No Way to Start a War (TCOTU, Book 2) (This Corner of the Universe) (25 page)

Truesworth
drew attention to the corpse of
Aspis
.  “Sir, I’m getting a huge spike
in Aspis’ power plants.  The shielding has dropped.  Overload in less than a
minute.”

The
ship had already launched its ELTI indicating imminent death and an overloaded
Omnicron power plant would release enough energy to finish her death throes. 
The danger to the other ships was minimal as all were outside of the 1
ls
radius of the expected explosion.  “Lifeboats?” Heskan asked.

“Some,”
muttered Truesworth.

Heskan
began to log into Grey’s command channel when Truesworth spoke again.  “Another
overload, Captain.  This one is from one of the Hollie destroyers we were
protecting.”  Truesworth’s puzzled expression looked over to Heskan.  “Two
overloads in thirty seconds?”

Vernay
tilted her head and questioned, “Are they doing it on purpose?  Are they losing
control of their ships?”

A
chill ran down Heskan’s spine. 
It’s possible.  Those ships were hit hard which
means they must have a lot more aliens on them.  But to self-destruct, isn’t
that an overreaction?
 
Kelly wouldn’t panic like that.
  Heskan
joined the command channel and found he was alone.  He immediately sent a comm
request to
Eagle
. 
To hell with waiting.  Grey might have her hands
full but I need to know what’s going on with her ship.

A
lieutenant commander’s image appeared on Heskan’s console.  His eyes were wide
as words poured from his mouth almost too rapidly to understand.  “Commander,
Captain Grey says you have command of the task group until further notice. 
Eagle’s been boarded.  They’re everywhere and they’re unstoppable.  They tore
through the hangar like a typhoon.  All our ground crew and Avenger’s pilots
were there…”  Anguish washed over him before he shook his head and resumed.  The
commotion on his bridge nearly forced him to scream.  “Major Wilson says his
marines won’t hold and we’re going to lose the ship.  Grey is trying to get to Engineering;
whether she makes it or not, I think she’s going to destroy Eagle before they
can take control.”

“How
many are there, Commander?” Heskan shouted back, matching the volume on
instinct.

“The
multi-rifles aren’t effective; they swarm right for you.”  An alarm sounded
behind
Eagle’s
bridge officer and he quickly looked to his left.  To
someone out of Heskan’s view, he cried, “We’re out of time, Dale!  We’ve got to
get off the command deck.”  The comm channel closed.

Heskan
stared and wondered what was happening on his own decks.

Second
Lieutenant Jaime Garcia heard the echo of his combat boots clanking against the
alloy of
Kite’s
second deck.  His weapon’s status display projected to
his right eye monocle and pulsed a comforting green “75” for his kinetic round counter,
but the laser slung under the multi-rifle was still a yellow “Charging.” 
And
why would we have our multi-rifles ready?
he questioned. 
There hasn’t
been a true boarding action in the history of the modern navy
.

When
Garcia was stationed on Titan at Camp Alexander, he had been searching without
success for a way to leave his desk job and enter a unit destined for combat against
the Hollarans.  When an immediate billet for a marine contingent commander
opened aboard a newly launched escort destroyer, Garcia gave application for
the position serious consideration.  There would not be combat, he knew, but at
least he would be on the front.  His reticence ended after a rare conversation
with Camp Alexander’s “black sheep” marine officer, Major Sidney Knight.  Upon
mentioning
Kite’s
captain, the reclusive and often shunned marine had
told Garcia: “More than a few marines could learn a thing or two about
completing the mission regardless of cost from Garrett Heskan.”  The
unsolicited judgment had removed any doubt from Garcia, who joined
Kite
when it reached Titan.

These
thoughts raced through Garcia’s mind as he ran toward the rally point he had established
with Staff Sergeant Cooper and his squad.  He had ordered the standard rules of
engagement for MOUT, thinking that operations in urban terrain were most
similar to the situation his marines would be facing.  Additionally, he had
ordered laser power settings to below that required to penetrate the bulkheads
of the ship and kinetic rounds used as a last resort.  He turned the corner and
skidded to a halt.  The marine officer quickly counted heads as he greeted A-Squad.
 “Sergeant, send a fire team up to Deck One and have them hold the position
between the breach and Kite’s main corridor.  You and the other two fire teams
will advance to contact on this deck and push them back to the breach.”

Sergeant
Cooper quickly acknowledged and sent one of his four-man teams running for Deck
One.  He then gave quick instructions to his remaining marines and they began a
cautious advance down the hall with Garcia in tow.

After
several minutes of quiet, Garcia saw his leading elements reach a sealed door. 
If only there were windows on these doors so we could see inside,
Garcia
wished.  The door read BRIEFING RM 2-B.

“Open
it,” Garcia heard Cooper command.

The
door slid quietly open and four marines tailed each other into the darkened room. 
The first marine to enter turned right and followed the contour of the wall,
the second marine turned left and each successive marine alternated directions.

