Gamma Nine (Book One) (14 page)

He waited for a
gap in the volleys, waiting for one of them to reload before he
moved. As soon as the fire from the one side stopped for a few
moments he made a break for it. The central trench of the pit was
slightly lower than the rest of the pit’s floor, with shoulder
height obstacles scattered along the trench sides at intervals of a
few feet.

Christian kept
moving, almost reaching full sprint before he noticed the fire had
stopped completely, and he did not spare it a second thought,
figuring he had outpaced their accuracy by sprinting away. He could
not have been more wrong.

They had
funnelled him with all of their ammunition, running out soon after
their target broke from cover. They moved as one, mirror images of
each other, making their way to the centre, aiming for an
interception point close to the edge of the central area of the
chamber.

Christian heard
them only moments before he saw them. Captain Locke stepped out
behind an obstacle in front of him, stopping dead in his tracks as
his brother appeared behind him. Neither of them spoke before they
charged at him, not feeling the need to boast or provoke their
target before taking it down.

Both of them
charged Christian at the exact same moment, charging within arm’s
reach in only a few steps. Locke went high and Nathan went low.
Christian dodged Locke’s elbow blow to his visor but was too slow
to step out of Nathan’s path. His brother slid feet forward into
the back of his armoured legs, flipping him over unto his stomach.
Christian hit the ground hard, he had to recover almost instantly,
Locke’s armoured fist hit the ground next to his head just as he
rolled away from the captain. The captain’s force had dented the
metal decking of the pit, a blow that would surely have breached
his suit had it connected anywhere on his body.

Nathan was on
him as soon as he rolled away from Locke, lifting him up by his
left arm and leg. Nathan was a Titan to every extent of the word;
he lifted Christian above his head, like he was bench pressing the
rookie Titan’s body.

His brother
brought him down face first into the decking, cracking his visor
and raising a chorus of alarms from his suit OS. It was clear that
the previous two Titans he had encountered had taken it easy on
him. These two on the other hand were very serious about disabling
or killing him.

The sudden
connection with the pit’s floor brought lancing pain with it, pain
he thought he could not feel. Hot pain pierced his chest and
shoulders, his face bleeding from the impact with the ground and
his visor. But it was not over yet, the pain disappeared as soon as
it had surfaced, the Nano machines releasing pain stimulants
directly into his organs and blood stream, already repairing any
damage throughout his body.

He pushed
himself up to his hands and knees, spluttering inside his helmet,
trying to clear the blood from his visor.

“Stay down.”
Nathan said to his brother. “It’s over.”

“Never. I can
still stand.” Christian replied with a mouth full of blood.

“Let him stand.
He has something to prove.” Locke added, standing close by.

“In a fair
fight I would mark the both of you.”

“The enemy does
not subscribe to the same fantasy of battle decorum as you do
little brother. They kill you without mercy, and rip your innards
out without even thinking of honour or the family you might be
leaving behind. Their savageness makes them deadly. You will see it
when you face a horde for the first time. The beasts in the
Labyrinth were nothing more than domesticated pets compared to the
wild ones out there.” Nathan said, pointing at nothing specific,
but his meaning was clear - out there in the galaxy.

Christian
stood, his limbs searching for more strength. Nathan’s single blow
had been devastating. He stood, shaking a little at first but
calming and refocusing enough to continue the fight.

“Then you
should not stop. I will fight until you disable me.”

“I almost like
him more than you already Nathan, kid has guts.” Locke said to his
second in command.

Nathan looked
at Locke and just shrugged in mild amusement.

The lapse in
concentration gave Christian the opportunity to unclip his Kicker
from his back and point it at Nathan. He was fast enough and the
other two Titans could only watch in silent surprise.

“You should
make sure that” Nathan did not get a chance to finish his
sentence.

Christian
pulled the trigger of the unknown attachment he had grabbed
earlier, hoping that it would be something to at least help him
with the current situation. The weapon’s capabilities far exceeded
the hope he had placed on it.

