Machine Gods (Star Crusades Nexus, Book 2)

by Michael G. Thomas

  He lowered his voice as, speaking just to himself.

  “There always are.”

  Wictred moved up to Jack, looked at his bruises, and then to the Sergeant. Although he had been involved in the fighting just as much as anybody else, he failed to see that he’d done anything wrong. In fact, by the look on his face, he seemed to think he had behaved rather well.

  “Well, well. Sergeant, you have Jötnar warriors in the Corps now. If you need more help, just contact our leader. Gun will not let the Alliance down,” he then looked over to Hunn, “He never has.”

  The Sergeant shook his head.

  “Ladies, this is all very touching, but right now you’re on my wrong side. Now, get your fingers out and fall in. I need marines kitted up and ready to go, and fast. Hell, the Corps needs you ready.”

  Sergeant Stone marched away from them toward the corridor leading back to the bow of the ship. He looked over his shoulder and spotted the small group making slow progress in the opposite direction. He stopped and called out to them.

  “This isn’t over, Private Morato. You struck a sergeant in the Alliance Marine Corps. Well, you tried to strike. I suggest you spend the time from now and your hearing to fix your reputation. You might want to watch your back as well. Navy officers have plenty of time on their hands, and nobody likes getting their arm broken by a jarhead.”

  He walked out of the room, and try as he might, found it almost impossible to hide the glimmer of a smile. Jack looked to his friends who stood around him. Everybody else had gone, even his siblings who must have escaped at the first opportunity.

  “What’s going on?” asked Thai Qiu-Li.

  Jack shrugged.

  “The Sergeant didn’t give much away,” Wictred answered in a slow voice.

  The public address system siren sounded, quickly followed by the voice of the station commander.

  “Now hear this, now hear this.”

  Wictred smiled and tilted his head towards the sound.

  “Here it is.”

  The muffled voice continued, “All Alliance personnel are to report to your ships. Marine units are to assemble on platforms seven-twelve.”

  Jack looked at his group of friends and smiled.

  “It looks like we’re going to war!”

  He marched from the room and into the corridor, without even checking if the others were following. Thai Qiu-Li, Wictred, and Hunn stood there in silence. Thai Qiu-Li’s two friends had already gone. She’d noticed them go, with one holding on to the other, but the news from the Sergeant was more important right now.

  “I need to go,” she announced, leaving in the opposite direction to go and check on them. Now just the two Jötnar remained, and they looked at each other. Wictred looked impassively at Hunn who now just smiled. He was known as the Champion of Hyperion, and had won the title after defeating ten of his brothers in a bloody and violent contest. Where Wictred was young, impulsive, and excitable, Hunn was far less predictable. Most of the time he was calm, but his rage knew no bounds. His mouth changed from almost a smirk to a wide smile. He reached out and grasped Wictred’s arm.

  “Brother, we became marines just in time to save the day!” he laughed.

  Wictred cocked his head and laughed but not as enthusiastically as Hunn. He thought of the stories he’d heard from the first of the battles fought by the original generation of Jötnar. Hundreds, perhaps thousands had died in the service of the Confederacy. He loved war as much as any Jötnar, but he was convinced it had to be different this time.

  “Yes, but this time we will show them how to fight a war. We are no longer cannon fodder.”

  Hunn looked surprised at his comments. He thought about them for a few seconds. “You are right. It is time to lead men into battle. We need promotions, and fast!”

  Yes, thought Wictred, promotions and responsibility will give us units to command. That is how we will change things for the Jötnar.

  * * *

  Tuke approached the ruin of the four alien bodies with trepidation. Khan and Spartan shared no such concerns. Their fallen enemies lay smashed and broken from the powerful gunfire released by the T’Kari Raider. Spartan moved to the closest of the things, tapping its head with his foot. The shape was easily the size of Spartan’s armored torso and beautifully intricate and ornate. Tuke moved up to him, bent down to take a look, and stepped back.

  “What’s wrong?” Spartan asked.

  Tuke’s translators took a moment to catch up with his quiet words.

  “The Enemy, I’ve never seen one of his soldiers…never so close.”

  Khan joined them and kicked the metal head. Tuke recoiled but neither could establish if it was concern or fear.

  “It’s just big soldiers, nothing special about them.”

  Tuke shook his head.

  “No, you do not understand.”

  Spartan spotted a fluid running from a number of holes in the metal of the head. It didn’t surprise him. After all, he was already very familiar with the idea of biomechanical creatures. What did surprise him was that the hand-sized holes in its arms and chests revealed nothing other than scorched metal and electronics. He looked to the armored form of Khan, giving an expressionless stare back from inside his suit.

  “So? It’s an armored bug.”

  Spartan reached down and examined the thing even closer.

  “No, it’s more than that. This entire warrior is mechanical, a bit like the machines we fought on Hyperion. But the technology used for these is a league ahead.”

  Khan moved to the other side of the fallen warrior and kicked at the shattered side of the armored helm. Several chunks of metal broke off, yet he still couldn’t get inside. To the shocked expression of Tuke, he pulled out his own savage looking blade and embedded the hardened metal into the ruined shape. With one heavy foot on its head, he pulled on the handle, and it finally tore open. He gazed inside and smiled.

