by James Evans
“Sorry, sir. Harrington and Fletcher can count them, though. They went past the ones I found when they joined me on the staircase, so they know where all the bodies are,” said Ten cheerfully.
“They weren’t with you? They were your backup!” Warden snapped again, now thoroughly pissed off.
“I told them to hang back and cover me. No point risking them if I ran across any problems.”
Warden sighed. There were good reasons why Ten was an administrative and disciplinary nightmare but you couldn’t argue with his demonstrable and obvious bravery. The man would much rather die himself than let a fellow Marine take a fatality.
Warden made a note in his HUD to review the Marine’s progress through this ground floor later. In most cases, commanders didn’t have the time or need to review individual troopers’ feeds. Penal Marine X’s videos, however, were always educational and Warden wasn’t afraid to admit that he could learn from them and improve his future performance.
“Here it is, sir,” said Ten, pointing to a large storage cage. There were two dead aliens outside it. One was in fairly normal body armour and had been carrying what Warden was fairly sure was one of the combat shotguns they had tested earlier. Its head lolled at an obscene angle, a huge gash across its throat. Any more and it would have been decapitated.
The other was more of a surprise. It was wearing power armour. Warden looked at it, then glanced at Marine X, who wore a beatific expression that seemed to say, ‘Who, sir? Me, sir? I ain’t done nuffin.’ He could almost hear it in Ten’s south London accent. Clearly, he should have called for backup to deal with this target as he wasn’t carrying anything that should have been used to engage a trooper in powered armour except grenades.
“Why didn’t you request backup or use a grenade?” Warden asked incredulously. If he hadn’t seen the psychologists reports, he would have thought the man insane.
Ten shrugged again. “Looked like this was their armoury, sir. Didn’t think you’d want me to destroy any of their weapons, what with us not having anything that’s much use.”
Warden looked at the corpse again. He wasn’t even going to ask how Marine X had managed it; he’d just watch the HUD feed later.
Milton isn’t going to believe this, he thought.
Ten dragged the smaller alien away from the storage cage door so that it could open fully. It hung ajar, a broken lock dangling from the bolt. Warden went inside and looked around. The space was large, about the size of a standard shipping container.
There were several large crates secured with electronic locks and the shelves had been neatly stacked with small arms. He nodded thoughtfully; there was probably enough in here to equip all the remaining men and women of the commando with the aliens’ superior weapons.
He inspected the lock on one of the crates then turned back to Ten who was kneeling by the heavily armoured alien, rifling through its pouches. He found something and held it up with a triumphant grin, standing and walking to the doorway to toss it to Warden.
A key card, alien in appearance but entirely the same concept they used on their restricted munitions. If you broke open a crate of RMSC grenade launchers, explosive charges would destroy the contents and put you at considerable risk. It wouldn’t surprise him if the aliens took similar measures and, if their technology had developed based on that found on a Lost Ark ship, it might be identical.
Warden wasn’t a historian, so he had no idea if self-destruct protocols were in use during the period of the Lost Ark missions. They didn’t even know which ship these aliens had encountered; it could have been one of the first lost or the most recent.
He motioned for Marine X to stand back, just in case there were any additional security measures and using the card went wrong, then he waved the key card in front of the dull, red lock on the case. It went green, and there was a series of pops and clicks as the locks opened. Gingerly, he lifted the lid, as if gentleness itself might stop it exploding.
The crate contained three of the huge combat shotguns.
“What do you think, Marine X – useful for boarding their dropship?”
“Works for me, but I wouldn’t use them around any engineering equipment or the bridge.”
“Worried something might explode?”
“No, I just assumed you wanted the dropship intact so we could get to the ship in orbit and deal with it, sir.”
Warden stared at him for a moment. Shit, he thought. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. The aliens must have a ship in orbit and he had no idea what its capabilities were or what sort of threat it posed. The aliens’ weapons and armour were recognisable but significantly different to models from Sol and its colonies. The dropship itself looked substantially different and what did that say about the rest of their fleet?
What would their orbital ship be like? Did it have orbital bombardment capacity or was it a troop carrier? Was it a scout ship or a battleship, or maybe a capital ship? It could even be based on an Ark ship; the earliest models had hangar bays for launching smaller craft like this dropship. Some orbital ships could land planetside but most used shuttles and dropships to deploy personnel and equipment, whether military or civilian.
“Shit,” muttered Warden. They couldn’t leave the damned thing up there; it could launch a second invasion or, worse, simply bombard the planet from orbit. Marine X was right; they had to take the dropship intact and get into orbit as soon as possible.
“Yes, well, if we can work out how to pilot it, you’re right,” Warden said.
“Probably got an autopilot for returning to the ship, unless we’re deeply unlucky.”
Warden nodded, setting the question to one side. “Right, help me open up the rest of these crates. We need to know what’s worth taking up and what we should leave here.”
“Right ho, sir.”
They set about counting the weapons and classifying them, entering them into the HUD to create an updated list of all weapons and munitions available to the local RMSC. The Marines’ weapons all reported ammunition usage so that commanders could monitor their units’ combat readiness. A warning would pop up in a Marine’s HUD when they hit key stages, such as a 50% ammunition depletion or exhaustion of all anti-aircraft rockets.
