As Ortiz dashed to the ladder, Reza turned to retrieve his uniform.
"There's no time for that!" Ortiz shouted. She snorted as she began to climb. "Come as you are, Marine!"
"Yes, lieutenant." Reza could not imagine what the others would say when they saw him in his Kreelan regalia. They will see you as you truly are, he thought. Whirling around, he turned to follow her. When he reached the passageway above, he slammed and locked the hatch behind him, then took off after Ortiz. The lieutenant, while much shorter, ran at an impressive speed through the narrow equipment- and cable-festooned passageway. She barely had to duck her head when she darted through the bulkhead hatches, encouraged by the shouts of the sailors who were responsible for making sure all the hatches, even the automatic ones, were closed to isolate the various compartments in case Leander was hit. "Move it, Marines!" one such sailor shouted. Then he caught sight of Reza. "Move...it..." The man's mouth fell open and his eyes flew wide with surprise as Reza flew past him.
"He's with me!" Ortiz yelled over her shoulder, not bothering to so much as slow down. "Now close the goddamn hatch!"
She kept repeating "He's with me!" to other sailors they passed who were heading for their own battle stations. One of them whipped around so suddenly that he banged into a conduit junction box and went sprawling. Reza stopped long enough to haul him to his feet and propel him in the direction the sailor had been going before taking off after Ortiz again.
Despite the serious nature of going to general quarters, Reza found he was grinning. This was the closest he'd come to being able to run free since he and Eustus left the academy, and it brought back bittersweet memories of running through the forests of the Homeworld with Esah-Zhurah in his youth.
Ortiz shot through the aft hatch of the galley, which was the Marine detachment's assembly point during general quarters. From there, the captain would give them specific orders if necessary. Otherwise they worked with the damage control parties under the guidance of the XO.
"Lieutenant!"
It was Stalin, holding the upper half of Ortiz's battle armor, while Davis held the lower half. They had already suited up, as had the other Marines, who were quickly drawing their weapons from the arms locker.
"Kreelan!" Walker, who stood beside Davis, cried, bringing up her rifle as Reza entered the galley on Ortiz's heels.
"Hold your fire!" Ortiz screamed. She skidded to a stop in front of Walker, grabbing the rifle's muzzle and pointing it toward the ceiling. "He was demonstrating some things about Kreelan armor and weapons for me," she lied, loud enough to be heard throughout the galley. "On my orders. Understand?"
"Yes, ma'am," Walker said through clenched teeth, her gaze boring holes into Reza.
"You must get in your armor, lieutenant," Stalin said.
Pausing just a moment to make sure Walker wasn't going to act on her impulses, Ortiz stepped into the lower half of the vacuum-proof battle armor, helped by Davis. Then she bent over and held out her arms, wriggling into the upper half of the suit held by Stalin. Davis latched the waist couplings, after which Walker set — slammed might have been more accurate — the helmet in place and latched it.
"Reza," Eustus called in a worried voice. "Your armor!"
Confused for just a moment, Reza glanced down, thinking something was amiss with the armor he wore.
"No, your other armor!" Eustus cried, pointing at the locker where Reza's battle armor was stored.
"Marine detachment to the cutter, on the double!" The XO's order came over both the galley PA system and the individual suit radios.
"Gard, stay here," Stalin ordered. "You can't fit into your battle armor wearing...that."
Ortiz shot Reza an unhappy look and nodded agreement. "Marines, by squads to the cutter!"
Turning toward the forward hatchway, which still stood open, Ortiz led the others out at a trot in single file, their armored feet hammering in time on the metal deck.
Eustus shot Reza a look of helpless misery as he fell into his place in the first squad, which was led by Davis.
Reza stood there a moment, glaring at the Marine battle armor that hung in its locker. He debated stripping out of his Kreelan armor and donning the vac suit, but even as fast as he was, he probably couldn't catch the others before they boarded the cutter. The passageway to the boarding gangway was only fifteen meters forward of the galley hatch, and Ortiz was probably stepping aboard the compact ship now.
Making up his mind, he followed after them, palming the switch to close the forward galley hatch behind him as he went. He would rather face Ortiz's wrath than be left behind.
