by Jon Evans
“We’ll see what we can do,” Staines had said, a little testily, but the General had been right. If they captured even one ship, especially a warship, it would be a significant coup. They could grow clones to crew it and have Naval personnel deployed in little more than a week - far faster than conventional reinforcements might reach them.
Staines had requested reinforcements as well, of course, as had General Bonneville, who was pressing the case for a significant commitment of warships with his counterparts at the Admiralty right now. But Staines knew where the closest ships were and even those would take a long time to reach New Bristol, too long to make a difference to this encounter.
No, they had to take the fight to the enemy and capture their ships, not simply destroy them. If the boarding action failed and the Marines couldn’t scuttle the vessels, Staines would switch tactics and engage in straight up ship-to-ship combat.
But Staines wasn't confident they could win that sort of action if all three Deathless vessels were still operational. His enemy had three ships, and they could only guess at their configuration. The sheer size of the Moscow suggested it was an important capital ship, at least equivalent to a destroyer and very much more capable than his frigate.
The two smaller ships, the Omsk and the Bratsk, were harder to read. They were similar in size to his own support ships but that didn’t tell them very much.
The biggest difference between their fleets was that the Deathless were following a long-established plan. They were in control, they had established a sizeable colony in a short timeframe and they had built an impressive military outpost.
Then the monitors flashed a warning; the Moscow was coming around the planet, its support ships somewhere behind.
“Enemy in sight, Sir,” reported Cohen, somewhat redundantly.
“Very good, XO. Sound the combat alarm, prepare to fire the forward railguns.”
The tactical map now showed the curved path of HMS Iron Duke as it looped around the planet and away from the boarding pods. The enemy was just over fifteen thousand kilometres away and closing fast.
“Seven hundred and fifty seconds to closest approach,” said Washman.
“Begin firing, Lieutenant Ross,” said Staines, eyes locked on the tactical display.
“Projectiles away,” said Ross. There was a pause as the ships hurtled towards each other and a burst of railgun rounds shot across the intervening space.
“Enemy counter-measures deployed, Sir,” reported Ross, “it looks like they will be effective.” Staines nodded as the tactical map updated to show the various projectiles and their trajectories.
“Keep it up, Lieutenant,” said Staines, “let them know that we mean business.” Ross and his team of ratings, kept the fire coming, as per the plan.
They all watched the tactical screen as it updated to show the railgun projectiles and the enemy’s counter-measures. They waited, watching to see if they had provoked any further action.
“Six hundred seconds to closest approach,” said Washman.
“Five hundred seconds until boarding pod engine firing,” reported Carruthers.
And now there was nothing to do but wait as the ships’ positions closed at over twenty kilometres per second.
“Sixty seconds to pod engine firing,” said Washman.
“Ready counter-measures,” said Staines, “and prepare to fire again.”
“Sound the high-G alarm,” said Cohen, “begin attitude adjustment.”
“Three-second low-power attitude burn beginning now,” said Washman as the klaxon sounded.
“Target all three ships, fire railguns, fire missiles,” said Staines.
“Firing now,” said Ross, issuing orders.
“Incoming fire, reaction engine missiles,” said Midshipman Kelly her voice calm and measured, “launching counter-measures.”
“Pod engines firing,” said Carruthers, “ten seconds to impact.”
“Five seconds to high-power main engines burn,” said Washman
The alarm klaxon sounded again.
“Impact alert,” said Cohen, “brace, brace.”
There was a dull bang as something struck the outer hull. Then the main engines fired and Iron Duke began to move, heading out of orbit and following Albion and Discovery, who were already running for the darkness of deep space.
“Hull breach, sealing compartments, damage unknown,” reported Cohen, reading off his monitors as they flashed red.
“Enemy firing again, high-velocity rounds and more reaction-engine missiles,” said Kelly, “deploying counter-measures.”
Staines watched as his crew’s training came to the fore and they acted as a team, countering the enemy attacks and launching their own, smoothly working to negate or avoid the incoming threats.
And then they were through, and the ships’ relative orbits carried the combatants away from each other.
Iron Duke’s main engines shut down.
“Burn successful,” said Washman, “velocity thirty kilometres per second relative to the enemy, firing window closing in three, two, one.”
“Well done, people,” said Staines, unclipping from his chair, “now let’s get the damage under control and prepare for the next pass.”
“Forty-five minutes till the new orbit presents our next firing window,” reported Ross.
Staines nodded grimly. The pods were beyond his help for three-quarters of an hour. It was up to the boarding parties, now.
26
“Prepare to launch,” came the voice, “ten seconds.”
Warden flexed his fingers as he sat in the boarding pod, re-familiarising himself to the feel of the power armour. It felt like years since he had last worn such a suit; it might have been only a few months but it had definitely been on a training exercise.
This one was a newer model, both in terms of design and date of manufacture. He’d had to pull the protective film from the HUD and tap his way through a pointless end-user license agreement before the suit would boot up and give him control. The power packs were fully charged, the weapons lubricated and loaded, the operating system patched and updated; he was good to go.
