Guerrilla
Page 17
The airlock was clearly marked with yellow and black stripes all the way around the door. Above it, docking clamps hung from the ceiling. The design was familiar but she’d never seen it on this scale; the clamps would hold the ship in place, the four segments of the door would retreat to their corners, then the clamps would push the smaller ship down and out before releasing it entirely.
That meant the bay had to be cleared before launch or the technicians would have to be in environment suits, not to mention strapped down, along with all the equipment they were using. If the bay didn’t reach hard vacuum before launch, even a small amount of atmosphere could drag objects or people toward the airlock.
The room was empty, though, and all she had to do was make it to the other side and then to the rest of the ship. Her HUD showed Lieutenant Warden making good progress toward the bridge but now they needed to make up for lost time, since their route had required a diversion to get further into the ship. Fletcher broke into a run, eating up the distance with long, power-assisted strides, her team coming on behind.
And then large swathes of cloth floated down from the upper catwalk, billowing out in silver-grey waves, and from beneath them came the enemy.
“Bollocks,” she spat, “contact!” she yelled over the local comm as six Deathless Ogres, their EM-blocking camo-blankets discarded, leapt from the catwalk two storeys up, crashing to the deck. They charged immediately, spikes jutting from their shoulders and clawed gauntlets extended.
Fletcher’s shotgun boomed. No time for finesse, she just emptied the drum as she panned the weapon left to right. All along the line, the Marines fired, but the shotguns weren’t effective against the Deathless power armour. Two of the Ogres were knocked down, but they just rolled with the impact and bounced back to their feet, hardly even slowed by the shotgun rounds.
Fletcher, no time to reload, dropped the shotgun and popped her own claws. This was going to get extremely physical and the Deathless had had plenty of time to train with their power armour.
The enemy crashed into her with an almighty wallop. Fletcher grappled at the Ogre, gripping both wrists to prevent the Deathless bastard from slicing into her. Her muscles strained along with the fibres in the suit as the evenly matched pair tried to twist and turn to gain an advantage. She lashed out with a boot, aiming for a knee joint but her opponent was quick enough to lift his leg, and her kick clanged uselessly against his shin, glancing off the armour.
He answered by trying to fall back and pull her off balance but Fletcher countered that move by stepping into his left shoulder, lifting his right arm up as she let go. Then she powered a left cross into his face. She followed by grabbing his left pauldron and trying to wrench it down as she pulled the arm up, she almost had it, but he dropped to one knee and scythed his leg out, bringing them both crashing to the deck and separating them.
Fletcher rolled to her front and pushed upward, kicking her leg out hard to slam into his chest just before she brought herself upright. She spun around and in that moment saw that it was going badly for her team. Two Marines were down, she didn’t have time to see who. That left four against six.
“Form up on me, lets back off and see if we can’t get them to do something stupid,” Fletcher suggested.
Lance Corporal Long was furthest back from his opponent, having managed to execute an impressive sacrificial throw and fling it across the bay, before getting himself back up. He drew one of the enormous pistols and that the Ogre suits came with and fired repeatedly, left-handed at the Deathless that had downed Marine Patricia Scott.
The high-calibre automatic boomed and rounds slammed into the helmet of the Ogre he targeted. His magazine emptied, Long quickly swapped in another as the Deathless trooper fell backwards. Fletcher drew her own pistol and got off a couple of rounds before the Deathless responded.
Bringing up their left arms in front of them, the five standing Deathless looked crazy for a moment, like a bulked-up boyband. Fletcher didn’t get it, couldn’t see what they were doing, the mad fools.
Except they weren’t crazy. With an audible clang, large metal shields sprang forth from their vambraces and rerebraces. Plates of metal shot up and down, and suddenly they had protection from incoming fire.
“Oh, for fuck's sake,” Green roared and retorted with a flashbang. That only provoked the enemy, their group burst apart, and they came on, rushing forward with shields held high.
