Countdown (The Shadow Wars Book 9)

by S. A. Lusher

  Sloppy, he was getting really sloppy just lately. He put his hands up and was just beginning to try and think of a way out of this when, abruptly, he heard a pair of gunshots and the lights went away, pointing in other directions as the two men holding them collapsed to the deckplates. He sought out the source of his rescuer, and then saw an overhead vent grate open up. Gen dropped out of it after poking her head out to check for any more hostiles.

  “I'd be embarrassed if I were you,” she said.

  Drake grunted a response as he jogged forward and crouched by the pair of bodies. Definitely Rogue Ops. They were armored and packing. He snagged a rifle from one of the corpses, patted them both down, tucked a pistol down the back of his pants and pocketed a pair of flash-bangs and several magazines of ammo.

  “Bridge?” he asked as he straightened back up.

  “Bridge,” Genevieve confirmed.

  They set off.

  * * * * *

  Allan cursed and ducked, narrowly avoiding a stream of gunfire.

  Hawkins took the opportunity to aim over his head and put two rounds through the faceplate of the Rogue Ops troop that had been throwing bullets at him. Allan had to give it to him, the old man still knew how to kick ass with the best of them. Regaining his feet once he was sure Hawkins had cleared the way, he tucked the rifle he'd snagged in the armory against his shoulder, took aim and set off down the corridor once again.

  They weren't far from the bridge.

  They'd run into two groups of Rogue Ops troops by now, and had heard gunfire elsewhere in the ship. Allan had honestly expected more resistance, and the lack of it made him nervous. When things weren't going like they supposed to, it was usually because something worse was happening. God forbid it was just incompetency or bad luck on Rogue Ops' part. No, the universe just couldn't have that. It had to be all hard, all the time, for the good guys.

  Allan led the way down the corridor. He got to its end, listened and, when he heard nothing, peered around the corner. The door to the bridge was open and he spied a pair of bodies outside of it. From this distance, he couldn't tell if they were Spec Ops or Rogue Ops. He could, however, see a bit of movement coming from within the bridge. He reported as such to Hawkins, then he moved forward, quickly and quietly, down the corridor.

  As he drew closer, he saw that the armor was pure black. So, Rogue Ops then. Good. He stepped over the bodies and into the bridge, then felt something small, hard and round being suddenly pressed up against the side of his head.

  “Allan?” a familiar voice asked. The gun barrel was withdrawn. He realized that the movement he had seen earlier was Drake, and the one who had put the gun to his head was Genevieve. They were the only two left standing on the bridge. Everyone else, friend or foe, was dead.

  “What happened?” Hawkins asked, coming in.

  “Looks like Rogue Ops hit us with an EMP or something of the sort,” Drake replied. “Gen and I got here as quick as we could, took out the Rogue Ops bastards still here, but they'd already killed the bridge crew. They were here, stealing our data.”

  “Wouldn't an EMP destroy our data?” Allan asked.

  Hawkins shook his head. “No, our databank cores are protected against EMPs.” He turned to look at something and immediately walked over to it, a console that was blinking red. “Oh good Christ...that wasn't the only thing they were doing.”

  “What is it?” Callie asked as they all gathered around him.

  “They've hardwired our engines to blow.”

  “Can we stop it?” Allan asked.

  Hawkins shook his head. “No, it's locked in. They gave themselves about forty five minutes. We need to evacuate, but with the comms down...” He hesitated as the lights flickered and then restarted. A comms console suddenly chattered to life.

  “This is Bishop to anyone, Eve and I have the power restored, what's the situation?”

  Hawkins quickly brought them up to speed. “So, we've got a bit of a problem on our hands. We need to evacuate...but if we do, they'll just blow the pods out of the fucking sky,” he said, indicating another screen that gave a holographic display of the area. Another vessel, a Rogue Ops cruiser about the same size as the Atonement, was parked alongside it.

  “So we head over and kick their ass before they can,” Drake said.

  “How do we get over there? We've only got a few jump ships in the hangar and they aren't anywhere near fast enough...” Hawkins muttered.