The
lack of fire told Garcia the room was empty.  When he entered, he saw the fire team
stacked up by the opposing door and ready to enter the following passageway, a
hallway leading toward the thermal control room for RSL-4.  Before Cooper could
give the order to proceed, the locked door opened by itself.

Initially,
Garcia could not comprehend what he was seeing.  A humanoid shape stood at the
threshold.  It had two legs and two arms but the features of its body were undefined. 
Its skin looks like it’s crawling.  Where is its face?
he thought in
revulsion.  As he stared incredulously at the thing in the doorway, he heard
Sergeant Cooper’s command to fire.

In
the span of several seconds, Garcia watched as half of the marines began to
back away from the figure in the door while the other half fired upon it with
their lasers.  Garcia realized that he had also taken some involuntary steps
backward at the ghastly sight as he brought his multi-rifle’s sights up to eye
level.  Before he fired, several barely perceptible beams of light etched their
way through the form.  The figure was struck several times in the torso
seemingly without effect, but an arm sliced off and hit the deck next to it. 
As the arm struck the floor, it appeared to explode in a burst of tiny pieces. 
No, something is still there.  My God, it looks like the arm of a shocksuit,
Garcia thought, both puzzled and horrified.  The “pieces” began to swarm in the
air toward his marines with a distinct buzzing sound.  Garcia pulled his
rifle’s trigger almost unconsciously and saw the humanoid shape twitch as the
laser pierced its head.  An instant later, the entire body collapsed as though
a switch had been turned off.  When the body dropped, it too burst into a
large, angry swarm.  Still shuffling backwards, Garcia saw the remains of the
unfortunate spaceman who had been hidden underneath the terrible cloud that was
now approaching his fire teams. 
They’re almost like flies… or hornets
,
Garcia thought.  He watched the furthest marine, Private First Class Bishop,
swat at the rapidly thickening swarm around him.  The young man shrieked as the
creatures quickly covered him, and the private’s scream raised several octaves
as he began to run blindly.  A second, larger swarm gushed from the doorway
into the room.

Understanding
his rifle was useless, Garcia yelled over the cacophony for his fire teams to
fall back.  He raced across the briefing room to the far door and opened it. 
Turning back toward his marines, he saw most of the fire teams rushing toward
him.  Private Long, the squad’s sole bearer of a multi-rifle under-slung with a
shotgun, was busily pumping blast after blast into the deck in front of the
opposite portal.  The angled shots from the weapon deflected off the deck and spread
spectacularly to fill the doorway and rip away large sections of the swarm
pouring through it.  PFC Bishop had run blindly into a wall and was rolling on
the deck.  The swarm had so completely covered another marine that Garcia could
not distinguish who it was.  The remaining marines rushed by him as he desperately
waved them out.  As they hurried by, Garcia tried to count them but found
himself too distracted by the pandemonium inside Briefing Room 2-B.

While
the last of his marines ran by, some partially covered by the malignant swarm,
Garcia felt parts of his own body sting like needles piercing his skin. 
Numbness quickly followed the pain as feeling rapidly left his extremities. 
His legs began to buckle as he pawed at the portal controls.  “Close… door,” his
speech was thick and slurred as he fell to his knees.  The panel now beyond reach,
he dropped his rifle and groped at his chest armor as his vision became
obscured by the mass crawling over his shocksuit helmet.  Its seal had been
breached in several places and he felt the things scuttle over his face, then
tiny jabs of pain and his cheeks growing heavy.  Through the buzzing cloud, he
saw the door sliding shut next to him and only then realized he was lying on
his side.  Garcia believed he had successfully clutched the grenade attached to
his chest harness but was unsure if his fingers were still around it.  He
willed his hand to move through the arming procedures.

Lieutenant
Garcia was left-handed and he instinctively held the grenade upside down. 
Remove
safety clip
, he commanded to himself. 
Grasp pull ring.  With pulling
and twisting motion, remove safety pin
…  Unsure if his hand was obeying, he
tried opening his fingers to release the grenade and then just started banging
his hand against the deck, hoping the grenade would fall loose from his grasp.

Through heavy eyes, Garcia
saw the chaos of Briefing Room 2-B had chased the marines into the hall.  Staff
Sergeant Cooper was at the door controls, while three additional marines
seemingly danced in the corridor behind him.  The rest of the fire team was batting
at the stricken marines, trying to scrape off the things attached to their companions. 
As Cooper turned away from the closing door, Garcia’s Mk-37 offensive grenade
exploded.

*  *  *

Lieutenant
Commander Heskan sat impatiently on the bridge.  In the ten minutes he had been
waiting for a report from Lieutenant Garcia, he had ordered the surviving ships
of CortRon 15 to form around
Kite
. 
Kite
was still mysteriously
decelerating and was the slowest of the remaining functional ships. 
Eagle
,
near relative rest, was still unresponsive to Heskan’s comm queries and his
only window into the plight of the carrier came through Truesworth’s sporadic
announcements based on
Kite’s
sensors and the optical focused on the ship. 
Heskan was about to call Garcia when Engineering contacted him.

