“Come on,” Sylzoi heard the alien taunt. “Bring Buckshot some moh bleedahs.”
The sound of repulsors came around the corner as one of Sylzoi’s Flog-piloted microtanks rounded the corner, swiveling its rounded-wedge body straight toward the waiting target. The Flog piloting the microtank immediately popped the tank's double 7-megawatt blaster cannons and powered on. Standing in the open central axis hub, the giant alien took a step back.
“Thet's cheating!”
The microtank opened up as everyone taking cover on the sides of the hallway hugged the walls as hard as they could, opening up an avenue of fire for the deadly repeaters. The inflictor of Sylzoi’s suffering ducked back into cover, letting the blaster cannon fire tear through the air and smash against the far wall. One of the Stelkan support gunners joined in, cycling up his heavy Z-Tech machine blaster and filling the hallway with silver lightning. Encouraged at seeing the alien retreat, the Alliance soldiers started to regroup and leave cover.
“Stah!” Sylzoi snapped, waving everyone down. “Stay in cover! Let the tank lead!”
The microtank let up its fire, purring forward on a cushion of anti-gravity, plowing unceremoniously through a pile of warm bodies as it scraped through the cramped corridor. Yew hiding behind shields let the microtank, in its bullet resistant armor, pass before uprooting their protection and advancing again down the hallway. Sylzoi’s Golo bodyguard grunted in slight pain as it plucked the assault shield up and thumped along beside the microtank, favoring his injured arm. Sylzoi followed, keeping his wrist rifle at the ready as they rapidly pushed for the hub.
This was a disaster. Nearly an hour of clearing deck after deck, with less than five percent casualties, and then, in an unthinkable sixty seconds, more than a quarter of his forces dead.
This disgrace ended now. Sylzoi didn't care if this blue giant was a messenger of death. As soon as his microtank rounded the corner, there would be bl-
Sylzoi’s eyes seared as the flash image of his microtank popping like a cork from a bottle imprinted itself on his brain. The blast knocked the War Prince out flat, as it did the nearest three assault shield bearers. The War Prince's protector Golo roared as the explosion caught it in the side, bashing him against the wall. The force of the exploding tank had nowhere else to go in the narrow corridors and shot through the ranks, knocking the wind out of everyone behind. Sylzoi recovered quickly, head pounding and ears screaming as he witnessed the flaming microtank. The War Prince looked past the wreck and saw something that made his eyes widen even more.
The lean, brown-bodied harbinger stared down the sights of the Pennington anti-armor rocket launcher for another moment, launch tube still steaming. Unlike his brawny blue brethren, this avatar was calm, reserved, and composed, never flaunting or boasting. Just killing.
War Prince Sylzoi started getting to his feet, shrapnel jutting from his left leg, but didn't get far before the first enemy, the blue terror, returned. Right in his face. Sylzoi scrambled back, but not fast enough to avoid the smothering grip that closed around his throat and shoved him up against the wall. The War Prince marveled at the strength that lifted him off the floor as he stared into the merciless blue oblivion of his foe’s face. The giant leaned close, fingers tightening.
“Boo,” it said, chuckling as his fingers crushed inwards.
Then a Golo two-horn charged in and rush-tackled the alien from the side. The War Prince fell to his knees, choking as the two brawns collided and flew into the hub, past the knocked-out microtank. Both combatants came to their feet. The Golo two-horn beat its fists in its palms, snorting and motioning in Jagon challenges. The blue avatar chuckled and reached down to its leg, whipping out a nasty machete with a ping of metal.
“Youh gonna make a nice pair-oh boots, mate.”
The two combatants clashed hard enough that those around swore the floor shook. The brown-bodied sentinel started drawing a pistol to help. He was interrupted by a haunting, fiery battle cry as the War Prince charged, J'fin war sword drawn. The stolid sentinel turned, still balancing the Pennington on his shoulder, and raised his pistol; backwards. There was a gasp of a blade, and suddenly the automatic Wolfhound pistol was sporting a short blade bayonet on the end. Sylzoi raised his war sword with a scream and brought it down with enough adrenaline-fueled rage to cut a man in half. The brown alien met the blade with his braced bayonet, and there was an audible snap. Sylzoi paused to gather for his next strike, breathing heavily with eyes dilated, as the brown avatar looked curiously at the sliced stub of its bayonet. The masterfully-crafted war sword had cut through the knife blade like it was paper. But the alien's arm had bounced the edge of the sword off like a marshmallow and stick.
