The Last Bastion of Star City (Perseus Gate Book 4) Read online

  She placed shape charges on the panel, as did Finaeus. She saw Trevor signal that he was ready and set a five count on the combat net, backing up the shaft.

  When the count hit zero, the charges blew, and the panel went flying into the corridor. Jessica and Finaeus pulled themselves toward the opening, and lobbed a pair of grenades in each before opening fire. In the time it took to expend a magazine, at least four OG soldiers were down.

  The rest, however, had gone prone, or had taken cover behind supports in the corridor. They began to return fire as Jessica and Finaeus backed away from the opening.

  That was when Trevor blew his hatch and barreled into the corridor, smashing his heavy gauntlet into an OG soldier before grabbing the man and throwing him into the shaft.

  Jessica watched through the probes as the hapless soldier frantically tried to grab onto handholds and failed, ultimately slamming into the bottom of the shaft half a kilometer down.

  He might live, but he was out of the fight.

  She turned her attention back to the corridor to see Trevor now hunkered behind a support, firing his repeater at the remaining nine soldiers.

  Jessica clipped her repeater back onto her chest and grabbed an electron rifle.

  she called out over the combat net, before taking advantage of a grenade Trevor had lobbed to pull herself back into the opening and fire at the OG soldiers.

  Two hadn’t ducked when Trevor’s grenade went off, and fired on Jessica. One hit her shoulder, knocking off one of the ablative plates, and the other tagged her in the arm, throwing off her aim as she fired her beam.

  The shot streaked above three of the soldiers, a blue-white bolt of lightning, surrounded by a glowing haze of cherenkov radiation.

  It hit the far side of the corridor, and burned through a support column, bolts of lightning flaring out from the impact point.

  Finaeus took advantage of the target she presented, and fired full auto at one of the nearby enemy soldiers, denting, then shattering their helmet.

  The other soldier who had fired on Jessica turned his weapon to Finaeus and caught the old man right in the neck with a high-power kinetic round.

  A garbled grunt came over the Link and Finaeus jerked back, losing his grip and falling down the shaft.

  Jessica leapt down the shaft, streaking after the old man and grabbing his arm at the same moment that she activated her maglock boots, anchoring herself to the side of the shaft.

  Finaeus jerked to a stop like so much dead weight, and Iris Linked to his armor, pulling up a vitals reading.

  she reported.

  Jessica instructed the armor to activate its maglock boots and Finaeus’s body straightened under the armor’s power.

  Trevor called back.

  Jessica looked at the shaft opening, which was now three meters above her. An OG soldier peered over the edge, and Jessica fired her electron beam, the relativistic particles creating their bolt of lighting once more—this time connecting with his head and burning it off.

  The body rolled out of the way, and an object flew into the shaft. Jessica flattened herself against the edge of the tunnel, and a black blob, some sort of sticky explosive, flew past, centimeters from her chest.

  And stuck on Finaeus’s right hand.

  There wasn’t time to think. Jessica fired at Finaeus’s elbow, blowing his arm off, sending his hand and the explosive stuck to it spinning down the shaft where it exploded sixty meters below them.

  Flames roared through the shaft, engulfing herself and Finaeus. All Jessica could think as the fire abated was, at least his wound is cauterized now.

  Trevor asked, no small amount of panic in his voice.

 

  Jessica pulled up the probe feeds and marked the location of the three closest OG soldiers on her HUD. Then she ran up the side of the shaft, dove through the opening, and spun in the air, her maglock boots connecting with the overhead.

  The three soldiers she had marked were directly below her, and she fired her electron beam into one, while unloading her heavy repeater into the other.

  Soldier number three was raising his rifle to fire on her when a pair of automatons appeared at the far end of the passageway and opened fire on him, taking him out.

  The remaining three soldiers threw down their weapons and raised their hands in surrender.

  “Helmets off!” Jessica yelled over her armor’s PA system.

  Two followed orders, but the third hesitated. Trevor strode toward the soldier and snarled through his armor’s PA. “I can try to rip it off if you want.”

  The third soldier, a woman who looked as angry as Jessica felt, pulled her helmet off and stood beside her teammates.

  Trevor pulled out LockIT kits and slapped one on each of their necks. Seconds later, they fell unconscious and their armor’s joints began to spark and seize up.

  Jessica said with a nod to the pair of automatons at the end of the corridor.

