"Too soon, Mitch? There are twenty thousand people on this ship."
"Yeah, and they haven't managed to take her out yet."
He stopped, realising what he was saying.
"What is it?"
"They must know by now they are done for, so they are going for maximum destruction."
"I thought that was obvious?"
"And how would they do that?" he asked.
She was speechless.
"Destroy the ship," Morris joined in.
"Yes, they cannot kill these civilians fast enough," Jafar agreed.
It was a cold and calculating assessment, but they knew he was right.
"All right, so they don't have any nukes or similar, or they'd have used them by now. How else can they blow this thing to hell?"
"Overload the engine capacitors," said Morris.
"They have measures in place to stop that from happening, surely?" Parker asked.
"Yes, but if the control systems are damaged or destroyed, they could overload without restriction."
"And then what would happen?"
"With enough of a surge, and the engines on these barges are big enough for it, they'd rip a hole right through the hull. Do enough damage, and they'd vent everything to space."
"How'd you know all this?"
"You were born in Earth's atmosphere, Sergeant, and I wasn't."
"Okay, I get it. How can we stop it?"
"At either end. Reach the engine bays and ensure they cannot access them, or stop them getting aboard the bridge and destroying the safety measures."
"Fuck," Taylor muttered, "we have no way of contacting the rest of the Regiment. We'll have to do this ourselves. I'll take Parker, Jafar, and three volunteers to the bridge. Morris, you take the rest for engine bay."
Morris thought the numbers odd, but he didn't question them. He pointed to three of the platoon and sent them forward to Taylor before carrying on and taking a fork ahead. Watkins, Abbot and May joined the three of them.
"You know the way to the bridge?" Parker asked.
"I do," replied Jafar, "Did none of you study the layout of the vessel?"
He appeared surprised.
“Yeah, I studied it,” she replied, “but it all looks the damn same now we’re here.”
Jafar looked to Taylor.
“Hey, lead the way, big fella,” he said as he shrugged.
He stepped over the body of the Juggernaut and picked up his shield. It was buckled in the centre so that as he pulled it onto his arm, the lower half curled away from him.
“Those things hit like a wrecking ball,” he said.
“Yeah, well next time, don’t get so close.”
He turned to Eli with a smile, but she could see the concern in his face.
“I’ll do what I can.”
They passed through into a narrower corridor where the lights were flickering from gunshots that had struck them, and panels swung loose from the ceiling. Gunshots rang out in the distance, sustained fire from Reitech weapons. It brought a smile to Taylor’s face. He knew it could only be their people dishing out hell.
Parker stopped at a crossroads and looked towards the direction of the fire. Taylor could see she wanted to head for it and help.
“No time. We don’t get this done, and everyone could be done for.”
They knew their own suits would protect them, but that was just a few hundred lives, compared to the thousands who would be lost. Jafar had only stopped after seeing them do so and waited for them to continue on after him.
“How much further?” Taylor asked.
Before Jafar could answer, two shots struck the wall beside him, and he ducked back for cover.
“Those are ours,” Parker said.
“Friendlies!” Taylor shouted, “Coming out!”
He took the bend to show a recognisable shape, of which Jafar certainly wasn’t. A figure approached down the corridor; tall and confident and with a determined stride. As he passed into the light, Taylor recognised him as Major Moye. The tall black officer of the French paras was coated in blue blood and had a stream of his own dripping down the side of his face. He had just two others with him, one man and one woman. They were equally as filthy and blood soaked. They looked like they had been through a week’s worth of fighting. All three had soulless expressions that were so empty Taylor could see they had witnessed the kind of thing he would not wish on anyone.
Moye had always despised Taylor, and yet all that hatred he was used to seeing in the man’s eyes was gone.
“Where is your Company, Major?”
He shook his head. “Gone, all of them, gone.”
Parker gasped, as she knew how many he commanded.
“What happened to you, Major?”
“We…we were first aboard. We fought hard, but there were so many of them.”
He was distraught, and yet still held his rifle at the ready.
“So what is it you do now, fight or run?” Taylor asked quietly.
He struck a chord with the towering Frenchman who at first took insult, and then appreciated what Taylor was doing. He seemed to snap out of his weary daze.
“What is your plan?”
“To save all those aboard from being vented into space. Are you with us?”
Moye didn’t need to hear anymore.
“Lead the way.”
We are nine, Taylor thought, a distinct improvement.
They carried on until they could hear cries of pain and suffering. They first reached a single wounded woman lying against a wall, with a young child in her arms. She was covered in blood. Her nose was broken, and a deep cut ran around her forehead. Several other dead lay around her.
“Help me,” she pleaded.
None of them stopped.
“We’ll be back for you,” Eli said.
They all knew they could not stop and help, but as they passed her, the room opened out into a large communal room of some kind. Taylor was stopped dead and looked upon more than a hundred bodies scattered about the room where the Mechs had come through. Only a handful of survivors moved a little here and there. Taylor knew it shouldn’t be any surprise to him, but he could not help but feel shocked.
