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  ALLIES OF CONVENIENCE

  A SHORT STORY IN THE LAST HUNTER SERIES

  J.N. CHANEY

  TERRY MIXON

  Copyrighted Material

  Allies of Convenience Copyright © 2022 by Variant Publications

  Book design and layout copyright © 2022 by JN Chaney

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing.

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  ALLIES OF CONVENIENCE

  Lieutenant Jack Romanoff woke from a nightmare when the general quarter’s alarm blared in his tiny cabin, and he narrowly avoided hitting his head on the bulkhead his bed cubby was set in. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes as he hurriedly dressed in his duty uniform and raced into the crowded corridor with the rest of the off-shift crew.

  His regular duty station was on the bridge at the helm console, but Dark Wind’s captain had banished him to auxiliary control after he’d come close to clipping a cruise liner that had unexpectedly crossed in front of them a month back, so that’s where he headed.

  Space was tight aboard a Confederation cruiser, so auxiliary control was even smaller than the cramped bridge. It only had three stations, including the executive officer’s seat.

  Commander Mitch Marziali, Dark Wind’s executive officer, was already at his post, looking as if he’d been on duty for hours rather than having just been woken up. Jack was duly impressed.

  “Run your fingers through your hair, Jack,” the dark-skinned man said with a smile. “Your hair is sticking straight up, and that’s going to scare the ratings.”

  Flushing, Jack tried to get his hair to behave, vowing once again to just buzz it all off. He, of course, failed to get it under control, but the XO handed him a small comb plucked from his uniform pocket, which Jack quickly used to somewhat tame his unruly hair.

  “What’s going on, sir?” Jack asked as he handed the comb back just before the third member of the auxiliary control primary watch arrived on station.

  While Lieutenant Melissa Kyle didn’t look like she’d just woken up, the assistant tactical officer’s eyes were still red with sleep. At least her hair was under control.

  “Looks like we have pirates in the Kingslayer system,” Marziali said. “We jumped through the quantum gate almost on top of a pirate boarding a merchant freighter. There was no response to our hails, and he took off, but we’re close enough to intercept. Once we disable his drives, we’ll send the Marines to sort things out.

  “You don’t need to take your station, though. The captain has something else in mind for you.”

  The officer’s words hit Jack like a punch to the gut. He wasn’t even going to be allowed to run the auxiliary helm? Captain Kadam had been angrier than he thought.

  Before Jack could figure out what to say, Ensign Kim Krafsky stepped into auxiliary control. She was the second assistant helm officer. Basically, the inexperienced trainee he and the assistant helm officer were coaching to do the job. Though none of the department heads were all that senior on what amounted to a training cruise, she was exceptionally green.

  Marziali sighed and gestured for Jack to come closer after the young woman had taken the helm console. “Stop looking like someone kicked your puppy, Jack. Neither the captain nor I am punishing you. This is actually a chance to redeem yourself before you sit for the promotion board. You’d rather have them looking at a successful operation than a moment’s inattention, wouldn’t you?”

  Jack swallowed and nodded. He’d do just about anything to take the promotion board’s mind off that damned liner. “Yes, sir. What do you need me to do?”

  “You’re going to take a fire team of Marines over to the merchant vessel and make sure everything is copacetic. Work with the crew to get their ship back under control if they still have issues and hold location until we take care of the pirates and come back for you.

  “It’s a straightforward mission. If you can carry this off, the captain will put you back on the bridge where you belong. You’re a good officer, and you’re going to make a fine leader one day, but you need some seasoning. This is a chance to get that.”

  “I’ll make it happen, sir,” Jack said, his resolve firming. “Other than the Marines, who will I be taking with me?”

  “This is one of those situations where having a lot of people isn’t going to be helpful. You’re not going to be flying the merchant, just making sure that the crew is back in control and safe. Since you’re taking four Marines, I figure you can grab three ratings, and that should be enough to handle any little brush fires.”

  The man leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “Don’t overthink this, Jack. Keep the civilians safe and ensure no pirates got left behind when their ship ran. Stay calm and listen to the Marines for guidance if something comes up.”

  “I won’t let you down, sir.”

  “I know you won’t. Get moving, and don’t forget to draw sidearms for yourself and the ratings. I don’t expect you’ll need them, but it never hurts to be a bit overprepared.”

  Jack headed toward the landing bay at a trot. A cruiser was a big ship, but engines and weapons took up most of its volume. The small craft bay contained a tightly packed pair of marine pinnaces and a pair of cutters.

  Standing in front of a cutter were four armed Marines in armored vacuum suits with their helmets off. A woman with corporal’s tabs saluted. “Corporal Rossini and Fire Team Three are ready for action, sir.”

