Chapter 6
"I'm getting reports of some serious shit going down!" Rains shouted out.
Their craft passed through the landing bay doors only to find it lined with civilians who had flocked there to try and get off the ship. Anything that could fly had already left, and they now stood about like lambs awaiting the slaughter.
Rains brought them in quickly, and the civilians quickly parted as they came in to land. As they put down, they saw a pulse soar past their position. Taylor opened the side doors, and screams rang out from all around them. Taylor knew he didn't need to say a word to his own people; they knew what to do. He jumped out from the copter and into the crowds of desperate and terrified people.
He could already hear the screams of pain beyond those of just panic as the Mech pulse cannons fired. He could see the flashes of light above, but the civilians blocked their line of sight.
"Everyone down on the ground! Down on the ground now!"
He grabbed the nearest woman and pushed her down and began doing the same to those around her while continuing to yell, "Get down!"
The civilians gradually began to comply, but they still cried and wailed. As they did so, he caught sight of one of the first Mechs and took aim. It saw him in the same moment and began to pivot and train its pulse cannon on him, but he had already squeezed the trigger and let out a controlled burst into its head.
"Wait!" he heard a voice cry.
He looked around and saw a young man running towards their ship in a desperate attempt to reach safety. As he got halfway, a pulse struck him in the back and passed through his body with no resistance at all. It then brushed off the thick frontal armour below where Eddie was still sitting in the cockpit.
The man dropped to his knees. There was a hole through his body big enough to put a fist through. He was already dead when he collapsed to the deck. Taylor saw particles of another pulse brush past him where a shot had struck his shield and burst on impact. It was all the motivation he needed to turn back towards his enemy.
There were still civilians all around him and nowhere for him to take cover. Neither could he easily get through them while as many pulses were hitting them as were coming towards his own people.
Only way is up, he thought.
Taylor took a quick step forward and fired his boosters so that he was launched forward over the crowd. He aimed himself at one of the Mechs like a rocket with his shield tilted forwards. The creature had no time to respond. He struck it head on and went crashing head over heels, as it too was knocked onto its back.
Taylor tumbled but managed to stop at a kneeling position and fired his rifle from the hip at the Mech who was trying to get back on its feet. His first two shots hit the knee joint of the armour, and the Mech dropped face first to the deck. He fired another three shots into its back. He quickly righted himself and turned to face the next enemy but stopped dead as a pulse cannon was placed against his chest. He had no time to react as the weapon fired.
The blinding blast projected Taylor through the air. He could feel several impacts on falling upon Mechs either dead or alive, but much of it was a blur as his body went limp from the impact. He felt dizzy as he rolled over a body and landed flat to the ground. He tried to get up, but he was disorientated and half blind.
Even though he was almost deaf, he could still hear a little of what was going on. Gunfire was almost constant from weapons on both sides. He got up to one knee but felt an impact against his chest. It smashed him back down onto the deck. He tried to get up, but as he raised a few centimetres off the ground, a Mech foot pressed down onto his breastplate and forced him back down.
His armour was all that stopped his chest from caving in. He reached for his rifle, but it was gone. The sling must have snapped when he was thrown. He tried to reach across for his Assegai, but he was unable to put his hand across his body for the heavy foot on his chest. The only option left to him was his sidearm. He pulled it from his holster and tried to take aim, but his vision was blurred. He desperately tried to focus, but suddenly the barrel of a pulse cannon struck his pistol and launched it out of his hand.
The impact nearly broke his fingers, and pain surged up his arm. He had nothing left now. He couldn’t reach a weapon, and he was pinned in place. He looked up, watching the enemy weapon pan across and point directly at his face.
“Screw you, you alien scum!” he bellowed.
It was his last moment, and he knew it, but he wouldn’t close his eyes. He wanted to see and witness his end. The light in the barrel of the cannon began to brighten as it gained power, and he knew he had just one second left and no way to avert death.
To his amazement, the Mech standing on him suddenly launched to one side and the weight came off him. The creature was barged out the way. The impact forced him to roll over onto his side, and he took a deep breath in surprise. As he rolled over, he could see Jafar stabbing his attacker multiple times.
Yet again saved by one I call a close friend, but an alien, nonetheless.
Taylor tried to catch a breath, but he still felt weak.
“That was foolish,” said Jafar.
