by B. V. Larson
Using my command rig, I was able to red-arrow targets. It was hardly necessary, as a line of orange-white sparks leapt from the enemy ship to our moving forces. They’d spotted us, and had turned their weapons our way to hose us down.
Checking casualties, I saw grim tidings. Sixteen were dead, twenty more were flashing yellow, indicating some kind of damage sustained.
Gritting my teeth, I took myself out of tactical chat and switch channels to talk on the command channel.
“Primus Graves,” I said, “this is McGill reporting. We’re in a bad way. There are clearly defenders, and about a quarter of my troops have been hit already.”
“I can see that, McGill. Carry on. This was your idea. Failure is not an option.”
“Roger that, sir. McGill out.”
Switching out of every channel, I cursed for about ten solid seconds. There wasn’t much else I could do. My troops were flying toward the enemy ship in what seemed like slow-motion. We weren’t exactly sitting ducks, but we were slow-flying ducks that couldn’t do so much as dodge or weave. Armored spacesuits aren’t really built for that kind of thing.
Splat!
A round caught me in the right hip. It didn’t penetrate my armor completely, but it did spin me around. I stabilized my flight trajectory and tried to get out of the line of fire—but it was hopeless.
More orange-white sparks leapt up to greet me, zinging by either ear. It was unnerving. Judging by the look of the incoming fire, I figured it couldn’t be energy-based. It had to be something ballistic, like a turret spraying out railgun rounds.
“McGill,” Graves said, “you’ve got to stop that incoming fire. We’re sustaining pinprick hull breaches all over Nostrum. If it doesn’t stop, I’m authorized to employ our broadsides.”
Whirling around so I could look back, I saw the big transport looming behind me. The tiny strikes were indeed spraying all over the mid-section of the Nostrum’s hull. Worse, I could see her broadsides now. They’d been uncovered and were rolling out into the open.
Sixteen wicked-looking barrels moved to track us smoothly—or rather, to track the enemy ship behind us.
What I didn’t get is why the gremlins didn’t just fly away. They could have—but maybe they didn’t recognize the danger. Up until now, we hadn’t destroyed these little buggers because we’d figured they’d damage our warp core if we did.
But at this point, the Legion Varus brass was getting anxious. They were pulling out the stops, and my unit was in the direct line of fire.
“Graves, I’m requesting back-up. Send the next unit in behind me.”
“Negative, McGill. We’re not going to lose another unit over this. If you can’t break in, you’re on your own.”
Spinning back around again, I was in for a shock. I’d misgauged the distance and my speed of travel. I was right on top of the enemy ship.
Turning my big metal feet toward the hull, I fired emergency retros. That worked—but not completely. After all, my suit was no space fighter.
I landed with a grunt and a clang. Rolling, I clattered right across the skin of the ship. Inside the hull, it must have sounded like a meteor storm.
It was a close thing. Rolling and out of control, I spun off the flat top of the craft and out into open space, still falling in the direction I’d been going before I ran into the ship.
A line shot out and tagged me with magnetics. I was brought to a halt with a wrenching grunt.
The techs reeled me in and Natasha put her face into mine.
“You hit, James?” she asked.
“I’m okay. No serious damage. Get the rest of them.”
She nodded and vanished.
Struggling up into a crouch, I crawled over the hull. I saw blasted turrets. None of them were still shooting at my men—at least, not on this side of the ship. On the far side, several turrets were chattering away at the men who’d missed the jump and were still tumbling out into space.
“Weaponeers!” Leeson shouted. “Crawl up over the top of the central fuselage. You’re going to knock out every turret on this shit-box of a ship!”
“Belay that!” I shouted in return.
Leeson gaped at me. “Uh… what’s the plan, Centurion?”
“Leeson, get your weaponeers to burn me a new hatch into this ship. You’ve got thirty seconds to breach her. That’s it!”
I pointed over my shoulder, and Leeson followed the gesture. He saw the broadsides then, open and sighted on our tail feathers. If those big guns fired, they’d take out this ship, our unit—everything.
He grabbed up a wounded man’s belcher, screaming orders at his confused men. There was no time to explain.
Fortunately, Legion Varus troops are used to doing crazy things under fire. We beamed the hull until it glowed, started to spark with burning metal, then slagged and yawned open.
A powerful gust of gas came blasting up into our faces. We rocked back, but our exoskeletal suits and magnetic boots held.
We kept burning, widening the hole.
The body of a gremlin, twisting and flipping as he spun, flew out of the hole like someone had shot him out of a cannon.
Leeson chuckled, but our amusement was short-lived.
“McGill, that’s it. I’m out of time,” Graves warned. “Deech wants this operation to come to a close. If you jump off right now, some of you might survive the blast—but I doubt it.”
“Hold on, sir! Hold on!” I shouted. “We’re inside the ship. Repeat, we’ve breached the ship.”
“You’re inside?”
“That’s right sir. Dead gremlins everywhere.”
“Get to the bridge and shut everything down. You’ve got four minutes. That’s all.”
“Easy as cake, Primus.”
Even as I spoke I turned off my magnetics, jumped into the breach, and waded into the dark interior.
