Enemies on All Sides (Maraukian War Book 4)

by Michael Chatfield

  Chapter Ninety-Six

  Senator Rimateus’s Residence

  Roma, Hellenic System

  10/3557

  Rimateus stared at the screens before him.

  Senator Kris stood in front of it, shouting obscenities, while Benefactor Yi was trying to appease the others in the room. There was more than confusion and anger echoing around him. Senator Kris and Benefactor Yi were the worst for this, almost instigating more than actually deflating it all.

  Rimateus could only see one outcome now, and with his security detail around his residence, reports were starting to come in that had him reeling.

  All these things gave him only one option to preserve his life: he had to flee.

  His NIAI showed a final image, of the Emperor’s ship as it moved into position over Roma.

  Tranquility, he laughed loud as her name came into view. Yet your guns are trained on the city.

  Reports and messages pinged him from all over. The space legion had control. All his ship captains had been put down.

  It wasn’t possible. But the more he looked through the information, the more it seemed as if he’d been the one who had been played. Key personnel across his trusted teams, ships, and even those in the legion itself had turned.

  I underestimated you, Cassius, he thought. Both you and Mark Victor.

  Deep inside, his mind whirred, though; he had other options. There was word from his science base that they’d locked it down, and everyone was safe, and well hidden.

  Rimateus grinned. He knew where he was going now. No one knew of this facility. Once it was locked down, there was no one getting in or out.

  Rimateus knew he had to slip out of the room. Escaping his home was paramount. To continue anything, he had to leave. The view of the carrier over the planet unnerved him. The space legion had taken command of the Hellenic system.

  When he saw ships start to drop toward the planet and toward his estate, he made his move. The fact was there would be more coming from the legion. The distraction itself was enough to get him out the back door.

  Like the snake that he was, he slithered back and then slipped out. Only partway down the corridor did he hear more shouts and screams. He didn’t know what was going on, nor did he want to—sure that the lives of those in that room and his whole estate would be forfeit.

  His escape shuttle was unmanned. He quickly settled inside and shot toward his base. He felt some relief. It would work out. He’d survive, even if no one else here did.

  Chapter Ninety-Seven

  Legion Headquarters

  Roma, Hellenic System

  10/3557

  Moretti watched as Rimateus’s home was hit. Several of their joint forces stormed the front door and, as one, they hit the main party room. As the blood flowed, Zedra turned to him. “Where is Rimateus?”

  “He’ll be upstairs in one of his private suites, probably with his other closest partners.”

  While their shuttle made its way across the city and toward their meeting point with Damus at the hidden science base, Moretti watched closer the goings-on inside his number-one enemy’s home.

  Several of his men gave him full access to their view on the events. Moretti watched as they swept the rooms, and from one side of the house to the other, all areas and people inside were eliminated. Moretti had once thought there could be innocent workers in here, but watching Zedra and in seeing how thorough she investigated everyone, he realized that no one in that house was good. They were players, all of them, from the maids to the kitchen staff. It sickened him to find out about the deeds these people had done. Watching his men end their lives now seemed satisfying in the most horrific way possible.

  Following them up and into the private chambers of the senator, he waited to see the scumbag die. He actually clenched his fists together.

  “What’s happening?” Zedra asked.

  “Just about to infiltrate Rimateus’s room.”

  He waited. When his men burst the door and entered, guns flared. Not one view of Rimateus.

  “Hansen. Wait!” he said just as his lead man was about to put a bullet in Senator Kris’s forehead. The man was backed against a wall, sheer terror blazing through him.

  “Patch me through—voice,” Moretti ordered and then he spoke. “Where is Senator Rimateus?”

  The man shivering before Hansen said nothing. “Put your gun to his head,” Moretti ordered and Hansen complied. “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know,” Senator Kris said. “He slipped away a few hours ago. We couldn’t get out of the room.”

  Moretti hadn’t noticed that, the sick fuck. He’d left them to die, knowing full well that once the legion had him in their sights that they wouldn’t let go.

  “Kill him,” Moretti ordered, quickly pulling up and linking to Damus.

  “ETA?” Damus asked.

  “Pull back,” Moretti said, aloud so that Zedra could hear too. “Regroup at HQ.”

  “What happened?”

  “He escaped. I’m sure there’s only one place he’ll head for, but we have to be sure he arrives and doesn’t go elsewhere.”

  Moretti slammed his fist against the side of the shuttle, shattering its casing and the glass broke. Blood spurted out, and Zedra raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t red. It was silver.

  “Why, Mr. Moretti...” Zedra took hold of his hand and watched as the nanites in his system healed his broken skin. “There something you need to tell me?”

  “ETA at HQ, one hour.” Moretti spoke to Damus and turned to Zedra. “Can’t really hide it now, can I?”

  “So, you’re one of them?”

  Moretti watched as the last of the cuts closed over the light touch of her hand, battle-worn but soft. “I am. Although, not a full merger. I’ve been undergoing the process at a much slower rate. I might have passed all their tests, but it’s not been an easy journey.”

