Legions of Orion (Star Crusades Nexus, Book 1) (11 page)

The homeworld of the Jötnar had
been transformed from a deserted jungle planet into thriving yet
violent community. Wooden compounds and structures filled the
islands and tens of thousands of Biomechs farmed, built and traded.
Unlike any other part of the Alliance, all Biomechs that were sent
to Hyperion were given a chance of a new life. Most chose to join
the Jötnar but some refused, instead wanting to strike out on their
own. These rebels fought in the Jötnar Mutiny that resulted in the
deaths of many Jötnar.

The downfall of Hyperion

With the artificial gravity now fully
operational, Lieutenant Davies was able to assess the situation.
His team had so far discovered two booby-traps that had been left
behind to cover the escape of whoever had tried to cause so much
damage to ANS Beagle. According to Sergeant Tex, if they’d been
another ten minutes, the redundant systems would have also been put
out of action, and therefore rendering the entire rift generating
hardware irrelevant. One squad stayed to protect the control
station, and the rest of the platoon moved out to cover five
separate areas that controlled the power levels to the rift
generator. Lieutenant Davies led three marines to the nearest
evacuation platform. It was a small area that functioned as both an
emergency shelter and a lifeboat.

“LT, why didn’t they just hit the
engines to start with?” asked Private Martok.

The group of four
had already reached the platform, and as expected, it was deserted.
Lieutenant Davies checked the control-panel next to the airlock
leading to the lifeboat.

“
Looks okay,”
h
e said, turning to Martok.

“
Good question.
Well, I suppose they wanted to cut the habitation system to make it
harder for us to reach it before they disabled the
engines.”

“
True, Sir, but we
still lost the engines. What’s their game plan?”

That was a question
he really couldn’t answer. None of it made any sense to him. First,
they must have sabotaged the engines, then they cut the power and
habitation systems, so they had to come down to investigate. After
that, they restarted the system.

Yes, that’s it!

“
How else would they
force a shipside restart and powering up of the engines? Without
the habitation unit going offline
, the
powerplants would have simply shifted power. It must have been the
surge of power and fuel that destroyed the engines.”

Tex glanced inside the lifeboat and
then to his Lieutenant.

“
Could be, but if
that’s true, it means the saboteurs are members of the crew. What
would they have to gain by doing this? All we’re doing
is...”

A gentle click
caught their attention from ten metres away. All four marines
lifted their weapons, but it was already too late. From out of the
shadows emerged the shape of Jensen. None of them recognised the
crewman, but his blood-splattered overalls marked him out as either
one of their saboteurs or a crewmember that may have been caught up
in the fighting. It was the belt of gas canisters running around
his body like a bandolier of shells that stopped any of them
firing.

“One move and I detonate the whole
lot!” he snapped. In his right hand he held a pair of wires with
the stripped ends held apart by no more than a centimetre.

“Easy now!” said Lieutenant Davies in
as calm a voice as he could manage. “Tell us what it is you
want.”

Jensen looked at
each of them in turn before extending his left arm to show a
military tattoo. He was at least a decade older than all of them,
other than Tex. The Sergeant instantly recognised the
marking.

“What do you care what I want?” he spat
out.

Tex nodded as he looked at the man’s
arm.

“
You’re one of the
survivors from the Santa Maria. You must have been there at the
Battle of the Rift?” he asked with genuine interest, forgetting for
a moment that the man was wearing a suicide vest and threatening
them all with a potentially horrific end. Even now, it was only
just occurring to Lieutenant Davies that they were positioned only
a short distance from the outer skin of ANS Beagle.

“Uh...ah!” he cried and inched the two
frayed wires slightly closer.

“That’s it, stay there.”

Lieutenant Davies
looked to his side but could see nothing he could immediately use
to improve their situation. The door to the lifeboat was shut, and
this man could easily kill them before they could move even a metre
away. The man looked at a device on his arm and smiled to
himself.

“Soon...not long now.”

“
Hey, man, we don’t
want trouble. Just tell us what your grievance is. You know the
Alliance Navy, they look after their own,” said Martok.

Those last words
appeared to grate with Jenson more than anything else any of them
had said. While they continued talking, Lieutenant Davies whispered
into his suit’s intercom.

“
This is Lieutenant
Davies,” he began. “We’re trapped on Level Four at the secondary
lifeboat station. Saboteur is here and armed with an...”

“Silence!” called out Jenson. He took a
step forward and moved the cables even closer.

“
If one of you
speaks again, I will detonate this belt,” he shouted and looked
down at the many containers strapped to his body.

“This has nothing to do with me. This
is for all of humanity and for our brothers and sisters that died
at the hands of Echidna and her unholy monsters. You fools will
consign us to history if you keep pursuing the demon Echidna and
her children.”

Off to one side, the
shape of a woman appeared. She wore Navy overalls and looked like
any one of the hundreds of crew that roamed the great vessel. She
moved closely to the man and pulled a thermal shotgun out from
beneath her jacket, pointing it directly at the marines.

“
Hey, you’re Ensign
Christy. Y
ou are on the sick list,”
exclaimed Lieutenant Davies.

He’d checked the
rota before the start of the mission and had been keeping a close
eye on those that came and left ANS Beagle prior to the
operation.

She must
have hidden on
board before
we left over a week ago.

He’s right, you
know,” s
he said with a sickening smile.
“Too many good people died to give us this technology, and for
what? We come to Orion, to the source of the Demon. They’ll destroy
us all.”

