Even as he said the words, it was clear this was what the man had been thinking about all along. He gave a grim, barely visible smirk as General Rivers finished making his thought known.
“So why did we only just hear about this threat, if it was so important? Surely your commanders in the Navy are capable of spotting dangers in space, isn’t that what we pay you for?”
Admiral Jackson rose to his feet, but General Rivers lowered his hands to get him to remain seated.
“I think we all know the value of the Navy, Mr. Secretary, and technically only the private sector workers pay for our armed forces. We are all public servants, paid for by the public purse.”
He walked over to the image of the comet.
“I’ll answer you again, Mr. Secretary, but the facts haven’t changed. Everybody, including us, missed this object, but all of this is irrelevant. We are here to discuss the security implications for Helios, the Orion Nebula, and the Alliance, and I think it is clear from the thoughts of the Joint Chiefs that the comet is a clear and present danger.”
The Defense Secretary rose to his feet to leave without saying a word. He moved to the door, turning back to look at them.
“General, it is time. The President awaits our briefing and neither this comet, nor the Black Rift itself, respects our schedules.”
The two men left the room, and the two scientists followed shortly after, leaving the three Joint Chiefs behind on their own. General Hammerstein was the first to speak as the three considered what had been said.
“Is it me or is the Secretary of Defense becoming a little obsessed over just one point in space?”
Admiral Jackson smiled curtly.
“Well, he does have a point. If what the Helions and the others say is true, the entire might of the Biomechs is waiting on the other side. Even a comet would pale to insignificance compared to the threat something like that could offer.”
It was a thought none of them seemed to relish.
“What about the fighting on the moons, how is that progressing? I thought we were winning this war?” asked General Hammerstein.
General Cornwallis seemed to almost shudder at this question, as though a cold wind had just touched his skin.
“It’s progressing. We helped the Zathee and their allies win, and win quickly. This insurgency is unexpected, however. We are unable to fight them head on, and they are resorting to asymmetric tactics to nullify our edge in manpower, weapons, and mobility.”
“The home front isn’t much better,’” complained General Hammerstein.
“How so?” asked the Admiral.
“For starters, there are rumors in the Guard that when the Biomechs arrive, they will be the cannon fodder. You can imagine the quality of the people that are left. Recruitment for the Corps or the Navy isn’t a problem, but the Colonial Guard gets none of the glory. If you want to travel and see alien worlds, you don’t become a part-time soldier on Terra Nova, do you?”
General Cornwallis looked unimpressed.
“The Colonial Guard is not a frontline unit, you know that, General. What does this have to do with the Biomechs?”
“The Guard is becoming less and less popular on the homeworlds with the Doomsday Prophecy. The rise in apocalyptic cults is rocketing, and some have turned to violence. We clamp down on them, but we always seem to come out as the bad guys.”
Admiral Jackson finally understood the man’s concerns.
“General, in the end it isn’t up to us to be loved. We have a job to do, and if we don’t do it, you know the consequences. We weren’t prepared the last time, and I’ll be damned if we’ll let it happen again.”
“What are you suggesting?” asked General Cornwallis.
“I don’t know, but the arrival of this comet is no coincidence, and apart from the actual threat it brings, I strongly believe there could be something much worse on the way. I see no reason to disbelieve the warning from the Helions.”
General Hammerstein was unimpressed; at least that was how it looked.
“What if you’re wrong?”
Admiral Jackson grimaced.
“What if I’m right?”
CHAPTER TWO
The capabilities of a warship can only be replaced by technology and equipment to a point. Ultimately, a ship can only be in one place at a time, and this is where the small fleet strategy of the early Alliance began to unravel. Luckily, the resilience and power of the new Heavy Strike Groups would show how a small group of advanced ships could hold their own against greater numbers. In time, the number of Crusader class Heavy Cruisers and its larger brother, the Vengeance class Battlecruiser would come to dominate Alliance affairs in a way no other ship design had.
Naval Cadet’s Handbook
The highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid that shrouded Venus were a welcome sight for the tired eyes of Spartan. The T’Kari ship’s scanners brought up pages of data, but he already knew the planet he was staring at was one of the most inhospitable places in the Alliance. Its surface was a dry, barren desert, interspersed with rocks and volcanoes. Its dense carbon dioxide-filled atmosphere made viewing the surface impossible from this distance, but Spartan knew the world’s reputation. Even though it was useless to them, he still felt a rush of relief at seeing something, anything that was familiar to him.
“Look,” Khan said in a dull tone.
Spartan watched as the pale orb finally moved out of sight and was replaced by the wondrous blue sphere that was Earth.
“Have you ever seen it before?”
Spartan was surprised at the low tone of reverence his friend used. The old warrior looked exhausted, yet the relief at being in Alliance territory was clearly visible on Khan’s brow. Spartan took a slow breath to avoid the pain that still spread around his ribs. The injuries he’d sustained in captivity were far from healed, and the escape through the Rift and the space battle had done little to improve that. He looked to his friend and shook his head.
