Gamma Nine (Book One) (39 page)

The Hyperion
would intercept and collide with the Duchess if both captains did
not change course. Gray was gambling on the condition of the other
captain’s mental state, but he had no other choice and he needed a
sacrifice to shake the bomber wing closing fast.

Captain Roy of
the Duchess saw the Hyperion veer towards it suddenly and watched
as it closed the distance towards his small vessel within seconds.
Bile rose in Roy’s throat as the words from Lord Vincent echoed in
his mind. Sweat covered his entire body as the Hyperion bore down
on the Duchess without changing course.

Gray was not
going to flinch. He was determined to finish what he had
started.

Less than
five-hundred miles separated the two vessels - in void warfare
five-hundred miles was like taking a shit on your neighbour’s lawn
while he watched from the porch - and it was time to choose for the
captain of the Duchess.

Captain Roy
chose to flinch, pulling his small vessel out of the path of the
steamrolling Hyperion. Roy breathed a sigh of relief as the
Hyperion passed above it, close enough to see the battle scars on
the enemy vessel’s hull. But his relief was short lived and he had
only a few seconds left to live as he watched the Hyperion’s aft
weapon batteries fire a full volley at the Duchess.

The volley hit
the Duchess right in its most vulnerable spot, right behind the
shuttle bays were only thin armour protected the bays from the void
outside. Because of its light classification and its generic build
the gunners of the Hyperion knew exactly what would happen if their
shots hit their intended target.

It was the
fusion lances that succeeded in piercing the Duchess deep enough to
rupture its small core. Roy stood unmoving as the flames engulfed
his entire vessel, killing everyone on-board in the blink of an
eye.

The Duchess
vanished in a plasma explosion as the Hyperion powered away from
the silent, yet deadly, shockwave spreading outward like a boulder
thrown into a glassy pond. The ripple of hungry plasma engulfed
everything for thousands of miles. Larger vessels further away from
the explosion took almost no damage from the small core rupture,
but the lesser vessels with less armour were not so lucky. Smaller
vessels were damaged or utterly destroyed.

The unlucky
ones included the bomber wing intent on crippling the Hyperion.
Gray’s sudden decision had cleared the Hyperion’s wake in one
daring move.

Gray chuckled
to himself as he focused on opening up some distance between his
ship and the hunting pack hell bent on destroying everything he
held dear.

On the bridge
of the Stygian Council Lord Vincent slammed his bony fist into the
arm rest of his magnificent command throne. His eyes were aflame
with anger, watching as the Hyperion pulled away from the rest of
his fleet. Vincent did not realize it, but a small crack had
appeared in his resolve, and that crack was exactly what Gray had
been waiting for.

Torsos exploded
and gore splattered on paving as the guns mounted on the convoy’s
lead vehicle scythed through the straggling monsters on the way to
the second objective. The explosion at the first objective had
drawn the beasts like moths to a very large flame. Every street the
convoy passed the Wolves saw less and less threats stalking the
avenues of Santor. Gunn and her drop ship companions had reported
the same thing as they circled around the perimeter of all three
objectives - the beasts were heading for the first objective at
speed, rushing to investigate the bright lights in the night
sky.

Xander’s
unnecessarily large bomb had been the perfect diversion for the
convoy to escape what could have been a certain death situation.
Hordes of beasts that still drew breath headed directly for the
site of the first objective, base instincts compelling them to
investigate what could be a delicious feast of dead flesh.

That was the
only reason why Locke decided not to reprimand Xander for his
recklessness, well that and maybe one more reason he would never
mention to his squad. Locke watched the abnormally-shaped mushroom
cloud rise above where the first objective used to be. The
firestorm from the explosion lit up the night sky with a strange
blue-yellow glow, casting alien shadows every time another fireball
erupted from the cloud above the bomb site. Locke smiled behind his
visor, beaming with joy at the destruction one of his Wolves had
caused. The joy was not because of the explosion itself, but rather
the realization that so many enemies were killed in one masterful,
yet rash stroke. So many lives would be saved by Xander’s endless
experimentation with volatile elements and compounds. Locke had to
admit to himself, even though Xander was a fool, he was still an
artist at making things go boom.

