Free M'tak Ka'fek (The T'aafhal Inheritance) by Doug Hoffman

cache.”
    “So be it, then.” The Captain reached into the sling holding the AM container and its cobbled up detonator. “This will just have to be close enough.”
    He pressed the arming switch and it began its two and a half minute countdown...
    * * * * *
     In the end it was a slaughter, alien bodies and body parts left drifting about in a grisly Brownian motion of death. The combined firepower of four squads of Marines shredded the mob of aliens, who had bunched up in front of BP-1's blocking positing. Lt. Westfield and Gunny Washington worked their way to the center of the alien formation, looking for possible survivors.
    “Strange the way they all crowded together in the center, trying to get to the fuel bunker,” Westfield commented as he nudged bodies aside one foot.
    “Yeah,” added Washington, “it was almost like a football team trying to do a quarterback sneak, right up the middle.”
    “Apt analogy, Gunny. This one would appear to be the quarterback.” Westfield flipped over a body that had markings on its carapace, perhaps indicators of rank. As the body rolled over the sling containing the makeshift bomb came into sight.
    “What's in that sack?” Washington asked.
    “It's one of those egg things...” The Lieutenant's blood ran cold, “it's a fucking IED!”
    “Bomb!” he transmitted, dropping his weapon and grasping the sling with his left hand. With a mighty leap he jumped from a bracing girder in the direction of the hole Shuttle One had vacated a few minutes earlier.
    “BP-1, Peggy Sue. Interrogative type of bomb and its location?”
    “The aliens were trying to get one of those little antimatter eggs into the fuel bunker. The damned thing looked like it was rigged to explode,” Washington broadcast and then, after a moment's hesitation, bounded after his Lieutenant.
    It only took a second for Capt. Rodriguez to understand the situation. She used the command broadcast frequency: “Everybody find cover! Get part of the hull between you and the port side.”
    Though not understanding the reason for their CO's order, the Marines immediately moved to comply. As they scrambled for cover Westfield swung from girder to girder until he reached the gash the shuttle had made in the alien vessel's four meter thick hull.
    Grasping a beam at the edge of the hole with his right hand, Dirk let his body's momentum swing him around. Pivoting around his grip on the beam, his left arm described a wide arc, with the sling containing the bomb extending that arc. Like a Scotsman hurling a hammer, Westfield threw the bomb out of the hole and into space.
    After releasing the bomb the Lieutenant grasp the beam with both hands, stopping his forward momentum. Hanging motionless, staring at the empty, star speckled space beyond, Dirk watched as the bomb grew smaller with distance and vanished from his sight.
    “Face starboard! Get your suit backpacks between you and the explosion.” Capt. Rodriguez broadcast. “If you can see stars out of the breaching hole you are in the line of fire!”
     
    CIC, Peggy Sue
    Those monitoring the boarding party from Peggy Sue's Combat Information Center had finally begun to relax when the Marines reported that all of the aliens had been killed or otherwise neutralized. Then the alarmed call of “Bomb!” caused everyone to turn back to the display monitors.
    “Bomb? What kind of bomb?” asked Chief Engineer Medina.
    “BP-1, Peggy Sue. Interrogative type of bomb and its location?” asked Capt. Curtis. The command crew listened in horror as GySgt Washington reported that the bomb was an antimatter egg somehow rigged to detonate.
    “If a type 3 AM container goes off inside the hull it will probably take out the entire boarding party,” Jo Jo said. “Even worse, it could set off the remaining big eggs in the fuel bunker.”
    “How many were left in the bunker?”
    “The shuttle reported seven eggs on board. That would leave seven or eight still on the hulk. Not as bad as