* * *
"Personnel, personnel ..." Gunny Jin muttered, looking at the faded signs stenciled on the bulkheads. "Where's the crew quarters?"
"Kyrou, cover your sector," Despreaux snapped. The private had been glancing over at Jin as the gunny tried to navigate the unfamiliar maze.
"Yes, Sergeant," the plasma gunner replied, turning back to the right.
"Ah, crew quarters," the gunny muttered finally, then took a few steps and turned left into a cross-passage. "Oh ... shit."
Despreaux froze as the gunny and Kyrou vanished in a ball of silver and the bulkheads to either side began to melt.
"Nimashet?" Beckley called. "Sergeant?!"
Despreaux felt her hands begin to shake. For just a moment, Beckley seemed kilometers away, and she closed her eyes. But then she drew a deep breath and opened them once more.
"Alpha Team, lay down a base of fire. Bravo, move!"
* * *
The sergeant major glanced at her schematic and grimaced.
"Lamasara's gone," she said bitterly. "We're losing people by the minute, Captain."
"Yes, we are," Pahner replied calmly. "But until I know to whom, we're just going to hold where we are. With one exception." He flipped to a different frequency. "St. John. Go, go, go."
* * *
St. John (J) looked over at his brother and smiled.
"Oh, goody. Time to take a little walk."
"I hate freefall," St. John (M) grumped, but he also tapped the controls of the Class A Extra-Vehicular Unit. The round EVU pack, more of a small spaceship than a suit, accepted the previously set up commands and released carefully timed puffs of gas that sent the two Marines on a course that hugged the surface of the globular starship. A course that would eventually intersect the first of two weapons hard points.
"Ah, just think of it as a stroll down to the bagel shop," St. John (J) said. He cycled his bead cannon to ensure that it was working in vacuum. "Or the Muffin Man."
"Them was the days, wasn't they, Bro?" Mark sighed. "Do you know the muffin man ..."
"The muffin man, the muffin man," John replied.
"Do you know the muffin man," they chorused as the EVU packs picked up speed, rocketing them towards an anti-ship missile platform. A platform that probably would be heavily defended. "Do you know the muffin man, he lives in Drury Lane!"
* * *
"Got it," Jin called. He watched the data streaming out of the ship-sys and blanched. "Oh, no."
* * *
"Sergeant Julian, this is Pahner."
Julian leaned forward and sent a stream of heavy beads down the passage to cover Gronningen. The big Asgardian darted across the opening and dove through a hatchway, barely avoiding a stream of plasma fire.
"Go ahead, Sir," the sergeant gasped.
"There's bad news and worse news. The bad news is that this isn't a tramp freighter. It's a Saint Special Operations insertion ship under the command of one Colonel Fiorello Giovannuci."
"Oh ... pock. Commandos?"
"Greenpeace Division," Pahner confirmed. "And in case you didn't recognize the name, Giovannuci was the bastard in command of the Leonides operation a few years back. He's as good as they come ... and a true believer."
"Oh ... I—" Julian paused, unable to think, then shook himself. "Go ahead, Sir."
"This is where we get to the worse news," Pahner's voice said calmly. "Gunny Jin is down, probably gone, at what turned out to be the Armory, and not the crew quarters, ship's plans notwithstanding. Where Despreaux's squad is apparently blocking the majority of the commando company from making it into the Morgue."
"Oh. A full company?"
"Yes. They are, therefore, the current priority. If the Peacers get to the Armory, we are well and truly screwed, so we're just going to have to take care of them before we can reinforce you."
"Yes, Sir."
"Cover your back. Do not let reinforcements into the Bridge. By the same token, do not let the Bridge guards, who are almost the only ones with heavy weapons, out. Understood?"
"Hold what we've got. Nobody goes in, nobody comes out. Engineering?"
"Gunny Lai bought it there, so did Sergeant Angell. But Georgiadas has the situation under control; there's a security point there that they took, and they're covered in both directions. You're not, so hold on hard. Got it?"
"Got that in one, Sir. What's to stop them from taking off, Sir?"
"Nothing." Julian could hear the grim humor behind that single word. "Georgiadas reports that the drive is warming up under remote from the Bridge even as we speak."
"Yes, Sir." Julian licked his lips and cursed quietly. "Sir, I'll be asked. What in the hell are we going to do? I think I'd rather face the Kranolta again."
"I'm going to do the one thing that I swore to myself I would not, under any circumstances whatsoever, especially if things were bad, stoop to."
* * *
"Go! Go! Go!"
"Your Highness, just wait!" Dobrescu snapped. "Thirty more seconds to lift. That's the optimal window. So just sit the hell down and shut the hell up."
"Goddamn it!" Roger almost punched the display, but he remembered all those centuries ago, the last time he'd been in a cramped little compartment like this one in powered battle armor and gently tapped a control panel. Yet it was hard to restrain himself. Hard. The display showed that the thirty Marines who'd lifted off to the "tramp freighter" had been reduced to twenty-four already. At this rate, there wouldn't be anyone to rescue.
"Prepare for lift," Dobrescu called over the all-hands circuit. "Helmets on! You sc—Mardukans get ready. You're going to feel realll heavy. Three, two, one ..."
"Just hang on, Nimashet," Roger whispered. "Just hang on... ."
Four Marine assault shuttles, containing the Mardukan contingent of the Basik's Own, lifted skyward on pillars of flame.
* * *
"All units, hold what you've got," Pahner called. "The cavalry is on the way."
"Satan, protect us," Kosutic snapped as a team of commandos rolled across the corridor. She winged one, but the other three got away. "We're getting outmaneuvered and outshot, Captain."
"I've noticed," Pahner said calmly. "Suggestions?"
"Let Poertena and me take it to them," Kosutic said. "Having a mobile force will force them to react."
"I'll have a mobile force here in—" He consulted his suit. "Seven minutes."
"Seven minutes is a lonnng time, Armand."
Pahner sighed and nodded.
"That it is."
* * *
"Aaaahhh!"
"Oh, calm down, Rastar," Roger grunted. The shuttles still had the extra hydrogen tanks installed, and the plotted intercept had been calculated based upon that almost limitless fuel supply. So they'd lifted at three gravities and would hit a DV-Max of almost seven. For Roger and the pilots, that was simply very unpleasant. For the Mardukans, who had never experienced more than a couple of gravities during their limited micro-gravity familiarization flights, it was a nightmare.
They'd put all of them through at least one lift, but nothing like this. The humans had managed to convince themselves that there was no conceivable situation in which the Mardukans would actually be used for a combat assault, so they hadn't subjected them to the real stresses of such a launch. And now the Mardukans, and their allies, were paying the price for that complacent gentleness.
"All hands, remember, crunch!" Roger gasped. "Squeeze your stomach like you're taking a dump, but plug your butt." He glanced over at the telltales. "There's only another ... three minutes."