Ignore.
To business. Vinter rapidly scanned the various monitor screens, confirming that the New Dawn troops were correctly positioned – not that it would make all that much difference, he thought bleakly. The interior of the Shuttle Bay was not designed with military defensive requirements in mind and so they were having to work with what cover was available. Defending troops were crouched down behind baffle shields that were intended to deal with thruster exhausts rather than lasers or kinetic missiles, or were seeking protection by simple dispersal, scattering themselves around the Bay, using struts or girders as cover. Most of them, however, were using Terra Nova’s shuttles as protection, one way or another. The shuttles were attached to the central hub at a hundred and twenty degrees to each other, facing forwards, sideways on to the bay door, so some were simply hiding behind the shuttles, keeping them between themselves and the door. Some had taken cover inside the shuttles, waiting in their cargo compartments, and would come into the fight when the compartment’s hatch was opened.
For all the good it would do… As a defensive position against armoured shuttles, each one wielding more firepower than Terra Nova’s total armament, the Shuttle Bay was a nightmare, and, by enabling Earthcorps to open the doors, Vinter knew he had thrown away New Dawn’s last chance of beating off the attack. Had done so quite deliberately, in fact…
OK, enough of that.
Vinter switched his attention to the monitor feed from the external cameras – not that there were many left now; most of them had been destroyed by the attacking shuttles’ firepower. And at very little cost – the leading shuttle was almost at the Bay door now and seemed virtually untouched. One laser mounting was only a blackened stump and there were three scorch marks down the hull, but that was it. God knows how many laser and rail gun rounds had been fired by Terra Nova’s defences, but, by the look of it, they might just as well not bothered…
And you knew all this anyway, better than anyone…
An unidentified voice over general comms: ‘She’s coming through!’
Vinter looked up, out through the reinforced plexiglass at the Door and saw the nose of the lead shuttle come into view, moving with a kind of ponderous majesty as it cruised through the gap, lasers and rail guns blazing. The New Dawn troopers were firing rapidly at point blank range at the incoming shuttle and, at last, were scoring hits.
But so was the shuttle. Vinter saw one of the Gatlings obliterated in a soundless flash, watched as the shuttle’s weaponry switched to the next target.
‘Second shuttle approaching.’
This would be Vinter Two’s shuttle; Vinter was certain of it, simply because this was the way he would have done it. Send in the first shuttle to test the defences, but it would also be the one at greatest risk, so wait until the second, so that he could analyse the situation and act accordingly. The third would involve waiting too long – if things weren’t going according to plan, it might be too late to correct the situation by then.
‘Second shuttle incoming.’
And there she was, coming through with a higher velocity than the first, but with retro thrusters firing continuously to slow her down, her weapons targeting Terra Nova’s shuttles. No – just one of them, Vinter realised suddenly – they were focused on U Thant, the nearest to the door.
‘Shuttle One accelerating.’
Shit, he was right – the lead shuttle was increasing speed, heading straight towards the central hub. No, not at the hub, but at U Thant, the nearest UN shuttle. They were going to ram the fucking thing… Vinter leaned forward to the comms set.
‘U Thant, execute Code Three.’
After the barest pause, U Thant’s entire cargo hatch was blown away and the troopers waiting inside emerged into the bay itself, firing their weapons at the oncoming shuttle; moments later, the EarthCorp shuttle did exactly the same, ejecting its spacesuited troopers as it came on. But nowhere near enough, Vinter realised suddenly; there were no more than thirty of them when the shuttle could have taken five times that many. Vinter Two hadn’t lied – boarding had never been part of their mission, but, like it or not, they were having to attempt it anyway, even though they didn’t have enough troops…
Within seconds, there were ripples of weapons fire from each side as the EarthCorp shuttle came on, still accelerating, its hull now sparkling with impact flashes. Vinter could even see its name – the Enola Gay, for Chrissake – before the pilot section suddenly lifted away from the main body and curved away, using side thrusters, the two rail guns mounted on each side firing rapidly and continuously. Vinter spoke into the comms set.
