Bifrost was the greatest military achievement in the history of humanity, a rugged son of a bitch star fortress that had survived countless attacks. It took a betrayal from within to give the garm the foothold they had now, and even that wasn't a guarantee of defeat. If men in positions like him stood their ground, kept doing their job, then there might still be a chance they could hold out. Besides, Gunnar laughed grimly to himself, it wasn't like the Watchman was going to call for an evacuation. They would win or they would die, and that was the only mentality that would defeat the garm.
Battery 12 continued waging its small part of the war, but as the bulk of the garm warships grew closer more and more swarms of transports and strikers filled the void.
Gunnar heard the muffled sounds of shotgun blasts from the other side of the hatch, though he dared not mention it to his crew. In the last five minutes, they'd lost Charlie cannon and its gun crew, their corroded bodies now sealed off along with Delta. The deck chief walked briskly over to the weapons locker on the far wall right of his lectern. Though mutiny was not something that the armies of the All-Father had ever contended with, it was still policy that only the deck chiefs and armsmen had access to firearms aboard the star fortress. Even the Einherjar left their devastating pulse rifles in their ships when they were aboard. Gunnar fished out the necklace bearing his key to the locker and inserted it.
Inside the locker were two auto-shotguns, identical to the ones carried by the armsmen. One for the deck chief and one for his most trusted man, or at least that was the official protocol. He supposed that meant Mateo, though presently the trigger man was still focused on maintaining a steady rate of fire in the target rich environment that had become of the void around Battery 12.
The fact that they were still up and fighting had attracted a significant amount of enemy attention. As if in answer to his musings, a swarm of the garm fliers managed to screen the combined fire of Bravo and Alpha cannons with the bodies of half their number, only to unleash caustic fury with the remaining half.
Bravo cannon and its crew were reduced to slag in an instant, though Mateo and Blaine were able to leap off of the mount for Alpha and squeeze through the gap before that melting weapon was sealed off. Gunnar realized it had only been a few minutes since this engagement began, and it already felt like a lifetime. He was down to six men, including himself.
"Nothing we can do now about the fight in space," said Gunnar as his men gathered around the lectern, their duty stations now either melted or useless. "But the wolves are inside the gate."
Gunnar himself had never fought in a boarding action, though he'd been given the brief training course on the use of shotguns aboard ship, as had every man on the crew. The deck chief handed Mateo the other shotgun, and the trigger man made a show of checking the cylindrical magazine before racking the slide to chamber a round. Each weapon could fire as fast as a man could squeeze the trigger with a thirty-round cylinder. It was generally the case that in the swift and brutal fighting of a boarding action there was little chance to reload. While armsmen usually carried two backup magazines with ten rounds each, Gunnar and Mateo were going to have to make do with what they had.
"I'll take the bow. Mateo, take aft, the rest of you between us," ordered Gunnar as he prepared to open the hatch. "If the ring falls, they'll shut the causeway to the inner ring, we have to get there before the boarders do or we'll be stuck here with them."
The assembled men nodded, each facing a jumble of emotions as they considered close quarters combat with the garm. None of them, including Gunnar and Mateo, had ever seen one of the alien monsters up close. They knew of the ripper drones, shriekers, UltraGarm, ridgebacks, and WarGarm by briefing and illustrations only, as their experience was limited to the spaceborne organisms. If the Einherjar died as often as they did, each of the men found himself thinking, what chance did a bunch of shunts have?
"We can do this," Gunnar assured the men with what he hoped was a convincing tone and then he opened the hatch.
The armsman that was guarding their door was gone, and now that they were in the corridor they could hear the sounds of battle on both sides of them. Alien screams echoed off the walls and were answered by shotgun blasts.
Gunnar held his weapon at the ready and began moving down the corridor on his left, away from Battery 13, where he was positive the monsters had either killed or driven off most of the defenders. From the ship layout in his memory, he was fairly certain that if they could hit the
T-junction ahead, they could pop a maintenance hatch and climb up the two decks it would take to make it to the inter-ring causeway. He felt some guilt about abandoning the battery deck, though Gunnar reminded himself that even if men still fought, this ring was lost.