That was better than what Fletcher had expected, which was for them to pull their own pistols. She located the hitherto unidentified control for her own shield, activated it and lunged forward to meet her opponent.
She dropped to one knee as the Deathless Ogre came on, right gauntlet and claws raised for an overhead blow. She slammed the shield up under its guard and into his chest and then she pressed the barrel of her pistol into the groin of the enemy and squeezed the trigger repeatedly, emptying the magazine.
At least one round must have broken through the joint as the barrel slide into just the right spot. The Ogre jerked back and crumpled to the floor, clearly injured and out of the fight.
Pulling back Fletcher saw that Jack Long was down, now, and Corporal Green was hard-pressed by two of the Ogres. She holstered the pistol and scooped up the shotgun, switching in a new drum then aiming at the face of one of the Ogres attacking Green. One burst, two bursts, three bursts, and it tumbled back. Its fellow slammed into Green and they rolled across the deck, furiously hammering blows at each other, each trying to score a fatal hit.
Fletcher turned as a cacophony of heavy machine gun fire drew her attention, just in time to see Marine Ann McGee punched from her feet.
And now the barrel swung toward her, as if in slow motion. Fletcher’s shotgun was moving to meet it but too slowly, far too slowly to save her. The other two Ogres were aiming their pistols, rounds pinging from Fletcher’s shield as she crouched and struggled with her shotgun.
Headley, the only other Marine still standing, was backing away, tilting as if wounded and in no shape to help. This was it, she thought, they’d bought as much time for the Troop as they could. She didn’t look at the tactical map, not wanting to know if the mission was failing before she died.
And then a figure appeared from the shadows behind the three Ogres, a bright shining bar of light held high over its head in both hands. The bar came down with ferocious speed and struck the right shoulder of the Ogre’s power armour, near the neck, cutting all the way through to the left side of its ribcage before spraying blood across the deck.
Fletcher gaped as Ten lunged to his left, following the momentum of the glowing sword and closing behind another of the Ogres. She could only watch as Ten brought the blade up in a vicious backstroke, slamming it into the midriff of the Deathless Ogre. It cut through to the spine, and then the light went out, sparking as the sword died.
The final Ogre was turning to face Ten, but it was too slow. The Marine had abandoned his new toy the instant it had failed him and now he dived toward the final enemy. Fletcher was still trying to bring her shotgun back around to target the Ogre but Ten was just moving too fast. He grabbed something from the floor, went into a forward roll, came up into a crouch and pulled the trigger.
The machine gun spat a torrent of death into the chest and face of the last Deathless Ogre. Fletcher wondered if his last expression had been of horror, amazement or stunned surprise at the sudden appearance of Marine X.
Ten stood up as the Ogre topped back. He dropped his gun and walked back to the second corpse, wrenching the blade free. He looked at it forlornly, pressing the power switch and slapping hopefully at the hilt.
“Bugger, I think I broke my glowstick,” he muttered cross
ly.
28
“Anyone got a shot?” shouted Warden but the only response was a sullen silence. Great. Pinned down by a bipod-mounted weapon that was a combination of multi-barrelled shotgun and heavy machine gun. It was heavily armoured and the gunner wore power armour as well in a design they hadn’t seen before. The bulk suggested it was intended for holding exactly this sort of defensive position.
“It’s no use, we’ll have to send someone around to flank him,” he said to Milton, “I don’t know how much ammo he has but we can’t sit here all day.” Milton nodded her agreement.
The annoying thing was that Goodwin had a micro-drone up that was giving them a wide-angle view of the corridor but they just couldn’t get at the gunner. Warden didn’t want to risk grenades this close to the bridge, if at all possible, and a couple of flashbangs had done nothing to shift the gunner from his position.
Warden was watching the feed in his HUD while he tried to decide who to send and what route they’d take to get around Section 2, who were stuck in a tough firefight of their own.
