She swore under her breath, using words the chief engineer on her first starship had taught her, as her developing breasts caught on the side of the tube. Jane, like many other children born on asteroid habitats, had matured slowly, even as she had developed mentally at a far greater rate than many other kids her age. She had even travelled disguised as a boy for most of the time, after learning that many spacers developed a flexible attitude to planet-bound rules of morality and whole new standards of beauty. Where once she had been able to squirm through the tightest of tubes without problems, her developing body was now betraying her, leaving her wondering if she was going to wind up caught in a tube she could once have traversed without a sound. After the fighting was done, she would have to give serious thought to her own future.
The sound of hard footsteps echoed from below her as she reached the hatch. At some point, back when the rebels had been building their habitat, they’d installed small tubes and connecting tunnels for some reason best known to their leaders. Jane suspected that they’d designed them to move from place to place unseen – after all, it was what she used them for – even though most of them were too small for an adult. She rubbed her breast angrily as she peered down through the semi-transparent hatch. Most girls and all guys might speak in favour of breasts, but they were nothing apart from a pain to her. How the girls with really big breasts got along she didn't know.
“Ok, you bastards,” she muttered, as she saw the black suits of armour making their way down the corridor. It didn't seem to have occurred to them to look up, but then...in her experience, no one ever did. It was how she had hidden from a lecherous second officer on her fifth freighter, a second officer who had been surprised and horrified to discover her real sex. The idiot had thought that she was a boy! “I’ve got you now.”
She pulled back the hatch and dropped the bag she’d been carrying down on top of the armour suits, before running as fast as she could. The explosion still sent her sprawling to the deck, gasping in pain as she banged her exposed elbows against the metal. There was no way to tell how many she’d killed, or even if she’d killed any of them, but...before she could react, a bolt of blue-white light punched its way through the deck far too close to her for comfort. She was scurrying away when a second pulse slammed into the deck and it weakened, tilting madly as overstressed metal started to give way. Jane realised, as the stench of ionised air reached her nostrils, that the Blackshirts had been firing madly into the overhead section. A final bolt of blue light struck her legs and she screamed in pain – all reserve gone – as she fell through the metal and down in front of them.
The pain was overwhelming, worse than her father trying to beat some sense into her, worse than the pain and humiliation she’d felt when she’d shocked herself while rewiring a module on her second starship. Massive black figures gathered around them, staring down at her, their features invisible behind their black helmets. She wanted to pull herself to her feet and die spitting defiance in their faces, yet she couldn't feel her legs. There was absolutely no feeling from the lower half of her body. She could barely move her head. It dawned on her, slowly, that she had to have been badly injured, yet surely she could escape?
One of the black figures lifted a rifle, pointed it at her head, and pulled the trigger. There was a flash of blue-white light...and then nothing.
***
Thomas watched the girl’s head disintegrate, fighting down an urge to be sick. It had been a mercy killing; indeed, he had no idea how the girl had still been alive after a plasma blast had sheared off her legs and left the stumps cauterised. He’d seen many unpleasant sights in his career – one didn't reach high rank in the Blackshirts without seeing thousands of horrific sights – yet the poor girl had been among the worst. She would have died without the intervention of a proper medical team and even then it would have taken years for her to recover from the shock.
“Pretty girl,” one of his team said. He didn't sound disappointed or angry, despite losing his first chance at one of the perks of serving in the Blackshirts. Thomas, who liked to think of himself as more civilised than most of the other Blackshirts, would have relieved his feelings by bawling the younger man out. “What do we do now?”
Thomas looked back at the blackened shells that were all that remained of two of his men. Both of them had been caught in the blast the girl had caused, just before she’d been killed. It wasn't a good exchange rate, even if they were all expendable.
“We keep moving,” he said. He sent a series of commands to the sensor bugs. They would expand their probes into the tunnel network that had been exposed by the girl, allowing them some advance warning of any more solo attacks. The dead girl, he suspected, might have operated on her own, but she’d certainly shown the enemy how to delay them. If they could use the tunnels to outflank them, the rebels could whittle away at his force until nowhere was safe. “There are more enemy fighters waiting for us up ahead.”
He concentrated on splitting up his forces. If the spaceport could be taken relatively intact, his reinforcements could be flown right into the asteroid, allowing him to push out faster and further. He doubted that the rebels would be surprised – they’d have to expect that much – but they’d be unable to react quickly.
“Onwards,” he ordered, and smiled. If he won, and if he survived, the sky would be the limit. “Prepare to attack.”
***
The starship crews didn’t go down easily. They’d built up a formidable position and backed it up with the weapons mounted on their ships. Neil watched in numb fascination as they threw back three attacks before the fourth one broke through, leaving three ships as flaming wreckage and pushing the defenders back. One of the battlecruisers had moved closer and started to open fire, picking off several of the defenders even through the forcefield covering the entrance to the spaceport. The massive hatch hadn't stood up to its weapons for more than a few seconds. After that, the defenders were doomed.
