“Pretty girl,” one of his team said. He didn’t sound disappointed or angry, despite losing his first chance at one of the perks of serving in the Blackshirts. Thomas, who liked to think of himself as more civilised than most of the other Blackshirts, would have relieved his feelings by bawling the younger man out. “What do we do now?”
Thomas looked back at the blackened shells that were all that remained of two of his men. Both of them had been caught in the blast the girl had caused, just before she’d been killed. It wasn’t a good exchange rate, even if they were all expendable.
“We keep moving,” he said. He sent a series of commands to the sensor bugs. They would expand their probes into the tunnel network that had been exposed by the girl, allowing them some advance warning of any more solo attacks. The dead girl, he suspected, might have operated on her own, but she’d certainly shown the enemy how to delay them. If they could use the tunnels to outflank them, the rebels could whittle away at his force until nowhere was safe. “There are more enemy fighters waiting for us up ahead.”
He concentrated on splitting up his forces. If the spaceport could be taken relatively intact, his reinforcements could be flown right into the asteroid, allowing him to push out faster and further. He doubted that the rebels would be surprised — they’d have to expect that much — but they’d be unable to react quickly.
“Onwards,” he ordered, and smiled. If he won, and if he survived, the sky would be the limit. “Prepare to attack.”
The starship crews didn’t go down easily. They’d built up a formidable position and backed it up with the weapons mounted on their ships. Neil watched in numb fascination as they threw back three attacks before the fourth one broke through, leaving three ships as flaming wreckage and pushing the defenders back. One of the battlecruisers had moved closer and started to open fire, picking off several of the defenders even through the forcefield covering the entrance to the spaceport. The massive hatch hadn’t stood up to its weapons for more than a few seconds. After that, the defenders were doomed.
“They’re pushing their way into the remaining starships,” one of the operators reported. The Blackshirts had continued to advance, despite their heavy losses. Sheer determination would make up for a lot of tactical flaws. And, for that matter, they definitely seemed more civilised than the ordinary run of Blackshirts. “One of the ships is planning to jump out.”
Neil felt his eyes go wide with horror. “Tell them not to move,” he ordered, knowing that the order would not be heeded. There was no other way for the crews to escape. “Tell them…”
“Too late,” the operator said. “They’re already powering up.”
Thomas cursed as the light freighter rose into the air on an antigravity field, using the positions of the Blackshirts to shield itself from the Vengeance’s fire. The battlecruiser couldn’t shoot without bringing the remains of the freighter down on the Blackshirts. Even so, what else could the ship do? They were unable to bring their weapons to bear on the attackers, for they’d just be shot off without their shields and they couldn’t use their shields in such a confirmed place. Unless…
He saw — too late — a shimmer forming around the prow of the freighter. Space itself seemed to warp and twist around it, the light from the fires suddenly refocused as mighty energies started to claw at the very fabric of space and time. He started to shout a warning as the flicker drive engaged, there was a brilliant flash of golden light and the starship vanished.
An instant later, the shockwave hit and the entire asteroid shook.
Chapter Forty-One
Thomas activated his suit’s magnetic grapples as the gravity field twisted, sucking the assault force towards where the starship had been. Cries of horror and terror echoed over the assault band as some of the troopers, not so quick to react, were pulled towards the singularity along with everything in the spaceport that wasn’t secured to the floor. The gravity field snapped off a microsecond later, leaving armoured troops and assorted debris flying through the air and down to the deck. Thomas winced as he saw a soldier crash to the ground and lie still. Even powered combat armour couldn’t prevent its wearer from being stunned after such an impact.
“Sound off,” he ordered. Luckily, the enemy was in as much disarray as his own men, or they could have mounted a counterattack and destroyed his force while they were scattered and stunned. He listened as the numbers counted and allowed himself a moment of relief when he realised that only a handful of his men were either gone or injured. “Form up and…”
The forcefield holding the air inside the asteroid collapsed and vanished, allowing the air in the spaceport to start streaming out into the vacuum. Thomas hadn’t deactivated his grapples, thankfully, and he was able to withstand the sudden pull to the rear. A handful of soldiers were less lucky and were sucked out into space, although their suits would protect them long enough for them to be rescued by the battlecruisers and their shuttles. Thomas watched as a torrent of debris followed them into the vacuum, sweeping the bay clean. He’d once watched as a space habitat was carefully vented to exterminate a particularly nasty form of crawling insect that had somehow passed through the screening and made a home in the habitat and he knew that nothing would survive in the remains of the spaceport, unless it had a suit of its own. The sensor bug network had been disrupted by the starship and then by the sudden transition to vacuum, but it was already reporting that the Blackshirts were largely alone in the spaceport. A handful of rebel fighters had been in the tubes when the compartment depressurised and were apparently dead.
He waited until the spaceport had finished venting and then led his men over to the connecting tube, linking the spaceport to the remainder of the asteroid. Unsurprisingly, it was locked and secured, or the entire asteroid would have vented into space. The early asteroid developers had been paranoid when it came to safety, building in hundreds of cut-outs and automatic airlocks; the rebels, it seemed, had shared their paranoia. They would have to either cut through the hatch and walk right into the ambush he knew had to be there — the rebels would never have a better chance to inflict huge losses on his men — or try to go out onto the surface of the asteroid and burn through somewhere else. If there were Marines out there, he knew, that would be suicide. It could not be risked.
“Start moving up the heavy weapons,” he ordered. If he knew there were an ambush there — the sensor bugs couldn’t seem to get through without disappearing, which was indicative in itself — he could at least spring it early. “Prepare to cut through the hatch.”
He watched as two of his men manoeuvred a heavy laser cannon into position and prepared to fire. The bulky weapon was starship-grade, capable of cutting through even superdreadnaught-class armour if it had enough time to work with, and — unlike plasma cannons — it didn’t explode violently if the enemy hit it. Even so, they lacked the flexibility of plasma cannons and other, more typical weapons, but it was just perfect for raiding an asteroid.
“Fire,” he ordered.
“We’re in position, boss,” Corporal Joe Hughes informed him. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
Neil snorted. The starship’s disappearance had sent shockwaves through the entire asteroid. The status display — what little there was of it, for the rebels had never bothered to install a full internal sensor network — was covered with red lights, warning of damage to the internal systems and possible structural damage. It was a damn good thing, he told himself, that they hadn’t been spinning the asteroid for gravity or the entire habitat would have started to come apart. Even so, the cascade of systems failures and alert messages suggested that it might be a good time to start thinking about evacuating the asteroid — if there was anywhere to go. The looming presence of nine Imperial Navy battlecruisers blocked all hope of escape.