Cookie had decided it had to be a joke, or a mistake, or something, when the intercom blared again: “All Marines, intruders have seized the main engineering deck! They are armed and dangerous. Many casualties reported.”
Four Marines pounded into the armory. The sergeant in charge of the armory barked orders. “Get a Bull Pup and ammo! Get armor and check to make sure your radio works.”
“Powered armor?” one of the asked.
“No time, takes too long to power up.” He looked around, his eyes falling on Cookie. “Corporal, you take this group, head right for Engineering! Shoot anybody who ain’t one of ours!”
Cookie frantically pulled on her chest armor and a ballistic helmet, grabbed two grenades and stuffed them into her waist pouch, hesitated, then grabbed two more. For good measure she strapped on a blaster pistol. She wished she could use the command helmet, with its head’s up display and communications network, but none of the helmets were charged and now there was no time.
The gunnery sergeant was Capezzera, one of her favorites. He had four tattoos of tears on his face, all of them blood red, two under each eye. Cookie had asked him once why he had the tears. He had smiled wanly and shook his head. “These are blood tears, solider. You only get one when things go really, really wrong, but you survive anyway. Just hope you never earn your own.”
Now he took her by the arm and pulled her aside. “Put one man in front of you, but stay close. These kids are gonna be really juiced up; I don’t want ‘em shooting our own people by mistake. You understand?”
Cookie nodded, trying to shake the dreamy feeling that none of this was really happening. Capezzera seemed to understand, for he gripped her arm painfully tight to keep her focused.
“I’ll send more people after you as soon as they’re ready. Take these-”he clipped four more ammo clips onto her webbing — “you always use more ammo than you expect.” He glanced at her blaster pistol. “Don’t set that on narrow beam or you’ll blow a hole through the hull, right?” He looked at her hard, nodded and stepped back. “Move your ass, Corporal, don’t keep the war waiting!”
Five minutes later Sergeant Capezzera was busy handing out weapons, grenades and armor when six men stepped into the room. He just had time to notice that the color of their uniform was wrong before they opened fire.
On the bridge of the London, Admiral Skiffington was in a rage. Power had been lost to half his missile platforms and two of the heavy lasers. Calls to the Engineering Deck were unanswered.
“Lieutenant!” he barked at Grant. “Take the two Marines and go to Engineering. I want a status report.”
“Yes, sir!” He jumped from his chair and headed to the door, gesturing to the two Marine sentries.
“But, sir,” one of them protested in a whisper. “If we go with you, the bridge will be unguarded.”
Grant jerked a thumb at his father. “Tell him that.”
The Marine muttered something indecorous under his breath and brought his rifle to port arms. “Lead the way, Lieutenant.”
The lifts weren’t working. They climbed down ten levels using the maintenance ladders, then began trotting aft to Engineering, which was located in the first section forward of the ship’s anti-matter engines. The passageway did not go in a straight line, but turned left or right every hundred feet or so, then turned aft again. Twice they had to manually open crash doors.
Halfway to Engineering, they found the first bodies; five sailors sprawled on the deck in spreading pools of blood. The two Marines stopped dead. “Bugger me!” one of them snarled, terrified and pissed off all at the same time. Grant tried to report what they had found, but got no response on the com. He urgently, desperately wished he had a gun. They moved forward more slowly after that, the Marines with their weapons at their shoulders, ready to fire.
The first Marine died a few minutes later. In the distance they heard screams and shooting. The Marine private in front, Lussier or Loubier, Grant couldn’t remember which, turned to him and whispered: “We’re getting close, Lieutenant.” Then he rounded the corner and suddenly jerked back, arms out flung, weapon flying and crashed to the floor. Grant was dimly aware of popping sounds and the sharp ping! of something ricocheting off the bulkhead. The soldier behind him screamed “Jerome!” and rushed forward to his fallen comrade, only to collapse in a hail of shots.
Grant Skiffington, son and personal aide to the most famous admiral in Victorian history, turned and ran.