He couldn’t help but agree. He had let desperation take hold of him and acted beyond what his training and knowledge would have otherwise allowed him, and paid a price for it. He looked down to see the front plate of his armour was smouldering. It was the thickest plate on their suits, and it had only barely stopped the penetration. He could see Parker and several others chasing down the last remaining Mechs in the room. Jafar reached down and offered him a hand. It was such a human gesture that it brought a smile to his face. Jafar was not unceremoniously hauling him to his feet, but offered assistance.
Taylor took him up on his offer and was helped upright. His head was pounding and his neck stiff. His arm still ached, despite the doctors having said it would be completed healed by now. He knew he hadn't given it the correct rest to heal. He heard a hive of activity and turned to see Rains’ ship swamped with people trying to climb aboard. He could sympathise, but it wasn't helping.
He picked up his rifle from the deck and fired a single shot that made them all freeze.
"Get down from the ship!" he boomed.
They stayed frozen, and he could see many were trying to decide whether to do as he said.
"Now!" he shouted.
Most of them slid back off the wings down to the landing bay deck, as he pushed his way to the ship and jumped up for a better view across them all. A couple of hundred people stood before him, and he knew their dead lay at their feet also.
"Take us out of here! Help us!" one of them yelled.
"Listen to me! Now! This craft is not going anywhere unless I say it does. It remains here because it needs to, and every second you hold me and my people up, the more of you will die out there."
"Take the children at least!" another screamed.
Taylor shook his head.
"The children?" he asked, "You think a child's life is worth more than any one of yours or my people? A child cannot fight for years to come. We're fighting for our survival today, tomorrow, for weeks, and months. Right now, the most valuable human being is the one who can carry a weapon and use it effectively. You have my word that I will do everything I can to protect you and the rest of the civilians on this ship. In return, I ask you stay here and not interfere with my people, my ship, my pilot, or me! Have you got that?"
A few groaned but nobody argued with him. He didn't like talking to them that way, but he knew the only thing that mattered now was time.
"Let's move!"
He jumped down from the ship and raced for the nearest exit. He quickly passed Parker who looked at the deep hole in his armour with disbelief.
"Lucky," she whispered.
"Damn right," he replied.
He carried on without breaking stride. Up ahead they could already hear almost constant gunfire from both enemy and friendly weapons. He had no idea what kind of numbers they were facing, and he had only a single platoon at his back, but he knew he had to head for the heart of the fighting and get stuck in.
"King, come in, what is your location?" he asked over the comms.
Nothing came back.
"They're jamming us again," replied Parker.
"F*ck sake. Every time we find a way to get around it, they screw us again."
Ahead they could see a line of bodies. Many were civilians, but amongst them were Chinese marines who must have come from the Lo Yang. Taylor shook his head as he noted their equipment. No body armour, old rifles. They were equipped no better than he had been the day of the first invasion. He remembered that time and how invincible the Mechs felt. There were just two fallen Mechs among the dozens of dead humans.
"They never stood a chance."
"And yet they came anyway, Eli? Stupidity or devotion to helping these people?" he asked. He could hear a heavy sound like a giant hammer striking an equally large anvil. They approached cautiously and turned a bend to find a Mech smashing itself against a large doorway, trying to breach it. Taylor instantly jumped into the corridor and fired a burst at the creature. His shots bounced off, and it turned towards him. It was one of the Juggernauts, but he knew it was too late to turn back.
He rushed at the giant Mech, and it appeared unarmed. But as he closed, it raised its arms. Lights flashed from pulse weapons running the length of his forearms.
"Shit!"
He held out his shield before him, absorbed the shots, and kept going. He charged full force into the creature, but it was like running into a brick wall. He stopped dead against it. He felt the Mech grasp the shield and knew he could not hold on. He let go and pulled out his Assegai. The Mech raised the shield to strike him with it like a club.
"Get down!" Parker screamed.
He ducked down, and half a dozen rifles opened up on full auto. The Mech was bombarded with fire. A couple of the shots appeared to penetrate and hurt the alien a little, but it did not stop it. Taylor could see the shield was about to come down on his head. He leapt forward between the legs of the Juggernaut, and the shield crashed down on the floor where he had been kneeling.
The alien spun around to continue its assault against him when a second wave of fire struck its back. Enough of the shots penetrated its thinner rear armour for it to spasm as the impacts were felt on its body. The creature tried to strike down to Taylor, but it was taking a continuous barrage of fire. Taylor could do nothing but hide in front of it or risk being hit by friendly fire. He watched as more than a hundred shots struck the beast, and finally it collapsed onto its back.
