Chapter 9: Gatecrashers
24-6-2289, 13:17
Edge of the Neosis System
Much like the Marinetruppen, the Black Brunswickers were called upon for combat both planet-side and in space. They acted as a boarding party, clearing decks of important ships or structures. Today they were called upon for the latter.
The Star Empire's fleets had been harassing nearby systems. The Kriegsmarine admiralty had been trying to find out how they had been moving so quickly. Finally, they had found their answer. A stray laser had shot past Neosis VII, and struck a cloaked structure. Once the Flotte had a visual, it was quickly noted to be a Skiross wormhole generator. The nearest vessels were immediately ordered into battle.
At the same time, the Brunswickers were withdrawn temporarily from the fighting on Neosis III. The admiralty wanted the structure captured, not destroyed. Little study had been done on the Skiross' interstellar travel, and the Sonnenreich believed there could be much gain from the wormhole tech. But that meant the base had to be boarded.
As the Flotte drew close, the generator flickered. A great tear opened, the light of a foreign star pouring through. With it came five ships; four corvettes and a destroyer. Evidently, word hadn't yet reached them of the enemy vessels. They at first made no move, seemingly waiting for the Flotte to move out of their way. As it began to dawn on them, lasers streaked forward.
…
As the first laser fired, Cameron's pod launched from the ship. Each could sit five soldiers. Along with him were Fixer, Callum, a grenadier referred to as Scorch, and an Italian numbered 0490. He had been quiet except for their introduction. Fixer was more than happy to make up for his silence.
"Honestly Sev? You've never even boarded once?"
Cameron shook his head. "No. Only got off Earth recently. Didn't expect to ever board, either. Was a part of the British Interplanetary Infantry."
As a red light began to flash, Callum banged his fist against the roof of the pod. "Alright, quiet down now. We all know the drill, yeah? Find the control room, shut the thing down, shoot the bad guys. Easy as that. Sev, stick close. Don't want the rookie to end up dead on his second run."
The pod stopped suddenly, shaking horribly. The light continued flashing briefly. When it turned green, the bars keeping them in place rose. The weapons case at the end of the pod opened, and they all grabbed their gear. They stood, weapons raised at the door.
Callum reached slowly for the release lever. "Steady. Three… Two… One…" The door swung down, and they charged out as Callum called, "Move, move! Clear the area!"
They scanned the area quickly, but it had been abandoned. Blast doors on either end of their stretch of hall stood shut. It was likely the Skiross had closed them when the pod breached the hull, thinking there would be an air leak. This was the reason for there being a grenadier in each squad. Scorch rushed up to the door.
As he set the charge, he nodded to himself. Before arming it, he took a quick step back. Having sufficiently admired his work, he set the charge and timer. "I'd step back sir. Need a good sized explosion to get through."
The five stepped back into the pod, Callum at the end. Half a minute passed, and there was a blast that seemed to shake the station. He peeked out, then nodded to Scorch. The line filed out of their pod and down the hall. A hole had been blasted in the door, the metal bent and twisted inward.
There they found a very similar situation. The opposite end of the hall was blocked by a shut blast door, and a pod had crashed through the wall. The difference being that, on the wall squarely in front of this other pod, there was a third door. The other grenadier sat with a plasma torch, trying to force open this door.
As Callum walked up, the man in charge of the squad waved him over. "Hey, three-fourteen! We could use the extra guns. We figure this leads further in, so it's probably guarded."
The man working on the door called back. "Almost through now. I'd get somewhere safe."
Callum nodded. "Alright, stack up. Get clear of the door. Fixer, as soon as the door is open, toss a frag through."
FIxer nodded. "Aye sir. Will do."
The hiss of the torch stopped. "Alright, that should do it."
Sure enough, the door opened immediately, and a bolt of plasma struck the engineer square in the chest. He rolled back screaming. As he did, Callum and the other squad lead opened up with their own fire, blue lasers filling the rather dark hall with light. "FIXER!"
"Frag out!" He leaned just out beyond Callum, and hurled the grenade down the hall.
As he drew back, 0490 took his place to put more suppressing fire on the Skiross. "Prendi quello, bastardi!"
Even as the grenade went off, and the Skiross screeched in pain or death, another bolt hit its mark and began burning into the Italian's shoulder. He dropped his rifle and fell back. "FUCK! AAAAGH!" He made the unfortunate mistake of grabbing at the wound with his hand, now being burned as well. "Buon Dio! AAAAAAAGH!"
Cameron was unable to do anything but watch as the man collapsed, eventually rendered unconscious by the pain. "Jesus… Callum, can we do anything?"
He had already begun peering down the next hall. "No time Sev. We have to find the control station. His equipment's beacon will have already called a medic anyway. Now come on."
And so the two squads, each down a man, made their way deeper into the structure. The walls were all a dark, non reflective metal. Dim yellow lights did little to aid vision. It was also remarkably warm. Chances were the air was also very humid. Thankfully the helmet's apparatus helped with that.
The halls were considerably wider as well, come to think of it. He had never thought about how other races would design their vessels or stations. But it made sense now, he realised, that finding very homely designs would probably be unlikely. He couldn't help but admire the intricate markings etched into the wall. As they failed to translate into anything, it seemed they were purely decorative.
His mind was brought back to the matter at hand when Fixer caught his arm, stopping him from tripping over a dead Skiross. The beast's horn had been torn off by the fragmentation. Blood pooled on the floor at his head. Cameron shook himself awake, and carefully stepped over the fallen alien.
