The Guardians of Sol (11 page)

“Never is, Sir.”

They were pushing towards the coordinates for the Gate at maximum acceleration. Christoph just hoped it was enough. When he stepped off the lift, and through the cargo bay doors, he didn’t even try to stifle his laugh. There were at least two dozen brand new Phoenix-class fighters, a dozen upgraded Cerberus II-class fighters, and many crates filled with ammunitions and armaments. This must have been meant to rearm the
Charon
. There was even a crated experimental weapon marked for testing. Under normal circumstances, this sort of thing would have made him practically cry with joy. After the men caught their collective breath, he’d have them reload their weapons just in case it was called for before they got home.

Satisfied now, though beginning to feel the melancholy brought on by such losses to the Guardians, he got back to the cockpit and plopped himself into the all too small copilot chair. He pulled up the positions of the enemy vessels, and compared them to the transport and the Gate. They might make it back to the Forge just yet.

A proximity alert went off, and a Cerberus fighter flew across the view port, followed closely by two fighters vaguely resembling birds of prey. The Cerberus pulled a ninety degree turn, and flipped on its axis one-hundred and eighty degrees. It fired from the plasma cannons positioned at the end of its three tear-shaped pylons. The blue bolts vaporized the first pursuing craft. The Cerberus pulled around the second pursuer, avoiding its fire. Missiles Vigo had fired when no one was looking slammed into the last enemy craft. Christoph didn’t bother being surprised by the independence displayed by his officers. Instead, he switched on the ship to ship com.

“This is Captain Christoph McCulloch of the ShadowStealer squad. Do you need a ride pilot?” Vigo muttered something that sounded like ‘damned pilots’. Christoph gave him a silencing look.

“Since I’m almost out of fuel? That would be great, but don’t slow down on my account, I’d hate to be the reason we got to the Gate too late.” Replied a feminine voice, sounding confident and just a bit excited. “I’ll just dock as you move. Don’t worry, I can do it.”

“Just try not to die, or kill us; it would really put a damper on us rescuing you.”

“Ha! Again I say. Ha! If anything I rescued you!”

“Come over here and say that to my face, woman.” Christoph replied calmly. He shut off the com. “Well, that was fun. We are going to make it to the Gate before that enemy ship, aren’t we?”

“Yeah… right… fun… Yes sir, if we keep accelerating, all indications are we’ll beat that cruiser to the Gate. But what happens to the Operators after they send us through?”

“My guess… they either have some way to send themselves somewhere safe, or they destroy the Gate.”

Vigo grunted and turned back to his piloting. “That woman is onboard now. You might want to go meet her before she eats one of our boys.”

“I never knew you were so poetic, Sarge!” Christoph tossed back as he walked away.

*****

They made it to the Gate, just barely, and frankly none of them were sure if there would be enough time for them to be sent to the Forge. The enemy cruiser had had a much higher acceleration than Christoph, Kael, or Vigo could have imagined. The female pilot laughed at them and told them that if they had shown her the cruiser earlier she could have told them how fast it would accelerate. Kael and Vigo weren’t very appreciative. Christoph just laughed right back at her.

“Gate Operators, I don’t know what you have planned but we have important data about the invaders that needs to get to the Forge ASAP! So send us through!” Christoph ordered, demanded, pleaded. The enemy cruiser was getting closer by the minute.

“Don’t worry, Captain. We’ll get you home. And we’re not going out alone; let us assure you of that. We’ll have you out of here before that cruiser can do anything about it.” A raspy voice replied.

Suddenly, the Gate began shining, and there were several flashes. A wave of nausea engulfed Christoph, orders of magnitude worse than the normal transition, and he hit his helmet on a console. When he looked out the view port, he saw one of the most beautiful sights he could have imagined at that moment: the Forge wrapped around the moon in all its segmented glory, and a few mighty warships coming and going. It was all so bright and wonderful he laughed with the release of tension. Vigo got his attention and pointed Christoph’s gaze at a gigantic piece of debris. More than half of the enemy cruiser was floating free and trailing wreckage. Christoph laughed now with true joy. The Gate Operators had done more than save his squad and the pilot.