‘Vinter to shuttles. Detach from the hub.’
‘Trygvie Lie. Acknowledging.’
‘Dag Hammarskjold. Acknowledging.’
‘Vinter to Gun Five, hand over control to me.’
‘Transferring control, sir.’
A second screen suddenly came into focus, showing a central target sight and a view of the Enola Gay; Vinter grabbed the joystick control in front of him and swung the Gatling around towards the pilot section – there was nothing that could be done about the shuttle itself now – lining the sight up on the plexiglass screen as he muttered ‘Come on you Spurs,’ and everything started to slow down. He pressed the Fire button and Vinter could see the individual impacts of the twenty millimetre shells as they slammed into the target, just to one side of the plexiglass screen. It was almost too easy – all he had to do was walk the impacts onto the screen, then hold the sight on that one spot as shell after shell smashed into it. The screen began to glow red hot, then suddenly it shattered and he could switch his aim to the pilot himself, whose visor disintegrated instantly but Vinter was already switching to the co-pilot as the section tilted slowly over away from him, out of control now, the shells ripping through its underside and finally finding a fuel line, the section disappearing in a fireball that seemed to blossom and grow in almost glacially slow motion to Vinter’s eyes.
Swing the gun round to another target… No; he didn’t have time for this. Come on you Spurs… a moment of disorientation as he slowed down again. Lean back, assess the situation. You’re supposed to be in fucking charge here, not just a gunner.
The Enola Gay almost seemed not to have moved – he had only been in Augmented Mode for perhaps five seconds, after all – but it came on now with a terrible inevitability, its ponderous weight grinding into U Thant, the shuttle’s hull buckling and distorting as the EarthCorp vessel ploughed into it – into it and through it, its inertia carrying it on into the central hub mooring spine.
The spine began to bow at the point of impact, further and further, until it snapped, the two interlocked shuttles forcing their way through it, so that they carried on drifting helplessly across the bay’s interior, towards the port wall, slowly rotating now in a kind of hideous death embrace. It might take two or three minutes for it to happen, but when it did, when that tangled mass of metal reached the wall, God alone knew what would happen. OK, the outside wall and hull were constructed with the possibility of one shuttle impacting from the inside in mind, but two of them?
He pushed the thought aside because there was nothing he could do about it, either the wall would hold or it wouldn’t and even if it didn’t, the Shuttle Bay was in vacuum anyway, so it would make little difference to the military situation… Ignore.
They’re not messing around – EarthCorp doesn’t seem to mind how much damage it does to Terra Nova short of complete destruction, even to the extent of risking possibly irreparable harm.
‘Third shuttle incoming.’
Bloody hell… Vinter looked away from the drifting wreckage, trying to fight off a feeling that everything was happening too fast, and saw the third EarthCorp shuttle looming into view, still on its final approach, but that wasn’t enough – his attention had been distracted by Enola Gay for too long and he’d lost track of what was happening elsewhere in the bay.
OK. The second EarthCorp shuttle was disgorging a cloud of s
pacesuited figures from its cargo compartment, firing as they came, joining in the battle between the troops from U Thant and Enola Gay; Vinter saw that there were far more of them this time, perhaps a hundred. Somewhere, a part of him was analysing the situation, realising that there would be more in the second shuttle than in the other two, because you wouldn’t want to risk the bulk of your assault force in the lead shuttle, but you’d still want to get them into the Bay as soon as possible, so you wouldn’t wait until the third ship arrived, so those hundred troopers probably formed most of the available boarding personnel…
It could work… Shit, we might just pull this off.
There were already a number of spacesuited bodies drifting aimlessly across the space, visors destroyed or with huge rents in their suits, in a mist of red blobs of blood that were already freezing. He could hear panicky cries and pleas for help over the comms system, but he had to ignore them, because he needed to know just when that third shuttle was inside.
Ferreira’s voice again: ‘Report, Vinter. What is the situation?’