Warden looked around his Troop. They were all suited, some running final checks on each other’s rigs, their weapons stowed beside them. At the back of the pod, ten colonists sat in environment suits that would protect them against vacuum, overlaid with body armour. All the colonists, even the children, had to learn how to put on, maintain and work in an environment suit in case they had to deal with problems with local conditions or in the event they needed to be taken aboard ship. They weren’t powered or suitable for long exposure to hard vacuum but they were simple to use and well-suited to this sort of boarding action.
“Launching,” said the voice and the pod shot out of its tube, pressing the occupants against their restraints, “short burns to adjust attitude, ten seconds.” The steering jets fired, orienting the pods in preparation for their final approach. “Manoeuvres complete, main burn in seven hundred seconds.”
Warden took a deep breath and closed his eyes, running through his knowledge of the pod’s systems. When they reached the ship, the pod would latch on, magnetically if possible but otherwise by mechanical means. A malleable ring, not dissimilar in feel to a latex glove, though the material wasn’t remotely the same, would press forward from the outer rim of the pod and form a seal, into which expanding foam sealant would be sprayed. The boarding team would then choose when to activate the cutting lasers mounted on the pod to cut a large hole in the side of the ship.
“Three hundred seconds,” said the voice.
Five minutes, thought Warden before his mind drifted back to the mechanics of the boarding action.
If the foam sealant failed or the area on the other side of the hull wasn’t pressurized or the seal wasn’t tight, everything would get a good deal more difficult. Breaking through internal doors was bad enough at the best of times but if the enemy started sealing sections to close off atmosphere leaks
they could have real problems.
“Sixty seconds,” said the voice and Warden looked around again at his Troop. They were completely dependent on their pilot identifying the correct portion of the target ship to latch on to. It would be educated guesswork, at best.
“And you’ll have to do it without weapons, obviously,” Staines had said when he had outlined the plan, “because it’s a stealth-approach and we won’t be anywhere near you when your engines fire.”
So they were going in hot, possibly under fire but certainly in a zone where the enemy would be shooting.
Warden looked across the bay at Ten, who was snoring loudly despite having a cloned nose designed to be free from such defects. Nobody else in the pod was relaxed enough to sleep as they made the long, slow approach to the enemy ship. He’d wake up once the pilot fired the engines to accelerate them into the Moscow, though.
Milton sent him a message showing Iron Duke’s updated decoy route. He wasn’t an expert on the matter but it looked pretty hairy to him and the slightly wide-eyed expression on Milton’s face suggested she was of the same mind.
Not that it made any difference. They were committed, now, so either the plan would work or it wouldn’t. If the enemy ships changed course or spotted the pods, they would be sitting ducks. Or, perhaps more appropriately, the Marines would be the sardines in a giant, defenceless can just waiting to be opened by a single, well-placed shot.
Warden grimaced at the thought. He didn’t like the lack of control but there was nothing he could do about it.
“Ten seconds to engine burn, get ready to rock and roll,” said the pilot, “and the best of luck to you all.”
Warden counted down under his breath, eyes closed as he waited.
“Brace for impact,” said the pilot, a moment before a huge bang reverberated through the boarding pod and the passengers were slammed against their seats.
Warden let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. The pod had clamped itself to the hull of the Deathless ship, and now the malleable outer ring was being pressed against the Moscow’s outer skin. His HUD told him that the sealant was being applied, then confirmed that the cutters had begun their work.
“Stand ready,” he ordered, reading his HUD, “thirty seconds to breach.”
The troop stood and readied their weapons, checking their gear one last time and making sure their power armour was configured to withstand a sudden loss of atmosphere, should everything go completely pear-shaped.
Warden sidled down the tight confines of the pod to check on the militia.
“Are you ready, Sergeant Adams? This could get sticky.”
“Yes, Lieutenant, we’re ready,” Adams said. In his thin environment suit and light body armour, he looked small and flimsy next to Warden’s power armour. The militia seemed nervous, as well they might, but they were impressively calm. The fighting on the surface had given them a great deal more confidence and the prospect of holding the breach against an enemy force didn’t seem to disturb them.
“Good, you’ll be fine. Just stick to cover and make sure no-one can outflank us. We should hold most of their attention but let me know if you have more than you can handle, understood?”
“Understood, Lieutenant.”
He checked the countdown on the boarding pod feed in his HUD.
“Ten seconds to go, folks.”
The Marines collectively brought their weapons to bear. The front ranks were taken by Corporal Green and the other Ogre clones in their hulking suits of power armour. They would take less damage from incoming fire than the rest of the Troop, so they had been chosen to lead the breach. Warden had all the Ogre clones on his team. Hayes and Carruthers had been keen to have Ogres as well, but they had all agreed with the Vice Admiral’s assessment that the Moscow had to be their priority and the main focus of their efforts.
And so it was that Warden waited behind a team of Ogres to board Moscow while Hayes attacked the Omsk and Carruthers dealt with the Bratsk.
“Cutters retracted, no pressure loss, inner door opening,” said the pilot.
