by Terry Mixon
There was no time for careful targeting, so Brad emulated the Security lieutenant, unloading his shotgun into the foes ranged against them before letting it fall on its strap. He followed up with shots from his pistols.
He stepped to the left to get a better angle, and a rifle bullet cracked through the space where his head had just been.
Brad ducked back under cover, checked his forces, and cursed. Three of Simon’s troopers and two of his own were down, dead or wounded.
“Someone kill that damn sniper,” he shouted as he rose and finished emptying his pistols at the rapidly approaching pirate platoon. Perhaps a third of the pirates were down, but the rest were still coming, laying down suppressive fire as they advanced.
These people had to be more of those damned commandos his people had fought on the automated JoveCorp freighter. They were far too well trained to be just pirates.
As he ducked back to reload, Saburo stepped in front of the truck. The wiry officer had grabbed the grenade launcher from his dead trooper. Brad watched in horror as the man carefully took aim at the bridge on which the sniper knelt and opened fire.
A full belt of twelve grenades ripped into the air. They began to arc downward before they escaped the gravity field of the main bridge. Their path from that point was as straight as anyone could’ve hoped.
Most of the grenades slammed into the target span. The deadly fragments were more than enough to kill even an armored man, and they set up a visible vibration in the metal bridge.
Then the armor-piercing grenade, tacked onto the end of the belt almost as an afterthought, slammed into the bridge and ripped it in half. If the pirate sniper had still been alive, he would’ve been doomed as the two halves whiplashed across the empty space of the column to mangle themselves against the walls.
Against the cacophony of the bridge’s destruction, Brad’s eyes jerked back to Saburo just in time to see him collapse sideways, blood spurting from his leg.
Brad launched himself toward his officer and friend, but a burst of flechettes from the pirate platoon slammed into Saburo’s armored chest and sent him tumbling off the span and into zero g. He spun away, blood spreading around him in a cloud of droplets as he tumbled.
Trista yanked Brad back behind the truck. “He’s gone, sir. Stay down or we’ll lose you, too.”
Before he could even process what had just happened, Simon shouted and his heart went cold.
“Blades!”
He pulled away from Trista, jammed his empty pistols into their holsters, and drew his mono-blade.
The distinctive hiss of monofilaments activating echoed through the column as the pirates charged in. Brad stepped in front of the truck to meet them.
Two pirates lunged at him. He parried both with a single swing of his blade, slicing one’s arm off. He twisted the blade back around, cutting through his friend’s stomach on his backswing.
A bullet smashed through the first pirate’s visor and he crumpled. Brad glanced back to find Lieutenant Simon already looking for fresh targets.
Brad traded blows with another pirate for a few moments and then beheaded him. He looked for more targets of his own but found only bodies. The second skirmish was over.
Counting Saburo, he’d lost two more of his mercenaries and two of Simon’s troopers. They wouldn’t survive another attack like that.
“Son of a bitch,” he said softly. The pirates had never faltered. They’d pressed home like real soldiers. Definitely commandos.
He deactivated his blade and holstered it. As he was reloading his pistols, he activated his link to Raine.
“Raine, this is Madrid.”
“Raine here,” the Chief replied breathlessly. “Go.”
“Gamma is secure for the moment, but we’ve taken heavy casualties. I’m not sure we can still hold.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ve blown the bridge in Alpha to smithereens with explosives, but they wiped out the team holding Beta. Our people fried the doors, but they’re bringing up a cutter. All the enemy forces are converging there.”
“Understood,” Brad said in a flat voice. “We’re withdrawing. Madrid out.”
He turned to the Security lieutenant. “Get everyone off the bridge and prepare to fall back to Central. The pirates have Column Beta.”
The woman didn’t waste time cursing, motioning for the survivors to help the wounded back out of the column.
“What are you planning to do?” Marshal asked.
“I’m going to secure the bridge,” Brad said, drawing his mono-blade again.
“Crude but effective,” the pilot said. “Don’t dawdle.”
Brad approached the side of the bridge. With a single slash of his blade, he severed the rail, which also killed the power to the gravity plates farther out. He began hacking at the bridge, shearing chunks out of it with every blow.
He’d only made it two thirds of the way across when a rifle bullet cracked by his head. A quick glance over as he dodged confirmed he had another rifle-armed sniper on the wreckage of the bridge connecting to the main span.
Brad threw himself down just as a second bullet cracked through where his torso had been. The impact, combined with the now-fluctuating artificial gravity, began to twist the last shreds of the bridge.
Without waiting to see if it held, Brad scrambled to his feet and ran. He was barely moving before the sniper shot a bullet literally in front of his eyes.
The bridge groaned behind him. The stress of the twisted metal had grown too great for it to hold.
As he reached the hatch exiting the column, two of his mercenaries grabbed him. Bare moments after they had him clear, the convulsions of the massive span down the center of the column ripped the lesser structure entirely out of the column wall behind him.
