Wraith approaches the First Sergeant. “Your op, Sergeant, but do you have an idea of where we are on the ship?”
“I’d say we got a pretty good idea. Decent pilot. We’re part of the bridge assault team. We should be a half-click from the main corridor on these relics. That’ll lead us to command bridge. Prolly hafta fight our way to it, once we hit the main thoroughfare.”
“Which way to the main corridor?” I ask.
First Sergeant nods at a set of sealed blast doors. “Just gotta pop them puppies open.”
A pair of marines move to the doors and begin working on them with cutting torches.
“Seriously?” Exo says, his mock disbelief coming through his bucket speaker loud and clear. “Cutting torches?”
“Sorry, Leej,” First Sergeant says, spitting a wad of stim onto the deck. “Marines don’t get all that fancy equipment you boys in the army and Legion are loaded down with. We got cuttin’ torches for doors and N-6s for everything else.”
“It’s fine,” Wraith says. “Exo, Chhun, move to front and prepare to go out with the marines. We’ve got no idea what’s waiting for us on the other side, and your armor’ll be able to take what’s coming a lot more than their flak vests.”
“Yes sir,” Exo and I answer in unison. We hustle to the door.
I hear Kags ask, “What about me?” as we move away.
“You do whatever First Sergeant tells you,” Wraith answers.
First Sergeant growls. “And I’m tellin’ you to hang back and be ready to bring that nice N-4 into the fight if I call you up. Don’t worry, you’ll get a chance to shoot some MCR.”
The marines cut a circle out of the door and step away. “Time to knock, leejes.”
“Ooah!” Exo nods at me to make sure I’m set, then violently kicks the center of the blast doors. The three-inch thick impervisteel pops out and lands with a ka-thunk on the other side. If there are any MCR nearby, they heard that.
I jump through, landing in a roll that takes me to the cover of a bulkhead. My N-4 is trained down the corridor. Nothing.
Exo is out, keeping on my heels. He’s covering the opposite direction. “Clear,” he says as the marines begin to hustle through the rough-cut opening in the blast door, taking care not to burn their combat fatigues on the still-hot metal.
A marine lowers his rifle. “Where is everybody, man?”
I strain to hear over the hum of the ship. Turbo laser batteries are discharging toward the Mercutio, and return fire is absorbed by hull and shield. But I don’t hear any small-arms fire. No hint of assault parties or MCR crew seeking to repel them.
It’s as if we’ve boarded a ghost ship.
02
“All right, marines.” First Sergeant points down the empty corridor. “Just because they ain’t here don’t mean you can go home. These Mids need killin’, so let’s find ’em.”
I follow the marines down the corridor. Unlike the smooth, mirror-finished decks of Republic battleships, the decks on Ohio-class starships look like they were launched from the orbital shipyard before they were fully finished. There’s no under-deck technology—no retractable defense crew turrets, courier tubes, or impact channels. Just grating, a maintenance shaft that includes HVAC, and a deck plate to ensure the area can be properly sealed in the event of a hull breach. And the corridors are constructed from steel—not impervisteel, just steel. When these space-whales were built, impervisteel was too precious to be used on anything except the outer hull.
Everything in the corridor I now move through is painted a drab blue-gray that absorbs the artificial light cast from recesses in the ceiling above. I occasionally pass a block number painted in white, displaying the deck and sector.
We move in a straight line until we stand beneath an overhead sign that reads, “Deck 01-C Life Support Rooms.” Beneath that is a pair of arrows next to the words, “Bridge Thoroughfare.”
“Looks like we’re on the right track,” Wraith says to First Sergeant.
The first sergeant grunts in acknowledgment. “I want those life support rooms cleared before we move into the main corridor. Don’t wanna give the Mids an opportunity to get behind us.”
Marines hustle to the doors and storm inside as they slide open. Exo and I move with them, but it’s quickly apparent that the rooms are empty. The thrumming of the deck’s life support systems is all that greets us.
