Star Crusades Nexus: Book 06 - Call to Arms (22 page)

That cunning devil!

“Colonel, the enemy fleet will be overhead again in less than an hour.”

Teresa hadn’t expected to hear that. As far as she understood, the entire assault had already been unleashed.

“What do you mean? You think another wave is coming in?”

 
He nodded in reply.

“Our recon birds show they are preparing another wave of Biorays. Those we’ve beaten off are moving to join them. I suspect they will launch a second final assault as soon as they’re in position.”

Teresa’s thoughts shifted to the waiting ship with its precious cargo aboard. The value of a Biomech commander was understandable, but she was surprised they were quite so adamant in their plans to recover it.

Why this one? Why is it so important?”

The only answer she had to hand was what she’d seen in the reports. This one was certainly a regional commander, and it had been trying to make a run for the Black Rift when it had been stopped and captured in battle. Either it was a big risk on their part, or it had been a plan to get captured in the first place. The only option was the most obvious to her; that the Biomech had been as arrogant as the actions it had carried out. If the machine had truly believed it would succeed, then perhaps its own hubris had allowed its defeat.

“Colonel, you know the plan. You have to ensure they cannot get their hands on Krani?”

That’s it!

Of all the options, there was only one that really made sense. The machines were on the move, and that was common knowledge. It was also known that their primary objective was Helios, and after that, presumably the chance to open the Black Rift to their homeworld, and whatever mysteries their domain included.

It has to be the machine’s knowledge. Their plan is reaching its conclusion, and they are scared we will learn the Biomech’s secret.

The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became. Until now, the Biomechs had never put so much effort into recovering one of their own. If this machine had critical information, then there was also another worry. They might be just as keen to destroy it, as they were to capture it.

That could be a problem!

It was all happening much more quickly than she thought it would, and her heart felt like it would explode out of her chest. She checked her overhead tactical display and noted that all of the eight legs were still under Alliance control. Three were under heavy attack, and it would not take much for one of them to break. The only good news was that all the Biorays had deposited their troops, and there was no reserve for them to make use of.

We just need to hold for ten or fifteen minutes, and we’ll have time to rebuild the defenses.

“I’m ready, Admiral. I think we should hold on a little longer though. The longer we can hold Prometheus, the harder it will be for them to get Krani.”

There was a short pause on the other end. Teresa looked slightly to her right to see on the indicator that their channel was wide-band and using the security coding from over a week earlier. Against any other foe, it would be almost impossible to access, but it was well known that the machines were the masters of ciphers and decryption.

Let’s just hope they heard that and take the bait.

How did the Biomechs travel between T’Karan in the Orion Nebula, and Mars in Sol? It was one of the greatest questions asked by military commanders, scientists, and politicians throughout the Helion Crisis. It had only happened once in recorded history, yet the disappearance of a T’Kari Raider, and the reappearance of Alliance captives near Earth, left a great question unanswered. The only logical answer was that there must be a third place, a missing Nexus between T’Karan and Sol. As more was learned about the Biomechs, it became clear that unraveling this mystery would prove the key to defeating them.

Evolution of the Biomechs

The route inside the refinery seemed to be taking much longer than expected. They had already been making their way inside for nearly fifteen minutes when the first attack came. It started without any warning when a trio of human sized figures emerged from the dark end of the passageway. Spartan immediately lifted his modified TEK40s.

"Hey, get your hands up!"

None of the shapes stopped and actually increased speed. They moved in an odd way, and they were clearly finding the low gravity an issue as they tried to reach the group. One used its arms to pull itself along the walls. Spartan lifted the barrels and took aim.

“Last warning. Stop!”

His finger squeezed ever so slowly over the trigger, and one of the Earthsec operatives stepped out and lifted a hand to stop him.

"No, they might be..."

Khan grabbed the man and yanked him out of the way. Spartan pulled the trigger completely back. It was perfect timing. Another half a second would have resulted in a dead man, rather than one that was speechless from shock.

“Stay back!” he growled.

The pair of TEK40 rifles drowned out his last words and filled the passageway with bright light. The small caliber rounds hit those approaching with a metallic twang and the occasional meaty thud as some penetrated their thick, armor-like hide. Even so, it took a long burst of nearly two seconds in length for them to be stopped.

