by Randy Moffat
Pinta had one advantage. The Chinese guy had clearly had some practice in moving about in space, but Pinta was the most experienced space man in history and he popped up again. He recognized the man’s Chinese made QBZ-95 weapon because of its weird banana clip poking forward from the butt and experience informed him that the recoil from firing on auto had likely affected the man’s stance. Sure enough, the Chinese guy had fired too fast and the pushback from his rounds going off had made his weapon into a drive unit that half turned him and then forced him to grab onto his safety line to pull himself back the two feet the weapon’s recoil had pushed him clear of the deck. Meantime, Pinta effortlessly tucked his toes under the hatch coaming, bracing to hold himself easily still and fired his own weapon, catching the Chinese marine in the chest and then tracking his fire deliberately downward on his body. The Chinese suit had a ceramic armor plate built into the chest piece that absorbed some bullets, but two of the rounds went in below it and he was propelled out to the end of his safety line by Pinta’s burst and hung there unmoving. Pinta had checked himself from his own recoil using his butt on the hatch. He was already looking around for another target. The two academy rookies he had dragged into his original anti-boarding team and sent out ahead of himself were nowhere to be seen. The exterior work lights on the hull flickered and dimmed. Pinta knew the signs of what that meant. The reactor had just gone off-line and the system was on backup battery power now. Then Pinta saw one of his rookies drifting ten feet over his head headed forward in an awkward tumble. His posture spoke of death and anger surged across Pinta’s face. Pinta felt the airlock hatch cycling below him and dove forward to get clear of its outer door and let whoever was in it come out. He grasped holds on the hull a moment and then began chasing after the guy with the crowbar like a lemur in a tree after a fat beetle for lunch.
Sho was approaching the TESS ship slowly… slowly. Sho only had two or three more squirts of thrust mass left and he was certain that at least three more of his men had made it to the hull successfully. Two more had called in that they were likely to add to that number in the next few seconds. He had also seen two more men misjudge and approach too far out on the hull despite his orders. The momentum of that whirling ship was too much and though they reached out to try and grab hold to some projection they both missed and the speed of the hull struck them backed up by all the mass of a multi-ton ship behind it and both of them had in their turn spun off like a ball from a bat in the insipid American game. One was this very moment tying up the communications net with his pitiful wailings about his distant wife and child. Sho wished he would shut up. He had seen the twinkle of small arms firing below him on the TESS deck. They were not all his weapons. The TESS bastards had weapons out too—so much for his element of surprise. There was a gun fight going on down there. A corner of his mind had to admire it. It was an astonishingly fast reaction to what should have been a total surprise attack.
Then hope filled him again.
A bright flash and a blossom of fire lit the bow of the hull. At least one of his men had placed a shape charge and blown yet another hole down into the interior of the ship. Some kind of victory was still more than possible here.
Pinta got to the front deck to see that the iron bar had been thrust between the barrels of the rotary cannon whose rotating mechanism had grabbed it, twisted and broken two barrels around the unyielding metal. The gun was out of action until further notice. He flew forward and had just grabbed hold of a still whole rotary cannon barrel when he felt the ship jerk its nose down and saw a fountain of fire forward. Then he caught the movement on his left of Mr. Crowbar slapping white play-doh onto the viewing port of 11 forward. Pinta wrapped his legs around the barrels of the gun like a horse to steady himself, aimed and fired. His bullets went home and the guy jerked his arms out like a baby’s startle reflex, bounced off the window and floated slowly off ship. Pinta turned in time to see another pair of dark suits swarming along the deck towards him from the direction of the bow. One reared up and fired a weapon tucked under one arm while gripping the deck with the other. They were getting smarter. Pinta had not waited and had dived for the deck and begun crawling from hold to hold around the hull, over the hull’s horizon and out of their sight line. It worked both ways though. The hull’s protection meant that he did not see it when one of the new comers reached the goopy stuff that the first guy had slapped on the port and made a jerking motion with one hand. Then the pair of them began to crawl away from the sail fast; back towards the bow and aiming to put distance between them and that deadly blob on its window. Another Chinese marine chose that moment to fly in using a hand held motive unit just as the charge on the window went off—blowing him straight off the ship and out into space in a whirling spin. Hoist on his own team’s petard. Murphy’s law was written by an Irishman, but worked just as well in China.
