The Ghast was right – they couldn’t wait a moment longer before going through the gap in the blisteringly hot metal. If they could establish a strong position on the other side, it would give them the platform to push on.
“You can’t go through, sir,” said Ortiz.
“Stop reading my mind.”
“None of us can fly a Space Corps warship, let alone a Dreamer one.”
There was an excellent chance that the first person through would die if there were any enemy soldiers waiting in ambush. Unfortunately, there was no time to delay and they needed to know what lay beyond. “Who wants it?” he asked across the open channel.
“I’ve got this one, sir,” said Camacho.
The man clearly hoped to repent for his stray shot into Duggan’s shoulder.
“I don’t hold a grudge, soldier.”
“I didn’t think so, sir.”
Before a further word was spoken, the lights in the docking bay came back on. The sudden shift caused the sensor on Duggan’s helmet to brighten almost unbearably before it adjusted. He looked around, seeing few new details of any importance. The only thing which concerned him was the light itself. It wasn’t a static shade of blue like it had been when they came into land – this time the colour cycled from dark to light and back again.
“I know what that means,” said Duggan with certainty. “It’s an automated warning that the outer door is going to open.” He called out to Ortiz. “We need those mobile guns in position, Lieutenant.”
“We’ve just got here, sir. They’re not the same as ours and we haven’t figured out how to power them up yet.”
“Does Braler know?”
“He’s as much in the dark as we are, sir.”
“That door is going to open soon. Get yourselves out of there and we’ll get into the main part of the ship. We might be able to fortify.”
“Negative, sir. We can get these guns working.”
Ortiz wasn’t quite disobeying orders but she was running it close. If Duggan hadn’t trusted her so much he would have been angry. As it was, he left it to her judgement, instead of repeating his command for her to leave.
“It’s in your hands, Lieutenant.”
“We’ll sort it, sir.”
The conversation ended. Movement to his right caught Duggan’s attention - it was Camacho. He was on the same wall as Duggan, a few paces further from the door. The soldier broke away and ran past. He hesitated only fractionally and then hurled himself at the gap in the red-hot metal, vanishing inside.
“Camacho, please report!” said Duggan.
“Damnit it’s a sealed area!” was the response. “And my suit’s smoking.”
Before Duggan could request more details, he felt something clunk – he sensed it as a deep shudder within the wall behind him. He recognized it as the operation of something huge and mechanical. He jerked his head to the right, towards the vast, rounded external door of the hangar bay. A gap appeared at the top, through which the utter blackness of space was visible. The gap became steadily wider as the door slid smoothly downwards.
“Aw crap,” said Barron.
Duggan couldn’t have put it better himself.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DUGGAN’S BRAIN switched up a gear, into a mode where it grasped each possibility of the battlefield and evaluated each option swiftly and dispassionately. “Lieutenant Ortiz, get those guns working now,” he said. “Bonner, go through this doorway and see what you can do. Check out what’s blocking our progress - I want you to blow it open. Don’t piss about.”
“Yes, sir!” Bonner said. She was over by the first shuttle, fifty metres away. She covered the distance in less than ten seconds carrying her heavy pack of explosives. Without pause, she threw herself headlong into the gap in the hangar wall.
While Bonner ran, Ortiz spoke. “We’ve got both guns powering up now, sir,” she said, relief evident in her voice.
“There’s no time to position them nicely. You’ll need to leave them on the shuttle and aim them through the side doors. Set them to auto and if we’re lucky they should fire for a couple of seconds before the enemy craft realise what’s happening. It might be enough.”
Over at the second shuttle, he saw several figures jump through one of the side doors. They didn’t stick around and they ran directly across the docking bay floor. There was other movement and the two gauss repeaters appeared, their muzzles aiming outwards and towards the opening hangar door.
“The rest of you, get to this wall!” Duggan ordered.
The few who remained around the first shuttle began to run. There was no sign of Ortiz and she remained in the second transport.
