Trajectory, TacOps
"Twenty seconds to field-entry... navscan is reading orange. Some pretty big rocks out there." - the nav officer reported.
Reventon Alzer nodded. "Front fire control, stand by for targeting data. We might need some big rocks cleared out. Particle cannons to 25% yield. We want to break them apart, not vapourise them. Make more little pieces and particles for those damned missiles to contend with."
He got an acknowledgement from the back of the bridge, as the flight control officer turned to look at him.
"Sir, it will also be a nav hazard for our fighters. Recommend we bring them into our wake, and have them follow us in."
Alzer scowled at that. He didn't like the idea of giving those enemy fighters a clear run to the Trajectory's stern... but the asteroid field would be as much of a hazard to them, too. With any luck, they wouldn't be able to get close anyway, unless they also followed in the battlecruiser's wake, which would make them nicely channeled-in for the PD's to light up.
"We can't leave them out here anyway, they'll just be hunted down piecemeal by the enemy. They're grossly outnumbered." - the XO reminded him.
Finally, the captain nodded. As the XO and the flight control officer got onto external comms, relaying new orders to the Alpha and Beta squad leaders, Alzer contacted SysCon again.
"Status on the comms to the lower decks? And I don't want to hear another 'inconclusive'." - he growled.
"Sir... it's not a malfunction - there's a deliberate interruption in the comms circuitry on Deck 15. We can't reach anyone on it, or below. My guess, sir... the Insurgent boarders spiked the system on that deck. Unless someone down there can purge the circuits and run a recursive signal up to us, so we can establish a newconnection, we can't do anything else from up here. We'd need a team on-site." - one of the duty officers standing-in for Lieutenant Rand came back apologetically.
"You're telling me the entire comms grid is spiked on 15? Even the backups?! How the hell can they do that without full access to the system?" - Alzer snapped.
"If they got our secondary access codes, like Lieutenant Rand determined, it's conceivable, sir. We know they deliberately routed Tythanine gas to the air-con grid, so it's no surprise they could do this. That's why we've disabled all secondary-code authority privileges, for the whole ship, but the damage is done. One of the reasons why the Lieutenant insisted on leading a team down. We need to secure deck 15, before we can do anything about restoring the comms... and without more marines, sir..." - the officer trailed off with a sigh, audible even over the comm.
Alzer nodded. Chicken or the egg. But that didn't make the situation any less frustrating. And for Anni to go head-first into the lion's den down there, with just a bunch of enlistees armed with sidearms, against a contingent of hardened, heavily armed rebels... Reventon had to shake his head at that. To say it constituted above and beyond the call of duty, was an understatement of the year. He knew there was a reason he liked her. And not just for the obvious physical reasons, and the fact she was an absolutely ravenous, insatiable animal in bed, making him feel young again, unlike that harpy back home... no. The woman had conviction, attitude, and heart. A LOT of it. He'd been in the Corps for a long time, a good twenty years, and he had become a rather good judge of character.
Some officers - they did their duty, marginally.Some excelled at their duty, and nothing else. Some liked to take shortcuts, and freeload themselves onto their colleagues. Some also liked to take shortcuts, but somehow still overachieved. She fell into the last category. Yes, as an engineer, she was... proficient, at best, but hardly exceptional. As an officer, she lacked that certain spit-and-polish that the Corps sometimes espoused - frankly in his eyes, that was a plus, since it made her more honest to deal with - although he was biased in that regard, given their... extracurricular activities. It also made her service record a very interesting read - especially the disciplinary section. Suffice to say her overture to him, was not the first time she... parlayed... her looks for advancement. He didn't mind. What she had in copious amounts, was adaptability. And courage bordering on foolhardiness.
Try as hard as he might, Alzer couldn't imagine his former head of SysCon, actually leading a near-suicidal charge at an armed Insurgent boarding party, in a desperate effort to buy them time. While a better engineer and officer - there was no question about it, as the SysCon's efficiency rating had dropped by 11%, since she took command of it - he lacked that adaptability. And certainly lacked that insane level of courage.
"Courage or recklessness? I'll take either. In this situation, we can't have enough of both! Just don't get yourself killed Anni. Please. If we both survive this, I'll put you down for an Exemplary Service Medallion, pin a Distinguished Silver Cross on you myself, and give you a month's worth of leave on Sol Serra Prime, the Platinum Resort! Hell, I'll join you... just the two of us, on a well-earned vacation. No expenses spared!" - he thought. Out loud, however, he only said:
"It is being addressed. A runnerwas sent down to the MOC a couple of minutes ago, and we're about to dispatch a second one in case he was intercepted by the intruders en-route. We WILL get more marines up there, no matter what it takes. In the meantime, keep trying to get the comms up, and keep me updated on the status of Miss Rand's team, if they make contact. TacOps out."
"Entering the asteroid belt in T-minus 10 seconds, sir." - the nav officer's tone snapped him out of it.
"TacView front cone. Display. Minimal magnification." - he replied.
The image on the bridge's main display now showed a seemingly-endless expanse of twirling rocks of all sizes and shapes, floating within a greyish-green mist; dust particles and various gases. As he watched, the Trajectory's forward particle cannons lit up a number of the larger rocks in the ship's path, breaking them apart in showers of smaller debris and dust.
"All fighters read in their assigned flight slots behind us... we're ready to move in." - the XO spoke up, eyes on the terminal in front of his chair.
"Enemy fighters are slowing down... entering a holding pattern. They are not following us in, sir... we're out of range of their missile-lock." - one of the sensor operators reported.
"Meaning one of two things... either they're getting cold feet, or they know the field is mined." - the XO muttered under his breath, loud enough for Alzer to hear.
Alzer inhaled sharply, steepling his fingers in front of his chin.
"We'll find out soon enough. Helm, drop speed to 1/3rd. Fire control, give me dispersion patterns of low powered particle blasts in a full 180 degrees front cone, in 30 second intervals. Target large asteroids or anything that looks like it might be hiding a mine. Short range sensor array to full power."- he ordered.
"Short range scans are unavailable, sir... our lateral sensors have taken quite a beating from the missiles. Damage control teams are on it, but it'll take some time." - the nav officer reported.
Alzer scowled.
"In that case, drop speed to 1/5th. Let's give ourselves as big a margin of error as possible while we rely on visual pickups. Status on the enemy gunships?"
