by David Adams
Four tendrils was the total that had attached to her vessel, and Liao presumed there were four holes being cut into the hull – the flesh and skin of her ship – as she spoke. They were at the wrong angle for railguns and far too close for nukes. There was nothing else they could do.
“Master-at-arms, distribute sidearms to the Operations crew. We can be sure that this section will be one of their targets.”
As though waiting for her order, the Master-at-arms swiftly opened the gun locker in the corner of the Operations and began distributing pistols. As he approached Liao, she gestured down to her sidearm.
“I’m quite okay, thank you. I’ll take some extra magazines though.”
The man handed her two extra magazines and she stuffed them into her back pocket. Satisfied with the result, she strode over to Jiang’s console, leaning over and inspecting the woman’s readings as Jiang pulled one of the black nylon belts around her hip, checking that the pistol was loaded before slipping it into the plastic holster.
“It looks like they’re approaching from the top,” Liao remarked, pointing out a swarm of heat signatures pouring into the upper decks of the ship. “Dispatch marines to the grappled sections with instructions to repel boarders with extreme prejudice.”
There was a tense moment as four clumps of thermal signals, the Beijing’s marines which appeared to her to be puffs of white cloud, raced towards the Toralii invaders. Liao focused her eyes on the group containing her marine head, Warrant Officer Yanmei Cheung. The marines responded quicker than she had anticipated; it was heartening to see that at least something was going right for the defenders.
Melissa watched as Cheung’s team of marines made their way through the lower decks, climbing up the hatchways to deck two, making their way through the open and spacious corridors only seconds away from a group of attackers... and then, rounding a corner near food storage, the two signals merged.
Deck two was depressurized and unpowered, so Liao knew that they were fighting in zero gravity. The internal thermal cameras showed the warm glows of humanoid bodies, the bright flashes of gunfire and the occasional white-hot detonation of a grenade or explosive.
Due to the close nature of the battle and the low quality of the ship’s internal thermal cameras in that section, assessing the battle was impossible... But from what Liao could see on the bright, flickering screen of Jiang’s console, it seemed as though the invaders were gaining ground.
“Mister Cheung, this is the Captain. Report status.”
There was a brief pause then the faint hiss of an activated radio. Cheung’s voice echoed through the tiny speaker, weirdly distorted by the obvious helmet and space suit she wore.
“Dozens of Toralii foot-mobiles in red suits have breached deck two. Fu and Tao are dead; we’re currently engaged, fighting running skirmishes, trying to use the doors for cover. Loading! Watch that one to your right!”
Cheung’s voice was charged but her tone was even and controlled. Liao couldn’t hear any gunfire, or any sounds at all other than her voice and her heavy breathing. The vacuum outside her suit kept the noise of the gun battle to an absolute minimum and what was being transmitted, the vibrations of the woman’s gun passed through the suit to the microphone, was too faint to be heard.
Liao held the talk key. “Good work. Hold them back in that sector, marine, but if they push, fall back. We can vent the sections they’re in and try to throw them out into space by reversing the gravity.”
“They’ve caught on to that trick, Captain! The first thing we did when we saw them was close the decompression doors and activate the fire suppression protocol-”
There was a sudden silence, filled only with a faint grunt and the hiss of escaping air. Liao’s eyes widened, glancing down to Jiang, then at the radio.
“- I’m here, sorry Captain.” Cheung’s breathing had picked up – pained, gasping breathing. In the background the faint ‘sss’ of escaping gas could be heard. “I’m hit. The Toralii are sick of us closing doors on them... As I said, the first thing we did was try to seal them in sections and vent them; we had significant success, but now they’ve magnetized their boots. They... they have the same hand-held energy weapons that Rowe recovered from Saara’s fighter. They can burn through the bulkheads pretty damn quick. Got some melted bulkhead on my arm... it burned right through my suit. Hurts like a motherfucker, ma’am.”
Liao remembered Summer’s accidental demonstration, where a single blast from the pistol she’d found had half-melted a bulkhead. She had no doubt in what Cheung was telling them.
“You know the protocol, Warrant Officer; a breached suit means immediate evacuation...”
“Way ahead of you, Captain. I’m already on deck three, and- … hold please.” There was a brief pause as, presumably, Cheung received another transmission. Then Liao’s radio crackled again.
“Captain! My men tell me the boarding parties have barricaded themselves inside sector four, deck one. They’re using their weapons to burn through the floor!”
Liao swore silently. She hadn’t expected this kind of manoeuvre. The ship was long and thin, so burning through the decks wouldn’t take much time.
Sector four was about three rooms away from Operations, as well.
“Cheung, how long until they’re through the hull? That section is practically right above where I’m standing...”
“Not sure, Captain, I can’t see them. I’m making my way back to the lower decks with several other wounded marines.”
Liao checked her sidearm. She knew that in moments the Toralii could be on top of them. She turned, calling out to the rest of the Operations crew.
“Attention! This room is about to be breached by the Toralii. Commander Iraj, verify the seal on the decompression doors. All hands check your sidearms.”
Liao’s pistol slid into her hand, and she gave a firm nod as she watched other crewman doing the same. She checked once again that it was loaded, glancing around the room.
