Legions of Orion (Star Crusades Nexus, Book 1) (35 page)

“Listen!” barked Gun.

Spartan could hear nothing, but he
understood the senses of the Jötnar and had grown to trust them
without hesitation.

“Get ready!” called out Teresa, and
once more they lifted their weapons for battle.

But
t
his time the sound was different. The
sound of hundreds of feet was replaced by dull thuds and grinding
sounds. Teresa wasn’t sure, but Khan and Spartan knew what was
coming.

“Get back, it’s machines!”

On cue, the damaged
entrance ripped open and in walked one of the eight-legged
machines, just like those Jack and Wictred had discovered long
dormant. They surged forward in a rush as gunfire licked around
them. Five more entrances ripped open, and more of the machines
broke through, closely followed by scores of the
T'Kari
looking enemies. One of the machines managed to
reach the temple, cutting down a
T'Kari
guard before Spartan and Khan jumped at it. Khan embedded
his blade into its torso, and Spartan jammed his barrel against the
thing’s back, blasting it with continuous gunfire. It flailed and
struggled before collapsing but managing to shred Spartan’s carbine
at the same time.

“
Spartan, over
here!” shouted Gun as he continued blasting away. With his free
arm, he withdrew one of the primitive looking slightly curved
blades and tossed it over to him. A
Jötnar
could swing it with one hand, but it took both for Spartan
to swing the three kilogram weapon with speed and precision. Like a
tidal wave, the enemy surged over them, and all the defenders could
do was shoot, hack and stab for all they were worth.

*
* *

Captain Thomas
watched the approaching ships with trepidation. He’d given as much
ground as he dared to them
but any closer
to ANS Beagle, and they could simply ignore him and attack the
station. Deep down, he worried they would do that anyway. It was
not like a ground or even an ocean based battle. Ship ranges were
almost irrelevant in space, as were the gaps between ships. His
plan was a simple one. He would put on one hell of a show to
distract them, and hope he looked more hostile and dangerous than
he actually was. Either way, it was a matter of minutes now before
he would find out.

“Sir, our weapon arrays are in range.
From their current course and velocity, it looks like they are
ignoring us and heading directly for the Spacebridge,” explained
the Tactical Officer.

Damn,
he thought. That was the
news he had been dreading.

“We cannot let them get past us. Send
the word to Captain Vinson. I want his air group in action.”

He then turned slightly to Lieutenant
Jesse Powalk, the Tactical Officer.

“I want their attention, get it for
me!”

“Aye, Sir!”

Unlike her sister
ships, ANS Devastation was equipped with the latest particle beam
direct-energy weapons. As they opened fire, the crew were surprised
to see red streaks of energy as they bounced and reflected off the
dust and gas that was prevalent in this sector, especially around
the gas giant. The parallel beams struck the first heavily armoured
ship directly on the bow section, but appeared to show no
discernible effect.

“Status?” called out Captain Thomas
nervously.

“
It’s taking time,
Sir. The weapons are burning through her hull. I don’t know what
they make those ships out of, but it is layered and very
thick.”

The optical scopes
had magnified the lead three enemy ships so that they filled the
mainscreen. The two red beams seemed to been locked onto the bow of
the first ship for an age before a series of explosions started a
quarter the way along her hull from the bow; quickly followed by
ripples and flashes. Then the bow tore off with a mighty flash,
sending broken metal and debris around the vessel.

“Yes!” cried the XO before quickly
calming down. Even so, the cheer of excitement through the bridge
quickly spread.

“
Good work,”
a
nnounced the Captain. “I think that will
get their attention.”

He was answered in
the simplest of fashion as four of the ships made subtle changes in
their course direction. Flashes of light ran along their hulls,
followed quickly by the emergency alarms inside the
bridge.

“Alert, incoming warheads!” announced
the computer.

There was no time
for the officers to give orders. The computer had already told them
all they needed to know. In just three seconds, the hypersonic
projectiles slammed into the port side of the ship with terrible
effect. The massive warship shuddered from hundreds of impacts, and
alarms blared on multiple screens.

“
One powerplant
off-line, breaches on six levels. Those are powerful weapons, Sir,”
said
Lieutenant Powalk
.

“
Take us
closer.
I want every defensive turret
online and firing. I don’t care how much damage we cause, just keep
as many of them busy as you can.”

The great ship
shifted a few degrees until the four enemy ships and ANS
Devastation became locked in a bloody close-ranged battle of
kinetic and particle beam weaponry. The turrets of the Alliance
ship were designed for stopping fighters or missiles, but on this
occasion they sent thousands of projectiles at the ships. The
damage was minimal, but they did cause minor damage on all four
ships.

It wasn’t just the
capital ships that were busy in the battle; as at the same time,
the squadron of Lightning MK II fighters entered the fray. The
group of agile fighters split apart and loosed off their Sea Skua
missiles at two of the ships. All missiles impacted, with the enemy
ships appearing to make little, or no use of countermeasures of
defensive systems. Unfortunately, they struggled to penetrate the
thickly layered armour and did little more than blast great hole in
their flanks. Even so, one more pass by the Alliance warship put
her in position behind the hostile vessels. Another long burst of
particle-beam fire, and she was left as a burning hulk from the
inside out. The particle beam emitted by the ship had the potential
to release over a gigajoule of kinetic energy, at speeds
approaching the speed of a light. Tests had shown the weapon should
negate any realistic means of defending a target, providing the
power and focus could be maintained. The explosive impact of the
particle beam had the capacity to literally explode the target upon
impact. With one ship down, it was starting to look like ANS
Devastation might be more than capable of fighting off the enemy.
That was until they were finally able to face their flanks to the
gallant ship.

