Ghost Soldiers

by Michael G. Thomas

  Great Ships of the Line

  Kha’Dri World Ship, Taxxu Prime, Centauri Alliance

  Gun walked around the nose of IAS Titan for the second time. She was effectively identical from the outside to her two sisters, New Carlos and Euryale. The colour scheme was uninspiring, just the usual battleship grey, but marked with the reminders of her bloody battle in orbit around Karnak. The great double-ring nacelle at the rear dwarfed the rest of her structure, so that even the beams and antenna extending from her bow seemed insignificant. Standing next to Gun was Chief Engineer Simpson, a diminutive looking middle-aged man, with no hair and a large oversized belly. His overalls were filthy, and a greasy stain ran from his cheek to his left ear.

  "She'll power up, but I can't promise you much if you take her into combat. The primary weapons are all non-functional."

  Gun lifted his shoulder slightly.

  "So? I don't need weapons, just engines. Tell me straight, will she get me to my destination?"

  The man didn't look happy, but he did give Gun the nod.

  "She'll make it there, of that you can have my word. As to whether she'll get you back, well, that's another story. In any case, I've boosted the engine output. It is not much, but it will shave fifty minutes, maybe an hour off your journey time."

  Gun appeared satisfied with that.

  "Very well, then, good work. Get the rest of them clear. We will exit the bay within the hour. You have until then to get me as much extra functionality as you can before I leave."

  The man lifted an eyebrow in confusion.

  "Oh, I'm not staying here, Colonel. I'm coming with you. I can continue my work on the ship as we go."

  He then grinned.

  "If something happens to her, you'll wish you'd brought me along."

  Gun knew better than to argue with the man and let him move off to continue with his work. He walked to the port side of the nose of the ship and looked up at the batch of massive gun barrels. Technically, they were more emitters than barrels, but the businessmen that made up a large part of the Carthago Trade Consortium had argued for them. The designers wanted to keep the weapons hidden discreetly inside the ship, but the businessmen wanted something a little more ostentatious, a styling change that marked the ship as more than just the some of her parts. This method of design by committee had resulted in one of the ugliest and most aggressive looking ships in the Alliance.

  Great timing, Spartan, as always.

  He looked to his right and at the shape of IAS New Carlos. The ship was structurally complete, but after the missions involving both Euryale and Titan, she had been partially stripped to rebuild her internal systems and cooling units. Secondary units for the nacelles were being installed to ensure the main engines would be operational, even if the ship suffered significant battle damage. This was also a requirement by Alliance officials for sanctioned travel in the major inhabited star systems of Proxima Centauri and Sol. There were real fears that the new type of engine could cause catastrophic damage if it malfunctioned near human worlds or colonies. Oddly enough, the other races had little concern about the vessels. A single female engineer popped her head out of a hatch and called out to him.

  "Colonel. Just your equipment to go, then we're ready for you to come aboard."

  He nodded and twisted about as he watched the last motorised pallet being taken inside. There were multiple padded cases and each marked with his name and rank. One item was lying flat and took up over half the unit.

  That's more like it.

  While the weapons and tech were boxed, the full JAS armour system was fitted to a skeleton mount, the only way to keep it in the correct posture for insertion into the ship’s armoury. Gun noted the marks on the plating as it moved up the ramp and inside the vast hull of the IAS Titan. Like many of the sets of armour used by the IAB, it had sustained its fair share of damage. Even as he looked at it, he felt a twinge of discomfort in his flank. He moved his hand down and felt the areas where his body had been punctured on Karnak. A normal human would have died from the injuries, but it was little more than a mild discomfort to him.

  Even though they were about to leave, there were still scores of people all over the ship, and while some were still working on the hull, most were removing the scaffolding surrounding the vessel. He shook his head, and then spotted the face of General Black. The man had approached with surprising stealth, and that concerned Gun.

  "How is she looking?"

  Gun sighed.

  "Not great. The damage at Karnak was substantial. We will be leaving, though, no matter her state."

  The officer moved closer to him until they were just a couple of metres apart. He looked up at the ship and touched one of the wide pylons that extended far out in front of her bow and angled downwards. Even though the ship was resting on massive clamps, the hull appeared to be a very long distance away.

  "She was the first built, was she not?"

  Gun nodded.

  "Yes. The construction of each began at different times, but Titan was the first to have her metal cut. SWD engineers had designed her based on the information from Sol and On'Sarax. At first CTC would only give us funding for one ship, but the development costs are the same for one ship, or ten. Spartan encouraged them to budget for nine complete ships, constructed in batches of three. By the time Titan had been finished, the other two of the first tranche were well under construction."

  He then nodded off to the right where another dozen massive nacelles were being assembled.

  “The guts of the ship are one of the most valuable commodities now, and CTC are working on ways to manufacture the equipment at their new factories on Carthago. Mass production of the engines will make them the richest corporation history."

  He licked his mouth.

