Gate Crashers

by Patrick S. Tomlinson

  Sniper team, status?

  …

  Tillman, Lyska, report!

  …

  Felix shook his head gravely.

  Harris’s grip tightened around his rifle, as if his hands wrung the very necks of his enemy. We’re done playing two-hand touch. Everyone, switch over to paint rounds. Spread them out good, and then fall back into the building.

  Harris reached into his left shoulder pocket and pulled out what looked like a standard rifle magazine, except it was bright green. He swapped it out and held his M-118 overhead, lined up with the closest Turemok soldier, and fired. He moved on and fired at the next position, and the next. The rest of his remaining rifle team did the same.

  Tom, this isn’t a training field. What good are paint rounds?

  You’ll see in about two minutes, Felix. Fall back with the others, and pop any of those balls that try to follow our retreat.

  Felix didn’t need coaxing and ran for the safety of the building. Harris fired the last of his paint rounds and switched back to the standard magazine. He waited, laying down cover fire until the last of his men had reached the building. A glancing beam burned the unit patch off his right shoulder as he ran for cover.

  Leaning against the inside wall, Harris called up the menu for the Gargoyle platforms overhead. Platform seven was only five degrees from apogee. At his command, it went hot. He selected Antipersonnel from the list of ammunition modes. When the lockup tone went steady, Harris smiled viciously.

  “Fire,” Harris said aloud, not caring who heard.

  Two hundred and fifty kilometers over the heads of their foes, OOP number seven took a millisecond to authenticate the origin of the orders it just received. Satisfied that Lieutenant Harris was who he claimed to be, gas thrusters fired, making a tiny adjustment to better align itself with the target. Electric motors whirled, and twelve barrels arranged in two contra-rotating bundles of six started to spin.

  Once the revs had built sufficiently, thirty-millimeter caseless rounds, each weighing almost a kilogram, poured into the feed. They came scorching out the muzzles at six thousand KPH, nearly five thousand rounds per minute. The recoil was intense enough to push the platform backward at nearly seventy KPH.

  At the heart of each round was the same guidance system used in their standard rifle bullets. All they needed were aim points, conveniently enough, provided by the transmitters in the paint rounds Harris’s squad had just fired.

  After a five-second burst, OOP seven went silent, awaiting further orders as it cooled. The demonic torrent of metal spikes actually accelerated as the planet’s gravity well pulled them into a terminal embrace.

  Harris’s spirits were much improved. “Good work, people. Just hold them off for the next ninety seconds.”

  “And then what?” Allison asked.

  “And then get your head down and cover your ears. Corpsman, how’s Conway?”

  “I gave him a sucker, sir, so he should feel better shortly, but the laser went straight through his liver and collapsed a lung. It cauterized as it went, so there’s no bleeding, but he needs surgery. Soon.”

  “He’s not a kid going in for a checkup,” Felix said. “A sucker hardly seems helpful.”

  “It is when it’s swimming in painkillers derived from conch shell neurotoxin,” replied the corpsman.

  “Oh,” Felix said. “Can I get one? I think I twisted an ankle.”

  “No.”

  A laser pulse sent shrapnel flying off the back wall with a sharp crack, reminding everyone they were still in a firefight. Harris ducked out and threw half a magazine downrange. Rifle team, keep them pinned down. Forget conserving ammo—fire everything.

  They responded, spraying bullets indiscriminately, utterly disregarding everything their instructors had drilled into them. After a mad minute of nearly continuous fire, their barrels smoldered from the heat, and the magazines finally ran dry. Harris’s countdown had fallen to fifteen seconds.

  Everyone, get down, Harris commanded. Raising the empty rifle over his head, he stood cautiously in front of the shattered window. “Whoa. Hold up for a … rakim!” Harris shouted.

  Zek’nel threw open his shroud and stood, a hand clutching the chest wound from Tillman’s opening shot. “Yes, human? Do you finally wish to surrender? I expect your little slings are out of pebbles by now.”

  “Actually, I just wanted to ask you something. Do any of you boys have an umbrella?”

