“The wall opposite the door abuts an open area which leads to lifts and the entrance to engineering,” Minerva responded. “It’s four foot thick steel.”
“Beautiful,” Jennings said as he drew his grenade launcher once more and aimed it at the wall. “Everyone take cover!”
The crowd of humans raced out of the line of fire, running down the rows of cryo-tubes and kneeling behind them. Jennings fired and twin streaks of smoke raced into the wall and detonated. After the smoke cleared, he saw that he had made a dent in the wall, but had not blown his way through. Muttering to himself in an annoyed voice and trying to ignore the louder and louder pounding that the door was taking, he ejected the spent grenade shells and grabbed another pair off his bandolier, penetrator rounds this time. He sighted into the dent that he had already formed and fired again, just the one shot this time. The penetrator round raced forward and dug itself deep into the steel before it detonated, and this time when the smoke cleared, there was a small trickle of light coming through from the other side. Jennings put five more penetrator rounds into the wall in precise points and soon there was an opening wide enough for a body to squeeze through.
Jennings reloaded the grenade launcher with his last two rounds, normal grenades, and holstered it. Grabbing hold of his automatic plasma rifle again, he turned to Beauregard and said, “I need you to get them out of here. I’ll give you as long as I can.”
“You need me,” Beauregard said.
“They need you,” Jennings corrected. “There are probably a decent number of guards between them and Lafayette.” They shared a glance, and there was a look in Beauregard’s eyes that Jennings chalked up to some sort of professional respect. Turning away from her, Jennings said in a loud voice to all assembled, “Listen up. Selena is going to lead you through the engineering section to where the rest of our team is waiting. Stay behind her. Do what she says, and I’ll hold the Gael at bay as long as I can.”
“As long as we can,” Michelle corrected.
Jennings shook his head. “You’re no soldier,” he said.
“And he won’t kill me,” she replied. “He needs me.”
“She’s right,” Beauregard said begrudgingly. “She can at least cover you while you re-load.” Taking a few steps closer to the young college student, Beauregard passed over her rifle and the ammunition for it and said, “Safety’s off. Just aim and shoot.” Still carrying the child, she jogged over to the opening that Jennings had made and pushed the little girl through. “Follow me, everyone!” she shouted as she pulled herself through the opening next.
“Hurry up!” Jennings yelled as another pounding on the door bent the top half of the door down and the HK became visible for the first time.
Beams of white energy sprayed into the room, tracking the escaping humans. At least half a dozen were hit and fell to the ground stunned. Jennings pushed Michelle behind the cover of a row of cryogenics units as he opened fire with the plasma rifle. His shots were perfectly accurate, but splashed off the HK armor’s shields without doing any damage or were simply absorbed. The stunning beams had ceased under Jennings’ assault, however, and had allowed more people to escape and others to push those who had been stunned through the aperture.
“How many are through?” Jennings demanded as he continued firing at Pahhal, who was now trying to kick the rest of the door out of his way so the HK unit could enter the room.
“Half,” she spat back.
“The shots hitting his shield mess up his auto targeting system,” Jennings said as Pahhal sent another stream of stunning shots into the room, this time only hitting one person. “When I tell you, I want you to pop out from behind there and let him have it so I can reload,” Jennings shouted. “When I start firing again, fall back to the next row. Now!”
Michelle popped up from behind the cryo-unit and opened fire, but she had little experience with firearms. The weapon bucked in her hands and most of her shots went wild, allowing only a few to splash of the HK’s shields. Jennings reloaded rapidly, but not fast enough. Pahhal sent a stunning beam at Michelle, which hit her rifle and knocked it out of her hands, but left her unharmed. A stream of deadlier plasma fire tracked Jennings who was forced to race to the opposite side of the room and dive behind another cryonics unit as he finished reloading.
As soon as the new clip was in place and the charge was primed, he whirled back out and opened fire. Pahhal had finished kicking down the door and now was striding into the room, but the hailstorm of fire he met from Jennings slowed him down once more and his stunning beam stopped trying to hit Michelle as it could no longer track her.
“How many?” Jennings shouted to her.
“Just us,” she shouted back as she raced by him and took cover behind the last row of cryonics units.
“Get out!” he ordered.
“Not without you,” she protested.
“Dammit, girl, go!” Jennings shouted. “I’m right behind you.”
Michelle took off at a run and scrambled through the hole in the wall as Jennings continued firing, stepping back slowly as he did so. In between the flashes of blue from his shots hitting Pahhal’s shield, he would have sworn that the Gael was smiling maliciously at him. The charge on his rifle went suddenly dry, and Jennings immediately dropped it, turned on his heel and sprinted for the opening. He expected plasma fire to mow him down instantly, but instead he heard the telltale sound of a rocket being launched from the forearm launcher on the HK suit. Running full tilt, Jennings dove face first into the tunnel just as the missile hit the wall above the tunnel. The force of the explosion slammed into Jennings and threw him out of the tunnel and sent him skidding across the floor past the lifts and all the way to the large door with the word ENGINEERING stenciled above it in large letters. A fireball belched forth from the wall and rushed into the lobby sending a thousand pieces of shrapnel and debris into the air all around him, and everything went dark.
