The Col Sec Chronicles Box Set

by Jan Domagala

  Before they had time to react another door blew inwards followed closely by the third and final one.

  Severs was the first one to come up from behind cover, holding his Sig at arm’s length in a two-handed grip he fired off a two shot double tap at the first hostile he saw. The two pulsed plasma bolts hit the Rover5 high on the chest and throat respectively, the second shot almost severing his head in a mist of blood. He was sent flying backwards to collide with the group of hostiles directly behind him, slowing them down long enough for him to pick two of them off with carefully but rapidly aimed head shots. The Rapier battle tec helmet the hostiles wore was no match for a full power shot from the Sig at close range so, when the bolt hit, it destroyed their heads, spraying blood, gore and helmet parts.

  The hostiles poured into the room in large numbers through the three open doorways that acted like a funnel and actually gave the defenders time to shoot them. Before they could spread out and use their own weapons, Severs and the two marine guards kept them at bay, each focusing on one doorway.

  Helped by the less experienced defenders, Severs and the marine guards shot and killed as many hostiles as they saw entering the room and soon the dead bodies piled up hampering their invasion as they became an obstacle to climb over to get inside, almost a barrier.

  From around the doorways the Rover5s began firing blindly towards the defenders. Remm assault rifles fired on fully auto could send an awesome amount of firepower their way and Severs heard a cry to his left as a colleague was shot and killed.

  Severs kept firing, changing battery clips as fast as he could and willing himself to stay calm. Panic at this stage was something he could ill afford or it would spread through the group like wildfire and their defence of the Ops Centre would crumble just as fast.

  Suddenly his peripheral vision caught sight of an object hurled into the room. Small, dark and familiar he was aware of it arcing overhead towards the centre of their group. Not daring to tear his eyes away from the hostiles who were still trying to gain access to the room, he lost sight of the object as it passed over his head to drop behind him.

  Acting on an unspoken command the hostiles either dropped to the floor or pulled back outside the room and in that moment Severs knew what the object was. He realised what his subconscious mind had been screaming at him and he knew they were all dead.

  When the grenade exploded behind the group the shockwave pulped their internal organs turning them to mush while the shrapnel lacerated and tore at their flesh. Body parts went flying outwards from the blast core as the shockwave expanded killing everyone behind that centre console.

  The assault on Ops Centre was over. Severs, the two marine guards and the seven staff members were all dead along with twenty-three of the forty Rover5’s sent to capture it.

  The rest of the invading force entered Ops Centre and began inspecting what was left of the defenders; checking for life signs in vain because no one survives a grenade explosion at such close range.

  “Sir, Ops Centre is under our control,” said a Rover5 via his NI through a battle com. channel.

  “Shut it down,” replied Rygar. The Rover5 signalled to the rest of the team by bringing the thumb of his right hand across his throat, and they went to work.

  Taking small charges of T6 explosive from their belts they placed them around the room on pieces of equipment and then, as one, they left the room walking away from Ops Centre.

  Without looking back or giving a thought for their fallen comrades they continued to a safe distance where they detonated the T6 charges by remote.

  The ensuing explosions tore through Ops Centre destroying all the equipment and the bodies that had been left there.

  The blast cloud blew through the walls and down the ventilator shafts, destroying anything in its path.

  The shockwave reverberated throughout what was left of the building and down through the sub levels below.

  “What was that?” Tanya Wilde asked fearfully.

  “They just shut down Ops Centre,” Hawk replied coldly.

  21

  Almost to the second that Ops Centre was destroyed two other things happened.

  Firstly, the other fighter craft that had been promised from Fort Bragg flew over the ruined headquarters building then angled it’s flight trajectory upwards to engage the Nemesis and secondly, the Justice and Legend emerged from hyperspace on either side of the aforementioned battle carrier.

  The two cruisers were dwarfed by the battle carrier, each of them at fifteen hundred feet in length were less than a third of the size of the behemoth, but their smaller size gave them the advantage of greater manoeuvrability and this was needed from the word go for as soon as they emerged from hyperspace the Nemesis trained her weapons systems on them. The captains of each cruiser had only seconds to react and issue the orders that would save their lives and those of the hundreds of men and women on board.

  The Nemesis opened fire with her pulse cannons on each cruiser, missing with the first salvo as the targets took evasive action and opened fire with their own pulse cannons.

  The fighters joined the fray, swooping in on the huge carrier and firing their pulse cannons as soon as they came within range.

  On the bridge Jonas Wilde calmly strode around seemingly unnerved by this new development.

  “Captain, unleash our fighters to take care of those annoying bugs and then deal with those two cruisers, if you don’t mind,” he said sarcastically when the Nemesis’ gunners ineffectively fired and missed, again.

  “Aye, sir,” the captain replied rather nervously. “You do realise, sir, that to launch the fighters we’ll have to momentarily drop the shields. We’ll be vulnerable to attack during that brief window,” he added.

  Wilde, his anger boiling to the surface turned on him, “Of course I realise, you imbecile, what do you take me for some sort of rookie?” he barked, furious at the implication.

