by Daniel Gibbs
Instantly, the pilot was all business. “All right, sir, this is where it gets bumpy. About ten seconds out from hard dock.” She keyed the intercom for the pod. “Brace! Brace! Brace! Prepare for impact, Marines!”
Calvin took heed and braced himself as best as he could in the co-pilot’s chair. As the seconds ticked down, he found himself saying a prayer. God, I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear from, seeing as my job is to go out and kill people. Please help me and my men to save these POWs. Something good can still come of this, and I need your help to make it happen. Amen.
There was a loud bang and a hard impact as the pod slammed into the side of the League transport. “Okay, we’re locked on,” the pilot said.
Calvin stood up from his seat. “Prepare to breach the ship, Warrant.” Cueing the internal commlink in his power armor, he keyed the channel for Cabello. “Major, what’s your status?”
Cabello’s accented voice came through. “About to breach.”
“Breach on my mark.”
Stepping back into the cargo area, his twenty Force Recon Marines, along with the EOD technician Hadi Uzun, stood ready. Their weapons pointed at the aft door, waiting for it to open. Calvin glanced over at the awaiting team. “I’m not much on the big inspirational speech crap. I’m a Marine. I’ve always been a Marine, and Marines do not leave our own behind!” He finished the final line with a shout.
The twenty-one Marines responded with one voice, “Hoorah!”
“We will defeat the enemy! Regardless of their number! We do this or we don’t leave this ship. Do you get me, Marines?”
“Yes, sir!” the squad responded, loud and clear.
“Then get in there and kill those Leaguer bastards! Bradshaw, breach now!” Calvin cued his commlink. “Cabello, breach!”
A moment later, the aft door blew outward, and a couple of dazed League security officers raised their weapons to open fire. Before they could get off a shot, the lead Marines fired sub-sonic but highly lethal rounds from their M-35 combat rifles and both officers dropped dead. Calvin had ordered non-lethal rounds to be carried, in case the team got into a firefight with POWs in the line of fire, but otherwise, they were to use lethal ammunition designed specifically for space boarding actions.
“Squad one, move out! Squad two, cover our rear!” Calvin said, walking out of the pod with the rest of the Marines.
They divided into two squads of ten; one moved forward with Calvin in the middle. Pulling up the limited schematics of the ship in his HUD, he ordered his Marines forward toward what he thought were the engineering spaces. Cabello would first gain control of the shuttle bay and start landing additional combat Marines to help mop up. A few meters down the passageway, a group of several League security officers came around a corner and opened fire. The Marines engaged almost immediately, cutting down the League troops with ease. One of his Marines took a round in his chest armor with no loss of combat effectiveness. The EOD tech, per his orders, stayed with the rear guard. Calvin was unwilling to take any chances with him, regardless of his ability to handle himself in a firefight.
It took them a few minutes, but the Leaguers finally began to respond in force to the TCMC attack. “Colonel,” Cabello’s voice said through the commlink. “We’re encountering heavy resistance in the shuttle bay. They’re throwing everything they’ve got at us.”
“More than you can handle?”
“Never.”
“Let me know when you’ve got control of the area. This ship’s big and we need more support.”
“Yes, sir!”
The point man for the squad rounded a corner and was immediately greeted by sustained weapons fire. Calvin and a few other Marines were right behind him and ran into a buzzsaw; the Leaguers had set up an anti-vehicle weapon in the passageway and were using it on his troops. The point man collapsed as he took several rounds to his chest.
Calvin’s Marines made themselves as small as they could and returned fire down the passageway, killing some of the enemy combatants but failing to silence the heavy weapons fire. He grabbed the Marine that carried the squad automatic weapon. “Corporal, you got armor-piercing rounds?” he asked over the din of battle.
“Yes, sir! Locked and loaded, sir!”
“Follow me!”
Taking the corporal and another Marine down a side passageway, Calvin walked the distance to where he thought the checkpoint was located on the other side of the wall. “Okay, Corporal, fire through the wall and take down that strongpoint.”
