Star Crusades Uprising: The First Trilogy

by Michael G. Thomas

  “So what are our options?”

  “It’s quite simple, Spartan, either we use the time we have to get out of this place or we try and take over the entire compound.”

  “How could we get away? By ship?”

  “Good question, Misaki.”

  With a few deft hand movements he brought up two video feeds that showed massive caverns full of people working and vast structures surrounded by scaffolding and machines.

  “What is that?”

  “The shipyards. I told you, Spartan. These guys have been working here for sometime. They’ve been launching one every month since I’ve been here.”

  “That doesn’t help us though, what about operational vessels, is there anything we can use to escape?”

  “I’ll check,” he said as he looked through different feeds.

  Spartan looked at the feeds before looking down at the gun he was still carrying. He thought back to the dead Biomech and what it had said.

  “The Biomechs, why did they help you?”

  “I managed to alter the programming on a dozen of the capsules in the new chamber that was being constructed during the last breakout attempt. It might have failed but it gave me the cover I needed to make the changes. I disabled the indoctrination program they’ve been running so when the Biomechs were released three weeks ago they were screwed up. They must have thought they were faulty because they were used as cannon fodder in the arena or for training the other Biomechs. Shame I couldn’t do any more, but when the revolt failed I had to get back and help round them up or they’d know something was up.”

  A red light started flashing on the panel and on one of the screens an incoming message alert appeared. Some of the camera feeds started to shut down and Tigris tapped furiously on the virtual keyboard as he managed to lock out parts of the system before control was removed.

  “What is that?” asked Marcus.

  “It looks like several ships have just taken up positions over the compound. One of them is trying to obtain remote access to the security system. They managed to get part of it, including access to the outer door and the shipyards, but I’ve managed to lock down the rest.”

  “Good work.”

  “Yeah, I take it this scuppers our escape plan though? No point trying to escape in a transport when they have ships waiting for us.”

  “God, Spartan!” Misaki called as she gazed at one of the screens.

  “What is it?”

  “No way, look,” said Marcus as he leaned closer to one of the displays.

  “Here, let me,” said Tigris as he moved the video feeds to a series of larger displays that were mounted in the freestanding wall in the middle of the room. The first screen showed a long hall easily up to a kilometre long. It was packed full of cylinders just like the ones on the ship that brought Spartan and his comrades to Prometheus. That wasn’t the image that had caught Misaki’s eye though. It was another area, much smaller, where bodies were being loaded onto conveyer belts by large numbers of people. As Spartan watched he followed the body of a man as it worked its way along the belt before reaching a large metal box where it subsequently disappeared.

  “God, what is this place?” demanded Spartan.

  “I told you, this is the Harvesting Centre. It’s where they take the strongest prisoners. The machines harvest bodies, tissue and organs to make and repair their new toys.”

  “Toys, you mean the Biomechs?”

  “Yeah, exactly. This is where they make them. From what we’ve worked out they modify the strongest prisoners, like your red group, with equipment in the factory rooms. Tissue, organs and other stuff like that goes to the same place. All I know is that people and body parts go in one end and at the other we get creatures like him.” He pointed to the doorway where the Biomech stood, waiting patiently with its gun.

  “But how many are they making?”

  “Marcus, thousands from what I can see.”

  Spartan was deep in thought, busy scratching his chin before interrupting them.

  “Hang on, how long does the indoctrination program take to change them?”

  “A few days I guess, why?” asked a confused looking Tigris.

  “Because if we can free them we’ll have thousands of Biomechs who I’m sure would very much like to know what has been going on.”

  “Spartan, are you serious? These things have killed thousands already,” exclaimed an angry Marcus.

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. They are intelligent creatures, just like us. The ones we’ve fought were tortured, mind altered and savage. We can turn them into an army, maybe even allies! We certainly have a shared enemy.”

  They all went quiet for a moment as they tried to absorb the revelations and possibilities they had discovered. The light on the console kept flashing red, reminding them of the circling enemy vessels.

  “Spartan, I like it, what’s your plan?” asked a pleased looking Misaki.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Private spaceflight is now a common occurrence with both private enterprise and even some wealthy individuals now being able to take part in space travel and commercial ventures away from their home worlds. The first of these ventures occurred in the late 20th century where wealthy donors could hitch rides on national space programmes for a fee. This expanded rapidly into the 21st century with the rise of space tourism. The following decades moved quickly to commercial exploitation of the resources around Old Earth. Once the first interplanetary colonies were formed it would never be the same again.

  Origins of Private Space Travel

  Bishop took his rifle apart for the second time in the last hour. Working on equipment in a zero g environment was certainly different to when he practiced on the base, but there were benefits. Providing the vessel was coasting, as it was right now, there was no gravity and the parts stayed roughly where he left them. One game he and Kowalski played was the thirty-seconds weapon strip. If they were fast enough the parts would stay close enough to the starting positions and the job could be done without placing them on any magnetised surfaces. Right now though he was taking just one part off at a time, cleaning and checking for any imperfection or dirt that might impact on its effectiveness. It wasn’t really necessary, the weapons were all in a state of excellent condition but it gave him something, anything, to do while they waited for the last six hours of their trip to come to an end.

