Alarm of War

flipped the grenade around the corner and ducked back. There was a satisfying ‘crump!’ followed by even more satisfying screams. She rounded the corner, shooting the first two Savak she saw. Three others were on the ground. One was on his knees, his helmet faceplate blown off, and blood streaming from his face. No weapon.

Cogan raised his Bull Pup, but Cookie held up a hand to restrain him. “Hold it, Cogan,” she said. “Maybe he can tell us how many others are on board.” The Savak soldier staggered to his feet, raising his hands above his head.

“Cuff him and frisk him,” she ordered Cogan, who stepped forward, reaching with one hand to grab the prisoner’s wrist. The Savak took a half step back, slid his hands to the back of his neck and hunched his shoulders.

“Cogan!” Cookie screamed. Cogan was already jerking back, but too slow, too slow. The Savak brought his arms up and around in a flat slashing motion — Oh, Mothers, was that a sword? — and Cogan’s head seemed to leap from his body, blood spraying in rhythmic spurts. Then the Savak was bellowing and lunching forward — it was a sword, she could see it clearly now — and Cookie was screaming and shooting and the Savak jerked and lunged and she shot again and he jerked a second time and collapsed with a meaty ‘thump!’ at her feet. His sword clattered to the deck.

Cookie skittered back until she was up against the bulkhead. Her chest was heaving and her teeth were chattering, which she dimly thought was odd. Then the other private, Mickey Millard, was shaking her and shouting, “Corporal? Corporal! Are you okay?”

And with that, abruptly, she was. Her teeth stopped chattering and the corridor leapt into focus. Millard was looking at her anxiously. She tried to smile. “I’m okay, Mickey.” She took a deep breath and stepped forward. Little shaky, but not too bad. “Get Cogan’s ammo and grenades, we’re gonna need them.”

“Bugger me! He killed him with a sword! A fucking sword!” Now that his Corporal seemed okay, Millard began to come apart at the seams.

Cookie stopped down next to Cogan’s body, stripped the extra ammo clips off his harness and patted his pockets for grenades. The lights suddenly flickered off, leaving the corridor dimly lit by bluish emergency lamps. In the distance, she saw someone run past a corridor entrance, then the sound of shooting. She stood up. God, she was thirsty. “Come on, Mickey, we’ve got to get to Engineering.”

Aret1 stood at the hatchway leading to the London’s bridge. Two Brets stood on either side of him. They had fought their way past several small groups of Victorian Marines to get here, taking casualties along the way. Now all he had were eight of his Arets, nine Brets and two of the slow Crets. The fact that the hatchway wasn’t guarded made him uneasy. Was it a trap? Would a platoon of Victorian Marines be waiting on the other side? He turned to face the others.

“When we go in, split up left and right,” he signaled, using he hand signs they had all learned as children. “Kill them all!” He drew a breath. “Glory to the Emperor!” he shouted, then pushed open the hatchway.

“Westchester, respond! I am ordering you to move four hundred miles forward and take up a screening position. Acknowledge!” Admiral Skiffington watched the hologram for a moment. Westchester did not move. “Dammit, what are they doing?” he roared.

“No reply, Admiral,” the Communications Officer said. “Nothing from Westchester, Sea Witch or Balmorel. The Yorkshire is responding and moving into position now.”

Admiral Skiffington watched the battle unfold on his hologram. The two Battle Groups on his right flank, Alpha and Bravo, were gone. Annihilated. One after another, the ship colors had turned from blue to blinking orange. His left flank, the Battle Groups he had commandeered from Third Fleet, were badly chewed up and scattered. His remaining two Battle Groups seemed still intact, but more and more they weren’t responding to his commands. One by one they were falling out of formation and just hanging in space. The computer still displayed them as combat ready…but they weren’t.

He didn’t understand.

The hatchway swung open and armed men spilled into the room. Everyone on the bridge stopped what they were doing and stared. Someone stifled a scream. Admiral Skiffington stared. A spark of anger flared within him and grew. These men. He stood and pointed at them. “Get off my bridge!” he thundered.

