by Randy Moffat
The team rose up the ladder and into that room. Sho held a moment at the opening, some instinct causing him to look down into the chamber below. He was just in time to see a helmet appear in the hatchway at the bottom of the supply compartment open to space that they’d just checked. Whoever they were they glanced about, half started to pull fully up and into the second deck chamber where the Chinese were. Then they visually acquired the explosive charges mounted on the wall and froze. The helmet rocked backward instantly and a face strained upward to see. The name “Gaston” was painted across the top of his oxygen unit. The man saw Sho’s face filled with deadly intent and caught the movement of the barrel on the weapon the Chinese Major was fumbling to free from the hopelessly tangled strap that held it near his side so he could bring it to bear.
In an artful movement that astonished Sho with its fluidity the man executed a twist around his own central axis and plunged downward again out of sight. His body had disappeared below before Sho could get his bead, but the Chinese marine fired a burst on general principles that mostly missed the opening and struck the deck, but must have sent a few rounds after the man. Sho rolled then onto his back, checked that his men were clinging as ordered to the walls and then pressed the remote detonator button on the charges below.
Maureen saw the men disappear upward from the room ahead and had snuck cautiously forward some more towards the compartment. She saw Gaston’s head come up from below, flip suddenly, then plunge downward again and a moment later felt the three explosive shape charges go off together just out of her line of sight. A huge shockwave, contained and canalized in the corridor walls rolled out the door and straight at her in a wall of fire. Dexterously she touched a foot to a wall and shoved herself in a desperate twisting motion sideways into an open bunk room to her right. The blast picked up the open bunk room compartment door and slammed it hard shut. Most of her body had made it into the room at that point, which saved her, but her left foot was three quarters through the door when the lower edge of the door’s light steel, being slammed shut by the hard force of the explosion, caught her ankle a glancing blow propelled with all the power of the blast.
Maureen screamed in pain and slammed into the far wall curled in a ball while pain from her badly broken ankle radiated along her leg and up into her brain.
I felt the deck shudder and knew another explosion had rocked my ship somewhere below. I stayed cool and screamed in frustration mingled with anger to myself, as if by giving voice inside my plastic helmet the reverberations might help me overcome the obstacles in my way.
I grabbed the dogs on the hatch at the end of the garden compartment, flipped them up and yanked it open.
Sho had kept his men out of the path of the blast to some extent, by staying away from the entryway of the ladder to the compartment below they were shielded by the deck between them and the blast. Enough of the force of the blast and shockwave however entered the room from below that it was then reflected backwards from the ceiling and battered them off their handholds relatively unharmed into a tumbled pig pile of human bodies.
Sho was no laggard though and bodily picked up the other marine and swiftly slung his form down the entrance hole and back into the compartment where the charges had just gone off. He pulled himself over the edge as well, towing the less space experienced bodyguard after him and snapped a command to the fourth man to stay in that same compartment on guard. This fourth man was the second capsule’s pilot. He clutched his small pistol and was just reaching for the edge of the opening to look down at what the other Chinese were doing below when the hatch on the bulkhead that led forward towards the ship’s bow swung open and he saw a tall clear suited man fill it.
Even a politically correct fascist Chinese pilot from the back of beyond recognized the TESS admiral from constant exposure in the media. He knew the TESS admiral’s face even though he was ludicrously wearing only a pair of underpants inside a transparent plastic space suit. But the pilot saw that he was still brandishing a heavy and threatening looking pistol. There was no possibility of mistaking the rage on his face either. Shocked, the pilot instinctively tried to bring his own pee-shooter up to fire and ludicrously jammed his fist with the gun in it under the top rung of the ladder, catching its iron front sight just as he tried to get it clear to fire.
The big pistol the TESS admiral carried spoke well before he could pull his hand free and reach a useful position.
