His team of Marines included Kevin, Sergeant Henderson, Privates Chan, Reynolds, Burke, Johns and Daniels. They were all combat veterans and were well armed with rail guns, energy weapons, grenades, and ion blades. His display identified Kevin, who had already suited up. Looking back at Jon, Kevin flashed him a big metallic thumbs up. Jon stepped forward, his boots creating a thundering echo with each step, and surveyed his team. All were suited and many were checking their weapons. They were all good men and he would take a bullet for any of them.
He nodded to Kevin who gave the command to board. Each Marine stepped up to the waiting transport, the stomp of their bulky boots reverberating across the platform. They lumbered inside the small craft, their massive frames almost too big for it. Along the walls were seats specifically designed for the combat suits. One by one they turned and fell heavily into their seats. Loud bangs rang out as each suit was bolted into place, announcing the safety of everyone on board.
Bast’s voice came through Jon’s helmet as he took his own seat. “Captain Pike. We will jump into orbit around the planet, a safe distance from the Kemmar warship, so that your team can enter the atmosphere without taking fire. We will then engage the warship.”
“Understood,” said Jon, giving his weapons a final inspection.
The shuttle’s hatch closed. The lights dimmed. A display lit up revealing the exterior. Jon watched as the transport taxied across the hangar bay and prepared to launch. A message flashed across his visor indicating that the ship had jumped, followed by another stating that they were clear to launch. Jon felt the thrust of the shuttle’s engines as they surged forward, out of the Chaanisar ship. The craft vibrated as it accelerated, and hurtled towards the planet below. Turbulence punctuated the craft’s entry into the atmosphere. The display glowed red and orange, as the transport briefly turned into a streaking, blazing fireball. As they finally punched through the atmosphere, the flames parted to reveal an unblemished blue sky.
The shuttle raced through the air towards the Space Force beacon. Jon brought the signal up on his HUD. It was located in the middle of a large continental land mass. He didn’t know what condition the pod was in, but was glad that it didn’t end up in one of the oceans. Under less hostile circumstances this would be an easy retrieval. Unfortunately, that meant the Kemmar wouldn’t have any difficulty finding it either.
Swooping down over the pod’s location, Jon was surprised to find that the Kemmar hadn’t gotten there first. He had fully expected a hot landing zone. Could it be possible that the Kemmar hadn’t yet sent a landing party down to retrieve the life pod? Could it be possible they didn’t know about the life pod? Jon wondered what the odds were that the Kemmar warship in orbit was merely a coincidence. He didn’t think they were very good.
The life pod sat in the middle of an open field. The transport landed nearby. The combat suits were released from their safety locks and the hatch opened. Wasting no time the troopers poured out of the craft. They quickly took defensive positions around the transport and pod. In seconds they were all on the ground, rail guns shouldered. Jon scanned the landscape. There was very little in terms of vegetation. No trees or plants, just dirt, which the wind whipped up in dusty, swirling clouds.
“What do you think, Captain?” said Kevin.
“I don’t like it,” said Jon. He scanned the horizon looking for threats. At first he saw nothing, but then his HUD came to life identifying a Kemmar shuttle. To the naked eye it was only a speck in the sky, but the intricate sensors built into the combat suit’s optics easily identified the craft.
“Contact,” said Jon. All eyes turned towards the horizon. They had their answer. The Kemmar were coming. With Bast fighting the Kemmar warship in orbit, they couldn’t simply fly back to the ship. They would have to stay put until the space battle was over. They would have to make a stand.
“Let’s get these people out of there before the Kemmar show up,” Jon said to Kevin. He stepped up to the life pod and banged on the hatch with his large metal glove. “This is Captain Jon Pike of the Hermes. Open your hatch. We are here to rescue you.”
“You should retract your helmet, so they don’t think you’re Chaanisar,” said Kevin.
“Right. Thanks,” said Jon, pulling his helmet and visor back to expose his face.
