Legions of Orion (Star Crusades Nexus, Book 1) (31 page)

“Where is everybody?” asked Anne.

Wictred ripped open the entrance to
another compartment to find it was empty, like most of the others.
He snorted and pulled himself further inside. Jack followed close
behind and threw just a brief look back to Anne.

“They’re gone. Looks like the crew just
went for the lifeboats and jumped ship.”

She shook her head in horror.

“No...they would never abandon the
wounded and our staff like that.”

She tried to sound sure of herself, but
it was clear that the poor woman was already doubting the
integrity of the ship’s
crew.
They continued on through section after section, each time
doing their best to avoid the debris, broken pieces of plastic and
the drifting bodies of those killed. Nothing compared to when they
reached the medical laboratory though, where seven of the crew spun
aimlessly about the place. All of them suffered multiple puncture
wounds. Jack and Wictred moved about, looking for signs of what
might have happened to them. Anne, meanwhile, examined the bodies.
After checking the first, she started to wretch and had to wait for
a few seconds to calm down.

“Who did this to them?” she said
bitterly.

Jack was already at
one of the computer units, but nothing he did seemed to help. The
screen was black, and even the battery backups did nothing, other
than light a few status indicators.

“
Everything is out,”
h
e announced, pulling himself around the
unit to check the cables.

Anne stayed where
she was but glanced about the place. There was no sign of power or
life, other than their small group and the low level battery
powered lights fitted at fixed intervals through the ship. She
looked down at a device on her arm. It was a medical secpad with
built-in atmosphere and biological monitoring sensors.

“
We need to get out
of here before the air runs out,” she shouted in a hurry. “My
secpad says the oxygen levels are already dropping.”

Jack looked back to her.

“
Life support is out
then. T
his ship is toast. If we stay,
they’ll find us.”

Something major
shook the ship, and they were all forced to grab anything nearby to
stop drifting about inside the room. Wictred spotted something and
pulled himself across the width of the room to a series of wheels
near the wall. He braced himself and started to twist the largest
of the wheels. With each turn, the metal safety shutters started to
lift. Four full evolutions, and he had opened it almost a metre.
The three of them watched in awe at what was happening outside of
the frigate. A large, but crudely constructed vessel, lay alongside
it. It bristled with plating and what seemed to be weapon turrets.
The shape was impossible to determine at that distance, as the
great bulk blotted out much of the view.

“Whose ship is that?” asked Anne.

Jack shook his head.

“Uh, that isn’t an Alliance ship.”

As if to emphasise
the point, a flight of Lightning fighters moved past on the left.
As they came closer to the ship, a number of projectiles streaked
towards them from one of the dozens of turrets and picked them
apart. All four were totally destroyed in seconds.

“
They aren’t
friendly. L
et’s go! I’ve got an idea!”
said Wictred. The Jötnar pulled himself out of the room and into
one of the many identical looking service corridors. These were
smaller than the main corridors of the ship but did lead to a
greater number of places. Jack pulled as hard as he could to catch
up with his friend.

“Mind sharing your plan?” he asked.

Anne followed
quickly behind them with speed that surprised them both. Wictred
didn’t stop, and Jack was forced to chase him, just to hear what he
had to say.

“
The loading bay up
there. I
t faces that ship.”

“So?” asked Jack.

Wictred finally
stopped, facing his friend with a wry smile.

“I say we board her!”

Jack looked in Wictred’s face and saw a
mixture of excitement of nerves.

Board her, you crazy bastard!

He looked at
Anne, who was waiting patiently, and then into
the corridor. He shook his head as he returned his gaze to the
Jötnar.

“There has to be another way?”

Wictred pulled himself a few more
metres before replying.

“Life support is gone and so are the
lifeboats. There are suits and weapons in the loading bay. We get
there, suit up and leave. Either we wait in space to be found, or
we attack them. Let’s go, now!”

With that, he was
gone, leaving Jack to wonder how they would board and attack a ship
the size of which even he didn’t yet know. Anne grabbed his
shoulder.

“
Is he mad? That
ship has crippled an Alliance frigate. We can’t board
it!”

Jack guffawed.

“
Really? You’ve
never met Jötnar before, I assume?”

A terrifying howl
echoed through the innards of the ship, and Jack knew immediately
it was the sound of sheer terror. He’d only heard it a few times in
his life, and each time he’d wanted to move away from it, not
closer. He grabbed a handrail and pushed out through the hallway
and into the corridor. The screaming instantly increased in volume,
and he almost ran into the bloodied nurse before coming to a stop.
A marine pulled at a hastily applied bandage on his shoulder and
blazed away down the corridor with his carbine at some dark shape.
Jack reached him and moved to the woman to check her injuries. She
was breathing quickly and lost consciousness. Anne followed close
behind, pushing him out of the way to see what she could
do.

“
Who the hell are
you?” snapped the marine.

“
Jack, Anne,
Wictred,” h
e answered quickly, pointing
to each of his tiny band.

“Can you shoot?” he asked, completely
disinterested in what Jack had to say.

Jack reached down to the spare carbine
on the ground, lifted it and removed the safety.

“Yeah, I’ve fired a few shots. What
happened here?”

The
m
arine checked his carbine, adjusted the
power setting and continued.

“
We were hit in
three places on the starboard side. It was a boarding craft of some
type. They smashed through the armour, and then these soldiers came
aboard. They took out the power, engines and weapons in less than
two minutes.”

Wictred seemed especially interested in
the last bit.

“Soldiers? Whose soldiers?”

The
m
arine looked at the oversized Jötnar
with disdain before answering.

“
I don’t know. They
were heavily armoured, like marines but bulkier and stronger. Their
weapons cut through our armour like tissue paper.”

