The mission began when the Spear of Kain, along with two other Galactic Union warships, jumped into the Haivu controlled system. The Haivu noticed us immediately, of course. However, the rest of the Galactic Union fleet was making a beeline towards the Haivu home world. They had to choose between their home or their weapon, and our strategists had bet that they would protect their home. Hopefully, there would be little or no reinforcements for the Haivu.
Noah and I were wearing all of our gear. I wore my custom armor suit made by Yori, gleaming in the lighting of the ship. The laser shotgun I used to save Yori was strapped to my back. My standard issue handgun was holstered at my hip. My bullpup rifle hung in front of my chest, secured by a strap. The knife I bought at the markets with Noah and Yori was sheathed at my side.
Noah also wore his suit made by Yori. His handgun, the Fune 2, was holstered firmly at his side. Noah had taken a liking to the standard issue bullpup rifle, and he gripped it tightly, facing it down.
Keshi, Sil, and Needle were also fully geared up. They were in our platoon, so we were used to working with them by now. I felt safe with them at our sides. For the first time in a while, I felt truly comfortable working with a group. It was nothing like working alongside my father. I suppressed the painful memories that surfaced after I made that comparison.
We were currently strapped into a transport ship, although we were still docked in the Spear of Kain. Ceel planned a quick boarding to keep our advantage of surprise. The faster we managed to take out the defending warships, the sooner we could locate the weapon and destroy it. Air superiority had to be achieved, so taking out the warships was a number one priority.
Soldiers around us murmured quietly. The mission was already technically started, but we were closing the distance on the Haivu warships. We were evenly matched, three Haivu warships to our three GU warships. The sooner we took out our target, the sooner the Spear of Kain could help out whoever was struggling.
The speakers in the transport ships crackled as Ceel went on the line.
“Captain Ceel here, speaking to you from the bridge. We are expected to engage within five minutes. Boarding platoons, be ready. You’ll be taking off soon after the fighters establish ground. Remember, speed is of the essence here. Try to disable the Haivu warship as soon as you can. Defense crew, make sure to stay alert at all times. The Haivu are sure to attempt a boarding. After air superiority is achieved, the Spear of Kain would be making a grounded assault. The other two warships are to back us up from above as we investigate and secure the weapon. Stay alive, soldiers. Ceel, out.”
“I know Ceel sent us more details about the mission earlier today, but a grounded assault?” Needle complained. “We haven’t trained for that at all!”
Keshi sighed. “I’m not happy about it either. It’s much safer to just destroy the weapon. But I guess the higher ups are thinking farther into the future. It’s better to learn about what the weapon is instead of destroying it.”
“Who knows how many of those things the Haivu are building?” Sil piped up. “Besides, I suspect the Galactic Union wants to use the technology for themselves.”
“Really?” I asked. “The GU is pretty strict on war crimes and weapons of mass destruction, though. They’ve already heavily condemned the Haivu for destroying civilian stations and cities. Not to mention that the Haivu destroyed an entire planet.”
Sil shrugged. “Hey, it’s just a possibility. Maybe they’re just curious? We still don’t exactly know how they did it. If there’s more of those weapons, then I bet that the GU won’t be so squeamish about using them back.”
She made a good point. Noah stayed silent throughout all of this, not speaking up once to provide his opinion. As a matter of fact, Noah was quieter than usual ever since we started the warp here.
Noah appeared lost in thought, although I couldn't see his face.
“Are you alright, Noah?” I asked.
Noah’s helmeted face turned towards me. “Yeah, I’m good. I’ve just been thinking a lot.”
“We’ve got each other’s backs. We’ve done it plenty of times. This time is no different. Let’s get this done, Noah.” I said.
I raised my fist for a fist bump, an Earth gesture that Noah taught me while we were training. It had a wide variety of uses, and I quickly began using it often.
Noah slowly raised his fist and bumped it against mine. I imagined that he was smiling behind that heavily tinted visor of his, but I had no way to tell. I hadn’t seen his face in months. I missed his shy smile.
The transport ship began to vibrate as the engines turned on. The pilot was warming up the ship. It was a cue that our small moment of peace had come to an end. I double checked if my helmet was firmly on my head, I tightened my boots, and I cracked my neck. This battle could change the course of the war. I’d better give it my all. Not because I was patriotic or anything, but because I wanted to be free again.
We waited in silence for a couple of minutes. Suddenly, the deafening roaring of thrusters rattled the transport ships. The fighters were leaving the docking bay and engaging the Haivu first.
The fighter ships might’ve had the hardest job out of all of us. They had to engage the incredibly deadly Haivu fighter ships and keep them occupied for the duration of the mission. Even after we boarded, they had to defend the Spear of Kain from attack, so that the Haivu didn’t board us back.
