M'tak Ka'fek (The T'aafhal Inheritance) by Doug Hoffman Read Free Book Online Page B

must have originated millions of years ago.
    “What if cutting the cables sets 'em off,” came the reply.
    “In that case, Corporal, we will never know what happened,” Rodriguez snapped. “Now cut the damned cables.”
    “Aye aye, Ma'am.”
    OK, securing the antimatter was priority one, second priority is to make sure the aft spaces are clear of aliens she thought. “Sgt. Tuttle, take your fireteam and sweep the spaces aft, I don't want any surprises from our rear.” 
    “Aye aye, Captain.”
     Next, set a blocking position to keep any of the crew from making their way aft. “Sgt. Aurora. Deploy 1 st squad forward and cover anything trying to come aft from that next set of enclosed structures.” 
    “Aye aye, Ma'am,” the she-bear replied. Many bears were still having problems understanding the concepts of “rank” and “chain of command.” Mostly, the bears just wanted to get in a position so they could attack the enemy and didn't much care who was in charge. Aurora was more perceptive and, because she got on well with humans, had been promoted to sergeant and put in charge of 1 st squad.
    As the Marines moved out to follow their orders the Corporal from the antimatter storage, who Jennifer remembered was named Green, called back. “Captain, We got these egg things lose from the racks they was in. What should we do with them?”
    “Wait one, Green,” Jennifer changed frequencies and called the ship. “Peggy Sue, Rodriguez.”
    “Go, Captain Rodriguez.” Captain Curtis was anxiously monitoring the Marines' progress from the CIC, where the central 3D display showed an expanding X-ray view of the alien vessel. As the robot survey drones made their way into the ship from both ends, that view became more detailed. The position and vital signs of each Marine were also noted and transmitted back to the ship.
    “We have secured the aliens' antimatter store and taken up positions in both fore and aft sections of the hull. We are sending the recon drones into the hull sections we have not yet entered.”
    “Affirmative, move the antimatter to the shuttle ASAP. The sooner we get it away from the hulk the safer we will all be.”
    “Roger that, Peggy Sue. So far we have encountered no appreciable resistance...”
     
    Bridge, Destroyer of Worlds
    “The aliens have breached the outer hull fore and aft, and are blasting their way into the pressurized internal sections, Captain” one of the crew reported.
    “Get the crew into pressure suits and issue weapons.” The Captain scurried over to a bank of controls, thinking, if the crew can hold off these monsters for a few minutes I should be able to set off the scuttling charges. At least we will take them with us into the void.  
    With several forearms the Captain executed the complex sequence that would command the ship to destroy itself, detonating a number of antimatter charges in the aft section of the hull. The key was to create sympathetic explosions in the antimatter store. That would blast the entire ship to atoms.
    Let us see how sweet your victory is when your boarding force is vaporized along with the rest of the ship, the Captain thought with malice. Still, he could not help thinking of the fate that had befallen his ship and his crew. For centuries we have sent out ships to lay waste to distant planets orbiting faraway suns. Never have we encountered a foe that offered more than token resistance. Yet these creatures have attacked us with ships we cannot match; they brandish weapons we cannot counter. We are like primitives before these warm life demons.  
    A sequence of indicators lit on the control panel. But the sequence stopped short of completion—the scuttling charges were not responding. The control lines to the antimatter store must have been severed...  
     
    BP-2, Forward Section
    As promised, the Marines in Shuttle Two felt not the slightest tremor on impact. The sites for the incursions had been selected using thermal imaging and were