The Choyo looked a little strange in terms of design. When viewed from above, it was reminiscent of the skull, spine, and ribs of a human. The skull portion of the ship housed the bridge, on the top deck, and the command quarters could be found one deck below. The spine served as the ship’s main support beam than ran from stem to stern. Inside of the spine ran a wide corridor that facilitated the quick movement of personnel, cargo, and equipment. Elevator shafts ran vertically down the ribs, which curved down from the spine. On the ribs could be found several giant latches into which the ship’s modules could be connected, and airlocks on the modules lined up with airlocks built into the ship’s ribs, creating a safety system in which damaged modules could be sealed off, or even jettisoned in an emergency.

When used for carrying troops, the troops that were unfortunate enough to be transported by this particular class of troop transport were referred to as ‘sardines in a can,’ because they were rather unceremoniously packed into the troop transport modules as tightly as possible. Other modules had been engineered for this ship, to allow it to perform other purposes, such as a command, control, and communications module, a manufacturing module, or even a scientific research module. Commander Schultz had taken his team towards the front portion of the ship, the skull, and entered through an emergency hatch there on the lower deck.

Now Rejaian Special Ops were guarding maintenance men as they welded the emergency hatch shut, and additional guards were placed at the entrance to both of the walkways that extended from the docks to the Choyo’s airlocks. Though the guards were watchful, none thought to look up. From high above the docks, Hawke, Raijan, and the two remaining fire teams descended on plasma jets, fired by their powered armor’s primary jetpack as they dropped.

“Target rapidly approaching. Preparing breaching blast.” A cold, disembodied voice announced. Hawke’s body tensed in preparation of what came next as a lifetime of training and experience took over. Hot dropping on a ship in a boarding operation was always rough, especially when not in zero G. The Jet pack would cut off momentarily while it built up a charge to emit a massive burst of plasma that would burn a hole right through the double hull of the ship in question, while the armor’s stabilizing thrusters maneuvered him through the hole to land on the deck inside.

The jet pack’s plasma jets cut off, and Hawke heard the familiar whine as it prepared its boarding blast while his rate of descent temporarily increased in a free fall. Just before crashing against the hull of the ship, Hawke was pushed firmly down in his armor’s boots by g-forces as the jet pack let out a thunderous roar. The ship’s hull turned instantly white hot, and then fell inward on itself as it was melted to slag. Hawke’s stabilizers kicked in, jerking him a little backwards as they guided him through the breach, and then worked to cushion his landing. The landings were always rough. With a bone-jarring crash Hawke landed on the deck. Though his armor absorbed most of the impact, he still felt pain shoot up his legs and into his hips. All down the hull, Hawke could see his Marines landing as alarm klaxons screamed at them throughout the ship. There were eight of them, along with Raijan and himself. They had landed in the central corridor that made up the ship’s ‘backbone’.

“Fire team B, with me.” Raijan commanded as he led the way aft, towards the engines. The fire team moved quickly to catch up, passing Second Lieutenant Kemai to take point. Hawke watched them as they moved towards the engine room, their primary objective.

“Team C, on me.” Hawke said less formally. On his HUD, he pulled up a schematic of the ship with a thought to view the mission overlay superimposed on it. He knew every one of his Marines were doing the same thing. It was one of the things they drilled into you in boot camp: always be aware of your situation. Hawke wasn’t sure where the brig was, but that was his goal. He had a couple possible locations highlighted on the schematic projected on his HUD. Designating them as nav points alpha and beta, he mentally projected those nav points to his fire team’s HUDs.

“Corporal Stewie, assign your point man and rear guard. Let’s get moving.” Hawke ordered. Corporal Stewie was a rather young Corporal, only having been in the Talon Marine Corps for about two years, but he had a quick mind and was very good at small squad tactics. Hawke knew he had to get to the brig as soon as possible before Raijan and his team completed their objectives. After that, it would be too late.

“Movement to the rear.” One of the Marines reported. Hawke glanced at the mini map on his HUD and saw three red dots appear, projecting the visual contact.

“If it moves, kill it.” Hawke ordered.

“If it moves, kill it. Yes sir.” The Marine replied. A half second later the hallway echoed with the brief whine of a weapon spooling up, followed by a loud ‘brrrrrp’ sound as the Marine’s primary weapon unleashed a storm of slugs down the corridor.

