Winged Hussars (The Revelations Cycle Book 3)

by Mark Wandrey

  “As soon as it blows, get to either side of me,” Johansson warned. “There are no invalid targets. Shoot anything that moves.”

  “If it’s still moving, shoot it again,” Zit said. The Goka had floated forward and grabbed onto the back of the sergeant’s suit. The only member of the squad that didn’t need a vacuum suit, the Goka could survive in space for almost half an hour. The alien almost looked like part of the CASPer, especially since their suits were painted jet black for this operation. Only the Winged Hussar’s logo in gold stood out on their shoulders, a merc rule.

  “Blowing the nose!” T’jto warned, and the front of the pod separated with a Whump! The air inside the pod left with a bang, and they were in vacuum.

  The nose of the pod had been blown 10 feet forward, putting them inside an equipment storage bay. Everywhere boxes and crates bounced around in zero gravity, clearly damaged by their arrival and released from where they’d been stored. Johansson fired a little burst from her jumpjets, and she shot into the compartment. For this mission, their suits’ jets were configured for zero gravity maneuvering, instead of ground-side jumping. Rick and Lynn followed, Rick to the right, Lynn to the left. They both held heavy laser rifles at the ready, with more powerful weapons in reserve.

  In moments, the entire squad was out of the pod and in the ship. The last out was Paka, who only wore a combat environmental suit and had a slung laser carbine. She floated over to the chamber’s only exit and examined the control.

  “Only a maintenance panel,” she said over the squad net. “The entire section was decompressed. I can’t get any more information. Door’s jammed.”

  “Oort,” T’jto said and pointed at the door with her laser rifle. The Tortantula sailed over to the door, Jeejee down low in his saddle to avoid getting banged around. She examined the door with several eyes, then simply grabbed the door with two powerful forward limbs, braced with the others, and tore the door from its frame. Moving the door to the side, the big alien cleared the way.

  Johansson, Rick, and Lynn sailed through into the corridor beyond. A single bloated, frozen Maki corpse floated in the center of the corridor. Its lemur-like body was contorted in death, and its large black eyes were bulging and frozen. Rick spotted another functioning computer terminal and pointed it out to the XO.

  “Go with her,” Johansson ordered, and Rick accompanied the Veetanho officer. She accessed the terminal’s interface and tried to enter some commands, then growled at it.

  “Paranoid Maki, it’s encrypted.”

  “Even on their own ship?” Rick asked.

  Paka nodded. “Lieutenant, I need your tech.”

  “Jeejee,” T’jto called. The team had split up, moving down the corridor in both directions, disabling any sensors or cameras they found. A few seconds after he was called, Jeejee came sailing down the corridor, sans Oort.

  “Where’s your hairy friend?” Rick asked.

  “She found an ordinance storage location,” Jeejee said as he arrested his momentum using Rick’s suit and flipped over to the panel. “She figured we’d give the bastards some going away presents.” He examined the panel. “Encrypted?” Paka nodded. “Typical.”

  “Can you break it?” she asked the Flatar.

  “In my sleep,” he said. He grinned, showing buck teeth through the transparent helmet, and pulled out a special slate. In less than a minute, the ship’s terminal was open.

  “Good job, marine,” Paka said.

  “All in a day’s work,” Jeejee said and sailed off to find his partner.

  “Found a connected section in atmosphere,” Zit called over the squadnet, “shall I blow it?” T’jto cocked her head at Paka, who held up a delaying hand.

  “Set charge, don’t detonate until my order,” the lieutenant said.

  “Roger that,” Zit replied. It was marine SOP, standard operating procedure, to expose as much of the boarded ship to vacuum as possible. It made it harder for the enemy to move around their own ship. Besides, when the shooting started, and it always did, it was better not to have any unexpected explosive decompressions to deal with.

  Paka downloaded the ship’s blueprints, as well as the crew roster, a table of organization and equipment, and current alert statuses. She was smiling broadly, showing pointy white teeth.

