Star Crusades Nexus: Book 03 - Heroes of Helios

by Michael G. Thomas

  “Sir, you have my father’s company to thank for the armor improvements!”

  She smirked at his comment, pulling on him to lift herself up into a crouched position. The marines were not fully armored as they were wearing their dress uniforms for purposes of the important visit. Each did have the smaller regulation breastplate and shoulder armor more commonly used by scouting units and Special Forces. Their dark clothing hung over the plating like a medieval tabard and hid most of the armor. Short, highly accurate bursts tore down from their high position, and as quickly as the attackers had arrived, they were gone. Lieutenant Rossen stepped up, keeping close to the metal ribbed section of the ship.

  “Everybody to the surface, now!”

  “Sir, the bodies?”

  She looked back at the shattered bodies of the Helions and the one Alliance crewman who must have been caught in the crossfire. The blood stains on their torsos and their grotesque positions told her all she needed. Even so, Thai Qiu-Li checked each of them before leaving. Just the young female Helion was breathing, but she was wounded in the arm. Thai Qiu-Li pulled an emergency sealant bandage from Jack’s backpack. They all carried the small unit fitted to the back plate of the marine armor. As well as additional communications gear, they included auxiliary power and a basic medical pack. She pulled it tight, and the young woman groaned with the pain. Fresh red blood dripped down and onto Thai Qiu-Li’s arm. For a second she jumped, but her training kicked in, and she ignored it and quickly finished her job.

  “Okay, she’s clear for now.”

  She threw a final glance at the bodies, “The rest are down, Sir.”

  “We should hide back inside the ship. There could be more of them!” cried the now terrified crewman. Unlike his more boisterous comrade who had succumbed to the gunfire, this man was evidently shaken up by the close ranged violence. Jack had seen it before, as had the others. While sympathetic, the Lieutenant was well aware of the dangers of letting this kind of panic continue. She grabbed him by the scruff of his bloodied overalls.

  “Crewman, what’s your name?”

  “Uh…Midshipman Harvey O’Donnell,” he muttered, his voice almost unintelligible.

  She pulled him even closer.

  “Midshipman O’Donnell, I’ve had enough of you. Now, get off your ass and follow us. There is only one way for us to go, and it’s down!”

  Hunn and Wictred stormed off ahead of the others, both keeping their carbines in the ready position. More fog started to drift back onto the ship, and they only saw the ground when they were just ten meters from reaching it. Hunn was first and moved to the body of one of the Helions that had opened fire. There were three more around him, and a single round had hit each. Wictred moved another five meters past him to give him cover.

  “Let’s see what we have,” said Hunn, pulling the robe away from the fallen warrior’s face. Beneath was the pale skin of the Helions and no discernible uniform or armor. On the floor next to the body was a short rifle of no more than a meter in length. He reached out to hold it, but as soon as his fingers touched the grip, the rib section turned red and burned his fingers. The device emitted a low level beep that continued every two seconds.

  “What the!” he snapped in surprise.

  “What is it?” asked Wictred.

  Hunn shook his head in annoyance.

  “Looks like they booby trapped their weapons.”

  Lieutenant Rossen was now there along with Jack, Thai Qiu-Li, and the wounded Helion female who immediately walked up to the weapon and pointed at it. Wictred stared at the gun as she spoke.

  “That’s not a rebel weapon,” she stated firmly.

  “What do you mean?” asked Jack, “Who are you, and what do you know?”

  “Helion soldiers use those. I’ve seen them before.”

  Rossen and Thai Qiu-Li moved closer to examine the body. The sound caught Thai Qiu-Li’s ears, and she turned to the Helion female.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Salene.”

  Thai Qiu-Li looked back at the weapon.

  “You say you know this weapon? Why couldn’t the rebels have just stolen them?”

  There was no time for her to answer as the sound from it had changed. Thai Qiu-Li stepped closer to it, but the young Helion woman stopped her.

  “No, you mustn’t.”

  “What is that noise?” asked Hunn as he approached it. Without waiting for an answer, he extended his foot and kicked it. The weapon tipped over, and the sound became even clearer, increasing in tone though not volume.

  “Uh, is it me, or does that sound bad?” he said like a guilty child.

  “Bad?” asked Jack.

  The words had already left his mouth before he realized what he was saying.

  It’s another God dammed trap! He jumped up and turned his head to his comrades.

  “It’s gonna explode, move!”

  All six of them ran with just Salene standing right next to the body. Jack surged past her and grabbed her about the waist. Her light weight made it easy for him to keep going without having to brace himself. He made it almost ten meters when the weapon exploded. The blast was a high-pitched scream that sent a super-hot wave of energy in all directions. He was blasted to the ground, along with the rest of his comrades, apart from Wictred who somehow took the blast and stayed on his feet.

