Star Crusades

by Michael G. Thomas

  I so wanted to be an IAB marine.

  Ski’ligs swarmed around them, using their speed and agility to circle around like bugs, all while blasting away with their weapons. Streaks of fire from the dropships cut them from the sky, but not before more arrived. One fell and hit the front of a Jackal, and then rolled away and plummeted to the ground. Valentine watched the flailing warrior as it struggled to survive before landing on a series of serrated rocks. The body split apart like a piece of overripe fruit being thrown at a wall. She looked away in horror and found Lieutenant Fletcher looking right back at her.

  “This is just the beginning, Lance Corporal,” he said happily, “This is the first day of the end of their lives. Now…keep firing.”

  She focused on her weapon and looked for hostile targets. There were still many people on the ground, though most were entering smaller tunnels to escape the fighting. As her gaze moved to the left, she could see a series of heavily constructed emplacements, each hanging from the ceiling and bigger than a navy cutter. Below them were cylindrical pillars that curved back into the diamond itself. The batteries were fitted with a pair of massive cannons, with each barrel surrounded by glowing rings as they built up energy to fire. Once they unleashed an energy blast, the entire cavern turned red.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  She looked over her shoulder, and Tex had already calculated potential targets.

  This shaft is at an angle of forty degrees and gives the defensive weapons protection from direct vertical bombardment. It also gives them a clear line of sight out of the trench, and up into low orbit.

  Valentine was about to ask him something when a cloud of dark shapes dropped down from holes in the upper surface of the cavern. Her first guess was that some of the structure was breaking away, but then some of the shapes rushed past her peripheral vision.

  Tex, what was that?

  Valentine tracked to the right, but the shapes were gone.

  Objects moving above us, and they are close.

  Valentine stopped as something hit the top of the spacecraft. The craft shook as the pilot used the forward guns, but she could tell something was on top of them. A crack appeared in the upper armour, and then a flash of light as a denotation charge blew an opening in the Jackal. One Nova blasted away, and the shape vanished.

  “What’s going on?” Alexis asked.

  Valentine nodded to the top of the craft where fire from inside had widened the breach in the armour. Some flashed above them, and a section of the plating ripped open.

  “We’re being boarded!” Sergeant Jablonsky shouted, “Do not let those bastards touch you!”

  He lifted his weapons and looked to the others.

  “Novas…defend yourselves.”

  Part of the portside armour split apart, and the entry door hatch ripped off and vanished, leaving the flank open and vulnerable. Valentine looked as energy bolts crashed about outside from the formation of dropships unleashing an inferno of fire against the aerial foe. Many were shot down, but others split away and darted between the vertical spires hanging down from the roof of the cavern. Some hung like bats and returned fire, while others vanished into the myriad of holes and tunnels hidden inside the glass like metal.

  “Blast em!” said the Lieutenant.

  Valentine tracked their hiding places and fired again and again. The XHEC cannon was a monster, and due to the extra cooling and power supply direct from the dropship, she could fire long bursts, as opposed to the limited firing when used as a mobile weapon system. More came for their craft, and Valentine fired at point-blank range. Some of the energy from the impacts splashed back and burnt the exposed amour of the dropship.

  “They are not going to let us land without a fight,” said Sergeant Jablonsky.

  “I don’t care,” the Lieutenant shouted, “Novas, explain it to them.”

  Valentine fired again, and three more came in so close they were able to grab the side of the dropship. She blasted two, but the third pulled itself up to the top of the dropship.

  “We’ve got one, topside!” she shouted.

  A moment later a Ski’lig dropped down into the hull and was met by the Sergeant. He’d been waiting for it and grabbed the alien about the throat. He held it there for a second, using the full power and strength of the Rhino armour to snap its neck. Another appeared and was about to drop inside as Valentine pointed her right arm at it. She opened fire, showering it with slugs from her machine pistol. It fell away, and she spotted it flailing about as it vanished off below them. Her eyes gazed across to Alexis who seemed almost stunned by the short, brutal engagement that had taken place.

  “Novas,” said Lieutenant Sterling, “This is too hot. I’m putting us down right now. You need to get outside and show them what you can do.”

  The dropship rolled to the left and then the right, just as the massive guns hidden deep inside the cavern fired. They could have destroyed every dropship in the cavern had they hit them, but thankfully, the pilots of the Jackals coordinated their actions and avoided the heavy fire. One moved perilously close to the roof of the cavern. It sustained heavy damage and surface scoring, due to the razor-sharp material cutting open the dropship like a can of sardines.

  “Hold on! We’re coming in hot!”

  The Jackal shook once more as it changed position and came down towards the surface. It was a rough landing, made worse perhaps by the hard surface as well as the stronger gravity putting greater strain on the engines. The forward guns roared as Lieutenant Sterling did his best to create a safer landing ground for them to settle on. The spikes and outcrops of diamond looked like spear points extending out of the ground.

  “Incredible,” said Alexis, “Just like the hedgehogs at Normandy.”

