“I wonder if the Weasels hit the Devout,” I mused aloud, thinking of the original colonists who had landed on Freeborn almost five centuries ago and were never heard from again.
“Who ... sir?”
“Never mind, Sergeant,” I replied, mentally cursing myself for leaving my throat mike open. “Carry on,” and I nodded my head sharply to click off with my chin.
“Prepare to launch missiles.” The sonorous voice of the shipboard computer called over all channels and into the room via its speakers as well. Finally. We were about to strike a real counterblow at the Khalian raiders, alien killers who had plagued us for fifty years now. I riveted my gaze upon the foreward screen, just like all the rest of the grunts were doing. I didn’t want to miss a second of this. The Retaliation was armed with small-sized missiles with exceptionally tough metal alloy noses and packed with shaped-charge high explosive. Penetration and perforation, that’s what the manual said. Could a young, unorganized, and underpopulated planet actually strike a successful blow against the Khalia? It was obvious that all of us thought so!
Two centuries ago the second group of colonists landed on Freeborn and established the Commonwealth of Franklin. Patrick Henry, its capital, is still the only big town on Freeborn, but there are a half-dozen other commonwealths now, as well as twice as many autonomous communities and freeholds spread across a million square miles or so of the planet. Yet from Disobedience in the north to Elbowroom in the south, all citizens of the world supported the establishment of a navy—our own navy, that is. Freeborn refuses to quarter the Fleet, and their squadrons are never around when you need them anyway. Like a half-century ago.
That’s when the Weasels first struck Freeborn. Compared with what happened later, it wasn’t much of a raid. The Khalian ship came down near a village several hundred kilometers away from Patrick Henry in a territory named Rising of the Moon. It’s now a part of Franklin, but it wasn’t then. The Weasels sealed off the area, kept an outer perimeter secure, and proceeded to round up every human inside of it. Perhaps someone pissed them off by shooting back. It doesn’t matter much now. When they left, a hundred people were missing and twice that number were dead ... butchered dead.
A fast courier went off to Terra, another to Tau Ceti. Earth sent condolences and the Fleet poked around Brigit for a time. Their intelligence officers landed on Freeborn, I’m told, and asked a lot of stupid questions. The only eyewitnesses to what had happened were dead or gone, that’s why questions were stupid. In time the Fleet went away, and everyone at home settled down to routine. We didn’t even know who had attacked, but after a few years folks tend to forget. Ten years to the day after the first raid, the Weasels came again. This time they hit a bigger place, and it so happened it was a “verger settlement.” By verger, I mean those rough-and-ready types willing to face the native fauna of Freeborn and fight them for the turf. Despite losses, the vergers claimed to have killed a number of the laser-armed foes. In fact, the survivors had three Weasel heads, trophies to back up their statements. The Fleet took them from the verger-folk, of course. That’s when we first heard of the Khalian “pirates”—exactly forty years ago today.
Isolationist. Ornery. Clannish. Out of touch. We of Freeborn have been called all of those and more. Nobody has ever said we’re stupid. Ten years later, when the third Weasel raid struck, the Concentonated Freeborn Defense Forces were alert and waiting. The marauding vessel was spotted coming from the far side of the sun and heading for the shelter of Goibhnie. We tracked it all the way to where it set down on our planet. I say “we,” but I mean my ancestors and the others of the time. I wasn’t born until four years after the incident. What happened then is in the history books of Freeborn. We hit them with everything we had. Hard. It didn’t phase their spaceship, but it did do for quite a few of the surprised Weasels. I’ll bet those furry bastards humped it back to that big ship of theirs in one hell of a hurry. Whatever. We paid the price. When the Khalian vessel took off, it used its plasma cannons and missiles to pound the hell out of anything that looked human on Freehold. The Fleet didn’t show up until two days later. A snafu at Tau Ceti had gotten the dates of the raids wrong. Those damned spacemonkeys actually thought they were arriving a day early to protect us!
