The Span of Empire: Chapter Twenty Eight

    Thoomp!

    As designed, the shaped charge had directed almost all of its energy downward against the hull. Boyes felt the equivalent of a hard push against his back from the spillover. He spun in place, to see Clark and Laroche placing their door-openers in the cracks formed by the charge and triggering their operation. A few seconds later they discarded the metal plate and stepped back.

    Nolan and Kemal already had the flash-bang grenades in motion through the opening, one-two-three-four.

    As soon as the grenades had exploded, Singh and Gomez pulled themselves through the opening, back to back, Super-Tazers leading the way. “Damn!” Boyes heard one of them call out as he pulled himself through on their heels. His external audio sensor began picking up sounds of conflict. As his helmet rose above the interior edge of the opening, he could see Singh and Gomez both facing to his left, firing their weapons as quickly as they could.

    Boyes looked to his left. “Crap! Clark, I see six, seven, eight hostiles. Two down, four with what looks like clubs or pipes, and two hanging back.” As soon as he moved clear of the opening he brought his net gun to bear on the closest Khûrûsh-an and fired.

    “Shit!” Tully heard Sergeant Boyes exclaim. The video feed from the sergeant’s helmet was really bobbing around. “They’re faster than snakes, and tell the video folks they’re not that much smaller than we are.”

    Tully could see the Khûrûsh crewmen dodging and bouncing from wall to wall, swinging lengths of whatever they were holding in each hand. One of them looked for all the world like a four-armed Bruce Lee, his arms were moving so fast. Only the fact that he was having to duck net shots kept him from really laying out one of the boarding team.

    Damn, but he should have ignored Liang and Luff. He belonged in that fight!

    Just as Tully was about to call out an order, he saw one of the Khûrûsh-an fold up around his midsection, and he realized that the shotgunners had now entered the fray. Even a low charge rubber bullet could take a man down if it hit right. Looks like the same was true of the Khûrûsh as well.

    “Yeah!” Boyes heard one of his team yell as the Khûrûsh began to go down before the rubber slugs fired by Nolan and Kemal. He and McClanahan made sure they stayed down by firing nets at them to keep them tangled up and stuck to the deck for now.

    “Lieutenant Boatright,” he said over the company frequency as the action started slowing a little.

    “Boatright. Go.”

    “Their suits are tougher than ours. The Tazer darts are just bouncing off. You have to hit them with the rubber slugs to slow them down enough to net them.”

    “Understood.”

    The last of the four club-armed Khûrûsh, the one whose arms were moving like radial saw blades, went down after being hit three times by the rubber slugs. Just as McClanahan fired a net over him, Boyes saw the larger of the two remaining Khûrûsh-an raise what looked like a pistol. His shout of “Gun!” coincided with the weapon firing. There was a bit of a flash, and he heard Kemal grunt. He looked to see the young Turk’s left forearm floating in front of him, cleanly severed just below the elbow, with blood spurting from his arm.

    Things seemed to go into slow motion at that point. Boyes felt himself release his net gun and move for his pistol. His hand seemed to almost be moving in water, it felt so slow. He could see the Khûrûsh-an moving his weapon to target on Nolan. He was pulling the 10 mm from his holster, but it still seemed so slow–too slow. It came up, up, up, and he squeezed the trigger.

    Just as the pistol fired, the Khûrûsh-an moved slightly, and what was supposed to be a shot to the shoulder hit him in the throat instead. Everyone, human and Khûrûsh-an, froze for a moment.

    “Ah, Lieutenant Boatright?”

    “Talk to me, Sergeant.”

    “Their suits aren’t tougher than a 10 mil, sir.”

    “Damn.”

    “Eanne!” Tully shouted.

    “Colonel?”

    “Get me connected with the Lleix on Lexington who are talking to the Khûrûsh!”

    Eanne said nothing, but in a few seconds Tully heard, “This is Pyr,” in his ear bud.

    “Pyr, this is Gabe Tully. What is the Khûrûsh command to surrender?”

    Pyr didn’t ask any questions. “Noh-rah-zhoh.”

    “Great! Stay connected.” Tully connected to the Charlie Company frequency. “Sergeant Boyes, you’re about to hear the Khûrûsh command to surrender. Pyr, say again.”

    “Noh-rah-zhoh.”

    There were now four 10 mm pistols aimed at the last Khûrûsh-an standing, who was also holding one of the gun-like weapons. Boyes flipped his external audio on, and shouted “Noh-rah-zhoh! Noh-rah-zhoh!”

    He jabbed at the Khûrûsh-an with his pistol, and forcefully pointed to the deck with his other hand. After a moment, the last Khûrûsh-an bent and placed his weapon on the deck, then stood and held all four arms straight out.

    Nobody took their attention off of the Khûrûsh-an, but Boyes’ tension ratcheted down a little. “Carter?”

    “Go.” That was Carter’s voice, but Boyes knew the lieutenant was listening.

    “We’re ready for the backup and the intelligence team to board. Need a bunch of restraints. These dudes have four arms, remember. Looks like we may need a couple of litters or back boards for their wounded.” He looked to where Gomez was dealing with Kemal’s wound. “Add a medic and a litter for Kemal.” He paused for a moment. “And a body bag, I guess, unless command wants to leave the dead one here.”