The assault shuttles closed in on the maimed Valdi carrier. The shuttles had their running lights off, and they were generating high amounts of electronic countermeasures in an attempt to hide their approach. It was not strictly necessary, since the carrier was listing away, blind to its impending peril. But the Four-oh-eighth Battalion was performing this mission by the book.

As the shuttles neared the carrier, they found the maintenance hatches almost exactly where they would have been on a Terran ship. Convenient. One of Alpha Company’s pilots slowed the shuttle and activated twenty-four “legs” that unfolded and attached the shuttle to the carrier hull like some oversized spider. Once the magnetic pincers were securely attached, a series of lasers mounted on a rotating carousel on the shuttle’s underbelly began to cut into the ship’s skin. The lasers spun within the grappling legs’ circumference until the hatch broke free with a puff of crystalline air vapor. The shuttle extended its legs enough to let the hatch float away. Then the laser cutters adjusted for the inner load lock door and began cutting away at it as well.

Sergeant Major Tom Hilbun checked his chronometer and turned to Corporal Daniel Westerguard. Both marines were in full battle armor, holding their automatic plasma carbines in the crooks of their arms. Sergeant Hilbun’s visor was up so he could address his troops.

“Alright, boys, the second door is about to pop; Bravo and Charlie teams will be heading for the power centers and armory. Our target is command and control, especially anything to do with self-destruct.” A round of chuckles came from the other soldiers. “Marines, prepare to disembark.” With that, he reached up with his gauntleted hand and pulled his visor into place. The visor sealed into his armor with a “sump-hiss” sound, and all of the marines checked their carbines once more as the atmosphere in the compartment began to drain away.

With a loud clang, felt inside the shuttle, the inner lock door crumpled and exploded outward as it was breached and the emptiness of space violently wrenched the air and some of the cargo from the corridor inside. The shuttle legs pulled the shuttle tighter against the hatchway, forming a rough seal around the portal. The pressure equalized, and the marines poured out of the shuttle and into the ship just as their fellows were doing at other access points.

The Terran marine battle armor gave strength to their adrenaline-charged limbs as servos whined, propelling them forward to the first corridor junction. It was sealed at both ends by interior blast doors that had automatically responded to the hull breach. Private Devonport found a flashing indicator on the wall that appeared to show the atmosphere status, or what was left of it. Unfortunately, the markings were foreign, and he couldn’t make much sense of it. His own suit’s readouts indicated excessive traces of carbon dioxide, but the levels were very faint now.

Privates Michelson and Harper were busy setting up a webbed metal curtain across the corridor. In twenty-eight seconds it was in place and sealed against the walls. “Breach team go,” Sergeant Hilbun said through their tactical communication channel, his face a mask of iron behind the visor. With that, Corporal Westerguard came forward with a compressed air tank. The tank was specially reinforced and held many, many gallons of compressed air at almost 40,000 PSI. Its small nozzle betrayed its power as he opened the valve to the tank. A rushing stream of ultra-high pressure air shot out as he pointed the nozzle at the blast door. The air came out so fast it was visible as a thin, smoking red line that cut through the bulkhead as though it was soft cheese. As the atmosphere on the far side of the door began to leak through, the webbed curtain groaned, increasing the integrity of its seal.

Once an opening was cut in the door, the corporal stepped back. Michelson and Harper came forward and gave the cut-away section a good push, sending it toppling forward into the next compartment. The sergeant tossed several grenades through the opening to ensure there was no one waiting to greet them when they emerged.

Two of the marines took point while the others filed through the cut opening, molten slag still oozing on its edges. Sergeant Hilbun checked his arm display and saw the icons representing the other teams beginning to make forward progress as well. The icons blinked as the built-in telemetry devices began to 3D map the corridors in real time. There was still a lot of unexplored starship to engage, but they were moving fast now, checking, guarding. Westerguard loped forward with a scanning device that highlighted control runs on the marines’ arm monitors. The device located the capillaries of the controlling elec­tronics throughout the ship. The capillaries formed up into arteries that then snaked toward what they hoped was either the bridge or auxiliary control.

As they rounded into another corridor, it was clear that portions of this deck had been damaged in the missile strikes. Hastily erected joists and girders reinforced a portion of the wall that had buckled but not breached. There was also an odd fluid on the ground that was slightly slippery. Private Harper smacked the wall with his fist as he passed by, but it didn’t make the sound you would expect from metal walls. The wall gave slightly, which didn’t make sense. Sergeant Hilbun motioned the marines forward. They moved through the corridor like spilled ink, dark and quick.

They ascended a maintenance ladder to the next deck. As they emerged, they saw a room that appeared to be a control center. Taking up flanking positions, two privates watched both directions as Michelson stepped up to the hatch and triggered the door open.

Inside were several technicians working on damaged consoles and performing diagnostics. Two flash grenades bounced at their feet. The marine visors automatically darkened to protect their eyes from the photo blast, but the Valdi technicians were not as lucky. They made high-pitched screaming noises and fell to the floor, twitching involuntarily. Sergeant Hilbun didn’t take time to care. Harper was the electronics genius of this platoon. He stepped up and surveyed the blinking lights and displays, looking for anything that would indicate that a self destruct countdown was in progress. The foreign displays gave no clues, other than nothing appeared to be decrementing in any pattern he could recognize. Most of the lights simply indicated their normal operations or appeared to be in a binary on/off pattern.

“Alpha team reports area 7B secure,” Hilbun reported over the company secure channel. “We are moving to higher decks.” A confirmation came back from the other squad leaders. The other members of his squad secured various consoles by burning out their interfaces. Then forming up, they moved farther out and up into the ship.

