Hostile Spike (Battlegroup Z Book 2) Daniel Gibbs (classic book list txt) 📖

“Major, you’ve got a lane to put down. Strongly advise you to take it. Another wave is already inbound.”

“Understood, and thanks for the assist, Spencer.” Nishimura turned toward the pilot. “You heard the man. Put us down at the closest ingress point.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The next thirty seconds were the most terrifying Nishimura had experienced. No fewer than three enemy LIDAR-tracked missiles were dodged at the last second, thanks to chaff and erratic maneuvers of the pilot. As they came in for docking on a flat portion of the squat, torus-shaped station, Nishimura was sure they were going so fast that the shuttle would crash into it like a bug on a windshield. At the last possible moment, the pilot reversed thrust and stuck the landing perfectly.

“Got a hard seal, sir. Shuttles Two and Three are ready to breach on your command.”

“Do it,” Nishimura replied as he disengaged the harness. “I’ll see you when we’re done.”

“Good luck, sir.”

“Nice flying, Warrant.” Nishimura slapped the pilot on the shoulder as he climbed into the cargo hold. The Marine boarding team was already out of their harnesses and itching to fight. Everything about them screamed ready, from body language to how they held their battle rifles. “Okay, gentlemen. In a second or two, the ramp will drop, and we will charge into the first offensive ground action to be had by the Terran Coalition. Who’s with me to send these commie bastards packing back to Earth?”

Their shouting shook the shuttle.

“Semper fi!” someone yelled above the din.

“The only good Leaguer is a dead Leaguer!” another screamed.

Nishimura grinned. Now that’s a TCMC war cry. “Hit it,” he called into the commlink.

A moment later, the ramp dropped, revealing a neat hole cut into the station’s hull and a passageway beyond. Unlike Terran Coalition space stations and vessels, it had shiny gray walls, and what appeared to be propaganda posters were festooned every few feet. The text was in different languages, none of which Nishimura could read, though he recognized Mandarin Chinese script in a few.

The Marines charged forward, sweeping out of the shuttle, half of the platoon securing the left side and the rest moving to the right.

Nishimura pulled up a partial map of the station on his HUD. It had the locations of all landed shuttles and the Marines attached to them and would fill in automatically as they moved throughout the area. “Second platoon has our left flank,” he announced. “We’ll proceed right, looking for the control center. Move out!”

Progress was easy for some time. The area was nearly deserted, and only token resistance came up in the form of a few League security troops here and there. None had power armor, and most used low-energy-pulse pistols. They would’ve seriously harmed unarmored targets, but the Marines shrugged off the hits and quickly silenced any defenders. Each encounter quieted his nerves, and Nishimura felt the performance of his platoon was solid.

As the platoon made its way around the station’s exterior corridors, he ordered them farther into the interior. They don’t appear to put the important stuff in the outer hull. Of course, that made sense from a military perspective.

The point man rounded a corner of a corridor leading to a four-way junction that again had foreign writing on the walls—and all hell broke loose. A flurry of energy- and ballistic-weapons fire hit the team from three sides, and dozens of Leaguers erupted from hiding places and hatches all around them.

We just walked into an ambush. Not allowing shock to set in, Nishimura worked the problem, ordering his men back as the entire platoon gamely returned fire. Numerous enemies went down, dead or mortally wounded from battle-rifle rounds shredding their light armor. But they had the numbers to absorb the hits and keep on coming. A Marine dropped to Nishimura’s left, and another behind him screamed in pain as multiple bullets pierced his faceplate.

Just when Nishimura thought they might have weathered the worst of it, two Marines went down to sustained enemy fire as the air came alive with the yellow and red pulses of automatic energy weapons. Anger came to the surface, but Nishimura had no time to ponder their losses. He cursed under his breath as one of the bolts hit his armor, causing little damage but delivering a bruising blow. “Get the SAW up here. Armor-piercing rounds,” he barked into the commlink.

It didn’t take long for the platoon corporal to arrive, cradling the squad’s automatic weapon. “AP locked and loaded, sir.”

“Fire for effect and suppress the enemy,” Nishimura replied. “Light those bastards up.”

The young Marine didn’t need to be told twice. He dropped to the deck in a prone position, aimed the weapon, and squeezed the trigger. The gun was rated for a thousand rounds a minute, and each second it sent sixteen bullets at the enemy. Almost instantly, incoming League energy pulses decreased, and with each passing moment, more of them dropped dead or dove for whatever cover they could find.

“Pulse, over!” Nishimura shouted as he tossed a grenade toward the massed League security troops.

Others followed his example, and a shower of the devices descended on the cowered enemy. They detonated with a series of muted explosions, as the pulse grenade was more of a disorientation weapon than a death dealer, such as the fragmentation or plasma varieties.

“Charge!”

The entire platoon swept forward, like a human wave encased in power armor. Any lone Leaguer who tried to stand against them was cut down in seconds, while most threw down their rifles and ran. Nishimura noted with satisfaction that his men showed proper fire discipline and avoided shooting unarmed combatants in the back as they fled.

While they’d taken the junction, it wasn’t without a high cost. Five Marines lay dead or dying, and several others took enough hits that they couldn’t continue. However, given the station’s size, Nishimura believed they’d eliminated a significant amount, if not most of the League’s security team. “Okay, people. We’ve got them on the run. This is not the time