  “Interesting. Very interesting,” he said calmly.

  Spartan and Tuke moved around to examine the damage. The first thing Spartan noticed was a gyroscopic suspension system that was fractured. It had been encased in a heavily reinforced and ribbed unit that was fused inside the thickly armored helm. Fluid oozed out and ran down the metal of the machine and to the ground. Part of the thick goo touched Tuke’s foot, and he immediately stepped back, looking about as though expecting trouble. Spartan turned his head but remained down at the machine.

  “Tuke, my friend. You need to calm down.”

  With that last sentence, he pulled at the gyroscopic unit to reveal an armored egg that was also fractured. He reached inside and pulled on the outer wall; it easily broke apart, revealing damaged grey matter. He stood up and shook his head.

  “Brain matter. This is just like the AI cores that the enemy tried to use to control our ships.”

  Tuke seemed surprised at his words.

  “You have seen this done before?”

  Spartan nodded slowly and pointed at the shattered helm.

  “These AI Core units are brains that are used to control equipment. The enemy managed to put this tech in the hands of the Zealots and their followers. Their equipment allowed the biological unit to connect directly to our ship’s computer systems and take control of them.

  Spartan then kicked the fallen machine.

  “This guy is something else though. Why bother putting in a brain directly into a soldier? Seems a lot of work when they can grow warriors like my friend here.”

  Tuke was the only one that failed to see the problem.

  “These soldiers are not common troops. The Enemy is a master of technology, but he has just one weakness, his numbers are finite.”

  “Finite?” replied Khan sarcastically.

  Spartan turned from the machine and back to Tuke.

  “What do you mean?”

  “According to our histories, the Enemy is ancient and immortal. We have faced their commanders in battles a hundred years apart, and still it is the same le
ader. The myth surrounding them tells that they do not die.”

  Spartan raised his hand and shook it in disbelief.

  “Wait a second, Tuke. Are you telling me that this Great Enemy of yours is a biological race that’s cocooned inside machine bodies?”

  Tuke looked confused.

  “Did you not already know this?”

  Spartan looked back at Khan with a large grin on his face.

  “Khan, my friend. It looks like we’ve seen the face of our enemy, well, his brain anyway!”

  Khan lifted his curved blade and brought it down on the damaged gyroscopic assembly and casing. It crunched through metal, electronics, and brain matter, sending chunks of debris scattering around them. He roared with pleasure at the same time.

  “That’s one less to deal with!” he howled through his suit, walking over to the next fallen machine. He lifted his weapon high, poised like an executioner above a condemned man.

  “Now, let’s see what we can find inside you.”

  As the blade came down, Tuke turned away, showing his back to the shattered machines. There was no sound in the airless environment, not that it really mattered. It was clear to both him and Spartan what Khan was up to. As Tuke looked away, he noticed a glimmer of light out in space. It was different to the other objects up there in the night sky, and for a moment he watched it, entranced by its movement. Then it changed course and his pulse quickened. He turned back to Spartan and Khan who was still busy smashing away with his weapon.

  “Somebody is here!” he said fearfully.

  Spartan looked up in the same direction as Tuke, but Khan was far too occupied destroying the machine to notice what they were doing. The shape of the T’Kari Raider was clearly visible, but more worrying was that the bright shape was moving toward it. Spartan connected directly to Lovett on board the ship.

  “Lovett, have you seen it?” he called out.

  The two shapes were now moving as they positioned themselves, for what could only be some form of engagement. As Spartan watched them, he became acutely aware they were out on a derelict station with no other forms of transport, or support. A cold feeling of fear traveled up his spine. He discarded the thought. The sound of Lovett’s voice returned, much to his relief.

  “We’re on it. I don’t know how the hell they managed to get so close. Either they were here all along, or another Rift must have opened up nearby.”

  Dozens of bright flashes erupted along the outside of the new arrival, as if struck by a battery of weapons. Spartan hoped, but knew deep down, there was no way the T’Kari Raider could have maneuvered into an adequate firing position in such a short time. By the last count, it had taken almost a minute for the capacitors to charge for the main guns.

  Let’s just hope they were still charged from the bombardment earlier.

  Tuke looked at him briefly; his visor was up and revealing his worried expression behind the armored glass. Spartan looked into his eyes, yet again was astounded at how similar they were to his own people. Other than muscle tone and coloring, they seemed to be identical to humans. Even in the middle of such a dangerous situation, he was reminded of a documentary he’d watched just a few months ago that contained interviews with top Alliance scientists, as well as T’Kari. Neither had been able to come up with a satisfactory explanation for the similarities or the origins of the species. Most were convinced it was a parallel development based on similar conditions, but others went for a more grandiose idea. The more religious were using it as an argument for their intelligent design by a creator, while others thought it might suggest a third party that had been involved in planetary seeding and genetic engineering. Spartan noticed Tuke was speaking and shook himself out of his stupor.

  “Spartan, we are in trouble!”