‘Fucking terrible, Colonel – and having to report to you isn’t helping it either, because there’s fuck all you can do about it, is there?’ Vinter put the comms set down, his attention now totally on the display that showed the exact position of the incoming third shuttle; not quite in the optimum position, but good enough… He reached out for his comp pad, typed in a string of characters, then hit Return.
‘The Bay doors are closing!’ Shofaei’s voice over the system.
‘So what did you do?’ Ferreira.
‘Nothing, sir – we still haven’t regained control.’ A pause. ‘It’s not us doing it, sir. Someone else is.’
Slowly, the doors were sliding together. The third shuttle suddenly started using its reverse thrusters at full blast, as if the pilot had changed his mind now that the doors were shutting behind him, but it was far too late – they would have finally closed by the time he could have even brought the shuttle to a halt, let alone reverse course.
At that moment, virtually every fighting man on both sides would be sealed into the Shuttle Bay, with no way out. They would have to fight it out to the bitter end, there and then, because there was no way out for any of them, not any more.
This was the Killing Ground.
No one in here gets out alive…
‘OK…’ he murmured, under his breath. ‘Persephone?’
‘Here.’
‘It’s time. Repeat, it’s time.’
‘Understood.’
‘Good luck. Proserpina.’
He unstrapped himself from his harness and glided across to a separate console, hooking his foot under the seat to prevent himself drifting away, then typed in a rapid series of commands on the console’s keypad that took the Control Centre off line, cutting it off from any over-ride commands from the bridge. There were six monitor screens in front of him and now they all glowed into life, each one showing the scene in the shuttle bay from a different angle – these were remote gunsights for six of the Gatlings and he now had control over all of them.
‘Vinter, what the hell are you doing?’ Then: ‘Trabelsi–’
Vinter felt the merest hint of sensation, a kind of tingling, and knew that Trabelsi had activated the device behind him; he pivoted around, launching himself at Trabelsi in a chest high dive that sent the other man staggering back from the impact, but Vinter had wrapped his arms around him and was swinging him round as the trooper brought up his weapon, but then couldn’t fire because Trabelsi was in the way. Vinter pulled out Trabelsi’s sidearm and shot the trooper, aiming at the visor, which disintegrated into glistening fragments that were suddenly stained red.
Vinter brought the gun up to Trabelsi’s helmet and heard one stifled cry through the comms system – No! – before he fired a second time. Trabelsi’s body slumped and he pushed it away, angrily; it drifted aimlessly across the module.
Poor bastards… Ferreira as good as signed their death warrant when he sent them in with me. Pushing the thought aside, he grabbed a guiderail and pulled himself back to the console. He touched another key, locking the door behind him, then began typing in further commands on the pad.
OK… automatic targeting for four of them, manual on two… He took hold of two joysticks, one in each hand, muttered Come on you Spurs and began killing… everyone. Killing every poor bastard out there, EarthCorp or New Dawn, it made no difference now that he was in Augmented Mode, because they were all the Enemy, so he didn’t need to differentiate, not any more. OK, Ferreira, you wanted a killing machine, well, now you’ve fucking well got one…
In slow motion, it was just so easy… Line up on a target, fire, then simply walk the gun over to the next with one hand while lining up the second gun with the other, a constant procession of spacesuited figures being ripped apart by the shells and the next victim unable even to try and dodge out of the way because they were floating in space with no handholds to grab. Even those who were secured somehow or other didn’t have a chance because there was no way that they could react in time when Vinter could track the gun faster than they could move, so they died, because a breached suit in vacuum meant you were dead long before anyone could get you into a breathable atmosphere and, in any case, the shells would not just pierce your suit, they would rip through your body as well with the kind of force that would cause impact craters in armour plating…
Somewhere, he could hear Ferreira’s voice, slowed down incredibly – probably giving me the trigger phrase – but it seemed to belong to another world and it was irrelevant, anyway. There was nothing Ferreira could do, not now, not ever, because Kari and her UNSEC teams would be taking action now, taking over control… Vinter’s eyes flickered to the display on his own comp pad as he touched the space bar and an image of the bridge appeared. He could see Ferreira turning slowly around, a look of dawning comprehension on his face, with Kari standing about five metres from him, her sidearm raised, ready to fire–
And one of the gunsight screens flickered out – Gun Three destroyed, switch over to Seven – as he swung Number Two round onto the main jets of the second EarthCorp shuttle and kept Number One trained on two EarthCorp troops who were trying to take cover behind a drifting piece of wreckage from Enola Gay’s pilot section, but the shells smashed through it – and them – like paper. Retarget One on a group of figures trying to reach one of the emergency airlocks near to the hull, tell yourself that they’re just targets in a training exercise as they are hurled backwards, their suits disintegrating, Gun Two still smashing into the second shuttle’s engines…
And back to the bridge scene – Ferreira, now facing Kari, but reaching for his weapon, the fucking idiot, what the hell was he thinking, Kari firing, still in slow motion, Ferreira reeling backwards, Kari firing a second time–
And where the hell was Vinter Two?
