Legions of Orion (Star Crusades Nexus, Book 1) (20 page)

Lieutenant
Colonel Barnett
took immediate exception to
this.

“Sir, I don’t understand. Why
are...”

General Rivers lifted his hand.

“
Spartan and his
team have decades of experience, including trench time in the
Marine Corps. You would be well advised to listen to what he and
his Jötnar friends have to say. They might be civvies now, but they
are equal of any units in the fleet. Use them, and use their
knowledge.”

He then spread his gaze around the
group.

“
We don’t have much
time, so check your secpads. I’ve pre-planned the entire operation,
but there is time to make modifications if any of you have useful
suggestions. We will meet on the stern landing ninety minutes prior
to the operation. That is all for now, to your
stations.”

As quickly as
Spartan and Khan had arrived, the room seemed to empty incredibly
fast. In less than thirty seconds, it was just Spartan, Khan, Jack
and the General remaining. A number of Marine Corps officers had
quickly left; much to the surprise of Spartan who thought they
might want to speak with him. Jack moved a little closer to
Spartan, now unsure what was to happen next.

“
Jack, go and speak
with the marines outside and find the others. They already know you
are being put in charge of the Team. Get them ready, and make sure
they have everything they need.”

Jack looked at him
and then to Khan who bared one of his oversized teeth at him. He
considered asking more, but with the General around, it seemed
prudent to leave. As he reached the door, Lieutenant
Colonel
Barnett
walked back into the room. He watched
her with a great deal more than a passing interested, until he was
outside and the door closed. Barnett glanced in his direction as
the door shut the last few centimetres and then proceeded forwards
to the three men.

“
General, Spartan,”
s
he said almost apologetically to each of
them.

“
I recall both of
your actions in the Corps. I just wanted to let you know I’ve
cleared you for operations on our landing craft. All of your APS
team have been given equivalent status to the marine platoons. You
have access to our equipment and systems, and that of goes for your
Jötnar as well.”

Spartan nodded politely.

“
Thank you, Colonel,
it is appreciated.”

She
saluted the General and left the
room.

Once satisfied they
were alone, the General beckoned for them to come to the front
where he laid out a larger secpad.

“
As you know, we
lost contact with the Colonel on this moon. We now have contact but
are still unsure as to what exactly is happening out there. The
Defence Secretary has stated that this moon and its artefacts are
to be secured as soon as possible.”

“
I thought this was
a rescue mission?” Spartan asked.

General Rivers nodded as he displayed a
surface map of the moon.

“
It is. We cannot
start any work on the moon until it is safe, secure and under our
control. I intend on landing rescue parties at their location to
start evacuating our wounded. We will then conduct a thorough sweep
of the area. The Corps of Engineers is already in the process of
bringing habitation modules through the Rift.”

“They found something?” asked Khan.

General Rivers
tapped a button that showed a heavily cratered surface. Dust and
smoke still drifted about as if a major battle or storm had just
been fought. In the middle of the site and amongst the many craters
was a sharply pointed object. It stuck up at least four
metres.

“What the hell is that?” asked
Spartan.

“That we do not know. The video feed
came directly from the recon drones carried by the Colonel. Johnson
and his people have looked over the data and confirm it isn’t ours.
Best we can tell is that it is buried under the surface and is not
natural.”

Khan scratched his
head in confusion.

“I thought a ship tried to bombard the
site? Why would it bomb its own people?”

General Rivers closed the device and
looked at them both seriously.

“Now that is the real question.”

* * *

Spartan walked along the narrow corridor
inside ANS Devastation and try as he might, he just didn’t feel
part of the ship’s complement. It didn’t make sense, of course. His
unit had been given the same privileges as the embarked marines,
but there was still something different. The first thing was that
nobody saluted him. He’d left the Marine Corps as a Captain. It
wasn’t a high rank, not after a decade’s service, but his outspoken
nature and more than a few enemies, made it certain he would never
move any higher. Bizarrely, by forcing his hand, he was now higher
placed than many of the officers he’d fallen out with in his time
with the Corps.

Something isn’t right.
He
thought as he continued the long walk to his designated
quarters.

It was the gravity, he was convinced of
it. No matter how advanced the technology
,
it just never seemed the same as when he was on
solid ground.
He spotted movement up ahead, and
his eyes were instantly drawn to two Jötnar and a marine sergeant
who they seemed to be having an argument with. He increased his
pace and moved directly alongside the three of them. The Sergeant
was bruised down the side of his face, and he also seemed to be
wearing a bandage on his left elbow. Spartan sighed. It looked like
the Jötnar had been in trouble again.

“What the hell is going on here?” he
demanded.

The
m
arine lifted his hand and spoke
first.

“
Hey, there’s no
problem here. We just went two for two in the training hall with
one of your boys here. I was just handing over their prize,” he
said, with evident annoyance at having some kind of a
bet.

Spartan looked at
the Jötnar, who although twice his bulk, seemed nervous at his
gaze. They had good reason to. Spartan had fought their kin back in
the War when all Biomechs had been the blood-enemies of humanity.
It was rumoured he’d even defeated at least two of them with his
bare hands.

“
A bet,
h
ave you been looking for a fight again?”
he said angrily.

I spent
all this time and effort getting them here
, and then they screw me over with their usual antics.
This is going to have to stop.

Two more marines
arrived and moved quickly to th
e group.
One of them extended a hand to the Jötnar and shook their great
paws with obvious pleasure.

“
Holy crap, you two,
I’ve never seen combat like that before. Is that how you train back
on Hyperion?” asked one of the corporals before noticing the
suit-wearing Spartan.

