by Jean Johnson
“Yes/no/yes. I live/survive/will suffer/have nightmares/ terrors.” He flicked his hand again, the tips now turning reddish. “The Salik/leader/effluence used/touched the yellow/bright/ scared buttons/keys to lock/seal/secure the bridge/this place, and another effluence/beast/monster approached/used the olive/ dull/morose console/panel/controls over there/to the left to seal/ stop/interrupt communications/broadcasts.”
“You are a brave/watchful/coherent being/meioa, keeping your wits/eyes open like that/as you did,” Ia praised him. Shifting the sucker hand to the right-side controls on the captain’s console, she prodded and pulled on several of the buttons. The doors beeped after several seconds. “There. They should now be unlocked.”
“Good job. Can you get those jammers off, too?” Estes asked her. “We’re all working blind, if we can’t communicate with each other.”
“I’ll try.” Carefully disengaging the hand, she unlocked her armor and shuffled back out of the captain’s alcove. It didn’t take long, once she lasered away the seat so she could fit into the workstation, to figure out where to place the vacuum-suckered device. The workstation controlled three sets of jamming devices. Two were active, the hyperrelay jammers, and the internal radio-based jammers. The insystem jammers weren’t working, mainly because the explosion back at the midship airlock had wiped out the necessary equipment.
The hyperrelay jammers were code-locked; there was no way she could crack them without proving she was a psychic of some sort. The internal jammers were simply a matter of manipulating the control menus to shut down the program. As soon as she did so, Ia activated her command link to D’kora.
“This is Corporal Ia to Lieutenant D’kora. Can you hear me?”
“Corporal! You got the jammers shut off!”
“Just the internal ones, sir. Radio wasn’t code-locked. It’ll take cryptographers who are a hell of a lot better at reading Salhash than I am to break the codes on the hyperrelay jammers.”
“So they do have one. Good work.”
“Thank you, sir.” Head craned up to look at the screens, Ia skimmed the information, leaning heavily on the timestreams to read what she was looking at. “This control also has some operations sensors . . . what few we haven’t shot to hell, of course. Ah . . . the hyperrelay jammers are located in the hangar bay . . . forward bulkhead. I can’t tell if there are any Salik or Choya present in the hangar, but given how all of the sensors are still active, I think it’s safe to say yes, sir.”
“Noted.” D’kora switched channels to the platoon-wide link. “This is Lt. D’kora. All combat frequencies are now clear. B through E Squad leaders, report.”
The link for A Squad lit up. “Private Hooke to the bridge crew, I’ve got your location on my scanners. We’re tracking several armed and armored Salik headed your way. I repeat, A Alpha, A Beta, you have several armed and armored Salik heading your way!”
“Acknowledged, Hooke. I can see you on the internal sensors,” Ia added, depressing a couple of the controls. “You’re headed . . . yes. Split up and half of you take the next junction on the right. You’re one floor above us. There are two stairwells down. One is the ones the Salik are headed for. The other is just below the damaged section, but I know the seals are still good.
“The group taking the damaged stairwell will come in from the right of the bridge as you face into it, and the group trailing the enemy will come in on the left. We’ll be ready to attack from the bridge when you get here.” She paused, then added, “Be advised the bridge is intact, but currently a mess. Don’t look too closely at anything.”
“What does that mean?” she heard Knorrsson ask.
“It means I made a mess. Hurry up, the Salik won’t wait long to attack.” Moving back to the captain’s station, she relocked the double doors into the bridge, then switched to her external comm again. “Estes, get the captain a gun. Captain, come here/take refuge/shelter.”
Wounded but no longer bound in place, the Gatsugi limped her way. He accepted the gun Estes passed to him with grim but pleased shades of blue and red; beyond that much, his colormoods were too complex to be discerned without dipping into the timestreams. Ia didn’t bother. Easing out of the confined space, she moved around to the front of the console and stooped, pointing with a servo-finger at the sucker hand.
