by Daniel Gibbs
Singh nodded. “I completely agree, Master Chief. We’re going to break out. The question is which way do we go,” he said and sighed. “Get two three-man teams. See which side has the most resistance. That’s our way out.”
MacDonald raised an eyebrow. “The most resistance, sir?”
“Whoever is in charge on the other side is pretty good for a Leaguer. They’ll try to bait us into another trap. I’m not falling for the same trick twice.”
“Aye aye, sir. And the rest?”
“Hold this area until we get the recon back. I want to be out of here in five minutes. While you’re handling that, I’ll be on the horn. We need some help from our own Marines.”
Sitting up in the cockpit with the warrant officer flying his assault shuttle, Calvin had a bird’s eye view of the battlefield, at least as much of it as they could with half the sensors not working. Technology not working right was something that soldiers and especially Marines confronted daily, but for once, it was a positive thing. Fewer of my Marines are dying because of it, whereas we usually die because some idiot nerd didn’t test a piece of equipment properly, pure freaking irony right there.
“Colonel, I’m getting a distress call I think you’ll want to hear,” the pilot said, glancing at him briefly.
“Put it on, Warrant.”
A few moments later, the voice of Captain Singh could be heard from the speakers in the pilot. “…again, we are under heavy attack! To any friendly ground forces in the area, we require immediate assistance! This is Captain Rajneesh Singh, to any friendlies!”
Calvin quickly keyed his in-helmet microphone into the same communications frequency that Singh was transmitting on. “Captain Singh, this is Colonel Demood. Do I hear correctly that you could use some help from your very own Terran Coalition Marine Corps?”
“Colonel… your voice is a welcome one! We’ve taken significant casualties but broke out of the enemy’s encirclement. That’s the good news. The bad news is there are at least a hundred Goliaths chasing us.”
“Warrant, this tub has rockets loaded, right?” Calvin asked.
“Yes, sir, it does. Full complement.”
“Singh, how close are you guys to the external hull of the station?”
“We’re one passageway back from it, Colonel. I already thought about evaccing through an airlock, but we don’t have enough time,” Singh replied.
“Different idea. I want you to lead the enemy to the corridor closest to the hull, engage your magnetic boots in overdrive, and I’m going to take care of your Goliath problem for you, with some on-point rocket fire.”
There was a pregnant pause before Singh spoke again. “We knew this op was high risk to begin with, Colonel. Make sure that old Marine Corps equipment of yours hits its target, and not us,” Singh replied with a short laugh.
“You got it, Singh,” Calvin said with forced joviality. “Warrant, vector us into the communications signal being transmitted by Captain Singh. We’ll use it to home our rockets in.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Incoming rounds slapped the thin walls of the passageway they were running down, mere inches away from Singh’s head. Not bothering to look back, he pointed his battle rifle behind him and emptied the magazine. Turning the corner, he came to a stop. The rest of his team had already taken up position and were firing on the pursuing Leaguers.
Using the advanced sensors in his suit, Singh counted over a Goliath suits chasing them. MacDonald and the surviving commandos kept up a constant stream of fire aimed at the Leaguers, but the enemy remaining were the ones who knew how to fight. They were making themselves small targets, taking advantage of cover whenever possible, and firing in short bursts. Half his team was dead; the worst loss total for any deployed Terran Coalition tier one operator team that Singh could remember. But defeating the League today will make it all worth it.
“Demood, if you’re ready with the John Wayne shit, now would be a perfect time! We’ve got company-strength hostiles pinned down in the passageway closest to the hull, as requested,” Singh practically shouted into his helmet mic on the open communication link with Calvin’s shuttle.
“Understood. Engage your magnetic boots,” came Calvin’s reply, garbled through the din of battle.
“Engage magnetic boots, maximum hold!” Singh shouted at his team through the internal comms network of their suits. As his team’s indicators flashed green for understood and acknowledged in his helmet’s HUD, he shouted, “We’re set. Do it, Colonel!”
