by J. F. Holmes
“I meant you, Dennis,” she shot back, and laughter erupted from the crew compartment. Then she concentrated on her flying. Out slowly, then a gut wrenching accelerating turn, around the top of the next ship over, then down between two antenna arrays sticking out of the side of the station.
“The enemy’s gate is DOWN!” she grunted, trying to keep herself oriented, making the station spin around her in her mind. “Play it cool, Nadija.”
The Hamlet class freighter appeared on her windscreen, inverted. She spun on her horizontal axis, aligning with the hatch, and spun. She hit the jump light, changing it from red to green, and the back ramp dropped, opening up to space.
Holmes was the first one out, launching himself across the intervening ten feet, magnetic gloves grasping the hull. Around him, the team spread out around the hatch, forming a defensive perimeter. The demo man slapped a remote unit over the cargo access panel, and called out, “Buckley, you’re up!”
On board the Lexington, the ship’s AI cackled with laughter, screaming, “HACK THIS, COWARDS!” Apparently he hadn’t enjoyed his encounter with the research ship. The cargo door slid open, and Team Poison piled in.
Chapter 42
The cargo hold had been divided up into a series of living quarters, and as Team Poison cycled the airlock, it opened onto a scene of men hurriedly putting on armor and picking up weapons. A few of the closest turned toward them, but most of the dozen men and women were running toward the rear exit, toward the engine room.
Rob Knight didn’t want to do it, but reflex made him. The one he made eye contact with, a young woman no more than twenty, incredibly beautiful, tried raising her weapon, tried beating him to the shot. And he hesitated, couldn’t squeeze the trigger at those incredible green eyes under the short, tousled brown hair. With a grimace of fear, knowing she was dead, the Legionnaire tried anyway. Her shot whipped past Knight’s chest as he finally fired, punching her back to slump on her cot, an explosion of bone and blood erupting out of her back. He watched as the life drained from the green eyes, a pleading look on her face, then her head slumped forward.
Around him was a slaughter. Sergeant Stenger in the heavy suit had brought a multi-barrel rail gun, and he hosed the cargo compartment with it, chewing through wood, plastic, metal and flesh with equal ease. The frangible rounds shattered on the interior cargo hull walls, much thicker than the skin of the station. The ceramic and metal punched through the light armor most of the enemy troops had managed to don, striking many of them in the back and knocking them down.
They were good troops, though, and the ones not hit immediately spun and returned fire. To the left of Knight, Yee grunted and fell to the floor. Shupe grabbed him and dragged him out of the line of fire, starting to strip his pressure suit off. The rest of the team, except for Stenger, took cover and started exchanging shots with the remaining enemy.
“Rob,” said Shupe over the radio, “Dennis is KIA unless we get him to a med facility ASAP!” She was frantically trying to stop the blood that was pooling in his suit, but the wound was a through and through just above his heart.
“Cahr, you and Shupe being him to the shuttle, and work on him there.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be enough,” said Shupe. “He needs to go to the station hospital.” She turned back to check him again, seeing him go flatline on her heads up, tuned to their medical status. Yee was still, face relaxed. “Dammit,” she cursed under her breath, picked up her rifle and started shooting.
Another burst of fire ricocheted around them, and Tank launched three grenades, to be rewarded with a howl of pain. “UP AND AT ‘EM!” shouted Knight, and the five remaining Team Poison members charged through the chaos, stepping on bodies and slipping on blood.
****
Meric stayed to the rear; Agostine’s team was just that, a team, and they flowed around each other like water, advancing down the corridors and up the stairwells toward the dock. The passageways were clear; word had gone out to station personnel to avoid the area. They weren’t wearing pressure suits; the scouts claimed that it slowed them down in combat. Tibalt waited in the middle to pounce, muscles rigid under his black pelt.
Their heads-up displays were playing a view of the gangway, the feed being provided by a button camera Yassir had emplaced earlier. He had reconned the area dressed as a station serviceman, pushing a mop bucket, unnoticed. There was a bustle of activity, men dressed in civilian clothes hurrying to the entrance. A fully armored Legionnaire appeared, slinging a riot gun and taking a knee. Behind him another peered around the hatchway, holding a submachinegun at the ready over his partner’s head.