“Touch/press/manipulate the buttons/controls on this hand/ device in this/this pattern when I tell you/command it,” she instructed, repeating “this” so he recognized it as emphasis. Showing the alien the pattern to unlock the doors, she made sure he practiced it, fingering the controls lightly. A bang on the bridge door startled both of them. The alien flushed a muddy shade of beige, fear-mood, and tightly gripped the laser pistol Estes had liberated from a dead Choya. “You will survive/get home,” she murmured. “I promise/swear.”
It was hard to tell what a Gatsugi was looking at, since their pupils and irises were nearly the same, multi-spectrum absorbing black, but he did nod. Or rather, bobbed his inverted teardrop of a head, on a neck with two more of what passed for its vertebrae than what a Human possessed. She couldn’t bob her own head in reply, but flexed her wrist, bobbing her left hand in Gatsugi third-gradient agreement.
“They’re beginning to burn through, Corporal,” Double-E warned her.
“I will count down/reduce from/at 5 to 1,” she instructed the alien. He bobbed his head again. Pulling away, she swung her rifle back into her servo-hands and took two steps forward, facing the doors. The position would put her armored body, with its ceristeel coating, between the captain and the enemy. “Lock and load. Double-E, you’re on the right. Estes, on the left. Harkins, keep an eye on the prisoners. If they move, shoot them.”
“They/The Salik will perish/die. Not/Not me,” the captain of the Clearly-Standing asserted softly, clutching the gun. The door banged a second time, but held.
“Shakk that,” Harkins muttered, and flexed out his left-forearm gun, stunning the five surviving prisoners. Sealing up the holdout stunner, he swung his own HK-114 into position. “I’m with the good captain. We fight, and they die.”
“A Alpha, Beta, this is Hooke, we’re in position.”
“Be mindful of cross-fire. A Epsilon, stay under cover. Fire only if they retreat to you. A Delta, open fire on my mark. Heads up,” Ia warned the squad members in the bridge, blink-coding her helmet to broadcast the countdown to both them and the rest of A Squad. “5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1, mark!”
The doors successfully opened. Ia aimed and fired the moment the crack between the two blast panels was wide enough for the streak of light. More crimson shot from the left, countering the deep orange of the Salik weapons. Two of them whirled to fire at the bridge, but Estes and Double-E were right there, cross-firing through the opening from each side.
Harkins fired at something gripped in one of their servo-tentacles. A grenade. It exploded, banging chunks of mechsuit arm into the other Salik. The proximity of the explosion ripped a chunk of protective casing off the power pack in the back. Ia smiled grimly, watching as fire from Soyuez, or maybe Estradille, lanced into the sparking gap as the alien lost control and spun around. Cranking her external speakers up, she shouted a warning.
“FIRE IN THE HOLE!”
Estes and Double-E instinctively flinched back at her shout, spinning away from the opening. Harkins crouched reflexively. Ia stood her ground, though she lowered her rifle. The damaged power pack exploded with a bang, releasing all of its stored energy. Pieces flung everywhere, knocking the other Salik off their servo-flippers.
A large chunk of chest plate and what had sheltered behind it flung into the bridge, slamming into Ia from head to chest. It knocked her back a step, but only a step. Had she taken cover, it would have bashed through the captain’s station, damaging too many of the bridge controls and possibly killing the Gatsugi taking shelter behind it.
As it was, the armor clanged to the ground, and the flesh it had protected slid down her helm with a glop onto her servo-foot. The
crimson mess rendered her faceplate useless, leaving Ia with only what her HUD sensors could pick up and display. She lifted her rifle and fired again, based on its telemetry, until the outlines of the different mechunits dropped from red-lined Salik to green-lined Terran. Only then was she free to manipulate her servo-hand to scrape some of the gore from her helm. Some, but not all.
Quiet descended. Ia drew in a deep breath, focusing on the recycled, dry scent of her sealed mechsuit’s air. “Corporal Ia to A Squad, is the enemy neutralized?”
Several replies came back at once. “Aye, Corporal!” “Indeedy.” “Splattered to goo.” On-mike groans met that last one.
“Delta, Epsilon, remain on alert. Guard both corridors against further incursions. Beta, keep an eye on the prisoners, and on the good captain. Estes, you and I get to check to see if anything is still alive, and clear a path through the mess.” Switching frequencies, she contacted D’kora. “Corporal Ia to Lieutenant D’kora, the bridge is once again secure. A Squad excluding Gamma will maintain a perimeter watch and hold the bridge until further notice.”
