by Evan Currie
The ithan looked rebellious, but Conner stared her down until she flinched and looked away. Finally, the Priminae security officer nodded with a damn near mutinous expression.
“Very well. I will . . . instruct my people,” she said.
“Thank you,” Conner said, switching back to her tac channels as she observed the state of her Marines’ preparation.
They were pretty much done.
She took a breath. “Okay, Marines, you know what you have to do. Execute.”
A second later, all hell broke loose on the flight deck of the crippled Priminae cruiser.
CHAPTER 24
► “Data is transmitting now.”
The commander of the boarding vessel grunted an acknowledgment, but he was distracted by the sound of fighting that could now be heard through the sealed bulkheads. The enemy was practically on top of them now, and he didn’t know how much longer they had before the battle spilled over into the very command center in which they sat.
He gripped his personal laser, his hand sweating around the pommel of the weapon as he looked toward the primary entrance to the deck.
Soon.
“Stay on that signal!” he roared. “No matter what happens, that information reaches the navarch. On your life, do you understand me?”
The technician nodded, scared.
“Yes Commander. On my life.”
A sharp bang made them all jump, and the commander twisted around toward the bulkhead that was still ringing with some sort of impact he couldn’t even imagine.
“Wha—” He was cut off when a second impact destroyed the hinges of the heavy portal that sealed the command deck off and blew the door open, leaving it to hang on a ruined but still half-intact hinge as it creaked loudly.
He started to bring his laser up just as the first figure burst through the breach, pointing some sort of infantry weapon in his general direction. He threw himself aside as a burst of light and noise deafened and blinded him. He fired back, and the deck descended into chaos.
► Lieutenant Hadrian slammed into the wall as he saw a brief flash of laser fire burn an afterimage onto his cornea. It had missed him, or he wouldn’t be alive to see the flash, of course, but he could feel the corona of the weapon even through his suit and started sweating in such a way that he couldn’t tell if the source of his reaction was heat or fear.
If he lived to tell the tale, Hadrian supposed he would blame it on the heat. Some people might even believe him.
He swung his carbine back around, firing short bursts as his target dived behind a console. Sparks and power arcs erupted as his weapon tore through the instruments, making Hadrian wince. But he refused to hesitate as he tracked his target.
Behind him, his Marines were scrambling through the breached bulkhead, adding their volume of fire to his. Everyone was a fair target in this mess, and they were cutting down Imperials with brutal efficiency just on the assumption that any of them could be armed.
The situation didn’t allow for hesitation.
Hadrian twisted, looking around for the Imperial he assumed was an armed officer but had turned out to be harder to track than he’d expected. He brought his weapon down to his hip, tracking his aim through his HUD as he slowly swept the area and began to move forward.
Dimly, Hadrian noticed a Marine take up position on his left, mirroring him as they both began to clear the area.
“Watch it,” he said. “There’s at least one armed officer left.”
“Roger that, Lieutenant.”
The command deck of the ship was cramped, with station and consoles jammed in wherever they would fit. It felt like he imagined a submarine would, back over a century ago, and that struck Hadrian as being odd. There was no reason to build a ship this small if you needed so much gear. Size was relative in a spaceship, especially at the technical level of the Priminae or Empire.
Even the Rogues had more room than this ship did, and if the command team was this cramped, Hadrian didn’t want to think about how much the crew must have been packed in.
A flicker of motion caught his eye, and Hadrian twisted just in time to see the officer he’d missed earlier appear, his weapon swinging in the general direction of him and the Marine.
“Get down!” Hadrian called as he threw himself into the Marine. Slamming into the power-augmenting armor was rather like trying to body check a brick wall, but this time the wall lost.
As the Marine toppled forward, a laser flash burned into Hadrian’s eyes, and a searing heat engulfed his senses before everything went black for the young lieutenant.
► The commander cursed as he saw his beam miss, the target having been pushed clear at the last possible moment. He barely had time to consider the consequences of his action, though, before no less than three of the armor-clad soldiers spun in his direction and opened fire.
Hammer blows seemed to fall upon him, driving him back to the deck as the world exploded around him.
He tried to move, but it seemed like half his body didn’t want to respond. He felt like the world had gotten darker and quieter, that everything was somehow farther away than it had been.
With all that he could muster, the commander flipped himself over and used what limbs would follow his orders to drag himself to the cover of the closest console. He didn’t feel any pain, just an overwhelming frustration as he was disconnected more and more from his own body.
Grunting with the exertion, but not noticing either, the commander propped himself up enough so that he could see the communications console and confirm that the signal had been sent. A glance was enough to comfort him.
Mission accomplished, Navarch.
He keyed in his own command override and fell back to the ground as the men in the dark armor charged up to him with weapons in hand.
How odd, the commander thought as he looked up at the barrels of the weapons that he knew were so close yet appeared so far away. I thought dying would hurt more.
A soft rattle escaped his throat as he slumped in place, his laser falling from limp hands.
