Sol Shall Rise (The Pike Chronicles Book 1) (24 page)

Successive bangs repeated throughout the shuttle as the locking bolts released the combat suits. In turn, each Marine stood and readied their weapons. The shuttle hovered above its insertion point and a hatch slid open.

“Alright. Single file. When you drop in secure your position and wait for the order to advance,” said Sergeant Henderson.

He had a smaller team of thirty men, while Kevin had seventy. His team would attack the roof of the complex, and work their way down from there. Kevin’s team attacked from the ground. They would likely meet stiffer resistance and needed more firepower. Henderson’s team would rely more on speed, swooping down from above and moving rapidly through the complex.

Each Marine hit the roof and quickly moved to establish a perimeter. Above them three assault shuttles hovered, ready to provide supporting fire if needed. The sergeant’s visor identified a service door as the best point of entry and he ordered his men to advance.

They surrounded the door and he stepped up and tried to open it without success.

“Stanis, get up here and blow a hole through this door.”

“Yes, Sir.” Private Stanis stepped up to the door and the other troopers moved out of the way. Stanis brandished a large shoulder held plasma cannon which he pointed at the door and pulled the trigger.

The cannon blew a large hole in the left side of the door and the door frame. Stanis then lowered the plasma rifle and slammed a heavy boot into what was left of the door. It buckled under the force of the Private’s kick and fell to the side with a screech. Stanis stepped back and two troopers flanked each side pointing their rail guns at the entrance.

Henderson waited for resistance, but no enemy fire came. He carefully peered through the doorway and saw a flight of stairs leading to an opening on the lower level. They would be waiting there.

“Johns, we need eyes in there.”

“Yes, Sir,” said Private Johns. He stepped forward and accessed a compartment on his suit. It opened and a mosquito sized drone flew out. The drone hovered in front of the doorway, tiny in size, almost invisible to anyone who wasn’t specifically looking for it. Johns took remote control of the drone through controls on the arm of his combat suit and sent it down into the opening.

As hoped, the drone entered a large room unnoticed and transmitted a video feed to the Marines’ visors showing a group of Kemmar soldiers waiting to cut down anyone coming down the stairs.

The stairway was wide enough for two troopers to descend at a time. With the enemy waiting down there, they would open fire the moment they saw boots coming down the stairs. Kevin examined the opening at the bottom. There was enough room for two to leap in. They didn’t need to use the stairs. Their combat suits could easily handle a jump from that height.

“Ok, we need to move in fast and hard. No stairs. We jump in two by two. The Kemmar will open fire once they see us but if we move fast enough we should overwhelm them. Patel, and Daniels, you go in first. Stanis and Krukov, you follow right behind them.”

“Yes, Sir.”

With any luck the Kemmar wouldn’t react fast enough to stop them. Speed was vital.

The first two troopers jumped in and rolled as soon as they hit the ground. They immediately started taking fire. Seconds later two more troopers dropped in, and they continued to drop two by two. Each time the Marines rolled as soon as they hit the floor and opened fire while seeking cover.

Henderson watched on his visor as their combat suits took hits, but the defenders seemed confused by the tactic and kept changing targets, shifting fire from one attacker to another. The result was that no trooper took enough fire to cause more than some minor damage.

Patel was the first to take advantage of the confusion jumping out and running for a pillar in the middle of the floor. One of the Kemmar started firing at him but Daniels forced him to stop with his own deadly accurate covering fire. Once Patel took cover behind the pillar he opened fire on the Kemmar positions. Daniels jumped out and ran for a closer position behind some equipment. He took more fire than Patel but made it with only minor damage to his combat suit.

Then it was Stanis and Krukov, who each took turns advancing and gaining ground. Behind them troopers continued to drop in through the stairway. With each soldier’s entry the rate of fire multiplied, offering more cover for the lead soldiers to advance, while more troopers leapfrogged forward.

Henderson hit the ground himself and rolled away to the left while his men continued to lay down covering fire. Red energy bursts still shot out from the defenders but it was more sporadic now as the Marines forced the defenders to keep their heads down.

They were in a relatively large room and from its layout it looked like it was used for large meetings, perhaps presentations, or training. The open room had several supporting columns, equipment and furniture which were now used as cover by his troops.

The defenders had created a makeshift barricade out of some large equipment and had been using it for cover, but the sustained Marine rail gun fire now began shredding it, creating gaps in their defenses.

There were only a handful of Kemmar and they didn’t have enough firepower to defend against Henderson’s Marines. They also didn’t appear to be as well trained and couldn’t exploit any of their early advantages. Soon the advancing troopers overwhelmed them.

As their defenses fell apart a Kemmar stood trying to return fire more effectively. The Marines shot him down so quickly that Henderson was sure he didn’t even have enough time to realize his mistake.

Recognizing the hopelessness of their cause some tried to retreat, but were cut down while fleeing, the Marine rail guns perforating their backs. Surprisingly not one Kemmar surrendered. Death seemed preferable to capture. After the way they treated their prisoners it was no surprise that they expected the same in return.

Eventually all resistance was quashed and the Marines secured the room. There were no fatalities and only minor damage to some of the combat suits.

“Perimeter secured,” said Daniels, who stood at front of the room. Ahead of him was a long corridor.

“Excellent work. Let’s keep moving.”

They raced down the corridor with Henderson leading the way until they reached a corner. There Henderson held up a fist telling everyone to stop.

“Johns, we need eyes around that bend.”

“Coming right up Sarge.”

Johns ordered the mosquito drone to round the corner. It transmitted its video feed to the Marine visors just as before. The video revealed a large energy weapon battery mounted on the ceiling. If any soldier turned that corner they would be cut down the moment they appeared.