  They had left the outer reaches of the storm areas over an hour earlier but travelling any faster in this region would draw attention to them in a very busy shipping area. Not that Bishop was complaining, the journey through the storms had been horrendous and the ship had sustained damaged to one if its engines on the tail end of the trip. He was just thankful they managed to make it without losing any major systems or taking damage to the habitation sections.

  As he placed the barrel back into its housing he checked one of the monitors that watched the exterior of the ship. From this position he counted at least ten large vessels, cargo ships and transports each the size of a Confed battleship. Scores of flickering lights indicated the myriad of smaller craft as they moved about their business carrying people and supplies throughout the stations, bases and planetary compounds. It was much busier than he had ever expected.

  “Bishop, double-check the weapon housings. It is imperative that nothing can be detected from our containers. If they pick up the firepower in this ship we’ll be intercepted by customs and checked, then we’ll be screwed.”

  Bishop snapped the separate parts of his rifle mechanism back together with a satisfying clunk and then placed it on one of the many clip mounts on the walls of the room. He then reached out to the intercom on the wall near to where he was working.

  “Roger, checking now, Sir.”

  He pulled himself out towards the access door to the spinal corridor that ran the length of the ship, stopping at the engineering panel. With a few deft taps he switched to the weapon maintenance panel that was retrofitted when the ship had
been rebuilt and heavily modified.

  In the main habitation section of the ship Kowalski and Commander Anderson made their own final checks as they moved ever closer to the Prometheus Trading Post. Most of the computer displays showed columns of details and figures on the state of the fuel and their flight trajectories. Anderson leaned back, so far it all looked good. That was something that always worried him.

  “Sir, we’re picking up a coded message from the station, are we expected?” asked Kowalski as he rechecked the signal for authenticity.

  Anderson moved up to the communications unit to check the details himself.

  “It looks okay, the watermark and sig file are all current. Audio or video?”

  Kowalski split the incoming data streams up so that he could remove the content from the secure packets. It took only a few seconds as the computer checked the data for errors or security problems before it could be viewed.

  “It’s a live video stream, Commander, shall I connect and respond?”

  “Negative, put the stream on the board, let’s see who we are dealing with first.”

  As Kowalski moved the live stream to the larger display, with surprising speed an image appeared of a small room, though the subject in the middle was just a shadow. Kowalski turned up the brightness and adjusted other colour levels until they could see it was a man in a dark room speaking directly into a microphone. No matter what he changed he couldn’t get any more definition other than a basic outline of the man.

  “Tamarisk. Good to see you arrived safe and sound from your hazardous trip. I trust all went well. My name is Angelo, I’m part of a recruitment agency on Prometheus Seven, I specialise in assembling problem solvers with specific skills in a very short time. I’ve been contacted by our mutual friend Ganymede concerning your personnel requirements and have been informed of your operational needs and tight deadline. Please respond.”

  “What the hell is that all about?”

  “Sounds like code to me,” said Teresa as she arrived in the cramped room, gently pulling herself along with the grab rails and placing a hand onto Kowalski’s shoulder. He jumped at the unexpected contact.

  “You’re right,” replied Commander Anderson. “I’ve not heard of Angelo before, but single name units are almost black ops of some kind. Ganymede is the codename for command officers of Admiral or higher.”

  “Man, I hate it when you sneak up like that!” said a shaken Kowalski.

  “You need to chill out, Kowalski, it’s only me!” she replied with a grin.

  “Okay, this looks safe to me. Establish a comms link with this character and set our transmission to audio only, no reason to give him a free look at us.”

  “On it, Sir.”

  “This is Tamarisk, we weren’t expecting any assistance,” said Commander Anderson.

  There was a short pause as they sat waiting before the man in the video appeared to nod and then started to speak.

  “I was contacted recently by a mutual friend. She said you might need assistance of the physical kind upon getting here. I’ve taken the liberty of assembling a team of locals. The price wasn’t cheap but the bill has been covered by Ganymede.”

  The Commander hit the mute button and turned to Kowalski and Teresa.

  “He said she, it could be the Admiral.”

  “Makes sense, she’s the only senior commander with full knowledge of our mission and she knows we are due to arrive soon. Can we trust them?” asked Teresa.

  The Commander shrugged and turned back, releasing the mute key.

  “We are due to land within the hour at Docking Bay 14, we’ll meet you there,” said Anderson immediately cutting off the sound. They sat and waited before a final message came back.

  “Understood, Tamarisk, safe journey, we will see you shortly, out.”

  The video cut to black and was quickly followed by a connection terminated message.

  “Do we need their help, Sir?”

  “No idea, Teresa, but if we need to break into a prison facility or ship we’ll need every hand and weapon we can find. If it was indeed the Admiral then she will have arranged the best she can find at such short notice.”

