Jack Campbell - Perilous Shield

“Most of the remaining crew are at their duty stations,” Lieutenant Colonel Safir reported. “We’re rolling them up.”

“There are a few wandering around loose,” Gaiene warned, as his own column encountered another group of sailors still trying to scramble into survival suits. For an instant the two groups stared at each other, then the sailors’ hands bolted upward, coming to rest palm first on their heads as they slammed their backs against the bulkheads. “Good lads,” Gaiene told them. “Leave a fire team here to guard this batch,” he ordered the sergeant.

The next group of crew members they ran into was either more highly motivated or simply had a lot less common sense. Weapons carried by the crew members swung to bear, but before they could fire, Gaiene’s soldiers opened up and wiped out the pocket of resistance, the soldiers scarcely pausing in their movement, rushing onward as the last of the dead crew members were still falling limply to the deck.

Gaiene kept one eye on the directions to the bridge his heads-up display was providing, used his other eye to monitor the progress of the whole assault on another portion of his heads-up display, and used his other eye to watch for immediate danger. “That’s three eyes,” a young Conner Gaiene had protested to the veteran who had told him what commanding an assault required. The veteran had smiled sadly. “By the time you reach command, if you’re any good, you’ll know how to make two eyes do the work of three. Or you’ll die.”

Gaiene hadn’t died though that particular veteran had, not long after imparting some painfully acquired wisdom to him. It sometimes bothered Gaiene that he had trouble remembering what the woman had looked like before an Alliance bombardment projectile had blown her into tiny pieces.

“Looking good,” Safir’s voice reported to Gaiene.

The brigade was seizing more and more of the ship, resistance in most places crumbling as what was happening became clear to the survivors in the crew. “Don’t relax,” Gaiene warned everyone. “Mobile forces can fight well when their backs are to the wall, and there are supposed to be a lot of snakes aboard this can.”

“We found some of them!” a unit leader warned on the heels of Gaiene’s words. “Snakes!” Brighter symbols popped up in an area far from Gaiene, showing a bastion of resistance where Internal Security Service agents were putting up a fierce fight near the central weapons-control citadel.

“Handle that, Safir,” Gaiene directed. Weapons control was Safir’s objective, so she was already in that area.

Battle cruisers were almost as large as battleships but longer and leaner, presenting an apparently endless series of passageways leading to an apparently endless series of more passageways. The command staff in the battle cruiser’s bridge citadel had awoken to their peril and were trying to lock isolation and blast barriers in place to seal off routes through the ship, but Gaiene’s soldiers had brought the means to either blow holes through those barriers or locally override the lock commands.

Shouts of triumph erupted across the command circuit. Annoyed by the noise, Gaiene checked his display and saw that the nest of snakes had been eliminated. All dead, of course. General Drakon might issue orders that opponents be allowed to surrender, but snakes rarely tried to surrender and, if they did, were killed by vengeful soldiers anyway. The General surely wouldn’t mind, as he knew as well as the rest of them did that snakes occupied a different category than regular forces did.

Gaiene and the soldiers with him ran past a group of crew members waving enthusiastic greetings and bloodied implements. At their feet lay two others, both newly dead, both wearing the standard suits for Internal Security Service snakes. Another fire team broke off to guard the new volunteers who had formerly worked for Supreme CEO Haris before tendering their resignations in blood.

Most of the ship had been overrun, the survivors of the crew being herded into compartments under guard, but the three citadels were locked down, armor sealed and defenses active. While the controls on another blast door were hacked, Gaiene paused, evaluating the situation.

Main propulsion-control citadel, weapons-control citadel, bridge citadel. The last-ditch defensive barriers put in place on Syndicate ships to defend against enemy boarding parties, as well as against mutiny by crews of workers who lacked loyalty to their masters and were kept in line by discipline, fear, and the ever-present snakes of the ISS. “How does it look, Safir?”

Lieutenant Colonel Safir sounded annoyed. “Not too bad. We lost some people taking out the snake stronghold. The power core has been overrun and the remote operating cables cut, so the snakes or the other Ulindis can’t overload it. I think the propulsion citadel will surrender, but I’m guessing we’ll have to crack open the weapons citadel.”

“Get into the weapons citadel and make sure they can’t fire on the battleship, which they may realize they can attempt if they are given time to think. I’m closing in on the bridge citadel,” Gaiene said. The blast barrier blocking him whooshed open, and he took off at a trot, surrounded by the soldiers with him, their movements in the power-assisted armor oddly dainty as they used the gliding steps most effective inside a warship’s confined spaces. “I’ll give the bridge crew a chance to do this the easy way as soon as I get into position.”

Danger signs popped up on Gaiene’s display, warning that the defenses around the bridge citadel were near. He had the means to break those defenses and get into the citadel, but that would cost time and lives as well as messing up parts of this ship. Gaiene ordered the soldiers with him to halt in a safe area outside the bridge-citadel defenses and looked around for a comm panel. “Here we are. Bridge. Acknowledge, you fools.”

The panel lit to show a mobile forces officer in the command seat on the bridge. Gaiene knew the look in the man’s eyes. He had seen it many times before. Disbelief. Shock. Fear. Confusion. That look meant Gaiene had to keep pushing, keep the man from recovering, keep him from thinking clearly. “We have your unit under our control and will soon breach your citadels. However, in the interest of avoiding excessive damage, we are willing to offer you the chance to surrender, open the citadels, and deactivate their defenses. If you surrender, you will be allowed to live, and given your freedom. We’ll keep our word. We’re not snakes. Every snake in this star system is dead. If you refuse to surrender, and we have to blast our way in, there will be no mercy shown, and your dead bodies will be tossed into space. Or perhaps you’ll only be mostly dead when we toss you into space. We’ll keep that promise as well. Make your decision now. I am not a patient man.”

Shouting could be heard in the background of the bridge citadel while the battle cruiser’s commander stared at Gaiene. After several seconds Gaiene prodded him. “Now. Surrender or die. I won’t ask a third time.”

The man looked toward something behind him and must have seen what he needed to see, since he turned back to face Gaiene and nodded in a jerky fashion. “I agree. Surrender. I surrender the ship.” A hand that Gaiene could see was trembling danced spasmodically over the controls at the command seat. “Deactivating defenses.”

“Make sure the other citadels do the same.”

“I don’t have control of the weapons citadel! Haris’s snakes are in there!”

“Lieutenant Colonel Safir, the weapons citadel is occupied by snakes. You will have to take that one the hard way.”

Safir replied with grim satisfaction. “I thought so. Everything’s ready. Commencing assault.”