Luckily, the gun’s targeting systems didn’t recognize the drone as a target.

“Can you take that gun out?” said Henderson.

“I think so Sarge,” said Johns.

Private Johns carefully maneuvered the drone remotely and it flew closer and closer to the gun, until it landed right on top of it. Once in place the Private Johns sent a destruct command and the drone exploded, destroying the energy weapon right along with it.

The threat safely removed, the troopers turned the corner and raced down the adjoining corridor. This hallway was much tighter than the last and it made for slow going with barely enough room for two troopers at a time. This stretched the group out like a train with multiple cars being pulled down a track.

Henderson knew they had to rely on speed to get through, but his fears were realized when his display showed the troopers in the rear taking fire.

“What the hell is going on back there?” said Henderson.

“Some Kemmar got behind us, Sir,” said Private Martinez from the rear.

“How many?”

“Looks like five, maybe six.”

The team tried to turn around and lend support to the exposed soldiers but the tight corridor made a coordinated counterattack difficult.

From his position he couldn’t even see the attackers let alone get a firing solution on them. He clenched a metal fist and cursed when Martinez disappeared from his display. He then watched in horror as Private Lee fell as well.

A quarter of his team in the rear had now stopped and were trying deal with the Kemmar threat from behind. He knew he couldn’t help them and that the priority was to move fast. So he ordered the rest of his team to continue advancing.

Ahead they were reaching the end of the long hallway where there were another set of doors. As they approached the doors slid open and a group of Kemmar in combat suits rushed through.

The three troopers in front fell almost instantly and disappeared from Henderson’s display as red lightning streaked over their heads hitting the troopers behind them. Henderson ducked and cursed. They were caught in a crossfire.

Kevin’s Marines dropped to the ground while the shuttles pounded the entrance to the building with heavy energy weapon fire. The onslaught had a dual purpose. It provided cover for the troopers hitting the ground, and it softened up the entrance so that they could advance without opposition.

The seven shuttles floated only a few meters off the ground, all of them firing as the Marines jumped off.

Kevin hit the ground and his combat suit immediately compensated for the icy surface. The ice under his feet was so hard that it didn’t even give an inch under the weight of Kevin’s combat suit. Above him the shuttles continued to pound the building, their blue bolts melding with the icy landscape and clear sky.

Many of his Marines had already hit the ice and the rest continued to drop from the shuttles above. With the heavy fire from the shuttles the troops did not meet any resistance and were able to all disembark without problem. Nonetheless, the troopers all spread out so as not to give the enemy an easy target.

“Ok, listen up. We do this by the book. No heroics. We move in, take the atrium, secure it and wait for further orders.”

“Yes, Sir,” said the rest of the Marines over his comm.

“Move out.”

The shuttles were still pounding the front of the building. It was hard to imagine that anything could survive such a barrage. As they got closer Kevin could see that the front of the building had been turned into a mangled mess of melted steel and perforated mortar.

The shuttles had hollowed out the entrance, leaving no signs of resistance. No defenders could withstand such a powerful assault. When they got close enough the shuttles stopped firing, allowing the troops to move in. With the shuttles floating behind them, ready to destroy any new threats, the troopers flooded through the front of the building.

“Damn, what a mess,” said Reynolds.

“That’ll teach them not to mess with humans again,” said Burke.

“Good thing we have our own air supply. Can you imagine smelling that shit?” said Patel.

Inside there were dozens of bodies, or at least what resembled bodies. The shuttles had obliterated everything leaving armor covered body parts strewn throughout. Kevin was also thankful that his combat suit shielded him from what he knew would be a repulsive smell.

The atrium was massive and the troopers fanned out establishing a perimeter and insuring there were no surprises. Kevin surveyed the room. It was connected to numerous hallways snaking out in a dizzying array of directions. It could take days before they found where the prisoners were held.

“We need access to their systems. Find me a way in,” ordered Kevin.

“Got it, Chief. I’ve found an entry point to the prison’s network,” said Chen over the combat suit’s comm. “It appears it hasn’t been damaged by the attack.”

“Good. Initiate a network takeover.”

“Initiating,” said Chen, attaching a device to a podium shaped unit with a clear, glass like top. “There’s a problem, Sir. The device can’t communicate with the Hermes AI.”

“Must be that damned interference again. Is there a workaround?”

“Maybe. We can only transmit up to a certain range and then the signal loses strength. If we send one of the shuttles higher up in the atmosphere we can use it as a relay to amplify the signal. The device should then be able to link with the Hermes AI.”

“Good. Hang tight while I get a shuttle in position.”

On Kevin’s orders one of the shuttles floating in front of the building broke formation and rocketed up into the sky. In a matter of minutes it reached an altitude where it could both communicate with the ground team and the Hermes. It then acted as a repeater allowing communication between both groups.

“It’s working, Sir. We’ve linked up with the Hermes AI. Initiating takeover of enemy network.”

The Hermes AI used the relay to attack the Kemmar network, unleashing a powerful electronic attack. The team waited as the AI broke through the myriad defenses setup to protect the prison systems from intrusion.

The AI’s electronic warfare capabilities were unrivaled and Kevin knew it would soon take control of the prison’s systems. They would then not only know where the prisoners were being held, but also where the Kemmar were hiding.

“Mayday, mayday, taking heavy weapon fire from multiple bogeys!” said the relay shuttle pilot over the comm. “Taking evasive action.”

Thousands of meters above the prison Kemmar fighters swarmed the shuttle, painting its hull red with energy weapon fire.