by Jay Allan
And he knew they just might do it. Unless… He was about to order Billos to blow the second door when the explosion ripped through the compartment like a thunderclap. The sergeant and his people had ducked back, away from the blast radius, but Rogan could see their movement now out of the corner of his eye. Billos leaped through the blown hatch, followed by a trio of Marines.
Rogan focused on the FRs in front of him. There were at least a dozen down now, but three of his people had also been hit. He was alone behind the control panel, and one other Marine was lying on his stomach in the boarding tube, firing out at the enemy. With Billos’s people gone, every other Marine in the room was down. The sick tactic the FRs were employing was on the verge of success. One bomb tossed in the tube, and the boarding effort would be stillborn, at least from this access point.
Then the FRs stalled, and Rogan heard gunfire from the corridor. He leaned over and flipped his rifle to full auto, opening up and emptying his clip on the stunned FRs. They went down in bunches, the survivors turning toward him, rushing his position. But he wasn’t there. He lunged to the side, pushing off as hard as he could, and going into a combat roll that brought him back to prone position, just as he had slammed another clip in place. He was out in the open, exposed. But he had surprised his enemies…and that gave him time. A second, perhaps two.
He fired, holding down the trigger, spraying bullets across the room. Another half dozen enemy troopers fell, but it wasn’t going to be enough. He could see the weapons moving, rifle barrels turning toward him. He kept firing, for another half second or so until he exhausted his clip. Then he twisted his body, determined to dive for cover, even though he knew it was pointless. They had him.
He heard the fire…but he didn’t feel anything. He sprang hard to the side, his hand moving to his chest, feeling around for wounds. Nothing.
He crashed hard into the floor and rolled across the room and into the far wall. He was stunned, but he forced himself to focus, and he pulled himself up, gripping his rifle tightly, despite the pain from what he was certain was a broken wrist. His head snapped around, looking back where the FRs stood. Where they had stood. There was no one there except Ernesto Billos and one of his Marines.
“The door came out into the corridor, sir. Right behind the FRs. They must have bypassed it because it was jammed. We took them from the flank. There were only four of them left out there.”
Rogan sucked in a deep breath. “Good job, Sergeant. Well done.” He didn’t ask where Billos’s other two Marines were. He knew. If they’d have been anything but dead, the veteran sergeant would have already turned back into the corridor to check on them.
“Let’s move it, platoon. Get through that tube. Now.”
Before any more opposition shows up.
He looked up, watching as his people started hopping down out and into the compartment. He reached around and pulled another clip from his belt as the rest of his people came through. He tried to snap the clip in place, but the pain from his wrist was just too much. He grunted and threw the rifle back over his shoulder, drawing the pistol hanging from his belt with his good hand.
“Okay, Marines…let’s take this ship!”
* * *
“Keep moving…don’t give them a chance to fall back to more cover.” Lieutenant Luke Plunkett was shouting to the Marines jammed in the corridor, even physically pushing those right in front of him toward the enemy.
Clete Hargraves was standing to the lieutenant’s side, waving his arms forward. The veteran sergeant knew they had to keep the green garrison Marines pushing ahead, and he’d told Plunkett that before they’d even left the shuttle. The lieutenant was a gifted officer, and one of the best men Hargraves knew. But he hadn’t faced FRs in battle before…and Hargraves had.
The FRs were part of a system so alien to Hargraves, he could barely comprehend it. But it worked, at least after a fashion. He wouldn’t rate the FRs as a match for his people man to man, or for the Alliance warriors he’d fought on Santis, but they were a deadly enemy nevertheless. The eerie, almost robotic way they conducted themselves could unnerve even veteran warriors, much less the cherries he and Plunkett were leading.
Boarding actions were always difficult. Cramped corridors, small compartments, hatches and doorways provided cover for the defenders. He’d known going in they would take heavy losses, and nothing so far had proven him wrong.
“Wounded, fall back, however you can. The rest of you, stay on the enemy. If you give them a chance to regroup, you’ll only pay for this twice.” Hargraves knew what Plunkett was doing, the only thing he could do. There was no fancy tactic, no bloodless way to win this fight, not against the FRs. It had to be forward, forward, forward…and damned the casualties until the battle was won. It wouldn’t be won until every enemy soldier was dead.
Hargraves pushed forward, moving to the side to let a pair of wounded Marines slip past him. One had taken a shot to the chest, but from the way she moved it looked like nothing immediately critical had been hit. She was helping the other Marine, a man significantly taller and heavier than her, who was stumbling, his hand on his head, blood oozing through his fingers from a hideous wound. Hargraves had seen enough combat to recognize a mortal wound when he saw it. But he’d seen enough Marines in action to know that didn’t matter at all to his comrade, who clearly had no intention of leaving the stricken man behind.
