by Rick Partlow
The first line of mercenaries hit the cargo containers, swarming over them, two, three of them stiffening and falling backwards, cut down at the last second. But more made it over while the Delta boys and I were tied up with the rear guard. Ten of the Russians fell, twelve, fourteen, and three of our own IFF signals went dark. Preacher was gone, never more to bore us all with the glories of crossfit and a low-carb diet. Vanderheyden, who hadn’t been around long enough to earn a nickname though we’d called him Van anyway because no one wanted to say that mouthful every time. And Pepper, who hadn’t been on the team much longer than Van, but they’d given him a nickname anyway because he was a Thai-American and none of us could pronounce his real name without butchering it.
I hadn’t had time to get to know them as well as the original team, but they were the best of the best. No one made Delta without being the cream of the crop of Rangers or Special Forces, and no one got assigned to this unit without being the best Delta had to offer, and almost as important, being able to get along with others. Which meant they were all good people, the kind you enjoyed working with, and if we gave Preacher shit for being such an enthusiast, it was because that was the only annoying trait he had that stuck out. They were all family men, all with a wife and kids back home; and if, by some miracle, I lived through this and there was anything to go home to, I would be the one who had to visit each of those wives and tell them personally what had happened to their husband.
Some safety flicked off inside my head, some barrier that kept me on this side of crazy, and I waded into the middle of the enemy. Machine gun rounds thumped against my chest and shoulders at nearly point-blank range and warning lights flashed, telling me I was coming dangerously close to a loss of structural integrity. Stupid computer. I was way beyond any sort of structural integrity.
I held the M900 out in front of me like a pistol, firing through the helmet of one mercenary soldier and into the chest of another, grabbing the dead Russian by the jagged rim of his shattered helmet and throwing him and his cut rate copy of a powered exoskeleton ten feet through the air. He impacted crossways at thigh level of a pair of Chernobog soldiers who were trying to back away from our charge, like he was throwing a body block, and both of them went tumbling backwards, crashing to the ground. They made not a sound and my brain rebelled at the unnatural silence, so I shot them.
I had the vague sense of more of Russians going down around me, of a hail of tungsten slugs passing on either side of me, and the tiny portion of my brain still devoted to rational thought wondered if the rest of the team was actively covering for me, if they knew I’d gone bugnuts and had just resigned themselves to backing me up.
Too close for the rifle, I lashed out with my left forearm, sweeping away the barrel of a Kord machine gun, then stamping down into a knee. The mechanical joint gave way and the flesh-and-blood version failed an instant later, bending the leg backward. I swung the butt of the M900 just the way I’d been taught in bayonet training, smashing through a helmet visor and not knowing whether it had been enough to kill the man inside or if the vacuum would do the job. And if I had no bayonet to slash forward for the follow through, it was the thought that counted, and I could still hear my drill sergeant bellowing, the Marines shouting back the chorus as if their lives depended on it, as if it was some Lutheran prayer.
“What are the two types of bayonet fighters?”
“The quick and the dead!”
“What makes the grass grow?”
“Blood! Blood makes the grass grow! Marines make the blood flow!”
Someone was screaming into my earphones and I was about to tell them to shut up and get off the net when I realized it was me. I skidded to a halt and I was fifty yards past where I had been, right at the edge of the barrier, and Chernobog troops were laid out all around me. Some had been shot. Others had arms or legs bent the wrong directions, their visors broken, their eyes bloodshot from the sudden pressure difference. But the only enemy left was on the other side of that barrier.
I didn’t have IFF signals for the Space Force security troops, didn’t know how many of them were dying on the other side of the cargo containers, but the Rangers would be engaging next, taking on the Russian body armor at point-blank range, and there was no way we were going to get to them in time to help.