  The T’Kari crew are powering up the weapons. You need to keep your heads down until…”

  He stopped speaking, and a sound of distorted voices bounced inside Spartan’s helmet. He shook his head and tried to reconnect. There were multiple channels that connected both to the ship and directly to the remaining members in Spartan’s team. For a brief moment, he managed to reach Lovett, but his voice was drowned out by a digital tone.

  “Jamming!” Tuke called out.

  At the same time, the T’Kari warrior moved away from the most recent scene of destruction on what remained of the old station. He dropped down behind a shattered wall and looked back up to the starships. Spartan stood his ground, waving his fist toward Lovett and the others.

  “Lovett, get out of there!” he bellowed, but with no connection, there was little chance anything would now get through to them. Khan had now turned from his smashing spree and looked up in time to watch a series of flickering shapes moving between the two vessels.

  “What’s happening?”

  Spartan shook his head, amazed that his friend had managed to miss almost everything that had happened in the last thirty seconds. He could see Khan was breathing heavily and must have worked himself up quite a bit destroying the machines. Sometimes Spartan forgot how much hatred there was from the Jötnar toward those responsible for creating them. At first, it seemed it was down to the Echidna Union and their Zealot followers but now he had learned of this ancient race; he could only imagine the rage in his blood. The Jötnar had suffered greatly and were still considered outcasts throughout the Alliance. Tuke waved to get their attention.

  “We have a visitor, and he’s heading right for our ship.”

  Both Khan and Spartan watched as the ship moved even closer to their borrowed Raider. As it came closer, the ribbing and outline became clearer. Tuke recognized the shape and called out on the intercom in an excited voice. After a short delay, the translator explained.

  “It is one of the carrier craft from the fleet. They must have sent back a scout.”

  Khan slammed his armored foot into one of the felled machines, “Maybe, or they received a signal from these things asking for help.”

  “Perhaps,” answered Tuke.

  Each looked up at the ships, wondering what was happening. That was when the T’Kari Raider vanished in a bright blue flash that obscured its hull completely. Spartan staggered back as he thought of Lovett and the others on the vessel.

  Maybe they abandoned ship, he hoped, but he knew that it took more than a few seconds to get off an unfamiliar vessel. Another series of blue flashes moved around the vessel from bow to stern before fading away to leave nothing but a cloud of fine dust and the newly arrived warship.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ANS Victory was one of many powerful warships that continued the proud name. The first had been a British 42-gun ship from the sixteenth century. Five more ships were to bear the name until reaching the most famous Victory of all, the eighteenth century 100-gun first-rate ship of the line. It was this mighty warship for which ANS Victory was built to honor. Where HMS Victory led Admiral Nelson’s fleet to victory at Trafalgar in 1805, the new ship was built to take the fight to enemy ships or planets with its complement of half a battalion of marines. The incident at Helios would test the modifications to the Crusader class to the limit.

  Ships of the Alliance

  ANS Victory appeared in the blink of an eye at its destination outside the planet Helios, the nearest planet to the burning hot star at the center of the system. It was a trouble-free journey through the Rift, and as usual, there was no discernible split from the space back at T’Karan and their destination. The mighty ship made no noise in the cold void of space, yet it looked like an angry beast, bristling with armor and weapons. Nobody would make the mistake of assuming this metal machine was anything but a weapon of war.

  No sooner had they arrived and the internal alarms were blaring. Every single station in the CIC seemed to be hit with a stream of messages, alerts, and warnings from throughout the ship. Admiral Anderson watched the tactical display as one by one the entire Alliance military force arrived. None of the civilian ships followed, just the six Crusader class warships and the fou
r T’Kari scouts that were already there. It wasn’t the new star system that caught the Admiral’s eye; it wasn’t even the odd red hue that seemed to be everywhere. No, it was the massive pentagonal structure that filled the mainscreen.

  “I need a full scan of that object. What the hell is it?” he demanded.

  As the officers rushed about, he continued looking at it. General Daniels was the only other officer watching; the rest were busy at their stations.

  “Looks manmade to me, maybe a station?” he suggested helpfully.

  As he spoke, a detailed three-dimensional schematic of the shape appeared. The ship’s tactical officer, Lieutenant Jesse Powalk explained the details as the information was added, one layer at a time.

  “It’s massive. The computer estimates the total diameter at close to eight hundred meters. It is definitely artificial and generating a powerful gravity well. It must be occupied.”

  A black grid appeared on the model and distorted around the shape of the structure. Color areas then appeared at certain points.

  “This is the XO, all hands to battle stations,” the ship’s executive officer called out over the public address system. The order was barely required as every single Navy and Marine crewman was already at their station and waiting for their orders as they moved through the Rift. As the XO though, it was his job to ensure the ship was operating at maximum efficiency. The lighting inside the vessel was now dull red and gave the impression they were already in a shooting war.

  “Yeah, It’s definitely occupied, Sir, five to six hundred life signs. Wait, there’s a power surge.”

  On the model a number of bright blooms flashed along parts of the station.

  “Brace for impact!” shouted the XO over the intercom. It was an automatic reaction to the news and reached the crew at just the right moment. Seconds later, over a dozen indicators lit up on the model.