Gott Mit Uns (Terran Strike Marines Book 5)

by Richard Fox

  Masha pulled up surveillance cameras and found nothing but static. Whoever had done this had covered their tracks. “Interesting. It almost seems like there’s someone with real talent running operations on this world.”

  She cleared everything she had done, covering her own activities, and restarted the computer. When she stepped into the hallway, the man who had shown her in was gone. She didn’t care. Strutting down the hallway to a new area, she punched in a code on a door that led to a more secure zone. No one inside questioned her and she didn’t need the IR badge.

  She passed by armed guards and found the communications room. “I need everyone to step out.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the lead supervisor said, then herded his people into the hallway, where they stood packed together. There wasn’t a lot of room this deep into the complex. Hallways were narrow and functional at best.

  Masha opened a secure channel in the Ibarran station on the dark side of the moon. She waited, frustrated as always with the slow connection. But then she continued to wait, and wait, and wait some more.

  “Now that’s interesting. I wonder who could be so troublesome. It has been a while since someone interfered with our communications network,” she muttered, logging out and covering her tracks on the computer just as she had done before.

  ****

  Marc Ibarra waved away the captain’s concerns. “I know it’s not the plan—it’s a new plan. Yes, there are going to be significantly more explosions than I might’ve suggested were necessary in the earlier iteration of this campaign to retrieve the Breitenfeld, but we must adapt. No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

  Tagawa stared daggers, moving forward with the deadly intensity only high-ranking ship drivers could manage.

  “Well there, Captain, just calm down,” Marc said. “Let’s be reasonable. We can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs, now can we?”

  The captain took a breath and held it for a moment, then looked at Marc. “You’re a disappointment.”

  “No need to get personal,” Marc Ibarra said indignantly.

  “I thought the man who devised a way to dodge the Xaros invasion then rebuild a force strong enough to defeat them would be more creative.”

  Marc put one hand over his heart. "Why, Captain Tagawa, I think you complimented me. Maybe we can be friends after all. For now, let's just blow up a few things and force our enemies’ hand. That's always the key, forcing them to do what they don't want to do."

  Captain Tagawa summoned over a pair of sailors and went over the plan.

  "Of course, Captain. I can blow out the back of the cargo bay. Honestly, I've been wanting to repair the hydraulics for a while now. This will be the perfect excuse," the lead engineer said.

  Tagawa didn't smile. "I'll include your positive attitude in your next evaluation. Make it happen."

  "Aye aye," The lead engineer took his team and left the room.

  Silence held the bridge as Marc tapped his fingers and hummed a tune.

  The captain ignored him, working on several miscellaneous tasks at her terminal.

  "What are you doing now, updating your captain’s log? Star date pi minus thirty-seven, we encountered a strange chrome person who wants us to break things on the ship," Marc said.

  "Some of us work for a living," Tagawa said.

  "The waiting is always the hardest part. Can't we just watch them blow the cargo bay? I've always loved fireworks," Marc Ibarra said.

  Giving him a chilly stare, the captain pulled up a view screen of the cargo bay area.

  A pair of engineers and a ship Marine in void gear strategically placed thumb-sized wads of denethrite connected by det cord to a cargo bay loading ramp.

  The lead engineer touched his left ear and spoke. "We're set, Captain. Just say the word."

  Tagawa reluctantly faced Marc, paused long enough to be annoying, and crossed her arms over her chest. "Are you happy?"

  "I will be, if this works."

  She keyed a channel.

  "Flight deck…blow the door," Tagawa said.

  Moments later, three small but simultaneous explosions blasted the door outward. The engineers and sailors stayed put via their safety harness and boot mag locks.

  "Keyser Soze for Liberty Base, do you copy?"

  "Loud and clear, but we still can't get visual. My people say it's something on your end," the security officer said, sounding weary.

  "Never mind that," Marc said. "We have a bit of an emergency. I'm afraid we must land somewhere or suffer serious casualties."