“Shit,” said Agostine, “Plan Bravo.” At his words, Zivcovic and Yassir split off down a side corridor to intercept returning crew. O’Neill stripped out of her armor and strolled forward into the entrance way. Underneath it she wore a coverall with station colors and insignia, and se strode out into the opening carrying a tablet in her hand.
“Hey,” she called, “Chief Barston, station maintenance. We got some kind of alert from this area, what’s going—” and then she raised her hands as the shotgun was pointed at her. “Whoa boys, hang on a minute!” she exclaimed, “I’m just trying to get to my duty station!”
The two men, seeing no threat, lowered their weapons, one touching a comset on the wall, asking for instructions. As soon as his attention shifted away from her, O’Neill dropped her am and fired from fifteen feet away, the small sonic stunner concealed in the tablet throwing a mass of compressed air, hard as a fist, into the two men. Then she dove to the floor as Hamilton and Jones opened up over her head. The shotgun boomed as she moved, a pellet scoring her arm, then the gunner was thrown backward by heavy rifle fire that punctured his helmet. Tibalt leapt over O’Neill and swung his ripper claw, cutting through the other Frenchman’s neck and sending his head flying. The subgun arced toward the ceiling, firing wildly, punching two holes in the station’s skin. With a shrieking whistle, air started escaping, making their ears pop.
“GOT IT!” yelled Meric, whipping out a spray can and splashing a temporary patch over the holes. It burbled, then held. Behind him, Team Scout charged through the opening. Meric followed, with Yassir taking up station at the rear to watch their back.
They flowed down the central spine of the ship, firing into each compartment as they went. At the hatch to the bridge, Jones fired a half dozen glass frag grenades up the ladder, then dogged the hatch shut as screams erupted. He jammed a crowbar into the wheel, preventing it from opening manually, then Zivcovic slapped a small demo charge over the nearest control panel, detonating the shaped charge into the electronics.
“Hannover moving,” called Steuben over the radio. They were to take up position a kilometer out from the station, to wait for the shuttles with their drive hot. “Lexington is jumping in two.”
Meric acknowledged, and continued to follow the team as the advanced to the Captain’s quarters. The ship was set up as a single corridor running along the spine, with crew’s quarters branching off to each side. The soldiers ignored the Captains’ quarters; LaFiere would have taken the expensive passenger suite in the center of the ship, to be closer to his troops.
They reached the door, leaving a trail of bodies behind them. The team stacked up on it, and O’Neill went to work, placing a cracker box over the door controls. She wished Buckley could have done this one, too, but she couldn’t talk to his virus and direct it to do specific things. She heard a mad cackling of his AI ghost over her headset as it ran through the ships’ systems. The light on the box shifted from red, to orange, to green, and she held up her hand, counting down, five, four, three, two, and then one.
Chapter 43
Amanda Schmetzer sat, tied to a chair, a blindfold around her face. She felt, more than heard, gunshots and explosions reverberate through the hull. Fear ran through her, and hope.
“It seems your Captain was a little smarter than I thought,” said Major LeFiere. He sat behind her, tapping at
a keyboard. “I had hoped to catch him in an ambush on station, and when the Lexington came around the planet, I thought I had him…but no matter. I’ve programed a mine to detonate on the station in five minutes. That should disable their sensors long enough for us to get away.”
Another tap of the keys, and there was a muted crunch. “There, that should do it. Atmosphere completely vented.”
“You… you just killed your whole crew!” gasped out Schmetzer, appalled.
“Most of my men were dead anyway,” he said, motioning to a monitor she couldn’t see. “But the cargo hold was cut off from the ship itself, and your friends outside the door are choking on vacuum right about now. I can fly the ship automated, well enough.”
He came to the back of the chair and ripped off her blindfold. The Operative had a pistol in his hand, hammer back. “I’ll give you this, you’re no coward, cheri, so I won’t shoot you in your beautiful face.”
