by James Evans
“Works for me, but I wouldn’t use them around any engineering equipment or the bridge.”
“Worried something might explode?”
“No, I just assumed you wanted it intact so we could get to their ship in orbit and deal with it, Sir.”
Warden stared at him for a moment. Shit, he thought. He hadn’t thought that far ahead, they do have a ship in orbit and they had no idea what it’s capabilities where. Their weapons and armour were recognisable but significantly different to models from Sol and its colonies. The dropship itself looked substantially different.
What would their orbital ship be like? Did it have orbital bombardment capacity or was it a troop carrier? Was it a scout ship or a battleship, maybe even a capital ship. It could even be based on an Ark ship; even the earliest models had hangar bays for launching smaller ships like this dropship. Some orbital ships could land planetside but most used shuttles and dropships to deploy personnel and equipment, whether military or civilian.
They couldn’t leave the damned thing up there; it could launch a second invasion or worse, simply bombard them from orbit. Ten was right; they had to try and take the dropship intact and get into orbit as soon as possible.
“Yes, well, if we can work out how to pilot it you’re right,” Warden said.
“Probably got an autopilot for returning to the ship, unless we’re deeply unlucky.”
Warden nodded, “Right, help me open up the rest of these crates; we need to know what’s worth taking up and what we should store here.”
“Right ho, Sir.”
They set about counting the weapons and classifying them, entering them into the HUD which stored an updated list of all weapons and munitions available to the local RMSC. Their weapons reported ammunition usage live so commanders could monitor their units combat readiness. A warning would pop up when they hit key stages such a 50% ammunition depletion or loss of all anti-aircraft rockets.
The alien weapons wouldn’t feed data back but long ago; some bright young HUD interface designer had decided the commandos might need to avail themselves of captured weapons to continue fighting. As a result, the facility to manually record data had been there since before Warden joined up.
They’d gained some more grenade launchers, a couple of rocket launchers that he guessed were for anti-aircraft usage and some more sniper rifles, both standard and railgun. They wouldn’t take the later because they could easily open a ship to vacuum if you found the right spot and grenades and rocket launchers were similarly problematic.
Fortunately, they also found plenty of combat rifles, which would be far more effective than their carbines if they encountered heavy resistance from powered armour.
“Need a really big knife?” Warden said, holding up an enormous alien combat knife as he turned to show it to Ten.
Ten produced an identical knife though Warden couldn’t quite tell from where, it just seemed to appear in his fist, “Already found ‘em, Sir.”
“Ohhh-kay,” Warden replied, “Don’t think they’re a bit much maybe?”
“Yeah, bigger than you really need but flip the thumb switch and give it a go,” Ten said with a glint in his eye.
Thumb switch? Warden looked down at the knife and saw a depression under the hilt, cunningly concealed by the metal of the cross guard so you couldn’t accidentally activate it. He held the knife up and pushed his thumb into the button. Immediately the knife began to hum and gently vibrate, shimmering faintly in the dim light of the cage.
“Hmmm. Well, that’s a new one on me. Worked out what it does yet?” Warden asked.
Ten nodded and pointed at the side of the cage to Warden’s left. There was a neat circular hole as if someone had cut through the wire of the cage, and one of the metal supports with an arc welder. Warden stepped over and put the edge of the knife against the wire; it parted as easily as you’d slice a tomato. Even as he dragged the knife through the solid steel frame of the cage, it barely slowed down.
“It only stays on as long as you keep your thumb in the hole, suppose you don’t want to drop one on your leg while it’s still buzzing,” Ten explained. “It’s bloody useless if you’re trying to creep up on a sentry, but with one of these, you could make short work of him even if he’s in power armour.”
At that comment, Warden looked back at the box he’d pulled the knife from. There were three empty slots, so it looked like Ten hadn’t got his knife in time to use it on the sentries outside. And he had taken two for some reason. Warden sighed but if anyone were going to find a use for two huge knives that could get through powered armour, Ten would. He’d leave him to it as long as he didn’t catch him playing around with it in the company mess.
“Found anything else we might want for the boarding party?” Warden asked.
“Yeah. Have a butcher’s at these,” Ten said pointing to a medium sized crate he’d just opened.
It was full of large pistols with long, thick barrels. Warden picked one up and ejected the magazine. Unloaded, as you would hope. They checked the shelves and found the bullets that fit the weapon.
The grip seemed to fit his hand reasonably well, and he aimed it, squeezing the trigger until it discharged a round. The flak armoured alien corpse bucked with the impact. The gun was remarkably quiet, which meant it had a high-quality suppression system as well as subsonic ammunition.
“Nice,” he said, passing the weapon to Ten who promptly fired a couple more shots into each alien.
“Yeah, not much cop against the power armour but it’s better than our pistols all the same,” Ten shrugged, “If you’re hoping to take the orbital ship against greater numbers these would help start quietly.”
“Ok, let’s get everything upstairs and get this assault underway. I don’t want to hang about here longer than is necessary,” Warden ordered. He told Milton to send down some more bodies so they could get their haul up top quickly. There were goods elevators which were still working so it didn’t take long before the weapons they could use on board ship were distributed.
