Accord of Mars (Accord Series Book 2) (15 page)

I
was pinned
down from one side, and had armed men coming through the door behind me from the other. Not a lot of good options for escape. I still had a gun, though. I checked the load. Ten round magazine with five bullets gone. The marine’s body had another two magazines hooked to the belt, so I was feeling a little flush for ammo.

I swung my arm out and fired in the direction of the shooters. I burned off several bullets to get their heads down. Then I stole a quick glance while I continued to fire.

There were three men down the hallway outside. They’d set themselves up behind a barricade. Even aiming, I wasn’t hitting anything. I could hear one of them talking. It sounded like he was on a radio - probably coordinating with the men cutting down the door behind me. They didn’t need to kill me. They just needed to keep me there another minute. The saw had already cut a six-inch slice into the door. Not long before they were through.

And the barricade blocked the only walkway out from here. They were pretty confident they’d cut me off. But then again, they were thinking from the perspective of life in a gravity well. And there wasn’t any gravity on the ship anymore - no acceleration, and no spin. There was still one more route away from them that they didn’t have covered.

The entire core of the dreadnought was a massive tube with the railgun barrel running down the middle. In theory, if I could get enough of a push…

I stopped thinking about it. Either it would work or it wouldn’t.

I grabbed the body. It was a little disgusting, hauling his weight around. But I figured he hadn’t quite worked off his karma for murdering my friend yet. He had one more task to help me with. I reloaded the pistol, and tucked my legs against the door, watching the saw blade carefully. The last thing I needed was a gash from the thing.

Fast breaths, hard breaths, I used a rail to pull myself in as tightly as I could, like a coiled spring. Then I pushed off with everything I had. I shot out of the doorway, keeping the marine’s body between the shooters and myself. They opened fire, but I was moving fast. I felt a slug slam into my body shield anyway, and was doubly glad I’d hauled him along.

I returned fire, and managed to tag one of the men. Their barricade wasn’t protecting them now that I was out and above them. And then I was out of range for the pistols. I stopped shooting to save my ammunition. They kept up a steady rain of bullets. Another hit the dead marine, and a few pinged off the railgun tube behind me, but their aim was terrible from this far away.

And then I reached the railgun itself. The smooth metal barrel didn’t give me much to grip. My fingers slid off, and I kept going around the other side. The barrel was huge, maybe ten meters across, but there was nothing on it to grip. I was going to end up across the gap from the marines on the far side of the inner deck. They saw it too, and started sprinting my way. They must have had mag boots, because they were able to make a good steady progress while keeping contact with the deck.

I still had a little time before they reached me, so I cast my eyes about for the tool I needed to get the hell out of here. I spotted one, not five yards from where I would land on the far side.

The worst enemy of every sailor, in every vessel throughout time, has always been the same: fire. It wasn’t any different in space. If anything, fire was an even deadlier adversary than ever. We floated in oxygen rich environments filled with flammable man made materials and explosives. A fire on board a spaceship was every crewman’s worst nightmare. Every ship had fire drills, and every crewman knew how to spot firefighting equipment. Over the years, the storage and placement of things like fire extinguishers had become standardized. So I knew just where to look.

I landed and dumped the body. It wasn’t going to help me anymore. I pushed off the rail and dove for the case holding a fire extinguisher. It wasn’t that different from ones on Earth - a canister filled with compressed gas. Push oxygen away from fire, replace with non-flammable gas, and the fire goes out.

They also make lively propellant for zero gravity maneuvers. It’s all about the action and reaction thing. I’d once seen a new apprentice not brace himself properly for a fire drill and end up slamming against the far deck from the extinguisher’s exhaust.

I cracked the seal on the extinguisher and fired it off. The thrust pushed me back out over the edge. I kept the stream on as bullets flew through the space I’d just been. It was almost a little too much. For shipboard firefighting, the crew would use mag boots to lock themselves in place while they hosed down a fire. For me, the steady stream of gas was pushing me like a rocket.

It was damned hard to steer, though. I tucked the tank against my chest so that I could get both hands on the nozzle. I was coming dangerously close to the railgun again, only this time I was moving a lot faster! Impact at this speed was going to hurt.

