by M. D. Cooper
Tanis addressed the squad,
The Marines all signaled negative. Sera was not in the med bay.
Angela signaled negative.
Elena replied.
The Marines signaled acknowledgement, and the squad left the med bay, moving toward the network detention center. The pair of scouts ranged ahead, leading the squad through corridors and access shafts with far less concern of detection than before. Twice they had to subdue TSF ship personnel with non-lethal force, but data Angela picked up on the shipnet indicated that third squad had not been so lucky; they had run into opposition near the brig and had had killed two TSF soldiers in a retreat to their access point.
Tanis pulled the feed from the combat net and saw TSF soldiers in light armor lobbing canisters of fluorescing gas down the corridor in an attempt to paint her squad. The shimmersuit’s active systems were struggling to camouflage and keep the particles from coalescing on their bodies.
The sound of rails and high-powered beam weapons came from behind, and Tanis checked the visual feeds, surprised that the TSF was using that kind of firepower on their ship.
She caught up with the pair of scouts and sprinted ahead of them, flushing a cloud of nano through the corridor—there was no longer any need for stealth.
Ahead, a pair of TSF soldiers rushed around the corner firing wildly. They couldn’t see Tanis and the scouts, but they must have decided it was better safe than sorry. Tanis let fire with her pulse rifle at one, while unloading a clip from her flechette pistol into the legs of the other. One fell unconscious while the other collapsed, screaming in pain.
She pulled a fresh clip from the pouch on her thigh and slid it into the pistol’s grip as the pair of Marine scouts fired focused pulse rounds at a group of enemy soldiers holding the next intersection. Two fell, and Tanis rushed ahead unloading another clip from her flechette pistol into two TSF soldiers while slamming the butt of her rifle into the face of another as she flew past.
Elena said.
Tanis swore aloud and then directed Usef to send two Marines back to first squad in the network detention center with new orders. She had to assume her prior communication was either intercepted and altered or was never delivered at all.
That brought her team down to just nine. Hopefully it was enough to storm the Galadrial’s bridge.
The pair of scouts had pulled ahead again, and they lobbed a pair of concussive grenades up a ladder shaft before rushing up the rungs and letting fire with their rifles. Tanis was close on their heels and provided covering fire as they subdued a squad of TSF soldiers. The battle was pitched and brief. Disoriented by the grenades, the enemy squad was at a loss and the first four fell almost immediately.
Then, one of the ISF scouts took a shot from a slug thrower. It hit his left shoulder and threw him against a bulkhead. Tanis emptied a clip from her flechette pistol in the direction of the enemy fire and cleared the ladder shaft to allow the Marines below to join the fight.
The first woman up tossed two more conc grenades down the hall leading toward the bridge while Tanis rushed to the scout’s side.
His shimmersuit was shredded where the slug had hit, and she could tell by the unnatural angle of his shoulder, that the flex armor hadn’t been able to absorb enough of the kinetic impact to keep his bones intact.
“I’m OK, General. I’ll be back on my feet as soon as the pain suppressors kick in,” he said.
“Good man,” Tanis replied. He couldn’t fire a rifle one-handed, and she couldn’t see his pistol anywhere, so she handed hers over. “Semper Fi, Marine,” she said as she pulled him to his feet.
“Semper Fi,” he replied, and they turned to see the last of the squad spilling up the ladder shaft and unleashing concentrated pulse blasts at the remaining TSF soldiers. “Besides, these Transcendies are a bunch of candy-assed fuck-puppets. I’ll be damned if they’ll put me down.”
Tanis smiled at him, before remembering that he couldn’t make out her features through her shimmersuit and gave a nod. “Let’s finish this fight.”
Tanis pushed out another batch of nanoprobes to scout the area. The ship’s defense systems killed most of them, but she managed to get a clear picture of the bridge entrance. An entire platoon of enemy soldiers lined the corridor, tucked into open hatches and behind conduit.
Unlike most of the forces they had encountered thus far, these soldiers were in powered armor. Pulse rifles would have limited effect on them.
Tanis announced on the combat net as she shared the feed.
Usef set two Marines to the task, and she looked to the rest and passed hand signals for how they would hit the corridor.
Ten seconds later, four Marines leaned around the corner and let fire with pulse rifles and flechette pistols while Tanis and another four dashed across the corridor.
She spun and let fire with her rifle, less concerned with careful aim than with pushing the enemy back into cover. Then they stopped for an instant, and, when the enemy leaned out from their cover to return fire, the Marines lobbed their conc grenades.
Even through her armor, Tanis’s ears rang and her skin tingled from the force of the blasts. She leaned back out and no fire came her way. The Marines rushed forward and checked the TSF soldiers to make sure they were all out.
Given the damage to the corridor, she was certain a few of the enemy were dead. Fatalities were going to make future negotiations difficult, but for the moment, her main concern was whether or not they had damaged the bridge’s door mechanism. She placed a hand on the panel and Angela rushed nano into the circuitry.