“They’re pushing their way into the remaining starships,” one of the operators reported. The Blackshirts had continued to advance, despite their heavy losses. Sheer determination would make up for a lot of tactical flaws. And, for that matter, they definitely seemed more civilised than the ordinary run of Blackshirts. “One of the ships is planning to jump out.”
Neil felt his eyes go wide with horror. “Tell them not to move,” he ordered, knowing that the order would not be heeded. There was no other way for the crews to escape. “Tell them...”
“Too late,” the operator said. “They’re already powering up.”
***
Thomas cursed as the light freighter rose into the air on an antigravity field, using the positions of the Blackshirts to shield itself from the Vengeance’s fire. The battlecruiser couldn't shoot without bringing the remains of the freighter down on the Blackshirts. Even so, what else could the ship do? They were unable to bring their weapons to bear on the attackers, for they’d just be shot off without their shields and they couldn't use their shields in such a confirmed place. Unless...
He saw – too late – a shimmer forming around the prow of the freighter. Space itself seemed to warp and twist around it, the light from the fires suddenly refocused as mighty energies started to claw at the very fabric of space and time. He started to shout a warning as the flicker drive engaged, there was a brilliant flash of golden light and the starship vanished.
An instant later, the shockwave hit and the entire asteroid shook.
Chapter Forty-One
Thomas activated his suit’s magnetic grapples as the gravity field twisted, sucking the assault force towards where the starship had been. Cries of horror and terror echoed over the assault band as some of the troopers, not so quick to react, were pulled towards the singularity along with everything in the spaceport that wasn't secured to the floor. The gravity field snapped off a microsecond later, leaving armoured troops and assorted debris flying through the air and down to the deck. Thomas winced as he saw a soldier c
rash to the ground and lie still. Even powered combat armour couldn’t prevent its wearer from being stunned after such an impact.
“Sound off,” he ordered. Luckily, the enemy was in as much disarray as his own men, or they could have mounted a counterattack and destroyed his force while they were scattered and stunned. He listened as the numbers counted and allowed himself a moment of relief when he realised that only a handful of his men were either gone or injured. “Form up and...”
The forcefield holding the air inside the asteroid collapsed and vanished, allowing the air in the spaceport to start streaming out into the vacuum. Thomas hadn't deactivated his grapples, thankfully, and he was able to withstand the sudden pull to the rear. A handful of soldiers were less lucky and were sucked out into space, although their suits would protect them long enough for them to be rescued by the battlecruisers and their shuttles. Thomas watched as a torrent of debris followed them into the vacuum, sweeping the bay clean. He’d once watched as a space habitat was carefully vented to exterminate a particularly nasty form of crawling insect that had somehow passed through the screening and made a home in the habitat and he knew that nothing would survive in the remains of the spaceport, unless it had a suit of its own. The sensor bug network had been disrupted by the starship and then by the sudden transition to vacuum, but it was already reporting that the Blackshirts were largely alone in the spaceport. A handful of rebel fighters had been in the tubes when the compartment depressurised and were apparently dead.
He waited until the spaceport had finished venting and then led his men over to the connecting tube, linking the spaceport to the remainder of the asteroid. Unsurprisingly, it was locked and secured, or the entire asteroid would have vented into space. The early asteroid developers had been paranoid when it came to safety, building in hundreds of cut-outs and automatic airlocks; the rebels, it seemed, had shared their paranoia. They would have to either cut through the hatch and walk right into the ambush he knew had to be there – the rebels would never have a better chance to inflict huge losses on his men – or try to go out onto the surface of the asteroid and burn through somewhere else. If there were Marines out there, he knew, that would be suicide. It could not be risked.
“Start moving up the heavy weapons,” he ordered. If he knew there were an ambush there – the sensor bugs couldn't seem to get through without disappearing, which was indicative in itself – he could at least spring it early. “Prepare to cut through the hatch.”
He watched as two of his men manoeuvred a heavy laser cannon into position and prepared to fire. The bulky weapon was starship-grade, capable of cutting through even superdreadnaught-class armour if it had enough time to work with, and – unlike plasma cannons – it didn't explode violently if the enemy hit it. Even so, they lacked the flexibility of plasma cannons and other, more typical weapons, but it was just perfect for raiding an asteroid.
“Fire,” he ordered.
***
“We’re in position, boss,” Corporal Joe Hughes informed him. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
Neil snorted. The starship’s disappearance had sent shockwaves through the entire asteroid. The status display – what little there was of it, for the rebels had never bothered to install a full internal sensor network – was covered with red lights, warning of damage to the internal systems and possible structural damage. It was a damn good thing, he told himself, that they hadn’t been spinning the asteroid for gravity or the entire habitat would have started to come apart. Even so, the cascade of systems failures and alert messages suggested that it might be a good time to start thinking about evacuating the asteroid – if there was anywhere to go. The looming presence of nine Imperial Navy battlecruisers blocked all hope of escape.
