The Icarian Legacy Collected Edition: Brave Souls - First Strike (Volume 3) (9 page)

As they neared the next set of rooms Atkins heard the steps of the coming legionaries. Without uttering a word he raised his hand and the team stopped. He motioned with his fingers and Henderson stepped up. He slowly and carefully looked in the next corridor.

With his hand he gesticulated to the rest of the team.

“Eleven soldiers, moving slow.”

The rest of the team watched as he showed with hand signals and then quickly and quietly took good covering positions.

Henderson with his fingers showed the location of the coming alien soldiers and then picked up two grenades.

The dacarians were moving slowly divided in three teams. Gun Ar was at the rear of the formation together with the legionary that mentioned that he knows how to trigger the torpedoes to manually explode.

Four legionaries were ahead and the others were couple of meters behind them. The front legionary stopped and turned towards them. As he was trying to show that he heard something ahead Henderson stepped from behind the corner and threw the grenades.

Gun Ar noticed the human throwing the small objects towards them and instantly opened fire.

“Take cover.”

The legionaries started moving to covering positions but they never got the chance to reach them.

Henderson threw the M67 grenades separately. One landed in the middle of the first group and the other fell almost on top of Gun Ar.

The M67 fragmentation grenade had a casualty radius of fifteen meters and a killing radius of five. And both grenades fell in a distance between them of less than six meters and exploded almost at the same time.

The dacarians were literally torn to pieces as hundreds of shrapnel’s tore through their armor and their bodies. And the humans immediately after the explosions started firing.

Gun Ar didn’t even feel the pain as the grenade that exploded on top of him tore him to pieces and killed the other four legionaries that were close to him. In total nine of the legionaries died instantly and the other two were wounded and eliminated in the next second with several head shots from the human soldiers.

Atkins looked at the carnage in front of his eyes as he moved forward. Henderson was at the point and Michaels and Fly were right behind him on the sides.

“Let’s hope that they all die that easy.”

He mumbled to himself.

Major Jackson looked at the group of marines that was moving together with him. They were moving quickly through the decks towards what looked like the armory. So far all they found were dead bodies of the aliens. He knew that in the lower decks there were more dead aliens. But with them being aliens he wasn’t sure. Maybe they could breathe under water.

All the lower decks were flooded. The fire from the torpedoes of the submarines according to the report he got tore a huge hole on the down side of the ship. It was a wonder how the ship didn’t sink.

As the first marine closed in on the door that was leading to the other room he stopped. Three other marines joined him on both sides.

The lead marine indicated with his hand that there are aliens inside. He motioned for the rest of the platoon to stop. With his fingers he indicated that there is a large group of aliens inside. Jackson moved behind him.

He took a quick look through the door.

The room was full of the aliens. There were dozens of bodies all over and several fires burned. He noticed that several of the aliens were working on couple of objects that looked like missiles. The others were dispersed all over. On the sides he noticed the loading tubes and he knew that his feeling was right. This was the armory of the ship. And it seemed that the aliens were trying to manually trigger an explosion.

“I think they are trying to manually trigger some of those missiles to explode. I think that they don’t want us capturing this ship Lt.”

The young lieutenant looked at him. He couldn’t have had more than twenty years but his face showed no fear. The blue eyes showed confidence. And they showed the wish for revenge. He felt that inner rage too. They all felt it. They all lost al lot of friends today and deep down he knew that more will die before the day ends. But now they had a chance to pay the enemy back for the deaths of their friends.

As he was thinking more marines came. He looked at the group. He couldn’t see exactly how many enemy troops were inside the large chamber ahead of them but he knew that they were outnumbered at a ratio of almost two to one.

“What’s the situation major?”

“We have a large hostile force in the next room. From the looks of it there are at least eighty maybe even ninety enemy soldiers in the room. And they are trying to arm a missile and blow the ship.”

“Then we must stop them sir.”

“Yes. Notify the rest of the detachment for our position and call for reinforcements. And prepare the men for action.”

“Yes sir.”

The officer relayed the Intel over the radio and prepared the rest of the men for the coming firefight. The marines took positions around the walls. The first two threw smoke grenades and after that a dozen fragmentation grenades fly in the chamber. Huge explosions tore through the enemy ranks. The marines didn’t wait. As soon as the smoke spread and the grenades started exploding among the enemy ranks they rushed in firing.

Kal el Miur looked at the door from which the enemy soldiers opened fire and started coming inside the chamber. Or more accurate would be to say that he looked at where he thought that the door was located. He couldn’t see anything through the white smoke that clouded the room. And as the smoke blocked his view dozen grenades exploded among the front ranks of legionaries and tore them apart. More than twenty legionaries died in the explosions. The rest of his unit opened up with their plasma and laser guns. And the first humans started dying as well.

Jackson noticed as one of the marines was hit by the enemies’ fire. The plasma weapon burned right through his Kevlar vest and through his chest. The marine didn’t even utter a scream. His smoking body just fell down. There was no blood flowing from the wound as the heat from the plasma cauterized it instantly.

He lowered his head and ran in the room. Several marines were down.  But he could also see that a lot of the aliens lay dead as well. He took aim and opened fire. A large alien screamed as his rounds tore through his body.

Kal el Miur looked at the rest of his men. More than half lay dead or dying on the floor. More than a dozen humans were dead or wounded as well. But his loses were much more severe. As he looked a new group of human soldiers entered the room and from the opposite side a squad of legionaries entered the chamber as well.