The life pod’s hatch unlocked with a hiss as the interior depressurized. It extended out of the pod and swung open with a whine and a creak. Jon stood in front of the doorway and waited. A dark haired woman emerged from the opening. Jon recognized her as Ensign Zakarian, one of Doctor Ellerbeck’s medical officers. Her appearance was disheveled, her uniform speckled with earth, as if she had been digging. When she recognized the Captain she stood at attention and saluted.
Jon returned the salute and said, “At ease, Ensign.”
Zakarian relaxed and said, “Captain, I can’t believe it. I didn’t expect anyone to find me here.”
“Well, we’re not the only ones who found you, Ensign.”
She gave Jon a confused look.
“The Kemmar are here, too.”
Her eyes widened and fear spread across her face. “The Kemmar? How?”
“It doesn’t matter. We don’t have much time. Who else is with you?”
“It’s just me, Captain. Ensign Jacobs was with me, but he had been badly injured when we abandoned the Hermes. He took a couple of energy blasts in the back. I used the medical gel on his wounds, but his injuries were too severe. He died a short time after we landed. I buried his body over there,” she said, pointing to a mound in the distance.
“Contact!” said Henderson. “Twelve o’clock.”
Jon swung around but didn’t see anything without his helmet in place. Regardless, they were coming whether he could see them or not.
“Time to move, Ensign,” Jon said to Zakarian. “Get into the transport. It’s armored. You’ll be safe in there.” Jon led her through the transport’s hatch. Inside the craft he handed her one of the extra rail guns on board. “Just in case,” he said.
She gripped it apprehensively. As a medical officer she would not have seen much combat, but she would have still received weapons training. Jon was confident she knew enough to defend herself if the need arose.
Turning, he walked out of the craft, closed the hatch, and dropped his helmet back down over his face. His HUD lit up, identifying a line of Kemmar soldiers advancing on their position. They were moving fast. His HUD clocked them at two kilometers per minute. That was similar to what a human could do in a combat suit. The Chaanisar could hit higher speeds due to their augmentation, and Jon could move even faster.
The Kemmar were committing to a direct attack using traditional shock tactics. They intended to hit his men fast and hard in order to create confusion and fear. If the human line collapsed and his men tried to retreat, the Kemmar would cut them all down in short order. Jon wondered who they were used to fighting against. Certainly not Space Force Marines. Jon shouldered his rail gun and took a knee. He counted twenty. They were outnumbered. Every bullet would have to count.
“Hold your fire,” said Jon. His troopers had spread out and established a defensive line. There wasn’t much to use for cover. There were a few outcroppings of rock that a couple of the men lay behind. It wasn’t much but every little bit would help. They avoided using the transport itself as cover, since they didn’t want to draw enemy fire at it. Not only was the survivor on board, but it was also their ride off the planet.
Jon’s targeting sensor turned green as the aliens came into range. “Fire!” he shouted. The Marine line exploded with rail gun fire, ripping into the enemy ranks. The Kemmar in the front took most of the damage. Their suits withstood the first salvo, but soon cracks started to appear in their armor. Light leaked out of the fissure points as their suits leaked energy. Yet they kept coming.
The leaking light gave the Marines a better target, and they focused their fire on the weakening combat suits. Under the weight of the rail gun fire the cracks
turned into chasms, allowing the bullets to pierce the flesh hiding underneath. Kemmar soldiers started to fall.
Jon lined up one of the creatures and squeezed off a shot, hitting it in the chest. Not enough to break the armor. It kept coming and he fired off another one. He hit the suit in the same spot and a crack began to form, causing a glimmer of light to escape. Jon didn’t release the trigger. He drilled into the Kemmar’s chest until the combat suit ruptured and the creature fell face first onto the hard dirt.
Jon didn’t hesitate. He lined up a second soldier and fired, hitting it in the helmet. Again it kept coming, but Jon continued firing, and a fissure formed down the center. He kept his aim steady and pored fire into the creature’s skull until it too dropped. There was a flash of red and his HUD told him his suit had taken some damage, its integrity now down to eighty percent. The enemy was returning fire.