June 18, 2289. The Forge, Block 2

Another day, another group of greenies to show the basics of space combat. I was sitting on my perch of a wall again taking potshots at cadets that looked a little too frisky. So I was in the perfect position to see when the severed half of an unfamiliar type of warship appeared in the sky above the Forge. It wasn’t the sort of thing to give someone a good feeling, but without orders or provocation I couldn’t do anything about it.

An old transport flew full speed through flying debris, away from the wreck and towards the nearest Forge docking bay. Some of the wreckage came too close to the Forge, and was redirected by its nav shields. The transport began broadcasting a mayday signal that caused my com systems to crackle with static. All I understood was “board immediately” though if this referred to the transport or the derelict, I couldn’t tell.

It didn’t take long for the war game come to a stop. None of the cadets or my men were moving. We all just stared at the alien warship drifting through the ether. I may not always be very sharp, but even I can recognize when getting any work done is impossible.

“Cadets, go hit the showers. We’re done for today.” I switched channels. “Spicy, Squatter, go ride herd on the little guys, make sure they don’t get into trouble. Voodoo, come with me, we’re going to go find out what’s going on.”

Voodoo ran ahead of me to secure a fast track to the admin block, while I tried to call someone in charge. It quickly grew apparent that no one knew what was going on. By the time Voodoo and I reached the transport station, Haywire and the rest of the men were waiting for us.

“What’s happening, boss?” Haywire asked me.

“I have no idea. Either I’m being stonewalled or my condition isn’t singular.”

“Well, neither option sounds very good. What are we going to do?”

“Practically? No idea. I figured we would just make ourselves available and see what happens.”

Haywire just shook his helmeted head, sighing.

*****

My com eventually crackled to life. “Castle, where are you?” A familiar voice asked.

“Halfway to Block 1. What’s up Christoph? I thought you were at Pluto?”

“Long story Rhys. Look, your squad’s the only other Specials around, there are dozens if not hundreds of hostiles likely to still be aboard that warship and I want you guys as part of the assault.”

“Sorry to rain on your parade, Captain, but all my squad has right now is sixth generation instructor’s armor. We’re not really fit for battle.”

“Don’t you have your new armor yet? What happened to your old armor?”

“The new stuff is still being tailored to our weapons system, and the old kit was repurposed or used in construction. I have no idea where it went.” I explained.

“No matter, come anyway. We’ll outfit you with Vindicator rifles if we have to. Meet up with the rest of the assault teams in landing bay six. And hurry, I don’t know what that ship or its occupants are capable of, but I’d rather not find out on anything but my own terms.”

“We’ll be right there. Uh… where are you?”

*****

The landing bay was full of other Castigars. Even so, Christoph’s squad was easy to spot. The jet black armor stood out against the sea of silvery shells. Of course, in our old faded green armor, my squad stood out as well. That is, when we weren’t hidden by the taller seventh gen armors. Christoph waved us over. It took a minute; there were over five hundred men in the room - fully half of a legion. I had never realized there were that many squads stationed on the Forge, and it had to have taken some sort of miracle to get them all armored and assembled in only minutes. Christoph and a few of the other squad captains were gathered around a projection.

“It’s about time you got here. Captain Castle, you’re leading the second insertion team.” Christoph told me. He indicated a section of the drifting battleship on a holo-viewer. “Rhys, this is your point of entry. You’re leading ten squads, secure the bridge if you can, but barring that get out with whatever intel possible. Everyone else know their objectives? Good, move out.”

Minutes later, ten assault shuttles were accelerating toward the floating wreck. They split off into five groups. My group headed to an area sealed off by bulkhead doors. The doors kept the atmosphere in after the hull was breached, but they wouldn’t keep the shuttles out.

