Legions of Orion (Star Crusades Nexus, Book 1) (3 page)

“
What are you
doing?” asked Khan.

Doctor Morgonz continued working while
answering his question.

“
I am copying the
telemetry and technical data from these systems. It will take
weeks, maybe months, to lift all this equipment from out of here. I
can have everything on this unit in less than an hour and transfer
it back to Terra Nova.”

She stopped for a second and turned
back to the group.

“
Do you realise the
significance of this find? Not only can it show us how to access
this technology, it also shows us that it has been used to travel
to another part of the Orion-Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way. We have
the exact coordinates of multiple nodes in this part of space. If
they match the details for our own system, then there is a good
chance we can use this technology to pinpoint and travel to other
worlds in this network.”

Khan shook his head in confusion.

“The Orion what?”

Doctor Morgonz
returned to the display and continued examining the detailed
information while Jose explained to Khan.

“
The Orion–Cygnus
Arm is a name we use for a minor spiral arm of the Milky Way
galaxy. That’s our galaxy by the way. It is big, we estimate about
3,500 light years across and anything up to 10,000 light years in
length. Our own worlds and the Orion Nebula are all based in this
part of space.”

“
Oh,”
r
eplied Khan with a tone that suggested
he was even less interested after receiving the
explanation.

Jose continued
talking
, but it was clear to the rest of
them that Khan had little interest in what he was talking about. He
said a few more words but stopped when he noticed Khan sniffing the
air and looking about the dark and damp open space. Captain Garcia
spotted his movement.

“What is it?”

The Jötnar officer
ignored the marine for a moment as he looked into the dark space
for signs of trouble. The Doctor and her people continued to remove
data from the
antique computer systems,
and not one of them spending even a second checking on what the
marines were looking at.

“
Khan!” hissed the
Captain over the intercom. The Jötnar finally turned and looked
back, but his face had changed from the calm creature from a minute
earlier to one of tense suspicion.

“
What is it?” he
asked, now
starting to become
annoyed.

Khan sniffed once
more and then pulled the L52 Mark II Assault Carbine from its
sheath on his thigh. The weapon had been modified like all the
stocks of weapons sent to the Jötnar with an enlarged frame, bigger
trigger assembly and larger magazine capacity. It was a big weapon
for most people
, but in his hands it
looked barely larger than a submachine gun. He flicked off the
safety before tilting his head to Captain Garcia.

“
Animals...they’re
here!” he snapped.

The Captain lifted his own carbine and
flipped off the safety.

“
Marines, watch your
corners,” h
e called out as he ran back to
the Doctor.

“
Dr
Morgonz, we’ve got a problem!”

Khan was
already
at the opening to the room and
waving for the marines to join him.

“
There isn’t
time.
I can hear them. They are coming!”
he growled.

Dr Morgonz glanced
back to him and returned to her unit.

“
We will leave when
I am satisfied I have all the data. If there is any trouble, I will
expect you to deal with, Captain Garcia. Now leave me
alone!”

Jose and one of the other technicians
had already abandoned their work and were making their way to the
opening when the Doctor spotted them both.

“
What do you think
you’re doing? Get back to the computers, and get me the power
schematics!”

Jose hesitated, but
a high-pitched howl reverberated up through the chamber and sent
chills through his spine. More followed until the howl became a
muddled mixture of screams and snarling. The entire group of
civilians broke and ran for the opening that was being carefully
guarded by Khan and the three marines. Captain Garcia approached
her and pulled the small data storage device from the computer
unit. The system started beeping as if panicking at the loss of the
connection.

“
Captain,
w
hat are you doing?” she screamed at
him.

He simply grabbed her by the shoulder
and dragged the startled woman behind him.

“
I’m doing my job,
Doctor! We need to get out of here, and fast!”

As if to emphasis
the point, a section of the floor about ten metres away in the
middle of the room shook and broke open, sending shards of stone
down into what sounded like an almost bottomless pit. From the
newly created crevice, emerged a dark, fast moving form.

“Biomechs!” hissed Khan under his
breath.

They weren’t the
later synthetic creatures like him, but the early monstrosities
that had been used as cannon fodder in the scores of battlefields.
They came in a variety of shapes and sizes and were constructed
from the body parts and organs of cannibalised human prisoners.
Though simple in mind, they were strong, violent, and deadly at
close-quarters.

“I thought you Jötnar hunted them to
extinction here?” she said bitterly.

Khan lifted his
carbine and selected the high-power mode. It activated all three
coil-chambers of the weapon and boosted the power setting to the
maximum. He pulled the trigger, and a pulse of light was all that
could be seen as the magnetised projectiles flew out from the
barrels at hypersonic speeds. The impact was devastating and
shattered the creature’s body in a spray of ink black blood and
body parts. He twisted his head around to the Doctor.

“Not all of them.”

More movement
appeared in the breach, and one of the interior walls started to
shake. It was clear that a sizable number of the creatures were
trying to find their way through and into the room.

“
Right, let’s go!”
Captain Garcia ordered.

T
he marines moved out first with the civilians following
close behind. Jose and the Doctor followed towards the rear;
Captain Garcia and Khan brought up the rearguard. No sooner had
they left the large room, and returned to the dangerous circular
track, were they attacked. This time the creatures were actually
climbing up the walls like animals climbing out of a well. One of
the marines was grabbed, pulled over the edge, and fell screaming
for many seconds.

“Move it!” shouted Captain Garcia.

