Empire Ebook Full (46 page)

“Men,” I said, opening up the proximity chat channel. “We’re about to do a tough jump.
I want you all to remember you’re part of an elite group: Riggs’ Pigs. Let’s show
those Lobster traitors why they should fear us more than their metal masters!”

A chorus of shouts rang in my ears. The men were hot, and ready to fly. The sally
port opened then, revealing space in all its majesty.

Immediately, I was alarmed by the amount of visible fire coming from the battle station.
Had Welter lost the entire station? It didn’t look good. Like flying blue sparks,
the fire was moving so fast, it resembled lines of light, drawn in glaring streaks
that went past our ship. They were firing wide and wildly, but even without precision
targeting, they were bound to hit something eventually.

“Captain Sarin?” I shouted. “How many miles out are we?”

“About seven thousand, sir.”

“Give me the signal at five thousand. We’ll jump then. The second we’re out, get the
hell out of here.”

“Yes sir,” she said.

I could hear the relief in her voice. I couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t worth losing
the command ship just to save the lives of a few grunts. The math was unpleasant,
and it always seemed to come out against the men in boots. Unfortunately, it was my
job to call those shots, even when my own ass was on the line.

-38-

The go-signal came in the form of a tone in our helmets and a flashing green light
over the sally port doors. Making a jump out of a cruiser was a little different than
doing it inside a planetary atmosphere. Instead of having wind in your face, there
was nothing outside but vacuum. There wasn’t even gravity to rely on to move you downward,
away from the ship.

Instead, we had our skateboards. Essentially, we were tiny one-man vehicles capable
of self-propulsion. We shot out of the portal one at a time in rapid succession. To
an external witness, the scene must have looked as if the ship was experimenting with
a new kind of weapon. We came out like a spraying shower of mini-missiles, just far
enough apart not to ram one another and send the next guy into a deadly tailspin.

Fortunately, my men knew what they were doing. They all had more training with this
new technique of rapid-fire jumps than I did. I had more experience with jumps in
general, however. I took the rear spot and followed the rest so I wouldn’t mess up
their timing. It was easier to stay with them from that position too, as I only had
to see any one of the string of flyers and keep on his tail.

The second we were out, I was doing a slow spin and it took me a second to get my
skateboard under my boots. The squad had almost lost me by the time I had it under
control. I hit the acceleration pads hard to catch up.

I checked my altimeter the moment I was among them, and that mistake was almost fatal.
All around me, the drop-troops vanished. They’d all fired their brakes. I did the
same without hesitation. I didn’t even get a good reading on the distance. I just
flipped the skateboard around and pushed for emergency braking. The little unit slipped
and jiggled under me, wanting to throw me off. I held my balance with my knees bent,
clenching my teeth and squinching up my eyes, expecting a bone-jarring slam into the
battle station.

It didn’t happen. Instead, the men around me shot past again. I dared a peek at my
altimeter. They were doing a controlled landing, just as they’d been taught. I was
trying to keep up and overcorrecting first one way then another.

A shot of anger and embarrassment went through me. I didn’t like playing the fool
with a dozen recruits watching. Forcing myself to take a breath and think, I read
the altimeter again and eased off on the braking. I let myself drift. I was coming
down at about three hundred miles per hour, and we were in the last two miles of the
drop. Not one of my marines had been taken out yet. It was time for me to stop freaking
out and to act like a pro.

“As soon as we’re down, seek a surface crater,” I ordered my squad. “There should
be plenty of holes left over from the last time this station was assaulted.”

They were braking again, doing the final approach. I let them slip away above me before
hitting the brakes hard.

It was a near disaster, but I managed to make it look cool. I came down and slammed
into the surface of the battle station inside a deep black crater, which was about
a hundred feet wide and twenty feet deep. Everything went dark for a second, then
I hit the bottom doing about seventy miles per hour I’d say. Normally, we liked to
hit doing around thirty, tops. Landing at seventy felt like being slammed by a car
on the highway.

