Victor fired his own assault rifle down the hallway, spraying bullets in an effort to force the shooters on the other side to keep their heads down while Gaz’s people moved up.
One of Gaz’s men leveled an automatic grenade launcher.
Thunk-boom! Thunk-boom! Thunk-boom!
echoed inside Victor’s helmet as the far end of the hallway disappeared behind a cloud of smoke.
Gaz and his people charged into the smoke, firing at anything that moved.
Victor followed the trail of death and destruction. He was glad to see the only bodies on the ground were palace guards.
“They’re falling back! Move! Move!” Gaz shouted.
Victor checked his HUD map. The bunker’s entrance would be around the next corner. “Gaz, wait!”
Gaz either didn’t hear Victor or ignored him because Gaz was having too much fun and continued forward, flanked by two of his men. When they ran around the corner, they were hit by a storm of tracer fire.
All three went down as large caliber rounds punched clear through their armor, leaving trails of blood in the air.
Gaz and his two men flatlined on Victor’s HUD. “Gaz!” he shouted as he reached the corner.
The heavy gunfire continued to buzz like a large angry insect down the hallway.
Victor gritted his teeth. He would kill whoever was manning that gun!
He pulled out a snake camera, extended it fully, and then stuck it around the corner. There, just before the sealed metal doors of the bunker, was a gun turret, its four barrels still spinning. The turret turned toward the camera.
“Shit!” Victor ducked back just as the gun belched fire and shredded the wall he was hiding behind.
He looked at the broken end of his camera snake and then back toward the hallway. How would he get past that gun?
One of Gaz’s surviving men, with Jersey stenciled across his helmet, moved up to Victor. Jersey was the one with the grenade launcher. “Orders, Captain?”
“We’ve got to kill that turret,” Victor said. “I’m open to suggestions.”
“Antitank rocket ought to do it. Trick will be to aim and fire it before getting gunned down,” Jersey said.
“Yeah.” Victor looked down at the prone forms of Gaz and his two people and sighed. “That’ll be a bit of a problem.” He brought up the blueprints Cormac had stolen. The bunker had several meters of armor and its own shield generator. It could probably survive taking a shot from the main gun from a battleship.
But the area just before the bunker’s door, where the turret was, just had simple concrete overhead, and the palace itself above that.
“
Hrmm
, that could work,” Victor mused to himself.
“What, Captain?” asked Jersey.
“I’ll need a bigger gun.” Victor opened a channel to the
Alexander
. “Fara, it’s Victor. I need your help.”
“How bad is it?” Fara asked.
“Gaz is down. I need you to kill the gun that got him,” Victor said.
After a few seconds of pause, then Fara’s voice came over the line with an edge of anger. “It will be my pleasure, Captain. Just feed me the coordinates.”
“You got it.” Victor uploaded the gun’s location to her.
“Acknowledged. You may want to back up. ETA, thirty seconds,” Fara said.
Victor looked to the surviving boarding specialists and shouted. “Back to the stairwell! Move!”
As they reached the stairwell, Fara’s voice came in over the radio. “Taking the shot. Keep your heads down!”
Seconds later something exploded, and the ground shook under Victor’s feet, causing him to lose his footing and drop gracelessly to the floor.
The lights went out, and a cloud of dust filled the air, blinding Victor. He flipped on his helmet lights, but the dust was so thick he could barely see past his outstretched hand.
“This is Fara. Is everyone all right?”
Victor glanced at the squad’s status in his HUD. None of his team were caught in the blast. “We’re alive.”
“Can you confirm if I hit the target?” she asked.
“Just a moment,” Victor said, fumbling down the hallway, running his hand against the wall to guide himself.
He found Gaz’s corpse resting supine near the corner. The blast must have moved him. Victor knelt down to look over the former fighting slave. He examined the three large holes in his abdomen and then looked up to the tattooed face peacefully resting behind the closed visor of his helmet.
Victor rested a hand on Gaz’s shoulder. “It was a pleasure to know you, Gaz.”
Gaz reached up and grabbed Victor’s forearm. “Man, Cap, you’re making me all misty-eyed.”
“Holy shit, Gaz! You’re not dead?” Victor said.
“Nah, I was just napping until someone set off a bomb,” Gaz said.
Victor pulled Gaz around the corner into cover, then said, “That wasn’t a bomb.” He turned to the boarding specialists following behind him. “Any of you a medic?”
“I am, Captain,” one of them said.
“Tend to Gaz,” he said.
“I can fight, Captain,” Gaz said, trying to sit up.
Victor pushed him down. “You have big holes in you, Gaz. Take it easy. That’s an order. I’ll take it from here.”
Gaz sighed, coughing up a little blood as he did. “Ah, if you insist, Cap.”
The medic ran up and tended to Gaz, uttering a “Holy fuck!” as she saw the state of Gaz’s injuries.
“Do what you can for him,” Victor said before getting up to look around the corner.
The dust had cleared enough for Victor to see that the turret wasn’t just destroyed, it was gone. A hole in the floor had taken its place, illuminated by light seeping through the matching hole in the ceiling.
“Captain,” Fara said, “did I hit my target?”
“Oh, yeah. And I’ve got some good news. Gaz is alive. Though he’s badly mangled,” Victor said.
“Well, that’s good to hear,” Fara said, the relief in her voice evident.
A transmission came in from the
Waynesburg
. “Captain Blackhand, this is Captain Quill.”
“Go ahead, Harlan,” Victor said.
“My troops have broken into the other bunkers and haven't found King Marsh. How are you doing with yours?”
“I just took out an autoturret guarding mine,” Victor said.