Several hundred years ago on ancient earth, a weapon called the 30mm GAU-8 Gatling-type cannon was mounted on a particularly vicious close air support aircraft, capable of firing up to 70 rounds a second. Back when the Gadari Republic Marine Corps were still in the design stages of their powered armor, someone had the bright idea of mounting a potent, modernized version of this weapon as its primary weapon. The GAU-4X rail Cannon had a series of eight barrels extending about sixty centimeters that spun in a circle, cycling from firing a slug to loading it from the ammo feed built into their packs, which carried so many rounds of ammunition that most marines did not really worry about running dry. Capable of firing an improved rate of 150 rounds a second, the GAU-4X rail cannon had four settings, low velocity for shipboard operations, high velocity for general purpose, armor piercing, and an incendiary setting which switched ammo types from inert, oval-shaped metal slugs typically fired by rail guns to slugs designed to explode on impact – useful for eliminating groups of soft targets and cover. With its self-stabilizing gun mounting, as well as having built in stabilizers for their powered armor, Talon Marines could fire these with a high degree of accuracy, usually while on the move.

“Alright, let’s go bring our family home.” Hawke growled.

***

Bright lights greeted Tasha as she clawed her way back to consciousness, and a cup was at her lips, pouring sweet, cool water down the desert of her throat. Instinctively, she tried grabbing the cup, only to find that her arms were bound to the arms of the chair she was sitting in. She noted that she could see out of both eyes now. The swelling must’ve gone down, or perhaps they treated her while she was unconscious. From the lights shining in her eyes, she could only guess that she was back in the interrogation room, a guess that was confirmed when her eyes drifted up to land on the face of her interrogator. Asian eyes were expressionless as he held the cup to her lips.

“Back from the dead, I see.” Her interrogator observed. His was a dry, emotionless voice given to merely stating facts. Your eyes are green. You are a brunette. You are a woman. Tasha said nothing, but rather chose to discretely test her bonds. At first she despaired, but felt a surge of exultation that she carefully hid as the bindings on her right leg gave a little. Having drunk the cup of water dry, her interrogator set it aside.

“Now, shall we begin again?” The interrogator asked rhetorically. Tasha hated him. He showed cruelty of a kind that scared her. Until now, he had used a friendly voice, but this time his expression had been blank. He neither liked nor disliked his interrogations. It was as if no passion burned in the heart of him. He seemed inhuman. Discretely, Tasha worked at the loosened binding on her ankle, ignoring the fresh blood coursing down her ankle and inside her combat boot.

“Who do you work for?” Her Interrogator asked. Tasha said nothing, but instead met her interrogators eyes, the only act of defiance she could provide, tied as she was. Her interrogator sighed, and the first sign of frustration glimmered in his eyes. With a sudden move, his hand lashed out, and Tasha’s head snapped back as he landed a backhanded blow that crushed her cheek against her teeth. She could not stop a faint cry as more blood coursed over her teeth, into her mouth, and down her throat. She swallowed, but could do nothing else. Subtlety, she flexed her leg muscle against her loosening binding and felt it give way a bit more. Almost there!

“Do not defy me! It is you who has dishonored yourself by being captured, not I who has captured you.” He said as he placed a hand over each of her arms which were tied to the arms of the chair and leaned into her face. Tasha spit at him, blood and saliva spraying the man’s face and shoulders, making him flinch. His face darkened in anger, the first real sign of emotion she had seen from the man, as he lashed out again with cat-like quickness, hitting her much harder this time. The blow rocked Tasha’s head to the side, and sent her chair back on its hind legs briefly before landing back on all fours. Just like that, her interrogator’s anger was gone. His expression was once again blank. He stood beyond reach as he took a white cloth from his pants pocket and wiped his face. The bindings on her leg gave way suddenly, causing her to jerk, which got her interrogator’s attention.

“I see.” Her interrogator said in sudden understanding. “You hoped I would be so angry that I would not notice.” A ghost of a smile shadowed across the man’s lips as he bent forward, arms reaching downwards towards the bindings that she had just freed herself from so that he could tie her back up again.

With a primal scream born of desperation, Tasha mustered all of her remaining strength and flung herself backwards in the chair, snapping her foot up to connect solidly with her interrogator’s chin. His head was flung backwards as if it were on a hinge, and there was a loud snapping sound as his jaw broke. Unconscious, his eyes glazed over, and he landed in a heap on the metal floor with a dull thud. Tasha continued to tip over in her chair, and landed with a crash. Caught by surprise, the guards stared at her in what she guessed was shock, though their faceplates on their helmets obscured their expressions. Just as one took a step towards her, the entire room shook, and from somewhere up above, Tasha heard a series of muffled explosions. Tasha gave the guards a bloody, sinister grin. They hesitated a moment, seeming to be torn between dealing with Tasha, or finding out what was going on, but the latter won out as both guards ran out the door leaving Tasha bound to a chair, laying on the floor. She couldn’t help but laugh at her predicament. It was either that, or cry.

