No Mercy (Blood War Book 4) Page 19

  Nani examined the 3-D closely. It looked like there were several places they could land the spike troops.

  “Now, when you make your plans, understand something. We’ve learned that the Xotoli are not going to pound New York into dust. They believe their god gave all resources in the universe to them and we’re using what's theirs. So they want to take this planet with as little loss of resources as possible. But more important is that their leader wants to become their head honcho, and to do that, he has to kill the secretary general himself.”

  Nani could only stare at the huge island on the display. It would be them out there by themselves. Not a good prospect.

  “So as you engage the Xotoli, you are to look for their leader. Apparently if we can kill this guy they will stop fighting and leave until they can figure out who’s in charge.”

  Nani could only shake her head. Things got stranger and stranger.

  “Good. If that’s all it takes I’ll shoot that fucker first thing,” Rie Basso, their sniper, said.

  “Good plan, Sergeant, but I don’t think it will be that easy. We have our heavy weapons with us, and you can call in rockets, smart rounds, anything you need. A series of strongpoints will be established, but I suspect the Xotoli won’t always go where we want them to in this environment. So I’m going to be playing chess with this Xotoli, moving the strongpoints around to funnel troops into kill sacks or to block them. You, Lieutenant, are going to be my queen. Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, but I was using a chess metaphor.”

  “Queen Nani.”

  “A new nickname has just been born.”

  “Shut up,” Nani snapped. Everyone did, but some continued to laugh. “Sir, we’re not even at full strength and they pulled a couple of my people to help with the other platoons. Can I get them back?”

  “Yes. Work with the XO and give her the names. Make sure they have fought with you. As I said, even old hands on new teams can cause problems.”

  “How many can I get?”

  “As many as have experience with you and the platoon.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “No, the bigger the Quick Reaction Force the better. Also, get any weapons you think you might need. You should be receiving a download with all of the supply and ammo dumps we have already established. Any more requests?”

  “Yes, sir. Are you assigning any Mike boats to support us?”

  “Yes, two.”

  “Then I’d like to request a certain pilot—Lee, and whoever he thinks is good enough for this mission.”

  “Why him?”

  “He’s the crazy pilot who saved our asses on Chika and 703. If I’m going to be in the deep shit, I want him flying the boat.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  Sand turned to Lieutenant Chuto, the Naval Special Warfare Squadron commander.

  “You hear that, Lieutenant?”

  “Roger, sir.”

  “Anything else, Lieutenant?”

  Nani hesitated then said, “We have any idea what this Xotoli leader looks like?”

  “Negative, but I think you’ll know him when you see him.”

  “Hope so, sir.”

  “Now get with Major Regen and Captain Yu for your specific orders. We have no idea when they will start the invasion.”

  Chapter 30

  Sol System

  Earth

  CVN Phoenix

  Sergeant Marga Mathis entered sick bay and found Jakob Petrussen sitting up in his bed. Wires and tubes attached to each limb continued to push fluids into him as the nanos did their work on his crushed legs.

  She smiled and said, “Well, look who’s sitting up finally. About time you stopped goldbricking.”

  Jakob smiled and said, “Me? All you do is sit around and pretend you‘re waiting for a mission.”

  Marga stood beside the bed and smiled down at him. “You look good. What do they say about when you can get out of here?”

  “Not long. Just a few more days and the nanos will have repaired my legs. See? Good as new. They just want to make sure there are no complications.” Petrussen moved his legs under the sheets.

  “I heard the admiral came to see you.”

  “Yes, she wants me in the CIC on the weapons-systems station. She says she wants a good Capella man she can trust for the upcoming battle.”

  Marga looked pleased. “So I saved an important person. Who knew? You looked like a mess to me.”

  “That is an important mess to you, Sergeant.”

  Marga smiled at him. “Well, you concentrate on getting your strength back because you’re going to need it.”

  “Why?”

  “I saved your life, so you owe me one.”

  Marga’s comm snapped on. The face in the holo said, “Sergeant, report to your ship immediately. We have a priority mission for you.”

  “Roger, on the way. Gotta go. You get well now,” Marga said, and she left his bedside. A nurse walked up to check his meds and nano progression.

  “What does it mean when an old Legionnaire says I owe her one?”

  The pretty nurse smiled and said, “You don’t know? Well, it means that you owe that person a shore leave with all the booze, drugs, and sex they can stand.”

  “But...”

  “Man up, young Chief. From what I’ve heard she is well worth it.”

  “Are you speaking from experience, nurse?”

  She just arched an eyebrow and said, “You ask too many questions, Chief. Now go to sleep.”

  The nurse adjusted his meds and walked away with a smug smile. She did know. Marga was quite a specimen, and she usually like other women.

  Marga sat in the seat across from the docking lock in the swift boat as it approached ULCV 1206.

  “Remember, this could be a live one. We could be walking into a hybrid takeover. Lock and load.”

  The briefing had been short on intel. All they got was that the harbor master couldn’t raise the captain, which was very unusual. They could very well be walking into something very nasty on a vessel filled with enough military munitions to destroy the whole harbor.