Sylzoi, riding a blood rush he knew as intimately as a lover, raised his sword and cut again. The blade nicked the Pennington as the sentinel moved it in the way. The War Prince pressed the attack, willing his body to burn to pieces from the inside out before he'd let up the attack. He came in with another cry and a downward slash.
The sentinel surprised him, moving in, rather than away. Sylzoi’s sword strike went past his target... and then he was flying head over heels as the alien turned his momentum into a throw. The War Prince landed on his helmet, feeling his head crack badly. The jolt was enough to twitch his grip, and the J'fin fell from his grasp as he crumpled, blood rush crashing down on him, suffocating him. The War Prince got to his knees, trembling as his blood boiled from the rush, and pulled his fierce-faced helmet off his bleeding skull. He looked up right into the barrel of a Wolfhound pistol as it put a hole through his nose flap.
The Vorch warrior felt one last, rapturous rush of glory pass through his body before feeling no more.
Chapter 50
Helen uttered something between a sneeze and a cough, disrupting her breathing pattern and jolting her out of unconsciousness. Images swam dizzyingly before her closed eyes, jeering at her like imps. Her throat rattled as she flinched, grimacing, already summoning the strength to awaken. Through the pounding headache and the silent ringing in her ears, she discerned bodies moving around her, shuffling and speaking.
“Oh snap, she's waking up.”
“I don't believe it. Dang. There goes the bet.”
Helen opened her azure eyes, blinking several times until the light dimmed in her tortured irises. The first thing she noticed was that she was lying flat on a medical cot, with a curtain around her. The second thing she noticed was Doc.
The medic was sitting at her side, a pair of blood-stained surgical gloves on his hands. He had a blank look of shock on his face. Helen frowned, face creasing, feeling like her face was a plastic mask getting crinkled.
“Where are we?” she asked in a hoarse, raspy voice.
Doc looked a little relieved that she was speaking. “Central Command.”
Helen sat up and looked around. She couldn't see past her privacy curtain, but there were two armed Infantrymen standing near the foot of her cot. They were both watching her, though Helen couldn't tell why. When she sat up with the help of pulling her knee into her chest, her hair avalanched across her shoulders.
“Were you two taking bets on my life?”
The two soldiers looked at each other and quickly backed out of the curtain, coughing uncomfortably. Helen scoffed, shaking her head. So they were being protected, not detained. That was good news. She looked at Doc, still a little fuzzy as she forced herself through easy stretches.
“What happened?”
Doc glanced fleetingly at the floor, looking at his bloody surgical gloves. Helen frowned.
“Doc?”
The medic looked up, like he'd been startled from a stupor. “What?”
“You okay?”
Doc nodded, reaching up and scratching the back of his neck, likely smearing blood on his collar. He seemed to realize it, and sheepishly plucked at his fingertips until he could pull his gloves off. When they did, Helen saw the condition of the medic's hands. They were in ribbons, raw and red from the Bans
hee's claws. One finger was heavily taped from the deep bite wound, swollen a dark colored. His sleeves were charred forearm to forearm from the shield generators backfire, and the stains on his chest showed he had first degree burns blistering beneath the surface.
“Spit...” Helen said, suddenly aware of how much silent pain the doctor was in. “I'm sorry Doc.”
Doc looked surprised, then glanced down at his damaged hands. As if remembering the battle, he looked away and folded his hands across his chest
“Yeah, fine, fine. Banshee croaked. You got bit. Managed to pull you back with the antivenom.” Doc coughed uncomfortably. “The others didn't make it.”
Helen stiffened. “Knight and the-?”
Doc shook his head. “No, no. Haven't heard from them. Talking about those privates. Doug, Levan, March. They were all killed by the Korvo's croak. We're the only two who made it.”
Helen nodded, feeling sorry for the soldiers they'd tried to save, but couldn't. After a moment, she looked again at Doc, who still had a strange look on his face.