  “No.”

  “That’s too bad, because it’s about to rain.” With that, Harris dropped to his knees and threw his hands over his ears.

  Even at six thousand KPH, the burst of fire from the Gargoyle platform seemed to take an eternity to arrive, but arrive it did. Hundreds of drops of iron rain fell upon the courtyard. Each round contained an explosive charge with a fuse set to detonate three meters above the ground in the antipersonnel mode.

  The world was consumed by a rapid-fire sound like standing on the floor of a burning fireworks warehouse. After exactly five seconds, the hellish noise and light display ended, replaced by a deadly silence.

  “Is it over?” Allison asked.

  Harris lifted his riflescope out the window to survey the results of his handiwork. The courtyard had been reduced to a ruined, cratered landscape. Brushfires burned in a dozen places.

  “Uh, yeah. I think we got them.”

  Felix peeked out of the doorway. “Looks like my yard back home. Except for the burning grass, of course.”

  “We’re clear. Rifle team, switch to sidearms and secure an LZ for the shuttles. Captain Ridgeway, call your pilot and tell him we’re going to need an evac pronto.”

  Allison leaned in to whisper to Harris. “What about your men in the tower?”

  “I’m not getting any com signal, which means their backpacks were destroyed. Those packs can take a lot more abuse than a human body. They’re buried under who knows how many tons of debris. We’ll have to retrieve the bodies later.”

  Allison’s head dipped. “I understand, but they deserve better.”

  “They always do.” Harris looked out into the smoke and fires of the decimated courtyard. “C’mon, move your people out. We have to dust off before they send reinforcements.”

  “Yeah, then what?”

  “Then we hope Captain Tiberius is having as much luck as we are.”

  CHAPTER 37

  He wasn’t.

  The bridge rocked as an x-ray laser punctured Bucephalus’s number-three coolant tank. Superheated reactor coolant boiled away into space.

  “Damage report.”

  “Sir, engineering reports the fusion reactor is going critical.”

  “Shut it down.”

  “We lost half our auxiliary batteries in the first salvo, sir. If we shut down, we don’t have enough reserves to restart.”

  “Which is a less immediate problem than exploding. Shut it down. Now.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The bridge lights flickered as main power went down and switched to emergency reserves.

  “Get damage control teams down to the damaged coolant tank and get a patch welded in.”

  A chime came from the com station. “Sir, Bandit One—”

  “Yes, yes. They’re hailing to gloat. Put the Vel through.”

  The face of Vel Noric again appeared on the Bucephalus’s bridge. Even without lips, it was clear he was smiling. “Captain Tiberius, my sensor interpreter tells me that your ship has lost primary power. Isn’t it about time we end this farce? Or do you intend to play this out to your inevitable destruction?”

  “My destruction would be yours. I am obligated to warn you that all Earth vessels carry one metric ton of a substance we call Corbomite, which, when subjected to—”

  “Star Trek. Season one, episode ten: ‘The Corbomite Maneuver.’”

  “Oh.” Maximus slumped in his chair. “You’ve seen it, then.”

  “I have the entire series on crystal. Anything else, or can we get down to business?”


  Maximus swallowed his pride, itself a superhuman feat.

  “Your terms, Vel?”

  “My terms are your personal surrender, Captain. Boarding craft will be sent with commandeering forces to secure your vessels. You and Captain Ridgeway will return for interrogation aboard my vessel. Your seconds will assume command, under the direct supervision of my troops.”

  “Captain Ridgeway is not aboard Magellan. She is leading the survey expedition on the surface.”

  Something caught the Vel’s attention. He leaned over as a much smaller Turemok whispered into his ear.

  “Interesting. It may give you some consolation to learn that Captain Ridgeway’s ground team somehow managed to neutralize the force sent to collect them. Quite the achievement, but ultimately foolhardy. Now her entire team will have to stand for the murder of my crew.”

  “If I know my people, they’re not coming back up without a fight.” Maximus smirked. “You’ll have to stick your hand back in that garbage disposal.”

