No Mercy (Blood War Book 4)

by Rod Carstens

  The thought of what might happen to those unprotected men, women, and children made his head pound harder.

  “I don’t intend to let that happen, and I know that neither will any of you. We did it on Rift and we’ll stop them here, only this time it will be for good. I have split the New York area into sectors by company. Get with your company commanders and begin to make your plans. I will meet with each company commander. No questions until you have a chance to digest the plan and your part in it.”

  Sand turned and walked off the briefing stage.

  “Attention on deck!”

  The room rose as one as he left. Sand had to put his hand against the bulkhead to steady himself as he returned to his quarters. Petty Officer Borges was waiting outside his room. She helped him into his quarters and sat him down. She placed a new plug in his I/O port and activated it. The pain began to ease.

  “How did you know?”

  “I’m not known as a good corpsman for no reason, sir. I knew you were briefing the unit on our operations on Earth. Everybody knows it’s going to be a tough one, so I put two and two together.”

  “Tough one?” Sand said, trying to smile.

  “Well, our last one. One way or another. Right?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Doesn’t take much to figure out either we win this one or the war will be over. Planning that kind of op would give anyone a headache. Look, I’m going to have to tell Dr. Zhao about this. You’re close to not being able to function.”

  Sand stood and grimaced. “Goddamnit, Borges. You and I both know there is no one else who can lead this fight. You keep me vertical, do you understand?”

  Borges just looked at him for a long moment. He knew she would do what she thought best and any threats or promises would do no good. He waited. Her face showed sympathy for his plight.

  “Sir, I’ll have Doc Zhao make some adjustments. He’ll do it if I ask. If you ask, he wouldn’t.”

  Sand sat down. The pain was easing. Borges looked down at him.

  “Thanks.”

  “How much more can you take, sir?”

  “One more. Just one more. That’s all any of us have left. One way or another.”

  Chapter 22

  CVN Phoenix

  Combat Information Center

  Task Force 54

  “Admiral, they’re here,” Ririsa’s aid said.

  “Where did you put them?”

  “In the small port conference room.”

  “Very well.”

  Ririsa stood and walked toward the small conference room off the main CIC floor. She was about to ask a group of men and women to do something no one had ever done before, and she had no idea if they would live through the mission. Command did come with a lot of difficult decisions, but this one was a real doozy.

  When she walked through the hatch, the four men and women stood and said, “Attention on deck!”

  Steinyman, Marga, and the two other DAT squad leaders stood as she walked in.

  “At ease. Be seated, ladies and gentlemen.”

  She looked at the four and had to remind herself what year it was, because all of the men and women who sat in front of her were former Legionnaires. With the service-tattoo cascades, it was as if she were back on the Capella briefing her Legionnaire contingent. She needed well-seasoned men and women for this mission, and these fit the bill. They all stared at her with the curiosity of any group asked to meet with the command officer.

  “Well, I suspect you are wondering why I’ve asked you here. It seems you have been volunteered for a very special mission.”

  They all exchanged glances.

  “That is never a good thing to hear from your commanding officer,” Steinyman said with a crooked smile.

  “Yes, I know the feeling. As you know there is a Xotoli battleship dead in space within striking distance, and we are going to make sure it no longer resembles anything that could possibly be construed as a fighting vessel. But before we finish it off, I am going to send a boarding party to the ship.”

  There was a stunned silence as the meaning of what she had just said sunk in.

  “No human has ever boarded a Xotoli vessel, and you DATs are about to be the first. We have no idea of the naval technology, or for that matter much else, about the Xotoli vessels. We are about to fight the most crucial battle in human history, and I want to know as much about them as I can. So I need the DATs to board the ship and gather as much intelligence as possible while a squadron of fighters rides shotgun and sends video of every inch of the exterior of that vessel. Now as far as we know, it is dead in space, but as each of you knows, that is a damn big ship, and deep in the interior there still may be surviving crew and systems. In fact from my own experience, I would be surprised if there weren’t, so that makes this a very dangerous mission. I can’t order you to go, but I thought you all, being Legionnaires, would be glad to volunteer.”

  “Gee thanks, Admiral. It’s nice you think so much of us,” Marga Mathis said with a smirk.

  “You’re welcome, Marga. Is there anyone who does not want to volunteer?”

  None of the men and women in front of her moved. She knew she had picked the right team.

  “DAT team, since there are three squads, I want you to split up and search three different areas of the ship. I need you to search the bridge, the engine room, and their CIC. I can’t tell you what to look for, but I think you know the types of things that might contain actionable intelligence. Steinyman, I want you to map out a ball-of-twine set of vectors for your squadron so we get a complete visual record of the ship. These are the closest things to an operation order you’re going to get. I am depending on your experience to fill in the gaps. Any questions?”

  There were none.

  “Okay, report to your respective departments. I want you to launch as soon as possible.”