An explosion shook the deck and Tanis saw smoke rush out from the cross corridor where the mined ladder shaft was. With any luck, their pursuers would have to find an alternate route.
Usef said.
A fireteam of Marines rushed past her, likely ordered ahead by Usef to keep her from being the first one in. Tanis followed close on their heels and took in the tableau laid out in front of her.
KENT
STELLAR DATE: 03.27.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: TSS Galadrial
REGION: Roma-Normandy L1 Point, New Canaan System
Kent swore under his breath. The enemy’s Marines were good, maybe better than his own soldiers—they fought like veterans who loved their commander as much as life itself.
It was a sentiment he understood well, he also tried to foster the same feelings in the men and women under his command.
The ladder shaft up to the bridge was a ruin of twisted metal, and too dangerous to get through while under fire. His scouts had secured another route and the platoon was double-timing it through the command decks to get there.
He fired a round into the head of a TSF naval officer who peeked out from behind a console, pistol in hand. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, and it gave him no satisfaction.
Jenkins approached and handed Kent a small, physical data drive. He inserted it into a socket on his armor and read the message.
He passed their operative’s data across the combat net. Heavy weapons fire would still take then down, but if it came to close combat, their combat knives would be highly effective weapons.
The Guard soldiers secured the next corridor, and Kent advanced with his platoon.
THE BRIDGE
STELLAR DATE: 03.27.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: TSS Galadrial
REGION: Roma-Normandy L1 Point, New Canaan System
Three bridge crew were down. One was dead, another was bleeding profusely, and the third moaning in agony. Greer—now an admiral, Tanis noted—and a woman with captain’s insignia on her shoulders stood with weapons trained on Sera.
Sera stood with her back to the forward screens, an arm wrapped around her father’s neck. Her other hand held a gun to the back of his head, and tears were in her eyes.
“Why would you do that?” she screamed at her father. “You killed her—she was my best friend, the one person in this whole fucking galaxy that’s always—”
Her words cut short as she realized it was ISF Marines who had burst into the bridge and not her father’s soldiers.
Tanis altered her shimmersuit, revealing her face and smiled. “Need a hand with anything?”
“Tanis!” Sera cried out. “What…what are you doing here?”
“Proving that there are more people in the galaxy who have your back,” Elena said as she stepped onto the bridge.
With Marine rifles in their backs, Greer and the ship’s captain lowered their weapons. A pair of ensigns were crouched behind a console, and another Marine pulled them out and secured them. Tanis saw one crouch down beside the bleeding woman and begin to apply bio-seals to her wounds.
“You don’t have to do this,” Tanis said as she approached Sera and her father. She paused to place her hand on a console and deliver a dose of nano into the bridge’s control systems.
“You don’t understand, Tanis,” Sera’s face was a rictus of pain. “He fucking killed her, in cold blood. He murdered Helen!”
“I know,” Tanis nodded. “And you and Helen were made citizens of New Canaan before you left,” she fixed her eyes on the Transcend president, who did not look frightened, only enraged.
“Is that it? You’re going to charge me with murder?” he asked. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a fleet here that will keep that from happening.”
“Not so much,” Tanis shook her head as Angela sent a signal to the ISF fleet instructing them to disable their stealth systems.
“Oh, shit,” the Galadrial’s captain swore as the bridge’s holotank displayed the sudden appearance of ten thousand cruisers around the main Transcend fleet and smaller thousand-ship groupings around the L3 and L4 points.
“How did you build those so fast?” Admiral Greer exclaimed, awe filling his voice. “And where did you build them?”
“You’d be surprised what you can do when you’re living under imminent threat from a superior adversary,”
Tanis replied. “Plus, having picotech also helps.”
“That’s Orion out there in the corridor,” Tanis said and glanced at President Tomlinson. “You better hope we win this little fight. I’ll go easier on you than they will.”
The president’s face reddened and he shot daggers at Tanis. “You should have volunteered your tech to us rather than playing this little game. Now, look where it has gotten us. The Guard has penetrated thousands of light years into the Transcend.”
The sounds of weapons fire in the corridor intensified, and then abruptly ceased.
“And that’s that,” Tanis said. “Sera, you can lower your weapon. We can secure your father.”
“He’s perfectly secure right now,” Sera replied icily. “I’m having an internal debate about whether or not he dies. If Helen were here, she’d probably tell me not to blow your head off, Dad. Too bad you killed her!”
“Sera,” Tanis said calmly, “you don’t need me to tell you how revenge isn’t the answer. You already know that. The Transcend is going to need strong leadership to defeat the Orion Guard. If you kill your father, who knows what will happen.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Tanis saw Elena reposition herself in the same moment that Usef chased a man onto the bridge. He lunged for Tanis, and she pivoted, avoiding a blade strike at her face.
She turned to grab his arm, and he slipped away, shrugging off two pulse blasts from Usef’s rifle and swung the blade at her again. Tanis held her armored left arm up to deflect the blow, and the blade sliced clean through the limb—her forearm fell to the ground in front of her.