After clearing two dozen such spaces they came around a corner and saw the first real evidence that their allies had a significant foothold on the ship. It was a portable armoured barricade that sealed the hallway. Welded into place, it was almost as secure as a bulkhead door, and upon arrival they were scanned by two officers with hand units before the rearguard slid the barricade doors open. It was closed behind them quickly, as though they feared the wrong air would waft in behind them.
Several rooms, quarters from the looks of it, had been opened and were in use as triage centres. Many of the patients had been placed in stasis. Some were fresh from the fight, with limbs missing or holes through both sides of their armour. Whatever the people holding the bridge were firing, it cut through their armour like it wasn't there at all. Cumberland couldn’t help but recall the mental image of the nafalli they’d met who killed several of his people while wielding a nanoblade.
He made the mistake of locking eyes with a man as he was being rushed into the middle room. He was in indescribable agony as something that had burned through his armour continued to flare through the hole. 'It's an aluminothermic reaction! We've got to isolate it so it doesn't burn straight through his hip!' called out one of the medics.
The man was twitching in pain so severe his screams were interrupted by convulsions. His gaze was desperate, piercing, and something Cumberland would see in his dreams. As the stretcher was placed down on a cot and the doctor stepped in with an instrument that looked like a hollow coring tool, he flinched his gaze away and cleared his throat. 'Let's get to it boys.'
'Sir, I have to lodge a formal protest,' declared a voice from behind.
'Go ahead, but if you fall out I'll have to shoot you.'
'That's well and good sir, but these people are better armed, know the terrain and have the overall high ground. We should consult with Command before moving forward.'
'Your complaint has been recorded, it'll show up on Commander DeHansen's screen.'
'I don't feel that I've been properly addressed. I want a response before-'
'Commander DeHansen is running this deck. If he says we move up and help him finish this, then we do. He can choose to address your complaint before, during or after we're engaged.' A sudden rush of air was a sure sign that an explosive had detonated ahead. Major Cumberland wasn't looking forward to entering the fray either, but if they could take the bridge, it might finally give them the upper hand on the ship. 'Now get in line and get ready or I’ll send you back up to deck twenty one. I hear Command is looking for someone to lead the suicide mission up there.'
The rear guard was two squads deep, thirty soldiers. Once they were past them the halls were eerily quiet, and with no illumination other than their reticule sensors and the beams of their personal lights, the open doors were like mysterious cavities, collecting shadows. Cumberland's wrist computer told him the quarters on the command deck were spacious, most likely for the upper ranks. Glimpses inside revealed upturned furniture, personal items left on the floor, and a general desecration of living spaces. No wonder they're taking it personally. This has the feel of a long tour ship. They probably consider this ship their home, may have for a long time. I'd be pissed too. Flashing light ahead told him that they were coming up to one of the front line battles. It was too soon. The broad, curving hall had guided them in the right direction, but last Cumberland checked, the status said that they had made more progress. It said they had reached the bridge proper. The sensor data he downloaded from the Commander’s terminal told him a different story.
He ran forward until he could see combat, his soldiers were close behind. On the deck behind the bottlenecked troops was evidence of demolished barrier materials. They had been driven back at least twenty meters, and the enemy was laying firepower on thick. The injured and dead were piling up behind as medics rushed to get the most treatable cases onto stretchers and back to their temporary infirmary.
Major Cumberland stopped and looked at a fresh schematic of the command deck on his hand scanner. There was another battle raging on beneath their feet, on the lower level of the command deck. 'Commander DeHansen. We're moving to the lower deck, there's no opportunity to engage on this level,' Major Cumberland announced.
'I hear you. Proceed.'
Cumberland turned and started running back the way they came. If the command crew of the Triton were able to hold the main deck and press the assault back, then there wouldn't be much chance of that fight resolving in their favour. From the schematic in his hand the two levels of the main bridge were connected, however, and the assault on the lower deck was going much better. They were at the doors.
When the express car opened, they were greeted with the sight of a heavy bulkhead door that had been cut through. It was no less than a metre thick. He'd never seen anything like it outside of a vault or primary hull plate.
'Must have taken them all day to cut through,' muttered one of the privates behind him as they stepped inside.
'Keep your eyes on your targeting reticule. The report marking this level clear may have been a little off,' Major Cumberland ordered as the rest of the data on the encounters for the area scrolled by.
'I'm just glad we weren't the first to clear the administration and conference rooms up top. Seems that those cushy quarters end just a few meters up from where we were and there were traps all over.'
'Can it, Spence. Hustle up.' Major Cumberland said as he watched the last of his people step through the narrow hole in the bulkhead door. The instant both her feet were on the deck he broke into a run.
Major Cumberland kept one eye on the gradual curve of the hall through his targeting reticule and the other on the hand scanner. It told him everything his raw senses and basic sensors couldn't. Twenty meters in he started seeing bodies.
Some of the doors on the lower command deck had been sealed shut with quick weld tape, others had been battered through, some from the inside, some from the outside. Some of the more scrappy conscripts who he'd run into under the command of the issyrian were represented amongst the ruined bodies. A few of the corpses were dressed in the foreboding skull marked armour of the security teams that were scattered across the ship, the proper defenders.
I've never seen a crew so unwilling to surrender. These conscripts fought as hard as the properly uniformed soldiers. There had been a slaughter, and as he closed the distance between himself and active fire fighting he slowed to look before leaping. One of his people, an abandoner of the upper deck who had just joined, ran a few steps past him, jarring his shoulder. 'Watch it!' he called out. 'Actually, now that you're up there, you take point,' he said with a smile that was more like a grimace as he looked into the darkness ahead. Just around the corner there were barricades. He could barely see them.
'Yes sir,' replied the Private, raising his rifle and moving ahead slowly. Carefully placing one boot down one after the other between the mixture of corpses.
'What kind of fire fight does this? I mean, how are they so close together?' asked another one of his late joiners. His voice was thready, near panic.
He didn't care to help. 'A close fight does this, one where half the people are using blades,' he replied.
'No one does that. Look! Most of these ones are sliced and diced! I mean, what kind of a fight is that?' He poked a fallen soldier's helmet with his boot and cringed backwards as it rolled to reveal the trooper's head was still inside.
'Get it together!'
The point man stopped in his tracks, lowering his rifle as they came around a more extreme bend. 'No way. There's no way. I'm not going in there.'
Major Cumberland rushed up behind him and peeked around his shoulder. 'Then don't move.' He said as he looked at the scene ahead on his hand scanner.
The barriers had breached, or a few of the enemy had found a way around. He couldn't tell. Ahead was a melee. For a moment it looked as though his men were fighting each other, but then he realized they were trying to line up invisible targets. Whoever was assailing them managed to get into their midst in cloaksuits, most likely not many of them, but they were in the middle of fifty or more soldiers.
Cumberland tried to use the sonic detector on the hand scanner, but the enemy was so close to his allies that they were impossible to tell apart. He thought he saw one of the invisible defenders appear on his screen, but he was running so fast, and closed to within striking distance of the men ahead so efficiently that the signal was immediately indistinguishable.
He looked up from his scanner, stuffing it into his only remaining front pocket, and just watched the fray for a