-24-
We’d surprised the little bastards. They’d known we were out here, but they didn’t seem to be masterful at unit tactics.
Quick as jumping cats, they sprang at us. Electric needles were rammed home, and ten of my heavies did a final deadly jig. A dozen more were blown up by booby-trapped hatchways and doors that seemed to be fitted with blade-like jaws.
“You’ve got to jump through these doors lickety-split!” Leeson said, panting and alarmed. He’d barely gotten through the last few.
“They do seem to be designed for gremlins,” I agreed. “If you can’t move like a gibbon, they’ll shave your ass off for you.”
We were walking in a crouch, another disadvantage, as we crept closer to the prow of the ship. The bridge had to be up there—it had to be. We’d chosen this path because it was the shortest, and with only a few minutes left, I didn’t figure we had time to turn back and search the ship in the opposite direction.
But when we got to the very nose cone, we found nothing. There was a storage facility, a few floating gremlins that apparently hadn’t been smart enough to put on a vac suit—and that was about it.
Leeson looked at me, and I looked at him.
“Ninety seconds left, Centurion.”
“We’re screwed.”
“Oh, come on, dammit!” Leeson said. “After we came all this way? Where’s that old McGill magic?”
I thought hard for a second then I looked at him. “Where are your weaponeers?”
“Outside on the hull. You can’t really work a belcher in here, it’s too long.”
“Right… have them follow your original plan. Knock out every turret, every light—any sign of life you see on the outer hull.”
“What good will that do?”
“Sixty seconds, Leeson!”
He stopped asking questions, got on his platoon channel and started shouting orders.
At the same time, I contacted Graves.
“Centurion?” Graves said, “I want to thank you and your team for giving it your all. But unfortunately, we just can’t—”
“We took the ship, sir!” I shouted in
triumph. “It was a close thing, but we did it!”
“Uh… but I see your men on the outer hull, firing on turrets.”
“Those men are mopping up, Primus. The turrets are independently operated. We haven’t killed the power yet, because we didn’t want to damage critical systems. I’m hereby requesting you send the promised support. Techs first, if you don’t mind.”
While I made this little speech, Leeson was looking at me with big eyes. I turned away to ignore him better. He was making it hard to concentrate.
“All right, McGill,” Graves said. “I’ll pass on that request. Graves out.”
“Centurion?” Leeson hissed at me. “Are you shitting me? We’ve got nothing here but a long slog! What if those techs get over here and—”
“Stop worrying so much,” I told him. “A pack of techs, approved by Deech? They’ll take an hour to get across to this ship. Hell, they’ll have tea first.”
“Yeah, maybe… but our reports… It’s all there. Time-stamped and vid filed to death. We’re never going to—”
Leeson was beginning to bother me.
“Are you a moonlighting hog, or are you a Varus Legionnaire, Adjunct?” I demanded.
That shut him down. Grumbling, he followed me into the depths of the ship.
Where, oh where, would a gremlin crew hide their bridge? It turned out the bridge was in the back end of the ship, right on top of Engineering. I supposed that with modern sensors, there was no real reason the bridge had to be in the forward zone of a vessel. Looking out through a window, especially in a starship, was a thing of the past.
The gremlins really didn’t put up much of a fight. They squeaked and hopped around. A few more men were char-broiled in nasty traps—but we got them all in the end.
Toro said something about us being ordered to take prisoners, but I didn’t like the idea. These guys were tricky. Back home, when there was a weasel or a rat in the henhouse, we never took prisoners. We eradicated the problem thoroughly.
When it was over, I slumped on the deck in my armor, tired of bending over at the waist. My back was on fire with muscular pain, and my sore muscles sang me a little song of woe as I took in breaths of stale air and relaxed.
In my limited field of vision, two faces came into view.
“Are you injured, McGill?” Graves asked.
“No sir! I’m taking a break.”
He chuckled, and he looked at Deech. “He was probably sleeping like a baby.”
She seemed less happy. She kicked me, and although I hardly felt it through my heavy armor, my feelings were a little bit hurt. After all, to my mind I was the hero of the hour.
“Where are my prisoners, McGill?” she demanded.
“Uh…” I pointed toward a corpse that floated past. “That one just twitched, I think.”
She kicked me again, and I sat up, frowning.
“Centurion,” she said severely, “exactly how are we to bargain with the gremlins that hold our own engineering section now?”
“Same as before, sir. With the muzzle of my morph-rifle.”
“We tried that twice. It didn’t work. If we go in with heavy weapons, we’ll destroy the engines. How do we get home after that?”
I stretched. “Not sure, Tribune. I can’t do everything around here. I don’t want to be rude, but I feel I should point out that it was your idea to destroy this ship less than an hour ago. Now, at least we’ve got a captured vessel.”
Deech heaved a sigh and stalked away, shaking her head.
Graves crouched next to me, flicking at a floating gremlin corpse. “You’ve sure got away with the ladies, McGill.”
“That I do, sir.”
“The tribune was hoping to bargain with the gremlin invaders. She’d hoped she could use prisoners to get them to give up.”
“That’s an interesting plan, sir,” I said, “but in my opinion, it wouldn’t have worked.”