  “Of course not sir, I just…” stammered the captain, unused to being spoken to in that fashion aboard his own ship and in front of his crew, but this wasn’t his ship, it belonged to OMEGA and Wilde was the commander of OMEGA so he was in charge.

  “Well, I took you to be competent at your job and, as such, I expect you to do the job you are being paid rather handsomely for. Find a way to launch those fighters, now, with minimum risk to those on board.”

  “Aye, sir,” the captain replied, somewhat subdued.

  “And Captain, if you’re not up to the job I suggest you say so now. Replacing you would be an inconvenience, I admit, but only a minor one. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

  Before responding, the captain glanced at the bridge crew who were furtively stealing glances towards them hoping to catch what was happening without being too obvious. Then when he spoke his voice was calm and steady.

  “Yes, sir, perfectly. Alert all remaining fighters, launch in ten seconds. Gunners, lay down suppressing fire against the two cruisers. I want a full missile spread fired the second the fighters launch and the moment they’re clear of the bays and past the range of our shields I want them back up again,” he said.

  Wilde allowed himself a slight smile; sometimes it was beneficial to light a fire under those under your command, he thought, just to spur them on to even greater endeavours.

  “Okay people you have your orders, on my mark, mark!” the captain said confident his orders would be carried out efficiently.

  * * * * *

  The two captains of the cruisers knew that the carrier would scramble her fighters to counter those sent against her and so they ordered their weapons to fire the moment they saw them emerge. They targeted the shield generators, as that would be when the huge leviathan would be most vulnerable. If they could disable just one of them then the carrier would be more susceptible to damage and the captain may be forced to rethink his motives for being there, and bug out.

  At least that was what they hoped; they had no way of knowing what kind of man they were facing.

&n
bsp; * * * * *

  “Sir I have two troop carriers inbound for the target area, ETA eight minutes,” ops said on board Nemesis.

  “Can we target them from here?” Wilde asked.

  Before ops could reply, Nemesis was hit by weapons fire from the Legend and Justice. The huge star ship was rocked as the pulsed plasma fire and Sabre missiles struck whilst the shields were down for the launch of the fighters.

  Explosions destroyed whole sections of the craft as the Legend and Justice had concentrated their fire on just one section.

  On the bridge there was surprise and fear for the first time on the faces of the crew.

  “Sir, we’ve just lost primary shields and most of the secondary too,” screamed ops.

  Wilde shouted, “What the fuck just happened?”

  “They targeted the shield generators while we launched the fighters,” explained the captain. “The timing was really quite remarkable,” he added with a certain amount of respect for the skill involved.

  “Get the shields back up now!” ordered Wilde wide-eyed; this was something he was not prepared for. He had been so confident in the perfection of his plan, backed by the seeming invulnerability of the Nemesis, that the thought of failure never even entered his mind.

  The captain walked over to ops, placed a steadying hand on the young man’s shoulder and as he read the findings from the sensors said, “Don’t worry son, as soon as the last fighter is clear bring the shields back up,” his voice calm and steady.

  The young officer glanced up at the tall man standing at his shoulder and said, “The primaries are down, sir. The generators were hit by that last strike. I’m reading nothing at all from them and only nominal power output from the secondaries.”

  “It’ll have to do,” the captain said.

  “But I don’t know how long they’ll hold or how much they can take, sir,” ops said.

  “It’ll have to do, son,” he repeated. He then turned to Wilde and said, “With respect, sir, we have to leave the battle zone to effect repairs. We have obtained our objective of a pre-emptive strike against the Confederation and we have inflicted huge amounts of damage to their infrastructure, we’ve damaged their capability to retaliate and inflicted large numbers of casualties. If we remain here too long we run the risk of allowing them the time to mount a counter attack. Already they have sent two cruisers against us, they have reinforced their fighter squadron and more ground troops are on their way. Our numbers are finite. We are only one ship against an entire fleet, which, if given enough time, they could deploy against us. We must not give them that time, we must fall back now.”

  Wilde looked at him and as much as he hated to admit it, the man made sense and a smile played along his lips.

  “Sir?” the captain asked, misinterpreting his reaction.

  “Don’t worry Captain, I’ve not gone mad, I was just thinking how glad I was that my decision to give you this command was the correct one,” Wilde replied further confusing the captain.

  “I agree, Captain,” Wilde said laying his fears to rest. Wilde made contact with Rygar; “We have reinforcements heading your way in less than eight minutes. Find Sinclair and my daughter and bring them back with you. The clock is ticking Rygar, so make it fast.”

  * * * * *

  “Come on, we have to move,” Hawk said, trying to rally the group looking to him for support. The last thing he wanted was for them to realise just how hopeless he thought their plight was, it would demoralise them to the point where they just wouldn’t be able to function and therefore carry on.

  “What’s your plan, Matt?” De Boer asked.

  “I think the only way to go is one floor at a time. Try to get to the next floor without being spotted. If I can find a safe place to hide while they come looking we may be able to get behind them and escape.”

  “What if they clear every room as they go, you know, toss in a grenade then shoot anything that still moves after?”