  Zedra stared at him. He could almost see her mind working. “Well, maybe you’ll share your thoughts on the process with me.” She smiled and gave him a slight squeeze.

  “We have a lot to do still.” M tugged his hand back. “But, I can do that.”

  Moretti ordered their shuttle pilot back to HQ and then he continued to fill in Zedra as reports from all over Hellenica and the Union came in.

  ***

  Damus arrived almost at the same time as them at HQ. Once inside, they began coordinating their lead men with better clarity. Moretti moved to a station by himself while Damus talked with Zedra.

  “Is he all right?” Damus asked her.

  Zedra glanced in his direction and nodded. She wasn’t sure the revelation of him being a merger was for now. She would just let him do his thing, and if it didn’t line up with her plans, she was already thinking of ways that she could take him out. Her gut instinct, which had led her to trust him as much as she had, never let her down before. She doubted it would now, but she would also have all bases covered.

  Damus took a call from Cassius, who was high above them, bringing in the legion’s ships. Now all under his control, they had all the backing they needed to bring Roma back to her full glory. This brought Zedra hope that this was working.

  “We have all but the base and Rimateus.” Moretti spoke up. “Tracking all movements—I have him.”

  Zedra moved to the station he was using and he brought up two sets of images for them. “He’s not going straight for the base. He will snake around, make sure he’s not being followed. But we won’t lose him now.”

  Damus leaned closer to get a better view. “How can you be so sure?”

  Moretti looked up at him. “Because if we fail at this, we fail everything. I. We.” He looked to Zedra, and then back to him. “You. Never fail.”

  Damus nodded and looked back to the other monitors as Moretti clicked a few screens.

  “Sertoria’s still waiting on us. Let’s hope that she can hold out. When Rimateus arrives, we hit, and we hit hard. He will not escape this time.”

  Moretti watc
hed the screen. “He’s holed up outside the city for now. Let’s pool our men, move the forces and wait for it. We’ll be ready.”

  Chapter Ninety-Eight

  LMFC Crusader

  Oort Cloud, Emarl System

  10/3557

  “The assault group behind us is turning to present broadsides!” a sensor operator yelled out.

  For nearly eight hours, they had seen the Emarl fleet heading for them.

  That entire time, they had been under pressure. They had been constantly accelerating, looking to exit the system. In just under two more hours, they would make it out of the system and they could use their Alcubierre drives to escape.

  “Keep going,” Captain Tameesh said.

  He didn’t want to turn. That would only slow down their escape and the Emarl ships showed that their acceleration was greater.

  “Start firing missiles back at them!” He didn’t have rail cannons that could bear on the ships but he could fill the space between them with missiles, creating a wall of cover for himself.

  The Emarl ship’s inertia would allow them to close with the Crusader and the Atonement but only for a few minutes.

  More of the fighter’s ships were released into space as the rail cannons started to fire, destroying incoming missiles that were still far out.

  Tameesh grit his teeth. The Emarl ships had a longer range, which allowed them to dominate the Luyten ships earlier.

  Their missile tubes lit up with exhaust as waves of missiles and rail cannon fire were unleashed.

  Defense systems went into overdrive.

  The rear of the freighters was covered in close-in defense systems but they weren’t able to handle the volume.

  The explosions got closer and closer. Tameesh fumed, wishing that his freighter was just a bit faster or that they had made it out of the system.

  The rounds started to hit the rear of the two ships, but the fighters were holding back, massing as if they were waiting for something.

  “We just lost engine three!” an engineer reported.

  “Two is offline! Power fluctuations coming from one. Power systems are blown out!”

  The ship shuddered.

  “Direct hit on the engines! We’re leaking atmosphere!”

  “Can we still activate the Alcubierre drives?” Tameesh asked.

  “Yes,” navigation said after a moment. The ship lurched again as more rounds struck the rear of the ship, taking out their main engines.

  “Using thrusters to course correct! Main engines are totally out!” navigation said.

  “The fighters are starting to move. The Moby is tilting its belly toward us!” Sensors sounded confused.

  “The Atonement engines have been crippled as well, and the rear engine bays are open to space!” another officer reported.

  “Those drop-ships that moved from the Moby are moving under the cover of the fighters toward the Atonement.” The sensor officer looked to Captain Tameesh. The two of them shared a slightly bewildered look.

  “Missile launch from the belly of the Moby. The ships have stopped firing. I think that they’re out of ammunition!”

  “Doesn’t matter. We’ve got massive internal damage, and no defenses remaining!”

  Tameesh had a bad feeling as he heard everything together.

  Chapter Ninety-Nine

  ENS Moby

  Oort Cloud, Emarl System

  10/3557

  “Weapons are empty,” Travestki reported. “We’ve only got ammunition for the close-in defense weaponry.” The entire barrage would only last for about a minute.

  The defensive weapons started to fire as decoys were launched. The Luyten force’s missiles arrived first. They shook the ships and led to minor damage but it wasn’t enough to breach any of the ships.

  The hits started landing on the two targets as they rode through the barrage of missiles.