  Iris said with a grin in Jessica’s mind.

  Jessica said as she checked over the remaining soldiers, putting LockIT kits on two who were still alive.

 

  Jessica said as she walked to the shaft and peered down to see Finaeus staring at his arm-stump.

  he asked.

  Jessica replied.

  Finaeus complied, though he muttered something about how he’d better get his favorite meals for a month. And his new arm had better match his old one.

  Iris spoke up, her mental tone filled with urgency.

  Jessica took the lead, not waiting for Finaeus to make it over the edge of the shaft entrance.

 

  Trevor replied as Jessica moved past the pair of automatons, flushing nano ahead of her.

  she called back as she peered around the corner at an intersection just past the bots.

  They were only seventy meters from the control center; she could see its double doors at the end of the hall.

  Jessica moved into the hall, walking down the left-side, while the automatons moved down the right. Dead Orion Guard soldiers and mangled automatons filled the corridor. Enough that she had to climb over the bodies at one point.

  As she jumped off the heap and landed on the far side, a hand stretched out, grabbing her ankle.

  Jessica looked down to see an Orion Guard soldier, his helmet off, mouthing something as he tried to hold onto her.

  Shit, buddy, wish I had a pulse pistol.

  She gave as gentle a kick as her powered boot could, and knocked the man unconscious. She looked behind and saw Finaeus approaching with Trevor behind him.

  Jessica advised.

  They made it to the control center without further incident, and the doors cycled open, granting them admittance.

  Jessica said.

 

  Yohan said.

  Jessica said as she surveyed the control center.

  The room was fifteen-by-thirty meters. It housed a number of consoles, what looke
d like the housing for an NSAI node—now empty—and a lot of power conduit.

  Iris said.

  Jessica asked.

 

  Jessica spun around, noticing there was a window on the far side of the room that looked out into the massive shaft running through the sphere’s shell. She knew there was a door at the top and bottom of the shaft; essentially a large airlock—not that there was worry about air escaping one hundred kilometers above the inner surface of the sphere.

  Well, there’s our back door, Jessica thought as she planted explosives around the window. She’d hold off on blowing it ‘til they needed it.

  Trevor took up a position on one side of the doorway, while Finaeus settled in on the other—the left side, since he no longer had a right arm.

  Jessica asked.

 

  Trevor admitted.

 

  Jessica replied.

  She settled down in the rear of the room, behind the empty NSAI housing. Reaching over her shoulder, Jessica grabbed each of her rifles, and set them on the deck. Then she pulled off her satchel filled with magazines and power cores.

  Four electron beam power cores, nineteen magazines for the heavy repeater, and four for the sniper rifle.

  She shouldered the sniper rifle and sighted down the hall.

  Yohan better get those reinforcements here fast…

  * * * * *

  The OG soldiers were using their own fallen comrades for cover, and Jessica was beginning to wish she had planted a shape charge under the heap and blown them out of the way—though that may have just created new piles of bodies in new places.

  Finaeus called out as he slotted it into his repeater and opened fire on the inexorably advancing Orion Guard forces.

  Trevor added.

  Jessica looked at what was left of her piles. The sniper rifle was out, but she had two left for her repeater, and tossed one to Finaeus. He wasn’t able to catch it, but it landed beside him and he nodded appreciatively.

  She still had two more electron beam charge cylinders, and hefted the rifle, firing three successive shots into the approaching troops to drive them back long enough to reload.

  Trevor said as he took careful aim and shot an approaching soldier in the groin.

  Jessica said.

  Trevor replied.

  Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, Jessica thought.

  Iris said quietly

  Jessica sighed. She had been expecting that eventuality. At the bottom of her duffel was an explosive satchel, and she attached it to a power conduit that ran up the back of the NSAI core housing.

 

  Trevor asked.

  Finaeus replied.

  Jessica swapped the cylinder on her electron beam and took careful aim at a pile of mechs she knew some OG soldiers were behind. She took one shot at them, another at a soldier laying prone near the bulkhead, and two at the top of the large heap.

  She knew several more enemies were dead, but it was only a drop in the bucket.

  Trevor and Finaeus had moved back while she made her shots, and now hunkered down beside her.

  Trevor asked.

  Jessica said.

  Trevor replied, and Finaeus nodded.

  Jessica fired several more shots with her electron beam, slapped her repeater on her chest, and grabbed her mags.

