Ocampo shrugged at this. Thao shot him a look that was a textbook example of disgust. Then she turned back to Womack and me. “There was nothing on the sensors before the power went out.”
“No, ma’am,” Womack said. “Nothing but clear space to the skip point.”
“Outside sensors still down.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Womack said. “They should be working fine. They’re just not. I can’t tell you why.”
Thao turned to Han. “Tell someone to go to an airlock and look out the goddamned portal, please,” she said.
Han nodded and spoke briefly into a headset; presumably somewhere belowdecks a crew member was heading to an airlock. “We should start forming security details, Captain,” he said, after he was done.
“You think whoever it is out there is going to board us,” Thao said.
“I do,” Han said. “You said it yourself, whoever this is, they’re not your typical pirates. I think the only thing of value on the Chandler to whoever they are is the Chandler.”
“No,” Thao said, looking back at Ocampo. “There’s something else here, too.”
A ping came up from Womack’s console. We both turned to look at it.
“What is it?” Thao asked.
“An outside signal,” I said.
Womack picked up her headset. “It’s addressing you specifically, Captain,” she said to Thao a moment later.
“Put it on speaker,” Thao said. Womack switched it over and nodded to the captain. “This is Captain Eliza Thao,” she said.
“Captain Thao, you have three Melierax Series Seven missiles locked onto your ship,” a voice said. It had that metallic, grating tone that made it clear it was artificially generated. “The first will impact and detonate midships, at a point where the structural integrity of the Chandler is the weakest. This will not destroy your ship but will kill many of your crew, and open a direct path to your engines, where the second missile will strike. That will vaporize two-thirds of your ship instantly, killing nearly every one of your crew. The third missile is for mop up.
“As a trade ship, you have no significant defenses. Even if you had, we have jammed your external sensors. Your communications are also jammed and you are light-years away from any civilian or CDF station in any event. Your skip drone launchers are already targeted by particle beams. Your power is down and you will discover, if you have not already, that you will be unable to get it back online before your emergency battery power exhausts itself. If you were not already targeted for destruction by our missiles, you and your crew would freeze, and those who did not would asphyxiate.”
“Listen to me—” Thao began.
“If you interrupt again we will launch our missiles,” the voice said.
Thao shut up.
“This is not a negotiation or a parley,” the voice continued. “We are telling you what you will have to do in order for you and your crew to survive the next few hours.
“And it is this. You will open your airlocks for external entry. You will assemble your entire crew in your ship’s cargo hold. We will enter your ship and take control of it. If any of your crew is found outside of the cargo hold when we board, we will destroy the ship and everyone on it. If any of your crew attempts to attack us or thwart us in taking control of your ship, we will destroy the ship and everyone on it. If you attempt to abandon ship, we will target and destroy the lifepods and destroy the ship and anyone remaining on it. If you and your crew do anything other than assemble in the cargo hold and await further instruction, we will destroy the ship and everyone on it.
“You will have five minutes from right now to signal your understanding of these directions. You will then have one hour to signal that these directions have been fulfilled. If we do not receive both, then your ship and everyone on it will be destroyed.
“That is all.”
“Is that channel still clear?” Thao asked Womack.
Womack looked at her panel. “Yes,” she said. “Everything else is still jammed up.”
Thao turned to Ocampo. “These aren’t your friends, I assume.”
“No,” Ocampo said. “This is definitely not how they would have greeted us.”
“And what do you think has happened to your friends?”
“I don’t know,” Ocampo said. “It’s entirely possible they were attacked, too.”
“Options,” Thao said, turning to Han.
“Assuming they are telling us the truth about the missiles, none,” Han said. “Whoever that was is right. We have no real defenses. We can’t outrun them. And even if we direct all emergency power to life support, we don’t have much time.”
“And if they’re not telling us the truth about the missiles?”
“Then we launch lifepods, fight them when they arrive on the ship, and destroy the ship ourselves if necessary,” Han said. “To Hell with these guys.”