Crimson Worlds Collection I

by Jay Allan

  I left a squad at the platform to protect our rear and took the rest of the command down the south passage. We moved slowly, carefully. This was like urban street fighting, but even tighter. We passed numerous doors, each leading to another room or corridor. Every room had to be checked - I wasn't about to leave an enemy platoon unmolested in our rear.

  We had a canister of small charges that were just powerful enough to blow open the hatches without causing a lot of other damage. The majority of the rooms were empty, but we did run into a few occupants, mostly techs of some sort at work. War is a harsh business, and we didn't have time to deal with prisoners, so we did what we had to do and moved on.

  Suddenly an arc of electric-blue light ripped into our front rank, practically blowing one of my troopers to pieces. I ordered return fire, but the corridor was just wide enough for three people abreast, so it was hard to bring too much firepower to bear. About ten seconds later another blue bolt hit Corporal Wells, boring a neat10cm hole through his chest.

  "Open up the rooms, and take cover," I barked.

  There were six rooms along the stretch of corridor we occupied, and we dispersed into them. I stayed in the corridor and directed everyone near me to the closest room. The blue beam continued to fire about every ten seconds, and it took out another one of my troopers and then just missed my head before I dove into one of the rooms.

  I assigned two troopers to each doorway to return fire from cover. The enemy began to return fire as well, but it was all pretty ineffective. I think we took out two of them, and one of my guys was grazed in the arm.

  This wasn't going to cut it. We were pinned down. My whole plan was based on speed and now we were sitting here stuck in the mud. I was pretty sure that was a portable particle accelerator out there, probably drawing directly from the station's power core, and Hector confirmed my analysis. The thing could fire every ten seconds or so. We could rush down the corridor, but we'd take a lot of casualties. The weapon was powerful enough to take out two or three targets each shot at close range.

  "Hector, connect me with Lieutenant Frost."

  "Frost here, sir."

  "Lieutenant, give me a report. Have you reached the power core yet?"

  "No sir. I'm pretty sure we've located it, but we have heavy resistance. I can expedite, but it will cost."

  "Negative. Continue your plan for now, but if you aren't in there in fifteen minutes then take it at all costs."

  "Understood. Frost, out."

  Ok, so we were bogged down at the power plant too. If I didn't come up with an alternate plan we were going to end up frontally charging both positions, and a lot of my troopers would never get off this station.

  I thought for a few minutes, and an idea started to form. We had four cutting lasers. The walls between compartments weren't armored. Maybe, just maybe we could cut through and advance from room to room.

  I got on the link with my officers and non-coms and explained the plan. Unfortunately, one of the troopers with a cutting laser had been a casualty, and another was with Frost's group. So we only had two to work with. Private Hemming was with me in the forward-most room, and Private Black was the same side of the corridor one room back. I had Black start cutting his way into our room, while I got Hemming working on the wall between us and the next room. I had four troopers flanking Hemming; we had no idea what was waiting in that next room.

  The cutting lasers were designed to draw on our suits' power plants, and they were quite strong. They cut through the interior walls of the station easily, but there were pipes and conduits of all sorts, so as we cut we'd sever them, creating showers of sparks, water, and steam. None of it was a threat to us in our suits, but it made quite a mess.

  It took about three minutes to cut a hole large enough for a crouched man to get through. As soon as the cutting was done the marine with the torch would back away and one of the troopers on guard would kick the loose section of wall, and another would look through, weapons at the ready. All together it took us maybe five minutes to get from one room to the next.

  Of course, we had troops in rooms on both sides of the corridor, and we were only cutting our way forward on one. My thought was to get far enough ahead to get around the projector and take it out, and then the rest of the company could advance down the corridor. But the rooms were small, which meant more walls between us and our destination. After twenty minutes we'd gotten through three, but unless they got a lot larger we were looking at ten or twelve more. This was taking too long.

  I was just about to bite the bullet and order a charge down the corridor when Frost commed me.

  "Captain, we're in the power center. We took three casualties, no KIAs."

  I let out a little sigh of relief. "Excellent, Frost. Good work. Can you cut off power to specific sections of the station from where you are?"

  "Sir, I'm not sure. I am in the main control center now, and I have Jarvis working on the computer, but I don't know how long it will take him to breach the security."

  We didn't have time to try hack our way into their control system. "Frost, is there a manual cutoff for the whole thing? I don't want to shut down the reactor, just cut off the power flow to the grid."

  "Stand by, Captain"

  He was silent for about ninety seconds, and then he came back on and said, "Yes, there is a main cutoff, but I'm not sure what will happen if the whole station loses power."

  He was right, of course. We had very incomplete information. I had to assume all the vital systems had some type of backup power, but there was no way to be certain. If I was wrong we'd lose life support and who knows what else. But I was pretty sure that projector in the hall was connected directly into the station's power grid. On the battlefield that type of gun would be on a tank or other vehicle with enough energy generation to power it. But the only way they could have rigged it up here is by drawing directly from the station's reactor. Cutting off power would shut the thing down. At least I hoped it would.

  "Frost, on my command you will cut off power to the entire station."