An instant before Gunnar turned the corner the voice in the back of his head screamed at him, and he swept his weapon up, throwing his body to the left. A bio-blade embedded itself in the wall where his head had been. The ripper drone howled in frustration as it wrenched the blade away, raising it for another strike. The deck chief squeezed the trigger of his shotgun and blasted the creature to pieces with three point-blank shots.
"Pop the hatch!" shouted Gunnar, scrambling to his feet and pointing his weapon down the length of the T-junction. Another ripper drone ducked back into a corridor and the cloud of buckshot he fired at it pinged off of the deck without consequence.
One of the remaining crew members crossed the T-junction and opened a small panel. He typed in a command and a small door slid open at the junction. Behind the door was a tiny room with only a ladder that led up and down.
Without pausing to clear it, the two crew members, both panicked by their first sight of the garm up close, did not bother checking the tunnel in either direction, entering the hatch and climbing up.
"Wait!" shouted Mateo, sprinting across the T-junction, having seen something in the tunnel that Gunnar could not.
Before Mateo could reach them, screams and wet tearing sounds came from inside the maintenance tunnel. Gunnar turned and rushed back just in time to see Mateo use his shotgun to obliterate the skull of a ripper drone. As the beast died, it released the hold on the crew member it had just killed, and both corpses plummeted down into the tunnel. Mateo fired several more rounds, and his shots were answered with bestial howls of pain, but no more bodies fell.
"Back up and close the hatch," said Gunnar as he returned to the T-junction and swept his weapon around to cover all three angles of approach, "We'll have to find another way, garm own the tunnels."
"If we move quickly maybe we can hit one of the cargo elevators," suggested Zeke suddenly, "We take that to the transit chamber and then it’s a straight shot to the causeway."
"If they're already in the tunnels why wouldn't they have the elevators too?" asked Mathis, the remaining target finder.
"They're giant space bugs, ya shunt," snickered Mateo after slamming shut the maintenance hatch. "They'll find ways to move through the fortress the way a bug would, climbing on things, burrowing, and the like. They won't move the way men do."
"He's right, we take the elevator, if they are in the shaft then the box will crush them anyway," nodded Gunnar as he started moving down the corridor, "Just have to keep an eye on the emergency hatch."
The three men moved carefully down the labyrinth of corridors, and Gunnar was suddenly rather thankful for the monotonous existence of a gun servant aboard the Bifrost. He'd walked these corridors so much that he knew them so well he could probably navigate them blind, and it was like that for the other men as well. The garm would not know what corridor led where, and if Mateo was right, which Gunnar was sure he was, the beasts would not think to activate a cargo elevator, if they could even distinguish its sliding door and depressed control panel from a regular hatch anyway.
Gunnar was certain that they were moving away from the fighting, as the sounds of battle grew more distant, though he and Mateo both kept themselves at the ready. They reached the elevator and Zeke entered his
access code and desired destination. In a few seconds, the light went green, and the doors opened.
Both men had their shotguns up when they realized that the elevator was occupied, though moved their weapons away when they realized who waited inside.
Idris, one of the more famous body forge specialists in the All-Father's army, mostly because of his work with Hydra Company and Marine Ajax, stood inside the elevator. He too carried a shotgun, which he lowered onto the top of the resurrection pod that rested next to him.
"Enter and be quick about it, gentlemen," said Idris in a voice that assumed authority. As the three gun servants obeyed immediately he added, "The causeway will not be kept accessible much longer."
"Sir, the body forge is on the inner ring, why are you all the way out here?" asked Zeke, despite Gunnar's look of admonishment about questioning a superior without provocation.
"The forge is gone, a spine frigate managed to get a firing solution and speared us before one of the remaining close quarters batteries could eliminate it," sighed Idris as he absently ran a hand across the plexiglass face of the pod, drawing Gunnar's eyes to the body that lay within. "I managed to save this man alone, and he must survive, so I am taking the long way to the Watchman's temple."