A streak of
lightning erupted from the weapon, arcing towards Nathan. The blue
streak of super-heated light hit Nathan in the chest, tossing him
from his feet over an obstacle. Christian could only hear a grunt
as his brother hit the floor out of sight. Nathan did not rise; his
entire body was paralyzed by Rivers’ magical weapon attachment.

One down, one
to go, he thought. He looked at the weapon cradled in his hands,
understanding why Rivers loved his creations so much. The battery
meter above the trigger was red now, it seemed that the weapon had
only one shot before it had to recharge or reload. He would need to
ask Rivers about its maintenance later.

Locke stared at
the FNG, more surprised than anything else. Corporal Quinn had
fired an experimental weapon at his own brother, regardless if it
killed him or not. Doing whatever it took to survive or win was a
good quality to have as a Titan.

“Well done. But
you chose to shoot the wrong Wolf.” Locke said to Christian,
rushing at him again, this time even faster than he had before.

Christian knew
that Captain Locke would attack with full force, and for the first
time he felt fear.

“
The galaxy is a perilous place. There is
more to fear than just our common enemy. Derelict vessels and
orbital stations drifting in the void kill without purpose,
appearing in the path of other vessels or falling from the sky on
unsuspecting colonies. An inexperienced captain can never survive
out there in the dead zones.”
-Admiral Milne, MIA, Captain of the Gravenstein - Lost with all
hands, 2571 - 62 ASD

Christian woke
up as Pyoter slapped the side of his helmet. Pyoter muttered
something but he could not understand the words at first.

“...gave you a
good beating, huh?” Pyoter said, the words finally becoming clear
to Christian.

“Who did?” he
asked Pyoter, his tongue slurring through the words.

“Nyet, has the
Captain knocked a few memories loose?” Pyoter helped Christian up.
He was seated against the main armoury’s northern wall.

“I
can’t...remember. Did the Captain win?”

“Of course he
did,” Rivers added from a work bench on the other side of the
armoury. Rivers was busy fixing his cracked helmet visor. “You went
down like a drunken teenager, we had to scrape you off the pit’s
floor and drag you in here.”

“All I remember
seeing was my brother flying and then Captain Locke saying
something. After that it went dark.”

Nathan snorted
at his brother’s words, leaning against the table Rivers was
working on. “You are going to pay for that, firing an untested
weapon at me.”

“It did the
trick didn’t it? I got you, no matter how I did it.”

“Got me? You
were lucky, you took an unnecessary risk with a shitty piece of
equipment,” Nathan was clearly angry at Christian, every word
dripped with held back anger. “Next time you should think before
doing something so stupid.”

“Whoa now Bear,
you can say what you want, but don’t go bad mouthing one of my
babies. It’s not their fault they were made by my perfect hands.”
Rivers patted some of his creations on the table next to him.
“Isn’t that right my little ones? Daddy is proud of all of
you.”

“If you try
anything like that again, your ass will be bouncing back home.”
Nathan turned his back on Christian, ending the conversation before
he lost control of his rage.

Christian did
not reply, instead he chose to keep silent, his brother was
impossible once he was angry. The best course of action would be to
not say a word and never mention what transpired ever again.

Locke entered
the armoury with Xander, speaking to the squad member about his use
of explosives during training exercises. “Are we in agreement
Xander?” Locke asked his explosives expert.

“Yes sir, no
more booms when we train. You might need to remind me again
though,” he replied, trying to bait the captain.

Locke did not
bother taking the bait, focusing on the new member of his squad
instead. “Awake are we? Faster than I expected, you did well in the
pit, FNG. First time any new recruit marked so many of us before
being downed, even if you cheated a little.”

“Cheated?”
Christian asked his captain. “When did I cheat?”

Locke held up
his hands in defence. “I did not suggest it, your brother did.”

Nathan was not
listening to the exchange between Locke and his brother. He was
speaking to Rivers about the weapons on the racks on the armoury’s
walls.

