Crusade For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 2) (36 page)

Quin nodded thoughtfully.  “I can do that,” she smiled.  “I’m glad I took you up on your offer.”

“We will show them the might of Sparta and they will tremble.”  Phrike said as she slapped Valerie on the back and almost caused her to spit out the last mouthful of her breakfast.

“Are you sure they can’t see us?”  Hanna asked from her jury-rigged seat at the back of the cockpit.

The chuckle from Hans was good natured.  “Absolutely.  If they knew we were out here, they would be tracking us with their guns, and that task force in the outer system would be heading our way.  We’ve been within their active sensor envelope for over two hours, without them making a single peep.”  He looked over to Deni who sat next to him in the co-pilots seat.  “How are you doing there, Deni?”

“All OK, Captain.”  Hanna snorted in disgust.  Over the last couple of months Deni had picked up the annoying habit of using all these military titles.  Her friend ignored her of course and continued as though she had not heard a thing.  “She flies like a dream.  Coming up on the next drop point now.”

“Good,” Hans replied.  “Arming warhead.”  For almost an hour, the Spectre floated around the asteroid containing the Rock deploying missiles.  None of them were activate.  They had simply been released from the Spectre’s bay and left dormant in space, just another piece of random rock orbiting the asteroid.

Ever since she boarded the Spectre from the Alliance’s staging area, Hanna had had nothing to do.  She sat and watched as Hans piloted the ship out to the Rock.  There Deni took over, while Hans dealt with the weapon systems.  One of the things they lacked for the assault was trained military pilots.  Various members of the Crew were trained for reserve roles.  Rush would be co-piloting Helo One in Hans’ place.

“Missile launched and in place.  We’re right on time.  Take us to the jumping off point, Deni.”  That was Hanna’s cue.  She would soon be called upon to do what she did best.  Her Quartz sat in her lap ready and linked to the Spectre’s powerful computers.  It took Sneaker and her weeks to cut through the powerful encryptions and defences installed in the ship, but now she was in full control of everything in its database.  In theory she could have overridden any of the flight controls.  She wouldn’t though.  She thought it would come under the heading of ‘a very bad idea’.

She glanced at the sealed hatch at her feet. If she thought her seat was a bit uncomfortable, it was nothing compared to First Platoon’s Alpha fire team.

“Lieutenant Saito, we are approaching the jump point,” Hans said into his com.  “Are your people ready down there?”

“Copy that, Captain Benz.  All suits sealed and ready for deployment.”  The five members of Alpha team were in their Fully Powered Body Armour with the Extra-Vehicular Attachments.  The suits were designed for use in a vacuum.  The EVA added thrusters and additional air supply to allow them to move and fight in space.  Hanna saw them wearing it all before they boarded.  She imagined it was very crowded in the ship’s crew quarters.

The Spectre was designed for many things, but not as a troop assault craft.  Alpha team were crammed in and there would be nothing rapid about their deployment.  The ship did have an airlock for emergency repairs, but that was designed for a crew person in a standard, close fitting space suit.  An FPBA equipped soldier couldn’t fit even without the EVA.  They were going to have to vent the crew quarters and open the main hatch to deploy Alpha team.

Deni guided the ship into position and Hanna could see Hans watching very carefully, but he didn’t say anything or try and take control.

“That’s it, Deni,” he said.  “Perfect.  Now hold it there.”  On the three hundred and sixty degree holographic display, Hanna saw the bulk of the Rock hanging in space a thousand metres away and she shook her head.  She’d asked five times if the Rock’s defences could see the Spectre and she still could barely believe it.

“You do the honours,”  Hans told Deni.

She nodded and took a deep breath before keying the com.  “Alpha team.  We are in position.  I am lowering the hatch.”

“Copy, Deni, hatch is lowering.” Michio confirmed.  “Hatch is down, Button you’re up.”

Chao wouldn’t have any choice, he was the last to board and there was no room to switch places down there.  Hans adjusted the display and they could see the black armoured shape of Chao Button drifting out, away from the ship.  He was followed by the others and they drifted together ten metres off the hull.  In unison, the soldiers turned and jetted off towards the Rock.  With their armour’s colouring and camouflage systems, better than those they used on Ison Island, they quickly disappeared.

