Bellator: An Anthology of Warriors of Space & Magic Page 24
Two of the trio of Cacas were killed before they could do much more damage to the human squad. Three more came through while the remaining soldier of the first trio laid down covering fire. All let loose with grenades launched from their rifles, which flew over the barrier and detonated an instant later. Jones bought it then, a grenade sending a penetrator through his armor and down into his thorax. The beam exchange took out two more Cacas and Khan. Another trio came through the hole and another died, before one with an auto grenade launcher started popping off ten rounds a second into the human position.
“Shit,” yelled Benny as he aimed at that grenadier and took him out with a shot through the helmet. The human squad’s grenadier opened fire, sending a stream of bright flashing explosions over the Cacas, while Rudolph played his heavy proton gun over two of the aliens.
Suddenly there were no more living Cacas in the corridor, only the floating bodies of their dead. The humans had lost four Marines at the barrier, only Benny, Rudolph and Mtumbe still left alive to hold the position. All were still firing at the Caca bodies, whose suits could continue relaying information to the aliens outside. The sergeant and grenadier moved up to the barrier, reinforcing the more than decimated unit.
“Shit,” yelled Rudolph, trying to swing his beam in time to intercept another trio of Cacas who had entered, using their floating dead as cover. One pointed a tube at the barrier, and a hyper velocity rocket flew from the end and took out the center of the emplacement like a beam of light. Rudolph and the sergeant were splattered across the corridor, their suits burst open from the impact that tore through the barrier and destroyed the electromag field generator. The grenadier was blown upwards and caught a beam through the helmet, while Mtumbe tried to move away, only to catch a burst of grenades that moved up the back of her armor and blew a dozen holes through the suit.
Benny was the only one left alive out of the squad, and he didn’t feel like dying to hold a position that was doomed to be overrun. He boosted back on his grabbers, trying to stay low to the ground. He hit the body of the grenadier and was angled upward, the perfect target for the Cacas who were now flooding the corridor.
The heavy particle beam ripped across his legs at mid-thigh, cutting through armor and flesh. The steam from his vaporized flesh threw his body back and to the side, just before the beam that would have taken his head passed through the space he had just occupied. The agony was unbearable, and Benny fought to stay conscious, knowing that to pass out was to die. It was another losing battle, and a darkness that he didn’t expect to come back from enclosed him.
* * *
They had to think I was dead, he thought, as he hung in the air of the storage room and planned his next move. That was the only explanation. They had seen the damage to his lower body and assumed he was already gone. And now I’ve got to figure a way out of here, or I really am gone. His injuries could be repaired, his legs regrown, but he doubted the Cacas would do that for him, if they even bothered to take him alive.
The private linked in with the ship, trying to get a take on what was going on, and met a blank wall. The tactical net was down. Next he activated his com and listened in to the sounds of Marines and Spacers fighting a hopeless battle. Maybe I can use that to my advantage, he thought, pulling up the ship’s schematics from the suit’s last download, just before the tactical net crashed.
The port stern hangar was still intact as far as he could tell, and there were shuttles there. It was through two hundred meters of corridor from his present position, or about the same length of missile transfer tube. He thought about it some more and was sure that what he was contemplating would work, as long as he timed it right. I don’t have anything better to do at the moment, he thought through the haze of pain and drugs. That he would be abandoning his shipmates never entered his mind. To his way of thinking they were already dead, and their sacrifice might as well mean something. Like his survival.
Benny moved on his suit grabbers through the now deserted corridor. Deserted, that is, except for the bodies floating here and there, mostly humans in battle armor, interspersed with a few larger Caca forms. Benny wasn’t sure why the sight of the dead aliens made him feel better, except that it proved that the humans were fighting back. Microdrops of blood, human and alien, both shades of red, splattered on his faceplate as he flew, sliding off the almost frictionless surface. Still, he flinched as each drop struck the faceplate, as if the blood might touch his face. He picked up another rifle on the way, feeling much better to have more than his suit laser at his disposal.
He finally came to the room he was seeking, alert all the while to the possible presence of the aliens. The danger symbol on the hatch indicated that this was a room the Fleet wanted nonessential personnel to stay out of. He pulled up the code on his HUD and punched it into the keypad. The hatch slid open, revealing a five by twenty meter room. A three meter wide tube ran through the room against the far wall, another large hatch set in the center of its length.
Here we go, thought the private, grabbing the wheel that opened this hatch, the only opening apparatus, made for manual use on purpose. This tube was used for the emergency redeployment of missiles from the several magazines, bow, stern and amidships, so weapons could be moved from tubes that were no longer functional to those that were. The hatch was for inspection purposes only, and it was not deemed advantageous for this hatch to be opened during a movement.
Benny slid his suit into the tube, which was large enough for a normal man to stand in. He wouldn’t be standing, not in his present condition, and with the lack of gravity it wouldn’t have been the best means of moving anyway. After closing the hatch, he oriented himself the way he wanted and boosted forward on his grabbers, careful to keep the thrust to a minimum. As a Fleet Marine, he had been trained in suit maneuvers in all kinds of gravity fields, including the null type. But he hadn’t trained while missing a good bit of body and suit mass, and the movement down the tube was an exercise in frustration as he banged against the top and bottom, and from side to side.