A hiss to their
right announced the arrival of one of the boarding parties from ANS
Dragon. A group of four armoured warriors clambered inside with
their weapons raised and pointing at the two enemies. They moved in
and took up positions near one of the exposed bulkheads, and
another shape appeared. It was the commander of the unit, Captain
Howell. The imposing figure of the marine entered the space and
lifted his visor.

“My name is Captain...”

That was all he was
able to say before Jenson touched the two ends of the wire
together. There was a flicker of a spark between the two contacts,
but it was enough time for Lieutenant Davies to leap forward. The
woman opened fire but missed him and instead, struck Tex in the
forehead. The thermal slugs penetrated the visor and sent his
lifeless corpse crashing into the wall. The Lieutenant smashed into
the shape of Jenson, and the two staggered and crashed back further
into the ship. As they hit the ground, the canisters detonated. The
blast created a superhot breach in the ship that instantly killed
everyone within thirty metres of the blast. The entire section was
filled with blood, fractured metal and debris, but incredibly, the
outer hull remained intact.

* * *

The violence of the blast shook ANS
Beagle right to her core. Even on the CIC, the vibrations could be
felt. A number of alarms were triggered, but it was nothing like
when the engines themselves had been detonated. Even so, it
appeared the vessel had sustained yet another setback. Captain
Raikes shook his head, fearful of even contemplating what might
have happened.

“What was that?” he called out.

“
Blast on
L
evel Four at the secondary lifeboat
station. Internal fire fighting system is in action.”

One of the marines from the corridor
entered the CIC.

“Captain, it’s our marines. We just
lost contact with a squad at the lifeboat station. Lieutenant
Davies isn’t responding.”

The Chief Engineer altered the main
display to bring up the status indicators of each of the ship’s
sections. He pointed to the damaged lifeboat station.

“
Here, Sir. Looks
like there was a blast. It took out one of the manoeuvring
thrusters and a backup generator. Nothing we can manage without, so
it seems we were lucky.

“
Sir, I have
Sergeant Travis from ANS Dragon on comms. He says his team has
boarded the lower levels and are inside the damaged
section.”

Captain Raikes
nodded, but deep down he didn’t want to know what had
happened.

“Put him on loud speaker.”

“
There are bodies
everywhere. L
ooks like there was a blast
down here...” the audio cracked for a moment before returning,
“bodies of marines...bloody hell, the Captain is here. Sent medevac
now. There’s blood everywhere!”

Captain Raikes knew
deep down that he’d just suffered major casualties, but the only
good news was that the engineering appeared sound. There would be
time to mourn their losses later, for now he had one thing to worry
about, getting that rift open.

“
Understood,
Sergeant.” He indicated with his right hand for the standby teams
to be sent. “Teams are on the way.”

He then turned to the helmsman who was
working closely with the two frigates that had been manoeuvring
them into position.

“How are we doing on the
positioning?”

The man looked back to him with a hint
of a smile.

“Sir, we’re there. Only a few metres
for optimum range.”

Thank
the Gods! N
ow, will this
thing work?
He thought
nervously.

The Chief Engineer
already had the primary displays showing the Rift and the status of
all the main components of ANS Beagle. Every item that was required
to create the connection had been double and triple checked to
ensure the activation would go to plan. He turned to the Captain
and nodded.

“
Sir, everything is
ready. Distance is correct, and we have enough power to start the
capacitors.”

Captain Raikes
rubbed his forehead nervously. He had a terrible feeling that once
the system was started, they would hit another problem. With the
massive levels of energy being created, an attack of some kind
could have terrible consequences for both the Rift and ANS Beagle.
He reached out and grabbed the intercom microphone.

“
Commodore Lewis,
w
e are in position and ready to start the
sequence. Are your frigates at a safe distance?”

“
Good work, Captain.
Yes, they are in formation with my flagship. Proceed with haste.
Good luck.”

He tapped a button on the console and
switched the system to a ship-wide transmission.

“
This is the
Captain. We are starting the rift generation sequence. If this
works, we will have created the first stable Spacebridge that can
reach out this far. Double-check your stations, and if any of you
are believers, pray now!”

He replaced the
handset, and for a second contemplated the odd idea of praying to a
deity in this day and age. It always amazed him how people found
God under the most dire of circumstances. Not that he did, but at
that very moment, he wished he did. He took a final deep breath and
nodded to the Chief Engineer.

“Okay, it’s now or never. Activate the
bridge.”

With no more than a
nod, the man started up the rift generator sequence. It was the
first time the equipment had been used to do this, and it would
require almost all the stored energy of the vessel to create the
energy capsule at the entrance point. It took just seconds for the
generators to reach their peak efficiency and start building up the
rift capacitors.

“Ten seconds till activation!”

A low hum
reverberated through the structure of the vessel as the capacitors
quickly reached their full capacity. It was a short time, but for
Captain Raikes it seemed like an eternity. Only when the counter
reached zero did he exhale. A great pulse of energy burst from the
vessel, and no more than a flash outside indicated the generator
had done its job. Captain Raikes watched the indicators on his
computer display as the sensors confirmed the Rift’s stability and
the status of the Spacebridge itself. His Chief Engineer looked
over to him, but it was clear from the expression on the man’s face
that all had worked correctly.

“
Sir, the Proxima
Centauri-Orion Nebula Spacebridge is fully operational.”

Captain Raikes settled back into his
chair, a feeling of relief and euphoria kicking in to his body like
a drug. He barely noticed the clapping and cheering from the others
in the CIC as his body calmed down with the relief.

So here
it is then, we have our bridge to Orion. What next?
He wondered.