The transport ship finally moved with a jolt. I was pressed deeper into my seat as the transport ship flew into the dark battlefield. For the next several minutes, our lives were in the hands of our pilot, and the fighter ships that protected us.
My head swung back and forth, swayed by the transport ship’s sudden maneuvers. There were no windows, so I was blissfully unaware of what was going on outside. I could make a guess from the movements of the ship, though. There would be periods of calm interrupted by quick and sudden movements and change of direction. The transport ship pilot seemed quite skilled, since there was no sign of the hull of our ship melting away. Death by caustic pods was something I would definitely like to avoid.
After several minutes of anxiety and worry, I heard the telltale sound of our transport ship pushing its way through the Haivu warship’s shield. The buzzing of energy reverberated throughout the transport ship, then a large clunk. The back of the transport ship had made contact with the hull of the Haivu warship. The breaching lasers quickly went to work, slowly cutting through the reinforced hull.
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I unstrapped myself from my seat as other soldiers around me did the same. I bounced on the balls of my feet, trying to warm myself up before we boarded. Noah stretched his arms and legs like I’d seen him do before. It was like a ritual of sorts. He always did the same ones before any activity. Keshi gripped his gun with worry. Sil popped the joints of her neck. Needle caught my gaze and gave me an excited wave. The lasers finished their job. The back of the transport ship opened up and created a ramp leading inside of the Haivu warship.
Our platoon flooded out of the cramped transport ship and into the Haivu warship. There were no Haivu in sight for now, so we secured our position while waiting for everyone to leave the ship. If the other boardings went well, the Haivu would have to worry about several breaches at the same time. We were going to use the first few minutes of chaos and confusion to secure as much ground as possible.
“Alright folks, I’ll be waiting right here.” The transport ship pilot shouted out. “Good luck to all of you. I landed us near the middle levels, on the back end of the warship. I suggest you head down the left corridor. It leads to the back.”
“Thanks, pilot!” Needle responded. He turned to the rest of us. “Let’s go kill some genocide bugs!”
We took the pilot’s advice and headed down the corridor to make our way to the back end of the ship. Like the simulations, it was incredibly likely for vertical transportation to be at the back and front of the ship. And since we were somewhere on the middle levels, we would be going down to look for the reactor or shield generator. Those tended to be near the bottom center of the ship.
The clanking of our boots echoed through the hallways as we advanced. We hadn’t encountered any Haivu so far, which meant that they didn’t know exactly where we were, or they were busy with other platoons, or this level wasn’t all that important.
Locating the reactor room was actually easier than our first simulation. We had comms this time. We could communicate with other platoons and trade information. Although the Haivu had means to locate where the signals were coming from, important messages could be relayed. It was a decent tradeoff. We were trading the location of key objectives with our location. Basically, whenever a platoon cleared a floor, or found an objective, they would let all of the other platoons know.
This wasn’t to say the Haivu had their own tricks, either. I watched as a giant metal slab shot down from the ceiling and closed off our way deeper into the hallway. The Haivu could seal off passageways in their own ship, which was a major hindrance. We had portable laser cutters to get through them, but it slowed us down considerably.
I watched as a fellow soldier unslung the laser cutter off his back, and got to work on the newly sealed gate. They had many of these spread seemingly at random throughout the warship. I couldn’t tell if they just shut the gate in front of us at random, predicted our movements from the breach, or they already knew where we were. I assumed it was a prediction. If they knew where we were, then they would attack in tandem with shutting the gate. Which was incredibly hard to deal with.
“Hostiles!” A soldier behind me shouted.
I turned away from the sealed door and looked down the hallway. Indeed, there were Haivu soldiers setting up position and getting behind cover.
We all reacted immediately. There wasn’t a lot of cover in this hallway, but thanks to the curvy nature of Haivu design, we were able to break line of sight behind bumps and dips on the walls. Those of us who couldn’t break line of sight with the walls immediately dashed for an adjacent corridor, where they secured a possible escape route and cover at the same time. Noah and I ended up in an adjacent corridor, and Needle did the same, across from us. Keshi and Sil flattened their bodies against the wall. The soldier with the laser cutter quickly did the same.
While all of us were scrambling for cover, the Haivu began to fire. They were still decently far away from us, so their accuracy wasn’t very high. The caustic pods that did manage to strike soldiers were stopped by their personal energy shields. One unlucky soul who was late to find cover got hit multiple times. The poor soldier melted away before he could even scream in agony. I gnashed my teeth in frustration.
We started shooting back. I peered around the corner and started firing at any exposed Haivu. Noah peeked around the corner below me, crouched down to lower his profile. This was a strategy that we used a number of times. It forced the Haivu to choose between shooting me, who was up high, and Noah, who was down low. The small lapse in reaction time would allow us to get an advantage.
