No Middle Ground (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride) (31 page)

The second shot also landed on the man’s visor, and this time he went to his knees and the cannon slipped from his gauntleted hands to the deck. But his fellow Marine had brought his own weapon up, and was aiming at Lu Bu’s head.

She knew she would be unable to bring her weapon up in time, so she tried to sink her weight in a last-ditch effort to avoid the incoming deathblow, but her armor prevented her from doing so.

The Marine fired, but not before the barrel of his weapon was struck by a timely shot from one of her fellow Lancers, and the Marine’s blaster shot went just wide of her helmeted head. Needing no more providence from the Ancestors, Lu Bu screamed and lifted her leg before driving it forward into the man’s arm.

Her duralloy boot slammed into the Marine’s forearm and pinned it against the wall of the corridor, but he kept his grip on the blaster rifle and grabbed her leg with his free hand before shoving it off his pinned arm.

Squeezing the trigger, Lu Bu sent a round into the man’s lightly-armored neck. The Marine’s free hand went to the fresh gash in his armor, and Lu Bu knew she had him as she brought her leg back down before slamming her armored shin into his head, knocking his helmet completely off in the process and knocking the warrior prone to the deck.

There was the sound of repeated blaster rifle impacts from behind her, and she turned just in time to see the Marine whose rifle she had taken crash against the wall of the corridor with a short vibro-blade in his hand. It took her a moment to realize he had been coming for her with the weapon, and that realization made her grind her teeth as she added her own weapon’s fire to that of her fellow Lancers until the blaster rifle’s power cell was completely empty—and the Marine’s armor was a shattered, smoking shell.

She turned back to the Marine whose helmet she had knocked off and realized she had taken more than just his helmet; she had apparently kicked his head off as well! Finding the sight of a decapitated man more odd than disturbing, she reached down to collect the plasma cannon. Its dual grips felt good in her hands, and she swung the barrel of the weapon around to sweep the nearby corridors, only to find them all empty.

“Regroup, Lancer,” she heard Sergeant Joneson call, and she turned to see him standing amid the fallen forms of her fellow warriors. The sight of so many downed Lancers—six, by her count—angered her and she felt the urge to fire her newfound weapon into the nearby wall in rage. “Regroup!” Sergeant Joneson snapped again.

This time, Lu Bu managed to force her choler down as she trudged back toward their position just in time to hear Thomas call out, “Ready, Sarge.”

“Mag-boots,” Joneson ordered, and again she had just enough time to lock her boots before the corridor was filled with the rush of escaping gas, which deformed the deck-plates around the jagged hole which the boarding tube had made.

“Give me totals,” Joneson growled.

“Gnuko: plus six, minus three,” Corporal Gnuko reported stiffly.

“Thomas…plus five…minus three,” Thomas said through panting breaths. It was a miracle he had survived the ruination of his armor.

“Sherman: plus five, minus one,” Sherman added, his voice crackling with static.

Lu Bu looked down at Corporal Unger’s clearly lifeless body, of which barely half of his power armor remained. She knew she was the only surviving member of her squad, so she cleared her throat and reported, “Unger: plus four, minus three, Sergeant Joneson.”

“Joneson plus three, minus three,” Joneson added with a nod to Lu Bu, “you’re with my squad now, Lu. There’s only one more deck between us and the bridge; let’s cap this drive off!”

Overcome with the moment, Lu Bu found herself shouting wordlessly—along with the rest of the nineteen surviving Lancers, apparently, as her ears were filled with roars of approval coming in from the battle suit’s comm. unit.

“Remember the mission,” Joneson barked as he gestured down the corridor with his blaster rifle. “Move out!”

Surprisingly, they encountered no more resistance on their way to the bridge. Sergeant Joneson ordered Lu Bu to destroy the pressure doors sealing off the parts of the ship not affected by their series of forced entries which had exposed the interior of the destroyer to the cold vacuum of space. They had only left the final pressure door along their route intact.

But unsurprisingly, the vault-like door to the bridge—which was also a large airlock—was sealed when they arrived.

“Lu,” Joneson called over the link as he knocked on the seam of the blast doors, “you brought the key?”

