Exodus: Empires at War: Book 10: Search & Destroy

by Doug Dandridge

  “We have hyperfield units for assault armor, your Majesty,” said Admiral Innocent. “They are very expensive, and only issued to select naval commando units. Again, it’s a matter of resources, since a hyperfield generator needs supermetals. The same supermetals that go into grabber units, hyperdrives, and the accelerators of particle beams, both shipborne and personal weapons.”

  “It still might be a good idea to have a couple of units aboard each of our ships,” said Sean, seeing from the looks on the faces of the Fleet personnel in the room that they were wondering what next impossible demand might be made of them.

  “I know. I know, resources.” Sean shook his head. The military was his to command, but they could only do what they could do with what he could give them. He needed to meet with those people as well, to make sure that they got what they needed.

  * * *

  Winston Nagawa wished he had more than two eyes so he could look everywhere. There were hatches everywhere along the corridor, opening onto staterooms for the mid-level passengers. Some of those hatches were open, revealing the small, nine square meters rooms, with a double bed, small bath and closet. All of those rooms had to be checked out, lest Fenri infiltrators hide and come out behind the party. Nagawa was exempt from clearing rooms, since his services were needed in the reactor chambers. But he still got a look at the rooms as he passed. And some of those rooms contained bodies, people who had been trapped and killed like vermin by the Fenri. Including, in a few cases, children.

  Nagawa tried to drive those images from his mind as he moved down the corridor. He distracted himself by looking at the walls of the corridor and noting the differences between a luxury passenger liner and a warship. There were none of the multiple access panels on the walls of this liner that were everywhere aboard the Angela Collins. The destroyer had redundant systems all over the place, wiring and circuits and pipes behind panels. In some places even exposed piping with automatic cutoff valves from which emergency manual controls protruded. Things set up to make it easy for the crew to get at systems that could be vital to the survival of the ship. Winston had served aboard freighters early in his career, the normal path for merchant spacers before moving up to the liner fleet. Freighters were laid out much like warships, with not quite as many redundant systems. Liners were laid out so that stupid civilians couldn’t get into mischief that might cause problems for themselves or other passengers.

  “Nagawa,” said Mishara, looking back at the Petty Officer. “You paying attention?”

  “Sorry, sir. I‘m just having memories.”

  “Keep your mind on the mission, PO. I need you at the top of your game if we’re going to get us and these people out of here.”

  “It’s just seeing all of these, people, the Fenri have killed, sir.”

  “Keep your head in the mission. That’s the best revenge you could ever get against the little furry bastards. Now, we’re approaching the entrance to engineering you wanted us to take. Anything else we need to know?”

  “The door will have a security code on it to keep out curious passengers, sir.”

  “And you can open this lock, correct?”

  “I should be able to. Most lines use one of several standard codes for entrances like this. They want the crew to be able to get through without problems. It’s just keeping the idiot passengers out.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” said the Lieutenant, stopping for a second. “The Marine scouts are at your door, so let’s get up there and get in before some Fenti takes the initiative and blows us out of space.”

  Winston nodded and followed the officer. The corridor hit a T-junction, and Nagawa felt like he was back on his old ship as he saw the layout of this, the walking way around the bow side of engineering country, what had used to be his home. Twenty meters to the right was set the security door, an exact duplicate of one he had used to walk through to work on a daily basis. And on the side of the door was a keypad, which…

  “This doesn’t look right,” said Nagawa, confused by the appearance of the pad. There was a thumb and DNA scanner on the surface of the device, just below the rows of numeric keys.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Mishara, looking over his shoulder. “Tell me you can open this thing.”

  “I don’t know, sir. This one has a biometric scanner. Ours didn’t. It still might open with the keypad alone, but I can’t guarantee it.”

  “Shit. And don’t tell me they might have an alarm for unauthorized attempts at entry.”

  “They might. But I’m betting it’s an alarm that goes off on the bridge, not engineering. They wouldn’t want to disturb the engineering crew every time a drunk passenger hit it by accident.” I hope, he thought, looking at the keypad.

  “Then give it a try.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Winston, thinking of the basic code they had used on his ship, making sure he had it in his mind, then punching in the six digit combination. A light blinked green a couple of times, and the PO waited for the lock to click open. A few seconds later the light changed to red, then went out.

  “I’m afraid it will only open when the proper biometric is applied, sir.”

  “Well, shit. Does this mean we’ll have to go up to the level we were going to enter on in the first place?” The Lieutenant didn’t look very happy as he stared at Winston. In fact, he looked downright pissed off.

  “Maybe with a body,” said Winston, thinking of all the corpses they had seen on the way here. “Look, sir. Engineering crew quarters are down this corridor. If we can find the body of a crewperson, maybe we can use their thumbprint and DNA to get through.”

  “But you’re not sure if the code you have will work, even with the right thumb pressed to the lock.”

  “I’m pretty sure, sir. It blinked green when I put in the code I knew, which is as it should be. And if you go up to the main entrance, you will still have to unlock the door up there, and they will be waiting.”

  “We could always blow the door,” said one of the Marine sergeants. “We’ve got the equipment.”

