Star Crusades Nexus: Book 05 - Prophecy of Fire (5 page)

“Dismount!” growled Sergeant Stone.

The doors hissed open just like in their training exercises, and the marines poured out. Three seconds after the doors opened, a rocket exploded ten meters from the Bulldog’s hull. To untrained eyes it looked as if the vehicle had been struck, but Jack spotted the yellow flash from the topside mounts just before the missile struck. It was the Bulldog’s set of advanced reactive armor. A brief moment before the rocket struck, it fired a stream of disruptive shards as a cloud in the path of the missile to detonate it prematurely. Nothing more than broken fragments bounced from its hull. The entire squad was now free, and Jack could see marines flooding from the other three Bulldogs until the platoon was out and taking cover.

“Stay down!” snapped Sergeant Stone as he moved about the defensive laager created by the four vehicles. The fifth Bulldog, and the only mobile gun unit, still burned on the dusty highway, all of its crew dead and the wreckage spread for meters in every direction.

“Sergeant, six hundred meters to the east!” Jack shouted as he checked the tagged targets on his helmet overlay.

“Good eyes, son.”

Each of the marines lay face down in the dirt, doing their best to provide the smallest possible target. That didn’t mean they had been rendered useless though. As they waited, they trained their carbines and rifles at in the direction of the enemy force as identified by the drones, Bulldog defense scanners, and information from each of the individual marines.

“Sergeant, what do we have?” asked Lieutenant Daniel Elvidge, the platoon’s new officer. He’d been transferred to them direct from the Marine Academy, along with dozens of other marines to replace the casualties from the operation on Helios. His roundish face, light brown hair, and calm persona could be misinterpreted by some as one of the many privileged citizens that had joined directly as an officer. Sergeant Stone spotted him moving toward him and nodded, avoiding signs that could be identified by the enemy.

“Sir, we’ve got seven targets tagged at long-range.”

“Why are we not being hit?”

“My guess is they are lacking heavy weapons.”

The new Lieutenant lifted his hand to wipe his face before striking the visor. It was a simple gesture and easily made, yet it did little to instill confidence. It wasn’t helped when he moved to hit the release toggle to open it up. The Sergeant grabbed his hand.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Sir.”

The Lieutenant looked to the Sergeant with a sheepish expression on his face. It was his first combat mission, and already he’d lost a vehicle and crew. He thought of his training at the academy, and it flooded back to him.

“Comms, appraise command of our situation. I want one squad to stay here. Check the Bulldog for casualties and prep for evac. The rest of you are coming with me.”

“Lieutenant?”

He turned and looked to the Sergeant.

“The hostiles are all in the industrial site, is that correct?”

“Yes, Sir, all seven.”

“Then we need them neutralized.”

The Lieutenant had already moved away and was rounding up the other two squads of marines before Sergeant Stone could try and stop him.

“Lieutenant, it might be wiser to stand off, watch the enemy, and bring in air support to finish them off.”

The new officer nodded smartly while directing the others.

“True, but don’t forget the mission, Sergeant. This isn’t Zathee territory. This sector is mainly heavy industry and engineering with a mixture of pureblood Irkerk and Yuulen. We have few friends here outside of the habitation districts. We need to find, capture, or kill these insurgents face to face. If we cause excess damage to their property or hurt their civilians, we might as well hand the victory to the enemy.”

Jack could hear them speaking over the open marine channel. It was strange it had taken so long for the replacements to reach them. They’d already conducted six patrols on the ground in the last week. The reinforcements had been delayed a week, so they had managed by transferring existing officers to temporary positions.

I wonder if we’ve drawn the short straw with this new and very green officer.

“I want air support on standby, should we need it,” said the Lieutenant.

Jack watched him go toward one of the other squads. It was clear to him that Sergeant Stone wasn’t too sure either. The two marine squads were already moving now, and Sergeant Stone moved with them but stayed close enough to the Lieutenant in case he needed assistance. The level of gravity was lower than the Earth standard amount, but at least it was only slightly lighter. They moved further and faster here but so did the enemy, and they would be used to it. Sergeant Stone’s first impression had been a confused one.

The man is certainly green, and no doubt he comes from a privileged background. Even so, he was decisive, and his primary concern was for the mission. I just hope he has as much concern for the men and women under his command.

Two fireteams led the way, with Jack and his comrades forming the unit to the right. He scanned the open ground and felt a chill through his chest. The open space was nearly two hundred meters of killing ground, and nothing but the odd rock for cover.

“Corporal Frewyn, get your fireteam forward and secure the vehicle pool. Everybody else maintain your progress. Check your fire, all targets must be clearly identified.”

The remaining two fireteams of eight marines moved at a quick walking pace. The hexrotor drones buzzed in front of them at a height of no more than a hundred meters. They provided top down reconnaissance, but even more importantly, they were able to detect mines and explosives; a weapon the Helion insurgents, under the training of their Animosh masters had turned to in a matter of weeks, following their defeat on Helios.

“Come on, move it!” said Corporal Frewyn.