In the meantime, they ordered the snipers and techs on overwatch to get ready to embark on the rovers and join them. They’d need them until the dropship was secure but after that, they’d hopefully be leaving on it. He explained his plans to Milton and the other NCO’s as they worked on distributing the weapons.
There was still no sign of life in the enemy dropship; it was entirely possible that there weren’t any personnel aboard to guard it, but they wouldn’t be taking any risks. Milton had found two aliens whose lockers had held what appeared to be flight suits. They had key cards, and their personal weapons were pistols. The fact they’d had the individual bedrooms and appeared to be officers strongly supported the conclusion that they were the flight crew.
They’d secured the remaining weapons and flagged their location on the HUD so that once they’d boarded the dropship the overwatch team outside the base could monitor them, in case any alien patrols did return.
They were ready; Warden leaned against the wall near the door. It had been agreed that Ten would lead the breach of the ship, with a group of marines who’d taken the specialist courses in stealth operations. Ten had served long enough that he’d done most of the courses available at one time or another but the younger recruits were always more specialised.
He glanced at Milton and the other NCO’s, no sign of doubt in their eyes. “Breach!” he ordered.
Chapter Nine
Ten had strapped one of the alien knives to his chest for easy access. It was ungainly, but the ability to penetrate armour was a significant advantage over his Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger. He carried two of the alien pistols and a number of flash-bang grenades. He took a deep breath and nodded at Fletcher who swiped the pilot’s access card over the lock. It went green, and the doors at the top of the ramp slipped noiselessly into the walls.
There was no ambush waiting for them, just a typical loading bay. A small all-terrain vehicle sat on the floor with a few lockers and
storage cages but no personnel or automated defences.
Ten climbed the ramp, checking the bay properly before signalling his team. He made his way to the personnel door and looked around. Some ships had maps at important junctions to help visitors, but he hadn’t really expected them on an invading dropship during an invasion. Pity, he thought, would have been handy.
Their goal was to neutralise the crew as quickly as possible. They might not know the internal layout of the dropship, but they knew where the entrances, engines and cockpit were. The ramp had come down facing the nose of the ship, and the cockpit was somewhere above and behind them as a result. There were two more ramps on the port and starboard side of the ship, further back toward the engines.
As they’d killed the pilots, the cockpit was most likely empty, but two Marines were tasked to clear it anyway while the rest headed for the central area of the ship. They’d dominate each junction and clear every space they passed, looking for crew quarters, engineering section and the mess hall, the most likely place to find the crew.
Ten didn’t really know why ships had engineering sections. It seemed redundant since aside from pilots, weapons crew and medics, almost everyone on a ship of any size was an engineer, mechanic or technician of some sort. They were the majority of the crew, so they were everywhere.
Still, as soon as a ship got large enough, there was always a section that was referred to as ‘engineering’ and usually just held an array of displays and chairs, much like every other position on the ship. Only the largest ships could support an actual engineering bay for producing spare parts and repairing portable systems. Smaller ships just carried a few spares for emergency replacements.
Since the crews who maintained the ships tended to hold affection for them, though, it was likely that the aliens had left some personnel on the ship rather than taking everyone to the solar plant.
The ramp access room‘s only personnel exit faced away from the cockpit. There was also a goods lift that went up to the next deck. Ten elected to take the lift, on his own, and start clearing the next deck. As soon as they’d cleared the front of the ship, Warden would move the rest of the force into position to storm the ship, should a firefight ensue.
Ten got into the lift, located the control and signalled the rest of his team to proceed. As they flowed silently into the next room, Ten pressed the button, and the lift smoothly ascended one deck. He found himself in a large room, similar to the ramp room but with displays on each wall and a series of desks and chairs before each display. There was a command chair in the middle, but all the seats were empty.
“Like the bloody Marie Celeste,“ muttered Ten as he looked around.
This was a tactical room for directing ground forces rather than ship-to-ship combat. Each display showed a different view of New Bristol. Some were showing feeds from orbit, so either the aliens had more ships, or they‘d left satellites in geostationary orbit. Ten pinged that information to Warden. The Marines might not be able to scan objects in orbit at the moment, but this was exactly the sort of information that would keep Warden off his back while he got on with the real work.
None of the displays showed the ship‘s interior and Ten was no technical specialist. He could pilot a drone, in a pinch, but the specialists who knew him would never have offered him their kit. Probably worried he‘d break their pets, he thought. Playing with the controls seemed like an easy way to disclose his presence on the dropship to the crew or the ships in orbit, so instead, he concentrated on his core skill set - sneaking around and killing things.
The TacRoom had three exits; port, starboard and toward the engines. He went through the nearest exit on the port side. He was fine with port and starboard; it was planetside and orbit that got confusing. Planetside could be the top of the ship or the bottom, depending on the ship‘s orientation. It changed if the ship moved.
