It was an interesting choice of words, but Admiral Churchill couldn't disagree.
"Look, we know where he is right now, and when he arrived we lost contact with our Rift station. More than that, we've lost contact with Mars, Earth, and the entire Sol system."
He rose from his chair and walked to the side of his desk and to the cracked and damaged transparent wall. The hardened glass material was strong, but nowhere near as tough as he'd expected. He ran his forefinger and thumb down his nose.
"Spartan is in just the right place right now. Luckily, we have a few agents and Alliance funded operatives still there. Johnson sent out a priority message just before the Rift closed."
Teresa now looked at him with interest.
"We want the Rift reopened, but not until the taint of the enemy is removed from Sol. If Spartan is being controlled in some way, then the next time that Rift opens, we can expect a Biomech assault. If he's loyal, as you and I both believe, when it opens, I would expect nothing less than total Alliance control and a pissed off Spartan waiting to come through."
Teresa wasn’t quite sure she liked the sound of what she was hearing, but she did appreciate the vote of support for Spartan. Admiral Churchill knew her reasonably well, but nothing like Johnson or Anderson did. He looked at her expression and tried to gauge her feelings, but found he really had no idea.
"There's more. Our information suggests there are another seven Biomechs in Alliance space. We’ve obtained this information from the dig sites, the T’Kari, and even the prisoner himself. It’s fragmented, but we know for certain that one is in Sol, and the others are apparently somewhere near here, in hiding and using hidden Rift gateways. The thing is, we know they have been hiding for a long, long time. They will only come out for one of a few reasons, and it has to be damned important to them.”
He looked up at the ceiling even though there was nothing of note there.
“The call has been sent to all Biomechs to return to Helios. We monitored the traffic from the prisoner, and the signal was simple. All Biomechs are to assemble at Helios, ready for the apocalypse.”
Teresa wasn’t religious even though she had been given the traditional conservative religious upbringing on Carthago. The word ‘apocalypse’ had spread via many of the small cults throughout the Alliance. Even worse had been the stories and rumors from the new territories at Helios and beyond. These helped spread the very idea of an end to all things, nothing but mass hysteria.
"Why attack Mars? It makes no sense."
The Admiral scratched his forehead and then slid over his secpad.
"This is between you, me, and Director Johnson. Understood?"
Teresa nodded and then looked down, almost excited. She read the first few lines, but it was the imagery that fascinated her the most. The image showed a vast crater with machinery, cables, and elevators moving down deep into the heart of Mars.
"I don't understand."
He pressed the unit, and the image shifted to a lower level where a massed bank of flood lamps lit the base of the shaft.
"This is nearly three kilometers under the surface. We've had Earthsec working down there for over a year. This is all based on information we found on Hyperion. The data is fragmented, but it did contain hundreds of locations, some of which are in our own territory."
He leaned in close.
"You see; we have information that there's something down there. Last time we found something similar was in the Outer Rim. Our mining teams made it down to the last layer, but as soon as news got back to Terra Nova, the entire facility was vaporized in a nuclear meltdown. Luckily, the site was fully automated, and the monitoring crews were aboard a resupply ship. We can only assume the Biomechs have been looking for these sites as well.”
Teresa looked at him a little confused.
“They don’t know where these sites are?”
He shook his head.
“Not quite. Director Johnson suspects the list of potential sites is massive. That would explain why so many of these Biomech sightings have been of scouting parties.”
Teresa tried to assimilate the information as best as she could but found it far from easy. The Biomechs were hard enough to understand in open warfare, and their clandestine machinations were unlike anything she’d ever encountered.
"Wait a minute. The Biomechs showed up, as well as Spartan, just as you reached these ships at the bottom of the shaft. What did you find and how did they find out?"
The third image stunned her.
"It can't be," she muttered.
"It's true, Teresa. Look at it."
She did, but the sight of a long-buried Ravager class Biomech warship sent a shudder through her body. The vessel was one of the symbols of the struggles they had all faced. Even though the color and markings were different to those they had found before, it was clearly one of the dreaded ships.
"We've located signs of three more already."
But Teresa's attention had already shifted to the symbols running along the faded colors of the ships. They were emblems made up of six pairs of metallic arms that almost looked like the rays coming off a star.
"What is that?"
Now the Admiral smiled.
"That, Colonel, is the mark of the Twelve."
The next ten minutes seemed to merge into one great mess as he showed her as much as he was able of Mars and the large number of tunnels that had been dug. The more she saw, the more it reminded her of what she'd seen on planets like Hyperion and the moon of Hades. Finally, the conversation returned to the defense of Prometheus itself, though Teresa found it hard to take her attention from the distant planet and back to her current predicament.
"Colonel?" he asked.
Teresa shook her head and tried to banish the memory of the Red Planet, at least for now.
"I...uh. Well, these Biomechs? The ones you believe will be attacking here, where could they be? Under the rock, too?"
He shook his head.
"No, though trust me, we've dug deep to check that. I suspect in the middle of the storm regions, and they will be coming here.”
“Why?”
Admiral Churchill grinned at the question.