“
Captain, they’re
building up power. S
omething is coming!”
cried
Lieutenant Powalk.

The crew did their best to manoever
past the enemy ships, but it was too little too late. Two of the
heavily armoured warships unleashed a volley of much lower powered
direct-energy weapons. The effect was very different to the weapons
on ANS Devastation but was equally terrible. Streaks of blue matter
blasted from their flanks and slammed into the much thinner hull of
the Alliance ship. Each round ripped through the outer skin and
proceeded to burn slowly through several metres before coming to a
halt.

More alarms triggered inside the ship,
but incredibly, none had reached the main crew areas or the
powerplants. Even so, the alarms warned of hull breaches and losses
of power to a number of minor systems. Captain Thomas paced back
and forth as he checked each of the stations and encouraged them
on. At this range, he had to rely on their training and reactions,
and so far he could find nothing to fault.

“Captain, the port emitter has
overheated. We’re down to just one,” explained Lieutenant Powalk
bitterly.

“Just use what you have, Lieutenant,
and bring us around to burn a hole in the closest ship.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but a
great shudder threw most of the crew about and to the floor. The
mainscreen split down the middle, and a number of screens stopped
working altogether. Emergency alarms activated, and jets of steam
and gas burst in at least seven locations. Captain Thomas picked
himself up and looked over to the XO.

“What the hell was that?”

“Unknown, Sir, it came from the lead
warship. Our main engines show as out of action, and the particle
beam capacitors have overloaded. We’re dead in the water.”

As if to emphaises the point, another
three volleys of weapons fire crashed into the hull, sending a
flurry of damage reports and warnings about the remaining
computers.

“Your orders, Sir?” asked the XO.

Captain Thomas pulled one of the
smaller screens closer, so he could get an external view of the
battle. One enemy ship was gone, and a second was burning about its
centre section. But there were still four remaining, and he knew
where they would go next. Right now, though, they were moving into
position to protect the damaged ship from the cloud of turret fire
still pouring from ANS Devastation’s close in weapon systems. All
of the remaining ships were now moving on the same linear course to
ANS Beagle. It looked almost as if they were in a running race to
the finish, but in reality, they were all in the deceleration
stages so that they could move into position around the target,
rather than fly right past it. That was what gave Captain Thomas an
idea.

“Helm, we still have maoeveringing
thrusters, do we not?”

He was greeted with a quick nod.

“Good. Get me closer to the ship
protecting the damaged vessel.”

The XO walked over to him and leaned
close to his ear.

“Sir, what are you thinking?”

Captain Thomas just smiled back.

“I mean to use our last remaining asset
against them.”

The XO looked confused. Their fighters
were engaged, their main engines and weapons were off-line, and
their only offensive system was either the small-calibre point
defence grid or the bulk of the ship itself.
Another volley of gunfire tore into the warship, causing
even more breaches.

“
Captain,
powerplants are fluctuating, and we have containments breaches. I’m
evacuating the entire level!” announced the Chief
Engineer.

Captain Thomas
didn’t seem particularly concerned. He was well aware their options
were limited and that ANS Devastation was facing her final minutes.
Instead, he made direct contact with
Lt Colonel Maria
Barnett
, the commander of his embarked marine
unit. Her image appeared but crackled with digital distortion as
more gunfire rained down on them.

“Colonel, your marines, are they
ready?”

“
Aye, Sir, armoured
and waiting.”

“
Good,
t
o your boats, Colonel. I want you to
board the two nearest ships.”

“Sir?” she asked in surprise.

The warship shuddered from yet another
powerful blast.

“
Colonel, we don’t
have much time. Split your teams and hit both ships. Do what you
can. We’ll cover you with as much point-defence fire as we can
muster.”

The Colonel saluted
smartly;
painfully aware her mission was
almost certainly a suicide run. The video cut, but the status
indicators on the computer showed the landing craft and shuttles
were already primed and moving into the launch bays at the rear.
Captain Thomas watched as the first craft moved away from the ship
amid streams of fire and flashes of energy.

“Tactical, protect our people!”

* * *

The view from the boarding shuttle was
one of destruction and carnage. The group of ships were still
travelling together like a shoal of fish. Lt Colonel Maria Barnett
could see the grey hulk of ANS Devastation nestled between the
crude but thickly armoured enemy warships. Like a battle from
Earth’s eighteenth century, they continued to blast each other with
powerful broadsides. The Alliance ship was taking the worst of it,
and she spotted at least seven major fires as the gallant ship
burned from the inside. She tore her eyes away from the crippled
vessel and to her target. She’d sent one company to the damaged
ship, but she was heading for the undamaged one that had moved into
position to protect the other from any more fire.

What the hell are we going to find
on that thing
? She wondered.

“Colonel, where do you want to land?”
asked the pilot nervously.

She looked carefully at the design of
the ship. There were many gaps on the hull that gave the impression
of landing bays or docking areas. She couldn’t be certain, but they
didn’t have the time to perform a more thorough examination.

“There!” she said, pointing at the
schematic. “Get us there as fast as you can. C
o-ordinate
with the others. I want maximum
deployment at the landing zone.”

“Understood, Sir.”

She looked at the other marines waiting
patiently in the armoured craft. All wore the general purpose PDS
armoured suits, and in their hands, they cradled their fabled L52
Mark II Assault Carbines.
The enemy vessel
seemed to approach them quickly but, of course, it was the other
way around. At a distance of just fifty metres, she could clearly
see a flat landing area with three small vessels clamped into
place.

“
That’s the spot.
P
ut us down.”

She then hit the Marine Corps open
channel. It was encrypted but went to every marine in her unit.