The orbiting city filled every interface on the bridge. Less than an hour from target range, the mood on the bridge was electric. Mingana stood in front of her chair, fixated on the central interface while Duke Rassellin transmitted the city's coordinates to those of his people in Weapons room 3 in charge of operating the Consortium weapon. Helm paced the bridge's lower section, rubbing his hands in anticipation. Povich walked from station to station ensuring that everything flowed smoothly leading up to the weapon's deployment.
“Consortium ships, Hrizer and Kemirt are inbound,” announced a sensor specialist. “ETA, twelve minutes.”
Mingana switched images on her personal interface and watched real time footage of both Consortium ships approaching the Horseman at max impulse. She turned partially and met the eye of an officer at the weapons station named Daoud.
The weapons officer motioned a subtle nod.
Mingana nodded back and returned her attention to the interface. Casually, she strode to a console behind her command chair. As she activated a control panel, she glanced up to see Helm watching her. If the observer was curious about why Mingana was at the console, he didn't show it. If anything, he was clearly preoccupied with other matters.
Mingana looked away from the observer, and began typing on a keypad.
“Captain,” Helm called.
“Yes, Observer?”
“Is everything alright?”
Mingana replied without looking at the observer. Her fingers continued to blur across the keypad. “Never better, Observer.”
“Captain, communication is down,” said Povich, his brow crinkled in puzzlement.
Both Helm and Rassellin faced the Second.
“We have neither outgoing nor incoming communication.” Povich leaned forward, gleaning data from a com station interface. “Diagnostic isn't revealing anything. Must be a momentary glitch caused by cosmic radiation.”
“I'm not interested in guesses, Commander,” Helm said, his jaw clenched tight with tension. “Find out exactly what's wrong and fix it.”
Mingana regarded the observer with a hooded gaze. It wasn't Helm's place to give orders to her crew. It was even less appropriate for him to adopt a berating tone while doing so. Normally, she would have pulled the observer aside for a word. But, after what she had just done, nothing that came before this fateful moment mattered. The Rubicon had been crossed.
A dozen Shipboard Marines in polished navy blue armor suddenly stormed onto the bridge, their weapons raised.
Rassellin's bodyguards reacted swiftly, leveling their blasters on the marines. Duke Rassellin reached for the jeweled-handled ceremonial knife sheathed at his hip.
“Stand down, Duke!” Mingana shouted. “Tell your guards to drop their weapons!”
Lt. Winter approached the captain with an extra firearm in hand, a KR auto-shotgun. The captain accepted the weapon and aimed it at Rassellin.
“Captain! What the hell are you doing?” Helm exclaimed, in gape-mouthed shock..
Povich froze, his eyes flashing skittishly between armed parties. “Captain...what's going on?”
“It should be obvious to you, Commander Povich,” Rassellin said, slowly, defiantly drawing his blade. “Your captain is a traitor.” He threw a cutting glance Helm's way. “And your U.N. Authority vetted her. Pitiful.”
Mingana cocked the KR with attitude. “Duke Rasellin, you're not in a very tenable position. Plus, I just implemented an executive override, shutting down all communication, further isolating you and your people on this ship. If you want to avoid the shitstorm I'm prepared to rain on you, I strongly advise you and your guards to surrender.”
Rasellin huffed in a manner of laughter peculiar to his species. “I love these colorful human metaphors.” The Duke appeared thoughtful. “Why don't we do this instead. You and every traitor backing you will surrender to me. You will undo this executive override and then I turn you over to Observer Helm's custody. He'll detain you and your accomplices and we resume our mission. The alternative is we kill you on the spot. You choose.”
Mingana stared at the Duke as if the other had gone certifiably mad. “Drop your weapons, now. I will not make that request again.”
Rassellin's blade glowed like silver fire. “Neither will I, Captain.” He screamed an utterance in his native tongue and both of his guards opened fire.
Dark, scorching iridescence streamed from the guards' blasters, ripping into three marines before the rest retaliated.
Marine M82s pulsed furiously. Carbon-jacketed rounds smacked into the Consortium guards' armored suits with no initial debilitating effects. Projectile impacts staggered the guards, but they continued firing, dark energy stabbing like black arrows into marine armor.
Mingana dove behind a console and popped up, triggering her KR. Massive titanium shells spurted from her auto-shotgun's barrel in deafening rapid fire reports. A guards head snapped back, his faceplate holed by a shotgun shell that burrowed halfway into his skull.