  "We'll send a team over with medics and repair crews," the security officer countered.

  "Do you have enough shuttles to collect all the personnel I'm going to lose to the void if this continues?" Marc said in his perfect Basque. "I'm really going to have to insist you and your people render appropriate aid. You can't ignore a distress call. I can look up the regulation if you need it."

  "I am familiar with the regulation. Stand by."

  "People are dying here! There is no standing by!"

  "Proceed to these coordinates and dock. Remain in your ship until we can decide the next step," the security officer said.

  "That's on the Breitenfeld! What kind of show are you running here? You're dumping us on a derelict ship that’s probably in worse condition than mine? It's scheduled for demolition. We're here to complete the survey then blow it to smithereens, not get ourselves killed in one of its crappy cargo holds!"

  "Take it or leave it, Liberty Base out."

  The link went dead.

  "That went well, like Br'er Rabbit and the Briar Patch," Marc said.

  "I must've missed that one," the captain said. "Sounds like more of your action-movie references."

  "Well, not quite, but let's review. We need to get onto the Breit, and that pretentious jerk-face gave us an all-access pass," Marc said.

  "I'm not sure I would call it an all-access pass. If you don't mind, I have work to do," the captain said, clearly annoyed with him.

  Marc hung back as the crew of the Keyser Soze performed the maneuver.

  ****

  Duke slipped through the access hatch with Gor'al close behind him. They briefly checked each other's gear, gave the thumbs-up, and rushed down the hallway. His HUD told him the way, but he remembered it from prior deployments on the vessel. Not everything had been life-and-death fights against alien enemies.

  “I didn’t think you would make that shot,” Gor’al admitted.

  “Oh ye of little faith,” Duke whispered.

  "This should take us to the flight deck where Tagawa and her crew will be performing their evacuation," Gor'al said.

  "We'll have a look, but we're going to the bridge," Duke said.

  "Of course," Gor'al said. "I was just talking. You know I talk when I think."

  Duke picked up the pace. When they reached a long hallway leading to the landing bay and flight deck, he quickly peeked through his rifle optics and saw the latest version of Marc Ibarra's plan unfolding. Crew members of the Scipio moved across the flight deck in force, looking more like an invading army than desperate survivors. The Ibarrans on board were quickly overwhelmed and taken prisoner.

  Without comment, Duke continued.

  Gor'al followed, asking, "Are you sure they don't need our help?"

  "They better not. If they can't handle the light security remaining on the ship, our plan’s pretty much screwed. We have our own objective."

  "I hope we don't meet another angry redheaded woman who wants to hurt me," Gor'al said.

  "Said no red-blooded human man ever," Duke muttered, scanning right and left as they crossed an intersection of hallways. They came to a lift that was open, cleared it to make sure there were no guards or surprises, then checked the power.

  “Looks functional. Let's do this," Duke said. They bumped fists and took the lift to the bridge.

  "There's a fortified security room between the lift exit and the bridge. If they have any guards, that's where th
ey'll be. I'd also expect at least one or two more inside the bridge, hopefully watching movies and getting paid for doing nothing," Duke said.

  Duke raised his gauss carbine to his shoulder, keeping it just low enough he could see over the sights to scan for enemies when the door opened, but high enough that it would take almost nothing to bring it on-target and fire. He settled into a combat stance, flexing at his knees twice. He couldn't see what Gor'al was doing, but assumed it was something similar.

  "Ready?" Duke asked.

  "Yes, I am ready," Gor'al answered. “Just wish I had real bullets, not these stun round toys. Are you sure they’ll even work?”

  “We’re about to find out.”

  The door slid open. Duke spotted two legionnaires standing apart from each other, their short gauss rifles held in a low-ready position. He fired on the first, switched targets, and fired on the second as he moved into the room. The rounds sparked as they hit armor, sending electric shocks through the armor and frying the pseudo-muscle layer beneath the plates. Power armor was too heavy to move in without the strength assist of the under layer. Add in the nasty shock of the rounds, and those struck were knocked out of the fight.