Summer had her pen in one hand and pistol in the other. She looked like she might wet herself, and her hand was shaking so much that Liao considering taking the pistol off her. In contrast, Saara, composed and stoic as ever, merely held her pistol comfortably in both hands.
She met the Toralii woman’s gaze, giving a silent nod, then looked towards the hatchway to Operations.
Jiang moved to her side, putting her hand on Liao’s shoulder. “The Toralii are on this deck, Captain. They’re in the corridor...”
There was a faint hiss, and the outside edges of the sealed decompression door emitted a faint red glow as the Toralii slowly began to burn their way in from the other side.
Chapter XV
“The Home Field Advantage”
*****
Operations
TFR Beijing
They had done all they could. There was now nothing to do but wait as the Toralii slowly burned their way through the decompression door that sealed off Operations from the rest of the ship. Liao and the rest of the Operations crew were crouched behind their consoles, weapons trained on the door, ready to defend their posts.
Normally internal defence would be left to the marines, but this time there would be no help from them. Every last one of the Beijing’s marines had already been dispatched to battles all over the ship. Many were wounded, like Cheung, or were not answering their radios; Liao had to assume they were dead.
And now the Toralii were here, at the doorstep to the very heart of the Beijing.
Liao checked, for the third time, that her weapon was ready. A swift glance around the room showed that the Operations crew had their weapons drawn, ready to fight off the invaders.
Slipping the internal communications headset back over her head, Liao pressed the talk key. “Captain Liao to Warrant Officer Cheung.”
Laboured breathing came through the earpiece, and when Cheung spoke, her voice didn’t have the same muffling it did before. Additionally, Liao could hear shouting and movement in the backgro
und; she surmised that, with her suit breached, Cheung had found a pressurized section and taken off her helmet.
“Cheung here; what can I do for you, Captain?”
Liao gave a slight grin, watching the corners of the metal decompression door heat up, glowing a dull red as the Toralii burned through it. “There’s a squad of Toralii Alliance marines about to break in the door of Operations. I don’t suppose you have any men to spare?”
There was a pause as Cheung thought it through. “Negative, Captain. Sorry, all units are engaged at this time.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Liao thought for a moment. “Anything you can tell me that’ll help, based on your engagements with the Toralii so far?”
“Don’t let them shoot you.”
Liao couldn’t help but chuckle at that.
“Also,” offered Cheung, “normal rounds work, but the full metal jacket, armour piercing rounds work better. Tao had a magazine of them and they worked wonders till he ran out. Their armour isn’t very thick... or it’s possibly optimized to resist energy weapons rather than projectile-based ones. Pure speculation on my part there, sir.”
Liao nodded, even though the gesture was lost on Cheung who couldn’t see her. “We only have regular tungsten slugs, unfortunately. Anything else?”
“Not really. Sorry, Captain.”
Liao nodded. “Thank you. Liao out.”
She took off the headpiece, gently putting it down, then glanced across to Jiang. “Mister Jiang, how much of Cheung’s security report did you read?”
Jiang looked back to her Captain, shrugging her shoulders. “Most of it, why?”
Liao’s grin spread slightly. “Okay, well, here’s the plan. Cheung came up with it. You see that section of the deck plate there, right in front of the door?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Alright, well, the moment those motherfuckers step through that door... amp up the voltage to the gravity-plating. Just give it everything you can, and just on that one plate. It should disable them.”
By now the door was red hot and sagging. Jiang nodded, tapping away at her console. “That’s a nice trick, Captain! Ready when you are!”
Right on cue, the door sagged just a little more; the sound of the Toralii burning through the metal stopped, and instead was replaced by a series of crack crack crack noises as the Toralii fired at it with their firearms.
The door, severely weakened by the heat of their cutting devices, sagged and fell inwards. Three of the red-suited Toralii swarmed into the room...
… and fell directly onto their faces, unable to move, pulled down by the suddenly increased weight of their own suits.
There was a ripple of gunfire throughout the whole room as the Operations crew opened up on the downed Toralii, a hail of bullets whizzing through the air as they smashed into the Toralii’s armoured suits, cracking and breaking them. From the leaks, white plumes of oxygen sprayed out from the bullet holes, soon followed by spurts of dark purple Toralii blood.
The barrage ceased. There was a brief pause, punctuated by the click-click of reloading weapons and the occasional rattle of spent cartridges rolling loose on the floor. The remaining six Toralii hovered outside the door, as though cautiously examining the situation, their weapons raised.
And then they returned fire. Their rifle-like weapons made a loud crack-crack as they launched a barrage of rounds into Operations, the projectiles cutting through the air like swarms of angry locusts. Shouts and cries of alarm rang out and Liao ducked behind her console for cover, clasping her hands over her ears to quiet the terrible din.
The barrage abated and Liao broke cover, aiming her pistol at the doorway. Although the Toralii had not stepped through, aside from the ones who lay broken and pinned to the floor, she could see they had an excellent firing solution to almost all of the room. She fired off the last of the rounds in her magazine, unsure if she’d hit anything, and then ducked back behind cover.