“All clear, First Sergeant.” The marine giving the report seems agitated. Riding an assault shuttle is an adrenaline rush, and that adrenaline is usually put to good use, since it typically isn’t long after breaching that a firefight breaks out. But not this time. The ship really does seem abandoned, and I can see the nagging fatigue of disappointment weighing on the hullbusters.
“Let’s keep sharp,” I call out to my fellow leejes—and Kags. “We’ve seen this before. Skeleton crew, concentrating forces at a chokepoint. When the shooting starts, it’ll be hot and thick.”
I say this for the benefit of the marines. They’re pros, but the long trek through empty corridors has already given way to inattentive whispers. They need to be ready to get shot at. Ready to KTF.
The corridor ends at a massive blast door that leads into the bridge thoroughfare—a massive corridor large enough for rapid-transport vehicles to move on two lanes, with walkways on the sides where crew and bots can travel four abreast. Think of it as the ship’s super-highway. It ends at the bridge, and gives access through subcorridor or speedlift to the entirety of the ship. A capable force could barricade the thoroughfare, even bring up light armored vehicles, and hold off an assault force long enough for the bridge crew to safely deploy escape pods.
Exo slaps the blast door with the flat of his hand. It’s like laying down a beat on the side of a mountain; the thing sounds completely solid. “Great,” Exo says, his voice thick with sarcasm. “The cutting torches should be through this thing in thirty, forty-five minutes. That’ll surprise ’em.”
“Stow it, Exo,” orders Wraith.
The first sergeant sends six marines forward to begin cutting a hole in the massive doors. It takes twenty-two minutes.
“Let’s knock ’em down,” says First Sergeant.
“Don’t think I can mule kick a meter of blast door out onto the next deck,” Exo quips.
“We’ve got det-cord,” a marine offers.
Kid sounds like he’s trying to be helpful, so I say, “Nice work, Marine.”
The kid smiles and begins to adhere the thin coil of explosives around the still-glowing seam created by the cutting torches. The heat won’t cause det-cord to detonate. Considered “smart ordnance,” it’ll explode only in response to an infrared command keyed in specifically to the cord. It’s configured to pack just enough punch to blow a maximum of two point five meters of blast door in the opposite direction.
If there are any MCR on the other side, I’m hoping they’re standing right where the chunk of metal will land. Save us time.
“Fire in the hole!”
The marines detonate the explosives, and I watch from behind a bulkhead as a massive slab of blast door flies into the next corridor and lands with an enormous thud that must’ve left a dent in the deck grate.
Exo and I exchange a look.
“Bet you somebody heard that,” Exo says.
First Sergeant shouts, “Go! Go! Go!” and the marines begin to pour through the opening. Not before Wraith and Exo, though. The two legionnaires established that they would breach first from here on out, trusting their armor to do what marine flak vests aren’t quite as capable of: stopping blaster fire.
Sure enough, I see a blaster bolt sizzle past Wraith. Another glances off of Exo’s shoulder, but it clearly doesn’t cause any real damage. The report of the blaster fire tells me that the Mids are shooting at us from a distance, probably the far end of the corridor we’re now breaching.
I jump through the gaping hole in the blast door, getting ahead of several marines who are delicately maneuvering over the still-
hot metal. As I land, I see that this is not the main thoroughfare after all. It appears to be an arterial corridor. Nowhere near wide enough to be our target.
That doesn’t matter right now. An assortment of rebels are fighting from partially exposed positions at the opposite end. They have the same cover we do—the rib-like frames that mark each modular piece of corridor. A few are firing from behind the improved cover of an opened bulkhead blast door, but they’re too far away to do much with the blaster pistols they’re equipped with.
I lay myself flat on the deck, partially covered by a protrusion, and fire my N-4, using its open holosight to add to the body count Wraith and Exo have already racked up. Dead MCRs begin to litter the deck.
My charge pack goes red. “Chhun reloading!” I shout, though I’m not sure anyone hears me over the amplified din of blaster fire. The marines have poured in now, and they’re sending down torrid streams of blaster fire. I feel like I see more blaster bolts than empty space.
