The announcement works partially on the
Society Grays push their way through halls like seals under water, taking their revenge on my floating Obsidians, robbed of their closing speed, who’ve mauled so many of their friends. In the end, one of my teams reactivates the gravity. I have them decrease it to one-sixth Earth standard so that my force is not encumbered by the heavy armor we wear. It’s a blessing on our lungs and legs.
After cutting through a security team of Grays, we finally reach the bridge, battered and bloody. I crouch, panting and increase the oxygen circulation in my armor. Swimming in sweat, I activate a stim injection in my gear to keep me from feeling the gash in my biceps where a Gold’s razor caught me. The needle bites into my thigh. Reports come from my other platoons that they’ve lost contact with the enemy, which means they’re being consolidated by Roque, redirected, likely to us. Back to the bridge door, I stare across the circular, exposed antechamber to the bridge and remember how my instructor at the Academy demonstrated the geometric deadliness of the space for anyone besieging a starburst bridge design like this. Three halls from three directions lead to the circular room, including a gravLift in the center. It’s indefensible, and Roque’s marines are coming.
“Roque, darling,” Victra calls up to the cameras in the ceiling as Holiday and her team set up the drill on the door. “How I have pined for you since the garden. Are you there?” She sighs. “I’ll just assume you are. Listen, I understand. You think we must be wroth with you, what with the murder of my mother, the execution of our friends, the bullets in the spine, the poison, and a year of torture for dear Reaper and I, but that’s not so. We just want to put you in a box. Maybe several. Would you like that? It’s very poetic.”
Holiday’s remaining three commandos are attaching magnetic clamps to the door and mounting their thermal drill. She taps a few commands and the eye of the drill begins to spin.
Sefi returns from her scouting. Her helmet slithers back into her armor. “Many enemies come from tunnel.” She points to the middle hall. “I killed their leader, but more Golds follow.” She didn’t just kill the leader. She brought his head back. But she’s limping and her left arm bleeds.
“Oh, hell. That’s Flagilus,” Victra says, regarding the head. “He was in my school house. Very sweet fellow actually. Wonderful cook.”
“How many are coming, Sefi?”
“Enough to give us a good death.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Holiday punches the door behind me.
“It’s too thick isn’t it?” I ask.
“Yeah.” She pulls her assault helmet off. Her Mohawk is mashed to the side. Tense face dripping with sweat. “Door’s not VDY specs like the rest of the ship. It’s Ganymede Industries. Custom. At least twice as thick.”
“How long will it take to get through?” I repeat.
“At full burn? Fourteen minutes?” she guesses.
“Maybe more.”
I turn, hissing the anger out. The women know as well as I that we don’t have even five minutes. I hail Mustang’s coms. No answer. Her ship must be dying. Bloodydamn. Stay alive. Just stay alive. Why did I ever let her out of my sight?
“We charge them,” Victra’s saying. “Straight down the middle hall. They’ll run like foxes from hounds.”
“Yes,” Sefi says, finding a more kindred spirit in Victra than either might have thought prior to shedding blood together. “I will follow you, daughter of the sun. To glory.”
“Piss on glory,” Holiday says. “Let the drill do its work.”
“And sit here to die like Pixies?” Victra asks.
Before I can say a word or do much of anything, there’s a metallic wheeze behind me from the hydraulics in the wall as the door to the bridge opens.
