“Fine, we advance by squad,” said McKinney. “Secure, advance, overlap and secure again.”
“Yes, sir,” said Woods, evidently aware of the tactic.
McKinney took off in the lead with Squad A, the members of which were now bolstered by the addition of Casey McCoy to replace the dead Zack Chance. The new man didn’t say much, not that McKinney found the trait objectionable.
The advance went smoothly until they reached the landing for level 295. McKinney found a group of six Vraxar in the reception room, heading away along one of the corridors. Luckily, he spotted them before he was detected. It gave him great pleasure to order Squad A to shoot the alien foot soldiers in their backs. So swift was the attack that the normally fast Vraxar weren’t even given the opportunity to turn and find out who was killing them with such efficiency.
When the last of the enemy fell, McKinney stayed in place for a moment, his eyes hunting along the two other exit corridors from the room. The deaths of the aliens didn’t bring any others running.
“Hands up who’s disappointed there were only six of them,” said Garcia, picking up on the mood. Shooting the Vraxar was enjoyable work.
A couple of the soldiers laughed, while the others kept focus on the job.
They climbed the last five floors at a fast pace. The interior levels of the Juniper weren’t evenly spaced and it seemed to McKinney as though it was more than a hundred metres between each new floor. Given the quantity of hardware he was carrying in combination with the weight of the spacesuit, he wasn’t surprised that the muscles in his legs complained loudly. His HUD recommended he accept a mixture of three different stimulants, as well as a moderate dose of battlefield adrenaline to top up the drugs he’d taken earlier.
A moment after he’d given his agreement, he felt a series of jabs from the suit’s micro needles. The effect was near-instant. The pain in his legs vanished and he felt as if he could carry two hundred pounds over each shoulder. With renewed vigour, he pressed on past level 299.
On the second-last landing, McKinney brought Squad A up from one of the mid-landings, in order to be in the lead when it came to entering level 300. Sergeant Woods was on the landing, with Squad D. Everyone was anxious now that their destination was within reach and the soldiers stood nervously, their gauss rifles trained towards the landing above. They didn’t want to get caught here if a Vraxar patrol decided to take a look into the stairwell.
“Give me another quick rundown of what we’re going to find at the top,” said McKinney.
“There’s plenty of maintenance stuff up on level 300, sir. They keep a few spare tech modules in case they need to do a swap out on anything docked. Levels 300 through 310 are where the Juniper has the biggest diameter, so there’ll be a little bit of running.”
“We’ll enter the secondary storage area, cross into the maintenance yard and there’ll be an exit to the far right which will enter the hangar bay?” asked McKinney, tallying the directions from his HUD overlay with Woods’ on-ground knowledge.
“That sums it up, sir. If we end up fighting in those areas it might get messy – there are lots of places to hide and it could be that we get pinned down if the enemy plays it right.”
“We’ll need to move fast.”
“Speed is good. Level 300 takes up a lot of space.”
“More room for us to avoid the enemy, Sergeant.”
“I hope it works out that way, sir.”
With the battlefield adrenaline burning in his veins, McKinney took the steps two at a time. He clutched the barrel of his repeater, taking comfort from the weapon. As eager as he was to kill more Vraxar, he knew it would be infinitely better if they didn’t encounter any more of the aliens.
He paused on the exit landing and looked carefully into the secondary storage area. As promised, it was huge. The lights were failing – in some places there were patches of near-darkness, whilst in other areas it was merely dim. He tried to figure out the dimensions of the room - according to the pings from his visor sensor, the ceiling was more than three hundred metres above. The far walls were obscured by the quantity of equipment crammed into the space, but he could see enough to be sure they were a long way distant.
The storage area was arranged like a warehouse – metal crates and boxes were stacked high to the ceiling in some places, whilst in others they were only two or three boxes high. Wide aisles ran between the stacks, though from McKinney’s position in the doorway he could only see to the left and right. Directly ahead was a lump of what he assumed was solid Gallenium. A flatbed lifter was off to his left, as dead as everything else on the orbital.
There were positrons in the storage room – not sufficient to kill, but enough to flout all manner of the Space Corps’ own recommendations. Then, McKinney noticed there was a door separating the landing and the room – the door was currently hidden away in its recess. Presumably when the power was on it served as a barrier against unwanted emissions.
McKinney didn’t wait for long. After assuring himself here were no sounds to indicate the presence of Vraxar, he brought the rest of the soldiers up - there was plenty of room for them on the landing. He provided a few brief instructions and then set out into the storage area with Squad A on point.
With a quick run, he reached the block of Gallenium opposite. He walked alongside it until he could look around into one of the main aisles which ran directly across the floor of the storage area. This entire area was neatly arranged and he could see all the way to the far wall which was their destination. The exit itself was concealed from view. The group was going to be exposed for long periods when they advanced. It wasn’t perfect but there was no choice.
It was strangely eerie and McKinney couldn’t shake the feeling that this part of the Juniper was as alien as the Vraxar ship which had captured the orbital. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why – maybe it was the scale and the size of the containers which loomed above, not that the storage room was any more impressive than other places he’d seen within Space Corps installations.