Vicious red bolts of energy streaked at the Marines from the Kemmar weapons. The upper corner of his HUD displayed a series of statistics informing him of the hits taken by his men and the damage caused. The fact that the aliens were firing from a full out run minimized the damage. Multiple shots missed their targets.
Still they kept coming. The Marines had dropped almost half the Kemmar line, but it wasn’t enough. The Kemmar were fearless and they were moving fast. Too fast to be stopped. They stampeded into the Marine line.
Jon braced himself as a metal clad soldier leaped for him. He sidestepped the airborne creature and drove the stock of his rail gun into the side of its helmet. It hit the ground hard and Jon rushed it, firing a sustained burst into its visor, killing the alien.
He spun around as another Kemmar crashed into him, knocking his rail gun away and causing him to fall backward. He hit the ground and used the momentum to roll. The creature straddled him with its legs, trying to point its weapon at him. Jon held its arms back, preventing the gun from finding its mark.
He succeeded in rolling out of the fall and ended up on top of the alien. Holding back its energy weapon with one hand Jon unsheathed his ion blade with the other. It crackled to life, glowing white and firing off sparks along its entire surface. The alien grabbed Jon’s wrist, futilely trying to stop his attack. Jon pushed down hard, his strength too much for the Kemmar to handle. The blade came down steadily until its tip found the helmet. The energized point sunk through the armor, melting away the alloy. Jon gave one final push and drove the tip into the alien skull.
Jon stood up, to witness widespread chaos. All around him the battle had shifted to hand to hand combat. Marine and Kemmar grappled with each other in tests of strength and will. His rail gun lay at his feet and he briefly thought about picking it up. It was pointless. He couldn’t fire his gun for fear of hitting his men. His ion blade, however, still crackled and vibrated in his hand.
He saw Kevin rolling around on the ground with one of the creatures. Kevin tried to fight off the alien from his back, blocking its attempts to bash in his helmet. Jon lunged forward and with a crack and a spark, drove his ion blade through the back of the Kemmar’s armored neck. The creature went limp and Jon’s blade hummed as he pulled it out.
Kevin threw the heavy corpse off and pulled himself up, but Jon was already gone. In a blur of movement he surged through the battle, wielding his ion blade in a familiar dance of death. He flowed from one strike to the next, his body moving in almost forgotten ways. He drove his blade through an enemy helmet, pounced and sunk it to the hilt in another creature’s back. His speed gave his victims no warning, his skill with the blade allowed them no hope. He slaughtered with fervor, as the screeches of the dying filled the air.
In seconds the butchering was over. The battle won. Jon stood in the middle of his men as they rose to their feet, a sizzling ion blade in his hand. He could only imagine how he looked, but he knew how he felt. Alive. Adrenaline coursed through his body, but there was something else. Something more. Something he hadn’t felt since before the Hermes. His symbiont had awoken.
Chapter 4
“Plot coordinates to jump just behind the stern of the Kemmar warship,” said Colonel Bast, analyzing several cascading information feeds through his brain chip. When the Chaanisar first revolted against the Juttari they had refrained from using their brain chips for fear of some overlooked back door. Now, convinced that no such threat existed, they returned to relying on the speed and efficiency of the implants.
“Coordinates plotted,” said the helmsman, not verbally, but sending the message through his own chip.
“Refrain from using your chip for communication,” Bast chastised through his own chip.
“I am sorry, Sir. It will not happen again.”
Bast didn’t want any unnecessary tension with the Space Force or Reiver passengers. Since those without implants could easily grow suspicious about the unheard conversations. They must learn to use vocal communication, even when only Chaanisar were present. That way mistakes made out of habit could be avoided.
Interacting with the ship’s systems was another matter, however. The ship was designed to take advantage of the Chaanisar brain chips, and everything functioned much more efficiently when the neural links were in place.
