“Here’s our spot,” Marten said a minute later. It was an intersection of corridors, one going straight up, with ladders and float rails. “Wernher, set up the cannon and melt a clot when they show themselves.”
“Roger,” said Wernher. He put a bulky plasma cannon onto its tripod holder and adjusted the settings. An orange light winked, meaning it was charged and ready. It took ten seconds between shots for the cannon to recharge.
“They might start blowing walls like we do,” Lance said. “Making new ways to move and then surround us.”
“Our sensors will detect them if they try that,” Marten said. “Then we’ll show them another trick about wall busting.”
“Here they come,” said Wernher.
“Wait until the last moment,” Marten said.
“Hey, I’m the cannon king,” said Wernher. The plasma cannon was slaved to his HUD. He hunched over it, adjusting another setting.
Then SU fodder leap-frogged into the corridor. They didn’t wear any suits but had screwed up, terrified faces, with breathing masks over their mouths. Those wouldn’t be much help in vacuum, but with all the fumes from the lasers and plasma cannon it wasn’t a bad idea. They fired as they advanced—running, crouching and lifting their las-rifles. Las-bolts hit walls and corridor equipment. Oily smoke billowed. Despite their breathing masks men coughed. They were brave enough, poor sods. They didn’t stand a chance. Several las-bolts glanced off a battlesuit, that because of reflective microcoating. Wernher chuckled over the comlink. With a sizzling sound, the cannon belched an orange glob that boiled into a horrified mass of men. Some melted, showing bones and spilling guts. Others vanished in the superheated plasma charge. For a few of them, there was enough time for a microsecond scream. One man actually tore off his breather. Then an awful odor of death filled the corridor and dark, greasy smoke and fumes. Lance, Vip and Marten glided forward, firing red laser light into the shocked survivors.
“Advance,” Marten said.
“What for?” Kang asked. “You said we should go to the engines first.”
“We’re fighting our way to the proton generating room,” Marten said. “My guess is that right about now their commander has sent his good troops around in order to ambush us. These poor sods were acting too much like they were trying to herd us forward.”
There was some muttering, but they listened to him.
So for the next several minutes they advanced according to HB tactics. They blew out walls, ambushed many and lobbed light grenades to blind and then fragmentation grenades to kill. It was murderous work. Over fifty enemy corpses lay burned and blown in the corridors. Then they broke into the generating section using breach bombs. Wernher set the plasma cannon and slaughtered another hundred. Then an enemy grenade caught him at just the wrong angle. A depleted uranium grenade-shard sliced through his helmet and lodged in Wernher’s brain, splattering the inside of the helmet with gore.
“Another one down,” Marten said. “Conway, take the cannon.”
“What about Wernher?” asked Lance. “Do we take him too like we did Omi?”
“Kang, carry him,” Marten said.
“He’s worthless!” Kang said.
“He’s full of munitions,” Marten said.
Kang grunted and picked up the dead shock trooper.
“We’re taking a different route,” Marten said. “Nine o’clock and through the wall. Go, go, go!”
17.
“Security Chief here, Admiral.”
Admiral Rica Sioux hunched over the armrest. Her confidence had waned as she listened to the combat chatter on the net, to the constant screams of their dying. Her old lined faced betrayed her worry. I have to set an example. Show your confidence. So she sat up, adjusted her cap and straightened her uniform.
“Things are starting to fall apart,” the Security Chief said.
“I’ve been listening to your communications net,” said Admiral Sioux. “The enemy is good.”
“Good? The smaller concentration is a pack of devils, Admiral. They keep retreating, pulling my people farther and farther away from the main group. And they slaughtered… This is butchery, Admiral. Why don’t we have space marines like this?”
“We did,” said Admiral Sioux. “Now they call themselves the Highborn. I wonder what these marines call themselves?”
“We’re badly out of position, Admiral. So I’m calling off the chase of the smaller group and throwing everything at the larger one. We’ve had better luck with them.”
“How can that be?” asked Admiral Sioux. “The larger group is marching straight here and there are over fifty of them left.”
“That’s true. But we’ve killed more of them, Admiral. Their tactics aren’t so strange and unusual as the smaller group. Whoever’s leading the main concentration—he’s not like the leader of the smaller group, Admiral. That man is uncanny.”
“Can we stop them? Is there any hope?”
“If I can get my Security teams back there in time, Admiral, yes. Every time I tried to trap the smaller group, they avoided a stand up fight. I don’t understand that man. But I’m certain that if I can get my best people into position, then we have a change at stopping the bigger group. All they’ve been facing are unarmored men with las-rifles, yet still we’ve taken out about ten to fifteen of them.”
“Hit the larger group with your Security teams. They’re the real danger anyway. And hurry, Chief.”
“I’m on my way,” said the Security Chief.
18.
The shock troopers led by Marten broke into the main engine control room. It was a vast area crowded with generator domes, comps, consoles and repair vehicles presently secured and locked-down. Engine personnel had been waiting, sprinkled with a handful of Security people. Marten butchered them, although a shock trooper named Gerard died when a main vent blew superheated coolant on him.
After Marten and Lance shut off the main valve and the others rigged the corridors leaning into the Engine Room, they huddled together by the lifts that lead into the guts of the actual engines, where the Fusion Drive expelled the hot gases that propelled the beamship. There they discussed their next move.
“We control the engines and from here we can destroy them,” Marten said.
“How do we do that?” asked Kang.
“Breach bombs should do it,” Marten said, “but I’m sure once we’ve downloaded the specs we can do it from these control boards.”
“We’ll give you that for the sake of argument,” said Lance. “My question is: so what?”
“So now we make our pitch,” Marten said.
They glanced nervously at one another. They knew about fighting. It’s what they did. But this idea of fleeing to the Jupiter System, that meant bucking the Highborn. They had been re-educated by the HBs more than once. First, to get into the FEC Army each of them had passed through brutal training that had taught them the superiority of the Highborn and that one must always obey members of the Master Race. Then they had fought in the Japan Campaign, a murderous affair where thousands of FEC soldiers had died hideously. There the Highborn had once more shown their superiority, that no one in the end could win against them. In a sense, they hadn’t known anything yet, not compared to shock trooper training. Perhaps the trip here had been rough and many had cursed the Highborn, but to go directly against HB wishes… They knew what happened to those who had tried in the past—they were all dead.
“Uh, look, Marten,” Vip said uneasily. “Maybe the HBs are already on their way here. We would look pretty silly sipping tea with the enemy. It would mean the pain booth, maybe a lot worse.”
“All life is a gamble,” Marten said. “We all know that. But what kind of gamble is worth it when nine out of five hundred make it?” He looked around and through their faceplates. They were scared. “Sure this pitch to the enemy is a gamble. But it will get us out of this crazy war. We all survived the Japan Campaign. Now we’ve survived being shot to the Bangladesh. We’re the ones who made it. Omi, Wernher and Gerard made it here too but died anyway. How much more luck do you think the rest of us have left?”