The arrowhead shaped shuttles slammed into the fractured vessel’s hull and breached its corridors, the forward point wide enough for Castigars to move through the holes. The hallways were dark, the red emergency lights flickering. Some of the men activated beacons on their shoulders that provided just enough light to work. Their lights showed the corridor to be painted in red and black. Whatever the materials used were, they stole heat and the more energetic frequencies of light, making infrared and ultraviolet scans almost useless.

I think that, technically, every group was looking for the bridge. I’d just shown up too late to get the full briefing. Since there had been no indicators on the outside of the ship, no one had any idea where to start looking. I figured the middle was a good place to start. Most Guardian ships had their command decks safely sandwiched between decks closer to the void. Of course, getting there might be another story. The outermost corridors curved along the hull, giving each level a large area to search through.

In only a few minutes, those corridors had been searched. There was nothing there. My squads broke into the next innermost corridors. Nothing was immediately apparent. I was beginning to get worried. Christoph told us this was a fully functional warship only an hour earlier. If that was so, then where were all the crewmen? There weren’t enough bodies floating around for decompression to explain the lack. So where was everyone?

A fist of jagged metal reached out from a shadowed crossway and slammed a Castigar ahead of me into a wall. The assaulting figure stepped into the light of the beacons. It looked a lot like a Castigar, but the plates were more curved, and cruelly serrated. The attacked man recovered swiftly and hit back. They traded blows for a moment; someone else tried to intervene but was actually knocked back by his own squadmate.

“We don’t have time for this, Private.” I told him. He wasn’t listening. I raised my rifle and blew three rounds through the enemy’s now weakened chest plate. The Castigar jumped back as hydraulic fluid and blood sprayed his armor. “I said we didn’t have time for that. Fall back private. Squatter, take the lead.”

The men were more wary now. The headlong rush through corridor after corridor stalled. We checked every doorway, every intersection. There were plenty of the facilities one expects aboard a spaceship including offices, living quarters, and technological junctions. We still weren’t finding anyone though, just the one enemy. Spicy and one of the squad captains theorized that any surviving crewmembers had been pulled back to more critical areas. The man we had encountered seemed to be an aberration, someone who hadn’t heard the order. This seemed to be as good an explanation as any. I checked in with the other insertion teams, not one person had encountered anything living, though one man had found what looked like a religious shrine to a particularly bloodthirsty god.

In the middle of the ship, we found an observation window that looked down at the gigantic cannon barrel that ran through the middle of the vessel. The room was filled with overturned furniture and broken glasses, abandoned food and a few splashes of blood. What the hell kind of culture did these people come from? A bar overlooking a weapon of mass destruction, shrines to blood gods? I couldn’t think of anything remotely like it in the solar system. At least, nothing like it from the last few millennia. Part of me wondered about radiation exposure to people watching the particle cannon as it charged and fired.

“Well, logically, we go up.” I told my men.

Haywire glanced away from the window and at me. “Why the hell would that be, boss?”

“We’re looking for the bridge, remember? How many ships can you think of where the bridge is closer to the ‘bottom’ than the ‘top’? Come on Jimmy, use your head.” I switched channels to address the squad captains. Fortunately, it was the same as the instructor channel in my armor. “Alright Captains, we’re heading up. Find me a way. I don’t care if you find stairs, lifts, or a Jeffries tube. We need to get a move on.”

With everyone fanned out in pairs on the deck, it didn’t take long to find an empty lift shaft. Surprisingly, there were no emergency stairs, and the Jeffries tubes were amazingly difficult to access.

Two of the men pulled the lift’s doors apart. Looking around, I saw the actual lift car was stuck three levels down. There was, thankfully, an emergency access ladder. What concerned me was having my men pop out one at a time and meeting overwhelming numbers. This would have been much easier if the artificial gravity wasn’t online. Which was yet another thing that I had begun to worry about. I had to keep wondering why such an energy intensive system was still active if the lights were off.

