"I thought that was obvious?"
"And how would they do that?" he asked.
She was speechless.
"Destroy the ship," Morris joined in.
"Yes, they cannot kill these civilians fast enough," Jafar agreed.
It was a cold and calculating assessment, but they knew he was right.
"All right, so they don't have any nukes or similar, or they'd have used them by now. How else can they blow this thing to hell?"
"Overload the engine capacitors," said Morris.
"They have measures in place to stop that from happening, surely?" Parker asked.
"Yes, but if the control systems are damaged or destroyed, they could overload without restriction."
"And then what would happen?"
"With enough of a surge, and the engines on these barges are big enough for it, they'd rip a hole right through the hull. Do enough damage, and they'd vent everything to space."
"How'd you know all this?"
"You were born in Earth's atmosphere, Sergeant, and I wasn't."
"Okay, I get it. How can we stop it?"
"At either end. Reach the engine bays and ensure they cannot access them, or stop them getting aboard the bridge and destroying the safety measures."
"Fuck," Taylor muttered, "we have no way of contacting the rest of the Regiment. We'll have to do this ourselves. I'll take Parker, Jafar, and three volunteers to the bridge. Morris, you take the rest for engine bay."
Morris thought the numbers odd, but he didn't question them. He pointed to three of the platoon and sent them forward to Taylor before carrying on and taking a fork ahead. Watkins, Abbot and May joined the three of them.
"You know the way to the bridge?" Parker asked.
"I do," replied Jafar, "Did none of you study the layout of the vessel?"
He appeared surprised.
“Yeah, I studied it,” she replied, “but it all looks the damn same now we’re here.”
Jafar looked to Taylor.
“Hey, lead the way, big fella,” he said as he shrugged.
He stepped over the body of the Juggernaut and picked up his shield. It was buckled in the centre so that as he pulled it onto his arm, the lower half curled away from him.
“Those things hit like a wrecking ball,” he said.
“Yeah, well next time, don’t get so close.”
He turned to Eli with a smile, but she could see the concern in his face.
“I’ll do what I can.”
They passed through into a narrower corridor where the lights were flickering from gunshots that had struck them, and panels swung loose from the ceiling. Gunshots rang out in the distance, sustained fire from Reitech weapons. It brought a smile to Taylor’s face. He knew it could only be their people dishing out hell.
Parker stopped at a crossroads and looked towards the direction of the fire. Taylor could see she wanted to head for it and help.
“No time. We don’t get this done, and everyone could be done for.”
They knew their own suits would protect them, but that was just a few hundred lives, compared to the thousands who would be lost. Jafar had only stopped after seeing them do so and waited for them to continue on after him.
“How much further?” Taylor asked.
Before Jafar could answer, two shots struck the wall beside him, and he ducked back for cover.
“Those are ours,” Parker said.
“Friendlies!” Taylor shouted, “Coming out!”
He took the bend to show a recognisable shape, of which Jafar certainly wasn’t. A figure approached down the corridor; tall and confident and with a determined stride. As he passed into the light, Taylor recognised him as Major Moye. The tall black officer of the French paras was coated in blue blood and had a stream of his own dripping down the side of his face. He had just two others with him, one man and one woman. They were equally as filthy and blood soaked. They looked like they had been through a week’s worth of fighting. All three had soulless expressions that were so empty Taylor could see they had witnessed the kind of thing he would not wish on anyone.
Moye had always despised Taylor, and yet all that hatred he was used to seeing in the man’s eyes was gone.
“Where is your Company, Major?”
He shook his head. “Gone, all of them, gone.”
Parker gasped, as she knew how many he commanded.
“What happened to you, Major?”
“We…we were first aboard. We fought hard, but there were so many of them.”
He was distraught, and yet still held his rifle at the ready.
“So what is it you do now, fight or run?” Taylor asked quietly.
He struck a chord with the towering Frenchman who at first took insult, and then appreciated what Taylor was doing. He seemed to snap out of his weary daze.
“What is your plan?”
“To save all those aboard from being vented into space. Are you with us?”
Moye didn’t need to hear anymore.
“Lead the way.”
We are nine, Taylor thought, a distinct improvement.
They carried on until they could hear cries of pain and suffering. They first reached a single wounded woman lying against a wall, with a young child in her arms. She was covered in blood. Her nose was broken, and a deep cut ran around her forehead. Several other dead lay around her.
“Help me,” she pleaded.
None of them stopped.
“We’ll be back for you,” Eli said.
They all knew they could not stop and help, but as they passed her, the room opened out into a large communal room of some kind. Taylor was stopped dead and looked upon more than a hundred bodies scattered about the room where the Mechs had come through. Only a handful of survivors moved a little here and there. Taylor knew it shouldn’t be any surprise to him, but he could not help but feel shocked.
Never had he seen such masses of massacred civilians, since he had rescued Jones from the alien camp. It shocked him for a few seconds, before he was reminded of their mission and knew they could not afford another interruption. He looked away from the dead and dying, and onwards to their path through. He stepped over bodies and put it out of his thoughts. He forced himself to think of the living. None of the nine questioned his determination to keep going.
“How far now, Jafar?” he asked.
“Not far.”
Taylor shook his head, but as he opened his mouth to prompt his alien friend further on the matter, a pulse flashed into view and glanced off the rim of his shield. He ducked down into the cover of piled crates, and a number of other shots flew overhead.
“Is this it?” Taylor shouted over to Jafar.
“It is.”
“How long do we have?”
“I do not know the operations of this vessel. If they have reached the central controls, then we do not have long.”
“How long?” Taylor almost screamed.
“Minutes,” Jafar replied calmly.
Eli looked to Taylor for answers. He knew they had no time for a firefight.
“We have to go forward. No matter what it costs, and no matter what it takes. Any moment now, this could be over, and it was all for nothing. We have to go forward, all or nothing.”
As he said it, the two French soldiers with Moye nodded to each other and rushed out towards the enemy. They screamed some battle cry as they did, but it meant nothing to Taylor.
“Go!” he yelled.
The seven of them rushed out from cover and charged after the two who had led the way. The woman was hit by more than a dozen shots. The first two broke her damaged shield in two, and her armour took several more. Despite the injuries, she kept going and kept pushing to put one foot in front of the other. She took another eight pulses before finally falling, and her comrade fell soon after.