  “Then we’re in trouble, we may be able to get past a small group by taking them out first, but to do that without the rest hearing and coming after us will be tricky”

  “Almost impossible,” De Boer agreed.

  “We have to try though. We’ve gotta get out of here and take this fight to them,” Hawk said.

  “I’m with you on that score,” De Boer said with a predatory grin.

  “Okay people, line up in the formation and let’s go,” Hawk said as he led them towards the entrance of the exit tunnel.

  As the doorway opened Hawk went through first, signalling to the rest to wait behind and be quiet. Holding his Sig at arm’s length in the classic two-handed grip he carefully, and as silently as he could, ventured a few feet into the exit tunnel; it was more of a stairway really. It was well lit by lights embedded in the low ceiling and along the walls at regular intervals.

  Straining his ears to pick up any sound, he didn’t have to wait long. Two floors above him he heard the clamour of boots pounding down the stairway. He tried to count the footfalls, but the echoes coming from inside the stairwell hampered his hearing. He estimated the group to be around eight or ten men, obviously heavily armed. They disappeared through the doorway to the floor above. Waiting with his back pressed against the wall so he could be hidden by the shadows, he realised, once the last hostile had passed through the doorway, that he’d been holding his breath. Releasing it slowly he signalled to the group to come close.

  “They’ve entered the floor above. Now we have a chance to get past them but we have to move quickly and, above all, quietly. If they get wind of us they’ll attack us with all they’ve got and call for reinforcements. Is that clear?” Hawk said keeping his voice low yet powerful enough to convey his message.

  His answer was a nod of heads from all around the group.

  “Okay follow me, be quiet but be swift,” Hawk said and he led them up the stairway.

  Quickly and quietly the group made their way up the plascrete stairs. Hawk stayed in front of the group, keeping an eye on their progress and urging them on whilst willing them not to make a sound. His other eye was fixed on the doorway he’d seen the hostiles go through.

  Slowly they approached the doorway. Any second he expected to see the squad of hostiles emerge before they had a chance to get past.

  When they finally reached the level with the doorway facing them, Hawk kept his Sig trained on the doorway as he ushered the group to go past him, his full concentration focused laser-like on the exit.

  Time seemed to stand still for Hawk as the group filed past behind him. His senses were on hyper alert as he strained to hear anything from the other side of the doorway facing him but there was nothing. No sounds, no vibrations, so no indications of what was happening on that floor which only made the tension and suspense more acute.

  Finally, the last person, one of the marines, came past him tapping him on the shoulder to say he could follow on.

  Still keeping his pistol trained on the doorway Hawk backed up the stairs after the rest of the group.

  He’d told the group to enter the level above where the hostiles were until the said hostiles had moved down one more level, at which time the group could carry on up to the surface, one level at a time, and hopefully to safety.

  Although the tension was almost unbearable Hawk still had doubts, thinking that they were getting away too easily.

  “This is just too easy,” he said softly to himself as he quickly glanced up to see how the group was progressing.

  Almost half of them had entered the level above. Just a few more seconds and they would be safe.

  A sound alerted him to something happening, something very wrong. The doorway to the level they had just passed was opening.

  * * * * *

  “Okay hold on here, they’ll try to get past us. As soon as they’ve gone up the tunnel to the next level, we’ll have them trapped,” Rygar said as he halted half of his team. He was reading the life signs on his palm pad. Rather than chase the group down he
’d chosen instead to allow them to come to him and trap them between the two halves of his team.

  Patiently he waited just inside the doorway as he watched the readings on his palm pad go up the exit tunnel, towards the next level. Just as they were almost all inside the doorway Rygar made his move.

  “Right, let’s go, let’s do this right and do this fast,” Rygar said as he led them back out into the tunnel.

  * * * * *

  Motioning for the group to move faster, Hawk turned his full attention to the doorway below. Keying his com. bug he said, “General Sinclair and Colonel De Boer we’re about to have some company, get ready.”

  As soon as Rygar came through the door Hawk opened fire with his Sig firing two shots. The first pulsed plasma bolt struck Rygar a glancing blow high on his left shoulder sending him spinning away from the second bolt that struck the wall behind him where his head had been seconds before.

  Another figure appeared through the doorway and Hawk’s aim improved. Firing a two shot burst, both bolts struck the clone dead centre in his chest sending him backwards down the stairway in a mist of blood. Even the battle gear they were wearing was unable to stop a full power blast at such close range.

  Rygar fought through the pain from his shoulder wound to fire back at his attacker, although his aim was severely impaired. His shots went wide of their mark impacting instead on the exit tunnel stairway walls.

  Hawk had to dodge to the left as Rygar’s shots struck the wall to his right. He fired again, another two shot burst at another emerging figure but because of his movement only one of the bolts struck the target. Luckily for him the bolt hit the clone in the middle of the clavicle, blasting through his throat and almost severing his head in a savage spurt of blood.

  “Move, move,” Hawk screamed at the group behind him although the addition of gunfire had spurred them on to virtually fly up the stairs.