  Gor'al followed and peeled to the right.

  The main door to the bridge started to close, so Duke leapt forward, clearing it easily, but hearing his partner grunt as he was clipped by the closing barrier.

  Inside were three guards without helmets, rising from a table where they had been playing cards. Duke fired on the first. The man staggered back but didn't go down.

  Gor’al continued to move, spraying the legionnaires as they scrambled for weapons.

  Duke slipped around the corner of a workstation, searching for the man he had knocked off his feet with his first shots. The legionnaire pushed himself backward on one good leg, one hand covering a wound to his face, the other aiming his weapon toward Duke and firing.

  Duke continued to move, never hesitating, sidestepping rather than reacting to the attack. Something clipped the side of his helmet and he fired twice, both rounds impacting his enemy in the top of his chest. The man went down with a clenched jaw and a scream dying in his throat.

  "Reloading!" Gor’al shouted.

  Duke heard his partner and the remaining legionnaires reloading and exploded from his position, circling to their flank, careful not to get downrange of Gor’al. Duke dropped the first legionnaire with a single round to the stomach.

  Still reloading, the last legionnaire twisted to face him. Duke dumped a magazine of rounds into the man's breastplate, pounding him into submission.

  “Zip-tie everyone to a workstation,” Duke said. “Comfort is not a factor.”

  Gor’al nodded vigorously and went to work.

  Duke found the comms station and carefully followed the instructions Marc Ibarra sent him through his HUD, the plain text glowing green in his peripheral vision. He worked fast, like he was stripping down a weapon for inspection.

  “Are you there? Hello?” Ibarra said. “Hello? Anybody in there?”

  “I’m here. If what you sent me was correct, you should be in control of the Breit. Or her communication systems at least. Not sure how to check all the other stuff,” Duke said.

  “That’s good, Marine. Because it looks like we already have an incoming call. Not surprising, really,” Ibarra said.

  ****

  "Station control for Breitenfeld security, are you receiving?” demanded a voice in Basque.

  "Fine, fine. We are all about the receiving down here," Ibarra responded fluently in the same language.

  "Who is this?"

  "Uh…ship security, of course. Who did you think you called?"

  "We've had an emergency landing on your ship. Now we're getting unusual sensor activity and the security team leader isn't responding. Please advise situation," the station security officer demanded.

  "I know, right? What's with the loss of video? I don't think I can work in these conditions. Where can I lodge a complaint?" Ibarra said. "Everything's fine down here. How are you?"

  "Really?" Duke asked, hoping his words weren't being conveyed to the station security team.

  "Channel’s cut. I've been dying to say that longer than you can imagine," Ibarra said. “You might want to prepare for trouble."

  ****

  Steuben entered the room while King was still catching his breath. “Problem?”

  “It was nothing. A little help might have been nice, but I’m sure you were busy,” King said.

  Steuben shrugged. “I had no problem. My initial sweep was better than yours, apparently.”

  King shook his head as something vibrated in his armor’s cargo box. It took him a second to remember what it was. Removing the small phone with his gauntleted hands was tricky, but he managed not to crush it. He placed it to his ear port, temporarily linking it to his comms array. “King.”

  “Hoffman for King, what’s your status?”

  “We’ve secured the spaceport and are about to begin our survey of available transport craft,” King said evenly, breathing more deeply when he was finished with his sentence. He didn’t want his boss to hear him gasping.

  “Excellent,” Hoffman said. “We got a problem on our end. There’s…modern tech between us and our objective.”

  King listened but didn’t comment on the rest of the team’s lack of progress. According to the itinerary, they should have been arriving soon after he and Steuben secured the spaceport. He hadn’t made plans to keep it locked down for an extended period of time.