  "Yes sir." He paused for a few seconds and then said, "Captain, we have station security forces attempting to counterattack us here."

  Shit. "Is your position in danger?"

  There was a short silence, probably Frost evaluating reports from his troopers. "Not presently sir. I have pickets posted at all approaches. We're exchanging some fire, but I don't think it's a serious threat at this time."

  "Ok. Prepare to execute power shutdown on my command. Duration sixty seconds, and then restore."

  He acknowledged, then I told Hector to get my officers and non-coms on the line. I explained what I wanted to do. First, we were going to make a run for that projector and take it out before the power came back. Then, by squads, we were going to get down that hall as quickly as possible. I designated one squad to remain in our initial position and a second to follow behind the charge, checking out each of the rooms along the way to make sure we weren't leaving hostiles behind us. The first squad would support them if they ran into anything they couldn't handle on their own.

  The initial run down the corridor was the riskiest part. I had no way to be sure that thing was hooked up to the main grid, or even if it could hold a charge for another shot if it was disconnected. Whoever led off down the corridor could easily end up being fried, and if anyone was going to take that chance based on my crazy scheme it was going to be me.

  It was stupid, I knew that. I was the field commander, the first time I'd been in charge of an overall operation, and going out and getting myself killed in the middle of the fight was an idiotic thing to do. I was about to ignore everything I learned at the Academy too, but I just couldn't order anyone else down that corridor. Not after Achilles and Columbia. I'd sent too many men and women who trusted me to their deaths, and now it was my turn.

  I laid out my plan and got the expected chorus of protests, but I told them it was decided. I'm sure they all still disagreed vehemently, but they also knew
when to stop arguing with their commanding officer. Hector, on the other hand, had no such limitations, and after I'd finished with the briefing he added his commentary. "You do understand that this is a foolish decision based on your misplaced feelings of survivor's guilt, do you not? You are jeopardizing this mission by actions that have no basis in regulation or tactical expediency."

  I wondered what it had been like in an age when computers just did math and kept their mouth shut. "Not another word, Hector. We're done discussing this." I half expected yet another argument, but for once he shut the hell up.

  I waited until all the units were organized, and I told the squads that would be following me to advance as soon as the power was restored, and after 75 seconds in any event. Then I had Hector connect me with Lieutenant Frost. "Status report?"

  "Enemy is still attempting to retake the power center. We have a low-intensity firefight in two of the approach corridors, but no serious threat at this time. I have two wounded in recent exchanges. Best estimate is approximately 20 enemy casualties."

  "Very well. Are you ready to execute the power cutoff?"

  There was the slightest hesitation, then his answered, slowly and deliberately. "Yes sir. everything is ready." He was worried about what unexpected effects the power shutoff might have, but he didn't say anything about it.

  "Have you briefed your troops in the corridors?" I didn't want any of our people getting surprised in the middle of a fight.

  "Yes sir. My entire command is ready."

  I moved to the doorway, and activated my mag-rifle. The rest of the troops had only blasters, but the officers and sergeants had mag-rifles as well, just in case they were needed. The velocity of the mag-rifle projectiles would wreak havoc on the station interior. But I needed to clear that hallway, so whatever collateral damage was done to the station was unavoidable. Plus, we weren't near the exterior, so at least I wouldn't blow a hole in the hull and decompress the entire area. I peered out cautiously into the corridor, and then I ordered Frost to cut the power. There was a delay of 3 or 4 seconds and then the lights went out, and then the entire place shook fiercely.

  I held on to the open doorway, but I could hear everyone else slipping and sliding around. The station-quake was brief - I supposed that the station-keeping drives that maintain the rotation and orbit were affected by the power outage, which I later learned was exactly what had happened. If the power stayed out for too long the rotation of the station would slow and we'd lose the artificial gravity.

  But now I had something to do, and I swung myself around the doorframe and bolted down the corridor. The sooner I got down there the better. Running in a confined space isn't easy in armor. Your legs are so strong that unless you're really careful you tend to start jumping. Staying low and moving with speed took a lot of practice, another reason why I was doing this. I don't think anyone in the company had the hours in a suit I did. I had my infrared scanning suite on full, so I could see there were enemy troops ahead. I must have surprised the hell out of them, because I was halfway down the corridor before they started firing. Most of the shots missed me, but a couple hit my armor, with no significant effect. I opened up with the mag-rifle at the max rate of fire and sprayed the entire area. I could hear screaming and scuffling around, and their fire stopped completely.

  I made it almost up to the gun, which I could make out by its residual heat signature, but I was slowed up because there were four or five bodies on the ground in front of it - victims of my fire. There were crackling and hissing sounds all around, but no live enemies.

  "Light, Hector," I snapped, and my sometimes surly, but more or less obedient AI turned on my helmet light. The gun was a semi-portable particle accelerator, just as I thought. There was a heavy insulated conduit at least 12cm in diameter connecting it to some sort of power hookup in the wall.

  "Ten seconds to power restoration." Frost's voice on the link.

  I grabbed the conduit and ripped it out before the power came back. I knocked the gun over and sprayed it with fire from my mag-rifle. At this range the projectiles ripped through the gun and the floor below. When I stopped firing, the thing was a pile of useless junk. It wouldn't kill any more of my troops now.