  Mishara stood for a moment, thinking, then looked at the Marine NCO. “Go to the engineering quarters and see if you can find an engineer, alive. If not, bring the body of a crewperson. Preferably with engineering patches on their uniform.”

  The Marine nodded and turned, running down the corridor in the direction of the indicated quarters, motioning for couple of troopers to follow him.

  “You people,” said Mishara to some more Marines. “Prep the door for explosive entry.” He looked back at Nagawa. “We’re running out of time. If you can’t get that door open in the next couple of minutes, we’re going to have to blow it in.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Winston. “And I’m sorry it didn’t go as smoothly as I thought it would.”

  “We can only act on the information we have at hand, PO,” said the Lieutenant. “Just be prepared to take control of that engine room.”

  Nagawa nodded. “I won’t let you down, sir.” They can’t have different controls in their engineering section, can they?

  * * *

  “The bridge should be ahead, sir,” said the spacer who was leading them through the corridors of the ship. While the spacer had not served aboard a liner like PO First Nagawa, he had been a worker in a shipyard that constructed such craft. Not this particular class, but something similar.

  Lieutenant Janvier nodded and motioned for the spacer to fall back, then for two of his armored Marines to move forward. The Marines were in heavy battle armor, suits that massed well over a ton and provided state of the art personal protection in a combat environment. They weren’t invulnerable by any means, but the armor and electromag fields of the suits could stop an infantry particle beam for several seconds, time enough for the wearer to seek cover and return fire.

  Both Marines moved forward quietly, their armor set to move them at a hover a few centimeters over the floor. Both had their own particle beam rifles to their shoulders and were scanning ahead with passi
ve sensors so as not to give the enemy the warning actives would. The door to the bridge was ahead, clearly marked as such, and Janvier was beginning to wonder if the Fenri had set up any kind of defense.

  He got his answer a moment later when a plasma cannon blurred out of a side compartment and fired, its ball of burning gas flying swiftly down the corridor, filling it from side to side. Wall coverings burst into flame despite their resistance, metal flowed and dripped like liquid, and the brilliant ball struck the leading Marines.

  “Take cover,” yelled the Officer as he automatically strengthened the electromag field on his own armor and rocketed back on his grabbers, knocking several Marines and a trio of spacers back with him.

  The two heavy suits in front took the brunt of the plasma. Both Marines had time for one short shout before their suits were enveloped in the ball. Their suits were tough, but this was a vehicle mount weapon, and it burned through in several places, flowing into the suits and incinerating their bodies in an instant. The plasma washed on to catch one more suit before it had dissipated enough to splash off the fields of the suits behind.

  The hum of a targeting radar came up a moment later, and a pair of missiles streaked from the plasma cannon mount and struck unerringly on two targets, a Marine and a spacer. And just like that five of his people were down, four of them generating the flatlines on his HUD that showed death.

  Another targeting radar came through to his sensors, this one more familiar, and two Marines launched hyper-velocity missiles at the plasma cannon before it could bring up another ball of hellfire. The cannon blew apart, the kinetic fireball of the missile strikes immediately overshadowed by the superheated plasma in the ruptured ignition chamber. The cannon was consumed in the flare of plasma, since only the ignition chamber and barrel were proofed against the awful heat.

  All of the suited figures backed away, getting some distance between themselves and the heat. The doors around the remains of the cannon blistered and flowed, and in many places welded to the frame. Since no Fenri had been seen during the entire operation, it seemed that they were not present.

  “Hit that hatch,” yelled out Janvier, pointing at the bridge door. “Blow it down.”

  “That might damage the bridge,” said one of the Petty Officers along with the spacers.

  “I don’t give a damn. We can use auxiliary control until the crew can rewire the bridge. So, follow my orders, and blow it down.”

  The targeting radars sounded again on the LT’s sensors. The two hyper velocity missiles sped from launcher to hatch so fast they looked like brief silver beams. They holed the door in two places, half meter wide openings, while the door buckled along the sides.

  “Knock it down,” ordered the LT. “Grenadiers, I want full loads through that door before we push it down.”

  Three Marines with auto-grenade launchers moved forward, targeting the holes in the door, then spraying flights of thirty millimeter grenades through the openings. Suits locked to prevent movement, and the launchers hit their targets with unerring accuracy. Each sent a full magazine of forty rounds through the holes, each round set to blow at various intervals within the bridge chamber.

  As soon as the magazines were fired, two heavy suits ran forward and hit the hatch with lowered shoulders. The door moved, areas of the edges ripped away, but a few areas still held on. The two suits kicked the door, the strength enhancements of their heavy suits breaking through the last holdout and flinging the hatch into the bridge. The two heavy suits ran in, going to the side as soon as they were in and firing at the Fenri who were shooting at them.

  “Take it,” yelled Janvier, running for the opening with his particle beam to his shoulder. The sight that greeted his eyes was almost total ruin. Bridge consoles were full of holes and smoking, chairs shredded, a haze hanging in the air. Three Fenri lay on the floor, one with a large hole through the front of his suit going out through the back, a victim of a hyper-velocity penetrator. One had smaller holes blown through his suit in torso and limbs, opened up by grenades that had struck him. The third was still in the process of falling with a hole through his faceplate.

