Undying Mercenaries 2: Dust World by B. V. Larson Page A

Primus Turov. A delay in moving troops up to our position could mean nothing—or it could mean a lot. It sounded to me as if the aliens had realized we were coming and they were doing what they could to impede the counterattack. This might not be as easy a fight as we’d hoped.
    When Graves had his troops set up the way he wanted, he contacted Turov again.
    “Permission to open the doors, sir,” he said.
    There was silence. Nothing at all came over the line from command chat.
    “Primus Turov? This is Centurion Graves. Respond please.”
    More silence.
    I watched Graves. I stared at him through his closed visor. His face was flat, but I thought I saw his cheek twitch in irritation.
    Why wasn’t anyone responding? I thought of a dozen possible reasons. Communications failure was first on the list. Could the invaders have disabled the ship’s repeaters, separating us from each other?
    Graves tried once more, then looked up. “All right,” he said loudly on local chat. “Listen up, we’re opening these doors. Look alive, brace yourselves for a pressure change and ready your weapons.”
    We snapped lines to the walls and activated the magnets in our boots. Then we lifted our weapons and aimed them at the massive, concave hatch.
    Graves applied his tapper, and the hatch swung open.

-7-
     
    Up until that moment, I’d yet to fire my newly-assigned heavy weapon in a combat situation. I’d handled a belcher back on Steel World a few times, but I’d been an untrained recruit at that time, using it in a makeshift manner. Now I knew much more about the cannon that rested on my shoulder, and I had an appropriate respect for the weapon.
    Plasma cannons were—weird. They didn’t fire a pellet or an explosive. My trainers had told me to think of them as flamethrowers that launched a very brief, powerful gush of flame.
    They were designed to release a lot of heat and energy in a directed cone in front of the Weaponeer who wielded the system. They could be dialed for long or short range, creating a tight beam or a broad area of effect. The range of the weapon lessened if you broadened the beam, but it could hit multiple targets that way and it was much easier to hit something.
    Deciding how to adjust your cannon was the business of the weaponeer in question. Accordingly, I made a choice. Just as the doors began to open, I reached up and cranked the stiff collar at the muzzle to open the aperture two notches wider. At this setting, it would fire a cone about thirty degrees wide.
    Sargon, who was on one knee beside me, tossed me a disapproving glance as I did this. I knew it wasn’t standard procedure. The enemy was supposed to be at the far end of a long straight passageway that led to the bridge, and a narrow beam would provide the best reach in that case.
    I felt myself flush slightly as I caught Sargon’s glance. I was a rookie with my first cannon, and we both knew it. I also knew that he wouldn’t have questioned a more experienced man. I wondered if I was making a mistake as he’d kept his beam very tight. There were good reasons for this. There were a lot of troops behind me in a cramped space. I wouldn’t be able to fire my weapon without hitting friendlies if things got hairy.
    Maybe I would have second-guessed myself after catching Sargon’s frown, but I was out of time. Committed, I shouldered my weapon as the hatch yawned open like a giant’s eyelid in front of us.
    What happened next was a shock. A number of bizarre-looking hulks stood on the far side of the door. They’d clearly been waiting to greet us. Oddly, we hadn’t heard a sound from them before now. Normally, we’d have seen them with the local cameras—but they’d wisely knocked out our surveillance systems. I wondered if they’d been listening to our lengthy preparations, counting us fools all the while.
    The first thing I registered about them was their size. They were each larger than a man, perhaps three meters tall, and much more bulky.