Odysseus Awakening by Evan Currie

Author:Evan Currie [Currie, Evan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542048477
Publisher: 47North
Published: 2017-12-11T22:00:00+00:00

► The Marine shuttles dispatched from the Odysseus closed on the Tetanna, flying a ballistic trajectory through the last half of their flight path right up until the last possible moment. They fired their thrusters hard as the big ship loomed in front of them, splitting up and hurtling through space toward the damaged cruiser at near insane speeds.

The lead shuttle hit its CM field just enough as they threaded a breach, slowing the last bit and bringing the big bird around within the massive cavity carved by the enemy weapons. The pilot’s compartment was now sealed and the Marines were in a vacuum as the rear hatch descended and the squad leapt to the burned-out deck, fanning out to secure it.

Others, including corpsmen, started tossing gear out of the back of the shuttle with little care for neatness, then followed suit themselves.

In all, it took a little under three minutes to unload, disembark, and clear the area so the shuttle could fire its rockets and fly back out the breach for the next to fly in and repeat the process.

On the scorched and scarred deck of the Priminae ship, Conner took charge of her Marines and got them moving before the second shuttle had even started its run. They had work to do.

“Get the portable lock over to that section of the bulkhead.” She pointed to a section off to the left that looked relatively unscarred.

With a little luck, it would be clear on the other side, and she could get her Marines moving through the ship more quickly. Until they penetrated deeper into the ship, however, she was well aware that they were likely to run into evacuated sections, making it difficult to navigate at best. Finding a dead end could slow them down fatally if the enemy were close to gaining full control of the vessel.

“Corporal Han.” She grabbed one of her comm specialists by the shoulder. “Get me a patch to the ship’s communications network. I want to know if anyone is still in charge here or if we are looking at a total loss.”

“Yes ma’am.” The corporal tossed off a quick salute before grabbing his computer and transceiver gear and heading for a section of the bulkhead with an access panel.

“Chief,” Conner called, “we have to assume that we’ll need multiple airlocks to gain egress, so get someone to plot out the most likely route to the internal decks. I want a clear path to evacuate the crew, assuming we find them, and ourselves if it comes to that. That means securing the locks as we go, and that’s going to cost us Marines we may need forward.”

“Yes ma’am. We can rig traps to our IFF signals,” the chief offered hesitantly.

She understood that hesitance. The idea of leaving lethal traps at their rear, relying on IFF transponders to let them pass unharmed, was cringe-worthy to say the least. All it would take was enemy signal jamming at an inopportune time, and they’d fall on their own grenades in the most literal and historical way possible.

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