  “Glad to have you, Corporal. Get aboard the cutter, and we’ll be on our way as soon as I grab some ratings.”

  She gave him a firm nod and gestured for her people to board.

  He looked around the small craft bay and spotted a trio of enlisted ratings watching him, and he gestured for them to come over. “Grab pressure suits and come with me.”

  They obviously weren’t thrilled to be picked for this mission, but that’s what they got for standing around with their hands in their pockets when he needed warm bodies.

  He followed them to where the vacuum suits were racked, grabbed a suit, and quickly put it on. The odds of them being in vacuum when they got to the merchant ship were low, but it was far better to have suits and not need them to be caught short if they lost pressure.

  Once he and the ratings were suited up, they drew sidearms from the weapons locker. As one of the department heads—though low in rank for the position—his thumbprint was in the system. The sidearms were in holsters and already on belts, so they could strap them on outside their suits.

  That done, they boarded the cutter. Jack left the ratings to strap in across from the Marines while he headed to the piloting compartment. It only took a minute to bring the small craft fully online as he strapped himself in.

  “Control, this is Cutter One,” he said over the flight control channel through his suit comm, which was linked to the cutter’s systems. “Requesting permission to depart.”

  “Cutter One, you are cleared to depart,” the flight controller said. “The merchant vessel’s IFF has her as Edgar’s Ghost, and she’s approximately forty minutes away at standard thrust, about halfway to Kingslayer orbit.

  “Dark Wind will change course as soon as you’re clear, and we’ll go after the pirate. He’s not quite as fast as we are, so we’ll catch him before he gets to the other quantum gate in the system, but I suspect you’ll get to the merchant before we catch our guy.”

  “Copy that,” Jack said. “Good hunting.”

  “And to you as well, Lieutenant. Keep safe.”

  The small craft bay’s external hatch slid aside while strong fields of force kept the atmosphere in. Jack picked the cutter off the deck and took them out through the opening.

  Once the cutter was in space, he quickly located the merchant vessel on his sensors and set course for them, kicking the acceleration up to the highest level used in normal operations.

  If there were pirates still aboard, and they had small craft, he’d be taking a risk, so he’d slow down when he got a little closer. Of course, if there were pirates aboard the freighter, the entire situation would be a lot more complicated than they’d planned on.

  The freighter was under thrust to Kingslayer, though still some distance from orbit. They’d have to deal with that before too much longer as he had no desire to threaten the orbital infrastructure with an uncontrolled ship.

  “Edgar’s Ghost, this is a cutter from the Confederation Navy cruiser Dark Wind inbound to your location,” he said over the general space traffic fr
equency. “What is your status? Are there any pirates left aboard?”

  There was no response, but he wasn’t sure if that was because they’d chosen not to reply or if the pirates had disabled their communications system. The latter sounded like something a pirate would do, though. If no one could hear a ship calling for help, then they wouldn’t come running.

  He spent the next half hour occasionally attempting to communicate with the merchant ship and watching Dark Wind slowly creep up on the fleeing pirate. It wouldn’t be long before the cruiser would be in range to disable them, though he’d likely be aboard the merchant by then.

  Once he was close enough to Edgar’s Ghost, he slowed and started looking for a place to dock. Merchant ships weren’t as well outfitted as Navy cruisers, so they didn’t have small craft bays. Instead, small craft attached themselves to the hull and used flexible ports for the crew to get in and out.

  Luckily, all Navy vessels were also equipped to utilize those so his people could board without difficulty. The challenging part was figuring out where the best spot to hit them would be.

  He called Rossini up to join him. When she stepped through the hatch connecting the control area with the rest of the cutter, he gestured toward the merchant vessel growing large in front of them.

  “I still haven’t gotten a response from them, Corporal. Is there any particular location you’d like to dock?”

  The woman stared at the merchant ship, her eyes narrowing. “The closer you can get to engineering, the better I’d feel, sir. You Navy types always think the control area is where the magic happens, but if we stop the ship from accelerating, we have control.”

  “I’m not an engineering officer, but I can probably help you with that,” Jack said. “It looks like there’s an unoccupied docking port just off engineering, so we’re in luck.”

  The merchant ship was big, though most of its bulk was taken up by containers rather than habitable areas. There were probably some internal holds as well, but the vast majority of the cargo carried would be containerized so it could be transshipped without unpacking the vessel.

  There were half a dozen docking ports scattered across the ship, and four of them were occupied. It looked like two amidships held large cargo shuttles, and one forward and another aft held battered cutters. That left the aft port they were heading for and another open one at the front of the ship.