Two decks up, they began to encounter organized resistance. But they had learned that the defenders had a peculiar sensitivity to flash grenades, and they used them mercilessly. Post flash, bodies were cut down by plasma rifles and bayonets as the marines advanced upon an apparently sensitive target, perhaps the bridge. Michelson’s instruments confirmed that it was an important control center.

Some of the Valdi threw themselves bodily upon the marines in a vain effort to engage them, but the marines, trained from enlistment to accomplish their mission, tore through the defenders with lethal determination.

At the final hatch between them and their destination, they encountered sentries armed with automatic rifles. They exchanged fire for a moment, but the defenders were barricaded behind a series of bulkheads. Alpha team, now out of flash grenades, hurled precision shaped charge grenades and charged the defending sentries. The defenders ducked as the grenades spewed shrapnel into the walls and ceiling. As they peered back out at the marines, Westerguard’s carbine whined and chewed into the first sentry’s left side, knocking him to the deck. The remaining sentry responded with his own rifle. One of the shells hit Private Harper in the head, snapped him off of his feet, and sent him sliding across the corridor.

With a final leap, Sergeant Hilbun cleared the bulkhead support and landed among the sentries. Slinging his carbine onto his back, he grappled with one of the Valdi sentries, using his momentum and center of balance to turn the sentry’s rifle aside. Pinning the Valdi to the bulkhead and drawing his knife with his free hand, he sliced the rifle free as the rest of his platoon rushed onto the bridge.

As the marines entered the bridge, they saw the Valdi bridge officers standing there--just standing.

Having dispatched the remaining sentry, Sergeant Hilbun walked onto the bridge, his carbine pointed at the officer in the center. He risked a sideways glance at his team, who were also pointing their rifles at bridge officers. Two of the marines took up defending positions just outside the bridge doors. As the overhead lights continued to flash their warning signals, Hilbun announced into his comm link that the bridge was secure.

The scene on the bridge was one of controlled chaos. The bridge had definitely taken massive damage; control runs traversed the walls and ceiling in a very ad hoc fashion. The bridge officers had been in the process of patching up control systems, but were now interrupted in their work.

The captain of the Valdi carrier looked back at Hilbun and tilted his head slightly. The shock of what Hilbun was seeing finally registered. The Valdi weren’t… human.

The Valdi carrier captain stood looking at the sergeant, blinking compound eyes on the sides of a large exoskeleton head that resembled an organic helmet and neck armor. Until that moment, Hilbun had thought they were wearing helmets like his. But their bodies were what truly didn’t register until that moment. The Valdi just stood there; their powerful, spindly arms twinkled with tiny leaves and stems. One of the officers had suffered a nasty cut across this torso, leaving his uniform ripped. His torso and abdomen were dappled with a hard, fuzzy, green covering, reminding the sergeant of a barrel-sized kiwi. The Valdi were organic, but more closely resembled plants than people. That must have been why the flash grenades worked so well, he thought.

The Sergeant keyed his armor’s external speakers. “Alright, you philodendron freaks,” Hilbun announced in a gravelly voice. “You just stand right there and don’t try anything funny. Westerguard, Michelson, secure the control stations.”

As Corporal Westerguard moved to the first control panel, the officer standing beside it sprang onto him and wrapped its viney arms around the corporal, crashing its exoskeleton head and mandibles into the corporal’s armored visor.

The commotion caused the other marines to involuntarily glance toward the corporal, and in that split second, the Valdi captain’s body flashed a deep violet and the lights went out. The marine visors immediately switched to infrared view as they brought their carbines up and threw themselves back into a corner. While Westerguard grunted with effort, the Valdi officer wrenched his carbine from his hands and fired it, sending the young marine’s head skittering across the deck.

Two other bridge officers threw themselves at the sergeant, and he answered with return fire. Valdi parts exploded and sprayed sticky green goo across the readouts and workstations.

While the marines were lulled into a sense of security by the bridge crew’s docile appearance, the sudden attack had provided the necessary diversion. Angry with himself, Hilbun looked around for the captain and found him near the back of the bridge, typing in a sequence of keys, partially hidden behind a large view screen.

Private Davenport was grabbed from behind by a damage control technician. Although he fought viciously to free himself from this new attacker, the technician managed to open the air seal on the marine’s helmet. Davenport tried to hold his breath as long as he could before the technician threw both of them down onto the deck, forcing the wind out of the private’s lungs. Before he died, he managed to get a grip on the other’s head and twist with his powered gauntlets, feeling the head lift free of the torso. His vision began to cloud. His final memory was the environmental monitor on his armor reporting unsafe levels of carbon dioxide.

The Valdi deck officer pulled a fresh clip from the corporal’s belt and tried to reload the marine’s carbine. Seeing the threat, Sergeant Hilbun fired several shots into its body on full auto, until his own carbine showed it was out of ammo.

A fresh wail of alarms gave the Sergeant Major the gut feeling that the self-destruct sequence had been initiated. That meant that their mission was a failure. In final analysis, there was one last thing he could do about it. Launching himself across the cabin with a mighty shout, he struck the ship’s captain in the torso and knocked him to the ground. The captain grappled with Hilbun with powerful arms, each fighting for purchase against the other. Hilbun reached for his knife, but a leafy arm grasped his wrist as they both fought for control of the sharp, jagged instrument. Turning to give himself the leverage he needed for a judo throw, Sergeant Hilbun roared and threw the captain over his own body and onto the deck, landing the captain on his head with a sickening crunch. Wrestling the knife out of the other’s hand, Hilbun had the satisfaction of defeating the Valdi captain in the final seconds of his own life, just before the ship exploded like a small sun.