“Where? There? Got it. Thanks. That looks close to our own designs. A mag field right here… got it.”
Two Marines hauled the outer air lock hatch open while their companions held weapons at the ready. “Looks clear,” Sergeant Hsien said, peering into the small compartment beyond.
“Open and clear,” Maya reported.
“Fry ’em,” Orvis directed.
One of the Marines on each side tossed a round object inside the nearest air lock, then joined their companions in huddling away from the outer hatch. Geary saw alerts flash on the display of each Marine as electromagnetic pulses flared inside the air locks, frying all but the most heavily shielded electronics, hopefully including any booby traps, weapons, or sensors.
“Ready,” Maya said.
“Ready,” Hsien echoed.
“All right. Inside.” Orvis waited while some of the Marines crowded into the two air locks, and others jumped upward as space on the ledges cleared.
“Got some lightweight composite armor inside the hull,” Maya reported. “Nothing on the inner door, though.”
“Same on your side, Hsien?” Orvis asked. “Good. Prep Banshees. Prep to blow the doors. I’ll count down. On one, fire the Banshees. Wait three seconds, then crack the inner doors and get inside.”
“Fire Banshee when count reaches one, wait three, go in,” Hsien repeated back.
“Fire on one, wait three, go in,” Maya added to indicate she had also understood the orders.
One Marine at each air lock knelt and placed a short tube against the inner hatch. The two with the Demo and Entry skills stood by the doors and rapidly traced the edges of them with what looked like narrow tape, then laced a crisscross pattern across the surfaces of the doors as well before sticking small remote detonator tabs into the tape and stepping back. “Stand by,” Orvis said. “Begin count. Three… two… one.”
Geary saw the views from the Marines with the Banshee tubes jolt as the devices fired. The Marines scrambled to their feet, weapons ready, leaving neat holes where the Banshee rounds had punched through the inner air lock doors as if they were paper.
“Three… go!” Hsien and Maya yelled simultaneously.
The demo tape on the doors abruptly flared into brilliant light as it instantly ate through the material behind it. The inner doors blew out in fragments, the pieces flying past the Marines under the pressure of atmosphere venting from the interior of the stealth craft. The Marines surged into motion the moment the fragments were past, racing into the craft against the wind of the inner atmosphere pouring out into the barely present atmosphere of Europa.
Even through the Marine sensors, the scenes they confronted inside were of confusion and chaos. Each Banshee had burst after it tore through the hatch, setting off more EMP charges as well as dazzlingly bright bursts of light and thunderclaps of sound. Men and women carrying a variety of small arms had been covering the hatches from inside the ship, but now were reeling in disorder, some pounding on weapons whose fried circuitry had rendered them useless, others frantically grabbing at the inoperative breathing gear on their survival suits as they began to grasp that those circuits had been fried along with those in weapons.
The Marines, barely fitting inside the craft’s passageways in their battle armor, fired with deadly efficiency. Within seconds, every criminal still holding a weapon had been hit, while a few others had fled.
A Marine private from First Squad paused, looking down at a figure writhing on the deck at her feet, then fired.
“Hotch!” Sergeant Hsien snapped.
“He was choking to death, Sarge!”
Hsien paused. “All right. No sense making ’em die slow like they did that woman they tossed out the air lock. We got six locals down on this side.”
“Got five bad guys down here,” Maya reported.
“Get moving,” Orvis ordered. “Secure the rest of the ship.”
The Marines from Hsien’s and Maya’s squads raced through the ship as fast as they could, literally hammering down hatches and doors with the strength of their combat armor. With only two decks in the fairly small craft, it didn’t take them long. Behind them, at the air lock doors, other Marines hastily fastened emergency seals across the broken doors, keeping in what atmosphere remained in the grounded spacecraft.
“Heads up!” Private Francis called.
Geary yanked his eyes away from the screens of the Marines in First and Third Squads. Francis was in Fourth Squad, watching the outside of the stealth craft, and because of his angle of view had been the first to spot a small hatch near the underside of the spacecraft as it began opening.
Two figures in space suits dropped out, both carrying weapons, both firing wildly as they fell toward the ice.
Francis and a half dozen other Marines fired back, slamming shots into both figures before their feet even hit the surface. The two criminals landed in loose sprawls, to lie motionless.
“Got some here, too!” a Marine in Second Squad called. “Forward, just under the bow!”
This time, hand weapons were stuck outside the new hatch and fired without aiming, spraying shots as the ones holding the weapons stayed completely under cover.
“Do they think this is some stupid video?” Sergeant Koury grumbled, as she and the rest of her squad fired. Aided by the precise targeting abilities of their battle armor, the energy pulses slammed into the weapons sticking out of the hatch, knocking two out of the hands of those holding them while a third exploded in a flurry of propellant all going off at once. Three figures fell out of the hatch, one dropping to the ice and scrabbling feebly, while the other two pawed at survival suits with rents in them from which atmosphere was pouring out.
“Ancestors forgive us,” Orvis mumbled. “Put them out of their misery, Koury.”
“But, Gunny, we stopped doing that to the Syndics! What about prisoners?”
“We can’t take them back. They’re going to die fast now or slow later. You want to watch?”
“No,” Sergeant Koury answered after a second. “But I’m not going to ask anyone else to do it.” She raised her weapon and fired several times.
“They are being merciful,” Commander Nkosi murmured next to Geary, as if trying to remind himself of that.
“Got four in here,” a private in Third Squad called out from inside the craft. The view from his armor showed four terrified criminals huddled together between the beds in a sleeping compartment barely large enough for several bunks stacked along the walls.
“No weapons?” Sergeant Hsien asked.
“Don’t see any, Sarge.”
“Ask them if they know where the fleet officers are.”
The private relayed the question over his external speaker, the sound coming out weakly in the thinned atmosphere left inside the spacecraft. “They say they don’t know, Sarge.”
“Then back out and leave one Marine to guard the compartment while the rest of you continue the search.”
“Hey, Gunny,” Corporal Maya called a minute later. “This looks like the hatch into the bridge.”
Commander Nkosi nodded to Geary. “It should be the right location for a bridge on a spacecraft like that. The hatch is probably armored, in case of mutiny.”
“We’ve seen that sort of thing before,” Geary commented before calling Orvis. “Gunnery Sergeant, the local commander agrees that Corporal Maya has probably found the bridge. The hatch is likely armored, so it can serve as a citadel like the Syndics use.”
“Thank you, Admiral. Sir, we’ve covered the whole spacecraft except whatever’s behind that hatch. Our people must be in there, along with however many of the enemy are still active. We’ve accounted for twenty hostiles so far.”
“It will not be a large compartment,” Nkosi warned. “It will not hold more than a half dozen at the most. Blasting your way in could be hazardous to your officers if they are inside.”