The alien weapons wouldn’t feed data back to the Marines but, long ago, some bright young HUD interface designer had decided the commandos might need to avail themselves of captured weapons to continue fighting. As a result, the facility to manually record data had been in the HUD since before Warden joined up.
They’d gained some more grenade launchers, a couple of rocket launchers that he guessed were for anti-aircraft use and some more sniper rifles, both standard and railgun. They wouldn’t take the latter because railguns could easily open a ship to vacuum if you found the right spot; grenades and rocket launchers were similarly problematic.
Fortunately, they also found plenty of combat rifles, which would be far more effective than the Marines’ standard carbines, especially if they encountered heavy resistance from powered armour.
“Need a really big knife?” Warden said, holding up an enormous alien combat knife as he turned to show it to Marine X.
Ten grinned and produced an identical knife with a flourish that made it materialize in his fist as if plucked from this air. “Already found ‘em, sir.”
“Ohhh-kay,” Warden replied, “you don’t think they’re a bit much, maybe?”
“Yeah, bigger than you really need, but flip the thumb switch and give it a go,” said Ten with a glint in his eye.
Thumb switch? Warden looked down at the knife and saw a depression under the hilt, cunningly concealed by the metal of the cross guard so you couldn’t accidentally activate it. He held the knife up and pushed his thumb into the button. Immediately the knife began to hum and gently vibrate, shimmering faintly in the dim light of the cage.
“Hmmm. Well, that’s a new one on me. Worked out what it does yet?” Warden asked.
Ten nodded and pointed at the side of
the cage to Warden’s left. There was a neat circular hole as if someone had cut through the wire of the cage and one of the metal supports with an arc welder. Warden stepped over and put the edge of the knife against the wire; it parted as easily as you’d slice a tomato. The knife barely slowed as he dragged it through the solid steel frame of the cage.
“It only stays on as long as you keep your thumb in the hole,” explained Ten. “A dead man’s handle in case you drop it on your leg while it’s still buzzing. It’s bloody useless if you’re trying to creep up on a sentry, but with one of these you could make short work of him, even if he was in power armour.”
At that comment, Warden looked back at the box he’d pulled the knife from. There were three empty slots, so it looked like Ten hadn’t got his knife in time to use it on the sentries outside. And he had taken two, for some reason. Warden sighed, but if anyone was going to find a use for two huge knives that could cut through power armour, it would be Marine X. Warden decided to leave him to it as long as he didn’t catch him playing around with it in the company mess.
“Find anything else we might want for the boarding party?” Warden asked.
“Yeah. Have a butcher’s at these,” said Ten, pointing to a medium-sized crate he’d opened.
It was full of large pistols with long, thick barrels. Warden picked one up and ejected the magazine. Unloaded, as you would hope. They checked the shelves and found the bullets that fit the weapon.
The grip seemed to fit his hand reasonably well, and he aimed it, squeezing the trigger until it discharged a round. The flak armoured alien corpse bucked with the impact. The gun was remarkably quiet, which meant it had a high-quality suppression system as well as subsonic ammunition.
“Nice,” he said, passing the weapon to Ten who promptly fired a couple more shots into each alien.
“Yeah, not much cop against the power armour, but they’re better than our pistols all the same,” Ten shrugged, “and if you’re hoping to take the orbital ship against superior numbers, these would help to start things quietly.”
“Okay, let's get everything upstairs and get this assault underway. I don’t want to hang about here longer than necessary,” Warden ordered. He told Milton to send down some more bodies so they could get their haul up top quickly. The goods elevators were still working so it didn’t take long to move the weapons and begin distributing them to the eager Marines.
“New plan,” Warden said to Milton before outlining his concerns about a ship in orbit. The sergeant listened impassively then nodded.
“Makes sense,” she admitted, although it was clear she didn’t really like the plan. “How do you want to do it?”
“Dropship first,” said Warden as they watched the alien weapons being distributed.
There was still no sign of life in the enemy dropship; it was entirely possible that there weren’t any personnel aboard to guard it, but they wouldn’t be taking any risks. Milton had found two aliens whose lockers had held what appeared to be flight suits. They had key cards and their personal weapons were pistols. The fact they had been assigned individual bedrooms and appeared to be officers strongly supported the conclusion that they were the dropship’s flight crew.
They were ready. Warden gave the signal and the team loped across the open ground to the dropship.
He leaned against the outer hull, near what looked like the main door. It had been agreed that Marine X would lead the breaching party, a small group of Marines who had all taken the specialist courses in stealth operations. Marine X had served long enough that he had done most of the courses available at one time or another, but the younger recruits were always more specialised.
Warden glanced once more at Milton and the other NCOs. No sign of doubt in their eyes.
“Breach!” he ordered.
9
Ten had strapped one of the alien knives to his chest for easy access. It was ungainly but the ability to penetrate armour was a significant advantage over his standard-issue Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger. He also carried two of the alien pistols and a number of flashbang grenades. He took a deep breath and nodded at Fletcher, who swiped the pilot’s access card over the lock. It went green, and the doors at the top of the ramp slipped noiselessly into the walls.
