Authors: Tony Gonzales
Spinning on two separate axes now, the
Doystoyov
’s catastrophe had begun, as the third and fourth salvo impacted.
The captain wondered if the
Morse
was even aware of what they’d just accomplished.
Cursing to God, he ordered the crew to abandon ship.
But the order was pointless.
The Stackfires performed exactly as designed, rocketing higher and faster than the tumbling dreadnought toward a spot in space ahead of it, then tipping over and setting on a final intercept course.
They detonated their powerful warheads from above, pushing the
Doystoyov
deeper into the atmosphere, where she began to break apart under impossibly brutal G-forces.
If the Valklears on the surface of Pike’s Landing weren’t fighting for their lives, they might have noticed the long trails of the
Doystoyov
’s fiery remains cutting across the eastern sky, and celebrated the deaths of nearly six thousand Imperial Navy servicemen.
* * *
“
NO!
” JONAS SHOUTED,
visibly shaken.
“Mack, are you alright?”
There was nothing but static on the line.
Visual tracking was impossible: The strike saturated the area with a dust cloud that was still expanding.
Scratchy infrared video showed that the northwest hangar was leveled, and a half-kilometer-long ditch about sixty meters wide had been carved into the steppes north of the colony.
The thermal effect of the blast alone was lethal to within a kilometer of the beam’s path, but the overpressure wave would extend slightly farther.
No one had any idea where Mack was standing when the strike came down, let alone if he had been under shelter when it did.
There was little time to find out, as fourteen beams slammed into the Drake’s shields.
“Those battleships are in range,” Miles warned.
“And they are
pissed
!”
“Shields will be depleted in thirty seconds at this rate,” Blake reported.
“That interceptor will be here in half that.”
Korvin, who appeared nervous himself, was shaking his head.
“Warp out,” he said.
“You can’t help them from here.”
Jonas shot him a withering glare as the radio came alive.
“
Morse
, away team,” Mack said.
“Need extraction.”
Jonas rushed to Miles’s console and manipulated the tactical display, zooming to the colony map.
There were several abandoned ore-processing plants a short distance away from the colony perimeter and therefore not likely an immediate priority for the Amarrian forces invading to the south.
“Can you reach the ore processors to the north?”
“Affirmative.”
“Get there now,” Jonas ordered.
“Talk to me, Wildcat-Nine; what’s your status?”
The display showed that the Mordu gunship was still loitering in the mountain range to the north.
“Ah, copy
Morse
,” the pilot said.
“Running bingo on loiter fuel, but we haven’t been detected.”
“Can you do an extraction at the ore processors and get east of that caldera for a polar ascent?”
“Affirmative, if it’s within ten mikes,” the pilot answered.
“After that we’ll have to shed mass to get topside.”
“Got it,” Jonas answered.
“Mack, can you get there in time?”
“Yes,” Mack answered.
“Hurry, Jonas.”
Another series of beams struck the
Morse.
“Alright,
go,
” Jonas shouted.
“Miles, warp us out of here!”
* * *
VINCE CAME TO HIS SENSES
with the help of a fellow Templar.
Self-diagnostics revealed painful contusions in the muscles of his neck and back.
Worse, his knee was damaged, and that would impact his ability to fight.
He was pushed to one side as the Vex banked through the clouds; Vince looked through a viewport and saw the towering spires of the Core Freedom space-elevator complex.
His TACNET told him that the huge mushroom cloud in the distance was the remnants of the northwest vehicle hangar, which housed most of the colony’s primary air and mechanized defenses.
Armored mobile-clone banks just like the one he had trained with had been dropped at strategic locations near the colony and, for the time being, were secure.
Distress calls flashed across the TACNET: Two troop gunships were downed by antiaircraft fire.
There were survivors, with casualties, surrounded by hostiles and taking fire.
With the exception of Vince, who would work alone due to the malfunction of Six, the Templars would work in pairs and disable the remaining AA defenses; the rest would assist the survivors.
Both teams would then commence search-and-destroy missions on vital installations, taking all the locations where the Valklears could make their last stand.
Roaring over the southern entrance, the Vex overflew conventional troops advancing on the colony’s crippled defenses.
Vince howled in delight as its cannons opened fire on an MTAC, its shells sending fragments of the aging machine hurling into the air.
From the rear hatch, he watched it topple over in flames, then whispered a prayer for the pilot struggling to free himself from the wreckage.
What a tragedy,
Vince thought as he watched him burn.
If he had only embraced the faith …
“One, get ready!”
the pilot shouted.
The Vex was circling over a hardened outpost, its sensor-directed cannons sweeping the rooftops for snipers or traps; Vince’s TACNET confirmed that the main building was directing air defenses for this sector of the colony.
Resistance would be heavy, but he was still expected to seize it intact.
Vince quickly assembled the arc cannon, locking one of its charge packs into place.
The weapon hummed to life as power rushed into its primers.
He was adjusting the range output for close-quarters combat when small-arms fire began peppering the gunship’s hull.
“Go!”
the pilot ordered.
Vince leapt out the hatch, falling four full meters.
On landing, he felt sharp pain in his damaged knee but ignored it.
The installation entrance opened.
A grenade was heaved out.
Dropping low for maximum explosiveness, Vince propelled himself sideways.