Cookie slammed another magazine into her Bull Pup. “Sweet Gods of Our Mothers, what a cluster fuck,” she muttered. The two remaining Marines of her mini-squad crouched beside her. The other two had died in a short, nasty fight when they bumped into a group of five Savak. She knew they were Savak, because she had stripped the ballistic helmets off of one of them and saw the surgical scars on his forehead. All the Savak were rumored to have them, remnants of surgery done to every Savak baby for some perverse reason known only to the Tilleke Emperor.
As odd as seeing Savak storm troopers on board a Victorian war ship, though, was the fact that the five men they had killed looked enough alike to be brothers, right down to the cleft in their chins. Weird, and not a little disturbing. Quintuplets? She wasn’t sure she cared, as long as they were dead. Mentally, she dubbed them “Bob.”
“Corporal,” hissed Cogan. “More coming!”
Cookie didn’t hesitate. She pulled the pin on one of her grenades, listened as the footsteps grew closer, then flipped the grenade around the corner and ducked back. There was a satisfying ‘crump!’ followed by even more satisfying screams. She rounded the corner, shooting the first two Savak she saw. Three others were on the ground. One was on his knees, his helmet faceplate blown off, and blood streaming from his face. No weapon.
Cogan raised his Bull Pup, but Cookie held up a hand to restrain him. “Hold it, Cogan,” she said. “Maybe he can tell us how many others are on board.” The Savak soldier staggered to his feet, raising his hands above his head.
“Cuff him and frisk him,” she ordered Cogan, who stepped forward, reaching with one hand to grab the prisoner’s wrist. The Savak took a half step back, slid his hands to the back of his neck and hunched his shoulders.
“Cogan!” Cookie screamed. Cogan was already jerking back, but too slow, too slow. The Savak brought his arms up and around in a flat slashing motion — Oh, Mothers, was that a sword? — and Cogan’s head seemed to leap from his body, blood spraying in rhythmic spurts. Then the Savak was bellowing and lunching forward — it was a sword, she could see it clearly now — and Cookie was screaming and shooting and the Savak jerked and lunged and she shot again and he jerked a second time and collapsed with a meaty ‘thump!’ at her feet. His sword clattered to the deck.
Cookie skittered back until she was up against the bulkhead. Her chest was heaving and her teeth were chattering, which she dimly thought was odd. Then the other private, Mickey Millard, was shaking her and shouting, “Corporal? Corporal! Are you okay?”
And with that, abruptly, she was. Her teeth stopped chattering and the corridor leapt into focus. Millard was looking at her anxiously. She tried to smile. “I’m okay, Mickey.” She took a deep breath and stepped forward. Little shaky, but not too bad. “Get Cogan’s ammo and grenades, we’re gonna need them.”
“Bugger me! He killed him with a sword! A fucking sword!” Now that his Corporal seemed okay, Millard began to come apart at the seams.
Cookie stopped down next to Cogan’s body, stripped the extra ammo clips off his harness and patted his pockets for grenades. The lights suddenly flickered off, leaving the corridor dimly lit by bluish emergency lamps. In the distance, she saw someone run past a corridor entrance, then the sound of shooting. She stood up. God, she was thirsty. “Come on, Mickey, we’ve got to get to Engineering.”
Aret1 stood at the hatchway leading to the London’s bridge. Two Brets stood on either side of him. They had fought their way past several small groups of Victorian Marines to get here, taking casualties
along the way. Now all he had were eight of his Arets, nine Brets and two of the slow Crets. The fact that the hatchway wasn’t guarded made him uneasy. Was it a trap? Would a platoon of Victorian Marines be waiting on the other side? He turned to face the others.
“When we go in, split up left and right,” he signaled, using he hand signs they had all learned as children. “Kill them all!” He drew a breath. “Glory to the Emperor!” he shouted, then pushed open the hatchway.
“Westchester, respond! I am ordering you to move four hundred miles forward and take up a screening position. Acknowledge!” Admiral Skiffington watched the hologram for a moment. Westchester did not move. “Dammit, what are they doing?” he roared.
“No reply, Admiral,” the Communications Officer said. “Nothing from Westchester, Sea Witch or Balmorel. The Yorkshire is responding and moving into position now.”