  After a pause, Greg spoke up over the radio again. “I've got an idea. We can launch the escape pods directly into their ship. We've done it before.”

  “Well...not the best or most rational course of action, but...” Hawkins sighed. “All right. Get to it. Drake, Allan, Genevieve, Callie, Greg and Eve, I want you all on this, split up into two groups, quick as you can. Hit their bridge and take it over, then we'll flee. You've got...forty minutes.”

  “Fantastic. See you at the pods.”

  “We're on our way,” Drake said, setting off already.

  Allan followed the group out the bridge.

  Off to the next fight.

  CHAPTER 11

  –Boarding Action–

  Greg massaged his temples and tried to keep from thinking about how stupid and dangerous this plan was...and the fact that it was his plan. He hadn't realized that all the suits of armor onboard had been rendered useless by the EMP blast and they hadn't the time nor the willingness to risk using the Rogue Ops suits. So they were doing this with just some bulletproof vests, whatever guns they could find and their wits. He settled into his chair while Drake made his way to the front of the narrow pod, getting into the pilot's seat.

  “You guys set back there?” he asked as he ran through the warm-up procedure.

  Greg glanced over at Eve, who was sitting across from him now, strapping in. “Yeah, we're good,” he replied. “You feeling okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah...head hurts a bit. But I'll be fine. We've got this,” Eve replied. “Don't worry.”

  “Trying not to,” Greg replied.

  “Okay, we're all ready...here we go!” Drake called back.

  Before anyone could say anything, Drake punched out. The escape pod exploded from its metal nest, traveled an incredibly short distance and punched through the hull of Rogue Ops vessel. Greg grunted as the g-forces tore at and twisted his body, wrenching it this way and that. His felt his bones strain and his internal organs struggling to stay in their proper places. He heard Eve and Drake both grunting and crying out as the ship settled into place. All at once, everything was still and silent. Then Drake called out to them.

  “Come on! We need to get the hell in as quick as we can, no idea how long the seal will hold and this thing gets sucked back out into space,” he said.

  Greg grunted a reply, undid the latches and stood up. He felt something warm on his face, reached up and rubbed at his nose. His hand came back bloody. Fantastic. He ignored it for the moment, checking over Eve. She seemed fine and she undid her own latches and stood up. She stared at his face for a moment, looking worried, then seemed to take some of her own advice and didn't say anything. They joined Drake in the cockpit.

  He was crouched on the floor, working the escape hatch. As they joined him, crowding into the room, he got it open and dropped down into it. A moment later, he had the opposite hatch open and was outside.

  “Come on! It's clear!” he called.

  Greg went first, dropping into the room beyond the escape pod. They'd come into a storage bay. Crates were stacked in pyramids all around them. It was all very familiar...and he realized he'd been in almost exactly this particular situation back when he'd been facing down zombies and Rogue Ops when he'd thought they'd been Dark Ops. He glanced back as Eve dropped down.

  “Let's go,” Drake said, already setting off across the cargo bay.

  Greg and Eve followed him. Greg activated his radio. “Allan, how are you guys doing? Did you make it?”

  “Yeah, we're in. Heading for the bridge,” Allan r
eplied.

  “Us too. Meet you there.”

  As they made their way across the bay, they managed to cross perhaps half the distance before a loud, metallic groan filled the room.

  “Shit, run!” Greg called.

  He began sprinting towards the door as more metallic groaning sounded ominously. He'd made it about ten paces before the escape pod was sucked back out of the hole it had made. Now that the atmosphere had been compromised, gale force winds began to fill the cargo bay. Crates started to fly by them, being drawn towards the hole, sucked out into dead space. Greg kept going, nearly to the door, wishing he had his magnetic boots. Drake was still ahead of him, and managed to reach the door first. He hit the access button.

  A soldier was waiting for them, gun raised, ready to put them down. Drake reached forward, grabbed the barrel of the gun and yanked forward. The man was caught off balance and screamed as he stumbled forward into the cargo bay, past all three of them, then was picked up by the rushing atmosphere and thrown out into space. Drake made his way into the corridor beyond the doorway and covered them while Greg and Eve followed. Once they were through, Greg slammed his fist on the close button.