"Not pursuing, sir... but they are circumnavigating the edges of the asteroid cloud. Keeping a roughly paralell course to us. If we try to leave the belt, they'll certainly be in position to jump us."
"So... none of you vultures want to get close to the corpse. That's a bit shy for your kind, Insurgents... did you actually mine this rock-cloud?" - Alzer thought, a bit on edge, as the Trajectory continued it's path deeper into the asteroid belt.
***
Deck 15...
"They've stopped... sir, they've stopped trying to breach the inner door!" - one of the hangar control room staff exclaimed.
Indeed, the Insurgents seemed to have stopped their efforts to break into the hangar proper, at least for the time being. The people in Hangar Control didn't know what was all that about... but for now, the hangar remained secure. Little did they know that the EMP field they managed to establish as per instructions they received, did a bit more then just wreak havoc with the enemy's small arms. All shaped charges were disabled, and for the time being, inoperative, since the greasing trick didn't work on the exposed circuitry of their detonators.
***
"No use, boss... these things are dead." - the scarred, middle-aged Insurgent female grunted, tossing the charge back into the box they had. She had gone through every one they had left, and the detonator circuits on each, were fried. The bearded leader scowled.
"Every one of 'em?!"- to which she nodded. He slammed a fist into the badly-damaged-yet-still-holding inner blast doors. "Motherfucker! Literally this thing's being held together with spit and ducttape, we need ONE more fuckin' charge...!" - he paused, thinking hard. Then he turned to the female.
"You and you two, stay here and hold down the fort. I'll take some boys and see what's in the deck armoury. Maybe they've got some utility charges in storage, or worse comes to worst, spare power packs for their needlers. We can jury-rig something if we get enough of 'em together and remove the surge-suppressors."
The female hesitated... "Boss, it's been a while... even not having comms, we gotta count on someone up from TacOps tryin' to get down to their Marine Control and send more beefcakes up here to take us on! We can't stay here forever..." - just as another Insurgent rushed into the anteroom.
"Boss, we've lost comms-contact with our forces out in space. Some kinda interference... probably because we're inside the Petkov cloud. Just took a peek out the viewport out in the hallway." - he reported.
The bearded man rubbed his chin. So, the captain decided to take cover in the asteroid belt... that would certainly wreak havoc with their shortwave portable comms. He hadn't expected that... he assumed that if it came to it, the captain would sooner seek cover within the atmosphere of the outermost planet the ship was skulking around.
"Didn't we mine the cloud, months ago, when we first set up here?" - the female asked, biting her cheek.
"Yeah." - he said, but then smirked, "Don't worry, I'm sure the brave captain of this fine vessel suspects that... he'll be very careful in here. And this ship's big and tough enough to take a prox-blast or two - if anything, the minesmight make a good dent in disabling her without our gunships even needin' to get close. Get on the line to everyone we've got aboard, to keep clear of the areas close to the outer hull! And expect some bigger shakes then a few missile hits."
"We're really cuttin' it close to the wire, boss... I don't like it." - the female bit her lip, not-entirely-convinced, but the bearded one simply clapped her on the shoulder. "That's what happens when you've gotta improvise. And we're already invested too far in this thing. Don't worry, it'll work out! And in the end, this ship'll be ours! Now carry out my orders; I'll be back as soon as I can with whatever goes boom, that we can find in the armoury. You - come with me!" - motioning to the newly-arrived Insurgent.
***
"How you feeling, ma'am?" - Kosinski asked, anxiously, as they four rounded another turn, ending up in a T-junction, one end leading to a storage bay, the other down to pilot prep rooms. He peered at Annike Rand's grazed side, and to his eye, it looked... nasty.
"Looks worse then it is... good thing about needle-blasts... they just cauterise the wound. No bleeding." - she assured him, some pain in her tone, but under control. And indeed, the burn, while painting a pretty nasty line along her ribcage, wasn't actually bleeding.
The sounds of heavy running footsteps echoed in the corridor they just turned from... indicating that pursuit was close. One of the other two surviving enlistees looked pale. "Wh-what do we do now?! They're onto us..." - barely controlling his fear.
"Keep moving... down to those pilot ready rooms! It's a whole maze of lockers and flight-sim chambers in there, we can lose 'em!" - she hissed, dashing down the left-side T-corridor.
Just as theyreached the doors to the first one, needle-blasts started whizzing down after them... one hitting home, taking the rearmost enlistee in his back. With a moan, the man plopped face-down to the deck, dead instantly. "Arnold!" - the other crewman exclaimed in dismay, but it was no use - the man was dead before he hit the deck. In a flash, Annike spun, dropping prone, ignoring a flash of pain through her burned side, as she returned fire at the two kneeling armoured figures at the corner they just left. Kosinski let out a couple of shots - both missing - of his own, before he punched the door-open button.
"INSIDE! C'mon!" - he exclaimed, ushering the other survivor in, as the two Insurgents at the other end momentarily ducked back around the corner, taking cover from a barrage of Annike's blasts. Most missed, as she was more about laying down fire then aiming at anyone in particular, but a couple hit home, again without much effect on their synthweave armour, but she thought she saw one of them burn through a little, making that guy stumble. Still, again... their sidearms just weren't cutting it against body armour. Not unless she managed to put several shots in the general area, in succession, which she wasn't likely to get the opportunity to do. Or get a headshot, which was even less likely, from this range in the heat of a firefight.
"I really need to get my hands on one of those rifles... this thing's fuckin' useless! May as well be shooting light-rays from a toy needler!" - she thought, gritting her teeth, keeping up the covering fire for a second longer, before she followed the two inside, then sealed the doors with one of her own personal codes.
"Take 'em a while toget through this... unless they blast the controls!" - Rand hissed, motioning them to move on, past the nearest two flight-sim VR chambers, and down a locker aisle. From the outside however, needle-blasts began echoing, as sparks flew from the door control panel.
"I think they heard you, ma'am..." - the other crewman growled, a touch sarcastically. She just shrugged, in a 'yeah we're not that lucky' manner, as they rounded the aisle, into another VR chamber... through another doorway... another locker aisle... turning right, before they reached a service access panel, leading up into the crawlways.
Back behind them, there was a sound of tortured electronics, followed by a metallic crash. Their pursuers were through the doorway.