He was now able see his own people, and Parker shaking her head in disbelief at how much it had taken to bring the monster down.
"Hate those things," she stated.
"Everyone does," he replied.
Taylor banged on the door that the creature had been trying to breach.
"This is Colonel Taylor of the Inter-Allied Regiment."
"Who?" a scared female voice cried.
"We're from the Washington, and we're here to help you."
"We could just leave them be. Looks like they're as safe as they could be," said Parker.
The door unlocked and slid open. Inside were two women and a man. A pulse in the flank had clipped one of the women, and she sat squirming from the pain.
"Can you help us?" the uninjured woman asked.
"That's what we're doing," replied Taylor.
They tried to lift the wounded up towards the door.
"What are you doing?"
"You said you would help us?"
"And we are, by removing the threat. We cannot get you off this ship yet, and neither can we get you to the medical bay while the enemy still roams the ship. That wound looks pretty well cauterised to me. Safest thing you can do for now is seal this door back up and wait this out."
"But we..."
"But nothing," Taylor responded sternly, "All I need from you is information. You're the closest survivors to the enemy we have seen yet. What can you tell me about them?"
They looked dumbfounded.
"Come on, you know what they are. You must have seen them on the news. What are we dealing with? What kind of numbers have you seen? Do they have human agents among them?"
The eyes of the woman nearest to him suddenly lit up at his last comment.
"You saw humans working with them?"
She nodded in response.
"And their numbers? Any idea how many are aboard?"
The man finally spoke up.
"Last report I heard was more than a hundred had been sighted."
Taylor continued to present a calm image, but he was already getting a picture of how bad things were.
"You knew there were human-looking things out there, and yet you opened the door for us?" he asked.
They looked shocked and shaken.
"We just wanted to get help. This is my sister, and she's dying."
"She isn't dying. Lock this door, and don't open it again."
"Until when?"
"Just don't. I'll send one of my people for you when this is done."
Taylor turned to try and leave, but the woman asked, "How will we know it's one of you?"
"Rainfall," he replied, "You hear that word, and you know it's us. Now shut that door, and make sure it's locked."
She did as ordered, and Taylor carried on up the corridor.
"Rainfall?" Parker asked, "Why?"
"Because it's something no one else aboard would say, and it's something I'm sure we'd all like to feel. It just came into my head. Is that a problem?"
She shook her head. "What are you thinking?"
"That the Goeben wasn't taken over. It was theirs from the start. The human crew could have been Krys agents. God knows there were enough of them in Germany. They came through with us to cause as much trouble as possible. They just made their move too soon."
"Too soon, Mitch? There are twenty thousand people on this ship."
"Yeah, and they haven't managed to take her out yet."
He stopped, realising what he was saying.
"What is it?"
"They must know by now they are done for, so they are going for maximum destruction."
"I thought that was obvious?"
"And how would they do that?" he asked.
She was speechless.
"Destroy the ship," Morris joined in.
"Yes, they cannot kill these civilians fast enough," Jafar agreed.
It was a cold and calculating assessment, but they knew he was right.
"All right, so they don't have any nukes or similar, or they'd have used them by now. How else can they blow this thing to hell?"
"Overload the engine capacitors," said Morris.
"They have measures in place to stop that from happening, surely?" Parker asked.
"Yes, but if the control systems are damaged or destroyed, they could overload without restriction."
"And then what would happen?"
"With enough of a surge, and the engines on these barges are big enough for it, they'd rip a hole right through the hull. Do enough damage, and they'd vent everything to space."
"How'd you know all this?"
"You were born in Earth's atmosphere, Sergeant, and I wasn't."
"Okay, I get it. How can we stop it?"
"At either end. Reach the engine bays and ensure they cannot access them, or stop them getting aboard the bridge and destroying the safety measures."
"F*ck," Taylor muttered, "we have no way of contacting the rest of the Regiment. We'll have to do this ourselves. I'll take Parker, Jafar, and three volunteers to the bridge. Morris, you take the rest for engine bay."
Morris thought the numbers odd, but he didn't question them. He pointed to three of the platoon and sent them forward to Taylor before carrying on and taking a fork ahead. Watkins, Abbot and May joined the three of them.
"You know the way to the bridge?" Parker asked.