  “Who are they anyway?” asked Kowalski who turned away from the computer for the first time in the last hour.

  “The Confederacy has Black Ops units throughout the sector. Some gather intelligence, others are sleepers who wait for orders as and when they are needed. My guess is this Angelo is part of an Intel team out here. Lots of information, goods and money pass through this area all the time. As for the people he has assembled, well, they will almost certainly be local mercs.”

  Kowalski scratched his neck and appeared lost in thought before speaking again. “Mercs, out here? I thought the Confederacy stopped using hired guns decades ago.”

  “Officially we stopped the mercenary units being used in the Army. After all, why pay for mercs when you can get professionals for less money and without the loyalty issues. They do have their place though, especially when you need a proxy.”

  “Proxy? What do you mean?”

  “He means, Teresa, you pay somebody else to do your dirty work. It costs a bit more but if it goes wrong you don’t take the heat,” replied Kowalski.

  “Yeah, something like that. Okay, this is going to be interesting. I want all of you to re-read the files on the station and on our contact. We will be there in fifty minutes and I don’t want to be caught with my trousers down. Don’t forget, we are black market traders looking to buy weapons and armour for insurgents. Keep quiet, be discreet and for God’s sake don’t call me Commander. Understood?”

  Teresa and Kowalski both nodded, Bishop shouted back down through the ship to acknowledge the plan.

  * * *

  The series of vertical display units showed feeds from more than twenty locations in the facility. On three of the screens were scores of guards, each collecting equipment from the barracks and assembling at two open areas near the building. One display showed a massive computer centre that must have been at least a hundred square metres, packed with large metal units and cooling systems. The other displays showed hundreds of prisoners rushing from their cells. Some were overpowering their guards, others grabbing captured equipment, many more simply cowered or hid as they waited for whatever unfortunate event was about to unfold.

  “We’re going to have to get this thing organised. Once the guards enter the main areas they will have co-ordination and firepower on their side.”

  “The prisoners won’t stand a chance, Tigris. We need to even the odds somehow. What exactly do we have access to here?” asked Spartan.

  “Well, when the ships arrived they were able to connect to and access the mainframe, wherever the hell it is. They shut off access to the management and computers systems as well as the communications gear. We’ve still got control over the security systems, ventilation and cells, that’s it though. We can’t do anything to the harvesting areas, shipyards or anything outside the compound.”

  “What the hell?” Marcus paced back and forth like a caged animal, muttering to himself.

  “This isn’t good. So all we can do is release the prisoners and give them access to most of the base. Is there nothing else we can do from here? What about the Biomechs? Can you change their programming, maybe get them to help in the fight?” asked a despondent Spartan.

  “No, not from here, that has to be done at the actual location where the Biomechs are being made. Also, it doesn’t take minutes. The changed programming could take days to kick in for the newest models and the older ones will take even longer. We don’t have the time right now, why change them if we’ll be dead within the hour?” answered Tigris as he turned back to the displays that were still functional, for signs of anything that could help them.

  “What do you know about this computer area here?”

  “No idea, Spartan, I’ve not seen it before. It must be important though, look at the cabling on the base layout and the power management. Holy cra
p, it is big!” said Tigris as he scrolled through several diagrams.

  “Hey, I recognise that layout.” Misaki stepped closer. She examined the details and then checked two of the displays where the metal housings hid the cables from the computer area. She started to nod the more she looked.

  “Well, what is it?” asked Marcus.

  “When we arrived I noticed a large communications tower. It was the only substantial structure in this entire area on the surface. Those containers and housings run from the tower down to the computer centre. If you look here you can see smaller communication connections moving out to the factories, harvesting areas and shipyards.”

  “So you’re saying this computer system is networked throughout the compound, so what?”

  “No, that’s not what she’s saying, Marcus,” said Tigris, who looked as though he had already worked it all out. He pressed a few buttons and brought up the network details for the entire system. “The bulk of the data and computer power is being moved between this centre and the communication tower. If you ask me this entire facility is being controlled or managed from elsewhere.”

  “What about the Governor then?”

  “He’s a brute and a bully, Marcus, but he doesn’t look like the kind of man who could manage and operate a complex facility like this. Tigris, if you’re right then somewhere in this sector is a base or hub that controls it,” Spartan added as he stood at the sector map that showed the planets, stations and steroid belts that littered the Proxima Sector.

  “Not just this place, Spartan, it could control many more, possibly dozens of them through Proxima Centauri,” Tigris said as he traced his fingers across a number of the planets.

  “You know what you’re saying, Tigris? The Zealots and their partners could just be the tip of the iceberg with this thing. They could have thousands more Biomechs, maybe even ships being hidden away, ready for the moment to strike.”

  Spartan thought for a moment and continued, “This is all speculation but if, and this is a big if, this station is one of many and it is being controlled from elsewhere then we have a duty to get the information out of here. Even if we don’t get off this rock, people will have to know.”