► “Target down!” a private called as he kicked the laser away from the officer’s limp hand, glancing over his shoulder. “How’s the LT?”
“We need to get him to a corpsman, stat!” the Marine kneeling over the fallen lieutenant called back. “Beam missed him, but his light armor couldn’t take the flash off the bulkhead. He’s burned pretty bad.”
“Shit,” the private swore, looking around. “What do we do?”
“Take your lieutenant back,” the Priminae security chief said as he picked his way through the deck and checked the surroundings.
“We have a mission, sir.”
“And we will finish it,” the security man said, examining the consoles that were still intact, one by one.
When he reached the console the officer had died behind, however, he paled so much that no one could have missed it.
“What? What is it?”
“It seems that the commander here”—he nodded to the man on the floor—“has disabled safety features on the ship’s drives. It will destroy itself quite soon.”
“Oh shit. We have to get it away from the ship,” the Marine swore, leaning over another console. “Anyone know how to work this thing?”
He was stopped by the security man pulling him back with a surprising strength.
“You have done enough. The Tetanna is my ship,” the chief said to him with a half smile that made the Marine swallow hard. “Get your lieutenant and go. I will handle this.”
“Sir . . . I . . . you—”
“Go,” the man said with a tone that was surprisingly firm given how oddly gentle the look in his eyes was.
Then he ignored the Marines, turning to the console and attaching his hacking device to the circuitry. The Marines slowly backed away from him, still uncertain if they should abandon their position on the orders of someone not in their command structure, or even their world, Allied or not.
“You have until I
break these codes,” the chief said, not looking up. “Then I am blowing us away from the Tetanna, whether you are here or not.”
The highest-ranking of the Marines left, a corporal, made the call.
“Pick up the LT,” he ordered. “We’re clearing out.”
The Marines did as he said, and he waved them out through the breach, pausing only to look back from the threshold.
“Godspeed, Chief.” He nodded to the man standing his last watch.
A nod was all he got in return before the corporal turned and began running down the hall.
► Leif swore when the smoke canisters landed in their midst, spewing their thick white payload into the air, occluding visibility and, far more importantly, laser fire.
“Stand ready,” he bellowed. “They will be coming soon!”
“Centure!” the comm officer called. “The signal is degrading!”
“What? No!” Leif snapped. “Do what you must, but do not lose that connection!”
The man swallowed but nodded as he turned back to his gear. “I . . . I can perhaps use the ship’s power to boost the connection.”
“Do it. Do it fast!” Leif yelled, turning to the others. “Protect him to the last. The signal must go through.”
He couldn’t tell what his men had thought of the order as the smoke was now completely enveloping him and them, but it didn’t matter. They would do their jobs, or else.
A rapid-fire series of explosions tore around them, smaller than he’d expected from the enemy, but enough to rattle him and his men as chunks of metal rained down and spattered off their armor. It was not particularly damaging, but the effect was incredibly distracting, and he found himself uncertain where he should be focusing his attentions.
What are they doing? he wondered briefly. He knew they had better weapons than this. Was there more to the situation than he could see?
He gripped his infantry laser tightly. In the end, it no longer mattered. This would be their last battle of this mission, no matter how it ended.
► Rider glumly checked his magazine, grimacing as he counted the remaining rounds.
“Down to twenty-eight. You guys?”
“Fourteen,” Dow answered.
“Got a full thirty-five. I’m good to go,” Ram told them with forced cheerfulness.
Kensey inhaled, favoring his left side where the heat of an enemy laser had managed to overload his armor and scorch him despite having actually missed. “I’ve got twenty-two myself.”
“When the colonel makes her move, we’ll hit them again,” Rider decided. “Ram, swap mags with Kensey. Ken, you’re designated marksman for this one.”
Ramirez silently ejected his full mag and passed it off to the injured Marine in exchange for the partial, which he slapped into his receiver with practiced ease.
“And the rest of us?” Ram asked calmly.
Rider risked a glance down the hall, noting the smoke billowing around the area. It was being blown around a bit by the frag twenties, but was still covering almost the entire group of Imperial troops.
“We run our ragged asses down there as fast and quiet as we can,” he said, “and then we kill them all. Any objections?”
The others looked at each other, only Kensey grimacing as he could barely stand, let alone run, and he hated the idea of watching from the sidelines even if he would also be shooting.
Dow and Ram, however, simply replied with two words.
“Recon, oorah!”
► Leif was tensely waiting for the attack when a blur of motion from the opposite direction caught his attention. He twisted to look through the thinner smoke to the rear and saw three men sprinting toward his position.
“Watch the flank!” he ordered, gesturing wildly to get some of his men to redirect their focus.
Three did, stepping out of the smoke enough to clear their lasers.
A single crack filled the air for each man, and all three went down with a rapidity that made Leif blink.