"I do," replied Jafar, "Did none of you study the layout of the vessel?"
He appeared surprised.
“Yeah, I studied it,” she replied, “but it all looks the damn same now we’re here.”
Jafar looked to Taylor.
“Hey, lead the way, big fella,” he said as he shrugged.
He stepped over the body of the Juggernaut and picked up his shield. It was buckled in the centre so that as he pulled it onto his arm, the lower half curled away from him.
“Those things hit like a wrecking ball,” he said.
“Yeah, well next time, don’t get so close.”
He turned to Eli with a smile, but she could see the concern in his face.
“I’ll do what I can.”
They passed through into a narrower corridor where the lights were flickering from gunshots that had struck them, and panels swung loose from the ceiling. Gunshots rang out in the distance, sustained fire from Reitech weapons. It brought a smile to Taylor’s face. He knew it could only be their people dishing out hell.
Parker stopped at a crossroads and looked towards the direction of the fire. Taylor could see she wanted to head for it and help.
“No time. We don’t get this done, and everyone could be done for.”
They knew their own suits would protect them, but that was just a few hundred lives, compared to the thousands who would be lost. Jafar had only stopped after seeing them do so and waited for them to continue on after him.
“How much further?” Taylor asked.
Before Jafar could answer, two shots struck the wall beside him, and he ducked back for cover.
“Those are ours,” Parker said.
“Friendlies!” Taylor shouted, “Coming out!”
He took the bend to show a recognisable shape, of which Jafar certainly wasn’t. A figure approached down the corridor; tall and confident and with a determined stride. As he passed into the light, Taylor recognised him as Major Moye. The tall black officer of the French paras was coated in blue blood and had a stream of his own dripping down the side of his face. He had just two others with him, one man and one woman. They were equally as filthy and blood soaked. They looked like they had been through a week’s worth of fighting. All three had soulless expressions that were so empty Taylor could see they had witnessed the kind of thing he would not wish on anyone.
Moye had always despised Taylor, and yet all that hatred he was used to seeing in the man’s eyes was gone.
“Where is your Company, Major?”
He shook his head. “Gone, all of them, gone.”
Parker gasped, as she knew how many he commanded.
“What happened to you, Major?”
“We…we were first aboard. We fought hard, but there were so many of them.”
He was distraught, and yet still held his rifle at the ready.
“So what is it you do now, fight or run?” Taylor asked quietly.
He struck a chord with the towering Frenchman who at first took insult, and then appreciated what Taylor was doing. He seemed to snap out of his weary daze.
“What is your plan?”
“To save all those aboard from being vented into space. Are you with us?”
Moye didn’t need to hear anymore.
“Lead the way.”
We are nine, Taylor thought, a distinct improvement.
They carried on until they could hear cries of pain and suffering. They first reached a single wounded woman lying against a wall, with a young child in her arms. She was covered in blood. Her nose was broken, and a deep cut ran around her forehead. Several other dead lay around her.
“Help me,” she pleaded.
None of them stopped.
“We’ll be back for you,” Eli said.
They all knew they could not stop and help, but as they passed her, the room opened out into a large communal room of some kind. Taylor was stopped dead and looked upon more than a hundred bodies scattered about the room where the Mechs had come through. Only a handful of survivors moved a little here and there. Taylor knew it shouldn’t be any surprise to him, but he could not help but feel shocked.
Never had he seen such masses of massacred civilians, since he had rescued Jones from the alien camp. It shocked him for a few seconds, before he was reminded of their mission and knew they could not afford another interruption. He looked away from the dead and dying, and onwards to their path through. He stepped over bodies and put it out of his thoughts. He forced himself to think of the living. None of the nine questioned his determination to keep going.
“How far now, Jafar?” he asked.
“Not far.”
Taylor shook his head, but as he opened his mouth to prompt his alien friend further on the matter, a pulse flashed into view and glanced off the rim of his shield. He ducked down into the cover of piled crates, and a number of other shots flew overhead.
“Is this it?” Taylor shouted over to Jafar.
“It is.”
“How long do we have?”
“I do not know the operations of this vessel. If they have reached the central controls, then we do not have long.”
“How long?” Taylor almost screamed.
“Minutes,” Jafar replied calmly.
Eli looked to Taylor for answers. He knew they had no time for a firefight.
“We have to go forward. No matter what it costs, and no matter what it takes. Any moment now, this could be over, and it was all for nothing. We have to go forward, all or nothing.”
