BORN OF HEROES

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 43
 

The freighter docked to the port side of the Spatial Police Force cruiser looked out of place with the fleet that surrounded them, its ruby red and gold trimmed paint scheme was a splash of bright color when compared to the dark grey of the myriad warships. Inside the bay that was attached to the docking tube Elias and his senior crew, which was everyone from the Guiding Angel and Colonel Brees, waited as the airlock cycled open. A human in a simple button down shirt, leather vest, boots and kilt paused at the threshold of the inner hatch of the cruiser. “Permission to come aboard, Captain Tivnan?” the man asked, a grin on his clean shaven face.

  Elias’ answering grin was just as wide. “Permission granted, Captain Gordon.”

  The man stepped aboard and the two friends shared a comradely embrace complete with back slapping.

  “You’re looking good, Alistair,” the fox said once they’d greeted each other.

  “You’re not looking too bad yourself, Toddy-boy!” The man then turned to the lion. “Pleasure to see you again, Sandy. We have something you might want to see,” Alistair told all of them, his expression slipping into something more serious. “We ran into something on the run back to the Centaurus system. And I mean literally ran into it.”

  The human motioned to the rest of his crew, two of them, a red panda and mouse, hauling a black sphere almost a foot and a half in diameter on a cargo pallet. The device had several antennae sticking off of it and several lenses for cameras and digital recorders.

  “Surveillance drone,” the Scot said with a frown. “Turns out the entire bleedin’ Van Connor is seeded with the things. We found this one near that area you had that engagement with the two Carrack class pirate ships,” he told Elias. “Nedry here already popped it open and took a gander at the insides. Seems that it’s chock full o’ data,” Alistair said as he motioned to the red panda.

  The short engineer nodded and stepped forward. “The only reason that it wasn’t picked up was because of a through penetration of the outer casing, either spatial debris or shrapnel from the destruction of those two ships,” Nedry told the crowd, pointing with a stubby finger at a rough, triangular shaped hole in the black surface. “It took out the recall transmitter but didn’t harm the mem’ry banks. There’s a lot of detailed pics in there of the Guiding Angel.”

  “That explains how they knew what ship to look for,” Saul said with a low growl to his voice, the insect-like appearance of the automated drone giving him the creeps. He’d never liked spiders unless they were plastered on the bottom of his boots, and the drone looked like a representative of that species.

  “This is exactly how they knew,” Alistair said. “Though I’ve put a serious crimp in their plans for these things,” the human told the others with a wry grin. “Nedry was able to locate the recall signal. We’ve spent over a week picking these things up from all around that particular entry point of the nebula. Fools were using the same frequency for all the snoopers so it was easy to gather ‘em up.”

  “How many did you find?” Elias asked his friend curiously.

  “About three hundred of them, give or take a few dozen,” the human replied with a shrug. He looked at Brees. “Think the Academy might want ‘em fer target practice?”

  “Why do that?” Cerise asked. “It’s a waste. Let’s reprogram them and seed the nebula and let them work for us? It wouldn’t be hard to set it so they transmit on a secure frequency. If you launch them so they travel through the gas cloud, some of them might give us some good visual intelligence that we can use.”

  The rest of the group looked at the vixen as Elias and Rovi grinned in pride. Alistair shook his head in appreciation. “Ya told me yer mate was a wonderful lass, but ya didn’ tell me she was as smart as she was pretty!”

  Cerise beamed at the unexpected praise and shrugged. “If we can use their own materials against them, why waste our own resources?”

  Brees scratched at his chin. “Get with Ensign Tivnan here, and Cadet Brees to coordinate with the Valiant,” he told the human. “Deliver the snoopers to them. It’s a recon ship with the ability to redeploy the satellites. Give them your coordinate data as well. We’ll hang back for a week so they can go ahead and implement Cerise’s plan.”

  “Cadet Brees? Did one of the cubs finally decide to join up?” Alistair asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “My adopted daughter. Elias and the rest of the crew from the Guiding Angel rescued her on their maiden cruise,” the lion said with a note of pride.

  “Talk about a family business!” the Scot said with a laugh.

  “It’s going to take a while for Cadet Brees to initiate a rendezvous,” Elias told his friend. “Think you’re up to having dinner with us?”

  “Dinner?” Alistair exclaimed. “I’m still on bloody Fynian time! It’s breakfast for us and we haven’t had the chance to eat yet.”

  “Good,” the fox said with a nod. “I just happen to have a good supply of smoked salmon and fresh eggs…”

  The human’s eyes grew wide and bright, pleased that his friend remembered his favorite food. He took Cerise’s arm in an exaggerated, roguish manner.” Lead the way, Toddy-boy! With such beauty as this to intrigue me, how can I refuse such an invitation!”

  Cerise patted the man’s hand. “I guess I can settle for being escorted by the second best pirate hunter Captain of the fleet,” she said in an offhand manner, deflating the human’s ego efficiently. When Alistair let his arm drop she smoothly took Elias’ hand. “Coming Alistair?” the vixen asked with a backwards glance.

  “Bloody hell,” he said stunned, then broke out into a grin. “One day I’ll find me a woman like that!”

  They were all laughing as they followed the white fox and his mate to the officer’s mess.

— NEXT CHAPTER —

Unless otherwise noted, all material © Ted R. Blasingame. All rights reserved.