Jethro: First to Fight (79 page)

“Now that we've knocked, let's see who
else is home,” the bear said dryly. “You may dock when ready Ensign,” he said
simply.

“Aye aye sir,” The Ensign said, moving
in once more.

...*...*...*...*...

Valenko felt the bump as the shuttle
made dock and then watched with eager eyes as the ready light went from red to
yellow, and then with a blink green. The cargo master had been gesturing the
countdown as well as the docking clamps locked on and they pumped down the
shuttle's bay. He made a mental note to next time do that before docking to
save a few seconds.

When the light hit green orderly chaos
broke out. The crew were facing the lock, it cycled open and they hit the
interior doors. They had been spot welded and bent shut, but a breaching charge
solved that problem.

Kovu took point, charging through the
breach even before Valenko signaled to go. The lion roared over the tac link, making
a few wince. He did stop at where the bear had indicated though.

“Eager isn't he?” Asazi said, eyes cold
as she leapt over the torn door and followed. “Right and left clear!” she
called, moving to her cover point.

When half the squad had made it through
the door Valenko took his turn. He moved quickly to cover behind Asazi, trying
not to crowd her as people stacked up behind them. When he was certain of no
incoming fire the bear took a moment to scan left and right.

The ripped section of hallway wasn't
quite inky black, here and there a suit light tumbled, giving eerie lighting to
the mess of bodies, glittering ice, and shards. Flickering lights from the
overheads sparked then died. His reading told him a majority of the men and
women who had been set to ambush him were dead. One tumbled nearby, his arm
ripped off. Blood had frozen at the breaking point. It didn't matter, his visor
was shattered. The bear saw the person's head briefly, and noted the necklace
of teeth. Good, he thought, growling softly. Good.

With the hull breached, emergency doors
had slammed shut to contain the damage and atmosphere. Gases floated around
with the bodies, but it seemed the vents had been shut as well. Damage control
still functioned, Valenko noted in approval.  He turned to see two squads
of elves working on a closed air return vent. One pair was busily working on
the vent while the rest of the group stacked up eagerly behind them.

All twenty four elves took up less room
then three humans of the same mass even when their heavy weapons teams carried
modified weapons a bear like him would carry as a side arm. Each elf carried
spare oxy, ammo, and battery packs on their backs. They even had a pair of elf
engineers with them, two nervous looking enlisted carrying massive equipment
packs. Another pair of squid elves were riding probe bots. Four other probe
bots had been outfitted as donkey's they had cables attached to equipment boxes
and would apparently tow the gear behind or under them. He shook his head.

The elves had smaller weapons and
couldn't easily tangle with a human pirate in hand to hand, but what they could
do would be a nasty to the enemy.

They quickly got the bolts out and then
yanked the vent up. Air had sucked it shut from the vacuum, he imagined
somewhere a valve was cutting the tunnel off. The only way the elves could have
opened it was with their enhanced strength. The elves yanked the filter out,
peered inside for a moment then the squad leader waved his team in.

The bear grinned nastily. The elves
would get behind the enemy and snipe them from the air ducts or report on
positions. He set up a secondary objective, secure the air plants. He doubted
they could do it, but it was possible. Ensign Blackberry nodded to him and then
climbed in after his people, letting the vent fall shut behind him.

“I've got two, no make that three vital
signs. They're shaky boss,” Asazi reported. The bear grunted in irritation.
“What do you want me to do?”

Valenko was tempted to let them drift,
they might drift out one of the holes in the hull like their compatriots. Or
they'd run out of air. Or they could wake up and become a nuisance. That he
couldn't allow. He frowned then shrugged. “Fonz, form a detail of you and two
privates and secure the enemy wounded.”

“Me? Why me? And what do we use?” the
human argued, looking up in annoyance.

The bear growled over the link. The
human's annoyed face went slack. “Um, I mean yes sir. Right away sir.”

