His velocity was very close now to the Moskva’s. It was as though he was drifting just above the vast and intricate terrain of the enemy’s hull, a landscape of towersand cliffs, of plains and domes, of canyons and beam turrets . . .
His fighter lurched to one side, a savage jolt.
Yeah, add kinetic-kill weaponry to that list. His active matrix outer hull had absorbed most of the impact, but the blow verynearly put him into a tumble. Righting himself, he targeted the gun with his Gatling cannon, sending a stream of high-velocityrounds. White light flared against the artificial landscape, and metallic shrapnel rattled off his hull as he passed throughthe rising plume of debris.
His AI marked another target just ahead: a HEL. He continued his strafing run and nailed that target as well. Atmosphere spilledfrom the crater his burst created, water vapor freezing instantly to glittering clouds of ice crystals.
“Enemy fighter on your six.”
His AI’s warning in his mind snapped his attention to his immediate surroundings. A Yastreb fighter had just dropped onto his tail. Continuing to hurtle forward at nearly 100 meters per second, Gregory flipped hisStarblade end-for-end, bringing his Gatling into line with the Hawk fighter and triggering a brief burst from the weapon.The Hawk came apart, its vacuum energy taps detonating in a fiery smear of plasma.
“Here come the Gyrines!” Johanson called.
“Okay, people,” Gregory said. “Move in on the bad guys’ bridge—we need to cover those lamps!”
The Russian carrier’s bridge tower, unlike the smoothly curved reverse shark fin on America, was large, squared off, and bulky, a truncated pyramid with steeply sloping faces. As on America, it was set into the carrier’s spine just forward of the centrifuge wheel that provided spin gravity for the crew.
Gun emplacements encircled the tower.
Gregory readied another flight of AMSO rounds.
Strike Force Reaper
Marine Battalion 3/25
N’gai Cluster
1625 hours, FST
The Moskva didn’t spot them coming in, or if they did, they had other things to worry about, like fighters and clouds of AMSO rounds.McDevitt pointed, projecting a graphic-targeting reticule to mark the precise spot. “Right there. Leading face.”
“Aye, aye, Colonel. We’ll have you there in two point five shakes.”
McDevitt decided he wasn’t going to ask about shakes of what, but continued to watch the growing Russian carrier on the MAP’s screens.
The VBSS-Mk. 87 Marine Assault Pod had been dubbed “Lamprey” after an eel-like fish living back on Earth, an ugly creaturewith a round, jawless, tooth-lined mouth designed for attaching to the sides of other fish and rasping its way in to reachthe blood and internal organs. The name, usually shortened to “Lamp” by the Marines, was a gruesome joke, but apt. The noseof the MAP was a flat sheet of nanodisassembler microbots, designed to slap up against an enemy ship’s hull and dissolve theirway through. Around the perimeter of nano-D were strips of nanoassemblers programmed to weld the Lamprey’s “mouth” to hullmetal in an unbreakable and airtight bond. It allowed a company of 120 armored USNA Marines to enter a target ship in hardvacuum without using an airlock; or rather, the MAP itself became the airlock.
The trick was in determining exactly where on the target vessel you wanted to hit. Some parts of the hull would be massively armored and hard to eat through. Others might sandwich water tanks or the densely packed electronics of shield projectors between outer hull and interior spaces. The idea was to find a thin enough portion of outer hull that the nano-D attachment plate could burn through quickly that wouldn’t, in turn, expose the Marines to a further obstacle. If the enemy knew you were coming through at a given point, they would have time to assemble ship’s marines at that point to catch you coming through.
“Contact in five seconds!” the MAP pilot called over the intraship circuit. “Brace for impact!”
The pilot had a deft touch and the impact was quite gentle, a heavy surge of movement forward as the ship came to a halt.The flight deck was perched high atop the MAP’s nose, and was now a meter from the solid black hull of the Moskva.
“Nano-D engaged!” the MAP’s engineer reported from just behind McDevitt’s position. “Solid seal!”
“I’m going to join my people,” McDevitt said. “Thanks for the ride, boys. Enjoy the view.”
“Our pleasure, Colonel. Good luck!”
He pulled his way down a narrow passageway and turned a corner.
The men and women of the 3/25’s HQ Company were already lining up behind the massive round hatchway, still sealed shut, thatled forward through the business end of the MAP. Mk. V Marine Assault Armor was massively imposing, the surface coated inreactive camo nanomatrix that mirrored surrounding colors, light levels, and shapes. The sight of all those armored suitsmirroring one another was disorienting and a little eerie, with parts of that mob fading into the background, not quite invisible . . .but not quite there, either.
It was a sight McDevitt loved.
“Stand ready, people!” Major Hanson, McDevitt’s XO, called. “We’ve got burn-through! Adjusting pressure differential . . .”
Normally, the HQ Company would not be employed in a combat assault, but the ancient adage of every Marine being a riflemanstill held true, and McDevitt’s orders were to seize the Moskva’s bridge and begin directing operations from there as soon as possible, and that meant the company would go in with the first wave. Besides, they wouldn’t necessarily be the first on in the VBSS. Alfa andBravo companies were coming in hot on board their own Lamps; Bravo was already reporting being engaged with the enemy overthe battalion command channel.
That meant they needed to get going.
“Hatch open in three!” Hanson yelled, “. . . and two . . . and one . . . go! Go! Go!”
The hatch dilated open, and the armored Marines fell forward, pulling their way in zero-G through the brief, mirror-smoothtunnel left by the nano-D and into the Moskva’s command bridge.
The compartment was large—larger than on board America—but still managed to feel cluttered, dark, and claustrophobic, with dozens of workstations partially walled off from oneanother by arrays of display screens and chart boards and placed