There was no ambush waiting for them, just a typical loading bay. A small all-terrain vehicle sat on the floor with a few lockers and storage cages but there were no enemy personnel or automated defences to be seen.
Ten climbed the ramp, a pistol in each hand, checking the bay properly before signalling his team. He made his way to the personnel door and looked around. Some ships had maps at important junctions to help visitors, but he hadn’t really expected them on an invading dropship. Pity, he thought, would have been handy.
Their goal was to neutralise the crew as quickly as possible. They might not know the internal layout of the dropship but they knew where the entrances, engines and cockpit were. The ramp had come down facing the nose of the ship, and the cockpit was somewhere above and behind them as a result. There were two more ramps on the port and starboard side of the ship, further back towards the engines.
As the pilots were dead, the cockpit was probably empty but two Marines were tasked to clear it anyway while the rest headed for the central area of the ship. They planned to dominate each junction and clear every space they passed, looking for crew quarters, engineering section and the mess hall – the most likely places to find the crew.
Ten didn’t really know why ships had engineering sections. It seemed redundant since aside from pilots, weapons crew and medics, almost everyone on a ship of any size was an engineer, mechanic or technician of some sort. They were the majority of the crew, so they were everywhere.
Still, as soon as a ship got large enough, there was always a section that was referred to as ‘engineering’ and that usually held only an array of displays and chairs, much like every other position on the ship. Only the very largest ships could support an actual engineering bay for producing spare parts and repairing portable systems. Smaller ships simply carried a few spares for emergency replacements.
Yet since the crews who maintained the ships tended to hold affection for them, it was likely that the aliens had left some personnel on the ship rather than taking everyone to the solar plant.
The ramp access room’s only personnel exit faced away from the cockpit. There was also a goods lift that went up to the next deck. Ten elected to take the lift, on his own, and start clearing the next deck. As soon as they had cleared the front of the ship, Warden would move the rest of the force into position and storm the ship, should a firefight ensue.
Ten got into the lift, located the control and signalled the rest of his team to proceed. As they flowed silently into the next room, Ten pressed the button and the lift smoothly ascended one deck. He found himself in a large room similar to the ramp room but with displays on each wall and a series of desks and chairs before each display. There was a command chair in the middle, but all the seats were empty.
“Like the bloody Mary Celeste,” muttered Ten as he looked around.
This was a tactical room for directing ground forces rather than ship-to-ship combat. Each display showed a different view of New Bristol. Some were showing feeds from orbit, so either the aliens had more ships or they had left satellites in geostationary orbit. Ten pinged that information to Warden. The Marines might not be able to scan objects in orbit at the moment, but this was exactly the sort of information that would keep Warden off his back while he got on with the real work.
None of the displays showed the ship’s interior and Ten was no technical specialist. He could pilot a drone, in a pinch, but the specialists who knew him would never have offered him their kit. Probably worried I’d break their toys, he thought. Playing with the controls seemed like an easy way to disclose his presence on the dropship to the crew or the ships in orbit, so instead he concentrated on his core skillset – sneaking around and killing things.
; The TacRoom had three exits: port, starboard and toward the engines. He went through the nearest exit on the port side. He was fine with port and starboard; it was planetside and orbit that got confusing. Planetside could be the top of the ship or the bottom, depending on the ship’s orientation; it changed if the ship moved.
For now, though, up and down were fine, and there weren’t any Naval crew around to give him grief about his sense of direction in space. They always seemed to know which way the planets were, though he was buggered if he could work out how. He’d been in the brig more than once after explaining to some gobby rating or other how little he cared about the matter.
Ten opened the door and checked to his right. Nothing but an empty wall, as he had expected. The front of the dropship was sloped, so this upper deck ended further back on the ship than the lower one which held the cockpit. The left was clear and he padded down it, focussing on the slightest sound that might give away an enemy presence. Past the TacRoom was a door on the left. No window.
Ten eased the handle down and stepped into the room. It was pitch black, but a dim light came on the moment the door opened more than a crack. At first, he started, thinking there might be someone in there, but it was a small, empty cabin. Clearly a space for an officer with an automatic light.
The corridor ran along the inside of the hull so there were no rooms on the port side. He had two more doors to check before he reached the end of this section. More empty cabins. At the corner, he thought he heard a noise. Crouched, he tried to relax, ready to spring into action.
He gave it thirty seconds but nothing came around the corner, so he raised his weapon and leant out to peer into the next corridor. Nothing. The short length of corridor was an empty T-junction, leading aft and across to the cabins on the starboard side of this deck. There was no sign of anyone to aft when he rounded that corner either.
Ten was in the zone, aware of everything around him and moving like a buttered cat, alert to any noise and ready for action. He checked the cabins, still searching for crew members. The first was empty and he was moving faster now, taking more risks. If the rooms were empty, noise hardly mattered; if they were occupied, even the quietest opening of the door would give him away. The second cabin was also empty.