“Good work, Corporal. We’re experiencing some resistance in the hangar bay. I’m keeping Gamma Team with me for the extra firepower.”
“Understood, sir.” Scraping again at her faceplate, reducing the crimson blur to streaks of reddish brown smears, Ia moved forward to help Estes sort through the firefight debris.
Double-E turned to face her, then did a double-take. “Holy . . . ! I think you got even more . . . stuff . . . on your armor this time! You’re covered helm to boot in that stuff.”
Ia didn’t bother to scrub at her faceplate a third time. The flexor-gloves inside her suit could imitate many of the moves possible by a Human hand, but the servo-gloves on the outside were only covered in the plexi version of flesh on the palm-side of her mechanical hand. Plexflesh which was growing sticky from the drying blood already scraped onto it, and which would only smear around the remaining mess at best.
She shrugged at him. “Unless we stumble across a cleaning supply closet while we’re down here, Private, I’m just going to have to stay ‘painted’ from helm to boot.”
“It doesn’t bother you?” Estes asked her. “Your first combat, and none of this bothers you?”
“I’ve seen worse,” Ia stated flatly. She didn’t have to see through their silvered faceplates to know her squad mates were looking at each other. Mindful of their reactions, she added, “Not much worse, but the only thing I can do at the moment is clean up what I can, and deal with my nightmares later. Right now, we have a job to do, which is taking care of this mess. I’d like to focus on doing it, and being useful, for my sanity’s sake.”
CHAPTER 13
Fighting in real life isn’t like the way they show it in the entertainment industry. They show you the tensions leading up to it, they show you the excitement and the horror of it . . . and then the heroes just walk off into the sunset or whatever. They never show you the literal hours and hours—and sometimes days and weeks—of cleanup which is required, post-battle.
With good reason, of course. It’s hard, it’s gross, it’s messy, it’s depressing, and it’s boring. Usually.
~Ia
“Bloody Mary!”
Stopped in his tracks, Lieutenant Ferrar stared at Ia. Just stared. He wasn’t the only one, but his exclamation and his sudden halt in the middle of the 2nd Platoon’s prep bay captured the attention of the rest.
Since all three of the airlocks had been blown on the offside of the enemy ship, the Liu Ji had been forced to hook up to the far side of the Clearly-Standing to transfer troops and crew to the larger starship, first the injured and the prisoners, then the rest. Members of the Navy half of the ship had taken their place, swarming over both vessels to see what could be done to make both of them spaceworthy. A Squad, holding secure the vital bridge area, had been the last to evacuate.
That meant the prep bay was filled with Marines who were climbing out of their suits, cleaning them up, and checking them over for repair. Plenty of ears to hear the Lieutenant’s loud exclamation, and plenty of eyes to seek out the source of his shock. Plenty of mouths to drop and gape, too.
“Corporal Ia and the remainder of A Squad reporting in, Lieutenant,” Ia stated, staying sealed and keeping her blast plate down. By now, the gunk on her armor had congealed into a sticky brown crud which she didn’t want gumming up the helmet’s works.
“Bloody Mary!” he muttered again, eyeing her from head to toe. Craning his neck, he peered at the others lined up behind her. “Are you injured?”
“Sir, no, sir. All of this came from the enemy. Nor were any of the rest of my Squad, beyond some minor damage to Private Cooper’s armor during the hangar fight with the lieutenant, sir. The Salik bridge has been surrendered to the command of Ensign Brakk and his crew,” she reported. “Requesting permission to clean up and perform the necessary battle repairs before our debriefing, sir.”
“Permission granted.” He eyed her bloodied armor a moment more, then shook it off. “Since you don’t have a sergeant, gather the reports from your squad mates and report directly to Lieutenant D’kora for your debriefing. And make sure your armor is scrubbed and sanitized thoroughly before you leave this bay.”
