Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Right

“Team One,” he ordered. “You are cleared to advance.”

Molly McGhee felt herself shivering as the billowing cloud of white fire started to fade away. She hadn’t understood why their Marine instructors had insisted on setting up their positions some distance from the cannons, not until one of the cannons had exploded, setting off the other two. If the Marines and their trainees had been any closer, they would have been caught and fried in the blast, allowing the enemy to advance without opposition. She took a firmer grip on her rifle and started to pray under her breath. It was the first time she had been in a real fight and despite herself she felt nothing, but terror. The enemy was closing in.

Years ago, back when she had been a girl of seven years old, her parents had owned a starship and worked as independent traders. That had ended when the Empire-backed shipping lines had extended their reach into their home sector, using a mixture of legal and illegal tricks to force the independent shippers out of business. After a pirate attack had narrowly been averted by her father’s quick thinking, the family had taken their ship and migrated into the Beyond, hoping to find a safer life. It hadn’t worked out as well as they had hoped and, after her parents were killed by the Imperial Navy, Molly had gravitated to one of the many rebel organisations within the Beyond. They had fought the Empire — or claimed to have done; Molly had never been part of any offensive operation — and yet they had no real hope, not until Admiral Walker had arrived with a fleet of superdreadnaughts and started pulling the various rebel groups together. Molly admired Hester Hyman and her efforts, but she looked up to Admiral Walker. He’d given the rebellion real hope. She would have died for him.

A black shape appeared through the smog, a man wearing powered combat armour. Her own armour informed her that he wasn’t broadcasting a friendly IFF, which meant nothing when she wasn’t broadcasting either. She had been surprised when their instructors had told them not to use them without permission, but she’d understood when he’d explained that they might as well draw a targeting circle on their suits and invite the enemy to open fire. The fact that the newcomer was transmitting an IFF signal was a sure sign that he was an enemy soldier. Molly felt hatred rising within his breast as she took aim. They had been told not to fire without specific orders, but there was no reason she couldn’t prepare as another black figure joined the first, followed by a third and a fourth. The Marines had assured her that they should be almost impossible to detect, even with the naked eye, hidden as they were, yet she knew better than to trust such assurances completely.

“Stand by,” her commander ordered, quietly. The defenders had used light cables to link themselves together, a neat low-tech solution to the problem of avoiding calling in enemy fire on their position. The Marine-issue armoured suits included transmitters that were effectively undetectable, but the same couldn’t said of the more basic suits issued to the new recruits. “On my command, open fire.”

Molly found herself thinking, suddenly, of her parents. Her mother and father had never been anything less than loving, even when her older brother had nearly deactivated the life support and come far too close to killing them all. She missed them dreadfully. She missed her first boyfriend, who had gone out on a mission and never returned, and even her second boyfriend, who had cheated on her with another man. The bastard had been a good kisser, but he just couldn’t keep it in his pants. Being cheated on with another man had put her off men for a few years, before she had picked up a third boyfriend from among the Marines. He was off with Admiral Walker, probably speeding back to the rescue right now — at least, she hoped he was. It would be just like him to come riding over the horizon when all hope was lost.

She pinched herself and focused on the black shapes. The Blackshirts were advancing carefully, one group moving up the corridor, another heading down it. There seemed to be no limit to their numbers; they just kept flowing in, at least twenty by her count. They were deploying sensor bugs as well, according to her suit, but the Marine countermeasures were keeping them under control. It was just as well. If they spotted the ambush before it was too late… she noted, suddenly, that they were keeping an eye on the ceiling and wondered why. There were no hidden passages above them in the rock. The whole idea had been to limit the number of connections between the spaceport and the remainder of Sanctuary.

“Take aim,” her commander ordered. They had to aim manually. Any targeting aid, such as a ranging laser, would be detected when it touched the enemy suits. “Open fire!”

Molly pulled the trigger and her rifle spat a stream of plasma pulses down towards the Blackshirts who staggered under the sheer weight of fire. A handful fell, their suits burned through by the incoming fire, but others hit the deck under their own power, bringing up their own weapons and returning fire. Plasma bolts began to sizzle through the air towards them, striking the armour plating the defenders had put into place to give them some cover, a handful finding their targets and burning through their suits. Molly heard one of her oldest friends cry out seconds before her icon vanished from the HUD. A plasma bolt had struck her in the throat.

“Fall back,” her commander snapped. Molly took a final shot and then turned, keeping her head down as she had been ordered. Others were crawling rapidly towards the next strongpoint, briefly triggering their IFF signals to ensure that they weren’t fired upon by the automated defences. An explosion shook the deck behind her as the enemy resorted to more grenades and heavier weapons to clear their path, leaving her scurrying as fast as she could. Her commander kept ordering them to move faster, even though they were all moving quickly. The sound of firing was growing louder. “Get into the next position and prepare to continue firing!”

Molly nodded as she grasped her rifle and sat up, climbing back into firing position. There were only a limited number of strongpoints before the invaders broke through into the asteroid proper, allowing them to spread out and secure the vital infrastructure. They had to stop them before then, or the asteroid was doomed. There were plans to carry on fighting, even when the invaders got inside, yet… somehow, she was sure that they wouldn’t work.

“Come on, Bobby,” she muttered, as she fired on a Blackshirt and had the satisfaction of seeing him collapse under her fire. Her current boyfriend had to come to their rescue, right? It couldn’t end like this. “We need you…”

The Blackshirt advance continued, undeterred by the resistance. Molly fell back again, and again, knowing that it was growing increasingly futile. Soon, far too soon, they would run out of places to fall back to.

And then they would die.

“Keep monitoring them,” Cordova ordered. The next flight of troop shuttles was already leaving the battlecruisers, heading into Sanctuary. “Send the update to the command team.”

Hannelore looked up from where she had been sitting, hugging herself. All of the post-sex bliss had faded away, leaving her numb with horror and dismay. Cordova had ordered the crew to establish an undetectable laser link with Sanctuary, yet there was nothing else that he could do, but watch — and record the transmissions coming out of the asteroid. He’d told her that they could be used for propaganda, as another example of the Empire’s beastliness, but it was no consolation. She was watching the death of a dream.