It proceeded like that for the first few minutes, with the marines leapfrogging their way forward, trying to get to the bridge. But they ran into a stiff pocket of resistance in the warren of control rooms under the main bridge, where ten or twelve Kilrathi with small arms contested their approach from cover. The marines bogged down, unable to clear the Cats from the strong position without risking unacceptable casualties.
Bhaktadil dropped to a crouch beside Bondarevsky and Travis. “Any suggestions?” he asked coolly.
The two Navy officers exchanged looks. “Seems to me I remember some kind of an access tunnel running from somewhere around here to the rear of the bridge,” Travis said, frowning.
Bondarevsky nodded. “You’re right. I remember it too.” He called up a tiny schematic on the screen of his wrist computer. “There…behind that bank of instruments.” He pointed.
“Loomis! You take Bravo Squad. Follow these two.” Bhaktadil jerked a thumb at Bondarevsky and Travis.
They found the entrance to the hatch easily enough, pulled off the access plate, and started in. The tunnel ran upward at a sixty degree angle, with rungs planted inside at intervals just slightly too far apart to be entirely comfortable for human hands and feet. It would have been cramped for Kilrathi technicians, but it was reasonably wide and open for the Landreich party.
Travis insisted on leading the way, with her own wrist computer displaying the route. There were several tricky branching before the tunnel reached the bridge. Bondarevsky would have preferred to lead, but as a senior officer it was foolish for him to take the lead in something like this…as foolish as Max Kruger personally leading every foray by the Landreich’s fleet.
They had nearly reached the top when they realized they were in trouble.
Up ahead, a clang of metal on metal and a sudden gleam of bright light alerted them to the fact that the Cats had opened up an access plate. Bulky figures clambered into the tube, then stopped, obviously taken by surprise by the sight of the human marines climbing toward them. Evidently someone had hit upon the same idea as Bhaktadil, of using the alternate route as a way of outflanking their enemies.
There was a pause when nothing happened. Then the lead Kilrathi opened fire. Mag-pulse projectiles whined through the tunnel, ricocheting as they hit the bulkhead. The first burst sent Alexandra Travis tumbling back against the marine just behind her, both of them crying out.
The only thing that saved the Landreicher party was the heavy build of the typical Kilrathi. Lieutenant Loomis, third in line, was able to get off a clear shot past the two sprawled figures, and her fire brought the first Cat down. The one behind him, hampered by the massive figure of his comrade, went down as well. If there were other Kilrathi at the entry, they backed off fast.
Loomis squeezed past Travis and the marine and pulled out a flash-bang. She signaled to two of her troopers to join her, then flipped it past the two Cat casualties, through the hatch. Somehow she managed to get past the bodies and start pumping full-auto fire through the hatchway.
Command Bridge, KIS Wexarrngh
Near Jump Point Nine, Vordran System
0010 hours (CST), 2671.042
Vharr surged from his chair as the grenade clattered on the deckplates, snarling a Kilrathi battle-challenge. The blinding light and the overwhelming shock pulse as it detonated seemed to sear directly into his brain, and for long moments he couldn’t see, or hear, or think.
Then mag-pulse weapons shrilled and chattered, and more by instinct than by coherent reasoning he hurled himself behind the protective bulk of his command chair.
Most of the others on the bridge weren’t so lucky. The party that had reeled back from their attempt to use the tunnel as an alternate attack route were caught completely in the open. Most of them went down in clawing, screaming red agony. The Executive Officer got off a single wild shot with his sidearm before he fell.
Summoning all his willpower, Vharr threw off the effects of the stun grenade and hurled himself across the bridge at the computer station, one massive hand upraised to initiate the sequence that would wipe the computer codes clear.
A human-a human female, at that-intercepted him, planting the muzzle of her sidearm squarely in his chest. “My name is Lieutenant Katherine Loomis, Free Republic Marine Corps,” she said in flawless Kilrathi. “And you, sir, are my prisoner.”
Access Tunnel, Deck Two, KIS Wexarragh
Near Jump Point Nine, Vordran System
0013 hours (CST)
Bondarevsky didn’t pay attention to the firefight. He crawled to where the two human casualties lay, turning them over. The marine was clearly dead, a full burst of mag-pulse projectiles making a nice target grouping right over his heart. But Travis was still breathing, and moaned as he pulled her to one side so that the rest of the marines could work their way past.
Her armor hadn’t been able to stop the bullets from such short range, and he could see where it had given way along her left side. Bondarevsky pulled off her helmet, checking the pulse at her throat, then unsnapped the chest plate and worked it free. The t-shirt she wore under the armor was wet with blood. He unhooked the first aid kit from his web gear and opened it up, then drew his knife.
Her eyes focused on the blade, and she managed a faint smile. “C’mon, it can’t be that bad,” she said, wincing. “I mean, you don’t have to go through this ‘put her our of her misery’ routine…”
“Stay still,” he ordered. “I have to stop that bleeding.”
He used the knife to cut open her shirt. The blood was still flowing freely from multiple lacerations on her side. A few centimeters over and she would have been dead.
Bondarevsky used the t-shirt to clean the wound as well as he could. Then he began to apply a healstrip which would trigger clotting of the blood leaking out from the multiple wounds. Pulling her artificial blood pack from her belt, which was coded to match her type, he squeezed the bag. An energy cell inside the bag ruptured, mixing the dried blood with a frozen saline solution and heating it to body temperature. Wrapping the bag to her forearm, he took the needle attached to the side of the bag and slipped it into a wrist vein, then lashed the bag in place.
It was touchy work, and he was afraid his artificial hand might go back into spasms again if he tried to do anything too delicate.
He was so wrapped up in the job that he didn’t notice where his other hand rested as he tried to steady himself. Travis flashed a painful grin. “Most guys at least give me dinner and a holo-vid before they try something like that,” she said.
Bondarevsky pulled his good hand away from her bare breast, flushing. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“Don’t worry about it,” she told him. “All in a good cause. Just remember about the dinner if we get back to Landreich, okay?”
“It’s a date,” he said, adjusting the healstrip one last time. “Can you handle the armor again?”
She nodded. “Yeah. But I won’t be doing any dancing for a while.” He helped her back into the chest and back pieces of her space armor, uncomfortably aware of her bare skin now. When it was sealed up, he gathered up her helmet and pointed to the top of the ramp.
“The firing’s stopped. Let’s see what’s going on.”
She gave a nod, and allowed him to help her up the incline.
Combat Information Center, FRLS Mjollnir
Deep Space, Vordran System
0315 hours (CST)
Vectors matched and flying in close formation, Mjollnir and the captured picket boat shaped their course for Jump Point Three, the route that led straight to the Imperial provincial capitol at Baka Kar. Tolwyn should have been in his quarters, at least pretending to sleep now that they had passed the first obstacle, but he was too wrapped up in considerations of what the new day would bring to even consider retiring to his bunk.