The silver-red beam of a laser flashed past my head. I dropped to one knee, turned in the direction it had come from, and fired. I could not see the person who fired at me. He had probably not seen me, either. I did not have time to check for the kill. As I stood up to continue my charge, a SEAL slammed into my back. I felt another jolt. No doubt someone had run into him.
One of the SEALs in my group had taken a shot in the thigh as he ran through the hall. Three-quarters of the thigh had disintegrated, leaving a strap of inner thigh that looked like cooked meat. The man vacillated. When he could stand the pain, he rolled onto his stomach and shot at the Mogats. When the pain became too much, he rolled onto his side and wrapped his arms around his legs. He was in that position when a laser struck him in the back and killed him. Even in death, he never released his pistol.
Gold 2 lost four men just fighting its way out of the bridge. I did not even bother counting how many men the Mogats lost. There were dead men and body parts all along the corridor. That grenade had blown some of their men right through walls. Some had been blown into walls that did not give. Bloody starbursts outlined the spots where their bodies struck.
At one moment it did not look like we could possibly clear the hall; and then in the next, we were through that gauntlet. A few Mogats halfheartedly fired at us from behind. They had other problems. A Gold 1 sharpshooter was picking them off from the door of the bridge.
We ran into limited resistance as we made our way across the deck. There might be a man hiding behind a hatch here or a couple of men hiding around a corner there. They were sailors—unused to this kind of combat and completely unorganized. They tried to shoot us from the front instead of letting us pass and hitting us off from the back. We almost always got off the first shot.
“There are elevators down the corridor to the left,” one of the men called over the interLink.
Head for the first bank of elevators—a dumb idea, I thought. A few of the men ahead of me turned left, but I did not follow. My orders were to get to the launch bay, not run with a suicide squad.
Turn around! Turn around! I heard a few moments later.
Oh Lord! Oh damn! The SEALs did not use bad language, even in death.
“What are the losses, Gold 2?” the mission leader called.
“At least five so far.”
“Harris, how are you doing up there?” Illych called.
I spotted two Mogats ducking behind a corner a hundred feet ahead and took a skidding right around the next corner to avoid them. I caught the sailor up the hall unawares and shot him as he reached for his pistol. Only after I dropped the guy did I realize he had only been waiting for a lift.
“Not too badly,” I said. Adrenaline and endorphins now flowed through my veins in intoxicating levels. Had they been alcohol, it might have been a big enough dose to kill me.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
I heard a constant stream of reports from the rest of Gold 2, Gold 1, and Blue Team. If anyone remained alive from Launch Bay Squad, they had gone silent.
Gold 1 and Blue Team were dug in or pinned down, depending on how you wanted to look at the situation. Blue Team had enough men to defend the engine room for now, but no men to spare. Gold 1 had all but welded the hatch to the bridge shut. They disabled it.
As I dragged the dead sailor into the elevator, I heard a report from some other members of Gold 2. They had found a stairwell that led to Deck 3. What they would find when they reached the bottom of the stairs was any man’s guess, but it would not be pretty.
The Mogats must have known we wanted to secure the launch bay. We might have taken the bridge and engineering, but we did not have a prayer of capturing the ship with a mere hundred men. We would need reinforcements, and there was only one place the cavalry would land—launch bay. The Mogats might or might not have figured out about the men we had floating around their ship, but they certainly knew how to stop us from receiving reinforcements.
Remembering the battle my platoon had fought on that derelict battleship, I rode the lift down to the lowest deck. The doors to the elevator opened to a darkened corridor in which no one walked. I felt like a mouse scurrying through a maze. I followed the mainline corridor to the back of the ship and realized I had gone too far. The vault I needed would be almost directly under the launch bay.
As I ran down another hall, I heard, “Hey!”
His shot flew over my shoulder and burrowed into a wall as I spun, dropped to one knee, and fired. I hit the first man. The second jumped back into the open hatch. I could not afford for him to radio for help, so I followed.
I opened the door and entered a mechanics workshop. Across the room, the Mogat fired a wild shot that came far too close, then hid behind a workbench. I aimed at the barrel of solvent behind him. It exploded into a pillar of fire that shot up to the ceiling and rained down in a cascade of flames. I heard the man screaming as I left.
Two decks above me, the twenty-three remaining members of Gold 2 had fought their way out of the stairwell and reached the launch-bay hatch. And there they stopped. They had the same problem that the Mogats had retaking the bridge and engine room. To get into the launch bay, they would need to funnel through a narrow hatch, no more than three at a time.
I found the door marked “Emergency Storage” at the end of the corridor. It was not even locked.
Inside the dimly lit storage area, three mobile firefighting units sat side by side. These were not the big, thirty-foot fire trucks you saw in cities. These were compact three-man units that looked like small tanks. They were ten feet long, small enough to fit on the emergency lift…powerful, but designed for emergency situations, not gunfights.
I lit one of the mobiles up and drove it onto the lift. I had hidden in a shaft just like it as Philips had used his “stiffies” to lead the Mogats away. On that occasion, in that wrecked battleship, I had been content to wait and hide. This time, I planned to fight.
