Ghost of an Empire (Sentinel Series Book 3)

by Richard Flunker

  Among the other Legions of the Dominion, their respect was utter. They were fearless and ruthless in battle. Training exercises against the First easily resulted in casualties to the other Legions, despite the fact that it was only training. They were also the only Legion housed on Coran itself, the only Legion allowed to do so. It was considered sacrilegious for any other Legion to go the holy planet. Only individuals from another Legion could, with permission from the Dominar himself, visit the holy places.

  It was this fearlessness that Ogho planned to exploit. They believed themselves to be an essence of the warrior god, descendants from the very first glorious man to establish the Dominion. Thanks to his Queen, he knew that now to be false. All men were just that, men, even if their genetic make-up had been highly changed and advanced. In that humility, he had found peace and tranquility. All men were equal before each other, even if their roles were not.

  The advance party of the First reached the bridge just as the storm was dumping snow on them. Thermals, although short range, picked them up easily, for the First never hid. Ogho watched as their advance troops, never scouts, rushed across the bridge. Snow swirled up and off the edge of the several lane highway and down into the river below. Brash and brazen, and brave, they were, but they would be the first to die. Sad, really, for Ogho wanted them all saved.

  Two of his heavies stepped up and out from behind the wreck of the concrete bunker. They were loaded with bunker busting rockets. A crash of thunder announced their firing, and the rockets barreled down the long bridge, hitting the center of the bridge right as the troops were crossing. The explosion sent a shockwave of snow and metal wreckage in all directions. When Ogho looked again, the majority of the bridge was missing, as were the advance troops.

  Any other troops would have hesitated a bit, stopped to see just what kind of firepower they were headed into, but the First never did. Ogho knew that too. Even with the bridge down, that wouldn’t stop their progress, only make it a bit more inconvenient. As the smoke cleared from the explosion, mostly blown away by the storm, Ogho quickly spotted the troops arriving on the other side of the river. Shouts ran out up and down the trenches just as the first heavy gunfire started pouring across the river. Dust and sparks flew up everywhere along the line as the Seventh returned fire.

  Ogho spotted the bridgers at the same time as the spotters. Short and stubby, the First engineers reached the riverside and quickly began their bridging process. Large columns were brought down the river bank towards the water, and under extreme fire, were laid out into the water. On the top of these, small platforms were bolted on quickly, forming a stepping stone bridge across the water. Seventh troops fired down on the engineers, but they were exceedingly armored, which is why they were so slow. Ogho’s heavies couldn’t maneuver themselves onto the side of the bank to make precise strikes because it left them too vulnerable to the fire from across the river. Instead, they fired their rockets at a high angle, low power, trajectory, to try to drop them into the working engineers, kind of like mortars.

  They were outnumbered though. Within a few minutes, even with devastating fire pouring down on them, the engineers built five step stone bridges across the river and the First began to pour across the river. Ogho jumped up and was instantly hit a few times. He got forward to the front trench and looked down the river bed just as the first of the enemy were scrambling up the side of the river. Ogho’s troops fired down their grenades. They rolled down and struck the scampering troops with the intended effect, blowing them back onto their own men. If they could do that enough times, at the very least, they’d take many of them out before they made it across.

  One explosion changed that.

  Ogho spun around and watched one his heavies torn apart, smoldering and bleeding.

  “HEAVIES!”

  The First heavies were tanks. Instead of the multi-purpose rocket ammo of the Seventh, they were larger and heavily armored, and carried twin gauss cannons on either shoulder. These silent killers hit at a far range with devastating effect against practically every target. Ogho’s other heavy ducked back behind the concrete bunker, but that might not even stand up to their firepower. First heavies opened up fire on the front trench and started churning up the land like a plow tractor. Since the trench was right next to the river bank, it started to tear away that first layer of defense away, leaving them exposed. If they stayed too long, the heavies would make direct hits, and their armor wouldn’t take it, but if they dropped back to the second trench, then the First would make it across. His choice was made when another explosion blew back an entire section of the river bed, making it slide down into the river along with two of his men.

