Ignoring the sweat sliding down his cheek, Second Lieutenant Raijan Kemai’s face was bathed in the soft glow of reds and greens from his HUD.  Thunder filled the mess hall as his Marines zestfully returned fire, and the ship’s annoying alarm klaxon screamed at them.  INTRUDERS! INTRUDERS!  Having an environmentally sealed suit of armor was both a blessing and a curse.  It protected you from a wide variety of dangerous environments, including the vacuum of space.  Unlike combat armor, powered armor often struggled to maintain a set temperature.  While the Marine inside was safe from temperatures that would kill him, it was always either too hot, or too cold inside the armor.

Raijan tried to tune out the firefight raging all around him as he absently used his suit’s neural interface to adjust his suit’s environmental systems to a colder temperature and studied the ship’s schematic.  Progress to the engine room had been slow as they had encountered heavy resistance from Spec Forces fire teams, and now he and his fire team were pinned down.  Beta two was on point when they had been caught in the open by a SpecOps heavy assault team in powered armor.  The opening blast from a heavy laser cannon impaled him, and melted some of the armor off two other Marines behind him as the laser grazed them, sending molten globs of metal to the floor.  They reacted quickly, grabbing a screaming Beta two and dragging him into a room, which happened to be the large mess hall they were now in, as someone else laid down heavy cover fire.

“Corpsman!” The corpsman pushed the Marine that had dragged Beta two into the mess hall out of the way and began to work feverishly to try and save the wounded Marine, thrusting a sealer into the wound, and pushing a button.  The sealer released medical foam teeming with nanites.  While the foam worked to seal the wound, the nanites were injected into the Marine’s body and began an attempt to repair what damage they could.  Medical nanites were another modern medical miracle, capable of performing emergency procedures in a pinch, though in normal circumstances other medical methods were preferred, such as using a DNA regeneration and stasis chamber, but you can’t very well drag one of those massive things along with you on the battlefield.  Beta two’s breathing was rapid and shallow as he tried to catch his breath, and his lips began to turn blue as he went into shock.  The Corpsman swore under his breath.  He was losing him.

“Stay with me, Marine!” The Corpsman growled as he quickly began to work on the injured Marine.  “You don’t die until I tell you to!”

“Sir, we can’t stay here!” yelled one of the Marines from the door. “They are going to use that heavy laser to start cutting right through the bulkheads!”  His GUA-4X spooled up and spit out another storm of slugs, punctuating his statement.

 “Corporal Bardaccio, mini down the corridor. Clear it out.” Raijan yelled over the coms channel.  He could sense Bardaccio’s hesitation before responding.  Using a mini-sun in such a confined space was dangerous, and he knew it.  A small supernova in such close quarters usually had catastrophic affects.

 “Mini down the corridor, yes sir.” Bardaccio confirmed.  Bardaccio was the team leader of fire team Beta, the Heavy Weapons fire team of the squad, which carried both a heavy laser cannon and a nova launcher, used to launch mini suns.  His Marines liked blowing stuff up.  On an order from Bardaccio, Beta three stepped into the corridor as the nova launcher moved from its resting position on his back to flip up and rest on his shoulder.

 “Mini has tone.  Firing.” Beta three reported.  The launcher hurled the mini, propelling it swiftly down the corridor, aimed at the feet of one hapless soldier in powered armor.  A split second later, the deck shook with the detonation as a mini sun about a quarter of a meter in diameter formed at the feet of the soldier, punctuated by screams of horror and pain as soldiers either died or ran futilely for their lives.  The Marine that fired the mini dove back into the mess hall, and time seemed to slow.

 “Cover!” Beta three yelled over the coms.  Raijan hit the deck.  The corpsman paused in his ministrations to cover the wounded Marine with his body.  Bardaccio ran to one of the tables bolted to the floor, ripped it up and braced himself behind it, using it as a shield.  A scant second later, the power of the mini was released as the last of the small sun’s energy was expended and it went supernova, destroying everything in a twelve foot radius, ripping apart flesh and metal alike.  The entire ship shook, and the deck plating bucked and rattled.  Bardaccio was flung across the room to crash hard against the far wall as the table he was using as a shield buckled from the concussion.  Sliding to the deck, he lay motionless.  The blast also tore away some of the bulkhead separating the mess hall from the corridor outside, and crinkled the metal of the remaining bulkhead.  Shrapnel pinged off hot armor, sounding like metal rain.  All the Marines screamed, some to deny fear, others in exhilaration.

