Chapter 35
Frost’s stump tingled again. It happened every few hours, after his shin started itching, then burning and then his vacsuit would administer pain medication and nanobots would repair the worn, irritated skin as soon as it broke and began to bleed. He almost wished he hadn’t checked his prosthetic during their last break. It might have been better if he wasn’t aware of the crack filled with blood and pus. When it cracked, he couldn’t have guessed, but it had been bothering him since they were first knocked clear of their wormhole.
The inside of his vacsuit stunk with the smell, and he quietly regretted turning down the replacement limb that had been grown in the medical bay. The thought of a nafalli in charge of the attachment surgery didn’t appeal to him in the least, but the stench of a wound that opened over and over again, combined with the irritation of walking for so many hours he’d lost count made having one of the hairy non-humans affixing the limb more appealing.
The Sol Defence Encounter Suit was the perfect infantry command platform. Even the intelligence expert, Jason Everin, who had become his partner in the boarding operation, used one whenever he could. It limited them both, however. The height of the suits restricted them to large storage areas and main hallways. If he didn’t have competent, well armoured teams backing them up, they would have had to leave them behind.
The gunnery deck crew along with a few security personnel made for one mean unit of one hundred twenty six men and women. They wore the heaviest vacsuits, and a third were in the smaller loader suits. They’d outfitted most of them with weaponry at the last minute, and it didn’t take them long to refine their jury-rigged solutions.
Jason Everin was a genious. Frost had worked with several infantry commanders, and considered himself fortunate to know Jacob Valance, but this man was a different breed. On the bridge the man seemed easy going and competent. Nothing seemed like much of a challenge while he was running communications and helping with security. Since the counter boarding action began Frost had formed a different impression. Jason Everin was colder than anyone he’d ever met. The crew of Enforcer 1109, the destroyer attached to the ship, was the enemy. There was no compromise whatsoever. He also improvised at a moment’s notice. Pride seemed to have no place in his thinking process, and recognizing that a plan had to change because an assumption or idea was wrong happened as though by reflex.
Frost watched as Jason and a quarter of their forces moved around one of the shorter hallways towards the main crew habitation area. It was a fitful firefight, with enemy crew members backtracking towards the largest berth on the ship. At its centre was a galley, several offices, showers, and the convenience store. “Second team, move up. Put down barriers for cover,” Frost commanded as the second quarter of their people moved in from the other direction. “Make sure they don’t split into another section of the ship.” He would never admit that he could feel a cold sweat on his palms as he watched the plan come into place.
The remainder of their forces surrounded his encounter suit. There was another such suit beside him, fourteen battered loader suits, and a few dozen Triton crew in armoured vacsuits. “How goes the rush, Jason?” Frost asked.
“They’re falling back, and the rearmost are starting to run into team two. Looks like they’re going to have no choice but to retreat into the main habitation area,” replied Jason over the sounds of pulse and particle rifles firing all around him.
With a glance at the retinal tactical display projected at Frost’s eye, he could see Jason was getting close to the front of his team. Crewcast reported that he had depleted more than eight percent of his sidearm’s ammunition in the past six minutes. “Stay out of it lad, you’ve got fire teams with you so you can use that big brain o’ yours instead of getting it blown away.”
“Right,” Jason Everin replied flatly.
There was no arguing. He simply stopped firing and fell back to the middle of his team. It was the right thing to do, but Frost wasn’t used to working with someone who gave in to reason so quickly. His people followed orders quickly, but Frost was used to hearing some kind of counter argument when he gave advice to an equal or higher ranked officer.
The second team finished moving into place perfectly, and when the enemy crew tried to retreat around the corner behind them, they were greeted with a hail of gunfire. They were sandwiched between the Triton forces, and even though they had more numbers, they were hoplessly outflanked. In under a minute they retreated into the only door available to them; the central living quarters.
“That’s it, they’re contained. Your turn, Frost.”
All the other exits had been welded shut with an extra layer of plating affixed atop the door. “You said it, they’re contained. No need to follow through,” Frost said as he glanced at the locked panel in the wall beside him.
“We don’t know what kind of tools they have inside, and there are four to seven hundred people in there. This is going to be a problem moving forward.”
Frost watched as Jason took his team further up the hall to one of the main data access lines. “I still think we’ll do better using this as leverage. We go through with it now and we’re shooting any trust we can build with the Command Crew out the airlock.”
“We’re not in a situation where we have time to build trust with anyone, especially their Command Crew. If they have any intelligence training at all, and evidence says they do, then they’re not going to bargain with us.”
“This doesn’t sit right with me lad.”
“Frost! I’m not going to argue with you. I can’t move ahead without your back up and we can’t afford to get taken from behind when those people break through the doors. Either cut into that environmental panel or I’ll go back there and do it myself! It’ll delay my hack into the trunk line, and you know we can’t afford the time.”
“Aye. You’re right, guess I best get used to it,” Frost acquiesced. He turned and took two steps towards the heavy dividing wall. The three and a half meter tall encounter suit followed his every movement perfectly, even his limp. The enhanced plasma torch mounted at the end of the suit’s index finger cut through the ten cenimetre structural wall like it was made of tissue paper and he pulled the block of metal out with the other hand. After placing it against the wall he examined the wiring that was hidden behind. “I’m through.”
“Were the schematics right?”
One of the gun deck team stepped forward and wrapped a band around the bundle of wires, then opened a panel on the side of Frost’s encounter suit so he could connect the other end with the data jack there. “One minute,” Frost said as he watched his on board computer interpret the raw data coming from the lines. With dread he saw all the raw environment system connections, and after a few seconds the encounter suit computer devised a control screen that encompassed all the options available. “Aye. Interior pressure, temperature, it’s all here.”
“Good. Do it, Frost.”
He tried not to think about what it would be like in a bunk, the commissary, latrines or mess hall when he did what he had to do. He’d seen it first hand when he stripped Burke of his vacsuit and reduced the temperature in an unused crew compartment. The man had taken every credit he had, marooned him on an unfriendly world, and deserved the serious frostbite he suffered. These crewmen were only defending their ship, and had been beaten back so efficiently that they had no choice but to take refuge in what they probably felt was the safest part of the ship. Most of them weren’t even soldiers.
“Frost!”
“Aye, taking care of it now,” he said as he directed the temperature down past critical limits. Next he reduced the pressure until it passed well into the negative range and finally he ordered the biohazard seals in place for the entire section. The audio pickups on the outside of his encounter suit transmitted the screaming through the comparatively thin wall behind the wiring and Frost closed his eyes. “It’s done. Anyone without an atmosphere suit or emergency compartment should die in a minute. Emergency biohazard measures sealed them in.”
“Considering how few of the regular crew wear environment suits or liners there won’t be many left. What
