Bandits Engaged (Battlegroup Z Book 4) by Daniel Gibbs (novels in english txt) 📕

“No,” the second mate replied, exasperated, as she bent over a control console with its top off. “And I don’t think we will. The problem isn’t here. It’s back in engineering.”

Samaras stood. “I’ll go see what’s taking so long. If we don’t have primary systems back in ten minutes, head for the escape pods. We’ll take our chances farther into the solar system, if we can elude the CDF.”

“Okay,” she replied. “We’ll try not to leave without you.”

As he turned to go, Samaras took in the bridge and his crew one last time in the dim light. Pangs of remorse and guilt flowed through him as he fought over what he must do. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Each step down the passageway as Samaras left the bridge was more difficult than the last. He felt caught between his duty to Papoutsis, whom he owed his life for plucking him out of the slums of Lusitania a decade prior, and his crew, which were also his friends. In the end, duty won, because duty had a ticking clock next to it for his family.

Sounds of weapons fire, both energy and ballistic, echoed down the vessel from side passageways leading toward engineering. Damn CDF must have its Marines aboard already. He quickened his steps toward the objective: a nondescript environment-system-control locker.

Samaras popped the access panel off and climbed in. If he’d been taller than one point seven meters, he wouldn’t have fit. The one time being short comes in handy. Something about the irony made him laugh. A bank of metallic cylinders with reserve oxygen lined the back of the compartment. The one on the very end was special, however. Unbeknownst to the rest of the crew, it contained a nerve agent and was manually disconnected from the rest of the system.

With the finality of a condemned man, Samaras reached back and toggled the release switch to the on position. All that was left to do was wait for the gas to fill the ship. Death would follow—not the painless passing of a reactor overload, but duty would be fulfilled. He sat down and waited for it while pondering the choices he’d made that led to this moment. The self-reflection produced little except empty wishes of choosing a different path.

Nishimura squeezed the trigger on his battle rifle, putting a three-round burst into a pirate that had broken cover, dropping him in his tracks. The twenty meters from the junction to the bridge was one short firefight after another, and resistance stiffened the closer they got to the nerve center of the corvette. He’d kept his Marines on lethal ammo, mostly to defeat ambushes carried out behind impromptu barricades. The enemy learned quickly that hiding behind a simple alloy desk wasn’t going to save them from counterfire.

“Pulse, over!” one of the Marines shouted before hurling a deceptively small grenade toward a cluster of remaining pirates. The power armor protected the friendly forces from the effects of the pulse weapon but not the enemy.

While they were groping around, unable to see from the bright explosion of light, Nishimura and his platoon cut them down. “Only a few meters more, gents. I can see the promised land from here.”

As a fireteam of four Marines advanced, a woman without armor fell out of a nearby hatch and collapsed onto the deck. She clutched madly at her throat as foam frothed out of her mouth. A moment later, another pirate crawled out of a different hatch farther up the corridor, exhibiting the same symptoms.

“Corpsman! Get the corpsman over here,” Nishimura barked. He knelt next to the woman. “Hey, can you hear me?”

The platoon medic shoved Nishimura aside and ran a scanner over her. “Pulse thready and falling. She’s in shock.” He glanced up. “Major, I’m detecting an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor in her body.”

“In English,” Nishimura replied. Doctors and their long words.

“Nerve agent, sir. Massive dose of it, from what I can tell.” He paused. “It's an aerosol, sir. I’m detecting high concentrations in the air around us.”

Before Nishimura could respond, his commlink chirped.

“Major, this is O’Connor. Do you read me?”

“Go ahead, Master Guns.”

“We were in the middle of a pitched firefight for engineering when the hostiles collapsed, sir. Half of them are already dead, and the rest are on the way. My medic says it’s a nerve agent.”

“That tracks, Master Guns. Same thing up here.” Why would they commit mass suicide? Nishimura’s mind swam. Something didn’t add up. That was for sure. Oh shit. The pilot doesn’t have power armor on. “Nishimura to boarding pods. Seal the hatch immediately. We’ve got toxic gas loose on this ship. Then get your soft suits on.”

“Acknowledged, sir,” the warrant officer flying the pod replied. “Sealed and running tests on the air just to be sure.”

Meanwhile, the medic pulled a vial along with an autoinjector from his bag and applied it to the woman’s neck. He then pulled out a small O2 mask and pressed it against her face. “This thing only has ten minutes of pure oxygen in it. We need to get her out of this environment. I don’t exactly carry a bunch of antidote for nerve gas, Major.”

“In other words, we can’t save that many?” Nishimura asked.

The man shook his head. “No.”

Dammit. We need high-ranking combatants too. Not the deck force. The sudden realization of having to play God bothered Nishimura, even though he’d been playing God for the last ten minutes as they shot their way through a hostile vessel, leaving stunned and dead bodies in their wake. “Where’s this stuff coming from?”

“Probably the environmental control system, sir. Logical conclusion, since it's an aerosol.” The medic shrugged. “I’m not your man for this. Nobody uses chemical weapons, that we know of, but it's still a class in med training.”

“Okay. The corpsman’s going with me. Everybody else, secure the bridge then fan out and find air-filtration-system interfaces. Look for any signs of a delivery system, and for