With that final
order, the group moved as quickly as they could, each motivated by
the fear of death and the increasingly loud sound of their pursuers
closing the distance. Unsurprisingly, they covered the return
journey in half the time of the route down and reached within fifty
metres of the exit when the creatures finally caught up with them.
The fight started with Khan blasting three of them as they lurched
out from the dark pit. As he grappled with another two with his
bare hands, a group of another dozen pushed past and into the
surviving civilians and marines. Khan cast one back to the pit and
snapped the neck of the second before rolling backwards to avoid
the wild gunfire of Captain Garcia and his two marines. They
managed to cut down a good number, but it wasn’t enough. One
grabbed the Captain and pinned him down, and another brought down a
primitive edged weapon onto his head. The impact was heavy and
cracked through his helmet to embed in his skull.

“
Hold them back!”
shouted Khan, and he did his best to stand firm alongside them,
firing one blast after another at the growing swarm. They managed a
continuous stream of projectiles and held them back for almost
thirty seconds before they vanished as quickly as they had
arrived.

“
Good, now we need
to keep moving,” said Khan.

He turned around to
find Dr
Morgonz had rushed away with her
team and was heading for the surface. Khan could see more movement
near her position, but he already knew her fate was
sealed.

“
Idiot!” he
muttered
, chasing up the path. If any
creature stepped in his path, he smashed it aside with his fists or
with a single shot from his carbine. He reached within three metres
of the Doctor when the mortal blow was struck. One creature hacked
brutally at her, managing to strike off her left arm with a single
callous blow. Two more leapt on her, each hacking or biting into
her. The other civilians split up like prey being hunted down by a
wild beast. He jumped in and hacked wildly, but she was already
dead. He spotted the storage device drop from her hands before one
of them leapt at him, knocking him down beside it. His carbine was
torn from his arms, and a blade slew down, narrowly missing his
face. From the corner of his eye, he spotted the marines being
dragged down, and his blood felt as though it would boil. In a wild
rage, he grabbed his nearest attacker around the throat and choked
it with all his strength.

* * *

The newly arrived unit of marines
positioned themselves around the entrance of the dig site. The
sound of battle had already eased off, and none appeared very keen
on stepping into the darkness. Technical Director Dr Neson knelt
down and peered inside.

“
Can
y
ou hear that?” he said
nervously.

Before any of them
could even move, the bloodied arm of one of the creatures reached
out and grabbed at his head. In one quick movement, he was dragged
inside screaming. The sounds of a struggle quickly ended with a
sickening snapping sound. The marines stood in shock, each stunned
by the suddenness of what had just occurred. One took a step
closer, but another shape appeared in the shadows of the entrance.
The marines lifted their weapons and trained them on the blood
soaked shape as Khan dragged himself out of the hole. He dropped to
the ground, and from his hand, the data storage unit rolled out and
onto the floor. In his left hand, he carried the severed head of
one of the creatures, presumably the one that had just brutally
killed the Director.

“
Captain Khan, are
you hurt?” asked one of the corporals who ran over to him before
any of the others made a fatal mistake and shot the wounded
warrior. Khan shook his head and looked up at the bright light and
small group of marines. He grinned at them, baring his chipped
teeth.

“
Close up the hole,
and get in touch with Gun,” he said and then looked back to the
dark and dangerous place he had just left. He picked up the unit he
had dropped and placed it in the hands of the marine.

“
I’ve got the data
from the site. Now get me Gun. It’s time to do some hunting, and I
think he’s going to like it down there!”

The
marine took the device and looked back to the
others who stood by and watched with a mixture of dumbfounded
surprise and horror.

The Crusader class of ships was
the culmination of nearly a year’s study into the creation of a
universal ship design for the Alliance Navy. Instead of a fleet of
cruisers, marine transports and battleships, the new ship was
designed to perform the tasks of all three but in a package of
about the size and cost of a cruiser. With improvements in
technology and miniaturisation, the new class could carry up to
five hundred marines or an equivalent sized flight group plus eight
craft, including shuttles or fighters. It was a bold experiment
that would meets its first challenge in the Orion
Incident.

Ships of the Alliance

Seven years later

Jenson moved along the poorly lit
corridor and kept his head down low. He’d been waiting two decks
lower now for almost two days, and fatigue was settling in. After
what seemed like weeks, the engineering team finally packed up
their equipment, and he was able to move. As he approached the main
gantry, he could make out a two-man marine patrol that was busy
inspecting a security-monitoring unit. Jenson took a step back and
waited in the shadows. He reached down and pulled his sidearm from
his belt. It was a modern low-velocity slug-thrower, and the kind
of equipment that could be found at any main weapon dealer in the
Alliance. What it lacked in complexity, it made up for with its
ability to avoid detection in almost any scanner unit when broken
up into its seven major components. It carried just five shots, but
each was handmade and designed to kill at subsonic speeds, and the
perfect weapon for use on a starship.

“What’s that?” asked one of the
marines.

The second of the
two moved from the unit and peered into the shadows that lurked all
around their position. The ship, for lack of a better word, had
been constructed in a rush, and much of it was no more than
glorified gantries and access corridors taken from other vessels
and stations.

Jenson froze,
e
very single muscle in his body turning
to iron as he did his utmost to blend in with his surroundings. It
hadn’t been him, but anything that caught their attention could put
them onto him. They looked about, but the more senior of the two
quickly discarded the potential problem and returned to the
monitoring unit. Jenson relaxed and continued forward until only
fifteen metres away from the two men. On the wall to his right was
the stencil identifier announcing this was section 6B, the part of
the ship where the rotational equipment and motors were based.
Though not critical to the operation of the station, it did allow
the use of artificially created gravity for those working on the
ship. A door on the right-hand side, and near the sign, led into a
brightly lit room.