“For starters, there have been sightings of their ships in this area over the last four days. Their patterns have been recorded, but we’ve taken no immediate action.”
Teresa looked annoyed.
“But why keep it quiet? We could strike now, when it suits us.”
“No, Teresa, we have to get them all. The only way is by doing this. We need to give them a real chance of succeeding. I might be old, but I have just as much experience of these machines as you. They are cunning, and they are hard to goad. They like to stay close to their prey though, and with Krani here, they will have to act. Now, if it were me, well, I would stay as close as possible, just far enough into the storms to avoid our sensors.”
“Why bring the machine here then?”
“Anderson has T’Karan bottled up tight. The first batch of Liberty ships has boosted the defenses at the AJ Naval Station, and more ships are arriving every day. We’ve put out enough false intelligence over the last ten days to guarantee the machines will know what we have here, and that our forces here on Prometheus are thin.”
Teresa’s attention shifted upon seeing more Jötnar marching in a column down in the open space of the base. Many were wearing a localized version of the PDS armor used by the Marine Corps while just a handful the more bulky JAS armor designed for direct assault. It wasn’t the numbers that surprised her; it was the way most of the engineers and personnel reacted around them
They are used to them. They’ve been here a long time.
“Wait, I thought the Jötnar here had been assisting development programs for new weapons and armor. Are you telling me that you’ve had Jötnar combat units here as well?”
The Admiral wiped his brow and then looked directly at her.
“Teresa, what do you think?”
He pointed down to those in th
e open central section of the base, so many meters below the surface.
“Prometheus has been a home to them for two decades now. Is it much of a surprise that many of them wanted to join combat units? All of the Jötnar here are trained in combat on Hyperion, as you might expect. They fulfill both an engineering and a military need here."
Teresa sighed and pulled out her secpad to make a note.
"It might have been handy to know that before I revised the defense plans. I have three companies of marines, a platoon of Jötnar, plus twice that number already stationed here."
She nodded to the four Jötnar who still said nothing.
"How many Jötnar do we have?"
Admiral Churchill smiled at this.
"Just under two thousand Jötnar work here, and every single one of them is part of the newly activated Red Watch."
Teresa hadn't even noticed it, but a quick glance at the nearest of the Jötnar showed a Marine Corps patch on his chest with a burning shield emblazoned upon it.
"The Red Watch?"
"Yes, it is the name of the newly assembled 24th Marine Corps Regiment that has been raised here, all under the watchful eye of their new commander. The name is apparently because they watch the border, and they wear maroon colored armor.”
Teresa raised an eyebrow at the last part.
“Maroon? Are they insane?”
The Admiral laughed at her question.
“They are Jötnar, don’t forget. It’s not like they are particularly proficient at hiding. As for this red, well, it is very dark, as you can see.”
Teresa looked at the four Jötnar carefully. She’d assumed it was the lighting in the room as their dark PDS Alpha armor looked like it was reflecting a red colored lamp. He was right. It was a dark maroon, more a brownish-red color. She looked back at him and sighed.
“It was General Rivers' idea,” he answered, almost apologetically, “After the Jötnar were given full access to the Corps, they were very keen to create their own identity within the Corps itself. The unit was only officially activated in the last three months, and in secret, of course.”
He licked his lip before moving to the next part, and it was clearly something he wanted to avoid.
“I can’t beat about this anymore, Teresa. Your deployment to the AJ Naval Station was a ruse. It was always our intention to bring you and your people here to provide the backbone for this new battalion. Ever since your injuries on Helios, you’ve been earmarked for this role."
He expected Teresa to be please, but she seemed angry.
"You dragged me out here on yet another false promise. What will you want next? For me to lead an assault on the Black Rift?"
That question seemed to stun the Admiral more than any other. Teresa even gave the idea some serious consideration before lowering her head and placing her hands at her temples.
"Admiral, I'm sorry. I'd just like some kind of stability. One minute I'm fighting on Helios, then I'm on Terran Nova, then I'm assisting with the 39th instead of rejoining my unit, only for this to happen."
The Admiral nodded in agreement.
"I know, it is a lot to take in. Your efforts in the 17th have not been forgotten. It will take weeks to get you back though, and they have their own problems right now. Your talents and experience in working with the Jötnar are second only to Spartan. Nobody else can pull this off."
He tried to point to his display, but it had gone, along with part of his usual window.
"Look, Prometheus is more than a base to us now. It is a trap to finally give us the chance to put our house in order before tackling the big problem of our time.”
"The Biomechs," she said quietly.
"Exactly. We want, no, we need the Biomechs to reveal themselves so we can shut them down, permanently. Once this remaining Biomech is destroyed, we will turn our attention to the Terra-Nova-Sol Rift and whatever Spartan has stirred up. That is why the rest of the fleet, including Dreadnought, have been sent through the Rift to T'Karan, to draw them out.”
The mention of the cradle of humanity put just a single thought in her mind.
“Spartan.”
She didn’t mean to speak out, but she’d been thinking of his whereabouts for so long, she couldn’t help herself. The fact he'd just told her that Prometheus was effectually undefended seemed to go unnoticed.