Then, from the right-hand corridor of the T-junction the gunner was defending, a large object sailed end-over-end passing over the head of the Deathless guard and clanging into the left wall. The gunner watched it go, eyes irresistibly drawn to it. Big mistake. Once it stopped moving and hit the floor, Warden recognised the sword he’d given to Ten.
And then, sure enough, Ten barrelled into the gunner, covering the ground inhumanly fast and tackling the Deathless trooper while he was distracted, knocking him clear of his weapon.
Warden reacted immediately, breaking cover and sprinting up the corridor toward the struggling pair. The gunner rolled Ten onto his back and got in a couple of good punches as Warden brought his rifle to bear.
“Nice try, sonny!” Ten roared as a glowing knife appeared in his hand. Then he punched it up under the chin of the Deathless trooper, the vibro-knife cutting easily through the thin under-jaw armour and slamming home. The gunner jerked like a fish gasping for air then collapsed on top of Ten.
Warden helped the struggling Marine flop the enormous over-armoured corpse to one side then grabbed his hand to pull him to his feet.
“Nicely timed, Marine X,” said Warden, “take a breather; you’ve earned it. Done? Great, let's crack on then, shall we?”
He looked down the corridor in the direction from which Ten had appeared and saw that he had brought the Ogres with him. Half of them, at least. Corporal Green and Marines Fletcher and Headley were trotting up the corridor. Warden checked his HUD for the first time since the firefight had begun and saw that Lance Corporal Long and Marines McGee and Scott were dead; the fight with the enemy Ogres had clearly taken its toll.
“On, on,” he shouted and began jogging toward the bridge, his Marines behind him, trying to catch up. A few unarmoured and lightly armed crew members offered little more than token resistance and the Marines rolled over them with ease. Then they were at the doors to the bridge.
“Fletcher, Headley, Green, open these for me, would you please?” said Warden when his card failed to grant access.
He stood to one side as Fletcher, Headley and Green sprinted down the corridor opposite the central pair of doors, their Ogre suits making a colossal din as they raced toward the bridge. They cannoned into the doors together and their combined effort buckled them inwards. The stepped back a few paces and charged again, this time knocking clear through the doors and barrelling onto the bridge of the Moscow.
Gunfire erupted from the bridge and Warden rushed up to the side of the doorway, risking a glance inside. Some of the crew were firing at the Ogres, trying to find weak spots, while others poured pistol rounds through the shattered doorway. There were a couple of dozen Deathless Ruperts in there but no clones of other types, which was an interesting socio-political observation he squirrelled away for later review.
The viewscreen grabbed Warden’s attention and he frowned as the Omsk floated across the screen, damage from weapon strikes clearly visible. Vice Admiral Staines hadn’t planned to destroy the enemy ship; had the boarding actions failed, perhaps?
Then a burst of fire streaked across the viewscreen toward the Omsk and he realised what was happening. The Deathless had lost the Omsk to Lieutenant Hayes and her boarding team. The captain of the Moscow had realised that and was trying to destroy the ship before it could be captured.
Destroy it and the Marines on board.
Warden began firing immediately, shooting the Ruperts as quickly as he could aim and pull the trigger. He killed as fast as he could but the ship’s weapons continued to fire. The Omsk, no more than a few kilometres away, was looking worse and worse.
Then his rifle found the Deathless captain and he went down, crumpling to the floor, riddled with bullet holes. Warden breathed a sigh of relief, lowering his rifle. Ten and the Ogres had finished the rest of the crew; the bridge was secure.
He looked up at the viewscreen. The Omsk should survive but he needed to get in touch with Hayes as soon as possible and find out what their situation was. That would probably require the comms system on the boarding pod. Would it be quicker to run back and get in touch from there or for Goodwin to hack the bridge command interface?
He was still pondering the best course of action when a Rupert stood, pulling itself upright on the command console. The Captain of the ship, less injured than Warden had believed. The Deathless officer turned to face him and saluted with a smile. Warden shouted a warning as he raised his weapon, but it came far too late.