A few moments later, there was a terrific series of explosions, and the hull of the space station peeled back, exposing the corridor ahead to the vacuum. Leaguers disappeared into the void by the dozens, some killed by the concussive force of the rockets, some unprepared for the quick change in pressure and unable to grab hold of something before they were violently sucked out of the station. Only a few of them were able to engage their magnetic boots; those that did so were dazed and confused.
“Finish them off, frogmen!” Singh shouted as he led the charge, firing his battle rifle in short bursts. The rest of the team advanced after him, and within a few seconds, they’d cleared most of the area. A Leaguer at the far end of the passageway had his rifle up and was attempting to return fire. Singh raised his rifle and engaged the integrated combat optics system, sighting in on the unlucky man’s head. “Alpha Mike Foxtrot,” he uttered as he pulled the trigger. The Leaguer collapsed a moment later, quite dead. He dimmed the reflective shield of his helmet, which exposed his blood-smeared face. “What a rush.”
“With respect, sir, you’re nuts,” MacDonald said.
“Got to be to do this job.”
“Never said I wasn’t.”
Singh laughed. “Let’s go find the Terran Coalition’s misguided children and lend a hand.”
30
Official TCMC battle doctrine indicated that the highest-level commanding officer should be present on the battlefield as soon as humanly possible; a principle to which Calvin adhered to like it was gospel. I’ve got no interest in hanging in the back, when I can be shooting Leaguers. He stepped off the end of the shuttle. His command element was with him, and there were hundreds of Marines present, in the middle of setting up a forward base of operations. They had set up shop in one of the massive shuttle bays onboard Unity Station and had cleared out the former occupants and the League’s hardware, in some cases shoving the League shuttles out of the bay and into space. There were at least a dozen Marine transports already present, and more were landing every few minutes.
“Colonel on deck!” a master gunnery sergeant yelled out.
“Carry on!”
His temporary second in command, Captain Michi Kurosawa, jogged up to meet him. “Colonel, hope you had a good ride in. We’ve got a perimeter set up and are steadily expanding outward from it,” Kurosawa said, in perfect English. The red circle on a white background for his country flag indicated the captain was from the Empire of New Japan, a planet with a small population of two hundred million, in comparison to other former nations from Earth. The Japanese had relatively few citizens evacuated from Earth during the exodus, Calvin recalled from his schooling.
“Good work, Captain. We need to focus on the areas of the station that are critical to its operation rather than just claiming ground.”
“Yes, sir, if you’ll follow me, sir, the command operations center is this way.”
Calvin followed Kurosawa over to a cluster of holoprojectors, and a large electronic table, which had a 3D rendering of the station projected from it. There were other Marines in the area, configuring sensor displays and various computer systems. “Glad to see we got the comm geeks in here.”
Taylor turned around from a display he was configuring. “That’s Lieutenant Comm Geek, sir.”
Calvin laughed out loud, strode over to Taylor, and slapped him on the back. “Glad you made it.”
“A bit of a rough ride.”
“Makes a man out of you, Lieutenant,” Cal
vin said with a genuine smile. The smile faded as Kenneth Lowe and Harold Billings rounded the corner, carrying boxes marked as part of the computer equipment suite. “And what are you ladies doing here? Got lost on the way to the showers?”
Kenneth openly rolled his eyes at Calvin. “Already had one this morning, Colonel,” he replied in a cheerful tone. “Thought I’d help get the operations center up before getting assigned to a unit.”
“Going to set up our toilets next?”
“No, sir. I was going to see about sending out some of your crack troops to get me some cable stretchers to help put this gear together, though.”
Calvin paused, then laughed, turning to Reuben Menahem, his senior enlisted aide. “Well, I’ll be damned. These boys know what a snipe hunt is. Why don’t you go find us some hydraulic blinker fluid for the shuttle’s engines while you’re at it, Kenny boy?”
