, the freighter’s lifeless engines as black as the vast depths of space around it. 

Seated at one of the two pilot stations, Porter switched on the tug’s powerful short-range sensors and watched in eager anticipation as they closed in on their prey.

Their ride—adorned with the unimaginative name Terminus-026—wasn’t a traditional tug. The teardrop-shaped vessel sported a rugged hull, an enhanced thruster package, and hardpoints for tooling attachments—an ideal configuration for mining operations. The equipment and robust structure made for a tight interior. Tucked in behind a reinforced viewport, the bridge seated up to four, with a small cargo compartment and airlock at the rear of the vessel.

After it had exceeded its lifecycle limit, the mining guild had decided to keep it around as a high-maintenance tour guide for visiting executives and clients. That plan only took two cycles to backfire when the mining operation shut down. Station security had held onto it since then, until the bank could send out a collection team. The banks had bigger priorities at the moment—galaxy-wide unrest tended to do that—so security commandeered it for themselves.

Beside Porter, Boci opened a bow cam stream and zoomed in on the hull, doing his own visual search for irregularities. 

“You know there’s no way these jokers have weapons our sensors can’t see,” Galo said.

“Can’t be too careful now,” Boci said, focused on his display.

“I know you’re upset they got away,” Porter said. “I am too. But we’re about to bring them in. Get your mind set for boarding. We all need to be on point. This crew is dangerous.”

“Does anyone else think it stinks in here?” Galo said.

Boci sighed. “Last squad must’ve been eating that horrid spiced stew that’s popular at the moment. I told them no eating on the tug.”

“Makes me want to gag,” Galo said.

“We wouldn’t be in this position if you hadn’t tripped and knocked me over,” Boci reminded the other officer.

Porter snapped his arm between the two security officers. “Not another word about what happened, or you’ll both be scrubbing the shuttle when we get back. Maskless. Understood? Good. Galo, check in with Terminus Control.”

Galo glared at Boci a moment longer. He pulled up the latest status report on his PD. “Tunnel cleanup is almost complete. Captain Bania’s ship was returned to its berth, and the crew is detained for questioning. Control played it off as a couple of miscreant captains to the other ships. A few ships took off, and a few more put in early departure requests. Even if any of them didn’t buy the excuse, we found no indication that messages were sent inward to SecForce.”

“Good,” Porter said. Boci and Galo nodded in silent understanding. They knew the stakes. The last thing Terminus needed was someone messaging SecForce and having them stick their noses into corporate interests on the system’s exterior. Now, Porter and the security officers could focus on Anderton.

Boci snorted in disgust at the main display. “They took a beating on their joyride out.”

“That explains the inconvenient engine outage,” Galo said.

“I’ll take a lucky break. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have caught up to them,” Porter said. The irony that corporate security was using the guild’s tug to chase down a ship on the guild’s behest was not lost on him. The relationship had been fairly antagonistic not long ago, but the aftereffect of Auturia had changed it to one of mutual dependency. The poor miners and workers who couldn’t buy their way off the station grew more restless each passing day. The creds for lodging, sustenance, and alterants were fast depleting. As the local guild rep, Porter had no choice but to team up with the corporate security goons to keep the station from descending into chaos.

“This is my first real boarding action,” Galo said, managing to sound both excited and terrified at the same time.

“Nothing is going to happen. You heard them on the tight beam, begging for help,” Boci said.

“Don’t let your guard down. We saw what they’re capable of,” Porter warned.

“Scans show negative on any surprises,” said Boci.

“Let’s get this started then.” Porter opened a comm to the thrustless ship. “Stardancer, we’re ready to begin docking procedures.” 

“We’re ready to receive you, Terminus-026. Our docking airlock was damaged in our departure. You’ll have to set down in the cargo bay. We’ve already cycled it open.”

“Acknowledged. I want to be clear, if you do anything to piss me off, I will personally throw each one of you out of your ship through whatever functional opening I can find.”

