War Fleet: Resistance, стр. 29
Olsen had an extra view of the fleet outside on his armrest display, but no modules had changed their position, presumably, Aarsh didn’t think his troops had a chance of failing this mission. And in all honesty, he might be right.
The crew inside the CIC seemed to share Olsen’s sentiment. They also had their heads craned up to the CIC, frozen like statues. There was no data they could feed the Marines to help them on their mission. Everyone here seemed to know that the fate of the ship was in their hands, and that their chances of stopping the Arstans were incredibly slim.
The only person who could help was Chang, down in the engine room. He’d sealed himself in there, with orders only to release the internal lock if he fixed the warp engine and initiated it from the room. But then, even if they entered FTL-warp, they’d still take the boarded Arstans with them. If they overpowered the ship, they only needed to turn it back around to bring the hostages to Aarsh.
Cadinouche’s screen started beeping, and everyone present jerked their heads towards his seat. “Sir,” the pilot said. “It’s a hail from Rear Admiral Aarsh on the Kinlysta’s CIC-module.”
Dammit, what did he want right now? Fearing that Aarsh might only be calling to gloat, Olsen was tempted to order Cadinouche to ignore the call, but that might make him indirectly responsible for the butchering of his entire crew. Besides, a conversation might buy Ensign Chang a little time.
“Patch him through,” he said.
Rear Admiral Aarsh appeared on the viewscreen with a reptilian grin stretched below his long snout. His eyelids had closed slightly, and harsh green highlights reflected off the top of them. The Arstan watched from the viewscreen with a cold, assessing gaze. But Olsen wouldn’t give Aarsh the pleasure of seeing his fear, so he kept his gaze steady and didn’t budge an inch.
“Aarsh,” he said, knowing full well how much this Arstan would despise him omitting the honorifics. “Cut to the chase. What do you want?”
“Nothing more than your unconditional surrender,” the Arstan replied. “You must already know that resistance is futile, and no more Arstans need to die.”
Olsen narrowed his eyes. “And what are your terms?”
“Call off all fire, and I will spare your crew.”
“And me?”
“You, Captain Olsen, will be mine to do with as I please.”
Olsen turned the offer over in his head. He was prepared to sacrifice himself if he needed to, but to hand humans over to the Arstans would doom them to lives working as Arstan slaves — perhaps with sledgehammers heavier than they could lift, where they had as much risk of dying suffocating because of low oxygen levels as they did being flogged by a barbed Arstan whip. He could ask for honor, but the whole concept of honor only applied to Arstan civilizations. As far as they were concerned, everyone else was scum.
Several more gunshots sounded, although from this distance Olsen couldn’t tell whether they were from Arstan plasma rifles or his Marines’ standard-issue XM-461 rifles. He glanced down at his armrest display, which now showed the view of the corridor, and saw that four Marines had retreated back into it, unleashing a volley of slugs into the shuttle bay.
“I don’t have much time,” Rear Admiral Aarsh said. “Do you accept my terms?”
“Over my dead body,” Olsen replied, and cut off the channel.
32
Kota and her squad retreated into the corridor as the Arstans rapidly fanned out into the shuttle bay, peppering them with well-placed covering fire. She counted ten of them scattered around the Extractor behind crates, under the wing, in strategic positions. They moved as fast as geckos, and ducked and dived into position in such a way they were only visible for one moment.
While the Marines had standard-duty XM-461 assault rifles, the Arstan rifle was much more sophisticated, and something to be feared. Normally, they operated as a short-burst assault rifle with incredible range. But each one also doubled as a shotgun, and also had a front-mounted bayonet for close-range combat.
Those things were too heavy for humans to handle, but Arstans were strong, and they favored fighting at close range if possible. Apparently, they found it more honorable to spear a bayonet through the gut than shoot someone from a distance.
“Kota, what’s the situation?” Olsen said over the comms. “The camera’s out in the shuttle bay.”
She crouched behind a crate before she answered him and ordered the three remaining Marines to take cover. “Unfortunately, we’ve lost it. Connery’s down, and they’ve dominated the room.”
“Keep at them. They want to take the crew captive.”
Kota nodded. “Affirmative, sir,” she replied. She knew that although they wanted the crew alive, they would kill the Marines first, much as a firefighter would extinguish any fire that impeded them from rescuing civilians.
She emerged from behind her cover and let off a few shots. One hit an Arstan on the side of the jaw, causing him to collapse on the floor. She ducked back just as the lizardmen responded with a volley of fire, and she noticed four Arstans charging forward at the same time.
“Fall back,” she screamed. Better to retreat now than to get sprayed with shotgun fire.
The squad entered a diamond formation and found their way behind two protruding bulkheads at the end of the corridor. A button on the wall gave access to some emergency invasion shields. Kota punched this, and two metal plates with bullet-proof glass windows at the top shot out of the floor.
Kota signaled Singh, Turgin, and Riley forward, and they leaned down against these, securing their rifles in the slits at the base. Meanwhile, the Arstans found position behind the crates outside the shuttle bay that Kota’s squad had been using before.
Kota looked down the corridor to her side, which pulsed with red light. They were only steps from sickbay.