Legions of Orion (Star Crusades Nexus, Book 1) (27 page)

“
Track the source of
the jamming and take it out. We need help down here.”

They quickly
dispersed, and Spartan could see movement from the ledge above
them. The shape of General Rivers and another marine squad
appeared.

“
Spartan, stay where
you are. W
e have a medical team on the
way!”

He nodded in
acknowledgement, looking back to Jack.

“
Looks like you
found trouble after all,” he said grimly.

Jack coughed, and
his legs gave way. Spartan caught him and lowered him to the
ground. The reinforcements were now inside the cavern and working
their way towards him.

“
Keep still, son.
Help is coming.”

* * *

Commodore Lewis watched the incoming
reports from the multiple teams on the moon below. He’d also seen
the information on one of the smaller moons, and it was becoming
clear to him and most other commanders that this entire area had
once been occupied by an advanced society. The information from
General Rivers and his landing party concerned him the most,
though. Since his last contact, his signal to the surface had been
jammed intermittently. Only in the last minute had contact been
resumed.

“General, I don’t understand. You say
one of your teams came under attack in one of the ruined
sites?”

“That is correct. Which part don’t you
understand, Commodore?” replied an exasperated General Rivers.

Commodore Lewis looked over to
Commander Garret Blackford
, his senior
science officer.
The man looked just as
surprised as he did at the news. They had no intel, other than the
signal beacon, to suggest any kind of existing life out
there.

“I don’t understand. This place is
supposed to be deserted, or at the very least inert. What is down
there?”

The man shrugged.

“Without a full engineering and science
team down there, I can’t tell you anything more.”

The Commodore appeared distinctly
unimpressed with this information.

“
Okay, General, what
is your current status?”

“
My forces have
established a secure LZ, and all of the perimeter buildings, ruins
and high ground have been searched. We have numerous unusual
artefacts and hundreds of the destroyed and non-functioning
machines. Spartan, Khan and I can confirm they match some of the
specifications of the machines we’ve seen before.

Commander Garret
Blackford
leaned in to the
Commodore.

“
That will be from
the shutting down of the Rift on Hyperion seventeen years
ago.”

“
I see,”
r
eplied the Commodore to General Rivers.
“I have science teams on their way from ANS Endeavour, as well as
two engineering ships. My orders from Admiral Anderson are to
provide space superiority and support for operations on the moons
around this planet. He has requested you make contact in the next
thirty minutes via video link. It looks like this part of the
sector is going to be the heart of Alliance operations for the next
few months.”

“Very well, I have a shuttle returning
with wounded. Have your medical bays ready to receive them.”

The Commodore nodded in acknowledgement
and then did his best to soften his expression.

“I heard about Spartan’s son. How are
his injuries?”

General Rivers sighed.

“
Serious, he took
triple stab wounds to the thigh and torso. The armour kept him
alive, and our medics have stabilised him. We have two dead, and
two wounded Jötnar coming back as well.

“What about the rest of the APS
team?”

“
They are fine.
Spartan is overseeing the security of the proposed research
facility and has already called in more APS teams for the work.
It’s just as well. My forces are spread thin down here, and we have
more moons to investigate and clear.”

“
That’s true. When
will you be returning Devastation?”

“
As soon as I am
satisfied the engineering teams are safe and have started their
work
, I’ll withdraw our forces, and we
can move on to the next site.”

“
There is one more
thing, General, and I think it might keep you down there a little
longer.”

“Oh?”

“
One of our Lighting
reconnaissance fighters did a high-speed sweep over Colonel
Daniels’ landing zone. We picked up imagery of a metallic structure
below the ground. Only a small part of it is sticking out of the
ground, and recent craters surround it. Based on his reports, it
looks like the force that attacked him was trying to bombard this
place.”

“How far away is it?”

“
Seventy kilometres,
and the trails on the imagery show definite connections between
both landing zones.”

“
This needs to be
investigated immediately. I’ll discuss it with the Admiral and get
back to you.
Please send the data down to
me. I’ll get my people to run over it.”

* * *

The communications hall was a new
construction at Terra Nova, and something that would have been
impossible without the Interstellar Network to provide the
infrastructure needed for interplanetary communications. In the
past, messages were sent that could take hours, days or even months
to reach their destinations. With repeaters stationed at both sides
of all the rift points in the Network, it was now possible to send
and receive video communications in a matter of minutes to anywhere
connected in the system. There were only two people physically
present in the room, and the rest consisted of the latest virtual
presence devices.

President Hobbs, the
frail but commanding leader of the Alliance
, took primary position around the small oval projection
table. At her right hand side was Defence Secretary Churchill, the
aged but only recently retired Admiral of the fleet; his presence
only improved by his scarred face and missing left arm that had
been replaced by a prosthetic mechanical arm. Rather than cover it,
he left it open and it gave a mechanical, almost brutal look. The
others in the rest of the room included the senior representatives
from each of the colonies in the Alliance, as well as Admiral
Anderson from Prometheus and General Rivers who was still stationed
in Orion. All were standing and waiting patiently until the
President spoke. Each of the virtual presence devices for the
others present carried a countdown and progress indicator
underneath them to show the time delay for the
communication.

“
Colony
representatives and our military commanders, thank you for this
meeting. As you know, in this last week
,
we have seen a number of firsts for our new Alliance. We built and
operated an inter-galactic Spacebridge, discovered new worlds, and
as of three days ago, we can confirm the discovery of extinct
intelligent life.”