He started screaming very weakly a minute later but everyone left on the frequency was far too busy to listen. His suit had been compromised and mercifully his transmission stopped a minute or two later.
I had floated into the bridge and immediately launched myself upward to eleven forward. I clearly saw a guy slapping gunk onto the outside of the window. He was out there in space and I was not.
“BRIDGE! Brace for depressurization!” I shouted and grabbed the rail only to see Pinta crouch out there on top of the rotary cannon and zap the guy with a burst from his carbine. I knew it was him by his fluid style. I started to relax when I saw Pinta dive for cover over the hull’s edge and another enemy rear up on the other side of the window and reach for the plug of gunk. I held on with both hands as a timer was set and a few seconds later the shape charge went off and both the outer and inner layers of plexi and glass blew inward. A fraction of a second later I watched the explosion reverse itself and suck the fire, glass and the air behind it out into space as the pressure in the Bridge spaces pushed it out. I held onto the rail firmly until the rush of atmosphere slowed. Behind and below me my bridge crew were checking if things still worked in a vacuum, but I was looking elsewhere.
I turned with the big old pistol in my hand in time to see that there was huge hole in the window and a boarder just rearing up into the new space. I fired twice and caught him in the faceplate of his helmet and he spun away. His partner was there in a moment though and burped a burst from an assault rifle through the window at me even as I acquired him and ducking down I tumbled over the edge of 11 forward and towards the bridge below out of his view.
I arrested my motion with one hand on the edge of 11 Forward’s decking and spun myself to aim upwards expecting him to dive after me. I almost lost my grip and flew to the ceiling, a perfect target as the hull shuddered, enduring yet another explosion somewhere. My poor Gaia!
On deck one of the Chinese fired a quick burst into the hole in the window then went in pursuit of Pinta over the horizon of the hull. Two more landed on the Gaia’s forward deck right by the sail to reinforce their comrades and then a third. They took turns firing bursts into the hole in the window and negotiating via radio who would be lucky enough rush into it first. It was all smoke and mirrors orchestrated by Colonel Sho who landed behind the cover of their distraction forward and began to fasten another large charge to the hull far well abaft the bridge.
Sho called out a warning and his men grabbed something solid and his body guard tripped the trigger creating a fountain of fire, debris and at least one TESS body sucked out from inside the hull and flew off into space driven by lost atmosphere.
“Enter the hull now! GO!” Sho said pleased to be hurting the enemy at last. His bodyguard flowed into the new gap in the hull behind a fan of bullets from his weapon. Sho waited two seconds and followed. The remains of the cluster of men by the rotary cannon swarmed simultaneously at the hole in the sail’s windows to threaten the bridge according to plan.
As the men reached the hole the first rushed into it firing too high. I was clinging to the rail lo
w down peeking over the edge and instantly pumped out three .45 caliber rounds, which legend held had originally proved their worth dropping tough adrenaline crazed Philippine Juramentado Moro warriors who refused to acknowledge their deaths to lesser calibers. The bullet’s magic worked on space suits too as two of the rounds slammed into his chest armor plate. I watched the legend of the .45 propel him right back out the window into the midst of his fellows though perhaps not dead.
Suddenly two shadows burst into their midst from the side and I clearly made out the huge shape of Maxmillian among them swinging the heavy bar from the gun rack like a sword. He smashed it into the faceplate of one Chinese marine fracturing it and we all had a rather horrifying impression of him unsuccessfully trying to breath vacuum. This would have elicited more sympathy if he and his mates had not so clearly been intent on trying to kill us. The Chinese were good and clearly well trained, but it was here that long experience and practice in space told. Maxmillian effortlessly used his rebound to wrap a leg around his own safety line like an acrobat and using it as an anchor backhanded the guy I had just shot so that the bar caught the man at the base of his helmet driving him forward again right back through the window to sprawl, drifting in the there like a swimmer face down in the pacific. His drift would keep him inside the hull this time. I almost plugged him again on impulse but he was so clearly out of action I held off… thinking fast.
