Jack Campbell - Invincible

“Keep your eyes out for control compartments, power core compartments, a bridge, that sort of thing,” a major reminded his unit.

“It all looks the same,” a frustrated captain replied. “There are markings all over the place, but they’re nothing like the markings on our ships or the ones the Syndics use. They could mean anything.”

“No ventilation,” another one of the Marine officers reported. “The air seems okay. Breathable by humans, even though the pressure is lower than we’re comfortable with. But they’ve shut down the ventilation systems.”

“There are supposed to be thousands of ’em aboard this thing,” another Marine muttered, her weapon seeking targets in another empty passageway. “Where the hell are they?”

On the thumbnails spread in front of Geary, bedlam suddenly erupted as Marines in scores of locations suddenly found the answer.

The Marines had penetrated about a third of the way into the superbattleship when the bear-cows suddenly appeared before them in dozens of locations at once. The once-eerily-deserted passageways filled with noise and the thunder of weapons as Marines traded shots with masses of Kicks filling the spaces from overhead to deck.

“They’re in armor!”

“Look out! On the right!”

“Durien is down!”

“Keep shooting!”

“There are too damn many of them!”

“Accesses overhead! They’re shooting down through them!”

“My grenade clip is empty!”

“Somebody pick up Sierra! She’s still alive!”

“Eat this, you bastards!”

Gradually, the sergeants and corporals started to regain comm discipline, the initial ambushes settling into Marines holding their positions and pouring fire from every weapon they could bring to bear down the passageways where the bear-cows kept pressing forward behind weapons that combined assault rifles with rectangular shields.

“We’re running low on energy and ammo.”

“Fall back. Everyone fall back.”

“The Kicks are using the bodies of their dead as shields!” a Marine yelled. “Pushing their dead ahead of them! Our shots can’t get through to the live ones!”

“Fall back,” the order came down again. “Don’t do a staged withdrawal by fire teams. Get everyone back fast. We’re feeding in the reserves and establishing defensive positions closer to the outer hull. Get back now .”

Geary stared at the battle scenes, watching one where what seemed to be a solid plug of dead bear-cows whose armor had been ravaged by Marine fire was being pushed down a passageway. The muzzles of weapons stuck out from the bodies of the dead, carried by the living bear-cows behind, spraying fire at the Marines who were falling back toward the outer hull.

He pulled out of the close-up views, trying to grasp what General Carabali was doing. The image of the superbattleship on his display had gradually filled with more details as the Marines went into the ship, and now Geary could see the symbols marking Marine units heading back everywhere.

Why was Carabali ordering her units back so far, so fast? She was giving up precious gains, which might be very hard to retake if the bear-cows set up more defenses and ambushes.

Geary’s hand hovered over his comm controls. Has Carabali lost her nerve? I need to ask why she’s reacting this way, why—

His eye caught activity on a cluster of views in one area of the superbattleship. The Marines there had fallen back past a defensive barrier, which, after a furious burst of fire that tore apart the protective barrier of the dead and riddled the front ranks of the bear-cows, was itself falling back, toward where yet another defensive line was setting up heavy weapons. Similar activity was occurring all over the superbattleship, but Geary’s attention focused on this spot as the retreating Marines were suddenly hit by Kicks who had infiltrated above, below, and to the sides of them, moving through the many side corridors and accesses too small for the Marines.

A minute later, and that platoon of Marines would have been cut off and swamped, but they were far enough back and close enough to the Marines behind them that a flurry of defensive fire and some vicious hand-to-hand fighting got the platoon through the danger.

Geary let his hand fall. She knew. General Carabali realized what the bear-cows could do on their own ground with the superior numbers they have. Instead of standing firm while her strongpoints are surrounded, she’s pulling them back faster than the Kicks can envelop them, taking a heavy toll of the attackers every step of the way.

“Admiral? Are your comms working properly?” Desjani asked in a voice that promised serious repercussions for her comm officer.

“My comms are fine,” Geary said. “The problem was with me. I almost forgot that General Carabali knows her job a lot better than I know her job.”

As the Marines fell back toward the outer hull, the volume of space they had to defend grew larger as the diameter of the superbattleship’s hull grew. But Carabali was feeding in reinforcements and pulling her forces together into hedgehogs at intersections of the largest passageways, able to fire to all sides with heavy weapons as the bear-cows kept pressing onward. Under the concentrated fire of those heavy weapons, augmented by the fire of the Marine hand and shoulder-fired weapons, the tight ranks of the Kicks dissolved as they tried to drive into contact with the human invaders.

“How many of them are there?” a Marine yelled.

Some of the bear-cows had pushed through to the compartments where the initial penetrations had occurred, rushing the combat engineers defending the bridgeheads there. The combat engineers lacked the heavy weapons of the line Marines, but they made up for that with demolitions and other tools of their trade. Geary winced as he watched the havoc wrought by the engineers as they wiped out the Kicks coming against them. Those portions of the enemy ship would yield little of use to those seeking to learn more about the bear-cows and their technology.

Geary, appalled by the carnage, couldn’t take his eyes off the screens where the bear-cows pitted their numbers and their hand weapons against the concentrated firepower of the Marines. In some places, the Kicks actually managed to reach the hedgehogs, hurling themselves at the perimeters in solid ranks that threatened to submerge the Marines. Geary saw Marines being knocked down despite the superior strength of their combat armor, some of the Marine lines wavering as the hedgehogs were compressed on all sides. Packed in ever tighter inside their defensive perimeters, the Marines were unable to move, unable to do anything but keep firing with weapons glowing from waste heat.

Carabali had been watching, though. More Marine reinforcements had been arriving, leaping from shuttles into the improvised air locks on the outer hull, being brought inside the hull as fast as possible. Those Marines were formed into shock teams, who now stormed into the passageways leading to the most heavily beleaguered hedgehogs, catching the attacking Kicks from behind.

One by one, the hedgehogs under the heaviest pressure were relieved, the Marines pushing out to form wider defensive positions and keep the bear-cows from being able to concentrate against isolated strongpoints.

The assaults against the Marine positions faltered here, then there, then at each point where the Kicks had surged ahead. The attacks paused, leaving a sense of a foe taking breaths and trying to regain enough strength to continue the fight. Before that pause could extend, Carabali issued new orders, and everywhere the Marines moved out of their hedgehogs and defensive lines, blowing holes through bulkheads to bypass passageways choked with dead bear-cows.