  Three others were covering behind the wrecked consoles, firing their particle beam weapons. One of the leading Marines had a burn hole through his arm, and the limb underneath had probably been destroyed. The woman was still firing with her other arm, sending beam after beam into the console one of the Fenri was covering behind, keeping him down. The other Marine was doing the same to one of the other Fenri, while the third alien was trying to get a good shot in on that trooper.

  Janvier developed a sight picture as soon as he saw the Fenri, his finger squeezing the trigger and sending a beam into the left shoulder of the enemy. The beam struck the suit in a splash of molten alloy. The Fenri suit was as tough as the ones the Marines wore, and the alien ducked down behind the console before the beam could fully penetrate. By that time three more Marines were on the bridge, and their fire started dismantling the consoles the Fenri were hiding behind. It seemed only a matter of time, when a Fenri in one of their heavy support suits came out of the shadows, firing away.

  The heavy particle beam struck one of the Marines, staying on target for the almost two seconds needed to burn through the torso armor and killing the Marine. Two of the Marines and their LT turned their beams on the heavy support suit, splashing alloy and doing a great deal of surface damage, but not breaking through. The heavy suit killed another Marine, then shifted his weapon to Janvier, and the LT, continuing to fire, was sure he was a dead man. But a Marine stood in the hatchway, the grenade launcher in his hands accelerating thirty millimeter armor piecing rounds onto the enemy suit, blasting holes through it and into the Fenri.

  And then it was over. All of the Fenri were dead and the wrecked bridge was theirs. But he had lost five Marines dead and two wounded, so the enemy had made him pay a steep price for the prize.

  “OK, PO,” said the Marine Officer to the senior of the spacers. “See if you can get this place working again. I’ll take my Marines down to auxiliary control.”

  The spacers immediately began clearing the wreckage of control stations away, using laser cutters to sever wires and cut away the last attachment points. While some of the spacers removed the stations, using the strength of their suits to lift the massive constructs, others started hooking up holographic devices that would project the controls into space. With a little calibration they would have the bridge back to functional status in less than an hour. The ship could be run from auxiliary command or engineering until then. The only problem being, neither of those areas was under the control of the humans.

  Janvier gathered his people, ten Marines and another six spacers, and headed for the lift shafts that led to the auxiliary bridge level. He wasn’t sure what the Fenri had waiting for them there, if anything, but he was damned well going to be prepared for it.

  * * *

  Lt. Commander Terrence Zhukov stared at the tactical plot, wondering what the enemy was up to. There were only four objects on the plot. His ship, the marker buoy he had left behind so that Scranton could follow, and the two Fenri vessels. The Fenri had been working on changing their vectors for the last hour, decelerating along their path of travel while accelerating along another angle, curving onto a new course. Nothing unusual about that, though it did seem a little unusual that their relative velocity was still so low.

  Not that it would have been possible for the Fenri to outrun them, not while the destroyer was capable of hyper VII, and they of only VI. Still, there were other ships on the way to join the hunt, most of them also hyper VI. The Fenri must have known that, and it would have made more sense for them to get up to speed as fast as possible.

  “Any conjecture on where they might be going, XO?” asked the Captain of his second in command, whose job it was to offer possibilities to her leader.

  “There are a couple of frontier worlds that remain possibilities, Captain. Or they could just continue to cruise the shipping lanes
looking for targets of opportunity.”

  “And I think they must be doing something to shake us, sir,” said the Tactical Officer. “They have to know we’ll have more ships vectoring to our location. And they have to know about our ability to communicate over distances.”

  “They can’t be sure this ship has that capability, Lieutenant,” cautioned the Exec.

  “And they can’t be sure we don’t,” said Zhukov, looking over at his Klassekian Com Tech, one of the few who had been assigned to this region.

  And since we’re in VII, there is no way they can get to us, can they? Their ship can’t get up this high, and if they had any hyper VII capable missiles, they would have already fired them.

  “Tac. How difficult is it to make a hyper VII missile?”

  “Not that difficult, sir,” answered the Lieutenant. “If they had sufficient supermetals, they could increase the capacity of the missile’s hyperdrive.”

  “And if they cannibalized some of their other hyperdrive capable missiles?”

  “They could do that, sir. Only.” The Tactical Officer fell silent for a moment, obviously thinking.

  Captain let him have the moment of quiet to complete the thought, despite the unease he was now feeling. He kept looking at the plot, noticing that the Fenri seemed to be careful to not get above their maximum translation velocity. It seemed damned strange, and he knew they had to be up to something.

  “Helm. Decelerate just a bit. I want to gain a couple of light seconds distance on them, just in case.”

  “They wouldn’t even need to cannibalize their hyper capable missiles, sir. They could take the supermetals from the grabbers of their standard missiles to expand the capabilities of their hyperdrive units.”

  “Could they do the same with their ships?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. It would take more than four times the amount of materials they already have in the arrays to turn them into hyper VII units. All of the materials on all of their missiles and shuttles wouldn’t come to more than fifty percent of what is already in the arrays.”