The Catalyst

-Chapter 30-


Kwon had a full company in the breach, but it wasn’t enough. He’d had the foresight to set up firing positions inside the ship, but for the most part it was men, machines and blazing lasers.
The enemy marines were tough. They weren’t like the units we’d met up with before. I’d thought of those Macros as marines, but I’d been wrong. I realized now they had only been ship security troops. They might even have been worker Macros with different heads clamped on. These Macros were a different animal entirely. They were longer, taller and had an extra set of legs. Their guns were bigger, and they had three of them. One was a central heavy beam unit in their head section that they used to drill with. They could blow a hole in a deck or a wall as big as their own bodies in ten seconds with that thing. The other two beams were smaller but individually aimed. I quickly dubbed these ‘anti-personnel’ because they were chewing up my men with high rate of pulsing fire. The bolts spat something purplish—I suspected it edged into the ultraviolet and that I could only see the beams due to the properties of my helmet. These anti-personnel weapons were mounted on their sides, about where wings might have sprouted on a flying insect. They swiveled a full three-sixty from there and stitched my men with burning holes.
“Concentrate fire!” Kwon roared. “Squad leaders mark your targets. Everyone beam down your leader’s target!”
It sounded good, but it wasn’t really working out. The Macros were flooding in and scrabbling forward. With three beams each and huge, armored bodies as targets, his men could hardly take them down. I could see the error of our ways very quickly. We were still carrying light beamers for the most part. We’d had to run from Helios in a hurry and hadn’t been able to rearm. Most of our heavy beamers we’d converted into laser turrets, which hadn’t done much other than give the Macro invaders some target practice out there on the hull. They’d popped like a hundred-odd light bulbs.
There I was, running onto the scene with one of the few heavy beamer kits on my back. The light beamers weren’t quite enough to take these armored Macros. They were a different breed—not as bad as the building-sized Macros I’d fought back on Earth—but much more dangerous than the Asian-car-sized enemy we’d been dealing with lately.
“Kwon,” I barked. “Put every man who can fire on one target. You lead, you are packing a heavy kit.”
“Colonel Riggs? How’d you know that?”
“‘Cause I’m standing behind you.”
He craned his head around and threw me a wave. Then he turned back and relayed my orders over the command channel. One of the Macros popped up on top of a sleeping-brick next to me. Kwon lit him up and we all joined in. He still got off enough pulses from those purple automatics to tear up one of Kwon’s boys. Then he melted with thirty-odd smoking holes burned through his armor.
We burned down the next and the one after that. Things were looking pretty good. Then the bugs figured out where the organizers were.
There was a tiny blip of a pause while they all thought together. I could see it. I could see them all think and then come to a group decision. In unison, every last cursed one of them turned and rushed our position.
There was a buzzing in my helmet. I tried to ignore it, but finally responded. “Say again?”
It was Captain Gorski’s voice: “sir, all other positions have pulled back. Repeat: the enemy are all heading over the hull to your position. All of them.”
I got it then. The Macros had made a decision. Maybe—just maybe—they’d caught my transmission and heard my voice. Or maybe they’d heard Kwon call me Colonel Riggs. I had the feeling they didn’t like Colonel Riggs by this time.
“Fall back!” I screamed, ignoring command protocols. “FALL BACK!”
Two marines went down under a storm of incoming fire. I saw them coming right at me. At least eight of them crawled forward urgently. It was dinner time in the spider cage and someone had dropped me inside. Kwon stood up, blazing fire at the advancing enemy as he retreated. He got between me and the enemy, but they came on, heedless of their own safety. I was ducking away by this time, heading for a bulkhead where I could see my men escaping.
I turned back to see Kwon go down. First, they blew off his shooting arm. He tried to use it anyway, making motions with his shoulders as if he had a laser projector, but it was dragging on the ground with his severed hand still gripping it. Then some of those purple bolts splashed his legs, burning through his armor with repeated hammering. He staggered backward, but his legs wouldn’t hold him up anymore.