He might have been the oldest and perhaps even the wisest member of the four-man fireteam, but Jack could never take his rural accent seriously. As far as he was concerned, it was like a farmer trying to give him orders. Even so, he knew the man understood his job. If it hadn’t been for his drinking problems, the command of this team might have been his. They moved a good distance away from the other marines and ran into the vehicle pool. It was of modest size with a low concrete type wall around the perimeter, and five large-wheeled earthmoving vehicles waited under a layer of dust. Frewyn and Riku slid down behind the first vehicle. Jack and Callahan ran further to the left and dropped down behind two large storage sheds. No sooner did they reach cover than they were hit by the staccato sounds of automatic gunfire.

“Get a drone over there, now!” shouted Corporal Frewyn.

Jack had already selected the nearest three of the eight hexrotors in the area and gave them orders to advance on the direction of the gunfire. One was destroyed almost immediately, but the others used their speed and agility to avoid the fire and move around the site, pinpointing the enemy position. As each target was spotted, it was tagged, and the details uploaded to all Alliance units in the area.

“Good work,” said the Lieutenant, as the rest of the marines moved off to the left of the motor pool in a head-on approach to the structure. They were still a hundred meters further back than Jack’s unit.

“Drones show seven targets, all biological and at least one heavy weapon emplacement,” Private Callahan said, checking the data as it came in.

The marines spread out behind the small outbuildings and low wall two hundred meters from the compound being used by the enemy. It was a three-story structure that lacked windows. The walls were sturdy and a low meter-tall wall protected it. Lieutenant Daniel Elvidge looked up from behind the storage unit at the target. Off to his right he could see the four dark shapes of Corporal Frewyn’s fireteam. According to the stats on his overlay, they were carrying three L52 Mk II carbines and a single L48 sharpshooter support rifle.

“Corporal Frewyn, I want your team to provide sniper fire, as and when you have eyes on the target.”

He then looked to Sergeant Stone.

“I won’t risk any of our marines. We will use fire and maneuver with the remaining fireteams to get into position around the compound, understood?”

“Yes, Sir,” he snapped back smartly.

He moved to the other marines to move them on to their objective, allowing himself the briefest of moment to look back at his new Lieutenant.

He might not be much to look at, but he respects the men and the mission. How bad can he be?

The return of machine gun fire from the top floor of the structure sent some of the marines scurrying for cover, but it wasn’t being aimed at them. It was against Corporal Frewyn’s unit off to the right.

Good, that’s what they’re there for.

“Marines, move out!”

The coming of the great comet was seen as the final stage by many of Echidna’s followers. Most had vanished or lost their faith following defeat at Terra Nova and Hyperion. The news of Biomech ships on the increase, and the mysterious comet, gave new impetus to a growing group of neo-Echidna cults. Rumor had it that the faithless would be punished, especially those that had turned from the cult. The more the Alliance clamped down on each group, the greater the resistance and desire to protest.

Holy Icons

Admiral Lewis took a long draught of coffee and looked back at the new imagery from Terra Nova. It showed an extremely grainy image of an astronomical object named C34A. It was hardly worth of such a major object, but that was its current designation. The data wasn’t particularly interesting to him, but the target was.

So, this thing is heading for Helios, and it just so happens it will be passing by us in less than two days. If only we were closer, we might be able to help.

The information on the loss of ships in the Helion taskforce was of concern, though he had little, if any respect for the Helion military command. The fact he had now been assigned the job of cleaning up after their failure rankled him. They might have been crippled by the period of infighting on Helios, but the revolution had been won, and from what he could see, the space forces of theirs were far more numerous than those of the Alliance.

Yet they continue to fail, and now I have to risk our ships for them, again.

The reports from the ships in his fleet were already there, and he was satisfied all his captains were ready for what he had in store for them. The list was impressive, especially with the arrival of ANS Valor to replace the heavily damaged ANS Savage from the battle with the automated fleet near Helios itself. His Strike Group had been expanded, thanks to the intervention of Admiral Anderson. Six more Hunter class frigates ships had joined the recently promoted Commodore Hampel to give the fleet a more substantial escort. Even better was the replacement of one of his Crusader class with a brand new Conqueror Class Battlecruiser, ANS Royal Oak. She wasn’t the first ship to have used the name, and as befitted her ancestors, she had been optimized for fleet defense as a fully-fledge fleet carrier.

Just look at those hangars,
he said to himself with a smile.

Like all the new generation of warships, the Crusader and Conqueror class were built around the principle of a universal design. The basic hull was the same, but the mission units could be changed in dock to optimize the designs for different roles. His own flagship, ANS Conqueror was a general-purpose warship, much like the standard Crusader design. All the ships in the fleet could operate small groups of fighters and also carried Marine units on board. ANS Sentry and ANS Valor were equipped with marine transport mission units to allow the transport of more warriors. ANS Royal Oak, on the other hand, only had the space for a single company on board; the remaining space was used for hangar space and point defense units.

The first carrier of the Alliance, and she’s mine!

He took another sip and checked her statistics. They were impressive. Automation had reduced the total crew to just under one and a half thousand personnel plus an air group of six hundred. She could carry a tailored air group of up to forty aircraft, including all the current fighters, plus the new X57 Avenger fighter drones. After gazing at the units and spacecraft aboard the ship, he tapped his communication unit. With just a few presses, he started a video communication file.

“This is Priority One message to Admiral Anderson, commander of the outer territories and regional governor.”