It was the south corridor I expected to lead to the data center, and the heavier enemy presence there seemed to confirm my suspicions. Taking the data center was a primary objective on its own, but I had my own tactical plan as well that required its capture.
I left a squad at the platform to protect our rear and took the rest of the command down the south passage. We moved slowly, carefully. This was like urban street fighting, but even tighter. We passed numerous doors, each leading to another room or corridor. Every room had to be checked - I wasn't about to leave an enemy platoon unmolested in our rear.
We had a canister of small charges that were just powerful enough to blow open the hatches without causing a lot of other damage. The majority of the rooms were empty, but we did run into a few occupants, mostly techs of some sort at work. War is a harsh business, and we didn't have time to deal with prisoners, so we did what we had to do and moved on.
Suddenly an arc of electric-blue light ripped into our front rank, practically blowing one of my troopers to pieces. I ordered return fire, but the corridor was just wide enough for three people abreast, so it was hard to bring too much firepower to bear. About ten seconds later another blue bolt hit Corporal Wells, boring a neat10cm hole through his chest.
"Open up the rooms, and take cover," I barked.
There were six rooms along the stretch of corridor we occupied, and we dispersed into them. I stayed in the corridor and directed everyone near me to the closest room. The blue beam continued to fire about every ten seconds, and it took out another one of my troopers and then just missed my head before I dove into one of the rooms.
I assigned two troopers to each doorway to return fire from cover. The enemy began to return fire as well, but it was all pretty ineffective. I think we took out two of them, and one of my guys was grazed in the arm.
This wasn't going to cut it. We were pinned down. My whole plan was based on speed and now we were sitting here stuck in the mud. I was pretty sure that was a portable particle accelerator out there, probably drawing directly from the station's power core, and Hector confirmed my analysis. The thing could fire every ten seconds or so. We could rush down the corridor, but we'd take a lot of casualties. The weapon was powerful enough to take out two or three targets each shot at close range.
"Hector, connect me with Lieutenant Frost."
"Frost here, sir."
"Lieutenant, give me a report. Have you reached the power core yet?"
"No sir. I'm pretty sure we've located it, but we have heavy resistance. I can expedite, but it will cost."
"Negative. Continue your plan for now, but if you aren't in there in fifteen minutes then take it at all costs."
"Understood. Frost, out."
Ok, so we were bogged down at the power plant too. If I didn't come up with an alternate plan we were going to end up frontally charging both positions, and a lot of my troopers would never get off this station.
I thought for a few minutes, and an idea started to form. We had four cutting lasers. The walls between compartments weren't armored. Maybe, just maybe we could cut through and advance from room to room.
I got on the link with my officers and non-coms and explained the plan. Unfortunately, one of the troopers with a cutting laser had been a casualty, and another was with Frost's group. So we only had two to work with. Private Hemming was with me in the forward-most room, and Private Black was the same side of the corridor one room back. I had Black start cutting his way into our room, while I got Hemming working on the wall between us and the next room. I had four troopers flanking Hemming; we had no idea what was waiting in that next room.
The cutting lasers were designed to draw on our suits' power plants, and they were quite strong. They cut through the interior walls of the station easily, but there were pipes and conduits of all sorts, so as we cut we'd sever them, creating showers of sparks, water, and steam. None of it was a threat to us in our suits, but it made quite a mess.
It took about three minutes to cut a hole large enough for a crouched man to get through. As soon as the cutting was done the marine with the torch would back away and one of the troopers on guard would kick the loose section of wall, and another would look through, weapons at the ready. All together it took us maybe five minutes to get from one room to the next.
Of course, we had troops in rooms on both sides of the corridor, and we were only cutting our way forward on one. My thought was to get far enough ahead to get around the projector and take it out, and then the rest of the company could advance down the corridor. But the rooms were small, which meant more walls between us and our destination. After twenty minutes we'd gotten through three, but unless they got a lot larger we were looking at ten or twelve more. This was taking too long.
I was just about to bite the bullet and order a charge down the corridor when Frost commed me.
"Captain, we're in the power center. We took three casualties, no KIAs."
I let out a little sigh of relief. "Excellent, Frost. Good work. Can you cut off power to specific sections of the station from where you are?"
"Sir, I'm not sure. I am in the main control center now, and I have Jarvis working on the computer, but I don't know how long it will take him to breach the security."
We didn't have time to try hack our way into their control system. "Frost, is there a manual cutoff for the whole thing? I don't want to shut down the reactor, just cut off the power flow to the grid."
"Stand by, Captain"
He was silent for about ninety seconds, and then he came back on and said, "Yes, there is a main cutoff, but I'm not sure what will happen if the whole station loses power."
He was right, of course. We had very incomplete information. I had to assume all the vital systems had some type of backup power, but there was no way to be certain. If I was wrong we'd lose life support and who knows what else. But I was pretty sure that projector in the hall was connected directly into the station's power grid. On the battlefield that type of gun would be on a tank or other vehicle with enough energy generation to power it. But the only way they could have rigged it up here is by drawing directly from the station's reactor. Cutting off power would shut the thing down. At least I hoped it would.
"Frost, on my command you will cut off power to the entire station."
"Yes sir." He paused for a few seconds and then said, "Captain, we have station security forces attempting to counterattack us here."
Shit. "Is your position in danger?"
There was a short silence, probably Frost evaluating reports from his troopers. "Not presently sir. I have pickets posted at all approaches. We're exchanging some fire, but I don't think it's a serious threat at this time."
"Ok. Prepare to execute power shutdown on my command. Duration sixty seconds, and then restore."
He acknowledged, then I told Hector to get my officers and non-coms on the line. I explained what I wanted to do. First, we were going to make a run for that projector and take it out before the power came back. Then, by squads, we were going to get down that hall as quickly as possible. I designated one squad to remain in our initial position and a second to follow behind the charge, checking out each of the rooms along the way to make sure we weren't leaving hostiles behind us. The first squad would support them if they ran into anything they couldn't handle on their own.
The initial run down the corridor was the riskiest part. I had no way to be sure that thing was hooked up to the main grid, or even if it could hold a charge for another shot if it was disconnected. Whoever led off down the corridor could easily end up being fried, and if anyone was going to take that chance based on my crazy scheme it was going to be me.