“That is one piece of junk,” muttered Spartan.

He looked back to Khan and then to the Earthsec man.

“Don’t even think about doing that again, understood?”

The man tried to speak, and Spartan simply shook his head angrily. As the reverberating sound of the gunfire finally cleared, the Earthsec fighters moved up to Spartan. One of them pointed back into the passageway. Spartan could feel his rage starting to build, and he knew from experience it was always best to find an outlet as quickly as possible.

"Watch your fire, Spartan. There are civvies down here."

He made to move, but Spartan grabbed him about the throat with his left hand. The grip would have been strong, even with his real hand, but with his new improved appendage, he found he could snap the man's neck if he so wished; and right then he was very tempted.

"Listen to me, asshole. I know a man when I see one, and I know when it’s alien and heading for me with nothing but a bad attitude and cruel intentions on its mind. Next time you want to find out which one it is, just walk toward it and ask nicely, understood?"

He released the man who then proceeded to cough and choke.

"Now, go and check the bodies out. You might be surprised by what you find."

All of them did, and even Spartan was shaken by what they saw. They were quite clearly not friendly, but they were also unlike anything he had seen before. Previously, the warriors sent by the Biomechs had been a mixture of biological monstrosities and synthetic warriors like Khan. Even the machines had a certain form and structure that these new warriors lacked completely.

“What the hell are these?” he said and bent down to examine the nearest.

Marcus walked up alongside him and placed his fist on one of them, checking if it were still alive.

“I’ve seen these before.”

He then looked at Spartan.

“These are the same assault troops the Biomechs used on Eos. It looks like their battlefield assets are as varied as their ships.”

Spartan said no more but examined them in detail. Based upon their armor and weapons, they were definitely not friendly and about the same size and build as Spartan. There was a subtle variation in shade and size that betrayed their construction as something more natural than the mass-produced synthetics he’d seen before. Their skin was hard like metal and colored as dulled iron, with almost no reflection given off. The heads were protected inside a thick helm where a pair of dead eyes stared out. Only one was still alive, and unlike the others, its eyes glowed red.

Either they are bred, or they make them from butchered captives.

He wasn’t sure which of the two options turned his stomach the most.

"This one still breathes," growled Khan.

Marcus was there first and dropped in front of the machine. The speed he moved to the alien surprised all of them, and at first it looked as though he was genuinely interested in its safety.

"Are you with the Twelve?" he asked desperately.

Twelve?
Spartan wondered.

The creature's eyes moved a little to stare at Marcus, and then with a low sigh it breathed its last breath. Its eyes faded to black, just like the other one. After checking for weapons, they pulled the bodies to one side and continued on their way. The small group didn't make it far before Spartan finally stopped and moved back to Marcus.

"Is there something you're not telling us?"

The others stopped and waited impassively, with just Khan standing with his large arms crossed in front of his chest.

"What do you mean?"

Spartan hissed through his teeth.

"Don't play games, Marcus. I checked the plans on the way here. We've moved around the habitation area, and this is skirting around the mining shafts, isn't it? The Twelve? What in the name of all that’s holy is the Twelve?"

Marcus looked to Khan and then to Spartan.

"Yes. You're right. There’s a lot you don’t know."

Spartan lowered the muzzle of his weapons to the floor and took his time.

"So I'll ask you again, what are you not telling us? What is this ‘Twelve’ you asked the creature about?"

"Why bother asking?" added Khan, "They don't speak the same languages as us, and they never respond."

Marcus considered his response almost too long, and Spartan had begun to take a step closer when he finally spoke.

"Director Johnson sent me information just before the Rift collapsed. He told me the prisoner on the Admiral Jarvis Naval Station had managed to send out a wide area pulse with information on our dig sites as well as images of what we found.”

Spartan looked confused. It wasn’t just the fact that Marcus was talking to him about dig sites; it was more than this old warrior was speaking of the Director as if he’d known him for years. The history of Marcus was clearly a complex one, and his knowledge of internal affairs suggested he was a deeply embedded operative of some kind in the Alliance organization. It was that part that intrigued him the most.

