Ep.#6 - "Head of the Dragon" (The Frontiers Saga) Read Online Free Page A

ready, all aimed at the hatch that the lieutenant was about to open. If there were armed Ta’Akar troops on the other side of the hatch, they had little chance of surviving. Their only hope was to hug the walls of the breaching box and hope no one on the other side would have a clear shot.
    “Opening the hatch,” the lieutenant reported as he hit the button. The outer hatch moved slightly, dust from the numerous light years of space the frigate had traveled through breaking free of the hatch seals and falling to the floor. The outer hatch retracted away from them before sliding into the hull. A moment later, the inner hatch swung inward, giving them direct access into the ship. There were no shots fired from within the enemy ship, no signs of commotion.
    Lieutenant Waddell peered in through the hatch. The space between the outer and inner hatches was nearly two meters, creating a tunnel they would have to traverse. There was a ladder leading through the tunnel into what appeared to be a small chamber. He took a carabiner from his belt, unclipped it, and tossed it gently forward through the Loranoi’s outer hatch. As soon as it crossed the hatch threshold, the Loranoi’s artificial gravity grabbed it and accelerated it toward the deck of the small chamber at what apparently was the bottom of the ladder.
    “Down is that way,” the lieutenant advised his men, pointing in the direction the carabiner had fallen. “First two,” he ordered waving them past.
    The first man moved feet first through the tunnel, using the ladder as the frigate’s gravity pulled at him. Just before his feet were about to clear the tunnel and enter the chamber at the bottom, he paused, took his energy weapon in his right hand, and jumped free from the ladder, dropping the last three meters to the deck. Realizing he was facing the wrong way, he quickly spun to his right to face the inside airlock hatch. It, too, was locked.
    “Hold,” he told the second man who was waiting for the first man’s signal to descend. “Hatch is locked, Lieutenant,” the first man reported.
    “No time to get fancy,” Lieutenant Waddell said. “Blow it.”
    The first man let his snub-nosed assault energy rifle hang from his shoulder as he pulled a small canister from his thigh pouch and sprayed a foam-like substance along one side of the hatch. The substance quickly hardened into a firm paste, into which he inserted a small, flat, electronic device. He flipped the small switch on the device, turned, and quickly ascended the ladder until he was back inside the transfer tunnel between the inner and outer hatches. With his right hand, he pulled out another electronic device, a remote detonator, from his thigh pocket. He armed the device and called out over his suit comm, “Set.”
    “Do it,” Lieutenant Waddell ordered.
    “Fire in the hole,” the first man announced.
    From inside the shuttle, Jessica smiled. It seemed that some Earth expressions still managed to survive over a thousand light years of space and a millennium of time.
    There was a small explosion in the distance. Jessica could feel a slight wave of air pressure as it translated through the transfer tube, the breaching box, and into the shuttle. It wasn’t much, but it was noticeable. She wondered if it were enough to shake the breach box loose from the hull of the Loranoi, but immediately dismissed the thought, knowing that if it were, the lieutenant would not have used it. It was undoubtedly some sort of specialized explosive compound that directed its explosive force in a predetermined direction. “Add that to the list,” she muttered to herself.
    “ You’d better start writing them down, ” she heard the lieutenant say over the suit comm.
    The first man dropped into the chamber once more, immediately advancing forward through the blown open inner airlock hatch to make room for the next man coming down the ladder behind him. He stepped through the hatch and moved to his left, dropping to