Accord of Honor by Kevin O. McLaughlin

Fifty meters off and they could hit the Inde, or blow my men and I to bits in the engine room.
    I got back on the tac channel, “All tactical squads, expect multiple impact of SABOTs to the forward section of the ship in about one minute. Stay on suit air.” Even one missile striking their bridge should pretty well mess up anyone inside.
    Of course, if I thought of the idea, they might as well. They could do the same thing to the Inde, so I made my way down toward their engine room by way of their port side missile bay. The bay door was locked, blast door slid in place, and even if though we had a cutter with us, it would just take too long to punch through the door. Toughened as it was against explosives and small arms, it was going to be a tough nut to crack. Luckily, we didn’t have to. The design of this ship was remarkably similar to the Indefatigable’s layout. That alone was making me wonder if Dads teams had sprung a leak at some point, or if it was just similar design because that was the most logical way to handle the problems of cargo ship conversion.
    Either way, it meant that I knew the guts of this ship almost as well as my own. Which meant that I knew the relays and computer controls for the actual missile tubes all passed from the missile control room through a conduit, and I knew right about where that conduit needed to pass under the deck plates. A couple of quick explosive cubes later, the floor was a bit torn up and the conduit was cut. No more missiles for these pirates. Repair of that mess would take at least an hour.
    Then the SABOTs hit. Each impact shook the ship, tossing us all against the deck like we’d been slapped by a giant hand. The three impacts left my head ringing from being slammed against the deck and wall. I found out later that one of our missiles had strayed enough that the Inde bridge crew was worried about it, so they took out our own missile with a gatling. But the other three streaked in and smashed the front end of the enemy ship.
    Once I recovered enough to talk again, I called our bridge for a quick report and damage estimate. Three missiles hit the front end of the enemy ship. It looked like two had pierced their bridge, and the Inde wasn’t detecting any power from the front end at all. Everything was shut down. Best guess was any crew up there were dead. I got my squad up and moving in the opposite direction – toward the engine room.
    The hall outside their engineering was a mess. The walls were scorched. Tiny shards of metal and shrapnel floated about randomly. Here and there were patches of red fog, zero gravity and cold temperatures combining to turn blood into a drifting mist. I tried to avoid those, shivering inside when I accidentally brushed the floating remains of what was once a person.
    Our crew and theirs were still exchanging fire, but it was sporadic, not continuous shooting. People were hunkered down and no one really wanted to make the next big push. What bullets did to people they hit was never pleasant, and the effect wasn’t improved by zero gravity. I sent my squad in to help reinforce the other squad and pull out our wounded. Then I found a wall mounted intercom unit and yanked a couple of plugs out from the glove of my left hand. Comm interfaces were pretty standardized, and with luck I could plug in here.
    It seemed to work. I tabbed to general channel, and tried to turn on the receiver. Nothing. I tried again, and this time was greeted with a green telltale on my heads up display. I had linked into the enemy ship’s radio system. Now to give them a little taste of their own medicine.
    “Attention, pirate crew, this is the captain of the ship you were attempting to seize. Those impacts you felt a few minutes ago were our weapons. We have fired SABOT missiles at your bridge and killed the crew inside. Your other ship has also been destroyed.” I paused. “You will surrender immediately, or we will retreat from your ship to our own, and continue