Legacy (First Colony Book 3)

by Ken Lozito

  “Sir,” Specialist Thoran said, “since there’s still power in the wreckage, whatever the Vemus are using to suppress communications must also be active.”

  “Understood, Specialist,” Jon said.

  What the specialist didn’t say was that there might not be a reply because the salvage team members were all dead. He glanced at Daron, who bobbed his head. Jon wasn’t going to leave until he found out.

  He flew the shuttle back to the salvage team’s ship and engaged the landing gear. Metallic spikes drilled from the metal skids, holding the shuttle in place. Jon set the shuttle’s systems to standby and climbed out of the pilot’s chair, then walked to the back of the shuttle and stepped into his Nexstar Series Three combat suit. He slipped his arms into the open sleeves, which closed upon feeling his presence. Jon activated the combat suit’s systems, bringing them online, and the rest of the suit closed up, sealing him inside.

  “Final gear check!” Jon called. “Check yourself and the person in front of you.” There was a flurry of activity as they all did one final check on all the joints and fittings of their equipment, along with those of the people around them.

  Jon depressurized the shuttle, and the hatch popped open and swung down into position. They all quickly moved to the edge and hopped off. They engaged their magboots, which kept them attached to the hull of the ship. At least this section of the exposed hull was original and not that Vemus exoskeleton crap.

  Jon led the five-man team toward the airlock and saw that the salvage team had used the manual override to gain access to the ship.

  “Once we’re inside, we go slow and steady. Check your corners,” Jon said.

  He opened the airlock. They stepped inside and closed the outer door.

  Lieutenant Chester stepped to the inner door, and Jon stood ready with his AR-71. There was a faint flickering of light beyond the small round window. Lieutenant Chester hit the door controls and stepped to the side. Jon went through first and entered a dark corridor. His HUD compensated for the low light, so he could easily see the features of the corridor.

  Jon shuffled a few steps away from the door to allow the others to come through.

  “No comms chatter, sir. Shall I try to reach the salvage team?” Specialist Thoran asked.

  “Not yet. They have to be somewhere inside here. No need to draw unwanted attention until we have more of an idea of what we’re dealing with,” Jon replied.

  “What we’re dealing with . . .” Lieutenant Chester muttered.

  Jon spun around. “Do we have a problem, Lieutenant?”

  Daron Chester sucked in a harsh breath. “Sorry, Captain. Won’t happen again.”

  “Alright. Stay to the back and guard our flank,” Jon said.

  Daron was a good man, but there was no way to know how someone would react to imminent danger until they found themselves in harm’s way. Jon needed his whole team.

  Sergeant Lee moved up to take Chester’s place. Jon kept a slow pace as they made their way down the deserted corridor. Emergency systems lit the way, but the rooms they passed were all dark and abandoned.

  Jon’s suit sensors indicated there was minimal atmosphere being maintained. It had been over two months since the battle, and Jon was confident that the section they were in was as well sealed as they could have hoped.

  As they moved forward, they hit a few dead ends and had to backtrack, but they soon settled into a routine as they delved further into the wreckage. They checked all the rooms they came across and then moved on.

  “I think we’re in one of the aft sections of the ship,” Sergeant Lee said.

  “How do you know?” Jon asked.

  “This part of the ship would have been reinforced to compensate for the main engines. It’s likely the missile that took this ship out hit near the forward sections. This area is relatively intact,” Sergeant Lee replied.

  “Intact and a strong possibility for contact with the enemy,” Jon said.

  He activated the comlink in his combat suit and began sending out a series of pings, waiting for a reply. None came.

  “Captain,” Lieutenant Chester said, “the IR spectrum shows an increase in temperature down the corridor to the right.”

  Jon peered down the corridor. “Any idea what’s down this way?”

  “Hard to say. If Lee is right, this could be part of the munitions factory they had on board the ship,” Lieutenant Chester said.

  “Makes sense. That area of the ship would be heavily shielded,” Jon said.

  They headed down the corridor, and Jon felt a shudder coming through the floor. It quickly stopped and then there was a loud chafing of metal grinding along. Each of them moved to the side and braced themselves against the wall.

  “Impacts along the outside of this thing,” Sergeant Lee said.