Locke was
pulled from his reverie when the driver of the vehicle below
announced that the second objective had come into view.

Locke wasted no
time, opening a channel to his eagle-eyed scout almost immediately.
“What does it look like Corporal?” Locke asked Jay through static
filled communications. Xander’s bomb had done more than just made
minced meat piles out of mutants.

“No beast
activity, sir. I see Santor Defence Forces holding of what looks
like black armoured infantry assaulting the objective,” Jay
replied.

“How many are
we looking at?” Locke checked his Kicker as he spoke, and the rest
of the Wolves were checking gear and equipment as they drew closer
to the second objective.

“I count less
than twenty defenders, and I can see close to fifty assaulters.
Please hold.” Godwaker screamed three times from its perch before
Jay continued his assessment of the situation of the second
objective. “Forty-five enemies, sir.”

“Clear out as
many as you can, we will be arriving shortly,” Locke ordered.

“Roger that,”
Jay answered. Godwaker spoke again seconds later, felling another
enemy.

Locke motioned
for his Wolves to disembark from the lead vehicle, ordering Sabian
to power through to the objective drawing fire from the enemies
surrounding it.

Sabian’s convoy
sped up as the Wolves jumped from the convoy, his Lancer’s priming
mounted and hand-held weapons for a fast swooping manoeuvre through
the enemy lines. Sabian would hit the assaulters head on with
something ancient military tacticians called the Shock and Awe,
hitting them fast and hard and then withdrawing to a safe distance
to allow the Wolves to close in from the shadows.

Godwaker took
down two more enemies as the convoy broke into the middle of the
enemy lines. The shock move surprised the enemy troops while their
attention was on the hospital and its defenders, the convoy broke
their lines with a hail of automatic fire from mounted weapons and
Lancers firing from vehicle slits. The convoy did not stop as it
passed through, peppering everything armoured in black gunners and
Lancers could see.

By the time the
convoy had left the awe set in, in the convoys wake fifteen enemies
lay dead and three more would never fight again. Sabian took his
convoy around the objective in case Locke requested another pass,
doubling as a safety net if anything should find its way to the
second objective from the inner city.

The Wolves
moved silently through a building overlooking the enemy lines,
counting the black armoured soldiers as they took their positions,
ready to pounce.

There were only
fifteen left, and all of them were resuming their assault on the
hospital. Sabian’s sudden attack had left everyone dumbfounded, and
without direction they resumed what they had been doing since
nightfall. The enemy’s two officers were killed in the shock
attack, and so they could do nothing more than follow the last
orders they were given - kill everyone, destroy the hospital.

Locke did not
have to tell any of his Wolves what to do, all of them moving out
of their own accord.

Nathan sighted
a group of enemies below him, aiming at the head of the first of
three soldiers manning a heavy machine gun. Sabian’s attack had not
penetrated the defensive barriers deep enough to destroy the more
deadly weapons.

Locke did the
same, taking position next to his second in command, aiming his
Kicker at the soldiers at the front of the enemy lines.

Xander silently
unclipped two grenades from his belt and adjusted his position to
throw them into the midst of soldiers on the far side of the enemy
filled avenue in front of the hospital.

Pyoter,
Christian and Rivers dropped down to ground level, using the
building’s broken staircase to descend three floors in relative
silence.

Pyoter led the
three, Christian followed, his shield held up to hide his profile
from anyone looking in his direction. Rivers was a few steps
behind, his shotgun held at his hip as he scanned the bottom floor
of the building they were passing through.

The enemy
soldiers never heard the three Titans moving in behind them, never
expecting to be attacked from that position when most of Santor was
dead or dying.