"We need to get this panel open! You two, watch the aisle while I try my access codes..." - she ordered, motioning the two of them to take positions by the doorway back to where they came from.
***
Ron Skitt dashed down the corridors, guided by the occassional echo of a needle-shot up ahead, along with shouts from the Insurgents that were sent to hunt down Annike and her group. On the way, he grabbed a rifle from one of the downed Insurgents that Annike's group had taken down earlier while they were advancing to the antechamber... but he was reluctant to use it on his new allies... he wanted to protect Annike, but he also wanted not to alienate the Insurgents, as the leader's warning echoed in his mind.
By the time the four ducked into the pilot ready room, he had just rounded the next corridor down, catching glimpse of the three Insurgents up ahead, just taking cover from needle-fire from somewhere down the left-side corridor from them. One seemed to get hit, but not badly. He gritted his teeth... hoping against hope she wouldmake it.
"Okay THINK... Annike would get into the VR chambers, then make it for the service ducts at the end of the VR area... that's the best place to go to ground and it's a code-access panel only - she could lock it down after they go through! And that'd take 'em... either over to the refueling bay for fighters, if they take the right-side junction... or back around to the hangar bay, dropping down via ceiling duct, if they take the left-side one... which would put 'em in the same tight spot those pilots and flight engineers are now stuck in. Now she's not that dumb... she knows the layout as good as I do. Yeah... they'll make for the refueling bay!" - the man made up his mind, doubling-back the other way, then taking a perpendicular corridor, that he knew led in the proper direction, to hopefully get there before she did.
***
The Trajectory continued it's slow but steady glide through the asteroid belt, before suddenly, an innocuous-looking rock, passing withing two klicks of the vessel - detonated, with the force of a medium-sized antimatter dispersion mine. Then another, about six klicks further, triggered by the detonation of the first. The detonations washed across the ship, stem to stern, scoring considerable outer-hull deformation on the nearest surfaces, destroying one of the portside antimatter cannons, and three PD emplacements, while a sizable portion of the front-port segments of decks 9 and 10, suddenly underwent an explosive decompression, due to hull breaches. Crystallised star-like shapes flooded from the tears in the ship's outer hull, looking from a distance like snowflakes... but were in fact people, a final moment of terror frozen on their rigid faces, being sucked out into the freezing-coldness of space, instantly hyperfreezing and crystallising. A jagged, carbon andantimatter-burnished breach manifested itself in the Trajectory's upper-port quarter, lined with electrical discharges and ion fires from within.
***
TacOps, Bridge...
Emergency-alert klaxons echoed across the wide chamber, a power-relay off to the side blowing out in a shower of sparks, as everyone, Alzer included, was violently thrown sideways, some tumbling out of their chairs, some hitting the bulkheads hard enough to cause injury.
"REPORT!" - the man shouted, scrambling back into his command chair, with a grim determination that belied his age, before anyone had a chance to assist him. Command authority was a tangible concept, and his pride alone dictated that he set an example. A bloody trail painted itself down his left bicep, from where his shoulder hit hard on an elevated section of the deck, where a step connected the upper and lower portions of the bridge. Clearly indicating a deep gash below his uniform, as his other hand reached out to massage the spot. He kept the pain fully out of his voice, however.
"Hull fracture, d-decks 9 and 10... ahh... explosive decompressions... emergency bulkheads have been deployed." - a pained voice came from the lower crew pit.
"Casualty reports coming in... thirty-eight dead... over a hundred injured... ah... MedOps is deploying additional triage teams!" - another voice came right on it's heels, suppressing the pain as well.
"XO to MedOps! Send a small triage team up to the Bridge." - the executive officer's tone then sounded, looking around at the various injuries, including Alzer's, followed by a garbled reply from the comms panel. Fortunately, the MedOps area was above deck 15, thus unaffected by the communications breakdown.
"This is SysCon! Hull integrity compromised to 67%! Port stabilisers damaged! Loss of all grav-field plating on decks 9 and 10! Electrical and ionization fires reported on decks 6 through 11, including here! We're reroutingnearest damage control teams, and cutting oxygen flow to the air-con on affected decks, to 60%, to snuff them out faster. Request an oxygen-deprivation announcement to all hands on affected decks, for the next 20 minutes!" - came another comms report, from the duty officer standing-in for Rand, in SysCon.
"Granted!" - Alzer barked, nodding at one of the officers at the side consoles, to program the Interface for an automated message detailing the same, to be broadcast on the decks in question.
"We've lost one port particle-cannon, and three PD emplacements! Port PD coverage down to 61%!" - one of the tactical officers shouted.
The reports continued, as Alzer took a good look at the ever-scrolling damage reports from SysCon... now mostly yellow, interspersed with a few red-coded ones. He grimaced. It was indeed too much to hope for, that the field hadn't been mined. Still, on balance... given a choice between being surrounded and crippled by five gunships and close to 90 fighters out there, and in here, having to content with an occassional mine that they failed to pre-detonated with their timed firing patterns... he still stood by his decision to take cover in the asteroid belt.
Yes, the Trajectory had taken a solid body-shot to the gut. But it was better then being kicked to pieces out there, until they could get their full fighter complement out. And THEN... he promised himself... then they would burst out of here with a vengeance, take down whatever the Innies tried to put in their path, and make it for the lightspeed marker. He was under no illusion that any of his pilots would survive - the fighters would have to remain behind to cover their escape - but he had upwards of eleven hundred people, to think of, on his ship. 60out of 1100+ ... the mathematics were merciless. And as the captain, these equations were his to deal with.
"Just hold together, baby... you hear me?! We've been through too much together, to let this rebel rabble get the better of us!" - he thought to his ship, looking briefly around at the bulkheads, ceiling, and deck, while stroking the armrest of his command chair.
"Nav, full stop! Secure for full damage assessment. Engines on standby! All engine power to structural containment!" - he tried to remain calm, "Evacuate decks 9 and 10, and seal them off. Flight control, advise Alpha and Beta squads not to deviate from our wake, where we can be sure there are no lingering mines. SysCon, expedite repairs to our power grid as a top priority. We'll need all our remaining speed and firepower, when we attempt a breakout!"
As he got acknowledgements, both in person and over comms, he allowed himself a dark smirk.
"I just hope those boarders got a bloody nose from this, too!"
***
Deck 27, Marine Operations Control, staging area...
