"This way, Nate," said Billy.
He rounded the corner in the tunnel, and there were his friends, moving as fast as they could and mixed in with the marines.
"Billy, that was a Vanguard. Incredible!"
His friend gave him an exasperated look.
"Really? That's what you're thinking about, right now?"
Nate said no more, and they continued to move down the straight passage, each jumping through a narrower airlock, barely big enough for the mighty Vanguard marine to have used. He caught up with them and jumped over the lip to crash inside the Mauler. The doorway gave the impression it was small, but in reality, it was just one of the airlock entrances that led inside. Once there, Nate could see the interior was big enough to carry anything up to a hundred armoured marines. Apart from those escaping the station, it was completely empty.
"What is this thing?" Jack asked.
Rex looked at him and laughed, enjoying the chance to get rid of the nerves and fears he'd clearly experienced on the station.
"It's a Mauler, like the Sergeant said."
Four marines jumped inside, one after the other and then moved back, making sure there was plenty of space around the hatch. Then another two marines joined them, almost crashing into the others due to their speed. One looked back and deactivated their visor. It was the female marine that Rex and Nate had helped.
"Two left plus the Vanguard. Who's piloting that thing?"
The last two marines came in and slid each side of the doorway, their weapons at the ready. Behind them came the bloodied, but still alive shape of the Byotai officer. He crashed down alongside them and dropped to the floor, panting with exhaustion. A marine deactivated his visor. It was Sergeant Perkins.
"Everybody in?"
The female marine shook her head.
"Just the Vanguard, Sergeant."
The marine gave her a grim smile.
"Okay, then, Private, seal up the door. It's time to get out of here."
Her face changed, and from where Nate was standing, he could see she was not happy with the order. Even so, she reached out and hit the seal lever. The doors clamped down tightly, and a high-pitched whine announced the completion of the air seal.
"Sergeant, the Vanguard?"
Sergeant Perkins tapped his helmet.
"SWD tech. Remote controlled sentry drone. It will buy us the time we need."
A private nodded in appreciation. "Yeah, I like it."
The Sergeant lifted his arm and pointed to the many brackets attached to the floor of the craft. One by one the marines stepped over them and then hit a button to the side. Clamps lifted up from the floor, and a harness moved in around the body.
"Cadets, get on the clamp brackets."
All but Rex moved to the designated spots.
"You, too, son, unless you want your head attached to the bulkhead."
He nodded to the metal frames above them, none of which looked particularly comfortable to crash into. At that moment, the Mauler unclipped itself from the station and shuddered as the final links were detached.
"We'll be away from the gravitomagnetic field in a few seconds."
Rex needed no further persuasion and moved to the spot just in time. As the clamps moved around his body, the artificial gravity produced by the station quickly dropped off until they were in the zero-gravity environment of space.
"Okay, people. Hold on, this is gonna get a little dicey."
The Mauler performed a one hundred and eighty degree spin and then activated its main engines. Though bulky, the craft was as nimble as a heavy fighter in a zero-gravity environment. They continued to accelerate away from the docking arms and towards the protection of the waiting ship. The marines had access to the open channel feeds from the Alliance ships, and even the external feeds from the Mauler; the cadets had nothing.
"What's happening?" Cassandra asked.
Sergeant Perkins pointed to the front of the craft.
"We've got three ships in the area. We'll land, and then get the hell out of Dodge."
"And the Vanguard?" asked Nate.
The marine did his best to look conciliatory.
"Son, the Vanguard is just tech. That one is expendable, but we only have a few control packs. They are not cheap."
* * *
DuFarl had never seen a battle before today, and with every second that passed, he was beginning to realise he loved it. The fear, the tension, and the blood all combined to send his heart racing. He'd wanted to do this for so long, and now the uprising had begun, he couldn't wait to do his part. All of that would have to wait, however, until the orbital starbase was secured. If they failed, the rebels would spend the next decade in a prison cell, instead of bringing in the great change they all desired.
Part of the wall collapsed, sending heaps of rubble on top of two wounded deck workers. Neither were armoured or protected in any way, save for their work tunics. Before the dust even cleared, the guns from the Alliance Vanguard Marine opened up again. These were not the high-velocity metal slugs from the Alliance's usual firearms, but the large, 12.7mm intelligent rounds. Each was hardwired to detect nearby targets, and exploded as it moved over the heads of those hiding. Nowhere was safe from the devastation the war machine wreaked. Those rounds that failed to find a target simply embedded in the walls, but just as many struck further back and penetrated into the attached rooms.
Smoke and dust mixed together in such quantities that many of the Byotai fighters were forced back to avoid choking to death. Yellow flames flickered off into the distance as one of the side store rooms caught fire. Two Byotai civilians rushed out and fell to the ground, both screaming in pain from the flames spreading through their clothing. A third grabbed a box extinguisher and doused them in a cloud of deoxygenated air.
"Steady!" said one of them.
The voice was calm, in the clipped accent of a patrician. DuFarl looked up but could see little more than a large group of civilians as they moved through the rubble of the customs level. Glass and metal lay smashed in every direction, and more than a dozen rebels were dead.
