The Terran Gambit (Episode #1: The Pax Humana Saga) (27 page)

“Run aft!” She pointed down the long launch ramp, towards another cluster of parked fighters. They high-tailed it, ducking under the nose of the nearest fighter and circling to its rear, out of sight from the sliding doors of the entrance. Anya glanced back to mark the progress of her automatic commands. As expected, the fighter’s main engines shut off, but not before applying a burst of power to the starboard thrusters, causing the ship to veer off to the left, spin a few times, and land with a screech about twenty meters down from the doors.

After several moments, the battered ship settled down, it’s various parts and engines grinding to a halt. All Anya could hear was the sound of gunfire in the distance, down some hallway too far away for her to do anything about.

“There’s our bait. Now let’s see if we can catch some fish.”

Nivens stared at her, his jaw slightly agape, glancing down to look at her bloodstained flight suit before turning back to her eyes. “You’re like some kind of superhero, aren’t you?”

 She dusted off a shoulder and puffed the hair out of her eyes. “Well if you want to put it that way,” she said, before adding, “You should really tell Mercer that—see what he says.”

* * *

Ben and Sergeant Pearson huddled behind the last row of chairs in the flight deck conference room, hearing the bullets from the advancing boarders whizz past. Pearson popped up to fire off another burst before ducking back down. Ben noticed that he kept putting his ASA-clad body in between Ben and the incoming fire.

“What do you think, Sergeant? There was about seventy of them or so, and we’ve only taken out a dozen.”

Sergeant Pearson swore. “We can’t maintain this position,” he said, glancing down at the blood-spattered body of one of their own marines.

Ben wheezed—the air pressure in the room was steadily rising, but when the boarders had first blasted through the emergency bulkhead they’d lost a good third of their atmosphere, making Ben lightheaded for the first few minutes of the firefight.

“I agree. Let’s fall back to the corridor—we can take cover more easily in the rooms leading off from the hallway—keep them pinned down.”

Sergeant Pearson nodded once, then motioned to the other handful of marines they still had, indicating the plan. “I’ll cover you. Go!”

Ben sprang up, clutching his assault rifle close, wincing as he felt the puff of a round zing past his head, and ran for the door at the rear of the room, with two other marines hot on his tail. One of them cried out as a bullet pierced him in the elbow, making his arm hang limp at an odd angle.

“Sergeant! Move!” Ben yelled back through the doorway, spraying down a suppressing screen of fire, and Sergeant Pearson popped up, vaulted over two rows of chairs and barreled through the opening and out into the corridor. Three more marines followed, enemy rounds ricocheting off their armor.

Sergeant Pearson pointed at the marines, motioning at a handful of doors lining the corridor, and the men and women sprinted towards them, taking cover behind the doorways, rifle muzzles pointed out, forming a deadly gauntlet Ben was sure the enemy would pay a heavy price to run.

An explosion on the other side of the door to the conference room knocked Ben and Sergeant Pearson off their feet, making Ben’s dizziness return momentarily. The meds they’d given him in sickbay had taken away most of the effects of his concussion, but he knew he could get another one if not careful. He chuckled to himself. Here he was worried about another concussion, when bullets were flying all around and he was the only one not wearing the ASA suit. Suddenly he felt quite naked.

Ben dashed towards one of the rooms opening out onto the hallway, following Sergeant Pearson who’d nearly kicked the door when it didn’t open right away. He could hear the bootfalls of the approaching soldiers coming through the flight deck’s conference room, and then, a new sound.

“What the hell is that?” yelled the sergeant.

Ben grinned. “That is the wondrous sound of an XR one fifty-one fighter’s forward guns,” he said, daring to peek out into the hallway. The gunfire paused, followed by the rat-a-tat of more assault rifle fire. Another barrage of fighter gunfire sounded out, and Ben could see the flashing through the conference room all the way down the hallway from their defensive position in the small storage room.

“They’re still coming, Commander. Stop gawking.” Sergeant Pearson aimed his rifle and starting firing at the invaders now spilling out of the conference room into the hallway. Ben scowled, realizing that the fighter fire was forcing the soldiers out towards them. Before he realized it, two enemy soldiers dove into the room they had taken cover in.

