Gamma Nine (Book One)

by Christi Smit

  The fighters were ripped to shreds as Inferno lances burned through the silence of the void between the vessels. Smaller ship to ship cannons unloaded their reserves into the armoured belly of the Stygian Council, tearing holes in the glorious vessel. Defensive batteries on-board the Hyperion destroyed fighters able to avoid the ordinance unleashed between the ships. A few fighters escaped the hell of the killing fields only to be shot down by New Horizon’s remaining defenders.

  New Horizon’s defensive forces in orbit were renewed by the Hyperion’s sudden appearance, throwing everything they had into the Stygian Council’s escort vessels floating beside the capital ship. They did not do much damage, but they provided the ships protecting their capital ship with enough of a distraction for the Hyperion to wreak havoc.

  Even though the defensive forces were nearly destroyed, and only a handful of scout vessels had survived, they still pushed forward into the orbiting flotilla around the Stygian Council.

  One vessel, the Dusk Fire, was exceptionally brave. Its captain led the charge into the enemy lines, its cannons empty and its armour torn from days of being strafed by bombers, forcing its way past the frigates on the edge of the flotilla. The Dusk Fire selflessly chose to sacrifice itself for the people of New Horizon. It picked the closest ship it judged as a threat to the Hyperion and rammed into it at full burn. The smaller scout ship broke-apart almost instantly, but it had cracked its target wide open. Within moments the Dusk Fire’s reactors went critical and the explosion that followed consumed it and its dying target.

  Songs and tales of heroism would have to wait until the battle was over, only then would the Dusk Fire go down in humankind’s history as a true legend.

  Gray registered the bloom of bright light in one of his displays as the Hyperion’s speed carried it forward, past the Stygian Council’s belly. He did not slow his vessel down; instead he kept his trajectory and headed straight for the orbital space above New Horizon’s capital.

  Two frigates were stationed above Santor, bombarding the city from orbit with their cannons. Gray aimed for the space between the frigates as he ordered his crew to give both a full broadside once they passed in between them.

  “Get ready Locke,” Gray said to his friend over the Wolves’ channel. “Good luck down there. We are leaving orbit after one more run on the support ships, then you are on your own until we can fight our way back.”

  “Luck be with you as well, Willis,” Locke replied.

  The Hyperion passed between the two frigates moments later. The cannons and lances on the Hyperion unleashed destruction on the two ships, racking them with fire from bow to stern, splitting them wide open.

  Both vessels died silently in the void, drifting out of position as the coldness of space froze machinery and crew alike.

  “Launch now!” Gray ordered, opening up a channel to Gunn and the Hyperion’s fighter squadrons.

  Launch doors only used for combat drops opened beneath the Hyperion, disgorging three full Crescent fighter wings and four Firefly drop ships. The Maiden of Flame was leading the drop as all ships formed up behind it.

  The Hyperion turned away and targeted the closest vessels within range, taking fire in return as the support vessels had finally caught up with Gray’s expert piloting. His ship took damage but Gray was too fast for the inexperienced captains on-board the frigates facing him, and with little effort the Hyperion broke free of the blockade.

  Everything had happened so quickly that the Stygian Council had only finished its turn by the time the Hyperion was making for open space beyond New Horizon’s closest moon.

  The Stygian Council had taken the bait. It and most of its supporting vessels pursued the vessel that had caused so much damage within such a short time, leaving only a few escort frigates behind to take care of the few remaining defensive vessels still in orbit around the planet.

  There was nothing blocking the Maiden and its escorts drop through New Horizon’s atmosphere. Its path remained clear and its sister ships and fighter escorts followed Gunn’s lead as the clouds above Santor thickened.

  Inside the Maiden the Wolves were dead silent, all of them completely focused on the drop and the mission ahead.

  In only a few minutes they would finally be allowed to fight unhindered, and every single one of them relished the thought as the clouds cleared and the truth of New Horizon’s fate was revealed.

