Star Crusades Nexus: Book 03 - Heroes of Helios (18 page)

Hunn moved through the door and stopped, bending down to touch the metal plating on the exterior of the powerful warship.

“Can you feel the heat? Is she burning inside?”

The form of Lieutenant Rossen emerged, the last to leave the evacuation deck where they had been waiting. She heard Hunn’s question and moved on past him and to the others along the curved upper level.

“No, the heat is from the re-entry. Look at her. I’d say she survived the landing pretty well.”

Wictred laughed at her words.

“Landing! What would you call a crash?”

The Ambassador moved along the side of the ship, examining the burn marks and damage. Some of it must have been from the descent, but there were other areas that showed obvious impacts and weapon damage. He stopped at one the worst and reached out to touch the fused material. Jack spotted him and grabbed his hand before he could touch it.

“Are you serious? You’ll burn your hand off touching that.”

The smoke and dust started to clear a little more, and they could now see large groups of Alliance personnel leaving from scores of exit points. The ship was clearly in a bad way but was still intact. Emergency vents dumped excess gases and heat from ruptured internal sections, and yet there was still power to large parts of her hull. Jack watched in surprise as the descent vanes withdrew back into the hull just a short distance from where they stood. The group continued their downward progress along the curved hull and to one of the large ribs that ran out and touched the ground. Along three sides were grab rails, designed for use in zero-g situations. Shapes in the dust and fog moved about, but from that distance it was hard to tell who they might be.

“Lieutenant Rossen, are there evacuation craft on the way?”

She pulled out her datapad to find the communication section showing as blank.

“Weird.”

She shook the device and then tossed it to Thai Qiu-Li.

“What do you make of that?”

Thai Qiu-Li examined the screen and made several adjustments before throwing it back. She withdrew her own unit and shook her head in surprise.

“Nothing, Sir. The secpads are working, but something is nullifying the signal completely. There’s nothing, not even static.”

The two extra crewmen started to push to the front of the group. One of them bumped into Thai Qiu-Li, almost sending her off the ribbed section and out into the fog.

“Hey! Watch yourself,” growled Wictred, his patience now started to wane.

The man Lieutenant Rossen had kicked seemed to have forgotten their little disagreement and instead continued onward. Hunn grabbed his arm, and in a flash, the marine was trying to duck under him to push on. Hunn struck him with the back of his forearm, and the man instantly lost his grip. Luckily for him, Wictred grabbed the falling marine just as he slipped off the side of the rib.

“You heard him the first time. Now wait your turn, or take the express route.”

He looked over the edge and toward the ground that was still covered with a layer of dust filled fog.

“Okay, okay. I just don’t wanna...”

“Cut it out!” barked Lieutenant Rossen, “We’ll all get off this ship, now keep moving.”

The group moved on as before, and with each passing second, the fog cleared until finally the shape of a large group of scruffily dressed people could be seen. From this distance, they could easily have been survivors, but they were all coming from the fog itself, not the ship.

“Who are they?” asked Jack.

The Ambassador nodded to Jack, doing nothing but confuse him and then walked closer to Lieutenant Rossen. He reached out to touch her arm. The other Helions watched him expectantly as he started to speak, though not one of them stopped.

“This is not as it seems.”

Rossen looked at him and rubbed at a spec of dust that had just blown into her eye.

“What do you mean?”

“The damage to your ship. It was not caused by the Zathee rebels.”

At the same time, he turned and pointed to the rear of the ship.

“It was by mining missiles. You can see the screw pattern on the hull.”

“So?”

The Ambassador sighed at having to explain.

“These weapons are only found on Helion vessels. Whatever attacked you was not a weapon of the Zathee.”

“How do you know that?”

The Ambassador now looked uncomfortable. His facial muscles seemed to move in ways that would have been impossible for a human. The cheekbones almost vanished before he composed himself and replied.

“I cannot say. All I can tell you is that the Zathee resistance have access…to other equipment.”

Lieutenant Rossen stopped and looked at him carefully.

“Are you saying what I think you are?”

The alien’s expressions were not always easy to comprehend, but he was evidently nervous. Even so, none of the marines appeared particular concerned as they reached the next level down from the ship. Wictred spotted the flickers of light first, but even his reactions were not enough for him to save the life of the Ambassador. The sound of gunfire came, but only after the Ambassador and all but two of his entourage were killed. The shooting stopped as soon as it had started. Jack rushed to the fallen Helion while the other marines moved to any cover they couldn’t find on the outer structure of the ship. Unlike the burst of initial fire, the continuing fire was far more sporadic and simply forced them to keep their heads down.

“Return fire!” called out Lieutenant Rossen.

Two round struck the Lieutenant directly in the chest. She staggered back and was pulled out of the line of fire. Jack leaned over her, pulling her tunic away to find the multi-layered armor had done its job.

“Sir, you have my father’s company to thank for the armor improvements!”

She smirked at his comment, pulling on him to lift herself up into a crouched position. The marines were not fully armored as they were wearing their dress uniforms for purposes of the important visit. Each did have the smaller regulation breastplate and shoulder armor more commonly used by scouting units and Special Forces. Their dark clothing hung over the plating like a medieval tabard and hid most of the armor. Short, highly accurate bursts tore down from their high position, and as quickly as the attackers had arrived, they were gone. Lieutenant Rossen stepped up, keeping close to the metal ribbed section of the ship.