As he said it, the two French soldiers with Moye nodded to each other and rushed out towards the enemy. They screamed some battle cry as they did, but it meant nothing to Taylor.
“Go!” he yelled.
The seven of them rushed out from cover and charged after the two who had led the way. The woman was hit by more than a dozen shots. The first two broke her damaged shield in two, and her armour took several more. Despite the injuries, she kept going and kept pushing to put one foot in front of the other. She took another eight pulses before finally falling, and her comrade fell soon after.
Taylor felt a bitter sadness inside for seeing their loss. He had never known their names, but felt the losses as if they were his own. It was enough to get them on the enemy’s doorstep, and Taylor leapt towards the nearest Mech as a shot burst over his shield. He did not stop and struck the first creature dead on.
Taylor felt the power once again that he had grown used to as the creature stumbled back and landed flat. He fired several shots until it was dead before him and then continued on. He could see the bridge ahead and two Mechs working at one of the main consoles. He fired as he ran, striking both of them in the back. He knew he risked damaging the ship’s systems, but the risk of not firing was far worse.
He drew out his Assegai and leapt forward against his next target; and carried on relentlessly when he saw one of the Mechs firing at Parker. She was pinned behind a console and taking fire from two directions. He raised his shield just a little, so that the bent lower half came in line with his head, and smashed it forward. The impact was enough to knock the Mech off balance, and it stumbled a few paces to the side before swinging its pulse cannon around for him.
Taylor jumped to the side of weapon and grasped it inside his shield, stabbing forward with his Assegai. It drove into the head and killed in a single blow. He let go, and the Mech dropped down dead. He turned just in time to see Jafar breaking another one’s spine over his knee and then punching through the faceplate to finish it off. All was quiet now. He looked around for Moye and found him standing beside them with blue blood dripping from his own Assegai. He pointed ahead, and Taylor turned to look to the rear of the bridge where a man stood frozen and terrified.
"Captain Dokgo?" Taylor asked.
The man nodded, but he was shaking and rigid as if unable to move. Another person behind him stepped into view, and Taylor could see a gun in their hand pointed at the back of Dokgo's head. Taylor didn't even respond. He knew there was little he could do with his Assegai in hand at such a distance.
"Whoever you are, this will not end well for you," he said.
"She's with, she's one of them!" Dokgo spat.
"Yeah, I figured."
The woman was in her early twenties and strikingly beautiful, to the level he didn't want to believe she could be on the side of the enemy.
"Colonel Taylor," she finally said confidently, "You have already failed."
He smiled in response.
"Says the girl standing alone. You haven't blown this ship. You blew your cover early. You screwed up."
"You still don't get it, do you, Colonel? Every one of us you kill, we replace. A hundred lives for the price of one of yours, is worth paying."
"I don't see Karadag coming back from the dead, or Demiran," he replied.
She had no answer.
"So what's it gonna be? How do you want to die?"
"Take me to your leader, and I will not kill this man."
Taylor shook his head. "I knew you'd say that."
He released the grip on his Assegai and reached for his pistol. It was drawn and on target before the Assegai even hit the deck. It crashed down as he pulled the trigger, and a shot went right through the woman's forehead. Her blood splashed out over Dokgo. The Captain pushed her off him and looked back in gratitude to Taylor.
"Whoever you are, thank you."
"They came here to overload the engines, you know that?"
The old Korean looked fearful, and Taylor could see in his face that he knew, just as Morris knew what their intentions were.
"Then you got here just in time."
"Hell, yes. Did they get access to any of your systems?"
"I don't know. I didn't see what that woman...thing touched."
He turned around to look at the consoles, and Taylor simply waited for information; he had no idea what he was looking at.
"I...I think...no."
Taylor already knew what he was going to say.
"Is there anything more you can do from this end?"
Dokgo shook his head. "You have to get to the engine bays and shut them down in person."
"Do you have any means of contacting them from here?"
"Yes...normally, but we lost internal communications when all this began...we need..."
"I got it, I got it," Taylor murmured.
He jumped forward and led the others back the way they came until he stopped, realising he didn't properly know the way. He let Jafar pass him.
"Lead the way."
Jafar moved at an alarming pace that the others could barely keep up with him.
"Think we can make it in time?" Parker called out, breathlessly.
"If we don't, then it was all for nothing. So there is no if, we have to make it!" Taylor said firmly.