He looked over his shoulder to gauge the readiness of Squad A and then beckoned them to follow. He stepped out into the fifteen-metre-wide aisle and walked quickly and silently towards the next intersecting lane, fifty metres away.
From the landing it had seemed quiet. Now that he was in the room, he heard distant noises – the clanking of metal on metal and unidentifiable creaking sounds of something under stress. The footsteps of his men were muffled by the immense solidity of the scarred metal floor.
“Squad B moving to follow,” said Corporal Li, his voice hushed.
“Squad C holding,” said Evans.
McKinney reached the intersecting aisle and checked both ways. The storage area was arranged in a grid, which meant every one of the lanes stretched for a few hundred metres. It gave the Vraxar plenty of opportunity to attack from the safety of distant corners. McKinney switched on both his movement sensors and image intensifiers. This gave a less comfortable view than an unmodified feed and most soldiers were reluctant to rely wholly on this enhanced sight.
“Squad C moving up,” said Evans.
“Squad D waiting.”
It took a few minutes, but they made it across the secondary storage area without incident. During the course of the transit, McKinney found his eyes distracted by some of the punched metal label plates fixed to some of the crates. LS Module Drop-In QD. Height Adjusting LL Hinges. Unit Console Models X1. It was a world of terminology he was unfamiliar with. The contents of one particular box were easily understood. The main label stated Model 19R3-W Response Restock, underneath which someone had written further words in black ink: Bulwark ammo – yo!
The exit into the maintenance area was predictably large, since it needed to allow the movement of items from the storage room. The doorway passed through an internal wall a few metres thick and then opened into what was a larger version of the room in which they’d fought the armoured Vraxar.
McKinney remained in the s
torage area while he waited for the other squads to catch up and spent these few moments trying to make sense of the items laid out on the low, solid metal work benches. There were artillery gun barrels, the turret from a Gunther V tank, an object which appeared to be the landing foot from a fleet destroyer, lenses from a sophisticated sensor array, along with many other pieces of kit he only partially recognized.
The creaking sound McKinney noticed earlier was louder here, though he was no closer to guessing what it was. From the doorway he couldn’t see the entirety of the room and he wondered if there was something balanced precariously which was grinding against another object.
“Once we’re inside, we head right,” said McKinney. “A couple of hundred metres, I make it from my overlay.”
“Close enough, sir,” said Woods. “This maintenance area forms part of the outer perimeter of the Juniper. When we get inside, you’ll see the left-hand wall has a curve to it. The hangar bay makes all these other rooms look like small stuff in comparison.”
“I’ll do a check of the area with Squad A. We haven’t seen a Vraxar in too long and I’m getting worried.”
The others of Squad A gathered nearby without waiting to be called. McKinney stepped into the short tunnel formed by the Juniper’s thick internal walls. It wasn’t far to walk and each additional footstep revealed more of the maintenance room. His eyes picked out bodies of the orbital’s personnel, fallen in random places. Then, when he was right on the threshold of the maintenance room, he found out what the cause of the creaking sound was.
“Oh shit,” he muttered. He passed a warning across the comms channel. “Everyone be absolutely quiet!”
Garcia was right behind and he saw it too. “What the hell?”
The two men stared.
“This is where they’re getting in,” said McKinney.
“Must be. One of many places.”
To the left of the entrance doorway, there was a circular penetration through the outer wall of the Juniper, into which a round metal access tube had been pushed. This access tube was six metres in diameter and made of a near-black metal. Its leading edge was viciously serrated, leading McKinney to believe it doubled up as a drill to get through the hulls of whatever the Vraxar brought into the hangar bay of their mothership. He could see all the way along the access tube – pale blue and sickly green lights reflected against the dark metal. There were Vraxar soldiers around the entrance, standing motionless. They gave no sign of having seen or heard McKinney.
“Sergeant Woods, come and take a look at this.”
Woods came. “Not good,” he summarised concisely.
“How many of them can you count?” asked McKinney.
“Twenty-five.”
“Repeater turrets to the left and right, would you agree?”
“They look different to ours, but I’d lay money on them being some kind of repeater, sir.”
“That’s what I thought.”
McKinney stepped back to think. The enemy soldiers were approximately a hundred metres away and standing in no particular formation. The repeaters didn’t have a crew, though that didn’t mean anything – they could be set to fire automatically based on any number of criteria. One thing was certain – these Vraxar presented a significant obstacle to the squad’s progress towards the hangar bay. Even if they could successfully kill the aliens, it would raise the alarm in the mothership. It was certain they’d pour reinforcements through quickly once they realised what was happening.
McKinney wasn’t given the luxury of planning time.
“I think I saw something, back here in the storage room,” said Whitlock across the open channel.
“There’s something coming, Lieutenant,” said Munoz.
McKinney heard the discharge of two gauss rifles. The sound was repeated and joined by a third. The non-coms shuffled deeper into the entrance tunnel, squeezing up against the soldiers and pushing them forward. Return fire from the Vraxar pinged and whined as their slugs deflected from the walls nearby.
