The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (The Battle for the Solar System)

VIII - The Cardinal and The Thief

Not long after returning to their designated route, the White Knights received new orders: they were requested to assist CSN Cardinal, a mobile research facility vessel, which had been attacked and boarded by a raiding party. As the Knights arrived within the vicinity of the Cardinal they found it drifting, damaged, and apparently powerless.

"Have you ever seen that ship before?" Estelle asked of her team. There was a resounding answer of "no" from all as they approached. Large quantities of debris drifted around the area, some of which appeared to belong to the Cardinal, the rest no doubt the remains of whomever had attacked her. From the looks of things the Cardinal had been equipped with some offensive weaponry and had made a conservative effort to defend itself.

"I'm unable to establish a comms link with Cardinal," Chaz reported. "Failure on all standard protocols."

"I'm going to head in and give the ship a quick sweep," Dodds said.

"Dodds, wait," Estelle said, as she saw him begin to pull away from the rest of the group. "Our orders are to secure the area and wait for backup to arrive." Though there did not appear to be any other craft in the area, Estelle ordered the others to hold their current position and keep a watchful eye on their radars.

Sometime later two Confederation search and rescue vessels arrived; they only recognised one: the Merekat.

"Area is secured," Estelle informed the captain of the Merekat as the search and rescue vessel approached the Cardinal and pulled up alongside it. The other vessel held back, waiting to serve any support requests.

"Affirmative, de Winter, we're going to send over a landing party. Please continue to monitor the area," the captain of the Merekat said as his ship closed on the Cardinal and deployed a boarding tube.

"Think anyone is alive in there?" Dodds asked of his wingmates.

"From the looks of things they're all dead," Kelly said. "We probably got here a little too late."

"At least they put up a decent fight," Dodds commented.

"Not good enough though," Estelle answered, raising her eyes up from her radar and looking at the lifeless ship they had been requested to assist. She watched as another piece of wreckage drifted toward her TAF before bouncing harmlessly off the shielding. She could see somewhere further off what appeared to be the remains of a small vessel, perhaps a one-man fighter craft of some sort. She assumed the Cardinal must have been attacked by a small group of raiders, each in their own individual craft. She dropped her eyes back down to her radar and wondered what might be going on inside.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Enrique asked Chaz. The big man was fiddling with the Ray's on-board computer, his fingers tapping away at the small keyboard underneath one of the screens.

"Finding out what's going on," he said. He continued pressing buttons and tapping at the screen, the computer issuing an occasional bleep in response. Enrique didn't recognise anything that was being displayed on the screen Chaz was accessing. The general lack of finesse in the layouts and aesthetics of the data representation suggested that the man had accessed something that was only to be used by maintenance and systems workers, and was not supposed to be readily available to the pilots.

A moment later voices filled the cockpit and Enrique gave a start.

"This is Williams. Docking tube fixed and stable. Moving towards airlock," a voice came.

"Copy that, Williams. Scans indicate some internal damage to the Cardinal. Proceed with caution," another voice answered.

"Will do, Captain. We will maintain an open channel," Williams said.