Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike (4 page)

The trailing man yelled out and ran back as the
gas dissolved everything it touched.   Petty Officer First
Satrusalya moved as soon as the gas
started billowing out of the rent in the tank, bits of the skin on his hands
and parts of the sleeves on his uniform disappearing, disintegrated by the
negative matter.  He still moved fast enough to jump forward and away from the
disaster, which caught the other man who had been carrying the canister full in
the body.  The Ranger disappeared, taking almost the same amount of mass of
negative protons with him.  The rest ate at the walls, ceiling and floor, as
well as the air around the tank, until it had all cancelled out.

Cornelius stared
in horror at the place where a man had ceased to exist, not even an apparent
atom of his body left.  It was horrible what had happened to
Khrushchev, but there
were still identifiable remains there.  And even worse, the means of disposing
of the bomb were gone. 
That’s why we brought along the laser cutters
,
he thought, trying to drive the images of the death of two men from his mind,
especially the total elimination of one. 
If that damned bomb goes off,
we’ll all be just as gone, even if it does leave some of our atoms to fall into
the black hole.

The Cacas continued to put fire into a position
that was untenable from its lack of cover.   The beam flew overhead, forcing
Cornelius to attempt to push the atoms of his body into the floor,
unsuccessfully of course.  He fired his own weapon, sweeping it at chest level
a hundred meters down the straight corridor.  “We need to get out of here,” he
yelled to his men.  The negative matter and its heavy container were the reason
they had taken a corridor in the first place, that and the need for speed.  
“Put something on them that will take their attention off us, and someone find
us an alternate route.”

“Fire in the hole,” called out Specialist
Owusu, just after a beam forced Sergeant Pasco to roll into the wall to avoid
it.  What looked like a streak of light came through the center of the
corridor.  Something exploded about two hundred meters up the corridor,
followed by a cloud of smoke and the shimmering of a falling invisibility
field.

“Good job,” said Cornelius, glancing at the
other Ranger.  He looked back in time to pick up a target through the billowing
smoke, the horned head of the crouching Caca unmistakable.  He automatically
developed a sight picture through his scope and squeezed the trigger, sending a
bright beam that split the smoke just before it covered the target again.  The
body that fell forward from the smoke to hit the floor hard, hole through the
faceplate, showed that his aim had been true.

“I’ve got us a way out of here, sir,” called
out Satrusalya over the com.

“Show me,” ordered the Lt, relieved that the
Commando was still functional.  The map of the local station came up on his
visual centers through his implants, and he started to crawl back, firing a
beam every couple of seconds down the corridor, as he looked at the route the
Commando was proposing.

That could work
, he thought, flinching
in mid thought as another beam came out of the now clearing smoke and was
within ten centimeters of getting a hit on him.  The other men were also
backing up, though they were concentrating more on putting fire on the enemy. 
They were still very exposed, and if not for all the preventive jamming going
on through this part of the station, electronic warfare that really didn’t
affect their systems as they were able to adjust for what was coming, they
would all have already been dead meat many times over.

“Let’s do this, people,” he said over their
implant coms, now willing to risk them since the enemy already knew they were
here.  “Hit them with another one, Owusu,” he told the Specialist who was
carrying the small hyperv launcher.  “Then you and Falstaff keep up the
particle beam fire.  I want them to think we’re still coming from here.”

Cornelius linked into the com to contact Senior
Agent Jimmy Chung, the leader of the other, larger element that was to be the
decoy for his force.  “How’s it going, Agent Chung?” he asked, knowing part of
the answer as he heard the angry buzzing of particle beams in the background
through the ears of the augmented Imperial Secret Service Agent.

“We’re getting slaughtered here,” yelled the
Agent into the com. “I hope you're making some progress with your part of the
mission.”

“Nothing good to report here either,” said
Cornelius as he slid around the corner of a cross corridor and got back to his
feet.  “We’ve lost the negative matter, along with two of the men carrying it.”

“Shit.  Well, isn’t that just the best news
I’ve heard all day.  I’ve lost twelve agents here, and I’m not even sure we’re
causing them slight anxiety.  We just don’t have the weapons and equipment to
go up against heavily armed soldiers.  And now we don’t have the stuff we need
to disarm the bomb.”

“This Ranger isn’t about to give up on the
mission, Agent Chung,” growled Walborski into the com.  “We die from those
things taking out the station, or we go forward, with a chance of achieving
something, even if we still die.  And I’m going forward.  I’d appreciate it if
you would support us.”

“What do you want us to do, Lieutenant?”

“Leave enough people there to keep up some fire
on the Cacas, while keeping to the best cover that they can.  Then send the
rest of them around to this position.”

“You think this is going to work, Walborski?”

I sure hope so.  Because if it doesn’t, there
won’t be enough left of us to make a nanite.
  “I can’t guarantee that it will work,
but if you have a better plan, tell me about it now.”

“We’ll follow your lead, Ranger,” said the
Agent after a moment’s hesitation.  “I’ll be bringing my people around as fast
as we can.”

The link cut off, and Walborski ran around to
the door that Satrusalya had opened, following the rest of his men into the
chamber.  The Commando had opened the hatch in the far corner that led into a
ventilation duct.  The station had an enormously extensive ventilation system,
with state of the art security systems that were in place to prevent just what
they were attempting.  But, since they weren’t the enemy, those systems would
not be engaged to stop them.

“I’ll lead the way, if that’s OK, sir,” said
Satrusalya, nodding toward the opening.

“Go ahead, PO,” agreed Walborski.  “You know
this shipboard stuff much better than I do.  Just get us behind them, and I’ll
be happy.”

