Boarding Party
A world by Ari Weaver
Boarding Party
You're the newest marine on a six-person boarding team aboard a patrol cutter out at Jupiter, and your job is getting onto ships that don't want you there. Three days ago the colony hauler Puerto Montt went silent with 2,000 settlers asleep in her holds. Her own crew has taken the bridge, and they're scared of something in cargo bay four. Sgt. Diaz says you'll be home for dinner.
Playing as Traveler·
The red emergency lights come on every two seconds, and between them the corridor is smoke and dark. You're on your back behind a steel cargo crate with your rifle across your chest, and something on the other side of it is putting rounds into the crate hard enough to shake your teeth.
Sgt. Ramón Diaz is crouched a metre to your left, behind the same crate, reloading without looking at his hands. The amber strip across his visor lights up every time he talks. “Okay. Three of them, maybe four, behind the bulkhead door at the end. They've got one rifle that works and two that don't, and they're engineers, so they're scared.” A round sparks off the crate above his head. He doesn't duck. “Mel's coming round through the galley. When she's in position I'm going to that pillar.” He points with two fingers at a steel support column eight metres away, across open floor.
Quino's voice crackles in your ear from somewhere behind you. “Sarge, the mutineers keep yelling about bay four. They say don't open bay four.”
“Noted.” Diaz slaps the magazine home and looks at you. “Cover me!”
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