  “All three pods have boarded,” she told the squad. “Bonus, the ship’s DC team thinks our pods were weapons damage. They don’t know they’ve been boarded.” They had a few minutes of anonymity left in which to sow anarchy and hopefully reach their objective. Paka uploaded the schematics to each of the squad members. Unfortunately, she couldn’t send it to the other squads. Their radios were set to ultra-low power to avoid intercept. “That way,” she said and pointed.

  “Blow it, Zit,” T’jto ordered. They were in vacuum, so there was no sound. However, a swirl of debris moved down the corridor as the atmosphere vented, and Zit giggled.

  “There was a damage control team on the other side of the door,” the Goka said, with heavy emphasis on the past tense. The little alien had a propensity for using too much explosive, to which his usual reply was, “There’s no such thing as too much.”

  With a destination, the ship’s schematics, and the location of much of the crew at their disposal, Dragon team made quick progress. In only a couple of minutes, they reached a heavy blast door which was sealed. Oort wouldn’t be ripping this one out. Heavy breaching charges were taken from storage places on the CASPers and set strategically around the door’s perimeter. Once ready, the entire squad backed up as far as they could. T’jto verified the marines were ready, turned up the power on her radio, and sent three clicks.

  A moment later three clicks sounded in reply, and then two clicks. “One of the teams isn’t quite set yet,” T’jto told them. Had it been one click, or none, it would have meant they weren’t going to be able to be ready, or were dead. In either case, the others would proceed without them. The only team with the must-take objective, was Dragon. Hence the reason they transmitted first.

  Several long minutes passed as the team held their positions and waited, watching the heavily-mined blast door. With the ship at battle stations, it was no surprise no one was moving about. Finally, three clicks sounded over the radio.

  “Go,” T’jto said simply. Johansson, Rick, and Lynn pushed off toward the blast door 30 feet away, floating in a triangular formation. Oort, with Jeejee in his saddle, was right behind them. When they were fifteen feet from the door, the shaped charges blew.

  The pressure differential caused a visually stunning effect. The blast door, torn completely free from the wall by twelve pounds of K2 explosive, was blown into the adjacent space. However, that space was under pressure, and the air exploded out the now-open doorway, almost instantly reversing the flight of the door and sending it flying toward the Hussars squad. The blast of air hit the three flying CASPers who responded by firing their jumpjets and throwing their shoulders forward. The nearly ton of alloy blast door was body-checked to the floor with a barely-heard crash in the temporary and thin atmosphere. The marines continued onward, soaring into the battleship’s main engineering compartment.

  Rick was immediately struck with how much less cluttered this engine room was compared to the one aboard Pegasus. You could play football in the free space he could see, and right now that space was a maelstrom of wildly spinning personnel, rebounding tools, and flying parts.

  “Clean targets,” T’jto snapped; “weapons hot.” The three CASPer-suited marines used their jumpjets to stabilize against the hurricane of decompressing atmosphere, raised their lasers, and began firing. For the first few seconds it was a shooting gallery. The Maki crew was surprised and disorganized as the engine room explosively decompressed. Just like any warship, they all wore pressurized uniforms, but most didn’t have helmets in place, and many more were without gloves. The small and agile Maki were quick to act, though, and many began to fight against the hurricane winds to race for the exits.

  “Oo
rt,” T’jto said from the doorway, “cut off their escape routes.”

  The Tortantula had skittered in behind the rampaging CASPers and was clinging to a wall, firing a pair of leg-mounted laser weapons, with Jeejee in support. Upon hearing the order, the big alien used her multiple eyes to assess the retreat options and employ her heavy weapon. The multi-use rocket launcher snapped up from behind the saddle and fired almost immediately. The round hit right where she aimed, the warhead detonating against an exit from engineering and turning it into impassibly twisted metal.

  “Above and behind,” Lynn called, using their point and angle of entry for reference to indicate another exit. A warning went off on Rick’s suit telling him the ablative coating of the suit’s exterior rear was taking laser impacts.

