Starfist: A World of Hurt (44 page)

"Stand steady," he said into his comm, and looked to see that the Marines had firm grips on handholds. He opened the hatch a crack, and water from between the double hulls of the starship shot through. The hatch halves shuddered from the force of the water forcing its way between them, but they held. He eased them farther apart. Water swirled and balled in the chamber, bubbles bouncing off each other, off the bulkheads, off the armored Marines, melding together to form larger bubbles.

"Stand by for three," he said on his command comm.

"Standing by, aye," Resort replied, and signaled Bass to make sure his Marines were clear.

"Three...two...one...mark." Young turned off the air cock to prevent more atmosphere from entering the THB.

Resort slid the outer hatch open and atmosphere and water boiled out into the vacuum.

Inside, water continued to shoot through the slit between the inner hatch halves. Now it didn't bounce or bubble, but continued to hose toward the outer hatch. Resort opened the outer hatch farther, and the water flowed faster for a minute or more before it slowed to a trickle.

"Secure it," Young ordered. He closed the inner hatch at the same time Resort closed the outer, and pumped the chamber full of air again, then reopened the inner hatch.

Schultz swung his ram back and forward so fast he caught Claypoole off guard and nearly yanked it out of his grip, but Claypoole recovered quickly. The ram slammed into the cracked and weakened circle of hull and shattered it. Kerr and Summers didn't need to use their ram.

Young turned on a floodlight in the THB's overhead, filling the space between hulls with light. The inner hull was two meters away, through a tangle of struts. He used the extension controls, and the cutting ring slowly telescoped from the inner wall of the THB until it was almost at the first struts. He repressurized the gas flow and reignited the cutters. The cutting ring began turning and the chamber was filled with the sound of cut struts clanging as they fell free. "Stand by with the rams," he ordered when the flames reached the inner hull and began cutting.

On an order from Kerr, the two pairs of Marines awkwardly walked forward. They stopped when the lead Marines were in the middle of the now empty water storage tank between the hulls. Their balance precarious, they could feel the starship's artificial gravity in the tweenhulls space. The inner hull pinged, snapped, and popped. It glowed red, then white.

Threads of ship's atmosphere visibly mixed with the air in the tweenhulls.

"Now!" Young shouted.

Schultz and Claypoole, Kerr and Summers, lunged forward and slammed their rams into the circle inside the burned ring. The thin armor shivered, then fell away. The four Marines charged through and dove to the deck, rolling away from the hole they'd just made, dropping the rams and readying their blasters in their shoulders. Linsman and MacIlargie followed on their heels.

As soon as all six were through, Young closed the inner hatch and Resort opened the outer. Bass sent first squad into the chamber, then waited while the outer hatch closed so the newly created airlock could cycle full of air again and the squad could enter the ship.

While he waited, Captain Conorado joined him.

"You're next, Charlie," the company commander said, touching helmets.

"I should have gone in first."

"Going first isn't your job. You have to take care of your whole platoon."

"I know that. Still--"

He didn't get to say anything more because the hatch reopened and he shoved himself through at the head of the rest of third platoon.

"Good hunting," Conorado whispered after him.

The compartment the THB opened into was a berthing space, empty of crew now because everybody was at battle stations. Bass found that the Marines inside had already shed their vacuum suits, but he had to use infra to see them in their chameleon-covered body armor. Sergeant Ratliff was at one of the two hatches that led to the passageway outside the compartment, listening. Corporal Dean and his fire team covered Ratliff and the hatch. Corporals Claypoole and Doyle covered Lance Corporal Schultz, who was at the hatch on the right, ready to fling it open and plunge through to the interior of the starship.

Everyone was ready, and first platoon was already filling the compartment.

"Open them."

Ratliff and Schultz opened the hatches and dove through, rapidly followed by the Marines covering them. There was no firing.

Bass ran through the right hatch and found himself in a passageway whose ends seemed to disappear in the distance. It looked long enough to run the entire length of the dreadnought. Closed hatches lined the passageway on both sides at about ten meter intervals. He knelt next to Schultz.

