The last fighter released chaff and a number of flares, each burning brighter than the sun, and several of the missiles tracking it were decoyed off. It pulled up to climb over a hill, though, and the fighter was silhouetted on the bright blue sky. Two missiles hit simultaneously, and the fighter was blown from the sky.
“Okay, people,” Sansar said over the company-wide net. “That had to be a preparatory attack. Let’s get those holes plugged. I expect the assault to begin momentarily.”
Markus noted that Bravo Company had started pushing its way out from the remnants of the warehouse; it looked like they were down a few more than he thought. Only ten of Bravo Company’s forty CASPers had reported ready so far.
Based on his past experience, Markus wasn’t sure it would be enough.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Two
Free Trading Station, Above Kelfor-6
“Well, shit, sir,” First Sergeant Hailey said. “I thought you were just kidding with me.” The senior enlisted trooper pursed his lips as he shook his head. Of all the places he thought he’d die, a space station in the middle of some worthless system wouldn’t have been at the top of his list.
“First Sergeant, I really wish I was, but as you can see—” he pointed to the ship visible on the Tri-V screen, “—I’m not.”
“No, sir, you’re not.” Hailey smiled. The kid seemed to be holding it together pretty well. The enormity of it probably hadn’t hit him yet.
“So, what are we going to do about it?”
“I’m going to write my wife a last letter!” the Zuparti exclaimed, abandoning its position at the comm board.
The lieutenant took in a breath—probably to yell at the little weasel—but the alien was gone before he could get it out. “Well, shit,” Maxson said, instead. “Is it as bad as all that?”
“Well, yeah, pretty much,” Hailey replied. “We don’t have any of our systems online, and even if we did, they’re meant to stop merchants from getting out of line, not major warships. All they’d have to do is just back up and whale the shit out of us. Sir.”
“Well, we can’t just give up.”
“No sir, we can’t. You’ve got the right of it there. If we give ourselves up to them, I imagine we’ll just be wolf food. The only thing preventing that now, at the moment, is that they either want something from the station…or they want us.”
“Why would they want us?”
“Because there are different sects in their society that like to taste as many different types of aliens as they can.”
Maxson looked confused. “They’d do that? Eat us, I mean?”
“Yes, sir, they totally would.”
“Aside from surrendering my first command—which I don’t think will look very good on my performance reports—I don’t want to get eaten.”
“Me neither, sir.”
“Okay, well then, you need to help me out with a plan.”
“How about we convince them to fly into a star?”
Maxson nodded. “That’s perfect, First Sergeant. You’re a genius.”
“Of course I am, sir; that’s why you called me up here to help. Now…what exactly was it that I said?”
* * *
Kelfor-6, Zuparti Base Camp
Markus gave a quick survey of the compound; he was the closest officer to the gaps in the wall, so it was up to him to solve the problem. “First Fire Team, take position to defend the breaches. Second Fire Team, start preparing defensive positions and see if there is anything we can use to plug those holes. Move!”
The squad snapped out of their stupor and rushed to do as they were told.
“You there!” Markus yelled to a trooper getting out of an APC. He looked at his battlespace monitor for the trooper’s name. “Corporal Bevins! Get back in that APC and drive it around to the gap in the northern wall. Park it alongside the hole and block it off.”
The trooper jumped into the driver’s compartment, and the vehicle started up and began moving toward the hole. Additional troopers began running up or jumping in on their jumpjets, and he directed where to go to assist.
Markus realized there was no one actually manning the defenses on the wall—they had all been knocked off it or killed in the missile attacks—and he sent several of the newcomers to the wall to man the defenses. “Make sure you put them into local control,” he ordered. He knew about one Zuparti spy—if there was a second one who got control of the wall’s defenses…he didn’t want to think about it. Although they couldn’t be turned to face the courtyard in manual control, they could face the courtyard while being controlled remotely from the control facility.
As if I didn’t have enough to worry about; now I have to worry about getting shot in the back by some stupid weasel that hired us to protect them.
Better to have the defenses only in manual. He’d done the coding for them and knew exactly how effective the weapons could be.
“They’re coming!” one of the troopers transmitted as she made it to the wall. “Besquith emerging from the woods! At least two—”
A laser beam holed her suit from front to back through her chest, and she fell backward off the wall. Her CASPer hit the ground and didn’t move.
The other two troopers manning the defenses on the wall began firing.
“Two what?” Sansar asked over net. Markus knew she had the ability to monitor all of their nets at once...and probably was.
“At least two hundred Besquith incoming!” one of the troopers exclaimed. He was hunkered down behind the shielding of one of the 20mm autocannons and spraying it around like a poorly trained firefighter. “My sensors showed over two hundred targets. There are fewer—”
A missile hit the defensive position and detonated, blowing him off the wall.
“Anyone with missiles still remaining,” Markus yelled. “Jump and use them!”
The last trooper on the wall continued to fire as Black, Morton, Happy, and Essex—along with several of the First Platoon troopers—jumped up to just higher than the walls and fired off their remaining missiles into the oncoming pack of Besquith.