The
C
orporal ignored him, and then something
clicked. He looked back at Spartan, pointing his finger at
him.

“
Hey, you’re Captain
Spartan, right? The officer that led the assault on Terra
Nova.”

Spartan nodded but
said nothing. The last thing he wanted was the adulation of rookie
marines. Right now, he wanted respect and professionalism, no more
and no less.

“
Enjoy your chat,
try and keep out of trouble. We have a big operation coming up
soon. Understood?”

The Jötnar nodded
and bizarrely to Spartan, so did the marines. He did his best not
to laugh and stepped inside the quarters put aside for his team. It
was bigger than the usual marine quarters, and easily capable of
holding forty marines. But the space was necessary, as the Jötnar
took up twice the space of most people. He spotted Jack sat towards
the end of the room, speaking to somebody on the video comms unit.
Jack heard his approach and turned to face him.

“
It’s mother. She’s
got news for us...from Hyperion.”

Spartan moved closer until he could see
Teresa’s face on the display.

“
Spartan,”
s
he said happily, “I was just explaining
to Jack about the new developments. Have you seen the
news?”

Spartan shook his head.

“
No, we’ve only just
finished a short briefing with General Rivers for this op. What’s
happening there, problems?”

Spartan noticed that
Teresa was no longer in the room they had organised on ANS Beagle.
In fact, he was sure he recognised the signing on the wall as being
back on the station orbiting Prometheus.

“
I thought you might
have been busy. Our share price has just gone through the roof with
the news. That’s why I’ve come back to the Prometheus offices. We
need to bring in recruits, and fast.”

Jack looked to
Spartan concerned. Spartan was still none the wiser,
however.

“I don’t understand, what’s
happening?”

Teresa nodded and
then reached for something. Her image vanished, but she continued
to speak as a live feed from the Alliance Network News came
through.

“Here, just listen to the
headlines.”

The video cut to an
anchorman with images of a dark shape drifting in space. In the
background, a diagram showed the layout of the star system that he
instantly recognised as New Charon. The scrolling ticker line at
the bottom said something about science teams were already on the
way.

“Jack, what is it?”

He was answered by the voice of the
anchorman.

“
For those of you
that have just joined us, this is a momentous day for mankind. In
the last few minutes, we’ve received images from the successful
rift experiment being conducted somewhere near Prometheus. If this
information is correct, we are seeing our first looks at planets in
a star cluster over a thousand light years away. The breaking news,
however, is even greater. Alliance scientists have already located
the remains of what appears to be a derelict
spacecraft.”

The image moved in
much closer to the cockpit view of a Navy fighter. Spartan
suspected it was a lightning fighter, but he couldn’t be certain.
The pilot was speaking, but it was too quiet and muffled to be
heard. From the man’s cockpit, the derelict structure seemed
massive, at least the size of a Navy capital ship.

“How did this get out?”

“
The Senate released
the video feeds a few moments ago, and they’re spreading like
wildfire. Three mining companies who are sending exploratory
vessels to the Rift within five days have already contacted me.
Rumours of possible habitable moons and planets are getting a lot
of interest, and one thing they all want is security.”

“Why?”

Jack looked up at his father with a
whimsical expression.

“
The derelicts.
T
hey think that if there were people
there before, then they might come back. That makes it dangerous,
ergo, they need protection.”

Teresa quipped in.

“
True, but there is
more to it than that, as always. With every company and contractor
that wants some of the action in Orion, is another competitor. You
remember the first incidents at Epsilon Eridani when the mining
corporations arrived? It was violent.”

Spartan nodded and
then remembered Hyperion.

“What’s happening with Gun and
Hyperion? Are they okay?”

Teresa smiled.

“
More than
that,
Gun and his High Council have been
talking since you last chatted. Apparently, your news on the
saboteurs trying to block off Orion, for fear of making contact
with the enemy, got his attention. As always, he thinks it best to
tackle any problem head on, and that’s why his Council has decided
that they want a stake in Orion as well.”

Spartan shook his
head at the news. Gun was an old friend and the first Biomech that
had been freed from the mind control exerted on them by the Zealots
and their allies, back in the Uprising. His name had come from his
first meeting and violent struggle with Spartan on Prometheus, and
the fact that the Biomech had been fitted out with a Gatling gun
that was strapped to his arm. Now his old friend was the leader of
tens of thousands of Jötnar, as well as an even larger number of
freed Biomechs who had sworn loyalty to him and the
Alliance.

“
Somehow I don’t
think the Senate will be very happy at the idea of Biomechs, even
those we call Jötnar, looking to find new homes in
Orion.”

Teresa reappeared as the video stream
closed down. She looked to her left as she checked her personal
secpad. It only took a moment before she looked back up to the
camera.

“
The
S
enate has tried to block his travel, but
their block has been vetoed by the Citizen’s Tribune. As Alliance
citizens, they are entitled to travel anywhere in Alliance space.
The Senate has already decreed that New Charon is under Alliance
jurisdiction and open for exploitation by any and all citizens.
Either they must revoke its status, or remove the Jötnar’s
citizenship.”

“
What?” Jack
demanded. He wasn’t experienced in the world of politics, but even
he knew that such a move would cause outrage amongst the Jötnar. It
could even lead to a bloody civil war that would make the Uprising
seem like a minor border war.

“
Anyway, the
information I have here from Gun is that he has chartered three
ships and is leaving for the Rift tomorrow. He suggests that the
Jötnar will be claiming a new world, and he’d like our assistance
with security should the need arise. I need to go. I have urgent
communiqués coming in from Terra Nova now. Both of you try and keep
out of trouble. Love you,” she said happily and cut the
signal.