“He’s there, as is Khan and a few other Alliance contacts. We know the other Biomech is there. That is why Johnson’s agents deactivated the Spacebridge. It is trapped, and there’s nobody better to deal with it than…”
“Spartan,” she said again, but this time her face had actually brightened.
Anybody else might be worried, but not her. Spartan and Khan were born to destroy Biomechs, and as long as Spartan had a focus; she knew he would do whatever he needed to get the job done. She walked around the room, much to the Admiral’s surprise before stopping a few meters away and looking back at him.
"The two of us have given the Alliance, and the Confederacy before it, everything we could. My family has suffered, and now my three children are all on the frontline. You want me to sit here and babysit marines while Spartan plays your little game for you in Sol?"
Admiral Churchill was not used to taking this kind of attitude from a mere Colonel in the Corps. Teresa was different though; she was of the same stock as General Rivers and even Spartan. He considered her request for a few seconds.
“I don't think you quite appreciate the gravity of this situation. You see..."
He wiped his head, and for the first time Teresa spotted the sweat on his forehead.
"Spartan was captured in T'Karan space, and that is in the Orion Nebula."
Teresa didn't look as though she quite understood the point he was making.
"So how did Spartan and Khan get to Earth?"
Teresa considered the question, but the answer was clear.
"The Rift network. They must have used a different entry point and from there moved to Sol."
Admiral Churchill smiled at her answer.
"Over a thousand light years? If there was a Spacebridge of that length, our scouts would have found it.”
Teresa shrugged.
"Well, there must be another Nexus out there somewhere, and it is the link between T'Karan and Sol, and who knows where else. That would give them a backdoor into the Alliance and completely bypass Proxima Centauri."
"Perhaps," answered Admiral Churchill, "Luckily, it seems Spartan disabled the Rift station, at least for now."
Teresa smiled as he spoke.
"Disabled is not destroyed, Admiral.”
It didn’t take her long to realize what Spartan would be thinking.
“This Rift isn't a weakness for us. It’s an asset, and it will give Spartan a backdoor directly to T'Karan. Once he gains access to their network, you know exactly what he will do."
Teresa appeared happy, but the Admiral was anything but.
You fools! Spartan will do anything but what you want him to do.
Even though they were light years apart, Teresa actually relaxed at this news. As far as she was concerned, it was the best news she'd heard for days. Teresa rose to her feet and motioned toward the door.
"Admiral, I think Spartan will resolve things just fine on Sol. If you give him a chance, he might end this war without even having to come within a light-year of Alpha Centauri."
The Admiral was so stunned at her words that he said nothing as she left. Only when the door shut, did his lips finally move. The planning with the other senior commander under the watchful eye of General Rivers had covered many eventualities. He couldn't believe that none of them had come up with that possibility. Alliance scientists had postulated the fact that there could be many more Nexus than those around Helios and the Biomech territories. The archeological digs on the T'Kari moon of Hades and on the planet Hyperion had already confirmed the existence of multiple Rift hubs, but the idea that there might be one that could link T’Karan and Sol was not one he ev
er remembered seeing.
Either they have another Nexus, or they’ve been using our own Spacebridges without our knowledge.
That very thought sent a cool chill through his body. He looked for his computer display, but Teresa has smashed it beyond use. He shook his head in annoyance and so pulled out his secpad and checked the secure Interstellar Network chart that listed every Rift from the modest planet, to planet locations through to the massive Prometheus-Orion Rift. He looked at it for a moment, especially the location of defunct Rifts that the scouts had already found.
How did you get there?
It only took a few presses on the secpad, and he was through to Director Johnson.
“Admiral? What’s wrong with your secure terminal?”
“Ms Morato is the problem.”
Johnson seemed to smile at him via the tiny screen.
“I see. What’s the problem?”
“Spartan. Are we any further with identifying the route he took to Sol?”
“Not entirely, but with help from the T’Kari, we have been able to access some of the Rifts in their area of space. One of them might be the one he took.”
“Interesting. Do we know where it went?”
Johnson pressed a button, and a series if maps popped up on the Admiral’s secpad. He found himself squirming as he tried to read the details. Director Johnson continued while the Admiral examined the map.
“It’s not much to go on, but the signature left behind shows a short journey of just a few light years.”
“That’s it?”
Johnson lifted his lip a little and nodded.
“Yeah, there’s no station or even remains there. Whatever they used to create the Rift has gone with them. Wait, I need to check on something.”
They exchanged pleasantries, and then he was gone, leaving the Admiral on his own and still looking at the starmap.
I don’t like this. We have to send a team to Sol before Spartan kicks up trouble, and fast. God help us if the Biomechs could appear in that godforsaken backwater.
He moved through his list of contacts on his device and selected Admiral Anderson. It took only a few seconds to activate the secure channel through the Rift and out to ANS Beagle, the station that managed the Rift on the other side. It would then take minutes for his signal request to Admiral Anderson to reach the AJ Naval Station deep in the heart of T’Karan, the Alliance’s foothold into the Orion Nebula. He started to speak to himself, deciding exactly what he wanted to say, but something completely different interrupted him.
Star Crusades Nexus: Book 06 - Call to Arms Page 9