Never had he seen such masses of massacred civilians, since he had rescued Jones from the alien camp. It shocked him for a few seconds, before he was reminded of their mission and knew they could not afford another interruption. He looked away from the dead and dying, and onwards to their path through. He stepped over bodies and put it out of his thoughts. He forced himself to think of the living. None of the nine questioned his determination to keep going.
“How far now, Jafar?” he asked.
“Not far.”
Taylor shook his head, but as he opened his mouth to prompt his alien friend further on the matter, a pulse flashed into view and glanced off the rim of his shield. He ducked down into the cover of piled crates, and a number of other shots flew overhead.
“Is this it?” Taylor shouted over to Jafar.
“It is.”
“How long do we have?”
“I do not know the operations of this vessel. If they have reached the central controls, then we do not have long.”
“How long?” Taylor almost screamed.
“Minutes,” Jafar replied calmly.
Eli looked to Taylor for answers. He knew they had no time for a firefight.
“We have to go forward. No matter what it costs, and no matter what it takes. Any moment now, this could be over, and it was all for nothing. We have to go forward, all or nothing.”
As he said it, the two French soldiers with Moye nodded to each other and rushed out towards the enemy. They screamed some battle cry as they did, but it meant nothing to Taylor.
“Go!” he yelled.
The seven of them rushed out from cover and charged after the two who had led the way. The woman was hit by more than a dozen shots. The first two broke her damaged shield in two, and her armour took several more. Despite th
e injuries, she kept going and kept pushing to put one foot in front of the other. She took another eight pulses before finally falling, and her comrade fell soon after.
Taylor felt a bitter sadness inside for seeing their loss. He had never known their names, but felt the losses as if they were his own. It was enough to get them on the enemy’s doorstep, and Taylor leapt towards the nearest Mech as a shot burst over his shield. He did not stop and struck the first creature dead on.
Taylor felt the power once again that he had grown used to as the creature stumbled back and landed flat. He fired several shots until it was dead before him and then continued on. He could see the bridge ahead and two Mechs working at one of the main consoles. He fired as he ran, striking both of them in the back. He knew he risked damaging the ship’s systems, but the risk of not firing was far worse.
He drew out his Assegai and leapt forward against his next target; and carried on relentlessly when he saw one of the Mechs firing at Parker. She was pinned behind a console and taking fire from two directions. He raised his shield just a little, so that the bent lower half came in line with his head, and smashed it forward. The impact was enough to knock the Mech off balance, and it stumbled a few paces to the side before swinging its pulse cannon around for him.
Taylor jumped to the side of weapon and grasped it inside his shield, stabbing forward with his Assegai. It drove into the head and killed in a single blow. He let go, and the Mech dropped down dead. He turned just in time to see Jafar breaking another one’s spine over his knee and then punching through the faceplate to finish it off. All was quiet now. He looked around for Moye and found him standing beside them with blue blood dripping from his own Assegai. He pointed ahead, and Taylor turned to look to the rear of the bridge where a man stood frozen and terrified.
"Captain Dokgo?" Taylor asked.
The man nodded, but he was shaking and rigid as if unable to move. Another person behind him stepped into view, and Taylor could see a gun in their hand pointed at the back of Dokgo's head. Taylor didn't even respond. He knew there was little he could do with his Assegai in hand at such a distance.
"Whoever you are, this will not end well for you," he said.
"She's with, she's one of them!" Dokgo spat.
"Yeah, I figured."
The woman was in her early twenties and strikingly beautiful, to the level he didn't want to believe she could be on the side of the enemy.
"Colonel Taylor," she finally said confidently, "You have already failed."
He smiled in response.
"Says the girl standing alone. You haven't blown this ship. You blew your cover early. You screwed up."
"You still don't get it, do you, Colonel? Every one of us you kill, we replace. A hundred lives for the price of one of yours, is worth paying."
"I don't see Karadag coming back from the dead, or Demiran," he replied.
She had no answer.
"So what's it gonna be? How do you want to die?"
"Take me to your leader, and I will not kill this man."
Taylor shook his head. "I knew you'd say that."
He released the grip on his Assegai and reached for his pistol. It was drawn and on target before the Assegai even hit the deck. It crashed down as he pulled the trigger, and a shot went right through the woman's forehead. Her blood splashed out over Dokgo. The Captain pushed her off him and looked back in gratitude to Taylor.
"Whoever you are, thank you."
"They came here to overload the engines, you know that?"
The old Korean looked fearful, and Taylor could see in his face that he knew, just as Morris knew what their intentions were.
"Then you got here just in time."
"Hell, yes. Did they get access to any of your systems?"
"I don't know. I didn't see what that woman...thing touched."
He turned around to look at the consoles, and Taylor simply waited for information; he had no idea what he was looking at.
"I...I think...no."
Taylor already knew what he was going to say.
"Is there anything more you can do from this end?"
