“Yes, it is,” Hudson said while firing a couple shots down the hallway. Morgan heard the end of a scream at the tail end of the boom of a penetrator. “This is my last magazine. If I run out you need to be ready to cover us as we pull back to the other end of the hall.”
“Never mind that,” Morgan grunted. “Last cable.”
“And what, the door just opens?”
“No, then I go back over to the alarm and trip it manually. Then the door opens.”
The incoming fire intensified, enough so that even Morgan noticed lying on the corridor floor with her head and shoulders shoved into the wall. More bits and pieces were coming off of the barricade as well.
Morgan slid out, remembering to shove the knife hastily in a pocket this time.
“Right, now I just need to. . .” she said as a chunk of barricade was blown off of the top edge, violently slamming into the alarm’s box. The jagged chunk of reinforced ceramic armor buried itself at least halfway into the box. Morgan supposed it sparked and crackled as the boards fried, but she couldn’t hear it over everything else.
She slumped back against the barricade, half standing, staring at it dumbly.
“What happened?” Hudson called over his shoulder. He only fired his rifle once, and not even a penetrator as far as Morgan could tell. He had to be getting low on ammo.
“Shrapnel. Took out the system.”
“So fix it. We’re in a spot of trouble here if you can’t.”
“I can’t fix it. Even if I had a machine shop it’d be faster to just build a new one. I can’t get the door open.”
“Think, girl. You came this far, there has to be a way.”
Morgan thought, frantically tearing through her brain for a way to trigger the alarm. She could probably get the next alarm panel triggered, but that would just set off the whole system. There was no way she could repeat the modification, not out in the open in the corridor. If she had time, time when she wasn’t being shot at, she could yank the system out entirely down the line and replace the box here, but she might as well wish her uplink could turn its hologram display into an x-ray laser.
Uplink. There was something there, but Morgan couldn’t quite grasp it. Her mind was muddled, flooded with fear and the ringing of her ears, adrenalin and the panic that was threatening to overwhelm her.
So much hardware in there, and she couldn’t change any of it. . .
. . .but she could change her uplink.
Tearing it off her wrist so she could use both hands Morgan pulled up the holo display, the full controls. There was already a program built in to warm of emergencies, designed to tie in to a city’s automatic network. It wasn’t used much on a ship, but the program was still there.
“Darlin’, you got something?” Hudson hunched back down, leaning his rifle against the wall.
“Almost,” Morgan answered automatically.
Hudson yanked off his glove and roughly shoved his large hand into her suit’s pockets, grabbing first her pistol, then the remaining full spare magazines.
“Whoa,” Morgan said, dropping the uplink.
“Sorry, but I need these more than you at the moment. I also didn’t want to interrupt you.”
“Ask. Ask next time. You did just fine interrupting me as it is.”
“Be quick,” he said, standing back up and firing at the pirates. “I’m not so good with pistols I’ve never fired before.”
Morgan didn’t bother picking up the uplink; the holo-keys had helpfully adjusted to stay in easy reach. Her fingers flew across the air, only the dull flashing of the keys letting her know what buttons she was pushing. She was risking making a mistake, going so fast, but there just wasn’t time.
Falling to her knees Morgan shoved the uplink onto the shrapnel jutting out of the box, a most inconvenient-yet-convenient hook. The cables she’d already spliced came free with a simple hard yank, and she roughly shoved the appropriate bits into the inputs of the uplink.
“If this doesn’t work now it never will,” she called out to Hudson.
“Just do it.”
Mashing the physical button just below the screen Morgan wondered if it was comforting to have something to pray to. She was trusting in nothing beyond her own skills and luck. Quite a sick feeling, knowing that live or die was all down to her actions of the last few minutes.
The speakers above the door tried to come on, blaring their siren, but it just sparked and died. It had taken too many bits of shrapnel, too many bullets, even for something that sturdy by design.
No matter though, the door opened. Morgan dived forward, rolling around and grabbing the rifle from where it leaned next to the door.
“Hudson, get in here!” She shouted.
He stumbled back, catching himself on the rack of shelves that was just inside the door to one side.
“Close it,” he said. He tossed Morgan her pistol, the slide locked open on an empty magazine. He snatched up the rifle, grabbing one of the full magazines off of the rack.
“I can’t. It will take hours to fix all the things I broke to get it open in the first place.”
Hudson grunted. “I was afraid you’d say that. Plan B then.”
He grabbed two small spherical grenades from the different rows of the rack opposite the rifles and magazines. His visor turned opaque, and he activated the first grenade.
“You’d better polarize your visor. They’ll be trying to box us in quick. I’m going to have to just roll the flashbang out the door, then jump out and throw the frag while they’re disoriented.”
“Just do it.”
“Visor,” he repeated, then gently rolled the first grenade out so it was between the doorway and the barricade. Instantly gunfire erupted from down the hallway, the pirates either firing at the movement or actually attempting to hit the grenade, Morgan couldn’t tell.
She looked away and got her visor polarized just before the grenade detonated, but for a moment she wasn’t sure she had. The flash was still bright enough that her eyes hurt, and it sounded like the noise had actually blown out the pickups of her suit, that or it did just sound like an overwhelming screech of static and electronic noise.