After what seemed like forever, he finally came to the exit hatch he wanted. The manual release was recessed into the hatch, and took a little more effort to move. Then came the next problem, as the compartment beyond was still pressurized and the hatch resisted opening. There was nothing wrong with Benny’s suit arms, though, and he was able to wrestle the hatch open while the air in the room was sucked into the tube, whistling past his suit. By the time he closed the hatch, the room had been completely evacuated. Moments later the life support duct was again filling the chamber.
The door from the room was another problem. If the hallway beyond was evacuated, he would again be opening up a room full of air to one of vacuum. The movement of air might alert someone in the corridor, which would be a bad thing. He thought of evacuating the room slowly, but without a way to cut off life support, the room would keep filling with atmosphere. He tried again to link into the ship’s net, trying to get a reading on the other side of the door, and yet again met a blank wall.
Nothing to it but to do it, thought the Marine, punching the opening button that substituted for the keypad on this side of the hatch. The hatch slid open, minus the rush of air, and he knew the corridor here was still pressurized. He increased the sensitivity of his audio sensors and heard something from up the corridor, the direction he needed to go to get to the hangar.
He thought about going the other way and trying to find a work around. But there could not be much time left before the Cacas took what prisoners and data they wanted, and left. Almost all of those they captured would of course initiate a nanotech memory wipe, as would most data systems, and the Cacas were unlikely to get anything of real importance. Still, they would take their prisoners and leave, destroying this ship as a last step. Which meant he needed to get off if he could, and soon.
With that last thought, he floated toward the sound, his suit adjusting to the gravity that was still in evidence in this part of the ship.
/> * * *
Naomi Okoro had thought this trip was going to be a great adventure. As the daughter of a professional diplomat, she had spent her early years in two of the foreign powers of the Arm. Now, just before her seventh birthday, she had been on her way to yet another. She loved seeing these other cultures, many of them driven by the strange biologies of their native species. Margrave was supposed to be one of the strangest of all, though the aliens were staunch allies of the Empire. That tended to happen, no matter the differences, when your people were saved from the religiously fanatical Lasharans by the intervention of the powerful human empire.
Her father had accepted the assignment for several reasons, not the least of which was it got his family as far away from the invading Ca’cadasans as possible. And now, here they were, all kneeling on the floor with a trio of Ca’cadasan Marines standing around them, evil-looking rifles pointed down at their faces. The three Spacers, including the officer who had been trying to lead them to safety, were also on the floor, dead, the odor of their scorched flesh pervading the air. They were not bleeding, despite their horrendous wounds. From where she knelt she could see the body of the officer, the cauterized stump of his neck pointing at her. She closed her eyes to escape the sight, and was rewarded with the image of the man’s head disappearing in spray of steam as the red beam of the particle weapon tore through the air where his cranium had been.
I don’t want to die, she thought, as one of the creatures yelled at her father, the ambassador, in heavily accented Terranglo. Her father argued back in a calming tone, trying to reason with the creature, while her mother held the little girl tight. The creature started yelling, then turned its particle beam toward Naomi and her mother.
The angry humming sound of the beam just about deafened her. She still heard the sound of the ultra-high velocity protons hitting flesh, and that flesh converting to steam. Her mother’s grip loosened on her, and her hands fell away. Naomi turned toward her in confusion, not sure what was going on, and screamed uncontrollably as she saw the body of her mother missing a head. Hot droplets of blood were falling from the air, though nothing came from the cauterized stump of the neck. The numbness of shock came over the little girl, looking at the, to her, unthinkable sight of her mother dead and settling to the floor.
Her father jumped to his feet and charged the two meters that separated him from the creature. The big alien reached out with a hand to grab her father, just before the human’s right shoulder and upper arm converted to vapor under another particle beam. The alien in charge turned in a rage toward the subordinate who had fired, raising the hand he was going to use to grab the man to backhand the other creature. He yelled for a moment, gave a strange head shake, and turned back to look at Naomi with red eyes. He raised the rifle to his shoulder, and Naomi looked up in terror, knowing that she was dead. And then the angry hum again filled the air.
* * *
Benny watched the whole thing on his telescoping probe. The woman killed, the man trying to attack the alien and dying, then the big Caca turning his weapon on the child. Through the whole sequence, he kept telling himself that it wasn’t his concern, that his only imperative at the moment was to get his ass to safety. But two things kept nagging at the back of his mind in that short period of time. He had sworn an oath to protect the citizens of the Empire. And how could he live with himself if he just stood by and watched as a child was killed.
Before the Caca leader could complete the action of bringing the rifle to his shoulder, Benny was moving. He had better control of the powered suit now, despite it being imbalanced. Practice makes perfect, he thought as he moved the suit into the air in a horizontal position, then rocketed around the cross section, his head pointed at the aliens, rifle at the ready. The girl was low to the floor, on her knees, her head less than half a meter above that surface, while the three meter tall aliens stood crouched down, their horns scraping the two and a half meter ceiling. That made the firing solution easy, and he swung his rifle to the right of all the aliens, pulled the trigger, and swung it to the left.