Liao thumbed the magazine release of her pistol, letting the depleted clip fall to the deck with a clatter. Reaching behind her, she yanked out the first of her spare clips and loaded it into the magazine slot, then flicked the slide release and let the weapon push the first round into the breach with a click. Instinctively – an instinct created by years of training – she glanced to see that the safety was off.
More gunfire from the human defenders reached her ears. Liao risked a peek over the top of the command console, only to be greeted by a withering barrage of Toralii fire which tore gouges out of the console she was hiding behind. Ducking back Liao glanced over at Summer, whom she saw crouched in fear behind her chair. Judging by the absence of brass shells around her, Liao doubted she’d fired her weapon at all.
“Summer! Summer, you have to return fire... Give me a little cover, so I can lay some heat down on the Toralii!”
The red-headed woman stared at her with wild, frightened eyes. Her hands were shaking so much that Liao doubted she could hit anything if she tried. “I- I can’t! I can’t! There’s too much, too many bullets or whatever, fuck! Fucking fuck!”
Liao swore then called out across Operations. “Saara! Saara, can you hear me?”
[“Yes, Captain!”] Saara’s words were partially cut off by the noise of another spray of fire from the Toralii soldiers. Once it died down, she continued, [“...What are your orders, Captain Liao?”]
Before Liao could answer, there were shouts, angry and confused shouts, from the Toralii outside. [“Who speaks our language? Identify yourself!”]
Saara’s voice boomed in the cramped Operations room. [“I am Airmaiden Saara of the Telvan, and these humans are in my care! Withdraw immediately!”]
A low, vicious chuckle echoed throughout the corridor beyond Operations, amplified by some kind of device. Liao recognized the voice as Warbringer Avaran, the commander of the ship they had attacked. The voice, judging by the strained, tinny quality it had, was clearly a transmission being relayed through some kind of speaker. Liao wondered if the Toralii commander was listening to the battle remotely.
[“What a poor decision to side with the aliens, Airmaiden. The Telvan always were filthy cowards and bleeding hearts; there are reasons they only undertake surveillance and scouting... They lack the fire of true warriors. I should not be surprised to hear that one of their members has betrayed their own people.”]
Liao called out from behind her console. “You’re still outnumbered, Avaran! We have two more ships in the surrounding space, and soon they’ll be close enough to target your vessel without hitting our own. Surrender now, and we’ll make sure that you are treated properly!”
Saara repeated Liao’s terms in the Toralii dialect that Avaran spoke. The instant she finished, an amused, dismissive laugh filtered into Operations, the Toralii commander clearly not even considering the option.
[“Amusing, but... predictably... we will decline. My vessel is more than a match for three of your primitive ships... The only reason we’re here is to capture you, Commander Liao, and force you to watch as we annihilate your species from orbit.”]
There was another low chuckle, as though Warbringer Avaran was enjoying some kind of perverse joke at their expense. [“I must say, it is one of the true pleasures in life... watching the light die in the eyes of those who fancy themselves equal to the Toralii Alliance as their whole world crumbles into ashes. Everything they knew, everything they dreamed of, their hopes and desires and ambitions, all laid waste in a matter of hours. This, Commander Liao, will be your fate, much as it has been the fate of so many others before you. Your precious... Earth... will soon be nothing but the shattered remnants of your various civilizations, having no more life than the most barren of moons. Then, one by one, we will execute your crew, and then...”]
Avaran gave a dramatic pause for effect and Liao was reminded, once again, that she hated dramatic pauses.
[“...And then you, Commander Liao... Captain of the ship you call the Beijing, will die. You will be the las
t human alive; you will witness the end of your people... And in those moments, those final few seconds when you alone stand as an example of your species, you will realize that it was you that bought humanity to destruction. That everything that happened to your people was your fault. This will be your dying thought, as I drive my blade through your heart.”]
Rowe, somehow managing a weak smile, called out to Liao. “He sure loves to talk, doesn’t he?”
Despite the gravity of their situation, Liao couldn’t help but chuckle. “He certainly does prattle on a bit. Just imagine if he was here in person.”
There was a pause as, presumably, the Toralii commander issued orders to his soldiers. Then came a low whine, similar to the cutting device used to melt in the door. Liao, again, risked a peek over the console.
The Toralii were gone.
Frowning, she stood up, glancing around the room. As she did so the last of her magazines caught on the edge of the command console, snagged and fell out of the back of her pants with a clatter. Giving an exasperated sigh, Liao continued her survey of the room. She could hear the whining, but couldn’t see any sign of the Toralii except the dead intruders still firmly stuck to the floor just outside the doorway. Shaking her head in confusion – she refused to believe the Toralii had just turned around and left – Liao bent down back behind the console again to retrieve her magazine, an action which saved her life as a massive explosion blew out one whole side of the room, showering white hot sparks of metal all over the room like a swarm of angry fireflies.
Even behind the console the concussive force blew her over backwards. For a moment Liao lay stunned as she saw the heavy metal boots of the six remaining members of the Toralii boarding party storm into the room. The suits of five of them were coloured completely red, the rust-colour she had seen the others clad in, and one wore white.