“No, not in the flesh. Well, not until today. You’ve got to remember, Khan, until we built the Rifts; it used to take decades to make the trip between Sol and Alpha Centauri. The colonization fleets that went first were on a one-way mission. Lots didn’t even make it there because of the long journey.”
Khan looked to his friend with a single raised eyebrow.
“It’s true. There are stories of some ships with thousands of people on board vanishing on the trip. It took decades with the engines permanently on full burn. Any kind of technical problem, and they were left stranded.”
“So why not stop and pick them up?”
Spartan smiled.
“You never studied, did you?”
Khan snorted.
“And you did? I thought you spent your early years dodging axes on the arena circuit?”
Spartan had to concede that point. He had indeed spent some time on the illegal pit fighting circuit. It wasn’t quite about killing each other with axes. Although people did die, especially in the illegal fights, it was very rare. It was something he hadn’t thought of it for many years, and the images of his last fight on the space station orbiting Prometheus was a painful one. Luckily, Khan’s attention had moved on to their current predicament.
“What about the people on Earth, do they still live there? I heard it was a dead world.”
Spartan looked at the blue shape with a mixture of fascination and foreboding. Earth was a wondrous sight to see. Even though the planet’s surface and oceans had been plundered for millennia, it still looked calm and rich when viewed from space. Its toxic clouds were barely obvious, but he knew full well the planet’s dark past.
“Yeah, Earth is still populated. In fact, I think this entire Solar System is still populated, but it ain’t nothing like where we’re from Khan.”
They both watched the blue orb move from view as the T’Kari ship continued to drift in space.
“Remember why our people left this star in the first place; resources, habitable worlds, and a new
life. Just look at her.”
He pointed at the shape of Venus as it drifted passed their view once more.
“Venus is a no go area, always has been, even without our help. Only the planets of Mars and Earth have populations still on them. Mercury is suitable for industrial machines robotics, and the others are gas giants; they’re only useful for harvesting.”
He moved his head a little, thinking a little more on it.
“Plus the moons, of course, and then the space stations.”
Khan grinned as Spartan realized he was rambling.
“Look, let’s just say there are still people out in this wasteland. Okay?”
Something struck the ship somewhere very hard. The impact was powerful enough to send a jolt through its structure and forced Spartan and Khan into silence.
“What is that?” asked Khan.
They both looked in the direction of their three T’Kari comrades that were busy managing the ship. None of them paid any attention to them and continued with their work. Another great impact shook the vessel, and then the vast glass window flashed and changed to show a magnified image. Spartan blinked, his brain temporarily confused at the change in the visuals. The glass gave the impression of being a window, when in fact it was a cleverly designed piece of display technology.
“Who are they?” asked Khan; his right arm extended and pointing at the bottom right of the window.
Spartan followed his gaze and spotted the shapes moving toward them.
“Ships! Great, I thought we’d given the Biomechs the slip!”
Thoughts of the planets quickly vanished as they turned their attention to the new threat. They had only just entered the safety of Alliance territory, and already they were in trouble. The escape from Biomech captivity and the collapse of the temporary Rift should have been the end of Spartan and Khan’s troubles, but it seemed their arrival was to be yet another problem waiting to be resolved with violence. Spartan checked his targeting system and tried to return fire. He didn’t want to destroy the attacking ships, but he had to do something, and a burst across their bows might be all that was required.
“I’ve got nothing, what about you?”
Khan smashed his fist onto the display for what must have been the tenth time.
“Nothing. These ships are finishing what the Biomechs started. We need to get off this ship!”
Another heavy impact smashed into them. It was powerful and reminded Spartan of the numerous times he’d been aboard ships when they had been struck by heavy ordnance.
This is strange though. We’re in friendly territory and already ships are upon us. The odds of a ship being even within a few days’ range of us are minuscule.
“Who the hell are they?” he growled.
Spartan tried to get a response from the computer system, but it refused to respond. He had only just about managed to work the gunnery system thanks to Khan’s intervention. Trying to get anything more constructive out of the alien technology was proving impossible. He looked at the T’Kari, but no matter how much he shouted, they ignored him. The three aliens seemed to need all their attention focused on trying to get the spacecraft as far away from the attackers as possible.
“You’re wasting your time, you fools,” he snapped and looked back to Khan.
“Those are our ships, Spartan. Don’t you recognize the markings? They look like orbital barges to me, and we’re flying in an unmarked T’Kari Raider. Are you really that surprised?”
Spartan gazed at the fleeting image of the ships that were firing. They didn’t look like current designs, but they had been away a long time, and now they were orbiting Earth, a place he’d never visited before.
Maybe they are using wrecks for defense.
Another group of hardened metal armor piercing projectiles rushed ever closer, each of them traveled at incredible speeds after being hurled into space by the Alliance warships. Spartan finally got a decent view of the ships, and once he could see them in a profile position, he knew what they were. He was used to the newest vessels, having spent so much time out on the T’Kari frontier. These were not the large capital ships of the fleet. They were the protective barges dating back over seventy years that were still in use as orbital defenses. The magnetic railguns that had fired them were simple technology, perhaps even primitive by modern standards. Even so, there were fewer more destructive weapons in space.