“Well,” Simon said into the silence that followed. “That was impressive, Commodore. I doubt they’ll be using this hatch, but let’s get it sealed and get to Central. We still have the finale to look forward to.”
Brad leaned back against the wall and deactivated his blade. How high was the bill going to be? He’d lost Michelle, Saburo, and three other mercenaries who had served with him for years. Trista, Marshal, and three troopers were all he had left. Would any of them live to see the end of this fight?
He prayed so because he wanted vengeance. The pirates would pay in blood for what they’d taken.
Chapter Eleven
Maybe ten seconds after his dramatic exit from the structural column, Brad’s com chirped. More good news, he was sure.
“Madrid.”
“I need you in corridor eighteen, section J,” Raine said. “Simon knows where it is. Make it fast!”
Brad turned to the lieutenant as soon as the chief disconnected. “Raine wants us at corridor eighteen, section J.”
She nodded. “That’s the one corridor they have to go through to get to Central from Column Beta.”
“Lead the way,” he instructed quietly.
They found Raine blocking off the corridor. He was directing people to place barricades and to get behind them. When Brad and Lieutenant Simon arrived, he turned to them.
“Is Gamma secure?”
The image of the twisting and snapping bridge flashed through his mind. “I’d say so, yes.”
“Good. Like I said, we’ve secured Alpha, but they have Beta. I’ve put teams in place to slow them down, but I’ve lost contact with almost everyone. The few people still responding have been kicked out of the way.
“I hate that, but they’ve bought us time to set this up.” He gestured at the barricade crossing the corridor. “The Cadre is going to be here soon. I need your people to reinforce mine.”
His mercenaries combined with Lieutenant Simon’s people only brought a bit more than a dozen people to the party. This was going to be grim.
Well, they’d do what they had to.
He turned to his people and opened his mouth to tell Saburo to take care of it but stopped. Saburo was gone. The man was never going
to pass on an order again.
“I’ll take care of it,” Marshal said quietly.
With a sharp nod, Brad turned back to Raine. “How long do we have?”
Raine shrugged. “They’re using jammers to screw with our communications and scanners. I can guess where they are from the blank spots, but that’s a fairly large area. Ten minutes. Fifteen max.”
A shout from the corridor interrupted his response. A quick glance behind him showed that time had run out. A single pirate—likely a scout—had rounded the corner. Brad and Raine were on the wrong side of the barricade.
Brad almost grabbed at his auto-shotgun from where it hung on its harness, but he already knew it was too late. The pirate had his own shotgun raised.
So, instead, he ducked and turned, trusting the security people to take out the scout.
A blast of flechettes mostly slammed into the barricade, but he didn’t come out unscathed. Several of the darts ricocheted off his armor, and at least one penetrated his side protection. It stung like hell.
The thundering discharge of several shotguns boomed over his head, dropping the pirate and partially deafening him. A glance confirmed that had eliminated the immediate threat.
He yanked a battle patch from his pouch and slapped it onto his side, covering the hole. As the plastic molded itself to his armor, sealing the dangerous holes in his vacuum-proofing, jets of specially designed foam sealed his wound.
Brad took stock of the situation and felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Raine hadn’t dodged fast enough.
Dozens of holes marked the man’s armor where a straight-on burst of flechettes had cut into him. Blood was pouring from the wounds.
He lunged across the corridor to the man’s side just as he sank to his knees. Brad eased him to the deck.
“My people...help them...please,” the dying man rasped.
“I will.”
Raine grabbed Brad’s arm weakly. “Hold the line.” And then he died.
“Dammit,” Brad muttered.
The sound of running footsteps and shouts got him to his feet and over the barricade. He rolled to his feet, weapon ready, just in time to see the first pirate squad trot around the corner.
“Open fire!” he shouted.
This time, not only did the people behind the barricade open fire, so did the light flechette cannon they’d set up to cover the corridor. It spat hundreds of the lethal darts down the corridor in one long burst and ripped the pirates to pieces.
Before anyone could relax, the rest of whatever platoon the squad had been part of came around the corner, firing as they moved. Flechettes ricocheted off the barricades and the cannon cut loose again.
Brad and the rest fired too, keeping behind cover as well as possible. The dumb bastards charged right into their withering fire.
He finished his magazine and reloaded but didn’t need to fire again. The pirates were all down, none closer than fifteen meters.
Unfortunately, the attack had taken its toll on the defenders. The two troopers manning the cannon were down and others had taken their places. A total of nine security personnel were dead or seriously wounded.
The Vikings’ armor was heavier and they were more experienced, but they hadn’t made it through intact either. He was still down to only four of his people: himself, Marshal, Trista, and one trooper.
Altogether, Brad had a total of thirty people manning the barricade. Five others were caring for the wounded as best they could.
The number of casualties was not a good sign, considering how many pirates remained unaccounted for. Brad prayed they kept fighting dumb.
Twenty minutes passed before the pirates came again. This time, they brought assault shields—little more than sheets of metal on wheels—but still quite effective at providing cover in environments like the corridors of ships and stations.
