The tannoy system fell silent, and the corridors went utterly silent as the soldiers reflected on his words. Finally, Chandra looked to Taylor and broke the silence.
“All that we have survived, and now we find ourselves locked up in a tin can with nothing around us but space. I don’t like fighting when there is no escape by land or sea.”
“Agreed, but I remember you being eager to get into space.”
She chuckled.
“Eager to kill those bastards, certainly. Let’s not let it end up here, okay? If I’m gonna die in this war, I want it to be of firm ground.”
“Amen to that. Why on Earth anyone ever wanted to live on the God damn Moon is a mystery to me.”
The two of them had each attached themselves to a platoon of Jones’ Company. The Captain waited on a floor down with the other two platoons in readiness for the rapid deployment which they expected to need. The Commander’s voice came over the tannoy once again.
“Enemy targets have entered firing range. We have incoming fire!”
In the confines of the station, they could neither hear nor see any of what was going on. They wondered whether they’d want to see it, or if it was worse to have to wait to see the fate of themselves and their friends. Mitch finally broke and couldn’t withstand it any longer. Eddie was out there fighting alongside so many other pilots and Navy personnel he called friends.
“Fuck this, I want to see what’s happening!”
He leapt to his feet, and Chandra did not have the heart to stop him. Mitch made it down two corridors with several troops in tow before finally reaching an area with portholes giving a view to the outside world; light pulses from both the enemy and friendly weapons. Before he could identify any of the lightning fast battle in front of him, he was drawn to an object approaching their position at rapid velocity.
His eyes widened as he realised it was an enemy craft heading right for them on a deliberate path. He turned quickly with just enough time to warn those around him.
“Incoming!”
He leapt a few steps away from the window to take cover, but the explosion he had expected never came. He stood up in surprise as a loud clang rang out as something clamped onto the hull of the station. A small blast vibrated the corridor around them. A large plate of corridor burst inwards just ten metres away from the Major.
“Breach!” he yelled.
He turned back to Lam stood beside him.
“Get the Colonel here, now!”
He turned back and took up position in the ribbing of the corridor wall. He raised his rifle just as he saw the faint but instantly recognisable silhouette of a Mech infantryman appearing through the dust cloud created from the breach. He waited just a second for it to step into the open, and then he took a deep breath.
Here we fucking go again, he thought.
Footsteps pounded down the corridor, and it only intensified the rapid pounding of Taylor’s heart he always felt when a fight was about to begin. The creature up ahead turned quickly in his direction as it heard the troops approaching. Without hesitating, Mitch squeezed the trigger and loosed off a volley of shots, riddling the creature with bullets.
Before the beast had hit the deck, another two had advanced past it, and Taylor heard the rapid fire of weapons beside him. He’d prayed their fleet outside was still in the fight, but he no longer had the time to think of them. A light pulse rushed down the corridor between the troops huddling in against the ribbing of the corridors that provided them with some useful cover. Two more of the creatures were killed before Taylor’s eyes as he continued to pour fire down the corridor.
He could see they had a solid defence, and his people were more than capable of holding. It was his opportunity to get back to Chandra and check on any news. Just after a pulse flew past his position, he rushed out and quickly dived around the corner where Chandra was waiting.
“I’ve already had word sent to Jones to box them in the other end!” she shouted.
“So they are jamming us?”
She nodded in response.
“Are the hard lines still working?”
“For now. Do you think you can hold them in that corridor?” she asked.
“No problem, but it’s not this breach I’m worried about. It’s the next one and the one after.”
Chandra dipped her head and sighed at the desperation of their situation, and Taylor could already see she knew more than she had said.
“What is it?”
“We already have two other breaches.”
“Christ, I bloody hope Schulz gets a God damn shift on! How are the other breaches holding?”
“So far they’re holding. But Mitch, I don’t know how many more of these we can take. Info is still sketchy on the enemy strength, but clearly what we have in the air isn’t enough to hold them off.”
Taylor thought back to Rains for a minute. He knew the pilots and Navy personnel were their first line of defence, and so would be getting it the worst. Part of him hoped they had beaten a hasty retreat and saved themselves from the bitter onslaught of the aliens, but more than anything he prayed they had stayed. Corporal Hall rushed up to stand between the two officers and blurted out his news before they could ask his purpose.
“Colonel, we have another two breaches, one on this deck and one on 2A.”
“Alright, Kelly will have to handle one. We’ll take this level.”
She turned to Taylor. “Can you handle this, here?”
He nodded quickly in response.
“Alright, we’ll head to the other breach. Pray for us all, Major. Pray we make it through this. Pray the enemy are in few numbers, and pray Schulz is as quick to respond as we might hope.”
“Too much to chance, Colonel. I’ll rely on me and my own, first and foremost. Let’s show these bastards why you don’t mess with the human race!”
He turned and rushed back to his positions to peel off half the platoon to continue on to the new destination. He knew he was spreading their troops thin, but there was little else to do.
“Hall, we’ve got to move, now!”
The Corporal turned to look at the battle ensuing ahead where Jones had clearly flanked the enemy and engaged them with a brutal salvo of fire.
“The Captain can handle this, come on!”
Taylor led just twelve men to the next breach. Hall led the section he now commanded; a corporal was all they could muster anymore.
“Sir, we can’t keep covering so much ground!” yelled Hall as they rushed down a narrow corridor.
“We have to. We have to hold!”
“Spread this thin, one break in our line, and we’ll be fucked!”
“That’s a chance we’ll have to take, Corporal. Now haul ass and give ‘em hell!”
“Morris! Get down that corridor and cut them off!” Kelly shouted.
The Commander was stood at the entrance to the command centre with rifle in hand. A fallen Mech lay just twenty metres down the corridor. He shook his head in disbelief at how close the enemy had got. Martinez rushed to his side. The officer had blood splattered across his face, but it was clearly not his own.
“Sir, you must get back in to the CP. We can handle it here!”
Kelly looked around and initially thought to lash out at the man for tell him what to do. But he thought for just long enough to appreciate it had to be done.
“Alright, but you get back to the fight. Don’t let any of those bastards near the holding cell. Those prisoners may be the only reason we’re still alive!”
He quickly turned and rushed back into the command post to see Lewis receiving frantic communications from around the station. Kelly could do nothing but stand beside him and await the news. Eventually, the comms officer looked up and reported with a stunned and grim tone.
“Sir, we’ve got five breaches. Two are within the containment areas, but I have lost the video feeds.”