"Anything?" he asked.

"Nothing close," Schultz said.

Bass looked to Claypoole.

"My motion detector doesn't show anybody but us," he said.

Bass turned the other way and went to where Ratliff waited with his third fire team. They also had detected nobody nearby or coming their way. He spoke into his platoon circuit:

"Secure the next compartments."

Corporal Kerr raced through the right hatch, followed by Doyle and Summers. He flattened himself against the bulkhead next to the first hatch on the left, beyond third fire team, and undogged it. He flung it open and tossed in a canister, then slammed it closed.

Corporal Pasquin led his fire team out the left hatch and did the same in the other direction. After a moment, Kerr reopened the hatch and waited. Nothing. The same with Pasquin.

"Go," Bass ordered.

Kerr spun through the hatch and across the compartment it opened into--another empty berthing compartment.

Summers checked his sniffer when he came through. The knockout gas from the canister Kerr had thrown in had already dispersed.

"Passage secured," Bass reported as soon as Kerr and Pasquin gave the all clear.

"First platoon, go," Conorado ordered. First platoon raced out of the entry compartment and headed aft for the passageway that led to Engineering. By then, second platoon was crowding its way through the THB.

On Bass's command, third platoon's remaining fire teams came through and checked the next compartments up. They were also empty berthing compartments. He continued leapfrogging the fire teams from compartment to compartment until Captain Conorado came to tell him K Company's first platoon was ready to take over.

"Third platoon, let's head for the bridge."

They heard the occasional
crack-sizzles
of blaster fire from second platoon as it took the weapons stations.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Lance Corporal Schultz took the point, sprinting along the passageway toward the bridge.

Corporal Claypoole followed; he had trouble keeping up while watching for danger and keeping an eye on his motion detector, so he gave it to Lance Corporal MacIlargie to carry.

He figured MacIlargie, as third in line, didn't need to watch his surroundings as carefully.

Besides, rank has its privileges.

Narrow passageways branched off to the left every fifty meters; they led a short distance to a parallel passageway, most didn't have hatches opening into compartments. Schultz stopped and carefully peered around each corner, then sprinted for the next, with the rest of third platoon following. At the sixth, he stopped and asked for confirmation before turning onto it. The passageway was as wide as the one they were on and led all the way across the dreadnought. Almost midway along it was a two-way lift to other levels. That passageway was the first place third platoon saw crew--a gaggle of sailors under the command of a chief petty officer scrambled out of the lift when Schultz was still fifteen meters from it.

They spun and pointed their weapons at the sound of approaching footsteps. Schultz opened fire as he dove for the deck and rolled to one side of the passageway. He got off two shots before Claypoole fired from the passageway's other side. Half a second later MacIlargie fired over him. All four shots hit. None of their blasters were on low power, so those first four shots took down seven sailors, three dead. The unwounded scrambled back into the lift, their panicked voices fading as they traveled away. None had returned fire.

Schultz pushed himself up and bolted for the lift. Claypoole and MacIlargie went with him.

MacIlargie thrust the motion detector between them, into the lift; it showed the sailors going down.

"Let's convince them to keep going," Claypoole said, pointing his blaster down the lift shaft. He fired a bolt so it ricocheted off the shaft wall. Schultz grinned behind his chameleon screen and fired off two bolts.

Screams from below answered the bolts, and they heard the sailors scrambling out of the lift.

Another shaft was next to the lift. It held a ladderway, stairs so steep they could barely be descended by an agile person.

Claypoole gave a quick report of the action and got the order back, "Climb the ladder."

"Going up," Claypoole told his men.

Schultz headed for the ladder and started up.

Bass ordered first squad to bandage and secure wounded sailors, then follow second squad and leave the prisoners in place.

Two levels up they ran into more sailors. Schultz had just turned the corner to climb to the next level when three members of the deck crew ran by. They heard footfalls on the ladder; they couldn't see anything but fired anyway. Fléchettes pinged off the Marines' armor. By the time Schultz turned around to fire back, Claypoole and MacIlargie had already killed the three.