When Freehold petitioned the Alliance for permission to construct its own war craft, the request was turned down. The Fleet brooks no competition. Of course we went right ahead and began secret construction of Retaliation immediately thereafter. Now I was aboard the forbidden frigate three decades later, Terran Standard Calendar, on her first voyage of hostile action. It might seem a long time, thirty years, but our planet is not rich. Freeborn lacks just about every thing in the way of capacity to build warships except one. We have ingenuity. Two maybe, because we also have determination. Until this very year, Retaliation hadn’t even lifted off planet to test drives, weapons, and equipment.
Meanwhile, the Weasels kept up their strikes, and they came more frequently now. The Khalia aren’t stupid either, so their ships hit at random times, usually attacking interplanetary cargo ships and traders who plied the routes to the mines on Nuada and Luga’s five big moons. I have to admit that the Fleet came frequently to our sector of space. A flotilla of smaller ships of a squadron of bigger ones was a frequent sight. There was even a brush with a fleet of the Khalia. I remember seeing it on the trivid news when I was a kid. After that, the Weasels stayed away from us for some time. When they finally started raiding again, it was only with single, relatively small vessels. I suppose the Fleet saved Freeborn from a full-scale invasion. At least that’s what old Galactic Admiral Thrushwaite claimed. Thanks. When the big action was ended, the Fleet lost interest, and the Weasels were still killing and enslaving the folk of our planet.
There was a cloud of little sparkles on the screen. The motes twinkled, then faded. “Blast ‘em!” one of the grunts nearby said through clenched teeth. The flashes which followed were the missiles launched by Retaliation striking the Khalian vessel. Just as I saw the impact on the viewer, the frigate shook along its entire sixty plus meter length. A fierce, high-pitched humming caused the vibration, or was part of it. Who knows? It made teeth ache and nerves feel as if there was fire running along them. I knew about the reason for it. After all, being the son of the Commandant of the Division gave me some inside information. The magnetic engines did more than power the ship undetectably. They also operated one hell of a big gun in the nose of Retaliation. We were beaming a stream of positrons at the Weasel’s ship, and if it worked right, their magnetic screens wouldn’t be worth squat a couple of seconds from now.
Three eye-searing flashes. Blannng! BLONG! Retaliation did a crazy dance. One of the viewscreens looked like a kids’ kaleidoscope. The other five were just plain black. I looked around. One of the part-timers had been careless. Maybe he was out of his web to make a last minute trip to the head. Unforgiveable. The shock from the Khalian missile hits had tossed him against a steel bulkhead and turned him to pulp. Shit! Regulars knew better, but it’s pretty hard to keep a standing force of Marines in a society which doesn’t believe in regular armed forces, government, or taxes. We do pretty well, all things considered.
“Sergeant Whitson! Get that mess cleaned up!”
“Yessir!” He detailed a couple of our paramedics to the job. It wasn’t a risk now, for it would take a couple of minutes for the enemy to ready its next salvo of missiles. Better to take a chance on an early firing than to leave a corpse in front of a company of nervous troops steeling themselves for their first boarding action. The corpse disappeared, and in a minute both men of the detail were snugged up in their webbing again. The computer, meanwhile, had its servos replace the shattered opticals, so all screens were in full operation again. When the forward one lit up there was a cheer from the whole company, myself included.
Commander Fitzosbourne had hosed the Weasel ship. I wasn’t sure about its screens, but it was no longer moving under po
wer. The readout on the screen showed its acceleration was a constant. Retaliation had blown the enemy ship’s drive out from under the Weasels, and we were now almost parallel to the Khalian vessel. It was big, almost twice as long as our frigate; and the damned thing was a whole hell of a lot thicker. Retaliation looked like a stogie. The Weasels’ ship looked like a football. Yeah, we still smoke cigars on Freeborn. How you kill yourself is strictly your own business. None of this bull puckey about banning anything. Sure. We play football too, only it’s more like the game was played by the ancients. No robo-players, no special body shields. Sorry. I’m getting off the track.
Plasma cannons began blasting away at the enemy. The gunnery officer aboard Retaliation was good. We doused ‘em good, but he didn’t hammer any one place too much. Our little frigate matched velocities, circled the Khalian vessel like a satellite, and kept pouring fire upon it. Every sensor, antenna, anything not solid hull metal went up in atoms. So did a fair amount of the aliens’ armor.
