Machine Gods (Star Crusades Nexus, Book 2) (5 page)

Twenty-four operatives for one c
orsair. It had better be enough,
Spartan thought.

He was now starting
to wonder if perhaps he had been just a little bit too optimistic
during the planning stages. They continued forward like a swarm of
flies toward their target. All four teams targeted different access
areas of the ship, with Spartan’s team taking the main loading bay.
The briefing with the T’Kari had implied that the loading bay on
this class of ship would give them the quickest route through to
the bridge of the vessel.

“
Take it easy and
keep movement to a minimum. We need to get to the door before they
know we’re there.”

Spartan
and Khan approached the bay and watched its
ribbed hull with interest. It was heavily scored and marked, unlike
anything either had seen before on ships. There were markings
though none were fully intact, but they did betray the origins of
the craft as one of the T’Kari fleet. They made it to the underside
of the ship and clamped the ZeroDrone to the hull. Both ensured
their magboots were firmly in place on the ship and proceeded to
walk the short distance around the overhang and onto the actual
landing bay. Technically, they were upside down, but those
distinctions were somewhat irrelevant in space. The exterior of the
bay was a large open space, with a number of magnetically shielded
sliding doors fitted on one side to allow spacecraft or people to
exit the ship.

“
Get in
p
osition and wait for the signal,” he
said calmly.

They all
moved down onto the landing platform and toward
the sliding doors. All wore the modified PDS armored suits that
were usually worn by Alliance Marines. Even Khan wore a custom
suit, one of many that were being manufactured back on the fiery
world of Prometheus. His was cruder in comparison but still fully
sealed and included many of the features originally used in the
massive Marine Corp Vanguard assault suits. He took up position to
the right of Spartan and lifted his right arm to point it at the
doors. Unlike the others, his carbine was actually built into his
armor. It meant the ammunition feed could be fed from ammunition
boxes on belts.

“
Red Team is in
position,” a
nnounced their
leader.

The other three
teams were in position and were now waiting at their pre-determined
zones. Spartan acknowledged the message and double-checked on the
others. They needed just a few more seconds, and he would have
twenty-four well-trained operatives, all armored, and heavily armed
for the mission.

Isamu finished
placing the series of six small modules on the metal plating in a
wide circle. Each was connected to the next with a small wire, and
as he placed them, the rest of the team watched nervously. It was a
standard issue breaching charge, based upon a shaped charge unit.
Spartan watched him carefully; aware that any mistake here would
leave them all trapped outside. Isamu knew his trade, and in a
matter of seconds, the unit was installed. The rest of the team
backed off to the required safe distance of four meters. Finally,
the signal came from the other teams; they were all
ready.

Here we go again.

“Now!” barked Spartan.

The charges flashed,
and the metal plating disintegrated, blasting into the vessel. The
air pressure inside must have been the same as the outside, or else
Spartan would have expected the debris to blast out into space.
Either way, he didn’t have the time to consider it; he had a job to
do.

“
Everybody inside,
secure the vessel, and locate the commander.”

Spartan was in
first, with one hand on the metal structure so he could pull
himself along in the zero-g environment. His right hand, however,
grasped his L52 carbine. He’d already set it to the lower power
mode. It gave him a high rate of fire, without the excessive armor
penetration issues that could prove problematic in an environment
such as this. Once through the breached door, he was inside the
landing bay itself. There was no light, and he was forced to
activate the shoulder-mounted lamps on his PDS suit. The room was
large and contained two small craft, presumably shuttles or light
transports of some kind. The configuration wasn’t too different to
the small cobra craft used in the Alliance. He lowered his lamps
and checked to see how they were secured. Much like their own
ships, the craft was held down with a form of magnetic
clamp.

So, they have power. Where is everybody?

He kept moving, the
other seven
close behind. The computer
systems were all off in this part of the ship, but as he approached
the main access door into the rest of the vessel, his suit picked
up readings.

“You getting this?” he asked.

“
Yeah, there are
heat blooms on the other side of this door. I’d say our friends are
preparing a welcoming committee for us.”

Khan pulled himself closer and pointed his weapon at
the doorway.

“I say we breach and introduce ourselves.”

Chatter from the
other teams showed a
very different
situation. The status indicators on Spartan’s suit allowed him to
monitor each of them in terms of heart rate, blood pressure, and
even their suit’s supplies. Two of the other teams had run directly
into crew, and it looked like they were in the middle of a
firefight.

“
Spartan, aft
section is secure, one hostile down and seven
prisoners.”

He nodded to himself.

“
Good work, keep
moving. W
e need the
commander.”

He recalled the
dossiers he’d read that had been compiled by the best people in
Alliance Intelligence. Apparently
, the
data had come directly from the T’Kari, but Spartan doubted some of
that. The information was sparse and had mainly consisted of lists
of previous targets, along with some of the combat procedures used.
Spartan could have obtained better information himself, but with
the changes in procedure, he was finding access to people becoming
more and more difficult. What he did know was that the leader of
this vessel was apparently responsible for raiding T’Kari colonies
for the best part of last decade. He was one of the former
commanders of the T’Kari Scouts, an elite team that patrolled
throughout the New Charon Star System to watch for signs of their
enemies. Lovett watched him thinking and was forced to tilt his
head toward the door and potential hostiles on the other
side.

Get your
mind on the job
, you
fool!

He almost kicked
himself for letting his mind drift at such an important point. He
looked back to those around him a
nd
checked they were ready. They waited for his signal. Isamu had
already placed charges on the inner door.

“
Assault pattern
alpha,” he stated firmly and
moved off to
the left.

