On the Spaceport

“ALERT! Sensors detect inbound enemy vessels. All combat teams, stand by to repel enemy forces.”

I immediately jerked awake. The spaceport was being attacked. I jumped out of bed and geared up as fast as I possibly could.

Gray flex-mesh shirt and pants? Check.

Alloy 212-plated tactical vest? Check.

T3L3 14.5mm sidearm pistol? Check.

Flex-mesh combat boots? Check?

I checked my watch. 0139 hours. What a time to get attacked. I shoved the pistol into my knee holster as I bolted out the door. The corridor was jumping with activity. Soldiers ran toward the armory. Ops personnel ran toward the safe zones. Red alarm lights flashed all over the place. Being a lance corporal in the HAMF Marines, I ran left toward the emergency armory.

The entire spaceport rocked violently from side to side. I was slammed into one titanium wall, then into the other. A proton mortar had hit us. No injuries. I collected myself and continued on.

At the end of the corridor, an AK567D Standard Assault Rifle flying through the air met me. I caught it and jerked the bolt back, placing a 10mm “bishop” round into the chamber.

“Fire teams on decks three and four, prepare to repel boarders.”

I was on Deck Four. Time to kick some ass.

“Tucker!” I snapped at the soldiers currently gathering weapons and ammunition. “Rico! Seffens! With me!”

I grabbed three 75-round magazines from the shelf before I set off, the other three soldiers hot on my heels. The destination I had in mind was Hangar 4-17. The last briefing suggested the enemy preferred to direct their boarding craft toward hangars.

WHAM!

The entire corridor shook again, but not as violently. I heard a snap, a crash, and then the sound of rapid laser fire.

Boarders. I sprinted toward the sound.

It didn’t take long to find the breach. A soldier fell out of the door to the communications room, sparks and flame exploding from a laser wound to the abdomen. I raised the AK567D to firing position, ready to blast anything that wasn’t human. Then one of the enemies entered the corridor.

No one really knew what these aliens called themselves, but that was probably because everyone was too busy shooting them to really care. Whatever they were called, they were huge. Your average alien was about nine feet tall, weighed in at about seven hundred pounds, and walked around with a gigantic laser chaingun capable of literally filling the air with plasma. This particular alien was no different. I flattened the trigger. The other soldiers followed suit.

BDDAAAARRTTT.

The full-auto barrage sliced through the alien’s olive-drab skin. Blood of the same color flew from the wounds. It tried to turn around to blast us, but two of us delivered headshots. The alien groaned and dropped to the floor. We moved toward the door the alien came out of.

I motioned for Seffens to move into the room. He was halfway in when three laser bolts sheared the doorframe apart. Seffens gasped, sprayed the room, and spun back into the hallway across the door from me.

“Yeah, that room’s crawlin’,” he panted. “Good thing them aliens can’t shoot worth a damn.”

Another bolt struck what remained of the doorframe. We had to do something. There was another crashing sound, and the area shook again. More boarders. Seffens took his rifle by the carry handle, pointed it into the room, and lit the place up. There was another alien groan, then a thud.

I tightened my grip on my rifle. Should I enter, or should I wait for more troops to arrive? The spaceport shivered again. I faintly heard gunfire.

“Combat teams in the vicinity of Hangar 5-9, fall into the hangar.”

Okay…maybe waiting for reinforcements wasn’t the best idea. I motioned for Seffens to give us some cover fire while myself, Rico, and Tucker entered, in that order, hurling 10mm rounds everywhere. We tried not to get speared by one of the fearsome, meter-long laser bolts the aliens fired. They tore white-hot gashes into the walls behind us. To my right, Seffens rolled into our formation. We were able to dispatch two of the remaining five before two firing pins landed on empty chambers. Seffens and I had run out of ammunition.

The four of us dived behind the boarding capsule for cover. Laser bolts proceeded to tear it apart. I punched the side of my assault rifle, sending the spent magazine clattering to the floor. I tore the packaging off a fresh one, slapped it in, and jerked the charging lever.

CHI-KA!

“There’s only two of ‘em, sir, the hell are we just sittin’ here jerkin’ off?” Tucker inquired.

“If you’ve ever tried reloading while standing up in the middle of a firefight, then you’ll know why we’re sitting here jerkin’ off,” I snapped at him. “Up and blazin’ on three. One…two…three!”

We stood up, used what remained of the capsule as a fire nest, and opened up on the remaining two aliens. They were torn apart under our barrage. The room fell silent.

“Clear!” I said.

“Combat teams on decks four and five, move in to defensive positions around the lifeboat corridors.”

“Move!” I ordered, exiting the room. I swept my rifle around the area, and, confidant that it was devoid of hostiles, I motioned for my impromptu squad to move forward. There was another crash, followed by more gunfire. The lifeboat corridor was at the end of this particular corridor and to the left. Up ahead, I saw a trio of soldiers behind a support K, waiting for something to dare oppose the escape of the Ops personnel.

“Corporal Onuai, sir,” the center trooper said, turning his attention from what his VMP submachine gun was pointing at to salute.

I returned the salute. “Corporal.” I leaned around to Seffens’ ear. “Take Rico and set up defense at the opposite K.”

He nodded and punched Rico in the shoulder to follow him. Tucker and I moved in to the right of Onuai and his men.

Almost on cue, there was an almighty crash. The doors to one of the pods shattered, hurling sparks, glass, metal, and a hostile boarding capsule into the hallway. Its seals exploded outward, forcing all of us to duck behind the support K to avoid being fed an alloy sandwich.