A number of missiles streaked back from the Besquith, and the last trooper was blown off her defensive position. Missiles also hit Morton and Happy—and two of the First Platoon troopers—and all four of their suits went red in Markus’ display as the suits slammed into the ground, no longer under control.
Then the Besquith hit the gaps in the wall, and mayhem truly started. Although the bigger gap in the wall had been partially blocked by the APC, the aliens were able to jump onto its roof and scramble over, and they looked like a tidal wave overflowing a wall as the rest of the Besquith tried to pile through the gap in the corner simultaneously.
There wasn’t any way to stop them all.
* * *
Besquith Battlecruiser BMS Flesh Ripper, Approaching the Free Trading Station
“We surrender,” the Zuparti onboard the space station said over the radio.
“That is the smartest thing you could do,” Captain Stor-Al replied. “We will be docking with the station in about an hour. We will load everything of value—spoils of war, you know—then we will let you go.” He cut the transmission and added for the rest of his command crew, “We’ll let you go all right—right into our bellies.”
The CIC roared with laughter.
* * *
Free Trading Station, Above Kelfor-6
The Zuparti cut the transmission.
“Do you believe him?” Lieutenant Maxson asked.
“Not a chance in hell, sir,” First Sergeant Hailey replied. “If you have some sort of plan, now would be the time for it.”
“Follow me, then,” the lieutenant replied, “and have everyone else meet us in Bay Alpha.”
He led the senior enlisted down to the bay where all the defensive weapons had been stored until enough of the station was finished to mount them. He pointed to a stack of boxes. “There you go,” Maxson said. “You wanted them to fly into a star; w
hat’s a nuclear weapon other than the interior of a star?”
Hailey cocked his head. “Umm, sir, just what do you intend to do with them? Because when I think of setting off a nuclear weapon, I definitely don’t think about doing it when I’m around, and we don’t have the launchers mounted for them yet.”
“We’re not going to need launchers,” Maxson replied. “And besides, I have a better use for their motors. Here’s what we’re going to do…”
* * *
Kelfor-6, Zuparti Base Camp
Major King took over the targeting for the company and put two-thirds of the troopers on killing the Besquith coming over the APC, with the other third on the corner gap. Markus felt his face go red—he should have thought of that—but then he concentrated on killing the ones pouring through the corner gap—his assigned point of defense.
He toggled his MAC to its highest rate of fire and commanded the weapon to fire—leaning forward into it as round after round went downrange as fast as the system could cycle. At least five other troopers were targeting the same area, and nearly all the Besquith coming through were cut down. He could see a few leakers make it past—only wounded—but had to concentrate on stopping the stream; someone else would have to get the drips they missed.
Firing the MAC didn’t take all of his attention, though, and he scanned over to the other entry point, and saw things weren’t going as well there. The Besquith had more room to maneuver, which made targeting them more difficult. Even though the Horde troopers had lanes of fire, sometimes one Besquith would become the target of two, or even three, troopers simultaneously, while others made it over the APC unscathed.
Many of them were rapidly coming within hand-to-hand range, and he realized he needed to intercept some of the Besquith that were coming toward the group firing at the corner. If they took down his group, the rest of the Besquith could pour into the courtyard unchecked.
Markus toggled his jumpjets as his sword blade snapped down from his arm and flew to intercept them. One of the Besquith saw him right before impact, and the alien’s eyes widened before Markus’ suit landed on top of him. His right arm sliced across as he hit, and his blade removed a second Besquith’s head from its neck.
After that, it was all he could do to keep up with the Besquith charging at and around him. Step back. Fire the laser mounted on his left arm. Deploy laser shield. Stab with blade. Repeat.
He had killed several more Besquith when motion caught his eye as a CASPer somersaulted over a Besquith, firing down on the incoming alien while in midair to kill it. Markus recognized the move he liked to use in The Maze as the trooper landed next to a second Besquith and skewered it with an arm blade. Unfortunately, the trooper didn’t see the Besquith on the other side, and the alien raised its laser rifle.
The Besquith fired, but a CASPer dove in front of the Besquith, using its laser shield to deflect the shot. “Not today!” Private Walker exclaimed.
Markus fired, killing the Besquith, but another alien on the other side of Walker shot her with a laser rifle, and she collapsed.
A Besquith knife severed the control line to Markus’ laser, and he found himself and the other trooper—Private Enkh—surrounded by at least eight Besquith. All of them appeared to want to fight it out hand-to-hand, rather than shoot him. “Back to back!” he yelled to Enkh, and the two CASPers backed toward each other, trying to keep the aliens at bay. Walker would have to fend for herself.
* * *
Free Trading Station, Above Kelfor-6
The Besquith ship docked with the space station, and Maxson watched as a Zuparti crewmember opened the hatch, allowing them access. The first Besquith through the door backhanded the smaller alien, and the Zuparti cartwheeled down the passageway onto the station. Although painful for the Zuparti, it at least provided some separation from the intruders, and Maxson’s squad came from around the two corners as the Zuparti passed them.
The six Besquith might have been prepared for defenders when the hatch opened, but they had relaxed upon only finding a solitary Zuparti, and they weren’t ready for the laser-wielding CASPers. Only one of the aliens got a shot off, but it went wide.