I was so wrapped up in the moment, I hadn’t given any thought to what would happen when the ship launched. I’d been on the shuttle enough that I was used to the hammer-blow vibration of the steering thrusters when the aerospacecraft maneuvered in microgravity. The maneuvering thrusters on the cruisers were each the size of the main drive on a shuttle, and when they fired, the superstructure of the station rang like a handbell and I fell flat on my ass and skidded across the floor.
One of the cargo containers was tossed out as well, pulling the veil back over the battle behind the barrier. At first, I was terrified that everyone was dead, but then I saw armored figures rolling to their feet and realized they’d simply been knocked down. Some of them. Some didn’t try to get up, a lot of theirs and some of ours.
I could tell the bad guys easy enough—they were the ones wearing armor but lacking an IFF signal. There weren’t that many left alive after the suicidal climb over the top, seven or eight, only a squad, but three had those damned recoilless rifles. My M900 was trapped under me and I pushed away from the floor with my off hand, trying to free it, but the Chernobog soldiers fell back to the floor, hypervelocity darts cutting them down halfway to their feet. I twisted around and saw Pops and Ringo firing from behind me, Quinn and a couple of Rangers from his fire team shooting from the other side.
The Chernobog squad was down and the Rangers were still shooting.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!”
Pops yelled it before I had the chance, but Quinn and the others listened. I thought. I couldn’t hear the discharge of the guns, but the bodies stopped jerking from the impacts.
“We’re clear,” I said, the words coming automatically as I checked the sensors by instinct. “We’re clear. Casualty report.”
The words were automatic, a remnant of another life. I could see the dead on my IFF, the monitors in their suits reporting the lack of vital signs. The three Delta and…
Jesus.
There were about two squads left from Landry’s platoon. I’d known it would be bad, but I hadn’t thought it would be that bad. The highest-ranking Ranger left was Quinn’s squad leader, Sgt. McAfee.
“We have two walking wounded,” Pops told me after a long pause to gather the information himself. “Dog and Jumper. Dog has a broken left arm, Jumper thinks he has cracked ribs, but their suits are still airtight.”
“Sir,” McAfee began, then stopped. His sob was cut off when he turned off his mic for a moment, and when he came back on, he had composed himself. “First Platoon has thirteen effectives. No wounded worth mentioning. Everyone who got what might have been a survivable wound died from damaged air seals.”
Shit. And that was why I’d replenished the atmosphere, even though it hadn’t wound up making a difference. I opened my mouth to give an order and realized I didn’t have one to give. What the hell were we supposed to do now?
“Pops,” I said, “double-check the enemy. I don’t want any of these fuckers suddenly coming to life and shooting us in the back. Have someone see if any of the Space Force survived.” I doubted it. Not a one of the space-suited defenders had moved and they looked to have been torn apart by the machine guns. But we had to make sure.
“Yes, sir.” His voice was grim. He’d lost men before, but I knew for him, it was like watching his own children die.
“McAfee, you with me?” I asked. He was still sitting on the ground beside the corpse of Sgt. Kim, the platoon sergeant, not moving an inch. He didn’t answer, and I caught a glimpse through his visor of his eyes staring straight ahead, unseeing. I sighed. I understood and maybe it didn’t make any difference at this point. “Quinn,” I said, “have your people police the dead for spare a
mmo.”
“Yes, sir.” He sounded nearly as shaken as McAfee, but I had confidence he’d be able to pull his shit together.
I thought it was likely a waste of time, but I knew I had to try to contact the element down at Bravo.
“Colonel Brooks,” I called, “do you copy?”
Nothing. I tried again and this time, I got a reply, but not from Brooks.
“Major Clanton, do you read? Over.” It was Captain Lee, his voice crackling with static.
“I read you, Lee. Ship Alpha has launched and all enemy forces at this end are down. What’s the situation out there? Over.”
“The situation is, we’re fucked, sir. The Tevynians brought three carriers with them and the whole place is swarming with fighters. We’re heading out to give what help we can and I wanted to let you know we won’t be able to pick you up. Not that you’d want us to. Also, I have negative contact with Colonel Brooks at Bravo. The ship is still in the drydock and none of the Rangers are reporting back. You might want to swing by that end of the facility and check out the situation. Good luck. Over and out.”