“Sealing the hatch, Sir.”  Deni said and Hanna snorted again loudly.  Her heart wasn’t really in it this time and she concentrated on the Quartz’s display.  Alpha team’s objective was to breach the Rock covertly.  Once in, they would insert an uplink giving Hanna access to the prison’s systems.  Now all they could to do was wait.

***

It was times like this Button really enjoyed being a member of Shadow Company.  His three closest buddies were beside him, as they glided through space to assault the most notorious prison in the Pantheon.  According to the information the Rebellion obtained, they would be facing two thousand four hundred guards and another four thousand maintenance and support personnel.

Long odds even for Shadow Company.  Sneaker managed to put together another hundred Enforcers and the Rebellion supplied four hundred fighters.  They still faced odds of four to one and the Alliance’s forces only included one hundred units in FPB armour.  Everyone else was in the powered medium armour Major Forlani procured in the FOB module.

Of course, those five hundred and ninety-five other troops were not here right now.  They were all sitting in the five Helos, two Scarabs and eight cargo shuttles currently on ballistic courses towards the Rock.  Alpha team were on their own against two thousand, four hundred guards.  If the Rebellion’s information was solid, only six hundred would be on duty.  The rest would be in the station’s crew quarter’s and that was Alpha team’s mission.

The Rock loomed up ahead of him and he could see what inspired the name.  Whoever set this up had taken a large asteroid and hollowed part of it out.  The asteroid was vaguely egg shaped, and on this side there were three large holes burrowed deep inside.  Each one lead to the shuttle bay for a wing of the prison.  Three more were on the other side.  All around them were weapon placements’.  At the top and bottom of the egg were the communications arrays.

Alpha team headed to the middle hole leading directly to the crew quarters wing.  The Company’s FPB armour was not as good as the Spectre at hiding, but this close in they didn’t have to be.  They used their jets within the ships shielding and drifted the rest of the way.  As far as the prison’s sensors were concerned, they were five very small holes in space.

Button led the team and entered the central cavern first.  There was no other way to describe it now he was inside.  The builders hadn’t used a lot of finesse when they carved it out.  His HUD showed the target highlighted.  He made minor corrections to his course with tiny bursts of air.  Halfway along the cavern, was an access hatch to the tunnels leading out to the weapon placements.  This was their way in.

Arriving first, Button made sure he was out of the way as Guggenheim came in next.  It was his job to override the hatch to get them in.  Guggenheim had been trained by the best in the Legion.  After arriving in Blaze and meeting Sneaker, Major Forlani decided that wasn’t good enough.  All of Guggenheim’s equivalents, throughout the Company, were sent to ‘Hacker School’ Blaze style.  Hanna was the teacher and Sneaker the Headmaster.

Guggenheim hadn’t liked it much, nor had any of the others.  After the first day, they all stopped complaining.  Button had still not been able to find out what happened in that first class, but it must have been bad.  Those electronic specialists were very quiet and worked very hard from then on.  He suspected they had been shown that what they knew, was nowhere near what a sixteen year old could do.

Inside his helmet, Button shook his head.  He found it very hard to believe they all celebrated Hanna’s sixteenth birthday two weeks ago.  They did the same with Deni a month before.  There was another young girl who impressed.  Captain Benz practically raved about her skills as a pilot, and having seen her mentor, Rush, in action, Button could see why.  The only reason those two were sitting in the co-pilot’s seats on this mission, was a lack of experience on space assaults.  If they were dirtside, he suspected they would be piloting and Shadow Company’s air crews wouldn’t have been complaining too much.

The hatch slid open smoothly and Guggenheim dropped down into it first.  It was a maintenance hatch and, unlike the one on the Spectre, it was designed for a repair suit similar in size to their armour.  It could only take one at a time though.  Guggenheim was going in alone until the rest of the team could cycle through the airlock after him.  The hatch slid shut and the four of them hung in space, waiting for the light to revert to green.

