Beyond Mars Crimson Fleet (14 page)

The corridor and lobby were
now engulfed in an expanding cloud of bluish-gray that smelled of
noxious fumes. As the wall of smoke and the stench of chemicals
continued to foul the air, silhouettes in gray camouflage uniforms
sprang up from the cratered hole and charged in the direction of
the smoke-hidden security desk. Although his vision could not
penetrate the haze, the sounds of a brief and intense firefight
were unmistakable. But the sounds ceased within a minute, giving
way to a small explosion that quickly followed. It was then that
Tonelli lost all consciousness—and died.

* * * * *

It was a stroke of good
luck based on the marine sergeant’s years of bloody experiences.
Even over the threatening demands of the lieutenant, Sergeant
Gagarin yielded only to his own patience and acquired combat
skills. He was rewarded when the huge hatch to the security room
was retracted. This made the chamber vulnerable to a quick and
deadly assault. If the hatch was not opened, the alternative was to
place all of their shape charges against a portion of the wall and
pray to God that the resulting explosion didn’t cause a hull
rupture.

But as it was fated, it
only took a minute to blow the floor plates, kill the outer guards,
and destroy the track-guns. The latter was accomplished with
several shotguns firing flechettes—large titanium darts—that
demolished the weapons mechanisms and rendered them useless. Using
a rocket launcher on the track-guns as called for by the
lieutenant, Gagarin rightfully reckoned was absolute
idiocy.

The resulting explosion
would have not only bombarded the enclosed area in a lethal spray
of shrapnel, but a scorching back-blast as well. It would have
caused unnecessary casualties among his marines, which Gagarin
would not stand for. It also would have amounted to a failed
attempt to take the security room, leaving the operation in
jeopardy.

Instead, only one shape
charge was detonated, jamming the huge hatch open. Three squads of
the Martian Marines then rushed in, leaving a single squad to hold
the entrance.

The corridor took many
short angle turns in a seemingly endless maze, but finally it
opened into a long, broad hallway that ended in two-story lobby
with a balcony. The hatch to the objective sat in the center of the
lobby. It seemed innocent enough, but Gagarin halted the advance
and took his time to scan the area.

“What the hell are you
waiting for?” Lieutenant Sean Boid questioned in a loud and
obnoxious tone.

Sergeant Gagarin’s gaze,
however, did not break from the objective. “Because it’s way too
easy, Sir. It’s a trap,” he informed the officer in a quiet and
professional tone.

The officer took a moment
to glance down the hall. “I don’t see anything.”

“You’re not meant to, Sir,”
Gagarin became annoyed with Boid’s recklessness. “Does the
lieutenant think that they would put up a large sign to advertise
it?”

“Don’t sass me, Sergeant,”
Boid found the excuse he was looking for. “It’s clear to me that
you’ve lost your nerve. You’re not fit to lead! I’m taking over
command, right now!”

But Gagarin was a harden
soldier who had faced down incompetent officers before. “Over my
dead body, Sir. These marines are not going to die for your
stupidity, and neither am I.”

Boid’s face became red with
both embarrassment and anger. “I have your stripes!” the officer
threatened.

“We’ve
both got to live through this for that to happen, Sir,” Gagarin
turned his head to confront the officer face-to-face. “If you’re so
damn sure it’s not a trap, why don’t your take a shape charge down
there—
by yourself
—and prove it! Or has the lieutenant lost his nerve?” the
marine sergeant insulting added.

Boid looked at the other
marines and knew his authority to lead was in question. By their
body language, they silently communicated that they would not
follow him. Boid’s head then jerked back to Gagarin. The officer
sneered with total contempt at the adversarial non-com.

Lieutenant Boid quickly
reached over and grabbed a shape charge from another marine. The
officer paused for a moment to give Gagarin one last hateful stare,
and then dashed at a gallop down the long hall.

With his weapon in one hand
and the explosive in the other, Boid valiantly charged the
hatchway. His long strides thundered and echoed off the steel walls
as he neared the other end of the corridor. So intent was he with
placing the explosive that he never realized that he was
experiencing “tunnel vision” from the rush of adrenaline. Boid
never saw the upper wall panels that dropped, revealing heavily
armed guards manning their steel bunker.

In unison, the Earthmen’s
weapons fired, raking the marine officer with plasma bullets. Boid
was literally cut into a dozen burnt pieces by the tremendous
volley. What was left of his body fell to the floor, twitching and
smoking in the aftermath of his death.

Gagarin’s impassive face
did not show the pity he felt or the rage that was building.
Although he didn’t like the lieutenant, he didn’t wish him any harm
either. But a choice was made: to let one prideful arrogant man to
go to his death, rather than have his platoon slaughtered. It
seemed cold-blooded, but it wasn’t. The lieutenant was dead either
way, but 30 good marines didn’t die with him.

“Now what are we going to
do?” asked a marine corporal.

“I got an idea,” Gagarin
thought up an improvised solution. “Take your squad and hold-up
here. Don’t do anything! We’ll be back in a few
minutes.”

“Roger that,” the corporal
gratefully acknowledged.

Sergeant Gagarin and twenty
marines then retreated to the entrance.

* * * * *

The black uniformed
security guards waited nervously behind their steel barricade;
their hands sweated as they gripped their weapons tightly at the
ready. They mistakenly deduced that the one-man charge was a
reckless and unsuccessful probe of their defenses. Still, Martian
Marines were never known to give up. The guards sensed that another
attempt was shortly coming and probably more violent in its
invocation.