  “Thirty seconds,” the pilot said.

  They had planned three separate entries at the same time: the bridge, the engine room, and the crew compartment. The three swift boats would dock with the escape hatches for abandoning the ship.

  The swift-boat pilots were good. Marga watched the approach on her heads-up, and they all were going to dock with the ship at exactly the same time. These ULCVs only had a crew of ten people. They were needed only to monitor the systems’ AI and the robots that did all the real work. With three squads of DATs, they outnumbered the crew over three to one. Even hybrids would have a hard time with that many armored former Legionnaires. Still, she didn’t want any of her troops to get sloppy. Hybrids were dangerous armed or unarmed, and if they had taken over the ship, they would not surrender. They would have to be killed.

  “Okay, everyone. Thirty seconds. Go in fast and hard. Do not give them a chance to move on us. Keep in pairs. Close-quarters weapons.”

  Marga’s platoon had been given the bridge as their entry point. It was the most likely place for the hybrids to be if they had taken over the ship. The swift boat gently bumped against the Von Fleet ship, and the docking lock extended and mated with the Von Fleet’s escape hatch. Once attached, it flashed open and Marga was up and out of her seat, rushing through the hatch and onto the bridge. She had her shotgun up and ready, but she found nothing. The bridge was empty. Her squad spread out through the bridge and the rooms behind it, but they found nothing. All she heard over her comm was one “Clear” after another. She didn’t like it. It smelled like an ambush.

  “One to Two.”

  “Two, go.”

  “You got anything?”

  “Nothing. You?”

  “Negative. Three?” Marga asked.

  “Negative.”

  “Okay, you know the drill. Start your search. I don’t like this.”

  Marga led
the squad slowly across the huge bridge. It stretched the entire width of the ship. To her right was a bank of displays that were set on window, so she could see the entire length of the ship to the bow. In front of those displays was a long bank of controls for everything from steering to robots. Someone could sit here and run the entire ship without moving. There were several seats behind the controls and what appeared to be the captain’s chair, which had more controls than any other chair. It even had physical controls, with buttons and levers that would have been at home on a ship hundreds of years ago.

  Must be the physical backup, Marga thought. She moved forward slowly, trying not to miss anything. Then she saw a large stain on the deck. She switched her heads-up display, and it analyzed the stain and identified it as blood.

  “We’ve got blood on the deck,” she announced on the all-hands comm.

  As she reached the end of the bridge, a sailor suddenly appeared from the hatch. He was large and muscled up. He looked like any other Von Fleet sailor, but there was something making every one of her combat instincts scream this was a bad guy.

  “Halt!”

  “Well, we weren’t expecting company. You should have told us you were coming, Sergeant. We could have prepared a welcoming party.”

  He was too relaxed. He’d just opened a hatch and been confronted with a squad of direct action troops with their weapons pointed at him. No, this guy smelled. He started to move.

  “Freeze or die,” Marga snapped.

  The man just smiled.

  “Do you really think that you can stop us now?”

  He jumped, and even though Marga had her weapon on him with her finger on the trigger, when she fired she was only able to blow one leg off before he landed on top of her. He knocked her to the deck, but the troops behind her cut him to pieces with their fighting axes.

  Marga popped to her feet and said, “Hybrids, hybrids!”

  “This is Two, we are in a fight.”

  Marga switched her heads-up to show the position of Team Two. They were in the crew compartment. It appeared the majority of the hybrids were in the crew quarters.

  “Three, head to the crew quarters.”

  Marga, followed by her squad, raced down the ladders to the crew quarters. They would have been able to move faster if the artificial gravity were off. As it was they had to move down the ladders in full armor and with weapons out. She watched as one after another of Team Two went down as yellows, and there was even a red.

  Goddamnit, Marga thought. They had been waiting for them to board to ambush them. Marga and her team burst into the crew quarters to find desperate hand-to-hand combat in tight quarters. A hybrid had raised a fighting ax over one downed trooper, about to finish him off. Marga blew its head off with a blast from her shotgun. She took another out with a second shot from her shotgun. The fight continued until there was only one hybrid left. He stood there smiling at them with his back to the bulkhead. He was holding something in his hand. Marga killed him with a carefully aimed shot to the head.

  They all stood there looking around, waiting for any more hybrids. But they were all down.

  “Clear.”

  “Clear.”

  While the rest of her squad and the survivors of Squad Two began to search the compartment, she went over to the hybrid she had killed. She reached down and picked up what he had been holding. It was a timer, and it was counting down.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  Marga’s last thought was Fuck, I should’ve known. The first explosion was not the largest, but Marga and her team disappeared in it. Then there was a series of blasts, each one larger than the last.

  Harbor Master Dunc Hafu naturally couldn’t hear or feel the series of massive explosions that destroyed the 1206, but the sudden orange flashes that were as bright as the sun caught his eye. The first broke the back of the container ship in two. The next broke the bow and sent it spiraling through the harbor, striking and holing a docked destroyer before continuing to embed itself in a cruiser and exploding, destroying it in its berth. The stern broke away, spinning through the tank farm filled with all manner of hazardous materials needed to support the fleet. The tanks began exploding one after another, adding to the carnage of the 1206.