For now though, up and down were fine and there weren’t any Naval crew around to give him grief about his sense of direction in space. They always seemed to know which way the planets were, though he was buggered if he could work out how. He’d been in the brig more than once after explaining to some gobby rating or other how little he cared about the matter.
Ten opened the door and checked to his right, nothing but empty wall as he’d expected. The front of the dropship was sloped, so this upper deck ended further back on the ship than the lower one which held the cockpit. The left was clear, and he padded down it, focussing on the slightest sound that might give away an enemy presence. Past the TacRoom was a door on the left. No window.
Ten eased the handle down and stepped into the room, it had started pitch black, but a dim light came on the moment the door opened more than a crack. At first, he started, thinking there might be someone in there, but it was a small, empty cabin. Clearly a space for an officer with an automatic light.
The corridor ran along the hull, so there were no rooms on the port side. He had two more doors to check before he reached the end of this section. More empty cabins. At the corner, he thought he heard a noise. Crouched, he tried to relax, ready to spring into action.
He gave it thirty seconds, but nothing came around the corner, so he raised his weapon and leant out to peer into the next corridor. Nothing. The short length of corridor was an empty T-junction, leading aft and across to the cabins on the starboard side of this deck. There was no sign of anyone to aft when he rounded that corner either.
Ten was in the zone, aware of everything around him and moving like a buttered cat, alert to any noise and ready for action. He checked the cabins, still searching for crew members. The first was empty, and he was moving faster now, taking more risks. If the rooms were empty, noise hardly mattered; if they were occupied, even the quietest opening of the door would give him away. The second cabin was also empty.
The last door opened before he could reach it. An alien stuck its head out and looked aft. Mistake, thought Ten with a wicked grin, I’m on the other side. He fired two rounds into the back of the alien’s skull, and it crumpled to the ground, dirty overalls and a data slate marking it as an engineer. Something about the form seemed feminine, and Ten gritted his teeth. He preferred not to kill women but this was an invasion force and, male or female, they had come looking for him.
Still, he wasn’t likely to tell anyone at a family get-together about this not-so-glorious moment. Someone always wanted to know why he didn‘t just knock out the bad guys and arrest them, as if he were some kind of intergalactic policeman. Perhaps he should use some kind of multi-purpose sonic device to incapacitate them before delivering a stern lecture about modern ethical standards.
He headed aft, following the short corridor between two food storage rooms. He took a guess at the next space and was proved right, a mess hall. Nothing large, nothing fancy. You kept things simple if you didn’t want crockery flying around when the ship manoeuvred near a planet. Or, of course, when your dropship went through re-entry.
His musings were abruptly interrupted by the two aliens in coveralls who were waiting for him. They looked up as he entered, bearing expressions that went quickly from puzzled, to surprised, to terrified as they realised he wasn’t the colleague who’d just gone to its room, he wasn’t their species, and he was aiming a weapon at them. It spat six times, and he had loaded a new magazine before they had slumped to the table they were eating at.
Where there’s a mess, there’s a galley, and sure enough, there was a hatch through the opposite wall. Ten checked it, but there was no sign of a cook. He passed through the only door out of the mess and checked the galley. Empty; on a ship this size the crew probably just heated their own meals and the troops weren’t on it long enough to care.
There were toilet facilities next and then another goods lift with a ladder next to it. Ten liked ladders; they were silent, they never failed, and they were easy to use in zero-g. Ten sent an update to the rest of his team then took the lift, since the crew wouldn‘t be surprised when it moved.
M
ost of the ship was empty, just the engine compartment left to clear. The team had killed two more of the engineering crew and managed to do it silently.
Ten reached the lower deck as the rest of the team came around the corner. They flowed through the two doors, half a team to each, without stopping to greet him. Ten following along behind.
The first room was somewhat unexpected. Large and almost the width of the ship, there were exits to the boarding ramps on either side. More surprising were the pods that lined the fore and aft walls. None of them had expected that.
They also hadn’t really expected four power-armoured enemy troopers. The first marine through each door was riddled with bullets the moment they reached the centre of the room. The rest dived for cover.
Bringing up the rear on the starboard side, Ten saw the hitherto successful mission collapse into pandemonium. The first marine from his group was pummeled to the ground by shots that struck between his shoulder blades, punched through his chest and ruined the decking below. He was dead before he knew what hit him.
Ten knew, though. The room was almost double height and above the doors was a balcony. The enemy were up there, and they had battle rifles. While his team dived for cover and desperately searched for the source of the shots, Ten dashed to his left and up the steep metal staircase to the balcony, yanking two grenades from his webbing as he went.
Halfway up the stairs, he lobbed the grenades onto the balcony then crouched and waited, eyes closed. The grenades detonated with a deafening crack and what would have been a blinding flash if he hadn’t been prepared for it.
He dived up the remaining steps, spinning as he did so and twitching the trigger of his pistol. His ears were ringing, and his shots were wild, but he emptied the magazine, steadying his aim as he moved. Press the enemy hard, when they least expect it. Soldiers don’t expect to meet an enemy who simply charges them head on, bringing the fight straight to them.