  He gave the order and they dropped back to the second trench line. This line was just behind a small flood wall, a dirt barrier fifty feet wide. Even the heavies and their cannons wouldn’t get through that. It didn’t take long for the rest of the First to come over it though. They came over like ants wielding guns and plasma-throwers, and the First and the Seventh collided. Ogho called in on his heavies, still ducked behind the concrete bunker, to open up fire onto the top of the flood wall. They stepped out and began to pour out their rockets to great efficiency, but began to take hits from the long range heavies of the First.

  With sweat pouring down over his face, Ogho lunged out towards another First trooper, clearly marked by the giant red skull on their chest plate and the bright blue on the rest of their armor. It contrasted greatly against the white snow that piled and blew everywhere. He caught him by the side and threw him down back down into the trench and emptied several rounds into his head. Blood and brains sprayed out of the broken visor as Ogho reached down and took the man’s two grenades, and without looking, activated them and threw them back over the flood wall. He had no time to think if he hit anyone or not, because he was immediately locked into combat with another foe.

  The enemy got his rifle up just as Ogho caught him, and he grabbed onto the barrel just as he fired. The shot tore into his shoulder but missed his head. He felt the bullets tear through the flesh and knew that the damage was substantial, and it wouldn’t be long until he was useless. While holding the firing rifle with his right hand, he unsheathed his blade along his left arm, and in one swift move, slid it in between the chest plate and torso actuator. He came in at an angle, as only a blade could get into that gap. He slid it in as far as he could and heard the screams coming from the inside of the suit. They weren’t screams of pain though, as he well knew, but of disappointment and anger that he had been defeated.

  An explosion sent them both flying out of the trench. With a heavy buzz in his comm feed, Ogho stood up and looked back. Down to his left, towards the highway, a steady stream of First troops were coming over the flood wall. Ogho knew it right then and there, that they weren’t going to be able to hold that position. First heavies were now positioned directly across the river and were launching shots up and over the flood wall. Each impact sent piles of dirt and snow, and sometimes metal and flesh, showering up into the blowing wind.

  He heard the wiz of the shell, but didn’t look in time. The hit knocked him spinning like a cartwheel into the frozen ground, and the instant he hit, he knew something was wrong. He tried to pick himself up, but found that his left arm wasn’t working. He rolled himself over and looked in shock. His entire arm was missing. In one swift motion, he retrieved a small disk from his torso armor and quickly jammed it into the stub of his left arm. The disk opened up and seared itself onto the stub, staunching the flow of blood. Ogho screamed out in pain. He knew pain, it had not been bred out of him or his brothers. He looked up and saw his brothers fighting valiantly, but in a losing cause.

  Time, that was all the drop ships needed. The longer they made this battle last, the better it would be for his Queen. He shouted out the order over the com, and his troops, in a few leaps, dropped back to the third and final trench. In that instant, they opened fire again at the advancing troops. The last of his heavies took a shot fr
om across the river and went down, just as the First troops reached him. In his dying breath, his soldier triggered the ammunition disposal on his rocket pack and he exploded in a shower of shrapnel and fire and took out nearly a dozen of First troops.

  Ogho stumbled into the trench and swung his right arm onto the ground on top of the trench. He could barely move it anymore, but at least he could fire his rifle. He pulled the trigger and watched as the bullets flew just inches off the ground, kicking up more snow. He hit several targets in their bright blue and red, but watched as they continued to rush towards him. He wasn’t going to be able to last. He hoped his brothers made them pay, and in the end, earn their freedom. An enormous explosion went off behind him of which the shockwave knocked him hard into the ground. His HuD blanked out and he lost his digital imagery. He peered out through the slits in his visor when a bright light filled his helmet. He blinked hard and tried to stand, but ended up spinning around. When he opened his eyes again, his HuD was coming back online, and right there, before him, was a drop ship.