The stillness after the supernova was eerie.  As Raijan picked himself up off the deck, the ringing in his ears began to subside.  Several ruptured conduits sparked loudly, and an ominous creaking sound permeated the ship in protest.  Smoke was thick in the air.  Switching to thermal, Raijan regain some vision as he looked around.  The sparking conduits showed brightly on his HUD as his helmet picked up its heat.  At some point during the firefight and ensuing explosion, the alarm klaxons had fallen silent, whether from the fact that its power source was interrupted, or as a result of someone finally getting tired of hearing it, Raijan did not know.  He heard the groaning of Marines over the general coms channel and, looking around, saw smoke rising from their armor.  His own armor blinked a "high heat" warning at him as its coolant systems worked overtime to bring it down to a safe level.  In that moment, they looked like gods of war, having just endured the fires of hell, and had somehow lived through it.

 “Black star, sitrep!”  Raijan blinked a couple times, collecting his wits, as Hawke’s voice came to him over the command channel.  It took a few moments before he realized it was Hawke’s voice.

 “I repeat, Black Star, sitrep!” Hawke’s voice came back.  Raijan stifled a groan as he stood himself up and looked around.  His Marines were still struggling to stand, having heavier, and less agile armor.  It looked like everyone was okay, even Beta three, who was trying to take off his helmet before Bardaccio clubbed him on his helmet hard enough to get through to the dazed Marine.

 “Keep that helmet on, Marine!  What are you, still in boot?!  Shake it off!”  Bardaccio yelled.  Marines were trained to keep their helmets on, no matter what.  Often the life support and information their helmets provided saved their lives.

 “Talon One, this is Black Star.  Everything is five by five.  We cleared out a few opfor with a mini.”  Raijan reported.  His Marines were all on their feet now, except for the corpsman, who had resumed his work on his team mate, then stopped when he noticed that the Marine’s vitals had flatlined.  He had died while the mini detonated.  Leaning forward, the corpsman rested his helmet’s faceplate against the dead marine’s faceplate, as close as one could get to expressing grief in power armor, and then slowly sat back on his haunches and looked around.

 “Beta two is on overwatch.” The corpsman reported in a husky voice.  It was a Talon tradition.  When a Marine was KIA, they are said to be on overwatch, a tactical position used for supporting and watching over the rest of their squad, usually from a vantage point far above theirs.  Everyone was still a moment, reluctant to move or break the silence.

 “Get Beta two out of his armor and set the suit’s sabotage unit.” Raijan’s voice broke the silence, and sounded loud in his own ears.  He wanted to grieve, but they had to move on.  No time.  Set the sabotage unit so that the enemy wouldn’t be able to salvage the suit or reverse engineer anything, and move on.  That is what it came down to, once a Marine went to overwatch.  It was always hard, but there was nothing you could do.

 “Beta three, secure the corridor.  Make sure all opfor is dead or out of action.”  Raijan ordered, regaining his stride.  “We need to get moving, Marines.  The longer this mission takes, the less likely its success.”  Using his neural interface, Raijan looked at where Hawke had placed the probable location to the ship’s morgue, and then sent it to fire team Charlie’s HUDs.

 “Beta three and Beta four, once you have Beta two taken care of, proceed to the objective.  Secure Talon KIA, and meet Beta One and I at the point of egress.  If you cannot make it to the point of egress, secure your own point of egress by whatever means necessary and proceed to the Black Wave. “ Raijan ordered.

 “Proceed to objective, secure Talon KIA, and either meet at point of egress, or back at the Black Wave.  Yes sir.” Beta three, acknowledged.  Raijan watched a few moments as the corpsman carefully turned Beta Two onto his belly to get at the control panel on the back of the powered armor.  Typically, Marines stepped into the armor from behind, and it enclosed them.  Then, when he needed to exit his armor, he could simply do so by using his neural interface.  However, for situations like this, the manual controls had to be used to open the armor.  Any Talon Marine could open the armor by letting the scanner read his or her RFID chip.  If identified as a Talon, the armor would open for them.  If the scanner was broken, a physical key was needed, which every officer and fire team leader carried.  Raijan blinked a couple of times and took a deep breath, realizing he needed to keep moving.  Mourn later.

