The Wrong Side of Space (TCOTU, Book 3) (This Corner of the Universe)

by Britt Ringel

  Chief Brown was standing next to the petite officer. “I didn’t exactly come uninvited,” he grumbled. “What’s this all about, Commander? I’m at my duty station an’ we get an order sayin’ you’ve been relieved.” His voice took on a more concerned tone. “You didn’t forget our little talk in the shuttle bay, did you?” He lifted his datapad up and added, “Then Lieutenant Truesworth’s datapad sends me a message sayin’ you want me in yer quarters, pronto, an’ when I get here, Lieutenant Vanished-Without-A-Trace is waitin’ fer me.” He looked around the room irritably. “I know I ain’t an officer but does someone wanna clue in the enlisted force here?”

  Heskan shot Vernay a sour look and said, “I told you not to go recruiting.”

  She merely shrugged and said, “I didn’t go wild and, besides, we’re going to need him, Captain.”

  She’s right but is it fair to ask him to throw a lifetime of service away? “Chief,” Heskan began, “I intend to keep my promise to Lombardi. And I intend to prevent the sailors who served under me from getting run over by the Brevic machine.” Heskan read what might have been disappointment in Brown’s face and added, “I may not be able to save them, Chief, but I owe it to them, and myself, to try.”

  Brown closed his eyes and shook his head. “Why are you bringin’ me in on this?”

  “Because I don’t know if we can do it without you,” Heskan answered honestly. “Not only do you have more experience than anyone left on the ship but a majority of it is on system defense ships. You know what those types of ships look for when ordering a ship to heave to and how to make us look a little less suspicious.”

  Brown blew a steady stream of air out of his mouth as he considered. “Commander, you know what you’re askin’ me to throw away? And fer what? To betray the Republic? To get squashed along with everyone else?” Brown regarded him with mournful eyes. “I’m sorry, Commander. I can’t do it. I know she isn’t perfect but I haven’t spent thirty years fighting fer the Republic only to stab her in the back at the end of my career.”

  “Chief…” Vernay uttered in a one-word plea.

  “L-T, you know I think the world of you,” Brown said. “You too, Commander, but I’m sorry. I won’t say anythin’ but I can’t help you.”

  Disappointment washed over Vernay’s face. “Work with devils long enough, Chief, and you become one.”

  “Stacy,” Heskan interjected, “that’s not fair.” He faced Brown and smiled genuinely. “Chief, thank you for everything you’ve taught me. I wouldn’t be half the leader I am today without you. I don’t blame you at all for not coming and I thank you for your silence.” He looked at the door and said regretfully, “You probably should go, Chief. We don’t want you to get accidently implicated in this.”

  Chief Brown stared hard at Heskan and rendered a precise salute. “Been my honor, Commander. Godspeed.”

  Heskan returned the salute and the two men shook hands before parting.

  * * *

  “This is madness, Izzy,” Valokov proclaimed.

  “Quiet, Tolya,” Lombardi hissed. “If we cannot trust Heskan, then we are all dead anyway.” She marched purposefully toward Phoenix’s shuttle bay. The Brevic shuttles were on final approach and she wanted to be in place before they landed. “I am still placing our marines in the hangar, just in case.” Phoenix’s contingent, though weakened from the Parasite boarding actions, was still formidable.

  “You are not lining them up as an honor guard, are you?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. Her mind replayed Heskan’s words. “A most warm welcome.” He phrased that oddly but perhaps that is a common expression in the Republic. The whole damned conversation was strange but the four-minute time delay certainly contributed to the awkwardness of it. Her thoughts returned to the present. “I am having them placed into defensive positions, Kapitan. I am nervous enough about letting those shuttles land, let alone leaving my marines in nice, orderly formations.” Is this a mistake? Am I wrong about Garrett?

  Farther up the corridor, Porucznik Greif and two marines in full combat gear ran toward them. “Komandor!” the marine contingent commander shouted breathlessly as he stopped in front of them.

  “Why are you not with your men, Porucznik?” Valokov asked bluntly.

  “Sorry, sir, but we have encountered something unusual. Phoenix received an idiot switch alert.”

  Valokov and Lombardi exchanged glances. He asked, “Are you missing someone, Porucznik?”

