"Cut main thrusters."
"Cut main thrusters, aye."
"Cut brakes."
"Cut brakes, aye."
"I am taking the con."
"You are taking the con."
Magruder took firm grip on the handles that allowed him to make the fine adjustments needed to bring the THB in contact with the hull of the Marquis de Rien.
The brief pulsing of the main thrusters kept the THB circling around the ship and edging closer to it. Magruder tweaked the main thrusters on and off and they closed even more. He needed to make contact before rotation took them back into the shadow of the ship. He tweaked the main thrusters back on for half a second, saw closure was too fast, tweaked the brakes. A glance at his control panel showed him the approach was a meter and a half per second. On the outer edge of safe speed, but the THB should hold up to the impact. He shifted his gaze back and forth between his control panel and the approaching hull. When they were five meters away, he slammed on the braking thrusters. The THB lurched, then touched down with a barely felt clunk.
Chief Magruder looked at the mission timer and gave a satisfied smile. They made contact thirty-eight minutes from launch.
"Reel in the boarding party."
"Reel in the boarding party, aye," Qim repeated, awe audible in his voice.
Without waiting for orders, the rest of the crew rushed to activate the magnets that would hold the THB to the hull of the Marquis de Rien until the sealant pumped into place and took hold, then turned their attention to the sealant. Using his suit jets and swinging from hold-on to hold-on, Chief Magruder went around to make sure everything was right. It was.
"I'm going to commend every man jack in this crew to the skipper when we get back to the Khe Sanh," he said into the conduction circuit when he finished his inspection. "Well done, men." Then he turned his attention to the Marines.
Magruder touched helmets with Gunnery Sergeant Bass and said, "We're ready anytime you are."
"Let's do this thing," Bass replied. They were at the entry hatch in the rear of the THB.
Magruder gestured, and Bass signaled the first man to enter. It was Corporal Doyle. Magruder gave him a guiding shove and he headed straight for the inside controls. The two senior noncommissioned officers guided six more bulky Marines into the chamber after him. Sergeant Ratliff and Corporal Pasquin, the second and third in line, carried a two and a half meter ram between them. So did PFCs Hayes and Godenov, who followed them. The Marines crowded into their assult-boarding positions. As soon as the last Marine was inside and Magruder felt the vibrations from his magnets locking onto the deck, he dogged the hatch. Magruder and Bass looked at each other, but neither had anything to say. They knew that if Doyle and the ship's engineering department were wrong, in a very few seconds they, along with the seven Marines inside the THB and the dozen sailors around it, would be dead, and the string of Marines and sailors waiting their turn in the breacher would be tumbling through space.
Corporal Doyle looked at the control panel in front of him. He deliberately didn't look directly at the button that was supposed to release atmospheric gases into the chamber. Tentatively, he moved the hatch-control lever back and forth. The hatch halves slid easily in their tracks. He froze them in position one-third closed, then turned his attention to the cutter control buttons. He held a hand over the buttons, said a quick, silent prayer to whatever god might happen to be listening, and pressed the start sequence.
Gases flowed at high pressure into the mixing chambers, then shot out of the nozzles and ignited into blue flames. The nozzles swiveled close to the hull of the Marquis de Rien and the tips of the flames touched metal. The Marines clearly felt the metal snapping and popping when the cutting flames bit it. The cutter frame began its slow rotation, and a rough outline of red, turning to white, traced its way onto the hull. The metal softened and pillowed out from the flatness of the hull.
Holding his breath in his anxiety, Corporal Doyle kept a close watch on his controls, waiting for the appearance of the first pinhole that would indicate the hull was about to breach. It was his job to close the hatch as soon as that pinhole began to form. That way he could quickly ensure equal pressure in the THB and the ship.
There! Corporal Doyle slapped the hatch lever, and the halves slid together.
The THB rocked as the cutout broke free of the hull and slammed into it.
Doyle hit the atmosphere release button, and air gushed into the chamber and equalized the pressure on both sides of the hatch.
