Machine Gods (Star Crusades Nexus, Book 2) (29 page)

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,” h
e 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 leader. 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
hea
ds down until…”

H
e 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 th
irty
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,”
a
nswered 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.

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 four 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
X
O, 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 re
ached the crew at just the
right moment. Seconds later, over a dozen indicators lit up on the
model.

“
Weapon
s fire!” cried the
Lieutenant.