  “No, the signal originates from outside the ship.”

  “How?” Lombardi asked.

  Greif looked expectantly at the marine next to him as Valokov mumbled, “Starzy Sierzant Vidic, why am I not surprised you are involved.”

  Vidic looked at the naval officers sheepishly. “I may have given a token of respect to Kite’s marine commander, Kapitan.” He looked away from Valokov and admitted, “Yes, it was a mistake but at the time, I thought it was justified.” He rolled his eyes and muttered, “I should have known better.”

  “Even still,” Lombardi said, “how can we be receiving a signal from so far away?”

  Greif raised his hands up in question. “I don’t know and the signal is intermittent. At first, we did not even recognize it as an idiot switch. However, when it repeated, we began to piece it together.”

  Lombardi’s datapad beeped, causing her to resume walking toward the shuttle bay. “Speed this up, Porucznik, the first shuttle is landing. I must meet the delegation and you must be there to lead your men in case the unthinkable happens.”

  Greif stuck his hand out to stop the komandor. “The message, ma’am. We patched the signal together. It was Morse code but still gibberish: brutto panda.”

  Lombardi’s eyes widened. Nasty Panda.

  “Dammit!” Valokov exclaimed.

  Lombardi tore at the front of Greif’s uniform and pulled him close. “Porucznik, get your men out of the hangar now! Tell them to hold the corridor outside the bay at all costs!” Lombardi shifted her attention to Valokov even as Greif frantically issued orders over his helmet mic. “Anatoly, have Kapitan Romano prepare to set Phoenix’s core to overload. I will be damned if they take my ship.” Without waiting for acknowledgment, Lombardi’s fingers flew over her datapad. “Bridge, fire at those shuttles!”

  “Ma’am?” a confused voice said over her datapad speaker.

  “You heard right, Benedetti, destroy the shuttles and be prepared to return fire on those ‘Vic ships around us.” Lombardi felt a malicious grin take hold. “I want Claymore first.”

  “The warships are moving away, Komandor, and the shuttles are too close. One has already landed and the rest are hugging Phoenix’s hull at the hangar entrance.”

  An enormous explosion rocked Lombardi off her feet. One moment, she was standing in the corridor; the next, her face smashed into the wall on her way to the deck. The blurry image of her datapad bounced down the passageway as thick, black smoke rolled over the ceiling from the direction of the shuttle bay. Something heavy landed across her legs.

  As the rumble of the blast faded, Greif pressed the left side of his helmet closer to his ear and choked out, “The first shuttle exploded inside the hangar!”

  Lombardi pushed an unconscious szeregowy off her legs, rolled onto her stomach, and began pushing herself to her knees. Her ears ringing, she yelled, “Your marines?”

  “Half got out,” Greif’s muffled reply came, barely audible as the marine officer sprung from the deck. In an instant, he was pushing Vidic forward toward the shuttle bay entrance.

  Lombardi stared at Greif uncomprehendingly, the ringing inside her head drowning out his words. She waved for him to go. “Tolya, are you all right?” She was still shouting.

  Valokov nodded as he rose to his knees. He was centimeters from Lombardi’s face and yelled, “If we had not been warned…”

  We would be dead along with all my marines. Maybe there is still a little hope left. Thank you, Garrett. The ringing was beginning to subside
.

  Valokov helped her to her feet and said with a jaunty smile, “Let us go show the ‘Vics how the Hollaran Navy makes a last stand.”

  Rifle fire punctuated his statement. Another, smaller explosion sounded. They are boarding. Four shuttles, maybe twenty shock troops per shuttle against less than half my marines. We cannot hold. Phoenix’s battle-station alarm began to blare. Lombardi turned away from the gunfire and scanned the deck. She bent low to pick up the unconscious marine’s multi-rifle. “We need to overload Phoenix before the ‘Vics take Engineering but I will not let my people die needlessly.” She thought of Heskan. “Not when there is still hope.” In the opposite direction, the sounds of Hollaran multi-rifles grew louder.

  “What hope, Izzy?”

  Lombardi scooped up her datapad. “I still believe in him, Tolya.” The pair began running down the hall.

  They turned a corner and Valokov huffed, “Where to, Komandor?”