The corporal raised his weapon and fired on full auto for ten seconds, rounds spraying forth and stitching up and down the wall. A few seconds later, Calvin’s comm chirped. “Sir, not sure what you did, but those Leaguers just got hosed. We’ve cleared the area and are ready to breach the engineering space.”
Calvin and the two Marines with him made their way back to the main group that stood outside of a large bulkhead door for the engineering space. Stepping over fallen League soldiers, he stopped to take the dog tags of the Marine that had fallen earlier. Later, they would retrieve his body for burial. Walking up to the door, he looked at the Marines to his right and to his left. “Okay, boys, let’s blow this door, take over the engineering room, and go the hell home,” he said in his best hard-ass Marine voice.
With a nod from Calvin, one of the Marines triggered a breaching charge, blowing the bulkhead door backward in a shaped explosion. The rest charged through the opening into a firestorm of rounds from League soldiers. A couple went down, but the power-armored Marines had superior protection and firepower; they quickly cut through most of the resistance and fanned out through the engineering core. Most of the engineering personnel surrendered, but a few snatched up weapons from the fallen League security troops and tried to keep fighting.
Calvin put a trio of rounds into an engineer that jumped up in front of him, but not before the man fired a burst of bullets into his armor. Looking to his right, he grunted, “Gotta give these guys credit; what they lack in ability, they make up for with guts.” The corporal that was covering his flank smirked inside of his suit.
“Well, if you know your family will be killed if you surrender, it must be a driving factor.”
Calvin grunted again. “Good point, Corporal.”
As he reached the main rector housing, he took note of a couple of Goliaths; League Marines in their version of power armor. They were crouched around a technician who was frantically working on a console. Bringing up his arm in the signal for “Stop,” the corporal and another Marine behind him froze.
Calvin made the hand signals to engage the Leaguers and took up a firing position. Like a well-oiled machine, the friendlies with him took up flanking positions stealthily. On his signal, they opened fire; unlike the other League troops, the Goliath suits soaked up repeated hits from the Marines’ rifles. The League Marines dove behind cover and returned fire, with a lucky shot catching the corporal to Calvin’s right in the helmet, killing him instantly.
Son of a bitch! He yanked a high-explosive grenade off his belt and pulled the pin, tossing it at the nearest Goliath. The explosion momentarily blinded Calvin, and the Leaguer tried to move but was clearly wounded. Calvin pumped rounds into his back until he stopped moving and lay still on the ground. Another enemy popped up from cover and opened fire on Calvin, hitting him repeatedly. The wind knocked out of his chest, he fell backwards, firing blindly as he went. After a moment, the incoming fire ceased.
Calvin caught his breath and stuck his head up, seeing the other League Marine lying motionless on the ground with blood flowing out of his helmet. Wow, there really is a God. Calvin stood and advanced on the League technician. “Step away from that console and show me your hands! Now!” Calvin shouted.
The technician looked up with a snarl, and Calvin’s finger rested on the trigger to his rifle. He didn’t want to shoot an unarmed man. “Screw you, zealot!” the man shouted as he simultaneously brought his hand down on a computer screen. A split sec
ond later, Calvin pulled the trigger, sending three rounds into the man, center mass.
He collapsed in a heap as Calvin advanced and looked down at the screen. The words “Self-Destruct Enabled—05:00” in red stared back at him. It took him a moment to notice that the numbers were counting down. He keyed his mic. “Get Uzun over here. We’ve got a problem!”
Sheila rounded the corner and came upon a couple of dozen soldiers in fire-retardant suits, lugging hoses and fire-extinguishing equipment. “Report, Master Chief!”
“About to breach, XO. Get your hood on!” the tough old master chief said.
He looks like he was he born in the CDF. “No time. I’m here to coordinate anyway.”
“Stay back then. I expect some flashing.”
Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. It’s been a decade since I did damage control, and a fire spreading over our heads isn’t my idea of fun. She’d briefly considered putting on a zero-G suit but decided against it as time was of the essence. In the old days, crews had to contend with zero-G fires, which behaved strangely compared to a fire in gravity. Thankfully, artificial gravity generators had solved the problem a century ago for the Terrans.
“Understood, Master Chief. Breach that hatch and let’s get this fire out.”
Smoke wafted out of the edges of the hatch, giving some indication to the seriousness of the situation. Sheila fell back to the rear of the formation of firefighters as the master chief dogged the hatch open. Flames shot out of the entryway, engulfing a fireman in flames. The team was quick to hose him down in CO2, his protective suit doing its job. She hung back for a few seconds before entering at the rear of the team. What she saw shocked her. Massive plumes of flames shot through the large bay; the fire was clearly out of control.
“Master Chief! Clear the way to the controls for fire suppression system! That’s our best solution.”
“Yes, ma’am! Corporal, put down a wave of foam. Mathews, check those controls!”
For a few frantic minutes, the team sprayed CO2 foam and slowly beat back the flames. Upon reaching the manual controls, the private detailed to the task started his work.
“We got a problem here,” he screamed above the din of firefighting efforts. “The keypad isn’t functioning!”
“Cover me, Master Chief,” Sheila said, picking her way through the path of twisted metal and slippery deck plating. Sliding in next to the young private, she rechecked his diagnosis. Damnit, this is what we get for not having a real shakedown cruise. “Okay, plan B. Get a crewman down here in a zero-G suit and we’ll manually open the space to vacuum.”
“Away zero-G damage control party, emergency!” the Master Chief said through his commlink.
“Acknowledged!” another voice called back that Sheila didn’t recognize.
“It’ll take them five to ten minutes to get here, XO.”
“Spread the team out and keep the flames beaten down,” Sheila said as she continued to try and get a response out of the keypad, even resorting to hitting the stubborn piece of technology.
A shout from halfway across the magazine attracted her attention. Glancing up, she saw a warhead fall off its protective rack as the metal alloys began to melt. My God, if one of those cooks off, it’ll destroy the ship from the inside!
“Master Chief! That rack of shells is melting! Get CO2 on it now!” Sheila yelled.
The team was already on it; three soldiers lined up, spraying foam out of large hose nozzles. While successful, she realized that the racks on either side of the one that failed were bending forward—clearly about to fail.
Mathews lifted his head up from the underbelly of the console, his jaw dropping open. “Oh Jesus.”
One after another, warheads spilled off the racks, crashing to the deck. A feeling of panic was palpable as it threatened to engulf the team. “We’d better pull back,” Sheila said quietly.
“I got this, XO,” Mathews said, standing and taking off as fast as possible in the smoke and flame toward the manual venting controls; they were located next to a pair of doors that opened directly to space and were used to reload the magazine while in dock.
He almost made it.
A beam that crisscrossed the upper reaches of the space, responsible for holding up several sections of catwalk, broke free and crashed to the deck. Mathews was directly in its path and went down hard, crushed under its weight.
Time almost stopped for Sheila as she took in the scene and realized that her path to safety was now blocked by debris.
“XO, hang tight! We’ll get you out!” the old master chief yelled from the other side.
What she had to do was suddenly crystal clear to Sheila. “Negative, Master Chief. Pull the team out.”
“Say again, ma’am?”
“I said pull the team out. I’ll vent the space manually.”
“You don’t have a suit, ma’am.”
For more than a moment, Sheila considered allowing them to get her out. If I do that, I’ll cause incredible risk to the ship, not to mention all these soldiers. I can’t do it. “I know. No time. Now get these soldiers to safety and close the hatch behind you. That’s an order, Master Chief.”
Sheila couldn’t see the man for the flames and smoke, but the sadness in his voice was impossible to miss. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You heard the XO! Clear the space! Move it!”