Major LaFiere spun her around in the chair, raised the pistol and held it to the back of her head; Amanda Schmetzer closed her eyes and started to pray. In front of her, the door slid open, and Nick Agostine stood there, gun raised. Schmetzer was in the way, blocking his shot. LaFiere shifted his aim and fired, fast as snake, hitting the mercenary in the stomach, causing the return shot to go astray.
Before the rest of the team could react, LeFiere fired again, knocking Jones back with a hammer blow to his chest armor, and hitting Zivcovic in the side of his face. Meric, directly behind them, fired once, LeFiere’s profile filling his pistol sight, just as the Frenchman’s gun flashed again. Captain Nate Meric felt a hammer blow to his face, and his world went black.
****
“HOLD!” boomed a voice from across the cargo bay. “HOLD YOUR FIRE!” It was repeated in French several times, and the shots stopped coming from across the debris strewn cargo bay.
“Cease Fire!” called Knight over the squad net. His team immediately stopped their charge and took cover.
“Sargent Major Knight,” called a heavily accented voice, “is that you?”
“Yes. Who am I speaking with?” he replied.
A man stepped out from behind a wrecked cargo container. A large man, and one who seemed vaguely familiar. “I am Sargent Aldric Martel. You knew my brother, Peter.”
“Yes, a good man,” answered Knight. “I owed him my life.”
“He told me often of you, asked me to join your crew many times,” answered Martel. Both ignored the cries of the wounded around them, as best they could.
“It’s not too late, Aldric. We can always use a good man.”
The French NCO looked at the devastation around him, and started giving orders to his remaining half dozen men, telling them to look after the wounded. Then he walked up to Knight.
“Maybe I will stay here on station, open up a bar,” said Martel. Then he lit a cigar and drew deeply on it. “There has been enough killing today, and were we to continue, you would lose some men, and I would lose more. Besides, I do not like that merde, that shithead, LeFiere. He tortures women.”
At that moment, a call came over Knight’s radio. “Rob, this is Nick. The Captain is down, Doc Hamilton is working on him. We need to evac, fast.”
“You don’t sound too good yourself,” he radioed back.
“I’m gut shot, and it hurts like a mother fucker. But I’ll survive; you know how long it takes to die from these things. Get me to sickbay, I’ll be OK.” O’Neill interrupted his transmission, adding, “Most tic, Rob!”
“We’re done here,” said Knight, looking at Martel. He switched channels, and called, “Orient, this is Paladin, option Charlie in two mikes.”
“Roger, Charlie, two minutes,” the calm voice came back. On the shuttle, Lin powered up and maneuvered to the closest empty maintenance hangar, moving the shuttle in and powering down.
Knight held out his hand to Martel. “Until we meet again.”
“Under a different sun,” replied the Frenchman.
“I’m sorry this had to happen,” said Knight, thinking of the girl he’d shot, but not looking her way.
Martel shook his head and said, “It’s always that way. We are just tools, Sargent Major.”
They carried Dennis Yee’s body back with them, cycling the airlock and drifting silently over to Poison’s shuttle. When the bay repressurized, Shupe ignored Yee and ran a check on all the other team members. Jimmy Cahr sat on a bench, trying to buckle himself in, looking pale. The medic checked his readouts and saw that his blood pressure was low, but his heart was racing.
“Hey, Jimmy, you got shot,” she said gently.
“Huh?” he said. The kid was pale and seemed a bit out of it.
Shupe just opened up her kit and jabbed him in the exposed part of his neck, over his pressure suit. “You just sit right back and let old Hailey patch you up, Jimmy.”
Cahr looked down and saw the small hole in his leg, right through his armor. His eyes rolled up in his head and he fell forward, completely out. “Makes it easier for me!” said Shupe to herself, then louder, “Scotty, give me a hand here.”
Together they unsealed the leg of his suit, cutting off his boot with a vibroknife. A small entry hole, surrounded by an ugly bruise, welled up red with a trickle of blood. She felt around the backside, and discovered a lump just under his skin. A quick flick with a scalpel, and a 5mm grav gun slug dropped into her hand, the steel head flattened.
