Slaves of Hyperion (Star Crusades Uprising, Book 6) (30 page)

The pilot returned to his own screen but continued speaking as he made adjustments. His co-pilot checked the ground below them with advanced passive imaging gear, but even this low, the thick atmosphere and mist made it very difficult.

“We’ll be under their radar in just over a minute, and then it’s the quick burn to the landing site.”

Spartan hoped beyond hope they weren’t too late. He was well aware that just surviving on a foreign world was hard enough without potential enemies to account for.

“Any sign of survivors yet?”

“Nothing yet, I am picking up a tracking station near the suspected weapon sites. It’s good gear but not likely to pick us up now at this height. There’s something else as well.”

Spartan swallowed, expecting the worst.

“What?”

“It’s the power levels. They are off the charts. There’s no way they need this level of energy to power up their tracking or weapon systems. There’s something else down there, Sir.”

“Yes, I don’t doubt it. Just get us near the signal source as quickly and quietly as you can.”

The man nodded and carried on with the low-level flight procedures. From the small windows, Spartan could see very little except the thick haze and water droplets covering the toughened glass. He turned and looked back to his team.

“Don’t forget the air. Initial assessments show a higher than normal level of nitrogen. It’s breathable, but only just. Use the rebreather on your suits as much as possible.”

Khan laughed.

“What?” Spartan asked.

“Where’s my rebreather?” he asked.

Spartan looked at his friend and realised he’d completely forgotten to ensure the
Jötnar
were equipped for the atmospheric conditions below.

Damn it!
He thought angrily.

“Don’t worry, we’ll manage,” he said without a second’s doubt.

The craft bumped and jostled as they settled into a low-level course over the treetops. Both the craft and the pilots were the best the Alliance had to offer, and even Khan seemed impressed at their skill. It didn’t take long for them to cover the distance to the landing zone. Spartan spotted the dark grey shapes of the two craft following behind them.

“Twenty seconds, we’re coming in over the river. I’ll put her down in that clearing.” said the pilot.

No sooner had they started the landing procedure than the starboard side windows lit up bright yellow. A light patter like rain ran along the body, and then they were within a hundred metres.

“Sensors picking up signs of movement, heat signature...what the!”

The shuttle shook as the pilot tried to manoeuvre, but it was much too late. Something heavy struck one of the movable engine pods, and the shuttle was heading down. It was a testament to the skill of the pilots that they managed to bring it down in one piece. They struck the riverbank hard and came to a stop in the mud. The doors hissed open, and as per usual, Spartan was up and out. Instead of stepping into a crash site, he found himself in the middle of a battle.

What have they gotten themselves into?

Directly in front of him was a very basic wooden fortification that must have been about the size of a sports field. Three of its sides faced the thick jungle while a much lower palisade protected the water edge. Inside were stacks of boxes, tents, shelters and the stripped remains of what looked like an escape shuttle or lifeboat. Scores of people were positioned on or near the high wooden walls and were blasting away with Alliance issue firearms. Khan stepped beside him, and the other five spread out into a firing line, scanning for signs of hostiles. Sergeant Kowalski moved to the cockpit to check on the status of the pilots. Khan looked briefly at the sounds of battle then back to Spartan.

“Looks like we came to the right place!” said a happy sounding Khan.

“Yeah, come on, we need to find out what the hell is going on here.”

They sprinted further into the compound and skirted off to the left where a group of Navy crew were carrying a box of ammunition to the fence. One of them spotted him and stopped.

“Sir? Lieutenant Spartan?” he asked incredulously.

Spartan had no idea who he was, but they were obviously friendly. The uniform was of the old Confederate Navy pattern but that meant little. He was only too familiar with the problems of units, uniforms and logistics since the end of the War and the forming of the Alliance. He reached out and grabbed the shaken looking man by the shoulder.

“Who is in charge here?” he asked.

The man looked up to the barricade and the silhouetted shapes above them. Flashes of orange and yellow light lit them from behind. As Spartan watched, a stream of bullets rip through the wood and cut down a marine who tumbled back and to the floor.

“The General...General Rivers,” he stuttered.

Rivers!

“To me!” he shouted and ran to a pile of crates and boxes that gave access to the fighting platform. He couldn’t make it all the way to the top, as his bulk in the Vanguard armour and the weak construction of the platform and the barrier, would have easily tossed him back to the ground. He reached a high enough vantage point so that he could see out and towards the commotion outside the compound. Hordes of people were rushing to the defences but being cut to ribbons by accurate rifle fire. It was the sight of the mechanical beasts that shook him.

“What the hell is that?” he shouted while simultaneously lifting his right arm. Built into his suit was a pair of linked L48 rifles, the standard weapon used by most marines. It fired a standard 12.7mm round equipped with an integral proximity mode on the bullets. The rifle normally carried a magazine of twenty rounds of variable operation ammunition. These state of the art bullets could be set to explode at a certain distance or when they reached the proximity of their target. He aimed at the nearest of the machines and opened fire. Both barrel flashes away and the gyrostalisied mount gave him near perfect sustained fire accuracy. The rounds embedded into the metal frame and then exploded. Each of the rounds tore chunks of metal and wiring away, yet still the machines pushed onwards.