More insurgents are hit, and the bodies of the fallen dance in macabre, rag-doll spasms as blaster fire hits their lifeless bodies. This is a one-sided bloodbath, and the MCRs know it. They turn and break, running pell-mell in the opposite direction.
Even more fall as our intense fire strikes the retreating MCR platoon in the back. We advance, unwilling to let our prey escape until every last fighter is put down like the vicious dogs they are. This may sound harsh to someone who’s never been in combat. Someone who looks down from his seat of safety and comfort purchased dearly by the blood of the Legion. Someone who speaks of war as if he knows what the hell he’s talking about.
In combat, I am a thinking beast who out-savages the monsters that seek to destroy me.
When the shooting starts, I separate the affable, compassionate part of who I am and give the warrior complete control. These insurgents would kill me as sure as look at me. Their brothers did kill the hundreds in Camp Forge and the thousands aboard the Chiasm. It is a battle for survival, and I refuse to let them win.
The return fire is sporadic and ill-aimed. We advance in fire teams, keeping up a continual stream of suppressive blaster fire.
As we pass through a bulkhead, I see the blast door up ahead begin to close, its open square ever-shrinking as its four separate panels move to meet at diagonal angles.
“Blast door!” I shout.
“Shut ’em down!” orders First Sergeant.
Wraith drops to a knee and takes careful aim with his N-4. He hits the door’s control panel dead center. A shower of sparks flies, and the door’s panels freeze in place. For good measure, Exo lines up an insurgent through the opening and drops him with a blaster bolt between the shoulder blades.
It is utterly demoralizing to go up against the Legion. Nearly every shot we send results in a casualty, while return fire seems ineffective. Our enemies feel like children going into battle with their toys.
The MCR is in full retreat. Now it’s a matter of catching and destroying them before they have the opportunity to regroup for a counterassault—or physically meet up with another force. I say physically, because their comms are useless. An Ohio doesn’t have the sophistication needed to resist the Mercutio’s jamming. The insurgents’ only hope is to reach a fortified position or get back to the relative safety of their main force.
“Hold up!” Wraith shouts, bringing the pursuit to an abrupt halt.
We’ve come to the end of our corridor, which opens up into a ‘T.’ The insurgents have disappeared to either the right or left, maybe both. If I were them, this is where I’d lay an ambush. Hit us as we turn the corner. Wraith must be thinking the same thing.
“Blind corner,” he observes, his external comm hushed so that only friendlies can hear him. “This is where it happens if we go in stupid.”
“I’m all ears if you’ve got a plan, Leej.” The first sergeant disperses his marines to watch the end of the corridor, ready to shoot should anything pop into the open on our left or right.
“Grenades?” I suggest.
“Out,” Exo says.
Wraith checks his belt. “Same.”
“Me too,” I say, knowing that it ultimately doesn’t matter. The marines have two each—one fragger and one ear-popper. A few of them should have smokers, too. I turn to First Sergeant, careful to include him in what I’m about to suggest to Wraith. “With their buckets, Exo and Wraith can see through smoke. First Sergeant, can your marines toss some smokers into the corridor and follow with fraggers? We can move in and dust whoever’s left standing before they know we’re there.”
“Not the ear-poppers?” the first sergeant asks.
Wraith shakes his head. “If we get a chance to take the bridge, we’ll be glad to still have those.”
First Sergeant nods and produces two smokers from a leg pouch. He hands them to me. I give one to Kags, and the two of us creep toward the end of the corridor, collecting fraggers from the marines as we move our way up. Wraith and Exo are stacked up behind us.
My ears are straining for any hint that the enemy might be rushing around the corner, clanking on the deck grate, but all is quiet. The ship seems to have gone ghost again.
We stop on opposite sides of the corridor, maybe ten meters shy of the T. I set down my fraggers and activate the delay on my smoker to three seconds, holding up three fingers so Kags knows to do the same. I count down from three, silently mouthing the numbers. We both throw the smokers into the corridor at zero.