Fortunately, I landed on my feet and was in a battle suit built for absorbing shocks.
My body was full of nanites, Microbe-altered flesh and pissed-off marine. I limped
out of the crater, my right hip aching. I tried not to let it show. I left my skateboard
in the crater, ignoring it. My fall had crushed it and it was no longer serviceable.

“Nice landing, sir,” the squad leader told me. He was a Gunnery Sergeant with a rough,
accented voice. I couldn’t see his face inside the suit, but I figured he was some
kind of Brit.

I swiveled my helmet to regard him. I wasn’t entirely sure if he was being sarcastic
or not. I decided to take his remark in the best possible light.

“Thank you, Gunnery Sergeant. Did we lose anyone?”

“Only three, sir! But I think we’re the first team down.”

I looked up and around, and realizing he was right. I frowned, as this wasn’t a good
thing. I could see the big guns all around us, aiming up into the sky. My autoshades
dimmed and brightened rhythmically in reaction to the steady fire they were pumping
up at my marines.

I used my long range command-link to connect with Kwon, who was riding his skateboard
down under heavy fire.

“First Sergeant Kwon, are you guys out of your ships yet? We’re already down.”

“Lucky bastards,” Kwon said. “We jumped out a long time ago, but we’re still flying.
We’re taking lots of flak. How did you get there so fast?”

I thought for a second. “I didn’t let Captain Sarin release us until she was close-in.”

“Ah,” Kwon said, “you pulled rank. Now I know why you like being an officer. The transport
captain kicked us out early. We won’t be there for another two or three minutes, sir.”

“It’s okay, I think,” I said. “Except for some flak on the way down, we—”

At that moment, all hell broke loose around me. My squad had come to join me at the
bottom of the crater of blasted rock we were standing in. Most of them had gone up
to the rim of our crater to watch for enemy action and look for more marines. It was
the ones up on the rim that were firing now. The flaring laser light darkened my autoshades
and explosions began all around us.

“Enemy contact, sir!” shouted the Gunnery Sergeant. “The Lobsters know we’re here!”

The information was self-evident, but still useful. I stumped up the crater wall,
almost dragging my right hip which was stiffening now. I tweaked the gain on my exoskeleton,
which made my limbs move more quickly. This caused ripples of pain to run through
me. I ignored the discomfort and threw myself down alongside the Gunnery Sergeant
who was crouched at the crater’s rim.

Behind me, in the bowl of the crater, an explosion popped. Then a half-dozen more
followed it. I felt fragments hitting the back of my armor. Burning pits showed up
on the backs and legs of all the men around me.

“They’re throwing grenades down here,” I shouted. “Do not respond with anything big—conventional
weapons only. Monitor your fire and hold this crater, men. We have to hold out for
two full minutes before reinforcements arrive.”

The incoming fire intensified. Our first casualty was the Gunnery Sergeant beside
me. He took a direct hit in the faceplate from an enemy laser bolt. At first, I thought
maybe they’d gotten control of the defensive laser towers and tilted them down toward
us, but as I surveyed the situation, I realized the fire wasn’t coming from heavy
weapons. The enemy had moved to higher ground wherever they could find it, mostly
along ridges formed by previous bombardments.

“We’re surrounded,” I said, assuming tactical command. “Spread out and shoot for any
target that has reached high ground. I don’t want them to be able to shoot down into
our cover.”

There was a wild series of blazing light flashes as we returned fire. The enemy was
driven back, and although we were still pinned here, we weren’t completely helpless.
We kept our heads down after that, and only shot at Lobster troops when they scuttled
forward too close, or when they climbed up on top of one of the big railgun batteries
to fire down into our midst. Whenever we could, we concentrated our fire to kill any
enemy marine who achieved a good firing position.