“We could get you a bucket of shuttle wash instead?” Kenneth replied, taking the ribbing in stride.
“Tell you what, Lieutenant,” Calvin said, speaking directly to Taylor. “We’ll get the comm geeks platoon going here. Have our techy contractor friends fall in with you and try not to get killed.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Taylor answered crisply.
“Do we have tactical data from the command and control network integrated into this display yet?” Calvin asked.
Kenneth punched a few buttons into a computer console he’d just attached, and a multitude of blue and red dots appeared. “There you go, sir. That’s as close to a true common operating picture as we’ll get under these circumstances.”
“I guess we keep you guys around for a reason,” Calvin said while nodding. “Nice job.” He stepped closer and examined the model of the station. He pointed at the reactor core in the center of the station. “Primary reactor?”
“That’s my assessment, sir,” Taylor responded.
“Primary and secondary control rooms?”
Manipulating the control panel for the display, Taylor caused several rooms to blink. “The central control room for the station is at the very top of the tower. There’re eight different secondary control rooms, and engineering has its own set of backup controls. If I may, sir, what are you thinking?”
“Well, the fleet could use some help out there. I figure us Marines could bail them out by taking control of this monstrosity and using its weapons against the League ships out there.”
“That’d be some irony,” Kenneth interjected.
Calvin turned and gave him a glowering look.
“It won’t be easy, sir,” Taylor said. “Even if we take over all of those points, gaining access to the system will be difficult. But minimally, we’d be able to stop the station from firing on friendly forces simply by there being no one to man the consoles and fire the weapons. I’d expect us to find the League systems have extensive biometric defenses, just like ours.”
“If it were easy, they wouldn’t send the Marines, Lieutenant. I want a plan together in the next fifteen minutes on how we can make this happen. Clear?” Those standing around quickly acknowledged Calvin with a round of crisp “Aye aye, sirs” and quickly got back to work. Sitting down at an empty terminal, he began a review of which shuttles had made it and which hadn’t. The vast majority of their forces had safely arrived, but the League had managed to knock down six shuttles… another hundred and twenty Marines dead.
A sudden interruption in the form of Captain Rajneesh Singh’s voice jolted Calvin out of his thoughts. “Captain Singh reports as ordered, Colonel!” He held his hand to his brow in a textbook perfect salute.
Calvin stood up quickly, glancing at the commando and what was left of his team; twelve men, their battle armor pock-marked and burned in various places, but their heads held high. It was clear they were still full of fight. He brought his hand up to his brow and returned Singh’s salute. “Good show out there, Captain. We’ve got you to thank for this opportunity.”
Singh smiled broadly. “Did the Terran Coalition’s misguided children just offer up some praise to a non-Marine unit?”
“Don’t push your luck, Captain.”
Singh laughed before his expression turned somber. “We’re at half strength, sir. I recommend splitting us into two elements and sending them on critical missions.”
“Agreed, Singh. Divide your men up into two teams, and I’ll put them where the enemy is strongest. One team’s coming with me, though.”
“What’d you have in mind, sir?”
“How about smashing the League’s control room and capturing that piece of shit Seville?”
Singh, and every commando with him seemed to come alive at the mention of capturing Seville. “Dead or alive?”
“Who cares. As long as we can get a positive ID on the body.”
Singh grunted. “Understood, sir. I’ll sort out the teams, and we’ll stock up. There’s a long fight in front of us.”
“Carry on, Captain.”
Singh acknowledged his command with a nod, turned on his heel, and walked off with the rest of the commandos, leaving Calvin back in his thoughts, staring at the projection of the League station. “Lieutenant Taylor, any chance you can work some comms geek magic and hack the League control system, locking them out if we take one of those access points?”
“No, sir. They’ll have redundant backups. The only way to shut down this station is to take over all its control rooms. Even then, it might not be enough. For instance, they might have a fourth or fifth level control system in the reactor core or local weapons control. To own this place, we’ll need the access codes from the commanding officer.”