“Come on, Lieutenant, where are you?” he shouted. “You’re running out of time!”
“There’s no auto, sir. I’m staying here with Braler to fire the guns manually.”
“Shit, get over here, Lieutenant.”
“Negative, sir. This is the best chance we’ve got.”
Duggan looked towards the outer door again - it was a third of the way open already. He couldn’t see the enemy shuttles, even when he went to maximum zoom on his sensor. They were out there, he knew it with certainty. The only hope was they didn’t have an angle to start shooting yet.
“How are you doing in there, Bonner?” he asked.
“There’s a door, sir. It’s going to take half of my charges to get it open. We’ll have to come back into the hangar or we’ll burn.”
Duggan couldn’t wrench his eyes from the main door. There was still nothing visible beyond it, but those nose cannons could likely target and fire from beyond the range of his helmet sensor.
“Negative, we’re coming in!” he said.
He made the command over the open channel and one-by-one the soldiers dashed through the remains of the bulkhead door. It was a tight fit for the Ghasts and they had to turn sideways to manoeuvre their shoulder plates into the space.
Duggan took his turn. He faced the gap, his sensor able to make out more details now that the alloy had cooled somewhat. The combination of gauss rounds and plasma explosives was an ugly one, and they had punched an irregular opening in the door of about six feet high and four wide. The sides burned with dull anger, rather than the fury of before. It was more than hot enough to set off an alarm in his suit when he took the final step towards the threshold and he felt as if he were stepping through a gateway into the very depths of hell. Inside, the metal was rough-edged and he could see how treacherous it was – sharp pieces of partially-melted alloy intruded and he had to keep a careful watch to avoid them. Underfoot, it was similar and unseen objects slithered away when he trod on them. We got through four metres of solid metal, was the only thought he had time to form.
Then, he was on the other side, his HUD showing half a dozen blinking amber alerts. Here and there, the material of his suit was scorched black and he hoped it hadn’t become brittle enough to split. He moved quickly away from the source of heat, to save his suit from further damage and to let the next person through.
His sensor adjusted quickly. This was a big room – fifteen or twenty metres to a side and with a single, simple control console on the right-hand wall. Red-Gulos was in front of it, pressing tentatively at one of the screens. Elsewhere in the room the soldiers had spread themselves around, with most of them looking straight towards Bonner. The squad’s explosives expert had her pack on the floor and she was busy fixing pale-blue charges around the edges of another large door.
“How long?” Duggan asked her.
“I can be ready to blow it in less than a minute, sir.” She hesitated. “It’ll kill half of us if we stay in here. Really it will.”
“We’re not in the best of positions, soldier,” he told her. “Let me know when you’re ready.”
The next voice was that of Ortiz, calm in spite of the perils. “I’ve got a target!” she said grimly. “Firing.”
“Out of the way,” said Duggan, pushing Vaughan and Cabrera to one side.
He crouched and looked through the hole into the hangar bay. He had a good view of the second shuttle and saw the two portable repeaters open up. As with the shuttle’s nose cannon, they gave off no sound and no flash. The only indication of their activity was a distortion in the air, which traced a line across Duggan’s vision.
“Come on!” he muttered, gripping the barrel of his own rifle until his knuckles ached and the bones in his forearm complained.
The two repeaters continued to fire for what seemed like an age and Duggan’s hopes grew that it would be enough. Ten seconds passed during which Ortiz and Braler operated the guns without a response. Then, an answer came. Bullets raked into the hull of the shuttle. Its armour was sufficient to deflect the fusillade for a moment, but the attack didn’t stop and the enemy slugs beat against the shuttle’s metal plating. The vessel was gradually pushed away across the hangar bay floor, its outline becoming more distorted with each passing second. The repeaters operated by Ortiz and Braler vanished within a second of each other, smashed and broken into pieces.