While most squads have reported in, with mixed but mostly successful results, regarding the containment of the Insurgent boarding teams on several lower decks, the Marine squad dispatched to Deck 15 was by now, fourteen minutes overdue for a report. Ever since the unconfirmed rumour reaching the MOC, about some kind of toxin release on that deck. With comms being inexplicably down to the upper decks, the Marine Command had no way of knowing what was really happening, and operating on rumours and gut feelings, was an anathema for the Conglomerate Marine Corps. Without a confirmed report from the squad, and an order from the Captain, the colonel in charge of shipboard marine deployments was reluctant to commit any additional assets to reinforce an unknown situation.
It cameas no small surprise, then, when a harried-looking, exhausted Command-div crewman, crawled out of a service access tunnel, barely moments after a massive jolt rocked the ship, accompanied with emergency klaxons. Carrying all the proper authorisation confirmations from the Captain, the man was escorted to the colonel's office, where he provided a tentative report on the current state of affairs on the siege ongoing on Deck 15, as well as written and authorised orders from the captain, to dispatch immediate reinforcements to resolve the situation.
The colonel, a hard-faced, cleft-chinned man in his late 40's, studied the report, his grey eyes narrowing in anger. To think that they spent fourteen useless minutes sitting on their asses, instead of cornering and annihilating those rebels who suffocated some of his best men like rats and butchered nearly fifty people on that deck... he slammed the padd on his table, hard enough for the crewman to jump slightly. Ignoring the man completely, the colonel stomped to a section-wide intercom panel.
"LISTEN UP! Due to a delay in actionable intel, we've got a crisis situation on Deck 15, and the hangar access! We've lost Squad Aquarius, and the Innies have taken the whole deck, possibly breaching the hangar lockout! Friendly assets are running interference, but are likely to be neutralised within the next few minutes. Squads Nathema, Gemini, and Perseus, gear up and advance to Deck 15, immediately! You've got ONE MINUTE, to leave the MOC! Your orders are to bypass any other intruder engagements en-route, and expedite your arrival, at all costs! Code Black! Once on-deck, coordinate with any friendly assets still available, and secure the area, starting with all hangar-access points! Repeat, Code Black protocol! Speed of deployment takes priority over your personal safety! Comms to Deck 15 have been disrupted, so you'll beon your own once there. Squad sargeants, use personal discretion once on-site."
"Took you damn button-pushers long enough..." - the colonel growled in passing to the harried crewman, once finished, dismissing him with that single sentence, his face like a dark stormcloud.
***
Meanwhile, back on Deck 15...
The massive jolt to the ship, accompanied by the screaming of strained bulkheads, told Annike volumes, as she was flung violently to the side of the crawlway she was currently advancing through on all fours, followed by her two surviving accomplices. Sparks and flames flashed through the narrow space, making her squeeze her eyes tightly, as acrid stench of burned polymer assaulted her nostrils... indicative of a fire breaking out, somewhere down the crawlway.
"Oh for fucks' sake... can't we get a break for a hot second?!" - she growled, gritting out a moan of pain, as her burned side brushed against the crawlway's bulkhead. The heat was spreading from somewhere ahead. Heat, and decidely orange-reddish hues, reflecting on the metal bulkheads. Her face darkened.
"No... no. No, no, no... fuckin' NO! Don't. Please... fuckin'... don't. Tell. Me... let me guess..." - the woman snarled through her teeth, crawling forward, to peer past a bend in the crawlway...
"What's... ahh... going on?!" - Kosinski asked from behind, his own tone slightly pained - clearly he hit something as he was jolted, too. She ignored him, as she rounded the bend... to come almost face-first into a spreading electrical fire, that filled literally the entire crawlspace up ahead, for a good ten meters.
"Yeah. Of course. Why not? WHY THE HELL NOT?! Fuck my life sideways with a fuckin' poker right up the ass! WHY THE HELL NOT?!?! Everything else went fucking south tonight, so why the fuck not?!" - she all-but-roared, kicking at a loose patch of paneling, in purerage, her temper flaring. The shooting pain the movement caused, in her burned flank, only made her madder, as she kicked at the panel again, hard enough to knock if off it's hinges. She was livid.
Their way was very much blocked by the flames. They had no way of putting out the fire, and the only way back... was the way they came. Right back into the pilots' VR rooms, and into the teeth of the Insurgents on their tail. Suddenly, Annike had to work very hard, not to pull the needler and fry her own brains, in sudden flash of overpowering hopelessness, alternating with equally overpowering, livid rage.
"Ma'am?! Wh-wh... what's going on??! What's wrong?!" - the other enlistee exclaimed shakily, very much taken aback by Rand's sudden outburst.
The woman closed her eyes momentarily, focusing purely on her breathing... before she opened them again. The flash in them spoke volumes. All the anger-management classes she went through, in her teenage years, that were supposed to teach her to keep her temper under control... the very reason she took up martial arts in the first place, her parents hoping the discipline would allow her to control her temper... it was all coming apart at the seams.
"We're fucked, that's what's wrong..." - in a literal snarl, "TURN AROUND. NOW! GET YOUR NEEDLERS OUT! We're going back! NOW!" - she snapped, turning around herself, and giving Kosinski behind her, a nudge.
"We can't go back, the Innies are--" - he started in alarm, before she cut him off.
"Either the Innies, or being barbecued alive up ahead! WHICH DO YOU LIKE MORE?!? Your pick, dickhead... NOW MOVE damn it!" - she yelled, elbowing him to move as she momentarily lost it again... then continued with a slight shake of her head, realising she needed tocool off... at least minutely - in a fractionally softer tone, not giving the bewildered enlistee a chance to reply...
"Sorry... damn it. Tunnel's on fire... we need to make a stand! Get the hell moving before the bulkheads heat up!! Both of you! We come back out, firing as we come. I want that service access flooded with needle-blasts! I don't give a shit who and what's back there, it's better then staying in here!" - she hissed. The deadly look in those eyes making it clear that tonight's events had brought her close to the end of her line.
"Y-y... yes ma'am..." Kosinski stuttered, rubbing his side where she elbowed him, as the other man just hastily turned around, pulling out his needler. Neither of them have EVER seen Annike Rand like this. But the escalating fire behind them, bore mute evidence to the urgency of their situation. Caught between a rock, and a hard place.
Literally.
