He stood up and moved to the side door. Like most access hatches, it was double layered with a built-in airlock. Glaucon had already shut the rest and was in the process of tying up their two prisoners on the landing bay floor.
“Find out how to open the main doors!” he called out to his friend.
Glaucon nodded and bent down, speaking loud and fast to the two men. The body language even from this distance showed they couldn’t help. Glaucon stopped and stepped back inside, pulling the door shut behind him.
“They don’t know. You need to get the permission of the deck chief or commanding officer to issue the orders.”
“Or bypass the computer system,” said Roxana happily.
Red lights flashed at the end of the landing platform; the signal that she had already bypassed the system.
“How the hell did you do that?” asked Xenophon.
Tamara was strapping herself in. He grabbed the main handle to pull it shut when he spotted the security unit. They appeared unarmoured but were all carried pulse weapons and were covering the distance quickly. Another man stepped down to the landing bay, and it looked like their old commander, Komes Pasion.
Damn, he is not going to be pleased about this!
Xenophon pulled the clamps on the door and spun around.
“Whatever you’re gonna do, do it fast!”
CHAPTER TWO
Landing Bay, Arcadian Titan ‘Olympia’
Like many of Legion that was stationed on board, a growing number had started to announce their dissatisfaction at being forcibly removed from the expedition. It wasn’t just the loss of the opportunity, but it was the fact they would be returned with potentially nothing, while the others in the Armada would return with riches and wealth possibly beyond all their imagination. While some had managed to escape via lifeboats or small transports, most had either accepted their forced change in circumstances or been thrown in the brig until their return to Terran space. Xenophon and his friends had chosen to escape, but their attempt to do so from the Olympia was a disaster from start to finish. The trouble began with the engines on the dromon, and their refusal to even power up.
“What’s the problem Roxana? Why aren’t we moving?” screamed Tamara, her frayed nerves now sending her young mind over the edge. Being the youngest and least experienced, she was prone to the odd breakdown when her stress levels were too high. She ripped of her straps and jumped ahead to the cockpit section where Roxana and Xenophon were busy trying to get the dromon off the ground.
“The magnetic couplings are off, so what’s the problem with the engines?” asked Xenophon.
Glaucon looked out through the small side window and started laughing. Tamara watched him with bemusement.
“What’s so funny?”
“Well, you know the power coupling for charging? It’s not connected to the ship.”
Xenophon looked back at the main computer display and tapped the screen showing fuel and power. All the levels were still at maximum. He looked back to Glaucon.
“Showing full power here, I don’t see what the problem is. The engines should be powering up.”
Glaucon climbed over and landed next to him. He wasn’t as experienced in the use of engineering or computer management systems, but he had still gone through basic flight training on civilian light transports. He looked at the computers, looking for something that Xenophon or Roxana may have missed. He squinted as he looked at the main panel and leaned in, tapping the button to the side of the display, it switched to manoeuvring thrusters and life support. The fuel tanks showed zero percent fuel.
“No, we only have fuel for the FTL drive, that’s it?” snapped Roxana.
Xenophon climbed back to the side window and looked out at the approaching security unit. They were checking the dromons one by one. Two of the men were running to where the crewmen were tied up.
“Hey, they’ll be here any second. Either we launch, or we get out, now!” shouted Xenophon.
“We can’t jump from inside the ship. We’ll tear the Titan apart and kill hundreds, maybe thousands,” Tamara shouted.
“Very well, everybody out, through the starboard escape hatch and away from the security patrol. Come on, we’ll find another ship.”
Xenophon was first through the hatch, closely followed by the others. They dropped down beside one of the large landing legs and moved behind it, staying in the shadow of the craft. It wasn’t a second too soon as the guards were already inside the dromon and searching for them. The klaxon continued to blast in their ears and made talking difficult outside of the sound dampened spacecraft. As soon as it had started, the noise stopped, only to be replaced by the shouting of a familiar man. It was Komes Pasion, and he could only be a short distance away now. Roxana grabbed Xenophon and pulled him close to her face.
“What are we going to do?” she demanded.
“Uh, okay, see that transporter, the one with the containers inside?” he said and pointed off down the landing bay to a large dromon. It was sat alone with a number of machines nearby. It was one of the civilian models used to move freight between ships.
“Do it!” said Glaucon without even bothering to check.
They moved from the cover of the leg and ran to the next dromon, a battered looking military vessel with a number of holes the size of a man’s head running along its fuselage. As they moved passed its battered structure, Xenophon couldn’t help but remember his experiences on the Plymouth Station prior to its capture. Heavy weapons had caused terrible damage, great holes and tears had ripped through its structure as he and a few other fortunate crewmen managed to escape. They moved to the end of the vessel and looked out at the space of nearly fifty metres from their position; and to the only viable craft that could take them from the Titan.
“There they are!” shouted a man off into the distance.
Near one of the fighters were a group of around a dozen guards, of which at least half were stratiotes, the light infantry used in the Legion. One fired a warning shot, and the rest ran towards their small group.
“Now or never, let’s go!” shouted Glaucon.