 

  Before she got to two, the window—and a part of the wall—exploded, flinging Jessica and her team across the control center. She struggled to her feet, trying to make sense of what had happened, when a squad of soldiers rushed toward them, weapons leveled.

  “Freeze!”

  STRIKE

  STELLAR DATE: 11.20.8938 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Sphere Shell, Pad A21-49C, Star City

  REGION: Star City System, Perseus Arm

  “I don’t know, Sabs, I don’t like just sitting here,” Terry said from the comm station on Sabrina’s bridge.

  Sabrina replied.

  “Then why aren’t we going out?” Terry asked.

 

  “Toast like we’ll be if they get the door on the sphere open?” Terry asked. “You heard the message; Cargo’s team is fighting for their lives and Jessica’s is even worse off. If we go out and hit those cruisers, we can stop the enemy from getting reinforcements!”

  Terry waited for Sabrina’s response, which took over ten seconds to come—an eternity from what she knew of AIs.

  Sabrina said.

  “There are two doors, like an airlock,” Terry replied. “We could do them one at a time.”

  Sabrina gave a very lifelike sigh over the bridge’s audible systems.

  “Great!” Terry said. “Can I fly?”

  Sabrina replied.

  Terry nodded as she switched seats. “She did. I’m not great at targeting, but I think I can do it with your help.”

  Sabrina was silent for a few minutes before she spoke again.

  “Awesome!” Terry said as the exterior view showed the ship lifting off. She swapped the forward display to show the view ahead of the ship and marveled as the great door into the sphere opened a crack to let them through.

  Just a crack and a two-hundred-meter ship could slip by. Then they were in the five-kilometer-tall shaft leading to the outer doors.

  As they passed through, the outer door opened and didn’t stop at a crack. It opened further and further until Terry knew it was wide enough for any of the massive enemy cruisers to enter.

  “Why is Yohan doing that?” Terry asked.

  Sabrina said.

  “Which one?” Terry asked terrified that her new friends could be dead somewhere not far from where Sabrina now flew.

  Sabrina said.

  Then they were in space.

  Terry brought up scan data and saw the five Orion Guard cruisers hunkered down on the surface of the sphere, troops still streaming from them toward the access point.

  She didn’t need to be told what to do; she fired Sabrina’s beams at the access point the troops had breached, turning it to slag in moments. Then she traced a line across Star City’s surface, cutting down hundreds of the Orion Guard soldiers.

  It should have made her sad, or scared, or something…she didn’t know what, but killing people wasn’t supposed to feel satisfying.

  But all Terry could think about was how each OG soldier she s
hot down was one less that would shoot at her friends inside the sphere.

  The Orion cruisers opened fire on Sabrina but the little freighter’s stasis shields shed their beams as though they were of no consequence.

  “That’s amazing,” Terry exclaimed as she fired at one of the vessels, hitting it before it brought its own shields up.

  The other four cruisers were lifting off, leaving lines of stranded soldiers on the outer surface of Star City. Terry fired on them, but once they had broken contact with the surface, their shields were too strong for Sabrina’s beams to penetrate.

  “I can’t stop them, Sabrina,” Terry said. “What do we do?”

  Sabrina whispered.

  * * * * *

  Jessica saw two of the soldiers turn and look out the hole in the window as a shape flew past.

  Not just any shape. Sabrina.

  Give ‘em hell, Sabs, Jessica thought.

  At the very least, Sabrina should be able to use her beams to take out the troops entering on the outer surface of the sphere. Whether or not she could destroy five cruisers in short order was another question.

  “I got it!” one of the OG soldiers cried out over his audible systems. He had placed a holo projector on one of the consoles, and it showed the outer door opening.

  “Damnit,” Trevor swore.

  “Did you see?” Jessica asked in a whisper.

  “See what?” Finaeus asked.

  “Sabs just flew past.”

  Trevor let out a long breath. “Think she can do it?”

  “Who can do it?” one of the Orion Guard soldiers asked.

  The three prisoners closed their mouths and stared silently at the approaching woman. At least Jessica thought it was a woman. OG armor was a bit indistinct in the gender department, and the voice through the armor’s PA was hard to place.

  “I asked, who can do it?”

  When no one replied, the soldier raised an armored fist and punched Jessica in the face. She felt her cheekbone crack and her skin split open, but she only grunted in response.