  The freighter’s defensive systems were impressive, but all of the battlegroup’s firepower had been focused on their target’s engines.

  The destruction moved closer and closer until the engines were being torn apart and the defensive systems wiped out.

  “Good hits,” Travestki said.

  A missile tore apart the engines as rounds followed in, turning the ship into a scrap heap at the rear, but the ship was massive; it was hard to open it up all the way.

  “Battlegroup Two’s drop-ships are away,” Liang said.

  Chen looked to the drop-ships. Under the cover of the fighters, they accelerated as hard as possible into the teeth of the Luyten forces.

  They might be out of ammunition but their targets had been sitting to the side of the first formation and didn’t use up that much ammunition. They still had seventy to eighty percent left.

  “Deploy drop pods,” Chen said.

  The ship rotated as large armored doors underneath the Moby were revealed, with launcher tubes underneath.

  The fighters started to accelerate. Their cannons fired through the skies as they engaged incoming missiles, creating a screen.

  Up and down the Moby, the acceleration racks activated, ripple firing from bow to engines and back again. As the four rows finished, they started firing again.

  The pods spread out so it would be harder to cut them down as they shot through space, crossing the nearly knife-fighting range to the freighter.

  ***

  Ava tried to get herself together as her pod was loaded into the launcher.

  Dozens of the Vanguard were already out and headed for the enemy. Still, it was hard to get rid of those nerves.

  Without warning, she was punched upward as she shot out of the Moby. Her feet felt as if they wanted to jam up into her head. She grit her teeth with the powerful acceleration as the engines on the drop pods kicked in and increased her speed.

  “Hell’s hammer,” Polwell managed to get out over the net.

  Ava could only agree. She’d trained with these damn things. They sucked but they got the job done.

  The pod shook as missiles too close for comfort went off.

  She saw as black marks started to appear as people were lost to those explosions. The fighters unloaded their missile racks as the Vanguard started to pass them and they broke away to the sides.

  Their missiles provided cover as they rode across to the other freighter.

  Ava felt her pod altering its course before there was a powerful rappelling force and her head seemed to be crushed into her body. There were scraping noises as the pod hit different things before finally it slammed into something.

  The drop pod’s panel blew off with Ava’s harness. She jumped out of the pod, her M20s deploying.

  She swept the area. Seeing nothing but the destroyed rear sections of the ship that were illuminated with the explosions of missiles behind her, she advanced forward.

  She linked with the other mergers as more of them made it to the ship, their drop pods slamming into the freighter.

  “All leaders, report in with your count,” Ava called out.

  Waters, Katch, and Hahn sent her back reports of who had made it. It was updating as more people made it to the ship. People were slotted into new positions to fill the places of those who hadn’t made it.

  “Waters, Katch—you’re up front with your platoons; move and clear. Anything that looks important, take it over. I want control of this freighter and fast. Hahn, you’re in the rear as support with Polwell.” Ava’s view filled with green lights as she took out a mono-blade and started to cut her way through the jagged metal that was left in the rear of the Luyten ship.

  The second lieutenants took control of their people and started to get organized, spreading out over the different decks to advance forward.

  Groups found useful-looking systems and, using their nanites, they were able to start taking control over the ship.

  Ava cut through a wall. Seeing red carets moving toward her through another wall, she raised her M20 and fired through a bulkhead. Her rounds didn’t light up silver or make
any noise as they punched through the wall with ease.

  Ava moved up to the area, finding a group of three armed security personnel who didn’t know how they’d died.

  “Information updating,” Kela said.

  Plans of the ships started to appear. Ava assimilated the information as sensors were being taken over.

  The Vanguard might be ground forces, but against computers and technology, there was no better hackers. The mergers, working together, started to take over different systems.

  “Remove us from the sensors and hold positions,” Ava said. “Once we gain control over the ship, then we rule the battlefield.”

  The other mergers linked to her understood her reasoning. Ava wondered what the captain of the ship must be thinking as they disappeared from the ship’s sensors and they started to lose control of their ship, system by system.

  Ava linked up with a group of nearby mergers who were in defensive positions around a reactor.

  Around them, the dead floated.

  “Enemy front,” one reported. A few blasts from the M20 tore through walls and cut down the reaction force before they reached the mergers.

  “Alpha Company has entered the other Luyten carrier,” Evan informed Ava. He was the link to Mark but here he was a support to Ava. She had more time as a merger and she had been the one to train Evan, after all, so he followed her lead.

  “Good.” Ava didn’t have time to focus on Alpha Company as she looked over the information coming in.

  “All right, I’m thinking of breaking down to the section level, move through the ship, group together, taking out key positions and move toward the command center. We drain the atmosphere from the ship, turn off the power. Then they’re going to be low on oxygen and power. If they don’t get blown out, then they’ll only have a few hours until their armor runs out of power or they don’t have the air to keep going.” Ava’s tactics were scary, but although the enemy would suffer, it kept her people out of danger. As long as they held control of the ship’s computer systems, they owned the ship.