Dokgo shook his head. "You have to get to the engine bays and shut them down in person."
"Do you have any means of contacting them from here?"
"Yes...normally, but we lost internal communications when all this began...we need..."
"I got it, I got it," Taylor murmured.
He jumped forward and led the others back the way they came until he stopped, realising he didn't properly know the way. He let Jafar pass him.
"Lead the way."
Jafar moved at an alarming pace that the others could barely keep up with him.
"Think we can make it in time?" Parker called out, breathlessly.
"If we don't, then it was all for nothing. So there is no if, we have to make it!" Taylor said firmly.
Chapter 7
Captain Reynolds looked nervous as they rode on, with Corporal Berlin looming over them on the back of Kelly's truck.
"Relax," Kelly said, "she's the least of our worries."
"Maybe. How do we know these people are even friendlies? How do we know they won't just strip us all our weapons and supplies?"
"Gotta have a little faith left in humanity, Captain."
Reynolds said nothing, but Kelly was confident they were at least being led to a sight he was familiar with. They were on a straight road, and with no signs of a way off, when Kelly suddenly turned calmly in towards the thick foliage of a line of trees. Reynolds got anxious and sat back upright in his seat, expecting to feel an impact at any moment.
"What are you doing?" he pleaded.
But it was too late. They brushed the branches aside, and it seemed there was no resistance at all. Reynolds was speechless as they passed through a column of trees that looked like they had been grown as the boundaries of some kind of road. It was broad enough even for a tank to pass down. They carried on for a few moments when he finally got up the courage to ask.
"So this is the place?"
"One of them. There was always a chance Earth forces wouldn't be able to win in open battle. Just as we knew it when we fought on our home soil. Those with a little foresight planned ahead as much as they could."
"How many people know of these locations?"
"Not many."
Ahead there appeared to be another impenetrable wall of trees and foliage. Reynolds smiled, expecting them to go through it as they had the last one. However, twenty metres before they reached it, Kelly veered left through an opening. They began descending down an almost hidden route that took them under the surface and between a rock formation, in what had to be a man-made tunnel.
Another fifty metres, and they were in a clearing between rocks and thick forest once more. Two soldiers were standing guard ahead but stepped aside on seeing Berlin wave them back. Overhead a semi-transparent canopy stretched out across the trees that seemed to camouflage the position from the sky. Armoured vehicles were parked up and partially concealed around the opening, and they could see a bunker entrance of concrete built onto the side of a huge boulder.
Several of the vehicles had taken hits and were in various states of repair, with crews working in a relatively casual manner at the jobs. Half a dozen of the crew were at the entrance to the bunker; they were sitting about in chairs, smoking and relaxing. Kelly ran his truck all the way up to their position, but none of them moved a single centimetre. He got out and looked around. He found they were a force that appeared to be completely lacking in morale.
Nobody came to greet them or even acknowledge their arrival. Kelly got out of his truck and paced up to those sitting outside the bunker entrance.
"Who's in charge here?"
No one responded.
"I am Kelly, former Commander of the MDF forces."
"The what?" asked one of the women in a thick German accent.
Kelly could see Reynolds take offence at the statement, but he held up his hand to stop him fr
om speaking any further.
"Years of fighting, our colony is old news," Kelly whispered to him.
He looked back to the group and tried to identify a rank, although most were wearing overcoats and tankers jackets with nothing on them at all. Others wore civilian garments. It was no surprise; the cold was certainly setting in.
"We didn't come here for your charity," stated Kelly, "We were fighting these aliens before any of you ever saw one or had a name for them. We know what it’s like to be abandoned, and we know what it's like to lose your home. So don't give me that sullen, miserable silent treatment because I've seen it all before. Been there myself, and I didn't like it the first time. We came here to fight, and we will. So who the hell is in charge here?"
One of the men finally looked at them and spoke up.
"Right now, I am. The Colonel is wounded and undergoing treatment. Maybe he will make it. I do not know."
"And you are?"
"Lukas Becker."
Kelly squinted. He recognised the name and then looked a little closer at the man. He had never met him, but he remembered the description well.
"Captain Becker?"
The man nodded in surprise.
"Colonel Taylor sure told me a few things about you and how you fought together."
Becker suddenly jumped to his feet and extended his hand out in friendship.
"You knew Taylor? How?"
"Know him, still."
"Then he is with you?"
Becker looked around in excitement, as if he expected to see Mitch in one of the vehicles.
"No, but last I saw him he was leading the exodus off world. I have every faith in the fact he still lives. We know the fleet made it."
Becker shook his head.
"I hope he made it. I really do. But I'd still rather he was down here with us. No matter what we went through, when Taylor was with us, we always made it okay."
He took a seat back down beside his comrades.
"So you want to fight?"
"We do. It's all we have left to do in this world," replied Kelly.
"As acting commander of this...whatever we have here...outfit, I will accept any soldier who is willing to join the fight. But just remember, this is not a refugee camp. Everyone contributes to the fight, somehow or other."
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