I pulled up a tactical map and overlaid it on top of the ship’s schematic to get an idea of where we were heading. My tactical map didn’t show me any real-time threats via my suit sensors or our makeshift comms network that was linked from suit to suit, but the schematic I had showed me dozens of potential crossfires, chokepoints and other dangerous features that could pose a threat to us.
“Mind your sectors and don’t fall behind.” I ordered as I lead the way at a fast trot, my rifle ready to snap to a target and fire a burst of armor-piercing ammunition. I hadn’t memorised the whole ship’s layout yet, but I’d been going off the schematic and tactical map so far to get us close to Engineering.
As the tactical map updated, reaching out all over the ship to Marine combat suits everywhere, it updated itself with various markers and squad designators, providing a delayed but acceptable picture of the battlefield. The situation became clear to me after a few seconds. A full two-thirds of the ship were tinged red in various places and there were a lot fewer friendly blue chevrons running around than I’d expected. That concerned me.
We had two full companies onboard, nearly two hundred Marines, but I only saw a fraction of those numbers. It could’ve been that they weren’t reachable and so they weren’t picked up by my tactical map, but I had no way to confirm my fears at the moment. A lot of the tactical map was incomplete, with sections of the ship completely off the net.
“Somebody stop to think about how they got heavy weapons onboard our own ship? Anybody? No?” Carver shook his head in mock disappointment, as though he was a professor in a lecture hall listening to a student give a dim-witted answer.
“Doesn’t matter how they got them, they could’ve taken them from our own armouries for all we know" I grumbled. "The heavy guns they're manning can punch clean through your suit like tissue paper, so don't get hit. I don't want to have to find a replacement for you, got it?” My eyes darted between well-lit corridors and junctions, searching for threats even as I spied other Marines or a Navy vacsuit running around.
“Wow. Don’t get shot; a real nugget of wisdom there, Riley.” Carver said dryly.
I shot him an annoyed look, glancing behind me. “Carver.”
"Yes?" He replied.
"Shut up."
Larsen cleared her throat, interrupting our verbal sparring before it could really begin. “You packing any surprises for these guys, Chen?”
“Maybe not as surprising as a mounted gun, but yeah. Don’t worry, Vic, they’ll be surprised alright.”
“Yeah, just don’t surprise them too much. We don’t want you blowing up a couple of city blocks.” Larsen said.
“One time! That was one time and I’ve never heard the end of it!”
“What do you think, Larsen? Maybe this time he’ll take out the whole ship!” Carver cackled.
“I think that we better take these fuckers out before they tear the ship out from under us." Larsen said as I pulled open a hatch and climbed into an access shaft, leading the way down a ladder.
“Agreed. Now cut the chatter.” I barked.
Carver said nothing, but I’d hazard a guess he wasn’t happy about being told to shut up twice in rapid succession. He was touchy about that sort of thing. I let my team do what they wanted most of the time, but I didn’t want a distraction getting one of us killed, least of all me.
As we descended, one after another, I spoke up, addressing the team again.
“Use your suit sensors to map their positions, but don’t count on that to be accurate. They have suits at least as good as ours. We also want prisoners, but not casualties. If they don’t look like they'll surrender or they present a threat, smoke 'em. Got me?”
Various affirmations came over our team-channel while I pulled up a familiar menu and selected a few different options. “Alright, good. I’m linking you all into Alpha's net.”
“Fireteam Alpha, what’s the situation?” I asked after connecting to the squad-wide comms channel which was more or less just an open channel for the squad's four fireteams.
The leader of Fireteam Alpha, my counterpart, did not sound pleased. “Bravo, Alpha Actual here, this whole thing just went FUBAR a couple minutes ago. We lost Engineering, Charlie didn't make it to us. Delta’s off the grid. I think we're the last of the squad, Riley. These guys, whoever the fuck they are, pushed us out a couple minutes ago and closed all the blast doors. We’re having a tough time of it. I can't reach Hoffman from here, either."
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I frowned. “I didn’t hear anything about that over comms, we're being jammed still, right? What's the range we're working with?”
“They've got really good ECM gear, say, ten to fifteen metres. Anything past that is just noise. Localised jammers only as far as we can tell. We found one, but there are more somewhere down here and probably everywhere else too. As if that wasn't bad enough, they’re using our gear, half the armouries are empty.”
Things had gone from bad to worse, so much worse than I’d expected. Some kind of crazy paramilitary organisation with spies, that I think I’d honestly have preferred. The fact they had our gear taken from our ship told me they had a scary level of access and training. I had no idea what someone with such resources or access to information could want with our ship, but I didn't really give a shit about that right now. I just wanted them to stop shooting us and the fastest way I knew how to accomplish that was to shoot first and shoot twice to confirm my kills.