"Go, go, go!" Ensign Bass shouted over the helmet comm.

They resumed climbing.

Three levels higher--the bridge level--Schultz stopped without exposing any part of himself through the ladderway exit. "Give me," he growled into the fire team circuit. He held his hand back and Claypoole passed the motion detector to him. The big man held it near the ladderway entrance for a moment and studied the display, then tucked the detector into a belt pouch.

"A squad to each side, more straight ahead," he said.

Claypoole eased around him and took a look. In addition to the cross-ship passageway, a three-meter-wide passageway led straight away from them. He saw a small group of armed sailors clustered near its end. They seemed scared, ready to start firing at any sound. The passageway looked like it opened into a large compartment where the armed men were. A double-wide airtight hatch was on the far side. A lighted sign said, ADMIRAL ON BRIDGE.

Claypoole pulled back and reported what he'd seen and what Schultz read on the motion detector. Before he was finished with the report, Sergeant Linsman pushed past him for a quick look. Charlie Bass and Captain Conorado joined them seconds later and took a quick look for themselves.

When the two officers pulled back, Bass pulled his gloves off and used his hands to tell Conorado what he wanted to do.

Conorado raised his screens and nodded. He approved of Bass's plan.

"Rat," Bass said, "get two fire teams ready. Send one left, the other right. Take out anybody they see. Hold your other fire team ready to help if either of the first two need it.

Rabbit, get first squad in position to charge for the bridge as soon as second squad is out of your way. Questions?"

There were none; his orders were clear.

The Marines moved fast. They were ready to go in less than a minute. So far, they hadn't been detected on this level.

"On my mark. One, two, three, GO!"

Schultz went first, with Claypoole and MacIlargie right behind. They spun left through the entry and began firing even before they acquired targets. Corporal Kerr led the first fire team past them to the right, and they also began firing immediately. First squad was on their heels, with Corporal Dornhofer, Lance Corporal Zumwald, and PFC Gray in the lead, firing as they raced to the end of the facing passageway.

The passageways filled with the
crack-sizzle
of blaster fire and the shouts and screams of frightened, wounded, or dying sailors.

Only a few of the sailors were able to return fire. Those who survived the first few seconds dove for cover, threw their weapons away, and raised empty hands in surrender to the enemy they couldn't see.

Corporals Pasquin and Dean raced each other to be the first to the entrance to the bridge. They reached it simultaneously, but Dean's hand fell on Pasquin's when they both reached for the button that opened the hatch. Pasquin's fierce grin was wasted behind his screens.

"Wait one!" Bass snapped before Pasquin pressed the button. He stood at attention, left of the hatch, and raised his helmet screens to show his face. Conorado stood to his right; his screens were still up.

Conorado listened to the reports coming in on his helmet radio, then nodded and said,

"Now."

Dean pushed on Pasquin's hand, and together they pushed the button to open the door to the bridge.

"Sir, a berthing compartment on level eight has been breached," the officer of the deck announced in a shrill voice.

"Why haven't the boarders been repelled yet?" Admiral of the Starry Heavens Orange demanded.

The OOD spoke into his comm, then reported, "Sir, the chief of ship has just begun issuing weapons to the deck crew."

"Just now? What took him so long?" Orange screamed, his face turning red.

Nobody answered. The OOD suspected the admiral and his staff were the only people on board who didn't know that the weapons locker was forward on level two, above the bridge and closer to the bow. The chief of ship had been in the comm shack, three levels below the bridge and farther aft. The deck crew was scattered all over the starship. The OOD was surprised that the chief of ship had reached the weapons locker and begun issuing weapons this quickly.

"What's going on?" Orange shrieked. "What are the boarders doing?"

The Assistant OOD reached past the ensign manning the vid bank and began pushing buttons. Displays showed 2-D images of the interior of the starship. One showed the breached compartment. Nobody was in it.

Then the compartment's hatches flew open and there was a hint of movement, as though bodies were darting through them.