“Yeah, I saw. Clear it with me the next time you decide to order a frigate to fire its main gun into a building. Particularly if my people are in that building?”
“Sure thing, Harlan,” Victor said, walking up to the hole the floor, looking at the completely intact door of the bunker. “I’ll see about getting this door opened.”
“Well, make it fast. My ships are keeping the enemy’s reinforcements from reaching the palace, but I don’t know how much longer we can continue to do that,” Harlan said.
“Roger that, Captain. I’ll work as fast as I can,” Victor said, closing the connection. He tapped his boot on the ground. “Now I just need to figure out how.”
The door was shielded, which meant the energy of any impact would be spread out. No man-portable weapon would breach it. Even the
Alex
’s main gun wouldn’t dent it.
He opened a channel to the
Alexander
, this time to engineering. “Cormac, I need you to work your magic again.”
“Magic is not what I do, Captain,” he said.
Victor shook his head. “Never mind that. I need you to crack open a door.”
“If you’re referring to the door of a high-security bunker, then I’ll need a connection. Do you see one you could make?” Cormac said.
Victor looked over the door to a control panel, but it appeared to be powered down and did not have any visible ports. “I don’t see anything here that you could use.”
“Then I cannot open the door for you, Captain,” Cormac said.
“Well, dammit,” Victor said, kicking a chunk of concrete into the hole in the floor. As it tumbled down, a thought occurred to Victor. He shone his helmet lights there. “Hold on, Cormac. I might still get you that connection.”
Victor climbed down the hole and looked around the rim. The turret may have been automated, but if it was controlled remotely from within the bunker…“There!” he said when he found a bundle of severed fiber optic cables. He noted with some satisfaction that the severed tips of the cables still glowed with light.
“What did you find?” Cormac asked.
“Take a look for yourself,” Victor said, uploading his helmet feed.
“Ah, I see. Yes, that could do. Follow my instructions carefully,” Cormac said.
With the starchild’s guidance, Victor stripped out the fiber optic cables and connected them to one of the shunts Cormac had given him.
“I have a connection,” Cormac said. “Someone on the other end is still inputting commands, apparently at random. It’s as if they’re working a computer that stopped functioning.”
“Or a remote gun that just disappeared,” Victor said. Perhaps between the thick armor and shielding, whoever was inside the bunker didn't know what had happened to the gun turret.
“Perhaps. Now hold on a moment…” The blast door above cracked open. “There, Captain. You can enter the bunker.”
Victor scrambled from the hole. “Much thanks, Cormac. You’ve earned this week’s pay.”
Gunfire erupted above as Victor climbed. When he reached the floor, Gaz’s surviving people had rushed inside. Victor got to his feet and unslung his assault rifle.
Walking inside the bunker, he found five dead palace guards, along with one of Gaz’s people.
He pointed to the man named Jersey. “Disable that door before they override Cormac’s hack.”
Jersey nodded. “You got it, Captain.” He planted a set of thermite bombs inside the hinge. Moments later the thermite burned, and the hinges melted together, fusing the door permanently open.
Victor took point. “All right. Time to see if there’s a king in here.”
They encountered no further resistance as they moved past the guard post and deeper into the bunker. Only a pair of carved double doors made of rich hardwood blocked Victor’s path. The doors did not so much as budge when one of the boarding specialists attempted to push it open.
“Break it down,” Victor said.
Moments later a staccato of automatic fire shot off the hinges, and the doors fell open, revealing a luxurious suite inside.
Courtiers and scantily clad concubines screamed and whimpered as Victor and his mercenaries walked over the broken doors. The two guards who were also inside dropped their weapons and put up their hands.
In the center of the room was an obese man, with perfectly cut black hair and a well-trimmed beard that did a commendable job of concealing his triple chin.
Reclining on a couch with deep red satin cushions, King Quintus Marsh took a sip from his cup as Victor approached.
The king wiped his lips and said, “Well, looks like you got me.” He waved his arm toward a table piled with bottles and glasses. “Please help yourself to a drink.” He then nodded toward a cluster of concubines, huddling together in fear. “And the women as well.”
Victor stopped at arm’s reach of the rotund monarch. He pressed a button on his forearm and the helmet of his suit slid open and retracted behind his head.
King Marsh smiled. “Ah, Captain Blackhand. I can’t say I’m surprised to see you.”
“What makes you say that?” Victor asked.
Marsh shrugged. “This is exactly the kind of daring operation I’ve come to expect of you. I have to say, filling a hollowed-out asteroid with warships was quite the party trick.”
“I’m glad I could entertain you,” Victor said.
Marsh clapped his hands together, causing the fat of his belly to jiggle. “Well, now that you’re here, how about we get started?”
Victor arched an eyebrow. “Started with what?”
Marsh spread his arms wide. “The negotiations of course. How much do I need to pay you to switch sides?”
“Bribery?” Victor asked. “You tried to have me assassinated.”
Marsh shook his head. “That wasn’t me.”
“The evidence says otherwise,” Victor said.
Marsh’s face darkened. “Evidence can be falsified.” His smile returned. “But that’s neither here nor there. Switch over to my side, and I’ll make you wealthy enough to buy your own planet.”
“It’s a little late for this, isn’t it? Your palace has fallen, and every jump point in your system in under assault,” Victor said.
Marsh held up a finger. “Ah, but my forces still hold the jump points, and it’s only a matter of time before my planetary defenses overwhelm the strike force that brought you here. Just send a message to your employers that you found this bunker to be empty and then spend the rest of the battle enjoying all the comforts I can provide.”