Star Crusades Nexus: Book 05 - Prophecy of Fire (24 page)

“Are you insane? This place is going to fall. We need to get our people out of here.”

Jack looked at him and then to the faces of his weary marines.

“There are two full battalions here. We’ll hold.”

It was a mixture of bravado and faith, but it seemed to do the job. He was correct, of course, there were two full battalions, but not all of them were actually in the base. Most of the manpower was actually there as logistical support to manage the base, the aircraft, and to assist in the training and preparation of the Helion military. He glanced at the fortified compound’s layout and made his plans. It was based around a four-quadrant square, with a fallback bastion made from four low structures surrounded by walls. The two nearest the landing strips had been hit hardest.

That’s where we’ll go.

He’d made up him mind, but as he opened his mouth, an urgent flash message arrived from Gun.

“Biomechs are approaching the east wall. To the defenses!” roared Gun over the Marine Corps open frequency. It was unnecessarily loud, but Jack knew only too well how loud the grizzled warrior could get when he was fired up. Jack thought for just a second.

The Biomechs must number just a few dozen inside the perimeter now.

“Follow me!” he cried and then leapt over the broken wall and toward the eastern wall. The rest of the depleted platoon followed with Callahan, Riku, and Jenkell flanking him. They burst out into the open and found scores of warriors, including large numbers of Helions emerging from their hiding places and moving to the outer defenses. In seconds, the platoon vanished among the throng of defenders, and Jack found it hard to tell them apart. He checked his overlay and spotted the red shapes.

“Keep moving!”

Jack was fast and quickly moved ahead of the marines. He reached the inner ditch that ran a meter down and then up the other side, to see Gun with his escort of Jötnar and Vanguards moving like a force of medieval Huscarls. Platoons of marines moved to the inner walls that were raised up nearly five meters tall and topped with metal crenellations, as well as sloped roofing to protect them for falling shot and debris. Marines ran from a hundred positions as they made for the outer walls on the four sides of Fort Macquarie. Jack and his small group made for Gun when the fortified entrance to his right vanished in a red fireball. A dozen of the defenders nearest the gate were vaporized in the explosion, and body parts and pieces of armor scattered like dry leaves in the blast. Jack stumbled and almost fell but was lifted to his feet by Callahan and Riku.

“Thanks.”

Gun’s voice roared over the communications channel, letting everybody in the base know his intentions with perfect clarity.

“Protect the walls, all heavies to the breach!”

Dozens of those nearby clambered up the ramps to the walls, and the amount of gunfire increased tenfold. In the sky above, more black streaks marked the arrival of many more landers as they came down outside the base. Streaks of flame rushed up from the base to reach them as the anti-aircraft guns and missile systems did their work.

“You heard him, the breach!”

He led the marines to take cover behind any bodies, masonry, and equipment that lay a short distance from where Gun had stopped. The Jötnar and Vanguards formed up in a thin line two deep and as wide of the shattered entrance. The Vanguards aimed their powerful batteries of L48 rifles into the smoke while the Jötnar waited in fighting stances. All but one of the Jötnar was armed with bladed weapons, and Jack watched in amazement as they waited patiently. He’d never seen such calm from a group of them before. It reminded him of his friend Wictred he’d not seen in weeks. For a second he recalled Hunn, but quickly moved the thoughts away.

Come on, Jack, concentrate!

The overlay showed all the information coming into the base from the units on the wall as well as the fighters and drones overhead, and it sent a shiver through Jack’s body. Normally, fighters and artillery would have kept the base clear, but the amount of Biomech aircraft was now triple that which the Alliance could conjure up, and they were being shot down one at a time. With nothing to stop the buildup, the surge of creatures and war machines had increased to thousands of warriors and scores of the large machines. They must have been close because the amount of fire unleashed from the walls sent flashing arcs of light throughout the base. Jack looked over his shoulder at Riku, Callahan, and the others. All stayed down low and waited for what was to come.

“Attack!” roared Gun. He vanished in the cloud of smoke and dust as hundreds of the creatures swarmed in the through the breached entrance. Half of the Vanguards were pulled to the ground, yet they continued to fight even as armored plates were torn from their suits.

“Fire!” shouted Jack.

The marines added their own disciplined fire to the horde, but nothing seemed to stop them. The Jötnar ripped a dozen to pieces, but more ran past the giants and into the base. Jack stood up and fired from the hip. The others did what they could.

“Jack, I don’t like this!” muttered Riku.

The line of marines gave ground and retreated to the wrecks of two bulldogs laying a short distance back. A squad of NHA soldiers waited in a neat line and with their carbines raised. When one of the massive articulated mechanical monsters crashed through the breach, they turned and fled, with no one firing a shot.

“Take cover and hold them back!” said Jack.

Few of the marines were paying much attention now, and the disciplined firing line had broken down into small groups of warriors trying to defend the tiny areas they had retreated to. More explosions ripped through the outer wall, and a heavy round struck Callahan, leaving a fist-sized dent in his chest. He staggered down and was dragged into cover by Riku. She checked his damage that was merely superficial and then looked to Jack.

“What are we going to do? Fort Macquarie has fallen.”

Jack emptied his magazine at the horde and then took a step back. The breach was shattered and now filled with hundreds of creatures, as well as three of the massive mechanical war machines. Gunfire from the surviving Bulldogs plus several other squads of Vanguards blasted them. They succeeded in bringing one of them down with a crash. It was a minor victory as small groups of the creatures managed to climb parts of the wall. In just a few minutes, there were bitter hand-to-hand fights at every point. Streams of non-combatant and Helion soldiers ran about, but there was nowhere to hide.