  “You will find, Captain, that all you need to make uncooperative beings behave properly is appropriate motivation.” Then Vel Noric’s face disappeared.

  Maximus looked at his com officer. “What happened? Did we lose the connection?”

  “No, sir. The link was terminated at the source.”

  “Sir!” shouted the tac officer. “Bandit One is moving off.”

  “Show me.” The center holo reverted to the main plot. The planet sat at the center, with twin white icons representing Bucephalus and Magellan in a low orbit. Ringing the planet were twelve smaller green icons indicating the Gargoyle platforms. The flashing red icon of the Turemok cruiser built up speed as it moved into a higher orbit.

  “Now where the hell do they think they’re going?”

  “Shouldn’t we try to escape, Captain?”

  “How? Without main power we can’t open a hyper window. And our hyperspace tech is dirt-side playing Indiana Jones.”

  The red icon executed a hairpin turn and then accelerated headlong toward the planet below.

  “What in the name of…” In a moment of horror, Maximus read into the mind of his foe. “Oh no. Com, are our links to the surface still being jammed?”

  “Ah, no, sir. The jamming lifted when Bandit One moved off.”

  “Tell them to make orbit right now. Vel Noric is about to drill through the planet.”

  * * *

  The first earthquake yanked the ground out from under their feet. Everyone hit the dirt, except Private Conway, but only because he was already lying down.

  “Ow,” Felix said once he caught his breath. He tried to stand while the ground continued its violent undulations. His eyes tried to fix on something, anything, but the world danced and jostled in front of him. The city’s skyline swayed like stalks of wheat in a windstorm. No matter how tough they were constructed, something would fail sooner or later.

  “We need to get in the center of the courtyard, as far from the buildings as possible.” Felix could barely hear his own voice over the symphony of destruction. A low rumble groaned up from the ground in all directions. Shearing metal, cracking marble, and shattering glass punctuated the air from the sides and above.

  Harris nodded from the head of the collapsible stretcher occupied by PFC Conway.

  Allison waved an arm to get Harris’s attention. “Are the shuttles in the air yet?”

  “Yes, ETA, under a minute.”

  “Good. Tell them not to go gears down. It’ll be safer to hover.”

  “Understood.”

  Suddenly from the east, a red glow fell across the quivering city. Felix turned to see the cause, and immediately regretted doing so. Past the horizon, a gargantuan, red-hot inverted cone reached into the sky, like a crimson mountain balancing on the point of its summit. It was so large that his field of vision could scarcely contain the entire thing. It grew larger even as he watched.

  Felix was not the only one to notice. Everyone stared at the spectacle in speechless horror, except PFC Conway, who was thoroughly uninterested in anything beyond rolling the piece of narcotic-soaked candy around on his tongue.

  Wish I were that relaxed, Felix thought.

  “What the hell is that?” Harris finally managed.

  “The exit wound. That’s mantle material being ejected by the collapsing of the tunnel the hyper window dug.”

  “We should leave. Now.”

  “You think?” Felix waved his arms in exasperation. “I was considering buying one of these distressed properties to flip.”

  A sharp sound like a branch snapping echoed, and a once proud tower fell to the ground with a crash.

  “Where are those shuttles?” Allison asked, panic encroaching on her smooth voice. As if to answer, the high-pitched whine of turbine blades pierced the din engulfing the courtyard. The teams looked up as one to witness their salvation drift down from on high.

  The shuttles dipped close to the ground, their lift engines pressing down a bed of what little purple grass remained. The rear doors dropped and everyone clambered aboard. Three seats in the back of the marines shuttle had to be folded up to secure PFC Conway’s stretcher. The rest of the marines played the fastest game of musical chairs in recorded history and buckled in.

  Harris moved into the cockpit. “Get us out of here, Simmons.”

  “What about the hostile drop-ship?”

  “Are you kidding? He’s long gone if he has any sense. Point for the black and floor it.”

  The shuttle pitched up, and the acceleration shoved everyone into their seats. They climbed for altitude as the air-breathing turbines howled with effort.

