Legions of Orion (Star Crusades Nexus, Book 1) (32 page)

There they are!

“
Team
, follow me!” he cried and
leapt over the ridge and down the slope. The Jötnar were close
behind him, each keen to embed their blades into the nearest enemy.
Most carried modified firearms to suit their size, but Gun and one
other still carried their ranged weapons strapped onto their arms.
Though less accurate, it left both hands free to wield close
quarter weapons. Spartan reached the first two engineers who were
running for all they were worth. Only one stopped; the other
streamed past.

“What’s happening?” asked Spartan.

The man pointed
behind him and started muttering.

“They...they came from under the
ground. There was no warning!”

He stumbled over and
dropped to his knee but then lifted himself up and continued moving
up to the ridge. More of the civilians appeared from the dust, and
then he saw them. At first it looked like a heavily armoured
marine, but then he spotted the closely fitted armour, the smooth
metallic plates and the oddly shaped helmets.

These aren’t ours!

There were three of
these warriors
, and they must have seen
him because one looked directly at him. Spartan had been in combat
enough to tell when somebody was about to shoot. He instinctively
rolled to the right and narrowly avoided being struck by a pulse of
energy. The impact sent debris and rock in the air, but luckily
none of it hit him. The gun turret on the Bulldog opened fire,
sending its load of magnetised projectiles over their heads and
into the soldiers’ position. As soon as he recovered, he lifted his
own weapon and aimed directly at their position. There was nobody
there though, just a trail of vapour that disappeared off into the
air, and the marks of where the rounds had struck home.

Damn, these guys are good.

“
Spartan, I’m
picking an airborne unit near you. It
’s
not ours,” said Issac Ocano on the comms link.

You don’t say!

Spartan
looked up at the sky and saw three shapes moving
at speed back towards the artefact. Two streak of energy appeared
from them and struck the higher ridges around it. That was when
Spartan noticed they were sending down rocks that were helping to
bury the thing.

“Incoming!” shouted Khan as he waved
his blade in the air.

A small vessel
flashed past them overhead, and an object fell towards the dig
site. It was round and about the size of a man. Just before it
struck the ground, it vaporised and sent a shockwave in all
directions. The blast was substantial, and all the APS operatives
were thrown to their backs. Spartan landed hard, and the internal
sensors showed minor breaches in the suit’s joints. It wasn’t
series, and already the suit’s control unit was sending small
clouds of vapour to the breaches to assist in the temporary
repairs. Spartan lifted himself up to find nothing but dust around
him. He shook his head only to see one of the unidentified enemy
soldiers stood just two metres away. They stared at each other
through their armour but neither moved. Khan appeared to his left,
and upon spotting the soldier, started to lift his blade. Their
enemy raised his odd looking firearm but did not fire.

“Who are you?” asked Spartan.

The soldier said nothing.

“
Spartan, I’ve got
the engineers, what the hell is going on down there? The aerial
drones are all down. Bravo team has just arrived, and I’ve set them
to deploy fire-support teams to look down on the artefact.
Spartan?”

Spartan continued staring at the enemy
soldier and slowly lifted his left arm up with the palm facing
towards the armoured shape.

“Spartan here. Good work. Get them out
of here and back to base. Send a Bulldog to the secondary
coordinates when you’re done.”

“
What?” came back a
surprised reply from Issac Ocano.

“
We have guests, and
they are heavily armed. Get the civvies out of here,
now!”

A little more of the
dust cleared to give him a better view of the artefact and the
level of destruction caused by the soldiers. The bomb that had been
dropped had completely covered the dig site with rubble so that it
looked little different to the rest of the area around it. There
was no sign of the dead or the destroyed vehicles, as they were all
now buried beneath tonnes of rock. The soldier, on the other hand,
looked bizarre. His armour was of a similar colour to the rock
itself. It stood slightly taller than Spartan, but that could
easily have been the suit. The other two were now stood alongside
him and dressed in the same gear. Gun rested his blade on his
shoulder and turned his head to Spartan.

“So what happens now?” he asked
sarcastically.

The soldier started
to move forward and then stopped, something seemingly to have
caught his attention. He looked around, turning his gaze to the
sky. The other two soldiers did the same. Spartan considered
jumping in and striking them, but there was something about their
behaviour, apart from not attacking him, that suggested they were
not quite as they appeared.

“
Spartan!” came back
the transmission from
Issac
Ocano.

“
We’ve got something
coming down from orbit. Transmissions from the fleet say a vessel
has entered New Charon and is blockading the Spacebridge back to
Prometheus. The signal is broken, but it looks like there’s a
shooting war going on up there.”

Spartan shook his
head, but for some reason, he didn’t feel particularly surprised.
He turned to his left to see Teresa stood there, looking right back
at him. She looked worried. In fact, her expression was much more
serious than that.

“
Jack,”
s
he said quietly.

Spartan’s heart almost skipped at the
mention of his son’s name.

“Uh, Spartan, look!” said Gun.

Spartan followed his
gaze and quickly identified the glowing shape of a superheated
object dropping out of orbit. No sooner had it levelled off before
three much smaller vessels gave chase. Spartan didn’t recognise any
of them, but it was clear they weren’t friends. The largest of the
four seemed to split up into smaller components. Each of them moved
apart and turned in the direction of the valley leading to the
artefact. The pursuing craft fired a variety of weapons at the
targets, but in just seconds two had vaporised, leaving the third
to turn and desperately try to escape. The pursued turned to the
pursuer, chasing it relentlessly until finally striking it with
continuous gunfire.

“”
I don’t like
this,” said Spartan. “We need to fall back. They’re coming this
way.”

