That gave Reynolds an idea. He activated the squad frequency. “I’m going up the hall to meet the ones running this way. They can’t see me. I’ll be in their midst before they know what hit them, and I can toss my grenades into the pack.”
Before anyone could tell him what a stupid, suicidal notion that was, their visors showed his ghostly outline running up the corridor, leaving Kredman, his partner at the same corner holding the tenuous fort.
He pulled the two grenades out, and thumbed them for a two-second delay when released. He’d overlooked the fact that the devices themselves were not stealthed, and could be seen “floating” in air in his invisible hands. Before he moved so far around the curve of the ring corridor that Kredman couldn’t see or cover him, he stopped, and placed both fists against the wall, side by side of a recessed light fixture.
“Hey Sarge, whata ya doing?”
“Kreddy, I’m making like a wall decoration. Get ready, they just came into sight.”
Indeed, there was quite a mob rushing his way. Reynolds had no way to know this, but the surviving Krall forces had split again to cover all six large airlocks. There were thirty-two running right at him, not that he was counting.
He actually saw the eyes of multiple warriors glance right at him, as they automatically took in everything in the corridor. With relief, he knew his pose with the grenades had disguised them as part of the light fixture. In seconds, they closed to within twenty feet, and he lifted his thumbs, activating the timers.
With a flick of each wrist, the powerful little bombs flew well over the heads of the lead warriors who saw them coming. One rolled to the floor trying to bring her rifle up to bear, to try to shoot one of the unknown objects out of the air as it passed over her. While not Kobani fast, it was likely any Krall could have made that shot, had not the timers expired.
Reynolds, well past his former feeling of invulnerability, but still invisible, had dropped to the floor to reduce his exposure to the depleted uranium pellets about to fly.
The dual blasts rained perforating pellets through a dozen faceplates caught looking right at the two former wall decorations, which inexplicably had flown over their heads. The wounded or dying warriors in the forefront were falling, and several others had failed to clear the now dying warrior, face-up on the floor with two holes in her faceplate. The warrior, a pellet through an eye and into her brain, spasmodically pulled the trigger of her plasma rifle, the bolt tearing into the helmet chin of a warrior leaping over her.
Ten or twelve Krall fell either wounded or dead, and others, their headlong rush encountering fallen bodies were being tripped, and tried to leap over the tangle. The speed and momentum of the Krall caused bodies to slide into Reynolds. He used the confusion to pull a still living Krall over his own torso, and he looked up at four different helmets higher than he was, and commanded the suit to lock onto the quickly designated targets. He staggered the two lasers, and the microwave pulse to fire first, then the energy-hog plasma bolt. This distributed the energy released more evenly.
The two lasers penetrated the faceplates he’d designated and blinded or seriously wounded those two warriors, the heat of the microwave beam didn’t kill its target, but the sudden red-hot heat of the helmet made it scream and tear it off and fling it away. The plasma bolt dropped the Krall standing next to him. In the distraction of three more warriors suddenly going down, and the strange action and scream of rage and pain of a fourth, had them looking about wildly for where the grenades and lasers came from.
Kredman, amazed at the havoc Reynolds had caused, took down four more Krall before they recognized the firing came from around the corner at the junction they had been trying to reach. They fired back at the edge of that corner to keep whoever was there from firing back again. Except, as his Mind Tap training had taught him, Kredman was already gone, moving towards the opposite corner, his motion invisible to the warriors.
Sarge, still under the weakening struggle of the wounded Krall that covered his body, positioned his own head under an armpit, and fired another microwave burst at another warrior. He realized that this intense microwave beam weapon, which he had distained previously, didn’t leave a visible trail back to him. Another Krall ripped off a blistering hot helmet in a rage.
Over half of the former thundering horde was down, dead, or wounded, and their momentum dissipated. Kredman added one more dead to the mix, as he put a red laser beam through the toothy gap of the partly open mouth of the Krall that had just ripped off his helmet. Five plasma bolts promptly passed through the point midway across the open end of the corridor, where the beam had originated just a few feet above the floor.
Kredman had continued his crouching move to the other side, so his helmet was no longer at the apex of the concentrated return fire. Unfortunately, his left hip had not cleared that area. One bolt missed too high, two glanced upwards off the armor, and two hit and burned deep pits, which transmitted intense heat to the inside. Kredman fell to the deck, short of the cover he was seeking, and the burned spot on his armor lost its invisibility.
His scream of pain in his helmet was only heard by him, and he started crawling to reach the cover of the corner, only a couple of feet away.
Reynolds saw his icon flare yellow in his visor, indicating Kredman was wounded. He couldn’t see him from where he was laying, but he could offer a distraction. He reached around the front of the weakening warrior he held over his torso, and grasped the plasma rifle hanging there on a sling. It was point blank range so he didn’t need to aim. He pulled the trigger and shot one of the warriors in the side that had fired on Kreddy. Another trigger pull and he hit the knee joint of a second warrior.
Both turned towards the source of the attack, but saw only their clan mate, who didn’t even have hold of his weapon. He appeared to be dead or dying. While looking directly at the downed warrior, a laser passed through the faceplate of one, and the other one’s faceplate suddenly sagged with the heat it had absorbed.
