Legions of Orion (Star Crusades Nexus, Book 1) (23 page)

“Ms Morato, we have an urgent message
from Admiral Anderson.”

Teresa looked at
him. S
he couldn’t remember his name, but
she remembered he had worked with Spartan on an operation in the
previous year. Like all their employees, they were background
checked, and their loyalty was guaranteed by both their allegiance
to the Alliance and more importantly, to the company’s deep
pockets. The cult of personality of the two founding members went a
long way in establishing APS’s reputation for ruthless efficiency
and reliability.

“What’s going on? Why didn’t he contact
me through the normal channels?” she asked suspiciously.

They were already
walkin
g back along the corridor, and the
man spoke again.

“
Our sources in
customs indicate that three ships have just arrived. They are
armoured and claim to be here on official APS business. I checked
the logs, and all three ships were bought by the Jötnar nearly two
years ago.”

Teresa shook her head in both annoyance
and amusement.

Gun, you
crazy bastard!
What are you
doing at Prometheus, and why have you brought three
ships?

As she left the
corridor, flanked by her two security
professionals
, she did her best to
disguise a smile. The Jötnar were nothing if entertaining, but she
did consider the possibility that Gun was here in person. If that
were true, then it would confirm the information she’d seen from
the Senate concerning the Jötnar being able to enter New Charon to
establish colonies. Gun had been very clear that he would use any
measures necessary to eliminate threats to his people. The new
planets and territory discovered through the Spacebridge could
represent a new future for the Jötnar.

It had
better not be the start of another fight
, though.
She thought
worryingly.

* * *

The formation of armoured shuttles split
up as they approached the atmosphere of the moon. Though thin, it
was slightly corrosive, and as each of the craft skimmed the edge,
they left a colour wake behind them. Each streak indicated the
high-speed orbital descent of a craft as it followed the most
direct route to the target. Once at medium level, they started the
normal deceleration procedure and dumped low-burn flares in case of
ground-based defences.

“Here we go again, Spartan!” barked
Khan.

The battle-hardened
Jötnar
watched through the tiny windows as the
colour of the sky changed with every hundred metres lower. Spartan
could see him grasping the hilt of his weapon.

Always looking for a fight.
He
thought wryly.

“Ninety seconds to the landing
zone
,
”
s
aid
General Rivers over the suit’s integral comms unit. It was a fast
and efficient system, giving secured high speed data between all
the ships and warriors in the
T
askforce.
The fully integrated digital battlespace system had only come into
full use in the last ten years and was one of the few improvements
that genuinly impressed Spartan.

“Understood
,
General, we’re ready and awaiting the landing. Do we have any new
intel on the ground?”

“Yes
,
”
w
as the simple reply
,
as a number of three dimensional models mapping
the landing zone appeared. They insantly amalgamated with the
two-dimensional maps already scanned by the previous landing.

“We’re moving three hundred metres
further to the
w
est. There is more
de
b
ris
,
but
surface-pentrating radar indicates a number of passages
underneath.”

Spartan nodded. “Understood.”

The small formation of
shuttle
s
deployed their first-stage
airbrakes to start the slowing down descent procedure. Spartan was
the only person in his shuttle to look upwards and back to the
direction they had arrived from. Directly above them, sat in high
orbit above the shuttle waited the Taskforce, a dozen ship;
including three of the latest and most technologically advanced
warships in the Alliance. It was a modest affair, compared to the
great fleets of the Uprising
,
but for
this obscure moon
,
it was a sight to
behold. The first three shuttles burst out through the fog of
chemicals
,
swoop
ing
down low over craggy mountains.

“Father, look!”
Jack
called.

Spartan returned his gaze to the
horizon as the flight of shuttles circled their landing zone. The
surface was dry, ragged and unwelcoming, like many moons he had
seen before. There appeared to be many lines and marking
s
running along the surface
,
but he was well used to these illusions. They were
frequently no more than natural phenomenon. What Jack was pointing
to wa
s
a formation of mo
u
ntains around a single point of rocks and rubble.
Khan looked with interest and back to Spartan and Jack.

“Does that remind you both of
somewhere?” he asked.

Jack grinned.

“What? You mean the rift archeological
site on Hyperion that
’
s situated between
a series of mou
n
tain tops?”

He turned to Spartan
.
“No it looks nothing like it.”

“Ten seconds!” The pilot called out
through the digital communciations system.

Spartan grabbed the electromatgetnic
coupling that held him down. It was more complex than a simple set
of straps
,
but it was stronger and could
be locked and unlocked in a fraction of a second. Then, just as
q
uickly as the word for their landing had
arrived
,
they hit the ground. It was
bumpy
,
but there appeared to be no signs
of enemy activity.

“A safe landing
and
no reception commit
tee
? Is that a first?” laughed Khan
,
as he stood up from his seat and punched Spartan
on the shoulder. The doors opened
,
and
the group of
Jötnar leapt out of the shuttle and
onto the solid surface of the still unnamed moon. Jack glanced to
his father who simply nodded for him to go.

Here we
go again
,
he thought. Then stepped out behind him, his carbine ready
for whatever the moon might throw at them.

