Death Ship - SDD Five, Part Six

Captain Merriel went back to work., “Steve, Amy, get me a picture of the system. What’s coming in, and what’s going out.”
Amy answered, “Captain, The star freighters Star Achiever, Pegasus, and Wanderer have all left New America within the last eight hours. Also several shuttles have been moving from the planets surface to the orbital space dock. Lieutenant Bort’s signal could have come from any of them.”
“My bet,” the captain said, “is one of the freighters. Where are they going.?”
Steve answered, “We only have official details on Wanderer Captain, the other two had material shuttled to them and never entered New American orbital control. The Wanderer is heading for Earth. Oh, Captain, the ship we want is one that is carrying a man named Phil Baxter.”
“Did you say Phil Baxter Steve?”
“Yes sir, that’s the man’s name.” Steve said and added a non verbal communication.
“That’s a break,” Captain Merriel said, “Steve; get me a directorate priority hyperlink to SSA headquarters. I need to get to my wife Linda.”
“Right away sir,” Steve answered.
Valerie tensely sat at her position until she heard the name Phil Baxter. She got the captain’s attention, “Captain, wasn’t Phil Baxter at your house before we left on this tour?”
“Yes he was Valerie, Phil was my security officer on the Yorkshire, and he worked with Linda when she was captain of Deliverer. I refuse to believe he’s mixed up in this.”
“Captain,” Steve called, “I’ve got Captain Merriel on line.”
“Thanks Steve, “the captain said as he switched over.
The anxiety was clear in Linda Merriel’s voice when she came through the speaker. “This is Linda Merriel, is this Raven?”
Matthew Merriel answered, “Yes Linda it’s me.”
Linda’s sigh was audible, “Goodness Matt, you about stopped my heart. What do you need?”
“Linda, I’m hoping you can tell me what ship Phil Baxter is assigned to these days.”
“Sure Matt, he’s on the Pegasus, why?”
That’s all the crew needed to hear, they began querying for and tracking the Pegasus. Matthew answered his wife, “I can’t talk much about it now. I’ll tell you what I can when I get home.”
Linda needed to say more, but she was hesitate, “Ah Matt, could I ask you to transfer to your ready room. There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Of course Linda, hold on one minute.”
Captain Merriel got up from his chair, “Valerie, you have the bridge. Find that ship where ever it’s going, I want to be there ahead of it.”
“Yes sir.” Valerie answered.
“Well,” Valerie called out “what do we have?”
Amy answered first, “Pegasus has already gone into hyper-space. We won’t catch her in this system.”
“Where is she going? Steve, are you contacting Galactic Transport?”
“Yes Commander,” Steve answered a bit frustrated, “I’m getting the run around from their transport system.”
“Damn it Steve,” Valerie was in no mood for games, “patch me in.”
A voice came through the speaker, “This is dispatcher at Galactic Transport. As I told the other officer Pegasus is on a free lance run. We were paid simply for use of the ship. We have no standard schedule for it.”
“Look mister dispatcher,” Valerie growled, “don’t give me that crap. No company simply rents out a major portion of its assets, and just let’s it fly off without knowing where it’s going. I don’t care how much you were paid. You have exactly one minute to come up with a destination, or I’m going to have SSA climb all over your company looking for violations. Do you understand me mister dispatcher?”
“All right, all right,” the man gave in, “after stopping at New America, Pegasus was going to the mining colonies in the Tau Ceti system to pick up ore.”
“Tau Ceti, of course,” Valerie said as she clicked off the dispatcher who was ranting about harassment. “They never got the damn thing out of the system. Tom, get Raven to Tau Ceti pronto.” After saying the word pronto, Valerie smiled and thought, “Scott, you’re right I do read too many old books.”
At that moment Alan Erskine and Matt Bushman entered the bridge. Alan called out, “We’ve got to get Tau Ceti!”
“On the way,” Valerie said with a smile.
Alan put his hands on his hips, “My goodness Commander Olson, are you a mind reader as well? How did you know we figured out what happened to the blessed alien ship?”
“We came at it from another direction Alan, and got to the same place.”
“Lovely, just lovely,” Alan said, “Matt, we’re working with a real smart bunch here.”
“What did you two find out?” Valerie asked.
“Well,” Matt Bushman answered, “it was clear that the portal in the Tau Ceti system could lead only to the void. If a ship that size appeared in the void in the last few days, it would have been spotted it. The only conclusion was that the ship never left the Tau Ceti system.”
“The next question Valerie asked is why. “They had the jump on us. They could have been in Takelvee space before we could stop them.”
“The only logical reason we could come up with is that, they can’t. They either can’t find the portal, or that can’t activate it.”
Captain Merriel entered the bridge, “We’re on our way to Tau Ceti, excellent. We have to get Raven into the asteroid belt and then we are going passive. We’ll do a little rock hugging until Pegasus shows up.”
The ship’s name caught Matt Bushman’s attention, “Excuse me Captain, did you say Pegasus.”
“Yes I did”, Captain Merriel said, “and I was just informed about our assets aboard that ship. That should make our job a bit easier.”
Steve got the captain’s attention, “Captain, I believe our friend is preparing to access ship status from his quarters.”
The captain responded as he took his place on the command chair. “Steve, I do believe he has outlived his usefulness. Contact Sergeant Wrobel, tell to go ahead with his plan.”