I took a long, analytical look at the people I had left. Most of the Rangers were still sitting or kneeling, too stunned by their losses to get their brains functioning, though Quinn and a couple of people from his fire team were moving, pulling spare ammo drums off their fallen brothers and sisters. The Delta survivors were doing better, but they weren’t superhuman. Dog was down on a knee by Preacher, hand on the dead man’s shoulder.
I made a decision.
“Pops, Quinn,” I said. “You two are coming with me. We’re going to the other end of the drydock to check on Colonel Brooks and the other element. Gunfighter One couldn’t contact them and Bravo is still in the dock.”
“What about the rest of us, sir?” Quinn asked.
“Dog, you’re in charge of everyone back here,” I told him. “I want you to find a sealed compartment. I know there are crew quarters and you have the codes to access them. Seal yourself inside and activate the emergency air reserves. There should be food and water available.”
“And wait there for how long, sir?” Dog asked.
“Until someone comes to get you out.”
“Hoo-ah, sir.”
“Tell me something, sir,” Pops said, he and Quinn falling into a loose wedge formation with me at the head. “Just between the two of us.”
“Yeah?” I prompted. I hoped he wasn’t going to ask me something deep about the men who’d died, because I was trying very hard not to let myself deal with that just yet. When I did, it wouldn’t be pretty and it wouldn’t be short.
“Did you really yell ‘blood makes the grass grow and Marines make the blood flow’ in the middle of a battle?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The silence grated at my nerves. Even my own footsteps were just muted vibrations through my suit, drowned out by the chuff of my breath. I could have talked to Pops and Quinn, but it would have been tactically unsound to distract them—and me—from our surroundings.
The hallways were broad, reminiscent of a concourse at an NFL stadium if the stadium had been built from solid metal rather than concrete. How long had it been since I’d been to an NFL game? Fifteen years? Twenty? I hadn’t especially missed it, but now I promised myself I’d take Julie to a game. I was promising myself a lot of things lately, and it was easy to do because I figured I’d never have to keep them all.
Nothing moved in the silence but I hadn’t expected it to. We were retracing our steps to the junction and the ground was familiar, as barren and empty on the way back as it had been on the way in. I picked up the pace despite the exhaustion of multiple adrenaline dumps dragging at me.
Past the junction, the ground was new to me but not unfamiliar. It was a mirror image of the other side of the station and seemed just as deserted until we reached a storage compartment just over the curve that would lead us to the Bravo ship. The door should have been sealed, but it was cracked open, like someone had been peeking out of it, checking the hallway.
I held up a hand and motioned at the door, knowing I could talk without being overheard but giving in to old habits learned as a Marine infantry officer.
“Pops,” I said, forcing myself to talk because it was stupid not to, “you’re first through. Quinn, watch our backs.”
There was nothing fancy about the approach. Quinn and I stacked at the door and Pops ducked through.
“Friendlies!” Pops’ warning came through only a half-second before I saw them myself.
There were four of them crouched in the lee of stack of plastic totes, dressed in bright orange vacuum suits, hands raised and trembling. There wasn’t much light in the storage room, so I couldn’t see through their visors at first, but something about their body language and the shape of their suits told me immediately that they weren’t human.
“Please do not shoot,” one of the Helta engineers begged us, thrusting his hands up further, as if the elevation had some bearing in our decision whether or not we killed him.
“Put your hands down,” Pops told him, bringing the barrel of his KE rifle to high port. “What are you doing in here?”
“Hiding!” the Helta replied as if it was a dumb question. “Trying not to get killed!” He waved at the shadows behind him. “Trying to take care of him.”
