Chapter 3 Exit Strategy
Viqaas surveyed the motley collection of senior, and he was using the term loosely, officers at his disposal in the briefing room. A couple of marine sergeants, the Master at Arms Franklin and the Assistant Chief Engineer Hobbs. If he managed to pull this off his hair would be as grey as Faiz’s. As he finished relaying the details of Admirals orders to them he pulled out a schematic of the Military Hub they were attached to and laid it on the out the table. It was barely readable under the dim glow of the emergency lighting. He flicked on the flexible spotlight hanging over the table to shed some light on his plans.
“We can assume the docking clamps aren’t coming off voluntarily so we’ll need to blow them, any ideas or better still C4?”
Franklin shook her head. “The gun battery magazines, small arms and explosives lockers have been stripped out ready for decommissioning. All we’ve got is what the security teams are carrying, rifles, pistols and few grenades.”
“With all due respect sir, we don’t need C4. All we need to do is blow the explosive blots using the emergency release triggers here, here and here.” Hobbs pulled a pencil out of his grubby blue overalls and pointed at the schematic his hand shaking slightly.
“I’m going to need you here to bring the wormhole generator back on line, can you brief Franklin’s people on how to do it?” the Assistant Chief nodded. “Good man, then get to it.” he turned to the marine sergeants. “Split your men into two fire teams. Mendez you secure the main air lock here. Take out the automated defences, clear a route to the recreation room and get as many of our people and their families out and back here as you can. Reynolds you’ll punch your way through here to the crew quarters. Scavenge whatever can wherever you can, guns, ammo, meds, emergency food rations, god knows we’re going to need it and then some. Remember analogues only.” He tapped his wrist communicator to emphasise the point.
He watched them disappear down the corridor to brief their men then turned to the Hobbs and Franklin “You two know what needs to be done?”
Franklin nodded. “But we’re going need three volunteers to blow the docking clamps manually.”
Viqaas raised an eyebrow quizzically. “Volunteers?”
“Yes sir, whoever blows the bolts will have to suit up and do it from outside the ship and we can’t guarantee we can get them back before we have to jump.” added Hobbs.
“You have your orders, find me those volunteers and get them suited up.”
“Aye, sir.” said the Franklin as she saluted and turned to leave the room.
Finally Viqaas turned his attention to Hobbs. “Can you do it manually? Bring the wormhole generator back on line and jump blind.”
“Theoretically, it possible, but no one’s ever calculated a jump manually, at least not in living memory.”
“Well in that case mister let’s hope you can remember how to use a slide rule, because you’re about to make history in your own lifetime.” Viqaas smiled and slapped him on the back. “At least you don’t have to worry about bringing the other systems back on line yet, we need to play dead till the docking bolts are blown and we’re ready to jump.”