"Help..."
DuFarl dropped down as another volley flashed by overhead. Bullets struck metal, glass, and flesh with equal measure. Some cried out, others screamed from the pain. One fully armoured Byotai marine ran past and took two hits to the torso. He went down hard and crashed into the floor.
They'll pay for this.
DuFarl stayed as low as he could and grabbed the marine's arm. He was heavy under all that plating, but another of DuFarl's comrades from his class helped to pull the marine away from the open space. As he looked down at the injured marine's face, he coughed violently, spurting warm blood over DuFarl's neck and chest. He pulled back in surprise, but when he looked back the marine was clearly dead.
"He's gone," said another.
The leader of the ad hoc unit of Byotai leaned over and pulled a snub-nosed pistol from the dying Byotai's flank.
"Take his weapon and help the others."
DuFarl took the weapon, checked the safety slider, and activated the unit. It buzzed gently as it powered up. Some of his classmates were there, intermingled with the odd mixture of civilians and mutineers. The majority were clearly not full-time warriors, but one in particular wore the breastplate and body armour of an Imperial Navy Marine. He was no bigger than the others, but the way he moved and commanded respect made him the obvious leader of their rabble.
"Those with rifles, keep the enemy busy."
"How do we kill it?" asked one of the older Byotai.
The marine struck him in the chest.
"I didn't say kill it, did I? Now, take aim and shoot it. Do not stop until I've dealt with it."
He then signalled to DuFarl and the others. It was a motley group; with the only thing they shared being their race. Some of the civilians wore no armour; others had stripped everything from breastplates and helms down to leg armour from the dead. All carried a strange mixture of pistols, cudgels, and
blades. It was not particularly impressive, but as every minute went by, their numbers increased.
"The rest of you, stay with me and keep low. The humans cannot leave Byotai space, not under any circumstances!"
He looked back in the direction of the Vanguard. It was still firing, but now it was only shooting at targets that were visible. The guns unleashed long burst of flame as the barrels started to overheat from the firepower being sent against them.
"We have to outflank it, now!"
A small blast struck the wall, and a civilian was hit first in the arm and then the stomach. He staggered backwards and collapsed against another before both crashed to the ground.
"Covering fire, now, damn you!"
The fire from the other Byotai was sporadic at best, and DuFarl might have laughed at some of their ineptitude, if it were not his own life on the line. He crawled along the ground with a small group until they were on the left-hand side of the machine. From here he could see its legs under the nearest desk. The senior marine looked back at the group that were scared but still confident of victory.
"Youth! Where are the Alliance cadets?"
DuFarl snarled at the insult. He was old enough to be a regular soldier, or even to serve on a warship.
"They are all in that passageway, escaping."
"Very well. It is time to end this. With me!"
DuFarl picked up the helm from a dead Byotai marine and pulled it onto his head. He checked the pistol one last time and then ran around the corner towards the Alliance machine. Its arms moved from left to right as it tracked targets and opened fire. The left arm must have spotted them because it twisted about and fired. Three Byotai fell, and then something happened. The arm squealed, then nothing but a puff of steam or smoke blew out from the barrels.
"Now!" yelled the senior marine.
Nineteen Byotai surged from their cover out on the flank. Another six moved up to join them but scattered as shells struck nearby. The rest were now on their feet, and turning back would simply mean a bullet to the back, so on they went. Seven more approached head on, running straight at the Vanguard marine with little care for their lives. DuFarl shouted as he ran at the thing, his excitement and adrenalin overruling anything his brain might have been trying to tell him. Two more Byotai were cut down until they were able to physically throw themselves at the marine.
"Bring it down!" yelled a Byotai marine.
It might have been tall and heavy, but nothing that size could withstand the force of so many at once. Several of the attackers screamed in pain as the motorised limbs crushed metal and bone with ease, and still it fought on. Finally, it lost its balance and crashed onto its side. One after the other they surrounded the thing, pinning its arms down. Others hacked, stabbed, and blasted at the motors, joints, and less armoured parts. DuFarl took aim with his pistol and then stopped.
What's that?
The young Byotai bent down and placed his head closer to the metal body. It was quivering, like a mortally wounded beast facing its last few seconds of life. He strained his hearing, half expecting, almost wanting to hear the sound of a pleading human. Instead the sound was a beeping, and it was increasing in tempo. He lifted up to his feet and looked at the shattered machine.
"What's that noise?"
Another pair of civilians, not feeling confident in attacking their fallen foe, scrambled past. Both leapt at the thing and hacked away at the metal armour with their cudgels. The shooting had stopped, but the sound of violence, and the crying out of the wounded seemed equally painful. DuFarl looked down at the machine and saw a red light under the arm and embedded in the torso. It was flashing quickly and then so fast that it almost became continuous.
No...it can't be!
DuFarl looked and found the leader of the Byotai marines. He opened his mouth to shout, but there were no sounds. Instead, the Alliance marine detonated with such ferocity that it hurled those around, including him through the air. DuFarl was unconscious before he hit the bulkhead, and never even felt the heat from the blast as it burned through his clothing and flesh.