She looked at him in puzzlement for several seconds until realizing what he meant, and she felt her face flush with embarrassment as she replied, “Yes, Sergeant Joneson.”

“Then let’s see ourselves in, Lancer,” he gestured after taking a step to the side.

Lu Bu thumbed the two-part trigger of the plasma cannon and felt its thrum reverberate through her gauntlets as it cycled to full-charge. When it was primed, she released her index finger and the awesome recoil the weapon created nearly knocked her off her feet as the blue-white flame belched from the barrel of her weapon and leapt toward the door.

It took her a moment to regain her footing, but when she had she saw a large hole in the center of the door. The ragged edges were still glowing orange as Sergeant Joneson gestured for Sherman to enter.

“Good work, Lu,” Joneson said. “Now take up position near that last pressure door,” he ordered, pointing down the corridor some ten meters.

“But Sergeant—“ she began, only to be cut off.

“If you don’t hear me say the word ‘pickoff’ in the next sixty seconds, you blast that door and then come support our position,” Joneson said over the top of her. “Start your clock, Lancer.”

She did as she was ordered, and after the clock began counting down she said, “Clock is running, Sergeant Joneson.”

“Good,” he replied after Sherman and another trio of Lancers had entered the airlock portion of the bridge’s access point.

Lu Bu made her way down to the pressure door and checked the charge of her plasma cannon. She saw it had enough fuel for another six shots before requiring a new canister—which she did not possess. Still, six shots from such a destructive weapon would almost certainly be more than she could take before being overcome if a wave of enemy Marines suddenly appeared.

Not long after she arrived at her new position, she heard a snap of static over her suit’s com-link and the lights of the corridor go out, but she kept her focus on the door. She watched as the countdown neared zero and felt her heart begin to quicken its pace as the clock reached single digits and still she had heard no word from Sergeant Joneson.

Oddly, she had heard no comm. chatter from her fellow Lancers, but she dared not risk taking her eyes off the door. Sergeant Joneson had given her this task, and she would carry it out no matter the distractions.

The clock reached five seconds remaining and she activated the weapon’s charge cycle. She kept the triggers down with her thumb and index finger as the weapon whirred and vibrated minutely in her hands, until the clock finally reached zero and she heard nothing from her Sergeant.

So she locked her mag-boots to the deck and fired the plasma cannon at the pressure door, sending a gout of super-charged plasma streaming into the duralloy plates of the double-layered door, which caved and blew outward as her weapon tore a rough hole through it.

The breathable gases around her streamed out of the hatch in a torrential rush, and she felt something slam into her backside just before something went hurtling out the door.

She disengaged one mag-boot and turned slowly, careful to keep her footing, and saw an unarmored woman’s body come careening down the corridor toward her as though it was flying. The woman’s body slammed into Lu Bu’s power armor before the venting gases drove her body out through the ruptured pressure door.

Pushing the image of the woman’s panicked face from her mind, and taking deliberate steps, Lu Bu re-cycled the charge of her weapon and clomped her way up the corridor toward the bridge’s airlock. She saw her fellow Lancers moving painfully slowly, with a few even having fallen over onto their sides. As she approached she saw Corporal Gnuko standing nearest her position, and she asked, “Corporal Gnuko, what is happened?”

Receiving no verbal reply, she saw Gnuko reach up with his hand and tap his helmet three times, signaling that his suit’s comm. unit was down. He then gestured for her to enter the bridge as he sluggishly attempted to do likewise.

Quickening her pace, she did as she was ordered and when she arrived on the bridge she saw Sergeant Joneson and Corporal Sherman, along with the surviving members of their squads. But they, too, appeared to be moving sluggishly—in fact, only the Sergeant and Corporal were moving at all. It then dawned on her that the pirates must have used some kind of ion burst which had knocked the Lancers’ suits off-line.

She brandished the barrel of her weapon, sweeping it side to side as she scanned for threats and finding a vibro-blade-wielding pirate crewman moving toward Corporal Sherman. The pirate was wearing a ‘head bag’ over his face, which allowed him to survive in the current, gasless environment, and Lu Bu fired her weapon at him just before he managed to plunge the vibro-knife into Corporal Sherman’s gorget.