Sometimes I’m stupid. Ask anyone in my unit. Hell, ask anyone in under my command, or any girl I’ve ever dated. I bounded once, twice, grabbed Kwon by his remaining arm and dragged him out of there. I was very thankful for my battle suit, as it repelled the scattered enemy fire. My suit was scored in a dozen places, but it took more than one bolt from the anti-personnel weapons to burn through completely.
My men provided covering fire without orders. After all, I was the commander. A few of them died because of my action. Did that make it the wrong move? Probably. But sometimes in combat, you just do things, and you aren’t really thinking about every ramification.
In the end, I was in the midst of a pack of marines, running through the ship. I had slid off Kwon’s pack and given it to another man. We needed every heavy beamer we could get our hands on. At an intersection, I paused and handed Kwon over to two men. He was unconscious by that time.
The enemy paused in their advance as well, but I wasn’t fooled. They might be burrowing through the deck plates to flank us, or massing their full strength before hitting us in the corridors. I figured we’d killed less than ten of them so far and it had cost us a hundred men.
“Get him back to the aft area,” I ordered. “Make your stand there.”
“Where are you going, sir?” one of them asked. He was a corporal. I’d seen him around, and done some maneuvers with him. I hoped he’d live through the day.
“You guys are all heading to the aft of the ship. Get into the belly. Set up firing positions, and if they advance, hold as long as you can.”
They looked like they were going to complain, so I shouted the next word into their faces: “GO!”
They went. I heard the rattle and clank of magnetic boots hitting deck plates. It died away, and left me with a lonely feeling. I was already running by that time, however, running in the opposite direction, toward the ship’s prow. I still had my heavy beamer, but now I picked up something else from one of the store rooms. It was a funny-looking thing, being a series of four spikes set at opposing angles. In the center of this contraption was a tiny, nuclear charge. On one of the spikes was a thumbable button.
I ran with the mine in one hand and my rifle projector in the other. While I ran, I talked to my bridge crew with my com-link.
“Gorski? Do you read me?”
“Colonel Riggs? Yes, I read you sir. You’re out of position, sir, we have you tracked.”
“Gorski, I know where I am. They can track me too, I believe. Listen carefully: tell me what they are doing now.”
“Heading amidships sir. As a mass. They bored through the deck of the hold and left our brick area. They are—”
“Good enough,” I said. “This is Colonel Kyle Riggs.”
“I know, sir.”
“What are they doing now, Gorski?”
There was a hesitation. “Not much. Maybe they are burning through the deck again or something.”
“No,” I said, “they are thinking about me. They love me, you see. They love Colonel Kyle Riggs.”
I took a deep breath, then gave them a little speech: “Macro Command? I know you can hear me. You are all going the wrong damned direction. You are a bunch of clueless, shit-for-brains toasters. Colonel Kyle Riggs is right here, and he is laughing at you.”
“Sir?” asked Gorski, sounding confused.
“What are they doing now?”
“Ah—they seem to have turned around. They are heading forward, to the nose of the ship. They are all converging on your position, Colonel.”
I nodded in my helmet and smiled grimly. “Stupid toasters,” I said. “I suppose I should feel flattered.”
I stopped messing around then and I ran for all I was worth. Every bulkhead door I passed I threw closed behind me and locked—but I didn’t figure that would stop them for more than a few minutes.
I ran to the very forward ports of the ship, where big Macro sensor systems were located. Our compact sensors were up there sitting around with their more powerful arrays. We hadn’t figured out how to operate their systems yet, so they’d never been much use.
I aimed my heavy laser at a spot that was dented in. The hull wasn’t quite as thick or strong there. I switched on the projector and shot the dented spot in the hull. I kept the firing stud down for long seconds until my eyes hurt from the brilliant light and my feet felt the heat of molten metal right through my suit.
I kept on firing, burning my way out of the ship.