Because sound does not travel in vacuum, Colonel Sho was unaware of the drama unfolding above him and deployed his remaining force; the Marine was ordered to follow him as the Colonel wriggled feet first into the satisfying ragged hole in the reactor wall. As his head disappeared after his feet he directed the bodyguard to watch the other entrances into this compartment and cover the Chinese team’s movement aft.
The body guard took his job seriously and moved awkwardly to peer over the edge of the entryway from below just in time to get a blast of fire from the compartment underneath that penetrated his helmet as Gaston fired upward, killing him instantly with a look of shocked indignation written on his face.
The marine was just preparing to dive after the major through hole into the reactor space and saw the bodyguard hit. He reacted swiftly. He yanked a grenade from where it was taped high on his chest. By design the movement pulled the pin where it was duct taped and he skipped a step forward to lob it down into the compartment below where the bodyguard’s killers were.
He was just a hair too slow as a madwoman spun suddenly into the chamber shrieking and firing her oddly held little pistol repeatedly into his side and back as he changed posture to fling the grenade. Three of the rounds bypassed his armor and killed him. The explosive weapon floated off lazily from the convulsion of his dying hand. Maureen saw the loose grenade and dove forward favoring her awkwardly held left foot to pin the grenade with the marine’s body against the wall. The grenade had enough oxidizer to work in the absence of air though and exploded. The shrapnel went outward and was largely absorbed by the dead Marine’s body. Mostly. Even though Maureen had tucked her right knee into the dead marine’s back to hang onto him, her left leg, already badly broken and tender was still hanging down awkwardly and not properly shielded by the Chinese trooper body parts. Four pieces of shrapnel tore into her ankle and lower leg and with a cry unheard in the airless environment she fainted in shock at the pain. Because her fingers were still tangled in the suit harness of the remains of the Chinese marine whose suit and body had been ripped wide open by the blast, the pair bounced backwards and off the wall opposite the blast. There they tumbled about, the corpse scattering droplets of blood far and wide including leaving great smears of it on O’Hara’s suit.
Within a pair of seconds Pinta swarmed into the chamber tracking his weapons for targets only a fraction of moment ahead of Bear who plunged down from above.
I had disposed of the man in the chamber above in a quick draw contest. I came into the chamber right after the explosion and there was still bits of grenade expending energy by pinging about in odd ricochets. I ignored them, because every living fiber of my mind and body were screaming at me as I recognized Maureen floating limp and saw blood all over her and a frozen trail of blood bubbling from low down on her suit leg. I was instantly immersed in a quicksand of horror. Love made me useless for that moment.
Thank heavens for Pinta.
Pinta took in what was going on instantly and grabbed her. He was already yanking open a pouch on the outside of his suit and he grabbed some heavy adhesive patches that we had routinely begun to carry to cover unexpected holes in our suits. He was one of two of the universe’s current experts in their use. He slapped three on her suit in rapid succession. I shook myself and headed towards him to help as Gaston swam in from below too.
“Admiral!” Pinta knew which way was up and yelled straight at me over the radio holding a palm up to halt me. “Admiral! One of them went into the reactor. I have her
! Get him or this is for nothing.”
I was still horrified. What I could see of her face looked deathly pale inside the helmet—what face I could make out through the gore all over her faceplate. My Maureen was hurt! Hurt!
Gaston was beside Pinta now and professionally slapping more patches on her suit to supplement Pinta’s who was doing a careful scan for any more tiny holes to plug.
I once heard a doctor say ‘Never treat your own wounded, your professional calm goes out the window when you see a loved one bleeding.’ Platitudes did not help, but I knew that TESS was in my hands at that moment, Maureen was in Pinta’s and if I ever got my hands on those who had hurt her I knew I would tear them to pieces.
My vision went cloudy with fury and hate.
I was only half aware of diving for the hole in the reactor compartment wall.
“Save her.” I shouted, knowing the desperation was clear in my voice and I wriggled through the wall. “She’s all… all I got…” Then I was being too careful not to cut my suit open on the can-opener sharp edges of that triangular hole to say more. If the ‘we’ that was us was ever to survive… I had to come back to her.