  Jon nodded. The wreckage they were in, while large, was still in the middle of a vast debris field. He wondered what they could have hit that would be felt throughout the area they were in.

  They continued but Jon brought the team to a halt when he heard a knocking sound echo through the corridor. The repeated cadence was too regular to be a simple impact from wreckage outside the ship. This came from within. Jon motioned to the rest of the team that he’d heard something.

  Jon pressed onward, thinking about how much he’d like to have the layout of this place. The farther they went down the corridor, the louder the knocking became. The emergency lighting became brighter as they came to a wide doorway. There was a long window that had years of dust along the edges, and there was also the periodic flashing of light from inside. This must be the munitions factory, but why would the equipment be operating?

  Jon crept toward the window and eased himself up to get a better look. Beyond the wide doors was a vast space with long pieces of machinery.

  “What do you see?” Lieutenant Chester asked.

  “I’m not sure. This has got to be the munitions factory, but I don’t—”

  Jon ducked back down, and the others backed away in response to his sudden movement. He’d seen something and it had caught him by surprise. Jon slowly rose again and peered through the window. He adjusted the visual spectrum of his helmet and zoomed in on the far end. There was a dimly lit room where he saw several objects moving in the shadows.

  Jon swallowed hard and sank back down below the window. “We found them.”

  “Good. Let’s get them and get out of here,” Lieutenant Chester said.

  “We can’t,” Jon said and looked back at his squad. “There are Vemus forces inside. They’re clustered around a particular area.”

  Damn it, Brian. Why did you have to volunteer for this? Jon thought. The salvage team was in serious trouble, and Jon wasn’t sure if he could get them out.

  Sergeant Lee crept by and peeked through the window, then came back to him. “I saw the salvage team. They’re pinned down in a room on the far end, but . . .”

  Jon shook his head. “There are a lot of Vemus soldiers.”

  At least that’s what he thought they were. Even with the enhanced display, it was difficult to make out the details from this distance.

  Daron looked at him pointedly. “There are only five of us,” he said.

  “I know. I just need a minute to think,” Jon replied.

  His brother was trapped and there was no way he was going to walk away. He just needed to figure out how to get him free.

  Chapter Eleven

  Connor wasn’t sure if the initial shock of what they were going to contend with could ever wear off, but they got to work nonetheless. The SRDs had long since stopped sending transmissions. By their best estimate, only two of the SRDs had made it past the massive Vemus ship. The remaining three all went offline while they were sending their data back to Phoenix Station. All three SRDs going offline in virtually the same fashion was a strong indication that they had been shot down. They had images of one of them being destroyed, which was evidence enough of hostile intent.

  Connor had c
alled in his tactical officers and separated them into groups. Each of the groups was tasked with coming up with a firing solution that would destroy the enemy. They were clustered together in nearby work areas while Connor remained in the command area.

  Colonel Cross came to stand at his side. “We were expecting another fleet,” she said.

  “So was I. Instead we got . . . that,” Connor said while gesturing toward the main holoscreen. “Even if we’d been able to resupply the missile defense platforms, I’m not sure it would’ve been enough to destroy it.”

  “The tactical groups are divided as to when we should fire the weapons we’ve got,” Sean said.

  Connor pressed his lips together in thought. “If we fire now, they’ll know we see them coming and it’ll give them ample time to take out the incoming missiles.”

  “What if we waited until they were close to our relative position?” Sean asked.

  “How close? Give me a distance,” Connor said.

  “Within Sagan’s orbit,” Sean said.

  Connor frowned in concentration while weighing the possibilities. Sean hadn’t just now come up with this idea. He was pitching his own agenda. Sagan was the fifth planet in this star system and relatively close to New Earth.

  “You think we should wait until they’re within Sagan’s orbit before we fire our missiles? Why would we wait that long?” Colonel Cross asked.

  “Our previous engagements with the Vemus showed that they limit themselves to basic strategy, but if we send out our missiles now, they stand a greater chance of taking them out. Even though the HADES IV-Bs with Noah’s enhancements were designed to overcome fleet ship-point defenses, we don’t have to deal with that here. What we need is to maximize the effect our weapons have on them, and I think if we wait until they’re much closer to us, we’ll stand a better chance of doing the most damage,” Sean said.