  “Enough business, though. The important thing for us is that we have another three ships under production, with parts to build another three in the future.”

  He would have said more, but already he could see the General looked uncomfortable. It wasn't that he was nervous or even concerned at speaking with Gun; there was something else. And knowing the man the way Gun did, he knew it must be very serious.

  "There's something you need to know, Gun, something unexpected."

  "I thought as much."

  That intrigued him, perhaps more so than anything the man had said since his arrival on the World Ship. So far everything had proven a little linear, and in his experience, there was always a little more to events than simply cause and consequence. The General moved closer and lifted a device from his pocket between them. It emitted a high-pitched whistle that settled down to a mild irritation. Gun cocked his head in an odd manner.

  "Privacy module, really?"

  The unit was rarely used outside of meeting with third parties, and its use made Gun immediately suspicious of what was going on. The General was one of the most experienced Special Forces leaders, but this was still strange for him.

  "My security detail picked up a transmission, one that came from Sector Sixteen."

  "So?"

  The General almost looked pained to continue.

  "It came from IAS Euryale on a back-channel maintenance report, and it went directly to the office of Mr Walker and CTC."

  Gun pulled his head back a moment.

  "Mr Walker, why? All traffic should be passed directly through our command and control centre."

  He turned and pointed off into the innards of the ship.

  "We can manage the ships remotely from inside this place. Eventually, we plan on operating Confederate class ships without deck crews."

  He then twisted back and looked carefully at the man.

  "And you're telling me that somebody on our ship is in contact with the company man, and not us?"

  General Black nodded ever so slowly.

  "Yes. And there is something else, Gun. Something that worries me a great deal."

  He moved away at a slow walk, so Gun did the same. They walked parallel to the
hull of the ship, but due to her vast size of four hundred metres, they seemed to make little progress.

  "A message was sent back from the same office. It was heavily encoded and programmed to automatically corrupt. My intelligence unit are doing their best, but so far we've got nothing more than time stamps."

  Gun shrugged.

  "It's unexpected, but it could be nothing. The IAB is fully supported by the work of Mr Walker and the company. Even so, he has no business in communicating with IAB officers or vessels. CTC manages the Special Weapons Division. Our Brigade is none of their damned business..."

  General Black nodded.

  "That's what worries me. According to our log, the message from this facility reached Euryale, and less than sixty seconds later contact was lost with multiple ground units on the derelict. Soon after that, we lost primary contact with the ship, and only fragmentary since then."

  Gun stopped and rubbed his face.

  "You think CTC wanted the assault to fail, why? That would cost a lot of IAB equipment, and now the ship is dead in space."

  "Yes, my thoughts as well. We'd been down on hardware and in their debt for starters. Every piece of kit they build for us adds to the price we pay them in technology."

  He reached out and grasped the massive, muscular left arm of Gun.

  "Keep this between us for now. But do me a favour. While you're out there, stay in contact with me, and our control station only. We'll get to the bottom of this, I promise."

  Gun started to move away, and then looked back at the General.

  "If Mr Walker or CTC have double-crossed me, Spartan, Khan, and my friends..."

  "I know. He will be in trouble."

  Gun opened his mouth, baring his teeth as he often did when pleased or excited.

  "Oh, much more than that. I have many friends back home, and if Mr Walker and CTC want a war, he can have one."

  Gun walked towards the ramp leading up into the ship, and as General Black watched him leave, he began to wonder if passing on the information was the best thing he could have done. Gun might be his second-in-command, but he was also the cultural leader of tens of thousands of Jötnar, an entire species built for one thing only, war.

  * * *

  Unidentified Derelict, Sector Sixteen, T’Karan

  Spartan moved slowly, taking each pace with as much care as the next while looking for the ever-present signs of danger. His bulky suit might have been a hindrance, but luckily for him, this part of the ship was surprisingly spacious even though it had clearly been unused in a very long time. A look to the top right showed they had just thirty-five hours until IAS Euryale self-destructed, thereby denying it of use to the enemy entity, and also leaving them trapped on the derelict.

  We could do with more time. Thirty-five hours to secure this ship, or to destroy the entity.

  He would have liked to have double the time, but any more would risk the chance the enemy could leave the derelict and somehow board Euryale. With the course already laid in, it would be easy for the thing to be jettisoned and still finally reach Euryale. Unfortunately, this would be right after Spartan and the rest of the crew were already dead. Then Spartan realised the thing might have its own way to travel between the ships, a lifeboat or escape unit of some kind. It was an outside chance, but just the possibility sent a chill through his body, and that left him determined to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.

  "Khan, keep them moving. We have to end this before the clock stops."

  "We will, don't worry. One way or another, this creature is going to burn."

  Now that they were fully inside the vessel, the still functional gravito-magnetic field was pulling them down. According to the readings inside his armour, the field was projected out to all internal sections of the vessel, and came from a gravity unit hidden deep inside the bowels of the ship. It was similar in operation to the tech now used in the more modern Alliance ships, yet this one had been operating for an incredibly long time and without a crew to operate or maintain it.