  “Rick, get that,” Johansson ordered as she and Lynn continued cleaning up the engine room staff. It was tricky keeping the suit stable in the chaotic blowing winds as the ship continued to vent atmosphere. He spun around and found a squad of Maki security personnel in light combat armor. They were armed with low wattage laser pistols, and they were all blazing away at him.

  Rick decided to forgo the heavy rifle. He let go of the weapon with his left hand and pointed his arm at the hatchway, triggering the built in light machinegun. The multi-barrel chain gun fired .20 caliber caseless projectiles at the rate of nearly 10,000 rounds per minute. He gave the squad a three-second burst, and they ceased to be a threat in a spray of blood and ruptured pressure suits. By the time he turned back, the Hussars controlled the space.

  “Secure,” T’jto called to Paka. The roaring wind of decompression had reduced to no more than a Martian breeze as the XO pulled herself into the engine room and looked around. Zit came in right behind her, and, along with the now-dismounted Jeejee, the two began to flit around looking for survivors. Occasionally, there was a pulse of laser light as they did their grisly work. Paka went immediately to the engineering control panel and began evaluating it. As this was the main control space, nothing was encrypted. She nodded with satisfaction as she examined the undamaged system.

  “Good job, Lieutenant,” she said to the MinSha marine commander. “Go live with comms.”

  “Roger,” T’jto said and flicked on her full squadnet for the first time. “Raptor, Zenith Squads report.”

  “Raptor Squad,” Sergeant Jones reported first. “We have the hangar deck secured, all approaches blocked. One casualty, Private Bacord took a laser through the chest.” Rick shook his head. Bacord had been a nice guy. He’d played cards with him a couple times.

  “Zenith Squad,” Sergeant Leshto reported. She sounded out of breath. “We took AuxCon.”

  “What’s your condition?”

  “I’m hit,” the Veetanho said. Paka glanced over but went right back to work. “Lost Corporal Meeroo and Private O’Neal.” We Humans aren’t faring too well, Rick thought. “Ifeeka has the command systems cut.”

  “Comms too?”

  “Confirmed,” the sergeant said, “CIC is isolated.”

  “Can you hold?”

  “Klon and Dron are outside setting up heavy weapons.” Rick imagined the two huge purple bears preparing for a last stand. He wouldn’t want to come down a hallway with a pair of pissed off Oogar waiting for him. “Godor is going to hold the door from the inside. I’m helping Ifeeka.”

  “Tell them to upload the package and fall back to the hangar deck,” Paka said. T’jto relayed the order.

  “Negative,” Leshto said, “if we give up AuxCon, they can take the ship back.”

  “You can’t hold,” the lieutenant said.

  “We’ll hold as long as we can. Beginning upload now.” Everyone in engineering exchanged looks. They hadn’t expected AuxCon to be the hardest target, which was why they’d sent Zenith, the squad with only one CASPer in its numbers.

  “Start setting up the payload,” the lieutenant ordered. “We’re sure to get more serious company soon.” A minute later, lights started flashing on the engineering status board.

  “Here we go,” Paka said and her hands moved on the controls. Around them, the fusion reactors began to thrum to full power.

  Out in space, the Maki battleship’s huge weapons came to life and pivoted, locked on targets close by, and fired. A few thousand miles away, the somewhat smaller HecSha battleship was struck several times by the Maki battleship’s most powerful particle cannons. Caught completely by surprise, several of the target ship’s shields failed, and energy beams tore great holes in its side. The HecSha ship searched for its attackers, and escort ships moved into new formations, confused and searching as well.

  The Maki battleship changed targets and fired again. A HecSha battlecruiser was torn apart, then a cruiser and a pair of escort frigates. Finally, the HecSha commander realized the fire was coming from the Maki, who they tried desperately to reach on the radio. Fire continued to pour in on them even as they began to dodge, but the Maki battleship’s gunnery was uncannily accurate, and the battleship didn’t respond to hails.