Whatever good luck they’d experienced so far, it was fast running out and McKinney was determined he wasn’t going to fail now. Unfortunately, it appeared as if the Vraxar had other plans for the surviving personnel of the Juniper.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WITH VRAXAR ahead and more approaching from the rear, McKinney was spurred into action.
“Webb, take out the left repeater, Musser you get the right. Don’t wait for each other. Do it quickly and see if you can incinerate some of the guards at the same time. Roldan, you’ve got a good arm – try and land a grenade in there once Webb and Musser have fired.”
Webb was with Squad A and already near to the front. He spun up his plasma tube and ran towards the edge of the doorway. McKinney continued giving orders.
“Squad D, watch our rear. B and C, we’re making a run for that bench over there once Musser’s fired his tube. If you see anything move, shoot it!”
The words hadn’t left McKinney’s mouth before Webb got his shot off. The plasma rocket screeched away and detonated with a thump. Webb jumped away out of sight.
“Direct hit. They know we’re here now - Musser, you’re going to have to time yours well.”
Musser’s sour reply indicated he wasn’t particularly impressed with the news. Even so, he got his tube in position and activated its warm-up. He leaned out and fired, before hurling himself away from the edge. A fusillade of enemy slugs smashed into the wall opposite.
“Did you hit?” asked McKinney.
“Negative, sir.”
McKinney swore – the bench he intended to use for cover was ten metres away from the doorway. There would be ample time for a repeater to shred anyone attempting to cross the gap.
“Roldan, you’ll have to throw blind unless you want get yourself shot.”
“Here’s a greeting from Tillos,” said Roldan, pitching one of his plasma grenades into the room. He didn’t need to make himself visible to do the throw and the grenade sailed away, following a high arc.
A few seconds later, Webb’s tube was recharged for a second shot and he moved into position. Shots clattered nearby as the Vraxar tried to keep the soldiers pinned down. There was no sign of fire from the repeater turret and McKinney hoped it had been damaged or disabled by the grenade.
Webb started to perform his familiar step-fire-hide routine, which would bring him into sight for only a second. His rocket burst from the tube, at the same time as a Vraxar bullet entered the soldier’s chest and exited from his back in a bloody cloud. Webb made a sound of puzzlement and dropped to his knees.
“Grover! Get here!” McKinney bellowed over the comms. He didn’t know if Webb’s shot was successful and knew he would have to gamble. He ran out of cover into the maintenance room, sprinted five quick paces and then threw himself headlong behind one of the benches. “The rest of you, move!”
“There’re plenty coming up from behind,” said Woods on the open channel. “Looks like the Vraxar are getting their act together.”
From the corner of his eye, McKinney detected the closest members of Squad A preparing to follow. He lifted his head and looked over the top of the bench. The Vraxar access tube was smoking with plasma heat, and his visor sensor detected a shimmering in the air which he hoped indicated the repeater turrets were destroyed.
They were running out of time and McKinney knew it. He saw movement. A group of Vraxar soldiers stood to one side of the access tube, firing their hand cannons towards the doorway. It was sufficient to make the men in the passage wary about emerging. McKinney was a good shot with a gauss rifle and he took aim. The first slug took one of the Vraxar in the head. He changed target, fired and repeated three more times. On each occasion one of the enemy soldiers fell. They hardly even attempted to take cover and he wondered if they were designed to be nothing other than meat shields. When you’ve conquered as many races as the Vraxar, you can probably afford to treat your soldiers as disposable assets, he thought.
A few o
f McKinney’s squad took advantage of the opportunity afforded by his accuracy with a gauss rifle and they darted over to join him. Roldan was amongst them and he threw another grenade as he ran, sending it towards the enemy with a tremendous heave of his arm.
“They’re going to start coming through that access tunnel at any moment,” said Garcia. “I’ll bet they’ve got a hundred thousand troops on that mothership.”
“Best get these ones shot quickly and then we can move on,” McKinney replied grimly.
One of the Vraxar grenades detonated with a thump on the other side of the bench. McKinney saw it land but wasn’t quick enough to get out of sight. The extreme edges of the blast struck his suit. It wasn’t enough to breach the material but it was enough to trigger warnings on his HUD.
For the next few moments, the remaining Vraxar exchanged shots with McKinney’s squad. Without assistance from their repeater turrets, the aliens were easy targets and they weren’t able to reach the cover of the workbenches without being picked off.
The engagement ended when Musser fired a second plasma rocket into a cluster of the enemy soldiers. The explosion turned them to charcoal and scattered their remains in several different directions.
“That’s the last of them, sir,” said Musser.
“Until the whole damn lot on the mothership come for us,” said McKinney.
He barked out a series of orders, directing the withdrawal of Squad D from the passageway leading into the storage room. Webb wasn’t in a good way and he was covered in huge quantities of blood from his injury. McKinney had no idea if the man would survive. The squad medic, Armand Grover had taken charge and he directed some of the non-combatants to assist with getting Webb moving.
“We’re going straight for the hangar bay. Squad D will cover our backs.”
McKinney urged the survivors on towards the exit from the maintenance area. It was only two hundred metres away, though it seemed like much further given the pressure they were under. He called Bannerman up to run alongside him.
Inferno Sphere (Obsidiar Fleet Book 2) Page 17