  "How is this thing working after all this time?"

  Captain Delatorre followed just a short distance behind, along with a squad of Thegns led by Five-Seven. Though artificially created, they still needed to wear the more basic naval issue PDS suits if they wanted to travel in a vacuum. This meant that Five-Seven and the others had been forced to land with the first wave of dropships, due to the lack of suitable armour for them. Five-Seven answered, but his voice was slightly muffled by the respirator covering his face.

  "There is a major gravity unit here, probably running from a depleting core. It will run until the power unit finally fails. Based on the energy outputs, I'd say it has hundreds of years remaining."

  Khan grunted with satisfaction.

  "So, permanent gravity on the derelict. Good, I hate zero-gravity."

  "More important, we have air," said Captain Delatorre.

  Spartan looked back at the man who seemed so puny in his PDS protective suit.

  "Yes, just don't any of you remove your gear; let the filters do their job. I wouldn't put it past this thing to pump something into the air system."

  It felt odd to him that there was a breathable atmosphere inside the derelict, and he could only assume it was either working due to being left on permanently, or more likely, as an enticement to get them on board. It was the possibility they had been tricked to get them aboard that worried him the most.

  The marines split into fireteams and moved ahead in pairs. The speed and precision gave the impression they were moving through a standard drill, but this was exactly what they trained for. There was never an occasion where a marine moved without being protected by a comrade. The Mavericks were amongst these groups of men and women, great armoured machines with the strength and firepower of an entire squad at their beck and call. They had penetrated a good way inside already, and Spartan was thankful the entity on board had so far left them alone. The quietness of their movement was punctuated by the thud of guns from the remaining drones continuing to circle the derelict, doing their part to keep the vessel busy.

  "Give me a full sitrep."

  All three Marine lieutenants responded with their positions, and he was pleased to see that all of his units were inside, and had made it with minimal casualties. Only Lieutenant Anne Lee worried him with her news that the flank sentry guns on the way in killed six marines.

  Nine dead so far. Still, that's better than the entire complement.

  He tried to stay calm, to remember they had taken the least bad option, but that didn't help the nine dead marines. He'd only brought seventy-two with him and they hadn't raised a weapon in anger yet. Spartan was well aware that if they had stayed on board he would have lost scores of marines and most of the crew. Even so, it still felt hard to know that they were now gone, all because of some freak arrival.

  "Good work. Keep moving. There are two large passageways connecting the cruiser to the rest of the derelict. 3rd Platoon will take care of the first. I will take 1st Platoon and deal with the larger one."

  The radio crackled.

  "What about us?" Lieutenant Kipling asked.

  Spartan glanced at Khan who nodded back in the direction they'd come in from.

  "Stick to the plan. You have the largest platoon. I need you to establish a secure zone at the landing bay. We have to have a fallback position, one that is well defended and allows the withdrawal of our dropships. Secure all corridors and compartments within a two hundred-metre radius. Get SAAR robots in the passageways, and weld shut any hatches or vents you find. Button this thing down into a fortress."

  He licked his upper lip.

  "Our ability to escape this place will be in the hands of your platoon. I need dedicated zones for fireteams, with heavy weapons placed and areas cleared for sleep and chow. Dig in and wait for my orders."

  One marine stopped and signalled for Spartan. He moved towards him, all the while keeping his eyes in the distance. It was Sergeant Tyler.

&n
bsp; "What is it, Sergeant?"

  "Look, Sir."

  At first Spartan thought he was just looking at Trusskan bodies, much like the decayed layers of dust and clothing seen inside the habitation section of the ship.

  "These were the ground troops of Lieutenant Kipling. What could have happened to them?"

  The final moments of a combat unit were rarely serene, yet this entire platoon had fallen without their operators ever knowing what had hit them. The main cluster of CD-1 Grunts were something of a pathetic sight, with the entire platoon spread out over an area of a hundred square metres and each frozen like a group of bronze-age warriors confounded by the gorgon's gaze.

  Spartan moved past those that had frozen, noting the odd postures many were in. A pair were kneeling and aiming weapons that had vanished from their arms. It was then he realised every single one of the Grunts had been stripped of their weapons.

  "Check them."

  Two marines examined the Grunts up closely. It didn't take long for both to confirm the Grunts still carried ammunition, but their weapons were gone. Spartan continued on to a pair riddled with holes. As with the others, they were also without weapons, but these two had been caught up in violent struggle. Close inspection revealed them as deep punctures, but with no sign of thermal or explosive damage. He looked back at the glowing walls; there was nothing to show signs of battle.

  "That's all but five of them in this section," said Sergeant Tyler.

  Spartan moved to the next Grunt and stopped to examine this one with as much attention as the others. Though the same colour and design, it bore a coloured mark on its torso, flagging it as the commander unit. None of them were damaged, yet all were now non-functional.