“Roger that, 026. We surrender, and only want to be rescued. Please don’t shoot.”

“Follow instructions, and you’ll be fine.” Porter closed the comm. Hearing their pathetic pleas left him deeply satisfied. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on them after what they did to Kashara and Osric in that suite. He’d been making good creds as a partner in their scheme.

“It’s amazing how many people end up on the deck begging for mercy,” Boci said.

“Mercy can be bought for the right price, but they’re past that point,” Porter said. “Now let’s confirm their story before we dock.” He punched in a series of navigation commands. The shuttle fired its maneuvering thrusters and weaved a gentle loop around the freighter. 

Boci focused a cam on the damaged in-flight airlock. “They weren’t lying about that.”

Terminus-026 overtook the Stardancer, then settled in front of it. The shuttle’s forward cams swept the empty bay. Boci said, “No cargo in sight.”

“Didn’t they have a pallet?” Galo asked.

“They should. Must’ve lost it on the way out,” Porter said. The crew was deep in the hole now. He guided the shuttle closer. Satisfied there were no possible avenues of ambush, he said, “Time to seal up.”

The three men powered up their pressure suits, donned helmets, then switched to internal life support. Boci checked the status of each suit on the main display. “I’m seeing greens across the board.” 

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Porter brushed his gloved fingers on the handle of his pistol. He relished the thought of using it, but he didn’t want to give those hauler trash the luxury of a quick death. “Take us in.”

“Initiating docking,” Boci said, and tapped the flight panel. The shuttle made a slight course correction for the open bay, and closed in. Without any solid bodies to reference, the shuttle appeared to float casually toward the ship despite each having a velocity of thousands of kilometers per hour.

Boci rotated the tug, placing the airlock in line with the inner hatch of the cargo bay. He switched to the aft cams.

Porter said, “Remember the sequence. Detain them, then get them on the shuttle. The other shuttle flying in behind us will attempt to fix the ship and bring it back to the station.”

“We’ve crossed the bay threshold. Preparing to attach to the deck,” Boci said.

The skin on Porter’s neck prickled. His eyes were glued to the stream. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the bay. Loading equipment was folded into storage alcoves, chains and clamps locked in place. 

Still, something was off.

“What’s the matter?” Boci asked.

“I don't know,” Porter said. “I think—”

A block of light appeared as the inner hatch opened in a flash. A shiny cloud rocketed out of the decompressing interior passageway and slammed into the back end of the shuttle. A makeshift scattergun blast of valuable minerals. Blackness consumed them, alarms wailing while the men bounced around in the stomach-churning chaos.

“It was a trap!” Galo cried out as emergency lights activated.

Porter ignored him and flailed for the flight panel. The rear cam was dead. He switched to the forward cam. The view rotated between deep space and the Stardancer, fading away with each pass. The auto-stabilization module flashed warnings as it struggled to fulfill its purpose.

“Tug’s leaking atmosphere,” Boci said.

“We’re going to die!” Galo said.

“We’re in our suits! You’ll be fine! Now shut up so I can stabilize us,” Porter said. He queued a series of commands. The spinning began to slow. He calmed his breath, knowing each one was precious if the shuttle interior had been breached.

Galo moaned next to him. “I want off this thing!”

Porter muted Galo on the team comm and watched the forward cam feed with quiet rage. The Stardancer neared the edge of maximum visual range, its engines still dark, until it turned into a tiny spot of light no different than the countless stars.

---

Inside one of Terminus Security’s dank interrogation rooms, Captain Bania slumped against the far wall and pictured all the horrible things he wanted to do to Dash. Not only had the conniving jerk somehow stolen Bania’s lucrative rock run contract, but he’d also banged up Bania’s ship with that low-blow move in the berths. If it weren’t for that, his ship wouldn’t have been snagged by the Terminus drone tugs, shoved back into its berth, and the captain and crew dragged off and locked up.

