Rich Man's War (58 page)

His eyes went to the plasma repeater in Baldwin’s hands. The heavy power generator it required lay on the deck beside her. Its bearer leaned against the bulkhead, trying to catch his breath while he flipped through pages of a hard-copy manual in a metal binder.

“The officers’ wardroom is right up there, on this side of the passageway,” Tanner huffed once he’d found the right page. “Looks like our guys might already have it secure. There’s another entrance on this side. We just passed the intersection we need. Gotta double back.” He snapped the binder shut and shoved it under his belt behind his back, then hefted up the generator. “Jesus, I hate this thing already.”

“Maybe we should trade off?” Ravenell asked.

“No, just… go,” Tanner grunted.

Once more, Ravenell took the lead. Alicia guarded the rear, putting the two shuffling navy ratings between them as they doubled back to the next passageway intersection and then moved closer to their destination. “I feel like we’re gonna get jumped from behind at any second,” Alicia muttered.

“Sounds like the bigger fight’s down in engineering,” noted Baldwin. “Tried listening on the comm net, but it’s too chaotic. Maybe that’s where all the bad guys are going? Or maybe we’re doing better than we thought?”

“Hell of a time to turn into an optimist,” huffed Tanner.

Up ahead, Ravenell pounded on a wardroom hatch. “Donner!” he yelled, and paused. Tanner didn’t hear the countersign, but he presumed Ravenell did since he threw open the hatch. The tall marine waved the rest into the wardroom, standing watch at the entrance.

Inside, Tanner found a comfortable compartment much like the officers’ ward room on
Los Angeles
, only larger and more ornate. The plush dining room now served as an impromptu first aid station. A man and a woman in Archangel vac suits lay on the dining tables, their outfits spattered with blood and burn marks. Another Archangel crewman stood over them, hurriedly dressing the burn wound on the woman’s shoulder. He didn’t look up from his work as the newcomers entered the compartment.

Tanner set the power generator down on the floor with a breath of relief,
then pulled his stolen binder out to open it up on one of the other tables. Alicia pushed past, edging out of the opposite side of the compartment where gunfire continued to rage. Baldwin leaned up against the same table, opening up a screen on her holocom to check in on the comm net.

“
St. Constantine
made her drop a couple minutes ago,” she reported. “So did one or two others, looks like. I think that fight in engineering actually got bigger since I checked… couple other groups holding choke points here and there.” She glanced over his shoulder. “You sure this is gonna work?”

“It’s what they trained us for in basic,” Tanner murmured. “They just didn’t spell it out for us.”

A couple of marines entered from the direction of the firefight, one of them wearing a lieutenant’s insignia. “…four different guys with heavy weapons in my platoon, and none of them made it this far,” he said. “Even our plasma cutter took a hit while we fought our way up here.”

The lieutenant stopped at the table beside Tanner and Baldwin. He gave the pair a quick glance. “Lt. Thompson. It’s good to see you,” he said to them both, then looked to the plasma
repeater. “Damn,” he sighed, sliding his faceplate up before kneeling beside the weapon for a closer look.

“It’s beat-up, sir,” said Baldwin, “but it’s functional. The damage looks worse than it is.”

“I believe you, but that’s not the problem. I don’t think the power output on this will be enough to cut through that hatch,” Thompson explained. “It’ll probably clear out the defenders, but the hatch behind them and the bulkhead around it has ES reinforcement. The field probably seals up the whole bridge compartment. This is a Mark II. We’d need something stronger to break through. We’ll put it to good use, though.”

“Sir,” Tanner spoke up, “we didn’t bring you a gun.” He gestured for the lieutenant to come over, and then pointed to a spot on his open page. The diagrams were clear enough for a trained eye. “We brought a can opener.”

Thompson frowned. “Wait, are you saying—?” He cut himself off as Tanner’s plan quickly became clear. “You know how risky that is?”

“About as risky as jumping between two spaceships in the middle of a battle. It won’t break down the door, but I still think it’ll get us through.” He looked the lieutenant in the eye. “Pull your guys out, sir. I’ll do it.”