TO BE CONTINUED...
"Twenty seconds to field-entry... navscan is reading orange. Some pretty big rocks out there." - the nav officer reported.
Reventon Alzer nodded. "Front fire control, stand by for targeting data. We might need some big rocks cleared out. Particle cannons to 25% yield. We want to break them apart, not vapourise them. Make more little pieces and particles for those damned missiles to contend with."
He got an acknowledgement from the back of the bridge, as the flight control officer turned to look at him.
"Sir, it will also be a nav hazard for our fighters. Recommend we bring them into our wake, and have them follow us in."
Alzer scowled at that. He didn't like the idea of giving those enemy fighters a clear run to the Trajectory's stern... but the asteroid field would be as much of a hazard to them, too. With any luck, they wouldn't be able to get close anyway, unless they also followed in the battlecruiser's wake, which would make them nicely channeled-in for the PD's to light up.
"We can't leave them out here anyway, they'll just be hunted down piecemeal by the enemy. They're grossly outnumbered." - the XO reminded him.
Finally, the captain nodded. As the XO and the flight control officer got onto external comms, relaying new orders to the Alpha and Beta squad leaders, Alzer contacted SysCon again.
"Status on the comms to the lower decks? And I don't want to hear another 'inconclusive'." - he growled.
"Sir... it's not a malfunction - there's a deliberate interruption in the comms circuitry on Deck 15. We can't reach anyone on it, or below. My guess, sir... the Insurgent boarders spiked the system on that deck. Unless someone down there can purge the circuits and run a recursive signal up to us, so we can establish a newconnection, we can't do anything else from up here. We'd need a team on-site." - one of the duty officers standing-in for Lieutenant Rand came back apologetically.
"You're telling me the entire comms grid is spiked on 15? Even the backups?! How the hell can they do that without full access to the system?" - Alzer snapped.
"If they got our secondary access codes, like Lieutenant Rand determined, it's conceivable, sir. We know they deliberately routed Tythanine gas to the air-con grid, so it's no surprise they could do this. That's why we've disabled all secondary-code authority privileges, for the whole ship, but the damage is done. One of the reasons why the Lieutenant insisted on leading a team down. We need to secure deck 15, before we can do anything about restoring the comms... and without more marines, sir..." - the officer trailed off with a sigh, audible even over the comm.
Alzer nodded. Chicken or the egg. But that didn't make the situation any less frustrating. And for Anni to go head-first into the lion's den down there, with just a bunch of enlistees armed with sidearms, against a contingent of hardened, heavily armed rebels... Reventon had to shake his head at that. To say it constituted above and beyond the call of duty, was an understatement of the year. He knew there was a reason he liked her. And not just for the obvious physical reasons, and the fact she was an absolutely ravenous, insatiable animal in bed, making him feel young again, unlike that harpy back home... no. The woman had conviction, attitude, and heart. A LOT of it. He'd been in the Corps for a long time, a good twenty years, and he had become a rather good judge of character.
Some officers - they did their duty, marginally.Some excelled at their duty, and nothing else. Some liked to take shortcuts, and freeload themselves onto their colleagues. Some also liked to take shortcuts, but somehow still overachieved. She fell into the last category. Yes, as an engineer, she was... proficient, at best, but hardly exceptional. As an officer, she lacked that certain spit-and-polish that the Corps sometimes espoused - frankly in his eyes, that was a plus, since it made her more honest to deal with - although he was biased in that regard, given their... extracurricular activities. It also made her service record a very interesting read - especially the disciplinary section. Suffice to say her overture to him, was not the first time she... parlayed... her looks for advancement. He didn't mind. What she had in copious amounts, was adaptability. And courage bordering on foolhardiness.
Try as hard as he might, Alzer couldn't imagine his former head of SysCon, actually leading a near-suicidal charge at an armed Insurgent boarding party, in a desperate effort to buy them time. While a better engineer and officer - there was no question about it, as the SysCon's efficiency rating had dropped by 11%, since she took command of it - he lacked that adaptability. And certainly lacked that insane level of courage.
"Courage or recklessness? I'll take either. In this situation, we can't have enough of both! Just don't get yourself killed Anni. Please. If we both survive this, I'll put you down for an Exemplary Service Medallion, pin a Distinguished Silver Cross on you myself, and give you a month's worth of leave on Sol Serra Prime, the Platinum Resort! Hell, I'll join you... just the two of us, on a well-earned vacation. No expenses spared!" - he thought. Out loud, however, he only said:
"It is being addressed. A runnerwas sent down to the MOC a couple of minutes ago, and we're about to dispatch a second one in case he was intercepted by the intruders en-route. We WILL get more marines up there, no matter what it takes. In the meantime, keep trying to get the comms up, and keep me updated on the status of Miss Rand's team, if they make contact. TacOps out."
"Entering the asteroid belt in T-minus 10 seconds, sir." - the nav officer's tone snapped him out of it.
"TacView front cone. Display. Minimal magnification." - he replied.
The image on the bridge's main display now showed a seemingly-endless expanse of twirling rocks of all sizes and shapes, floating within a greyish-green mist; dust particles and various gases. As he watched, the Trajectory's forward particle cannons lit up a number of the larger rocks in the ship's path, breaking them apart in showers of smaller debris and dust.
"All fighters read in their assigned flight slots behind us... we're ready to move in." - the XO spoke up, eyes on the terminal in front of his chair.
"Enemy fighters are slowing down... entering a holding pattern. They are not following us in, sir... we're out of range of their missile-lock." - one of the sensor operators reported.
"Meaning one of two things... either they're getting cold feet, or they know the field is mined." - the XO muttered under his breath, loud enough for Alzer to hear.
Alzer inhaled sharply, steepling his fingers in front of his chin.
"We'll find out soon enough. Helm, drop speed to 1/3rd. Fire control, give me dispersion patterns of low powered particle blasts in a full 180 degrees front cone, in 30 second intervals. Target large asteroids or anything that looks like it might be hiding a mine. Short range sensor array to full power."- he ordered.
"Short range scans are unavailable, sir... our lateral sensors have taken quite a beating from the missiles. Damage control teams are on it, but it'll take some time." - the nav officer reported.
Alzer scowled.
"In that case, drop speed to 1/5th. Let's give ourselves as big a margin of error as possible while we rely on visual pickups. Status on the enemy gunships?"