He could barely see a fourth figure lying on the ground behind the charging men. He’d only seen him due to the flash of his weapon as it fired, and he was impressed despite himself. The skill needed to kill three men with three shots while firing through your own moving comrades spoke of either supreme confidence or complete uncaring toward your own. The fact that he’d struck his targets seemed to indicate the former.
Leif was just about to order more men to cover the flank, but then the volume of fire from the other side erupted into a maelstrom of death.
► Rider waited until he’d closed half the distance to the enemy position, trusting Kensey to provide cover. It wasn’t until he could hear the barrage from the other side that he took his first shot, letting his computer handle most of the job of firing the weapon.
His rifle began to bark sharply in a steady staccato as the computer took the data from his HUD and calculated angles before instructing the rifle exactly when the right time to speak had come. He still had to aim it himself—the rifle wasn’t on a computer-controlled gimbal or the like—but the computer had taken over the duties of the trigger.
Imperials fell from the steady volume of fire he and his team laid in, but through that smoke, there was only so much even a computer could do. More rounds missed than hit. Before they were at the edge of the smoke, he was out of ammo, and he knew that the others had run out seconds earlier.
Rider didn’t pause in his stride as he let the weapon clatter to the deck, drawing his sidearm with his right hand, his left sliding the recon-issue Kanto fighting knife.
He grinned as he entered the smoke, thinking about how many people had argued that there was no point equipping a modern Marine with a fighting knife. He had always come down on the other side of that argument.
Time to find out who was right.
The thick white smoke enveloped them, and then they could see nothing but vague, ghostly shapes around them.
► “Move in!” The sergeant’s order was hardly needed as the Marines charged the smoke, firing to keep the enemy’s head down.
They’d scratched up everything they had left for one last move, and while he knew the colonel wished they had more, they would make do.
Laser flashes could be seen from inside the smoke, and even as attenuated as they were, the infantry weapons of the Empire retained enough power to cook Marine-augmenting armor at such close ranges of engagement.
Three men went down, their armor on fire, and the sergeant grimaced but didn’t slow as he replied with his carbine.
“This is where this ends!” he called. “Take them, Marines!”
A carbine firing on his right caught his eye, and the sergeant glanced to one side as he recognized the icon that represented the firer on his HUD.
“Colonel,” he said, forcing his voice to be conversational as he kept his attention on the fight, not pausing in his advance. “Would you mind telling me what you think you’re doing?”
“I believe that should be obvious, Sergeant,” Conner told him, firing more rounds into the smoke.
“Begging your colonel’s pardon, ma’am,” he said in a genial tone that held a ridge of tension that had nothing to do with the battle, “but are you out of your mind? You’re in command, ma’am. Your place is under cover, directing this mess.”
They were almost to the smoke then, and the colonel just laughed at him.
“Direct a fight through occlusion smoke, Sergeant? Really?”
She had a point, he supposed, not that he’d ever admit it. As they entered the smoke, all their gear lost resolution at the best. Most stopped working entirely, and in a second, they were blind fighting.
Please don’t let any of us frag the colonel, the sergeant thought, moaning as he went about his duties and tried not to think too hard about his superior officer trying to get herself killed.
► Misrem shrieked as she lost another destroyer. The screen that had protected her cruisers was now looking rather ragged, but it had largely done its job.
Other than the initial damage from the enemy destroyer unleashing those insane weapons from point-blank range, most of her heavier vessels were still intact, if bleeding atmosphere badly.
The enemy was in similar shape, something that infuriated her. They had such a deficit in numbers that they should have lost more ships than they had. The enemy armor was fiendishly effective, letting them take fire that would have destroyed any Imperial ship ten times over, but it wouldn’t be enough if this fight went to its ultimate conclusion.
The anomalous lead ship was bleeding gasses at rates she doubted were sustainable, even with the twin cores she knew the enemy cruisers shared with her own vessel’s design.
Nothing could take that sort of damage for long and keep coming back. Everything had a breaking point, and while the enemy was still more or less in one piece, as her own ships were, her ships were in better shape.
“Navarch!”
“What is it?” She turned to look at the communications officer.
“The boarding vessel has broken away from the enemy ship!”
“What?” She growled now, looking closer. “Did they recover the boarding team?”
“We don’t know, Navarch. There’s been no contact from them for some time now,” the communications tech said. “Last report was that the enemy was—”
He broke off as the icon for the boarding vessel blinked off the screen and, two seconds later, a flash of nuclear fire erupted on their visual scanners.
Misrem was silent for a brief moment before she made her call.
“Break from the fighting,” she ordered. “There’s nothing left for us here.”
► “Commodore, they’re breaking away. Maximum acceleration, heading for the outer system,” Commander Heath said, sounding surprised. “Do we follow?”
Eric’s mouth was dry as he looked at the damage reports just from the Odysseus and knew that, while they had taken the brunt of the fighting, it wasn’t much better for anyone else. They’d lost two more Rogues and more than one of the Priminae Heroics was likely for the breakers, unless he was mistaken.