A soldier at
the back of the enemy lines paused to reload his rifle, asking in a
whisper for the soldier next to him for another clip. Both soldiers
were joking about shooting fish in a barrel, unable to see the
giant, shadowy figure rise up behind them.

They were still
chuckling like school children when Pyoter struck. He did not want
to blunt his blade on these idiots, so instead he used his bare
hands to kill both soldiers. He punched downward with his giant
fist, almost pulping the first soldier’s head, backhanding the
second in the face. Both soldiers died instantly, their bodies
going limp before they hit the paving.

Christian
slipped his blade into the neck of a soldier close by as Rivers
used his shotgun as a club to snap the neck of another enemy.

A soldier a few
feet away noticed the Titans in their midst and screamed, but his
scream died in his throat as his body sprouted new holes and his
life blood poured out.

The element of
surprise was now gone. The Wolves massacred the rest of the enemy
within moments; Xander did not even have time to use his
grenades.

Cheers erupted
from the defenders around the objective as the gunfire from enemy
positions fell silent. The cheering grew as they saw six Titans
step from the enemy lines into the light of the hospitals
compound.

The Wolves were
already legends, and just laying eyes on them was a tale to tell on
your deathbed. None of the defenders ever thought they would get
the opportunity to fight alongside Titans.

But they would
get the opportunity and more, and before the sun rose they would
see why the Titans were all regarded as heroes of humankind.

Santor’s
largest hospital was not what one would expect when seen from the
outside. Any off-world patients would refuse to go inside if they
caught sight of the decrepit exterior posing as a place of
healing.

It was never
meant to be a permanent structure, built hastily during a time of
great exploration in the sector and on the planet itself. Engineers
had used pre-fabricated buildings at first, adding more and more
structures as the years went by and the population grew. Eventually
engineers ran out of pre-fabricated structures to expand the ever
growing need for more capacity, so instead they built with whatever
could be salvaged or spared from other municipal buildings.

New Horizon’s
age of prosperity brought many changes to the capital cities spread
out across the planet’s surface. But somehow the prosperity and
renovations had skipped Santor’s largest medical facility, and it
was not aging well. Many of the older pre-fabricated structures had
collapsed, leaving the younger patchwork structures by themselves.
New Horizon’s plant life had already begun to reclaim the older
buildings, giving the entire medical compound the eerie atmosphere
of a ruined city left to nature’s own devices for far too long.

Sabian had
circled the compound a few times to patrol its perimeter, ensuring
that nothing was sneaking up on the objective and that nothing was
lying in wait to ambush his convoy and the Wolves within the
facility.

Sabian heard
his men’s comments and murmurings about the facility, all of them
maintaining stalwartly that the hospital was a relic and a place of
great sorrow. No-one had any good memories of it, and morale was
starting to slip as the convoy stopped in front of the main
administration building of the medical facility.

The Lancers not
assigned to gunner duty disembarked from the vehicles and spread
out around the main structure. Squads took up defensive positions,
relieving Santor’s defenders, giving the tired soldiers the time to
take a breather before more shit hit the fan, and in a war with the
beast - not to mention the traitors - poop would always hit some
kind of moving part eventually.

Sabian stepped
into the only double storey building inside the medical compound,
eyeing the ruined buildings to either side of the administrative
buildings as he stepped over the threshold.

The Wolves were
waiting inside speaking to a soldier with exhaustion written on his
face by deep wrinkles and dirt.

Locke spoke
before Sabian could ask what the situation was. “Corporal Lemink
here is the highest rank these men have to look to for guidance,”
Locke said, pointing at the poor soldier being scrutinized by the
rest of the Wolves circled around him.

“Any
civilians?” Sabian asked, nodding at Corporal Lemink as he stepped
to stand next to the towering Locke.

Lemink
answered, eager to prove that he was worth his salt, especially in
the presence of such legends. “A few made it here before the
bastards in black armour cut us off...” Lemink trailed off for a
second before continuing. “Speaking of which sirs, who the hell
were those sons of bitches?”