***
Eustus was terrified. Except for the time he had saved Reza when Reza's combat suit had malfunctioned in a training accident, he had never before faced a do or die situation. No one had ever tried to kill him, nor had he ever had to kill anything more than the deer he sometimes hunted back home to put meat on his family's table.
He also no longer looked at the Kreelans as nothing more than alien killing machines. His view of them as faceless enemies of humanity had forever changed after he'd gotten to know Reza. Reza didn't talk much about his time in the Empire, but he had revealed enough, especially about his love for Esah-Zhurah, that Eustus had come to think of the Kreelans as people. He knew that he was being naive, and that any Kreelan warrior he encountered wouldn't bat an eye at taking off his head. He also couldn't help it.
"You'll do your duty," he whispered to himself. "Just aim and pull the trigger...kill or be killed..."
"Camden, you're on the detachment push," Ortiz snapped.
Eustus died right there from total embarrassment. Every one of the Marines had heard his little self-pep talk.
The radio channel was momentarily filled with sniggers and guffaws from the other Marines.
"Shut the hell up, all of you," Ortiz growled. "Get your heads in the game." A moment later she added, "SITREP from the captain! This is a search and rescue mission. A convoy was ambushed and a passenger liner got hit pretty bad. The Kreelan ships were driven off by the escorts, but warriors boarded the liner and some of the freighters. Leander is answering the convoy's distress call."
Stalin was standing by at the hatch as the last of the Marines stepped aboard, counting to make sure everyone was accounted for. The cutter's crew chief stood beside him, his hand hovering over the button to close the hatch. "That is all, lieutenant," Stalin called over the radio, "except for—"
Reza strode on board, his armor reflecting the cutter's overhead lights like a black mirror. The crew chief's jaw dropped and he went for his sidearm. Stalin grabbed the man's hand and shook his head as he favored Reza with disbelieving look.
"Dammit, Gard," Ortiz shouted. "I told you..." She realized that he wouldn't be able to hear her over the radio, since he wasn't wearing one, and her voice wouldn't carry past the helmet. "Goddammit," she cursed to herself as she switched on the suit's PA system. "I told you to stay aboard the ship!"
"I must respectfully disobey, lieutenant." Looking at the panel beside the crew chief, Reza reached over and hit the control to close the hatch behind him. "We are wasting time."
While Eustus was tremendously relieved that Reza was with them, he was also afraid for his friend. Switching on his PA, he said, "Reza, what if we have to fight in vacuum?"
"Then he'll have to hold his breath," Walker said in an acid voice.
Ortiz came up to him, a look of fury on her face. "I'm not going to endanger the lives of the others for your stupidity," she told him. "I told you to stay on the ship for your own damn good, as well as theirs." She reached out and poked his breast armor, right in the center of the cyan rune, with an armored index finger. "You disobey my orders again and I'll shoot you right between the eyes. Understand, private?"
Reza bowed his head. "I understand, lieutenant." Then he looked her in the eye. "I came because I believe I can help, perhaps more than you realize might be possible."
"I—"
Whatever Ortiz had intended to say was lost as Leander, with the cutter still docked, shuddered, and a dull boom echoed through the ship. That was followed by the unmistakable thrum of the ship's main energy weapons firing.
Ortiz was nearly thrown from her feet and would have fallen had Reza not grabbed her and, in one smooth motion, pushed her into one of the stand-up restraints the Marines used for combat drops.
"Take your stations!" Ortiz shouted as she nodded a silent thanks to Reza, who flipped down the restraint bar. "More Kreelan ships just jumped in!"
The handful of Marines who weren't already strapped in did so, and Reza followed suit. He was opposite Stalin, who stared at him with emotionless eyes, a smile plastered on his face. Beside Stalin and closest to the hatch was the crew chief, who looked at Reza with a mixture of distaste and disbelief.
"Stand by," the cutter's pilot announced in an anxious voice.
A moment later the cutter was cut loose from Leander with a loud clang.
"Maneuvering," the pilot announced. Reza wondered why she bothered to say that, for the Marines could see nothing. Being on the cutter was like being on a smaller rendition of the corvette; the Marines were blind and deaf inside a metal can, with no idea of what might be going on beyond the walls of their cage save for what the captain and crew might happen to tell them. It was a state of enforced ignorance that Reza found most unsettling.