With that, he took a
few steps back from the soldiers. One of them spotted his movement
and watched him move away. The soldier tapped the side of his
helmet and the front lifted up and into the back of the armour,
revealing a pale white, almost alabaster looking face. A face that
was female and definitely human. The soldier spoke, but her
language was completely alien to him. He was about to lift his hand
in confusion when the rough synthesised sound of the soldier’s suit
started speaking.

“We...danger, must leave…follow!”

Her visor clamped
back shut, hiding her face as before. The soldier extended her
right hand, exposing a control unit on her arm. She tapped three
buttons, and a gentle rumble started from her left. Spartan glanced
in the direction of the sound to see a sliding door expose a tunnel
under the ground. The entrance was at least the height of the
Jötnar and wide enough for three of them to stand abreast. It was
no simple door either. As the three soldiers ran over to the hole
in the ground, it was clear the outer layer was almost half a metre
thick and plated with multiple sections on the inside. The three
disappeared inside, leaving just Spartan and his team to await the
arrival of the other vessels. The female soldier moved back and
looked towards Spartan.

“
They come for
us...follow,
” and with that she was
gone.

Spartan connected back to the
Bulldog.

“Issac, what’s your status?”

The reply was rough, probably from the
jostling and jumping about as the Bulldog made its way back to the
base.

“
We’re almost back
to the ridge. Team Bravo has already left with two engineer teams,
and they’re halfway back. My sensors show those craft are coming
down to land. They’re after you with a purpose, old
friend.”

Teresa grabbed Spartan’s shoulder.

“
We have to get back
to the camp. If we wait any...” The whistle of missiles from the
approaching vessels cut her off. Now that they were closer, they
could see the craft were almost the size of Alliance transports and
heavily armed. The missiles slammed into the positions around the
retreating engineers, and at least one struck Issac Ocano’s Bulldog
as it continued its final struggle up the ridge. Gun grabbed
Spartan and threw him inside the hatch, and the others all rushed
to follow. As Teresa reached it, another volley of missiles
exploded around them, and she was thrown full force to the ground.
She blacked out, but not before she spotted the hatch starting to
close. The last thing she saw was movement outside, then
blackness.

Titan, the old moon of
Saturn
saw new life with the creation of
the Interstellar Network. The moon had been settled for centuries,
but its standing as the first among many colonies gave it an almost
mythical reputation. As the development of the Old Solar System
began, so did the interest and pilgrimages to what was considered
by some to be the spiritual home of those who had left Earth for a
new life. Titan became to the Alliance what the Holy Lands had been
for Western Civilisation on Earth.

The Lost World

Jack was the first to
reach the
port side weapons array on
board the stricken frigate. It had taken almost fifteen minutes to
get there, but luckily, they’d managed to avoid running into any
hostile forces or problems. That was at least, until they
approached the large metal blast door that led into the
compartment. Not only was it shut, but was mechanically sealed from
the inside.

“We’ve got a problem,” said Jack in a
dour tone.

Wictred pulled himself into position
around the door, jamming his body to the wall so that he could
exert as much effort as possible onto the lever. He groaned as he
used every ounce of strength to try and force it, to no avail. He
loosened his hold and looked back to Jack.

“It’s locked.”

Jack shook his head at his old
friend.

“You don’t say.”

Anne tapped her hand on the thick metal
three times and then called out.

“Is there anybody there? This is Nurse
Anne Fitzgerald. We need to come in.”

A dull clanging sound issued from the
other side, and in one slow movement, the door slid open. Wictred
moved to the opening, only to stop himself at the sight of three
rifle barrels.
Jack lifted his hands and placed
them in front of his friend.

“
He’s with us.
W
e’re from APS Corporation.”

“Get in here, fast!” said a gruff voice
from in the shadows.

Jack moved in first,
and the other three followed right behind him. As soon as they made
it inside, the great metal door slammed shut behind them. A gentle
glow from the far corner showed up the shapes of the marines hiding
behind what cover they could find.

“Who’s in charge here?” demanded
Jack.

A shape moved closer until a squat
looking man wearing half of his PDS armour stood just half a metre
to his front.

“Lieutenant Veeranki, ship’s security.
What the hell are you doing on my ship? The order to evacuate has
already been given.”

“
No shit!” said the
marine that had come with them. “We are all that’s left. What are
you doing holed up in here?”

The
L
ieutenant seemed to soften at the sight
of one of his own.

“
The lifeboat isn’t
functioning properly. We’ve got a Navy tech guy working on it, but
he reckons another thirty minutes before the system his workaround
is in place. You know what’s going on here?”

Jack looked to
Wictred, who seemed to have little interest in contributing to the
conversation. It was one of those peculiarities of the Jötnar.
Although they were interested in battle and adventure, they rarely
said anything unless they had something genuinely to contribute. It
was both a benefit and a curse, and right now, Jack would have
liked to hear something from his friend. His attention was drawn to
Anne. She was moving about, speaking quietly to the other marines.
Even in this situation, she seemed more interested in doing her
job. At least one of them was badly in need of some help, with two
arm wounds.

Maybe it’s just keeping her busy.

He looked back to
the m
arine.

“
There’s a fleet of
ships out there, and they are attacking Alliance vessels. I don’t
know what they want, but negotiation doesn’t seem to be at the top
of the list.”

He pointed back to the door.

“They have a ship running abeam and had
troops move inside to disable us.”

A head appeared from
the entrance to the lifeboat. It was a much older looking man in
grubby overalls, and the interior lighting of the lifeboat backlit
him neatly.