Bridge crew scrambled for cover. Two officers and a specialist, caught in the crossfire, tumbled to the deck in bloody heaps.
Rassellin charged toward the nearest marine. His energized blade flashed, plunging hilt deep into the marine's neck guard.
The marine let out a wet gurgle as Rassellin extracted the blade and swung swiftly to his right. The blade's molecular edge sliced effortlessly through the armor, flesh and bone of a second marine, lopping off an arm at the elbow.
The Duke started to lunge toward another marine but a spatter of M82 bullets peppered his torso, stopping him short.
Mingana rammed her KR's muzzle into the side of Rassellin's head and squeezed the trigger. A third of the Duke's head erupted in a globular fountain of brain and bone fragments from the KR's thunderous discharge.
The marines poured combined fire into the last Consortium guard. The guard somehow remained upright, despite a raging welter of rounds gouging hot divots out of his near impenetrable armor.
“Everyone down!” Lt. Winter shouted.
Mingana and the marines hit the deck as Winter launched a grenade from her M82.
The grenade struck the tottering guard square in the chest and detonated. The blast turned the guards torso into a steaming crater. Shockwaves reverberated through the bridge like an assault from giant invisible sledgehammers.
Observer Helm rushed to his feet and grabbed a dead guard's blaster. He pointed it at Mingana, but his grip on the alien weapon lacked surety. Panic flared bright as torches in his eyes. “Put your weapons down!”
Mingana trained her shotgun on the observer. Her surviving marines did the same.
“Don't be an idiot, Helm,” Mingana growled. With adrenaline pumping through her body like wildfire, and impatience gnawing at her discipline, she hoped she could suppress a burning compulsion to blow the observer's head off.
“The Consortium are our allies...our...our...friends,” Helm stammered, the blaster shaking in his hand. “They rid us of the Calaar, gave us our planet back...and this is the gratitude you show them?”
“Gratitude for what?” Mingana bit off, her face twisted in ridicule.. “For returning us to the same instability that wracked our world before the Calaar came? The Calaar helped us...”
“They hobbled us!” Helm cut in, displaying teeth like a cornered wolf. “They took away out ability to solve our own problems, tackle our own challenges.”
“We weren't doing an effective job of that in the first place,” said the captain. “Hell, too many people with the power to effect change had no interest in doing so. Too much profit to be made maintaining a status quo that condemned billions to poverty and suffering. But I'm not going to waste time arguing the pros and cons of Human-Calaar relations with you.” Mingana stepped forward with very meaningful intent. “Drop that blaster.”
Helm wisely chose not to test the captain's resolve. Despairingly, he lowered the weapon and let it slip from his fingers to clatter on the deck.
Lt Winter rushed forward to pick up the blaster while a marine slapped cuffs on the observer.
Mingana gazed gravely at the dead and wounded marines sprawled on the deck and sighed wistfully. Over half down against two guards and a puffed up VIP. She knew the Consortium soldiers would be a formidable challenge with their durable armor and powerful guns...but she hadn't imagined that they would be this difficult to bring down even with upgraded assault weapons. She reached down to pick up Duke Rassellin's knife and appraised it with a grudging respect. The blade still glowed with lethal energy. She glanced at the ill fortuned marine with the amputated arm, knotted her brow in sympathy, and gestured to an officer. “Get a medical team up here.”
The officer like the rest of the bridge crew looked a like frightened rabbit.
“Now!”
The officer moved promptly in compliance. Although, it was clear his obedience was motivated more by the automatic shotgun in Mingana's hand than her status as a superior officer.
Mingana couldn't help but to be amused by the irony. Here she was a captain leading a mutiny on her own ship. “Listen up,” she announced to the entire bridge. “As you've no doubt gathered, our mission has changed. We no longer work for the Consortium. Some of you may be fine with that, others not. Those of you who are not, step forward. I promise no harm will come to you. You'll simply be confined to quarters. The rest, we have work to do and all I'll require from you is one hundred percent loyalty, one hundred percent commitment.”
Five crew members stepped forward. Two marines immediately escorted them from the bridge.
Two of the five operated critical systems, as did the ones who were deceased.
Mingana rubbed her brow. She would manage..
She noticed that Povich hadn't budged, but the critical set of his face offered no guarantee of support..
“Commander?” She said, solicitously.
Povich frowned. “You've put me in quite a predicament, Captain.”
Mingana conceded with a guilty nod. “Let's talk, Second...if you're still my Second.”
Povich offered no hints.
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