As they moved in several humans opened up and threw grenades at them. The human weapons tore through the legionary’s armor like through paper. The armor was made to deflect plasma and laser weapons. But it was expected to be able to deflect even the projectile weapons that the humans were using. At least that was what they were told. But it was obvious that the humans were more advanced than they thought. They were clearly using some kind of armor piercing ammunition that had no trouble of penetrating the Legiona armor that he and all the soldiers of the empire were wearing.

“
May the gods give strength and protect our brothers when they fight them...
”

He turned toward the soldiers that were trying to trigger the missiles to explode. He knew that they have to give them time. He looked at the rest of his man.

“Maul, call the rest of the soldiers and tell them to move towards this room. We must hold the humans here and give time to the ship’s crew to trigger the missiles to explode.”

“It will be as you order my lord.”

The younger centurion spoke in to his com link.

From the rest of the deck more than four hundred legionaries started moving towards the most important room on the ship.

The rest of the human soldiers moved towards it as well.

Stevens looked at Zip. The seal was talking in the radio.

“Sir the marines located the enemy and engaged them. The SAS teams and Lt. Atkins and Lt. Ellis teams also confronted the aliens. The marines report that they have casualties and are requesting reinforcements. They are saying that the aliens are manually trying to trigger an explosion and destroy the ship. The SF teams are reporting no casualties so far. In total thirty five aliens eliminated.”

Stevens thought for just a second.

“Tell Atkins and Ellis to keep searching this part of the ship. Call the others and tell them to head directly in that chamber. Tell the marines that we will try to hit them in the back.”

“Yes sir.”

Without a thought all SF teams except the two on the top decks headed towards the arms chamber.

Jackson looked at the remaining marines. Of the sixty men he had only twenty were combat effective. The rest were either dead or wounded. And it seemed that there was no end to the alien reinforcements that kept on streaming in to the room from the doors on the other side. As he was planning to withdraw the rest of the marines started flowing in the room from behind him.

Kal el Miur looked at the dead centurion that fell right next to him. He tried to rush and swarm the human’s positions but as his legionaries rushed they were cut down by the humans. He had to give them credit they were fighting like beasts. He remembered the human slaves from the arena, and from the rebellions. He knew that these soldiers possessed the same inner strength but they were also much more lethal than the ones that were part of the empire. It was obvious that they are excellently trained soldiers.

He knew that he was going to die. Several soldiers replaced the dead technicians and were now working at the missiles. They were almost there. As he turned to see the rest of the incoming legionaries he heard explosions behind them and then a huge wall of fire erupted behind his lines. It was obvious that the humans surrounded his forces.

Stevens looked at the room below him from the glass. The marine’s obviously had the same idea as him and he could see that they had the aliens surrounded. The SAS teams were with them down there. He looked at the twenty men he had remaining. He lost four men while coming here as they were met by several alien groups.

“Okay let’s finish this. Take positions on the balcony and open fire on the bastards. Zip, Halo, Ax, Rabbit take out the workers first then engage the rest.”

Four of the seals stepped forward. They were the snipers of the units. As they moved to the sides the rest of the SF forces spread out on the balcony. On his mark they opened up.

Kal el looked with surprise as the seven soldiers working on the bombs fell dead on the floor. Before he could notice from where the shots came they started coming from all sides. Human soldiers came from all doors. He knew that the battle was lost. And so did the rest of his men.

The floor was black from the blood of the legionaries. Several hundred lay dead all over the room. The balconies were filled with dead legionaries and now humans were standing on the top balcony and firing down.

The rest of the legionaries, about hundred and fifty of them looked at their leader. And he looked at them.

“In the emperor’s glory we die.”

He yelled from the top of his lungs.

On those words all the legionaries stood up from cover and rushed the human positions. They were met with a storm of fire.  More than half didn’t even manage to make few steps before they were cut down.  As their ranks thinned the marines stood up and started advancing to meet them head on.

Kal el never saw the human that killed him. A sniper shot from a fifty caliber round nearly took his head away.

Not even a whole minute passed from his yell and the firing stopped.

The marines and the SF teams looked at the carnage before their eyes. Hundreds of alien bodies laying literally on top one another filled the room. Their black blood covered the floor.

Stevens looked at the carnage and nodded to the marine major.

The major saluted.

“There might still be some of them throughout the ship. We will check the upper floors, while your men check the lower levels. The rest can guard this room.”

The major didn’t say anything he just gestured to his men and three platoons continued toward the back of the ship. The SF teams left as well.

Jackson looked at his own men. In total thirty five marines were dead and additional forty three were wounded. Considering the death toll that the aliens paid it didn’t look like much but it was a hard toil. He knew that some of the wounded won’t make it. But the ship was theirs. And that was the important thing.

He looked at the dead aliens. It was clearly that they were reptilians. He noticed the black armor.

“I wonder…”-he mumbled.

He knelt down and picked up one of the rifles that the aliens were using. It took him a minute to find the trigger. Then he aimed and fired at one of the bodies. He wasn’t surprised when the shot didn’t penetrate.

“So that is why they looked so surprised when they started dying.”

The comment came from the young lieutenant that he spoke previously.

“Yes Cole. Their armor is made to deflect advanced weaponry. If we used lasers and plasma weapons like them the casualties would have been much higher. They didn’t expect to meet us with our armor piercing ammunition.”