That’s the difference between us and the FRs. It’s why we can take them on even without a lifetime of training and conditioning. Hell, take them on…we can kick their asses…
He shoved his way up to the front, leveling his rifle and opening fire as soon as he had a clear shot. There were only a few of the FRs left, and they had taken cover. Two of them were leaning out of open hatchways, and two more were crouched down behind a pile of metal boxes they’d hauled into the corridor. The Marines were out in the open, and they were paying the price for it. Every meter of advance was gained by climbing over the bodies of their dead, but the rookies were doing it. Hargraves could see them pausing, singly and in small groups, but then he heard Plunkett’s voice again, loud and clear, rallying the Marines, pulling that last measure of effort from them.
“Move,” Hargraves shouted. “With me.” He lunged forward, out in front of the cluster of Marines, leaping over a pair of bodies stretched across the deck. He dropped to the ground in a hard combat roll, snapping up to a prone position and opening fire on the two FRs behind the crates. He had a line of fire on them now, and his abrupt move had taken them by surprise. His rifle came to life and riddled the two with bullets, sending them both tumbling back amid a shower of blood.
He looked toward the two other FRs, dropping forward as he did, ducking below the spray of fire that slammed into the wall behind where his head had been. He pushed off with his legs, leaping as far as he could, landing hard on his stomach perhaps a meter from the crates. He scrambled forward for the cover, unsure as he did if he was fast enough. But then he heard—felt—the surge behind him, the Marines following his lead, rushing the last two FRs, and blasting the doorways with massive amounts of fire.
One of the enemy troopers dropped almost immediately. The other returned fire, long enough to take down one of the attacking Marines. But then the others gunned him down, his body hanging in the air for a horrifying second or so as dozens of bullets riddled him. He dropped hard and landed with a sickening thud.
“Well done, Marines.” Plunkett was yelling, even as he raced forward toward Hargraves. The lieutenant’s face was twisted into a concerned grimace, but as soon as he saw the sergeant climbing back to his feet it gave way to a look of relief.
“Are you crazy?” he asked, moving right up to Hargraves. He waved his hands and yelled, “Keep moving, all of you. We need to take this ship.”
“No, not crazy, sir. I just knew we couldn’t get bogged down there. I don’t know how many FRs are on this scow, but I was damned sure if we let them pin us down we were sunk.”
�
�You were right about that, Sergeant. But getting yourself killed isn’t going to help us.”
“A Marine can’t worry about that, sir. We do what we have to do to win the fight, and we hope the gods of war spare us.”
“Well, I’m glad they spared you this time, Sergeant, because I sure as hell need you.” The lieutenant paused, looking at the older veteran with genuine affection. “And I’d miss your old ass something fierce.”
“Marines, don’t die easy, sir.” Hargraves held back the wince that tried to escape as he stood up. He’d hit the ground harder than he’d intended, and he was sore. But there were a dozen Marines in the corridor dead or badly wounded. He wasn’t about to whine about a few bruises and strained muscles. “What do you say we take the rest of this ship, sir?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bridge
Union Tanker W30027
Arcturon System
308 AC
“Engineering secured, sir. I posted a squad on guard duty just in case we’ve got any enemy troops still out there.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“Reactor secured, Captain. I sent a detachment to occupy the engine room too.”
“Very well.”
Bryan Rogan stood in the middle of a room, almost certainly the bridge of the Union tanker, fielding reports from his combat teams. He imagined the room had once been clean and neat, but now its workstations were riddled with bullet holes, and its metal floor was covered with pools of slowly-congealing blood.
Rogan was standing next to what appeared to have been the captain’s chair, fielding transmissions from his officers and non-coms, status reports from different areas of the ship. At first they’d been deadly serious, reports of entrenched resistance and heavy casualties. But numbers had finally told, and the last messages had been pronouncements of victory.
There were a half dozen bodies strewn about the bridge, three FRs and three ship’s crew who’d resisted or gotten caught in the crossfire. Two Marines had died here as well, but Rogan had ordered their bodies removed, taken back to one of the assault ships. Rationally he knew it didn’t matter what he did with the corpses, that it certainly wasn’t a priority right now, but something deeper called to him to treat his Marines with respect, even the dead ones. It just felt right to him…and he knew that it sent a message to his people.
Three live crew members stood against the far wall, faces cast down, wrists shackled. They were guarded by two very grim looking Marines, who appeared more than willing to turn them into hunks of fresh meat given the slightest excuse. The boarding parties had suffered terribly in the fighting, and Rogan knew his Marines well enough to understand how they felt.
How I feel…
But Confederation Marines weren’t animals. They didn’t kill those who surrendered, and certainly not half-civilian spacers manning transport ships. Rogan knew well enough that a naval crewman forced to fight to the death could kill as well as die. He’d lost enough of his people, and he wasn’t about to risk more when enemy forces were willing to surrender instead of resisting to the death.
He’d known the FRs would fight to the finish, but he’d been surprised that more naval crew hadn’t yielded, that so many had fought alongside the Union soldiers. But looking at the terrified expressions on the faces of the captives, he suddenly understood. Their cold fear gave him all the answers he needed. He tried to imagine what Union propagandists had told their spacers about the Confederation. Did they create stories of torture and executions, a web of lies to encourage their people to fight to the death against an enemy portrayed as nightmarish?