***

The Explosions shook the ship, waking Nathan up with a start. For a moment he was disoriented, but then he grunted as he struggled to sit up. He gasped with pain as the medical brace around his ribs tried to equalize the pressure on his broken ribs. His interrogators seemed to have taken some kind of perverse pleasure in using a rod and carefully placed blows to break a rib for every time he refused to answer a question. They ran out of ribs. Twice.

Thanks to modern medical technology, they were able to use DNA regenerators to knit the bones together in a matter of about an hour. After the second time, however, they reasoned that perhaps the extreme pain of simply putting on a medical brace around his ribs would make him talk eventually. It was a battlefield dressing used by medics that automatically adjusted its pressure to keep the ribs from puncturing anything vital while allowing the wearer to regain a measure of mobility until they could be regenerated. Some forms of torture involved setting the brace to tighten in small increments until unbroken ribs snapped, and began slowly impaling internal organs, often resulting in death should no answers be forthcoming. Fortunately, the Rejaians didn’t use such tactics. They were too civilized, or so they claimed.

Nathan forced himself up, and then leaned against the wall, his breaths coming in shallow gasps, each one knifing through his torso bringing with it a fresh wave of pain. Focusing on slowing his breathing, and forcing himself to take slightly deeper breaths, the pain eased a little, though not a lot. Then he grimaced as the ship shook again, accompanied by a loud explosion. He wondered briefly what Hawke was thinking, carrying out a full scale attack on the Choyo. He knew it had to be Hawke, because no one else was crazy enough to do it.

Down the hall, Nathan heard the door to the ship’s brig open, and men yelling in the hallway outside. Then there was the familiar sound of a GAU-4X being fired that Nathan easily recognized, punctuated by muffled screams in the distance. He heard the loud ‘thump, thump, thump’ of powered armor drawing near. Shuffling to the door and peeking through the small slot in the cell door that served as the window, he saw a man in Powered Armor painted in a digital urban color scheme, displaying the familiar Talon Company crest on its chest. On its shoulder were painted the double golden bars signifying the rank of colonel in the Marine Corps. Nathan weakly yelled, catching the man’s attention.

“Get back!” Hawke yelled, moving to the door. Nathan quickly retreated across the room just as the door buckled inward from an immense blow. After two more blows, the door’s sturdy bolts finally gave away with the dying shriek of metal against metal, and the door flung wide on bent hinges.

“Are you okay?” Hawke said. His faceplate flipped up and back, revealing a sweating Hawke, who looked none too happy. Nathan grunted and shook his head, unable to speak, much less breathe very well. Taking one look at his best friend, Hawke spoke into his helmet’s mic.

“Corpsman, I have an injured Marine here! Stewie, assign a lifeguard!” Hawke ordered. A lifeguard was a Marine whose sole job was to protect an item or person. In this case, his charge was Nathan. Within moments two marines in powered armor were there, one with a small red cross painted on each of the armor’s shoulders. The corpsman took out what looked like a wand, with a wire that was plugged into his armor’s power systems. It was a medical device capable of scanning someone’s body and providing a digital readout on the corpsman’s HUD. Waving his wand over Nathan’s ribs, the corpsman grunted.

“Bloody hell sir, how’re you standing?” The corpsman asked, though it was clear that he didn’t expect an answer. Grabbing a case attached to his thigh armor, the corpsman opened it, revealing a line of syringes. Choosing one, he quickly and expertly injected the Commander. “That should do it. It will take about twenty seconds. It’s the best I can do until we get you back to the ship. The Doc can fix you up, then.” With that, the corpsman stood and walked back towards the main hall of the brig. From one of the other cells in the brig, hollers could be heard, and one or two were pounding on doors.

“Corpsman, kick down the other doors and get our Marines out of there.” Hawke ordered, then turned towards Nathan, who took his first deep breath free of pain since he had been captured and nodded, signaling he was good to go.

“We haven’t found Altihkova or Wittaker. Do you know where they are?” Hawke asked, all business.