The Marines also had no sensation of motion as the cutter maneuvered, due to the effects of the ship's artificial gravity and inertial dampers. Without them, the cutter would have only been able to accelerate and turn at a fraction of its true capabilities without turning its human passengers into bloody paste.
However, the Marines could definitely feel the sharp kick of a near miss, which was accompanied by curses from the pilot and copilot.
"Stand by!" The crew chief called, raising a hand with two fingers in the air. "Two minutes!"
The hull reverberated with a deep thrum and the artificial gravity fluctuated. "We've been hit!" cried the pilot. Above the Marines, the metal plating turned red hot in a line that ran halfway across the compartment and a shower of sparks erupted from an electrical conduit that melted under the heat.
"Energy weapon grazed us," the crew chief said. Looking again at Reza, he said, "For your sake, I hope the hull doesn't blow out."
"Do not worry about me," Reza assured him.
The man laughed. "Believe me, I'm not." Then he shouted, "One minute! Exit the rear hatch!"
"It's time, Marines!" Ortiz shouted.
In unison, the restraints lifted and the Marines stepped out into the cargo area. Led by Ortiz and Stalin, they quickly formed into two lines facing the rearward hatch. Reza took his place behind Eustus. All of them reached for the safety lines that ran fore and aft above their heads.
"I feel like I'm going to puke," Eustus said quietly over the PA after making sure he wasn't on the unit push.
"You will be fine," Reza reassured him.
"Yeah, right. You know that most casualties in boarding actions happen when the boat's about to dock and we're not in our restraints? If our cutter gets hammered and the dampers go out, we get splattered on the walls."
"No warriors are near the airlock the pilot is approaching," Reza told him, "and the Imperial warships are otherwise occupied."
"I wish I knew how the hell you know things like that," Eustus replied with a weak smile.
A jolt ran through the cutter as it made forceful contact with the passenger liner's airlock.
After checking the control panel, the crew chief announced, "Good seal, good atmosphere! Good luck, Marines!"
Then he hit the button to open the hatch, and the twenty Marines prepared to charge forward into the stricken passenger ship.
***
As the door opened, the lead Marines collided with a mob of screaming passengers who'd gathered at the airlock, hoping for a ship to come to their rescue.
"Get back!" Ortiz screamed over her PA as the terrified civilians began to punch, kick, and claw their way past the Marines to reach the relative safety of the cutter. "We'll get you all off, but we can't take you all at once!"
That only made the passengers more determined to be among the first to get off the stricken ship.
Stalin raised his rifle, pointing it at the passengers over the shoulders of the Marines in the front rank.
"No!" Ortiz made a grab for his weapon, then stumbled and went down as the Marines in front were shoved back by the crowd, knocking her over. Those Marines, in turn, tripped over Ortiz and fell as the passengers surged forward. Stalin and the others were swept aside as the civilians flooded aboard the boat...
...and came to an abrupt halt as they came face to face with Reza, who stood before them in his gleaming armor, his great sword of living metal drawn. Brandishing the sword over his head, he let out a blood-curdling war cry that echoed above the screams and shouts.
"The Kreelans are in here!" a woman shrieked.
"They're in the ship!" another one bellowed in terror. "The Blues have taken the ship!"
In unison, they whirled around and began pushing back against their companions who were still trying to force their way aboard. The momentum of the boarders quickly waned as more and more of them picked up on the shrill screams that the Kreelans were in the cutter. Like a school of fish that had encountered a hungry shark, the passengers reached a collective tipping point and turned back, fleeing en masse from the airlock and back into the liner's passageways.
"Everyone all right?" Ortiz asked angrily as Davis helped her up.
"I think I peed myself," someone quipped.
"All accounted for, lieutenant," Stalin reported after a quick head count. "No injuries."
Ortiz shot him a furious glare. "If you ever try to shoot civilians again, there'll be more than injuries for you."
Stalin shrugged, the gesture largely lost in his armor. He clearly was not moved by her threat.
