Sergeant Cone fired a longer burst of KEP rounds at the black-armored ashigaru beside the first, and sawed the man in two. Beside them, Wilkes and Brand opened up with their gauss rifles on full auto, sending thousands of electromagnetically-propelled pellets screaming down the corridor. Most of the other hostiles were less well-equipped than the ashigaru, and their bodies were shredded by the hail of explosive projectiles. The heat signatures of these men quickly winked out as their corpses cooled below the point of viable metabolic function. Jenkins saw that there were still two ashigaru and twice that number of lesser enemies sheltering behind a crudely-welded bunker on the far side of the chamber. One of the ashigaru launched a flurry of armor-piercing grenades at the incoming marines. One munition struck Tikhonov on the left arm, blowing off the limb and hurling him to the floor. His vitals were still strong. The kid might live.
Private Cass loosed an incendiary missile at the bunker. Filled with a kilogram of infernium gel, that rocket didn't need to be all that accurate. The six hostiles inside were coated by the clingy, nearly-impossible to extinguish, ultra-high temperature, burning gel. The death screams of the unprotected men would have been pitiful if Jenkins gave a damn about them. The two ashigaru, their battle armor smoking and pitted by the blazing infernium, staggered out from behind their bunker. They made an effort to close with the marines, but both sank to their knees as their armored joints melted under the intense heat and then fused as the material cooled.
"Don't kill them," Jenkins ordered. Their armored suits were in ruins, and their weaponry had melted away. They still might have a use. "I want prisoners."
The rest of the compartment was scoured of any remaining hostiles. Private Cass was especially happy to snuff out the lives of any that tried to resist, eagerly taking vengeance for the loss of Fuji. Apart from the ashigaru, who were locked inside their own immobilized armor, only one other man had been smart enough to surrender. He was a tech type, puny, and wearing a wounded air of unappreciated superiority, even in defeat. It was all Jenkins could do not to crush his skull with his powered gauntlet. That would not be professional, Jenkins reminded himself. How would he explain the mess to Captain More? He looked over the scrawny fellow and saw on his shoulder the infamous patch of the Armada. He keyed his commsystem. He was greeted on the other end by reedy voice of that other weenie, Chandler. "Relay word to Steadfast," he said. "Tartarus is here."
End Part One of Four
The Memnon Incident: Part 1 of 4 (A Serial Novel) Page 6