Unfortunately, this didn’t save Kredman. The other three warriors, not certain what they were seeing, put multiple bolts into the mysteriously moving spot that was a foot above the deck. He died in a blaze of agony as his suit was shredded at the hip. The suit’s stealth capability failed, and the compact black and white armor suddenly shimmered into view. Their target was dead, but to be certain this unknown type of enemy was definitely dead, the three warriors engaged in overkill, and cut the suit in half with their fire.
Reynolds saw the icon turn red and fade, and he suddenly saw another one turn yellow. Jason was hit. He had been so busy here he had no idea what was happening in the other corridor. They had been fighting in quiet desperation within their suits. His attention was suddenly yanked away from the action elsewhere.
The Krall were less flexible in their thinking than were humans, and not quite as smart on average, but in combat they did pay attention. One of those warriors farther back in the corridor, having seen the body of some strange looking opponent suddenly appear out of thin air, looked for signs of other invisible enemies. A dead Krall hovering eighteen inches above the deck, which had somehow just shot two clan mates with his rifle, and then launched a laser beam from a type of weapon the Krall didn’t carry, was a clue even the thickest headed lizard could absorb.
The armored body of the now dead Krall was suddenly snatched away, and the business end of plasma rifle was jammed down into the area where the corpse had been supported. The smart thing to do would have been to shoot first and probe later. Reynolds taught him that lesson swiftly. He snatched the rifle with one hand as his other grabbed and broke the armored arm that had extended the weapon. He tossed the weapon up and released it as he slammed down with both of his hands while he used his back to flip up from the deck, bringing him to his feet in one motion. He grabbed the rifle in midair, reversed it and put a bolt through the dumfounded warrior’s faceplate.
He tossed the weapon up again as he dove away. The rifle became the focus for shots fr
om the three warriors that had killed Kredman, and from two others farther back in the corridor. While they wasted multiple plasma bolts on a discarded rifle they had just seen kill one of them, Reynolds moved down the passageway, looking back.
Good shooting, he thought, all of them hit it.
He stepped behind the rearmost two warriors and fired the microwave weapon at one, and a plasma bolt into the rear of the helmet of the other. Neither was a kill shot, but were disabling. That moment was all that he needed.
He grabbed the rifle from the Krall that was more interested in removing the steaming helmet on its roasting head, and while standing behind him, he fired twice to kill two of the warriors looking back into the corridor. They were caught while looking at the thoroughly destroyed rifle they all had managed to kill.
The third warrior in the front shot the burned warrior he was standing behind in the head. This effectively took away Reynolds cover, and the warrior shooting towards him had dived to take cover behind corpses. He was blindly shooting over the top of one corpse accurately, using its battlefield memory of where his enemy had been.
Reynolds tossed the visible weapon in the air as he moved away, but it didn’t draw fire this time. Fooled them just once, he thought.
He wisely didn’t move towards the Krall he’d stunned with the helmet head shot either. It was down on its knees, trying to recover its senses, but the warrior up front had raised its head to get fresh information, and ignoring the falling rifle, fired into the empty space around the kneeling warrior. It had assumed the invisible enemy would go to cover behind the next closest Krall.
Suddenly, as he stepped over dead Krall bodies to get closer to the shooter, that worthy foe was shot in the back of its head. He first thought the main force had made it through, but no. It was Bill Coleman, the man paired with Jason Sieko.
With alarm, Reynolds realized that he had failed to note the missing icons. He and Bill were the only ones left from the squad. It had only been four minutes. The door wasn’t ready to lift and the rest of the troops weren’t inside yet.
“Bill, what’s happening in the corridor on the other side?”
“They ran over us, Sarge.” He sounded apologetic. “We needed more of those grenades. Maude followed your nutty example. God, she took down a dozen, but they are gathering in front of the airlock. They can’t stop all of them, but they’ll cut a bunch of our guys down. They know we have better stealth now, so they’ll shoot as soon as the door starts to lift.”
Mentally selecting the push for squad leaders for his group, he warned them. “The Krall had a shit pile more warriors here than we thought. At least a dozen are waiting for you when the airlock completes its cycle. If you have grenades, throw them under the door first.”
“We don’t have any. Seemed like a bad idea on a space station.” That was Andrew Johnson’s voice, and his ID appeared on the visor icon.
“Andy, I’ll give you a diversion the moment the door starts to lift.”
“OK. The pressure is almost equalized, we can start to open when you say go. We’ll come out shooting.”
“Good. Lock onto my visor image so you can see what I see. I’m headed for the entrance again.”
He turned to Bill. “Cover my back. I’m going to get their attention.”
“What can you do against so many?”
“Why play with dolls, of course.” Staying close to the inside curve of the wall, he moved closer the corridor junction.
****
Therdak felt certain they were going to lose the station. The enemy was incredibly effective in battle, and had suit technology well beyond anything the Krall used. The stealth was nearly perfect. This new armor made the enemy essentially invisible at infrared as well as at visible light wavelengths. It was as if single ship stealth coatings had been applied to their suits, except the power needs for that material required a fusion bottle.