4
Pahhal should have felt annoyed by the fact that Jennings had allowed the one hundred and eleven souls to escape from him, but he was not too perplexed. Mentally ordering his plasma cannon to convert into a drilling beam, he then ordered it to open fire, carving a passage through the steel wall for himself to pass. There was nowhere for the humans to go, he thought to himself, and he would have them again shortly. And then he could focus truly on Captain Matthew Jennings and bring him the agonizing death he so desperately seemed to crave.
Chapter 36
1
The colossal FTL engine stuck out of the rear of the vaguely triangular (in a three dimensional kind of way) TGFS Intrepid and all the jokes that had ever been made about the Proto-class carrier’s asinine aesthetics came back to Remy Lafayette’s mind. The least offensive of these involved the engine looking like a piece of excrement that had gotten stuck on the ship on the way out. Some people merely called it the “hemorrhoid”. Trying to think of all the humorous things that the engine design had been called over the years calmed Lafayette as he bungeed the explosive as near to the glowing blue engine exhaust as he could. Theoretically, he could have reached over the lip of the engine casing and gotten it a little closer, but the exhaust would have probably fried him instantly.
It had taken a good while to maneuver himself into position and to get the bomb in place as working in zero gravity with massive atmosphere suit gloves was never easy. But he was now done, and just had to arm the device. Reaching for the yellow button that would arm the bomb and being damn sure he did not hit the red one that detonated it, Lafayette just about jumped out of his skin when his radio buzzed in his ear.
“Merde, Fix,” he muttered. “You almost made me set dis thing off.”
“We’re in the middle of a firefight,” Fix responded matter-of-factly. “Thought you might want to know.”
Quickly, Lafayette hit the arm button and turned around. Using the zero-g motion gloves, hand units that contained a small thruster that while weak, had more than enough power to direct a h
uman being through a vacuum, he navigated his way back toward the maintenance hatch he had left. He could have hit the retract button on the tether he had attached to himself, but that would have taken much longer. No longer concerned with conserving thruster fuel, he sped himself along back to the ship, slowing down only at the last possible moment by cutting off the thrusters and then throwing his hands forward and firing them again at one-third power, using them as retro-rockets.
Lafayette forced his awkwardly bulky suit in through the hatch and then hit the retract button on the tether after he realized that the hatch would not close with the tether still hanging out in space. As soon as the cord had wound its way back in, Lafayette hit the button to close the hatch. It swung shut, and he could sense air being pumped back into the room as a light above the bulkhead that had previously been red, began flashing and then changed to green. Once it was green, Lafayette pulled off the bulky atmosphere suit, let it fall to the ground and drew the pistol that was still holstered on his hip.
Punching the control pad to open the inner airlock, Lafayette found himself forced to duck immediately as green plasma fire tore through the wall above him. Cursing, he punched up at the control panel and closed the airlock’s door. That was disastrously close to a hull breach, he thought to himself as he started making his way forward.
Petrova’s bounty hunters had taken up defensive positions behind the workstations in the main engine room and were taking turns firing pot shots down several different corridors. Plasma fire was coming in from at least three of the corridors that converged in the main engine room. Petrova had taken up a position in what remained of the chief engineer’s office, and Fix was crouched next to her, occasionally firing. The two appeared to be arguing with each other as Lafayette crawled into the office next to them.
“Ve need to fall back,” Anastasia Petrova said. “My men cannot keep them at bay forever.”
“Not possible,” Fix said.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Lafayette demanded.
“She wants to pull out and make for the hangar now,” Fix grunted.
“This position is untenable,” she replied. “Ve have no ability to save anyone but ourselves, and ve are fast loosing that option.”
“Minerva says there are about ten men in each hallway,” Fix said.
“We can’t hit them,” Vosler said as he joined them, kneeling down in the office. “They have too much cover, plus they brought up artillery. That blast that almost got you was from a mounted Phalanx cannon,” he said to Lafayette. “It’s out of our range to hit, but they can pour fire down on us. I suggest we toss some grenades down the corridors and escape in the confusion.”
“Merde,” Lafayette said. “The bomb’s set. We’ve done our job. I’ll tell Jennings we’re falling back and that he should meet us at the rendezvous point.”
Petrova nodded.
“Lafayette to Jennings,” he said. “Mon capitaine, come in.”
“He stayed behind,” a female voice said.
“Qui est-ce?” Lafayette demanded.
“This is Beauregard,” the voice responded. “Jennings stayed behind to buy us some time. The Gael trapped us.”
“Where are you?” Lafayette asked.
“Headed toward you,” she replied. “With over a hundred civvies in tow.”
Lafayette let loose a string of curse words in French. “Minerva,” he said. “Can you tell me which way they are coming?” he demanded as he pulled out a tablet. Plasma fire raked the air above them, and he felt the urge to duck again.
“Displaying,” she said and a map of their level appeared.
“They’re heading right down the same corridor we used,” he muttered.