Anne sighed and moved away from the
bloodied and now motionless nurse.

“She’s gone, her injuries, they
were...”

Jack placed a hand on her shoulder.

“
It’s okay, there’s
nothing you could do. We need to save whoever is left. Right now,
that looks like just the four of us.”

The
m
arine grabbed Jack’s arm and pulled him
down to his face.

“
It wasn’t just
them
, though. They had a machine with
them as well. It was like a mechanical spider or crab, or
something. It was bigger than a man and thickly armoured. I’ve
never seen anything like it. It was horrible, and its legs had
blades. I saw three of my men butchered by them before we got to
this point.”

Jack looked to
Wictred who nodded slowly. The description matched some of the
details of machines that had appeared briefly on Hyperion before
the Rift had been destroyed.

“
There’s something
else,” the marine said seriously.

“
What?” Anne
asked.

“The machine, it...well, it looked like
it was giving the orders.”

Jack, Anne and
Wictred looked at each other. It didn’t take Wictred long for him
to pull his heavy looking blade from his belt and start moving
along the corridor.

“
Hey, where are you
going?” shouted the marine.

Wictred ignored him,
so it fell to Jack to explain.

“
We’re heading to
the loading deck. Going to grab gear and leave the
ship.”

The
m
arine almost choked in amusement at the
idea. It wasn’t easy to make out his expression, but his tone was
clear enough.

“
Forget it, the
landing bay is gone,” he said grimly. “I would probably have done
the same, but one of their craft took it out. Where do you think
they attacked from?”

Jack sighed, and
even Wictred appeared to have noticed because he slowed down and
finally stopped.

“
If you’re serious,
there’s only one way of this ship now. The port side weapons array
is undamaged. Since this ship was converted to medical use, the
weapons were taken out and replaced with stores and all kinds of
medical junk. Behind that section are two lifeboats. They were for
the gun crews and engineers, and that’s why nobody went for them,
simply because this old bird doesn’t have any gunners anymore. My
squad was heading that way when we ran into their
soldiers.”

Jack didn’t need much more
encouragement and called out to Wictred.

“
G
et back here. We’re going for the port side weapons
array.”

Wictred looked at him but didn’t
move.

“Where is it?” he asked
suspiciously.

Anne pulled at the
m
arine’s arm and helped drag him out of
the room.

“
I know the way!”
she called out and disappeared out of the door.

* * *

Spartan pulled on the
control column as hard as he could, but it was too late. The broken
gravel and rock had loosened to such an extent that he finally lost
control, and the Bulldog started to slip down the steep embankment.
As they slid down, they could make out a rough ridge, and beyond
that a steep incline that ran down to the artefact and the dig
site. Swirls of smoke drifted up into the sky from the already
burning vehicles.

“Crap! Hold on!” he shouted.

They increased
speed, and only Spartan’s steady hand stopped them from tumbling
over. The reduced gravity made it harder to control, and each time
they left the ground, it seemed they might never come back down. It
seemed like an age, but was in reality less than ten seconds until
they reached the bottom. The chin of the vehicle crunched into the
rock with a screeching sound. It would have knocked the passengers
unconscious if they hadn’t been strapped in with the magnetic
couplings. The bumping and shaking stopped as quickly as it had
started, and they all stared at the multitude of video displays
fitted inside. They were surrounded by dust, but the scanners had
already identified where they were, using the IFF gear fitted to
every APS operative. Khan thumped Spartan in the back.

“
Good driving,
Spartan. We’re in the right place.”

Teresa unlocked her
harness first and moved to the nearest doorway. Her close fitting
armour looked almost identical to the gear she’d worn back in the
Marine Corps, and Spartan noted that she moved just the same as
well.

So the
working out wasn’t a total waste of time
, then!
He thought to
himself.

Gun hit the release
button on his magnetic coupling and leapt from his seat and towards
the left-hand door. Without checking with Spartan, he struck the
button, and the door ripped open with a hissing sound. Gun was out
first with his weapon in his hand, and closely followed by Khan and
the rest of the team. Spartan and Teresa looked at each other and
then chased after them. Once on the exit ramp, Spartan looked back
at Issac Ocano who was still managing the disparate units about the
dig site.

“
I’ve got this,
Spartan. I’m bringing in two support drones to assist you. Get the
rest to fall back here. I’ll establish a defensive perimeter while
you secure the dig site. We’ve got more help on the
way.”

Spartan nodded,
impressed with his cool handling of the situation. Technically,
Spartan should have stayed back, but his skills had always been in
the execution of operations, not the management of them. Issac
Ocano might be a ruthless fighter, but he was also a quick-thinking
commander and extremely cool under pressure, exactly what was
needed in a tricky situation like this one. Two APS operatives
moved from the right-hand side of the vehicle and carried an
automated sentry turret between them. As soon as they placed it on
the ground, a set of six legs extended out and embedded in the
ground. A gyroscopic head lifted out from the middle and then
waited. It was one of the newer pieces of equipment the APS
Corporation was trialling, and for just a moment, Spartan’s
professional interest almost took his attention from the mission.
But his focus was strong enough that he turned back to his
team.

“
Spread out!” he
called, and the group increased their spacing. They were only a few
hundred metres from the target; a large crater-shaped dig site that
lay before them. Multiple vehicles were burning, and Spartan could
see at least three bodies near the crater itself. A number of
personnel were climbing up one of the further ridges to escape, but
most were following the commands of Issac Ocano and working up to
the craggy ridge where the Bulldog waited patiently. A motorised
turret on the top of the vehicle moved silently with its dual L52
Mark II Assault carbines tracking the horizon; only its movement
catching Spartan’s attention. A blast struck near a small group,
and dark sharps darted about.