Shaking her head for several seconds in a futile attempt to clear her head she finally she just retracted her helmet. Nope. Speakers were working fine. Her ears on the other hand. . .
When she looked back around Hudson had already picked back up his rifle, though she hadn’t heard the second grenade go off, let alone notice him throw it.
“I need to go check. I can’t risk them getting all the way up to the door.”
“I should. . . “
“No, you should stay here.”
“I’m not waiting around doing nothing but be helpless.”
“Fine. Stay close, and don’t shoot unless I do. Backup should have been here already. Hopefully they aren’t far away.”
“Did you at least leave me any of my ammo?”
Hudson’s head twitched. She couldn’t tell with the visor darkened, but it looked like he’d rolled his eyes. He shifted his rifle into a one handed grip and fished a magazine out of a pouch.
“Last one, I’m afraid.” He glanced down at Morgan’s face and added with a chuckle, “Feel free to bill Aegis later.”
Hudson leaned up against the doorway, tapping a few holographic buttons on his uplink. Now that she could see it more closely, it looked like it was a military model, though newer than hers was.
“Too many heat sources out there. I can’t get a good reading.” He stuck the arm with the uplink out the door, out and then back in.
“Ugh. I don’t think we need to worry, at least for the moment. We’re clear. You. . . you probably should just wait here for a bit. It’s not a pretty sight.”
Hudson cocked his head, clearly listening to a com line Morgan wasn’t included in.
“This part of the ship is secure. Friendlies will be here in fifteen seconds.”
Morgan plopped down against a bare patch of wall. �
��Oh, sure. Now they hurry.”
“Don’t go looking for dark clouds to that silver lining.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It means you’re safe. Celebrate rather than complain,” a woman said from the doorway. In her merc skinsuit, helmet deployed and visor darkened, all Morgan could tell about her was that she was large, easily twice Morgan’s mass. Her nameplate read ‘Marigold.’
“Lieutenant,” Hudson said, shouldering his rifle on his left side while saluting with his right hand. “Armory is secure, ma’am.”
“I can see that corporal. I’m sure the explanation as to why the wall is opened up and strewn about will be amazing. Not to mention the uplink that is warning me that there is a hull breech in here and that I should evacuate.
Right. Morgan couldn’t hear the alarm since she no longer had an uplink to hear it with. She probably should get it pulled out of the systems, but suddenly she was feeling quite queasy.
“Is it all over then?” Morgan asked.
“Station security is done with the fighting on their side, but the ship is only mostly clear,” the lieutenant answered, shaking her head slightly. Morgan was sure she’d have more than a few uncomfortable questions to answer herself, not to mention a massive amount of repair work, but later would have to take care of itself. Right now she felt like she needed to sleep for a day or three.
“Good.” Morgan hunched over more, pulling her knees up to her chest. She leaned to one side and threw up noisily, more than once. “You still want that kiss, Hudson?”
CHAPTER 17
Hiring mercenaries is either a wise decision or a suicidally stupid one. Trouble is, there is no way to tell the difference until after you’re committed. Will the company fold under pressure? Will they stay fast as long as the money lasts? What happens after?
- Exchequer Milton Tannenbaum, Her Majesty’s Government of Holding
HUDSON DIDN’T, though not for the reason Morgan would have assumed. If Morgan had been a guy, well, that would have been a different story.
There wasn’t any time to relax though. They weren’t out of danger just yet.
While the mercenaries present gathered the weapons – and covered the bodies – of the dead pirates, Morgan got her uplink back and got it set back to normal.
“Can I get tied into your communication network, just for the time being?”
“’Fraid not, Darlin’,” Hudson said, shaking his head, “Non-military uplinks don’t have the encryption capability we use for the network.”
“My uplink is military. A bit older, but military.”
“Let me see that,” the lieutenant cut in, holding out her hand for the uplink, her helmet retracting as she did so. The face behind the helmet was worn and lined, both by age and by scars. Her hair was barely more than stubble, dark brown liberally mixed with grey.
Morgan handed it over, watching the woman turn it over. Her reactions were impossible to read.
“And where does a young mechanic such as yourself come across an Albion Special Forces issue uplink?” the lieutenant asked, inputting some commands Morgan couldn’t follow in both Morgan’s and her own uplinks.
“A gift from a friend.”
“You have some very good, very interesting friends. Their name?”
“Lady Novan.”
“Indeed?” Marigold’s voice didn’t waver one bit, but one eyebrow crept upward ever so slightly.
“And here I thought describing women as a mystery was mostly exaggeration,” Hudson said with a low whistle. “Or is it just you, Darlin’?”
The lieutenant handed back the uplink.
“I’ve tied you in to our network. Don’t speak unless it is absolutely necessary.”
Morgan reconnected the uplink to her suit, then deployed her helmet so she could hear the mercenaries’ communications, as at some point her ear piece had gone missing.
