The tiny ships had already vanished, just before the remote’s telemetry stopped cold.
“They found our remote, too.” Susan clasped her hands behind her back, teeth clicking thoughtfully. “ Sho-sa, did you notice how well shielded their drives are? Like ghosts…”
The Mayan barked a hoarse, exhausted laugh. “Like they weren’t even there, Chu-sa. Until they were on that cruiser and firing.”
Humanoid shapes moved abruptly in the shadows, armor glinting in the intermittent strobe of emergency lights. Some sections of the old Spear -class cruiser had their own generators to run critical subsystems, which meant there were pockets of atmosphere and occasional overheads still working. Hadeishi was crouched down behind a shattered section of interior wall, watching the advance of the enemy through a remote v-eye tucked into a dead lighting socket. A good dozen Khaid marines were leapfrogging up the main corridor into the habitat ring, five of the aliens in powered armor in the lead. Mitsuharu guessed they were a combat team detached from the main body of the attackers, who had managed to fight their way into the shipcore.
The Nisei officer turned, signing Stand by to the four Imperials behind him with their motley assortment of weapons. When he checked the v-eye again, the Khaid were shifting smoothly from door to bulkhead frame to door, their heavy shipguns shining oily in the flickering light.
Now. Hadeishi flashed a quick sign, and then tripped the switch on a portable fuel-cell generator they’d lugged down from the Command ring. Electrons flooded the local circuits and every light and door activated. The room hatches being forced by the Khaid suddenly cycled open, sending at least one of the invaders sprawling into the compartment beyond. The overheads flared to life, shedding a bright warm glow over the wreckage strewn along the corridor. The Khaiden marines swiveled, guns quartering the nearest openings-and found nothing. Their advance paused for an instant as each hunter assessed every possible threat within his field of view.
Heated to flashpoint by the lights in the overheads, twenty or thirty pounds of fuse paper-all they had left from the landing site clearing supplies the Khaid had been dragging around-ignited with a rippling bang-bang-bang and the overhead panels popped free, swinging wildly in the oozing clouds of smoke. The Khaiden marines reacted violently, six of them ripping loose with suppressive fire to shred the ceiling tiles and shatter the remaining lights. The vanguard loped forward, looking to clear the “ambush” zone, while the rear-guard fell back to the closest intersection, ensuring their line of retreat was secured.
Hadeishi popped up as the lead Khaid sprang past a fallen beam, and the Yilan tucked into his shoulder stuttered, flash-suppressor spitting flame in a brief, brilliant cross. At point-blank range, the armor-piercing munitions tore up the chest, faceplate, and shoulder of the hunter’s armor, knocking him back into the Khaid following behind. The other Imperials also let loose, all fire concentrated on the same lead figure. By the time the hunter had collided with his companions, the armor had been punctured twice by the hundreds of rounds and he drifted limply away.
“Go!” Mitsuharu barked, ducking back. One of his men tossed a grenade-their last-into the midst of the enemy vanguard and then kicked off, sailing down their escape route. The other Imperials were already gone as the grenade cooked off in a sharp, hot blast. The Khaid hunters were thrown back by the pressure wave, but it was an even chance any of them suffered any lasting damage. Their armor was too tough for the lightweight weapons Hadeishi’s crew had managed to scavenge. The blast did collapse the roof, however, which had already been weakened by an engineering crew.
The spitting howl of a squad support weapon replied-Mitsuharu didn’t remember the code-name assigned by Fleet intelligence-but the flechettes tore a horizontal gap across the fallen debris and hot sparks chased him down the hallway.
Twenty minutes later, the Chu-sa ducked under a haphazardly strung line of glowbeans and went to one knee, his face seamed with worry. The main medbay had been abandoned an hour ago, when the Khaid attack into the shipcore had focused on the secondary command ring, which also held the medical section. The surviving Imperials needing a corpsman-and there were many now-had been hauled out by grav-sled or z-line to the armored compartment managing the boat and cargo bays in the primary hull, which had escaped the initial assault. On a properly equipped Fleet ship, Hadeishi might have had one or two spare shuttles tucked away in the boat-bays. But the Kader had nothing spare, so they’d cut power to the bays and vented as much debris and garbage as could be found through the doors to discourage the Khaid from trying to land in them.
Lovelace was tacked to the floor, her body wrapped in a survival blanket, leaving only the status readouts of her z-suit visible. Her rounded face was pale behind the faceplate, eyes closed. On her wrist, the med-band was a softly glowing bracelet of amber and green.
“Not dead yet,” Mitsuharu said softly, squinting at the tiny readout. “But you’re not going to last without proper facilities.”
“Sorry, kyo.” The Mirror Comms officer’s voice was a broken rasp. “They sealed the hull splinter in with me, but I can feel the knife twisting when I breathe.”
“Don’t talk then.” Hadeishi sat, his back against the wall, her wrist held lightly between thumb and forefinger. “We’ve all run out of time in any case. And the Khaid are sadly lacking in regen pods. They don’t eat their own dead, but do employ a species of shipbug blessed by their priests for the very purpose.”
“I taste terrible,” the girl said; her voice very, very faint.
Mitsuharu nodded, watching her respiration flutter. The pale blue light of the glowbeans painted her cheekbones a deathly hue. “I’m sure you do, Sho-i. It was an honor to serve with you. I am sorry I did not listen-you tried to keep me from this fool’s errand.”
“We-” A bubbling wheeze stopped her for a moment, but then she managed to say: “We were dead if we tried to run out past those two destroyers. You bought us another sixteen hours, at least.”
I did that, he thought. To no good end, save to bring down a few more Khaid before the black sea takes us all.
One of the lights on her med-band began to pulse red. Feeling a terrible sense of deja vu, he gently dialed the band to send the Comms officer unconscious. Plum petals are falling, sickle moon sharp as The poem faltered in his memory, the pace and tenor of the chatter and background noise on his comm suddenly changing. Hadeishi looked away from Lovelace, eyes closed, letting the voices of his men, his subcommanders, the sound and feel of the ship penetrating his back, his hands, the soles of his feet wash over him. On one of the channels, Tocoztic’s familiar voice-his breathing labored-said: “Is this getting easier, or is it my imagination?”
Mitsuharu stiffened, rising from the floor. “All units report. Are you currently in contact with the enemy?”
“No, Chu-sa,” worried voices replied. “It’s been quiet on either side of us for maybe five minutes.”
Just as Hadeishi thumbed the all-channel push control on his z-suit comm, the partially open bay doors flared into a white-hot bar. The debris cloud outside was ionizing as a particle beam ripped across the surface of the Kader. The impact reverberated through the frame of the ship seconds later, transmitting itself to Mitsuharu as a keening shriek rising from his boot-soles. Screams on the comm channels were snuffed out abruptly as the beam punched through the central ring of the cruiser.