  The pilot turned to look at Harris. “Sir, Magellan’s shuttle just veered off.”

  “Huh? Where?”

  Harris’s com crackled to life. “Lieutenant Harris, this is Ridgeway.”

  “This is Harris. Can I ask what you’re doing, ma’am?”

  “Lieutenant Dorsett tells me you need to level off and turn to heading two-seven-niner.”

  Harris glanced down at the flight instruments, and his jaw went slack. “That’s crazy! She wants us to fly toward the giant lava fountain of death?”

  Felix shouted from his chair. “No, Tom! Jackie’s right. Think Mount Saint Helens, except a million times worse.”

  “That’s why we’re flying away from it, Felix.”

  “Tom, listen.” Felix strained against his harness. “An explosion that big is going to send out a huge shock wave. If it hits us from the side, it’ll crush the hull. The only way to survive is to go at it head-on.”

  “You want me to play chicken with a shock wave?”

  “Yes. These shuttles are designed to handle transonic shock waves nose-on. They do it every time they break the sound barrier.”

  Harris held Felix’s gaze for a tense moment.

  “I know I’m right, Tom.”

  “Fine. Let’s just hope you and your girlfriend know what you’re talking about. Simmons, level off and turn to two-seven-niner.”

  Felix looked at his feet and started to mope.

  “Oh, c’mon. Don’t be like that, Felix. We wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t trust you.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Really, child? Is that what the frowny face is about?”

  This earned a round of laughter from the rifle team despite their stress, or perhaps because of it. The two shuttles cruised toward the expanding red nightmare, their cabins hushed and filling with sweat.

  An alert chime broke the silence as the turbulence avoidance radar went off.

  “Brace yourselves! Here it comes!”

  The shock wave struck the shuttle like it was a hockey puck, jarring loose a case of MREs that bounced around the cabin, which made them only slightly more dangerous than if the troops had eaten them. The cockpit lit up with warning lights as Simmons struggled to keep the shuttle straight and level against the violence being done to its wings.

  After several rolling,
nauseating moments, the bucking subsided, and ragged sighs escaped from the passengers. Except PFC Conway, who believed he was on a roller coaster at Six Flags Beijing.

  “Let’s go again!”

  “No!” everyone else shouted in unison.

  “Simmons, orbit, if you please,” Harris said.

  “You don’t have to tell me twice, LT.”

  Directly ahead, Ridgeway’s shuttle clawed for altitude. Simmons drifted to port to avoid getting caught in their wake vortices. As Felix watched through the window, the sky faded from cobalt blue, to navy, and finally to a deep black. The atmosphere glowed above the surface like a thin halo. Felix knew that soon the entire planet would be shrouded in ash and smoke, maybe for centuries. He felt hollow.

  Harris sat up straight. “Heads up. We’re not alone.”

  Felix could barely see it through the windscreens. The outline of a ship made itself known only by the hole it left in the backdrop of stars. But it was definitely big, and intensely menacing.

  “The mother ship.”

  Their priorities straight, Harris’s rifle team used the time to reload and rearm. Then they dug into the crumpled MRE boxes.

  “Tom, how can you think about food at a time like this?” Felix asked.

  “Simple. No one wants to be taken prisoner on an empty stomach. Who knows when we’ll get our next meal?” Harris offered a small plastic bag to Felix. “Apple cobbler?”

  CHAPTER 38

  Both shuttles were captured without resistance. They had none to offer. Guards awaited them in the hangar. Their weapons and equipment were confiscated. Allison, Harris, Felix, Jacqueline, and the rest were led out as prisoners and fitted with thick, wire-weave belts. PFC Conway was taken to Bucephalus for treatment by a boarding craft full of Turemok soldiers. A short time later, the craft returned with a captive Captain Tiberius.

  Three huge, armed Turemok led their prisoners through the wide halls of the cruiser. Felix tried to broadcast through his implant. Can anyone read me?

  I read you, Felix, Harris said. Welcome to the party line.

  Thank goodness. Why aren’t they jamming us?