And the cameras in the spaceport, the one place where they’d had near-complete coverage, had been knocked out. He wasn't sure if the Blackshirts had been shooting them or if the shockwave had disabled them, but it didn't matter. There was no way to know, now, what was going on inside enemy-held territory. They might be planning to cut through into the main asteroid by now, or they might all be dead. There was little data on what happened to anyone unlucky enough to be caught near a starship flickering out, yet some of the data suggested that they would all be dead. A younger officer might have been tempted to open the hatch and find out, but Neil knew better. They couldn't be that lucky.
“Good,” he said, knowing that ten Marines in powered combat armour were better than a hundred Blackshirts, even if the Blackshirts were wearing armour too. It helped that the enemy had no choice, but to come directly at his men. The asteroid’s internal structure would see to that, unless they wanted to risk digging elsewhere with rock-cutters. Truthfully, Neil was worried about that possibility, more worried than he cared to admit. The Blackshirts didn’t have to care about the asteroid being depressurised and everyone onboard suffocating to death. “You have tactical command. Make a mess.”
He checked the other sensor and nodded to himself. Almost all of the women and children in the asteroid had been moved to the inner core, wearing spacesuits to protect them against a sudden change in pressure. Part of him questioned the value of such precautions – the only people who could pluck them out of space were the Imperial Navy – but it wasn't in him to give up. Who knew – if they held out long enough, the superdreadnaughts might return. Or, perhaps, the Imperial Navy had its own superdreadnaughts lucking nearby, just hoping that Admiral Walker would stick his head into the noose.
“Don’t worry,” Hester said, in her whispery voice. Neil was privately impressed. Very few Marines could have gone through everything she’d endured and remained sane. “We will hold out long enough and if we die, we will take them with us. We will die for our cause”
“I’d much rather make them die for our cause,” Neil said, practically. Hester laughed. It was a vaguely unpleasant sound through her damaged face. “I wonder if they have any idea what they’re getting into.”
He scowled. Hester had taken him aside briefly and explained about the demolition charge they’d built into the asteroid. An extremely-powerful nuclear warhead, normally used for cracking asteroids into smaller pieces, had been hidden within Sanctuary. If the asteroid fell, the weapon would be detonated, killing everyone onboard and throwing tons of rocky debris towards the Imperial Navy starships. Neil doubted that it would cause any real damage – the battlecruisers had point defence weapons, designed to handle missiles that moved far faster than the pieces of rock – but it would certainly cheat the Imperials in the moment of their victory.
And yet, it wouldn't be a real victory, not for him.
He shook his head. It hardly mattered. Either they held out long enough or they didn't. The rest was in God’s hands.
***
The hatch was glowing red now, great streams of molten metal flowing off it and pooling on the deck. The laser cannon was being moved now as the operators felt out the weak spots in the hatch, cutting through slowly, but efficiently. The rebels had created a neat hatch, one that couldn't be simply blown open by explosives, yet it couldn’t stand up to a laser cannon. Thomas made a silent bet with himself – some of his men were making overt bets over the communications channel – as to how long it could stand up to the laser. A hiss answered his question as air started to leak through from the other side. The hatch slowly folded over and started to collapse.
He ducked sharply as a hail of fire blasted through from the other side. The defenders didn't seem to be bothered by the sudden loss of air pressure in their compartment, although the Blackshirts had rigged up another forcefield to prevent the air from flowing out into vacuum. Even so, the air pressure was going to drop alarmingly until it equalised, a painful experience for anyone not in a suit. Two of his men were struck by plasma bolts and killed outright, a third was badly injured and had to be pulled back to one of the shuttles. At least he, unlike the crippled rebel girl, would have a fair chance of survival. His suit had already sealed the wound and injected s
edatives into his bloodstream.
“Load grenades,” he ordered. The sheer volley of fire suggested that the rebels had either placed an entire team of men just past the hatch or that they’d set up a pair of plasma cannons and set them to fire automatically on everything that moved. “Hit them!”
The armoured combat suits carried their own grenade launchers, allowing their users to select and fire one of five kinds of grenade. Thomas selected high explosive – there was no point in playing around with stun grenades when the enemy was certainly armoured too – and fired them through the remains of the hatch. The enemy fire followed his grenades, shooting them before they could detonate, but his men were firing too. It only took one...
He cursed as there was a brilliant flash of white light and the deck shook. There had been a single plasma cannon – or perhaps more - there and, now that its containment had been broken, it had released all of its plasma in a single burst. The results...the results had been unpleasant. Great rivers of white fire seemed to flow everywhere, melting great gashes into the deck and bulkheads, even the ones made of stone. Alerts flickered up in his HUD, warning him that the atmosphere was poisoned and to keep his helmet on at all times. If the enemy had actual men operating the plasma cannons, nothing, not even the most advanced combat armour in the entire Empire, could have saved their lives.
Democracy 1: Democracy's Right Page 40