by Joshua James
“Unless,” Novak cut in, “we bounce them into the line of fire.”
“With what? Our weapons on this ship have little knockback effect.” Then he looked Novak straight in the eye and realized what she was getting at. Damn, she was smart. “The escape pods. Cadinouche, turn this ship starboard. Rob, I want you to calculate the exact angle that we need. We’re going to play a massive game of space billiards.”
“Yes, sir,” Cadinouche said, and the ship began to turn.
“Schmidt, any further data on how long we’ve got until they fire?”
“Negative, sir. They’re holding the charge, but they can’t do so indefinitely before their weapons overheat.”
“And how long would that take?”
“Could be a couple of minutes, sir.”
So even if they got the shield modules to take the brunt of the fire, they’d need to buy time before the weapons powered up again and unleashed their fury.
“How long, Rob?” Olsen asked.
“Fifteen seconds, sir.”
“Good. Chang, deactivate the side magnets in the shuttle bay, but keep the central one activated.” That would allow the escape pads to shoot out of the airlock doors when they opened them, but would keep the Extractor, which they couldn’t risk losing, in place.
“Aye, sir.” Chang rushed over to the control panel on the side of the room opposite the door.
“Santiago, program the pods to thrust straight ahead as soon as they get sucked into space.”
“Got it,” Santiago said.
“Wonderful,” Olsen said.
He waited that extra second or so, until Rob said, “Now, sir.”
Olsen nodded. “Open the airlock doors, and change to shuttle-bay view.”
The screen changed view to display the back of the shuttle bay, with the camera slightly raised. The escape pods lined each side of the room on the rails, now stuck there due to the artificial gravity, which Olsen couldn’t turn off. But as soon as the launch doors opened, they lifted from their perches and sped up towards the blackness of space, and the deactivated shield generators in the background.
Olsen tugged on his collar as he watched their thrusters flare. Protocol said that you shouldn’t launch an escape pod through a shuttle bay airlock door, but Novak didn’t seem to have any complaints.
The pods moved fast, and the Arstan ships couldn’t react in time before they bounced the shield-modules into the enemy’s sights.
Olsen tugged on his collar again as he waited for the modules to explode. But nothing hit them.
“Sir,” Schmidt said. “The enemy is powering down their weapons.”
“What? Why?”
But he only needed to blink to get his answer. Right from where the shield generators had been, an undetected cluster of Arstan modules charged towards them. Olsen spotted a radar jammer module, two 23,000-Celsius laser cannon modules, a plasma cannon module, a couple of Arstan fighter ships, and two Arstan boarding modules.
Olsen only just had time to gasp before the laser cannons fired. The ship bucked and threw Olsen a little to the side before someone upped the magnetism on the floor. The shields went down immediately, and the plasma cannon fired shortly afterwards, making the ship lurch even more violently.
“Rob, damage report,” Olsen said instinctively.
“There’s been a direct hit,” Rob replied. “Our capability to go to warp speed has been curtailed, sir.”
They’d been duped. The defective shield generators had been a decoy, and Olsen had fallen into Aarsh’s trap, just as he had at the battle of Makorest. He never learned.
The fighter ships attacked next. They fired two EMP-missiles at the shuttle-bay doors. These projectiles were lower powered than the laser cannons, and so they only sent a slight thud through the floor of the CIC. But at the same time, they took out the ability to close the airlock and keep them safe from the inbound Arstan troops.
Olsen had opened the front doors so they could close in and take over his ship. But why did they want them alive? No, it wasn’t that. Probably, Aarsh wanted Olsen’s head completely preserved when he presented it to his leader on a stake.
As he watched the Arstan boarding module close in, he opened up a channel on the intercom. “Kota, get yourself down to the shuttle bay. We’re about to boarded.” Then he turned to the young engineer. “Get yourself to the engine room, Ensign Chang, and lock yourself in. Your only priority is to get that warp drive online.”