I twisted my body, shifting the nozzle and got my vector corrected just in time. I could almost reach out and touch the barrel. A few pounds of explosives would have been more than welcome about then, but there wasn’t anything I could do to hurt the gun. Not from here. I kept blasting the can for as long as it lasted, which was about two thirds of the way down the length of the ship. I was still moving very fast, but without the continuous thrust I’d start slowing down from friction between the air and my body.

If I slowed down too much, I’d be a sitting duck for anyone who wanted to take a pot shot at me. So I twisted around again, turning so I was headfirst. Basically doing a nosedive toward the base of the railgun. By narrowing my profile, the air would slow me down much less. Speed was my friend right now.

And it looked like I had a welcoming committee down there waiting for me. A little group of marines was gathering at the base of the barrel, guns aimed up at me. Every gun I’d seen on the ship so far seemed to be loaded with frangible rounds that would break apart on impact instead of going through. A sensible precaution on a spaceship - but it might work to my advantage.

I still had the empty fire extinguisher riding along with me. I pulled it forward now and stuck it out ahead of me. Then I sucked in my gut, trying to make myself the smallest target I possibly could.

As cover went, it sucked. If they had even a little angle, they’d be able to hit me instead of the canister. But the first couple of rounds they fired did ping off the metal instead of hitting my skull. I crossed my fingers and lay the pistol alongside the canister, taking aim as best I could by using it as a rest for the weapon.

More bullets zinged past me. There were six men down there shooting. One of them was going to hit me if I didn’t do something pretty fast. I took aim and fired. One of them yelled and went down. Another of the marines grabbed him and started dragging him clear. That was two of them out of the action, at least for the moment.

Still four more to go. And probably reinforcements on their way.

W
e were leading
the Dreadnought’s missiles on a merry chase. So long as we kept the Hermes moving in an erratic orbit around the monstrous ship, half of the missiles it fired weren’t coming anywhere near us. Which made the rest of each volley easy pickings for our defensive guns. The missiles could turn well enough. Faster than the Hermes could, anyway. They were small and maneuverable. But we were orbiting at high velocity, and they didn’t have a lot of fuel to burn. Eventually most of them simply burned themselves out trying to catch up.

We were still expending a great deal of munitions keeping the rest of the missiles from pulverizing the ship. I was aware how much greater a stockpile the Dreadnought likely had compared to the Hermes. We needed to fight smarter than they did. We certainly couldn’t hit harder or outlast them in a shooting match.

“How are we doing on munitions?” I asked aloud.

“Good on the guns. Missiles are down to one half,” Diaz reported.

Damn. We just didn’t have enough firepower. Our volleys were too small to get many of our missiles past their defensive guns, and the Dreadnought’s armor was too thick. The Hawks were buzzing around like flies on a carcass, keeping the monster busy. But they’d all but expended their own missiles. I checked the status board. Only one Hawk had missiles remaining - Flynn’s. I assumed she was too busy doing whatever it was she thought she could do about Thomas to fire them off.

“Flynn, you saving those missiles for posterity?” I asked over the radio.

“No sir. Just looking for a good target,” she replied.

“Make them count.”

“Will do. Sir, I’ve made contact with Thom. He’s warned me that the enemy ship plans to blast the colony as soon as they’re in range,” she said. “Minutes, he said. But we must have damaged it. He said they only have one shot with it.”

Damn. Perrault’s ship was still coasting forward, even with the engines down. It couldn’t accelerate, but it still had inertia and velocity. He was going to take out the colony. From an utterly ruthless perspective it made sense. Whether his ship survived the fight or not, if he destroyed the colony on Mars I’d be without support. I’d have a hard time even repairing this ship, let alone building any new ones. Earth would be free to rebuild its own fleet without any worries. Even if we survived my shipmates and I would be without a world. Homeless and adrift in space.

Unless we stopped him.

I bent over my console, working out a new course for the Hermes. It took a few minutes, even with the help of the computer system. What I had in mind wasn’t at all conventional. But if I couldn’t take out Perrault’s ship conventionally, then I’d borrow a line from an old Earth admiral. Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead! With luck the torpedoes - missiles, in our case - would work. If that failed…

“Sending course data,” I said. “Helm, get us on that new track.”