I hadn’t noticed the body laid out behind them. The spacesuit was blue, Space Force colors, but there was no IFF signal or name tape and I couldn’t see through the visor in the shadows. I took a knee beside him and shined my suit’s external light into the helmet, moving from one side to the other until it hit the visor at the right angle to not reflect off.
“It’s Colonel Tygart,” I announced.
The XO’s eyes were unfocused and his suit was, on closer inspection, charred and battered, gouged in a dozen places, although not punctured. There was a trickle of blood coming off a pressure cut over his eyebrow and his mouth worked soundlessly.
“I think he has a concussion,” I added. I looked back at the Helta, forgetting to turn my light off and the alien’s visor polarized against the glare. “What happened? Where were you guys? Where did you find him?”
“We were hiding in here,” the Helta told me. “The base commandant, your Colonel Whitley, she told us to hide, told everyone who could not make it to the solar storm shelter to hide wherever they could when the announcement was made that there were enemy ships coming. We heard the gunfire and then there were several large explosions, and then the air leaked out and we….” He made an exaggerated shrug. “Well, I went, and….”
“You should show them, Fen-Sooyan,” one of the other engineers suggested.
He showed us.
I’d thought we might be charging into a battle at the Bravo lock, but I was wrong. Instead, we walked into the aftermath of a slaughter.
“Oh my God.” That was Quinn. This was his company. Or it had been.
Their bodies were mixed with the Russians…well, parts of them. I didn’t know what exactly had happened, but I had a clue. The airlocks were blown out here just like they’d been back at Alpha, and for the same reason: the shuttles had done a firing run on the enemy birds. But this time, it hadn’t just caused an atmosphere leak.
“What the hell happened here?” Pops asked, walking amidst the scorched, flash-frozen pieces of metal-encased human flesh. “I mean, Goddammit, Andy, what the hell happened?”
I wanted to close my eyes, but I didn’t think it would help. The image would be burned into my brain forever. The walls were scored from shrapnel, blackened and peeled from heat, but most of the blast had been directed forward. It had shredded everything ahead of it, three platoons of Rangers and most of a company of Chernobog. And, as far as I could tell, all of the Space Force crew besides Tygart. The Space Force Security troops hadn’t had any cargo jacks at this drydock, or maybe the commander down here hadn’t been as on the ball as the one at the other end. If they’d had any defenses at all, the explosion had wiped t
hem out of existence.
The cargo door was still there, still intact, and the ship beyond it.
“The Russians…” I began, but the words caught in my throat. “Chernobog,” I tried again, “had to have brought breaching charges to get through the cargo doors. Either the missile strikes or maybe a grenade set it off. Maybe.”
It didn’t matter. They were dead and I didn’t even have to check the bodies to be sure, didn’t have to look at the IFF readings. The blast wouldn’t have killed them immediately, but the fragments were hypervelocity, as fast as the round from a KE rifle, and there was no recovery from that many holes in your suit in a vacuum.
I hadn’t known Dani Brooks that well, not beyond a casual work friendship between two officers of close rank. She was married, had two kids, both in high school, and it was incredibly selfish, but all I could think was that this time, I wouldn’t have to be the one to tell the family. All the families…
“God. Oh, God, sir, they’re all dead.” Quinn, again. Moaning like he was dying, too. These had been his people, his friends, as close to family as you can get.
“We have to get on the ship,” I said. “We have to get it out of here.”
“How the hell are we gonna do that?” Pops demanded. He was angry, for which I didn’t blame him, but I thought I detected despair in his voice, too, which I was not used to. Hopelessness. “The fucking bridge crew is dead, except Tygart, and he might have a fucking brain bleed.”
“Get the Helta. Get them and Tygart on board. If they can get the ship flying, I remember enough from what Julie taught me to maneuver and fire whatever weapons are available.” Maybe. I didn’t need to tell him, but I was a bit sketchy on the details of how to jump the thing to hyperspace, but I knew the computer systems were self-guiding to some extent, so I had high hopes. “Quinn, go get them, bring them back here. You carry Tygart.”