The hallway was a canvas of beams and caustic pods flying every direction, striking soldiers seemingly at random. A Haivu soldier dropped to the ground, felled by a beam from my rifle. My shotgun was still neatly slung on my back. It was too far away to use it. Noah fired a burst of shots. I watched as all of them struck a Haivu soldier who was cocking his arm back to throw a grenade. It fell from his limp hand, and detonated. A cloud of acid temporarily obscured the hallway.
“Holy fuck!” Needle exclaimed. “Nice shot, Noah!”
Noah gave him a quick thumbs up.
“Hurry, get back to working on that door!” I heard Sil shout. “We’ve got a temporary break! The Haivu can’t shoot through that smoke because it’d melt their caustic pods!”
Keshi kept firing at the cloud of acid. “Everyone else, keep firing at them! Keep pressure with suppressive fire!”
The soldier with the laser cutter went back to work. Noah, Needle, and I kept firing shots at the cloud in tandem, to make sure we didn’t overheat. The other soldiers did the same.
“They’re coming from the other hallway!”
“Shit, move back!”
“Is the laser done yet?”
A cascade of voices started talking, all at once. It was starting to devolve into chaos. If we were pinned down here for too long, then the Haivu reinforcements would finish us.
“Door’s open!” I heard Sil say. “The other side is clear! Let’s go!”
The platoon slowly backed up until everyone passed through the gap in the door. The Haivu had started to come in from other directions, so it allowed us to funnel them through a single point again. Noah and I kept firing off shots as we backed through the freshly opened door. Eventually, the Haivu stopped trying to advance to the door. They had taken significant losses. The Haivu decided to cut their losses and retreated. They were trying to regroup and form up elsewhere, no doubt. I breathed a sigh of relief.
The platoon quickly checked for Haivu reinforcements, but none came. We were free to keep advancing. We started moving through the hallways at a brisk jog once more. Now that the Haivu knew our last position, we had to advance quickly and try to shake them off.
The Haivu would have a much easier time finding us if they had security cameras or something. But apparently their technological tree was different from ours. Since they had the ability to share thoughts with each other, the Haivu hadn’t bothered to invent any devices that allow communication. This included cameras, apparently. Presumably because they could transmit whatever they were seeing to other Haivu.
It was a little backwards. The Haivu had the means to pick up signals from our communication devices and triangulate our positions despite not having that kind of technology themselves. It was like having a shield before a sword. Wartime forced them to make technology that they wouldn’t have in a time of peace.
Our platoon continued our advance through the hallways. After several minutes of jogging, we arrived at the back end of the Haivu warship. Much like the simulations, there was an elevator and two staircases on either side of it.
We had to choose whether to go up, or down. Well, Sil did. Sil was actually our lieutenant. She got promoted after training ended because of her good performance during the simulations. She tended to take a commander role during the simulations because of her cleverness and quick thinking. I expected that a more experienced soldier would be leading this platoon, but Ceel simply made platoons composed entirely of former recruits. The experienced soldiers remained in their own platoons.
“Listen up!” Sil shouted. “We’re going down! There’s a good chance the reactor is on the level below us, since the transport ship pilot landed us near the middle floor. The other platoons haven’t said anything yet, so we have to keep searching. Let’s go!”
We descended through both stairs. We wanted to clear both stairs so we didn’t get flanked and attacked from behind while we were walking down. Both staircases were devoid of any bugs, and the hallway that connected the staircases to everything else was also clear. This floor was different from the one above, though. It was more compact, with numerous winding passageways and narrow hallways. Some of these corridors had clearance levels that were less than my height. They were telltale signs of being a maintenance floor. Meaning, the reactor or shield generator were somewhere here.
I nudged Noah with my elbow. “Stay on your toes. They like to pop out from nowhere, here.”
I unslung my energy shotgun, the one I bought all the way back at Maralu. I’d been taken by surprise a few times on maintenance floors, in simulations and in a real boarding. I’ve found that the shotgun was a very good solution to bugs in this cramped space.
“Don’t worry, Saka.” Noah quietly replied. “I’m always keeping an eye out. I’ve got your back.”
I nodded.
Our platoon advanced, slowly this time. Rushing through these tight hallways was a bad idea. We could easily pass a hidden corridor and be flanked, or herded into a dead end. Now that the Haivu weren’t aware of where we were, we could look for the reactor slowly and carefully.
“Wait, hold on.” Sil raised her hand in the air, signaling us to stop. “I’m getting a comm.”
We nervously shifted on our feet, waiting for Sil to finish listening. The soldiers at the front and back of the group kept watch for any Haivu trying to sneak up on us.
After a few moments, Sil spoke once more.
“A platoon found the reactor room! They need reinforcements right now! The Haivu are defending hard, and there’s going to be more! We’re the closest to them. Let’s go!”
It was time to bring down a warship.