  Just then the double doors behind opened up and security personnel streamed through. The lights came back on, and the system shook again, though not as hard as before. I managed to stay standing in my suit, but the station troops were all knocked off their feet.

  "Hector, blade."

  My molecular blade snapped out of the sheath in my arm and I started slashing at the enemy, trying to take out as many as I could before they overwhelmed me. With the strength of my suit behind it, my blade sliced effortlessly through their armor and bodies alike.

  But they kept coming through the doorway, and I was pushed back against the wall. eventually one of them would get a blaster shoved into a weak spot in my armor. I knew my lead squad was on the way down the corridor, but that few seconds seemed to go on forever. I was just about to go down under the attackers when I saw my troops wading into the enemy from behind, blades slashing all around.

  It was nasty business, and it went on for a while, because the narrow confines kept the frontage small. Finally, we finished them off in the corridor and pushed our way into the room. The data center was a huge open area, with a ceiling several levels high with catwalks around the edges.

  Once we pushed into the center the remaining enemy troops lost heart and broke. Some tried to run, but most of them were gunned down before they made it out. A couple got away, and it wasn't important enough to detach a squad to chase them down. The rest surrendered, and since we were finally in a place where we could get a little more organized, I told the troops to take prisoners.

  First things first. I detached a platoon to check the room thoroughly and find every way in and out, posting a team at each entrance. Then I ordered Lieutenant Sanchez to figure out how to operate station communications from here.

  After I'd taken care of business, I commed Frost to see how things were going down there. Everything seemed under control. The enemy was still posted around his position, but they seemed to have given up on assaulting it. They were exchanging light fire, but the situation was stable. I checked with the SEALs at the entry point too, and everything was quiet there. They would have advised me if anything had happened, of course, but I wanted to make sure.

  "Hector, send the signal for the support company to prepare for launch."

  "Acknowledged."

  I walked over to where Sanchez' was sitting at a workstation. He looked up and said, "I think I can access the communications system and make a station-wide announcement. But it's going to take a team of specialists to actually get control of this system if you want to affect life support or other systems.

  I didn't expect anything different. Fortunately, we had just such a team waiting with the support company. Plan B was to send a force to seize a landing bay and get the reserves and tech support crew onboard. But first I was going to try Plan A.

  There was a lot of fanaticism among Caliphate troops; their front line Janissaries almost never surrendered. But these were just routine security troops posted far back from what was thought to be the front line. They were just conscripts, and they'd been roughly handled so far. I had no idea about the command structure here - intel had been really weak in that department - but if their troops were ready to give up there wasn't much the command staff could do. If a Caliphate station commander and his officers wanted heroic deaths I was more than willing to oblige, and if their troops were ready to drop their weapons I was just as happy to let them do it.

  "Hector, I want you to translate everything I say into Arabic and feed it into the communications system. Understood."

  "Yes captain. What part of that did you feel was beyond my computational capability?" He hadn't been obnoxious for a while, so I guess he was due. They really needed to work the kinks out of this AI personality programming.

  "Sanchez,
I want you to plug my AI link into the com system, and put us on stationwide broadcast."

  "Yes sir." He paused for a few seconds, looking briefly at the screen in front of him. "That will just take me a few minutes."

  While Sanchez set up the communication, I checked on our overall status. We had about 30 prisoners, and they'd been disarmed and stripped of their body armor. They were locked in a storage room, and there were two guards outside the room and another monitoring on video.

  All of the entryways were guarded, with a picket placed down each corridor and a fire team at every entrance. The rest of the troops were formed into a reaction force to meet any threat that might develop. I checked again with Frost, and his situation was largely unchanged. The enemy had withdrawn from several of the approaches to the power facility, with only sporadic fire from the others.

  "Ready, captain. You are on systemwide communication."

  I nodded to Sanchez, though gestures of that sort were pretty pointless in armor. "Attention Caliphate personnel. This is Captain Erik Cain, U.S. Marine Corps, Western Alliance Military Command. Presently, my forces are in control of both the power generation facilities and the main computer center. As you are aware from our recent demonstration, we can cut power to any areas of the station we wish."

  I paused for just a second. I was actually speaking to Hector, and he was repeating what I said in Arabic on the com line. I was distracted briefly by the realization that he was using my voice and not his. Nice touch, Hector, but a little creepy too.

  "We effectively control the station at this time. We have sufficient force to occupy the entire facility deck by deck if we need to." Ok, that was a lie, but worth a try.

  "Even in the event that, for some reason, we are unable to take possession of the entire station, local space is totally controlled by our warships. Your defense grid has been destroyed, and if we are unsuccessful in taking the station our orders are to destroy it. We have the firepower to do just that." That much was true.

  "You can fight on, but I have neither the time nor patience to allow this battle to go on any longer than necessary. If my troops are forced to take this station level by level there will be no quarter offered to any Caliphate personnel. If the station is surrendered immediately I will guarantee the safety of all inhabitants." Ok, this was a gamble. If they surrendered, it paid off. But if they didn't, I just gave them a reason to fight like banshees.