He ran forward and covered nearly a third of the distance before the rest gave chase. Tamara showed a rare burst of speed and managed to make it at the same time as Glaucon to the target, and the rest arrived a short distance behind them. Roxana glanced behind them, watching the approaching guards and soldiers and turned back, shouting as loudly as she could.
“Move it!”
As they started moving up the ramp, they were they hit by a volley of gunfire. The impact of the pulse rounds left small marks on the metal of the craft but penetrated no further inside. Xenophon moved up the ramp and jumped inside. A loud crack sound followed, and he staggered back and collapsed onto the ramp. The others stumbled over him, and Tamara managed to catch her foot and fell down next to him, groaning at a pain spreading up from her ankle. A large man appeared in the doorway. He was stripped to the waist and wore the overalls worn by some of the Arcadian spatharii, the heavy infantry of the Legion.
“Nobody gets on board my ship!” he snapped and then stepped down the ramp. His hands were raised in a traditional boxing stance. Glaucon pushed ahead, not even thinking about what to do next. The massive man swung his fist, but Glaucon expertly dodge the punch and followed up with a quick jab to the man’s jaw. It was a strong punch, but it did nothing more than force the giant to shake his head and spit onto the ground.
Glaucon stepped back and looked down. Xenophon was out cold, and Roxana was helping to lift Tamara to her feet. He looked behind them and spotted the guards who were now almost on them.
“Too slow!” he muttered and hurled himself one last time at the man. This time he judged it right and crashed into the man’s stomach. He forced his shoulder hard into the soft flesh, and the two men collapsed inside the dromon. They rolled about on the floor of the craft, knocking over a small table covered in machine parts. He managed to put in two punches before the man was able to
respond. The first return punch struck Glaucon on the chin and sent him spinning to the floor. He was sturdier built than Xenophon, and with a shake of his head leapt back onto the man. He lifted his hand to strike only to feel cold steel pressed against his head.
“Pentarchos Glaucon, I presume?” asked the man, and then with a single strike, one of the men hit him hard in the face with a rifle butt. He dropped back down, knocked out cold by the powerful blow.
Roxana and Tamara turned to face their adversaries; it was Komes Pasion and his guards. The senior commander wore most of his combat armour and had evidently not changed since his return from the briefing with Clearchus and Cyrus.
“I take it you were thinking of running?” he said angrily.
“No, we are returning to the Legion, just like we signed up to,” snapped back Tamara. Roxana tried to rein in the young girl, but her passions took the better of her. She continued her rant.
“We aren’t Arcadian, and we have not made an agreement with the Medes, just a contract to fight in the expedition led by Cyrus.”
Komes Pasion smiled at her.
“No, you have a contract to serve with the Olympia. Perhaps you should have read your paperwork a little more closely. You work for Terrans, not alien filth like Cyrus and the rest of his mongrel family.”
He looked to his guards.
“Bind them, and then take them all to the brig!”
Arcadian Titan ‘Olympia’, Thapsacus Sector
The three friends sat in silence along with another half a dozen stratiotes who had refused to return with the Arcadians. In the twelve hours since the return of Dukas Xenias and his commanders, it was clear there was a great deal of unrest on the ship. Normally, the Olympia would be crewed by an Arcadian military crew, but for this expedition only a skeleton crew had been supplied by the government for a substantial price. Over half of those on board were from other colonies and planets, even including some of the Arcadians rival such as the Atticans.
Xenophon lay against the wall alongside Glaucon, both of whom were nursing sore heads. Roxana sat nearby and was busy speaking with Dekarchos Maxentius, one of the warriors they had fought alongside with back at the Cilician Gates. He wore a scruffy uniform that was torn along the shoulder and had evidently been caught up in one of the many skirmishes on board the Titan.
“How many of you tried to get out?” she asked him.
“Get out? No, this was a meeting with our Komes. We explained we were unhappy with the plans of the Dukas and intended to leave. Next thing I know we are getting jumped on the way to meeting him. One ended up with a broken leg. He’s still in medical, and the rest of us were thrown in here.”
A younger fighter with a cut on his cheek interrupted them both.
“We should have kept our mouths shut. Now we won’t get paid by Cyrus or the Arcadians. We’ll be lucky if we get transport fare to even get home now.”
Roxana and Maxentius sat in silence, watching the crew as they moved about. Their cell was easily big enough to house thirty prisoners, and there were another five rooms, each facing towards the middle security section in a hexagonal shape. A groan from the right caught their attention; it was Glaucon. He groaned again and lifted his hand to his head. He must have touched a painful bruise because he moaned at the touch.
“Bloody hell, what happened?” he asked, more to himself than to anybody else in the room. Roxana lifted herself up and moved over to him. All were still wearing their combat fatigues just as they had during their abortive escape attempt.
“We screwed up. The Komes and his security detail threw us in here along with anybody else who had the same idea.”
“Same idea, so it’s not just us, then?” he added in mixture of surprise and annoyance.
The noise must have woken Xenophon because he shuddered and slid over; almost knocking his head on the floor before one of the other stratiotes grabbed him.