  Chapter Six.One

  Drop

  “We are the tip of the sword my brothers! By fire and steel we will rid this planet of the enemy. Our worst nightmares wait for us on the surface, but it does not fill us with fear. No! It fills us with exhilaration. Embrace the joy of hate as you plunge into the heart of the hell below. Write your names in legend with every strike, and make these bastards remember our names! Mighty Zeus cast the Titans down from Olympus, banishing them to Tartarus, but that will not be our fate today. No! We will fall on our enemies and rise with our shields raised and our minds focused on the Beast’s destruction. Wolves! Follow me! I will lead you through the abyss and beyond!

  - Titan Captain Gabriel Locke’s words before first deployment, recorded on-board the drop ship Morning Star in the skies above Arkelis

  “We are peeling off to engage the enemy. God speed Queen,” the voice of Hyperion’s fighter wing commander said over the radio.

  “Happy hunting,” Gunn replied. She turned to look out of the Maiden’s cockpit window, watching as the three wings of Crescent fighters turned to face a squadron of approaching enemy fighters. Gunn could not make out the class of fighter approaching from the horizon, but whatever they were they were fast bastards. She hoped the Hyperion’s fighters would be on equal footing with them. Losing air support would make things extremely difficult for the drop ships in the skies above Santor.

  “Where are our friends going?” Locke asked Gunn. He was below in the cargo hold of the Maiden’s fat belly, and could only see the drop ship’s escort wing leaving their side.

  “They are going to pick a fight, giving us the perfect opportunity to disappear,” Gunn replied.

  Locke did not ask anything else, leaving Gunn to co-ordinate the drop ship formation above Santor. The three other drop ships she was in charge of carried Sabian and his troops, and four light-armour support vehicles. These LAS vehicles were part troop carries and part light tanks, capable of high speeds through urban terrain while blanketing areas with high calibre machine gun fire. They would be dropped near the first objective and then make their way towards the Wolves as they cleared whatever they found around the school’s emergency beacon. Once the school was secure everyone would mount up and head north towards the hospital’s beacon and then swing north-west to reach the final objective - the civilian bunker still broadcasting on emergency channels. Gunn and the drop ships would take up a holding pattern around the three beacons, sweeping the areas beyond the ground troop’s range with their pintle-mounted weapons all drop ships carried underneath their short wings.

  Corporal Joshua would not be deploying with the Wolves at the first beacon, instead he will be leap-frogged to a building overlooking the hospital objective. The building was high enough to give the scout Titan a view of all three objectives with his high powered rifle. Everyone secretly hoped he had trained with Godwaker enough on board the Hyperion. He was the key to scouting routes for the vehicles to traverse through Santor’s sprawling cityscape. And everyone on the ground would depend on his keen eye and skill to take down anything the ground troops could not see coming. A squad of eight Lancers would deploy with Jay, acting as spotters and protectors while the scout Titan looked through his scope.

  “All ships, time to go invisible. Activate stealth on my mark,” Gunn said to the pilots of the other drop ships. The seconds ticked by as they drew closer to their objectives. “Mark! Switch to stealth mode now!”

  Jinx, who was seated in the seat next to Gunn, flipped a series of switches and the lights inside the Maiden changed from dim white to low blood-red. Outside,
the hull of the Maiden moved and clicked as armour plating shifted to close any gaps causing unnecessary wind noise. The same happened to the other drop ships. As the last plate shifted and locked into place the whine of the drop ship’s engines lowered to almost an inaudible drone, mostly due to the engines reducing power and using specialized flaps to reduce noise and contrail visibility. The last mechanism to activate before the drop ships disappeared from radar and sight was a curios device located near the cockpit of each drop ship. Pilots called it White Noise, and its only function was to emit a range of sound in all directions, changing frequency every time the engines changed in tone. This device counteracted all sound from the engines and made the drop ships almost completely silent. The only way to spot them was with the naked eye, and that was also a problem due to their odd shape and colour. Its matt grey hull was the same colour as the sky above Santor, rendering the Maiden and its sister ships nothing but mere phantoms in the sky.