Stepping into the corridor, Raijan surveyed the destruction the mini had caused.  He was always amazed at how lethal these things could be.  The deck plating above and below the detonation point had simply vaporized, along with the surrounding bulkheads.  Further away from the point of detonation the deck plating had been peeled back, the force of the blast turning the structural beams below the plating into blackened, twisted lumps of metal.  Raijan could see the deck above and below the deck his Marines were on, and could hear, in the distance, the shouts of repair crews as they tried to shut off power being sent through ruptured conduits, and shunt them to other conduits.   One floor must’ve had a water pipe running under it, for one pipe was spraying water everywhere.  Making note of the changes to the ship’s structure in his map allowed his suit’s onboard tactical computer to propose a new route to the ship’s engine room, which he sent to the rest of fire team Beta.  Running forward a couple steps, Raijan dropped down through the hole in the deck plating to the deck below them, followed quickly by Corporal Bardaccio.  They weren’t far from the engine room, but he suspected that it wouldn’t take long for the Rejaian Special Forces to regroup.

In the distance, Raijan could see a T intersection.  His mini-map on the lower right hand corner of his HUD indicated they needed to turn left.  As he rounded the corner to the left, an explosion picked him up and threw him like a toy in the opposite direction.  Raijan screamed wildly as he flew through the air, his helmet’s HUD buzzing in alarm as the readout of his armor indicated several points of impact, but no breaches.  With a roar, Bardaccio rounded the corner, gun firing.  Rejaian soldiers scrambled to get back while one brave soul leaped towards Bardaccio, brandishing an oversized combat knife.  Not having time to draw his own, Bardaccio swung the red-hot barrel of his cannon, slapping aside the man’s knife hand, and then placing his cannon directly against the man’s faceplate before firing, making a mess of the corridor behind him as blood, brain matter, and bone sprayed.  The armor stiffened in rough facsimile to the soldier’s final convulsion, and the armor landed lifelessly on its back like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut.  The other soldiers had used that time to withdraw further down the hall, and duck into a room, using that for cover as they fired small rockets down the corridor to detonate against powered armor.  Bardaccio staggered, and would have fell had he not steadied himself with a hand against the corridor.

 “Get a plasma grenade down there!” Raijan roared, finding his voice as he gingerly climbed to his feet.  He felt stupid for not being more careful about rounding a blind corner like that.  He knew better than that.  In his rush to get to the engine room, he had gotten careless and it had almost cost him his life.

“Stand clear! Stand clear!” Bardaccio yelled as he lobbed a grenade.  A moment later an explosion signaled the fiery spray of plasma as soldiers screamed.  An explosion rocked the ship as the plasma found a tender spot in the ship’s guts.  Raijan leapt forward past Bardaccio, and into the room, spraying slugs from his assault rifle as his HUD identified still active targets.  In moments it was over, and another SpecOps team lay still in their armor.

“Let’s keep moving.” Raijan said.

***

“I repeat, Blackstar, Sitrep!” Hawke yelled over the command channel.  His team had stopped and ducked into one of the rooms, a cargo room, and Marines covered each direction of the corridor when the entire ship seemed to shudder, and a muffled, rumbling explosion could be heard throughout the ship.  The silence afterward was the gasp after the storm, and Hawke feared the worst.  After his team had recovered the prisoners, resistance had been thankfully light.  If he had to guess, he would say that Raijan had found heavier resistance as he and his team fought their way to the ship’s engineering compartment.  The ship’s commanding officers probably quickly realized the danger of them reaching the engine room, and had diverted their attention almost solely on them.

“Blackstar, Sitrep!” Hawke said again.  After a moment, Raijan’s weary voice came back over the command channel.

“Talon One, this is Black Star.  Everything is five by five.  We cleared out a few opfor with a mini.” Raijan reported.  Hawke shook his head.  The man was certifiably crazy to be shooting off mini’s inside a ship.  He must have really been in trouble to have made such a desperate call.  Not bothering to reply, Hawke checked the positions of both fire teams on the schematic, and planned his exit.  He had to get Tasha, Nathan, and Fire team Alpha out of the ship and back to the Black Wave.  That was his objective.

“Alright Charlie, let’s go. Business as usual.” Hawke said over the general coms channel.  Charlie two took point as they continued their trek towards their exit.  He had chosen to go out another emergency escape hatch all the way to the front of the ship, and on the bottom, where a gator would meet them and cart them home.  Surprisingly, they met no resistance as they reached the emergency hatch, and piled into the gator, but Hawke was also listening in on Raijan’s general coms channel in the fifteen minutes it had taken for his team to make its exit and escort their charges back to the ship.  He heard another firefight transpiring, and another, and somewhere during the course of events he heard another Marine screaming “Mini! Mini! Cover!” just before a second mini had gone off.  After that, there were secondary explosions so powerful that the cargo ship rocked in its docking sling.  Smoke began rising out of the holes the Marines had melted into the ventral part of the ship’s hull, and fire alarms began blaring inside Gitmo’s docking area.  Hawke clenched his teeth.  He should be in there with his Marines.