  “We disabled the Ibarran security nodes, but the electric fences and razor wire still need to be breached. I need one of you to deliver Garrison’s breach kit,” Hoffman said.

  Steuben moved closer, listening in with his keen hearing. “Tell them I’ll handle it. If you think you can keep this place under our control until we get back.”

  King had no idea if he could defend the installation from a determined assault by Ibarran legionnaires, but it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. He could always lock the doors and set up countermeasures. That wouldn’t necessarily help their mission, but it would work until the rest of the team arrived. He hoped.

  Better yet, they could get this done before a massive response from their hosts materialized.

  ****

  Steuben ran through the small grove of evergreen trees, smelling the metal and exhaust of a vehicle parked just off a dirt road. He waited and watched for sixty seconds, aware that someone might have found it and set up a trap. A quick circle of the surrounding area reassured him all was as it should be.

  A fire crackled in the distance and loud, drunken conversation carried through the trees. There…his objective. King wanted a local conveyance to reach the rest of the team quickly. Running in power armor and under cloak would leave their battery reserves low by the time they arrived for whatever fight Hoffman and the others needed help to win.

  The truck had a small cab and a dirty bed that smelled of animal blood and canines. It had been covered in camouflage netting that he removed quickly. The driver’s door was unlocked, and he squeezed his power-armored bulk into the seat. He swept empty shotgun shells, half full bottles of whiskey, and fast food wrappers to the floor.

  He stripped off the steering wheel cover and hotwired the ignition.

  The chrome straight pipes roared at the sky as the engine revved. Fishtailing, overcorrecting, and fishtailing again, he struck a tree hard enough to crush the passenger side door.

  “These controls need to be calibrated,” he muttered, shifting into a different gear and letting out the clutch as he mashed his foot on the accelerator pedal. “But it is fun. Perhaps I should have one if I ever return to Earth.”

  He ignored the shouts from the campers as they tried to catch up. This far from civilization, and at night, it would be many hours before they could get help or report the truck as stolen.

  Thoughts of home distracted him, but he focused his attention elsewhere. He was already a
pariah among his people. He did what he had to do. The camouflage netting whipped and snapped behind the truck like a dirty cloak.

  Things went better once he was on the paved road. Remembering how King had chastised him about his failure to obey local traffic ordinances, he kept the vehicle to the right of the faded yellow line in the middle. He monitored his tactical channel on the small phone, frequently lifting the device to his ear because of the noise the tires generated.

  “This thing is somewhat lacking as a stealth vehicle,” he muttered, glancing at the flapping camouflage net in his rearview mirrors. From time to time, he encountered motorists who stared at his passing. “Humans. Why can’t they mind their own business?” He shook his fist out the window. “Haven’t you ever seen visitors from the future?”

  Chapter 21

  Garrison and Booker crouched in the darkness, watching the street for patrol cars. It’d been several hours since their disastrous infiltration of the police station.

  Max knelt close to the fence with clips attached to small wires he pulled out of a control box. “They reestablished their security measures moments after I shut them off, but that allowed me to keep the passcode. I’m using it now to do a work-around,” he said as he typed into his disguised slate.

  “When did they reset the password?” Hoffman asked.

  “I was kind of generalizing. What I actually did was leave a new code in the computer, kind of a Trojan horse. Doesn’t allow me to turn their countermeasures on or off, it merely lets me work on some low-level maintenance issues—without being seen. Because that’s the key thing. Get into their computer, stay in without setting off alarms, and then do what I do,” Max said.

  “Just to clarify, once you’re finished, we’ll only have to deal with the twenty-first-century tech?” Hoffman asked.

  “Exactly,” Max said.

  “Like electric razor-wire fences.” Hoffman worked through the problem, less concerned than he would have been if they were trapped on a derelict starship full of banshees or surrounded by Kesaht assault troops during a blizzard. “Garrison, switch out with Max. You’re up.”