“War barges, I thought they had all been scrapped after the Uprising.”
Khan shook his head and laughed.
“Really? I think the three out there would say otherwise.”
The warbarges were an old concept, and one that had fallen out of favor as the human empire expanded out to the stars. Back when the colonies had numbered just a few worlds, it had proven useful to construct large, slow moving vessels with thick armor and bristling with weapons. They usually stayed in orbit and were more like armed satellites than space faring ships. Though they were capable of interplanetary travel, they were not generally equipped or particularly suitable for it. The ships around Earth were third-rate at best. A single turret from the T’Kari ship finally activated, and Spartan watched dispassionately at its rounds embedded ineffectively in the thick armor of the barge.
“Yeah, that’s about right.”
The barges may have been primitive, but they had always been constructed to take a heavy beating. Dozens of white flashes ran about the turrets of the Earth ships, and Spartan felt his body tense.
“Incoming!” growled Khan while watching his gunnery screen.
Lines of projectiles from the medium-caliber railguns slammed into the forward armor of the T’Kari ship, despite the best efforts of her crew. An undamaged ship such as this might stand a chance in a fair fight, but this vessel was barely operational. Her hull was pockmarked with a hundred holes, and missiles had ripped plating and weapon mounts off all along her frame.
“Can’t you reach them with the comms?” asked Spartan.
As if to answer his question, the computer monitors all switched off. Even the emergency lights vanished, leaving the control room in complete darkness.
“Oh, great, this is just what we need.”
A final volley tore a hole the size of a man in the portside armor, and in seconds the breach alarms were sounding. Spartan tried to pull the belt back on where he sat, but he was too late. The ship was already spinning out of control, and he flew across the open space and crashed into the ceiling. He didn’t even have time to see what Khan was doing before he blacked out.
* * *
Eos had more in common with a conventional planet than that of a moon. It was a barren, rocky world with dozens of industrial sites and shielded cities littering the moon. Though protected by the massive gas-giant planet Gaxos’ magnetic field, it carried only a trace atmosphere and below average gravity. Unlike Helios, most of the structures were low, and many were built directly into the ground, with some even deep below the surface. A formation of three Hammerhead fighters moved at low altitude, scanning for signs of insurgents, and a column of five Bulldog vehicles made slow progress across the dusty surface. The armored vehicles kicked up a dust cloud that could be seen for kilometers around them.
“Keep your eyes open, marines. You saw the reports,” said Sergeant Stone.
The eight-wheeled Bulldog shook violently as it bumped over the rough road surface. No matter how many times Jack traveled about in these vehicles, he found himself constantly amazed how small they were internally compared to the large bulk on the outside. He looked at the Sergeant with a mixture of awe and amazement. It was only seven months earlier that they had been fighting on Helios against Animosh paramilitaries and their allies. Jack swallowed, doing his best to hold back the cold knot feeling in his stomach. The vodka from the previous night burned inside him, and he had to tense his entire body to avoid vomiting inside his helmet. He looked sideways and took a sip of tepid water from the tube near his mouth. The feeling in his stomach subsided for a moment.
>
Get a grip, Jack. You’ve got a job to do.
He’d been granted only a modest amount of leave, prior to being sent on the four-month trip to the moon of Eos. That meant it was almost seven months since he’d witnessed the flags of the Zathee being raised over the capital of Helios. They weren’t his people, and he felt no great affection for them, apart from those he’d been in immediate contact with, like the Helion synthetic named Vadi. But the length of the journey to the moon did leave him with a feeling of unease. They were far from home and little help could be sent if it was needed, certainly not in time.
The fact that there was no Rift anywhere near the planet surprised him until he’d seen the remains of the space platform that orbited the moon. Animosh sympathizers had shattered it, presumably in a vain attempt to seize control of the moon before the Zathee could do anything about it. That didn’t concern him anything like as much as the thought of his family back on Terra Nova. He felt a growing pain in his stomach and took another sip of water.
Easy now, you don’t want to throw up in your suit!
That thought seemed to sober him up faster than anything else. The thoughts of his mother recovering in the military hospital nearly put a smile on his face, that was until he recalled the arguments and shouting with his siblings. It started to fill him with a rage he could barely suppress.
“I hate this place,” muttered Private Callahan, voicing the thoughts of the majority.
He was easily the largest built of the entire group, now that Wictred had been transferred to assist in the training and command of the heavy units being added to the battalion. His complaining turned Jack’s attention from the events of Terra Nova, and he was thankful for it. He would have plenty of time for silent reflection after this operation.
“Son, you’re not here to like this place; it’s just a moon, like any other,” snapped back the Sergeant.
There were no windows inside the vehicle, but the small number of display screens allowed them to see what was happening outside via the camera feeds. The computer system may have screwed things, but from what Jack could see the place was an arid, gray looking environment with no large structure of note.
Star Crusades Nexus: The Second Trilogy Page 25
