Duct tape, as outdated and inefficient as it was, worked surprisingly well as a combat ready suit patching material when actual rig repair kits were sparse. Every suit had an inner lining of self sealing foam capsules to prevent the occupant from being instantly introduced to the vacuum of space, but the foam alone could not endure rugged environments or most forms of friction for long. Enter the tape, which when used in conjunction with the foam could keep a minor leak plugged for hours of motion and flexing. Luckily for Liam the hole was only a tear along his thigh no bigger than a pinkie, so he could easily pull free a decent length of tape from his belt, cut the strip free with his bladed shotgun arm, then patch the breach with a few layers wrapped around the area.
Once the red light had dimmed into nothingness he checked the team vital signs on his button controlled internal computer, which thankfully told him that of the six he was the only one to have a leak. Sure, Louie has some broken ribs and Nels the grenadier will probably need crutches for that leg, but a living Rat was one that could pull the trigger on a gun. He set his helmet to a command channel for his squad and readied his revolver in case of an attack. “Breachers, sound off!”
Teddy was the first to answer from the same room as Liam. “Marksman reporting, situation nominal.”
Louie then answered from across the hall. “Wolf here. Minor injuries, but nothing serious. I’m still good for a fight.”
Mabel replied from the same room as Louie. “Stone Bird here and grand, but Nels is down. A stim and a booster are keeping her from going into shock, but if she doesn’t get back soon she’s going to have as many limbs as you, Liam.”
Their last member, shipwrecked sailor Steve, sent out his signal from within the ventilation ducts above where the bombs had gone off. “Weasel on line one. I got in the vents, but I think I was a bit too close to that little cherry bomb of theirs. Vitals say I'm fine as can be but I know brain damage and concussions well enough to say that I’m more than a little fucked up. My head’s aching and I can’t count my fingers in front of my face, but that’s no worse than a night at Boozerey Hound’s Pub. Hey Nels, if you still have all your bits by the end of the day I’ll treat you to a round of smoky gin, yeah?””
Liam ignored their banter and looked at the situation as it stood: the breachers were divided, Calibur didn’t respond to his call, a laser cannon was waiting for them at the end of the hall, and the passage out of these rooms was likely ablaze with self-fueling flames that would burn even in a vacuum. These security forces were playing dirty, which meant that the Rats needed to be worse, more ruthless, and maybe even a little unhinged in their response. An idea came to mind, one that he knew was right up the alley of his squad of misfits. “Mabel, grab Nels’ grenade gun and use some of those ME rounds to blow a hole in the wall closest to those guards. Breach your way through anything and everything, but keep low in case they fire blindly at you with the cannon. Louie, you keep on Mabel's tail and put a bullet in anyone in your way. Steve, you snake your way over to the enemy and drop a frag mine or whatever you've got tucked away in your pack right on their heads. Teddy and I will distract them to buy the three of you time. Nels, call Calibur and get him to redirect someone over here for a medevac.”
Five green affirmative markers popped into his helmet as the five comm lines went dark. Leaving his kneeling stance he quickly moved to the doorway, through which was only a haze of smoke and embers from the blast. Teddy was leaning beside the doorway, his weapon trained on the head of one of the guards as they realigned the devastating laser weapon for another attack. The young marine did a hand signal that meant he was requesting permission to execute the man in his sights, to which he was given a grim nod in confirmation by the team leader. A single crack rang out as the rifle in his hands fired a single armor piercing round into the helmet of the unknowing victim of his wrath, their body falling limp over one of the large power cables connected to the side of the laser cannon as flood freely spewed from a single hole in the solid white faceplate upon their helmet.
The response by the security forces was a scattering of laser holes burning through the corridor wall right were Teddy had taken the shot from, but since he had moved aside there was no pirate there to be melted. Liam growled under his breath in irritation at how bothersome lasers were to fight, as they made no sound and couldn’t be tracked back to their origin point in combat without highly specialized equipment. Using his controls on the underside of his helmet he pulled up some of the footage from his ally’s camera feed and did a head count of the enemy force they were facing: three were operating the canon now that one had fallen, eight riflemen flanking the gunners, four specialists with different armaments mixed in their ranks and an unknown number of additional men at another choke point farther down the hall. The odds weren’t in the pirate’s favor, but they had seen worse before.
A distant thump came from the chamber on the other side of the destroyed hallway, and Liam could see on his receiver that Louie and Mabel were moving through closer to the enemy squad. Teddy peered through one of the lase bored holes and acknowledged that the attention of the enemy forces was now divided, but the cannon squad was prioritizing them now that it was nearing its recharged state. They had only a few seconds before the giant beam of light would melt away their cover, and neither of them had any intention of being in the way of it when it came to pass. The marksman took out his handgun sidearm and pressed the barrel against the hole in order to unleash three triple round bursts towards their enemy in the slim hope that one bullet would damage the cannon, but there was no such luck. More laser fire ripped through the hull where he once stood, but his agility once again saved him.