It was only then that Vinter saw it: two of the rail guns on the second shuttle were firing and retargeting at inhuman speed. Vinter Two was doing exactly what he was, controlling them from inside the shuttle, and with similar effect, because Vinter could hear the screams and cries through the comms system as the New Dawn troops were mown down.
Slaughtered.
Carefully emptying his mind of thought, Vinter moved Gun Two away from the shuttle exhausts and retargeted the third shuttle, aiming for the pilot section as Gun One scythed its way through the group of soldiers who were emerging from its cargo bay. But only a handful of them, after all… They just didn’t have enough manpower, that was all there was to it, and now they were going to die.
The bridge: Ferreira was down, clutching at his chest, while Kari was pivoting round, almost balletic in her movements, lining up on another target. Gunshots that sounded like rumbles of thunder… Couldn’t they see it was all over?
And why wasn’t Vinter Two firing at him yet? He must know he was in the Control Centre, but was ignoring him – why?
The realisation came suddenly: he knows what I’m doing an
d he’s playing along with it…
Helping me with the carnage.
Because that was all it was now; remorselessly cutting down the spacesuit figures – don’t think of them as people – who had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide and who couldn’t even shoot back at their killers because neither of them had even shown their face. They hadn’t had to…
Jesus, is this all we’re good for – killing?
Back to the bridge: Kari and UNSEC patrolmen shooting down the Command Team as they reached for their weapons – why don’t they surrender? What kind of sense does that make to anyone?
Light sparkling in the upper field of vision and Vinter threw himself sideways as the panorama windows shattered and were blown apart by weapons fire, the bullets slamming into the seat he had just left as he rolled in mid air and grabbed a handhold on the side wall, pivoting round, his right hand already drawing the sidearm from its holster as he pulled himself into cover next to the window, feeling the vibrations of the bullets as they slammed into the armoured wall behind him.
Replay memory… There they were, two EarthCorp troops at two o’clock clinging onto a framework girder, barely glimpsed as he had dived to one side and only recorded by his nanotech, but he had a fix on them.
The fusillade of bullets ceased; Vinter pivoted round, gun in hand, lining up instantly on the left hand trooper, two shots into the visor, then track round for the second, still frantically trying to bring his weapon up, as Vinter shot him twice in the chest, the suit instantly open to vacuum.
It’s too fucking easy…
Movement out of the corner of his eye and Vinter saw the second shuttle beginning to roll slowly over towards him, its weapons suddenly silent and then he saw why – they were all training around towards the Control Centre. Vinter hit a key on the comp, then launched himself across the space between him and the door, diving through it as it slid open. Grab the vertical guiderail and yank himself upwards as the shuttle opened fire, a murderous blast of fire that reduced the Module to exploding debris in a matter of seconds, but by then, Vinter was taking position behind Gun Four, mounted thirty feet above the Centre.
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