 “Blackstar, sitrep.” Hawke said.  The coms were static for a moment before Raijan’s voice responded.

 “Busy sir. No new casualties, but they had a team in assault armor sitting in the engine room waiting for us.  We’re-”  Raijan responded briefly, before cutting out.  On the general coms channel for his team, Hawke heard Raijan say, “Beta three and four, this is Blackstar.  Sitrep!”

 “Package has been retrieved.  Resistance was minimal after we stuffed another mini down their throats.”  Beta Three reported.

 “Next objective and route.  Be there ASAP.”  Raijan commanded tersely.

 “We’re on our way sir.” Beta Three responded.  Hawke used his command interface to pull a copy of what Raijan had sent to Beta Three and four and saw that he had given them a route that would allow them to enter the engine room from a second door two decks up.  The engine room was large, with the engine core spanning several decks.  It was common to have some automated defenses in the room to protect the engine core, but a Special Forces team in assault armor on board a ship was something else entirely.  Assault armor was about ten tons of armor and heavy weapons.  The Talons had precious few of them, though each one boasted a heavy gauss rifles held in each arm, and a mini-launcher on each shoulder.  Rejaian assault armor traded heavy gauss rifles for heavy laser cannons, and mini launchers for rocket launchers.  Assault armor could weather a hit from most ground-based weapons carried on the battlefield, and keep going.  It was used when a bigger club was needed.  Having one deployed inside a ship was bad enough, but four was just sheer madness.

 “Fire at will! Fire at…” Another large explosion interrupted Raijan, and Hawke jumped when a part of the hull plating rocketed outwards, and the remnants of someone in assault armor was thrown out over the dock to plummet lifelessly to the deck plating of the docking bay far below.  The crash shook the docks, and now dock workers were running, trying to get out of the docks in case there was a engine core breach on the station.  Smoke and fire roiled from the hull breach towards the aft sections of the Choyo, and now the thunder of weapons fire could be clearly heard as it echoed throughout the dockyard.  Finally, Hawke’s team had arrived at the Black Wave’s cargo elevator, and he signaled the driver to stop.  Turning to his Marines, he made a decision.

 “I’ve got to go back.” Hawke said.  “Your mission is complete.  If any of you wish to get on board, get out and into the cargo elevator.”  Turning to Nathan, he added, “Get your team on board.  Command of the ship is yours until I return.”  Nathan didn’t like it, but he nodded in agreement as he gingerly climbed out of the Gator, with his team following him.  They weren’t in any condition to help, he knew, but he still felt he was abandoning Raijan.  None of the other Marines moved.  Instead, they began rechecking their gear, getting ready to help the rest of their squad.  Hawke nodded in satisfaction, pride clearly showing on his face as he gave the driver’s shoulder a slap.  With the roar of the gator’s engines, they shot back across the dock floor, towards the firefight, and the destroyed assault armor that burned there.

***

 “Fire at will! Fire at-“ Rockets peppered the deck plating right next to where he had been hunched behind a particularly thick bulkhead, and the resulting explosion sent him flying backwards.  His team was using bulkheads and support beams as cover as they engaged the four SpecOps in assault armor that stood in a wedge formation, their rocket launchers and heavy laser cannons spitting death and destruction everywhere. Bardaccio was on point as they entered the engine room, and was hit right in the chest with a heavy laser cannon, disintegrating his midsection to ash.  The shocked look on his face could be dimly seen through his faceplate a moment before limbs and head dropped to the floor.  He hadn’t even had time to scream, and Raijan knew there wouldn’t even be enough left of him to recover.   The Rejaians were desperate, Raijan realized, but in their desperation they may very well destroy that which they are trying to save.

Raijan’s head cracked against the wall as he impacted against the bulkhead.  Had it not been reinforced to help protect the engine room, it would have dented.  As it was, he landed on hands and knees as he tried to breathe, having the wind knocked out of him.  The HUD on his helmet began flashing red on an entirely new section of his armor, and he quickly realized that he must look a wreck.  Smoke rose from his armor, which was pitted and scarred with multiple hits.  It was a miracle that nothing had won past his armor to do him bodily harm yet.  With a scream of rage, Beta three, having just arrived with Beta four stepped out of cover on the balcony one deck above with his mini launcher at the ready, and fired a mini at the feet of the foremost assault armor, then dove for cover as the enemy tried to back quickly away.  With a deafening explosion the mini went supernova, and the assault armor at which Beta three had fired went rocketing backwards, smashing through the hull.  Workstations around the engine core exploded, and an emergency shield was put in place around the engine core as debris rained down and shrapnel pinged around the engine compartment.  Raijan’s armor became red hot, and his cooling systems kicked into overdrive again as a fresh wave of sweat stung his eyes, the salty taste of it on his lips.  Finally able to breathe again, Raijan labored to his feet, using his assault rifle as an aid.