  “Two minutes until drop,” Gunn reported to Locke and the other drop ships.

  A chorus of affirmatives answered her words.

  Gunn raised the nose of the Maiden, rolling into a dive as she plunged towards the first objective, the Maiden’s sister ships mirrored its manoeuvre precisely, trailing behind the lead ship. Gunn had chosen to drop down almost on top of the first objective instead of flying low over the buildings around it, drawing less attention from any eyes in the vicinity of the school.

  “Blue Two, take the lead, deploy once you are over your designated drop zone, the rest of you follow Blue Two,” Gunn ordered the drop ship that was acting as her wingman during the drop.

  “Roger that,” the pilot of Blue Two said. It turned to its right sharply and the other two drop ships followed suit.

  “Drop is less than a minute Captain!” Gunn reported over the radio.

  “Now is the time Wolves, stand!” Locke yelled over the radio, leaving the channel open for Gunn and Jinx and the rest of the ground troop to hear what he was about to say.

  Locke’s inspirational speeches before battles were as much legend as he was, and he delivered them with fervour, instilling courage into all who heard him speak.

  They were less than thirty seconds away from their drop zone, so Locke needed to make it short and very powerful.

  The hero that Locke was obliged and rose to the occasion, as was his way.

  The Maiden reduced its speed as it swooped in low between the buildings overlooking the first objective. A stealth drop was quick and unnoticeable to any untrained onlookers. The Maiden’s belly was only a few feet above the ground and still moving when its bay door opened to unchain its angry cargo. Gloomy clouds had obscured the sunset over Santor, giving the Wolves and the rest of the ground forces another advantage in the falling darkness.

  The Wolves leapt from the Maiden’s gaping door, touching down on the ground with barely a sound. Gunn raised the nose of the Maiden of Flame as soon as the last Wolf exited her ship, gaining altitude and increasing power, racing towards the next objective.

  Elsewhere the other drop ships had performed the exact same manoeuvre to offload their own cargo, compensating only slightly more for the weaker Lancers and the support vehicles.

  “Package delivered,” Gunn reported less than a minute after the Wolves had touched down.

  Jay was alone until his protection detail arrived, which would be barely a handful of minutes. Jay was still locating the best position for Godwaker to be set up when the other drop ships appeared overhead. Eight Lancers dropped from the leading ship in silence, only nodding at the scout Titan as they passed his position. Two of the Lancers carried a mounted heavy machine gun, and another followed with a portable scanning station attached to his back. The Lancers took up positions on the roof surrounding Jay, leaving nothing to chance, covering all of the angles they possibly could. Jay felt at ease as he saw the heavy machine gun positioned close by, its field of fire covering the doors leading up from the bowels of the building beneath.

  “In position,” Jay reported to Locke, who was hidden in the doorway of an abandoned cafe. He could see the first objective, the school, from his positions, as could the rest of the Wolves on the ground.

  Christian and Nathan crouched nearby, watching for movement on either side of the street in front of the school.

  Xander stood in the doorway of the building next door, silently flicking at one of the devices attached to his armour, scanning the area in front of the school with his tactical sight.

  Pyoter was invisible to the naked eye, standing upright behind Locke in the shadow of the cafe. He stood dead still, like a marble statue of ancient times, watching over the Wolves flanks from within the cafe.

  Rivers was pacing between tables of the deserted cafe, making sure to side step anything that could make a sound, careful not to alert whatever else lurked in the shadows nearby. He noticed how plates of rotting food and cups full of drinks were left by customers, almost as if they had just vanished, leaving everything behind without even taking a bite or a sip.

  “Where is everyone?” Xander muttered mostly to himself, but the others heard it over the squad radio.

  “The only thing left are ghosts and the stench of unwashed bodies,” Rivers replied, still pacing back and forth.