…
Soon enough they arrived at a massive landing, stairs on the left leading up and on the right leading down. Alarms were sounding now, and they had met with a few more enemy squads along the way. As they rounded the corner and began up the stairs, a call of "Human soldier! Shoot!" came from behind them.
Just as Cameron spun back to open fire, a bolt flew narrowly past his head. Knowing another would be on the way, he opened fire. "Go, go, get upstairs! Scorch, help me keep the buggers back!"
As the rest of the squad took off running, Scorch and Cameron continued much slower, backwards. The plasma fire was now inaccurate and sloppy, the Skiross being pinned down by a constant stream of lasers. As the neared the top, Cameron could hear a ghastly screaming. It was human, that was sure. Then there was a blast of laser, and something fell with a thud to the floor. Perhaps what made it more unbearable for Cameron was that he couldn't see what was happening.
What he heard next definitely didn't help matters. "Holy fuck… Alright, alright, it's off… Fuck… It's off Callum. Christ."
Scorch and Cameron peeled back into another side hall, where the rest of the squad had ducked into. He nearly fell down the flight right into the Skiross' waiting arms when he almost tripped again. This time over an arm, severed just below the shoulder and clad in black armor. The door slid shut, and Cameron turned to see that everyone had at the very least made it.
Callum, however, sat on a crate, kicking and reeling in pain, and left arm very much missing. His breathing was rapid, but he said nothing aside from the odd curse. Cameron stood back, feeling a bit ill himself. "Oh my… How did? What…"
Fixer stood by the next exit, shaking his head. "Plasma bolt caught him in the arm. I thouhgt we might as well hurry it, and get him inside. Plasma would've just done it slower." He looked away from Callum, though he had said nothing. "Wound's cauterized, so he won't be bleedin' out on us. Look, we need to get to the controls."
0071, the other squad's commander, nodded. "Agreed. Scorch, Sev, Fixer, Rat, you four come with me. You two…" He nodded to the other two members of his squad. "Stick with Callum. We'll come retrieve you."
In a hurry now to end this before they lost many more, the five of them rushed through the halls. The areas they ran through now were littered with Skiross corpses, and the walls and floor were dotted with blast marks. Eventually, they found where all the Brunswickers who had won this fight had gone.
They turned around the corner, finding a large corridor filled with Black Brunswickers. Large silvery crates and half-walls kept them in cover, and a door down the hall stood blasted open. Occasional bolts of plasma shot out from this opening.
The five of them split up, mingling with the group already here. Cameron huddled close with someone behind one of the frontmost walls. "The hell's happened here?"
He motioned to the door with his head. "The inoplanetyane are hiding like krysy. That's their komnata upravleniya, control room!" His english was laced with Russian, and his accent was thick. Strangely, Cameron found the helmet didn't actually translate his fellow soldier's Russian. It probably hadn't been set to translate human languages.
Suddenly, the dim yellow lights began flashing a deep red. Over the station's speakers, and in broken translation, a voice began calling. "Soldier of Star Empire! Abandon ship! Go to pods now! Again, abandon ship!"
As the message ended, a call came from the control room. "Stop burn! Stop burn, please! We are putting away gun. We must leave station!"
The Brunswickers rose, slowly, weapons trained on the Skiross as the exited the room. Following after the soldiers came several in very little to no armor. "These are doctors! Just want to abandon ship. We will be prisoners, but must we must go!"
Cameron turned to 0071, who nodded, switching on his comm-link to command. "Kommandatur, komm herein. Außerirdische haben sich ergeben. Wie sollen wir vorgehen?"
He waited a bit for their response, eyeing the Skiross the whole time. Whether they understood German or not was unclear. Cameron nervously awaited their orders, unsure if the higher-ups would be too forgiving. 0071 eventually nodded. "Jawohl, eine Minute. Who's in charge here, eh? Wer ist verantwortlich?"
One of the scientists stepped forward. "I am, Human. What do you need me?"
"Warum hast du dich ergeben? Sie hatten uns zurückgehalten."
The alien nodded. "We did have beat you, yes. But now it does not matter. We surrender because station will explode. Must escape now."
0071 stood in silence a few seconds, and then radioed back to command. "Kommandatur? Ja. Der Bahnhof wird explodieren. Ja… Sollten wir Gefangene nehmen? ... Jawohl, verstanden."
He raised his weapon again, pointed at the scientist. "No prisoners. Hagel Sol!"
Despite a twinge of guilt, Cameron raised his rifle, echoing the cry. "Hagel Sol!" His second of hesitation passing, he joined his comrades in gunning down the lot of them.
…
Unfortunately, the mission had not gone very well. The Flotte involved in the battle had lost a good many ships, and of course the wormhole generator itself had been destroyed. The admiralty had been livid, but after a few hours had altered their stance. Already, the number of Skiross ships in more central systems had fallen dramatically. Even if they had not secured the technology for themselves, the Brunswickers and Kriegsmarine had dealt a nasty blow to Ios' logistics.
The only downside would be that the fighting on Neosis III would only intensify, with Ios knowing they couldn't continue until the planet was secure.
Aboard the Verteidiger, in the med-bay, Callum was being prepped for surgery. Only the best was spent on the Brunswickers, and command wasn't ready to let one of their best be lost due to a non-fatal injury. Due to this, Cameron found out a simultaneously well-intended and yet rather foreboding saying: "Only the dead leave the Brunswickers."
