“Got him!” Anya crowed as Jean de Vienne’s emissions spiked wildly. “Look at that bitch flare!”
Colgan nodded as Warrior’s computer analysed and displayed the new data. “Very nice, Weps, but he’s still going for jump.”
“Not for long” she muttered.
The flare in emissions faded revealing Tait’s ship had been badly damaged. She was streaming debris and atmosphere in her wake from the hits amidships over her fusion room, but the damage to her engines was the real deal breaker for Tait. His propulsion was down by a third. Definite hits on two of his drives then, Colgan mused. The emissions flare was caused by mega joules of energy being dumped into the ship’s drives cascading through the engine room into the ship’s power grid. Cut-outs and safety systems could limit but never prevent such damage. Enough damage could even force the reactors to shutdown entirely, or in extreme circumstances jettison themselves to save the ship from destruction. Ejection systems and blowout panels were fully automated.
Tait continued his turn and Colgan braced for the inevitable. He was going to attack. He wondered if he was about to receive those hypothetical missiles, but no, Tait attacked with his lasers. Surely if he had them, he would have flushed his tubes at this juncture. Colgan began to doubt Tait had any missiles left to use. Maybe he had shot his entire magazine dry.
Money again.
Anya re-prioritised her targeting and poured fire into the enemy trying to gnaw the hole in Jean de Vienne’s vitals wider and deeper. She had already holed the ship early in the action, but now she tried to bore into the ship’s guts, seeking her fusion room.
“Incoming!” Groves said, but the announcement was unneeded and too late anyway. Lasers were light speed weapons.
“Shields holding!” Anya cried and punched her commit button flat. Without pausing, she set up the next firing pattern in her queue and punched the commit button again, and then again. “He’s concentrating fire.”
Made sense. Warrior’s shields and armour were superior. If Tait had any chance he needed to concentrate fire on a small area. His crew’s gunnery was exemplary, Colgan thought unhappily. Shields were failing.
“Roll ship, continue action with port-side weapons,” Colgan snapped as shield failure warnings screamed.
“Aye, sir,” Janice at the helm said and Warrior rolled presenting fresh undamaged shields to the enemy.
“No damage reported, Skipper,” Ensign Carstens at damage control said. “Shield generators were stressed a little,” he added with a grin.
Colgan raised a hand to acknowledge the report. Stressed generators weren’t actually something to grin about. Stresses could turn into failures, but he didn’t reprimand the man. It was good that his crew felt confident. Colgan had time to wonder if Appleford was feeling as confident, and how the Marine’s fight was progressing.
Lasers and grazers slashed across the distance between the ships, each pinning the other under lethal beams. Tait’s ship was streaming atmosphere, Colgan’s seemed invulnerable, but then the first failure aboard Warrior occurred and multiple beams stabbed into her bow.
“Report!”
“Magazine three open to space,” Carstens said and sighed with relief. “No casualties.”
No casualties was just plain good luck. The missile magazines were automated, but often needed crew to debug problems in battle. The attack plan had been to use energy weapons, and so the magazine had not been crewed. Lucky. He didn’t like relying upon luck and considered using his nukes or laser head missiles after all, but before the decision could be made Anya succeeded.
“Yes!” Anya howled. “Got him, Skip. That has to be his fusion room. See the spike? Yeah... it’s his fusion room, definitely. There go the ejection panels.”
Colgan watched the huge hatches blast away from the ship followed closely by the core of Tait’s reactor. The ship staggered sideways, a reaction to the ejection mechanism and the core’s detonation some thirty seconds or so later. All fire was cut as Jean de Vienne’s weapons lost power.
“Hold fire,” Colgan said. “Keep her under your guns, Weps, but I promised Major Appleford he could visit Tait and explain to him the error of his ways.”
Anya chuckled.
* * *
2 ~ Old Soldiers Bold Soldiers
Under fire, Aboard MV Astron
“He’s gone!” Sergeant ‘Deacon’ Churchill shouted when his captain failed to respond. Appleford was dead and there was no fixing it. He grabbed the armoured arm of Perry’s suit and snarled in his face. “He’s fucking goooone!”
