“Kill him!” One of the men near the computer displays shouted to the creature.
Spartan reached for his shotgun but the monster stamped down hard, its weight easily damaging the weapon and moving it beyond reach. Spartan looked about only to see more of the cylinders venting fluid onto the floor. General Rivers and the soldier were behind cover and still engaged in a shootout with the rest of the enemy forces. The other three ex-prisoners cowered in cover, occasionally returning fire but adding little to the battle either way. General Rivers spotted Spartan’s predicament and fired a single thermal shell at the creature before being forced back into cover by a fusillade of shots.
Unlike the impact against the crewman the thermal shotgun was only able to cause superficial damage to the creature and seemed to enrage it even more. He jumped forward and delivered a series of powerful punches that slammed into the creature’s ribs. Each strike felt like Spartan was hitting a punch bag yet there appeared to be little effect. He changed tack and swung his fist up into an uppercut that hit the thing in the jaw. It was like punching metal and the impact must have broken several bones in his fingers as he winced in pain.
“My turn!” the creature roared in a barely understandable growl.
Spartan was so surprised to hear it speak that he failed to duck against the slow but powerful strike. The first hit Spartan in the chest and knocked him backwards several metres before he slumped to the ground. He felt as though his heart had stopped, the power was immense and it was incredible that the blow hadn’t smashed clean through his sternum. Spartan was no weakling however and though still in pain lifted himself up, moving back to fight. The gunfire had stopped but he was unable to take his attention away from the monster. It staggered towards him, swinging its arms to catch him. This time Spartan was ready and as the strikes came in he ducked and swerved to avoid them, hitting it in the face and throat as he desperately looked for any kind of weakness.
The creature roared in anger as it missed Spartan time and time again. This time it waited and as Spartan struck it lifted its massive hands and blocked the attack, grabbing Spartan and locking his arm. It was a contest of muscle now and though Spartan was probably the toughest marine in the entire Corps he was nothing compared to this beast. He tensed his muscles, desperately trying to avoid having his arm snapped back. As this grudge match continued the creature pushed its other arm against Spartan’s throat and pushed hard. The combined pressure on his arm and neck was devastating yet still Spartan refused to give in.
“Spartan, the knife!” General Rivers shouted from somewhere in the background.
A flurry of gunshots immediately followed and then silence, just the noise of the two titans battling it out in a simple struggle of brawn. Spartan tried to remember about the knife, then recalled taking one from the room when the others took the guns. He lowered his still free left arm and felt for the knife. It was in his belt as expected, he grabbed the hilt just as his vision started to blur. Dots and speckles danced around his eyes and he knew it wouldn’t be long before he would lose consciousness.
“Die!” he cried out as he used every last ounce of strength to push the arm back to give him access to the creature’s face. With a single powerful thrust he stabbed upwards and into its throat and up into the brain. As soon as the blade embedded itself he felt a shudder through the creature. Its grip on Spartan loosened and he struggled free only to fall backwards onto the floor. He shook his head to see the monster falling down towards his face.
“Oh fuck!” he cried and rolled over to his right, narrowly avoiding the weighty bulk of the creature as it collapsed in a dead heap next to him. Spartan was surprised that he had actually brought down one of the monsters using just a knife and his bare hands. Then he noticed the complete lack of gunfire and could only hope it meant they had cleared the room. He stood up and looked around the open space only to find the soldier, General Rivers and one of the prisoners all with their hands on their heads and guarded by security guards. Spartan made to move towards them when he sensed something to his left. He turned to spot the great bulk of three more of the biomechanical creatures.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
With a roar the three rushed towards him and though he lifted his hands to protect his face the last thing he saw was what looked like a fleshy freight train smashing towards him. He was unconscious before his body even touched the floor.
CHAPTER THREE
The datapad and associated hardware was the brainchild of the Fairwater Corporation. Though not the more advanced hardware, it did become successful upon its introduction to the Confed military as the front end to strategic and tactical systems. The civilian models sold well due to their military credentials and though the innards constantly improved the outside appearance and functionality remained the same. The reasons for its lack of change ultimately became its reason for widespread acceptance.
Computer Science 101, 7th Edition
Teresa held her breath, her heart pounding away as she watched the burnt out wreckage of a freighter drift inch by inch past her window. According to the ship’s computers this part of the debris field was supposed to be clear, but with no power being sent to the manoeuvring thrusters they had to wait and pray the ship didn’t get too close. Sitting next to her were her fellow marines, Anderson and Bishop who waited in silence, each of them thinking the same as the hulks of metal followed their course. There was always the faint possibility that their calculations were wrong in some way and it was for this nightmare scenario that Commander Anderson had his hand waiting on the emergency thrust button. It would take several seconds to warm up and the boost of power would draw attention to any vessels within a day’s travel. They had already been tempted to use thrust to move out of danger but that would potentially negate their mission and expose them to even more danger. They had to be patient, it was going to take an hour to slip through the debris field but it was worth it. By taking this route they had avoided the automated customs drones that patrolled the shipping lanes leading to the inner planets of Proxima.