He wondered how anyone could be so naïve as to believe such obvious lies. But then he wondered if they were all that obvious, at least to the oppressed masses of the Union. The Federal Union purported to be an egalitarian utopia, but the truth was almost the exact opposite of that lofty ideal. The people lived in poverty, and they were subject to draconian punishments for even the slightest offenses. Above them, a ruling class of politicians lived in obscene luxury, and struggled against each other to amass power. There was no media in the Union that wasn’t controlled by the government, no freedom of travel, no contact with other nations—at least not for normal citizens. Education was limited, and what there was followed a strict government-prescribed curriculum.
Rogan thought about the totalitarian government of the Union, and the vicious militarism he’d seen in the Alliance troopers his people had fought at Santis. The Confederation had to survive, it had to prosper. If only because nowhere else in inhabited space did humanity live with some level of liberty and freedom.
“Cap…I’ve got Sergeant Reynolds on the comm.” Rogan turned around abruptly. Ernesto Billos was walking across the bridge as he spoke. “His team took the computer center, sir, and…” His words trailed off.
“And?” Rogan turned his head toward Billos, looking hard at the sergeant. “What is it?”
“I don’t know, sir. Reynolds doesn’t know…but he thinks they found a nav control unit. One that looks like it wasn’t wiped.”
Rogan’s eyes widened. He wasn’t an expert in navigation systems, but he knew enough to realize it was standard procedure for a ship’s AI to wipe them clean if a vessel was threatened with capture. It was automatic on Confederation ships—and on Union vessels too, he suspected—a safeguard to ensure that even if a captain was caught napping, vital information would not be exposed to enemy capture. But if something had gone wrong, if the failsafes hadn’t functioned properly…
He turned to the side, looking across the bridge. “Sergeant Waverly…you’re in charge. We’ve got more prisoners on the way. I want them all detained up here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Sergeant…I do mean detained. If any of those captives end up shot, I’m going to want a damned good explanation.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Rogan snapped his head back toward Billos. “You know the way to the data center, Sergeant?”
Billos nodded. “Yes, sir. I think so.”
Rogan waved to a pair of Marines standing along the near wall. “You two, come with us.”
“Sir!” the two Marines shouted, almost in perfect unison, as they walked up to the captain and snapped to attention.
Rogan turned back toward Billos. “Lead on, Sergeant.”
“Sir?”
“To the data center. Let’s see what Greg Reynolds managed to find.”
* * *
“Captain, all boarding parties have reported in. All three ships have been secured.”
Barron looked over at Travis’s station. “Thank you, Commander.” He paused a moment, not entirely sure he wanted to ask the question weighing so heavily in his mind. “Casualty reports?” he finally asked.
“Incomplete, sir. There is still data coming in.” Travis’s voice was strained, uncomfortable. It was clear she didn’t want to pass on the information she already had.
“That bad, Commander?”
“We really don’t have full information yet, sir. But yes…they appear to be heavy.” She paused for a few seconds then added, “Very heavy.”
Barron sighed softly. He wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t expected anything else, but there was always hope, at least until the moment it was crushed by hard data.
“Contact Captain Eaton. She is to advance Intrepid toward the enemy vessels.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Barron waited while Travis relayed the command to Intrepid. Then he said, “Relay orders to our engine room as well, Commander. Dauntless will also advance toward the captured ships. I want all cargo shuttles ready to launch as soon as we close to fifty thousand kilometers.” There was no point in wasting time. The sooner his small fleet was refueled and resupplied the better. At least if enemy ships came pouring through one of the transit points, Dauntless and Intrepid would be equipped to put up a fight.
“Captain…I have Captain Rogan on the comm, sir. He wants to speak with you.”
“On m
y line, Commander.” Bryan Rogan was one of Barron’s most trusted officers. If the Marine had something he felt he had to report to Dauntless’s captain, Barron was ready to listen.
“Captain?”
“What is it, Bryan?”
“Sir, we’ve captured the tanker’s nav control unit. It appears to be at least partially intact.”
“Intact?” Barron felt a rush of excitement. A functional Union nav unit could contain incredibly valuable intel, including the location of all invading forces and their supporting vessels.
“Yes, sir, as far as I can tell. It looks like it might have been partially wiped, but I’m pretty sure a lot of the data is still there. I suggest you send skilled personnel to evaluate.”
“I will send a tech team at once. Meanwhile, I don’t want you to let that thing out of your sight, do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” the Marine snapped back.
“Well done, Captain. My compliments to you and to your Marines.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Barron out.” He turned his head abruptly. “Atara, I want you to assemble a team and head over there yourself. If there’s any chance of capturing Union nav data, we have to take it very seriously.”
Travis jumped up from her chair. “Yes, sir…I agree completely.” She walked across the bridge toward the bank of lifts.
“Lieutenant Darrow, advise alpha bay that I want one of the shuttles prepared at once for Commander Travis’s team. It is to be ready in…” He turned toward Travis. “How soon can you have your team ready?”