The young lieutenant twitched. “Pretty sure those third class stripes didn’t come with a commission, kid,” he said.

Tanner pushed back his faceplate in exasperation. “Sir—
“ he began.

The lieutenant blinked, then held up his hand. “Forget it. Okay. We’ll do it your way.” Then it was Tanner’s turn to blink. He glanced at Baldwin. Despite her faceplate, he clearly saw her roll her eyes and look away, shaking her head with annoyance. Thompson swallowed hard. “But I can’t ask you to put yourself in this position. I’ll do it.”

“Sir, someone needs to lead the rest of this team,” Tanner argued. “You know it won’t be long before more bad guys come at us from another direction. You’re needed here. I’m volunteering for the job.” He gave a shrug. “It was my idea, sir. I can’t let someone else bite this bullet. Anyway, I’ll be behind the hatch there, I’ll probably be fine.”

Thompson considered it for only a second longer before popping the clips on his web gear. He hit the comm button on his helmet. “
Listen up! We’re gonna pull back a little way out from here,” the lieutenant announced, removing his combat jacket. “Crewman, get these two up and moving. I’ll help. I want everyone at least one compartment away from the approach to the bridge, you got me? And don’t get comfortable,” he said, looking at Tanner. He held out his combat jacket. “We’ll be coming right back.”

Tanner accepted the second jacket. He stepped over to the gun as the others in the compartment began to clear out—everyone except Baldwin, Ravenell and Alicia. The latter leaned out of the open hatch to shoot down the passageway toward the bridge. Ravenell took up the power generator and plasma repeater to drag them over to the hatch.

“You’ve gotta clear out,” said Tanner.

“You’ve gotta get your head checked,” Baldwin scoffed. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m serious. This is a one-person job. Anyone else in here just adds an extra body that might get hurt. No sense putting two of us in the line of fire.”

“So I’ll stand behind you
,” his partner shrugged.

Tanner looked to Alicia and Ravenell, and found the
pair overturning one of the heavy, polished oak dining tables to move it closer to the hatch. The hatch lay propped partially open by a convenient spacing bar at its top. The two marines then took up their weapons and ducked behind the bulkhead. “Aw, Christ! You, too? Really?” Tanner asked.

“Really,” they answered simultaneously.

“Guys, I’m serious!”

“It’s like you said, Tanner, we were trained for this from the beginning,” said Alicia. “We’re not going anywhere, either. Now get it done or show me in that book where to point the gun and I’ll do it.”

“Malone, we’re clear,” announced Lt. Thompson over the comm. “Wong! Ravenell! Let’s go!”

Tanner let out an irritated breath while he donned the lieutenant’s combat jacket over his own—backwards, so that the majority of its protective material hung in front of him rather than across his back. “I need ‘
em here with me, sir,” he answered.

“What? What for?”

“I dunno, moral support?” Tanner muttered. He slammed his faceplate down again before he stood near the open hatch. With no one shooting back at them, the security troops at the end of the passageway had let up in their own fire. “Hey! Assholes!” Tanner shouted. “Last chance to talk this shit out!”

“Sure,” one of them called back. “Throw down your guns and surrender and we can talk!”

“Okay. I tried.” Tanner took the plasma repeater from Baldwin—who wisely ducked away from the hatch, as did Alicia and Ravenell to Tanner’s other side—and stepped up to the opening.

He pointed the plasma repeater out and somewhat downward, angling slightly toward the security troops but not at all aiming for them. His target area bore no special markings, nor any equipment fixtures or sensors. It looked like just another stretch of deck plating up against the bulkhead corner.

The schematics in the maintenance manual behind Tanner marked it as the point where the bridge’s oxygen supply ran parallel to the passageway.

Tanner turned up the power output on his plasma repeater and fired. The first few blasts struck the corner to little effect, dissipating
harmlessly, but within the space of a breath the metal began to buckle and melt. The repeater wouldn’t have the same effect on the door to the bridge, nor the bulkhead around it—not with an ES generator strengthening the metal on a molecular level. The deck outside the bridge was another matter.