“Captain,”
Lieutenant Jackamore said, “it’s the cutters.  Those ships are generating some
kind of F-Two enhancer.”

“English,
Brandon.”

“It
just comes down to basics, Captain.  Go all the way back to Newton’s Laws of
Motion.”

“Okay,”
Heskan replied cautiously.

“Our
drives exert a force on subspace, subspace exerts a force on us.  The cutters
are changing that interaction,” Jackamore explained.  “Those cutters are
generating a field that’s changing that system directly and causing our
deceleration.”

Heskan
tried to paraphrase.  “So no matter how hard Kite’s drives try to push us
forward, those cutters are somehow subverting the force they can generate, and
can even slow us down?”

“Sort
of,” Jackamore hedged.  “Or at least that’s the effect.  While the aliens may
seem clumsy, it’s clear they have a huge technological advantage in field
generation.  It may even explain how they can ram us without being destroyed
and if they can reverse that field, why their ships are so fast.  Unless we
stop those fields, we’re going to grind to a halt.”

“Good
work, Brandon.  I’ll make sure our marines destroy those cutters after we’ve
stopped the invaders.  Heskan out.”  No sooner had Heskan closed the channel
than he received a comm request from Gunnery Sergeant Holloway. 
Uh-oh. 
Sergeant Holloway wouldn’t be contacting me unless…

“Lieutenant
Garcia is down, Captain,” Holloway opened matter-of-factly.  “We’re having
heaps of trouble stopping these aliens.  They’re too small to shoot and they
swarm over anyone in their path.”

 “What
do you need to stop them, Gunny?”

“Permission
to use explosives and permission to decompress some compartments.”

Heskan
recoiled.  “Can we contain them without that?” 
I’d really like not to blow
holes in my ship
.

“Negative,”
Holloway answered.  “We’ve sealed and locked every door as we’ve fallen back
but they just open them right behind us.”

This
puzzled Heskan.  “How would they know the codes?”  Heskan heard someone scream
and the reports of shotgun fire over Holloway’s mic. 
Okay, Heskan, these people
are fighting for their lives.  Ask questions later.  You need to give them the
tools to save the ship.
  “Never mind, Gunny.  Use whatever you have to and stop
those aliens.  We also need those attached cutters out of action as soon as the
fighting has stopped.” 
Or we’re going to be dead in space and surrounded by
Hollarans.

Heskan
closed the channel and looked over to Brown.  “Chief, sound decompression
alarms on all decks.  Our marines need to make some holes.”

Brown
looked unhappy but grunted.  “I got a couple damage control team liaisons close
to each group of marines, Capt’n.  They can override containment fields as
needed but I hope those jarheads don’t get too crazy redecoratin’ my ship.”

Heskan
turned his attention to the fleet. 
Curator
and
Bolt
were taking
up stations next to
Kite
. 
Eagle
was still unresponsive.  He searched
the tactical plot expecting more. 
That’s it?  Three other ships and that’s
the whole fleet?
  Farther away, the Hollaran ships were also forming into a
single group.  Heskan saw Lombardi’s heavy cruiser leading the way with her
remaining two light cruisers positioned on either side of her as they
approached the last surviving missile destroyer that had been fleeing the
aliens.  The ship looked in terrible shape.  Heskan glanced to his right. 
“Lieutenant Spencer, get with Lieutenant Truesworth and start damage estimates
on those Hollie ships, just in case.  Don’t point any weapons at them though.”

Spencer
bobbed his head guiltily.  “Yes, sir, I’ll rotate our lasers away right now,
sir.”

Heskan’s
eyes flicked down to
Kite’s
status display.  Every laser battery that
could bear on the Hollarans was pointed at them.  Additionally, a glance at the
tactical plot revealed that
Curator
and
Bolt
were similarly
poised.  He sighed in irritation as he checked the status of his optical
sensors.  The SnapShot was focused on
Eagle
.  “Jack, swing the Hawkeye toward
the Hollies.”

A
moment later, the optical eased Heskan’s fears; the Hollaran weapons weren’t
pointed at him.

Truesworth’s
distressed voice carried through the bridge.  “Eagle is overloading, Captain!”

Heskan’s
heart sank. 
After all we’ve been through, Grey is forced to destroy her own
ship
.  “Lifeboats?”

Truesworth
shook his head.  “Nothing yet.”

Heskan
flinched slightly in his chair as
Eagle
disintegrated into shards of
alloy and light.  No ELTI had preceded her destruction. 
That was quick. 
Did Grey even warn her crew?
  Heskan shook his head in disbelief. 
That
goes against everything I came to know about her.  She would have given her
crew time to evacuate if it were remotely possible
.  He shivered at how dire
the situation must have been to destroy
Eagle
without a countdown. 
Look
at Kite, we were hit only twice and we’re being forced to blow holes in the hull
. 
He returned his attention to the Hollaran formation.  Bitterly, he thought,
I
bet those bastards are cheering
. 
It’s “Mission Accomplished” for them
.