  He heard the shouts over the comm first, before he turned.

  “The Doomguard!!”

  His heart leapt and he turned back around, his right arm limp at his side and his left completely gone. There, before him, stood the angel of the stars. The Queen herself. Magyo, the empress of all men, along with her Doomguard, her personal mechanized troops. Her suit was nearly fifteen feet tall, long and lean, and of a chromatic white, as were her warriors. The air and snow around them shimmered and shook as they moved in among the enemy soldiers with speed and agility. The Doomguard was armed with her own personal weapons, the starguns, as they had been nicknamed. The short stubby weapons fired off balls of intense gravity, imploding everything along their path. They tore everything in their path.

  Ogho watched in breathless glory as the First Legion was torn apart in a matter of seconds. The Queen herself stood above everyone else. She moved in among the enemy like a wraith, tearing her enemies apart with the movement of her arms. With on motion she split a soldier and mech down the middle, sending a spray of flesh and bones into the frozen wind. Enemy bullets warped around their suits, drawn away by some shielding that only the Doomguard wore; it made them invincible.

  Another scream pierced the sky and Ogho watched as another drop ship came crashing above the sky on the other side of the river. Before it crashed into the ground, he watched as a hundred more Doomguard jumped out at the last minute, sraying out like metal rain over the First heavies, tearing into them like angelic demons. When he looked back down onto his side of the river, the Doomguard had already pushed the First back over the flood wall.

  Struggling to get himself up over the trench, a comrade helped him, and both of them limped up to the wall. There he watched as the Doomguard and their Queen made mincemeat out of the legendary First Legion, tossing them aside like children. He heard her voice call out to them.

  “Surrender, First Legion. Your time for war has come to an end. Live in peace now.”

  Her voice. Calm, serene, and divine. How could they not see her glory? The old Dominion was dead. The long corrupt patriarchy of wealth and greed was at an end. All men would be free.

  “Die in hell bitch,” was their response.

  And so they did. To their honor, they did not surrender, and fought to the very bitter end. Back behind him, two large gravity ships smashed into the country side, and shortly after that, drop ships began to fall into their invisible net. In a few hours, two million men and women would disembark on the final conquest of Secundaria. For his part in the war, Ogho was done.

  Before the Queen's had granted him true freedom, he would consider himself a failure. He had not died in combat. In fact, had it not been for the Doomguard, he would have failed. And yet, he understood now. He was one of many.

  All equal.

  Except her. No one was like her.

  She walked up to him, as the Doomguard finished off the First. She reached out with her long slender fingers, and touched the gap in his left arm. He was only looking up at her mech, glorious and bright, but he could feel her eyes upon him. He lowered himself to bow, and he heard a laugh.

  “You bow before no one,” she said, quiet, youthful, yet clear in authority.

  She looked back over the field, snow blowing fiercely, the bodies of the First Legion littered along the river bank.

  “They say the First Legion feared nothing,” she said, a hint of sadness in her voice, “They feared freedom. Their slavery was so encoded into their blood that the thought of it gone left them shivering.”

  She walked off to join up with her personal troops as they returned to the ever increasing number of drop ships.

  “Never again,” she said, one last time, within range of his comm.

  His pod of the Seventh had been reduced in numbers by nearly half, and many of those that survived would not fight again, in this war or any other. Ogho limped back down to the first trench, tracking down his own survivors among the wreckage of mech armor. He stumbled upon the legless form of a First trooper, trying slowly to crawl away by his arms. The long line of frozen blood behind him told Ogho that he would not crawl far.

  Ogho reached down and turned the man over. The cracked visor revealed the face of his brother in arms, bloodied and broken. With his one good arm, Ogho reached into his medical kit and drew out a pain killer. He injected it into the limbless torso of the man.

  “Peace brother. It is over now.”

  Warmth washed over the trooper’s face for a moment, then turned into a snarling visage of anger.

  “Traitor,” he spat, as teeth and blood bubbled from his mouth.

