The Valhalla Call (Warrior's Wings) (16 page)

Pierce winced, pain spiking through his head. “What is it?”

“The aliens, sir, they just fired on the Ghoulie ship!”

*****

Parath glowered his screen.
That should show them where I think they can put their demands.

The Ross had the nerve to order him to stand aside and let them take prisoners, as if he didn’t know what happened to Ross prisoners. The damned in the eternal singular abyss were likely better treated, given that the Ross didn’t seem to understand that other races actually needed more than occasional fluid to survive.

He’d had his ships fire a series of warning shots across the bows of the two big warships and would now be sweating their response if he were so damned angry. Given his secondary orders from the Master of Fleets, however, he couldn’t let the Ross have these prisoners even if he wanted to.

There was something going on in this back star arm of the galaxy, something far more than a minor border skirmish, and his duty was to uncover just what the hell it was, in addition to quieting down this little war.

Handing valuable prisoners over to the Ross would accomplish neither of those things.

“Send to the Ross,” he spoke up, “you are part of an Alliance commanded fleet and are under
my
command. You will cease your actions and return to your proper place in the formation or I will bring this rebellion up with the highest levels of the Alliance Navy. Continue with your hostile actions and I will have black marks entered into your dossiers…post mortem.”

He had to wait a moment for the message to be transcribed and sent, then even longer for the response.

“Ross vessels are pulling back, Master. They’re moving into their assigned positions.”

Parath let out a long breath. While he’d been ready to push the situation as far as he had to, he was more than relieved not to be required to do so. The carnage a pair of Ross warships could wreak on his ships simply didn’t bear thinking on.

And speaking of carnage…

Parath turned back to the now-more-immediate threat on his screens.

“All ships are to prepare for boarding actions. Ships with Lucian compliments to the front.”

*****

USV Terra

“Sir, the enemy ships are shifting formation. Ghoulies are…moving away.”

Pierce closed his eyes, trying to block out the headache. “That’s good news, I suppose. Repairs?”

“Progressing, sir.”

He didn’t know why he asked, to be honest, it was just reflex. The Terra wasn’t significantly damaged, considering what they’d endured at least. They could maneuver, they could shoot. The problem with that was the fact that if they did either of those things, they would—not could,
would
—be destroyed. They were outnumbered eighteen to one and were too deep into knife range to even think of using their standoff weapons more than once.

Oh, they’d blow the ever-living hell out of one ship, no doubt about that. They might even get a second one, but there would not be a third for the USV Terra. Not in this fight.

“I think they’re preparing to board, Captain. I see small ships launching from the carriers.”

“Great.”

Fight and die, or surrender?

The moment was coming up on them, and he knew that the decision was about to force itself on him in turn.

“Howard,” Pierce said softly, eyes shifting to the man at the tactical station. “Line up your shot.”

“Yes, sir.”

Who was he kidding, there was no decision to be made. Every one of them had seen how the enemy treated prisoners.

“Fly the black flag,” Pierce ordered as a resigned sense of peace fell over him. “And fire as she bears!”

*****

The first hint anyone on Parath’s ship had that something was happening was when the Everlasting Glory was blown to shards in a single instant of destruction. Even Parath himself, who had been watching and half expecting some sort of action on the part of the aliens, had taken a few interminable seconds before he could react.

By that time, the alien ship was pivoting toward the Victorious Emblem, its intentions now as clear as crystal.

“Target their weapons ports! I need prisoners!” Parath snapped out. “We need them alive! Alive!”

His squadron was already moving, plasma arc slamming into the alien ship and lighting up the construction with flames and blasts that couldn’t last long in the vacuum of space. His orders only redirected their focus as the ship brought its nose around and the Emblem vanished into a cloud of expanding gas and debris.

We should have guessed that they would not be easy. They’ve done nothing easy in the past after all!