The beam hit the helmet of the leader first, slicing through the tough alloy. He wasn’t sure if he maintained contact long enough to kill the creature, but he had the other two to worry about as well. He swung the protons into them, one after the other, keeping the beam in place for over a second on the third alien. That contact burned a hole through the helmet and a jet of reddish steam flew out.
That one’s dead, thought the Marine, swinging the rifle back as he made a quick assessment of the other two. The leader was holding his helmet in his upper hands, and it was obvious he was having trouble with the unit. Probably enough to forget him for the moment. The other was trying to bring his rifle up in his upper hands, while his lower hands reached for a helmet that had melted alloy over the faceplate. The two sets of arms were getting in each other’s way as the creature tried to perform a task it was not practiced at. Benny fired a beam through the faceplate, keeping it in contact until he saw the steam of vaporized flesh come out of the hole. Then it was the leader’s turn, and another shot took that one out.
Benny boosted over to the girl and lowered his suit, while she stared at him with frightened eyes, her gaze going back and forth between his faceplate and his missing legs. The Marine raised his faceplate so she could see his face, see that he was human.
“I am not going to hurt you,” he said to the child, reaching out a gauntleted hand to gently touch her face.
“You’re hurt,” said the child in a soft voice, looking at the stumps of his legs.
“I’ve been better,” he said with a smile, ordering his suit to send another infusion of pain medication to his lower spine. His internal nanites had put a block in place a little bit lower down the nerve tract, but with all the movement he had been making, the pain was still coming through. I need to be in a fucking hospital, he thought, almost laughing at that notion. He would be lucky to be alive in the next hour, and here he was worrying about his long term health.
“My mommy and daddy are dead,” said the child, tears now flowing freely down her cheeks.
“And I am truly sorry about that, child,” said Benny, grabbing her into an embrace with one arm and lifting the suit into the air, his rifle pointing forward in the other hand. “But unless we want to join them, we need to go. Will you trust me to get us out of here?”
The child gave him a glance that revealed how unsure she was that Benny could save them, but she nodded. She leaned into him, her head on his hard, armored shoulder. Taking that as a yes, Benny boosted down the hallway toward the hangar.
* * *
There were several shuttles in the hangar, and as far as the Marine could tell, they were all in working condition. He amended that thought as he made his way into the hangar, the child still clinging to his suit. The closest shuttle in, the one he would have taken, displayed open access panels on the far side, the sign that it had been going through maintenance when the enemy struck. He moved around that shuttle to the next, and saw exactly what he was looking for just beyond that one.
It was a Marine Assault Shuttle, used to deliver fully armed and armored Marines to the surface of contested planets. It was more heavily armed than the standard naval shuttles, with lasers, particle beams and missile pods. And, most importantly, it carried an entire stealth package. While the battle cruiser may have been a nearly obsolescent ship, this shuttle was state of the art. And his best chance of getting off the ship.
The hatch opened at his touch to the panel, and the light came on in the shuttle as soon as he entered. It was made to handle battle-suited Marines and Naval Personnel, so he had no problem maneuvering within its confines. Which didn’t mean he didn’t hit a bulkhead or a seat while trying to maneuver on his suit grabbers. He set Naomi down on the deck, then pushed his particle beam rifle into the weapons locker near the door.
“Go into the cockpit, honey,” he told the child, motioning toward the hatch to the left. “I’ll be there in a
second.”
The child nodded, wiped a tear from her eye, and walked toward the hatch, which opened as she approached. Benny turned back to the entry hatch and pushed in a lock-out code, then backed off and activated the inner hatch, converting the entrance into an airlock. He then turned back to the interior and propelled himself into the cockpit.
Naomi was already in one of the seats, strapping herself in. Smart girl, thought the Marine, giving her a smile and heading for the other seat. His suit landed on the cushioned acceleration chair and he grabbed at the arms of the seat. It felt strange to be sitting on something without his lower legs to fold over the front and give him a proper carriage. He pulled the straps of the restraints over his suit and powered up the shuttle.
“What are we going to do?” asked the child, staring at him as she hunched up in the too large seat.
“We’re going to ride this thing out of here,” said Benny, trying to give her a smile to show her the confidence he didn’t really feel.
“Won’t they see us?” she asked.
Benny activated the passive sensors of the shuttle and brought a tactical holo to life over the control board. “I’m hoping we can use the sensory overload of this ship exploding to cover us.” He activated the shuttle linkage systems and took control of the ship to his left on remote, powering her up as well. Can’t be anyone aboard that ship, or they would have stopped me, he thought.
“What about all the other people on board this ship?” asked Naomi, her stare an accusation. “Shouldn’t we help them get off?”
Benny wished he could. But there was no way in hell he was going to have a chance to get more than himself and the little girl off. If there even were people still left alive aboard. The Cacas had been on board for almost forty-five minutes now, and it looked like they weren’t taking prisoners. Or many of them. Still, he jacked into the tactical nets through the shuttle, and listened to silence. If there’s anyone out there, they’re not fighting as any kind of coherent unit. And I have no evidence that there is anyone else alive on this ship at all.