30
Kota reached the shuttle bay slightly out of breath. She and her squad had entered a full sprint to get there. Being the lightest, she got there first, but the rest of the squad wasn’t far behind. She took a moment to take a deep breath and ground herself, and then she punched open the shuttle bay doors.
She was also anxious: not so much because she feared death, but because she worried about Redrock. He would fight for himself, if given the chance. He’d take up a pistol, or a rifle, or whatever weapon he had, and pretend he had as much skill with firearms as a Marine. But he was in the sickbay, unconscious and defenseless. And if she let the Arstans through to him, she had no idea what they’d do.
But she also didn’t know how many stood on the other side of the sealed doors that now separated the Tapper and the Arstan boarding module. Each one could carry up to thirty aliens, which was far greater than the number of Marines they had on this ship.
The Extractor dominated the shuttle bay, which looked empty now without the escape pods in there. The shuttle looked bruised and beaten. As they entered, Kota left the doors to the shuttle bay open. They needed retreat routes; otherwise this room could become a slaughterhouse.
The enemy boarding module had now sealed the gap between the two crafts completely, with a rubber suction mechanism that stopped any air leaking out into space. They had no time to lose. Kota ordered her men into position, and they fanned out.
Connery carried a grenade launcher, and she positioned him on the left wing. The plan was to launch ordnance into the ship and take out the Arstans as soon as they blew open the doors. They might punch a hole in the Arstan module, admittedly, hopefully large enough that they got sucked out with the violent outrush of air. Kota would rather patch up a hole in the hull than fight these Arstans any day.
Chang had already removed the engine from that wing, as he’d deemed it volatile, so Connery stood no risk of having the thing blow up from under his feet. But if any Arstans remained, Kota hadn’t discounted the tactic of drawing the Arstans towards the other engine and causing an explosion. This would cause unpredictable damage — but that might be better than getting wiped out.
Singh immediately found his way into the Extractor and powered up the weapons from the cockpit. The laser cannons on the shuttle wouldn’t be accurate at short range, but would cut through anything that entered their path.
The other three Marines took positions with their XM-461 rifles — Riley and Kota at each of the rear landing legs of the shuttle, while Turgin crawled underneath the undercarriage to unleash carnage from below.
Kota’s heart was thumping in her chest while she waited for something to happen. Arstan bay doors were reinforced, and not easy to punch a hole through. It was better to wait for them to open, meaning the Arstans always got to make the first move.
It all happened at once. The blast doors swept open, and a gush of wind rushed out of them. A flash grenade went off before Kota could even see who or what was in the module, and there came the plunk, plunk, plunk of Connery’s grenade launcher from above her head. A massive bang ricocheted around the deck from the Extractor’s laser cannons, and the room rocked for a moment.
Kota covered her eyes too late and saw spots. Then came another rush of air, brightness, and thunder, and the air filled with warmth. The smell of smoke drifted over to Kota’s position, and silence ensued.
As Kota returned to her senses, she could see nothing from inside the module, but still the smoke shrouded whatever was inside. A victory, perhaps, but
it would be short-lived, as there was a backup boarding module behind this one.
Kota’s breathing was heavy. She tried to peer through the swirling wisps, wondering when an attack would come.
Just as Kota was ready to order her squad in to investigate, something flashed green, and a Doppler wave from a plasma rifle sounded from the inside of the module. From above Kota’s position, Connery screamed out and then tumbled off the wing. He landed on the floor with a thud, and the massive grenade launcher spun towards the back of the shuttle bay.
Then Arstans poured into the shuttle bay, and all hell broke loose.
31
Olsen switched the viewscreen display over to the shuttle bay corridor, as the camera in the shuttle bay proper now displayed static. He could see no Marines in the corridor, but he could still hear gunfire in the distance, which meant at least one of them was alive.