“That passage has got ten TGF soldiers in it now,” Fix pointed out.
“Beauregard can handle a lot,” Lafayette said, hoping that what he said was true more than believing it. “What can we do to clear out that passage without causing a cave-in?” he demanded.
Grumbling under his breath, Fix said, “I’ll handle it.”
The black Scotsman stood up without a care for the fire that was being poured into the room and took off at run down that corridor, pouring plasma from his automatic rifle and disappearing into the passage.
“That man’s a lunatic,” Vosler observed with a sense of admiration.
2
Selena Beauregard had been the second person out of the cryonics room and had immediately been forced to throw the small girl that had suddenly become inseparable from her behind her. A half dozen security personnel, armed to the teeth, had appeared out of the lift to her left and had started targeting her and the child. Not giving them a chance to find out if they would have actually shot a child or not, Beauregard opened fire with her pistol, sending rapid and precise shots into the squad. She hit three of them and scattered the rest.
Stepping forward quickly, she continued to track them even as they fell or dove out of the way. As soon as each one had settled in a position for more than a second, she shot them twice. The threat had been neutralized before another of the humans had finished escaping the tunnel that led from the cryonics room.
Beauregard turned back to the little girl and asked, “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, causing her red pigtails to shake comically, but she still looked scared.
“I’m Selena,” Beauregard said, extending a hand out to her. The little ignored her outstretched hand and stuck her two arms out again. “Really?” Beauregard asked and the girl nodded vehemently.
As Beauregard picked her up, shifting the girl’s weight to one arm, so she could still wield her pistol, the little girl put her lips up to Beauregard’s ear and said, “I’m Molly.”
Two more people were out of the tunnel now and they had immediately started to help pulling out the next ones through. Every so often they would have to grab one of the prisoners who had been stunned and drag them out of the tunnel. Without it needing to be said, two of those who could walk would take hold of the stunned human, place their heads under the arms of the unconscious person, and help carry them further away from the hole in the wall.
Beauregard was keeping silent count of the number that had made it out and when they reached one hundred and ten, she shouted to everyone, “Follow me!”
She ran towards the entrance to engineering, hating that she was leaving Jennings and Williams behind, but that had been what he had asked her to do. He had not said it in words, but the look he had given her was one of a man who did not expect to survive for too long and was willing to die for their safety. Putting Matthew Jennings’ death out of her mind, she ran into the engineering section just as she answered Lafayette’s radio request for Jennings.
They passed a few doors, took a curve in the corridor and then raced over a catwalk that bridged two sections of corridor. Below the catwalk were some massive tanks that looked like they were filled with water. Beauregard led them past another half-dozen rooms, before she heard the sound of gunfire and immediately stopped. The group came to a halt behind her, although without the grace that she had shown. There were more than a few people who crashed into the person in front of them.
“Wait here,” Beauregard said.
“I can help you,” a young man with dark hair said. He was the one who had recognized Jennings.
“Stay here,” she said. “I don’t need any help.”
Creeping forward, she passed some fuel tanks and then started to take another curve in the passage, before she halted and pressed her body against the side of the corridor. At the apex of the passage’s curve, there were two men crouched by and one man lying prone behind a massive Phalanx artillery cannon. Very casually, Beauregard shot all three of them in the head and dropped to the ground, slithering over to the Phalanx.
There were six more in front of her in various covered positions behind protruding pipes or within doorways, but they were not expecting an attack from behind. One by one, she picked off the first four, before any of th
em realized what was happening. The fifth moved at the last instant and she missed him. With a shout of surprise, the man whirled on Beauregard’s position, expecting to yell at his comrades to watch their fire rather than actually attack. She put a dozen rounds into his chest before he got a word in edgewise.
The sixth TGF soldier had seen what had happened and was drawing a bead on her and preparing to fire. She tried to swivel the massive Phalanx, but it moved too slowly and she knew she would not make it in time. A shape in the shadows suddenly appeared behind the last TGF soldier and shot him dead. He stepped forward, and Beauregard recognized him as Fix.
“Thanks for not shooting me,” he said.
“Thanks for saving my life,” she replied.
He shrugged, pointed at the Phalanx and asked, “Borrow that?”
She nodded.
Displaying incredible strength, Fix hefted the huge weapon and carried it at a jog down the corridor back towards engineering. Emerging into the main engine room, he swung the weapon into position and started firing, sending waves of superheated plasma down one of the corridors held by the TGF soldiers. Sensing an opportunity to take the offensive, Lafayette grabbed his grenade launcher and sent two rounds streaking down the other corridor from which TGF security was trying to gun them down. The explosion had barely finished roaring before he had reloaded and fired again, turning the corridor into rubble. Fix, who had barely flinched as the explosions went off around him, placed the Phalanx into position to command the egress from the last held corridor, drew his grenade launcher and fired a few rounds into what remained of the TGF security personnel. When they were finished, all the TGF soldiers in one corridor were dead and those in the other two corridors were dead, wounded or trapped under something rather heavy.
111 Souls (Infinite Universe) Page 36