  “But if we attack now, we could soften them up before they come in range of our short-range weapons,” Colonel Cross said.

  “I don’t think that’s going to be enough,” Connor said and realized he agreed with Sean’s proposal. “We’d do some damage, but they could just slow down and repair their ships before coming the rest of the way. If we wait, they’re committed.”

  Colonel Cross glanced at Sean as if seeing him in a new light. “I can see why you keep Major Quinn close at hand.”

  “He still surprises me sometimes. Remind me to tell you how he first came to be in my service,” Connor said.

  Colonel Cross laughed. “No need. I’ve heard the story before. He snuck into a storage crate not knowing you intended to do a low-altitude drop.”

  Sean grinned. “The general dumped everyone out of that Hellcat as a welcome-to-basic-training gift.”

  It had been seven years since that first Search and Rescue platoon was formed, and Connor had become as fond of those recruits as he had of the Ghosts. Most had moved on to join the CDF, but some had chosen other pursuits. Those had been much simpler times, when only a few thousand colonists had been brought out of stasis.

  Connor glanced at the image of the Vemus ship on the main holoscreen. “They’re not very imaginative, are they?” he said.

  Sean frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “The Vemus. They fight and move toward an objective with an almost singular purpose. Throughout our entire engagement with them aboard the Vigilant they never once slowed down or retreated. They hunted us, but only because we kept coming at them. We kept attacking,” Connor said.

  “We blocked their signal so they couldn’t coordinate their efforts,” Sean said.

  “True, but even when we went aboard the Indianapolis, there were only a few hundred Vemus aboard,” Connor said. He had to keep referring to them this way because he didn’t want to think of them as having been human before they were infected. “So we wondered where the rest of them were.”

  Sean’s eyes widened. “They held the bulk of their troops in reserve for this attack. At twenty-two kilometers across, there would be room enough for millions of them aboard that ship.”

  “But why send a fleet of ships ahead? Wouldn’t they have kept some in reserve? Now we can just focus our efforts on the one ship,” Colonel Cross said.

  “Like I said, not very imaginative. They could have ships hidden away. We didn’t get a good look at the back of their ship,” Connor said.

  “We can send in more recon drones and see if they can sneak up behind them, sir,” Colonel Cross said.

  “I think they’ll just shoot them down before we can get any usable intelligence. Instead of sending the drones, let’s position our recon drones out near Sagan’s orbit,” Connor said.

  “If we’re going to do that, why not a minefield?” Sean said.

  Connor nodded. “We keep them dormant with a periodic check-in so they’re powered off while the Vemus ship approaches. Then, during their periodic check-ins, we broadcast the signal for the mines to go active.”

  “We can coordinate that with our missiles then,” Colonel Cross said.

  “Why don’t you go inform the tactical teams that we’ve decided on a direction and see what else they can come up with,” Connor said.

  “Yes, sir,” Colonel Cross said.

  After Cross walked away, Connor looked at Sean. “Any more bright ideas you’d like to share?”

  Sean scratched the stubble of his beard. “I need to shave this thing. It itches something fierce.”

  “Now you sound like Diaz,” Connor said.

  Sean smiled but then it slipped away. “I wish I could think of something I knew would blow that ship out of the sky.”

  “You and me both. I know we can do some serious damage to it, but I’m not sure we can stop it,” Connor said.

  He quickly glanced around. He hadn’t meant to say so much, but Sean had been with him for a long time. The kid was smart enough to be a true general one day, not like Connor, who had the position because there was no one else with enough combat experience to effectively do the job.

  “I don’t think anyone heard you, but I agree. Have you considered adding Lunar Base as part of our resources for facing the Vemus?” Sean asked.

  The question alone spoke volumes about Sean’s natural leadership ability. Most officers were siloed into their specific area, whereas Sean saw the whole playing board.

  “I have, but I’m not convinced it will change things,” Connor said.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, we could use their resources and weapons and list them among our assets. But we don’t know what else the Vemus are capable of. I’m trying to account for things we haven’t thought of yet. If the Vemus defeat us here, Lunar Base is our last line of defense in space. They’ll be that much more of a threat to the Vemus if they don’t know we have a base there,” Connor said.