“Alright. Mag-locks on. We’ll do this three at a time. One guy on the ladder and another guy to either side. We have to do this fast, or the shit could hit the fan. Don’t worry about rank or order, just get up there and get a foothold.”

Twenty minutes later, we had cleared another deck. This level was full of cafeterias and crew quarters. In one of the central corridors, I found an oddly displaced floor plate. It was of the same make of the rest of the floor plates only slightly raised. A moment of investigation revealed a hatch and a handle that lifted the whole thing on a hinge.

“Haywire, I just found an access hatch down to the deck we were just on. Keep your eyes on the ceiling, maybe we can find an easier way up. Spread the word.” He double clicked over the com to acknowledge.

It was hard to tell at first, but in the darkness enemy troopers had dropped down. Their sharp boots barely made any noise as they hurried through the carpeted hallways. They attacked quickly and without warning, separating the men from my shuttle from the rest of our insertion team.

A dark, sharp blade swept toward my head as I focused on finding an easier way up to the next deck. My motion tracker alerted me to the danger and I threw myself backwards. My shoulder beacon played over the ridged and barbed forms rushing forward. I let loose with my rifle, catching the first man in a weak point just under his jaw. He fell, but my other bullets just bounced off of the other hostiles. I rolled back onto my feet, firing the whole time. My rifle clacked empty. With as much speed and precision as I could muster, I slammed another clip into the weapon. I just wasn’t used to manual rifles anymore.

By now, the com channels were bursting with yells and screams and even a little insane laughter, from all of the insertion teams. Squatter blasted an enemy, and one of our frontline Castigars rushed forward to grapple with a man who was about to crush my skull in. Wall plating crumpled under their blows.

“Fall back! We can’t afford to get cut off in these corridors.” The Castigar went down. I finished off his opponent, and switched to the instructor’s channel. “Meet up in the first mess hall, we can defend better from there.” The chatter cut down as squad leaders acknowledged the order. Now we just had to get to the rendezvous alive.

Before they started hitting us, I had had five other men with me, including Squatter. I had already lost two of them, and the three hostiles we had taken down failed to make it up for me. We backtracked as fast as we could, though the hostiles kept antagonizing us. Just one intersection before the cafeteria we ran into another group of the dark armored men. They came at us with blades bared. Acting sooner than I could order anything, one of the Castigars pulled out an old arc spear, used by the previous generation of Spartans, and charged right back at our adversaries.

Electric blue arcs lit up the small space and tore liquid gouts of metal off of power armor. The artificial gravity finally went offline, and the molten globs formed into glowing spheres. Reacting swiftly, my men and I used our momentum to continue forward, bouncing off of walls in ways only possible in zero-gravity.

The Castigar with the arc spear stayed behind, tearing into the men around him. I checked his IFF signal. “Private Sandsmark, fall back!”

“Go on Captain, I’ll buy you the time you need to organize the defense.” He stabbed another man through the chest. “I don’t mean to be impertinent Captain, but you have bigger worries than me.”

I swore. Damn kids. I sent Squatter and the other Castigar on ahead. I activated the mag-locks in my boots and calmly started taking my shots. First was an enemy behind Sandsmark, then I sent one sprawling into a wall. “Sandsmark, the time has been bought; fall back or I’ll shoot you myself. This isn’t a good battlefield to die on.”

With a sigh, he bounced back to me by bounding off of one of his opponents. Oh, Newton, your third law is so useful. The stricken man became entangled with some of his companions.

“We’re going to have a talk later, Private.” I told him as we hurried into the protective arms of our fellow Guardians. He just acknowledged me with a quick double click. Bullets flew past us as our comrades tried to cover us.

Our enemies fell back, for the moment. Haywire and Shot-put ran over to me. “We’ve lost fifteen men, including Nickel. He killed at least six of the bastards before he went down though. Initial estimates are that we’re facing over a hundred enemies. Bad time not to have any decent armor, eh?”