  Ririsa turned and left the compartment.

  Marga Mathis was being helped into her armored space suit by one of the armorers. It was state-of-the-art, a skintight space suit under a set of the best powered armor in the Confederation’s inventory. She and the other two squad leaders had looked at the video of the battleship and come up with a plan for the insertion of each team. There were entry points near the bridge, which was obvious since it rose above the upper deck of the ship at its aft much like the Confederation ships’ bridges. Finding the engine room and CIC was a different matter, but they too should be in the aft portion of the ship. The CIC should be below the bridge but deep enough for protection. The main engines were aft but even deeper, so they would be the hardest to find and search.

  Her squad had drawn the short straw. They had the engine room as their objective. They would all enter the ship through a large hole blown by a Long Lance torpedo at the base of the bridge tower.

  The armorer held up her helmet and said, “You ready, Sergeant?” He held it above her head, but before he attached it to her armor he said, “Better thee than me on this one, Marga.”

  “You ain’t said shit there, swabbie.”

  He lowered the helmet, and the armor’s systems went through their boot-up sequence. All systems were in the green. She nodded and moved over to the armory to draw her weapons. After much discussion between the three DAT sergeants, they had decided that rails were useless in the tight quarters of a destroyed ship, so they had decided on rail pistols, fighting axes, and a short, close-quarters rail shotgun. Not much good for anything but clearing a passageway, but Marga hoped she would never need to pull the damn thing. She had only shot it on the range a couple times in DAT training. The shotguns had been specifically designed for them when they organized the DATs. Now she would get to put the damn thing to the test for real on an alien ship instead of a Von Fleet one.

  She snapped it into the hold on her back, jammed the rail pistol into the holster on her vest, and filled her vest with grenades and shaped charges for breaching bulkheads or hatches. The only change from her usual loadout was she also carried
nano pouches for carrying anything she could grab that looked interesting. She was as ready as she could be.

  “Mathis ready.”

  “Glob ready.”

  “Kai ready.”

  “Shall we, gentlemen?”

  Marga led the three out of the armory to the flight deck, where three swift boats were hovering, waiting for them. Each of their squads was milling next to their assigned swift boat. Marga walked up to her squad and said, “Okay, get on line. Inspection.”

  The squad lined up next to the swift boat. They were all Legionnaires and as experienced as she was, so as she walked down the line she found nothing wrong. They knew the drill and were ready, just like the veterans they all were.

  “Okay. First squad, board the boat.”

  Marga was the last to board the ship so she would be first to exit the vessel.

  “Okay, first squad on board and ready.”

  “Roger that. Sergeant, we are ready for launch. I’m waiting on the go from flight.”

  Marga leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She was asleep when the pilot said, “We are a go. Launch, launch, launch.”

  The swift boat lifted off the deck and left the Phoenix with the squadron of fighters led by Steinyman. It was a short flight to the Xotoli vessel, and Marga was surprised when the pilot said, “Thirty seconds, Sergeant.” Marga reached into her vest and pulled out her pistol. She wanted a weapon in her hand when she entered the ship.

  The swift boat slowly approached the Xotoli battleship, and when the rear ramp dropped, Marga found that she was only one big step away from the yawning hole of her entry point. This pilot was good, very good, and they needed that on this one. She stepped into the void of space and let the force of her step push her forward through the zero gravity. She drifted into the hole, followed by the rest of the squad.

  “DAT One making entry. I repeat, DAT One is on board.”

  “Roger. DAT One on board.”

  The interior of the ship was a mass of bulkheads, floating equipment, and wires—basically the most dangerous environment to search. In the light of her and her squad’s helmets, the ship was a nightmare maze with little to give them a reference point for their search.

  “Okay, keep your eyes open. We need a passageway or something that is intact enough to give us a chance to make the engine room.”

  They continued to move slowly and carefully through the floating debris, which could have been the hulk of a Confederation ship. Then everything changed when the body of a Xotoli slowly floated by, its face filling her faceplate. With only a tight, thin skin covering, its face looked like the skull of someone’s nightmare of a combination of an insect and a human. With a mouth that appeared to smile and ridges for cheeks, it looked like a black skull laughing at her.

  It had a big hole in its bony chest. She pushed it out of the way with her pistol and floated past it deeper into the ship. There was no talking between the squad members. They seemed to be as taken aback by the ship as she was. The deeper they got into it, the more intact it was, and the more alien it began to look. Everything was scaled to fit the Xotoli, so the first hatch she reached was twice the size of a human hatch on a Confederation vessel. A passageway wall had what must have been Xotoli writing on it, describing the compartment.

  “DAT Two to all DAT units. We have reached the bridge.”

  Great, Marga thought. They were already at their objective and she had no idea how much farther her team had to go to reach their's.

  “Hey, Sarge. I got something here. There are some huge cables running down a passageway. The kind of cables you see coming out an engine room.”