It was quieter than she would have imagined, with only brief bursts of chatter as one group or another reported in. Much of it she didn’t understand, references to tangos and numbers, along with what sounded like shorthand for the different parts of the ship. Judging by their tone of voice a couple of the people talking were actively firing at someone, but all she could hear was their voice, none of the gunfire or other noises of battle were carried over the line.
Then the captain’s voice came on over the system, jarring in its difference from the disciplined mercenaries.
“You need to get your troops up to the bridge now. We just had a bunch of these blasted pirates get past your oh–so-effective barricade. If I had sealed the bridge even a moment later they would have taken control of the ship.”
“And my men?” another voice asked. It wasn’t one Morgan recognized, presumably the commander of the mercenary forces.
“I don’t know. Only one of them was on the bridge proper.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“I see,” the commander said.
“Clear the channels, everyone. You too, Captain.”
This was done in moments.
“Lieutenant Marigold, leave one person to guard the armory, and bring everyone else you can to the bridge. Lieutenant Jacobs, Lieutenant Kaldrin, leave a three-man team at your checkpoints and do likewise with the remainder of your combat capables. Everyone else push hard to get the rest of them accounted for.”
Five quick affirmatives and the com line went quiet again.
Morgan looked up to see the lieutenant looking at her.
“Have you fired rifles before?”
“Not nearly as much as my pistol, but I do have experience with the NCR-7.”
“The NCR? Not a shotgun, or a hunting rifle, but the standard infantry rifle?”
“Yeah. Larry liked them, let me borrow his from time to time. Is that a problem?”
“No, just another oddity about you. Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Hudson, get her a rifle.”
“Right.” He walked over to the rack, picking up a slimmer rifle than the one he carried. “This isn’t as advanced as what you’ve used, or even our normal gear for that matter, but we don’t have time to familiarize you with that. But it isn’t too different from the NCR.”
Hudson made a big show of taking the safety off, reengaging it, then handing the rifle to Morgan, the barrel pointed straight up.
“It is semi-automatic, with penetrator rounds.” He handed her a thin, long magazine to Morgan, showing her how to seat it. “You’ll need to reload often since the magazine is a single stack. As big as it is, it still only holds fifteen rounds.”
“I’d need spare magazines for that,” Morgan pointed out.
“Yeah, yeah, keep your skirt on, Darlin’.” Hudson next grabbed a belt with three magazines stuck into slots on each side. He deftly slung it around Morgan’s middle, the belt’s magnetic clasp automatically latching closed on contact.
“Just remember, don’t point it at anything you like, and don’t fire if your target is too close to a friendly.”
“Right.” Morgan didn’t feel like telling him she knew all of this. Safety was important, even when doing things that were decidedly unsafe. Given how many grenades the mercenaries were adding to their belts Morgan hoped they believed in safety too.
“Crewman Black, your job will be watching our backs. We should be clear from here to the bridge, but I never much cared for should. We’ll need to move quickly. If you see anyone coming up on our flanks or rear, tell us before engaging. Do not fire at any hostiles in front of us unless I tell you to.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to leave me here? You could bring another trained mercenary with you.”
Marigold shook her head.
“Better to have the weak link with the larger group. As it is I’m only bringing you at all because I need to leave two people here. The commander doesn’t know the door is non-operable and now isn’t the time to tell him.” Marigold turned to the other mercenaries with her. “Numen, Ortiz, you’re staying here. Check yo
ur targets, but don’t be afraid to use grenades. The armory is vulnerable. Act accordingly.”
Nodding, the two mercenaries took up positions on either side of the room, crouching behind the weapon racks that looked like they could easily double as barricades. Ortiz got his rifle ready while Numen carefully pulled the last few grenades off the rack she was behind, placing them on another rack farther back in the room.
“Let’s move out. If they manage to take the bridge we’re in trouble.”
“I’m sure we can take it back before they figure out the codes, sir,” one of the mercs said.
“Possibly, Private, but more importantly if they take the bridge we’re likely to lose our contract when the dust settles. Little things like letting officers get captured or killed tends to spook companies.”
Morgan suppressed the desire to snort in amusement, but only just. Somehow she doubted the lieutenant would have been quite so blunt if any of the merchant officers had been present. For her part, Morgan had no interest in repeating what she’d said to anyone later. She appreciated the confidence that they’d live to worry about such things, and it wasn’t like she was wrong anyway.
With that Marigold, Hudson, and the other three mercenaries started out, Morgan trailing behind a few paces.
***
The quick march to the bridge – or rather the corridor a hundred meters away from it – went fast and without incident, leaving Morgan wondering why they’d even bothered to bring her along. From the chatter she could hear through the merc’s communication’s net it was clear they had a good idea where all the remaining pirates were onboard, and most of the crew too.
Morgan could hear the pirates ahead of them from quite a long way back. It sounded like they were hitting the bulkhead leading into the bridge with everything they could in an attempt to breach it. Even with her helmet’s noise cancellation turned all the way up Morgan could still hear very little other than the repeated explosions and concussions against the metal.
“Do we give them a chance to surrender?” Hudson asked on their subgroup of the com system as they reached the last turn in the corridor before they would be visible to the attackers.
The Long Black (The Black Chronicles Book 1) Page 26