  Tex brought up the images for Valentine as she struggled to remember them. They were simply pieces of metal joined together to create obstacles on beaches. As well as providing a barrier for landing craft and ships, they were also hidden at high tide, making then a deadly threat to the hulls of unsuspecting craft.

  Thanks. Not what I want to be looking at right now.

  The imagery vanished, and in its place the battered, yet functional interior of the dropship. She half-expected to see the spikes pushing up through the hull as they hit the ground and continued to push forward. It was unlike any landing she’d experienced before as they pushed on for over two hundred metres. The guns fired non-stop and continued even after they came to a complete halt. No sooner had they touched down, the one remaining external door opened to reveal the surface of the alien world. It glistened white, and already she could make out alien soldiers off in the distance as they fired at the dropship.

  “It’s time.” Lieutenant Fletcher detached from his harness. Valentine felt her heart pounding deep inside her chest, and she knew the time for transport was over. Now it was time for them to do what they had trained for.

  “Novas…out now!” Sergeant Jablonsky ordered.

  Valentine hit the release on her weapon control and rose to her feet. The others were already heading out, with one lance out on the left side of the craft and through the breached hull. Valentine was second out from the right, just next to Alexis who stepped out and dropped a metre to the shattered floor. Valentine crashed alongside her and landed on top of the broken body of a fallen Ski’lig. She looked down and noted the colour of its armour was different to the ones she’d fought against before. Even its armour was different, with bulkier plates and a slightly different aesthetic.

  “Move it!” roared the Sergeant, as he landed next to them and signalled for the unit to advance. They all stepped away from the Jackal and split into two groups, with the Sergeant in the middle. Valentine instinctively lifted her right arm as she looked for danger. She’d assumed they were landing in a flat cavern, but instead it was steeply angled, and she had to be careful not to slip and fall away from the entrance. Paths led around to the sides where they joined a series of winding walkways cut into the
diamond itself.

  Scanning for targets, said Tex, This is a target rich environment.

  The place looked like a bizarre combination of a scrapyard, deep core mine, and a magical wilderness filled with glass towers, bright lights, and a light haze that caused the light to shift and distort.

  “There are the guns,” said Tsarkov.

  Valentine looked in the direction he’d tagged. They were several hundred metres away and deep inside the steeply angled cavern. They looked truly monstrous and dwarfed anything she’d seen fitted onto a warship before. The guns were also above their current position and partly hidden by the long sections of jagged rock. The cavern walls were slightly curved and covered in inward facing spikes like the inside of some cruel mouth. Small, dark patches on these walls showed entry points into the planet itself, as well as a myriad of hiding places for the enemy.

  “I don’t like this,” said Kallias, “I don’t like it at all.”

  4th Lance moved off to the left, with 1st Lance deploying fifty metres behind them as they raced to the curved walkway. It didn’t take long to reach it, and soon they began to work their way down. More Jackals swept in, and Valentine was granted a view of one coming in close with its guns blazing. It was one of the Special Forces variants and spat fire all around it as it came in to land.

  “Keep moving!” Sergeant Jablonsky said, “We don’t have time to play around with these creatures. You go that pathway.”

  He pointed ahead and then tagged the location. It was one of many ways to work their way down towards the turrets.

  Valentine moved as fast as she could and immediately felt the pull of the alien world. She jumped and moved a short distance before crashing back onto the broken diamond. Her armoured feet slid a little on the steep gradient, and then she hit a series of platforms cut into the ground to provide a zigzag walkway that moved down the cavern. It slowed them down, but at least allowed them to make some progress. Kallias yelled and instead of following the path, he simply leapt through the air and crashed down two levels below. He tumbled forwards and nearly fell into a row of serrated spikes before being grabbed by Bandu.

  “Don’t do that again,” said Sergeant Jablonsky, “Take it easy, and don’t get killed!”

  The increased gravity hit her body harder than expected, especially her lungs. Tex automatically augmented her blood flow with additional oxygen, plus a cocktail of other enhancements to keep her moving at peak efficiency. Almost immediately two of the lances opened fire on the distant weapon installations. The conventional firearms did little more than scratch the surface, but the rockets and XHEC cannons blasted great chunks away from the outer armour.

  “Novas, spread out. Heavies hit the guns, everybody else clear the Ski’ligs if they come too close.”

  Valentine might carry the lighter limbs, but she also carried the overcharged XHEC-1 cannon on her shoulder, a weapon ideally suited for the destruction of ground assets.

  Tex, I need all the power you can spare. I need overload.

  The power indicator on the weapon quickly reached critical, so high that if she didn’t fire it would be likely to malfunction, perhaps even blow itself apart.

  “Firing!”

  Her armour took the brunt of the recoil, but it was still enough to twist her shoulder back nearly a centimetre. The servos pushed her back into position as the weapon recharged and fired again. One shot after another slammed into the nearest of the weapon platforms, and the gunfire ripped open the outer armour. Then came a massive explosion that saw a large part of the structure split apart and crash to the ground, scattering broken material all around them.

  “Is that it?” Kallias asked.

  But then the battery fired again, and pulses of red flashed overhead and off into space. Valentine looked more carefully and spotted the outer armour had gone, but that had done little more than expose the main support mounts for the guns.