  “Good. On the way.”

  Marga pulled her way back and down to the trooper’s position. In the light from her helmet she could see huge cables leading deeper into the interior of the ship. The cables would normally be hidden in the interior of the bulkheads, but had been exposed by their destruction. The passageway looked just like a long, dark tunnel leading straight down. Marga’s helmet lamp could not illuminate deep enough to see the bottom.

  This might be the break they needed. She pushed off and floated downward, deeper into the interior of the ship, with her squad following her into the unknown.

  Marga had floated a good distance when she saw an intact bulkhead in front of her. She thought she saw movement through the porthole in the hatch. Her heart pounding, she said, “Movement.”

  The squad behind her halted and moved behind whatever cover they could find floating in the passageway.

  Now what in the fuck am I supposed to do, Marga thought.

  Chapter 22

  Landing Ship Dock Tarawa

  Hangar Deck

  Newly promoted Staff Sergeant Dieter Fenes, Minga, and Ardan stood along with newly promoted Lieutenant Striker waiting to board the Mike boat that was to transfer them to the new conscript battalion. The Mike boat’s rear ramp opened, and the four began to board the ship.

  “Wait. Hold right there.”

  They turned to see General Sand walking toward them with Lieutenant Nani in tow.

  “We couldn’t let you leave without a send-off.”

  The conscripts stood at attention as the two approached. Sand stopped in front of them and said, “At ease.”

  The four relaxed. Fenes couldn’t for the life of him understand why a general would show up for four brand-new members of his unit who had only been with the Raiders a few weeks. It didn’t make sense. They were nobody.

  “The lieutenant and I wanted to make sure you got a proper send-off. Look, I know we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, but you four have distinguished yourselves and I wanted to make sure you understand a few things.”

  Sand paused and looked each person in the eye before he said, “Not one of you asked for this. You were conscripted and forced to take someone else’s place. Despite being forced to serve, each and every one of you has distinguished themselves in the crucible of combat, the most unforgiving test anyone can take. You’ve proven yourselves to us. You’ve proven yourselves to other combat veterans. It is a very exclusive club. Those of us who belong do not take admittance for granted.

  “I need you to understand that and use it. You are being asked to take a leadership role in this new unit. You can only do that by understanding what you have accomplished and making sure the men and women under your command are ready for their trial. As you have found out, there is a huge difference between difficult training and combat. When faced with the most demanding of trials, you found in yourself the strength to do what needed to be done. You fell back on your training. You will now be faced with making sure that the men and women you lead will also be prepared. Train hard. Lead by example, and you will live up to the patches we gave you.

  “This is going to be a fight like none of us have seen before. We need to know that we are next to a conscript unit that we can depend on to cover our flank. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” the former conscripts said as one.

  “Striker, you’re an old hand, but even you are not used to your new role. You should know better than anyone that your NCOs will make or break your unit. Push them and trust your instincts. You outthought a lot of other Von Fleet officers on Chika. Understand that and have faith in your decision-making. We clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Striker snapped.

  Sand and Nani shook each person’s hand before they boarded the Mike boat. They stood there until the rear hatch was closed. Fenes sat in the back of the Mike, his gear between his legs, and they launched and headed down toward their destination on Earth. He had never been to Earth before. He wondered how he would find the cradle of all human breeds. No one said a word during the entire journey to their destination. He realized he had no idea where they were going. He looked up at the gunner in his perch above the deck.

  “Say, SWCC, you know where we’re going?”

  “Yeah, a military base. They just reopened it. It’s been abandoned for years. Someplace called Parris Island
.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “On the coast somewhere.”

  The Mike boat flared and gently landed. Fenes and the others ran down the ramp onto a large parade deck. The first thing that hit him was the heat. It was hotter here than any place on Rigel Kent. Platoons were running, chanting cadence as they ran sweating heavily in the oppressive heat. He suddenly started to get bit by bugs. They were too small to be seen, but they could sure bite.

  “Nice place,” Ardan said, slapping at a bug.

  “Yeah, Earth is not making a very good impression,” Minga said.

  Then Fenes saw a familiar-looking figure walking up to them. It was Sergeant Mati, their former drill instructor, only now she wore the silver bars of a lieutenant. With a big smile, Fenes and the others came to attention and saluted her. She returned their salute and said, “Well, well, look what I found.” Mati glanced at the enlisted men and women.

  “Is this all that made it?”

  “Yeah. There’s a couple more still in sick bay, but this is what’s left.”

  Mati shook her head sadly. “Tough operation. I heard you made us proud, and look at all the stripes. Who would have thought? Listen, as much as I’d like to stand here and shoot the shit, I’ve got to get you over to the armory to get your armor fitted and introduce you to your platoons. Striker, you got a company, the same as me, and these three no-goods are your platoon sergeants. You others, I’ve got your places too, so pick up your shit and follow me. We could move as early as late tonight.”