“Spartan?” shouted a familiar voice.

He fired a few more shots before spotting a dark shape rushing along the parapet towards him. His gut reaction was self-defence, and he swung out his left arm and activated the dual weapons. Luckily Khan grabbed the metal of his arm and pushed it up, so the rounds fired away harmlessly and avoided cutting the now visible shape of Teresa into a bloodied corpse.

“Watch your aim!” he growled and then joined the others on the firing line.

“Teresa?” replied Spartan in surprise. He’d hoped, even prayed she had been there, but it had never occurred to him he would find her so fast and in such a violent and dangerous situation. She leapt forward and landed just a metre away. They were both in armoured suits, and all she could do was open her visor and smile at him.

“I knew you’d come.”

Spartan nodded grimly.

“Yeah, our timing is always great, isn’t it? What’s happening?”

Teresa looked back to where she had been stood. The armoured shape of General Rivers and a handful of marines fired away into the enemy forces. Alongside them was the bullet-ridden form of an improvised Alliance flag. The General looked over and saw Khan and then Spartan below him. He turned and lifted his visor.

“About damned time you got here! Tell me you brought friends?”

As if in answer to his question, the two additional shuttles flew overhead. Each performed a quick circle while the now extended pintle mounted coilguns blazed away at the enemy machines. The nearest came in to land while the final shuttle performed a final strafing run before setting down in a space being hastily cleared by Navy crewmen.

“We have a ten-ship taskforce in orbit. Once the guns are down, we can have five companies on the ground. Gun is up there, and he’s itching to land.”

General Rivers clenched his fist with pleasure and jumped down from his fighting position to grasp the armoured fist of Spartan’s Vanguard armour. In his battered PDS armour, he looked half the size of Spartan.

“Dammed glad to see you again. Tell me everything.”

The great battle for the Titan Naval Station has been considered one of the most audacious battles in the Corps’ history. Outnumbered and attacked on all sides, the men and women of the Marine Corps recaptured the heavily defended base in the middle of a bloody and costly space battle. It was the first great victory in the War but also provided a much-needed base from which to coordinate the war effort. The victories of the Proxima system, and the eventual fall of Terra Nova, could never have happened without this first heroic success.

Great Battles of the Confederate Marine Corps

Spartan and Teresa stood opposite General Rivers who was busy pulling up the detailed maps the scouts had formed in the last week. It had been weeks they’d been apart, prior to Spartan heading for Terra Nova. Even so, their personal lives came second right now with the sound of battle ever present on the hostile world of Hyperion. Since the arrival of the last two shuttles, the fighting had died down, but there were still sporadic bursts of gunfire. Captain Carlos emerged from the entrance. He stopped in front of the General and saluted.

“Sir, the enemy forces are withdrawing.”

General Rivers nodded grimly.

“Good, what about those machines?”

Captain Carlos shook his head.

“One is still in action. We damaged it. By all accounts it should be on the ground in pieces. It is leading the retreat. We calculate they must have around a hundred troops still left, and most of those must be injured.”

He turned to Spartan and reached out to shake his hand.

“So glad you arrived when you did. Your
Jötnar
Khan led a counter-assault at the breached wall. I’ve never seen one in action before. Sure changed my opinion of them, just wish we had a few more.”

Spartan nodded ever so slightly.

“Yeah, that’s usually the way. We have five companies up there, including Gun and a small force of
Jötnar
.”

“We need them down here, so what’s the plan General?”

General Rivers looked at the three of them and back to his maps for a few more seconds. He lifted his right hand and scratched his eyebrow as he thought. Spartan could see he was conflicted, and the frailty of their position was clear for all of them to see. Even when he had landed, the enemy were pressing the walls and had forced a number of breaches with heavy weapons. Another similar sized assault might succeed. If they attacked in greater numbers, it would be over...and fast. General Rivers understood this, and Spartan suspected this was where his reticence rested.

“You haven’t seen the intelligence Sergeant Morato and her team recovered. You don’t have time to study it, so I’ll give you the short version. From what we can ascertain, there is a structure here that has been in position for up to the last two hundred years. Apart from a large number of ruins, there are a series of power sources, each connected to a central hub that is heavily guarded.”

He handed Spartan a datapad containing a series of images of the site. It had been annotated by the engineers in the compound; along with estimated power signatures and enemy strength.

“Who are these people?” asked Spartan, pointing at the dark shapes around the structures.

“Workers, prisoners...maybe slaves. We don’t know, other than they are subservient to both the Zealots we can see and those machines. The central dome appears to be protected by magnetic shielding. At least that’s what the readings suggest.”

Spartan looked less than impressed with the information.

“Okay. But what is this site being used for? Apart from the danger of them attacking here, what is the time critical problem here?”

General Rivers brought up the images from the ruins that Teresa had returned.

“Recognise this?” he asked.

Spartan looked carefully at the images, each one showed an object or series of objects, some of which appeared very familiar. He stopped at the fourth one.

“The Spacebridge?”

General Rivers shrugged and showed him a shattered stone with what looked like a diagram; lines connected a number of circles. It meant nothing to him. He looked back to General Rivers and lifted his eyebrows.