Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="jasper" data-source="post: 1480245" data-attributes="member: 277">Chapter 5 Mass Messages     The silence on the high passenger deck was loud. The McQuade brothers grabbed their weapons and dove for the lift barely beating Squish to the door. As the lift open they were met by Sgt Adams who fell back to rear of the lift. Squish tired to squeeze himself into the lift but had to back out.Frank, “here is the key Squish. We send the lift down for you. Meet us at the bridge.” He punch the button and turned the override key.    All the party tired to enter the bridge at once, they saw Piero’s body slumped on the deck. Half his face was missing. The communication station was blinking. Squish activated the speaker.“Attention. Attention to any ship. Coin is interdicted world. You may not land here. If you are declaring an emergency please do so on emergency channel five. “ This stopped and the second message began, “Warning Warning to all ships in the area. Be advised that Star port Coin has been attacked by pirates. Tracking has the pirates still in system. Go to weapons hot. If possible flee and report attack to nearest star port.”    On the heels of that the third message started, “ Attention Qbert cube. Kill engines and be prepared to be boarded. This the dread pirate Robot toe. No harm will come to you if you don’t resist.”Squish snapped off the comm. He hit the intercom. ”All crew report please” he said in his soft voice.“This is Tommy I got Sprayberry down here in the engine room with me. All is secure.”Frank squeezed by Squish and hit the intercom, “ Captain Mason, Doctor Wells, Pilot Turner report.”“Captain Mason here. All is secure. The package is secure. I sending a force up the causeways to secure the passengers.”“Doctor, Pilot report in!” bellowed Frank. He motion to the gunny who gave him the high five and started opening the causeway hatch which lead to secondary crew deck. “Yo! brother The ship’s locker is open. It missing at least a shot gun.” bellowed Jesse.Squish back out of the bridge. Humaniti never built anything for normal size people. He was glad the humans were now speaking in normal tones instead of their regular whispers. He heard the lift coming up again. “Lift coming up “ he mentioned.Frank and Jesse took the left corridor and Squish took the right to flank around to the lift.     The door open to reveal a cat eating mouse grinning pilot Billy Turner. He smiled and left his shotgun on his right shoulder.    “Drop it!” order the McQuade brothers.Turner’s smile grew bigger. “ I think not. You need to drop yours if you want to live. I control this ship and you can’t do anything about it. So lower your weapons and I will let you live. If not then you and more passengers die. “    Frank replied, ‘We have you out numbered. We have you in our sights. Our weapons are aimed at you while yours is threatening the ceiling of lift. So tell me why we should lower our weapons?”    Turner, “Because of my ace in the hole. The pirates just want the ship. So I rule!” He grinned. Two shotgun blast and a laser pistol removed the grin.    “Rule Hades maybe, “ replied Frank as the smoke cleared. Then the scuttling charge in the bridge blew taking out the pilot controls. Frank called for the engineer and heard the gunny report that the doctor had been murdered.    A few minutes later Andrews and Sharnatha heads were under the console while Mason and Frank look on. Andrew and Sharnatha were arguing on how long the jury rigging would take. She was sure she could do it. Andrew knew she could not do it in under an hour. They both made their cases to Mason. Mason thought for a minute.    “Okay there no way you can get full functionality to the controls in under an hour. In one hour the pirate will be in range. Coin has nothing left space worthy. Gunny start the flight check on the SSP. Andrews grab what ever equipment you need and the people you need. Start adding seats to your ships boat. Nothing fancy just something to hold the passengers in the seats until they make land fall. Jesse start the flight check on the ship’s boat. Gunner Sprayberry warm up the weapons and I need a class on your weapon mounts as soon as you get your weapons hot. Andrews  before you get to welding open the ship’s safe and have the necessary papers if the passengers what to draw out their accounts. “ He key the intercom. “Death Dogs Charlie Company. Fetch a Pail of Water. All passengers have forty minutes to prepare for emergency disembarking. You will be limited to what you can carry on your person. Corpsman Alice Rascon will provide motion sickness and tranquilizer on request five minutes before boarding of ship’s boat. All people wanting to withdraw their funds from the ships safe report to their guide in one half hour. Middle passengers your guide will be Jesse McQuade. High passengers  your guide is Squish. That is all for now.”  He paused to collected his thoughts.    “That okay with you two Squish and Jesse?” They agreed and walked toward the lift. The Captain motioned Frank to follow him. He noticed Frank was packing two extra hand computers at his hips. As he waited for the lift he asked, “Where did you get those comps?”Frank replied, “One is the doctor’s only thing that stands out is a line of Hiver stating A good friend has a good day when he shake hands seven times. Plus our good doctor worked for GenAssist. The other is Turner’s.”  They were both quiet on the way down. As they step off the lift Alice and Alex were man handling a teenager into a vac suit. They then proceeded to frog march him into the lift.    “You want to see the SSP?” asked Mason,” It was authorized the week after you mustered out. “    “Sure” Frank replied. Frank look around. What started out as a normal hold had been butchered. A gun mount was wedge into wall next to a center divider. On closer examination it look like someone took a ship’s boat deck and wedged in a gun mount but the distance was off.    Mason keyed the iris value on the center door to reveal a ship’s boat. “ It not a ship’s boat. We tore all the cargo and passenger space out. Add three gun mounts and filled the rest with fuel. It widens the boat by two meters on the side on one meter on top. Takes a crew of five to fully operate.”    “But you only five left.” mentioned Frank.    “We will make do Frank. Feel free to look it over while I talk will Bobo and get some stuff ready.” Cass slipped into the pilot house and left Frank alone for five minutes. When he came back motion Frank to the lift as the lift started so did he, “Raise your right hand Colonel and hold out your left.” Frank did so and felt a hand comp being placed in his hand. “You in the Marines sir. Here is my comp with the latest report. Sorry I can’t stand on ceremony. I am assigning Corpsman Rascon to you. You will have to make planet fall on the night side of planet at the old star port landing on the equator. The star port lost its ship boat, some air rafts and lots of personnel on the pirates attack.  They still working on damage control and  causalities. My marines will be grounding their weapons and ammo into your ship’s boat. They will also issue each passenger a snub pistol. I hope they don’t blow your head off sir. Get the package home sir.” He saluted and dashed out the lift as it open.     The hour pass too quickly.    Jesse double checked  his console as Frank strapped himself in. Two minutes later  four gees hit him as Jesse  hit the throttle  to take them away from the Qbert cube. The last thing he saw before the boat swung toward the planet was the Qbert cube going one way. The SSP going the other. Was there any chance of two ships manned with three men each could fight off a pirate and survive?</blockquote>

Verification