Parath was swearing under his breath, but it was nothing truly unexpected. The only way he could have hoped for an easy surrender would have been if they were almost dead already, and that clearly wasn’t the case. As he watched, plasma arcs slammed into the ports that marked the enemy launchers, something he hoped would be enough to stop them from firing.

Of course, the way fortune had been showering on him lately, he supposed that might just be asking too much indeed.

He was struggling to coordinate with the remaining ships, direct their attacks to likely spots, but when the alien ship fired its engines and began to move forward, it became more pressing.

“Signal the Lucian assault ships,” he ordered. “I want that ship under my control! Now!”

*****

USV Terra

“Incoming shuttles!”

“Point defense, take them out!”

The Terra’s point defense systems whirred into action, swatting the first of the assault ships out of her sky with ease, but were instantly beset by plasma arcs slamming into the laser and Metalstorm emplacements mere seconds later.

“We’re losing point defense stations across the board!”

The enemy’s assault was closely coordinated, and the assault shuttles never even paused in their flight as they charged right into the teeth of the Terra’s defense amidst the chaos of their own side’s close support strikes. Pierce would have been impressed if they weren’t trying to board
his
ship.

“All hands, this is the captain. Stand by to repel boarders. I say again, stand by to repel boarders!”

The alarms were wailing across the ship as his orders went out, enough that had he not had his mind on more pressing matters, Pierce was sure he’d have a migraine by this point. He mentally considered his options, then waved his XO over.

“Sir?”

“We need to start purging the database.”

“What?”

“If they take the Terra, we can’t give them anything they can use against us,” Pierce growled. “I want our star maps wiped. I want all information about Earth
wiped
. I want you to rig the cores to blow if you can and get the controls back to me.”

The commander paled but nodded hesitantly at each command until Pierce grabbed him by the uniform and pulled him closer.

“Commander, if they take this ship, they get nothing but a hunk of metal and a whole galaxy of pain. Do you
get me
?”

“Yes…I mean, aye, Captain. I get you.”

“Good. Go.”

Pierce looked around, considering for a moment, then grabbed the next closest officer by the shoulder.

“Sir?”

“While we still have guns to fire, I want you to load up a couple jump drones with a mayday signal and send them out in the confusion,” he ordered her.

“Yes, sir!”

He watched her run off, eager to follow orders and do something useful, and envied her just a bit. The drones would likely only serve to warn anyone not to come after them, but that was good enough reason to send them.

Pierce just hoped that they got through to do that much.

*****

“Go! Go! Go!”

Marines grabbed weapons from the ready rack, most of them still strapping heavy armor on as they ran by. The halls of the Terra were barely-controlled chaos wrapped in steel, alarms sounding nonstop as men called out orders over the noise and directed troops to where they’d be most needed.

They knew that a boarding attempt was coming, that much was clear, but none of the Marines on board had the slightest idea what a space boarding would look like. No one had ever tried it before, not on a human ship, so they grabbed the guns and gear and followed orders and hoped that it would be enough.

The problem was that no one really had any idea where they’d be coming from.

Were they going to try and force their way in through the shuttle bays? That made a strange kind of sense, except that they’d need someone to cycle them through the airlock and that wasn’t happening anytime soon. A lot figured that the aliens would have to cut in, come through the hull, which was a job that even made the Marines cringe and sympathize with the aliens just slightly. Cutting through reactive armor was an ugly job at the best of times, doing it while surrounded by the vacuum of space was beyond nasty.

Worse for them, however, was that if the aliens did cut through, they could come in from
anywhere
. Which was why squad leaders were on the comlinks cursing up a storm and trying like hell to figure out where they should be stationing their men.

The only answer any of them had was
not in the external corridors.

Which was great and all, but it meant effectively giving up the outer shell of the Terra to the enemy, and if any of the Marines had ever heard a losing strategy, that was it.

An explosion shuddered through the hall as one Marine looked around, trying to locate the source.

“What the hell was that?”

“Poor bastards must have cut into the reactive armor,” his buddy said, shaking head. “Bet that came as a nasty shock.”