The was little
excitement in the room, partially down to most of the information
having already been leaked by the media
,
but also by the more troubling rumours that overshadowed the
discovery.

“
We are here because
an urgent strategic decision must be made. This decision will
affect every single citizen, from farms on Kerberos to miners in
Epsilon Eridani. We have been presented with a great opportunity
but also with great risks.”

She turned to face
the shimmering image of General Rivers and nodded. Underneath his
name it said there was a seventeen second delay, yet she continued
to speak as the counter ran down.

“
General Rivers was
the first of our people to come across these incredible places, but
there has already been a cost in lives. He will now brief us on
what his people have been able to discover.”

There was a very short delay as the
feed from the General finally caught up.

“
Thank you, Ms
President.”

He then looked
around the room at each of the figures, pausing for a moment when
he spotted a Jötnar warrior standing for Hyperion. The sight amused
him, but none of the others could understand why.

“
Three days
ago
, my marines landed on this moon,
currently dedicated as NC231. That is the thirty-first moon of the
second planet of New Charon. This moon has a viable atmosphere and
is partially protected by the planet’s magnetosphere that it
orbits. Colonel Daniels led a scouting party here prior to my
arrival and was attack by unknown forces. His platoon has been
recovered, and we have expanded our search in a number of specific
sites. We have found human remains at the site, remains that have
been here for a long time. A team led by Jack Morato also
discovered a heavily damaged rift generator, as well as a large
number of destroyed biomechanical machines. I have platoons at key
points on NC231, and engineer parties are already establishing a
site here for further work.”

He then nodded that
he was finished and waited. P
resident
Hobbs looked at the people in the room, waiting until the message
from the General had reached each of them. It didn’t take long, yet
the delay seemed to increase the tension significantly. It was one
of the most spartan of the official rooms on Terra Nova, with
nothing but three simple paintings of the colonisation of the
planet to adorn the walls.

“
Hades, now our
official name for NC231, has complicated our expansion into New
Charon. As you can see, the discoveries are impressive but also
confusing. We now face great possibilities, but it would appear we
have managed to find signs of our enemy once more, an enemy that
almost destroyed us, and our way of life. For a long time, many
have wondered how the Zealots and their masters were able to fight
such a protracted technological war with such limited resources.
This information might be the first part in the puzzle. Did this
Rift on Hades once connect to our own worlds? Who built these
machines, and why did the humans on this moon die? Our decision
here today will be ratified in a full session of the Senate, but
not for another six months. The question I must ask you all, is
whether you will support our strategy?”

With that, she
nodded to the Defence Secretary. He tapped a button and brought up
a display of the Alliance colonies, along with coloured lines that
indicated the paths of the Interstellar Network.

“
We are
self-contained and have access to almost unlimited resources. Yet
the Uprising showed us that we have enemies both outside and
within. The Zealots have faded, but they are not completely
destroyed. Something gave them purpose and provided them with
knowledge and technology that even our scientists still do not
fully understand. We have two options. We can shut down the
Spacebridge and hope the enemy never again tries to tear our
Alliance apart. It is a valid strategy and would allow us time to
rebuild and strengthen. There is however another choice, and one
that will require us to explore, exploit and defend this newly
discovered system.”

The model changed to show the planets
in New Charon.

“
There is a reason
we were able to build this Spacebridge and at such a long distance.
It is to do with the composition of the New Charon star system, and
this has thrown up some interesting anomalies that are already
being analysed by Admiral Anderson and his people.”

The commander of the
research site at Prometheus nodded firmly before taking
over.

“
That is true. It
seems that a small number of star systems contain certain
conditions that make long-distance Spacebridges viable. New Charon
is one, and Proxima Centauri is another. This would explain why we
have been unable to create stable Spacebridges outside of just over
four light-years. My scientists hypothesise that only one in a
thousand star systems can support a stable bridge over a long
distance, perhaps much less. A simple calculation shows that a
network, similar to that of a spider’s web, can be formed around
each of these major hubs that would allow each of them to be
connected to another, much like a major spaceport on a colony that
is linked to cities and towns, via ground trains and smaller
stations.”

The image changed to
show dozens of interstellar network bridges
, appearing to join up hundreds of stars. They formed in
tight clusters, like small webs with the occasional long line
connecting each of the clusters. One hub clustered around Alpha
Centauri with the next nearest being around Barnard’s
Star.

“
By using this
information, we could potentially build more of these long-range
Spacebridges to places such as Barnard’s Star, a system that is
over six light-years away. What really stands out though is what
you find at New Charon.”

The display shifted
to the newly discovered star system, but this time a great number
of other stars appeared, many of them linked by potential
Spacebridges.

“
As you can see, New
Charon is in range of hundreds of stars that fall within the four
light-year limit. Even more importantly, the orbital telescope now
deployed by ANS Beagle has confirmed that another twelve star
systems within two hundred light-years have the same
characteristics as New Charon.”

He lifted his hands
to emphasise his next point.

“
This, ladies and
gentleme
n, is more than just another star
system. It is a hub. A Nexus, if you will, between many more places
like this. Whoever controls New Charon, will control access to all
of the connected star systems. It is the Nexus of a large part of
this Orion Nebula.”