At first the idea of a non-command individual, even one so esteemed a body forge specialist, deciding that they would board the Watchman's temple ship was ludicrous.
Gunnar suddenly looked past the face that was masked with a rebreather, and he saw the name 'Ajax' stenciled across the body glove mesh covering the man's chest. Gunnar's face snapped up to Idris, and the man returned the deck chief's look of shock with a weary smile. "That is indeed who you think it is, deck chief," said Idris as the elevator continued to move. "Though he still sleeps. I have not yet divined a manner in which to resurrect him, though, in light of recent events aboard this star fortress, I must make one last attempt. Assuming, of course, that I am able to get him aboard the temple before the Watchman abandons ship."
"He is leaving us?" asked Mateo.
"Insurrections have sprung up across the UHC, reports of garm organisms behind the front started making their way to command even as this battle fleet launched its attack on us here," Idris said as he shook his head, "The Bifrost will fall today. Some parts of it will hold out for many hours, perhaps even days, but this fortress is broken as a military power in the universe. The Watchman will have recognized this truth, and no doubt shall make his escape. The war appears to have sprung up everywhere, and he is needed to re-establish some kind of coherent response."
Zeke opened his mouth to ask another question when something heavy landed on top of the elevator. In the blink of an eye, the emergency panel buckled and a ripper drone tore its way into the already cramped space.
Mateo reacted swiftly, and shoved the muzzle of his shotgun against the beast's thorax and fired. The blast of his weapon decapitated the beast and sent its corpse thrashing to the ground.
Neither Gunnar nor any of his remaining crew, had ever fought the garm in a dirtside battle and had no experience with how deadly even a dying garm could be. They soon found out, as the body of the drone continued flailing its limbs in all directions, and one of the scything bio-blade sheared off Mateo's leg just above the knee.
The man dropped his shotgun and went down as Gunnar screamed and pulped the alien corpse with several clusters of buckshot. Another drone slammed down onto the elevator just as the light flashed green, indicating that they'd reached the transit hub. Idris swiftly brought his shotgun up and fired it at the ripper, blowing the drone off its feet and back away from the torn emergency hatch. The elevator doors opened and the men poured out of it as fast as they could.
Zeke helped Idris pull the resurrection pod out of the elevator, and just as they got it clear the wounded drone dropped through the panel. Gunnar blew a significant chunk of its upper torso into pieces.
The beast was thrashing amidst the gory remains of its broodmate as the doors shut tightly. When Gunnar turned around he saw that Mateo lay still, his eyes wide open, and from the massive pool of blood that led from the elevator to where his body now lay it was clear he'd bled out from a severed artery.
"Chief, help us if you would, please," said Idris, capturing Gunnar's attention so that he could join the forge specialist and Zeke as they worked to lift the resurrection pod up and over a makeshift barricade that blocked the exit to the hub.
Gunnar saw that there were two armsmen on the other end of the barrier talking with Idris. Gunnar paused to snatch up Mateo's fallen shotgun then joined them on the other side.
"The causeway doors are shorted out," one of the armsmen was telling Idris, "Took a hit from the outside, not sure if the garm did it on purpose or by accident."
"We saw a Prax gunship just before everything went to hell," offered Zeke, "Could be they hit all the causeways with rockets, that would certainly give the boarding parties a significantly better chance at seizing the whole fortress."
"Traitors have wounded us before," said Idris, speaking over the disbelief of the armsman. "It is what it is. We'll never outrun the enemy, but we have to try."
Idris looked defeated, but he was resolved to press on, and Gunnar watched as the specialist set his shotgun on top of the pod and push it down the long causeway. Gunnar turned to Zeke, who stood with the other two armsmen, all watching Idris wrestle the pod across the causeway.
"You all saw who was in that pod, right?" asked Gunnar, and slowly all three of the men nodded.