  “Delta Deck. The main core control room,” Lombardi spit out between breaths. “We must make sure Phoenix is not captured.” Behind her, the sounds of battle were fading. They ran for two minutes in silence, disturbed only by distant explosions, before Lombardi’s datapad chirped. She let the caller wait until they entered an elevator. The doors closed and the transport began its trip to the Engineering deck. Without checking to see who had called, she accepted the comm request.

  “They are through, Komandor!” It was Sierzant Vidic. “Porucznik Greif is dead, the ‘Vics have blown past us. Some are headed to Delta Deck, some have stayed on Gamma and are advancing forward somewhere. I still have two marines with me. Where do you want us?”

  They are probably headed to the bridge. “Nilis,” Lombardi matched his intensity, “I am going to Engineering to make sure Romano has enough time to blow the core. We are abandoning ship, Sierzant. Find a lifeboat and get clear.” Her thumb squashed the disconnect symbol on her touchscreen. The elevator doors opened seconds later.

  Lombardi’s heart raced as she pushed past three crewmembers sprinting to their battle stations. She came to a stop at an intersection near a wall-mounted communications panel. Gunfire was drawing close again. Her hands were shaking so badly that she had trouble operating the panel controls. On her third attempt, she engaged the ship’s main channel. No time for speeches. “This is Komandor Lombardi. All hands, abandon ship. All hands, abandon ship!” Nearby, she heard a scream cut short by automatic multi-rifle fire. Lombardi moved to close the channel but quickly added to her broadcast, “Kapitan Romano, attendere per me in Ingegneria.”

  Valokov grabbed Lombardi’s arm and pulled her around the corner. She heard popping sounds around her as bullets struck the bulkhead housing the wall panel. Did someone shoot at me? she thought incredulously. More shots from near the corner cut off a Hollaran sailor’s panicked warning in mid-cry. Lombardi peered cautiously around the corner, rifle at the ready, and saw three white-armored figures dashing toward her. She aimed vaguely at them and pulled the trigger.

  The first shots were a surprise to her. In all her years in the Navy, she had never fired the Mark 41 multi-rifle. She had trained and qualified with the standard navy sidearm, the P-556, but rifle training was not required for Hollaran naval officers. The recoil from the rifle was surprisingly gentle. Firing caseless ammunition, the only kick from it was engineered to be straight back. As the recoil force followed the path of least resistance from her grip, left and up, the bullets missed Lombardi’s target but stitched a path of destruction through the Brevic trooper next to him. Lombardi continued to depress the trigger, mesmerized by the impacts of the bullets on the man ten meters in front of her. The remaining two troopers found cover in doorways along the hall even as Lombardi’s defensive fire continued upward into the ceiling. Several seconds later, the Mark 41 ceased its fire and Lombardi started to carefully line up her next shots on a trooper pulling an egg-shaped object off his chest armor. Flashes from the second trooper’s rifle heralded his return fire at the komandor. She instinctively ducked around the corner and shoved at Valokov. “Run!”

  They were well past the kill radius of the grenade when it landed but the force of the shockwave still knocked the breath from Lombardi. Mercifully, neither officer fell and minutes later they had put numerous corners between them and the Brevic invaders.

  By the time they trotted into the main core control room, they were both out of breath. Kapitan Romano and a starzy bosman were working frantically at separate station panels. The officer of engineers called out, “Kill the induction now, Franco.” He peeked away from his work to see Lombardi and Valokov enter. “Komandor, how long of a countdown do you want?”

  “Ten minutes?” Her statement sounded more like a question.

  “Can we hold them off that long, Izzy?” Valokov asked. The sounds of battle had chased them all the way to Engineering. Valokov reached out for the rifle. “I request the honor of defending the compartment while you escape, Komandor. They won’t get their hands on that control panel.”

  Romano ordered, “It is set, Franco. Go find a lifeboat.”

  Lombardi shook her head at Valokov. “You are not staying here to die while I run, Tolya.” She smiled ruthlessly and said, “Besides, I have a better idea.” Lombardi pointed the muzzle of her rifle at Romano’s panel. Kapitan Romano quickly backed away as Lombardi pulled the trigger.