The creation of the Centauri
Alliance was the last stage in humanity’s violent struggle to
create a solid, stable and secure political system. Gone were the
days of colony versus colony warfare
, and
instead, the gaze of most citizens turned to the great Orion Nebula
and the seeming limitless opportunities it offered; hundreds of
thousands of stars with an even greater number of worlds orbiting
them, each ripe for exploration and exploitation. How few even
considered the possibility that somebody might have already beaten
them to it?

Orion – The f
uture?

The landing zone was almost three
hundred metres in diameter and the perfect site from which to land
additional men and materiel as required. In the first minute,
advance scouts had pushed out and secured the site for the arrival
of the rest of the unit. Four full platoons of marines plus the APS
Team was a considerable force, with nearly a hundred and fifty
heavily equipped warriors and their supporting equipment. The
marines’ first job was to establish a defensible landing zone and
communication array so that contact could be maintained with the
ships above. The men and women from ANS Dragon had already moved
the armoured array from one of the support shuttles and were in the
process of powering it up by the time the last shuttle had landed.
It was as big as a marine and equipped with two main antennae, the
secondary specifically in case of malfunction or damage. It was all
part of the enhanced digital battle-space system that all Alliance
military equipment was now tied into.

As the squads of marines continued
making the site safe, the APS team, led by Spartan and Khan, moved
away from the safe area and into the until now unexplored parts of
the moon. They had chosen to head towards what seemed to be an
entrance, at least that was what the scanner had indicated. General
Rivers had also sent out four small scout parties to recce the
peripheries for anything of use while the APS team scouted the
primary access point. There had been a minor disagreement as to who
should go where, but the General would have none of it. Spartan’s
APS team had experience of similar sites, and their skills were
never in doubt to him.
He had twelve squads of a
dozen marines plus Spartan’s unit, and that gave him the manpower
to conduct a wide sweep of the area.
Three more units
followed the routes of the more level ground while the fourth
followed a winding path to the right.

That fourth group included both Wictred
and Jack, much to the annoyance of the marines, who failed to
appreciate why two juveniles were going with them. As they moved
away, it appeared they were more interested in competing with each
other to reach the objective while the single marine squad did its
best to keep up. It didn’t take long for this annoyance to turn to
frustration.

“Kid, what’s the hurry?” called out the
shortest of the marines, who could have been barely a year older
than Jack. The emphasis was on the ‘kid’, and it had an immediate
effect.

Jack turned his head
and shook it before jumping over a series of
rocks
, landing in a shallow depression to
stand alongside Wictred. To the uninformed, it looked as if they
were racing ahead for the sake of it. The reality was that Wictred
had spotted something, and in their haste neither had informed the
marines. At the implied insult, Jack spun around to face the small
group of armoured marines.

“
Kid? You’re not
much older than me, you know. I’ve been on plenty of operations
before, and this one is nothing special.”

The Sergeant of the
unit pushed up closer to him, shaking his head slowly.

“
We’re a
unit,
and if you were in the Corps, you’d
know that. I don’t care if your Pa is some Corporation big shot,
out here we play by the rules…or people get hurt.”

He paused for a second to let that sink
in.

“
Now, why are you
rushing ahead? If you find trouble, we’ll be too far back to assist
you.”

Wictred laughed at
the comment. Like most of his kin, he had a short temper and had no
problem expressing himself. Unlike Khan and the first generation
of
Jötnar, he had yet to learn humility or empathy, not that
it was a particularly common trait amongst any of them.

“
Then stop lingering
in the rear, marine!”

Jack saw the look on
the marine’s face, and though at first he almost enjoyed the man’s
discomfort, he could see the marine was right. They had moved
almost a hundred and fifty metres from the shuttle, without even
speaking to the rest of the unit. He looked over to Wictred who,
compared to the rest of the group, simply towered over
them.

“
You’re right,
Sergeant, my mistake,” he said, trying not to look at the crevice
further ahead.

Even
so
, the more he tried to avoid it the
more his eyes refused to leave. It was about a metre tall, but what
set it apart from anything else in sight was that the upper part
appeared to be man-made. The lines were straight, and there were
carved portions at intervals. The Sergeant was still trying to work
out if the young man was being sarcastic or not when his interest
in the subject finally got the better of him.

“What is it?” asked the Sergeant.

Wictred moved a few
more metres and thrust his oversized arm into the gap. The rest of
the squad moved out and into position, watching in a mixture of
interest and surprise.

“
Wictred?” asked
Jack, now worried that he seemed to have got his armoured forearm
trapped inside the rock.

His friend groaned
as he exerted himself, pulling hard at the rock. With a dull
crump
, the bottom part split and fell
away to create an opening nearly two metres wide. Jack almost
jumped forward, half expecting the entire thing to fall apart, but
instead his friend did something even stranger. Wictred thrust his
head inside before leaning back and looking at Jack and the
Sergeant. He smiled in that wicked way that only his kind
could.

“
You’re gonna want
to see this!” he laughed and stuck his head back inside the
gap.

The Sergeant looked
to Jack. He just shrugged and clambered over the rocks to reach
Wictred and find out himself.

* * *

When Teresa arrived on the main
observation deck of the Prometheus Seven Space Station, it looked
like something from an old Wild West novel. A dozen marines stood
at the flanks of Admiral Anderson, along with a handful of Alliance
dignitaries. Facing them was the battered, scarred and fully
armoured bulk of Gun and his small entourage of four Jötnar. As she
entered the room, the Admiral saw her and sighed in relief.

“What’s going on, Admiral?” she
demanded.