CHAPTER THREE
Alliance Mauler 'ANS Mongoose'
3rd Quadrant, Byotai Empire
The Mauler was perhaps the ugliest craft in the Marine Corps inventory, but there was a reason for its continued use. The four massive engines could lift a company of marines from a planet's surface, and then carry them up into orbit to join a warship. The armour was thick enough to allow direct frontal attacks against defended installations, and best of all, it was easy to maintain and keep running. The Mauler was something of an antique, a relic of the time when armour and engine power was valued over weaponry. Now its ability to sustain punishment was being put to the test like never before.
Base defence systems were only partially active, but already they were blazing away with guns designed to engage capital ships. Slow to turn, and with long reload times, they were poorly suited to hitting something as manoeuvrable as the Mauler. Even so, one triple burst of kinetic projectiles came close, only missing its hull by little more than a metre. The second volley would have hit, had the pilot not tipped the craft to starboard and then blipped two of its four engines. The sudden change in angle and power management spun the vessel out of the path of the starbase's gunnery systems. It was only a temporary measure, but against such inexperienced gunners it bought them a few more seconds.
"That was...interesting," said Lieutenant Higgins.
He was a young pilot, no more than in his late thirties, and larger built than most. Blood dripped from a minor cut to his head, and his Naval fatigues were only partially zipped up. Like all of the officers, he'd been caught by surprise and had chosen to do his job instead of wasting time with trivialities such as dress code.
"Get your helmet on. This is gonna get rough."
Both men opened the access hatches above them and pulled down the special Naval issue PDS helmets. Although designed as part of the slimline Naval uniform, neither had found the time to use them in the rush to rescue those on the starbase. The units would provide critical head protection in a fight, but more important they contained independent life support systems that could seal in an emergency, and provide oxygen for up to three minutes. It was enough time to fix a single problem, little more.
"Hold on, Sergeant."
With another tug on the control column, he rolled the Mauler along its axis and dove down to slip between the multiple shattered parts of the docking arm. The larger parts were bigger than the Mauler, but there were still hundreds of smaller sections, some of which glanced off the craft’s hull. One hit engine number one and tore off a section of plating half a metre wide. Alarms sounded, and Lieutenant Higgins punched the override button, quickly silencing them.
"Not much further."
To his left the co-pilot position had been replaced with a gunnery pod. Instead of another seat there was a semi-enclosed control pod, with multiple displays and controls fitted inside. The unit was slaved to the four turrets positioned along the front of the vessel, like two pairs of horns. In front of the pilot two displays showed a forward view much like a glass cockpit would, but without leaving the crew vulnerable. They were large and gave better visibility that would normally be expected on something like a Lightning space fighter.
Sitting inside the elaborate contraption was the gruff Sergeant Popwell. He was one of the marines that fought his way back from the station after rescuing the Ambassador and her family. Now he'd returned to take control of the Mauler's primary turret.
"Yeah, not bad, Lieutenant, you might make a pilot after all."
He banged his left hand on his display, right on top of a flashing red shape.
"We've got more problems, though. I've got three Byotai fighters coming right at us from behind. They don't want us to leave."
"I'm on it," said the Lieutenant.
The young man pressed a sequence of buttons, and the Mauler deactivated its drive engine. Almost immediately after that the manoeuv
ring engines spun it around a hundred and eighty degrees so that they were flying backwards.
"Eleven seconds, Sergeant. Make them count."
The Mauler continued onwards, and the pilot's displays altered to show the rear view so that he could see where they were heading. His current course put them behind the broken docking arm, but in eleven seconds they would need to pull up, or risk utter destruction in a high-speed collision.
"Got 'em!"
Sergeant Popwell might not have been a Naval crewman, but his gunnery was second to none. With the Mauler spun around, they had placed their heaviest armour facing the fighters, and now he unleashed the firepower of the four antique turrets. Each was fitted with a pair of Uprising era L48 rifles modified for spacecraft use. They unleashed 12.7mm hardened slugs that easily punched through the frontal armour of the fighters. Every five rounds was a special proximity high explosive charge, and after the second burst, they began to have an effect. The first fighter spun off to avoid the shooting, but it was too little too late. The armour piercing rounds opened up holes in the armour that the high-explosive rounds could exploit.
"Three seconds."
There was just enough time for another burst, and then Lieutenant Higgins rotated the engines and hit maximum boost. They pushed up from the debris, leaving one of the pursuing fighters to crash nose first into the twisted metal.
"Now we will take our chances in the open." he said under his breath.
Gunfire filled the emptiness of space around the Byotai starbase as the Mauler moved faster and faster from it. What had once been a safe harbour in the heart of the Empire was no more. The captured Byotai ships ran amok, striking without mercy the small number of foreign ships still moored there. Most had already given up without a fight, including a number of massive transport barges, and even a single luxury liner from Spascia that had stopped for repairs. The occasional flashes of light from inside the liner showed that a major gunfight was spreading through her many decks. The majority had been taken so completely by surprise, they had no chance to put up even a token resistance.
Star Crusader: Hero of the Alliance Page 6