“How did you resist?” she asked, curiously. “You acted all of a sudden like you... Like you weren't affected. What happened to you?”
Doc looked confused, then thoughtful, then strained, and eventually the medic shook his head. “I don't know. Last thing I remember, we were running for... I just, don’t know…”
Suddenly the curtain was drawn aside, and Helen could see the full extent of Central Command. Standing over the two ESCs was a half-dressed Sergeant Donal, half in Phalanx armor, half out, a BOAR assault shotgun strapped to his back. His uniform underneath was ripped and smeared like he'd taken a dive through thornbrush. The sergeant took an analyzing look at Helen, then heaved a deep sigh.
“You're alive,” he said, sounding neither relieved nor disappointed. “I wasn't sure, fer a while.”
Helen stuck her hand out. “I owe you one.”
“No,” Donal said, grabbing hold of Helen's hand and pulling her to her feet, despite the worried look on Doc's face. “I owe you. If you hadn't cracked that bastard's shield, there's no telling how many more of my men it might've killed. Putting that Banshee down was the best thing to happen to us all day.”
Donal stepped aside and waved a hand over Central Command. “As you can see, we haven't exactly had much luck with their other assaults, either. That Banshee was just the worst.”
Helen frowned, scanning the room. Central Command was the Orbit Angel's heart, whereas the bridge was the brain. One was meant to manage people, while the other was built to manage the ships. The former was a hub, loaded with management consoles and personnel positions. That meant CC was large, with two floors, and had its own medical facilities and a few security lockers. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough.
Somewhere in the range of two hundred Infantry were crowded into Central Command, practically packed from wall to wall. Wounded were laid out on the floor in the small medical station which was completely ill-equipped to handle this many casualties. What they needed was a hospital, and the Orbit Angel didn't have one. Helen could tell they had already used all their medical supply reserves, and were improvising under pressure. MREs were plentiful, but nobody was eating. Navy corpsmen were going from soldier to soldier, ripping open sealed, perishable rations and waiting for the chemical preservative to freeze before applying them to blistering blaster burns. The freezing chemicals in the bags were meant for keeping the food sanitized, but in emergencies could be used to stop blaster infections.
Everything was harshly illuminated with spotlights and battery lanterns, trying to enhance the low emergency lighting. Several engineers had stripped work stations and did their best to barricade entrances, but Helen could already tell, it would only take a cell blaster on piercing mode to go right through it. In fact, the only reasonably defensible positions were on the upper floors, overlooking the main deck. It was an extremely bad scenario. Donal could tell what Helen was thinking.
“I know,” he said, nodding up at the few armed soldiers overlooking the floor. “We're held together by spit 'n faith. Only firing positions are from those balconies, but they don't provide cover in return. Those blast doors get breached, we're hosed.”
That was an understatement, Helen thought. If the Yew were suddenly cut loose in here, it would be like a shooting gallery. Most of the Infantry had barely had time to get their uniforms on, let alone battle armor and gear. It looked like half didn't even have decent weapons and ammo. Donal eyed Helen and Doc out of the corner of his eye.
“Where's that charming little leader of yours? That Thomas Bracken fella?”
Doc shrugged. “You saw him last the same time we did.”
The sergeant shrugged. “Ah, well. If he's smart, wherever he is, he'll keep his head down. Then again, that ain't bin your philosophy so far, has it? Ya don't get a body count by duckin.”
“Can't make an omelet without cracking some skulls,” Helen said.
“That's eggs,” Doc corrected.
“You eat what you like and I’ll eat what I like.” Helen took a moment to think. “How many corridors like the one we came through lead into Central Command?”
Donal pointed them out, one by one around the hexagonal setup.
“Six, branching across the station,” he said. “The two biggest ones, we've barricaded and held fast so far against boarding teams, but...”
“But they're running out of ammo,” Doc finished, explaining. “Sergeant Donal's BOAR is the heaviest gun we've got, and it’s running low.”
“One single BOAR?” Helen confirmed, skeptically. “Surely you've got something better than that.”
Donal shrugged, a bit bitter at the infliction in Helen's tone. “We're in space, lady. We want to punch a hole in our enemies, not our hulls.”
