Space Odyssey: Spectre

They moved to the hangar door. Jace walked nonchalantly as he remotely accessed the ship’s systems. First he locked everything down, making sure that no signals were leaving the ship and that all of the airlock’s hanger doors and other external access ports were closed. It was easy, especially since the on-board artificial intelligence helped him almost immediately. But the Lance was already preparing to make a jump and he could not remotely stop that. But it was interesting that they were choosing to jump into space rather than make a portal.

They arrived at the hangar door and Jace was pulled out of his thoughts by his electrical sight. He made a signal to Na and they moved to either side of the door. He then motioned and made a three with his fingers. Na nodded in understanding and kept his laser pistol ready.

Whoosh!

The door slid open and a rifle nozzle poked its way through the entrance first and was quickly followed by a soldier in battle armor. He moved past them before tensing and spinning around. But Jace’s pistol was already firing.

Bang!

Unlike usual, he did not shoot the soldier in the head. Instead shooting them in the shoulder and through the gun they were holding. "Arrgh!" The scream of pain caught the other two soldier’s attention. The first of which was already partially through the door.

Jace grabbed his rifle and pulled it away before grabbing the second one by the front of the chest plate and spinning them around and slamming them into the wall. "Ja!" It screamed in pain and went for its side arm but Jace was already pointing the barrel of the pistol at its visor so it froze.

The third soldier came through with his weapon pointed out at Jace so his back was to Na. Which was realized when Na pressed the barrel of his pistol against the soldier’s head. "Drop the gun." Na ordered.

"You drop your gun." The soldier he was holding at gunpoint declared. "I have my barrel on him."

"Yeah, but his armor can take a few shots. Can yours take a few to the back of the head at point blank range?" Na asked. After a few seconds the soldier lowered the gun and held up his hands. "Good choice."

Jace turned his attention to the one he was holding up against the wall. The injured one was still trying to stop the bleeding from his shoulder. He seemed to realize almost immediately that they were out matched and could have died if Jace was too annoyed. "What is going on?" Jace demanded.

He saw as the opaque visor switched to a clear one so he could see the mar’talic’s eyes. "I am not telling you anything." He answered as his eyes looked to the side and up. "So you might as well kill me."

Jace hummed while he discreetly traced the path of the mar’talic’s eyes. He recognized him, the mar’talic was not just loyal but idolized Jace. "You should start answering questions before we get a bit trigger happy." Na announced while Jace found what the soldier was trying to show him.

A camera in the corner of the hangar. Which was supposed to be off, but was on instead. He missed it. With only a thought he disabled the entire ship’s camera feeds and jammed all internship communications. The light in the camera turned off.

"It’s down. Explain." Jace realized the mar’talic and Na seemed confused.

"I am sorry sir. We did not expect an entire mercenary crew to turn on us. But apparently they are going to be paid with a planet as reparations." The soldier apologized immediately.

Na released the soldier he was holding as he caught up to what was going on. "How did they manage to take control of the ship? There are protocols-"

"Which did not matter." The mar’talic declared. The other soldier went to help the injured one while they listened to the mar’talic. "They timed it perfectly, as soon as you were off the ship they took both the bridge crew and the children hostage. They only came back because they figured they had a decent chance of dragging you in as well."

Jace hummed. "Take Na and find anyone else loyal and go to where they are holding the children hostage."

"The artillery bay." The soldier answered. "Myself and others were already quietly planning to attack and free them. But we still have the bridge crew to worry about."

"I will take care of the hijackers on the bridge. I want everyone else to worry about the bridge crew." Jace announced but then had a thought. "Make sure you send people to other areas of the ship that can go bomb if explosives are detonated. There was only one crew of mercenaries aboard and that was the White Resel, I know they have fall back plans for when all else fails."

The soldier nodded and they walked out into the hall. When they did, Jace connected them to a private channel. "Contact me on this channel. All other communications are jammed." He informed them as he jogged through the ship. A pang of worry in his chest. He hoped Jordan and Cho were okay.

—-------------------

She was a fucking moron. She was too relaxed and let her guard down. She should have seen this coming. But no, her bad habit of letting her guard down was still disastrous as always. If her mother hears about this she will never let Shilla live this down.

"Why so cranky you Centuria bitch?" The cyborg human chuckled as he ran a hand along her cheek.

Shilla’s mouth snapped out and towards his hand. He pulled away his hand quickly. But not quickly enough. Shilla bit off his pinky.

"Aahhh!" He screamed as Shilla smirked with a mouth covered in blood. "Fucking bitch!" She pointed his pistol at her head. She grinned up at him with a triumphant smirk. "I will blow your fucking brains out!"

A hand pulled his gun away and the boss of these hijacking traitorous mercenaries glared at the cyborg human. "I told you to not get too close to her. Now go stop that bleeding. We still need her for the moment."

That they did. Shilla was sitting on her knees in the middle of the bridge with her arms chained to the floor. But normally not even that would stop her from tearing these guys in two. But what was stopping her was the fact that Cho and Jordan were here and had barrels of guns pointed at their heads.

"Pthu!" Shilla spit the pink across the room and hit it against the view screen. "Fucker tasted like ass anyways. Then again, I guess deal breaking scum like you would be trash. It only made sense."

"Captain Shilla, I will remind you that you do have two adopted daughters. We can spare one to make a point." Isel of the White Resel announced. He was the boss of the small mercenary company and had actually worked in the Underworld System for over a year. Any and all information they had been exposed to had been compromised.

Shilla growled in response. She should have realized something was wrong with this all human crew of mercenaries. But she had been too relaxed, now the crew and her adopted daughters were paying the price.

"We need the captain’s codes to go to warp rider mode." One of the mercenaries announced from the navigation computer.

It was fortunate that she was able to pass on enough information to make Jace double check. Because now he probably knew that something was wrong. "You heard him. Give us the codes Captain." Isel demanded.

Shilla grumbled. "Fine. Alpha-sierra-seven-eleven-echo-#%%&%-three." They flinched at the unfamiliar word. "You are going to have to switch it to Centurian for that word." She smirked as the mercenaries exchanged looks of confusion.

"I say we shoot one of the bitch’s kids and see if she was telling the truth." The cyborg human with a robotic eye from before suggested as he held his hand with a severed finger covered in bandages that were quickly turning red.

Isel turned to him in anger. "That is the worst-"

"Shit!" One of the other mercenaries interrupted them. They all turned to him.

"What now?" Isel demanded in a tired tone of voice. Nothing had gone perfectly for him. But with a plan as complex as his he should have expected to lose at least five people which is what happened.

When they first boarded the bridge, Shilla had killed three of them before they revealed the children as hostages. While apparently both Jordan and Cho had both taken one down apiece as well. She was honestly really proud when she heard that.

"I am sorry sir, I looked away. All of the cameras are off line." The mercenary that interrupted him explained.

"Contact the artillery bay." He demanded.

"The inter-ship communications are being jammed as well." Another mercenary announced.

"Fuck!" Isel cursed and glared at Shilla who smiled fully to reveal her blood covered teeth.