April (64 page)

"Now I don't honestly know if anybody is going to oppose you taking the station over, nobody has confided in me. But I can tell you two things. First is the
Happy Lewis
is somewhere in the vicinity of M3. Did you by any chance see the BBC video of what happened out near the Clarke orbit?"

"Uh, affirmative M3. We saw it alright."

"Well then I don't have to tell you that there is a possibility they may not be the friendliest. I've known three of those people for the last few years and if you had ever told me they would blow away a couple space planes full of people, I would never have believed it. Why it happened I don't know. I haven't talked to them about it. They just came in like you and said we're going to go dock and disappeared."

"Second thing is if you come in here and breach pressure. Don't ever expect anyone on the station to be civil or helpful to your dying day. You might as well go to a desert oasis and piss in their well and expect a welcome. Consider it just a little commentary for you on local customs. Messing with public pressure is unforgivable to station people. Any other questions
Cincinnati
?"

"No M3, thanks for the explanation. Talk to you on departure, out." He turned to his copilot. "I think we should run this exchange past the fellows in back don't you? Just knowing there is enough concern people are suiting up. You finish putting us on the tube and I'll play it back privately for the top boy in back. And Matt? Put your helmet back on. I'm screwing my lid on also." He headed back.

"And why do you bring this to my attention?" the commander asked the pilot. "There is nothing in his statement which alters my mission objectives." The tone suggested there was something improper about his motives. They both swayed on their take holds to the movement of the shuttle grappling to the dock.

"Sir, it tells you some small facts about the state of things within the station. Just the fact they are aware you are leading an armed force and the fact the civilian population is concerned enough to suit up, because they are worried your presence might lead to a pressure emergency. Whether that is of any use or concern to you is your problem. I can't swear they are planning any resistance, but I wouldn't discount the possibility. Once I've attached to the station you are in complete control of your mission.  I'm just the taxi driver waiting to take you home."

The commander bristled at that and hesitated looking like he was going to dispute who was in charge before the docking. Then he looked Darrel in the eye and got a chill down his back. It had been a long time since he seen someone so utterly unafraid of him. He was firmly reminded who was master of this vessel.

"Very well. Are you sealed on the tube yet?"

D checked with his copilot and got an affirmative they had pressure.

"We're attached. If you'd give us a helmet feed off your net, we'd appreciate being able to see how it goes while we sit and wait for you."

"Certainly. Just visual of course. I can't have you distracting anyone by giving you an audio channel, while we're in a potential combat environment. We'll advise you though when we expect to return." D got the firm impression the 'we' in his mind didn't include the shuttle crew as part of his team. He made a note to himself, to take care of Matt and himself before this oaf.

D checked to make sure his audio was off when he reentered the cabin. "Real personality there," he told Matt. "The kind of fellow it wouldn't surprise me if somebody sort of accidentally shot his ass off from behind on full auto."

The big vid screen in front of each of them came on and they started getting a jumble of helmet feed, as they got ready back there.

The first four in the airlock closed the inner door and cycled the outer open. There was a slight change in pressure, but they were sealed in their suits and couldn't hear or feel it. The door in front of them proclaimed Margaret's warning message.
What contemptible foolishness,
the commander thought, but said nothing.

He had no fear any light weapons habitat security was allowed, would be a danger to vacuum armor. Even his faceplate would turn small arms fire. Nobody had thought to research for him, what arms and supplies Homeland Security might have ordered over the last few years.

"Avery - Williams, as planned, you keep position here to each side as we enter and be prepared to return fire. Dudley and I will advance through the tube. When we are forward enough to lose contact with you and there is no resistance you hold, but have the rest of our squad advance in leapfrog, keeping each other in sight."

* * *

"Margaret watched her helmet display from down corridor, near the first air wall, which would seal the corridor off if the lock on the outspin side and air wall across the bearing failed. They had ducked around the corner, in the first cross corridor from the South Hub bearing, for what small shelter it offered. There was gravity here but less even than Lunar level.

She had four switches on the box she was holding. One would blow the big charge and the Claymore on the tube end, where the shuttle was attached. The second fired the Claymore on the guard podium, facing the tunnel the other way. And the third would blow all three together. It was wired in sets, because one blast could disable the other charge before it fired.

She was betting they would discover the charges on the docking tube, before advancing up the tube. Neil on the other hand said they would charge up the tube gung-ho and never even look over their shoulder to see the thinly disguised satchels affixed to the docking ring. Those were booby trapped to blow if they were pulled down, or they attempted to disarm them, but if she saw them discovered on camera she'd blow them manually first.

The first two out the door advanced like salmon returning from the sea. They could handle themselves really well in zero G for Earthies, she had to admit. In the left split screen in her helmet display they stopped about a quarter way up in the tube. The next pair rushed out and deployed further down toward the station.

When the third pair rushed in through the docking ring and never stopped to look around or discover the explosives over their shoulder, she knew Neil was right. They had disguised both as equipment boxes. What a waste of time. They could have stenciled -BOMB- in big bright letters on the damn things and these guys would have never seen them. She already hated their guts for breaking the sanctity of her home, but on top of it they just made her lose a fifty dollar bet to Neil.

She wasn't sure how many would attempt entry, but there were eight in the tube and she could see the closest two clinging to the walls of the tube, from her camera at the station end, showing in the right side of her display. Which meant there would be two passing them and entering the gate room just outside the station lock in seconds. So there should be another two hitting the tube from the shuttle lock, at the same time.

She decided it was enough. She certainly didn't want to allow the leaders to advance past her claymore on the podium by the lock. If she triggered all three she'd get ten of them. What she didn't know, was the last pair of the squad was rushing into the shuttle lock on the heels of the two exiting and the charge on docking collar would bag them too, for an even dozen - the whole first squad.