  The door snapped shut, cutting off the rushing air.

  Greg hardly had a moment to get his breath back before a bullet whizzed by overhead, nearly ending his life. He turned and fired his rifle, putting a three-round burst through the faceplate of another Rogue Ops trooper.

  The fight continued.

  * * * * *

  Allan slapped a fresh magazine in and raised his rifle just in time to pump another Rogue Ops trooper full of lead. The man screamed as the bullets punched through his armor and sprayed the wall behind him with blood. Elsewhere in the room, he could hear Callie putting down more of the black armor wearing bastards. They'd come into a hangar via their little escape pod trick. Allan had gathered more than a few scrapes and bruises thanks to that, and he was sure his ribs were bruised now, but he was still at least alive and kicking.

  After shooting their way out of the hangar, they'd located a general access terminal. Genevieve was presently accessing it, plotting the quickest path to the enemy ship's bridge. Allan could hear more men coming towards them from around the corner. Sighing, he pulled the pin on a fragmentation grenade and tossed it, bouncing it off the wall and making it go down the next corridor. He heard several shouts and curses, then a powerful explosion. Silence fell. He glanced back over his shoulder at Genevieve, still standing before the terminal.

  “How's it coming?” he asked.

  “We're good,” she replied. “Come here. We're close.”

  Allan joined her at the terminal and she took over guard duty. Callie joined him. They both studied the screen. She was right, they were near. Just down a few corridors, across a mess hall and up another hallway and they'd be there.

  “Let's move out!” Allan said.

  Callie led the way and he backed her up with Genevieve covering them from behind. They hurried down the corridor, came to its end and checked around the corner. Callie gave the all clear and they began hustling down the second corridor. He found his thoughts drifting slightly as they progressed through the enemy vessel. Once more, he wondered what he would do when and if he actually survived this whole insane ordeal.

  Would Dark Ops be finished? Would he still have a job? If anyone ever really found out what he'd done on Lindholm...he might go to prison. He knew that Spec Ops and Dark Ops knew, and Hawkins had said they'd keep it secret and wipe his record clean. But what if Hawkins died? Did the deal die with him? And even if everything went smoothly, could he go back to a life in SI? Would Callie join him? Too many questions...

  They came to the mess hall and as they opened the door, found close to a dozen Rogue Ops personnel waiting for them.

  Another fierce firefight sprang into existence, and Allan was distracted from any further thoughts or worries of the future.

  * * * * *

  Greg fell back around the corner as another clutch of Rogue Ops troopers ran into the corridor ahead. They'd made good progress through the ship, not running into too much resistance. He'd figured that most of the troopers were either engaged on the other vessel or trying to deal with Allan's squad. There were still enough of them to be a pain in the ass, though. He set his gun to full auto and blind-fired the rest of the magazine around the corner, soon being rewarded with a cry of pain. Drake had run across the hallway to the opposite side and was offering as much cover fire as he could, while Eve was covering their rear.

  After quickly reloading, Greg motioned to Drake, who blind-fired a few shots. While the enemy was distracted by that, Greg leaned out, sighted one of the troops and put him down with a shot straight through the neck. Drake took the opportunity to join him, leaned out and opened fire as well. Between the two of them, they managed to eliminate the remainder of the hostiles. They both waited a few moments longer, but when no one else rushed out into the corridor to fire at them, they came out from their cover.

  “Let's go,” Greg said.

  They set off down the corridor in a light jog, then skidded to a halt as another door in the left wall opened up. Greg cursed and raised his rifle, preparing for more, but Allan stepped out, followed shortly by Gen and Callie.

  “All clear?” Allan asked when he saw them.

  “Yeah, the bridge is just up ahead,” Greg replied.

  “Perfect, let's finish this,” Callie said.