  “Get your people ready, and I’ll let you know thirty seconds before we dock,” Jack said. “I’ll try contacting them one last time before then.”

  As soon as Rossini vanished back into the passenger area, Jack again tried to raise the merchant but was unsuccessful. They’d just have to do this the hard way. He set course for the aft docking port, warning his passengers that they were going in.

  He’d chosen to approach the freighter from the rear just in case they had weapons, even though that was a serious offense. It would be just his luck to be shot down because they thought he was a pirate.

  Though Jack had less experience docking with the flexible tubes than he did using a small craft bay, all Navy pilots had to master this particular task. He smoothly brought the cutter into place and clamped the magnetic locks down, tying the vessels together before triggering the docking port mating sequence.

  His indicators showed green as pressure evened between the ships, and he swiped his hand across the cutter’s console, locking it against intrusion. He absolutely did not want anyone running off with their ride.

  He made his way to the back of the cutter where the Marines were already stacked up to go into the freighter. As soon as the corporal saw him, she hit the controls and opened the cutter’s hatch.

  That still left the merchant’s hatch, but it opened when she fed it the Navy overrides. Its motion wasn’t smooth, but it didn’t jam, so that was a win. He followed the Marines into the freighter with the ratings at his back.

  He left his weapon in its holster while the Marines secured the area around the docking port. The lighting was spotty at best, but they weren’t met by hostile forces, so he’d take that as another win.

  Of course, they weren’t met by friendlies either, so he still had to locate whoever was in command of Edgar’s Ghost and get this all sorted out before someone made a mistake they couldn’t walk back.

  He tried the suit comms and discovered the pirates had left a jammer active aboard the ship. Even right next to one another, he couldn’t punch a signal through. They’d have to use external speakers and microphones to communicate.

  Since Rossini had insisted engineering was the best place to set up—and he agreed—that’s where the group headed. The corporal sent two Marines up front and pulled the remaining one into the back of the formation with her, bracketing the Navy personnel. Together, they jogged down the corridor toward the aft of the ship.

  When they reached the hatch leading to engineering, they found the first indications that the ship had been boarded. A dead body lay in a heap in the corridor, having been shot multiple times. Someone had also used explosives to get into engineering.

  Faced with this, Jack drew his pistol, though he kept it pointed toward the ceiling as they advanced. He didn’t want to chance accidentally shooting one of the Marines in the back because something startled him. A glance at the ratings showed them emulating his posture as they raced into the engineering compartment.

  The place was an abattoir. At least eight bodies were scattered around the relatively dingy space. Most of them were in ship suits, but a couple were wearing some kind of armor.

  “Stay here,” Rossini ordered, but she gestured for two of the Marines to accompany her deeper into engineering.

  Since she was the combat specialist, he was more than happy to follow her instructions. The remaining marine set himself up at the hatch and ensured that no one slipped up on them from behind.

  Jack gestured for the ratings to move out of the way. The smart thing would’ve been for him to join them while the Marines cleared engineering, but Jack eased over to the main console.

  Even though he wasn’t an engineering officer, it only took a glance to see the primary engineering systems were operational. There were a couple of yellow items but nothing offline or dangerous.

  Rather than messing with the console, Jack focused on the Marines and watched as they moved deeper into engineering, then circled around equipment and verified no one was hiding behind anything.

  “All clear,” Rossini said after a minute. “We’ve got a couple of bodies back here, but no live ones. Sir, have you noticed the crew is armed?”

  Jack hadn’t, and he turned his attention back to the bodies scattered near the entrance. Those wearing armor had carbines—basically, short rifles that were useful in tight spaces—but even the merchant crew had pistols. Maybe the captain had armed the crew when it became apparent the pirates were going to board.

  “If they were working on repelling the pirates, they didn’t do a very good of a job of it,” he said quietly. “They’d have been better off with shotguns at this range. I’ll bring our velocity to zero and then shut down the drives.”

  It took about sixty seconds of paging through the various screens before he found the right one. Once he did, Jack disconnected the drives from bridge control and reversed thrust. It would take half an hour to bring the ship to a complete halt relative to the planet, but that would keep the ship from endangering the orbital infrastructure or even the planet itself.

  Now all he needed to do was contact the crew and assess the conditions aboard the freighter. It was conceivable that the pirates had killed the crew, which would turn this into an exceptionally grisly experience, so he hoped that wasn’t the case.

  Going to the communications substation, he opened a channel to broadcast his voice throughout the ship. “Attention, this is a boarding party from the Confederation Navy cruiser Dark Wind. We have seized control of your engineering spaces and cut your thrust. If anyone can hear my voice, please respond so we can ascertain the situation aboard your ship.”