Kowalski leaned forward. He was the resident computer and electronics expert. Thin and wiry he gave the impression of being nothing but a tech nerd. However, in their recent combat actions on the Rim had shown he could handle himself in a situation, even though he was obviously more comfortable with a computer than a rifle.
“You okay, Teresa?”
“Yeah, just thinking about Spartan and the others.”
“Don’t you worry about them, Marcus and Spartan are a pair of tough bastards and General Rivers, well, you know his reputation.”
Teresa did her best to smile back but it wasn’t easy to hide her feelings. It felt as though her guts had been ripped out. A friendly chat or joke would do little to hide the fact that Spartan had been gone for more than two months and there were no guarantees they would ever see him again. He wasn’t just her friend, they were much closer than that and if it hadn’t been for the uprising on Prime and the Naval Station on the moon of Kronus they would be together right now. The more she thought of the fighting the more she started to really hate the Zealots and their self-righteous dogma that had started all the trouble in the first place.
Commander Anderson was watching the craft slip past.
“Look, can you see the markings on the side of the wreckage? That’s from an old Navy cutter, you can see part of the registration mark near the burn marks.”
“How did we lose a cutter out here?”
“Good question, Bishop, I haven’t heard of any losses in the last few weeks. She must have been lost in counter piracy operations before the start of the uprising.”
They watched the wreckage, each looking for any signs that might indicate what had caused the vessel’s demise. It was like looking at a dead animal, both disturbing and also surprisingly interesting. Behind and around the craft a large amount of broken metal and debris drifted with it. As they passed through the material the tiny pieces sounded like rain on t
he roof of a house.
Kowalski looked over to the Commander.
“If any of that crap makes it inside the engine inlets or any of the moving parts out there you know we’ll be in a world of pain, Sir?” He added the ‘sir’ as an afterthought.
“You’d better hope nothing gets inside then.” Anderson examined the outside of their ship with the external camera mounts.
The crew was an odd little bunch. Anderson, the XO of a major capital ship had been given the use of the Tamarisk, along with the small crew, to investigate a gathering of insurgents out on the Rim. The mission had been partially successful but the information they had uncovered reached Kerberos too late to stop the coup and assassination of the President of the colony and his staff. Of that mission the four surviving marines Bishop, Teresa, Barca and Kowalski were still with him after he had requested they be assigned to his latest mission. Sadly one of the marines, a tough, burly man called Williams had been killed during their escape from the Rim. The only other member of their crew had been the Kerberon, Special Agent Johnson. He’d returned to his unit on Kerberos, though Anderson suspected that was on the orders of Naval Intelligence. The small group had bonded well since being thrown together for their first mission. Now that their new mission had been deemed critical by the Admiral of the Fleet they had an extra incentive to get the job done as quickly and efficiently as possible. It was well over a month since they’d returned after their violent escape from the Rim and their voyage home to rejoin the Fleet. The return journey itself had proven almost as epic an undertaking as the mission itself. Since their arrival back on their home ship, the CCS Santa Cruz, Teresa and the rest of the team hadn’t wasted a single minute while trying to discover the location of Spartan.
So far the only clue was an audio recording handed to them by loyalists in a merchant fleet. There was no information other than that they had found the item on a transport heading from Kerberos. The destination was unknown though Teresa suspected it would be either the Rim or the inner planets, possibly Prometheus. They were the most violent and also the least policed parts of the Proxima Star System, the best places to hide all manner of goods, people and business.
As she sat there in silence she lifted up a headset and listened to the small segment of audio the technicians at Naval Intelligence had managed to salvage. At first the audio appeared to be just noise, it was more like the wind sound you could hear when lowering a window on a car. As the microphone adjusted for the ambient noise however the sound lowered until the clip became almost silent. Then the voices of three men started in low tones.
“Come on, they’ll be back to check on him any second, pass it...” said a voice before it distorted in a loud crackle.
There was a loud roaring sound as the person evidently spoke directly into the unit, before the software adjusted the recording level again to compensate.
“This is General Rivers of the Confederate Fleet. I am with Private Keller and Sergeant Spartan. Forces in collusion with the separatists have imprisoned us on Kerberos, following their assassination of the President. We are being transported to an unknown destination.” Others voices then started trying to hush him.
Teresa listened closely, trying to pick out t heir voices. She had listened to the clip dozens of times but even now was finding it difficult t o pickup any of the individuals in the room. Naval Intelligence had already confirmed there were three voices, one positively identified as General Rivers. She was listening for Spartan and couldn’t tell one way or the other. The voice continued.