I was inside the reactor room in a second. Two bodies were huddled in the corner of the compartment, drawn there by outrushing air when the reactor compartment had been breached. Our security team had had their space suits on properly and weapons out, but the missile had struck and vaporized the metal of the hull near them and impelled the hot metal inside the compartment to strike and kill them both swiftly, efficiently and probably largely unawares.
On the far side of the chamber, a Chinese Colonel had his back to me and was working on the latches of the hatch that went further aft.
He did not look up but was swinging the door open. In a moment his helmet cameras would behold the Casimir device… a critical piece of our TESS puzzle. In a flash of insight I knew he would have scattered a trail of re-transmitters behind him and whatever his camera saw the bastards who sent him up here to attack us down on Earth would also see. All this death and destruction just for a glimpse of some machinery! My men… my women… my Maureen among them. I despaired for humanity then. My heart was yearning to be at Maureen’s side. Maureen hurt. That vision was all I needed.
I shot him down without a second thought; he bounced off the heavy half open hatch and rotated slowly in mid-air back toward me, a look of outraged astonishment plain on his dead face.
Hú watched the live feed from Colonel Sho’s helmet cam suddenly moved off a view of his hands which were dramatically opening the door at the rear of the reactor compartment aboard the SS Gaia up in Earth orbit. His camera suddenly rammed against the metal of the door abruptly and then began to slowly rotate in a lazy circle. It took a moment, but Hú realized that the sound of Sho’s breathing over the open mike had ceased and he cried out incoherently. The view rotated slowly around further and eventually showed a TESS clear suited individual in his ludicrous underpants moving forward toward the camera with a big square gun in his hand. Hú clenched his gut muscles tightly, willing Sho to shoot the man, but nothing happened. Even with the greatest will to the contrary Hú could tell that Sho was dead. The reflective faceplate made for suits used outside ships in space was missing on the advancing helmet. A face swam into close up on the screen. Hú knew that face.
It was the face of Admiral Phelan ‘Bear’ MacMoran. The Commander of TESS. The enemy TESS.
Hú opened his mouth to shriek in outrage. He never got to shriek.
Just at that moment an airstrike from the Chinese Air Force struck the top of Hú’s shelter. The bomb struck the now exposed roof of the Hú bunker. Hú’s engineers had possessed only limited supplies of rebar to reinforce the ceiling with steel and had been forced to use green timber from the surrounding mountains instead. Two other bombs had struck the same spot earlier weakening the concrete and beams below it without quite bringing them down. This final bomb blasted through and drove in several tons of roofing, rock and soil with them. The bulk of the roof fell in right on top of Hú’s head crushing and burying him. His overly big narcissistic head was mashed ingloriously and just like that TESS’ primary enemy and Premier Lau’s Schwerpunkt was gone.
We located our surgeon forward two minutes later. He had survived and was very busy doing what he could with most of his patients still inside bulky vacuum suits. I got a series of half-comprehended reports on radio that verified that the ship was a wreck, tumbling helplessly—luckily away from Earth rather than toward her. Our maneuver systems were off-line. It took a few minutes more but no one could find any more Chinese alive in or on the ship except for the one that Hú had knocked on the head with his bar up in 11 forward. Him we had stripped of weapons and zip-tied to something solid. Diaz, Rivera and a midshipman were still scouring the ship with guns at the ready to make sure we had not missed anyone. We were just turning Maureen over to the doc and trying to organize a crappy temporary airlock over a pair of rooms still capable of being pressurized. Once our triage had the wounded inside the space, there were several extra air tanks ready to be sealed inside which would allow him to create an emergency operating room. A room where we could cram the most seriously hurt into and let our medico open their space suits to treat our people hands on. Then Smith called me on the radio from the bridge.