"Not pursuing, sir... but they are circumnavigating the edges of the asteroid cloud. Keeping a roughly paralell course to us. If we try to leave the belt, they'll certainly be in position to jump us."
"So... none of you vultures want to get close to the corpse. That's a bit shy for your kind, Insurgents... did you actually mine this rock-cloud?" - Alzer thought, a bit on edge, as the Trajectory continued it's path deeper into the asteroid belt.
***
Deck 15...
"They've stopped... sir, they've stopped trying to breach the inner door!" - one of the hangar control room staff exclaimed.
Indeed, the Insurgents seemed to have stopped their efforts to break into the hangar proper, at least for the time being. The people in Hangar Control didn't know what was all that about... but for now, the hangar remained secure. Little did they know that the EMP field they managed to establish as per instructions they received, did a bit more then just wreak havoc with the enemy's small arms. All shaped charges were disabled, and for the time being, inoperative, since the greasing trick didn't work on the exposed circuitry of their detonators.
***
"No use, boss... these things are dead." - the scarred, middle-aged Insurgent female grunted, tossing the charge back into the box they had. She had gone through every one they had left, and the detonator circuits on each, were fried. The bearded leader scowled.
"Every one of 'em?!"- to which she nodded. He slammed a fist into the badly-damaged-yet-still-holding inner blast doors. "Motherfucker! Literally this thing's being held together with spit and ducttape, we need ONE more fuckin' charge...!" - he paused, thinking hard. Then he turned to the female.
"You and you two, stay here and hold down the fort. I'll take some boys and see what's in the deck armoury. Maybe they've got some utility charges in storage, or worse comes to worst, spare power packs for their needlers. We can jury-rig something if we get enough of 'em together and remove the surge-suppressors."
The female hesitated... "Boss, it's been a while... even not having comms, we gotta count on someone up from TacOps tryin' to get down to their Marine Control and send more beefcakes up here to take us on! We can't stay here forever..." - just as another Insurgent rushed into the anteroom.
"Boss, we've lost comms-contact with our forces out in space. Some kinda interference... probably because we're inside the Petkov cloud. Just took a peek out the viewport out in the hallway." - he reported.
The bearded man rubbed his chin. So, the captain decided to take cover in the asteroid belt... that would certainly wreak havoc with their shortwave portable comms. He hadn't expected that... he assumed that if it came to it, the captain would sooner seek cover within the atmosphere of the outermost planet the ship was skulking around.
"Didn't we mine the cloud, months ago, when we first set up here?" - the female asked, biting her cheek.
"Yeah." - he said, but then smirked, "Don't worry, I'm sure the brave captain of this fine vessel suspects that... he'll be very careful in here. And this ship's big and tough enough to take a prox-blast or two - if anything, the minesmight make a good dent in disabling her without our gunships even needin' to get close. Get on the line to everyone we've got aboard, to keep clear of the areas close to the outer hull! And expect some bigger shakes then a few missile hits."
"We're really cuttin' it close to the wire, boss... I don't like it." - the female bit her lip, not-entirely-convinced, but the bearded one simply clapped her on the shoulder. "That's what happens when you've gotta improvise. And we're already invested too far in this thing. Don't worry, it'll work out! And in the end, this ship'll be ours! Now carry out my orders; I'll be back as soon as I can with whatever goes boom, that we can find in the armoury. You - come with me!" - motioning to the newly-arrived Insurgent.
***
"How you feeling, ma'am?" - Kosinski asked, anxiously, as they four rounded another turn, ending up in a T-junction, one end leading to a storage bay, the other down to pilot prep rooms. He peered at Annike Rand's grazed side, and to his eye, it looked... nasty.
"Looks worse then it is... good thing about needle-blasts... they just cauterise the wound. No bleeding." - she assured him, some pain in her tone, but under control. And indeed, the burn, while painting a pretty nasty line along her ribcage, wasn't actually bleeding.
The sounds of heavy running footsteps echoed in the corridor they just turned from... indicating that pursuit was close. One of the other two surviving enlistees looked pale. "Wh-what do we do now?! They're onto us..." - barely controlling his fear.
"Keep moving... down to those pilot ready rooms! It's a whole maze of lockers and flight-sim chambers in there, we can lose 'em!" - she hissed, dashing down the left-side T-corridor.
Just as theyreached the doors to the first one, needle-blasts started whizzing down after them... one hitting home, taking the rearmost enlistee in his back. With a moan, the man plopped face-down to the deck, dead instantly. "Arnold!" - the other crewman exclaimed in dismay, but it was no use - the man was dead before he hit the deck. In a flash, Annike spun, dropping prone, ignoring a flash of pain through her burned side, as she returned fire at the two kneeling armoured figures at the corner they just left. Kosinski let out a couple of shots - both missing - of his own, before he punched the door-open button.
"INSIDE! C'mon!" - he exclaimed, ushering the other survivor in, as the two Insurgents at the other end momentarily ducked back around the corner, taking cover from a barrage of Annike's blasts. Most missed, as she was more about laying down fire then aiming at anyone in particular, but a couple hit home, again without much effect on their synthweave armour, but she thought she saw one of them burn through a little, making that guy stumble. Still, again... their sidearms just weren't cutting it against body armour. Not unless she managed to put several shots in the general area, in succession, which she wasn't likely to get the opportunity to do. Or get a headshot, which was even less likely, from this range in the heat of a firefight.
"I really need to get my hands on one of those rifles... this thing's fuckin' useless! May as well be shooting light-rays from a toy needler!" - she thought, gritting her teeth, keeping up the covering fire for a second longer, before she followed the two inside, then sealed the doors with one of her own personal codes.
"Take 'em a while toget through this... unless they blast the controls!" - Rand hissed, motioning them to move on, past the nearest two flight-sim VR chambers, and down a locker aisle. From the outside however, needle-blasts began echoing, as sparks flew from the door control panel.
"I think they heard you, ma'am..." - the other crewman growled, a touch sarcastically. She just shrugged, in a 'yeah we're not that lucky' manner, as they rounded the aisle, into another VR chamber... through another doorway... another locker aisle... turning right, before they reached a service access panel, leading up into the crawlways.
Back behind them, there was a sound of tortured electronics, followed by a metallic crash. Their pursuers were through the doorway.