He’d seen enough of the scene play out to know that they were losing. Kota had ordered her squad into the room, and they had waited there until the Arstans blew it open. Then they’d unleashed grenades and carnage from the Extractor’s cannons — much to Olsen’s chagrin, as he didn’t want to have to deal with any holes down there. The Arstans had waited a moment and then opened fire. They blew Connery off the wing and fired out a few more shots, one of which had hit the camera in there.
Olsen had an extra view of the fleet outside on his armrest display, but no modules had changed their position, presumably, Aarsh didn’t think his troops had a chance of failing this mission. And in all honesty, he might be right.
The crew inside the CIC seemed to share Olsen’s sentiment. They also had their heads craned up to the CIC, frozen like statues. There was no data they could feed the Marines to help them on their mission. Everyone here seemed to know that the fate of the ship was in their hands, and that their chances of stopping the Arstans were incredibly slim.
The only person who could help was Chang, down in the engine room. He’d sealed himself in there, with orders only to release the internal lock if he fixed the warp engine and initiated it from the room. But then, even if they entered FTL-warp, they’d still take the boarded Arstans with them. If they overpowered the ship, they only needed to turn it back around to bring the hostages to Aarsh.
Cadinouche’s screen started beeping, and everyone present jerked their heads towards his seat. “Sir,” the pilot said. “It’s a hail from Rear Admiral Aarsh on the Kinlysta’s CIC-module.”
Dammit, what did he want right now? Fearing that Aarsh might only be calling to gloat, Olsen was tempted to order Cadinouche to ignore the call, but that might make him indirectly responsible for the butchering of his entire crew. Besides, a conversation might buy Ensign Chang a little time.
“Patch him through,” he said.
Rear Admiral Aarsh appeared on the viewscreen with a reptilian grin stretched below his long snout. His eyelids had closed slightly, and harsh green highlights reflected off the top of them. The Arstan watched from the viewscreen with a cold, assessing gaze. But Olsen wouldn’t give Aarsh the pleasure of seeing his fear, so he kept his gaze steady and didn’t budge an inch.
“Aarsh,” he said, knowing full well how much this Arstan would despise him omitting the honorifics. “Cut to the chase. What do you want?”
“Nothing more than your unconditional surrender,” the Arstan replied. “You must already know that resistance is futile, and no more Arstans need to die.”
Olsen narrowed his eyes. “And what are your terms?”
“Call off all fire, and I will spare your crew.”
“And me?”
“You, Captain Olsen, will be mine to do with as I please.”
Olsen turned the offer over in his head. He was prepared to sacrifice himself if he needed to, but to hand humans over to the Arstans would doom them to lives working as Arstan slaves — perhaps with sledgehammers heavier than they could lift, where they had as much risk of dying suffocating because of low oxygen levels as they did being flogged by a barbed Arstan whip. He could ask for honor, but the whole concept of honor only applied to Arstan civilizations. As far as they were concerned, everyone else was scum.
Several more gunshots sounded, although from this distance Olsen couldn’t tell whether they were from Arstan plasma rifles or his Marines’ standard-issue XM-461 rifles. He glanced down at his armrest display, which now showed the view of the corridor, and saw that four Marines had retreated back into it, unleashing a volley of slugs into the shuttle bay.
“I don’t have much time,” Rear Admiral Aarsh said. “Do you accept my terms?”
“Over my dead body,” Olsen replied, and cut off the channel.
32
Kota and her squad retreated into the corridor as the Arstans rapidly fanned out into the shuttle bay, peppering them with well-placed covering fire. She counted ten of them scattered around the Extractor behind crates, under the wing, in strategic positions. They moved as fast as geckos, and ducked and dived into position in such a way they were only visible for one moment.
While the Marines had standard-duty XM-461 assault rifles, the Arstan rifle was much more sophisticated, and something to be feared. Normally, they operated as a short-burst assault rifle with incredible range. But each one also doubled as a shotgun, and also had a front-mounted bayonet for close-range combat.
Those things were too heavy for humans to handle, but Arstans were strong, and they favored fighting at close range if possible. Apparently, they found it more honorable to spear a bayonet through the gut than shoot someone from a distance.