The officer slammed his hand down on the console, and a barrage of missiles sprang forth, racing across through the cold vacuum of space even as Warden pulled the trigger. The captain’s body shuddered and collapsed back to the deck but the missiles sped on.
Warden turned back to the viewscreen just as the missiles struck the Omsk. All the Marines turned, watching as the warheads exploded and the great ship cracked into half a dozen sections.
The pieces drifted, tumbling slowly through space as their orbits decayed, gravity dragging them inevitably toward a hard landing on New Bristol.
The Omsk was gone.
And of the Bratsk there was no sign except debris. Warden didn’t know what had happened to the third Deathless ship but he knew that eighty-three women and men, Marines and militia, had been killed in this action.
He watched in silence until the first chunks of debris began to burn up in the atmosphere of New Bristol.
Epilogue
“A rough day,” said Vice Admiral Staines wearily, “but a successful one.”
He looked around the conference room of the HMS Iron Duke. Lieutenant Commander Cohen and Lieutenant Warden sat across the table while Governor Denmead and Captain Atticus joined via video from the command centre in Fort Widley.
“The Omsk and the Bratsk were lost in the action,” continued Staines, summarising the day’s events, “as were all of B Troop, Iron Duke’s boarding party and a significant proportion of A Troop. The Moscow is serviceable and will be recrewed as soon as new personnel arrive through the wormhole. She’ll need a new name; I suggest HMS Ascendant.”
That went down well.
“The Militia are being redeployed in civilian clones at the moment,” said Governor Denmead, “and the Marines will deploy immediately after.”
Staines nodded his thanks.
“And so it falls to us, Governor, to decide what action we must now take to safeguard New Bristol. Lieutenant Commander Cohen has been reviewing the files recovered from Ascendant using the translation software provided by Captain Atticus's tech-specialists. Mr Cohen?”
“Thank you, Sir,” said Cohen, flicking at his data slate, “you should all be seeing images showing the route taken by the Deathless fleet on their way to New Bristol. As you can see, it’s an almost straight line from a large star, marked in blue, and a planet they seem to have called ‘New Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky’, or Newpet for short.”
Governor Denmead shifted uneasil
y in her seat.
“Are you saying that’s the homeworld of the Deathless?” she asked, “It looks disturbingly close.”
“I don’t think so, Governor,” said Cohen, shaking his head, “it seems to be a staging world, a stopping point on the way to somewhere else. I think it’s where the fleet originated, or at least Ascendant, but it’s difficult to be sure from the files we’ve reviewed so far.”
“A staging world sounds ominous,” said Atticus, “why would they come to New Bristol if they already had Newpet?”
“There’s no way to know for sure, Sir, at least, not from the data we have so far,” said Cohen, “but Lieutenant Warden and I have been discussing the Deathless economy and population problem.” He paused to look at Warden.
“The briefing documents from the Admiralty suggested that the original crew of the Ark ship Koschei had a keen interest in functional immortality and, after what you were saying about the Deathless economy, I wondered what might happen if they had pursued that goal with vigour.”
“I’m not sure I follow, Lieutenant,” said Staines.
“Well, Sir, we can infer from their presence and their equipment that the Deathless have a large, technically advanced civilisation with manufacturing capabilities somewhat in excess of our own. If the Deathless are functionally immortal in reality as well as in name, then without strict limits on childbirth, they would have experienced rapid population growth.”
“And…?” prompted Atticus, unsure where Warden was going with this.
“And so it may simply be that they’ve run out of space and they’re looking for new worlds to colonise,” said Warden, “but there’s no way of knowing without taking a look at Newpet.”
“You want to visit the enemy’s staging world?” said Atticus, one eyebrow raised, “What's your reasoning, Lieutenant?”
“It seems the logical next step, Sir. We have Ascendant, we’ll soon have a crew, and we have captured plenty of Deathless clones as well as a large number of cloning bays, so we can easily increase the number of Marines available to defend New Bristol,” Warden explained.