He’d been alone for at least an hour as far as he could tell. Bored, too, with his network access revoked. A security bot occasionally patrolled the hallway outside at first. But the bot’s footsteps no longer clicked on the metal flooring.

His stomach growled, and he thought about one of those calorie-dense wraps Porter had been stuffing his face with. He was wondering if he could bribe a guard to have one delivered when he heard a thump from out in the hallway.

Footsteps came next. More one than person approached. Bania stood up and straightened his utilities. He’d played this game before with other private security—the threats and even the crossing of lines into breaking the law. They’d promised to nail him with fines and report him to SecForce at Praxa for the uncleared departure and collision with Anderton’s ship, but he wasn’t scared. It was Anderton’s fault, and he would argue that until death.

The door unlocked and swung outward. A bearded man stepped in. He wore casual utilities, with no indication of a security badge.

“Captain Bania, we have some questions for you, and we need truthful answers,” the man said.

Bania eyed the curious stranger. “You’re not security.”

Behind the first man, another entered, short and stocky. He also held a stunner in his hand, but Bania could see the pistol grip of some weapon beneath the man’s parted jacket. A third man came next, dark and angular, holding a datapad. The first man—clearly the leader—said, “I’m not, and we don’t have a lot of time.”

The datapad man said, “We’re still undetected. Most security personnel are at the crime scene in the abandoned executive tower. I’ve got looped vids on the cam streams here.”

“And the desk jockey won’t be waking up from his nap for a bit,” the stocky man said, tapping the stunner grip.

“We’re looking for a medtech trying to flee this station,” the leader said. The datapad man turned his device around. On the display was a young blond man.

“Looks like a teenager,” Bania said. “Never seen him before.”

The stocky man approached Bania’s side and bent over. He sniffed near the captain’s ear. “I can smell a liar,” he said.

A chill ran down Bania’s spine. He shrank back. “I’m telling the truth! I don’t have the cred to haul some medtech around with me. Keeps my crew from cutting their fingers off. Don’t believe me? Go look in the other detention rooms. My whole crew got dragged off my ship and thrown in here.”

“We know the kid was on the station,” the leader said. “He’s on one of the ships.”

The stocky man sniffed again. “I haven’t seen him, okay? Go ask the other captains. The ones that didn’t take off after Anderton made a mess of the place.”

“Would the medtech be on his ship?”

Bania shook his head. “That dummy can’t afford it.”

“Then what was the collision about?”

“He stole my contract! I’ll get him back.”

“I’m not leaving here until I get a lead,” the stocky man hissed.

A wildness shone in his eyes that made Bania want no part in upsetting him. Bania held his hands up. “Every freighter docked here is a regular. If the kid was really here and looking to leave, he’ll end up at Praxum Depot. The Terminus contracts are nullified because of the sanctions, and everyone will be looking for work.”

“I want all the ship names.”

Bania relayed them.

The datapad man said, “We’ve got a squad inbound from the crime scene.”

“Time to go,” the leader announced.

The stocky man held up the stunner. “Keep this quiet from the other captains or we’ll come looking for you, Bania.”

Bania scoffed. “I don’t talk to those jerks. They’re the competition, and I don’t like them either.”

“I’m not buying it.,” the dark man said, his eyes cold as ice. “We can’t have any loose ends.”

“Please!” Bania said. The words squeaked out of his constricted throat. “I won’t say anything. I have no reason to want to help any of them.”

“Face the wall,” the stocky man said. “Close your eyes.”

Bania did so, legs trembling so hard he thought he might collapse. He heard footsteps as the men moved toward the door. He had no idea who they were, or how they’d broken in, but he couldn’t believe they’d be crazy enough to execute someone in a security detention facility. The footsteps left the room, into the hallway, and he thought they were going to plug him from outside the room. Then, strangely, his network access returned. He jumped as a message flashed into view.

Speak nothing of this. If you come across the kid, reply to this message.

A few harried breaths later, Bania turned around and saw he was alone once again.

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