“Admiral. You better get your ass to the bridge.”
Oddly enough being directed to move my ‘ass’ from a midshipman was enough to break through my acting on emotional autopilot, sick with worry about Maureen. I looked at Gaston and Pinta rather helplessly, momentarily uncertain what to do.
Gaston simply nodded.
“We got her. Go!”
I shuddered in a deep breath, slapped his suit shoulder and flew furiously. Anything was better than looking at her deathly pale face inside a helmet where I couldn’t cup her cheek.
I was in the bridge in less than sixty seconds. Practice.
“This had better be good… .” I growled—dangerous as any wounded bear.
Smith was pointing at radar.
“Sir! The Chinese space station has been clear of the horizon for most of this mission, but it began actively pinging us with radar four minutes ago. About the time you took out that last guy… .” She zoomed in the small image of the Chinese station. “I started asking myself where the capsules that brought these cowboys would have come from and started pinging them back. There appears to be…” I never heard what there appeared to be because even at the dozens of kilometers that separated us I could recognize in the video image the twin fiery plumes of rocket motors and saw the blips on our radar as they left the space station and streaked straight for us.
“Baskarian! Gimmie an update on all engines and thrusters! Now!” I shouted as I stared at death incarnate on radar.
After so much recent excitement Baskarian was almost phlegmatic in his reporting at this point. In a few hours he had become one of us. I was so proud.
“The forward thrusters are still operational and I think we might get the rear ring back in less than an hour. The center ring is blown to pieces, Admiral. Complete replacement. The McMoran drive is still off line for lack of reactor power—repair of water tanks and refill are required to get it back on line. There’s been no time… .”
“Fire the forward ring then… . all together or juggle them to bring us about. Whatever you have to do. Move us. Try and place a satellite or two between us and those inbound missiles. We might get lucky and one will lock on a piece of junk rather than on us.”
“Roger.” He leaned forward tensed to comply.
“Sir.” Smith spoke up. “I know it’s not my place but we will never get away from them that way. Those missiles are certainly radar guided. Even if we move they will find us… . and… uh…” She riveted on her scope for a second. “Sir! Two more missiles have just been fired.” She finished uncertainly. Death was aggressively knocking on ou
r door and now was ringing the doorbell.
“Thank you, Midshipman.” Purposefully calm… I did not have a clue how to save us, but figured panic wouldn’t help. Plenty of time for that in about fifty seconds when the warheads flew up our ass.
I watched the pitiful movement of the Gaia versus the rapidly closing dealers in death on our displays.
“Sir.” Smith said apologetically. “Two more missiles have also just been fired.” She inhaled raggedly and flashed me a ghost of a smile. “They certainly mean to finish us off.”
I smiled at that understatement. She was TESS material too.
“Baskarian! Can you stop our tumbling? Use every bit of fuel you have… orient to and head right for the incoming missiles if you can.” The first two had covered half the distance by now. If I could get the ship nose on to them we would present a smaller radar signature—a smaller target. We might get lucky and make one of them miss us altogether. I could also move our people to the aft section. The nose had been fairly heavily armored recently. The heavier metal and the bulk of the ship’s body would shield the people from any initial blasts. Of course, once a single missile struck I knew it would wipe out remaining thrusters and tumble us again. The tumble would certainly not be even. It would most likely expose our side to those follow-on rounds. That was what the other missiles were for. They meant to finish us completely come what may. For all I knew they had a half dozen more birds over there waiting to see how many they needed to finish us.
“All right! . . .” I started to order the evacuation of the bow compartments when suddenly the Chinese station disappeared and a white blur replaced it on my forward monitor. Frankly my mouth was gaping too much in incomprehension at the gray wall that suddenly lay between us and our attacker to order anything coherent; but as I said, Smith was sharp. She panned our camera’s back quickly and brought the scene into focus. A huge mountain of rock had simply appeared in space. The rock lay athwart the line between the Chinese station and us.