“Captain Kurosawa,” Calvin began, and Kurosawa looked in his direction attentively. “I want our forces to advance along three main fronts,” he continued, pointing at main passageways that ran from port to starboard, and fore to aft in the space station. “If we can secure these five checkpoints,” he said, again pointing at several key junctions that would afford them easy access to control points. “We’ll be able to simultaneously assault most of their control centers at the same time. Agreed?”
“Yes, Colonel,” Kurosawa answered.
“Good. I want three assault elements, two reserve elements. Oh, and take the comm geeks with you. Once we’ve taken control of everything but the station’s main bridge, we’ll meet up and storm it. Questions?”
“No, sir,” Taylor replied, crisp and sure. “We’ll get it done.”
“I don’t doubt it, Lieutenant. Move out!”
31
Concurrently on the bridge of Lion of Judah, they were in the middle of heavy combat against the League fleet. David noted with satisfaction the League escorts had taken significant losses, especially among their remaining Cobra class destroyers.
“Conn, TAO. Master Fifty-six destroyed,” Ruth announced from her station while the tactical plot updated to show one less League ship.
David planned to slowly degrade the escorts surrounding the League’s carriers and battleships while avoiding unnecessary losses. So far, it’s working. “TAO, firing point procedures, forward magnetic cannons, and neutron beams, Master Sixty-eight,” he commanded, picking the next closest destroyer to target.
“Firing solutions set, sir.”
“TAO, match bearings, shoot, all weapons, Master Sixty-eight.”
David’s eyes were glued to the tactical plot as the Lion’s weapons package thundered in the deep of space. The Cobra class destroyer was hit by six of the nine magnetic cannon rounds fired at her and nearly disabled before the neutron beams connected. One speared the ship from stem to stern, causing explosions throughout the ship.
“Conn, TAO! Master Sixty-eight neutralized sir.”
“Sir, we’ve eliminated twenty-five percent of the League’s escorts,” Aibek pointed out. “Don’t you think we should move in for the kill?”
“Not yet, XO,” David said, still staring at the tactical plot. “Seville’s got something else up his sleeve. His flagship isn’t deployed. I don’
t intend to get caught between whatever he’s cooking and the station. We’ll sit back, pick these guys off, and let the good admiral come to us. Then we’ll make our moves.”
“I do not want us to be too conservative now, when victory is at stake.”
“Noted, XO,” David replied as he cracked a smile. “I promise, by the end of the day, you won’t have any complaints in that department.”
“Conn, TAO. Aspect change, new contacts. Behemoth class League Dreadnought, designated Master Three hundred fifty-five, escorted by eight Rand class cruisers and numerous Cobra class destroyers sir!”
“And right on cue, there’s our good admiral’s flagship. Unless I miss my mark, he’ll take personal command of her,” David stated. “Communications, signal the fleet. Order them to move forward in tandem with our battlegroup, but specifically, caution to maintain the rough semi-circle we’re in. I don’t want any surprises.”
“Aye, sir,” the second watch communications officer, Second Lieutenant Jefferson Bell, replied.
“Navigation, ahead one third.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“TAO, firing point procedures, Master One-oh-eight, Master Two Hundred Fifteen, and Master One Ninety-three, magnetic cannons, and neutron beams,” David ordered, targeting the next line of League escorts, which protected their battleships and carriers.
“Firing solutions set, sir.”
“Match bearings, shoot, all weapons.”
The giant magnetic cannons on the Lion of Judah spoke as one, sending massive projectiles flying across space at ten percent of the speed of light. Slamming into the comparatively weak shields of the League frigates, the high explosive rounds hammered them down, leaving the trio of frigates defenseless for the directed energy weapons fire that followed. Two of the frigates outright exploded, the third was reduced to a cripple, drifting in space and venting atmosphere.
“Conn, TAO. Targets neutralized, sir.”
David opened his mouth to give the next engagement order, but Ruth cut in before he could.