“We have not performed planetary re-entry, I repeat, we are not on a planetary...” again the voice cut out.
A loud thud could be heard followed by shouting. Nothing intelligible could be heard though it was obvious a struggle was going on in the room or storage space that the prisoners were being held in. As the noise became louder she could hear occasional words from other people, not all were in English and some of the accents were Kerberon and Promethean. Naval Intelligence has been able to confirm the accents but not where they were being held.
Teresa concentrated even harder now and the last part, and for her the most important part, of the audio played. The sound in the room lowered, presumably because they had been overcome. Somebody must have been getting closer to the recording device.
“...will co-operate or die, the choice...fight...” and then the voice faded.
A short burst of static followed and then the file stopped.
Teresa had listened to the last line so often it felt as though it had burnt into her mind. The most important line to her though was the “co-operate or die”. It was surprisingly clear and the accent was definitely from the Rim territories. Intelligence hadn’t been able to identify the individual speaking but they had done the next best thing, they had found the man’s voice on other recordings taken from surveillance the previous year during a narcotics operation. The group had been broken up but it was known they were still running guns from Kerberos to Prime where their weapons had been used in the insurgency and eventually the mass uprising.
It didn’t matter to Teresa though what had happened, all she wanted to know was where they were and more importantly to her, where Spartan was. She hadn’t realised how important he was to her until the news had hit her on his arrest and then sudden disappearance. She had decided weeks ago that being reunited with Spartan was her single goal and she would not stop until she had him back. If that meant going against the Fleet’s orders, so be it. Luckily for them all, the mission they were on had so far proved compatible.
The latest information had suggested that a weapons trade would be conducted anytime in the next twenty-four hours and this point was a strong candidate for the loading of the goods. The debris field followed a steady orbit around the burning star but of more importance to traders and dealers it provided an unlimited source of hiding places. Their current course would take them directly to a recently used drop off point platform, a small but spacious manmade station about a hundred metres in diameter and perfect for storing goods to be collected by a buyer. There were hundreds of similar storage spots, many more out on the Rim, but intelligence confirmed that members of the group associated with who had taken General Rivers and his team were supposed to be heading this way.
To maintain the element of surprise they had to slip into the area avoiding all manner of black market dealers and pirates. Their ship was after all only a heavily modified cargo hauler, not a ship of war. It had taken them over a week to get into position in this treacherous area without using the main shipping lanes. The only chance they had of reaching the small drop off platform, without alerting the many spies loyal to the separatists, was to slip past the security patrols with no running engines and most of their systems offline.
The great hulk of the derelict craft continued to tumble its way past them, though from where they sat its course appeared to take a lifetime. Anderson watched it move along the thick, reinforced window before it continued on to the left of the ship. As it moved to a safe distance the crew breathed a sigh of relief.
“Bloody hell, that was close.”
“You don’t say, Bishop. Are we likely to run into more derelicts on this route?”
Bishop pulled up a navigation chart on the computer system and rechecked their position.
“Well, Sir, we’ve managed to avoid the main shipping lanes for the last week. We should drift into position about five hundred kilometres from the drop-off platform. Assuming we make it that close without being detected, we should be able to land a boarding party via the shuttle before they can get their people onto their ships and away.”
A red light started to flash on the tactical display, shortly followed by a low tone.
“What the hell?” Teresa muttered.
“Sir, we’ve got trouble. I’m picking up two vessels, ten kilometres out and moving fast,” said Bishop.
“Have they spotted us?” asked Commander Anderson, the senior ranking member of the crew an
d leader of their operation.
Bishop clicked his fingers to get the attention of Kowalski who was already scanning the electronic signals emanating from the approaching craft.
“I’m on it!”
He flicked between each page of data, checking for their power levels and readiness of weapon systems. From the look on his face he looked less than happy.
“This isn’t good, this isn’t good at all. The sensors show the transport is prepping a shuttle. There’s a lot of activity coming from inside, I’d say there are a number of people on board and they are getting ready for something. No major power systems switching on, doesn’t mean they won’t have projectile weapons already loaded and waiting though.”
He then brought up a detailed schematic of a civilian ship. It rotated about on the screen and several pages of data and specifications scrolled upwards. Kowalski read a few lines before turning to the rest of the crew.
“Right, I’ve got the ship’s specs. She is a Centaur Class transport. A light hauler used mainly on the shipping runs from the Rim to the refineries and industrial colonies. According to the data she has a crew of three and can transport up to a dozen passengers plus assorted cargo. The other vessel has the same electronic signature but there’s a lot of interference coming from her engineering coils. Either she’s damaged or her power plant has been upgraded in some way.”
Star Crusades Uprising: The First Trilogy Page 42