The sounds of foam being sprayed echoed through the magazine, before the loud clank of the hatch closing left her alone. Sheila made her way across the fallen catwalk to the manual control panel. Ripping off the cover, she was confronted by a yellow lever marked “Danger.”
“Godspeed, XO,” the voice of the master chief said through her commlink.
“Thanks, Master Chief. I’ll see you on the flip side,” she said with false bravado.
Sheila pulled on the lever with all her might; it didn’t move. Picking up a fallen piece of pipe, she used it as a lever, wedging it into the area between the lever and the back of the panel. Slowly and almost imperceptibly at first, it began to move. Yellow warning lights flashed, and a klaxon sounded, indicating imminent exposure to vacuum. Of course I forgot my safety harness. She looked around wildly, groping through the smoke, looking for something—anything—to hold on to. As the doors creaked open, she flung herself on the fallen catwalk and held on as tightly as possible.
When the doors had gotten roughly halfway open, the forcefield that protected them snapped off. The effect was instantaneous. Smoke, fire, and the remaining air in the room raced out through the opening into the vacuum of space. Warheads, pieces of metal, Mathews’ body; all of it flashed by her. For a few moments, she thought that by a miracle, she might just survive. Then the catwalk, which had been wedged in tightly, ripped free. As the doors passed by and she entered the blackness, her mind still functioned.
I guess this is it. A tear rolled down her face, freezing instantly as her mind ran through the memories she wouldn’t be able make, the child she’d never have, the love of her life she would never make memories with. She hoped David would find the video she made for him just before taking the XO position on the Rabin. Maybe he’ll understand how much I care for and love him. In the seconds just before Sheila passed, she silently repeated the Lord’s Prayer to herself and hoped that there was truly something more for her in heaven.
34
While the Lion and her crew were busy battling the League capital ships, Amir and his wing had been making short work of the remaining League bombers and fighters. Though the losses from his squadrons were much higher than he would expect to see in a fight between nearly equal numbers of League and CDF craft, his wing had finally come out on top. Turning his attention back to the League’s capital ships, it was clear from the chatter on the command channel that the Lion had taken significant damage, and that she needed backup from her own small craft. Amir pulled up the integrated command operations picture in his HUD and studied the battlefield for a moment. Cueing his communications net, he spoke into the mic,
“Tulleny, how are you doing?”
“Just peachy, command.” Tulleny’s clipped British accent came through Amir’s headset loud and clear.
“Form up the bombers; we’re going to hit the nearest League cruisers. They’re identified as Masters Three and Four in your HUD,” Amir said. “The Reapers will cover the bomber flight on its way in and engage point defense emplacements with our neutron cannons.”
“Understood, Reaper One. When we get back, you owe us all a drink.”
Amir smirked inside of his flight helmet. “You know I don’t drink.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
While the battle raged outside of the ship between Amir’s wing and the League ships, a different battle was being fought within the engineering spaces of the Lion of Judah. Hanson struggled to get the forward shield generators back online and recharged with energy due to damage to the Lion’s energy conduits. As he was unable to route power to the proper capacitor, he slammed his fist into the console in frustration.
Dr. Hayworth took notice and laid a hand on Hanson’s shoulder. “Calm yourself, Major. This amounts to our first test of the reactor and power system in a real-world situation. Problems are bound to happen.”
“Doctor, to belabor stating the obvious, we’ve got to get power to the forward shield generator. I don’t see how to do that with the number of relays currently blown,” Hanson said.
“Simple, we reroute the power around the damaged relay using the junction control panels. They function much like large power supply breakers.”
“One problem; those compartments are flooded with high levels of radiation.”
Hayworth shrugged, incredible calm showing through. “Well, there’s a solution for that…sure, we might get some kind of strange cancer twenty years from now, but it beats spending our lives in a League gulag.”
“I’ll get a corpsman down here to administer treatment before we enter the lockers,” Hanson said, and punched up the medical bay on his wrist device. “Medical bay, this is Major Hanson. We need a corpsman with radiation exposure medication to the main engineering room ASAP.”