“Use rigger tape kid,” Asazi said as
Kovu motioned all clear. Asazi exchanged hand signs as Valenko gave the all
clear to move forward.

“Why me,” Fonz grumbled, grabbing at a
drifting ankle. He checked for vitals, then when he found none he spun it off.

“Take it easy Fonz, you'll get your
chance at getting your ticket punched, just do the job. And remember, some of
these yokels might wake up...” Asazi said just as Fonz found another pirate
body. The body twisted and a weapon fired, shocking everyone in the area into a
freeze. The Marines all turned to Fonz. The pirate who had tried to shoot him had
forgotten he was now in zero G. Firing a weapon like a Gauss pistol wasn't as
simple as he had thought, the weapon's recoil kicked him backwards into the
bulkhead with equal force.

The round fortunately missed, going
between the Private's legs. Fonz snarled and clubbed the man as he bounced off
the torn bulkhead and spun out of control. Fonz was anchored to the deck by the
magnets in his boots, his smack down forced the pirate to slam into the deck
hard. “Shoot at my balls will you?” Fonz snarled, hitting the man a few more
times before he rolled him over and knelt on his back. “Frack around with me
will you?” he snarled pulling rigger tape out of pocket. The guy's arms were
already going behind him as he surrendered. “Yeah, that's right, give it up
pussy,” the Private snarled.

“Geeze Louise that was close, did you
see where that round went?” Private Al Alvin said, shaking his head. “A little
higher Fonz...”

“Just can it and get to work,” Fonz
snarled, wrapping the guy up in a cocoon of tape.

Valenko watched Fonz tape his first
prisoner to the deck as two privates in basic skin suits passed him and went to
work and then turned to his map HUD. He checked an IFF and got a quick burst.
Good, Jethro was about to join the party.

...*...*...*...*...

Jethro used his experimental rocket pack
to get over to the station and to a different airlock. Firefly had been moving
at one hundred thousand kilometers per second past the station at over a
million kilometers out. What he was technically doing was decelerating as the
layman in him thought. Acceleration, deceleration, to him it didn't matter as
long as it worked.

What he actually did was trust in his
implants and the computers to figure out the math and get the job done. He knew
he was no pilot, the rocket pack was just a tool to get him to where he needed
to go. For the most part he had to hang on and enjoy the ride.

He looked to his left as he hit the ten
thousand kilometer mark and noticed the shuttles tearing into the hull, that
hadn't been planned but apparently someone had thought it was important. It
didn't matter, all the Marines were in suits or skinny's. At the half way point
his wings moved, shifting to now point the thrusters in the opposite direction.
It made him look like he was back winging as they fired to arrest his forward
momentum. Puffs from the RCS kept him balanced and oriented on the lock of his
choice. His HUD danced with images, a circle reticule danced about, identifying
various features around the lock. He didn't want to do a hard scan, but there
was a feed going out from the station. His suit picked it up and he smiled
wolfishly. Someone had just made their job much easier, one of the feeds was a
map of the location of every pirate on the station. He shunted that to the bear
and the other officers and noncoms as his boots touched down in the lock.

He looked down to the hazard striping
briefly, glad they had gotten the bugs out of the wings. He hit the release,
then frowned when he noticed the pressure on the other side keeping the lock
from opening. Something happened though, a command from inside pumped the lock
down.

Wary he turned the wheel opening the
lock door. He was tempted to go to another lock. The light came on making him
flinch. He awkwardly moved inside, the wings were now a hindrance, bumping into
things. Once inside he shucked the drained rocket pack in the lock. The door
closed behind him. He ignored the drifting pack and turned to the inner door
and scanned it. No one was within thirty meters of the door. Carefully he
opened it and then stepped out. When he confirmed no one was around as a
welcoming party he then headed out hunting. He had an objective to secure.

...*...*...*...*...

The pirate leader Major Zimmer cursed as
the guts of his initial plan were torn out from under him. His blocking force
had been torn apart by the shuttles accurate fire, and with it any hope of
bottling the enemy up in the lock and keeping them there. Already he was
getting reports of the Marines moving inward.