  Dunc reached forward, hit the large red button that declared a harbor-wide emergency, and warned all ships that they were under attack.

  This was the second time he had seen this happen. The first had been on Rift, but this was Earth. He watched in horror as one of the containers from the 1206 exploded, sending eight-inch rail rounds through the harbor, holing ships and destroying the small repair vessel they struck. The hybrids had rigged the ship to explode in a way to produce the maximum amount of damage to the harbor.

  There was a final explosion, the largest of them all. Dunc watched in horror as a ship-sized piece of the 1206 slowly somersaulted its way toward the harbor-control facility. As it got closer, Dunc could see what looked like part of the artificial-gravity compartment.

  Dunc actually ducked, even though he knew it would do him no good. The piece of 1206 struck the harbor-control facility with enough velocity to split it in half, killing Dunc and hundreds of men and women in an instant.

  Chapter 31

  CVN Phoenix

  Combat Information Center

  Task Force 54

  High Earth Orbit

  “General quarters, general quarters, all hands to battle stations. This is not a drill.”

  Ririsa Grogen had been sitting in her compartment working on the patrolling assignments. Since reaching high orbit, she'd had the crew on normal watches until she had a reason to change to a war footing. She had the fighters making normal patrols from just past the Moon to halfway to Venus, just to keep eyes on the battle space. The general quarters startled her, because she had not expected anything to happen without some warning. She reached out and touched the comm icon on her desk. The face of the young watch officer appeared.

  “Lieutenant, why are we at general quarters?”

  “It’s New York Harbor, ma’am. Something exploded and well...here is a visual.”

  What had been a busy harbor had been turned into an orbiting debris field of ships. Even the harbor facility had been destroyed.

  “Give me a video from the start, Lieutenant.”

  The video started with the Von Fleet 1206 exploding, spreading destruction throughout the harbor. The sequence of explosions, each one doing more damage than the one before, told her all she needed to know. It was an act of sabotage. An act that, if she had to guess, was a carefully planned and coordinated attack before the Xotoli struck. She had to give it to them. They used their assets to the fullest extent possible.

  “Admiral, I know I should have asked you before going to general quarters, but I felt this warranted it.”

  “Lieutenant, shut up. You did exactly what I trained you to do. I want you to launch all fighters. I repeat, launch all fighters and advise Commander Temesgen that he should be at general quarters and to expect the Xotoli attack at any moment. I will be in the CIC.”

  Ririsa stood and hurried down to the CIC. Her staff was still pulling together a situation report when she walked into the room.

  “Battle Captain, what have you got so far? I don’t care if it’s only a partial.”

  “Ma’am, from what we know, our DAT team was sent to board and search the Von Fleet ULCV 1206. They boarded the vessel and reported hybrids on board. There was a fight, then the vessel exploded. Its cargo was military munitions of all kinds, and the hybrids apparently rigged them so they went off in a sequence that caused maxium damage to the port.”

  Ririsa allowed herself a single moment to mourn Marga. She had been quite a woman and Legionnaire. But if she had to guess, Marga would have wanted to go out fighting, not sitting on some planet growing old. She studied the carnage that had been a well-run harbor filled with ships only moments before. This was exactly the kind of thing the Xotoli would do just
before they invaded. It had crippled much of the fleet and caused resources that needed to be elsewhere to be used to try and control what was a still-occurring disaster. She watched as dozens of small rescue vehicles and tugs swooped into the debris as they tried to control the damage to various ships and rescue trapped personnel. In spite of the disaster she was looking at, it made her proud she was part of a navy that had such men and women.

  “I want all sensors on and scanning for changes in the dark matter. Unless I miss my guess, this is when our Xotoli friends will strike.”

  Ririsa sat down in her command chair and watched as the data from the first scans were put on the large display. Just then she saw a figure limp into the CIC. He seemed to need to grab onto desks and displays to move. In the light of one large display she recognized Jakob Petrussen.

  “Chief, what are you doing here? I don’t need a cripple in my CIC.”

  “I don’t need my goddamn legs to run the systems. I’m the only one in here who has seen them open a wormhole, and you need me,” Jakob said, then realized his tone was bordering on insubordination. “Sorry, ma’am. It’s just that Marga...”

  Ririsa gave him a look that usually meant someone lost stripes, but instead she said, “Get to your position and find me some Xotoli.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He limped over and sat down heavily at his station. Ririsa reached for her direct, secure line to Admiral Raurk.

  “Ririsa, what have we got?”

  “They apparently had taken over a Von Fleet Ultra Large Cargo Vessel that was filled with munitions. It was at the end of a long list of ships to be boarded and inspected. When we sent a DAT team on board, they detonated the ship. It was carefully done so that it would do the most damage.”

  “Bottom line.”

  “We’ve lost the harbor, and I expect the invasion at any moment.”

  “Any sensor readings that indicate it's about to happen?”

  “Negative, but it fits their tactics.”

  “I agree. What have you done?”