The Taking of the Sunny Shifter
Remmy watched it all happen, Captain Valent ruthlessly leading the charge, executing crewmembers, and collapsing. It was the beauty of being a high-functioning multitasker, but he also suffered from the curse that came with it. When Valent fell and Minh-Chu struggled to keep him alive, Remmy was deeply distracted, and all other thought came to an utter halt.
“Sergeant!” Bell Dul shouted over a private comm channel as she punched his shoulder. “Are you with us?”
His thoughts returned to the present, to the corridor leading to the bridge. They’d laid traps – pressure mines rigged to two airlocks set to flush any intruders into space – and his second, nicknamed Dotty, was brandishing a skitter who was about to go on an adventure. “We’re ready to go, do you want me to tell him to run down the hall?” she was asking.
Remmy glanced at his tactical display by reflex, checking on the positioning of his people. Four of his Ranger squad were guarding Kann Berin, their pilot, as he controlled most of the ship functions from the engineering section. The rest were around Remmy, at the neck of the last corridor leading to the bridge of the large hauler ship. “Set him loose,” Remmy said. “And lock your boots to the deck.”
Dotty dropped the skitter. “Sorry, little guy,” she said as they watched the small bot with a shiny half-shell walk down the hall on six fine legs. It stopped on the verge of the first pair of pressure mines’ sensor range for a moment, then flattened out as much as it could, its six exposed limbs retreating into its shell as much as they could before moving on.
“Oh, if he makes it through to the other side without triggering anything, I’m gonna be pissed,” Dul said.
“You disabled its higher functions, right Dotty?” Remmy asked.
“Oh, no, I didn’t. I thought they might be useful if something interesting came up, little guy might have to improvise.”
The skitter straightened up after ducking under the first pair of pressure mines’ sensor radius and getting past them successfully. It hesitated a moment, as though considering the next pair of mines, then sprung upwards and forward, almost striking the ceiling. “Well, you’re not wrong, but now that thing is aware of its mortality,” Bell Dul said. “If there’s a way for him to get through without getting-“
The skitter almost made it through the second set of pressure mines sensors when they went off, crushing the little robot. The airlocks just past the no-man’s-land opened just long enough to draw the atmosphere and the bot out into space. “Well, the point’s moot now,” Remmy said.
“Poor thing,” Dotty said.
“Shoot the mines out while they’re recharging,” Remmy said, firing at the nearest mine, melting it after a few shots with his pulse rifle. “Quick, we don’t have much time. Their shields are already coming up.”
His squad exceeded his expectations again, moving swiftly but in formation, taking care to keep their boots affixed to the deck. They shot the four pairs of pressure mines well before the shields were too charged up to be vulnerable to their rifles. As soon as they reached the double-wide hatch to the bridge, Anton Zwarif slapped a transmission plate onto the hatch, a small audio patch that would vibrate the metal enough for sound to come through the other side.
“If you surrender the bridge and the command codes for your ship, you will be loaded into escape pods and jettisoned,” Remmy said. “If you do not open the doors in ten seconds, I will superheat the hatch and break the doors down. Your bridge will survive, but I doubt your suits will protect you from thirty-four hundred degrees as the door melts.”
To Remmy’s surprise, his scanners indicated that the locking mechanism on the bridge was deactivated. “Get to the side,” he ordered, and he was the last to take a position to the right of the hatchway.
The doors slid open, revealing an irate looking crew of seven. Three of them knelt on the floor, while four had their pistols out, pointed at the back of their heads. “The ship and her captain are yours,” shouted a short man with his weapon pointed at the man kneeling in the middle. “We’re just contractors, we didn’t ask for this.”
“All right, then,” Remmy said, making sure his shield was fully charged before he stepped out into the open. He pointed his rifle at the group and was followed by the rest of his squad. “We’ll take it from here, just give us the command codes and cooperate while we load you into escape pods.”
“What?” asked one of the standing crewmembers. “We can’t get rescued, we mutinied as soon as you took the main control column for the ship!”
Remmy thought for a moment.
“Maybe we should recruit them?” Dotty asked.
“Shh,” Remmy said, “I’m thinking.” He checked the mission status and saw that the Warlord was ready to open a high compression wormhole; they were out of time. “Right, we’re locking all of you up.” He took aim at the short one in the centre of the group with his rifle, making an obvious show of it. “You have fifteen seconds to slide your weapons over here, and to take those company vacuum suits off.”
“Strip? What the-“ objected one of the crewmembers at the back.
Remmy fired several shots at a seat to the group’s left. It exploded in a puff of stuffing. He took aim at the remaining crewmembers again. “You spend this trip naked in the brig, or dead. I’m going to start counting now.”
The weapons came sliding through the door and the crew’s clothes came off before Remmy counted down to three. He walked to the captain, who was resuming his former position, on his knees, and took a command chip from around his neck. His glove made a connection with the small gold coloured data chip and confirmed that it contained all the command codes for the hauler, ship manifest, and their inventory. “Brand new ship with old school security,” Remmy said. “Thank you, Regent Galactic, for setting a low standard for security systems everywhere.” He turned towards Dotty. “Do a thorough scan of the bridge and shut down all the systems here. We have to make sure nothing will interfere with Kann Berin’s system control team in Engineering. We’ll take this lot to the brig when we’re under way.”