He should have anticipated full combat
marines but he hadn't. Stupid of him he realized, a stupid oversight that was
costing him big. He scowled. Each of his suits could hold one or two weapons,
most of them crew service or Gauss rifles. These Marines each had four to six
weapons, some had heavy weapons that made his heavy weapons look like toys!
Their infantry weapons were useless, even the Gauss rounds just bounced off
their energy shields or armor! His people were out classed and out gunned and
there was nothing he could do about it.

“Pull back to junction two forty Alpha.
Leap frog. Keep moving back,” he ground out. He hated giving ground, but he
didn't have a choice. Now it was about numbers. He had more people and the
station was vast. They had limited numbers and objectives they couldn't ignore.

He felt the irony, a week ago he had
been the attacker, ripping open this prize for the Horathian empire. Now here
he was the defender, defending said prize. Prime had been his biggest
prize,  the hardest thing he'd ever taken. It had been hard because his
orders required him to take the station intact, with minimal losses to the
human crew. Now he knew the enemy wanted it intact, he had hostages, but he
wasn't sure how they'd react to him using them as such. The little incident in
the airlock told him not well, from the looks of it, they hadn't even stopped
to consider station damage or casualties.

They definitely weren't going to back
down, that was pretty much a sure thing. Really, all he was doing was buying
time for the fleet to get its collective act together and knock that damn ship
out.

The Major studied his still incomplete
blueprints of the station and frowned. He'd have to come up with something
fast.

...*...*...*...*...

Meanwhile the people in the station were
hiding out in the engineering corridors or bunkered down in safety zones. Ralph
ordered the surviving fighters to guard the civilian populations. They had to
sit it out, the Marines didn't need the added complication of trying to figure
out who was who in the firefights. Nor did they need any friendly fire
incidents to haunt their consciences.

Some like the Taurens hid in engineering
and kept fighting a guerrilla war, causing accidents or sabotaging systems. The
pirates had quickly learned it wasn't safe to go alone anywhere, even in so
called safe sections of the station.

The Taurens had kept the critical
station controls out of the hands of the pirates, and even used locks and
explosives to collapse corridors to keep the enemy at bay. Accidents and
packing entire corridors with raw material from the industrial plants had
helped channel the enemy away as well.

Any aliens or Neo's were killed on sight
by the pirates. It was rough for the people on the station. Being occupied
under the boot of oppressor was harsh. Humans captured were locked down or put
to work. Those that were deemed too old or unfit were shot in firing squads or
dumped out an airlock.

Gwen, Riff, and Torg had spent the better
part of ten days trying to do their normal jobs of keeping the station
functional while also fighting the intruders the best they could, there was no
other alternative than death. They were dirty and passed the ragged edge of
exhaustion, but hope hovered just outside the station.

Just as the Marines were about to board
the Horathians managed to get around a barricade and into power room three. A
gloating pirate lifted his plasma barrel and pointed it at the female Tauren.
“This'll be fun watching you burn. I haven't had a decent barbeque in months!”

“Roast cow!” Another pirate called. “I
want a burger! Roast her!”

“No! I won't let you!” Torg snarled,
moving in.

“You and who's army?” the plasma rifler
said, laughing an ugly laugh as he switched targets and pulled the trigger.
Torg charged when Gwen was threatened and was set ablaze by a plasma rifle. He
bellowed in rage, wind milling his flaming arms before he fell.

However, the intentional suicidal charge
had been a planned distraction, one he worked out with Riff over his
objections. Torg's death bought Riff time to finish hot wiring the deck plate
the pirates were standing on. “Barbeque this you bastards,” Riff said, plugging
it in and electrocuting the bastards. The humans screamed in pain, jerking as thousands
of watts of power ripped through their metal armor and soft tissue. One pirate
squeezed the trigger in a reflexive action but he was already dead. They fell
as if in unison, smoking corpses.