“Gold 2, report?” the mission leader asked.
“We’re pinned down outside the launch bay.”
“Can you break in?”
“Negative, mission leader. They have shooters on every side of us.”
“How long can you hold out?” I called over the interLink.
“Harris?” the mission leader asked.
“Reporting.”
“Where are you?” asked Gold 2 Leader.
“I’m on my way up,” I said. “I’ll have the doors open in another minute.”
They kept talking, but I did not have time to listen. The elevator doors opened. The launch bay spread out before me, with its gray walls and ceiling and its bright lights. I saw men crouched behind barricades pointing lasers at the hatch. They paid no attention as the elevator opened across the deck. It might not have mattered if they did.
I put the mobile firefighting unit in gear. It rumbled forward slowly on its own as I jumped out to the deck. Then I grabbed three grenades, pulled their pins, and tossed them. I ran for cover. The grenades exploded in rapid succession. The rumble of the first grenade did not have time to settle before the next grenade blew.
The damage those grenades made…I was a hundred feet away, hidden behind a ten-ton mobile fire unit, and I still felt the deck rumble under my armored boots. As I looked around the rear of the firefighter, I saw that the force of the grenades had tipped a forklift on its side.
White smoke as thick as a gauze hung in the air. I ran into the smoke, my laser ready; but there was no one left to shoot. As I passed through, I saw dead men and body parts. An inch-deep stream of blood ran down the drainage grooves in the floor. The first grenade had probably killed them all, leaving the second and third to pulverize the walls. The grenades had blown huge dents in the walls, and the shrapnel had chipped and gashed everything in sight.
“Get ready to run,” I called to the men on the other side of the hatch.
“Hurry,” one of them responded.
I opened the door. Diving through a cro
ss fire of lasers, the thirteen remaining members of Gold 2 dived into the launch bay, and I sealed the doors.
“How did you get in here?” Gold 2 leader asked as he caught his breath.
“I came in through the back door,” I said, pointing to the elevator.
“What’s going on down there?” the mission leader called.
“We’re in.”
“Can you get the bay doors open?”
“We already have.”
Two SEALs hunched over the console that controlled the atmospheric locks. It only took them a moment to open the outer door of the locks.
The first group of three hundred men passed through the locks. These were the engineers, navigators, and mechanics borrowed from other battleships. They would be little use in capturing this ship, but we could not risk losing them on a spacewalk. Among these swabbies would be a few civilian pilots with experience flying self-broadcasting explorers.
Outside the ship, Marines and SEALs rushed the novices into the launch bay, making certain that no straggler fell behind.
The next seven hundred men to arrive were the SEALs and Marines—including the men from my platoon. They were the expendable ones.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
“SEALs leader, this is Colonel Aldus Grayson, do you read me?” I knew Grayson. He was the pontificating bastard who had ridden on the explorer with me when I transferred out to the Obama. He was the kind of officer who wants people to know he is in command even when he can’t tell his dick from his compass. His voice cut through all frequencies on the interLink. Chances were that the Mogats heard him as clearly as we did.
“Yes, sir,” the mission leader said.
“I’m taking command of this shindig. Can you brief me on the situation?”
I could brief him on the situation. We had small groups of men in the bridge and a second small group of men in the engine room. They were holding on for dear life, while the perfectly capable man who had led us this far wasted time updating the windbag of an officer who wanted to seize control.
“We have twenty-three men holding the bridge and thirty men holding the engine room, sir,” the mission leader said.
“Opposition?” Grayson asked.
“Several hundred Mogats outside each position, sir.” The good news was that the Mogats needed the engine room and bridge as much as we did. They were not about to throw grenades into either area.
“How long can you hold out, son?” Grayson asked. I did not like the sound of that question. Officers ask questions like that when they only care about their own skin. A former boot-camp operator, Grayson had probably never seen combat in his career.
“They’re trying to cut through the doors with welding torches, sir,” the mission leader answered. “We need assistance.”
“I see,” Colonel Grayson said. As an officer, he had blundered into a situation way beyond his abilities.
“This is Blue Team Leader.”
“Yes, son?” Grayson asked.
“They’ve almost cut through the hatch down here.”
“I see,” Grayson said. He showed no signs of life. He was a chess player contemplating his next move with all the time in the world.
I could no longer handle watching this pompous inactivity. “Evans, Sutherland, Thomer, round ’em up. We’re breaking out of here,” I said on the Marine frequency reserved for my platoon.
“Glad to,” Evans said.
Only a minute later, my platoon started lining up in front of the hatch. I took my place at the front of the platoon. We would toss a grenade to clear the corridor, then come out shooting. I asked one of the SEALs to work the hatch.
“You, by the bulkhead. Where do you think you’re going, son?” came over the open frequency that could be heard by Marine and Mogat alike.
“Sir,” I shouted like a kid in boot camp speaking to a drill sergeant, “the sergeant and his platoon are simply lining up, sir.” Then, in a quieter tone, I added, “You are broadcasting over an open frequency, sir. The Mogats can hear you.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass who can hear me, son,” Grayson yelled. “You can’t open that launch-bay door, there might be a thousand Mogats waiting to—”
He never finished the sentence. “Did anybody see who fired that shot?” I asked as I replaced my pistol in its holster.
