Wing Commander #07 False Color by William Forstchen (novels for students TXT) 📗

for the air to bleed off from the passenger compartment. In situations like this, a potentially hostile action in vacuum, no one wanted to waste time going through conventional airlocks, so in effect the entire rear compartment became one for the duration of the op.

"All right, you sons-of-Cats," Martin said at last, after the tone had sounded in their headsets to tell them they were in vacuum and the shuttle pilot was ready to open up the hatches. "Are you ready to earn your paychecks today?"

"Hoo-YAH!" the marines responded, loud enough to make Bondarevsky's helmet radio crackle.

"Ready to deploy, sir!" Martin told Bhaktadil.

"Mr. Ortega." Bhaktadil's words were directed at the shuttle's pilot. "Drop the hatches . . . now!"

All three hatches—rear, port, and starboard—swung open at the same time. Two of the six fire teams went out through each exit, the men diving through into zero-g and twisting right and left in turn, weapons ready. The lack of gravity extended those dives considerably, but they were expert at this kind of drill and used the handholds outside the shuttle to check their progress so smoothly that it looked easy, though Bondarevsky knew for a fact that it was one of the trickiest moves a man in zero-g had to make.

They kept their weapons at the ready until the deployment was complete and the shuttle was ringed by armed men, scanning their surroundings in all directions. Martin ran them through a roll call, and each man sounded off with an "All clear!" as he responded. Finally Martin reported to the colonel.

"Initial deployment complete, sir!" he said. "All clear."

"Very good, Sergeant," Bhaktadil said. "Two-Six, this is Marine-Six. Do you copy?"

Two-Six was the call sign of the lieutenant commanding the other squad of Second Platoon assigned to the starboard flight deck reconnaissance. The shuttle carrying his men had approached from the opposite end of the flight deck, over Karga's stern.

"Copy you five-by-five," Lieutenant Kate Loomis responded. "Both squads deployed. All clear."

"Very good, Two-Six. Proceed with phase two. Make sure your people don't mistake one of us for a Cat." "Phase two. Roger."

"Sergeant Martin, move them out. Expand perimeter to meet with the other squad. Stay sharp, people."

Bondarevsky and the rest of the noncombatant team remained inside the shuttle, following the progress of the marines by their radio calls and images relayed from their suit cameras, displayed now as flat pictures on their helmets' HUD screens. Switching from one marine's viewpoint to another as their careful, leapfrogging advance unfolded at an efficient but unhurried rate, Bondarevsky was able to get an initial idea of the situation on the flight deck long before the area was secured.

There was no doubt the flight deck had suffered terrible damage. Much of the interior around the entry port was filled with twisted wreckage, jagged chunks of the bulkheads torn loose in a pattern that could only have been caused by a fair-sized explosion right at the mouth of the portal. He could also make out what looked like a part of the fuselage of a Kilrathi Darket-class light fighter that had smashed up against one bulkhead, probably not the cause of the disaster but a victim sitting on the flight deck as the explosion ripped down the vast chamber. Details, though, were hard to pick up on the video images. They'd have to go in for a closer look to see the full extent of the damage.

Finally Bhaktadil called for phase three of the op. This was the signal that his men had secured the flight deck well enough for the survey team to risk deploying and getting to work. Of course, two squads weren't much to hold a compartment that stretched nearly the full 920-meter length of the carrier, much less probe all the possible places where the enemy might be hiding, but the first sweep had turned up no sign of the Kilrathi . . none that were alive, at least.

The dead were another story.

Bondarevsky only gradually became aware of the bodies that littered the flight deck. There were dozens of them, some floating free, others trapped under wreckage. In many cases it was hard to be sure he was even looking at something that had once been alive. Many of the flight deck crew had been caught unsuited when the airlock field collapsed. Explosive decompression was no prettier an end to a Kilrathi than it was to a human being.

He fought back nausea as the impact of the dead grew. For most of his life Jason Bondarevsky had been trained to kill Kilrathi, and he'd been good at his job. But seeing this . . .

More than ever, all he wanted was an end to it.

"Survey Leader to Team Four," the voice of Admiral Richards gave him something other than bodies to concentrate on, and Bondarevsky was relieved at the distraction. "Progress report."

"We've only just started our sweep, Admiral," Bondarevsky told him. "The techies are busy getting the portable shield generators in place so we don't have to worry about the rads. So far . . . general impressions only."

"You're taking your time down there, Jason," Richards said with a hint of irritation plain in his voice.

"It's a big flight deck, sir," he replied. "The jarheads only gave us the phase three go-ahead a few minutes ago."

"Right. Sorry. We've been at it for about half an hour up here."

"How does it look, sir?" he asked.

"Flag bridge is mostly intact," Richards told him. "A little peripheral damage, but it was never hit in the fight."

"Casualties?"

"God, yes." The admiral's voice sounded suddenly old. "Looks like they had a full crew manning the stations here. Twenty or so, including Admiral Cakg himself. They're dead."

"How?"

"Well, it looks !ike one of them was killed in a brawl. An old adversary of mine in the Intel game, Baron Grathal nar Khirgh. One of Thrakhath's favorite toadies. We wondered what the hell had happened when he dropped out of sight last year. From the looks of things he lived up to a