Grant Skiffington hugged the wall. Ten feet ahead of him four Marines lay sprawled in an intersection of two corridors, killed in some earlier skirmish. Grant could hear calls and screams and more shooting. He knelt down and peeked rapidly around the corner. Three of the armed intruders stood, backs to him, less than one hundred feet away. He looked back at the dead Marines. One of them still clutched a Bull Pup in his hand. He wanted that gun. Another peek; the gunmen were still facing the other way. He took a step-

A strong arm snaked around his neck and jerked him off his feet. “Gods of Our Mothers, didn’t you learn anything at Gettysburg?” a voice whispered harshly.

Grant squirmed around to see a Marine in a ballistic helmet. The figure raised the visor. “Cookie?” he stammered. She put a finger to her lips. “Shhssh. How many?”

“Three, about a hundred feet up.”

Cookie gestured to Millard, who crept to the corner, then flung a grenade. As soon as it exploded, Cookie and Millard stepped into the corridor and fired down its length. “Okay,” she called to Grant. “Get a gun and as much ammo as you can find.”

“That was my last grenade, Corporal,” Millard said.

“I know, Mickey.” She turned to Grant. “Do you have any idea what the hell is going on?”

“I know the Ducks are involved. I think those Dominion ships we rescued nailed the Sussex. They’ve got to be working with the Tilleke somehow.” Grant checked the charge on the Bull Pup. Half full. He found another clip and pocketed it. One Marine had a pistol on his belt and Grant took that as well, stuffing it into his pants.

Cookie grimaced. “The Ducks are working with the Tilleke? Then we are truly fucked.” She gestured to the dead intruders. “These guys are Savak, the Emperor’s Guard unit. Somehow they got on board, a lot of them. I’ve counted over sixty that we’ve seen and from the sounds, there must be more. They’re going room to room, killing everybody they find.”

Aret1 nodded when First Sister Pilot led the other Pilots onto the bridge. “The ship is yours,” he told her. We hold Engineering, Combat Systems and the bridge. We will eliminate the rest of the crew within the next hour.”

“The Emperor’s blessings!” she replied, eyes sparkling. They had captured a Victorian battleship intact! Her Sister Pilots quickly fanned out to the control systems they had studied for years. One opened a com to the Engineering Room, where other Pilots were bringing up power and restoring systems. First Sister Pilot found the ship’s navigation lights and turned them on, then examined the sensor display. There were six other Victorian ships in the immediate vicinity, three of them with blinking navigation lights. She studied the ships without navigations lights. Each of those ships would soon be the target of a Savak attack. She looked at her watch. Her orders were to destroy any ship not captured within two hours. “Get the missile systems ready,” she ordered.

The lights suddenly flared on, making Grant blink and Cookie and Millard duck into the nearest doorway. “Get out of the corridor!’” Cookie hissed. They waited a moment. In the distance there was the sound of intermittent shooting. Millard reached up to a wall com.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Grant told him. Millard looked at Cookie in confusion. “But the power’s on. We can get help!”

Grant shook his head. “It means we’ve lost the ship. If you call in, they’ll know there are survivors and exactly where we are.”

There was a shout, then a shot. Millard screamed and clutched his leg, blood blossoming between his fingers. Cookie crouched, let loose a burst, then a second, then they were running, dragging Millard by his combat harness.

Behind them they heard shouts and the pounding of pursuing feet. They reached an intersection, saw more Savak coming from the right, and then more yet emerged at the far end of the corridor. “Left!” Cookie shouted, then cursed as a pellet ricocheted off her helmet. Grant stopped in front of her and she bounced off him. “What?” she cried. They were in a dead end. Millard pushed himself up against the wall and shakily raised his weapon. Cookie unclipped her last grenade and tossed it around the corner, then knelt and raised her weapon, only dimly aware that Grant was struggling to open some hatchway in the wall. The grenade rattled along the deck, but obstinately