Sergeant Pat Wrobel waited inside the door of the shuttle hangar. It was three hours into the night watch. The sergeant felt it was better to confront Corporal Jackson away from the marine’s quarters. Here, he would catch him when the corporal came in to use the shuttle’s communication system. The hangar was dark and quiet until the door to the main passageway slid open.
Corporal Jackson moved quickly toward the shuttle, not noticing the sergeant in the dark. Pat Wrobel called out to him, “Ray, stand where you are. The show is over.”
Ray Jackson turned and saw the sergeant standing before him. In the dim light he saw that the sergeant was not armed. Ray raised a laser pistol, “Sergeant, you should have come with a weapon. I guess that shows just how soft the directorate has become. Now, I’m going into the shuttle and you’re going to open the hangar doors.”
The sergeant put his hands on his hips defiantly, “Not a chance Jackson. What the hell are you jokers trying to prove? You know I checked out this group of yours. They don’t want to end the Takelvee threat. They want to dominate the galaxy.”
“And why not,” Jackson yelled back, “we are the most powerful life form in the galaxy. It should be ours.”
The sergeant shook his head. “You really are a bunch of sick bastards.”
“Enough talk,” Jackson said as he backed toward the shuttle, “if you don’t open the hangar doors, I’ll fire up the main engines of the shuttle right here are make a big hole in this ship.”
The sergeant moved forward. As Jackson stiffened his arm to fire, the sergeant dropped and rolled. The laser bolt went over his head scoring the bulk head on the other side of the hangar. The sergeant’s roll brought him in range. From the deck he slammed a left front kick into Jackson’s groin. Then he brought a right crescent kick around smashing into Jackson’s arm and sending the weapon flying across the hangar. The crescent kick then turned into a side kick catching the bent over corporal square on the jaw. Jackson flew against the shuttle and bounced off. As Jackson came back toward him, the sergeant scissored his legs bringing the corporal crashing face first onto the deck. The sergeant rolled to his feet and put his boot on the back of Jackson’s neck. Looking down he said, “I guess you forgot that I was battalion Tang Soo Do champion three years in a roll.” Then the sergeant used his wrist communicator to call the bridge. “Captain, the prisoner is secured, and Captain, I’d like to discuss an idea of mine with you, if you don’t mind.”

Although the hyper-drive technology had been improved considerably in star freighters, it was still no match for the speed of the sleek new dragon class destroyer. Raven slipped quietly into Tau Ceti’s asteroid belt and waited for Pegasus to come out of hyper-space.
Raven waited quietly, all unnecessary systems were on standby. Valerie spoke as they waited, “Captain, I don’t believe a ship the size of a star freighter could navigate in the access tunnel of an alien asteroid base. Assuming of course the freighter’s destination is an alien base similar to the one we discovered in the Capella system.”
“I don’t think they plan to take the freighter into the asteroid Valerie. I’m pretty sure that most of the crew of the freighter believes that they are on a simple ore pick up run. I think our radical friends will leave the freighter in a shuttle, and the freighter will go on its way, that’s why I agreed to allow Sergeant Wrobel go ahead with his plan.”
The look on Valerie’s face as she spoke said it all, “That’s a very risky plan, but I do agree that it’s the only way to get Scott out of there.”
Matthew Merriel didn’t want to make is executive officer feel worse, but he thought he had to tell her. “They’ll have a maximum of three hours to return to the ship. The shuttle will be relaying sensor information back to Amy. If the energy readings indicate that the portal is beginning to open, we will immediately enter the base and destroy the ship. I’m sorry Valerie, but we have no other options.”
“I understand sir. Sergeant Wroble is damn good. He can pull this off.”
Amy Zero announced from her sensor position. “Here they come; Captain.”
“OK,” Captain Merriel said, “here we go. Tom follow the freighter, Amy maintain stealth shielding.” Then the captain got on the communication system, “Sergeant, we’ve spotted Pegasus, get your men ready.”