The main
armoury was much larger than the first one Christian had been in.
There were many more different weapon types locked to the walls and
in cages around the armoury. Some of the cages contained sets of
weapons belonging to the members of squad, each cage designated
with a name plate riveted to it. Christian looked at the locker
with his name on it; it stood with its door open, gaping at the
young Titan. He could see a name plate scratched away above his new
name plate.

“That one is
yours,” Locke said to him. “The previous owner won’t mind, seeing
as he died a long time ago.”

“Who did it
belong to?”

“To someone
that belonged here,” Nathan said without looking at Christian. The
comment was meant to hurt and imply that Nathan was not happy about
his brother being in the squad.

Before
Christian could retaliate with a comment of his own the armoury’s
lighting suddenly changed. The bright white light from the ceiling
was replaced by red illumination from wall-mounted lights around
the chamber.

A speaker
mounted above the door of the armoury crackled into life. A calm
voice spoke after a few moments, every soul aboard the Hyperion
listening to the announcement.

“All crew
prepare for emergency jump exit. BEAM drive shut down in t-minus
ten minutes. All crew to your stations.”

Locke was on
his radio almost instantly, no doubt speaking to Captain Gray on
the bridge. After only a few seconds Locke cut the link with Gray
and relayed the details back to his squad. “Hold on to your
undergarments ladies, we are ear deep in doodoo.”

“Captain, the
Titans are almost ready. Captain Locke is resupplying and leading
the Grim Wolves to the docking bays.” Remy relayed to Gray,
preferring to stand instead of strapped to a metal chair when the
time came to die. Remy was never the optimist, always the
realist.

This time the
odds were in favour of the Hyperion breaking apart as soon as they
exited the jump prematurely, Remy had called it suicide. Gray was
well aware that they might die performing this emergency manoeuvre,
but there was no other option.

If they pushed
forward with the path the BEAM drive had calculated they would be
drawn into a growing gravity anomaly. Nobody knew what would happen
if they entered the anomaly while jumping, the Hyperion could be
annihilated against the tide, or the Hyperion could end up on the
far side of the universe, both were unacceptable to Gray.

Gray would
rather risk saving his vessel and his crew, instead of throwing the
dice on uncharted theories. When he spoke, he spoke with authority,
his booming voice echoing on the bridge. He nodded to Remy, who had
been waiting for the captain to respond, unsure why he was so
quiet. “Very well, is Sabian ready?”

“He reports
that they are ready for anything. His troops are securing all
bulkhead doors and rounding up wandering crew.” Remy’s eyes scanned
the display in her hands, lingering on the timer counting down. “In
three minutes we will either be sitting pretty in the void, or
playing harps on puffy clouds.”

“You might, I
will probably be roasted on the pitchforks before the day is done.”
Gray’s giant hand moved to the keypad on his command throne, keying
in a sequence of codes. “Helm, I am taking over control.” He keyed
the final sequence, sitting back in his chair as the helm officer
relinquished control over the Hyperion.

“Aye sir,
control to the command chair confirmed.”

The command
chair shifted back, exposing a gap beneath it. From the dark recess
underneath the command chair eight displays appeared, arranged
around Gray like windows looking out at the galaxy. Three by three
in front with two displays on either side of the captain’s legs.
All of them except the middle display were tilted inwards, giving
the command chair a rounded view of what was happening on the other
side of the vessel’s thick hull.

Gray was
looking out from the nose of his ship, watching the never-ending
white light rush past, it was impossible to make out any details
outside of the BEAM drive’s path due to the vessel’s immense speed.
The void and everything it contained was invisible to human eyes as
the Hyperion hurtled through it.

Locking
mechanisms on either side of the command chair hissed and shifted
into place above the chair’s arm rests. Gray undid the buttons at
his uniform’s cuffs and placed his tattoo-covered arms underneath
the mechanisms. The arm-shaped moulds lowered into place over his
arms, securing him to the chair. His hands were now part of the
command chair, able to control the vessel and its systems with the
slightest move of his fingers.