In the camera, the first two to leave the shuttle emerged from the end of the tube. They criss-crossed between the two hunkered down in the opening and did a bounce off the lip of the tube, both aimed at a point in midair half way to the airlock. Very pretty choreographed zero G ballet. They timed it so one lagged behind the other, so they did not bump at the cross over point. They were in sight of her second sign.

All the skill and training didn't help though, when Margaret threw the third switch and eight hundred little pointy hard pyramids, packed neatly into a flat layer, were propelled down the tube from each end. At a thousand meters a second not only the men and suits inside were shredded beyond any recognition, but the tube itself  burst wide open before all the holes could release the sudden pressure. At the ship airlock the charge on the docking collar went off with such force, that both of the massive mated collars were split open. The effect was the entire back end of the airlock separated and was propelled across the aisle which passed from the cargo/passenger area to the flight control cabin and blew the zero G toilet and galley out the other side of the shuttle.

The top of the hull was somewhat weaker than the bottom and the entire front quarter of the shuttle simply folded over on the hinge of the remaining material, the momentum imparted to it sufficient to bend it a full hundred and eighty degrees until the nose bumped its own belly, view ports looking back down the belly at the bells of its own engines poking out from behind the tail skirts. The big broken horseshoe of the mated docking collars blew free of the far side of the airframe, as the ship tumbled free.

* * *

D and Matt aboard the
Cincinnati
experienced it from a much different perspective, watching the helmet video in silence, as the leader opened the outer door of their shuttle lock. The hand printed message on the tube doors was a strange thing to do. Almost like a no trespassing sign.

"I have a bad feeling about this," D told his copilot. "Are you strapped in tight?" he asked, adjusting his own harness to flight tension and pulling his arms down inside the acceleration couch arm rests. "Put the helmet wings up on your seat and take the cabin oxygen off the central system and set automatic fire suppression everywhere. I mean to pull off, if we see any resistance coming back down the tube, overrunning their probe. I don't want us boarded by a counter force."

"Yes Sir," he complied flipping a few switches and securing himself in the seat. "But what about ..." and then a giant cut him off in mid sentence, smacking the back of their cabin so hard they both blacked out. Neither would remember the brief flash from the helmet camera feed.

* * *

In the corridor, Margaret and three companions hurried back around the corner from shelter. The bulkhead on one side of the air wall was bulged in badly and she could see a peppering of holes in the metal from ten meters away. Not badly enough to drop the next emergency seal across the corridor, but it needed repaired. She and one other suited figure lay against the deck and propped a simple device in front of them. It was a shield with a thin carbon fiber sheet to lay on, behind a low laminated armor plate to peer over, with a notch cut in the top to stick her weapon through. It had three layers of different material riveted together. It might not stop a heavy machine gun with armor piercing, but it would stop any normal light arms. She propped the short barrel of a 40mm grenade launcher in the notch and drew a bead on the center of the airlock door.

The guys she thought brave, were the two fire and rescue men who swarmed forward with sticky mats and laid a temporary repair on the bulkhead which had a whistling leak. They had no idea if someone would emerge from the lock shooting, while they worked completely exposed. After awhile they finished and retreated back behind the militia men and took up their own ready positions. No one ever did try to come through this entry. Losing half their force, turned Art away from following the direct route his commander erred in taking.

* * *

Inside the
Cincinnati
Art was checking his men after the blast. The larger, more massive, back portion had not moved as violently as the control cabin, but they had all been unrestrained ready to follow their comrades out the lock.

Of his eleven men three were casualties. One seemed to have a broken leg and the other was not able to speak. He typed on a pad:
Think jaw broke. Need pain shot.
He OK'd the med. If the jaw didn't sideline him, the painkiller they could inject through the special port on the thigh, would sideline him all by itself. The third man had, for whatever reason, had his faceplate open contrary to orders, when pressure was breached. He had been knocked out or otherwise disabled when thrown about in the blast, so he never got it closed again. Once he knew how his squad was, he went forward to access the damage.

He knew they had lost pressure as soon as he felt his suit bulge, but was stunned to see the whole end of the passage to the control cabin opened on space. He never leaned out far enough to see the pilots' cabin was tucked under, against their belly. He just assumed they were gone and dead. Even worse he could see they were slowly tumbling end over end and already a hundred meters from the station.

Their suits had quite a bit of maneuvering capacity. He needed to get them out of here and on the station, as fast as possible before they were too far away.

The next time the tumble swept the view of the station past them he saw a scooter of some sort coming after them as they moved away. For a chill moment he thought someone was coming to finish them off and his hand went quickly to his weapon. But the vessel was not only displaying bright running lights, it had some sort of a flashing beacon on it. Hardly what an attacking ship would display. Next rotation it was very close and he could see the thrusters firing to stop it. Also he could see the large red cross painted on the white body.

"Hello the
Cincinnati
. Hello the
Cincinnati
. Do you have any survivors? Do you need medical evacuation? Hello the
Cincinnati
..." It was an ambulance.

"Hello the ambulance. This is Arthur Siefert, in command on the wreck. We have two injured and a fellow who is definitely dead from decompression. One with a broken leg and one with a probable broken jaw. Both are in sound suits. Can you take us off?

"I have room inboard for the two. But two patients and two medics is all we can fit. We will call a tug to stop your spin and push you back to the station. You have air for an hour don't you? It shouldn't take any longer than an hour."

Art killed his suit radio and spoke to his men on the low powered and scrambled combat channel. "You two who are hurt. Act like you can't move yourselves and have two buddies help you out to the scooter. When all of us are at the scooter we will take over and the rest of the squad follow us out to get aboard".