They hit us too. Before we’d silenced their guns, the Weasels had battered Retaliation pretty heavily. Damage reports coming in told us that we had wounded crew and a hell of a lot of exterior stuff shot away too. It was a good thing that the magnetic cannon had been needed only once, for the Weasels laid a heavy barrage square on the frigate’s bow and turned Retaliation’s blunt nose, gun and all, into molten slag. Tough, but not a big deal now. We were uptight, but only insofar as the Khalian ship was concerned. We had closed enough now to lock on to the enemy and now a red light was flashing. “BOARDERS AWAY. MARINES TO BRAVOLOCK. ON THE DOUBLE!” The voice was Captain Downing’s.
I had the company up and moving before the last word was out. Two files, one headed by First Sergeant Bannon, the other by Sergeant Whitson, were moving out toward the opposite side of Retaliation. Captain Downing would lead, and I was rear man. Not my choice, but orders are orders. Freeborn Marines look a lot like a cross between ancient warriors and hardly less ancient pirates of Terran legends, only our colors are drab; nothing bright, nothing shining on nylosteel body armor, polarized helmet visor, or even heavy swords and cluster pistols. Lasers can play hell with the armor, but nothing’s perfect, is it? Polarization saves the face and eyes, and the headgear and armor are proof against gas ... as long as both are intact. We hoped that the Weasels we were about to take on were garbed as usual—a whole lot of fur and straps for weapons. We weren’t disappointed.
As soon as we’d magnetically clamped on to the enemy ship’s hull, the crew had swung open the starboard boarding lock and set to work with the big lasers. Temporarily cemented to the Khalian ship by epoxy foam, Retaliation quickly became one with the Weasels’ interior as a big, square hole was burned through the enemy hull and Marines began jumping through the opening into the bigger vessel. The lasers had caused a lot of smoke. The Weasels were alerted as to our intent, of course, but before a single grunt jumped through the newly made hatch, a hail of the centimeter-sized discs from cluster pistols and lobbed grenades greeted the waiting enemy. The cluster pistols fire thin, coin-like projectiles which spread out into a half-meter area at about twenty meters, maximum effective range. After twenty meters, the discs lose their velocity and are pretty much harmless at thirty meters—harmless but painful. We shoot for targets under twenty meters naturally. We use hand-hurled grenades too because of the close quarters in a boarding action. They generate thick smoke which makes humans, at least, who breathe it dizzy and stupefied, and the vapor cloud tends to make lasers ineffective.
You might think that we really knew our stuff from hearing me talk. Well, we had practiced boardings like this one frequently. Only this time it was for real, and the Weasels were shooting back and fighting to kill. Training operations just don’t prepare you for that. The Khalia are fast. You hear about it, but until you see one in action, it doesn’t really register. After we’d sprayed the Weasels good with pistol fire and lobbed in a dozen grenades, Captain Downing lead the first section of boarders into the enemy vessel. By the time I made it into the Khalian ship, the fighting was somewhere else. There were a dozen dead Weasels in as many meters. There were a few of us with them. A couple had died by hits from the needlers used by the enemy troops, but the rest had been bitten to death, locked in hand-to-hand with one of those furry bastards. Now I was glad I had the heavy cutlass with me.
“Weasels grouping toward the bow!” The excited message was from Bannon. My helmet had been crackling with such short reports since the beginning. In the fog we’d created, communications were absolutely vital, because you couldn’t see worth a damn. There was a roaring sound from the little speaker, but I ignored it. Foreward was the objective of Captain Downing’s section. I was working ahead and aft, with my own men, Sergeant Whitson leading the advanced squad.
“What’s up, Whitson?” I said through my throat mike.
“We got the bastards on the run, Lieutenant!” The reply was excited but confident. “Two casualties, and we’ve taken out every one of the Weasels we’ve encountered.”
Spacemen from Retaliation were moving in behind us, mopping up any of the aliens we missed. “Carry on, Sergeant. I’m taking Fourth Section forward to reinforce Captain Downing. Bannon’s report sounded like trouble. You kick ass!”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Whitson responded.