During the next minute, we lost one more man, but we were holding. A lot of marines
had smoldering holes in their armor, but they were still in the fight. Some were howling
in pain, but they kept using their weapons. I saw one Corporal with a missing foot.
He crawled around on his hands and knees, dragging a smoking stump, but never complained.
I knew the nanites must be chewing into the good flesh, sealing off his suit and his
blood-supply, but he kept firing and crawling and most impressive of all, he kept
quiet.

In the last minute before the mass drop came, things changed. Someone must have told
the Lobsters they didn’t have all day to kill us. They’d finally realized the rest
of our troops were coming down, about fifteen hundred strong. The enemy decided it
was time to finish things in this crater.

They charged us from every direction. I’d been preparing for this kind of move. The
moment I saw massed movement, a hundred or more flashing bits of metal on humping
backs, I knew what was coming. The enemy troops crawled toward us rapidly, all at
once. They had metal hooks on their churning spiny feet, I saw. I figured that’s how
they kept hugging the surface of the battle station without the aid of gravity. It
was a low-tech solution, but it worked for them.

 “They’re rushing us!” I shouted. “Release your fragmentation weapons now! Frag out!”
I readied and tossed my own ordnance. I aimed at the biggest concentration of rushing
troops.

Throwing grenades in low grav took some experience. I saw a number of my men’s weapons
zoom off into space. Even if they threw them at a low angle, they often bounced off
rocks and flew high before detonating harmlessly. Our packs and repellers applied
enough force to our backs to keep us down on the battle station, but the grenades
didn’t have such refinements. Most of my men were green and they threw their weapons
with far too much force. Even a toss didn’t work, as the grenades just kept going
and left the surface of the battle station.

“Roll them out under their feet one second before—” I shouted, but a deafening boom
blotted out my words.

I wasn’t quite sure what had happened. Maybe the marine two grunts down had held his
grenade a second too long. Or maybe one of the lobsters had caught and tossed one
of our gifts back to us.

My head was ringing. I shouted the rest of my message, but I wasn’t sure what I was
saying. I couldn’t hear it, and I was mildly disoriented. A man to my left was flailing
about, a gaping wound in his side. I could see the nanites there, a bright silver
coating. They were trying to cover the gap before he froze in space, but I didn’t
think they were going to make it.

I looked back over the rim of the crater. We’d killed a number of them, but not enough.
I blazed with my laser and melted two. They didn’t seem to have armor that compared
to ours. A direct laser hit was always fatal. What they had, however, was determination—and
superior numbers.

They were inside the crater a few seconds later. I felt my headphones buzz against
my ears, the noise was so loud the headphones vibrated so and tickled—but I couldn’t
hear a word. Possibly, the headset was just reporting feedback from more explosions.
It didn’t really matter. Now, it was all about killing, and who could do it best.

Rifles blazed at pointblank range. I noticed that the enemy had more trouble firing
in close than we did. Possibly, they hadn’t mastered the critical technology of a
good fast autoshade. The key was to darken and lighten in anticipation of energy emissions
nearby. Doing that job perfectly was critical to a soldier’s survival. It both saved
his eyes and allowed him to use them. If the autoshades went off and darkened too
soon, he was left in blackness before the flaring light of a gun brightened the scene
enough to see. If they went off too late, the marine’s retinas would be burned.

Star Force autoshades worked best in a close firefight like this. The blazing weapons
kept up a reliable source of brilliant light allowing us to see what we were shooting
at. Our visors pretty much stayed at their darkest setting continuously. I became
certain as we fought them that the enemy wasn’t as well-equipped. They were game,
however. Often a Lobster with nothing left to fight with other than his claws still
gripped, scrabbled and tore at my armor.

One grappled with me and got a good grip. I couldn’t get the projector of my rifle
up against his body. I drew my knife and snipped off limbs until he slid away. The
force of our struggles soon sent him floating up into space, where he wriggled and
flipped like a fish lifted into the air by a triumphant sportsmen.