by Evan Currie
Rider pitched his over the cover, letting them clatter down the hall as the others threw theirs as well. Some of the devices banked off the walls and others caromed off the ceiling or deck as they clattered toward their targets.
Before the first smoke went off, the Recon Marines retrieved their rifles from where they had hung them. As the frags detonated, they were already moving.
They charged in right on the cusp of the explosions, their rifles roaring in the confined deck of the starship yet barely audible against the multiple detonations and confused yelling ahead of them. Fragments from the grenades pinged off the Marines’ armor, but they ignored them as they closed with weapons blazing. They knew the explosives’ lethality fell off quickly with range and were far enough out that their armor could deal with the impact.
It was a well-practiced maneuver, one that often lost men on the aggressors’ side to friendly fire as they normally used artillery instead of grenades. Over the centuries, it had many names, from “shock and awe” to “establishing dominance.” The Marines just called it “knocking down the door.”
Lasers flashed in the smoke. Blind shots or aimed, there was no real way to tell. The Recon Marines knew only one thing—if they saw the light, the enemy had missed. They didn’t bother diving for cover as they vanished into the smoke themselves.
HUDs up, the recon team could see vague outlines of the enemy through the glittering smoke. Mostly they relied on ultrasonic returns, almost like sonar on an old submarine, because nothing else would be remotely effective. Heat was largely useless, especially after a couple of laser bursts raised the ambient temperature in the corridor, and visibility was intentionally zero in the smoke. The metallic shards suspended in the smoke, causing the mirroring effect, negated radar returns. Stopping Imperial lasers was considered more important than anything else, which left the team relying on the badly degraded short-range ultrasonics as they fought in whiteout conditions.
Thus, Rider was almost caught by surprise when one of the Imperials charged in his direction, either because the man’s own environmental gear had better scanners or due to pure luck. At the last moment, Rider’s ultrasonic gear picked up the form charging in his direction, and the Marine ducked under a swing that would have rung his bell but good.
Rider hit the deck in a slide, kicking the Imperial trooper’s legs out from under him. As the man landed beside him with a heavy thud, Rider rolled hard over and slammed the butt of his rifle down into the trooper’s head. The blow would have killed any unarmored man it struck, but both Rider and his opponent were armored, and in moments, it was clear that they were both well experienced with the dirtier aspects of close-in fighting.
A vicious blow to his groin had the Marine wincing despite the armor he wore. He returned the favor by catching the trooper’s head in a clutch and dragging him into his chest as he started whaling on the man with his knees and elbows.
Fighting in augmenting armor was sometimes like trying to box underwater, at least if the other man had armor himself. Their blows were powerful beyond human understanding, but so was their ability to absorb the hits. After a few moments of exchanging blows, both Marine and trooper knew that something would have to give.
To Rider, it felt like they both came to that conclusion at the same time, breaking apart and kicking each other away as they went for their weapons.
Rider swept up to one knee as he wrapped his mitt around the pistol grip of his assault rifle and swept the weapon up from where it had hung on his straps. The rifle roared, a heavy depleted uranium round accelerating down the rails to hypersonic speeds by an EM burst. A flash of light refracted off the antilaser mist around them as the steel jacket of the round ablated almost instantly, vanishing in a burst of flame as it tore through the air between Rider and his opponent.
The DPU slug tore through the environmental armor the Imperial trooper was wearing, exploding inside with the force of a small bomb as the slug broke up and fragmented, dumping the kinetic force remaining in the round directly into the body of its target.
The Imperial trooper hit the bulkhead behind him hard, then slowly slid down as an orange foam splattered out of the newly formed hole in a vain attempt to seal the damage and preserve the trooper within. Rider noted that the man hadn’t quite managed to get his hand around the grip of his own weapon in the split second and wondered if that was a sign that the Imperials weren’t trained to fight close in the way Marines were or if this one was just slow off the mark.
He didn’t have time to ponder such matters. The Recon Marine opened a flag on his armor HUD as he got to his feet, noting in the record that he wanted to review the fight when he had time.
“Sweep the corridor clean,” he ordered, not really able to tell how many men were still standing around him, though at least all of his own team were still green on his HUD.
► “What was that?”
Leif half turned, looking down the direction his people had come from, a stony expression on his face, though none around him could see it. He knew the sound of fighting, even if it was not fighting of Imperial tradition.
“We are being followed,” he said finally. “Contact the rear guard, see if they took out the attackers.”
“And if they did not?” one of his engineers blurted without thinking.
“Then I suppose we will not be able to contact them, will we?” Leif said.
The engineer fell silent, looking quickly away from him. Leif was content to leave it at that. He had more important things to deal with than some idiot speaking out of turn. He looked to where his second was trying to contact the rear guard.
“Anything?” he asked, though he really didn’t have to. The body language said it all, even before the man shook his head.
“Nothing, Centure,” Deca Corval answered. “Lost all contact just moments after the sounds reached us.”