  “How can you not see what she is?” Ogho asked. It seemed so obvious.

  “She is a heresy. A witch. You are doomed to follow her and only hell will be your destiny.”

  “An angel. Of death, perhaps, but angelic none-the-less,” Ogho replied.

  “She is a ghost. You have fallen for a possession, and by it you will be damned.”

  His Queen had been accused of many things. Some even claimed she wasn’t human, demonic. He didn’t mind those comparisons, but this was the first he had heard of her being called a ghost. A machine in a human. The AI within a biological vessel. Stories told to children after the fabled man vs. machine wars of centuries past. A warning not to dabble in a technology so taboo that even an empire as powerful as the Dominion stayed away from it.

  As the trooper slid into a painless coma, where death awaited him, Ogho stood up and looked back at his Queen. She was a bright light now, nearly a mile away, even in the snow storm, he could see her. She had freed his mind and body from the slavery of the Dominion and saw what she brought to countless worlds. There was no doubt in his mind.

  She was a goddess.

  3127 – Orbit around Secundaria

  “Ok, Hosha, we need to pull back some. Even with the press beacon on, were gonna get hit by a stray slug or something.”

  The journalist’s plucky, but nervous, pilot, spun her chair around to face her navigator, who happened to be her equally nervous brother. It was this shared over-caution that had made them a good spaceship team, but it drove Hosha insane.

  “Or worse, some annoyed pilot might just take a shot at us. It’s not like anyone would care,” the brother said.

  Hosha walked over and stood in between the two siblings. The pilot, Jainka, was a tall blonde, far taller than him. She was also thin, a product of being born and having lived most of her life on low gravity worlds. Her parents had, at some point in time, been asteroid miners, operating the huge clunking tubs that slowly but surely brought metals and minerals to the space stations that littered the galaxy. She could have been beautiful were it not for the lackluster face whose smile also lacked a tooth. Her smile was graceful, sexy even, as long as she kept her lips shut.

  Her brother, Allo, was similarly built, although a bit shorter and stockier. He was born on a space station and lived there for a few years during his child
hood, granting him better gravity growth. He was also plainly graced, but while his sister had a sensual charm common to women, any charm the brother had was lost in the large paunch of a stomach. He was the butt of many jokes, most pertaining to starvation or potbellied pigs.

  The two fought routinely, as was likely common for siblings, but had a natural sense of camaraderie among them. They formed a perfect team. Jainka was a natural pilot with a born and bred sense for 3d space while Allo, while just an average navigator, was more than skilled enough in maintenance that he filled both roles easily.

  “How long have we been together now?” Hosha asked?

  “Four years?” Allo responded, looking back towards his sister to see if he was right.

  “Four years,” Hosha put his hands on each of their shoulders and smiled. “Four years and we have been in the thick of some bad shit, far worse than this. In places they sure as hell didn’t want the press. This,” he pointed out at the battle that was elapsing before them in orbit around Secundaria, “is easy. And let me tell you why…”

  “He’s gonna tell us why,” Jainka grinned at Allo. “Us poor dumb folk are so lucky,” he laughed.

  Hosha ignored them. “That right there, out there, are two sides of the same coin. The Dominion. The most arrogant and prideful bunch of men and women, if you can call them that, in the entire galaxy. The old Dominion flunkies and royals want nothing more than to be on the news stream, day and night, if not just to prove how amazing they are to all of us, poor, helpless, inferior, men and women of Earth.”

  Hosha reached out and tapped on his consoles. Nearly a dozen different streams were being recorded and broadcast back into threaded space back to Earth, and his news Network, GNN, whose giant space relayer orbited Mars. He had full control of the final content, but his small press ship didn’t have nearly enough storage space to keep all of his data and streams. Later, he would sit down and edit the streams into one for the news. Thirty three years as one of GNN’s best journalists had earned him that right. It had also earned him the right to sit here and record as the giant civil war unfolded.