“Digs? Like the one on Hyperion?”

Marcus smiled.

“You really haven’t been paying much attention, have you?”

Spartan raised a single eyebrow.

“Come on, then, tell me.”

Marcus smiled for the first time in nearly two decades.

“There are sites throughout Alliance territory; the Bone Mill on Prime, the Anomaly, the remains on Hades in T’Karan. There are more though. Research at the ruins on Hyperion gave us details of many more sites, as well as scattered information on this group known as the Twelve.

Spartan quickly worked out what he was getting at.

“This refinery, there’s a reason they’ve been digging down so far, isn’t there?”

Marcus nodded.

“We found this symbol, one that shows twelve mechanical legs in a circle, like a twelve-pointed star with the feet all pointing in the same direction. Once the signal was sent, the Director sent me a message telling me these machines might try and break into the dig site and recover their comrades. My team was given orders to collapse the entire site before they could get here."

"Dig site?" asked Moneaux.

But Spartan was more interested in Marcus' connection with Johnson.

"Johnson? What team are you talking about?"

It was clear they would move no further until some explanation was forthcoming. Marcus appeared frustrated and eventually relented, but only in front of Spartan and Khan. He demanded the Earthsec operatives watched for signs of the enemy while he spoke.

"Look, I've been here as a freelancer for, well, let's just say a long time.”

"How long?"

"Long. Now, Johnson sent over coordinates for the archaeological excavations over a year ago. Earthsec thought it was to do with the first failed colony, from way back. They made it to the bottom when they made contact. Alliance moved in and took over. That was two weeks ago. As soon as we cleared the artifacts, the machines came through the Rift."

He leaned against the wall, a look of tired desperation on his face.

"There were a number of blasts down there, and when I made it to the shaft, everything had gone. I mean everything. Whatever was down there, either it left or they took it."

Spartan wanted to know more, but the sound of shouting from far into the distance cut short the conversation.

"Come on, that sounds like our people. We’ll come back to this later."

His interest in the mysteries of Mars paled in to significance when compared to the lives of around three hundred innocents, as well as however many of the assault team still remained. There was also the issue of over three hundred thousand citizens that were scattered throughout Mars, and all of them would be at the mercy of these machines.

"Where does this go?" he asked Marcus.

"Fifty meters and then up the access ladder to the security station. We can reach the water towers from there. That entire area is triple layered in case of quakes or drilling ruptures. It's the strongest and most secure part of the entire facility."

“And right next to the shaft you had them digging. Didn’t any of you have the guts to tell them what they might find?”

It was a weak argument, and even Spartan knew this kind of information was best kept private. Worse than that, he knew deep down that if the information had been made public, the Biomechs would have arrived earlier, and the losses could have been even greater. It didn’t make him feel any better though.

“Give me a hand up.”

Khan held out his hands and hurled Spartan out through the hatch in the ceiling. Spartan could have climbed it, but his new limb was still causing him a little trouble. Spartan was the first of the small party to make his way into the large compartment immediately below the security station. He had to lift his hand to ensure he didn’t strike the ceiling while reaching for the nearest grab rail. He staggered but quickly regained his balance and looked back to Khan.

“I said a hand up, not a throw me up!”

Containers and crates had been piled high near the doors, but the burn marks and bullet holes showed there had been some major fighting in the last few hours. It was large enough to park two or three land cars inside, and the tracks on the floor suggested a tracked vehicle had been parked there at some time recently. Spartan looked down to the others but stopped to look at Marcus.

“I thought you said this place was secure. There’s damage up here.”

“Any blood?” asked Marcus.

Spartan look back around and noted with interest that although there were marks on the walls and floor, there was nothing to indicate any of the survivors had been hurt or killed in the fighting.

Strange
, he thought.

It wasn't so much that there was no blood to be found. It was that Marcus had asked that as his first question.

It's like he never expected there to be blood.

Khan was next, and the ladder groaned under his weight as he squeezed his way up. To all of their surprise he made it through after much groaning and complaining. This particular section of the refinery was at least tall enough for him to stand without stooping. He moved to the damaged sections of the wall and looked at the burn marks.