Read Online Revolution: The Ship Series // Book Two by Jerry Aubin - Free Book Online Page B

image of the human fighter pixelated and scrambled. It was replaced not
with the Captain’s face but instead cycled through images showing various
compartments which appeared to have been torn apart by bomb blasts. Bloodied
and dismembered bodies, civilian and Crew alike, dominated the pictures. Zax
and Kalare both gasped when Flight Ops, with its unique dual panoramas,
appeared on the screen. Zax recognized a few of the dead Crew as people he had
worked with previously and imagined that Kalare must know all of them. Each
image featured large numbers of dead Marines with their heavy battle armor
mangled and shattered. The same voice from the earlier announcement started to
speak as the bloody images continued to cycle.
    “I regret to inform everyone that your Captain made a
very poor choice. She clearly didn’t believe me when I said she had lost
control of the Ship and decided to put my assertion to the test with her
ill-advised FTL jump. I can only assume her intent was to allow Marines to
retake certain compartments. The images you are watching were taken from Flight
Ops, Primary Grav Control, and Primary Life Support among others. My teams who
earlier took command of critical compartments such as these came prepared with
explosives. Members of each team have detonators biologically implanted which
will trigger their bombs if that team member dies or is no longer within close
proximity of their assigned device. Of course, team members can also choose to
detonate manually if they feel they are under threat and want to neutralize the
compartment rather than allow the Crew to regain control.”
    Zax thought back to the unidentified cases he had seen
arranged around Engineering Control after the civilians arrived. He imagined
they were close enough to hear the blast if those were indeed bombs and
Engineering had suffered the same fate as Flight Ops, but it was impossible to
know for certain. He focused back on the screen as the woman continued.
    “Captain—I implore you to understand you are no
longer in charge. We are. Do not attempt anything like this again. Acknowledge
my attempts to communicate with you directly. We can resolve this situation
without further loss of life or the Ship’s operational capacity, but only if you
respond to my attempts to hail you and discuss the terms of your surrender.”
    The voice paused for a moment and then returned.
    “I’m pleased to announce we’ve finally established
communication with the Bridge. I’m not yet speaking with the Captain, but I
hope to do so as soon as she’s ready to work together to resolve this matter.
In the meantime, I reiterate my call for all Crew to drop your arms and return
to your quarters. There’s no need for any more of you to die today than already
have.”
     

 
    CHAPTER TWELVE
    Give
me the blaster!
    Kalare spoke as soon as the vidscreen faded back to the image of the human fighter.
    “OK, that settles it. We’ve got to get out of here now!”
    Aleron seemed dumbfounded. “Are you crazy? You heard
her. They’ve got full control and are talking to the Bridge right now. The
Captain will agree to whatever they want and end this any min. Why do you want
to risk running into trigger-happy civilians and getting ourselves killed?”
    “You’re delusional if you think the Captain is going to
surrender, Aleron.” Kalare’s voice became more strident. “I don’t know the
woman, but I damn well know the Flight Boss, and they’re cut from the same
cloth. That man would sooner cut off the oxygen supply and kill everyone on board
before he would give in to a civilian’s demands. In fact, we’re all probably
lucky that Primary Life Support got blown up and now it will be more
challenging for the Omegas to do exactly that. We’ve got to get out of here and
find a safer place to be before all hell breaks loose. You know I’m right, Zax,
tell him!”
    Zax had intended to back Aleron once again, but Kalare’s
observations about the Flight Boss hit