The staccato sound of the Terran weapons was suddenly front and center. The screams and cries in the various languages of the League—mostly Russian, Chinese, and French—rose in volume through the hatch. Then they were gone.
By Lenin, they’re all dead. Bogdanov quaked in his combat boots.
“What do we do, Colonel?” a scared teenaged conscript asked.
“Our social duty,” Bogdanov forced out. “For the glory of our socialist republic!”
As if on cue, the hatch blew inward with a deafening roar. People in suits of power armor rushed in, firing their projectile rifles. Several enlisted Leaguers who’d taken Bogdanov’s exhortations to heart popped out of cover and opened up with their energy weapons. The Terran Coalition Marines cut them down without so much as a singe on their armor. One of the braver League sailors sprang up and charged the enemy formation, discharging his pistol into the faceplate of the closest Marine. It held for a moment then shattered into a thousand pieces. The laser beam cut through the unlucky man’s skull, killing him instantly. Return fire from the rest of the Marines shredded the sailor where he stood.
Throughout it all, Bogdanov sat transfixed. His fight-or-flight instinct was caught in a logic loop in which he couldn’t decide, so he sat mute while the battle raged around him. Aware that the shooting had stopped, Bogdanov let his pistol drop to the floor with an audible thud. Multiple rifle barrels appeared in his face.
“On your feet, Leaguer!” one of the Terrans shouted in Russian, though the accent was so bad that it was almost unbearable.
“I speak some English,” Bogdanov replied. “I surrender. No fight.”
Another power-armored Marine strode through the hatch. Even though they all looked alike, the new arrival carried himself differently. His faceplate popped open, and he surveyed the control room. Bogdanov immediately assumed the new arrival was in charge. The supposition was confirmed when he spoke. “Who the hell are you?”
“Colonel Grigory Bogdanov, League of Sol political commissar.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
“I ensure all maintain social duty,” Bogdanov replied. His heart skipped beats while sweat trickled down his forehead.
The other man glanced around the room. “Did he fire his weapon at you?”
“No, sir, Colonel,” the Marine who’d initially captured Bogdanov replied. “We found him crouched there, about to pee his pants.”
All the power-armored Marines laughed loudly, and Bogdanov’s face heated. Shame swept over him. “You kill me now?”
“No, Leaguer,” the Marine in charge stated as he stared Bogdanov down. “I’m Major Kosuke Nishimura, Terran Coalition Marine Corps. We don’t execute POWs. But you might make things a bit easier on yourself if you log my comms specialist into your computer system.”
Bogdanov got enough of what Nishimura said to realize they wanted him to help them take information from the station’s databanks. As he mentally grappled with the situation, part of him wanted to stay true to the League’s ideals. The other part argued that all he’d ever done in life was stab people in the back to get ahead. Why should this be any different? After a life of moral compromises and tortured justifications, one more was easy. “I give full access.”
“No tricks,” Nishimura replied. “Or it won’t go well for you.”
“No tricks.”
Nishimura gestured to the nearest console. “Have a seat, Mr. Bogdanov.” The Terrans stood at the ready, fingers on their projectile rifles.
With his heart still skipping a beat every ten seconds, Bogdanov sat down at the indicated terminal. A few keystrokes later, the computer core was unlocked. He turned back to Nishimura. “You have access all commands now.”
“Very good. Corporal, secure the prisoner,” Nishimura ordered. “Now, get the comms geek in here, and let’s get what we came for.”
As he was trundled off to the side of the control room and his hands zip cuffed behind him, Bogdanov pondered the choices he’d made over the last few minutes. His family back in the League would be ruined if word of his surrender—and worse, assistance to the Terrans—was ever discovered. They promised they would treat me better, though. His safety was the only thing that mattered. Of course, not even that mattered if their reinforcements arrived before the Terrans left the station. Bogdanov was certain the incoming battlegroup would destroy the station in a heartbeat rather than have it fall into enemy hands.
Red plasma balls whipped through space, barely missing Justin’s fighter as he weaved and dodged through the League station’s superstructure. Miniature explosions dotted its hull as the plasma charges struck it with their superheated fury. Justin waited until the exact right moment, when he had enough distance from his pursuer to flip positions. He pulled up hard on his flight stick, sending the craft into a one-hundred-eighty-degree Immelmann. The sudden reversal put him on a direct flight path toward his attacker, and he loosed a LIDAR-tracking missile before veering off.
The warhead flew straight at the League fighter, whose pilot seemed to have only one focus: killing Justin. Thanks to the craft’s shield depletion, most of the energy bled into the hull when the Vulture slammed into the fore shield. The Shrike didn’t have a chance. It exploded into dust as the onboard reactor failed.
“Theta One, splash one,” Justin called. He let out a small sigh of relief. Staying alive in the damaged fighter was a challenging task.
“Attention, all pilots,” Whatley cut across the entire command network. “Our Marines are undocking momentarily and have taken prisoners along with a great deal of actionable intelligence. Defend those shuttles at all costs. They must make it back to the Zvika Greengold. Godspeed. CAG out.”
Justin paused to take stock of the battlefield at large. The remaining League destroyer was engaged in a slugging match with the Greengold, while half a dozen fighters brawled in individual combats. All in all, the situation was reasonably well in hand. At least for a quickly planned offensive operation where stealth was the watchword. His HUD came alive with several more red dots. More fighters? From where? That destroyer can’t
