Gaiene and the soldiers with him ran past a group of crew members waving enthusiastic greetings and bloodied implements. At their feet lay two others, both newly dead, both wearing the standard suits for Internal Security Service snakes. Another fire team broke off to guard the new volunteers who had formerly worked for Supreme CEO Haris before tendering their resignations in blood.
Most of the ship had been overrun, the survivors of the crew being herded into compartments under guard, but the three citadels were locked down, armor sealed and defenses active. While the controls on another blast door were hacked, Gaiene paused, evaluating the situation.
Main propulsion-control citadel, weapons-control citadel, bridge citadel. The last-ditch defensive barriers put in place on Syndicate ships to defend against enemy boarding parties, as well as against mutiny by crews of workers who lacked loyalty to their masters and were kept in line by discipline, fear, and the ever-present snakes of the ISS. “How does it look, Safir?”
Lieutenant Colonel Safir sounded annoyed. “Not too bad. We lost some people taking out the snake stronghold. The power core has been overrun and the remote operating cables cut, so the snakes or the other Ulindis can’t overload it. I think the propulsion citadel will surrender, but I’m guessing we’ll have to crack open the weapons citadel.”
“Get into the weapons citadel and make sure they can’t fire on the battleship, which they may realize they can attempt if they are given time to think. I’m closing in on the bridge citadel,” Gaiene said. The blast barrier blocking him whooshed open, and he took off at a trot, surrounded by the soldiers with him, their movements in the power-assisted armor oddly dainty as they used the gliding steps most effective inside a warship’s confined spaces. “I’ll give the bridge crew a chance to do this the easy way as soon as I get into position.”
Danger signs popped up on Gaiene’s display, warning that the defenses around the bridge citadel were near. He had the means to break those defenses and get into the citadel, but that would cost time and lives as well as messing up parts of this ship. Gaiene ordered the soldiers with him to halt in a safe area outside the bridge-citadel defenses and looked around for a comm panel. “Here we are. Bridge. Acknowledge, you fools.”
The panel lit to show a mobile forces officer in the command seat on the bridge. Gaiene knew the look in the man’s eyes. He had seen it many times before. Disbelief. Shock. Fear. Confusion. That look meant Gaiene had to keep pushing, keep the man from recovering, keep him from thinking clearly. “We have your unit under our control and will soon breach your citadels. However, in the interest of avoiding excessive damage, we are willing to offer you the chance to surrender, open the citadels, and deactivate their defenses. If you surrender, you will be allowed to live, and given your freedom. We’ll keep our word. We’re not snakes. Every snake in this star system is dead. If you refuse to surrender, and we have to blast our way in, there will be no mercy shown, and your dead bodies will be tossed into space. Or perhaps you’ll only be mostly dead when we toss you into space. We’ll keep that promise as well. Make your decision now. I am not a patient man.”
Shouting could be heard in the background of the bridge citadel while the battle cruiser’s commander stared at Gaiene. After several seconds Gaiene prodded him. “Now. Surrender or die. I won’t ask a third time.”
The man looked toward something behind him and must have seen what he needed to see, since he turned back to face Gaiene and nodded in a jerky fashion. “I agree. Surrender. I surrender the ship.” A hand that Gaiene could see was trembling danced spasmodically over the controls at the command seat. “Deactivating defenses.”
“Make sure the other citadels do the same.”
“I don’t have control of the weapons citadel! Haris’s snakes are in there!”
“Lieutenant Colonel Safir, the weapons citadel is occupied by snakes. You will have to take that one the hard way.”
Safir replied with grim satisfaction. “I thought so. Everything’s ready. Commencing assault.”
The danger markers on Gaiene’s display were winking out as defenses around the bridge citadel shut down. He gestured, and several soldiers scuttled forward, around the corner of the passageway and toward the massive armored hatch sealing off the bridge.
No attacks erupted from hidden traps, so Gaiene and the rest of his soldiers followed, additional units closing in on the bridge from other sides and the decks above and below it. Armor and defenses were in place in those locations, too, but the ship’s commander appeared to be abiding by his agreement to surrender.
Vibration could be felt as the heavy bolts holding the hatch locked ponderously retracted, then the hatch itself pulled back.
Soldiers stormed inside, their weapons ready. Gaiene came with them, a last rush of adrenaline fueling the elation of victory.
The bridge crew were standing with raised arms, hands resting on their heads, most of them at their duty stations. But several were gathered around the spot where a man and a woman in the standard suits of the ISS lay on the deck. Gaiene gave the snakes a dismissive glance that took in the unnatural angles of their heads that bespoke broken necks. “Make sure they’re dead,” he ordered one of the officers with him. “Make sure everyone else up here is disarmed, then get them down to one of the holding areas. Lieutenant Bulgori, get on the comm controls and let the battleship know we have the bridge of this unit and will soon have the rest in hand.”
A series of faint shocks registered through the hull of the battle cruiser. Gaiene switched his attention and his display to a close-up on Lieutenant Colonel Safir’s portion of the brigade. The defenses outside the weapons-control citadel had been destroyed, allowing soldiers to get close enough to place breaching charges powerful enough to defeat even the protection around a citadel. The shocks had marked holes being blown in the armor guarding the citadel, and now antipersonnel and electromagnetic-pulse grenades were being fired in through the openings, followed by assault forces with rifles blazing.
A few snakes were still standing, their outlines barely visible through the murk created in the weapons-control citadel by the breaching charges and grenades. Gaiene barely had time to focus on the remote images before the shapes of the snakes were torn ragged by scores of shots and tossed aside.
“We have the propulsion-control and weapons-control citadels,” Safir reported. “Propulsion surrendered as soon as their defenses deactivated.”
“Thank you,” Gaiene replied. “I fear we’re going to hear some complaints from our shipyard people about the damage to the weapons-control area.”
“We did try to minimize the damage,” Safir said with a grin.
“Yes, but the repair people will be unreasonable. You know how they are. You broke it. It’s our job to break things, but they never understand that. Speaking of jobs, you did a good one as second-in-command, fulfilling every expectation of your superiors in the finest tradition of etc., etc., etc. Let’s get the internal sensors back online and make certain there aren’t any crew members hiding in out-of-the-way places.”
“We’re on it, Colonel. It looks like we captured between four and five hundred crew members. This ship was a little short-handed.”
“Not as much as it is now.”
“We have comms with the Midway,” Lieutenant Bulgori reported. “A minute after our attack began, Gryphon and Basilisk opened fire at close range on the four HuKs escorting this battle cruiser. Three of them were destroyed, and the fourth surrendered after taking propulsion damage.”