"He has to make it," breathed Zeke, shaking his head in disbelief. "If anyone does, it has to be him."
"You a believer in all that hero's journey garbage?" asked one of the armsmen. "That marine Ajax is something other than just another rifle-toting ground pounder?"
"The narrative strategy," corrected the other armsman, "And yes, I do."
"It’s always seemed crazy to me, but it makes sense at the same time," agreed Zeke, "I don't know what that says about my sanity. Gunnar?"
"The alternative is too depressing," said Gunnar, his words accented by the sound of ripper drones howling in the corridors beyond the barricade with yet more bashing against the doors of the elevator. "Two species spending eternity feeding on each other. I'd rather it be more than that."
"You men coming or not?" called Idris from the other side of the causeway. Gunnar looked from the forge specialist to the men around him, getting a nod from each, though some more reluctantly than others and he realized what had to be done.
"Go along without us, sir," said Gunnar with a raised voice as he gestured towards himself and the others, "Third shift is still on the clock."
Idris bowed his head and then disappeared into the inner ring with the resurrection pod in tow.
Minutes later ripper drones swarmed out of the corridors and effortlessly poured over the makeshift barricade, all the effort expended in building it only buying the defenders a few seconds at best.
Gunnar knew, flexing his grip on the shotgun, that each moment they delayed the enemy, Idris and Ajax were another few steps closer to escape. The armsmen had shared their ammunition so each man stood with a full cylinder at the ready.
"Wait till they hit the threat line!" ordered Gunnar as he raised his shotgun, keeping his eyes on the strip of tape that marked their range.
As the first of the drones crossed the tape, Zeke and the formerly reluctant armsman unleashed a hurricane of buckshot down the causeway. They fired at the deck in front of the monster's feet, as they had been trained to do, in order to maximize the deadly ricochet factor of their shots.
The ripper swarm's momentum did not slow in spite of the horrendous damage being done to their bodies by the clouds of tiny projectiles. In the tightly packed causeway, the ripper drones just tore through the bodies of the wounded and dying in their efforts to reach the human defenders.
The sight of it made Gunnar's blood run cold, and in that moment, he almost fled. It was one thing to blast apart single garm organi
sms during his shift's flight through the corridors, but facing off against a swarm of them sorely tested his resolve. That the Einherjar could stand and fight against such horror over and over again was astounding.
The sudden thought of their relentless courage put strength back in his limbs and fury rushing into his soul. The swarm, now a roiling jumble of claws and teeth, pressed closer to them, gaining ground as the weapons of the first two shooters went dry. Sixty rounds pumped into the enemy in the span of two breaths.
As planned, Gunnar and the other armsman stepped forward, the muzzles of their weapons only two meters away from the enemy. When Gunnar squeezed the trigger, he began to scream with a mixture of terror and elation as his close quarters blast turned a ripper drone into so much shredded meat. He continued to fire, squeezing the trigger and holding fast against the violent recoil of the weapon, his voice going ragged as he attacked the enemy.
The voice in the back of his mind was screaming with him, as if it too understood that this was it, and no amount of caution or cunning would see him through.
Gunnar knew that somewhere behind him the others were frantically attempting to reload in time, but his concern was lost in the reverberating boom of his weapon and the snarling cacophony of the alien enemy.
All his years and all his troubles, his victories and his defeats, distilled into these precious few moments. Bad deals and lost loved ones, failed resurrection and ceaseless toil, all to place him here, between the swarm and a legendary warrior the enemy just couldn't manage to kill.
All the great stories were filled men like Gunnar, nameless men that destiny had passed over in favor of others bound for glory. That had been a bitter pill to swallow when he'd emerged from the forge a shunt and a reject.
Next to him, the armsman spewed blood from his mouth as a ripper bisected him at the waist with a swipe from its bio-blade. The deck chief responded by splattering the beast across the opposite wall of the causeway.
Space Marine Apocalypse (Extinction Fleet Book 3) Page 11