*   
*     *

“We’ve gotten two of them, Doctor,” said Marine
General in charge of trying to boot the Cacas off the station.

“What about the other two?” asked Lucille Yu,
sitting on the edge of her seat as she stared at the holo schematic that showed
one of the outer lower cables cleared, as well as the bomb set to the other
side of the lower central cable.  Unfortunately, the bomb set up at the other
outer lower cable was armed and ready, as was the other central cable bomb. 
Theoretically,
we should be able to survive those two bombs, if they are in the predicted
range.  If they’re much more powerful, or our theories of how much stress this
thing can take are wrong, then we’re still screwed.

“We have Marines and other troops trying to get
to that outer bomb, but they’re running into stiff resistance.  As far as the
other central bomb goes, I really don’t think we’re going to be able to get it
before they set it off.”

And Jimmy’s with the group trying to get to the
outer one he’s talking about
, she thought, her anxiety spiking at the
thought of her lover in danger. 
And if that bomb isn’t disarmed, there’s no
way he’s going to survive if it goes off, no matter what happens to the
station.
  “Try your best, General,” was all she could think to say, as
inane as it sounded. 
Of course they’re going to try their best, up to
giving their lives.

*    
*     *

Damn, but this place is cold
, thought Cornelius as
he crawled on his hands and knees through the duct.  There was a reason for the
frigid temperatures, one that he approved of, as the very cold outer skin of
the duct was helping to mask their own body heat from any sensors that might
try to locate them through multiple walls.  He was tempted to contact
Satrusalya on the com, and ask how much further they had to crawl along this
hard surface.  A little taller and they could have walked, but as it was they
had the choice of crawling or crouching. 
And we’ll get there when we do. 
No use bothering the PO with useless questions.

“We’re here,” whispered the PO into the com,
and the group of men came to a stop behind the Fleet NCO.  The Commando opened
the hatch to the maintenance room just a bit and sent a small swarm of
microbots out of the duct.

The Lieutenant watched the take on the bots,
relieved to see that the room was empty.  Not that it was unexpected.  The
enemy had limited manpower, and could only cover so much.  More of the bots
moved up and down the duct, then into side ducts that were too small for a
human to navigate, much less anything but the small repair robots that worked
the ventilation system.  There was one in each side duct, and the microbots
landed and linked with the machines, bringing them under the control of
Cornelius’ implants.  The repairbots moved to the end of the ducts and inserted
groups of thin fiber optics into the grills.  Soon the Ranger was looking at
several hundred meters of corridor, and the enemy that was set up in multiple
defensive positions along that hall.

“It’s your plan, PO,” said Cornelius, coming to
the floor and walking soft footed to the side of the Commando.  “Execute, and
we’ll follow your lead.”

Satrusalya nodded.  Cornelius noted that the
man had patches of skin missing on hands and neck, as well as holes in his
clothing, the effects of the spreading cloud of negative matter he had barely
outrun.  He realized, seeing one hole that extended into the bicep muscle, that
the man had to be in pain, but was fully engaged with the mission, just like
the rest of them.

The Commando took a grenade out of his side
bag, one marked with the dragon head’s symbol for antimatter, a warning that
this was not ordinary explosive.  Only a small amount, less than a gram, it
would still do a job on the Cacas in the hall.  He handed the weapon to a
Ranger, then pulled out another one.  Both men armed the weapons, then looked
at each other for a moment.

Satrusalya hit the door switch, and the heavy
alloy portal slid into its recess without a sound.  There was no one in the
hall, something they had been sure of based on the feeds from the repairbots,
but still a great relief to see with their own eyes.  Satrusalya leaned out,
looking to the left and throwing his grenade with all of his considerable
strength, while the Ranger did the same to the right.  They leaned back into
the room just before shouts sounded out.  Satrusalya hit the door close button,
and the door slid closed as the men all backed away to the far wall of the
room.

The twin explosions came less than a second
later, within a hundredth of a second of each other.  The augmented men
depended on the ear protection of the tactical helmets all were wearing to
protect their hearing.  It was barely enough, as the walls of the chamber shook
from the fury of the blasts.  Cornelius’s link with the repairbots was
instantly severed as the blasts spread into the vents.  The door shook in its
frame, and a large dent appeared in the wall as something was slammed into it,
hard.

The Lieutenant counted to five, then nodded to
the Commando.  Satrusalya hit the door commit again, frowning as nothing
happened for a moment.  He hit the commit two more times, and the door finally
slid open, not as smoothly as it had before.

That was a hellofa blast to warp a door like
that at that distance, even a little bit
, thought Cornelius, setting his rifle to fire
and moving through the door behind the first two men.  As usual, his testicles
wanted to crawl into his body as he went into what could be the line of fire. 
His adrenaline kept him on his feet, and he was sure he was addicted to that
feeling, the only thing that kept him going into what seemed like certain
death.

He looked left,
saw nothing moving save
smoke, then right, in time to see one of his men take out what looked like the
only Caca who had survived that blast. 
Luck is a relative term,
he
thought as he ran that way, Satrusalya on his heels. 
Lucky enough to
survive a hundred ton equivalent grenade, only to die a moment later as you try
to gather your senses.

The position they had taken out, one set to
sweep this corridor with fire for a kilometer of its length, was an abattoir. 
A dozen Caca bodies, two heavy particle beams and a trio of rocket launchers,
they would have slaughtered anything coming down the hall.  Most had been
killed instantly, parts of their armor crushed, blood flowing from helmets that
had not been strong enough to protect them from the overpressure of the blast. 
A pair were missing limbs, probably catching the full brunt of the blast. 
There was a hole through one wall that looked large enough to have been made by
a Caca arm, blood smeared on the edges.