Doyle turned as far as he could to look at the other Marines. All were staring at the hatch. They were ready. Doyle lifted an arm to signal them, then opened the hatch. The two rams slammed forward and punched the cutout into the ship. It clanged to the deck of the compartment they had cut into. Schultz led the rush.
As soon as the six Marines were out of the breacher and into the ship, Corporal Doyle closed the hatch and evacuated the atmosphere. There was no time for subtlety—instead of being pumped back into tanks, the air simply gushed through cocks in the sides of the THB. Outside, Chief Magruder watched the gauge that told him the internal air pressure. When it dropped far enough, he popped the outer hatch. Air gusted past him, but without enough force to dislodge him. He signaled to Bass and they sent in three more Marines with the pilot and navigator. Bass joined that group. Magruder dogged the hatch and Doyle cycled the six through.
Chief Magruder touched his helmet to Staff Sergeant Hyakowa's and said, "We've got time to get everybody aboard, including my sailors, if that Marine inside moves fast enough."
"He will," Hyakowa replied, and began assembling the next group to board the ship.
Corporal Doyle sped things up by not filling the breaching chamber to full pressure before opening the inner hatch. The Marines and sailors waiting to enter the ship were buffeted by the sudden gust of air from the ship, but were quickly through the inner hatch.
Gunny Bass, third platoon's first squad, and the two navy officers who would operate the Marquis de Rien once the Marines got control of it, filled an empty cargo hold almost to capacity. There were two entrances to the hold. One was a large cargo hatch in the inner corner of the wedge-shaped hold. The other led to a circular passageway around the cargo dropshaft and the adjacent personnel dropshaft. Given the pyramid shape of the starship, all vertical movement was restricted to its interior center line.
"Here's where we are," Bass said. He transmitted a plan of the ship's interior to his men's helmet heads-up displays. A red circle indicated their location in a hold on the fifth of eight levels, slightly aft of the ship's midpoint. The first level, just inside the bow, held the ship's sensing, guidance, and communications suites. On the second level was the bridge, operations spaces, and crew quarters. Third, fourth, and fifth levels were cargo holds. The sixth was Fuel and Engineering; the seventh, the powerplant and more fuel; the eighth, Atmosphere Landing and Launch. Each level was divided pielike into holds and smaller compartments.
"This is the layout of this class of cargo ship," Bass told his men, "but we can't rely on it for any great accuracy. We don't know how extensively the current owner changed the interior of the ship. We do know he replaced the powerplant, so he may well have made other changes." None of this was news to the men of third platoon; they'd gone over it before they suited up and left the Khe Sanh. Still, they'd had a very short prep time, and Bass thought it merited repetition.
"First squad, head aft. Take over Engineering. Second squad, we will go forward and take the bridge."
While he was talking, Chief Magruder entered the hold with the last of his sailors.
"Can you hear me, Chief?"
"Loud and clear, Gunny," Magruder answered.
"I want you, and as many of your men as you need, to go with first squad and take control of Engineering as soon as it's secured. Sergeant Ratliff is in command until that occurs. Understood?"
"The fighters are in command as long as there might be fighting, then the engineers take
over. Got it."
"Corporal Doyle!"
"Yes, Gunny."
"You take Doc and the rest of the sailors into this hold"—another compartment on the same level lit up in the displays—"and provide security for them. Make sure you dog this one vacuum-tight in case the THB breaks off—we don't want anyone lost in an explosive evacuation."
"Aye aye, Gunny." Doyle was disappointed. He was proud of what he'd done with the THB and wanted to be in on the kill. Wait a minute! The kill? There might be fighting? Right, stay here and provide security for the sailors. There were going to be Marines between him and the crew of the Marquis de Rien. If there was any fighting, it would be somewhere else, and he'd be safe providing security for the sailors.
"Doc, you stay here to establish a med-station in case there are casualties."
"Aye aye," replied Hospitalman Third Class Hough.