I looked up to see Diaz grinning down at me through the remnants of the window. The other Chinese guys were flat gone and I knew she probably had her way with the third man. A true Amazon with her carbine clutched across her chest.
“Admiral?” She keyed her radio and spoke politely.
I had just begun to relax a bit thinking things were going our way at last. I should have known better. It was Smith who broke up my warm and fuzzy.
“Admiral! There are reports of gun fire aft inside the ship! Say again inside!”
I kicked myself for taking my eye off the ball for even a second.
“Where away?”
“Original crew quarters next to the old missile bays! Starboard side! Down.”
“Roger… Maxmillian!” I tried for my calm but authoritative tone. “Check forward with Diaz… make sure no more of the bastards are running around out there and planting any more hull penetration surprises forward. If you suspect any of them have entered the hull up there then hunt them down with prejudice. Copy?”
I caught the “Roger—Roger” of Hú and Diaz but only as an undertone because I was busy babbling again.
“Pinta! Where the hell are you? Are you dead?”
“Only emotionally, sir.” Came his terse reply. “Staring at a fucking great big hole into the storage spaces just forward of the reactor bottom side—the missile round may have holed the reactor compartment itself. Hard to tell. Two water tanks are totally ruptured by shrapnel here—we are bleeding Ice everywhere. I doubt there is a drop left in them.” Pinta replied in typical un-amused Warrant-grump.
“So I take it you are still alive then?” Warrants would not waste time with radio calls declaring anything so pedestrian as their continued existence.
“Yessir! I had just cornered this Chinese guy chasing me. I was about to take him out when Gaston swung in like fucking Tarzan and cut him open like a can of tuna with his welding torch.”
“By ‘cornered’ he means he had already shot all his own ammunition into outer space and the guy was about to toast him good from about four feet away.” Gaston cut in pertly.
“Glad both you Chiefs are alive.” I transmitted with all the urbanity I could muster—I had written Gaston off as a loss at the beginning of the battle and was very relieved. One of my few bits of happy place in the middle of this mess so far. Still, my blood pressure was about to make my head explode. “Some of the bad guys are inside us.” I was already moving fast aft myself. “The bastards have been blowing holes to make new entries and avoid the regular hatchways. Trying to kill our people still out of suits. You two do a fast check there on the outer hull on the stern for more explosives. Then enter the hull and work your way towards the drive chambers. Protect them. It’s clear they are inside Gaia to get a glimpse of the McMoran thingee. I sure as bugger won’t have THAT after this… dick spawned bullshit!”
“Aye, sir.” They both said succinctly—shocked less by death and destruction than by their Admiral openly swearing. Things must be serious. Never mind missiles, explosives and bullets. The head and face of TESS was throwing out naughty words openly now. Armageddon was at hand.
Sho quit calling to his men. He had seen at least two more killed, heard yells and shrieks that counted out another two. He had tried a roll call as he entered the hull and realized that his effectives remaining were likely his immediate four man team consisting of himself, his body guard, a marine that had landed near the hole he had just blasted into the now hated ship and through some unaccountable miracle the pilot of the second capsule who had survived these last lunatic minutes and attached himself to Sho. The results of the call was worse than he thought. There had been only one more positive response from a single man still operational somewhere forward on the hull. Sho gritted his teeth and accepted that he was unlikely to hear from any more marines. He’d had once possessed 30 men total counting the pilots and now there were only five! He cursed. It was unbelievable. His missiles and total surprise had counted for so little in the end. But he could still accomplish his mission and he damn well meant to.
He was inside now and looked around him with minor satisfaction.