“Aye sir,” Ensign Jacobs said. “Sir - these coordinates?”

“Are going to put us precisely where I want us to be,” I said. “Right in their teeth.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied.

He sounded dubious, though, and I needed him fully on board. I needed all of them. It was time to let the entire ship know precisely what was going on. They had a right to know what was at stake, and why I was gambling with their lives like this.

“All hands, this is the admiral speaking,” I said over the intercom. “Captain Flynn’s just passed me confirmation of our worst fears. The enemy ship is armed with a weapon of mass destruction, a monster cannon capable of wiping out whole cities. The enemy plans to use this gun to level the Mars colony,” I said. “We are maneuvering to place ourselves between our enemy and our home.”

“He wants to take out Mars, he will have to go through us to do it,” I said. “We stand our ground now, or we won’t have a home to return to. Our families and our friends are back there, counting on us. We will not let them down. Admiral out.”

I hoped we were able to do all I’d said. The new course was going to swing us around directly in front of the Dreadnought. Then we’d use our momentum to keep going forward on a collision course. We’d keep firing every inch of the way, with our defensive belly facing toward the enemy. If they wanted to hit the colony with their main gun, they’d have blast through us first. As close as we were, were might be able to soak enough of the blast to save the colony.

Assuming their missiles didn’t take us out. The Hermes rocked again as another one struck home against our armor. We were going to take a lot more hits now that we were coming straight at them.

But our fire was getting more effective as we came closer, too. Both ships were headed directly at each other now, hammering away with everything we had at our opponent. The Hermes shook again, and then again. More missiles smashing through our defenses.

“Keep us steady,” I said. “And keep firing as long as we can.”

In another minute or two I’d have another decision to make: whether to pull the ship clear and get out of the way, or let the collision course come to its inevitable conclusion. Even a ship of that mass would have a very bad day if it ran into us nose on.

If we could get in just a few lucky hits, it wouldn’t come to that. I just hoped Flynn would be able to work whatever magic she was trying to perform in time. Thomas was out there, somewhere. Every missile my ship fired off might be the one that killed him. I kept up the steady rain of attacks anyway, even though each time we fired it ate away at my soul. There wasn’t any choice.

I
shifted my angle a little
, and the wind slipped me a bit further from the railgun. Shift the other way, and I slid in closer. I could almost reach it now. I fired my pistol again, but missed the waiting marines. Then I shifted my weight so that I slipped in just a bit nearer - and at last I could touch the barrel. I was only a few dozen feet off the deck now and still falling fast. I fired one last shot, then let go of the canister. It would keep falling down the same trajectory I’d been on.

But I was going elsewhere. I grabbed at the barrel of the railgun, using friction to shift my direction of travel. My hand burned as it slid over the metal, but I was turning, twisting around it. I heard shouts from below, and knew the men were going to give chase. They were still running with their mag boots though, so they had to walk all the way around the interior of the ship to get where I was going.

Most of them were, anyway. Two had gotten the bright idea to turn off their boots and jump across. They fired up and me and I returned fire. I felt a bullet crease my leg, leaving a trail that burned like a brand. I hit one of them, blood blossoming from his chest. The other kept shooting as he sailed across to the far side.

I pushed off hard against the railgun, which changed my angle of descent again. Now I was moving away from the gun almost as quickly as I was falling down toward the engines. Bullets whizzed past me. I returned fire, and my pistol snapped empty. Still falling, I dumped the empty magazine and reloaded. This was my last reload.

But I was so close! I couldn’t let them stop me now. My feet touched down on the deck, and I tucked and rolled to bleed off the impact. It still jarred me to my knees, and made the gunshot wound start burning again like someone was trying to carve chunks from my leg.

“Drop the weapon or we’ll shoot!” one of the marines said.

“Isn’t it a little late for that?” I shouted back at them. They’d already been shooting at me! Their reply came in the form of yet more bullets pinging off the wall beside me.