Teddy turned his head to face his squad leader, his voice maintaining its cold, almost mechanical calm. “Boss, we’re running out of cover here. What are we-” His words were cut off when he saw that Liam had been changing the magazine of his shotgun arm to a particularly nasty ammunition type.
Liam racked the gun and gestured for his ally to get away from where he was standing, and not a moment too soon. The wall adjacent to him began to glow with terrifying heat as the laser cannon fired once more, the very frame of the corridor bending from the massive energy being put into it. Molten metal splattered on the floor as the beam made a wide arc across the length of the room, right above the prone forms of Liam and Teddy. Before the beam could finish its invisible arc, Liam rose from the ground and aimed his gun arm at the weapon and fired as fast as the weapon could cycle. His shots, a specialized ammo made specifically for ricochet effect, rattled around the newly made path to the enemy barricade and caused multiple sparking lights to appear as they impacted with the sensitive couplers of the laser cannon, as well as a few suit breaches. Teddy wasted no time in joining him, scoring a successful hit on the operator’s shoulder and shattering the visor of one of the specialists. The enemy guns took aim at them, but they had already achieved what they wanted and had dove back to the floor.
The undivided focus of the security forces was apparent due to the growing number of holes and glowing spots appearing all around Liam and Teddy, but without the cannon they had no means of quickly driving them out of cover. The two pirates were equally at an impasse, as their suits could not take a direct laser shot without suffering a catastrophic failure. The ultimate deciding factor of this standoff came when another thunderous sound came from a newly made hole in the wall close to the defensive position, dividing the attention of the defenders again. Louie and Mabel had breached the wall adjacent to them with the aptly named ‘Mega Explosive' rounds and were firing indiscriminately through the smoky haze. Neither side, pirates or security, were scoring any hits, but it was enough of a distraction that neither side noticed the ventilation hatch above the fortification fall to the floor with a surprise cluster of mines attached.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
A terrible howl came over the comms line for both sides to hear. “Sayonara, suckas!”
Some scrambled to vault their cover, others cowered in place, but none escaped the blast unscathed. A messy conglomeration of mines and grenades wired together turned the area into a fireball of red flames and scorched shrapnel. Of the remaining guards only two still had a pulse by the time that the pirates descended upon them, with one being hastily executed on the spot by Louie before she could pull the trigger on her laser rifle and the other dropping his gun in hopes of being spared. Mabel looked to Liam for instructions, and the pair of handcuffs robbed from a corpse was the response. Liam was all for the mantra of ‘take no prisoners’, but they had to recruit some of them to keep their ranks full of combat capable fighters.
Sammy dropped from the vent, took note of the blast he had caused, and cackled into the open comms again. “Damn, that was one of the good ones. Worth every dime-”
Liam tapped the side of his helmet with the barrel of his shotgun, pantomiming a key turning in his fingers. “You’re on an open channel. Nice work though, I’ll order you some new toys when we’re through here.” Taking one final look at the shattered barricade, he motioned towards the corridor beyond and stepped over the wreckage. “We have another barricade up ahead, just around the corner. Teddy, scope it out and give me numbers so we don’t get caught with our pants down again.”
The former marine jerked around to face the hall before crouching low to the ground, moving quickly despite his awkward pose. Liam turned to look back across the smoldering wreckage behind them while adjusting his transmitter to focus on the combat AI’s frequency. “Calibur, is Nels getting that evac?”
A tired voice not belonging to the machine murmured in reply from the helmet speakers. “Yeah, I’m almost there. Got her scans already, she’ll be just fine. Give ‘em hell for her.”
Liam cut the line and turned back just in time for the recon expert to return. Images appeared on the HUD, depicting a more appropriately entrenched force of around thirty security forces with another laser cannon and two heavy ballistic machine guns. Liam was surprised that this company would use mixed arms, though he credited it to the crew they were protecting having these weapons on board already, and not any level of forward thinking on their part. He commed the others on their secure channel, sharing an outlined version of the image he had gotten to them. “Alright, looks like these guys are more than ready for us. Suggestions?”
Sammy put his hand to his chin and pondered the conundrum aloud. “Lots of men, lasers and bullets together, another of those damn melters…gotta get rid of those MGs first.”
Louie nodded and pulled out a fresh magazine for his assault rifle, his finger dancing dangerously close to the trigger as he slammed it in. “I can handle that, but when those are gone we’re gonna have a Hell of a time with all those beams.”
Mabel added her thoughts, “Smokescreen would work, but none of us packed any. Boss, whatcha got?”
Liam looked at the area around them, including the pile of corpses at his feet, and noticed that there was an abundance of stun grenades on the floor and a high capacity fire extinguisher mounted to the wall. “Loot the ranks for their stuns and bring me that douser, we’ll make a concussion bomb.”