I hit band four and called for the grunts in the section to rally at the intersection of the route we moved along laterally and the main axial route through the enemy vessel—most have the same layout. In a minute six men were there. “Corporal Garza?” He didn’t need another word.
“Zoller bought it, Lieutenant,” Garza said tonelessly.
“Yeah,” I replied as emotionlessly. “Spread the men out and follow me, Corporal. We’re going to see if we can assist the Captain.” It was pretty obvious we were on the same route as First Section had taken. Dead Weasels and blasted hatches marked the path clearly. As we moved up, I took the left, Garza the right, with the rest of the squad fanned out behind. It was because I was pressed up against the bulkhead that I heard it. First there was a vibration, then the humming of a motor, and the bulkhead started to slide sideways.
“Shit!” was all I managed to get out. Reflexes took over, and I spun as I dropped, discharging both barrels of my pistol into the opening which had suddenly appeared. Garza went down, a ruby-colored line having burned his leg. Evidently the Weasels didn’t care how much they damaged their own ship. Bigfox and McDonnel both got off shots, though, and Gigantos flipped a grenade right through the middle of the newly opened hatch. Between the ricocheting discs from the cluster pistols and the gas, the Weasels in the elevator didn’t have a chance. We laid another couple of blasts into the lift for effect, then went in with cutlasses to finish off any survivors. There were ten of the buggers strewn around inside the steel cube, and a big weapon of some sort.
“Captain Downing, Lieutenant Hohenstein, sir,” I said on the officers’ communication band. I heard the Captain’s voice in reply, so I gave him a fast rundown on what had just occurred. “Looks like they’re using reinforcements from upper or lower decks to move in behind us,” I concluded.
“Use their damned elevator to roust ‘em out, Franz,” he said back. “We’re doing okay, so if you can keep the Weasels busy, we’ll have their bridge and then it’s all over for the bastards.”
“You got it, Chauncy!” The expletives which came back made me chuckle despite the situation. “Aye, aye, Captain—providing I can manage it!” Downing had suggested some anatomically impossible things for me to do. He didn’t care much for his first name ... I clicked onto the regular band and ordered the squad into the elevator. Garza hobbled in last, his leg bound with a big dressing. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I nodded at him as he came on, saying, “Hang tough, Corporal!”
“Now I really owe those Weasels one, Lieutenant,” he replied, and then checked his bandoliers for grenades and spare clips.
Figuring ou
t how to get the elevator to go up wasn’t hard. After all, the Weasels are bipedal and use handlike forepaws much as humans do. Two levels above, two below. I punched in the top one and got ready. When the door slid open we poured out. A Weasel was there. He moved so fast he nearly gutted me with his wrist-encircling dagger weapon. Nylosteel armor or not, the Weasel punched me with his left, and I felt the point of the dagger on my skin. At the same time, it wrapped its right paw around my arm and tried to bite my shoulder. I went down hard, chopping with my sword as I fell. O’Brien ran the alien through, and I scrambled back onto my feet.
“You all right, sir?” It was Bigfox, squad paramedic. “Hardly scratched,” I replied, ignoring the trickle of blood I felt running down the front of my right leg. “Grenade any compartment and then blast the bastards with pistols. I want the area full of nothing but dead Weasels when we move down!”
Nobody replied. They were already moving out to see the order carried out. I kept my pistol ready now, so that I could send two dozen discs into the next Khalia I saw. The soft “whumps” of grenades exploding, followed by the sharp slaps of cluster pistols being discharged sounded terribly loud here. The enemy toward the stern of the vessel were sure to hear the squad at work. I dropped flat, sheltering behind the dead Weasel, and peered along the dimly lit corridor. Sure enough, here came a knot of the alien creatures, running flat out to handle our “disturbance.” They moved so fast it wasn’t hard to wait. By the time my brain got off the message to my trigger finger, the Weasels were only a couple of meters away. Unlike the weapons of the enlisted men, officers have fully automatic fire, and I used it now. When all twelve rounds had been expended, not a single one of those Khalian bastards was standing. Better believe I slammed in a new magazine before investigating.
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