“Hey, easy fella!” he called out.
Xenophon flailed about until he regained his bearing and managed to sit up. His first view was of Roxana, and for a second he looked reasonably relaxed. Then he saw the bruised Glaucon sat along the wall, and it all flooded back to him.
Oh great, we’re still here, he thought angrily.
The familiar feeling returned; the strange free-floating feeling that occurred just prior to an FTL jump. Xenophon forced himself to stay still and try to avoid vomiting at the sickening feeling. With great effort, he managed to keep it down until with a dull thud the ship completed one of many FTL jumps away from the Armada. He looked around and locked his eyes onto Roxana.
“How many jumps is that now?” he asked.
Roxana looked at him, pleased he was finally conscious but also less than happy at their predicament. Every minute they spent away from the Armada was yet another obstacle between them returning to the Legion.
“I don’t know, at least seven, maybe more,” she answered.
He shook his head and slumped back down into position with a grim expression on his face.
Seven jumps. That could easily put us at least half the way back to the Terran border, assuming that is where we are being taken.
“You know the real reason we have left the Legion, don’t you?” asked a gruff old warrior. He sat in the corner of the brig and kept his head low. The rest of them ignored him and kept talking among themselves. The man continued, even if nobody could be bothered to listen.
“The Laconians are back on the warpath, and the Medes are worried. Artaxerxes might even fund a coalition to keep them occupied. We never should have fought them you know!”
Only Xenophon paid attention when he heard mention of the Laconians.
“What do you know about this? You’re just a soldier, like us.”
The old man looked at Xenophon and spat on the floor.
“I’m nothing like you, boy. I fought in the Alliance Navy for over twenty years until idiots like you back home sent us to war with the Laconians.”
Xenophon shook his head in disagreement.
“No, I never voted for that. I pleaded for people to vote against war. It was a war we would never win.”
Glaucon came over and sat with them both.
“It’s true. Xenophon went on and on at the time, and people didn’t believe him, not even me.”
The man looked at them both for a short while, and it was clear he was remembering something but he couldn’t quite work it out. He looked at Glaucon and then back to Xenophon.
“Wait, you’re Xenophon, son of Gryllus?”
Xenophon nodded.
“You were the Prefect of the Inner Ward if I’m not mistaken, after the war? Your father served with the Thirty during the reconstruction.”
Glaucon nodded to him.
“That’s right, and for their service his father was murdered by one of the Thirty. Now we we’re both on the watch list and can’t return home.”
Xenophon nodded miserably.
“All because of that bitch...”
“Montoya?” suggested the man with a questioning tone.
They both looked to the old man with a mixture of surprise and interest on their faces. Xenophon pulled himself closer to the man. Before any of them could speak, the door to the brig opened, and another two men were thrown inside.
“Stay in there with your friends!” snapped the guard. He locked the door shut behind him and walked away.
Xenophon waited until the guard had gone before speaking.
“How do you know all this?”
“I told you, I used to be in the Alliance Navy, intelligence division.”
“What about Montoya? You heard about her?”
“Of course, in the last few weeks before the fleet was broken up, and the Alliance was disbanded, we saw her at Headquarters. There were rumours she was working with the Laconians before the surrender order was given. She’s a powerful figure in the civilian government now. It was clear then, either you worked with her, or you got out. I knew your father.”
“My father?”
“Yes, Gryllus and a small group of senior officials worked with us on a peaceful accord between Attica and the Laconians. It was a simple plan to allow a transition from a wartime state to one committed to peace with Laconia.”
Xenophon nodded in agreement.
“It’s true. I spoke with my father about this on several occasions. Most Attican officials wanted to fight a war of resistance after our defeat. Gryllus and his friends persuaded them on a course to avoid conflict. Montoya was always against this plan, for her it reduced her power. That’s probably why they made her one of the Thirty, a compromise to keep her quiet.”
The old man tilted his head as if to say that Xenophon might be right.
“Anyway, I heard a group of representatives from most of the main powers have been in talks with the Satrap Tissaphernes.”
Roxana now seemed intrigued.
“You mean the idiot we just helped at the Gates? Why would they be meeting him?”
The man smiled.
“That’s a good question. I do know that Secretary of State Montoya is there, as well as people from a dozen other states. The rumour is that he is assembling a coalition to buttress up against Lysander.”
Glaucon sighed.
“Old man, you seem to have a lot of information for a man that is now an imprisoned soldier on an Arcadian warship. Why would a regional Median commander be looking to fund a coalition of Terrans? Isn’t Cyrus already doing the same thing?”
“A good point, but this isn’t to do with what is happening here. It is to do with the Laconians. Have you not heard the news about Lysander?”
Two guards approached the door and looked inside. It appeared they were trying to find somebody. They were about to leave when one noticed the conversation between the group in the corner.
“Hey, shut it!” he barked.
They stopped and looked at him as did the many other prisoners, all of them looking at him and waiting. He looked at an electronic report in his hand. The corner of his mouth twisted upwards into a smile of satisfaction. A few more seconds and he looked back inside the brig.
Black Legion - The First Trilogy Page 30