The pirates couldn’t move very quickly. If they tried, they left themselves vulnerable to having grenades rolled under the shields. That’s exactly what happened to a number of them by the time they’d advanced halfway down the corridor.
His people’s superior cover was giving them the advantage—each shield only covered five or six pirates, and there were a couple of shields that were stopped because they simply didn’t have the troops to keep pushing them forward anymore. Unfortunately, the enemy had superior numbers.
It was less than an hour until the pirates would have to choose between running or committing to a do-or-die scenario. He hoped they could keep them back long enough to force the decision. At this point, he wasn’t sure.
His thoughts were interrupted by Simon crawling up to him.
“We got half a dozen people from one of the other defensive positions,” the security officer told him. “They have grenade launchers.”
“That’ll help. Are they on our frequency?”
“They are now.”
Brad activated his com. “Grenadiers, this is Commodore Madrid. On my command, I want a massed volley straight down the buggers’ throats—start with armor-piercing rounds to break as many of the shields as you can, and then put as many frag grenades among them as you can. Clear?”
Affirmatives came back.
“Everyone else, be ready to charge as soon as I give the order. Grenadiers, fire!”
For a moment, all he could hear were explosions. Then the screams began to overwhelm the blasts.
“Grenadiers, cease fire. Everyone else, up and at them!”
He rolled over the top of the barricade and started shooting anything that moved as he ran forward.
An amazing number of pirates were still up. It looked as if forty pirates were coming toward him, abandoning their worthless shields. They had to know the only path to survival was overrunning the barricade.
Brad forced himself to remain calm, picking off single targets as the pirates closed. Just as he fired his last shotgun shell, he saw a pirate with a grenade launcher come racing around the corner behind the enemy.
He drew his pistol and fired at the man but killed him moments too late.
A trio of grenades fell behind the barricade. The team servicing the flechette cannon never even had time to scream.
He reversed course and literally ran into Marshal as they both raced to get the crew-served weapon back into the fight. Without its controlled bursts, the pirates would quickly kill them all.
“Feed me!” Brad snapped, oblivious to anything beyond the need for that cannon.
That’s when another pirate company came around the far corner and raced to overrun the defenders. Far too many for them to stop without the cannon’s heavy firepower.
Marshal jacked a belt of flechettes into the gun. “Go!”
Brad sighted on the largest concentration of pirates and pulled the trigger. He tracked the heavy weapon back and forth across the corridor, carefully not shooting where his people were. With the shields out of commission, it was worse than a slaughter.
He stayed down, focusing on the holo-sights as every pirate that could tried to kill him. The gun shields around the barrel were reasonably effective, but there were a lot of bullets flying around.
Doing his best to ignore the occasional flechette that zipped past his face, he put a burst into the last group of pirates. They broke and ran, allowing the surviving security people to shoot several in the backs.
Brad pulled the trigger to add to their fire, but the cannon remained silent. He looked back to see what was holding Marshal up.
The pilot was sprawled on the deck, his head a gory mess. He’d probably died before he even realized it.
Incandescent fury and grief welled up inside him. Michelle was dead. Saburo was dead. And now Marshal was dead too. Someone was going to pay.
He stepped away from the gun and calmly checked the time in his helmet display. In no more than twenty minutes, the pirates would have to run for their ships or take Central to reactivate the gun platforms.
Of the mercenaries, only he and Trista remained standing. Security
had fifteen effectives left, most of them walking wounded. Holding wasn’t an option. The next assault would roll right over them.
That made his decision simple, really.
Brad stepped over to Lieutenant Simon. The woman’s left arm was covered in blood, but she didn’t seem to be letting that slow her in organizing her people.
“It’s crunch time,” he said over the high-pitched ringing in his ears. “Tell Central they’ll need to blow the gun platform controls if the pirates get past us.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “I did that ten minutes ago, Commodore. Good news. They found our traitor. She was trying to hack into the weapons platform controls remotely, but we’ve got a serious nerd that counter-hacked her. If we survive, she might be able to give us a few answers about what the Cadre intended.”
Answers would be good, but only if any of them lived to hear them.
“Let’s hope so. Are you the chief now?”
She raised her good shoulder. “That’s up to management. I’m the senior surviving officer, but they’ll be asking a lot of pointed questions about how we let someone infiltrate us like this. I might be looking for a job by the time this is all over.”
“If the Vikings survive, you’ll have a place to land,” he said. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders when the flechettes start flying.”
“Talk about a double-edged sword,” she said in a dry tone. “I’d have a job, but people would be shooting at me like this all the time.”
“Hardly,” Brad said with a humorless chuckle. “This is worse than anything we’ve ever faced without lots of other mercenaries and Fleet helping us. Make it through this fight, and you’ll have passed the most arduous entrance exam ever.”
He looked out over the sea of dead bodies in the corridor. “I’m going to need you to put on your chief’s hat and take over.”
The woman frowned. “Why? What are you going to…”
Her voice trailed off as Brad stepped through the gap between the gun shield and the barricade.