The enemy stopped firing and everything was still. The second shuttle was a mess, filled with thousands of holes. Three of its landing legs had broken off and the hull was tilted to one side. Duggan swore.
“Lieutenant Ortiz, Braler, please report.”
There was no answer.
“Lieutenant Ortiz. Report, damnit!”
“She is gone, Captain Duggan,” said Red-Gulos. “And Braler.”
“They can’t be!” he shouted.
“Her vital signs are no longer registering on our close-range network.”
Duggan punched the wall. He felt pain, without caring.
“We need to act,” said the Ghast.
“What the hell can we do?” he asked, knowing at once how stupid the words sounded. He needed to take command and he did so. “Bonner, get those explosives ready! We’re going to capture this ship if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Yes, sir. I’m placing the final two charges.”
Duggan took another look into the hangar bay, wondering if he’d see Ortiz and Braler running to join with the rest of the squad. There was nothing – the ruined shuttle lay in its place, bathed in the ever-changing blue light.
He was about to turn away when his suit detected something that his unaided ear would have missed. It amplified and modified the vibration and transmitted it to him – it was more a sensation than an outright sound. There was a harshness that Duggan recognized at once – it was the labouring of a heavily-damaged gravity engine.
“Give me that launcher,” he snapped at Rasmussen, holding out his hand. “Hendrix, Berg, follow me.”
Rasmussen duly handed over the plasma launcher. Duggan waited only long enough to be sure Hendrix and Berg understood his order. When he saw them move towards him, he ducked his head and ran through the broken hangar bay door, producing a series of additional heat alerts from his suit.
It was more than a decade since Duggan had fired a plasma tube. Time hadn’t made him rusty and he found his arms swinging the weapon up to his shoulder, smoothly and without conscious thought. His target was visible, three or four hundred metres away. The enemy shuttle hung in the vacuum outside the Valpian. It was badly damaged and Duggan had no idea how it was still in one piece.
With shame, Duggan realised he hated those onboard the shuttle. Anger was hard to avoid in the heat of battle and it was an asset if properly controlled. Hate, on the other hand, was an emotion which robbed him of his humanity.
The coils in the plasma tube hummed and the single remaining rocket sped away, leaving a tiny trail of grey-white particles in its wake. It hit the enemy shuttle where the cockpit joined the passenger area. The explosion seemed small from this distance. Hendrix and Berg were at his side and they fired their own tubes.
“That’s me out,” said Berg.
“I’ve got one more,” said Hendrix. “Awaiting recharge.”
As the two additional missiles crossed the intervening space, Duggan watched the front cannon turn in its housing, seeking out the two men and the woman standing below. Hendrix and Berg were experts with their chosen weapons and each scored a direct hit. The front end of the shuttle was engulfed and Duggan prayed it had suffered terminal damage.
The transport’s chain gun opened up and a withering hail of bullets raked through the intervening space, smashing into the walls and floor behind the three who faced it. They stood, unwavering, as if their defiance would make them victorious against the raging metal. Duggan’s gauss rifle was slung over his back. He shrugged it free and started shooting in controlled bursts, the faint thump of the recoil in his shoulder as fulfilling as it had ever been.
“They’re firing blind. Must have burned out their front sensor array,” said Berg, as if she were commenting on something entirely mundane and unimportant.
“Where’s that last one, Hendrix?” asked Duggan.
“Coming.”
A bullet tore a furrow in the floor less than a metre from Duggan’s left foot. He ignored it and fired again and again, with no idea if his efforts were in any way significant.
“There she goes,” said Hendrix.
The final plasma round flew from its tube. From where Duggan was standing, the missile appeared to arc gracefully towards its destination. It struck the glowing nose of the shuttle close to where the others had impacted. This time there was no doubt – the transport was ripped apart, as though it had been held together by a web of threads, each of which were cut simultaneously by this last strike. The vessel fell away, the pieces separating and dropping out of sight, plasma still burning ferociously in half a dozen places.
“Gotcha,” said Hendrix.