  This is insanity!

  Jack was on his back and shaking his head when he realized Salene had been knocked right on top of him. He was about to speak, but Thai Qiu-Li beat him to it and extended an arm to help her up.

  “That didn’t take you long, did it?” she said with surprising bitterness to her tone.

  “Hey, this time it wasn’t me!” he replied with feigned hurt.

  Jack then pushed himself from the ground, wiping the dirt from his face. If he’d been wearing his full PDS armor, none of this would have mattered. As it was, part of his dark gray tunic was burned, and he noticed black marks on Hunn and Lieutenant Rossen.

  “Everybody okay?” asked the Lieutenant.

  “Yeah, no problems here,” said Jack.

  Hunn and Wictred seemed completely unfazed by the entire thing and just nodded.

  “No problem here, apart from being shot at,” said Thai Qiu-Li sarcastically.

  “Wait, where is the crewman?” asked Lieutenant Rossen.

  They each turned to try and find him, but there was no sign of him, just the shadows of more and more people clambering down from the crashed ship. This time it was Jack that spotted the tiny yellow lights in the distance. He jumped to the side in time to avoid another burst of gunfire. More rounds struck nearby, but they all took cover in the smashed masonry.

  “This is Lieutenant Rossen, commander of 3rd Platoon, 2nd Company. We’re under fire, can anybody read me?”

  The marines all checked their zones of fire, looking for any more of the attackers while the Lieutenant tried to reach anybody else. She continued speaking, but the roar of a vessel above them drowned out the sound. Jack looked up and watched as the bird-like outline of a yellow ship moved down through the fog. It looked a similar size to an Alliance gunboat, but he didn’t recognize the design. What he did spot though were the cupola mounts on the flanks of the craft. Pairs of long gray barrels moved until they pointed down directly at the marines.

  “Go, go, go!” he screamed, and ran out from the cover.

  Wictred grabbed Salene, and the small group jumped out as well, chasing Jack from the rubble and into the fog-covered street. In seconds, they were away from the wrecked city block and in a scruffy highway that seemed to be filled with abandoned land vehicles and trash. People wandered about aimlessly, and others watched from the low level buildings.

  “There!” shouted Wictred.

  He pointed his arm up high and toward the largest building in close proximity. It was nothing like the great towers and spires they had seen throughout Helios, but it must still have been six or seven stories high. Somebody leaned out of a small wind
ow and waved to them. A man’s voice called out, but the words meant nothing to any of them, except Salene.

  “He is a local worker, and he says to get inside quickly!”

  None of the marines moved. They had been trained to make their own decisions, and at that moment, the word of either Salene or this stranger meant little to them. The sound of the Helion vessel became louder, which only served to make the man shout even more. The door on the ground floor opened, and a pair of Helions with fabric wrapped around their faces stepped out. Both were armed with short firearms of a type none of the marines had ever seen. Jack and Wictred immediately lifted their carbines, but Salene stepped out in front of them and raised her pale hands.

  “No, they are Zathee. They will not…”

  A streak of smoke whistled past and struck the building a few meters from the structure. One of the Zathee rebels disintegrated from the explosion, and the second was knocked back inside the doorway.

  “Well, they want to kill them as much as us!” laughed Wictred.

  “Get inside and keep your heads down!” shouted Lieutenant Rossen.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  General Shears is a figure shrouded in controversy, due to his conduct in the Great Uprising. His antagonism towards Confederate forces over local troops was one of the reasons so many systems fell into enemy hands. As the commander of ground forces, he was responsible for the massive and bloody battles that raged for months. It was in these battles on Proxima Prime where the enemy troops were finally broken and routed. Though capable of rallying the shattered remnants of the Confederate army, it was the assistance of the Marine Corps that made victory possible. New Carlos was saved but at great cost to both him and its people.

  Heroes of the Great Uprising

  Another Helion transport moved over the crash site and lowered itself a short distance away. The massive fans extending out from the vessel kicked up a great cloud of dust, providing the perfect cover for the cloak clad figures of Helion soldiers. Salene and the marines kept quiet as Jack watched from a crack in the broken wall of the building. The dark figures spread out with speed and efficiency, instantly betraying them as some form of military elite.

  “That’s the third aircraft now,” he whispered.

  Lieutenant Rossen started to move, but Jack shook his head. She stopped, and though frustrated, stayed low to the ground. The building they were sheltering inside was the first they had seen in any great detail in this part of the Helion city. Its surface was clad in something resembling obsidian; it was hard, smooth, and very tough. There were few decorations added anywhere and nothing on the walls or ceiling. What did make the place stand out as completely different to anything seen before was the vast amount of relief detailing on the walls themselves. Though only indenting by a centimeter at the most, they showed everything from animals and people through to cities, spaceships, and odd geometric designs.