Sergeant Pearson cold-cocked the helmets of one of them, sending a web of cracks up the face shield, while Ben picked up a spare pipe laying near the wall and knocked the other soldier’s rifle from his grip. Grinning, now in his element and no longer feeling quite so naked, he grabbed the soldier’s arm as the man started to reach for him and, encouraging his forward momentum, swung the man’s arms up behind his own back and rammed his face into the wall, cracking the helmet’s faceshield.

With the pipe still in his left hand, he brought it down hard on the man’s arm, causing a satisfying snap even through the armor, and one more swing at the back of the man’s neck sent him down.

Ben spun around, and saw Sergeant Pearson struggle underneath the soldier on top of him—a long, wicked-looking knife pointing down at his neck from the soldier’s fist. He charged towards them, kicking the man’s head as hard as he could and dropping down to retrieve his own assault rifle. One round to the man’s neck ended the fight with a bloody splatter.

Ben regarded the soldier on the ground, holding his neck and convulsing. He’d be dead in minutes and the poor bastard was struggling to breathe. With grim determination Ben aimed at the man’s neck once more at an angle he was sure would snap the spine, and three rounds later the soldier fell limp.

An explosive roar drew their attention back to the hallway where similar close combat melees still played out. “Those are fighter thrusters!” he yelled over at the sergeant.

Sergeant Pearson chuckled. “Hell, whoever you got in there, he’s a veritable one-man army.”

They ran into the hallway to relieve their fellow marines, and when the scuffling ended, the enemy was all dead as far as Ben could tell. Two more of their own had fallen as well. He could hear shouting coming from the conference room.

Running back to look around the doorway he saw about a dozen enemy soldiers run from the conference room back into the anteroom and beyond it to the fighter bay. At the same time, more gunfire leapt out of one of the rooms behind them into the hallway.

“Damn,” said Pearson, “a few must have gotten through.”

“Leave them to the others to deal with them. We should go relieve whoever is still in the bay—they’re about to have a lot of visitors,” said Ben, already moving into the conference room. Sergeant Pearson motioned to the three remaining marines to advance on the gunfire coming from the hallway as he ran after Ben.

They peered into the anteroom just as the last enemy soldier sprinted out, and were about to follow him when they heard a barrage of rifle fire in the fighter bay. Ben ran into the anteroom and looked out to the bay beyond: he saw two lone flight deck members who had taken cover behind one of the fighters, holding off perhaps a dozen soldiers who crouched behind what looked like a burned-out fighter, its viewport shattered and blackened. The soldiers began moving towards the crew members, covering one another as they advanced.

Sergeant Pearson bolted into the fighter bay with a yell, drawing the soldier’s attention before diving behind an equipment box, narrowly avoiding a spray of rifle fire. Ben laid down his own suppressing fire, trying to draw their attention away from Sergeant Pearson to give him time to reposition himself. The two crew members continued firing from their beleaguered position as several soldiers continued their steady advance towards them.

“Jemez?” yelled one of the crew members.

Ben peered behind the doorway towards the hunched figures. The sandy hair in the face, the tattoos on the shoulders. He swore silently in amazement at her bravado—shooting up the flight deck and scorching the anteroom with a fighter was impressive, if not incredibly stupid.

“Grace!” He motioned to the steadily advancing group of soldiers. She motioned back, something about him laying down a defensive screen as she charged them. He shook his head vigorously, but she turned away and got ready to charge. Hardheaded jackass, he thought, and without waiting another second started blasting away at the approaching group while Pearson kept the others pinned down behind the burned-out fighter.

Anya Grace sprinted, holding what looked like a plasma-rpg launcher in one hand. Rather than fire at the soldiers now taking cover from Ben’s fire, she lobbed the entire gun at them, and dove for cover herself as they answered her with a staccato volley that devastated the spare parts bin she lay behind. As Ben wondered why in the world she’d thrown the launcher at them, he had his answer. An ear-splitting whine, followed by a massive explosion told him she’d set the launcher to overload, and must have held on to it until the last second. Bloody pieces of the invaders pelted the walls and ceiling of the fighter bay as Anya popped back up from the parts bin with a roar, her assault rifle blazing.

