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

God’s sake, don’t take your helmets off.” Nishimura pointed at two privates. “Get this woman back to the pod.”

“Major,” O’Connor broke in on the commlink. “We’ve got a live one down here. He’s dressed better than the others and was in the air recycler. I think he set the gas loose.”

Why would the commanding officer of a ship kill his crew? “How’s he still alive?”

“Maybe the backflow wasn’t great. Who knows? Not his time, though. We’ve got him on O2 and are carrying him back to the pod. Request permission to return to the Q-ship or Greengold. Whichever can get us in fast enough. This guy won’t survive without sustained medical treatment.”

“Granted,” Nishimura replied. One problem at a time. Get the HVT out and scour the rest of the ship for survivors. “Can you get the gas out of the air?”

“Maybe. Got a couple of guys working on it.”

“Work faster, or we’ll lose them all.” Nishimura switched his commlink to the all-platoons channel. “Listen up, Marines. Search every millimeter of this ship. Corpsmen will treat the survivors if we find any, and we’ll carry them back to one of the pods for exfil.”

One by one, the platoon sergeants signaled their understanding of his orders, and Nishimura took a moment to run what had happened through his brain. Okay, I’ve done a lot of VBSS in my time. I’ve never seen a group of pirates offed by their erstwhile commander. Maybe that spook can sort it out. As the two privates hauling the female combatant turned a corner and disappeared, Nishimura tightened his grip on his battle rifle. “Corporal Lewis! Bring your new toy up here and melt the bridge hatch.”

“Alpha Two to Alpha One. You’ve got a bandit on your six.”

Justin gritted his teeth as purple xaser beams ripped by the canopy on his Sabre. “I noticed,” he replied with a grunt. “Do you have a lock?

“Negative. He’s still whipping around pretty good,” Feldstein said.

“Forget the Vultures. Switch to heat seekers and send one at him. I’ll break right, positive declination, and lead him into your sights.”

“Wilco, sir.”

The red dot representing the hostile heavy fighter weaved back and forth behind the icon for the Sabre in Justin’s HUD. He’d almost resorted to guns-D to keep the enemy pilot from obtaining a guns solution on him, but Feldstein’s attention changed the nature of the fight. The moment the Eagle heat-seeking missile erupted from her fighter, he pulled hard right on his flight stick, kicked in the afterburner, and ran for his life.

Justin prayed the heat seeker wouldn’t flag the exhaust, which burned at thousands of degrees Celsius as it flew out of the engine manifold at the back of his Sabre, as hostile. Luck was with him as the missile ran straight into the tail end of the pursuing fighter, followed by a barrage of neutron-cannon bolts from Feldstein’s craft. Justin let out a sigh of relief as it exploded, and the red dot disappeared from his HUD.

“Alpha Two, splash one.” Feldstein grunted. “These guys are hard to kill.”

“Better shields than I’ve seen on anything except a Boar.” Justin scanned his HUD, searching for the next target.

Tehrani’s voice on the guard frequency was a surprise. “Attention, hostile fighters. This is Colonel Banu Tehrani of the Coalition Defense Force. We have boarded and captured your remaining corvette. There is no avenue of escape. Surrender now, and we will spare your lives. Continue to resist, and my pilots will run you down.”

Silence came over the commlink. Justin ran through the possibilities as another wave of fighters launched from the Greengold. We might lose another bird or two, but the enemy is now outnumbered.

“What guarantees do we have you won’t kill us on sight?” someone with a rough voice asked.

Justin didn’t recognize it and assumed the speaker was one of the pirates.

“The Terran Coalition honors the Canaan Convention on Human and Alien rights. You will be treated per its stipulations until tried for your crimes.”

Justin recalled the Coalition’s supermax prison—Lambert’s Lament. Housed on an asteroid, it was where the worst of the worst were sent to live out their days or await capital punishment. I wonder if these idiots will get the firing squad.

The rough voice came again. “No summary executions?”

“No,” Tehrani replied quickly.

On Justin’s HUD, the remaining enemies had grouped, and both sides seemed to have paused hostilities as the impromptu surrender discussions continued.

“How do you want to do this, then?”

“Do your craft have ejection systems?”

“They do.”

“Each pilot will eject from their fighter, and our search-and-rescue craft will pick them up. Any attempt at subterfuge or resistance will be met with overwhelming force.” Tehrani’s voice had a hard edge to it—harder than Justin had ever heard from her.

“Agreed,” the pirate replied after another long pause.

One by one, each hostile craft went dead in space, and the pilots ejected as Justin watched on his sensor readout. I suppose they had no other choice. Both search-and-rescue birds launched from the Greengold and made a beeline for the pirates floating in the void along with the two CDF pilots who’d ejected. In what was probably the fastest recovery operation he’d ever seen, they completed their mission and headed back to the carrier with the rest of the fighters flying point. The entire time, Justin sat on pins and needles, waiting for the enemy to arrive with more reinforcements.

They didn’t come. In the end, the recovery was uneventful, and Justin counted himself lucky that for once, no one on the Greengold’s wing had died.

12

The time-honored tradition of an after-action report was one the Coalition Defense Force held up in spades. It took Tehrani the better part of two hours to write hers, taking Wright’s input and ensuring the two agreed with each other, before the formal submission to CDF Command. Then it was time to sit down and discuss what had happened. And prepare for the next phase of our operation, whatever that is. She was a soldier—not a spy and not used to