“Yeah,” said Berg. There was no joy in her voice.
Duggan lowered his rifle and his anger faded. His treacherous mind recalled Ortiz’s words that he was the only one who could fly the Valpian – he’d jeopardised the whole of the squad. He felt sorrow at his own weakness. I’m as human as any of them.
“Sergeant Red-Gulos. Get everyone out into the hangar bay. Tell them to prepare for whatever might be on the other side of that inner door.”
While the soldiers emerged from the inner room, Duggan ran over towards the second shuttle. It was a mess and it was impossible to imagine anyone could have survived. The tilt on the shuttle allowed him to see easily inside the passenger bay. Braler was dead. He was only recognizable because pieces of his suit remained untouched. There was blood – seemingly gallons of it splashed on the floor and the walls.
Bonner spoke to him. “Sir, should I blow the door?”
“Yes. Blow it.”
Duggan hauled himself into the shuttle. It was a mess of broken seats and metal containers, none of which had escaped damage of one sort or another.
“Heads down,” said Bonner over the open channel. “This is going to get hot.”
He was turning to leave when his suit highlighted the smallest of movements in a fleeting hint of orange. Ortiz was there, beneath a pile of crumpled metal boxes. He dragged the debris to one side until he could see her, prone and face down. She stirred, this time the movement was unmistakeable.
“Corporal Weiss, get here at once,” he said. His voice croaked with the words and he repeated them in case they hadn’t been clear.
Another voice spoke. “Hostiles. Squad Two into position,” said Red-Gulos.
Duggan jumped out of the shuttle and ran to join the fray. The squad’s medic sprinted to the shuttle as if her heavy pack was no burden at all and the two of them passed midway across the hangar bay floor.
It only took seconds for Duggan to reach the others. It was plenty of time for him to reflect on events which had taken him from the extremes of misery to the heights of exhilaration, with hardly anything in between.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BIT BY BIT they captured the enemy warship. It wasn’t clear what the usual complement of soldiers was on a vessel such as this one, but it was soon apparent the maj
ority of them had been killed on the two shuttles. Those few who remained lacked either training or motivation, both of which Duggan’s soldiers had in handfuls.
There were one or two pockets of resistance as they advanced the length of the Valpian, most notably in a large mess room through which Duggan and his soldiers were required to pass in order to proceed. It took skill and bravery to flush out the enemy who were holed up in the room, but once their resolve crumbled it was easy to finish them off.
Lieutenant Ortiz was on her feet again, though her suit helmet was badly damaged. Her comms worked only sporadically and the suit’s computer reported a variety of false messages to the rest of the squad. Weiss’s opinion was that the lieutenant had suffered a serious concussion, leaving Duggan with no choice other than to temporarily relieve Ortiz of her of command. She didn’t object and her injury meant Red-Gulos took over as Duggan’s second.
A few minutes after leaving the hangar, Duggan felt the subtlest of dislocations. If he’d not served on a variety of spacecraft for so many years he would have missed it.
“We’ve gone to lightspeed,” he said.
“I don’t think we will enjoy the reception once we reach our destination,” said Red-Gulos.
The longer he spent with the Ghasts, the more Duggan was able to pick up their dry sense of humour. They’d seemed dour and uncommunicative at first; now he could tell they were merely different.
The interior of the Valpian held no great surprises when compared to a Space Corps vessel. The Dreamer warship had more open space within, though that space didn’t appear to serve much purpose. There were recreational areas, mess areas complete with elaborate-looking food replicators, and sleeping quarters which contained little in the way of recognizable home comforts.
Elsewhere, there was an unsecured armoury room, with most of its gun racks empty. There were three Dreamers inside, whom Duggan’s troops surprised and killed. This area of the ship remained pressurized and the three aliens wore heavy uniforms of grey cloth, which Duggan assumed were their normal on-duty apparel.
Guns of the Valpian (Survival Wars Book 6) Page 9