The usual number of hostiles—four on one side, four on the other—popped out of the capsule. Laser bolts filled the air, closely followed by bullets. One alien fell almost immediately. I was forced to duck behind the K as a few of the blasts seared into it.

Two of the very people whose escape we were supposed to be defending were racing up the corridor to our left, one toting an AK560 carbine, the other reloading a VMP. The leader with the carbine tried to move in for a pincer attack, but a laser beam impaled him and brought a severe halt to his plan. I shut my eyes and tried to look away. The other officer used a doorway as cover while he sprayed the SMG into the hostile formation.

On the other side of the capsule, there was a scream, immediately followed by a bone-chilling message on my helmet radio.

“We’ve lost Rico! I repeat, Rico is DOWN!”

“Confirm, KIA John Rico,” I said. “Stay sharp for me, Seffens.”

For a moment, a full-auto barrage was all that occupied his radio. “Oh, I’m stayin’ sharp. ‘N-fact, I’m sharp as a laser beam right now!”

After around five minutes of combat, the last few rounds drove the last alien harder into the wall. Onuai motioned for the officer to move in toward the remaining escape pods. The officer—an Ensign—threw the VMP down to the floor right before he disappeared into the escape pod.

FHLWOOM!

One officer down, God only knew how many to go.

Onuai was the ranking officer here. He moved us forward, past the capsule, and toward where Seffens was reloading his assault rifle. A sullen expression dominated his face. I approached him to take a look.

“Nailed ‘im right in the neck,” Seffens said solemnly, looking at the body. “Poor guy didn’t have a chance. I’m surprised he even screamed.”

I sighed. “Let’s move out, Seffens. He’s in a better place now.”

He nodded. According to Onuai’s orders, our new destination was Hangar 4-17. It wasn’t too far away, and we could hear shots going off up ahead. We moved slowly and cautiously, wondering if another boarding capsule would slam into the spaceport. Luckily, one didn’t.

We moved into the hangar, which was apparently under fierce attack. Projectiles and laser bolts changed hands with frightening speed. Several dead bodies held positions along the crates, weapon shelves, and carts that were being used to defend the hangar. The fight had set fire to the XD-1209F starfighter in the center of the hangar. The air was blurry with smoke. The fierce amount of enemy fire coming in forced us to scatter. One of Onuai’s men didn’t even have a chance to enter.

I ended up behind a blast-riddled high-security crate. Of course, at least three of the aliens had developed tunnel vision on me, and were hellbent on taking me out. Blue-hot hunks of crate were sent flying. I returned fire, taking one out with a crisp three-shot burst to its perforated forehead.

Suddenly, the rifle exploded in my hands. A laser blast had caught it right in the fire-selector switch. Both my hands burned as the rifle snapped in two at the forward part of the receiver and melted. Incredibly hot metal soaked my hands. I yelled out in pain and tried to remove my gloves as fast as I possibly could. I threw them aside just in time to avoid massive burns.

What remained of the assault rifle smoldered on the floor next to me. I extracted the T3L3 from the holster. I had the nine-round magazine currently in the weapon—filled with 10mm “Bishop” rounds—and one extra. I aligned the sights with the closest and slowest moving hostile head.

I flattened the trigger.

BHLAM!

The very square, heavy pistol’s slide snapped into my hands with considerable force. It was weird that I noticed it as significantly as I did that time. I yawned, either out of tiredness or to shrug the weird feeling off so I could do my job. I fired again into the thinning hostiles.

And again.

And again.

More boarding capsules were slamming into the hangar. The entire superstructure seemed to shake with each impact. More aliens jumped out and hit the ground guns blazing. I finished off the rest of the magazine. The vented slide locked back. I pressed in the release button. The spent magazine slid out and bounced off the floor. I took a new one from the holster’s integrated pouch and pressed it in, then punched the slide forward. I immediately hammered on the trigger.

The HAMF did a good job at making marksmen out of its men. All three shots made it into the hostiles; two of them were fatal headshots. I yawned again. Damn aliens. Why in the name of God did they have to attack on what amounted to my week off? It was infuriating. I blew a kamikaze’s brains out its ear, probably more out of anger. Five rounds left. I didn’t have a combat knife on me. From what I’d heard, its two serrated edges did monstrous damage to the aliens in a pinch.

I ducked back behind what remained of the crate and let the barrage of assault rifle fire take care of the aliens. Unless I wanted to try my chances against heavily armed and armored aliens with the white-hot melted barrel section of my assault rifle, there was nothing I could do. I cursed under my breath and peered back around the crate.

I probably got another good three-round burst off when one of the monstrous, blue-hot blasts approached me.

And I did not notice it in time to dodge.

The bolt started to burn my shoulder before it even made contact. When it did, it was as though someone had poured lava into my body while shooting it with one of the HAMF’s more powerful weapons. Pain roared through every single millimeter of my body as the bolt literally fried my shoulder, chest, and left lung. I screamed like I’d never screamed before, smoke and boiling blood jumping from my mouth, sparks spewing from the wound.

I fell melodramatically to the ground, firing the last few rounds from the pistol, without really aiming, as I fell. I pushed myself along the ground on my back, able to do nothing else but howl with pain. Voices danced all around me, a few of them containing my name.

But it was much too late to save me. I could feel my lungs roasting like boar steaks. It was becoming nearly impossible to breathe now. I quit screaming as I realized.

I could go back to sleep.

And I could sleep as long as I want.

A few troopers crowded around me, trying to drag me out of the fire zone.

I didn’t care.

I took my chance to sleep.