There doesn’t seem to be any heavy opposition yet, so I save my missiles.
There are thunder and lightning in space. Behind us, the fleet is firing cluster missiles and lasers to take out the enemy pattern of mines and probes, scattering flashes of light from a temporary constellation of detonations between the ships and Eros. It looks like it’s mostly plasma and scattered warheads, along with a lot of x-ray beams from the ships, so they aren’t firing anything heavy, either.
We complete our orbit of the asteroid, noting its many new small, glowing craters. Fortunately there were few structures out on the surface in the first place; it was mostly barren rock to begin with. There are a scattering of antennae and airlocks, and we’ve left those unharmed. Everything else is buried deep to prevent impact damage, and I don’t see any signs of a breach or crack. All the enemy weapons seem to have been cleared.
It’s time for the next phase of the attack.
* * *
Missiles and canisters shoot from our fleet to burst into sleeting, shimmering clouds of countermeasure dust flying our way as the fleet launches landing craft toward the asteroid. Breaching into a fortified asteroid with a prepared enemy is crazy. Naturally, we’re sending in the Marines.
A flight of fresh Guardian frames is escorting a dozen heavily armed and armored Marine boarding craft. They’ll take care of breaching and boarding the asteroid from the port at the end-cap. While hitting the port areas is the obvious move, it gives the Marines a wide area they can assault through, and even bring their heavier weapons to bear, if necessary. If they tried to assault through one of the smaller hatches on the flanks of the asteroid, they’d run the risk of being bottled up in tight corridors, unable to support each other.
While they’re moving in, we fly a few more circuits around the newly cratered surface of the asteroid. If there are any hidden weapons on the asteroid held in reserve, or mines, or other things floating out in the dark that we missed, now would be when they would strike.
There’s no point in hiding our presence anymore, so we paint the asteroid and space with high-powered targeting sensors and fill space with SPGs and railgun darts set on reconnaissance mode. Soon, space is filling up with an integrated reconnaissance network from our Guardians, and outside that is a much more powerful network set up by our ships. Nothing should be able to move or even power on without us knowing about it instantly.
Of course, I bet the enemy thought the same thing before we hit them out of nowhere.
There’s a brief fight at the port. The enemy had set up a few rail rifles on automated tripods that didn’t engage until they saw human shapes approaching the main doors. Nothing the Marines and their Guardian Angels can’t handle. Marine power armor doesn’t have the same protection as an Angel frame, but it’s strong enough to deal with most small arms. No one is seriously injured, but it costs time to clear those out with SPGs and seeker darts. Then there’s explosives that were set around the entrances—that takes time to clear out, also. Whoever did this had to know this kind of thing wouldn’t stop a determined assault, only delay it…
They’re buying time for something, but what? To escape? But there’s nowhere to go; we’re controlling space around this asteroid.
Suddenly, images of hostages being killed off or of a huge suicide bomb being prepared fill my mind.
I want to urge the Marines to move faster, but they’re going as fast as they can, and they certainly don’t need any more distractions right now. Hurry, I think, just the same, there isn’t much time…
They blow the hatch to the main port. It’s in vacuum, of course, so there’s no risk of depressurization. Beyond is the wide-open space where ships dock, and an irregular wall covered in docking facilities and docked ships. The Marines are soon locked in a nasty shoot-out with the insurgents in the broad, hollowed-out cavern of the hanger bay. Enemies in spacesuits are taking shots from behind docked ships, cargo crates, and out of various service tunnels. The Marines lay down suppression fire and send seeker darts and SPGs to harry the enemy after they’re driven back into their cover. The whole hanger fills with shimmering countermeasures clouds to cover their assault as they jetpack across the gap to take the docks.
After that, it’s just a matter of time as the Marines move from position to position, clearing the docks. They move methodically, clearing away bombs, auto-guns, and other booby traps.
The Marines set up portable airlocks at the hatches quickly, and then cut through and bypass the security measures on the hatches. More time. As they break through, there’s another brief firefight in the main axial hall, but they quickly overwhelm the light opposition. Clearing out the next set of crude mines takes a while longer, though.
Beyond lay the long, dark, twisting, weightless tunnels of Eros. The asteroid is too lopsided to spin for gravity, nor would there have been a way to make certain it wouldn’t crack under the strain of artificial gravity, so the warren of tunnels inside