Admiral Skiffington watched the battle unfold on his hologram. The two Battle Groups on his right flank, Alpha and Bravo, were gone. Annihilated. One after another, the ship colors had turned from blue to blinking orange. His left flank, the Battle Groups he had commandeered from Third Fleet, were badly chewed up and scattered. His remaining two Battle Groups seemed still intact, but more and more they weren’t responding to his commands. One by one they were falling out of formation and just hanging in space. The computer still displayed them as combat ready…but they weren’t.
He didn’t understand.
The hatchway swung open and armed men spilled into the room. Everyone on the bridge stopped what they were doing and stared. Someone stifled a scream. Admiral Skiffington stared. A spark of anger flared within him and grew. These men. He stood and pointed at them. “Get off my bridge!” he thundered.
Grant Skiffington hugged the wall. Ten feet ahead of him four Marines lay sprawled in an intersection of two corridors, killed in some earlier skirmish. Grant could hear calls and screams and more shooting. He knelt down and peeked rapidly around the corner. Three of the armed intruders stood, backs to him, less than one hundred feet away. He looked back at the dead Marines. One of them still clutched a Bull Pup in his hand. He wanted that gun. Another peek; the gunmen were still facing the other way. He took a step-
A strong arm snaked around his neck and jerked him off his feet. “Gods of Our Mothers, didn’t you learn anything at Gettysburg?” a voice whispered harshly.
Grant squirmed around to see a Marine in a ballistic helmet. The figure raised the visor. “Cookie?” he stammered. She put a finger to her lips. “Shhssh. How many?”
“Three, about a hundred feet up.”
Cookie gestured to Millard, who crept to the corner, then flung a grenade. As soon as it exploded, Cookie and Millard stepped into the corridor and fired down its length. “Okay,” she called to Grant. “Get a gun and as much ammo as you can find.”
“That was my last grenade, Corporal,” Millard said.
“I know, Mickey.” She turned to Grant. “Do you have any idea what the hell is going on?”
“I know the Ducks are involved. I think those Dominion ships we rescued nailed the Sussex. They’ve got to be working with the Tilleke somehow.” Grant checked the charge on the Bull Pup. Half full. He found another clip and pocketed it. One Marine had a pistol on his belt and Grant took that as well, stuffing it into his pants.
Cookie grimaced. “The Ducks are working with the Tilleke? Then we are truly fucked.” She gestured to the dead intruders. “These guys are Savak, the Emperor’s Guard unit. Somehow they got on board, a lot of them. I’ve counted over sixty that we’ve seen and from the sounds, there must be more. They’re going room to room, killing everybody they find.”
Aret1 nodded when First Sister Pilot led the other Pilots onto the bridge. “The ship is yours,” he told her. We hold Engineering, Combat Systems and the bridge. We will eliminate the rest of the crew within the next hour.”
“The Emperor’s blessings!” she replied, eyes sparkling. They had captured a Victorian battleship intact! Her Sister Pilots quickly fanned out to the control systems they had studied for years. One opened a com to the Engineering Room, where other Pilots were bringing up power and restoring systems. First Sister Pilot found the ship’s navigation lights and turned them on, then examined the sensor display. There were six other Victorian ships in the immediate vicinity, three of them with blinking navigation lights. She studied the ships without navigations lights. Each of those ships would soon be the target of a Savak attack. She looked at her watch. Her orders were to destroy any ship not captured within two hours. “Get the missile systems ready,” she ordered.
The lights suddenly flared on, making Grant blink and Cookie and Millard duck into the nearest doorway. “Get out of the corridor!’” Cookie hissed. They waited a moment. In the distance there was the sound of intermittent shooting. Millard reached up to a wall com.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Grant told him. Millard looked at Cookie in confusion. “But the power’s on. We can get help!”
Grant shook his head. “It means we’ve lost the ship. If you call in, they’ll know there are survivors and exactly where we are.”
There was a shout, then a shot. Millard screamed and clutched his leg, blood blossoming between his fingers. Cookie crouched, let loose a burst, then a second, then they were running, dragging Millard by his combat harness.