There were two more down at the entrance to the ship though, and Maxson deployed his laser shield to deflect the bolts they sent his way. Maxson and Hailey fired as they zoomed down the passageway on their jumpjets, and the two Besquith fell back behind the hatch. They started to push it closed as a yellow light began strobing inside the ship, but Maxson slammed into the hatch without slowing, and his momentum drove the hatch into the Besquith. One was crushed outright as the heavy door swung around and slammed him into the bulkhead, but the other was only catapulted off the bulkhead on the other side of the passageway. A shot from Maxson ended his struggles.
Maxson and Hailey took up defensive positions as two of his troopers came down the passageway and handed each of them a large package, which they each took under an arm.
“Get back and detach!” Maxson commed, and his troopers hurried back to the station, shut the hatch into it, and detached the ship. Both Hailey and Maxson had their magnetic boots locked to the deck, so they were able to stand fast against the explosive decompression of the ship and not get sucked overboard. The ship began to accelerate away from the station as its captain tried to prevent any further boarders from getting onto his ship.
Once the air had evacuated the space, Maxson and Hailey pressed on into the Besquith ship until they reached the first intersection, then Maxson turned toward Hailey. “Good luck, First Sergeant!” he said.
“You too, sir. See you back here soon.”
“Two minutes, tops,” Maxson replied before turning aft and jetting down the passageway. He knew he needed to hurry. If he were the ship’s CO, he would get some distance from the station and then blow it to bits; he had to get in and back out before that happened.
It didn’t take long for the ship’s defense to materialize, and marines began popping up on all sides. Although ill-prepared at first, they were increasingly better armed as he proceeded aft, to the point that he had to dodge into a side corridor to evade the weapons at a barricade set up in front of him. As he turned, he could see a large mass of Besquith behind him, too. He was trapped—something he’d known was possible but had hoped wouldn’t happen. Based on the schematic of the ship type, though, he was close enough to engineering; he didn’t need to go any farther.
“How’s it coming, First Sergeant?” he asked, reaching his arm-mounted MAC into the passageway to fire a few rounds blindly.
“Pretty badly,” Hailey replied. “They responded a bit quicker than we expected. My suit is holed, and I’m losing pressure pretty quickly. I’m not going to be able to make it back to the rendezvous.”
“Yeah, I’m not either,” Maxson said. “I’m trapped between two forces.”
“You know what, sir?” Hailey asked.
“What’s that?”
“This plan sucks.”
“You know, First Sergeant, you’re absolutely right,” Maxson replied. “One would have thought that some smart senior enlisted would have spoken up when his dumbass officer suggested it.”
“If I’d had a better plan, sir, I would have. We hold what they’ve got, though, and we couldn’t have the Besquith getting onboard the station. I’m getting kinda…sleepy, sir. Not sure…how much…”
“It’s been great working with you, First Sergeant,” Maxson said. When there was no reply, he transmitted the signal.
* * *
Kelfor-6, Zuparti Base Camp
The Besquith circled the two CASPers, and Markus expanded his consciousness to try to keep all four on his side in sight, while trying to watch at least some of the ones behind him, simultaneously. It was like watching wolves attack a herd back home. None were in a hurry to kill them—they started by assessing the two CASPers and looking for the one that was weaker. After a few seconds, he could see the ones around him shifting, as more of them tried to take on Private Enkh. The ones on hi
s side, though, pressed him continuously, feinting in and out, trying to keep him from coming to her aid. Markus could see, though, that once she was gone and no longer protecting his back, he would quickly fall, too.
Two could play at that game.
He feinted at the one on the left, but then toggled his jumpjets backward, swinging around to chop the head off the Besquith on the right. He blocked a swing from the third wolf, then stabbed the one to the left. The last remaining Besquith backed off, looking for an opportunity and some assistance from its pack mates. That was the break Markus needed.
“Okay, Enkh,” he said. “When I say, ‘Now’ I want you to spin and face backward. Got it?”
“Uh…yeah,” she replied, her breath coming in gulps. “I don’t…have much left.”
“Okay,” Markus said. “Stay with me a couple minutes more, and we’ll get through this. Ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Now!” Markus said. He toggled his jumpjets again, doing a backward somersault, with a twist. As he went over her, Enkh spun and slid forward to take his place, and as she moved forward, the Besquith facing her pulled forward, as well…but then they looked up in amazement as Markus’ mech flew above them, flipped around, and started back down on them. They tried to jump back out of the way, but they were too late.
Markus crashed down on one of the Besquith, slamming his free hand down onto the wolf’s head, while slashing another one across the chest. Both went down.
Seeing they were all going to die, the remaining Besquith pulled their laser rifles back out and took aim at the Humans. Markus jumped forward to impale one of the remaining Besquith while deploying his laser shield. The laser beam bored through the shield, but it reflected enough of the energy to keep the beam from holing his suit. The Besquith fired again, but it was a half-energy shot as his battery ran out. Markus stepped forward and slashed down. The Besquith brought his rifle up, attempting to block the stroke, but Markus’ blade went through the rifle and then through the Besquith, splitting him most of the way down.
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