Captain Shawn Perry, 3rd Alliance Marines was in hell. This couldn’t be happening. He blinked at Deacon’s red face wondering at the rage displayed there. Rage at Appleford’s death? No, it was directed at him. He looked away and back down at Appleford’s staring eyes, but Deacon wrenched him around and away from the ghastly sight.
“Get a fucking grip and take command!” Deacon hissed over a private channel. “You’re in command, sir!”
Command? But he wasn’t supposed to... Appleford said... Perry swallowed. He was only a lieutenant last month! He wanted the Major not to be dead so bad he couldn’t think, but he had to. The situation was going down the crapper fast. Everything was FUBAR and Appleford wasn’t the only Marine to die in the ambush they had just walked into. Four good men had been cut down without warning, five including the Major.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way! Marines didn’t get their butts kicked by pirates like this, not ever, except maybe on Zelda’s ridiculous show. Anger burned in his guts. This wasn’t a sensim where the blood was added through computer manipulation. This was real life and death stuff, and it was time to grow a pair and make the killers of his Marines, his Marines, pay! He knew the plan. Appleford had been good that way, keeping his people in the loop. Astron’s crew still firmly held engineering and the bridge, so nothing had changed... only everything had for one newly minted Captain Perry.
He licked his lips and nodded at Deacon. “I err... sorry,” he said and winced. Don’t apologise to a ranker, idiot! Be commanding, be confident or at least fake it. “Bring Barnes’ fire team forward. Choose someone else to watch the back door.”
Deacon’s face flooded with relief. “Aye, sir”
Perry watched Deacon head off, and turned his attention to the fight. His men, his men, were pinned down just beyond the main corridor leading from their entry point in one of the cargo bays to the central backbone of the ship. Merchies like Astron were huge multi-million ton ships, but they were essentially just a collection of hollow boxes linked together and protected by a pressure hull. Crew quarters, engineering spaces, environmental, the bridge, and a thousand other things were packed in between and around the boxes and those fiddly bits all needed pressurised corridors linking them together so that the crew could work comfortably. The boxes, Astron’s holds, could be pressurised or not depending upon cargo needs.
His Marines didn’t need an atmosphere to work in; their armoured hard suits were self-sufficient, but the enemy was preventing them from accessing the backbone—the main corridor running the entire length of the ship that linked it all together. No, they didn’t need the backbone for its air; they needed it to access the bridge and engineering. Perry couldn’t do a thing for Astron’s crew unless he removed the obstruction and cleared the bottleneck. Unfortunately the hijackers were well aware of his needs, and had taken steps. The men up ahead, though few in number, had barricades and heavy weapons set up. It was one of those H3Bs (Heavy Tri-Barrel Autocannon) that had cut Appleford in half—literally.
Well, he had autocannons too in the form of Sergeant Barnes’ fire team. Barnes’ heavy weapons squad was the closest thing to artillery support he had on hand. Five men in hard suits equipped with stedimounts, three of them armed with M3Bs (Medium Tri-Barrel Autocannon) which were basically man portable versions of the H3Bs the enemy had set up behind their barricades on tripods. Barnes also had a pair of AARs (Anti Armour Railguns) in his squad’s wea
pon’s mix. Appleford had deployed them to protect the men as they dismounted the assault shuttles in the cargo bay, but rather than bring them up afterwards, he had left them as rearguard. There were reasons for that, not least the fear of structural damage to Astron should they be used. Perry didn’t second guess the decision now, but despite the damage they could do to Astron they would do worse to the enemy, and he needed them.
Sergeant Barnes arrived with his men and reported. Perry and the others were sniping at the enemy, trying to keep heads down and limit return fire. There was some cover to be had, and the Marines were making use of it, but they couldn’t advance. They needed a heavier barrage than an M18 assault pulser could provide. They were damn good rifles, but they simply couldn’t provide the needed weight. Barnes could. That was what his squad was for.
“Welcome to the party,” Perry said easing back and around the corner. Once out of the line of fire he climbed to his feet.