  “I see nothing,” Jay said over the radio, “no movement.” The scout Titan was using Godwaker’s superior scope to sweep the objective for signs of life.

  “Sabian?” Locke asked over another channel.

  “Captain Locke?” Sabian replied with a hint of tension to the veteran’s voice.

  “Take position on the east side of the objective, quietly if you please,” Locke ordered, his advanced hearing from his suit OS picking up the engine noise of the approaching Lancers.

  “Roger that, Captain.”

  A few seconds later Locke heard the engine noise of the Lancer’s vehicles vanish almost completely, melting into the background noise of the dead city. Locke made a mental note to shake Sabian’s hand when he saw him again; the old man’s was damn good at his job.

  “Taking up position, my men are in the buildings overlooking the school’s stone courtyard. Vehicles are in the alley behind the brown building,” Sabian told Locke.

  “Good. Marking your positions on my display,” Locke replied.

  “Much appreciated, Captain.” Sabian closed the channel before Locke could say anything else, probably too busy with setting up his men and creating firing lines to support the Wolves.

  “Corporal Joshua, report,” Locke said over the squad channel again.

  “I see nothing yet, sir. I can’t see the south entrance, but from here the school looks empty.” Jay was scanning the windows of the objective for any movement, but the darkness inside obscured whatever was still there.

  There was silence for a few moments as the Wolves considered their next action. They had not expected to find the school like this. In fact they did not expect everything to be so quiet, and the eerie atmosphere in Santor did not help the situation at all. Where were all the soldiers? Where were the civilians? There weren’t even any dead bodies anywhere. Nothing, there was just nothing, only stone and concrete. Locke had seen some strange battlefields in his career as a soldier, but this was an anomaly, especially after what they had seen in orbit before making planet fall. Death always accompanied war, and it had to be close by. What unsettled Locke the most, was that he could not see it this time, which meant only one thing, it was patiently lying in wait, for whatever crossed its path first.

  An explosion drew everyone’s eyes to the skies above the school, watching as an enemy fighter burst into bright flames, tracer fire from friendly fighters still peppering its destroyed hull. The Hyperion’s fighter wing was making sure that the enemy did not eject and add more bodies for the ground forces to face. It trailed smoke and flame as the wreckage that was once a ship lost altitude, crashing loudly in a street to the south of the school.

  Everyone tensed as the fire roared in the gloom
a few streets away, lighting up the south in an unsettling glow.

  The Wolves were the first to hear it, their advanced suits granting them the ability to hear far better than most normal humans. Off in the distance, behind the curtain of flame from the fallen fighter and the sound of the dead city, a howl built slowly.

  Pyoter’s head snapped up as he heard the rising sound, recognizing it instantly. “Beasts?” he asked with surprise in his voice.

  “We can ask Lord Vincent about it later.” Locke raised his hand and gestured for Christian and Nathan to take the lead. “He has some explaining to do,” he added before crossing the street behind the Titan brothers.

  Pyoter, Xander and Rivers followed without a word. The Wolves had to search and clear the first objective, before the unknown monsters prowling the streets of Santor discovered there was something new on the menu.

  Like thunder splitting the sky Godwaker fired its first round, hitting a monster leading a horde of mutants towards the school from the south, leading them towards where the Wolves were silently clearing the first objective.

  The bullet hit the monster in the chest, liquefying its torso instantly and taking the limbs off another beast behind the intended target. At more than two-thousand yards away the bullets of Godwaker were still lethal to anything organic, not bothering to discriminate between armoured targets or bare chested mutants.

  Another artificial clap of thunder announced Godwaker’s eagerness to kill. Two more targets went down as the horde advanced closer to the first objective.

  “Captain, your guests will be arriving soon,” Jay reported over the channel open to the entire ground force.

  “How many guests will be crashing our party?” Locke asked his scout Titan.

  “Unknown,” Jay replied, “they are rapidly advancing on your position. It is as if they smell something.”