"We need to get this panel open! You two, watch the aisle while I try my access codes..." - she ordered, motioning the two of them to take positions by the doorway back to where they came from.
***
Ron Skitt dashed down the corridors, guided by the occassional echo of a needle-shot up ahead, along with shouts from the Insurgents that were sent to hunt down Annike and her group. On the way, he grabbed a rifle from one of the downed Insurgents that Annike's group had taken down earlier while they were advancing to the antechamber... but he was reluctant to use it on his new allies... he wanted to protect Annike, but he also wanted not to alienate the Insurgents, as the leader's warning echoed in his mind.
By the time the four ducked into the pilot ready room, he had just rounded the next corridor down, catching glimpse of the three Insurgents up ahead, just taking cover from needle-fire from somewhere down the left-side corridor from them. One seemed to get hit, but not badly. He gritted his teeth... hoping against hope she wouldmake it.
"Okay THINK... Annike would get into the VR chambers, then make it for the service ducts at the end of the VR area... that's the best place to go to ground and it's a code-access panel only - she could lock it down after they go through! And that'd take 'em... either over to the refueling bay for fighters, if they take the right-side junction... or back around to the hangar bay, dropping down via ceiling duct, if they take the left-side one... which would put 'em in the same tight spot those pilots and flight engineers are now stuck in. Now she's not that dumb... she knows the layout as good as I do. Yeah... they'll make for the refueling bay!" - the man made up his mind, doubling-back the other way, then taking a perpendicular corridor, that he knew led in the proper direction, to hopefully get there before she did.
***
The Trajectory continued it's slow but steady glide through the asteroid belt, before suddenly, an innocuous-looking rock, passing withing two klicks of the vessel - detonated, with the force of a medium-sized antimatter dispersion mine. Then another, about six klicks further, triggered by the detonation of the first. The detonations washed across the ship, stem to stern, scoring considerable outer-hull deformation on the nearest surfaces, destroying one of the portside antimatter cannons, and three PD emplacements, while a sizable portion of the front-port segments of decks 9 and 10, suddenly underwent an explosive decompression, due to hull breaches. Crystallised star-like shapes flooded from the tears in the ship's outer hull, looking from a distance like snowflakes... but were in fact people, a final moment of terror frozen on their rigid faces, being sucked out into the freezing-coldness of space, instantly hyperfreezing and crystallising. A jagged, carbon andantimatter-burnished breach manifested itself in the Trajectory's upper-port quarter, lined with electrical discharges and ion fires from within.
***
TacOps, Bridge...
Emergency-alert klaxons echoed across the wide chamber, a power-relay off to the side blowing out in a shower of sparks, as everyone, Alzer included, was violently thrown sideways, some tumbling out of their chairs, some hitting the bulkheads hard enough to cause injury.
"REPORT!" - the man shouted, scrambling back into his command chair, with a grim determination that belied his age, before anyone had a chance to assist him. Command authority was a tangible concept, and his pride alone dictated that he set an example. A bloody trail painted itself down his left bicep, from where his shoulder hit hard on an elevated section of the deck, where a step connected the upper and lower portions of the bridge. Clearly indicating a deep gash below his uniform, as his other hand reached out to massage the spot. He kept the pain fully out of his voice, however.
"Hull fracture, d-decks 9 and 10... ahh... explosive decompressions... emergency bulkheads have been deployed." - a pained voice came from the lower crew pit.
"Casualty reports coming in... thirty-eight dead... over a hundred injured... ah... MedOps is deploying additional triage teams!" - another voice came right on it's heels, suppressing the pain as well.
"XO to MedOps! Send a small triage team up to the Bridge." - the executive officer's tone then sounded, looking around at the various injuries, including Alzer's, followed by a garbled reply from the comms panel. Fortunately, the MedOps area was above deck 15, thus unaffected by the communications breakdown.
"This is SysCon! Hull integrity compromised to 67%! Port stabilisers damaged! Loss of all grav-field plating on decks 9 and 10! Electrical and ionization fires reported on decks 6 through 11, including here! We're reroutingnearest damage control teams, and cutting oxygen flow to the air-con on affected decks, to 60%, to snuff them out faster. Request an oxygen-deprivation announcement to all hands on affected decks, for the next 20 minutes!" - came another comms report, from the duty officer standing-in for Rand, in SysCon.
"Granted!" - Alzer barked, nodding at one of the officers at the side consoles, to program the Interface for an automated message detailing the same, to be broadcast on the decks in question.
"We've lost one port particle-cannon, and three PD emplacements! Port PD coverage down to 61%!" - one of the tactical officers shouted.
The reports continued, as Alzer took a good look at the ever-scrolling damage reports from SysCon... now mostly yellow, interspersed with a few red-coded ones. He grimaced. It was indeed too much to hope for, that the field hadn't been mined. Still, on balance... given a choice between being surrounded and crippled by five gunships and close to 90 fighters out there, and in here, having to content with an occassional mine that they failed to pre-detonated with their timed firing patterns... he still stood by his decision to take cover in the asteroid belt.
Yes, the Trajectory had taken a solid body-shot to the gut. But it was better then being kicked to pieces out there, until they could get their full fighter complement out. And THEN... he promised himself... then they would burst out of here with a vengeance, take down whatever the Innies tried to put in their path, and make it for the lightspeed marker. He was under no illusion that any of his pilots would survive - the fighters would have to remain behind to cover their escape - but he had upwards of eleven hundred people, to think of, on his ship. 60out of 1100+ ... the mathematics were merciless. And as the captain, these equations were his to deal with.
"Just hold together, baby... you hear me?! We've been through too much together, to let this rebel rabble get the better of us!" - he thought to his ship, looking briefly around at the bulkheads, ceiling, and deck, while stroking the armrest of his command chair.
"Nav, full stop! Secure for full damage assessment. Engines on standby! All engine power to structural containment!" - he tried to remain calm, "Evacuate decks 9 and 10, and seal them off. Flight control, advise Alpha and Beta squads not to deviate from our wake, where we can be sure there are no lingering mines. SysCon, expedite repairs to our power grid as a top priority. We'll need all our remaining speed and firepower, when we attempt a breakout!"
As he got acknowledgements, both in person and over comms, he allowed himself a dark smirk.
"I just hope those boarders got a bloody nose from this, too!"
***
Deck 27, Marine Operations Control, staging area...