What the hell are you going to do?
Jack thought, watching the disaster unfold before his very eyes, even as he continued to shoot one creature after another.

He glanced in the direction of the breach, looking for any sign of Gun, but all he could see were hundreds of bodies; including the creatures, marines, and shattered armored hulks of the Vanguards. Then he saw the streaks of fire coming from the vehicle pool.

Bulldogs! We need to get out of here!

* * *

The journey through the Rift to the Proxima side of the Centauri triple star system had been uneventful. Even the subsequent trip to Prometheus through the newly installed local Rift connection had gone by without Captain Vetlaya noticing the subtle bump as they moved through to a different part of space. The formation of ships was long and widely spaced apart; the massive shape of ANS Dreadnought taking up the vanguard. Small groups of tugs and escort vessels had circled the Rift, but as they moved through the fold in space, none of them followed, just the long column of Alliance warships made their slow and steady journey to the other side. The Battlecruiser nearly made it completely through when a number of flash alert warnings flooded into the ship. One indicated a local threat, but then they were through, and the Rift collapsed behind them suddenly.

“Captain, something’s not right,” said the helmsman.

The view from the CIC should have been one of the fiery red world of Prometheus, but the external feeds showed an inky blackness with massive arcs of power jumping about. The great Battlecruiser shuddered as a great arc of blue light stuck the nose and sent sparks along the hull.

“Battle stations!” called out the XO in a calm, yet assertive voice.

As per usual the lights dimmed, and the warning siren sounded for a few seconds.

“What the hell happened?” demanded Captain Vetlaya.

They should have been near the arrival station in high orbit around Prometheus, but instead they were right on the edge of the most violent storm Captain Vetlaya had ever seen. Prometheus was infamous for its unrelenting series of dangerous storms that filled the area and made it perilous to even the mightiest warships. From her position in the CIC, she had the perfect view of the storm, and even to her experienced eyes it was truly terrifying. Clouds of energy surrounding the small fleet, and great arcs rippled around them and lashed at their hulls.

“What happened?” she asked from her position again, “Why the hell aren’t we at Prometheus?”

A triple flash of energy ripped into the port side of the Battlecruiser, and the entire ship shuddered as though a full broadside of gunfire had just hit her. A few officers were forced to grab onto the myriad of grab rails fitted throughout the ship for such an eventuality. Finally, the helmsman established where they were and whirled about to face his Captain.

“Sir, we’re approximately three days from Prometheus. Something happened with the Rift when we came through.”

“What exactly?”

“I think I might have an idea,” called out Lieutenant Dan, the ships tactical officer.

“Well?” said Vetlaya with a raised left eyebrow.

“Sir.”

He brought up a video feed of the Rift behind them as they’d arrived. He paused it just before it collapsed.

“At this point, we received a corrupted and heavily scrambled message from the control station. I don’t have much, Sir, but at the same time our sensors detected high levels of radiation, levels that match the expulsion of significant quantities of gamma radiation.”

“Gamma? What caused that?”

The man rubbed his chin as he explained.

“I’ve run six reference checks, and it matches a fission explosion, less than a kilometer from the Rift entrance. Either the station suffered a catastrophic explosion, or somebody triggered a weapon as we went through.”

The helmsman nodded in agreement at this analysis.

“If we’d entered the Rift two seconds earlier, we’d have been destroyed in the collapse.”

That thought sent shivers through the Captain’s body. It wasn’t just the danger to her and her ship; it was the rest of the fleet. She turned about and looked to the tactical display, but it showed little more than their ship and the storms around them.

“The task force?”

There was silence in the room as the officers checked their logs and scanners. Finally, the XO spoke up.

“Well, where are they?”

Lieutenant Dan looked to them both nervously.

“We were the first through the Rift. I’m getting no IFF signatures from them.”

“That cannot be,” muttered the XO.

He wandered over to the computer displays around Lieutenant Dan to see for himself. Even so, every single display throughout the CIC showed nothing more than the data coming from their own ship and the storm outside. Finally, the XO turned around and placed his head in his hands.

“It’s just us then.”

Captain Vetlaya leaned back in her seat and sighed uncontrollably. The task force was small, but every ship contained hundreds and hundreds of Alliance crewmembers. Even the loss of a single ship would be hard felt. The loss of all but one ship was unimaginable.

“This cannot be. They must have been scattered, or stuck in the Rift behind us.”

It was at that moment the science station officer finished her analysis. She checked her data one last time before closing her eyes at the terrible news. Then she looked up at the Captain and tried to think of a way, any way that she could explain the news without crushing her. There was nothing though in the end, just the cold hard truth of what had just happened.

“Captain, I’ve finished analyzing the radiation and debris behind us. The computer gives an eighty-seven percent likelihood that the blast signature matches a cruiser size ship. It is my opinion that one of our Crusader class ships was caught in the collapse, and their powerplant went critical.”

The possible loss of the ship was devastating enough to Captain Vetlaya, but what truly worried her was that if the explosion had come from the ship, then what had forced the Rift to collapse around them? Her attention was brought back to the present as yet more lightning surges whipped along the ship. The doors hissed open, and in walked a confused looking Colonel Morato. She marched in, flanked by two of her Marine guards.