The only thing he was certain of was that this was not an assault by another clan. Not just because of the technology displayed. The one dead fighter’s armor he could see was much smaller than a Krall’s, and the stealthed armored corpses they could touch were the same size. The armor’s integrity had failed when it was penetrated at close range, something that was harder to do than with Krall armor.
There had been a partial report from a leader of a hand of octets, voice cut off before it was finished, that an unseen enemy had poured out of an airlock on the opposite side of the station. His warriors were being killed quickly, from almost any point, even being shot from behind their formation in the firefight. The other sub leader at a different airlock had not answered him.
He was down to fifteen warriors at this particular airlock, only eleven were fully effective. None of the warriors that should have come from the opposite corridor had arrived.
There had been explosions heard, and multiple sounds of plasma bolts in that direction, but it was silent there now. He had one of his badly wounded warriors, without lower legs, working to remove the armor from one of the dead enemy. Unlike five of the six that had died, this one’s stealth had fully failed when it was blasted into two pieces. He wanted to see the face of this new enemy before he died fighting them. He hated them even as he admired them.
He could see by the pressure indicator outside of the wide airlock door that it would open soon. He and his warriors, true to the “Path and clan” order he had issued, would take as many of the enemy as possible before they died.
“Force leader.” It was the wounded warrior working on the dead enemy’s corpse. “I have found the release for the helmet, it has partly opened and I can remove it now. You wanted to be first to see.”
Therdak, knowing time was short, stepped close and bent to pull the strange looking object off. There had been no transparent faceplate at all. He didn’t understand how it could see the outside world.
As he lifted the strange clamshell like helmet, he caught sight of the features, and drew in a sharp suck of air. A stab of fear, the first he’d ever recalled feeling, entered his mind. He was glad he still wore his helmet so his reaction wasn’t seen.
His wounded warrior, however, had removed his damaged helmet to facilitate the task of visually seeing how to open the enemy armor. His shock was as great, and his blurted words were heard by all. “This is a human! We were boarded by humans.”
Despite the circumstances, many of the warriors leaned over or stepped away from their place in the firing line to see. It was impossible that these weak animals had bested them in close combat.
Therdak had an answer to the strength they had demonstrated. The warrior on the floor, holding the dead human’s torso could testify to that strength. His legs had been twisted and torn off at the knees in a hand-to-hand struggle, three against one human.
“Their armor must be powered. This gives them the strength that was not bred into them, as it is with us.” He wasn’t convinced that the slender armor had that ability, but what else could he say?
Just then, a hiss and clank told everyone, on both sides of the door, that the solid metal plate of the airlock door was about to lift.
Suddenly, a screeching banshee of a sound from the side corridor told them something insane was coming at them. Two Krall warriors, loosely holding their rifles came jiggling and wobbling towards them, looking oddly loose jointed. It drew the attention of every warrior. Four of them died, looking on in disbelief at the bizarre actions of their clan mates.
****
Reynolds used the rifle slings to lash them quickly to the hands of two dead Krall warriors. Then he grabbed them by the back rim of their helmet attachments and bodily lifted them. He sent a message to Johnson. “OK, raise the door when you see me reach the corridor junction on my visor. You had better shoot straight and often.” He didn’t wait for a reply.
Using a thought to activate his external speaker system, and setting it to high volume, he let out a screeching sound that echoed through the corridor. He ran around the inside curve towards the Kra
ll, waggling the corpses like the dolls he’d mentioned to Coleman.
He instantly spotted one warrior standing over Kredman’s body, holding his helmet. That one knew who they were for sure, and his first shot went through that one’s faceplate. He didn’t know he’d killed the Force leader, but with Krall, they weren’t really disrupted much by that. It happened too often. He shot three more in quick succession.
Fortunately, for those in the airlock, the distraction worked. Ten troopers were lying prone, with plasma rifles ready and suit targeting set for auto fire on any target that didn’t have a “friendly” icon.
Unfortunately, for Reynolds, the distraction worked. Half of the Krall opened fire on his “dolls,” and his using them for protection only worked to a limited extent. That extent did not give his legs much protection. He was shot three times in his right leg. He went down in a tangle with his two “toys.”
In seconds, the remaining Krall at this airlock were tangled bodies as well. Two of the ten Kobani in the prone firing line were killed by random shots to their helmets, one was wounded in the neck. All told, there were eleven Kobani killed at this forced entry point, seven seriously wounded, and five minor wounds. The Krall didn’t miss often. Neither did the Kobani. The Krall losses were one hundred percent dead.
Three Torki were killed by decompression when in a panic, they forced open an adjacent compartment that had been breached. There was half a lodge present on the station, and even though they understood low Krall and hated the Krall, they didn’t actively cooperate with the strange aliens until the migration ship arrived and docked. They received Olt communications, and shortly after the arrival of the Torki on the rescue ship, they all spontaneously underwent the experience of having the new internal library opened to them.
Koban: Rise of the Kobani Page 75