While most squads have reported in, with mixed but mostly successful results, regarding the containment of the Insurgent boarding teams on several lower decks, the Marine squad dispatched to Deck 15 was by now, fourteen minutes overdue for a report. Ever since the unconfirmed rumour reaching the MOC, about some kind of toxin release on that deck. With comms being inexplicably down to the upper decks, the Marine Command had no way of knowing what was really happening, and operating on rumours and gut feelings, was an anathema for the Conglomerate Marine Corps. Without a confirmed report from the squad, and an order from the Captain, the colonel in charge of shipboard marine deployments was reluctant to commit any additional assets to reinforce an unknown situation.
It cameas no small surprise, then, when a harried-looking, exhausted Command-div crewman, crawled out of a service access tunnel, barely moments after a massive jolt rocked the ship, accompanied with emergency klaxons. Carrying all the proper authorisation confirmations from the Captain, the man was escorted to the colonel's office, where he provided a tentative report on the current state of affairs on the siege ongoing on Deck 15, as well as written and authorised orders from the captain, to dispatch immediate reinforcements to resolve the situation.
The colonel, a hard-faced, cleft-chinned man in his late 40's, studied the report, his grey eyes narrowing in anger. To think that they spent fourteen useless minutes sitting on their asses, instead of cornering and annihilating those rebels who suffocated some of his best men like rats and butchered nearly fifty people on that deck... he slammed the padd on his table, hard enough for the crewman to jump slightly. Ignoring the man completely, the colonel stomped to a section-wide intercom panel.
"LISTEN UP! Due to a delay in actionable intel, we've got a crisis situation on Deck 15, and the hangar access! We've lost Squad Aquarius, and the Innies have taken the whole deck, possibly breaching the hangar lockout! Friendly assets are running interference, but are likely to be neutralised within the next few minutes. Squads Nathema, Gemini, and Perseus, gear up and advance to Deck 15, immediately! You've got ONE MINUTE, to leave the MOC! Your orders are to bypass any other intruder engagements en-route, and expedite your arrival, at all costs! Code Black! Once on-deck, coordinate with any friendly assets still available, and secure the area, starting with all hangar-access points! Repeat, Code Black protocol! Speed of deployment takes priority over your personal safety! Comms to Deck 15 have been disrupted, so you'll beon your own once there. Squad sargeants, use personal discretion once on-site."
"Took you damn button-pushers long enough..." - the colonel growled in passing to the harried crewman, once finished, dismissing him with that single sentence, his face like a dark stormcloud.
***
Meanwhile, back on Deck 15...
The massive jolt to the ship, accompanied by the screaming of strained bulkheads, told Annike volumes, as she was flung violently to the side of the crawlway she was currently advancing through on all fours, followed by her two surviving accomplices. Sparks and flames flashed through the narrow space, making her squeeze her eyes tightly, as acrid stench of burned polymer assaulted her nostrils... indicative of a fire breaking out, somewhere down the crawlway.
"Oh for fucks' sake... can't we get a break for a hot second?!" - she growled, gritting out a moan of pain, as her burned side brushed against the crawlway's bulkhead. The heat was spreading from somewhere ahead. Heat, and decidely orange-reddish hues, reflecting on the metal bulkheads. Her face darkened.
"No... no. No, no, no... fuckin' NO! Don't. Please... fuckin'... don't. Tell. Me... let me guess..." - the woman snarled through her teeth, crawling forward, to peer past a bend in the crawlway...
"What's... ahh... going on?!" - Kosinski asked from behind, his own tone slightly pained - clearly he hit something as he was jolted, too. She ignored him, as she rounded the bend... to come almost face-first into a spreading electrical fire, that filled literally the entire crawlspace up ahead, for a good ten meters.
"Yeah. Of course. Why not? WHY THE HELL NOT?! Fuck my life sideways with a fuckin' poker right up the ass! WHY THE HELL NOT?!?! Everything else went fucking south tonight, so why the fuck not?!" - she all-but-roared, kicking at a loose patch of paneling, in purerage, her temper flaring. The shooting pain the movement caused, in her burned flank, only made her madder, as she kicked at the panel again, hard enough to knock if off it's hinges. She was livid.
Their way was very much blocked by the flames. They had no way of putting out the fire, and the only way back... was the way they came. Right back into the pilots' VR rooms, and into the teeth of the Insurgents on their tail. Suddenly, Annike had to work very hard, not to pull the needler and fry her own brains, in sudden flash of overpowering hopelessness, alternating with equally overpowering, livid rage.
"Ma'am?! Wh-wh... what's going on??! What's wrong?!" - the other enlistee exclaimed shakily, very much taken aback by Rand's sudden outburst.
The woman closed her eyes momentarily, focusing purely on her breathing... before she opened them again. The flash in them spoke volumes. All the anger-management classes she went through, in her teenage years, that were supposed to teach her to keep her temper under control... the very reason she took up martial arts in the first place, her parents hoping the discipline would allow her to control her temper... it was all coming apart at the seams.
"We're fucked, that's what's wrong..." - in a literal snarl, "TURN AROUND. NOW! GET YOUR NEEDLERS OUT! We're going back! NOW!" - she snapped, turning around herself, and giving Kosinski behind her, a nudge.
"We can't go back, the Innies are--" - he started in alarm, before she cut him off.
"Either the Innies, or being barbecued alive up ahead! WHICH DO YOU LIKE MORE?!? Your pick, dickhead... NOW MOVE damn it!" - she yelled, elbowing him to move as she momentarily lost it again... then continued with a slight shake of her head, realising she needed tocool off... at least minutely - in a fractionally softer tone, not giving the bewildered enlistee a chance to reply...
"Sorry... damn it. Tunnel's on fire... we need to make a stand! Get the hell moving before the bulkheads heat up!! Both of you! We come back out, firing as we come. I want that service access flooded with needle-blasts! I don't give a shit who and what's back there, it's better then staying in here!" - she hissed. The deadly look in those eyes making it clear that tonight's events had brought her close to the end of her line.
"Y-y... yes ma'am..." Kosinski stuttered, rubbing his side where she elbowed him, as the other man just hastily turned around, pulling out his needler. Neither of them have EVER seen Annike Rand like this. But the escalating fire behind them, bore mute evidence to the urgency of their situation. Caught between a rock, and a hard place.
Literally.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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