Bringing Stella Home (35 page)

Danica bit her lip. Where the hell was
the third ship?

“
How are our jump
reserves?”

“
Fully charged, Captain. We
can leave at any time.”

Any time.
In only a couple of minutes, the transport would
be theirs. If only they could hold out…

“
Watch those
scanners.”

“
Yes, sir.”

The bridge was deceptively calm. With
the battle raging almost two hundred kilometers away, there wasn’t
much for Danica and her men to do but push buttons and wait. The
waiting was always the worst.

“
Second ship taking heavy
damage,” said Vaclav. “We’ve knocked out most of the guns, though.
Going for the engines.”

“
Will she be disabled when
we get there?”

“
At the current rate of
attrition, yes.”

“
Good. And the
fighters?”

“
They’ve completely broken
up. Kill ratio is at twenty to one.”

“
Order the first and second
squadrons to return to the
Flame
,” said Danica. “I want to be
ready for a quick withdrawal.”

“
Yes, Captain.”

Danica glanced at her screen and
watched as they approached the Hameji transport. The floor stopped
rumbling as the engines cut off, and the room fell truly
silent.

“
We’ve reached the
midpoint,” said Anya. “Turning around and preparing for
deceleration.”

It took her just under
thirty seconds to flip them around. The maneuver made Danica feel
queasy in her stomach—the gravitic dampers were not particularly
good at countering rotational acceleration. Once the starfield
stopped spinning, the engines engaged again, a distant roar through
the metal walls of the
Tajji
Flame
.

“
The Hameji transport is
down,” said Vaclav, smiling. “Their forward window is shattered and
leaking air. We won’t meet much resistance when we
board.”

Danica seriously doubted
that. Still, the battle was all but over. The
Tajji Flame
had come out completely
undamaged, with only the loss of a few dozen fighter
drones—expensive, but replaceable. Much more replaceable than men.
It looked as if they were all going to come out alive after
all.

As if in answer, all of the ship’s
systems—lights, computers, everything—suddenly shut
down.

“
What the—”

“
Oh, shit!”

“
What just
happened?”

“
It looks like an ionized
warhead, Captain,” said Mikhail. “Half our systems are
out.”

“
But we just knocked out
the second transport!” Vaclav screamed. “They’re leaking air,
dammit! Their hull is breached! How could they hit us now? It’s
suicide!”

“
Can we jump,
Konstantin?
Can we
jump?
”

Mikhail gave her a grim look. “I’m
afraid not, Captain; the jump drive’s completely
scrambled.”

Danica’s blood ran cold. She closed
her eyes and took in a deep breath, forcing herself to remain
calm.

The third
transport,
she thought to herself.
Of course.

They were about to be
boarded.

Chapter 17

A peculiar feeling seized the boy
without a name—a falling sensation, as if the universe had turned
itself inside out. It lasted for only a second, but it was enough
to send a surge of adrenaline through his veins.

Jumpspace. They were on the
move.

The next few minutes passed in an
angst-filled tedium. Together with his brethren, the platoon
started to feel claustrophobic—not much at first, but more and more
with every passing second. Completely encased in his high-gee
coffin, he was unable to so much as lift a finger.

Without warning, oxygen filled his
lungs, pushing the thick, syrupy breathing liquid out the
respirator. The boy coughed and breathed deeply, clearing his lungs
and filling them again with fresh air.

Half a minute later, the coffin
cracked open. The boy staggered out and braced himself against a
wall. The taste of vomit rose in his mouth, but he fought it down
and rose to his feet. The skeletal frame underneath his suit gave
him the support he needed while he recovered.

All around him, the boy’s platoon
brothers emerged from their coffins, like alien creatures from
mammoth-sized cocoons. They drew their weapons and assembled in the
oversized airlock. The speakers in his helmet registered a loud
clanking noise, coming from outside the door on the far side of the
room. Inside his armored gloves, his palms began to
sweat.

Sergeant Voche marched to the head of
the group. They knew it was him because of the red epaulets on his
shoulders and the fact that he wore his visor up. The sight of his
face encouraged them, the way a young boy feels encouraged by his
father.

“
Stand by for boarding,” he
said, his voice tinny in the boy’s ear. “Alpha squad, Beta squad,
take positions.”

The door behind them hissed shut, and
the one ahead of them flew open, revealing a space-blasted
airlock.

The door.

Flashbacks from the training raced
through their hearts—feelings of dread and fear and death and
terror. The boy dropped to his knees and leveled his gun, while all
around him a chorus of clicks and hums filled the air as his
platoon brothers did the same.

It took the sapper bots nearly a full
minute to break through the stubborn outer door. Their high energy
lasers cut slowly through the hardened durasteel hull, sparks
falling to the floor like waterfalls of light. A few carefully
placed explosives finished the job, and the platoon moved forward,
taking up positions behind the inside door—the final barrier
between them and the enemy.

Inevitably, the barrier exploded
outward in a burst of light. The room went dark as the boy’s visor
adjusted for the blast. As everything came back into focus, a
bright flash of plasma fire lit the gaping hole where the door had
once been.

The boy screamed and pulled the
trigger. His gun pounded against his shoulder, as if it had come
alive.

White hot plasma splattered all around
him, hissing like drops of water on an open burner. Muzzle flashes
flared in infrared on the other side of the breach. The sound of
gunfire filled his ears. As the smoke cleared, human shapes became
visible on the other side. They weren’t far—only a few yards away.
Then, the rumble of feet began pounding through the floor as his
platoon charged the enemy.

The boy leaped to his feet and joined
them.