The deck trembled as the three remaining Special Forces soldiers either climbed back to their feet, or poked their heads out from behind cover to view the devastation.  One leveled his heavy laser cannons at them and fired, melting through the bulkheads behind them instead.  With that, the firefight was rejoined.  Rockets, lasers, slugs, and plasma grenades went flying back and forth, but Raijan knew that his team was overmatched.  While they could fire more mini’s to destroy them, it would definitely breach the energy shields around the core, killing everyone.

From one level up, Beta Three and Four renewed their assault, their GUA-4X’s whirring as they sent a hail of slugs from down on high, and focused on the head of the nearest soldier.  For a moment Raijan watched with amazement as the helmet of the assault armor stood up under the withering barrage before finally cracking into a thousand pieces, along with the head inside it.  The assault armor’s heavy laser cannons continued to fire a moment or so more before the armor mimicked the soldier’s body as it stiffened then fell lifelessly to the deck with a loud crash.

The turning of the tide was short lived, however, as one of the SpecOps soldiers turned its attention to the support beams under the deck Beta Three and Four was on, and wiped them out with a rocket barrage.  Shouts could be heard over the general coms channel as the deck plating gave way, dumping the two to the floor, and were chased down by debris from the deck that had been above them, burying them.  Raijan felt sick to his stomach as he realized he may have just lost two more members of his fire team.  He had not expected them to engage in such wanton destruction of their own ship, but then again, he did not expect assault armor either.  It was too his relief, however, that the rubble began to shift as beta three and four slowly climbed back to their feet, though beta four seemed to have difficulty walking.  It seemed he may have lost partial power to his left leg.

 “Black…st…can you… me? Give…all you’ve got! “ Hawke’s voice came over the command channel, interspersed with static.  The Choyo must’ve been trying to jam their communications net.  Raijan guessed at what Hawke was trying to say and gave the order to attack all out on the two remaining soldiers.  The Marines of fire team Beta did just that, driving them back and gouging craters in their armor.

Then came the sound of thunder as five Marines in power armor burst through the hole in the Choyo’s hull on jets of plasma, weapons firing at the tender rear armor of the SpecOps soldiers.   One Marine jetted straight towards one of the SpecOps soldiers, colliding with him in a bone-jarring crash.  Reaching down, he jammed a plasma grenade in the gap between armor plates at the neck, and then jetted off as the plasma grenade detonated, engulfing the assault armor’s head in plasma, bringing the soldier inside to a spectacular end as the smoking armor collapsed.  The remaining soldier met an equally spectacular end as Beta three’s heavy laser finally won past layers of armor to sever his leg.  Screaming, the man rolled on the deck, trying to cradle his stump where his leg once was, forgetting that assault armor only had weapons on its armature, rather than a hand.  The canopy of the assault armor opened, revealing a bloody and bruised spec ops soldier as he struggled to disengage from the armor, blood seeping from his burned and cauterized leg, but then unconsciousness mercifully took him, never to awake again. 

Hawke landed not far from Raijan, his landing cushioned by a jet of plasma as the whine of his jet pack slowly died, bringing with it silence.  Even the alarm Klaxons had long since faded, replaced by the groaning of the ships superstructure as it attempted to compensate for serious breaches of its structural integrity.  Hawke’s armor was brutish looking.  Much of the paint had been scoured away by fire, and what remained was scarred and pitted from the impact of gunfire and shrapnel.  About the only thing that remained was the unit insignia painted on his chest, though it too showed signs of having seen better days.  A cracked and battered faceplate flipped back to reveal the colonel’s smiling face, streaked with sweat.  From a pouch on his bandoleer he slid out a cigar he had managed to tuck away, used his combat knife to snip off the end, lit it by pressing it against the red hot barrel of his GAU-4X, and then took a moment to puff on his cigar as if it was just another day at the office.

“How about you get those charges set so we can get out of here? Our ride is waiting.” Hawke suggested. For a moment Raijan just stared at Hawke with disbelief in his eyes, then shook his head and waved wearily to his men to plant the charges. He decided, not for the first time, that his commanding officer must be a little crazy for wading into battle like he did. Yet it was that kind of courage that Raijan respected.Crazy or not, he was an honorable man.

Next Chapter: Chapter 11