As Ben continued firing at the remaining soldiers, all he could think was,
Damn. She’s good
.

* * *

“Captain, they’re powering up their railgun turrets and ion beam cannons,” said Ensign Ayala, her eyebrow piercings bunching up together as they did whenever she announced more bad news to Jake. He wondered if it hurt to furrow one’s brow with so many rings stuck through it, but shoved the thought aside to concentrate.

“Po. We got anything yet? Railguns?”

She shook her head. “Negative. All forward turrets are destroyed beyond immediate repair.”

“What about the aft turrets?”

“Overloaded from all the secondary explosions. Crews are working on a fix now. I can give you partial power on two ion beam cannons.”

He knew he didn’t even have to ask his next question. “And the quantum field torpedo launchers?”

“Negative. Launch tubes are beyond repair for now.”

Ayala’s voice strained higher: “Captain, they’re firing.”

More explosions rocked the ship as Jake watched the lightning-fast slugs stream out from the
Caligula
.

“They must have seen through our little ruse,” he said, rather unnecessarily, but he wasn’t even focused on what he was saying. His mind raced, trying to come up with an option, something, anything to get them more time. “Ensign, lower the power to the sensor overload, just slightly, and open a channel to the
Caligula
.”

Ayala’s fingers darted over her console, and she barely even tensed as the ship continued to shudder from the high-velocity impacts of the railgun fire. Her nerve impressed him. “Channel now open, sir.”

“Admiral Trajan, this is Captain Jacob Mercer of the
USS Phoenix
. I’ll have you know, sir, that I have fourteen quantum field torpedoes locked on your hull, and if you don’t cease fire immediately I will order my XO to fire.”

The Admiral’s voice crackled over the speaker, barely audible through the jamming, high and mocking. “Captain now, is it? Congratulations, Commander Mercer, on your promotion. However, as the most senior officer currently in orbit around Earth, it pains me to inform you that your former Captain acted in haste, for I do not ratify his decision. Commander, your ship signaled its surrender over an hour ago, and yet here we are still fighting. Do you withdraw your surrender?”

 “Stop the bombardment and we’ll talk.”

A hint of exasperation crept into the Admiral’s voice. “Commander Mercer, there is nothing to talk about. Either you surrender or you do not. Make your decision. Honestly, I would love to add the
Phoenix
to the fleet and would prefer not to damage her further. But if you do not board a shuttle and turn yourself in on my ship immediately, I will pulverize what is left of the
Phoenix
’s thrusters and let her burn up in the atmosphere. It will make quite a show for the remnant of the Resistance still on Earth—” he paused, letting his mockery sink in, “though I suppose there aren’t many Resistance members left down there, they having all been transferred to the Nine … now the Three.”

The explosions rocking the ship grew more violent, as the railgun fire stripped away layers of the outer hull and began to expose sensitive systems underneath.

“Captain, hull breach on decks three through six, forward section,” said Po.

Dammit.

They were losing, and Jake knew it. He almost couldn’t believe it, after the struggle they’d had to survive that day. He racked his brain, thinking, grasping onto any idea, any thought that would give them a fighting chance.

The image of the bloodied, broken drunk on the floor of the bar from the previous week flooded into his mind. He remembered the frenzy he felt when he attacked, knowing that if he let up and allowed the man to stand, Jake would be crushed. The only solution had been to damage him so badly he’d never stand up. Win that battle so crushingly, so thoroughly, that the man would never even think about coming for him that night, or the next time he came to the bar, or ever.

And he decided. The only way forward seemed clear to him now. Trajan must die. Cut off the head, and the body follows. Cut him off, even if it meant sacrificing himself. And his crew.

“Megan, clear the entire forward section of the ship, all decks. It’s time to summon our old friend, Admiral Pritchard.” Po glanced up at him, asking him with her eyes if he meant what she thought he meant. Jake nodded to her before approaching the helmsman.

“Ensign, on my mark, full power to thrusters. Aim for the center of the
Caligula
, straight at the bridge. It’s time we took their queen.”