“Well, they are efficient if nothing else,” Leif said with forced cheer. “It will be interesting to meet these people on the open field. I wonder whose forces will win the day. Do you also, Corval?”
“Yes Centure,” the deca answered dutifully, though a bit sourly.
Leif supposed he didn’t blame the man much. Few were those who truly enjoyed engaging competent foes in a fight. Even he would generally prefer to deal with the sorts of fools the Empire normally walked over, but once in a while, it was important to have real blood spilled on the battlefield, or your own forces would eventually turn into those selfsame fools.
A good enemy defined a soldier in ways a fool never could.
“Well, let us be on with this,” he said, turning his focus to where the cutters were working on the next bulkhead. “Are you almost through?”
“Yes Centure, just a few more seconds.”
“Good. We will just leave a little gift behind us, then, to show our pursuers our appreciation,” he said with a grin that he rather regretted none of his men could see.
► Colonel Conner examined the corridor carefully as her Marines set up their gear. They had just arrived outside the flight deck, and the ship’s systems reported that the interior still had atmosphere. She was only mildly surprised, given the enemy most likely had to cut their way in if not blow one of the locks.
The flight decks on Priminae cruisers were arranged carefully in line with the two cores of the ship to maintain a minimal atmospheric level even if they were exposed to space. The gravity of the cores was enough to hold the air in, for a while at least, in case the ships needed to run extended operations out of the large open decks.
In the long run, it would still bleed off atmosphere, though much of it would probably wind up hugging the exterior of the ship. In theory at least, she’d heard that it was possible to build a bubble of breathable air on the outside of a Priminae cruiser due to the gravity of the cores holding the air in close.
In practice, however, cosmic wind, the ship’s acceleration, and other forces would blow the atmosphere away almost as quickly as it could be generated
.
“Okay, people.” She opened up a link to everyone else across the tactical network and to the open air for the benefit of the Tetanna’s security people who’d arrived as they were setting up. “We’re going to have to breach the flight deck and take the enemy ship if possible. Expect heavy resistance. It’s a safe bet that they won’t be rolling out the welcome mat.”
A few people chuckled nervously.
“We’ve not been able to get a good look at the enemy ships to this point, unfortunately,” she continued, “and I don’t expect this time to be any different.”
The Marines nodded. They all knew how casual the Imperials had been so far with self-destruct systems, so none of them wanted to be caught on that deathtrap. Not until the enemy fleet was well out of transmission range, at least, and even then only under protest.
“That’s why we want that hulk away from the Tetanna before they realize we’re kicking their ass,” she said firmly, eyes falling on one of her Marines. “Lieutenant Hadrian, I’m going to need you and a couple of volunteers to go with our Priminae friends here to ensure that happens. Blow it from the hull if you can, but however you do it, get it away from the ship.”
“Yes ma’am.” The young officer nodded. “You can count on me.”
“No doubt in my mind, Lieutenant,” she said firmly, turning to the rest. “We get the easy job. The lieutenant and his team are going to need cover and someone to watch their backs, because the Imperial infiltration team is going to be showing up, probably at the worst possible moment. We get to greet them when they get here. Got me?”
“Oorah, ma’am,” the Marines all roared, startling the Priminae security people, who quickly shied away from the rest as they looked on with clear discomfort.
Conner just smiled in her armor. They could think her Marines were crazy all they liked. That just made the Marines feel right at home.
CHAPTER 20
► The Odysseus shuddered as another laser strike burned through her armor, venting atmosphere in an explosive burst of energy.
Eric gripped his seat, trying not to look as pissed off as he actually was at the moment. They’d been exchanging blows with the Imperial forces for the last twenty minutes as the Odysseus and their Priminae allies closed the range and pressed in to keep the pressure on the enemy, but it was costing them dearly.
One of the Priminae vessels—he didn’t know the name—had been disabled after a blow was deep enough to destabilize the core. They had dropped out of the chase, and from what he could tell over the chatter he was monitoring, they were about to abandon ship as the core was proving impossible to stabilize.
The Odysseus herself was bleeding air from more holes in her hull, but not as bad as she had been. The repair crews were rushing from one breach to the next, patching them up faster than the Imperials could put holes in her, but he still felt every hit.
Most of his people were stationed deep inside the powerful vessel, out of the reach of all but the worst strikes, so the only losses had been from the damage control teams. But those were bad enough to make him want to bleed the enemy out with his bare hands.
Worse, those teams were still reporting ghosts and phantom sounds in the evacuated sections of the ship.
He wanted nothing more than to get down there himself and find out what was going on, but nothing would pry him from the command station of his ship during a battle. Ghosts might be from that general vicinity, but they weren’t remotely close enough to qualify.
For all that, though, he was starting to get truly worried.
It didn’t sound like they were dealing with bad air or any sort of chemical action at this point. Whatever it was, the delusion—if it was a delusion—was too widespread, and nothing showed up on any of the scans the doctor had conducted of the affected personnel.