Several of the security troopers started firing back once more. They didn’t have much of an angle on Tanner. He remained within the wardroom, protected by the partially-closed hatch, the overturned dining table and even a second combat coat.

He was grateful for all of it when the plasma blasts finally cut through the deck, the insulation and the piping. The explosion sent shrapnel and flame everywhere, shattering the table and knocking Tanner backward into the wardroom.

The blast and his landing left him disoriented. Slammed against the deck behind him, Tanner heard a strange whistling sound that seemed to rise above the roar of flames outside the room. He inhaled but found no air to breathe. Then he felt a pair of hands grab him and roll him roughly onto his belly. Someone popped one of the oxygen cartridges out of the back of his helmet—and the next. He felt one cartridge strike his arm as it popped free, but couldn’t look up to see it. He felt someone’s knee in between his shoulders as deft fingers inserted new cartridges, then closed the cartridge housing panel.

“Tanner? You alive?” Alicia asked for the third time. She got off his back, taking hold of his arm to pull him further away from the hatch.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “It’s fuckin’ hot in here.”

“No shit,” she grunted.

He glanced up toward the hatch. There he saw Ravenell dart briefly out from one bulkhead across the opening into the burning passageway, then duck behind the protection of the opposite bulkhead. “I think that took care of the security team, at least,” he reported.

“What the hell?” said Baldwin, crawling along the deck to join Tanner and Alicia, “How long does it take for a computer to choke off the flow of…?” She stopped mid-sentence. Baldwin looked up to find the flames outside the hatch all but extinguished. “Huh.”

Tanner heaved himself up from the deck with a grunt. “Let’s see if that worked,” he huffed, staggering out of the wardroom and into the smashed corridor.

“Tanner, you’re bleeding,” warned Ravenell.

“Yeah, probably
.” Outside, Tanner had to stick to the right of the passageway to avoid the giant hole on the left. Smoke soon began to clear. Tanner picked through the shattered remains of the portable riot barrier and its defenders to get to the hatch, which stood intact much as they’d all expected. He patted around for the door controls and found them still in place, though he had to wipe off bits of blood and soot.

The door naturally reported a lockout. Tanner brushed off the controls and found one of the manual communications links. He held his glove against it, sending a comms request through the electronics of his vac suit through the door panel. “C’mon, pick up. Pick up,” he murmured. “Don’t hide in there, you know you’ve gotta talk, c’mon…”

A sudden beep indicated an answer. “This is Lieutenant Commander—“

“Let me talk to your captain,” Tanner interrupted.

“You’ll talk to me. This is Lt. Commander Kurth. State your intentions.”

Tanner sighed. “Okay, but the captain’s listening, right? Commander—captain—I’m here to accept your surrender. Put down whatever guns you’ve got in there, open up the door and stand down. Nobody else gets hurt.”

“Nice try, buddy. You can tell that to the rest of our marines.”

“
Captain
,” Tanner said, “you and I both know goddamn well that if your marines were gonna come to your rescue, they’d be here by now. They’re either fighting for engineering or they’re pinned down elsewhere. I’ve got a squad of marines and a plasma repeater out here. We can defend this passageway as long as we need. If you surrender now, the worst that happens is everyone gets handcuffs and a pat-down. You’ve been beaten. Call the rest of this fight off. It won’t do any further good.”

Tanner fell silent. He heard nothing in response, but he realized the channel remained open.

“I just cut off the oxygen line going into the bridge, captain. You know it and I know it. And I’m willing to bet that right now your bridge is full of smoke and everyone’s got their helmets sealed. Everyone is breathing canned air.

“I’ve seen your gear. I read the labels before I came up here. I’ve seen the emergency panels on the bulkheads. You’ve all got about a half hour worth of air per person in there. Maybe less if you’ve got marines in there and they didn’t get a chance to grab their own cartridges before coming up.”