“Wish I did,” Philips grumbled.
“Must be a sniper in here,” Evans said.
No one else responded.
“Mission leader, this is Master Gunnery Sergeant Wayson Harris from Platoon 103.” I called on a proprietary frequency that our men would hear but the Mogats would not.
“Where’s Grayson?” the mission leader asked.
“We had a problem with a sniper. It appears you are back in command, sir. Requesting permission to retake the ship.”
“Permission granted, sea soldier.”
“Let’s give them a housewarming gift,” I said. The SEAL opened the hatch partway and I tossed my grenade through. He sealed the hatch for the explosion, then opened it wide. Philips, Thomer, and I were the first ones out, followed by the rest of the platoon.
Despite the grenade, we entered into a cross fire. A corridor ran parallel to the launch bay, and another corridor led straight to it. Teams of Mogat commandos had set up barricades on either side of the door and up the hall straight ahead. The grenade sent the Mogats running around corners, but it did not kill many of them.
A Mogat peeked around a corner and fired at Philips.
“Kiss my pecker!” Philips shouted when the laser glanced his shoulder, burning through his armor. He spun and fired.
The hatch opened behind us, and hundreds of SEALs poured out. Lasers came from every direction. They had more men and cover, but we dug in quickly.
A Mogat laser struck the man standing to my right. Served him right, the fool was standing erect in a gunfight. Anyone who wanted to survive would crouch or kneel—at least, anyone but Philips and Thomer. Leading the way, the armor covering his shoulder still bubbling, Philips ran straight up the floor, jumped over the barricade, and caught a knot of Mogats flat-footed. He’d shot the first three before Thomer caught up to help.
The Mogats fell back.
“Illych, you hanging in down there?” I called to Illych.
“Nice to hear from you,” he said. “Can’t talk now. We’ve got company coming.”
We needed Marines more than SEALs for this fight. This was not recon work; this was a battle. We needed bodies to secure the area.
We poured down the hall like floodwaters from a broken dam. Twenty or more Mogats tried to make a stand by the first bank of elevators. One of Evans’s fire teams pinned them down while another team found a parallel corridor and flanked them. They killed every last one of them without taking a single casualty.
“You still with me?” I called to Illych. I found a stairwell and led my own mix of SEALs and Marines toward the engine room.
“Harris, they’re like ants. You squish ’em, and they just keep coming. I’ve cooked more than thirty so far.”
“How is the rest of the team?” I asked as I leaped a flight of stairs, caught my balance, and started down the hall.
“We’re down to three,” Illych said. I heard no fear in his voice. “Make that two.”
“I can see you,” I said. Actually, I saw the entrance to the engine room. Someone had cut the doors out of the hatch, which was now just a hole in the wall. A flood of Mogat commandos dressed in fatigues tried to rush that hole, then backed off.
“Time we pecker-slapped these boys, Master Sarge!” Philips shouted. He had the heart of a poet. Philips, Thomer, and a few dozen men came into the hall from one side as my group attacked from the other.
“It’s getting crowded in here,” Illych called.
We opened fire, and the Mogats turned on us. It looked like stalemate for a moment. We had cover and position, but they had three men for every man in our group. The stalemate ended quickly, though. W
ith the Mogats packed so close together, we hit them with every shot.
They did not give up easily, though, and we lost men. One lucky bastard hit Sutherland as he and his squad ducked for cover.
“Keep them pinned,” a SEAL leader radioed me over the interLink.
“Lay down fire,” I shouted to my men. We hid behind corners and in hatches. Lasers burned into walls, the floor, and the ceiling. Had the hatch not presented a bottleneck, the Mogats would have escaped into the engine room. Because it did, Illych managed to pick off the Mogats who tried.
In the meantime, more SEALs and Marines poured into the hall. We had cut off the Mogats’ escape routes, then we pinned them down. Soon we closed in on them. That ended the battle.
“Illych?” I asked.
“Blue Team, reporting.” Illych and another SEAL emerged from the engine room. When we’d arrived, Blue Team had forty men. Only two survived.
The battle for control of the bridge went much more smoothly. The Mogats never managed to cut through the thick bulkheads surrounding the bridge.
We captured the bridge, the engine room, the launch bay, and more. Realizing that they had lost the battle, two hundred Mogat sailors fell back into a cargo hold to make a last stand. When they refused to surrender, the SEALs welded the cargo-hold hatch and carried them home as prisoners of war.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
“Colonel Grayson died a hero, sir,” I said, looking Admiral Brocius straight in the eye. “One of the bravest officers I have ever known.” Now that I had killed the late Colonel Grayson, it only seemed fitting that I should elevate the son of a bitch to hero status. Semper fi, Marine.
“A hero to the last, I’m sure,” Brocius growled. Whether he admitted it or not, he knew the score. Grayson had died in a sealed room surrounded by over a thousand men. Someone from our side shot him, and I fit the profile.
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