“Load all missile tubes and prepare to fire,” ordered Bast.
“Missiles loaded,” said the Chaanisar tactical officer.
An image of the Kemmar warship and its location flashed in Bast’s mind, along with the present location of his own Heavy Cruiser. They orbited on the opposite side of the planet from the enemy. He planned to use the jump system to surprise their prey and inflict as much damage as possible.
“Jump,” said Bast.
The ship folded the space between the two locations, effectively vanishing from their current position, and reappearing behind the enemy vessel. Explosions reverberated all over the ship, their jarring concussions surprising everyone on board. The floor tilted and quaked under Bast’s feet making him struggle to keep his balance. Had the Kemmar fired on them? Impossible. Even if they anticipated their jump they couldn’t possibly know where they would land. Yet they were taking damage. Somehow, something was hitting them.
“Report,” yelled Bast, as a flurry of information flashed through his mind.
“Mines, Sir,” said the tactician. “The Kemmar have deployed mines around their ship.”
They anticipated the jump, thought Bast. They were adapting. A view of the space surrounding them appeared. He saw the warship and its minefield. They were everywhere. The mines ignored the Kemmar warship. That could only mean they were intelligent, harmless to Kemmar vessels, yet deadly to the enemy. This changed things. He had planned to use the jump system to keep the enemy guessing. Now he would have to hold position and trade blows. Landing behind the vessel still gave him a positional advantage. It would have to be enough.
“Fire missiles,” ordered Bast.
Underneath the Chaanisar ship small hatches swung open and focused explosions thrust a volley of missiles forward, sending them streaking ahead toward the enemy vessel.
The mines had tipped off the Kemmar to the Chaanisar arrival. The warship launched decoy drones in defense against the missiles. Point defense fire joined in successfully destroying any missiles not fooled by the drones.
“Load all missile tubes and fire again,” said Bast. “Continue firing missiles until further notice.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Fire energy weapons. Target enemy’s point defense batteries. Set rail guns to point defense mode.”
Bast anticipated a counterattack, and fully expected to spot missiles hurtling toward him at any moment. But they didn’t come. Instead, the ship belched out an endless cluster of fighters. A swarm of tiny ships streaked toward the Chaanisar cruiser, their thrusters blazing white hot in the dark sky. As they entered the Chaanisar perimeter the point defense batteries opened up. Bast watched the scene unfold through a tactical display in his mind. Fighter after fighter disappeared from the display as the guns hit their mark, swiveling around and
firing with remarkable speed and precision. Somehow the fighters kept coming, a continuous stream pouring out of the Kemmar ship.
Bast studied the tiny vessels, zooming in for a close-up. The image was accompanied by a list of the fighter’s specifications. They were small for fighters. Too small. He focused on the data, scrolling through the information he was receiving, realization dawning on him. There were no life signs. No pilots. The fighters were drones. That was how it was possible to deploy so many. They were trying to employ swarm tactics. Attempting to overwhelm the Chaanisar defenses through sheer numbers. First the mines and now the swarm. He was impressed. The Kemmar truly were a worthy foe.
“Retarget energy weapons. Focus on the fighters. Fire at will,” ordered Bast. He knew the added defensive fire wouldn’t be enough. There were simply too many.
The swarm began to envelop the cruiser, creating a glowing halo around the ship as the defensive ordinance destroyed the craft in the hundreds. Bast knew that the drones would wrap around them like a fiery blanket. They would find the inevitable cracks in the defensive field. They would exploit those cracks, opening wider gaps, until the ship’s defenses were irreparably compromised.
The bridge seemed to speed up. The crew moved faster, spurred by the urgency of the situation. He glanced to the open levels surrounding the bridge above him. His crew was composed. It wasn’t that he expected to see anyone panicking. Chaanisar didn’t panic. The Juttari ensured this when they augmented them. Not only did they fit them with implants that made them stronger and faster, they also inserted medical devices that managed the way their bodies reacted to different stimuli.
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