Billowing clouds of white smoke fill the corridor ahead of us. It’s like a cloud got off of the speedlift to join us on deck. I hear muffled coughing. They’re there. I pick up the fraggers, thumb the activators, and toss them, banking them off the corridor wall and around the left corner. Kags does the same on the right.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
With the last fragger’s detonation, Wraith and Exo sprint into the corridor, trusting the mix of shrapnel, smoke, and their ability to see through it to keep them alive. I hear the familiar sound of N-4 rifles being double-tapped. Each burst means a dead insurgent.
There are a lot of bursts.
And that’s not good. It means that either there are more of them around the corner than we figured, or that the fraggers didn’t do the damage we’d hoped for. Return fire from the PK-9A blaster rifles and high-capacity low-yield blaster pistols soon answers.
Drrrrt!
My heart sinks. The sound is of a rapid-fire crew-served machine gun sending a flurry of blaster bolts down the hallway. Had the fire team of marines turned the corner blind, there would have been no survivors. If Wraith and Exo were caught flatfooted by that thing…
The two legionnaires leap from the smoke. They land hard on the deck, safe on our side of the intersection.
“Sket, that was close!” Exo cries.
Wraith picks himself up and calls the first sergeant forward as he casually steps over to me. “Fraggers got a couple, but most were farther down the hall. They’re dug in like sin-ticks. Barricades and a crew-served KL-5. I’d estimate we dropped ten before they returned fire.”
“How many left?” I ask.
“Five, six. But that KL-5 is a big equalizer.”
“More fraggers?” First Sergeant asks.
Wraith gives a fractional shake of his head. “No. Too far, and the barricades will absorb most of the impact again.”
I watch as the corridor’s vent system, already thrumming from working overtime, begins to thin the dissipating smoke. “Well, we need to do something soon. Smoke’s clearing.”
Wraith straightens up. “Exo, stack up behind me. Chhun, since you still don’t have a bucket, stay behind Exo. Prioritize that crew team.”
“Hold up,” First Sergeant says, grabbing Wraith’s armored forearm. “That sounds too much like suicide for my taste.”
“I appreciate that, but time is a finite commodity. I expect to see my leejes fill the captain of this ship with blaster bolts within ten minutes, and the clock is ticking.”
We stac
k up, ready to make the best tactical decision available to us, though the odds aren’t great. But legionnaires use the odds. We defy the odds. We don’t mindlessly play the odds like some gutless seamball coach. We play to win.
And in this instance, the play to make involves opening ourselves to a crew-served machine gun that will eat through our armor in one terrible burst.
Ooah.
03
Wraith holds up his arm. I watch his fist, waiting for it to open and point, giving the signal to move. My N-4 is set to full-auto, I’ve got a green charge pack, and if this is how I die… I ain’t complainin’.
Though it’s only a few seconds, the wait feels interminable. The machine gun team hasn’t let up. But it’s a sound decision for Wraith to hold us up. They can’t fire forever. They’ll need to change bolt drums or swap out barrels. Hell, they might even get bored or call a cease-fire, thinking they dusted our entire team, and just wait for the last remnants of smoke to clear.
Just when I think the fire will never let up, it goes full stop. A blizzard of red blaster bolts is going by one second, and then nothing. Nothing save the sound of an N-4 rifle on burst mode. I hear it blasting from around the corridor in controlled, three-round bursts. And then it stops, too.
Silence.
“That a leej?” Exo asks.
“No other leejes on this op beside you, ’s’far as I know,” First Sergeant says quietly. “They’re all gearing up to do an op planetside.”
Wraith straightens up and says over the L-comm, “Heartbreaker.”
He’s giving the Victory company challenge phrase. It should be easy enough for any leej to figure out. He’s also assuming the same thing I am, that the frequency we were set to while on Kublar was the Mercutio’s standard for the shipboard legionnaires. There’s always the possibility that the assumption is incorrect, and a very real leej stationed to the Mercutio is just around the corner, unable to hear us over L-comm.
This could also be an MCR trick.
Kill Team (Galaxy's Edge Book 3) Page 2