"Call it in, if you haven’t already, and run a comm cable outside the jamming field.” I told him, pushing my way to the end of yet another featureless corridor.
“Already done. Wont do us much good for contacting the Bridge or any other vital areas of the ship, but better than nothing. Form up on us. We're outside Corridor B making a push for the main compartment.”
“Roger that." I responded.
Without Engineering, the enemy could scuttle the ship, jump it, or tell it to fly like a bird if they wanted, I hoped that Engineering wouldn't be too tough a nut to crack, because if it was, we'd lose the ship. I perused my tactical map again for a moment. The bridge entrance was still secure, but I didn’t know if it would stay that way for long.
"Larsen, Chen, regroup on my location, we're headed to Corridor B.”
"Wilco, roger." Larsen replied.
Thus far, the fight had been more of a PT exercise than a proper battle, but I knew that we were likely to encounter hostile forces now that we were closing in on a vital area of the ship. To prepare for such an inevitability, I ran a quick diagnostic on my rifle and then my suit. Both reported they were green across the board so I looked over the rest of the squad's equipment too, finding it was much the same.
We quickly regrouped and reached Juarez and his team, our quick pace eating up the distance between us. I inserted myself into the formation with my teammates and gave Juarez a nod. He and his fireteam had been holding the corridors leading into Engineering from the forward areas of the ship. All of us split into two-man elements and arrayed ourselves into a staggered column.
We each hugged the walls of the corridor and did our best to provide a minimal target profile as we advanced. I was familiar with this area of the ship, enough at least to know we had to go through a few blast doors to get to the main compartment. As I approached the first one, I removed a block of plastic explosive from my armour and pressed it into the center of the blast door obstructing our path.
I paired up with Juarez after that and we led the way forward.
“What are you doing?” Juarez asked me, looking at my explosive charge as if I was stupid.
“What does it look like? I’m setting charges.” I replied as I pressed a block of plastic explosive into the blast door in front of me.
“Well, it’s a blast door. Use more than one.”
I shrugged, he had a point. I set the second one just below the first, putting a wireless receiver into both of them.
We all retreated around the nearest corner, taking cover. It wasn't strictly necessary in armour, but while a flying piece of debris wouldn't kill us, being knocked on our ass by a flying piece of steel would leave us exposed to enemy fire.
“Blowing the door in three.” I announced. “Two. One. Fire in the hole!”
The door blew inwards, shards of jagged and uneven metal ringing the new opening. Thankfully, no one was waiting to greet us, this time. We repeated the process twice more, and encountered moderate resistance, but low numbers overall. The heavy guns were tricky but three frag grenades per gun turned out to be just the right amount, though it wrecked the corridor they were set up in.
Together with the help of our counterpart Fireteam Alpha, my team and I managed to fight our way through the access corridors and regain control of Engineering.
We leapfrogged from cover to cover, what little we could find and initiated our first fight with flashbangs, but when that quickly proved ineffective, we resorted to frags and smoke. Engineering was a sensitive area, but as best we could tell this compartment only held consoles and not the sensitive equipment itself so we decided to chance it. It wasn't like we had much of a choice, anyway. It was that or rush in and get nailed as we ran through the proverbial fatal funnel.
We rushed into the main compartment as the last grenade detonated, taking advantage of the infamous ‘shock and awe’ tactic. Usually, such a rush would’ve been used in conjunction with a rolling artillery barrage or fire support of some kind. Onboard a ship in close quarters that wasn’t really an option though, so we did the best we could. Return fire from those defending Engineering was surprisingly sparse which left me wondering why that was the case. They’d had autonomous heavy machine guns and a handful of other men in the last two parts of the corridor.
To my surprise, there were very few enemy combatants actually holding it. The area we were trying to breach was the main compartment in which all Engineering functions were controlled and coordinated. Whoever held it had control of Engineering. Yet after a cursory inspection I found we’d only taken out six enemy combatants. The battle was brief as these things went, but that didn’t mean it was free of fatalities.
Unfortunately, two of the men under Juarez’ command were pronounced killed in action despite our two man advantage.
“Shit, Casey! You good?” Juarez screamed over our proximity channel as the final shot faded. I silently thanked the designers of our suit software for automatic volume control. A quick glance at the neat holes punched in Casey’s chest armour told me he wasn’t getting up again. He was as lifeless as a stone.