  “We need to keep hitting it.” She took aim, “Where’s our backup? We need the heavy artillery down here.”

  “Forget the backup!” Kallias said, “Look!”

  She looked up as Tsarkov called out.

  “Contacts! I mean a lot more contacts.”

  Valentine tried to count them, but even Tex couldn’t present the data fast enough as hundreds of the Ski’ligs swarmed from hiding places in the roof and walls of the diamond world.

  “Novas! Form circle!” called out the Lieutenant as the shapes moved closer. Without even needing to check on their positions, each of the eight-man lances moved to form up into a loose circle, with the commanding NCO in the centre. With each of them facing outwards, it should prove impossible for the enemy to surprise or hit them from an unexpected direction.

  “What about the guns?” Alexis shouted, “We’re here to protect the fleet.”

  “Forget the fleet,” said Lieutenant Fletcher, “We can’t save them if we’re dead. Now into formation.”

  He sounded furious as one by one they moved into circles. Valentine found herself facing away from the guns and towards the gaping mouth of the massive cavern high above their position. Another lance of Novas came in behind them, working their way down the paths as they struggled to catch up.

  They made it!

  Valentine had assumed they had been killed after losing their Jackals, but through luck or judgement they’d survived and made their way to the correct location. Two of the dropships were already leaving, one trailing smoke. The guns fired, and as before, the bolts of red energy rose up into the sky.

  “Here they come!” Kallias said, lifting his arms.

  Valentine watched the survivors of 5th Lance as a host of Ski’ligs dropped down around them. They were in open order and blasted away as they were assaulted at close-range. Valentine took aim and was about to fire as shapes fell all around her. Kallias opened fire and was quickly obscured by the four massive muzzle flashes. The rest of the lance joined in as every one of them unleashed hell around them. Valentine could barely see a thing and had to rely on the tagged targets and tracking data as she joined in.

  “Yeah!” Hawkins called out, “Kill them all!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Trench, Ekati Alpha, The Ski’lig Territories

  Carbines, rifles, machines, and cannons roared as the Novas went to work. Their powerful weapons tore apart anything they touched, leaving bodies all around them, as well as shattering any of the diamond structure they touched. Broken shards scattered around them, with Valentine being hit twice by clouds of the hardened material.

  “Val, if we survive this, I’m taking a piece back with me.” Kallias laughed as he kicked a small spike on the ground. It didn’t break and left deep lacerations in the side of his armoured boot.

  “Careful what you kick, Private. Trust me, you don’t want an armour breach down here. Have you seen the atmosphere?”

  Something came down close and exploded, showering them all once more in the crystal like rock. Valentine lifted her arm to protect herself and watched as the Ski’lig tried to escape. She snorted as she took aim and then fired. The first two shots missed, but the third was too hard to avoid, and it blasted apart the thing’s right wing, sending it spinning away.

  “Nice shot, Val.”

  “Yeah. Don’t get cocky,” said Sergeant Jablonsky, “There’s plenty more left, and we need this place locked down for the marines. They’re landing any second now.”

  Valentine looked up at the distant opening, but there was still no immediate sign of their backup.

  “What’s taking them so long?” Kallias asked.

  “Focus on the mission. We’ve got work to do.”

  “Yes, Sarge.”

  Valentine gritted her teeth as she hunkered down and fought back against the ceaseless waves of Ski’ligs. Some of the heavies emerged from the right and then opened fire, hitting the Novas with a wave of projectiles. The interceptors showered the incoming fire with explosive slugs, but many still made it through.

  Warning, said Te
x, Armour breaches in the torso and upper arms.

  Seal it and move on! I’ve got nowhere else to be.

  Red alerts still sounded, but with the audible alerts removed they were more a reminder now than an annoyance. All sense of the mission had vanished as the Novas fought from their exposed position out in the open. Regular marines would have been cut down in seconds, but with their heavy armour and powerful weapons, they were ideally suited to this kind of fight.

  “Okay, Novas, one more level down,” said the Sergeant, “Go!”

  Valentine leapt to the entire section and came down hard alongside Hawkins. He nearly fell over, but she grabbed him and pulled him back.

  “Nice landing,” he said sarcastically, “Next time use somebody else to break your fall.”

  The others came in quickly, and Valentine covered them as best she could. Once in position she turned her fire on the gun batteries, causing yet more damage. More Novas from the other lances sent a barrage of cannon and rocket fire at the same target, and soon all of them cheered as an entire battery detonated, scattering debris in all directions. Some of the broken network even hit circling Ski’ligs, sending them all to the ground. One came down next to Valentine and crashed into several of the spikes.

  “Beautiful,” said Kallias as he turned back around and opened fire.

  They fired an almost endless barrages of fire onto the Novas, and Valentine spotted Hawkins down on one knee as the weight of fire forced him down She took a step closer, and then stopped as the fire shifted its focus to her. The sharp bolts came down for them, and Valentine felt the reassuring vibration in her chest as her integral interceptors activated. The top of her chest plate just below the neck was fitted with twenty tiny barrels, each normally hidden behind an additional plate.