Normally he’d pull those people, shut down the affected sections, and just ride it out until he could get the ship into a port where a dedicated team could tear the decks down panel by panel to get to the source of the problem. Given that they were in the middle of a battle, however, he couldn’t lose those people. He needed them doing their jobs if anyone on board was going to make it out of the situation intact.
I miss my old ship, Eric lamented silently.
Even one of the Rogues would be a welcome respite from the slugging match they were engaging in. Go deep and just start picking the enemy off from the black—though Eric had noted that, unfortunately, the Imperials had adapted more quickly than he would have preferred to those tactics.
The use of chaff to disrupt pulse torpedoes had been the obvious solution, true, but the Imperials had implemented it quickly and efficiently after dealing with those weapons on only one occasion.
That did not bode well for the future of the conflict the Earth now found herself in.
A smart, ruthless, and adaptable enemy was not what they needed to be dealing with now. In any fair and sane universe, they’d have been due a break after the Drasin, but as he was well aware and as every Marine learned early in their careers, the universe was neither fair nor sane.
A warning light blinked, drawing his attention, and Eric noted that the ship had closed the range to within five light-seconds. Effectively, they were within knife range for their weapons. If the enemy turned on them now, the fight would be as swift as it was brutal.
“How much power are you sitting on, Steph?” he asked suddenly, catching the attention of the entire command crew as they waited to hear what the commodore had in mind.
“In theory, Raze? Got another twenty I can push,” Steph answered in that detached voice of a man plugged into the NICS interface to the Odysseus. “I can only promise ten, though, maybe twelve. Past that, we might just shake this gal apart.”
“Well, when I give the order, shake her apart if it comes to that,” Eric said.
Silence settled across the bridge, everyone shooting glances from their stations and displays to the commodore, then over to the pilot, as they waited for the response.
“Roger that, Raze. You want it, you got it.” Steph reached out and flipped a few old-style switches that had been retrofitted by the engineering department since the invasion. He’d never been comfortable with the smooth-touch panels, not to the degree that he wanted them wrapped around him. “What’s the plan?”
“Blitz on my word,” Eric said simply.
A low whistle came from the pilot’s pit. “You gonna sell that one to our backup?”
“I’ll be happy if they don’t shoot us in the back, if I’m being frank,” Eric said softly, instantly regretting it. “Commander, do me a favor and strike that from the record, will you?”
“Yes sir.”
He nodded gratefully to Heath.
“I’m getting tired. How long have we been at battle stations?” he asked.
“Almost twelve hours, Commodore,” Heath said. “It’s been a long day.”
Twelve hours. Eric groaned.
Twelve hours of tension, punctuated only by minutes of terror, was not a recipe for maintaining one’s mental faculties.
He looked around the bridge, noting the stiff, sometimes slumping postures of the men and women surrounding him. They were all on edge, and he knew they could keep going longer if need be, but it would be better to end this as quickly as he could.
Unfortunately, the only out he saw at the moment involved opening a hole and letting the enemy escape. Any other attempt was likely to end only one way, and that was with mass destruction on both sides. That might have been acceptable if Eric thought that he could at least eliminate the enemy entirely, but the numbers just didn’t come down on his side.
Worse, the loss of a single ship would probably hurt Earth far more than the loss of this entire squadron would bother the Empire.
“I’m going to signal the others,” he said. “We’ll blitz them when they move to recover their ship. Keep them busy so they don’t have a chance to cut up the Tetanna, then try to harry them out of the system. Work your numbers
, Steph. It’s going to be a nasty furball.”
“Been running the vectors for the last hour, Raze,” Stephanos answered from the pit. “Knew it was going to come down to this. There was no other option, really.”
“Wish there was,” Eric said honestly. “Shoot your numbers over to the other ships.”
He glanced over at the telemetry and noted that the squadron was close enough now for real-time communications across all the ships. A touch to the panel in front of him linked his station to the other ships in the squadron, the captains of each appearing in a split display in front of him . . . aside from the captain of the Kid, he noted silently as they acknowledged his signal.
How many men and women will follow them before this is over?
“Commodore.” Jason Roberts nodded curtly to the screen. “Good to see you back in the fight. Any idea what that was all about?”
Eric shook his head, knowing the man was referring to the malfunction. “Not yet. Some odd things happening over here, but we seem to have a handle on it for the moment.”
Hyatt raised an eyebrow. “Odd things?”
“Stories for another time,” Eric told her. “If we get through this, there are more than a few drinks that will be bought and sold based on what’s been going on here. For now, however, we don’t really have the time.”
His two flag captains agreed quickly.
“So what’s the plan, Commodore?” Hyatt asked him.
“We’ll blitz them as they move to recover their men, but I want to leave a hole for them to withdraw through.”
“Letting them go?” Roberts asked with the barest hint of humor. “That’s not the captain I remember.”
“These people are not the Drasin,” Eric answered honestly. “I’m half hoping they can be taught, but, failing that, I’d rather they not get into the mindset that every fight with us is to the death. Bad precedent to set, a little like shooting lifeboats or parachutes. Don’t ever want to be the guy who sets that sort of habit in motion if it can be avoided.”