I came up out of the roll and pushed off for one of the side corridors. There were handholds in the corridor. These marines might not have much experience in space, but whoever designed the ship had been thinking about zero gravity when they did. I pulled myself along down the tube. Somewhere down here was an airlock. I needed to find it. That was my last shot at getting out of here.

The marines gave chase. I could hear their metallic footfalls clanging down the hall behind me. There were a lot more of them than there had been, but I didn’t have time to stop and count. I rounded the corner. Had to keep one corner between myself and their guns, if I could.

A red line appeared on the floor with the note ‘EVA’ next to it. That was where I needed to be going. If I could just get to the airlock in time…! I followed the line around another corner and into a long, straight tube. Just what I’d been trying to avoid. But there didn’t seem to be any way around it. If I wanted to get out, I was going to have to dash down that tube as fast as I could. And pray I could reach the end before the marines rounded the corner and shot me full of holes.

I grabbed a rung and hauled myself forward. My arms were exhausted. I pocketed the pistol again so that I could use both hands, working as fast as I could to pull myself along. But the tube was simply too long.

They didn’t give me a warning shout this time. I heard the clanking of their boots on the deck as the marines rounded the corner, and then they opened up on me. I had just enough warning from the noise they made to pull myself into a narrow space behind a support strut before a hail of bullets slashed down the hall.

I stuck the nose of my pistol out and fired a single shot at them. But I was blind. I couldn’t see them without sticking my head out. And I knew the moment I did that they were going to take it off.

Then the rain of lead vanished.

“Stein!” one of them shouted. “Surrender and we’ll take you in. The Admiral would rather have you alive than dead. But he’s OK with dead if you give us more trouble.”

Just across the tube and down another five meters was the airlock door. Inside, there were space suits. With another few seconds I’d have made the outer lock. With another minute I could have been in a suit and gotten the hell out of this place. Now? I was just flat out of luck.

“I think I’m going to make you come and get me,” I said. The entire ship shook as another missile blew up somewhere close. “That is, if you can do it before we all get blown to hell.”

None of them seemed interested in taking me up on the offer right away. They knew I was armed. If they came after me, at least one of them was going to take a bullet before I went down. For now they had me pinned in place, and that seemed to be enough for them. Which meant I had time to make a quick phone call. If this was the end of the line, I wanted to say goodbye to Kel.

I tapped the smartwatch, hoping to make a connection. She picked up immediately.

“Thomas! You close? I’m losing fighters out here. We need to get clear!”

“Go,” I said, feeling guilty that people were out there dying while trying to rescue me. “I’m pinned down just outside the airlock, love. Not going to make it.”

“Like hell,” Kel said. “Keep talking, I’m getting a lock on your signal. Gotcha.”

I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see it. She was never going to give up. I couldn’t bear the idea that she might be killed sticking around waiting for me. “I’m stuck. You need to go, seriously.”

“Got an idea. It’s a bad idea,” she said. “But if you’re really out of options, it might work. You behind cover?”

“Yes,” I said. “What are you planning?”

“Something crazy. Don’t hold your breath, OK?” she said. “And no matter how this goes…I love you.”

Oh, shit. I had a feeling I knew what she had in mind. “Love you too. Aim well?”

“Always do.”

I started hyperventilating to build up oxygen in my blood. This was going to suck. This was going to suck a lot. I looked longingly at the space suits hanging in the airlock, so close at hand. They might as well be a hundred miles away. No way I was going to get to them without being shot full of holes.

If I’d seen literally any other option, I’d have tried for it. Pinned down as I was, I’d either be killed or recaptured - which was just as bad. If I was right about what Kel was doing, the worst case was that I’d die really quickly. Best case, and Kel could maybe pull off a miracle.

The pistol went back in my pocket. I wasn’t going to need it, and I was going to want both hands free. I made myself a small target near the bottom of the stanchion, and grabbed hold with both hands. I was still breathing fast, and only about half of it was conscious. The rest was raw fear.

Then Kel’s missile slammed into the tube about halfway between the marines and I, blasting shrapnel their way. Flames filled the tube, growling their way in both directions and eating all the air.