All fear left him. Nothing existed in
that moment except the battle. He screamed and charged through the
breach, gun blazing. The enemy soldiers scattered as if tossed
about by a mighty wind.

“
Forward!” came Voche’s
voice in his ear. “Annihilate them!”

In the close quarters of the enemy
ship, the firefight soon turned into a brutal fistfight. One of the
enemy soldiers swung his rifle against a platoon brother’s head,
toppling him. The boy barreled into the man and landed a punch
square in his face. With the amplification from the skeletal frame,
his fist shattered the enemy soldier’s helmet and pulped the inside
of his skull. The man grunted, and his body went stiff. When the
boy withdrew his hand, his gloved fingers dripped with blood and
brains.

The boy without a name grabbed his gun
and leaped into the fray. The sound of gunfire and the screams of
death filled his audio input feed. Around him, the dead and wounded
lay writhing on the ground, blood oozing from cracked and blasted
armor.

The horrors of the battle meant
nothing to him, however. Victory was everything.

The enemy was in a rout. They
scrambled away in confusion down the main corridor. A loud hissing
noise sounded, and a pair of massive blast doors slid shut in the
midst of them. Most of them passed through, but two failed to
escape. Gunfire from his platoon brethren cut them up in seconds.
One of them exploded as his RPV shield failed, his shredded arms
ricocheting off the plasma-scorched walls.

“
Form ranks!” came Voche’s
voice, steadying them all. “When we break through, I want Alpha and
Gamma squads to fan out and flank their main force in the
maintenance corridors. Alpha squad, take the left; Gamma squad,
take the right. Positions!”

The boy joined the five other platoon
brothers in Gamma squad and hugged the right side of the wall. Like
sprinters at a race, they trembled with anticipation as the sapper
bots sent showers of sparks cascading to the floor.

* * * * *

James pressed his back against the
wall of the narrow maintenance corridor and held his rifle tightly
in his hands. The not-so-distant sound of explosions made his heart
skip a beat. That wasn’t the sound of paintballs splattering on the
walls—that was live ammunition, and it was getting
closer.

“
We’re all going to die,”
said Ilya, his voice trembling with fright. “We aren’t going to
make it.”

“
Just shut up and hold your
position,” said James. “Mikhail will get those jump drives
fixed.”

He said it as much for himself as for
Ilya. Only a few dozen yards down the narrow maintenance corridor,
Mikhail was working feverishly to repair the ship’s nav-computer.
If they could hold off the Hameji long enough for him to do his
job, they’d be fine.

At least, James hoped so.

“
We’re going to die,” Ilya
moaned in a low voice, his face pasty white. “We’re going to
die.”

A blast came from down the main
corridor. James and Ilya both ducked at the sound.

“
Oh God,” said Ilya, pale
as a ghost. “They’ve taken the ship. We’re finished!”

“
Ayvazyan! McCoy!” shouted
Danica in James’s earpiece. Off to the right, he heard the sound of
gunfire.

“
Here, Captain,” said
James.

“
They’ve infiltrated the
main deck. We’re going to establish a line about twenty yards from
you on the main hallway. We think they may try to flank us, but we
can’t send you reinforcements for another minute. Whatever happens,
hold your position!”

“
Right,” he called out.
Flanking maneuvers. Hold the corridor.

His hands felt numb. He glanced down
and saw that they were covered in sweat, trembling uncontrollably.
His body seemed to belong to someone else.

“
Oh God,” said Ilya.
“They’re going to flank us? Oh God!”

“
You heard the captain,”
James hissed. “Shut up and help me hold this position.”

He crept forward and set up where the
corridor jogged in a few feet. In the darkness of the power loss,
he couldn’t see all the way to the far end.

We have to protect
Mikhail
, he told himself. With his gun
pointed ahead, he motioned to Ilya to advance. Ilya slunk out from
his hiding place and ran ahead, to the corner of a narrow
passageway that connected the maintenance corridor with the main
hallway.

Ilya hugged the wall while James
crouched and made his way forward. The sound of footsteps grew
louder.

Another explosion sounded off to the
right, followed by screams and gunshots. The noises filtered
through the ventilation shafts, echoing in an eerily windy
tone.

James glanced down the connecting
passageway and saw shadows dancing on the wall, cast by plasma
bursts on the other end. The Hameji were advancing—he could hear
their footsteps as they charged.

“
They’re everywhere,”
moaned Ilya. “Oh God.” His face was completely bloodless, as white
as death. He dropped his gun and curled up against the wall,
hugging his knees.

“
Shut your mouth and get
up,” said James. His heart raced in his chest—he couldn’t fight off
the Hameji all by himself.

“
We’re not going to make
it.”

“
I said get up!” He bent
down to pick up Ilya’s gun.

That was what saved him.

A searing burst of plasma screeched
over his head, hitting the wall directly behind him. Ilya screamed
and covered his face with his hands, while James dropped to the
floor and rolled around the corner, into the connecting
passageway.

“
Aiee!” screamed Ilya. In a
burst of panic, he leaped to his feet and ran towards the bridge,
away from the fighting. Before he could make it far, a bullet
caught him in the leg. He fell on his face a few feet short of the
jog in the corridor, while over his head, a barrage of plasma hit
the wall and sizzled with acrid smoke. James watched him crawl the
rest of the distance, under fire, to safety.

With heavy gunfire sounding from
either end of the connecting passageway, James was trapped. His
hands and feet felt numb as adrenaline surged through his
body.

I don’t want to die
here,
he
thought to
himself.
Not like this.