Isamu triggered the
charge, and this time the metal blew out toward them. It instantly
told them that this part of the ship was pressurized. Spartan was
already through, and as he stepped in, he triggered his suit’s
built-in entry-assault module. It was specially designed by the APS
Corporation for such operations. A dozen small charges were
launched from units fitted to his shoulders. They exploded just
three meters away with a roar and a bright flash. Spartan’s visor
automatically blackened for a brief moment and then returned to
normal. It was a large rectangular room with racks on the walls for
equipment and weapons. A number of computer displays covered the
left wall. A raised platform to the right was topped off with a
smashed helmet. The ceiling and walls were deeply ribbed, much like
the exterior of the ship.

“Spartan, watch out!” cried Lovett.

He lifted his weapon
and counted the enemy quickly before taking aim. There were six
T’Kari Raiders in dark armor, with their bug-like helmets and close
fitting metal plates. The shock charges had scattered them, yet
they were already bringing their weapons to bear.

“
Now!”

Spartan took
aim
, but Khan opened fire first. The
burst of mag rounds from the Jötnar’s L52 carbine hit the nearest
two and sent then spinning into the corridor behind them. Spartan
took aim at the third, but its hands were already raised, and the
rest seemed to give up in seconds.

What’s going on in here?

Spartan moved
ahead
, and the team secured their
prisoners. He looked at the corridor behind the room and took a few
steps before stopping. The reports on his helmet showed no
casualties with his team, but there was something else inside. It
showed up as a large target, approximately five rooms from their
current position. He looked back to his team.

“
Three of you stay
with Lovett. Don’t let them leave!”

He then looked to
Khan.

“
The rest of you
with me, quickly!”

He placed one foot
in front of the other and let the automatic mag seals do their work
as he stomped out of the room and into the innards of the ship. The
other operatives were covering similar ground, and all making their
way to the same objective. Isamu and Porter watched the flanks;
Spartan and Khan took the middle ground. They moved through to the
next batch of darkened rooms, finding nothing but empty space.
There were no computers, storage containers, or even people; and
that made each of them nervous. Of them all, Spartan was starting
to feel the coldness of his nerves.

Where is
everybody?
This ship can’t
just be full of empty space.

Spartan paused for a
moment, his suspicions now raised. The ship was large, easily
bigger than a frigate and should contain
a crew of at least a hundred, possibly more.

S
urely they aren’t
all on the crippled vessel.

Khan stopped next to him and looked confused.

“Problem?”

Spartan shrugged.

“
I don’t know. I’ve
got a feeling. Something isn’t right.”

Khan moved his head very slowly in agreement.

“I agree. Where are the guards?”

The radio exploded into noise as the leaders of two
of the teams cried out for help.

“Spartan, there’s something in here. We need
to...”

His voice changed to
screams of pain, and the occasional gunshot rattled out in the
background. Spartan listened to the sounds and voices as carefully
as he could. It was messy, but he could just about make out the
sound of people and weapons. Khan listened to the same in his suit
before looking directly into Spartan’s eyes.

“
Biomechs!” he
said
with nothing but venom in his
voice.

The Helios Rebellion would test the strength of the
smaller, but more powerful Alliance Navy in ways that had never
been expected. In the past, the mixture of vessels had left them
limited in ability to respond to crisis. Now her fleets of
warships, escorts, and fighters would once again be responsible for
shipping marines to the frontline. This time, however, it would not
be to help secure Alliance territory. The Helios Rebellion would be
the first time humankind put military forces onto an alien world.
It would not be the last.

Naval Cadet’s Handbook

The Biomechs were
first encountered in large numbers during the fighting on Prime.
They
had surged from the infamous Bone
Mill and became the catalyst that turned the insurgency into a
full-blown war. Until that moment, the fighting had consisted of
just the mysterious movement known only as the Zealots. Once the
Biomechs were revealed, the war turned around into a full-scale
uprising, with entire worlds turning to one side or the other. The
horrifying creature that stood in front of Spartan looked like the
first generation of warrior that had crawled from out of the Bone
Mill. He lifted his L52 Mark II carbine, and the memories of those
first encounters flashed before his eyes as if they were only the
day before. He remembered the smell and the sound of them as he
fought them across spacecraft and colonies throughout the old
Confederacy. These creatures were the size of a pack animal, had
four legs, and mutilated bodies. The ones at the start of the War
had been constructed from donor organs, tissue, and brain; this one
looked no different.

“Protect him!” shouted Khan.

The small group
of
armored fighters pulled ahead to help
defend Spartan. Even so, the creature moved quickly like a gruesome
spider. With no discernible gravity aboard the ship, the speed of
the operatives was greatly reduced. The Biomech creatures, on the
other hand, were able to use the ceilings and walls with ease,
grasping with their four limbs and grabbing and pulling at any
uneven objects to give them mobility.

“Forget me, just open fire!” barked Spartan.

He opened fire with
his carbine, sending each of the mag rounds deeply into the center
of the monstrous thing. The coilgun was the standard issue weapon
in the Marine Corps, and used magnetism to super accelerate
projectiles without the need for propellant. It was triple-barreled
and capable of a rapid-fire mode, whereby it used each of the
barrels one at a time to launch the rounds. When needed, it could
also use ultra high power single shots. By default, Spartan
retained the rapid-fire setting that could cut a man in half at
short to medium distances. The other operatives opened fire just in
time for two more of the creatures to appear. Both pushed off from
the wall, drifting at speed toward the ground, and although rounds
slammed into them, their momentum kept them going. They crashed
directly into Spartan and Khan and sent the four as a spinning mass
of guns, limbs, and blood. Emergency seals clamped down behind them
to contain the atmosphere that was quickly escaping from the damage
to the ship.