“Everybody to the surface, now!”

“Sir, the bodies?”

She looked back at the shattered bodies of the Helions and the one Alliance crewman who must have been caught in the crossfire. The blood stains on their torsos and their grotesque positions told her all she needed. Even so, Thai Qiu-Li checked each of them before leaving. Just the young female Helion was breathing, but she was wounded in the arm. Thai Qiu-Li pulled an emergency sealant bandage from Jack’s backpack. They all carried the small unit fitted to the back plate of the marine armor. As well as additional communications gear, they included auxiliary power and a basic medical pack. She pulled it tight, and the young woman groaned with the pain. Fresh red blood dripped down and onto Thai Qiu-Li’s arm. For a second she jumped, but her training kicked in, and she ignored it and quickly finished her job.

“Okay, she’s clear for now.”

She threw a final glance at the bodies, “The rest are down, Sir.”

“We should hide back inside the ship. There could be more of them!” cried the now terrified crewman. Unlike his more boisterous comrade who had succumbed to the gunfire, this man was evidently shaken up by the close ranged violence. Jack had seen it before, as had the others. While sympathetic, the Lieutenant was well aware of the dangers of letting this kind of panic continue. She grabbed him by the scruff of his bloodied overalls.

“Crewman, what’s your name?”

“Uh…Midshipman Harvey O’Donnell,” he muttered, his voice almost unintelligible.

She pulled him even closer.

“Midshipman O’Donnell, I’ve had enough of you. Now, get off your ass and follow us. There is only one way for us to go, and it’s down!”

Hunn and Wictred stormed off ahead of the others, both keeping their carbines in the ready position. More fog started to drift back onto the ship, and they only saw the ground when they were just ten meters from reaching it. Hunn was first and moved to the body of one of the Helions that had opened fire. There were three more around him, and a single round had hit each. Wictred moved another five meters past him to give him cover.

“Let’s see what we have,” said Hunn, pulling the robe away from the fallen warrior’s face. Beneath was the pale skin of the Helions and no discernible uniform or armor. On the floor next to the body was a short rifle of no more than a meter in length. He reached out to hold it, but as soon as his fingers touched the grip, the rib section turned red and burned his fingers. The device emitted a low level beep that continued every two seconds.

“What the!” he snapped in surprise.

“What is it?” asked Wictred.

Hunn shook his head in annoyance.

“Looks like they booby trapped their weapons.”

Lieutenant Rossen was now there along with Jack, Thai Qiu-Li, and the wounded Helion female who immediately walked up to the weapon and pointed at it. Wictred stared at the gun as she spoke.

“That’s not a rebel weapon,” she stated firmly.

“What do you mean?” asked Jack, “Who are you, and what do you know?”

“Helion soldiers use those. I’ve seen them before.”

Rossen and Thai Qiu-Li moved closer to examine the body. The sound caught Thai Qiu-Li’s ears, and she turned to the Helion female.

“What’s your name?”

“Salene.”

Thai Qiu-Li looked back at the weapon.

“You say you know this weapon? Why couldn’t the rebels have just stolen them?”

There was no time for her to answer as the sound from it had changed. Thai Qiu-Li stepped closer to it, but the young Helion woman stopped her.

“No, you mustn’t.”

“What is that noise?” asked Hunn as he approached it. Without waiting for an answer, he extended his foot and kicked it. The weapon tipped over, and the sound became even clearer, increasing in tone though not volume.

“Uh, is it me, or does that sound bad?” he said like a guilty child.

“Bad?” asked Jack.

The words had already left his mouth before he realized what he was saying.

It’s another God dammed trap!
He jumped up and turned his head to his comrades.

“It’s gonna explode, move!”

All six of them ran with just Salene standing right next to the body. Jack surged past her and grabbed her about the waist. Her light weight made it easy for him to keep going without having to brace himself. He made it almost ten meters when the weapon exploded. The blast was a high-pitched scream that sent a super-hot wave of energy in all directions. He was blasted to the ground, along with the rest of his comrades, apart from Wictred who somehow took the blast and stayed on his feet.

This is insanity!

Jack was on his back and shaking his head when he realized Salene had been knocked right on top of him. He was about to speak, but Thai Qiu-Li beat him to it and extended an arm to help her up.

“That didn’t take you long, did it?” she said with surprising bitterness to her tone.

“Hey, this time it wasn’t me!” he replied with feigned hurt.

Jack then pushed himself from the ground, wiping the dirt from his face. If he’d been wearing his full PDS armor, none of this would have mattered. As it was, part of his dark gray tunic was burned, and he noticed black marks on Hunn and Lieutenant Rossen.

“Everybody okay?” asked the Lieutenant.

“Yeah, no problems here,” said Jack.

Hunn and Wictred seemed completely unfazed by the entire thing and just nodded.

“No problem here, apart from being shot at,” said Thai Qiu-Li sarcastically.

“Wait, where is the crewman?” asked Lieutenant Rossen.