Star Crusades Nexus: Book 06 - Call to Arms (10 page)

"It was all speculation with a mixture of material taken from out interrogation of Krani. Until he arrived in Sol, all we had to go on was that Biomech forces were mobilizing in Alliance territory, prior to being given a signal."

The two were silent for a short time while Teresa digested what she had just heard.

"Wait, what signal?"

The Admiral changed the imagery on his screen to that of Helios and Comet C34A.

"The comet?" she asked.

Admiral Churchill took in a long, almost pained breath.

"After what happened in the War, our intelligence division has spent significant time in developing technology and procedures for intercepting and bouncing back alien communications. One day, we might even work out how to modify it. When the comet arrived, the first thing to happen was the transmissions. One came right to the T'Karan-Helios Rift where the Biomech Krani tried to respond."

Teresa didn't quite see the connection. She looked at the imagery, moved the image where her right hand was, and brought it back to Sol.

"What does this have to do with Spartan?"

Now Admiral Churchill seemed to brighten up.

"That is exactly the point. The signal arrived at almost the same time as Spartan's escape from the Biomechs. His report says he was imprisoned on their ship where he learned a number of things; all of which match up exactly with our interrogation of Krani."

Teresa rose to her feet.

"Admiral, he is hurting, and he needs my help. What the hell am I even doing here? He needs me."

Admiral Churchill shook his head apologetically and motioned for her to sit down.

"Spartan is important to all of us, believe me. But, and this is a big but; he has a part to play that we are only just beginning to understand, and it concerns both us and the enemy."

He looked at her and tried his best to appear sympathetic.

“We’ve had broken reports from a number of scouts over the last month concerning his whereabouts. It was only his arrival in Sol that confirmed them though. The last transmissions sent from our agents on Earth confirmed that Spartan has made contact with the enemy, and that they are still in pursuit of him.”

He smiled.

“Your husband would appear to have something of a reputation with the Biomechs now. I suspect he has caused them more strife than any single man…or woman. They are interested him in a way I still don't understand."

He changed the image again to an overview of Helios and then moved the model to show a region of space far out on the rim of the sector.

"The Black Rift?" said Teresa through clenched teeth.

"Yes, and according to our information from both Krani and from Spartan's own testimony, it would appear this entire offensive is being conducted to gain secure access to this Rift."

Teresa looked nonplussed.

"So? What does Spartan have to do with that?"

Admiral Churchill leaned back in his chair.

"That's what concerns us. All traffic from the comet and from Krani confirms Spartan is involved in some way, and we don't know what that might be."

The image changed to the same video communication Teresa had received from her husband prior to the signal stream being cut off. Her heart felt as though it might stop when she saw him again, and in obvious discomfort.

"Apart from losing his hand and part of his forearm, we have a list of injuries that can mean only one thing. He has been tortured and presumably interrogated. What has he given up and have they been able to interfere with him in any way?"

Teresa twisted her head just a little, and he could see the anger in her eyes.

"We are not holding this against Spartan, but we have to safeguard the Alliance. We have no way of knowing what happened to him or what his intentions might be."

Teresa was already on her feet and marched the short distance to the display and grabbed it with both hands, ripping it from its mount. In one swift action, she hurled the unit at the wide clear wall that looked down into the base. It crashed into the glass with a crackle of blue sparks and then flashed. Chunks of glass flew out of the unit and dropped out of sight. Admiral Churchill glanced at his four Jötnar, but only one even looked at Teresa, and for a second it looked like he was smiling.

" Colonel!"

Teresa turned her attention to the old man, and even though he'd known her for many years, there was still hesitation in his movement, even a little doubt as to what she might do next.

"That is what worries us, Colonel Morato. We know Spartan's loyalties, but we also know how far he will go when his blood is up."

Teresa 's blood was pumping fast through her veins, but even she could see what the man was trying to tell her. She leaned over the desk and placed her palms out on the warm surface and tried to calm herself down. He'd always been a little hot-headed, but being married to Spartan had taught her new and more interesting ways for her to lose control.

"You think they will try and use his...passion to help them? How?"

It was an interesting choice of words, but Admiral Churchill couldn't disagree.

"Look, we know where he is right now, and when he arrived we lost contact with our Rift station. More than that, we've lost contact with Mars, Earth, and the entire Sol system."

He rose from his chair and walked to the side of his desk and to the cracked and damaged transparent wall. The hardened glass material was strong, but nowhere near as tough as he'd expected. He ran his forefinger and thumb down his nose.

"Spartan is in just the right place right now. Luckily, we have a few agents and Alliance funded operatives still there. Johnson sent out a priority message just before the Rift closed."

Teresa now looked at him with interest.

"We want the Rift reopened, but not until the taint of the enemy is removed from Sol. If Spartan is being controlled in some way, then the next time that Rift opens, we can expect a Biomech assault. If he's loyal, as you and I both believe, when it opens, I would expect nothing less than total Alliance control and a pissed off Spartan waiting to come through."