“Are you going to tell him it was a ricochet from Tank’s gun?” asked Orr.
“Nope, and neither are you,” she smiled, slapping bandages on the entry and exit wounds.
****
“Thank God for Buckley,” said O’Neill, as she and Yassir carried Meric out on the portable stretcher.
“Damn straight,” grunted Agostine. “Hell of a virus he put in their system. Sonofabitch, this hurts.” Doc Hamilton was helping him stumble along, hopped up on painkillers. Zivcovic was striding stoically next to Schmetzer, who was being carried by Jones. The Serb had a bandage over half his face, but remained alert for any crewmen who might still be waiting to ambush them.
They were met at the lock by Lin, who’d shut down the shuttle and moved cautiously to the French ship. He was in armor and carrying a carbine, but the corridors had still been deserted. Just as he got there, Marjorie Brown showed up with a full squad of station security.
She raised her hand to stop them, then lowered it when she saw Meric on a stretcher. Her face immediately turned to concern, and she said, “Do you want to take him to the infirmary?”
“No,” said Hamilton, “we have to get him back to the Lex. We have a date with a French frigate.”
Chapter 44
The Lexington shimmered into real space, ten kilometers off the Hannover’s bow. Both shuttles left the hangar bay immediately, carrying the assault teams and the skeleton crew of the freighter.
Doc Morano met them in the bay as soon as pressure was equalized, peppering Shupe and Hamilton with questions, and doing an assessment on Meric even as they hustled him to the infirmary.
“Took a 9mm slug to the face, right orbital. The eye is gone, but I think the bullet came in at an angle. I have him sedated; he crashed twice already, but a quick scan showed fragments scattered all over his face. There may be bone fragments up into the cerebral cortex, but the round was military issue ball, and the jacket is intact.” She rattled off a number of treatments that she had already done as they hustled him off to sickbay.
Agostine was laid out on another stretcher, with an IV already in his arm. “You know, Nick, this is what, the fourth time you’ve been shot this year?”
The mercenary weakly held up his hand, spread all five fingers, and grinned slightly. O’Neill leaned over and kissed him gently, then said, “Enough, you stupid jerk.”
“He’ll be OK, Brit. Didn’t puncture any vitals, and I’ll sew him up quick. You should marry him, soon.”
“As if he would,” she answered, a bitter smile on her face. “Not till we retire.
”
****
Merrifield pushed the fear and worry aside as best he could, counting on the crew to see him through his first real test of command. Stealth was their only advantage, and he intended to use it to the max. “Asote, let’s bracket the target.” They had a fair idea of where the ship was, if it hadn’t left its station, and French commanders weren’t known for their initiative. Lacking orders from their contact on Miranda, they might very well still be sitting there. Or, they could be moving in on the station, but that wasn’t likely.
Steuben had taken his place at the sensor array, and after their third quartering jump, he shouted, “GOT HIM! Range eight light minutes.”
“Asote, jump us in on his baffles. Alex, straight and true, we only have one shot at this, and our rail gun isn’t heavy enough to punch through his armor. Get the shuttles loaded for a heavy strike. Guns, target their defensive weaponry so they can run in.”
“Nukes on the shuttles?” asked the fat man, and Merrifield pondered it. Using nuclear weapons was guaranteed to get you hunted down by just about everyone, because they were city busting weapons. The fact that the Lexington had some was an unacknowledged secret.
“Nope. Shaped charge high explosive and conventional on this. We have GOT to hit the sensor array before he gets a message out, though.”
The bridge crew set to work, plotting and planning. “Jump in ten!” called Asote.
“This is…Midshipman Schmetzer on hangar duty. Shuttles armed in five,” came the report, and a cheer broke out up and down the ship. It had cost them, but it was still to be celebrated. Any victory was.
Merrifield felt, for the first time, the pressure of command, of having no one above him to turn to. It was terrifying, the fact that, in a few minutes, several dozen men and women, and the entire ship, would be counting on his decisions in battle. He was no different than the thousands of commanders before him through history, but that didn’t help at the moment.