She looked up as Reza stepped forward, sheathing his sword. "Okay," she admitted, "maybe you coming along in that get-up wasn't the worst bit of luck we've had. Now let's get the hell off this boat." To the crew chief, she said, "Shut the damn hatch and don't open it unless one of us tells you. We'll gather up some of these sheep and bring them back in numbers you can manage. Oh, and have the pilot see if Leander or any of the other ships can come alongside. We're not going to be able to get all these people off with toy boats like this one."
"Yes, lieutenant." The crew chief, who'd been knocked off his feet and nearly crushed by the civilian stampede — his vac suit wasn't armored like those the Marines wore — was still pale behind his helmet's faceplate.
"Davis!" Ortiz called. "Let's get this circus moving!"
The Marines moved quickly along the main passageway down which the civilians had fled. As they reached the first junction, Ortiz called a halt. The passageway that intersected the one they were on was very utilitarian-looking.
"Probably goes to the crew quarters or engineering," Walker commented. The hatches were open, but when Walker cycled one closed, it blended into the artful wall decoration, with Crew Only inscribed in small but easily visible letters at the center of the hatch. "How big is this ship, anyway?"
"It's the Venetian Star," Davis blurted. "She displaces four hundred thousand tons, is eleven hundred meters long, with eight casinos, fifteen restaurants, seven pools, and every possible entertainment option, all spread through twenty passenger decks for the enjoyment of seven thousand pampered passengers."
"Where did you come up with that bullshit?" Ortiz asked.
"Travel brochure," he said in a wistful voice. "I've always wanted to go on a cruise."
Reza looked about him. They hadn't even reached any of the main passenger areas yet, and so he had not yet seen any of the luxuries of which Davis had spoken. Yet even the passageway where they were standing was fitted with plush carpet, beautiful wall coverings, and graceful light fixtures. He had stayed in what Jodi Mackenzie had told him was a very expensive hotel when he had first come to Earth, and it looked much like this. "What purpose could such a ship as this serve in war?" he wondered.
"The war's been going on for a hundred years," Davis told him in a dreamy voice as he ran a hand over the expensive fabric adorning the walls, "and people didn't want to give up all their luxuries. Besides, the war isn't everywhere, you know. The Kreelans have never been seen in most of Confederation space, and ships like this have been sailing throughout the Rim and most of the core worlds for decades."
"And every once in a while, one gets whacked," Ortiz interrupted. Stepping closer to one of the deck plan diagrams that hung along the walls of every passageway, she took a closer look at the layout of the huge ship. Four hundred thousand tons? Eleven hundred meters long? Seven thousand passengers? Shit. "I know that other Marine detachments are being sent aboard, but we're going to need a damn division to search this tub and a carrier to get them all off."
"Not all of them can be saved," Reza told her soberly. He had been standing beside Eustus, staring off into space as he sent his second sight through the ship. "Everyone from main engineering aft is lost. The enemy warships targeted her main drives and lifeboats, intending to wound her and prevent the passengers and crew from fleeing." He blinked, returning his attention to his current surroundings. "The enemy landed in the bow and warriors are moving aft, killing as they go. Many passengers have barricaded themselves in their cabins, but the doors will not hold against Kreelan steel. Others have sought sanctuary in the forward theater, but there is no safety for them there. They will be slaughtered."
Narrowing her eyes, Ortiz asked. "How could you possibly know all that?"
"Because he's a damn spy," Walker hissed. "He's still one of them."
Ignoring her, Reza told Ortiz, "The answer is...complicated."
Ortiz snorted. "My ass." After chewing on her lip for a moment, she asked Reza, "How many do you think are in that theater?"
"Lieutenant!" Walker protested. "You don't actually believe all this bullshit, do you?"
"Why the hell not?" Ortiz snapped. "We don't have shit to go on otherwise, and we're not going to waste time wandering aimlessly through thousands of meters of passageways before this tub's hull finally gives out. We'll gather up everyone we can find as we go, but at least the theater is on the deck diagrams. It's an objective we can shoot for." To Reza, she repeated, "How many passengers are there?"
"At least three hundred, perhaps more," Reza said. "It is very crowded." After a pause, he added, "Many of them are children."
"Leander could take that many aboard," Ortiz mused. She turned to Stalin. "What do you think?"
"If heading forward is where we can find Kreelans to kill," he said, grinning at Reza, "then that is where we must go."
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Last Updated 08/31/2016 07:19 EST