“Kota, what’s the situation?” Olsen said over the comms. “The camera’s out in the shuttle bay.”
She crouched behind a crate before she answered him and ordered the three remaining Marines to take cover. “Unfortunately, we’ve lost it. Connery’s down, and they’ve dominated the room.”
“Keep at them. They want to take the crew captive.”
Kota nodded. “Affirmative, sir,” she replied. She knew that although they wanted the crew alive, they would kill the Marines first, much as a firefighter would extinguish any fire that impeded them from rescuing civilians.
She emerged from behind her cover and let off a few shots. One hit an Arstan on the side of the jaw, causing him to collapse on the floor. She ducked back just as the lizardmen responded with a volley of fire, and she noticed four Arstans charging forward at the same time.
“Fall back,” she screamed. Better to retreat now than to get sprayed with shotgun fire.
The squad entered a diamond formation and found their way behind two protruding bulkheads at the end of the corridor. A button on the wall gave access to some emergency invasion shields. Kota punched this, and two metal plates with bullet-proof glass windows at the top shot out of the floor.
Kota signaled Singh, Turgin, and Riley forward, and they leaned down against these, securing their rifles in the slits at the base. Meanwhile, the Arstans found position behind the crates outside the shuttle bay that Kota’s squad had been using before.
Kota looked down the corridor to her side, which pulsed with red light. They were only steps from sickbay. They were giving ground fast.
“Keep firing. Hold your position here until I’m back.” She punched open the sickbay door.
Redrock stood stooped over the bed, holding a pistol. The auto-administering IV lay toppled onto the floor. He looked kind of bleary-eyed, and swayed from side to side. There was no one else with him.
“What’s happening out there?” he slurred.
“No time to explain. Arstans have boarded. We need to get you out of here.”
Redrock stepped forward and almost fell on the floor — would have done, if Kota hadn’t lurched in to stop him. She let him use her as support as she led him back out into the corridor.
As she reached the two Marines behind the shields, a grenade came sailing through the air and landed between them.
Shit.
“Fall back,” she shouted.
; Riley sprang to his feet and followed Kota’s, Redrock’s, and Turgin’s lead away from the grenade. But Singh was unloading a whole barrel full of slugs into an enemy Arstan’s chest. He didn’t finish his burst before the grenade exploded, sending him sprawling behind the Marines. He landed on the floor, a bloody ragdoll.
Kota moved forwards and checked the pulse at Singh’s neck. He hadn’t survived the blast. She didn’t even have time to close his eyes before heavy footsteps clanked from behind the heavy smoke from the grenade. But she did manage to pick up the dead Marine’s rifle and toss it to Redrock.
She considered turning off the magnetic flooring a moment to disorient the charging Arstans, but that might make matters worse, given how outnumbered they were. So she ordered the squad to fall back one more time.
The enemy was close, too close now. And the Arstans were pushing Kota’s squad nearer and nearer to the CIC. By the number of footsteps she could hear, she suspected there were more than she thought.
Beside her, Redrock looked like he’d sobered up a little. He wasn’t swaying anymore, and he had Singh’s rifle in his hand, pointed straight at the enemy. Now, at least, he was fighting.
Good. One thing was for sure — Kota would rather she, Redrock, and her squad die fighting these beasts than be taken captive by them, any day.
33
Ensign Chang sat against the cold bulkhead of the engine room and stared defiantly at the FTL-warp engine. His hands shook, and his uniform was drenched in cold sweat. He had given himself five minutes to fix things. Five minutes to get them out of here before the Arstans overwhelmed them all.
But part of him wondered if fixing the engine would help. Even if he FTL-warped them to another location — the Arstans would surely take over the ship and bring them back again. From what Chang could hear, it didn’t sound like they were winning. Part of him was asking himself: was there really any point? Soon enough, the Arstans would force their way in and shoot him, and then his work would be undone.