This area of the ship was a billeting region with small state rooms and a narrow corridor that ran between them. Three bodies were floating in the corridor so his attack had not been completely ineffectual. Two were wearing South African uniforms and did not really count, but another had been caught partially inside a TESS space suit and was quite dead. That corpse wore midshipman rank. At least they were hurting the complacent TESS bastards. His men were working their way in opposite directions opening doors and spraying bullets into them to cover their rear against any surprises from side alleys on this deck.
Grudgingly Sho realized that even given TESS’ state of complacency their response to being hulled in four places had been pretty good. Most of his forces were now gone and he did not really have any clear picture of how many TESS personnel remained opposite him. He had to assume they outnumbered him badly now. He must hurry. Previous reconnaissance by Chinese agents had established that the McMoran engine components were divided between four areas of the ship. It was known that most of the control surfaces were in the bridge area which probably held many personnel and they would be now be fully alarmed and probably armed to some extent. The bridge was therefore a bad choice of target in his weakened state. Intelligence also said that the old torpedo bays two decks below the bridge also likely held more McMoran drive components. Sho was tempted to seek revenge there, killing more TESS personnel every step of the way, but controlled the impulse. He suppressed his battle frenzy and tried to coolly consider his mission as logically as he could. Most TESS personnel would also be forward in the ship where the bridge and communication systems were located too. If he were running things he could protect the nerve center of the bridge and anything forward of the mid-ships bulkheads with all the personnel he had. The bulkhead was an obvious chokepoint with only three hatches through it, one on each deck. Easily defended. Sho assumed TESS would certainly concentrate defenders at those hatchways to prevent intruders getting into the bow. Based on this Sho rejected any movement forward as the proper avenue for continuing. Intelligence reports had also indicated more drive components toward the back of the ship in either the engine compartment itself, the old hovering pump spaces or in what had been the maneuvering room on the original submarine just to the rear of the reactor. His best bet for seeing TESS secrets then lay in those components and there were likely fewer defenders in that direction since the rea
r of the ship day to day likely held fewer TESS personnel than its front end spaces. Given Sho’s success rate so far the best target of opportunity was away from the bow.
Sho ordered his men to move aft.
TESS Space Station L5 was in neat orbit at the gravitcally balanced L5 Lagrange point. A fulcrum where she had been balanced in a nice little kidney bean shaped orbit that was held her in gravity’s thrall between the earth, its moon and the sun. Of course it was not perfect, these things never are when humans are involved. In 90 million years of so she would move herself off this fulcrum on the teeter totter of the universe through perturbations in planetary and solar forces; at which point no one would care.
As it happened she moved sooner.
The ‘Rock’ was rotating nicely—which imparted a feeling of gravity that acted at something like 5/8ths of earth’s. Walking was more of a controlled flying slide, but the longer term inhabitants were getting the feel of the slithering motion conditions required. Given time humans adapt to anything. Look at the Inuit.
Captain Johnson skidded into the command center in the heart of the station.
She had dirt under her fingernails and brown stains on her knees. She and Tanya Matthews had been working on creating a garden chamber in a big room up at the 10 o’clock position. Johnson had recently figured out a method to pulverize rock by moving the Petrovski drills back and forth and grinding it down. Johnson herself had hit on what she thought would be a winning formula. By directing the energy upward onto what they thought of as the ceiling and ‘twisting’ them they’d gotten a technique for ‘crushing’ loose large chucks of rock. They eventually ‘fell’ to the ‘floor’ as the station rotated. Then by increasing the effect they had gotten gravel instead of rocks that also ‘fell’ on top of the first layer of larger rocks. Improving their technique as they went they had begun to pulverize rock to smaller and smaller size until the floor was filled with thick layer of dust, gravel and finally sand to a depth of three meters or more—a mix that they felt would give the room the proper 50% porosity for earth type soil and leave room for a water table among the bigger rocks below the new ‘soil’ that mature plant roots could draw water from.