Helen sighed, admitting the point, putting her hands on her hips and looking about the crowded Central Command. “Alright, alright. What other kinds of defenses can we rely on?”
“Hang on, I'll call my technician.” Donal turned and whistled through his teeth. “Schmidt! Front and center, ya filth!”
A moment later, a scrawny combat technician that couldn't have been older than nineteen pushed his way through the crowd with a datatech in his hand and a stylus between his teeth. He came to attention and saluted, rapping his fingers painfully against the metal rim of his helmet.
“Shir,” he said, then quickly pulled the stylus out of his mouth and saluted again. “Sir.”
Donal waved a hand at Helen. “Please inform this lovely lady of our defensive status.”
Private 'Schmidt' nodded and cleared his throat, consulting his datatech. “Uh, we've got, hold on...”
“Just give me the short version,” Helen insisted before the youthful tech could start reciting statistics. Schmidt coughed and closed his datatech.
“Well, we don't have much. Yew hit us pretty hard, and fast. We got about, I dunno, close to thirty rifles, with maybe fifty mags all around. We got more Caspers, about forty, but not even that many clips. Spent most of the ammo getting here. A few of us scavenged a couple enemy munitions, some boiler makers, three splatterguns-”
“Schmidt,” Donal said, darting his technician a warning look. “Quit it with that slang, you punk. Stick to the proper lingo.”
“Right,” Schmitt said, turning red. “Sorry Sarge. We got about a dozen cell blasters and three of those Xazzler pulse throwers. Problem is, seems like nobody here knows how to use 'em.”
Helen nodded, understandingly. “Don't you have anything heavier?”
“Sure,” the tech said. “We had a couple ceiling-mounted bricklayers... I mean, ah, Mason automated perimeter shotguns, but without power, they're out of commission.”
“What about that?” Doc asked, pointing at Donal's half-donned armor. “Where can we get more of that?”
“What, the Phalanx gear? Nowhere,” Donal said, grimly. “We have a dozen suits of power armor stuck inside impenetrable lockers. This was supposed to be our anti-boarding
team, but they all got wasted on the way here, and they took their access codes with them when they died. I was only able to open one with my override before the power went out and slammed the permalocks on all the others.”
“Crap,” Helen said, hanging her head and trying not to imagine the wealth of lethal firepower being dangled just beyond their reach. “That could have been really useful. Any chance of a resupply from the main armory?”
“Doesn't look like it,” Donal said. “Armory shouldn't be overrun yet, but every time I send a resupply party out, they come back moments later being shot at, or they don't come back at all.”
Helen turned to Doc, and the medic sighed, understanding her thought process.
“We're not going to hold out by throwing insults at them,” Doc said, shrugging. Helen turned back to Donal.
“We're gonna make a push for the armory,” Helen said. “Can you hold out until we get back?”
Donal snorted in disbelief. “You're really somethin', you know that?”
“Remind me later,” Helen shot back, turning to Private Schmidt. “I want a datapad with the most direct route to the armory in one minute.”
The Private nodded and started to run off, but Doc reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder.
“And get me one of those 'splatterguns',” the medic said. The Private nodded and hurried off, glancing at the sergeant one last time. Sergeant Donal stared at Helen for a moment, as if deciding if she was being serious, then shook his head and reached over his shoulder, pulling his BOAR assault shotgun off his back. He handed it over to Helen with a look of stern curiosity.
“I'm putting the lives of my men in the hands of mercenaries,” he said, disbelieving his own words. “God help me.”
Helen gave the veteran soldier a warm, reassuring smile as she took the lethal weapon from his hands.
Chapter 51
Outside, in the cruel void of space, the tide of battle turned.
The Humans had been relentless in their attack. And brave. And, ultimately, stupid. They had succeeded in locking horns using their new, proud little Grade-B fleet. But they were receiving a lesson in humility and pain as Rotan's Nightmare-class dreadcraft shredded their precious ships to ribbons. Casting a massive eye-shaped shadow across the captive starshield, the Saperiah steadily rotated on its side, feeding the Human battle group a steady diet of starship-killing energy from its guns. And it was taking its toll.
Prime Alpha (Planetary Powers Book 1) Page 58