Barnes grinned. “Thanks for the invite, LT... ah, Captain.”
“We have a situation up ahead. I need it dealt with.”
“A pleasure to serve, sir. Just another lovely day in the Corps.”
Perry smiled. “The enemy has a blocking force armed with H3Bs,” he said and Barnes’ smile slipped. Not so happy now eh? “I don’t think we have time or room for anything fancy, Sergeant. In line abreast would be best. Just pour fire into them and walk it up the corridor. Before you say it, no I don’t give a crap about their casualties or damage to the ship. All I care about is taking Astron without more casualties on our side.” He glanced at the two halves of Appleford on the deck. “Any more of us dead is unacceptable. Clear?”
“Semper-fi!”
“Oo-rah! Get it done, Sergeant, and don’t sweat the ammo.”
Barnes organised his squad by placing himself in the central, and arguably the most dangerous, position before ordering his crew to lob sensor balls around the corner. Perry approved of the idea though the few he had used earlier hadn’t lasted longer than the time it had taken for the enemy to target them. The golf ball sized sensors had a number of uses in the field. On a battlefield under an open sky, they could be placed at a distance to increase the range of helmet sensors—a very real benefit. Here though, they were only useful in the way they allowed everyone to see the enemy visually without stepping into line of sight. Barnes didn’t care about that obviously, because he didn’t wait to view the take from the remotes. His squad followed the devices around the corner, and opened up on the barricades while the hijackers were fragging the sensor balls.
Priceless, Perry thought gleefully, determined to remember the trick. The enemy lost a precious few seconds killing the sensors, and Barnes’ crew took full advantage. Three M3B autocannons spun up and hosed the barricade. The distinctive ripping sound of hyper-velocity rounds deafened those nearby as Barnes’ and his men marched in lockstep playing their fire over every exposed surface. The two AARs seemed a mere sideshow in comparison, but they actually did more damage per shot than the M3Bs. The difference was hard to determine however. With barrels spinning at 3000rpm and spitting flame, the autocannons’ tracer rounds sliced everything in their path like a laser scalpel. The brilliant lines of light connecting Marines to their targets were a beautiful sight to Perry and his men. It said progress was finally being made. The AARs thudded repeatedly blowing gaping holes in walls, deck, overhead, and barricades. Where the autocannon rounds seemed to cut surgically through men and material, the rail guns smashed, hammered, and generally bludgeoned through everything in their path. Railgun rounds were solid slugs of destruction. They hit obstacles so hard and fast that they vaporised upon impact, converting their mass and the mass of the target to boiling gas and metallic particles. The flashes of light were bright enough to polarise helmet visors, darkening them to protect vulnerable eyes.
The hijackers couldn’t possibly hold. Those that weren’t killed immediately fled, or tried to. Barnes didn’t check fire. If anything he encouraged his crew to pour it on. He had taken his orders to heart, and besides, Marines loved kicking arse. Killing the killers of Marines? Bonus! His squad poured fire downrange until one after the other the autocannons fell silent. Out of ammo. The two AARs, one of them in Barnes’ own capable hands, continued thudding, mangling the remains of the hijackers and the ship’s structure nearby, until even he began to have doubts that Perry would approve, but he would have been wrong there. Railguns had a much lower cyclic rate, which meant they still had ammo to burn, and as long as the barrage continued, any surviving hijackers could not organise to prevent the advance.
“Keep going!” Perry ordered. “Take and hold the junction beyond the barricade.”
“You heard him,” Barnes growled on the squad circuit. “Simms, Lipton, Grady… disengage your cannons. We’ll pick them up on the way back. Use your rifles. Take and hold the junction. Jackson, hug the right wall, I’ll take the left. We’ll cover them.”
“Aye, aye,” Barnes’ squad chorused.
Perry noted his orders being carried out only peripherally. He had all his men on sensors, but was more interested in splitting his force into two assault teams. He would command the attack upon the bridge, while Lieutenant Barrass and Deacon took care of business in engineering. Barrass was still a little green. Deacon could babysit. He decided to give Barrass one of the AARs too. Jackson. Perry wanted Barnes with him, but would let the sergeant choose who among his squad to send with Jackson.