  The trigger refused to depress. She looked at her rifle confoundedly and attempted to pull the trigger again. A cold realization grew over her and she struggled to find the rifle’s charging handle. Pulling it back, she immediately recognized the handle moved with far too little resistance. The bolt is already back, Isabella. “Empty,” she stated, looking bleakly at Valokov.

  Loud footsteps drew attention to the doorway. “This is not a lifeboat,” Sierzant Vidic said with mock-surprise.

  Ignoring the jest, Lombardi pointed at the panel. “Sierzant, shoot tha—”

  Automatic fire drowned out her command.

  The panel was a smoking ruin before the naval officers could raise their hands to their ears. Vidic smiled at the komandor. “Next?”

  “Pistol,” Valokov directed.

  While Vidic was handing over his sidearm, Lombardi withdrew her rifle’s empty magazine and dropped it to the deck. A replacement was in the air from Vidic before she could get the words out. She caught it and with one, fluid motion, inserted the magazine into the rifle. She quickly tilted it on its side and the fingers of her reaction hand pressed the bolt release causing the rifle to shudder in her hands. She looked at the marine, brown eyes flashing, and said, “Find me a lifeboat, Sierzant.”

  Chapter 26

  The presence of Brevic shock troopers forced them to detour around a main hallway junction. The delay had cost precious minutes but Vidic advised Lombardi that there were simply too many troopers to fight past. Since the near encounter, they were now sticking to secondary corridors, running flat out.

  “Just ahead, Komandor,” Vidic said in relief.

  Lombardi began to believe they might make it. The lifeboat access was just a dozen meters away and the strobing yellow lights around the entryway into the escape boat signaled available room.

  Inexplicably, the doors began to close. Lombardi heard the marine leading her scream for the occupants to wait, but the desperate plea was drowned in the decompression noise of the lifeboat’s docking compartment. The yellow flashing lights immediately turned solid red. The group skidded to a halt at the closed portal. Vidic kicked the door and said disgustedly, “Seriously? I am going to die because some sailor panicked and launched without a full boat?”

  Lombardi searched her datapad eagerly. “Corridor Gamma Three! One is still there.” She took off running toward salvation. “We still have time!”

  Throwing caution to the wind, the group sprinted through the halls and around corners without regard to the possibility of encountering resistance. Lombardi transferred her rifle to a single hand to improve her speed. The only sounds came from the heavy
footfalls of her and her companions; there was no audible countdown or alarm warning of imminent destruction by Phoenix’s computer. The only evidence of the ship’s impending doom was the yellow or red lights around the access collars to her lifeboats. Lombardi’s legs burned from running but she forced them to pump faster. Thank God I wore pants instead of a skirt for the reception. Her ornate service dress uniform was a mess. I wish I at least had the time to take off this damned coat. She turned the corner and ran into a wall.

  Lombardi bounced off the wall and hit the deck hard. In the seconds it took to regain her senses, she realized three things. The “wall” was in fact a Brevic shock trooper now also on the deck, the trooper retained his rifle, and she had not. Staring blankly at each other, Lombardi caught the movement of the imposing trooper’s rifle swinging toward her. The barrel looked a meter wide. I am not a marine. I have never even been in a fight before, she despaired.

  Desperate to avoid being shot, Lombardi flung herself forward. She slammed into the man while simultaneously reaching for the weapon’s front rail with both hands. Relief flooded into her when she realized she actually had a grip. The satisfaction was short-lived, however, when the trooper spun Lombardi like a child and drove her backwards, hard into the deck. The back of her head bounced off the surface, stunning her. Pain exploded in her gut as the trooper’s knee gouged savagely into her. Somewhere nearby, two gunshots sounded in quick succession.

  The ringing in her ears and her grip on the trooper’s rifle diminished in concert. She kicked out feebly but the soldier had her pinned to the ground with his full weight resting upon her. He tore the rifle from her grasp with a clean jerk and quickly rotated it to point at her face as a cry of pain resounded through the hallway to Lombardi’s right. Staring into the muzzle, Lombardi thought fatally, At least he is not getting off Phoenix either. Her eyes suddenly caught movement to her right. The heel of a Hollaran marine’s boot connected to the side of the trooper’s head, producing a grotesque sound. The side kick bent the man’s neck into an awkward angle and caused his body to spin off her. His rifle dropped onto her as she heard an unmistakable shriek come from Kapitan Romano.