“Sir, yes, sir.” Turning to face the others, she gave her orders. “A Squad, you heard the Lieutenant. Clean up, repair what you can, file any replacement forms, then fill out your battle sheets. I want them in my inbox folder in three hours. Dismissed.”
They scattered. Ia headed for the decontamination stalls. The auto-scrubbers would get the worst of the gunk off of her armor, which would allow her to unseal and step out so she could hand-clean the remainder. Estes, who had gotten a bit messy herself in clearing up the bridge enough for the Navy to have room to work, followed her. She, however, was free to unseal and tip her helmet back; most of the stains on her armor were from the chest down.
“ ‘Bloody Mary,’ eyah?” Estes asked her teammate.
“Bloody Mary, hoo-rah,” Ia quipped back, drawling her reply.
“Shyeah,” one of the members of C Squad retorted as they passed him. “One battle. One fight. A nickname like that, you gotta earn it.”
Ia carefully did not reply.
Polishing her armor was necessary. As was repairing it, though Ia’s mechsuit only needed a few touch-ups with a filler compound from where it had been scratched by flying debris. Polishing it slowly, buffing every single inch of the hematite grey composite of ceramic and metal until she could see her white-haired head in the shine, was overkill. She had already cleaned and polished her knife and its clip-on sheath, and had made sure even the Choya blood, which dried into a hard-to-see clear paste, was no longer present anywhere on her gear.
Further down the prep bay, she could hear two of her fellow members of the 2nd Platoon, Dexter and Adams, discussing repairs that had just been made to Dexter’s mechsuit. She could hear the slight hum and hiss as Dexter flexed his elbow joint. A third, Hmongwa, was using his suit to store heavy equipment used to make needed repairs to his own half-mech.
Even knowing it was coming, when it sounded, the klaxon startled her.
“This is Captain Davanova. We have intruders on the Clearly-Standing. I repeat, intruders on the Clearly-Standing. Several Choya have grabbed Navy personnel as hostages and are fighting their way back to the Salik vessel. All hands, report for battle! All hands, report for battle!”
Grabbing knife and sheath, Ia slammed the blade home and tucked the sheath in the waistband of her camouflage brown trousers. “Adams! Hmongwa! Dexter! Lock and load, we’re going in!” Tapping the comm link on her wrist unit, Ia spoke into it, sprinting down the bay toward the weapons lockers. “Ia to Lt. D’kora, I need the weapons lockers released. Adams, Hmongwa, and Dexter are still in the prep bay with me; we’re on first response!”
Skidding to a stop in front of the cabinets, she waited impatiently for the red-locked lights to turn green on the security panels. Thumping noises sho
wed the two mechsuited Marines following her orders.
“Move it, Adams! Forget your armor! Grab a weapon and go!”
“We need to wait for our Squads,” Hmongwa pointed out, reaching her side with thumping strides. “You’re A Squad, I’m B.”
“Potluck of war, meioas!” she snapped, making sure her voice carried to the back of the bay. “When you’re caught with your pants down, you grab any and all personnel—move it, Adams!”
The lights flicked to green. “Corporal Ia, I’ve released the weapons lockers. You are green for go. We’ll be right behind you. Remember, we like the Navy. Don’t get them killed.”
“We’re on it, sir.” Yanking up the largest cabinet doors, she flung two HK-114s at the two mechsuited men, who hastily caught them, then pulled up the doors to the e-clip cabinet and tossed a trio of e-clips at Adams as he came skidding up to them. He fumbled one to the floor as she opened a third locker, grabbing a smaller-seeming HK-70. “Pass those out, Adams! The three of you, follow me!”
She turned and ran—jogged, so they wouldn’t fall behind—up the corridor leading to the launch hangars. Rather than turning right toward the boarding pods, she turned left, taking the nearest gantry tube still attached to the Clearly-Standing. A tap of her comm link controls linked her to the Liu Ji.
“Corporal Ia to Captain Davanova, we’re responding to your distress call. What is the known location of the enemy?”
It wasn’t the Captain who answered, but rather the comm officer on the bridge. “Uh . . . Corporal Ia, last position was Deck 3, Mauve Sector. That’s the section with the purply pink walls . . . Who the hell paints their walls purply pink?”
