Darkness on Sagitol: Guns of the Federation Book 4 by Anthony James

Author:Anthony James [James, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

The passage to the bridge branched forward off a corridor that ran port-to-starboard across the Voltran’s lower midsection. Like most of the corridors within the warship, this one was two metres wide and not quite three high. Space was tight for the ten soldiers and six members of the warship’s crew who were lined up against the aft wall. Sergeant Maxwell was closest to the bridge turning, and only a dozen metres from it.

The next nearest room was thirty metres starboard and it would have made sense for most of the squad and the Voltran’s crew to wait there, but Grisham wasn’t sure he could hold his telepathic shield over such a distance. Certainly, he didn’t want to exhaust himself by experimenting.

“Private Vaughan, set up here,” said Maxwell, pointing at the floor next to the corridor’s forward wall. “When Private Lowe fires his launcher into the bridge, any surviving Ax’Kol are going to coming running out and they’re going to be angry as hell. Cut them down.”

“Yes, sir,” said Vaughan.

The soldier already had a two-handed grip on his XR repeater. He snapped out the bipod mount, placed the weapon on the floor and dropped to his stomach behind it. Out of everyone, Vaughan was the most likely to be killed in the next couple of minutes.

“As soon as the rocket detonates, we’re going to run for the starboard room,” said Maxwell, indicating with his hand, in case anyone hadn’t learned to tell their left from their right. “From there, we head forward and then starboard again. If the Ax’Kol can’t detect us, we have a chance to lose them.” He smiled thinly. “We’ll have to lose them.”

“I’ve set charges at the next two corners,” said Chau. “I can detonate them remotely.”

“Maybe I should just swallow one of my grenades,” said Lyles. “It’ll be a cleaner death than having Chau blow both my legs off as I run past his explosives.”

“Enough,” said Maxwell. “I’ll be last man away from the bridge, along with Private Vaughan.” He slung his rifle and unclipped a couple of grenades. “I’ll leave a trail of these behind me.”

Maxwell looked questioningly at Grisham. It was time to put things in motion.

“Let’s do it, Sergeant,” said Grisham.

He followed Maxwell and Lowe along the corridor, leaving Vaughan and the other soldiers where they were. Five metres from the passage leading to the bridge, Grisham stopped while the other two soldiers continued. Casting his mind out, he could feel three of the Ax’Kol nearby. Five more continued to rove aft and it was a good bet they wouldn’t stay there once Lowe’s rocket went off.

Maxwell halted and peered towards the bridge. “Shit,” he muttered on the squad channel. “I can only see one Ax’Kol – it must be three metres tall. The other two are out of sight.”

“I can definitely kill the visible enemy,” said Lowe. “But the command station won’t survive, unless it’s impervious to heat.”

“Don’t worry if you break the command station - I can interface with the Voltran from anywhere,” said Grisham.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.