The man’s body nearly disappeared without a trace, as only the hand which had clutched the vibro-knife remained after the plasma cannon’s flames had passed through his body. That hand fell to the deck, but oddly kept its grip on the knife as it rolled to a stop near Sherman’s feet.

She re-cycled the weapon and scanned to either side, but found no more apparent threats or armed crewmembers. A man wearing long, braided hair and bearing the insignia of a Captain backpedaled as Sergeant Joneson bore down on him with slow, deliberate steps before finally cornering him near the main view-screen.

The pirate Captain’s shoulders sagged as Joneson put his hands on him and placed him in restraints, and Lu Bu almost failed to notice Corporal Sherman making hand signals in her direction.

It took her a moment to understand his instructions, but she signaled that she understood his orders before allowing the plasma cannon to power down and activating her suit’s com-link.

“Captain Middleton, this Lancer Lu Bu,” she reported over the link after switching to the proper frequency. She waited a reasonable interval and received no reply, so she repeated, “Captain Middleton, this Lancer Lu Bu.”

This time, she received a static-laden reply, “This is the Captain. What is your status?”

“Bridge secure, Captain,” she reported, feeling the thrill of victory like never before, “we have the ball. Repeat: we have the ball.”

Chapter XXVI: Answers

“Good work, Sergeant,” Middleton congratulated as soon as he entered the brig.

“Thank you, Captain,” Joneson replied with a curt nod.

Captain Middleton came to the last cell and looked at its lone occupant for several moments before turning back to the Lancer Sergeant, “You made quite the run, from what I hear.”

Joneson shook his head. “It was a team effort all the way, Captain; I was just calling the plays.”

“Still,” Middleton said with a short laugh, “I’m not sure I’ve heard of anyone employing your breach methodology before.”

The Sergeant shrugged his broad, powerful shoulders, “Read and react, sir; there’s no way we could frontal-assault two dozen armored Marines on their home turf. Even still, we’re lucky Lu was outside the ion blast they detonated on the bridge during our entry.”

“That same ion blast cut out their primary comm. system,” Middleton nodded. “Otherwise we would have kept jamming and couldn’t have received your signal. You’re certain the
Cardinal’s Wrath
is secure?”

“Gnuko kept a dozen Lancers over there, and after seizing Environmental they started cycling off life support throughout the ship so they could round up the crew. Last count was one hundred thirty six souls locked in the
Wrath
’s cargo bay under armed guard,” Joneson said confidently before giving a derisive snort. “Blighters gave up with nary a fight after we took the bridge, Captain; no spine whatsoever.”

“Thank Murphy for small blessings,” Middleton intoned half-heartedly, as he was more concerned with their quicker-than-expected submission than he was disappointed.

“At any rate,” Joneson said into the growing silence, “we managed to take the Captain, along with nearly half his bridge crew. Their engineers ejected the power cores and slagged the primary fire control systems, along with the strange particle generators before we could clamp them down.”

Middleton’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “The strange particle generators?” he repeated.

Joneson nodded grimly. “Never heard of anyone pulling that one out of the last ditch,” he said before giving the pirate captain a quick glare. “They obviously don’t want us taking their ship.”

“Yes…” Middleton agreed as his mind raced through the possible reasons for such an action. “But this also tells me something important about their operation,” he mused, very much disliking
what
it told him, but grateful for the intel regardless.

“Sir?” Joneson asked with a cocked eyebrow.

Middleton inclined his head toward the pirate Captain. “His organization must be able to affect complex repairs on large vessels in a mobile capacity,” he explained in a low voice, “which confirms they aren’t your run-of-the-mill, smash-and-grab pirates…and that Captain Rodriguez believes his superiors will be coming before too long to reclaim their lost ship.”

Sergeant Joneson whistled appreciatively before shaking his head. “That’s why I’m a ‘pounder, Captain,” he said with half a grin, “can’t see the angles anywhere near as clearly as you.”

Middleton disliked this new information more than just a little, but he had a job to do. “How’s the Master at Arms?” he asked after looking around for the man, only to remember he had accompanied Sergeant Joneson aboard the
Cardinal’s Wrath
and been subsequently injured.