Perry quickly gave his orders, and they split into two assault teams. Perry led his half of the men along the backbone going forward, while Barrass led his team the opposite way toward engineering. With sensors trawling for any sign of the enemy, and with squads clearing side passages and compartments leading off them, Perry quickly gained ground making up for lost time. Appleford hadn’t mentioned any time limits, but Perry knew Captain Colgan would want the fight expedited if only because there was another battle upon the raider ship to attend to. As far as Perry knew, the plan called for Jean de Vienne’s capture, not its destruction, which meant Marines would be needed aboard to secure her.
Resistance finally stiffened and brought the advance to a crashing halt.
Pulser fire crisscrossed the open passage between the two forces. Perry ordered grenades used, and Barnes’ hammered away with his AAR, but unlike last time the raiders hunkered down and took their punishment. It wasn’t as if they couldn’t retreat. They could. They were holding a major junction, and any of three directions would let them escape the fire they were absorbing, at least briefly, but they didn’t take any of the choices offered. Perry puzzled over it briefly before calling up a schematic on his HUD. It took no more than a glance to provide an answer. The left and right passages were of no importance, leading to crew berthing areas mainly, but the one behind the raiders led directly to the main elevator shaft connecting this deck with the others. One of the destinations available to that elevator would be the bridge deck and computer centre.
Voyce hadn’t sallied, which said to Perry this wasn’t the force laying siege to the bridge itself, but it had to be the last blocking force left to stall his Marines. Take them out, and the battle was as good as won. He considered and discarded options. He didn’t have many. He couldn’t flank, he couldn’t advance, and he wouldn’t retreat. What else was there? Negotiation maybe. The thought didn’t appeal. He wondered how things were going in engineering and decided to ask.
“Assault Two, Assault One. Report,” Perry said and adding his own fire to that of his men. He didn’t hit anything but the raider he had aimed for ducked back out of sight.
“Assault One, Assault Two,” Lieutenant Barras responded. “We’re at the final hatch now. Hostiles are inside.”
That wasn’t good. The hijackers could depressurise the ship and turn off the lights. Neither eventuality would hamper the Marines too badly. Their suits were self contained. They didn’t rely upon the ship’s air, and their helmets had the full package. Motion sensors and infrared sensors m
eant his men could fight in absolute darkness if they had to, but there was another thing the jackers could do that would be a serious problem. They could turn off the gravity. Hell, they could do worse than that. They could scuttle the ship. Boom, everyone dies.
“Are they talking?” Perry said.
“No, sir. I’m about to take them by storm. Orders?”
Orders, right. Barrass was on the spot, Perry shouldn’t second guess him, but he really wanted to. He wanted to warn him not to shoot up the ship too badly; he wanted to remind him what could happen if the wrong thing in there was hit. He wanted to say don’t fuck up! But he didn’t. He couldn’t undermine the man’s confidence that way. He comforted himself with the knowledge that Barrass had Deacon riding herd on him, and Deacon was an older head with decades of experience. Besides, Perry himself had been an LT like Barrass only last month and they were of an age. They’d both had the same training and knew what was at stake.
“You know what’s needed, Paul,” Perry said. “And you’re on the spot. Report when you have all secured there. Assault One out.”
“Understood. Two out.”
Perry prayed he’d just done the right thing. There wasn’t anything else he could do, and he had his own situation to deal with. He ducked as enemy fire sought him out, slugs ricocheting off the wall by his head followed by plasma. They had him zeroed. More plasma flashed toward him, and he felt the heat even through his suit. Plasma splashed all around him suddenly, burning and scorching his armour. He rolled away, as his armour’s nanocoat reacted becoming mirror bright trying to reflect and refract the shots. Light bloomed and flared all around him briefly like a halo as his armour battled to save him. God damn them! He scuttled away and out of the line of fire.
Merkiaari Wars Series: Books 1-3 Page 118