Sol Strike (Battlegroup Z Book 3) by Daniel Gibbs (red novels .txt) 📗

wasn’t kidding. The League freighter was less than one kilometer away.

“Major, I’m going to open the weapons bay doors in fifteen seconds. Stand by to deploy.”

“Acknowledged, CAG,” Nishimura replied.

To the other Marines, he announced, “Fifteen seconds to showtime.”

Right on schedule, the external doors of the munitions hold slid open, revealing the blackness of the void. For a moment, Nishimura took in the utter beauty of the stars and a barely visible nebula set against the inky darkness, which was all-consuming. Then he went to work. His power armor suit had a special maneuvering unit attached to the back, as did the rest of the Marines’ suits. Using short, directed bursts of propellent, Nishimura gracefully exited the bay. Since he had the same relative motion as the fighter, his speed was greater than the freighter’s, allowing him to plot a touchdown location on his HUD. “Slow and steady, everyone. Maintain focus and engage your magnetic boots.”

“Yes, sir,” one of the Marines near him replied.

Over the next sixty seconds, one after the other, they locked onto the hull of the freighter. Nishimura’s heart skipped a few beats as one of the enlisted Marines overshot his buddies, but he quickly fired the maneuvering unit and recovered a few meters farther down the ship.

Once they were all attached, Nishimura cued his commlink. “CAG, I show an airlock fifty meters down the dorsal superstructure. Can you show me a video feed of it from your fighter?”

“No problem, Major,” Whatley replied.

The requested image quickly appeared in Nishimura’s HUD. He took a few moments to examine it. Most importantly, the hull had no apparent damage, and it looked large enough to handle several bulky power armor suits at a time.

Nishimura keyed the command channel. “Master Guns, get the squads moving. We’ll see how many fit in there and ingress as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, sir,” O’Conner replied.

Methodically, Nishimura and the five others crossed the freighter’s hull, avoiding pitfalls and taking their steps carefully. He had no idea what sort of defenses the vessel might have but wasn’t interested in finding out if he could help it.

Several minutes later, they arrived at the airlock hatch to find most of the remaining Marines already there, as they’d dropped out later than his squad.

“How’s it look, Master Guns?”

O’Conner pointed toward the hatch. “I haven’t tried to open it yet, but it looks like a standard emergency airlock. Call it four heavy suits per cycle.”

They would be vulnerable at first, but the crew of a civilian transport ship wouldn’t have a large security presence. At least, that’s what he chose to believe. “Okay. I’m going first.” He pointed at three others from the squad. “You’re with me. Master Guns, if all hell breaks loose, find another place to ingress and continue the mission. Clear?”

“Yes, sir,” O’Conner replied. “Good luck, sir.”

“Good luck to you too.” He addressed the squad’s electronics specialist. “Get this door open pronto.”

“Hoorah, sir.” The corporal bent over and examined a keypad next to the hatch before pulling out some tools. It took a few minutes in the zero-G environment to open the housing to the device, after which he pulled several wires out and attached a probe to them. “Sir, I can’t guarantee this won’t trigger an alarm. We don’t know enough about the enemy computer systems.”

Nishimura put his armored gauntlet on the younger man’s suit shoulder. “There’s no guarantee to anything in this life, Corporal. All you can do is try. Now, pop it.”

“Yes, sir.”

After a series of electrical sparks from the opened keypad, nothing happened. Nishimura chided himself for listening for mechanical whirring or noise from the hatch. Of course there’s no sound in the vacuum. Instead, he waited, presuming that the airlock was completing its decompression cycle. Finally, after almost five minutes, it opened.

He gulped and bounded through the opening. “Corporal, can I trigger pressurization from inside here, or do you have to do it for me?”

“I’m not sure, sir. Do you see any controls?”

The chamber’s far wall had a series of knobs and buttons, and several screens displayed information in what appeared to be Chinese script along with Cyrillic. One monitor had a red strip lit across its top. Going to assume that’s an indication this thing is depressurized. He pressed one of the buttons once the other three Marines were inside with him. Nothing happened, so he hit the next one, repeating the same cycle.

“Uh, sir, may I make a suggestion?”

“Go ahead, Private.”

“If you haven’t already used it, there’s a pretty decent translation program built into the HUD now. We got it right before shipping out.”

Why didn’t I think of that? “Private, let this be a reminder to you… rank doesn’t always equal reading the bloody manual.”

Scattered snickers met Nishimura’s comment.

“Thank you, sir.”

Once he’d toggled the translation app on, the script in front of him became readable. It wasn’t perfect, and some letters didn’t display correctly, but it was enough to make out that one of the buttons was marked with Pressurize Airlock. Nishimura depressed it and waited. A progress bar started on one of the displays, showing a four-minute countdown. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Much like pilots detested waiting for the enemy to enter engagement range, Marines found it equally challenging to wait with an artificial time limit on getting the rest of the force inside to do battle. Little was said during the countdown, and the moment the screen turned green, Nishimura pushed the interior hatch open.

First through the foreboding entryway, Nishimura stepped up and over the reinforced alloy bulkhead and entered the passageway beyond. At first glance, the area was remarkably similar to a CDF vessel. It would make sense that humans design things the same way. The color schemes were different, and the ship had an overall gray hue to most of its surfaces. Every so often, something resembling a computer interface panel jutted from the wall, and colorful screens displayed slogans in Chinese, Russian, and what appeared to be French, at least to Nishimura. “Keep alert. Take defensive positions.”

The other