The two Ogres at the front of the pod stepped forward as the door opened and shoved at the ship’s outer hull. It was heavy, but it slid backwards, the lasers having sliced through wiring, insulation and inner hull. There was a loud clang as the whole section of hull fell into the room beyond, opening the way for the Marines to enter the vessel.
The room beyond was unlit, and the Marines activated their suit lights to reveal a warehouse-sized storeroom.
“Lieutenant, there’s a drop to the floor of about two metres,” Corporal Green said as he jumped down with a clang. The other Ogres followed, rushing forward to secure the beachhead then fanning out into the huge space. Within seconds, the whole Troop was inside, and the militia were following.
“Nobody here, Sir,” reported Green as the Ogres completed their search of the room.
“Good,” said Warden as Sergeant Adams began setting up to guard the breach.
There was a large pair of sliding doors on the opposite wall to allow transport sleds to move pallets around the ship. On a vessel this size, you couldn’t hand carry the rations for lunch or you’d be at it all day.
Goodwin produced a security card they’d found on New Bristol. She had cracked it and, in theory, this one would be good for all low-security doors. The light went green as she flashed the card and the doors opened to reveal a wide T-junction.
Ogres flowed through the doors, taking up positions to the left and right and directly opposite the doors. Now that they had proved the cards would work, Goodwin handed one to each Trooper as they passed her position.
“Section 1 go left, Section 2 straight ahead, Section 3 go right. Find Goodwin a console she can hack; we need to find the deck plan. We want the ship intact, no quarter to be given.”
Each section moved swiftly to complete their assigned recce of the ship.
In minutes Section 2 had found a promising room. Warden ordered the other two sections to cautiously explore further, dealing with any resistance they met, while he and Goodwin moved quickly to catch up with Section 2. They found themselves in a repair bay full of racks of power armour and the tools and machines required for their maintenance. Three Deathless corpses, technicians maybe, were laid out on the floor.
Goodwin slid into one of the technicians’ chairs, carefully wiping the blood from the console before calling up her notes.
“Still logged-in,” she muttered, shaking her head. Moments later, the tech specialist had access to the shipboard systems and was searching for the deck plans. The other Sections were doing fine, according to the HUD updates, so Warden spent the time checking their feeds and getting a feel for what they were seeing.
“I’ve got the plans,” said Goodwin quietly, “scanning them now.” She pointed her HUD at the screen and flicked through the pages. Each image was captured, translated and incorporated into the Marine’s tactical maps for display in their HUDs.
Warden and Milton reviewed the updated tactical map as soon as it was available.
“The bridge is a fairly straight shot and we’re about midships,” he said.
“Do you want to just steam down these corridors and see if we can get there before they know what’s going on?” Milton asked.
“Yes, but I expect we’ll get held up. Let’s send the Ogre team off on this route and the rest of us will use these other two corridors to get there as quickly as possible. If we meet resistance, the Ogres should be able to flank it here, here or there,” he said, flagging three junctions.
“Yes, Sir,” Milton said, moving off to assign responsibilities to the Corporals in charge of the sections.
Warden paced the room as his Sergeant organised the troop. Here there was a half-dismantled Deathless power glove, there a grenade launcher being stripped and cleaned. He found a rack of weapons and looked through them, as one might browse a bookshop. Halfway along, he found a wicked looking item, all blackened alloy and vicious edges. He pi
cked it up and swung it experimentally. The hilt had a familiar button where his thumb rested, and he flicked it idly, hearing a familiar telltale thrum.
“Lieutenant, everyone is briefed, we’re ready to go,” said Milton.
“Good, get to it folks. Not you, Marine X, I have a job for you.”
“Yes, Sir?” said Ten.
“I saw this and thought of you,” said Warden, passing him the weapon, “it seems to be in working order but remember we found it in a repair bay, so it may not be in top knick.”
Ten nodded and smiled as he took the sword, like a gleeful child with a birthday present.
“We’re off to the bridge. I thought you might like to have a look around and see if you can find any Deathless to mop up. Just keep an eye on your tactical map in case we get into trouble.”
“Yes, Sir,” said Ten, a big grin on his face. Then he was off, loping away to cause mischief.
Warden shook his head.
“He’s like a big kid, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, a fucking dangerous kid with an unhealthy fondness for sharp, pointy things,” agreed Milton, “shall we crack on?”
“Yes, let’s get going. Goodwin, you’re with us.”
27
Fletcher swiped the access card, and the doors slid open with a hiss.
Unusual, she thought, did they add a sound so you’d know the door had opened?
She stepped over the threshold and found herself in a hangar. Goodwin had hoped to get the HUD to automatically translate Deathless signage, but it required more work than they had time available.
The hangar was enormous but completely empty. From the sheer size, it had to be the bay the Deathless had housed their huge base-building mothership. Right now, it was an empty cavern with support equipment, repair stations and storage around the sides. There were static and movable gangways to allow the technicians to effect repairs or modifications to the ship while it was docked. The scale of the room seemed too big, though it doubtless felt cramped when there was a ship docked within it.
