"Copy," Dude repeated—a word he would say a thousand times that night.
Talon swept the bridge one more time, his lightcatching on scattered papers and overturned equipment, before heading down below deck. He heard his team check in as they cleared the areas they were assigned. As Talon went deeper, he noted the destruction of the bridge was methodical, purposeful. Someone had wanted to ensure the ship couldn't navigate.
Jug's voice came over the comms, steady and professional: "Two tangos eliminated. ID kit gathered."
Hammer whispered back, "Negative contact. Clear. Proceeding to lower decks."
Talon crept down the stairs through the crew quarters, his rifle ready. The hallways were narrow, with metal walls that reeked of cigarettes, oil, and the unique stench of human beings. Sweat, waste, and remnants of cooked food hung in the air. The air was thick and stifling, pressing against the back of his nose. He opened his mouth and tried to mitigate the stench.
As he moved, he noticed the cabin doors hung open, their locks broken. Most rooms had been ransacked, personal belongings scattered like leaves after a windstorm. One room had a large pool of blood on the mattress. The dark stain spoke of the violence this crew had suffered. Talon slowed andpurposefully pulled in a lungful of air. Cigarette smoke. Fresh.
He moved cautiously and silently. In the dining room off the galley, a still-burning cigarette smoldered in an ashtray. The ember glowed like a tiny eye in the darkness.
The bastards had been there recently. His loud entry to the bridge had probably given them a warning and sent them scurrying deeper into the ship's bowels. He’d found most pirates acted like roaches when the lights came on. They scattered and hid. Bypassing the kitchen for now, he continued to clear the crew’s quarters. He reached the captain's quarters and cleared it methodically. It was empty, but the bed was still warm.
He heard the distinctive crack of an unsuppressed weapon, followed by the pop of suppressed rifles returning fire. The short firefight was loud in the enclosed space. Silence came over the ship for a moment before shots echoed from the port corridor.
Talon sprinted back to the main hallway that connected the starboard and port sides of the deck. His boots pounded on the metal deck plating, getting him to the junction just as two pirates tried to make a break through the hallway. They didn't get far. Talon dropped them both. Four bullets, twodouble taps, one breath, and the passageway was clear.
Talon turned as he spoke, "Two tangos down. Crew quarters clear. Heading to the galley and kitchen. ID kit needs to be collected."
Hammer replied, "We’ll circle back and do that. Engine room, maintenance tunnel now clear."
Jug responded, "Lower machinery spaces partially secured."
Talon pushed on, descending toward the galley. He needed to push forward and clear the area before he headed down to the hold, where the real secrets would be hidden.
In the galley, Talon found signs of a skirmish that made his jaw clench. There were broken dishes scattered across the floor like ceramic shrapnel, food rotting in the heat, and blood stains where a body had obviously been dragged from the area. The metallic smell of blood mixed with spoiled food created a nauseating cocktail that made his stomach turn. Talon carefully opened the interior kitchen door. The old wood creaked on rusted hinges. There was a flame burning under a pot, the gas creating a low hiss that seemed unnaturally loud. He checked each of the storage areas methodically, finding nothing but evidence of hasty abandonment.Walking past the stove, he turned off the burner before he cautiously exited the area—no point in adding fire to their list of problems.
"Three tangos!" Hammer's voice crackled through the comms. Talon could hear the sounds of a short firefight through the comms and an echoing din in the belly of the cargo ship, the gunfire reverberating off metal walls like thunder in a canyon.
"One of them had a fucking machete," Hammer grumbled, breathing hard. "You’d think everyone has heard about bringing a knife to a gunfight. Doing ID kits now."
Talon moved forward, his senses hyperalert. At the sound of metal against metal, a slight scraping to his left raised the hair on his neck. He sidestepped and then slammed the butt of his rifle into a person’s face. The impact was solid. A woman dropped to the ground and moaned, her hands flying to her bleeding nose.
"Cook. I'm the cook." She lifted her head, her hands shaking as she looked at Talon with tears streaming down her dark cheeks, mixing tears with blood.
Jug's voice over the comms told him deck four had been cleared.
"Jug, you and Wolf make your way to my location. One tango alive."
He kept his weapon pointed at the woman, though it didn't look like she was going anywhere fast. She was wearing a black muscle shirt, no bra, shorts, and flip-flops. Her rich brown skin glistened with sweat in the oppressive heat, and her eyes held the glassy look of someone running on pure adrenaline. But—and this was a bigbut—she didn’t look abused, no bruises, no ripped or dirty clothes, no reason to think she’d been manhandled or threatened. She was too put together. Too clean, too … fresh to have been on this ship and forced to cooperate, at least in his experience. Maybe, but he’d verify she was crew before he took his weapon off her.
"How many pirates are aboard?" he asked, his voice flat and professional.
"I don't know," she said, keeping her hand pressed to her bleeding nose. "I've seen a handful. There may be more."
Jug arrived with Wolf, their boots echoing in the narrow corridor. "She says she's the cook. Dude, check that against the manifest," Talon said, looking at Jug, who nodded in understanding. Until they knew for a fact she was friendly, she'd be treated as apotential hostile. It was nothing against her—it was just the way survival worked in their world.
"Jug, with me. Wolf, you have her and any others that make it out alive." Wolf nodded and motioned to the woman with his rifle, the gesture casual but unmistakably threatening.
"Go sit down over there. Don't move, don't speak, don't tempt me." The woman's eyes widened, and she scooted across the floor, using a chair to help her climb into the seat. She landed heavily and stared at Wolf with the look of prey studying a predator. The man would scare the shit out of Talon if Talon didn't know him better.
They continued to clear the decks. Three more tangos were eliminated in the process—that made seven. The cook said there were a handful, which meant nothing, so he was working under the impression that some were still unaccounted for, still breathing, still dangerous.
"Decks four through six are cleared. We've got signs of recent movement near hold seven. There's a makeshift lock on one of the containers. It looks wrong." Stryker’s voice carried the tension they all felt—something wasn't right.
"I'm heading that way," Talon whispered. "Continue on to deck eight."