"Let's do it"
Sly Henderson stared uncomprehendingly at the mottled, varicolored display in his viewscreen. The optical pickups on the Marquis de Rien's hull displayed a visual of the space between it and the Khe Sanh. A box of some sort was visible in the shifting, wavering light available in the blazing flares from the primary. He muttered under his breath, wanting more data than the visual could give him. But only visual was available to him so close to the primary—all other wavelengths he had access to were too disrupted to tell him anything about the object. All he could tell was it was a box, launched from the Khe Sanh and closing on his ship. Damnit! He didn't even have an accurate radar reading to tell him how fast it was closing! He could only assume it would reach his ship before slingshot. So what was it?
Not a bomb, he was certain of that. The Confederation Navy had missiles capable of operating so close to a star; the navy wouldn't have to send over something like that box if they intended to blow up the Marquis. The only other thing he could think of was that the box was a shelter for Marines who would try to break open an airlock.
Well, let them try, he thought. As soon as he saw the box approaching, he'd sent men to the personnel airlock on level three and the cargo airlock on level six with orders to weld their inside hatches shut. When they were secured, men armed with military assault cannons would cover those airlocks just in case the Marines did breach them. No way live Marines would board his ship.
He glanced at the chronometer. Forty minutes to slingshot.
The box grew steadily larger in his viewscreen, and he noticed something that puzzled him. It wasn't coming straight at the Marquis de Rien, it was approaching at a tangent. Now why...? It was a decoy! It had to be. He searched the viewscreen for the Marines who must be jetting toward him independent of the box. No joy. Well, they had to be somewhere.
"Begin spin," he ordered. The Marquis de Rien began a slow rotation around its long axis.
Henderson swore to himself when the box began the orbiting maneuver that held it directly above one spot on the rotating ship. He felt the thunk as it connected with the hull. He leaned closer to the viewscreen, amazed. The box had missed both airlocks! Maybe it was guided by some kind of malfunctioning autopilot.
"This is Sly," he said into the ship's intercom. "Those jarheads missed the airlocks. We're home free. Secure the assault cannons and prepare for acceleration, we're almost at slingshot. If it's still there after slingshot and our first jump in Beamspace, we'll have to go out and kick it off. If it slips away during slingshot, the navy scow will have to try and rescue whoever's in it. In either case, the navy has no way of knowing where we'll come back into Space 3. Out here."
Sly Henderson settled back on his command chair and gave himself a satisfied smile. Home free! With enough wealth in the safe right there under his eyes to set them all up as potentates for the rest of their natural lives.
He felt a clangor through his feet. "What the...?" He didn't know that a hole had just been cut through the hull of the Marquis de Rien.
Chapter 28
The personnel dropshaft was empty for its entire length. Bass used hand signals to direct everyone into it. If the ship's crew didn't already know the Marines were aboard, he didn't want to give them any warning. As silently as they could in the armored vacuum suits, the Marines filed into the dropshaft. Power was off in the shaft, but that didn't bother them. If they were using powered lifts and power was cut off while they were using them, they would fall and suffer possibly serious injuries. It was better to use the ladder rungs mounted into the sides of the shaft. Their suits were less cumbersome in the shafts—the little bit of gravity in the ship was centrifugal force directed toward the skin of the ship, and the ladder rungs faced the skin. They had just enough "weight" to make controlling their movement along the ladder easy.
Most of first squad left the dropshaft on the engineering level, and PFC MacIlargie, on second squad's point, was just reaching the hatch to the second level when Bass felt the ship move.
"Hold on!" he commanded into his helmet comm. "Slingshot's beginning."
"Who's that?" Sly Henderson snapped when he heard Bass cry out "Hold on!" Then he exploded into the intercom, "They're on board! The Marines have boarded the ship!"
"Team leaders report," Sergeant Ratliff ordered.
"I'm all right," Hayes told Schultz. The two of them were in the lead and had firm grips that kept them on their feet.
"First fire team okay," Schultz reported
"Dean, sound off," Corporal Pasquin gasped as he tried to extricate himself from the pile at the foot of the ladder.
"I'm on top of you," Dean replied as he pulled himself away from the ladder and gained his feet.
"I'm in place," MacIlargie said. He also had a firm grip,
"Second fire team's all right," Pasquin reported as he regained his feet and leaned against the skinward g-force.