Wester followed Guggenheim and the Lieutenant went next.  Button was glad the Lieutenant decided to join the rest of the Company in their mutiny.  He was a good kid, a bit serious at times, but he got the job done and was willing to listen to the Non-Commissioned Officers, like Sergeant Major Bickerstaff, Sergeant Haebich and Corporal Richings.  Captain Gibson on the other hand, was not happy to find out he had been duped after the FOB left the Olympus system.

True to her word, Major Forlani dealt with him herself.  She explained their position quite eloquently, Button thought, and Gibson still refused to listen.  He threatened them with all sorts of things.  The arrogant bastard never realised just how serious they all were.  He had probably still not caught on when Major Forlani shot him between the eyes.

Shrugging to himself, Button headed to the hatch.  Everyone else was through and it was his turn.  It opened at a touch of the button.  He swung his bulky armour round in the near zero gravity environment with ease.  In his sixty-six year career in the Legion, he had a lot of practice.  It was still a tight fit in the airlock and he was careful getting himself into position.  Both of his feet needed to be magnetically clamped to two plates, just above the inner hatch, before he could close the outer door.  With his feet set and the magnets activated, he began the airlocks cycle.

The outer hatch slid shut and air hissed into the compartment, followed by the pull of artificial gravity set at Olympus normal.  The hatch below him opened and he was lowered down, into the corridor by the grav-plates he stood on.  The rest of the team were all there

“Good, we’re all in,” the Lieutenant said.  Now they were in the prison itself, they could use the coms without giving themselves away.  “Button, take point.  Richings, you’re slack.  Guggenheim security and Wester rear guard.  The troops are on their way and the chrono is ticking.  Drop your EVA’s and move out.”  He wasn’t talking metaphorically, on Button’s HUD was an actual Chrono marking time until the assault wave’s arrival.

A twitch of the right muscle was interpreted by the armour’s computer, releasing the now unneeded EVA from his armour.  They clattered to the metal floor and Button took off at a powered run down the straight corridor.  At some point they would need to collect those EVA’s.  Who knew what they would need in an uncertain future.

Loping strides assisted by the armour’s servo’s boosted him along.  This section of the prison wasn’t monitored by the more sophisticated systems used further in.  Their armour’s camo systems allowed them to run along the long straight corridor, without triggering the alarms.

His armour’s sensors swept ahead of Button, telling him the area was clear.  After studying the schematics supplied by the Rebellion, Sneaker and Hanna identified a weak point in their defences.  At the end of this corridor was a relay connecting to the outer defensive weaponry.  By accessing that, not only could they shut down this portion of those weapons, they could also use it to get inside the prison itself.

The door they needed came up on Button’s right.  He carried straight on past and stopped twenty metres further down.  Fifty metres beyond him sat the armoured door leading to the prison itself.  His HUD showed him to be five metres outside the reach of the powerful sensors actively sweeping the corridor.  He crouched down with his arm-mounted Blaster pointed at the door.  When he stopped moving, his armour blended him into the corridor.  Wester came up beside him a moment later and did the same.  Button glanced over.  If it wasn’t for the green outline imposed by the suit’s computer, he wouldn’t have known she was there.

***

Tap, tap, tap, tap.  Hanna’s foot had been doing its dance for the past twenty minutes.  Deni didn’t say anything about it and neither did Hans, probably because they were just as nervous as she was.  Deni kept rubbing her hands on her trousers as she stared at the displays in front of her.  Hans seemed completely unperturbed by the tension.  He was more practised so was better at hiding it, Hanna decided.  There was no way he could be as relaxed as he looked.

“I’ve got an incoming signal, Hanna.”  She would have jumped out of her seat at the sudden sound of his voice, if she hadn’t been securely strapped in.

“Is it them?” she asked excitedly.

“I hope so,” he chuckled.  “If it’s the prison commandant, we’re in trouble.  It’s One Alpha, authentication confirms it.  I’m bumping it to you now.”

“OK, I’ve got it,” she confirmed.  The signal was coming in strong and clear on her screen.  To prevent  the Rock from seeing their connection, Alpha team set up laser relays on their way in.  They stretched from the Spectre, through the cavern, down the hatch and along the corridor to hopefully where Guggenheim was plugged in.  He had already opened the door to the Rock’s system and it was ready to go.