The pulsing proximity tone of the shuttle’s built-in anticollision lidar beeped from the cockpit ever faster until it merged into a single, uninterrupted tone. The deck jolted underfoot as the energy of impact with the relatively huge Halcyon reverberated through the shuttle’s bones.
“Solid lock,” the copilot said. “Board is green.”
“Go, go, go!” Okuda shouted into the com as Susan struggled to get out of her crash harness. The outer airlock door swung inward, revealing a fleet-standard emergency evacuation hatch bearing the stenciled moniker CCDF HALCYON: FF-109.
Susan’s breath caught in her throat. Everything came down to the next two seconds. On her order, the pilot would ping the Halcyon’s computer system with an emergency code. All airlocks and external evacuation hatches on CCDF ships could be overrode using a fleet-standard emergency code that rotated every few months along with routine software updates. The code was uniform across all ships to facilitate search-and-rescue teams responding to disasters so they didn’t have to worry about interfacing with a ship’s central computer system while the fires were burning.
If no one onboard Halcyon had thought to change or block the code, and there was no reason they should because no one had ever tried to use it offensively before, the hatch would pop open and Susan’s marines would swarm inside like angry wasps. If someone had, well …
Susan exhaled. “Pilot, send the code.”
On command, the evac hatch sank fifteen centimeters and rolled into the space between hull layers to make way for the search-and-rescue team that wasn’t coming. Okuda wasted no time on celebrations and pushed off into enemy territory, managing the transition from zero g to grav plating like a seasoned professional. The rest of the platoon followed like a river cutting its way to the sea.
Susan held back, after mutually agreeing to Okuda’s demands that she stay on the shuttle until they’d secured a beachhead. She took the opportunity to type out a text-only order to Miguel to change Ansari’s hatch codes immediately in case anyone on the Carnegie or Paul Allen figured out the trick and felt inspired.
“Beach is clear, mum,” Okuda’s voice came over her suit helmet’s com. Susan got up from her seat and nodded to Private Culligan as she passed.
“Watch my ass, Private.”
“Eyes on, mum.”
Susan winked at him and drifted the short distance to the Halcyon, stumbling only a little as she passed into the local gravity.
There wasn’t time to dawdle. At only twelve vertical decks and seventeen thousand metric tons, the Zephyr-class fast frigate was just about as small as it was possible for a crewed warship to be. It didn’t even mount a third redundant Alcubierre ring as all other military ships did. Little more than a triple cluster of fusion rockets, a modestly sized A/M reserve, a handful of recon drones and offensive missile cells, and low-volume life support system, it traded firepower, survivability, and endurance for raw speed. It was designed more for shore patrol duties in developed systems, fast enough to chase down smugglers, tariff-jumpers, and corsair ships with just enough teeth to force compliance or finish them off. In a fleet support role, it acted as an area-denial weapon and enhanced recon platform, with a focus on extended fire coordination for the rest of the task group.
All of which meant the crew complement was small enough to be manageable for the force Susan brought to the party, but also that their response time now that they knew unwanted guests were aboard would be short. It would be a symbolic victory at best, but it was the only of the three ships in the task force Susan’s marines had any chance of capturing without getting scraped off the bottom of the crew’s boots, so here they were.
“Stay out of the lift tubes,” Okuda told her marines. “Stick to crew ladders.”
This was met with a collective groan as everyone assembled envisioned climbing one-handed up a ladder while holding an assault rifle in the other, but Okuda was having none of it. “Secure the whining. That’s the deal. I’ll go first so none of you frilly blouses have to wrinkle yourselves. Mum, in the middle where we can keep an eye on you, if you please.”
“Yes, Mother.” Susan said to a round of hesitant laughter. “C’mon, grunts, this isn’t your funeral!”
That had the desired effect. Okuda slung her rifle and pulled a sidearm from the breastplate holster of her armor and galloped up the nearest crew ladder. Not wanting to be shown up by their old lady, several marines followed in rapid fire. A second fire team settled for another crew ladder a little further down the hall to give flanking cover to the first team.
“Mum, if you’ll follow me?” a random marine whose name Susan hadn’t memorized asked.
“After you, Sergeant.”
They made it three full decks before meeting resistance, but when they finally did, it hit fast, and it hit hard.
“Contact left!” Okuda shouted into the secure com link, but she’d spotted it a split second too late. As expected, the Halcyon’s crew had evacuated the atmosphere below the CIC deck in hopes of slowing the intruders down. The marines’ powered armor had a limited self-sealing capacity for bullet punctures, but large tears from fragmentation grenades, debris, or knives would still force whole limb sections of their suits into tunicate mode at the nearest joint to prevent embolisms from causing a stroke in the victim’s brain.
Which is why no one heard the first antipersonnel mine go off. It was a bold introduction.
“Man down! Suppressive fire! My right!” The rhythmic staccato of automatic weapons fire vibrated through the corridor despite the vacuum as Okuda drove her personal answer to the ambush home with bloody intention. Soon, an entire fire team’s worth of frangible boarding rounds joined in from behind her at eight hundred beats per minute. Whomever had set off the mine disappeared into a fine red mist before they could shit themselves.
But they weren’t alone. The Halcyon’s reduced contingent of
