Free STARGATE UNIVERSE: Air by James Swallow Page A

drifting, flickering light; then the sirens began to wail, and red strobes stuttered into life on the walls.
    The military officers were already up, but Eli froze for a long second, watching them rise almost as one, food and drink and polite conversation immediately forgotten.
    Young put down the phone and gave them a look. “The base is under attack,” he said, as matter of fact as he had been about words in old French. Without pause, he snapped out orders in a tone of voice that made it clear he expected to be obeyed without question. “All non-combatant personnel report to your designated safe areas, everyone else to your battle stations. This is not a drill.”
    This is not a drill. Eli thought people only talked like that in the movies. But this was real, just like all the rest of it was real, and it was happening to him right now. He belatedly got to his feet, trying to remember where his designated safe area actually was, while Telford and the other officers raced away down the corridor.
    Young gestured to Armstrong. “Senator, I need you and your daughter to go with Lieutenant Scott…” The colonel turned his gaze toward Eli and he saw something new in there — not fear, not concern, but duty . “You too, Eli,” he said.
    He turned and found Scott watching him with the same look in his eyes. “Follow me,” he said.
     
    In the main corridor, Young found a sergeant handing out equipment and secured himself a gear vest, a MICH helmet, a radio and a M4 carbine in short order. Boots pounding the marble floors, the colonel donned the equipment on the run, the action as easy as muscle memory from hundreds of deployments and combat operations. He checked the carbine’s loads and then barked into the radio, ordering the technician in the ops room to get him hooked up with the Hammond , orbiting somewhere up above them.
    When his first attempt to raise the starship failed, Young felt a stab of ice in his gut. There had been no alarm, no call from the Hammond or Icarus’s suite of sensor satellites, nothing to warn them of the arrival of an intruder — and that could mean any one of a whole galaxy of problems was now at his front door, throwing down fire.
    If the Hammond is already gone… He shook his head and pushed the thought away. There was no point in making guesses until he had the facts.
    Young shouted at a pair of non-coms to make a hole, and taking two steps at a time, he vaulted up a gantry toward the battlements. He got halfway up and hesitated. If an attack was coming, he was going to need every fighting man he could muster. His best . Young turned and made a quick detour, grabbing some extra kit as he went.
     
    Ronald Greer felt the next impact, and then the next, and his hands went out to walls, a sweat breaking on his forehead. Whatever the hell was going on out there, it sounded like a giant was using a sledgehammer the size of a football stadium to wale on the side of the mountain. The bombardment was rattling him around like a stone in a can, and the only thing worse than that was the annoyance he felt at being stuck in here, unable to stand a post.
    Greer felt a horrible, cold chill at the idea he might die in here, locked up in a holding cell. He looked down at the bruises on his knuckles and cursed himself. It was no way for a Marine to go out, caged like an animal while the roof caved in and buried him alive.
    Then keys rattled in the lock and the heavy door cranked open. Standing behind it, armed for bear, was Colonel Young. “Sergeant,” he said. Over the man’s shoulder he saw his fellow Marines Curtis and Spencer, and Lieutenant James gearing up for a fight.
    Greer immediately shot to his feet and attention, ram-rod straight. “Sir!” he snapped, in his best Parris Island snarl.
    “We’re under attack,” continued Young. “Don’t know why. Don’t know who.”
    Greer said nothing, remaining stock still. Young was a man of few words, and the Marine liked that about him. He was