Over the next few minutes,
it became strangely quiet, and the Earthmen strained their eyes to
see the end of the corridor for the imminent assault. As every
second dragged by, they each waited, accompanied by their fears,
which filled every chest with heaviness.

Then something was vaguely heard invading the
silence of the corridor as it drew nearer. At first it was
unrecognizable, but as the noise continued, the distinct whine of
electric motors stirred near.

Suddenly, a volley of “popping” sounds pieced the
air, like corks being pulled out of wine bottles. This was quickly
following a “hissing” that grew intense.

“SMOKE GRENADES!” someone
yelled as the explosive containers were unexpectedly heaved into
the hall by the marines. The grenades jumped and ricocheted in
every direction, filling the corridor with a dense choking cloud.
The whining of electric motors then grew louder once more.
Immediately the guards began shooting although their targets were
well concealed behind the smoke.

The salvo of plasma bolts
was tremendous, but the marines began returning fire—and advanced
unhindered. Some on the security guards began falling wounded or
dead as the assault relentlessly continued.

“KEEP FIRING! KEEP FIRING!”
yelled an Earth officer to rally his men.

Suddenly, several small
dark towers on wheels burst out of the thick haze. The unexpected
vehicles took the security guards completely by surprise, rousing
an immediate hysteria within their ranks. The marines had created a
few makeshift armored vehicles by lashing pried-up flooring plates
to several of the transport carts. As crude as they were, the
vehicles were devastating. From makeshift gun ports, Martian
Marines raked their enemy’s position, while the machines kept
advancing steadily.

“NOW!” screamed Sergeant
Gagarin to the marines following behind the vehicles.

In unison, every Martian Marine pulled the pin on a
concussion grenade and heaved it at the barricade. Most of the
grenades arced precisely into the titanium bunker and detonated
among the defenders. Although a single type of this grenade gave
off a small explosion to temporarily stun an intended enemy’s
senses, the barrage of grenades that was thrown into the small
confined space created enough of a high pressure shock wave to
kill. In that moment, the remaining soldiers of the Earth died at
their positions—all from brain hemorrhages—and resistance promptly
ceased.

The Martian Marines then climbed into the bunker and
over their fallen foes, making their way to the security room. Two
minutes later after a brief firefight, it fell into Martian
hands.

* * * * *

Chapter 7: Command
Center

The first phase of the Martian
Marines’ plan was accomplished almost flawlessly, but the ensuing
strategy rapidly fell apart. In horrific exchange of laser
discharges and pulse weapons, the two space stations dueled
ferociously in the endless night. They cleaved off chunks of each
other in flaming pieces as their weapons penetrated weak spots in
each other’s energy shields.
Guardian
Two
was launching more of its fighters as
a Martian supply ship hurriedly withdrew from a docking bay
of
Guardian One
.

The
ship’s mission was to bring in more reinforcements while evacuating
the wounded, but no one foresaw the waves of Earth fighters being
launched from
Guardian
Two
. Although the Martian ship was ray
shielded, it sustained several major hits while unloading the
marines. This incited its civilian captain to panic and then flee
without any prior warning
for the safety of
deep space.

The ship pulled away with
such suddenness and speed that its steel tethers and mooring clamps
were sheered off while several concourses were wrenched from the
station in the shrill groans of the bending and breaking of metal.
This action caused several connected compartments to rip apart into
fragments and collapse, unintentionally killing over a platoon of
the last of the disembarking marines by pulling them out into
space, or impaling and crushing them. As the ship started its
erratic getaway through the bodies and debris it had just created,
enemy fighters swarmed in around it, strafing the vessel with their
pulse cannons.

The
battle inside
Guardian One
was no less as fierce. Countless firefights
between Earth security forces and Martian Marines were happening
everywhere throughout the station. In one such battle, Earth forces
were being driven back into the reactor room by the hard charging
marines.

From catwalks, work
platforms, and behind equipment, constant fire was traded.
Hand-to-hand combat, considered a primitive method of last resort,
became the rule. As in any such battle, uniformed men and women
turned from training to instincts and savagery to survive. They
gouged, clubbed, stabbed, punched, and kicked just to stay
alive.

The
command center of
Guardian One
was secured only fifteen minutes earlier in the
same gruesome way by Martian Marines. A thick haze of carbon smoke
from different burning materials still filled the room, while
bodies littered the floor in a mosaic of death, but the center was
far from idle. Marines in their gray camouflaged space suits and
black field gear manned the control panels and worked the
equipment, as did their Earth counterparts in
Guardian Two
.

Major Franks, a tall
well-built black man, momentarily glanced at his commanding
officer, Colonel Lon. As the ranking officer yelled out orders and
guided the weaponry of the station, Franks was glad that he didn't
have Lon's job. It seemed to have the intensity of a forward
observer, and yet, required the tactical abilities of a naval
officer, and that just didn't quite suit him. The major was happy
with the more mundane duties of coordinating the marine assault
forces in securing the station.

Franks barked out a stream
of constant commands, as he listened to reports and viewed his
marines' progress on a set of combat tactical control computers
resting on their own portable tables. He became totally immersed in
the situation, and the last thing he needed was an interruption. A
line of prisoners, however, was being moved from one compartment to
another. This quickly became a source of rage as one prisoner
stumbled into the major's equipment, almost knocking it
over.

"Sergeant Gagarin! What the
hell are you doing with these prisoners?" Franks thundered as he
stood up.

"Sorry, Sir," the sergeant
offered apologetically. "We were just making room. We've got a
whole bunch more coming and we can't find any place to put
them."

"Sergeant, I don't have
time for your bullshit! Just get them the hell out of here! I don't
want these turds breathing my air!" the major was curt with his
subordinate.