Кристофер Банч - Fleet of the Damned

What could he bring back?

The hatchway leading down into the bowels of the fort was nearby. Heebner undogged it and climbed downward.

The ladder ended in a large room with bunks. Heebner looked wistfully at one of them. Even though it smelled, it was still better than anything he had slept on since he had landed on Cavite.

A large room with bunks… a large, deserted room? How many Imperials are in this fort, he wondered? He found the courage to investigate.

Heebner went out of the ready room into a central passageway. Seconds later, another shell from the monitor earthquaked down. It must have missed by a considerable distance. Heebner heard the clatter of feet and peered out. A group of Imperials ran out of another ready room and climbed up into one of the main turrets. Heebner counted. Only ten? How many people were there, anyway?

Was it possible that there were only a handful of Imperials holding back the Tahn? So it would appear.

That was enough for Heebner. This would be valuable information. Enough to keep him from being sent forward again. The intelligence might be valuable enough, he hoped, for him to report to company headquarters instead of to his platoon leader. If his company commander still lived. This could be an excellent way to stay out of the assault.

Superior Private Heebner made his way out of the fort, made the nightmare journey back to his own lines, and reported.

And found himself standing in front of Lady Atago, more terrified than he had been inside the fort. He was not required to make the final assault on Strongpoint Sh'aarl't. Instead, he was promoted to fire team leader, given a medal, and reassigned to the rear.

Heebner was safe. That was enough. It did not matter to him that he wasn't mentioned in the livies trumpeting the reduction of the Imperial fort.

That honor went to Tahn Assault Captain Santol, a far more heroic-looking Tahn. And if it was an honor, he earned it.

Sten wondered what would come next when the monitors' shellfire stopped. He wondered if they would run out of projectiles but rather dully hoped that both ships had chamber explosions.

Worry about what comes next when it comes next, he said, and ordered dinner—breakfast? lunch?—up for his people. He rotated a third of the crews down to the mess hall to eat. After everyone was fed, he planned to go to fifty percent alert and let at least some of his sailors sleep.

It didn't work that way.

Contreras stepped off the ladder from the command level to the ready room and burped. A full belly led her to consider other luxuries. Sleep… a bath… a clean uniform… hell, she told herself, why not wish for everything. Like a discharge, spending her accumulated pay on a tourist world where the most primitive machine was a bicycle, and falling in love with a handsome officer. Officer? She caught herself. Too long in the service, woman. Clot the military. A rich civilian.

A smile crept across her lips just as the Tahn projectile blew most of her chest away.

The Tahn assault teams had managed to approach the fort without being seen. Since the fort's computer still showed the jammed antipersonnel carrier as being housed, the warning sensors showed no movement in that sector. Actually the beams were being returned—bouncing—off the turret, returning to the transmitter and being automatically disregarded as part of ground clutter.

Lady Atago's analysis from Private Heebner's report was very correct, giving about an eighty-five percent chance that the area beyond that jammed turret would be in a dead zone.

Captain Santol's navigation had been exact—the assault elements closed in on the fort along that sector, no more than two abreast. Between the shifts for eating and the sailors' exhaustion, the Tahn weren't noticed on any of the visual screens still active.

Once inside the turret, Captain Santol put two trusted sergeants in front, armed with riot weapons. Behind them were grenadiers and one tripod-mounted heavy projectile weapon, and then Captain Santol and his senior sergeant behind them.

Contreras wasn't the first to die—two sailors had been jumped from the rear and garrotted. But she was the first to be shot.

The explosion clanged down the corridors of the fort.

Sten bolted up, and his plate spattered beans and beef across the deck. Accidental discharge… like hell, he realized, as he saw Tahn soldiers scuttling forward on one of the command center's internal screens.

He slammed the alarm and opened a mike.

"All personnel." His voice was quite calm. "There are Tahn troops inside the fort. All personnel, secure entry to your areas. Alex?"

"Sir?" Even on the com there was a bit of a brogue.

"Can you see how these clots got in?"

There was a pause. "Tha's naught on the screens, sir. Ah'll bet tha'll hae come in frae' a turret."

That left two possibilities: Either of the two inoperable turrets—one, the second antipersonnel quad projectile turret; two, the second Turret B—could be breached. But the computer showed both secure.

"Turret C," Sten ordered. "Local control. Target—Tahn infantry approaching the fort. Fire at will."

He switched to another channel.

"Turrets A and D. Send five troops down to secure your ready rooms. There are no friendlies moving. Kilgour. If you've got anybody loose, get them to the command center."

"On th' way. Wait."

Alex should have stayed at the antipersonnel turret. But it took only one person to fire the quad projectile weapon. He left that one and, with six others, went looking for blood.

Sixteen sailors manning Turret A went out of their turret, headed toward the Tahn. The two forces met in a corridor. The battle was very quick—and very lethal. The AM2 rounds from the willyguns mostly missed. But hitting the concrete walls of the corridor, they exploded, sending concrete shrapnel shotgunning into the Tahn.

Captain Santol lost two squads before he could get a crew-served weapon firing. And then the sixteen sailors went down in a swelter of gore as projectiles whined and ricocheted.

Santol waved a squad forward, over the bodies and up into the turret. The rest of the sailors assigned to Turret A died there.

A second maneuver element of the Tahn tore into the element from Turret D. The sailors fought bravely—but weren't a match for the experienced Tahn soldiers.

Sten swore as he watched on a screen.

The Tahn were between his command center and the still-fighting Turret C. Sten had Foss and three computer clerks for an assault element. This would be stupidity, not nobility. But again—he had no options.

The Tahn assault company was spread out through the fort's corridors. They were good, Sten had to admit. Their tactic was to spray fire around a corner, send one man diving across the corridor for security, put two men in place as guards, and move on. And still another Tahn company was filing in through the damaged personnel turret.

Then the counterattack hit.

This was not Kilgour's pathetic strike force of seven, which was still moving down the long tube that led to the fort's center. This attack came from underneath—from the storage spaces.

There were five humans, including the two Tahn brothers. They were led by the spindar, Mr. Willie Sutton. They were pushing in front of them a small gravpallet. On it there were fifteen or so tall metal cylinders. Emergency oxygen tanks.

The counterattack came out of an unnoticed hatchway, halfway down a corridor. At the far end was Captain Santol and his command group.

Sutton was bellowing like a berserk siren as he rumbled forward.

"Shoot them! Shoot them down," Santol shouted, and projectiles crashed down the corridor.