  Sean nodded in understanding. “It’s a gamble either way. If the Vemus detect Lunar Base somehow, Colonel Hayes will engage them. Otherwise, he’ll stay there and continue to do a tactical assessment.”

  “Those were his orders. Nathan wasn’t thrilled about them, but he’s the best man for the job,” Connor said.

  “I know I wouldn’t like watching someone else fighting while I just sat on the sidelines,” Sean said.

  “Yeah, but you’d do it if it meant saving everyone back home. We need to grind the Vemus down,” Connor said.

  Sean glanced at his PDA. “Dr. Allen is still waiting to speak with you.”

  Connor frowned regretfully. “I know, but he’ll just have to wait.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Nathan waited for PRADIS to update on the main holoscreen. They were about to get another data dump from Phoenix Station. He glanced at the series number for the incoming data and felt a weariness creep into the small of his back. The Lunar Base Command Center had settled into a routine since achieving Dark-Star status. Every two hours they received a new data dump from Phoenix Station and had been doing so for the past twenty-four hours.

  Major
Shelton joined him in the command area, and they watched the PRADIS screen in silent anticipation. It had been over twelve hours since General Gates had given the anomaly heading for them the designation Alpha with a subheading of Vemus. The data points on PRADIS refreshed, showing the Alpha moving significantly closer to New Earth and increasing its speed by thirteen percent.

  “They still haven’t fired any of their missiles,” Major Shelton said.

  The Vemus Alpha was still quite far out in the star system, only now coming within range of the sixth planet’s orbit. Gigantor was a gas giant that had blue bands and out-massed Jupiter by more than eighteen percent. Nathan had only seen pictures of it. For over seven years, the colony had been devoted to settling on New Earth and preparing for a threat that turned out to be the Vemus. They simply hadn’t had much time to explore their surroundings. They were aware of similarities with the Sol System, which was part of the reason New Earth was similar in size and composition to their former home. Nathan would have liked to explore their new planetary system more, but as he watched the Vemus Alpha on the screen, he wasn’t sure he’d ever get the chance.

  “Colonel,” Major Shelton said, her tone tight with tension, “the Alpha is within range of the HADES IV-B missiles. Why hasn’t General Gates fired any of them yet?”

  “One minute, Major,” Nathan replied.

  He walked toward the main holoscreen and studied the details of the PRADIS output, pressing his lips together while considering his response. He turned back to Major Shelton and noticed his tactical officer, Lieutenant LaCroix, waiting for his response as well. Other CDF soldiers craned their necks toward him as if sensing something.

  “Some of you are wondering at the lack of response toward the Vemus Alpha heading toward us,” Nathan began and waited a moment. “Why hasn’t Phoenix Station taken any offensive action against our enemy?”

  There were several head-bobs from the CDF soldiers in the command area.

  “This will be among our greatest challenges because of our orders. We’re in a communications blackout, with our only updates coming through the PRADIS system. This is necessary to conceal our presence from the enemy. There’s no way to know for sure what strategy General Gates and his staff at Phoenix Station have decided on to address the Vemus threat. We’ve been expecting another fleet and suspected it would be bigger than what we faced over two months ago,” Nathan said and flung his arm back toward the main holoscreen. “That is something different, something we didn’t anticipate, and we’re in the dark as to how Phoenix Station plans to engage the enemy. The fact that they haven’t opened communications with us indicates that our orders haven’t changed. We remain in communications blackout and observation status,” he said and allowed his gaze to take in his staff. “It’s a shit job, and it’s ours. We’re the last line of defense for New Earth. We’re the Trojan horse if Phoenix Station fails. Our forces will engage the enemy and you can be sure that General Gates will do his utmost to stop the Vemus. So, instead of wondering why Phoenix Station hasn’t fired their missiles, we’ll be working on our own plan for engaging the enemy. I want teams divided up and focused on separate theaters for engagement. The first will be based on how we can assist Phoenix Station with the attack on the Vemus Alpha. The second will be how we’ll engage the Vemus Alpha should Phoenix Station be destroyed.”