  “Betrayal!” the HecSha commander roared, and his flat head hooked from side to side as his thick arms pounded his command chair’s arm. “Destroy those dishonorable mammals!” The entire HecSha fleet turned on the Maki en masse. The HecSha never noticed only the Maki battleship had fired at them. The Maki secondary ships demanded to know what was happening. The HecSha were no longer interested in talking. Confused and believing they had been betrayed, the rest of the Maki followed the lead of their strangely-silent command ship, and it turned into a free-for-all.

  “Is it working?” T’jto asked as the battleship’s system thrummed with power around them. Paka grinned widely and nodded.

  “The captain’s plan is working perfectly,” she said. Rick smiled inside his CASPer as he watched the various exits in his sector of the engine room. When he’d first heard the plan, he thought Alexis Cromwell had lost her mind. Now he was beginning to think she might be the best tactical genius in the galaxy. Or the luckiest. Rick noticed Zit had returned from hunting stragglers. The Goka flew over to Oort and into a little airlock the Tortantula had on her saddle. There, the alien could catch a few breaths of air before going back outside for another stint in vacuum. Rick marveled at the Goka and was glad Earth’s cockroaches weren’t as resilient or as well-armed.

  Alarm lights flashed, and they could see the engine room shudder, even though no sound reached them. The HecSha were targeting the Maki battleship. Paka examined the displays and gestured at one screen.

  “The CIC is quite upset,” she remarked.

  “I can’t imagine why,” T’jto said.

  “Incoming,” Jeejee said and shot by, heading for Oort’s saddle. Rick and Lynn both turned toward the exit previously sealed by rocket fire and saw it glowing brightly. Everyone cleared as lasers began to slice through the debris. Not light lasers either—heavy ones.

  “Switch to the big stuff,” the lieutenant ordered. The three CASPer-suited Humans magnetically locked their laser rifles in place on the legs of their suits and swiveled their MACs down over their shoulders and locked them in place.

  “Ready,” Rick said, and the other two Humans echoed his response.

  “Good,” Oort grumbled. Her multi-use rocket launcher was again ready for action, Jeejee having reloaded it from the saddle’s stores.

  “Wait for the first breach,” their commander said. A moment later a big chunk of debris floated free, and the MACs fired hypersonic tungsten slugs at the same time. Minus an atmosphere, the rounds hit with 100 percent of their energy. A pair of Maki troopers in their version of heavy assault armor nearly exploded from the impacts, and armor, blood, and body parts flew off in a chunky red haze.

  “That’ll leave a mark,” Zit giggled from the airlock on Oort’s saddle, then launched himself out into vacuum and disappeared into the maze of equipment.

  “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster,” Oort said as she let her first missile fly into the now-expose
d corridor. The missile exploded and flashed against a shield that had been set up there. A powerful laser flashed back at them, cutting Private Jordan in half, killing her instantly. “And if thou gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze long into thee.”

  “Lynn!” Rick yelled.

  “She’s gone,” Johansson said coldly as they both scrambled for cover. Another powerful laser blast cut across engineering, nearly catching the sergeant. The two halves of Lynn’s suit spun, blood spraying out, joining the little red planets from the Maki they’d killed.

  “I think I can get a shot around it,” Rick said as he slid down along a huge support column.

  “Too risky,” the sergeant said, but he was already moving. The operator of the laser obviously had a good view, because the beam instantly pivoted toward him.

  “Shit,” he said as the beam slashed through his shielding support and moved up toward him. He couldn’t back away fast enough, his jets weren’t aligned properly. He raised his left arm, triggering the laser shield to snap open on either side of his forearm. It wasn’t intended for lasers as powerful as the one trying to kill him, but it deflected most of the beam. The rest flashed through his lower arm.

  “Huh,” Rick grunted. There had been an instant of pain, then nothing. His suit’s alarm screamed, and he sealed the arm without thinking about it, just like he’d been trained to do back in Mickey Finn. At the same time, he got the jumpjets realigned and pushed himself backward. The beam moved and would have cut him in two, just like Lynn, but he wasn’t there anymore. It tried to track him only to be forced to stop or start cutting into a fusion reactor. The gunner was eager, not suicidal. “I’m hit,” he announced.