“I know I’m going to regret this, but I’m going to ask anyway. Why not?”
“Because I’ve taken my measure of these little freaks. They don’t give one rip about each other. They enjoy a good trick, and that’s about it. They’re tiny, twisted psychopaths.”
“You could well be right,” he admitted. “But now we’re not much better off than when we started.”
Surprised, I lifted my hands to indicate our surroundings. “What? Sir, we’ve got ourselves a working vessel in prime condition right here. Sure, it’s on the small side, but…”
I trailed off as Graves walked away.
Natasha came to kneel next to me after the brass left.
“Are you ready for a full report?” she asked.
“Is it good news?”
“Mostly.”
“Okay, give it to me.”
She proceeded to rattle off facts and figures. Using our considerable damage-control facilities back on Nostrum, she figured in a week’s time this new ship would be ready for flight—even at warp.
“How many humans could it carry?” I asked her. “That’s what I really want to know.”
She gave me a quizzical look, but she answered promptly enough. “Two hundred, tops. If you want food and all that—cut that number in half.”
I heaved a sigh and eased myself back against the bulkhead. I’d hoped the ship would hold a full cohort, but that was out of the question. We could take a single unit, plus some auxiliaries. That’s it.
Wondering if I’d wasted a lot of lives and time capturing the gremlin ship, I kicked at a floating body and smiled grimly.
Nope, I decided. It had all been worth it, if only because none of these vicious weasels were grinning at me now.
-25-
Tribune Deech soon completed her inspection. She wandered around the alien ship, sneering at everything.
“Were these creatures really so dangerous?” she asked Graves.
“They took out more than their weight in humanity,” he said. “I’d say they’re still dangerous, as they’re still holding our engine room hostage on Nostrum.”
Deech turned her unpleasant expression my way next.
“Centurion,” she said, “as I understand it, you were in charge of this operation.”
“That’s right, sir. But I can’t take all the credit. That should kick way, way up to the top where you are!”
She twitched slightly when I said this, and I began to cement certain ideas I had about her mode of operation.
Unlike Imperator Turov, who did everything to take credit for things she never did herself, Deech played the rank game much more subtly. She delegated everything, and only took credit when the smoke cleared. If it all went well and the mission was accomplished, I had no doubt she’d be the first in line back at Central to receive her accolades as Legion Varus’ commander.
But, in case it all fell apart, she was working overtime every step of the way to distance herself. The fact she still wasn’t happy to sign her name to this mess indicated to me that she wasn’t at all confident the mission would succeed in the end. On that point, we were in one hundred percent agreement.
Despite my inner thoughts, I grinned at her in triumph. I hammed it up, playing the role of the happy soldier who’d just scored a touchdown. She gave me tight-lipped smiles and tiny nods of encouragement, but that was all.
Shaking my fist overhead and whooping, I limped aboard the shuttle she’d brought over from Nostrum and plopped down in the VIP section up front. The pilot looked over her shoulder at me for a minute, but then she shrugged. What did she care if the brass didn’t want me on their couch? It was going to be my ass if they got pissed off.
By the time Deech and Primus Graves finished their little tour and joined me on the shuttle, I was sound asleep.
Graves kicked my blood-crusted boots off the couch and sat down next to me.
“What…?” I said, startled. My hand slid away from my pistol as I recognized Graves and Deech. “Oh… it’s you, sirs. What’s the verdict? Is she a prize, or what?”
I
made sure I injected all kinds of enthusiasm and excitement into that question. Neither one of them appeared to be as happy as I was.
“It’s too damned small,” Graves said.
Deech nodded grimly. “There’s no way around it,” she said. “This ship is no more than a lifeboat. It’s not salvation.”
“Salvation?” I asked. “Why hell, our problems are as good as solved!”
They both looked annoyed. Neither believed me, I could tell.
“McGill,” Graves said, “the enemy holds our engine room. We’ve gained no valid escape route by taking their assault ship. Essentially, we’re back where we started.”
“Nonsense!” I boomed. “We’ve got them by the short ones.”
“Why do you keep talking like that?” Deech demanded. “I know you’re not as retarded as you pretend to be, McGill. Can’t you see our situation is grim?”
“We hold all the cards, Tribune. Just let me go back into the engine room and clean them out. They’ve got nowhere to hide now.”
She winced at the idea. “If only you’d taken prisoners. We could have talked them out of their position and arrested them.”
I shook my head slowly. “I don’t think so, Tribune. These tiny buggers are determined—and they don’t seem to give much of a rip about each other. They might have run in fear if we’d slaughtered more of them in close proximity, but then again, maybe not.”
She looked at me and sighed. “All right,” she said at last. “I’ll bite. What do you think would work to get them out of there and off my ship?”
“Death!” I said, grinning at her. “Mass death. For all of them.”
“We tried that, McGill,” Graves said. “We went in, and we were driven right back out again—those of us that survived.”
“Right,” I said, “but we didn’t know this enemy very well yet. Now, we’ve got a lot of troops who’ve faced them. More importantly, you went in with all your troops in light gear, Primus. In my opinion, that was a mistake.”