There was a silent cheer as they moved for the necessary items scattered throughout the area. As they scrounged a thunderous crash echoed through the ship as the Korraine unleashed her main cannon on the freighter’s engines, the shockwave and rumble making them reflexively freeze in order to wait out the tremors. Once the floor stopped moving they resumed, and before their leader set out a pile of over a dozen stun bombs and the large rectangular vessel of fire fighting foam. Using a specialized micro-welder he had installed into the cuff of his suit, their resident weaponsmith was able to tack all of the stun grenades to the top of the can facing out in a circular shape, and using the same tool joined all of the pins together with a single thread of tightly knit steel cord. He presented the bomb to Mabel with the order, “Pull the line and chuck, don’t wait.”
A forward motion of the shotgun arm signaled for Louie and Mabel to advance until they reached the corner where the enemies were watching. There came a muted clack as the strip of grenade pins hit the deck, followed quickly by a burst of rifle fire directed at the two operators of the heavy machine gun, then a resounding bang as the makeshift smoke bomb went off. Everything down the corridor was engulfed in a black and white cloud of smoke tinged gas, with detectable beams of light appearing in the haze from the silent laser rifles going off wildly. The pirate stayed low as they approached, guns ringing out as they stormed the position using the lights as indicators of where they were to shoot. There was a thud as a body hit the floor beside Liam, but he didn’t turn to look and see what had become of whoever was to his right.
Liam’s revolver and shotgun went off in tandem, with high velocity 44 rounds punching clean through the silhouettes of security officers and 10 gauge slugs sending their bodies hurling to the ground. A sudden roar of machinery sounded from over their heads during the fight as an emergency ventilation system came to life in order to devour the smokescreen, but by the time it cleared the air the conflict was nearing its end as the guards failed to hold the line. Louie pressed on the attack with ferocious conviction while Mabel covered her with her smg, and the familiar bark of a marksman’s rifle from behind told Liam that Teddy hadn’t fallen. When all of the bodies of the enemy were lying motionless on the ground Liam did a scan of the outcome.
The entirety of the defender’s forces were lying dead on the floor, their suits still bleeding atmosphere and blood into the diminishing air content of the room. The one who had fallen behind him as he ran was Teddy, though it seemed that he had only caught a stray laser to the ankle and had covered them from his prone position while his high quality suit repaired the damage itself. Mabel was leaking air from a shot that clipped her life support pack but with Louie and Liam there to piece it together they were able to keep her from asphyxiating. Other than those minor injuries and suit damages the Rats had come out of this rush unscathed, but their work was far from over.
A voice came over their private channel, a direct broadcast from the pilot of the Lamprey. “Jump drive decomed and cargo locked, Captain says hurry up and take the bridge!”
Liam wondered how neither the gunners nor the breakers had gotten to the bridge yet, though he could attribute their delay to Excalibur sending them to where the enemy would have a fair advantage. A quick frequency adjustment had his radio connected to the breakers on his left earpiece and the gunners on his right. He asked each on their respective channels, “Team leaders, what’s the hold up?”
Arvos of the breakers responded in his usual gruff manner as gunfire snuck into his link. “S’all good here, just cleaning up some stragglers. These boys had one helluva position under the gun bays, but they should be gone right about…now.” There was a boom that could be felt through the ship as he said this, followed by the cut off call of victory from the demolition oriented forces that were the breakers.
The answer from the gunners came in the form of Excalibur’s voice coming cleanly through the line. “The gunners are currently engaged in a firefight with the pitiful remnants of this vessel’s crew. This is not the first time I have seen organics use industrial equipment as improvised firearms.”
Liam scowled as he disconnected from the breakers so he could focus solely on the machine. “Why didn’t you respond earlier, and where the hell are you?” He already had a good guess, but hearing it from the AI would at least tell him that he was right.
“Excalibur did not follow the breachers into the hallway lined with explosive devices, that would be illogical. My frame is now assisting the gunners in their conflict for access to the bridge.”
Sneaky bastard, Liam thought to himself, their combat AI never once listened to him and would always go where combat would be the worst. “Whatever, breachers are on the way, just hold until then.” An affirmative blink on his helmet screen was the only answer as the line was forcibly disconnected. Scowling, Liam turned his attention back to his squad, “Alright, straight shot to the bridge from here. Let’s get this over with.”
The Rats began to prowl forward, sweeping every corner they came across and reporting frequently with their non-verbal pings on his system. Liam took up the rear and tucked his revolver into his right armpit in order to brace his revolver for a reload, sliding in the speedloader as he walked and casting the spent casings behind him. More explosions rocked the ship beneath their feet as they advanced and the sound of distant gunfire became more focused as they made their way forward. One last push and this raid would be over, then perhaps Liam could get back to the Korraine for a shower and a hot meal. He didn’t care how many more guards there were, whether by his own conviction or by order of the captain, he was going to get that shower even if it killed him.