“Wittaker was killed. I’d imagine his body is in the ship’s morgue. Tasha was being held right next door. If she’s not there, she’s in the interrogation room, a couple doors down to the left.” Nathan answered. Hawke’s faceplate flipped down and he brought up the schematic of the ship again. Highlighting a room two doors down, he designated it as a nav point and shared it with his fire team. Having done that, he looked for probable locations for the ship’s morgue, which he found was towards the aft sections of the ship. Raijan’s fire team was closer. Using his helmet’s neural interface, he switched to the command coms channel with a thought.

“Black Star, this is Talon One. Status report.” Hawke ordered. Black Star was the Raijan’s designation.

“Talon One, this is Black Star. We are encountering heavy resistance. One Marine critically wounded. We are patching him up now in what looks to be a mess hall.” Raijan reported. Anger twisted Hawke’s features into a snarl, but he knew there was nothing he could do at the moment. Besides, Second Lieutenant Kemai excelled in small unit tactics. He had utmost trust and respect for him.

“Acknowledged.” Hawke replied, then added, “Black Star, you have a new objective. You are to retrieve one KIA in the ship’s morgue. I’m sending you probable locations marked nav points four and five. Bring him home.” Hawke ordered.

“Find KIA in the ship’s morgue and bring him home, aye-aye.” Raijan confirmed. In the background of Raijan’s transmission, Hawke could hear a ferocious firefight, punctuated by a thunderous blast. Give ’em hell, he thought.

“Sir, Special Forces!” Stewie’s voice yelled through the coms. Hawke snapped back to the present as two Marines who had been guarding the corridor from the door to the brig both began firing their rail cannons, sending a hailstorm of projectiles down the corridor.

“Shredder!” Hawke heard one of the Marines yell. There was a loud explosion, followed by the pinging sounds of small steel filaments bouncing harmlessly off powered armor. Hawke made his way out of the brig and into the hall just in time to see one of his marines lob a plasma grenade down the hall towards two special ops soldiers wearing powered armor. Backpedalling, the special forces soldiers tried frantically to duck back around the corner into the corridor as the plasma grenade exploded, sending the burning material of the sun spraying in every direction, melting the deck and bulkheads surrounding it to slag. He heard one of the SpecOps soldiers scream as the armor around his arm melted away and immolated his arm. His buddy grabbed him by his other arm, swinging the injured man around and behind him, presumably into the arms of a medic. Hawke winced. It would take a long time to replace that limb, if there was any bone left, that is. Sometimes they could graft a titanium bone structure to replace lost bone, then use DNA regeneration procedures to grow the arm from there, but usually the operation cost too much to waste on a grunt.

Finally free of the attentions of the corpsman, who had injected them all with painkillers, Grobnak, Serms, and Delgato had broken open a weapons locker near the entrance of the brig, and were busy loading up. Catching up with his freed fire team, Nathan grabbed a rifle as well, and started loading it. Though he and his fire team were the worse for wear, and lacked the armor they came in with, they could help lay down a little firepower in a pinch. Nathan checked the rifle’s action and chamber, and then loaded in a clip. It looked to be a semi-automatic subsonic rail rifle. It wasn’t the best of weapons, but it would still do the job.

“Moving two doors down. Rearguard action.” Hawke ordered as he moved towards the door in question. Behind him, Nathan walked more easily, with his lifeguard following him closely.

Arriving at the door in question, Hawke saw that it was locked, and kicked it open as he did previously to Nathan’s cell door. The armor enhanced his strength, one of the benefits of powered armor, and the door exploded inward after two kicks, but what Hawke saw gave him pause. Lying on the floor, a bleeding, disheveled, and thoroughly beaten Tasha was laughing. Next to her, her interrogator lay in a heap, bleeding from his mouth and obviously unconscious.

“Corpsman!” Hawke yelled, as he kneeled next to Tasha. Slipping out his combat knife, made larger for easy handling in bulky, armored hands, Hawke carefully cut through Tasha’s bonds. Tasha had stopped laughing, but now blinked as if unsure of whether or not what she was seeing was real. The corpsman appeared, kneeling next to Hawke and waving his wand over her body, and shook his head in wonderment.

“No broken bones, though I don’t know how.” the corpsman reported, then got out another one of the syringes similar to the one he injected Nathan with and pumped painkillers into Tasha. Tasha groaned, but then stiffly climbed to her feet with Hawke’s help. Hawke’s faceplate slid back, as he looked Tasha over to make sure she was going to be okay.

“Corpsman, you’re her lifeguard.” Hawke said shortly before sliding his faceplate back into place.

“Alright Marines, let’s make our exit.” Hawke said over the coms.

Next Chapter: Chapter 10