Teresa wasn’t quite sure she liked the sound of what she was hearing, but she did appreciate the vote of support for Spartan. Admiral Churchill knew her reasonably well, but nothing like Johnson or Anderson did. He looked at her expression and tried to gauge her feelings, but found he really had no idea.

"There's more. Our information suggests there are another seven Biomechs in Alliance space. We’ve obtained this information from the dig sites, the T’Kari, and even the prisoner himself. It’s fragmented, but we know for certain that one is in Sol, and the others are apparently somewhere near here, in hiding and using hidden Rift gateways. The thing is, we know they have been hiding for a long, long time. They will only come out for one of a few reasons, and it has to be damned important to them.”

He looked up at the ceiling even though there was nothing of note there.

“The call has been sent to all Biomechs to return to Helios. We monitored the traffic from the prisoner, and the signal was simple. All Biomechs are to assemble at Helios, ready for the apocalypse.”

Teresa wasn’t religious even though she had been given the traditional conservative religious upbringing on Carthago. The word ‘apocalypse’ had spread via many of the small cults throughout the Alliance. Even worse had been the stories and rumors from the new territories at Helios and beyond. These helped spread the very idea of an end to all things, nothing but mass hysteria.

"Why attack Mars? It makes no sense."

The Admiral scratched his forehead and then slid over his secpad.

"This is between you, me, and Director Johnson. Understood?"

Teresa nodded and then looked down, almost excited. She read the first few lines, but it was the imagery that fascinated her the most. The image showed a vast crater with machinery, cables, and elevators moving down deep into the heart of Mars.

"I don't understand."

He pressed the unit, and the image shifted to a lower level where a massed bank of flood lamps lit the base of the shaft.

"This is nearly three kilometers under the surface. We've had Earthsec working down there for over a year. This is all based on information we found on Hyperion. The data is fragmented, but it did contain hundreds of locations, some of which are in our own territory."

He leaned in close.

"You see; we have information that there's something down there. Last time we found something similar was in the Outer Rim. Our mining teams made it down to the last layer, but as soon as news got back to Terra Nova, the entire facility was vaporized in a nuclear meltdown. Luckily, the site was fully automated, and the monitoring crews were aboard a resupply ship. We can only assume the Biomechs have been looking for these sites as well.”

Teresa looked at him a little confused.

“They don’t know where these sites are?”

He shook his head.

“Not quite. Director Johnson suspects the list of potential sites is massive. That would explain why so many of these Biomech sightings have been of scouting parties.”

Teresa tried to assimilate the information as best as she could but found it far from easy. The Biomechs were hard enough to understand in open warfare, and their clandestine machinations were unlike anything she’d ever encountered.

"Wait a minute. The Biomechs showed up, as well as Spartan, just as you reached these ships at the bottom of the shaft. What did you find and how did they find out?"

The third image stunned her.

"It can't be," she muttered.

"It's true, Teresa. Look at it."

She did, but the sight of a long-buried Ravager class Biomech warship sent a shudder through her body. The vessel was one of the symbols of the struggles they had all faced. Even though the color and markings were different to those they had found before, it was clearly one of the dreaded ships.

"We've located signs of three more already."

But Teresa's attention had already shifted to the symbols running along the faded colors of the ships. They were emblems made up of six pairs of metallic arms that almost looked like the rays coming off a star.

"What is that?"

Now the Admiral smiled.

"That, Colonel, is the mark of the Twelve."

The next ten minutes seemed to merge into one great mess as he showed her as much as he was able of Mars and the large number of tunnels that had been dug. The more she saw, the more it reminded her of what she'd seen on planets like Hyperion and the moon of Hades. Finally, the conversation returned to the defense of Prometheus itself, though Teresa found it hard to take her attention from the distant planet and back to her current predicament.

"Colonel?" he asked.

Teresa shook her head and tried to banish the memory of the Red Planet, at least for now.

"I...uh. Well, these Biomechs? The ones you believe will be attacking here, where could they be? Under the rock, too?"

He shook his head.

"No, though trust me, we've dug deep to check that. I suspect in the middle of the storm regions, and they will be coming here.”

“Why?”

Admiral Churchill grinned at the question.

“For starters, there have been sightings of their ships in this area over the last four days. Their patterns have been recorded, but we’ve taken no immediate action.”

Teresa looked annoyed.

“But why keep it quiet? We could strike now, when it suits us.”

“No, Teresa, we have to get them all. The only way is by doing this. We need to give them a real chance of succeeding. I might be old, but I have just as much experience of these machines as you. They are cunning, and they are hard to goad. They like to stay close to their prey though, and with Krani here, they will have to act. Now, if it were me, well, I would stay as close as possible, just far enough into the storms to avoid our sensors.”

“Why bring the machine here then?”

“Anderson has T’Karan bottled up tight. The first batch of Liberty ships has boosted the defenses at the AJ Naval Station, and more ships are arriving every day. We’ve put out enough false intelligence over the last ten days to guarantee the machines will know what we have here, and that our forces here on Prometheus are thin.”