“Couldn’t happen to nicer folks. You think it’ll stop them?”

“Fuck no.”

As if on cue, they spotted a shower of sparks and molten metal erupt into the corridor from the outer hull, and the squad sergeant took over.

“Squad Three, set up on the other side! I want cover and converging lines of fire on that spot in thirty seconds! Move your asses!”

The men lugged their gear and guns, taking cover behind bulkheads and in doors as they zeroed their weapons in on the source of the sparks and settled in to wait for the enemy to finish cutting their way in.

“Check you environmental suits! They may not have a perfect seal on that thing!”

One of the Marines leaned in over the top of a crouching comrade, looking at the showering sparks through the aiming reticule of his weapon, and frowned slightly.

“Hey, Mike?”

“What?” his buddy asked from where he was crouching.

“This feel really familiar to you?”

The Marine crouched on the deck scowled in turn. “Now that you mention it…”

“If you two idiots don’t shut up,” the sergeant growled, “I’ll personally send you down there to plug the hole those bastards are cutting.”

Normally that would have been enough to shut them up, but the sergeant already had his respirator on and was breathing heavily, which left both of them feeling even more confused.

“I’ve got a
bad
feeling about this,” Mike said from his crouch just as the hull gave in a burst of liquid metal that flowed out from the three-meter-thick hull like a river.

There was a brief moment of silence, and then figures jumped through the hull and splashed through the molten metal. The Marines didn’t bother to boggle at the scene, they just opened fire, and the corridors of the USV Terra turned into a charnel house.

*****

Kris laughed wildly as he jumped through the still-glowing hole they’d cut through the enemy ship and planted his feet in the liquid metal still flowing across the alien deck. Boarding operations were among the most challenging missions assigned to Sentinel divisions, and this one was looking to be nothing approaching an exception to that rule.

Projectiles buzzed, screaming off the metal hull and detonating against his armor as he took a moment to examine the situation.

The aliens had them in effective crossfire, but their weapons were too light for the job. A common error onboard ships, actually, one that Lucians didn’t make.

He shifted to one side and fired a singularity pulse downrange, blowing two of the enemy soldiers across the hall.

“Sentinels, forward,” Kris ordered, stepping through the now-hardening metal and firing as he moved.

“Heavy resistance, Prime.”

“Yes, but they’ve brought the wrong tools. Secure the opening before they bring up better weapons.”

“Yes, Prime!”

They quickly established control over the area they’d breached, forcing the defenders to pull back. Kris examined the interior of an alien ship for the first time, noting the way the walls curved out of sight in either direction. There was little to use for cover, but it looked like they would have to clean out the ship room by room, and it wasn’t going to be an easy job.

Perfect. I have been looking forward to a rematch with these people since the last fight.

Unfortunate, he supposed, that the soldier he’d encountered then wasn’t likely to be present. Still, perhaps there would be some Sentinels on board somewhere. Just to keep it interesting.

*****

“We’re getting hammered here, sir!”

Major Brent Caldwell grunted in response; he could see that for himself. He slapped the back of a corporal to get the man’s attention.

“We need the heavy weapons packs brought up from the central armory. Get on the horn and tell them to expedite it unless they want a personal visit from me.”

“Yes, Major!”

Heavy weapons were secured in a central armory. No one had really considered a full armor firefight in the corridors of a starship, he supposed. Caldwell figured that if he lived through what was coming, he’d put in a complaint to the brass about that when and if he made it home.

In the meantime, he had work to do.

“Someone get this door sealed! We have to slow them down!” he roared, firing his assault rifle through the still-open hatch.

A nearby explosion made him flinch back, swearing as chunks of metal whirred through the air in lethal arcs. A Marine went down, blood spraying from his throat as a bad hit took him out. Caldwell fired from the hip, singlehanded, as he reached down and pulled the man back by his armor as the door slowly sealed in front of him.