"I'm all right," PFC Quick reported. "Corporal Goudanis?" he said when his fire team leader didn't respond. "Impy, is Corporal Goudanis okay?"
No reply.
"Sergeant Ratliff, I think something happened to Corporal Goudanis and Van Impe." Quick twisted around and held his face close to Goudanis's helmet. He saw that his fire team leader's eyes were closed and his jaw hung slack. "Corporal Goudanis is down!"
"What's wrong with him?" Ratliff asked.
"I don't know, he looks like he's knocked out"
"What about Van Impe?"
Quick lifted himself over Goudanis to look into Van Impe's helmet. "He's out too," he reported.
Ratliff swore. "Quick, go back up until you have communications with Doc Hough. Tell him we've got two casualties we can't move. Then rejoin the squad."
"Aye aye," Quick replied and began climbing the ladder.
Sergeant Ratliff had only himself and five men to secure the entire deck. He swore again. A full squad was barely enough to do the job. Even when Quick returned he'd be three men short of a full squad.
MacIlargie thudded forward and skidded across the deck of the passageway that circled the dropshafts. He quickly scrambled into a crouch and looked in both directions. No one was in sight and his external audio didn't pick up the sounds of anybody approaching. He looked back at the dropshaft and saw armored gloves hanging onto the lip of the opening. He lowered himself to the deck, braced his feet against the bulkhead opposite the opening, and stretched out to grasp Corporal Kerr's wrist. He pulled, and in seconds his fire team leader was in the passageway with him. Together they helped Claypoole up.
When they got Sergeant Bladon up, he told them to go five meters around the passageway in one direction and hold. Bladon helped Linsman and his men up and sent them five meters in the other direction. Then Gunny Bass joined him and they got Lance Corporal Chan's fire team up. Fortunately, when Bass gave the word, everybody in first squad had stopped climbing and grabbed tight. Nobody fell, though just about all of them had broken, bent, or missing radiator fins.
Bass hoped the damage had not had any effect on the integrity of the suits. He checked the layout of the ship in his HUD to determine where they were
relative to the bridge.
"Assign two fire teams to passageway security," he ordered Bladon. "You're in command. If anyone exits any of the compartments on this level or tries to come up here from below, take them prisoner. Kill them if they resist. I'll take the other fire team onto the bridge and secure it."
Sergeant Bladon hardly had to think of which fire team to send with Bass; Corporal Kerr had been through the most with Bass, even though he'd missed Diamunde and Waygone, and probably had Bass's confidence more than Linsman or Chan. "Second fire team up. Go with Gunny Bass." Then he turned his attention to positioning the rest of his squad.
Bass drew a route on his HUD and transmitted it to Kerr and his men.
"They probably don't have any weapons, and even if they do, they probably don't have anything that'll penetrate our suits. Still, we go in ready to fight. Dial down the power on your blasters. If we do have to fight, I don't want to slag all the controls. I'll go in first and move to the left," he said. "Claypoole and Kerr follow and go right. Mac, you trail and follow me to the left. Questions?"
Nobody had any.
"Let's do it."
The traverse to the bridge was awkward. They were vertical, but had to resist an ever-shifting pull toward the skin of the ship. But it didn't take long to reach the hatch that led into the bridge.
"Ready?"
They were.
Bass drew his hand-blaster and slapped the Open button next to the hatch.
It took a couple of minutes for the pulls of the conflicting g-forces to resolve themselves. Then Sly Henderson was able to heave himself out of his command chair.
"They're coming for us," he said when he gained his feet and found balance. "Let's give them a surprise."
He made his way across the deck, which felt like it tilted precipitously toward the outer bulkhead, to a locker on one of the interior walls and broke it open. Inside were five rifles, Art Gunsel specials. They looked similar to the rifles Gunsel had made for the Cheereek, but they were modified for easy handling by human beings. The most obvious visible difference was the thirty-round magazine that protruded downward. The magazines were filled with caseless ammunition, bullets made of depleted uranium. Henderson passed a loaded rifle and two extra magazines to each of the four men with him and took the fifth for himself.
Technokill Page 29