Behind them they heard shouts and the pounding of pursuing feet. They reached an intersection, saw more Savak coming from the right, and then more yet emerged at the far end of the corridor. “Left!” Cookie shouted, then cursed as a pellet ricocheted off her helmet. Grant stopped in front of her and she bounced off him. “What?” she cried. They were in a dead end. Millard pushed himself up against the wall and shakily raised his weapon. Cookie unclipped her last grenade and tossed it around the corner, then knelt and raised her weapon, only dimly aware that Grant was struggling to open some hatchway in the wall. The grenade rattled along the deck, but obstinately refused to explode. Footsteps pounded closer. One Savak skidded into the intersection and Cookie hammered him with a short burst. A second ducked his arm around and fired a spray of pellets. Millard uttered a sharp cry of pain. “Goddammit, I’m hit again!”
“We’re having fun now!” Cookie muttered. Then Grant grabbed her by her battle harness and pulled her backwards though a small enclosure. She tripped and sprawled on the deck
“Don’t leave me,” Millard begged. “Don’t leave me!” He began to crawl across the deck. A spray of pellets stuck the wall above him. He reached out an imploring hand. “Please! Corporal, help me!”
Cookie struggled to her knees, but a Savak commando suddenly loomed in the hatchway. Cookie tried frantically to bring her rifle to bear, but the front sight caught on her clothing. The Savak was shouting something, his weapon almost on her, and then he flinched backwards, blood spurting from his knee. Grant shot him a second time in the leg. The storm trooper’s leg buckled and he fell on top of Cookie, pinning her with his weight, and then Millard was screaming in agony and another Savak was there, firing again and again into Millard’s chest and Grant stepped forward and smashed his fist against the large red button on the wall.
The hatchway closed with a bang and suddenly they were all hurled to the floor by a tremendous jerk.
And then Cookie understood: They were in one of the ship’s escape pods. The explosive bolts blew and kicked the pod into space, leaving the London behind.
Chapter 28
Dominion First Attack Force.
At the Entrance to the Cape Breton/Victoria Wormhole
Admiral Mello nodded once to his aide, who keyed the com so that his words would be heard throughout the First Attack Force. His voice was deep and vibrated with pent-up emotion.
“Soldiers and sailors of the Dominion of Unified Citizenry! I salute you! Fifteen years ago the Dominion suffered its first and only defeat, at the hands of the Victorian navy. That loss has been a stain on our honor. Today we regain our honor. The Dominion is the greatest soci
ety in all of human space, but for fifteen long years we have been pushed, bullied and taken advantage of by the Victorians. The Victorians beat us at Windsor, but in their blind arrogance they think that because they won one battle, they had defeated the Dominion for all time.
“Today, you and I and everyone in this Attack Force will teach them the error of their ways! In a moment, the entire First Attack Force will cross into Victorian space. Soon we will meet the Second Attack Force, led by Admiral Kaeser. Together, we will attack Victoria, and when we are done, it will no longer be Victorian space, it will be Dominion space!
“This will be the decisive battle! With this one stroke, the Dominion shall rule all of inhabited space. I expect each of you to do his duty! Admiral Mello out.”
Mello swiveled in his chair to face Captain Pattin. “Send the order: First Attack Force to enter Victoria!”
Chapter 29
Leaving the H.M.S. London
In Tilleke Space
The Savak on top of Cookie grabbed her by the throat and began to beat her head against the deck. Cookie clawed at his face, ripping off his helmet. Choking, frantic with the need for air, she jammed stiffened fingers into his eyes, hard. His grip loosened for a second.
“Do something! Grant!” she croaked.
Groaning with the effort, Grant sluggishly pulled himself up, grabbed the Savak around the neck, stuck his pistol in the commando’s ear and pulled the trigger. Blood sprayed everywhere, covering Grant’s face and chest. He flopped back down on the deck, gasping for air. The Savak collapsed sideways, eyes bulging from the hydrostatic effect of the bullet. Cookie stared at the body, feeling a shock of recognition as she realized he looked identical to the five Bobs she had killed on the London just minutes earlier. Bugger me, how many times do I have to kill you? She heard a noise and looked up.
Grant Skiffington was sitting up against one wall, arms hugging himself. His teeth chattered. His eyes blinked furiously. Cookie crawled to him and put her arms around him. “You are a complete and utter fuck-up, Skiffington, but you did good. Real good.”
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