He crashed into the silt and rolled over as fast as he could.
The world flashed red with phosphenes as a loud
thud
smashed his eardrums.
White-hot shrapnel found seams in his armor; Vince felt blinding pain.
Dust and rock were still falling from the air as three Valklears emerged from the building, crouched low, weapons tucked tight in front of them, looking for him.
From a prone position, Vince’s enhanced muscles swung the heavy weapon in front of him and squeezed the trigger.
A stream of plasma leapt from the barrel, striking two of the Valklears directly.
The first man exploded as the seventeen-thousand-degree-Celsius arc struck the body armor in his chest.
The second man was cut in half cleanly: The arc swept through his torso, leaving his detached extremities unscathed.
The third man was blinded as the arc carved a molten gash into the building he had just left; white-hot material caught him flush in the face, burning deep into his flesh.
Screaming, he swung his weapon about, wildly spraying automatic rounds.
Vince snapped the SM-15 out of its holster and dropped him with a single shot.
The pistol’s wet grip reminded him that he was bleeding.
Instructor Muros was right: He felt unbelievable agony but was somehow able to power through it.
The blood trickling down his wrists had a strange reflective sheen to it, reminding him that he was something more than just human, that he had become an Archangel of God.
Plunging another nanite injection into his skin, Vince willed himself to his feet.
He reloaded the arc cannon and stormed the building, unleashing its purifying fire on all who stood in his path.
* * *
MACK PUSHED GABLE
behind an overturned APC and set Kintreb down beside her.
The General was unconscious and bleeding from both ears.
Gable suspected massive head trauma, first from the overpressure wave that passed over them, then compounded as his head struck the rocky ground when they tumbled.
The old General’s body just couldn’t withstand much more war—and Gable sensed that adrenaline was masking the severity of her own injuries.
She saw Mack drop to a knee and fire a long burst from his plasma rifle.
Her hearing was muted: The weapon’s report should have sounded much louder.
Small-arms fire was crashing into the APC as two more Valklears were mowed down trying to reach their position; puffs of exploding stone erupted all around them as they fell.
Gable instinctively put herself in triage mode and left the General’s survival to God.
Fixating on the nearest Valklear, she crawled out from behind cover to reach him, searching for breath or heartbeats and finding neither.
Tearing the soldier’s vest away, she began chest compressions.
Silt and debris peppered her face as more gunfire tore into the ground before her.
She breathed into the soldier’s mouth three times; as she went back to restart the man’s heart, she was forcibly yanked backward.
She finally realized there was nothing but a bloody stump where his hips and legs should have been.
Mack was trying to tell her something, when the ground shook beneath them.
The mercenary pushed her head down, where she felt rather than heard a spectacular noise.
Glancing upward, she saw the metallic-rust underside of a friendly MTAC as it stepped over them toward the danger, its cannons spitting a
brrrp brrrp brrrp
staccato of thunder that rumbled down the landscape.
A dark ring was forming around Gable’s field of vision when a Minmatar “Kwaal” armored transport arrived.
Its turret was blasting away, spewing ejected shells into the air as the rear hatch swung open.
Two soldiers rushed out; one was an officer named Bishop.
Both headed directly toward General Kintreb.
Mack ran inside the Kwaal and emerged seconds later with a medkit.
He knelt in front of Gable and gently brushed the hair away from her eyes, peering closely into them.
He frowned as though he didn’t like what he saw, and she suddenly felt a jolt of ice water flush through her veins.
She gasped violently as he tossed the spent adrenaline casing aside.
Her hearing and vision returned with vivid clarity.
“… it’s over,” Commander Bishop was saying.
“AA defenses just went off-line.
Fall back to the medical ward; that’s as good a spot as any to give ’em a fight.”
“Where do we bring Kintreb?”
the soldier demanded, peering around the transport with his rifle.
“Offworld,” Mack said.
“Leave now; my gunship get us out.”
A huge explosion rumbled from downrange; a fireball was rising to the east.
Bishop’s comm radio erupted with chatter.
“They took it already!”
Bishop cried, throwing his helmet down in disgust.
“
Fuck!
How are they doing this?”
“Gunship only way,” Mack said calmly, even as beam fire struck the vehicle.
“This colony lost.
Live to fight another day.”
“Who the fuck asked you?”
the other soldier exclaimed.
“Stay out of this, you fucking merc—”
In one smooth motion, Mack withdrew his sidearm and shot the Valklear between the eyes, then pointed the weapon at Bishop.
“What … are you doing?”
Gable breathed.
“Surviving,” Mack said, taking a step toward the open hatch with his weapon still trained on the acting Valklear commander.
“Eight minutes left to reach safety.
Kwaal get there in seven if leave now.”
Bishop was stunned.
The sound of a gunship roaring overhead and another explosion—this time, dangerously close by—brought him back to his senses.
“Fine,” he said, kneeling to lift General Kintreb.
“You better be right, you son of a bitch.”
* * *
VINCE EMERGED FROM THE OUTPOST
damaged but victorious: The air defenses of Core Freedom were now under Imperial command.
New orders appeared in his TACNET: Patrol the ore processors east of his position and eliminate all hostile forces.
The Valklears had been routed and were retreating in isolated clusters toward the mountains or badlands.