  They made their way quickly down the bloodied, battle-scarred corridor, keeping an eye out for reinforcements, but they seemed to have the place to themselves for the moment. Gen and Allan hung back to provide both a longer-distance cover fire and a rear guard. Drake and Callie took the right side of the large door that provided access to the bridge and Greg and Eve took the left side. Once he was sure everyone was in place, Drake hit the access button. As soon as he did, Greg and Gen tossed in flash-bang grenades.

  As soon as they popped, everyone leaned in from around cover and began selecting targets. A dozen bridge personnel and half a dozen guards occupied the bridge. The bridge personnel were mostly blinded and they went down the easiest. The guards had fared better, as they were encased within their black armor, but soon they went down as well. Greg took down the last man standing and everything became still and silent, a long quiet moment passing while the squad waited to see if anyone else had made it.

  Once they were convinced the bridge was clear, they began to move within, checking out all the possible hiding places, the niches and corners.

  “We're clear,” Drake said over the radio as Gen and Eve sat down at the two most important workstations and took control of the ship. “Launch your pods and come over. We're moving the ship out of the blast radius now.”

  “Roger that, everyone's launching now,” Hawkins replied.

  Greg walked over to one of the windows and stared at the Atonement as the Rogue Ops vessel began drifting away from it. Several of the pods burst silently into space, fleeing their imminent, fiery death. Almost as soon as they were clear of the ship, with hardly more than a few seconds to spare, the rear portion of the Atonement suddenly disappeared in a brilliant orange-red flare that was quickly snuffed out by the zero atmosphere environment. Almost immediately after that, smaller, secondary explosions began blossoming along the sides of the vessel in a chain reaction and soon the whole thing was consumed.

  The Atonement was gone.

  “All right,” Drake said, garnering Greg's attention. “Let's get the survivors onboard.”

  Greg turned away from the window. There was still work to be done.

  * * * * *

  It took a little while to get everything straightened out and ready.

  First, they had to clear the ship. There were a handful of Rogue Ops personnel still alive from the (mostly) failed attempt on their lives. They captured as many as they could and killed the ones they couldn't capture. While this was going on, those who had made it off the Atonement jetted over to the Rogue Ops ve
ssel and helped secure it. Once they were sure the vessel was fully secure and there were no traps of any kind remaining, Hawkins made some calls. He called that military cruiser back, and had them escort the survivors to the nearest military base.

  As soon as they arrived there, he also called in a pair of speedships and had everyone get checked out by the local medics. As soon as his personnel were given clean bills of health and they enjoyed a short break to eat and shower, he had them and the remaining Spec Ops soldiers meet him in one of the briefing rooms at the military outpost, which was an isolated space station meant to keep the peace in that particular region of space.

  “Not quite what we're used to, huh?” Hawkins asked as everyone settled into place around a large metal briefing table in a starkly-lit, chilled room. There were general murmurs of agreement. He looked around at each of them.

  “Let's get down to brass tacks, we don't have a lot of time. We've cracked the code on the shutdown and destruction procedure. Luckily, it's pretty simple. It's just a matter of finding the appropriate console within the structure itself and punching in a sequence of symbols. All of you will be memorizing it on the ride out. You'll be given gear, guns and ammo...” he hesitated, looked around the room again.

  “This is it, people. The final push. The last hurrah. I'm sure you'll be running into heavy resistance once you get there. I'm not sure how many of us will be coming back from this. Maybe none. Whatever happens out there...I wanted you all know what an honor it's been serving with you. All of you. My superiors had...reservations about hiring some of you. Hell, I had some myself. But all of you have gone above and beyond the call of duty...I guess that's it. I've never been one for speeches. I'll be giving you what limited intel we have about the locations you'll be going to and you can study up on the way out there.

  “Allan, Callie and Genevieve, you will be leading Spec Ops personnel to one of the sites. Parker and Mertz will be accompanying you and providing you with support. Greg, Drake and Eve will be heading to the other site. I'm afraid all I have left to spare is Keron. However, each speedship has two pilots and they will both be accompanying you as well, since this is an all-in kind of situation...are there any questions?” he asked.