  “Yeah, they’re definitely unfriendly looking,” explained Jack.

  The small group, including Salene, was halfway up the building and only a hundred or so meters from the crash site. They were close enough to be able to see part of the crashed ANS Conqueror, but not too close that they could be easily seen. They hoped so, anyway. Lieutenant Rossen pulled out her secpad once again but this time could not even get a connection to the scattered Alliance personnel around the site, let alone a direct link to the ships above, assuming they were still there.

  “What about the soldiers?”

  Jack watched into the distance, cursing to himself that he wasn’t wearing his full combat PDS armor that he normally would. The visor and computer system he usually used contained visual modes, thermal imaging, and optical enhancers that would have been perfect right then. There were even basic parabolic microphone functions in the latest models. Now he had to rely on just his eyesight, and it wasn’t easy.

  “Why didn’t they chase us, I thought they had found us?” asked Thai Qiu-Li.

  Jack shook his head but stayed at his post. He was just as interested in the equipment being carried by these new figures, as he was in what they were doing.

  “It makes sense. You saw that last volley of rockets they fired. They are shooting at anybody coming near the site. They must have assumed we were locals moving around this position.”

  As if in response to his question, the vessel took off and sent a blast of dust and fog around it. Jack was forced to pull away from the crack for the amount of dust that blasted inside. In seconds it calmed down, and he looked back to find the craft had vanished, to be replaced by a wheeled vehicle that mounted a number of large turrets.

  “Oh great, that’s just what we need.”

  One of the turrets at the rear swiveled and opened fire with a quadruple weapon mount of some kind. Streaks of yellow flashed between the guns and a building on the other side of the street. Part of the black obsidian type material cracked and crumbled, sliding down to crash into the street. A group of six cloaked figures threw a device inside. It instantly flashed and lit up an entire level before they entered the structure.

  “They’re going building to building,” he said, looking back at the others.

  “Why would the Zath...what are they called?” asked the Lieutenant.

  “Zathee,” explained Salene.

  “Yes, why would the Zathee be looking for us?”

  The young lieutenant checked her carbine and fidgeted with the safety as she contemplated their position. Being stuck inside a partially demolished tower, with nothing but lightly armed marines, was starting to unnerve her. Footsteps came from the next level down, and she immediately lifted her weapon, perhaps too quickly as Thai Qiu-Li moved to the right in case she was hit by accidental fire.

  “I don’t think it’s them that are shooting. How would civilians have access to that kind of hardware?” Wictred said in a bored voice.

  He nodded to Salene.

  “What is happening then?” continued Lieutenant Rossen.

  Wictred sighed before answering.

  “I don’t know. They are probably Helion security forces. They must be here to retrieve bodies and evidence before our ship is recovered.”

  “Yeah...” said Jack with obvious sarcasm, “Very nice of them. What I want to know is who is trying to kill us? These Zathee or your own security forces?”

  Thai Qiu-Li wiped her brow.

  “The shots that killed the Ambassador...they came from the ground, not far from that small lander.”

  Jack nodded.

  “Yeah, but why shoot us?”

  All of their eyes were suddenly on the young Salene. Before she had seemed quite calm, but with this much attention, her composure was starting to fail her. Her eyes were wide and her facial muscles taut, presumably from the stress. Wictred checked his carbine and then pointed his hand at her.

  “Why kill the Ambassador? Who would want him dead? Do the Zathee want him dead?”

  Salene stood up, for a second forgetting where they were, and marched over to Wictred. The warrior stood his ground, as the lithe but small female stood within a meter of him, and then struck his chest with her bare hands.

  “He was trying to help the Zathee!”

  Wictred took the strike while Hunn pulled her back. She wasn’t able to hurt him, yet she continued to try.

  “Help? How?”

  Salene looked at the creature stood before her. The two couldn’t have been more different. One was a small female Helion, the culmination of millennia of evolution. The second was a synthetic monster almost three times her height, strong, muscular, and built specifically for violence and war. Thai Qiu-Li grabbed her arm and turned her around to face her.

  “Who are you?”

  Salene’s face changed again, but this time she looked angry rather than the confusion or worry they’d all seen previously. Jack watched them all with interest.

  “Yeah, and how can you speak our language but these Zathee can’t?”

  “The Ambassador, he is…he was my father.”
<
br />   Thai Qiu-Li’s expression softened slightly, but it didn’t stop her questioning.

  “You’re not telling us something, are you? These soldiers are here because of your father. What did he do? What are they afraid of?”

  A loud crack came from outside the building as if a rocket had struck something. A small volley of gunfire followed it, along with shouting and screaming. The sound dropped until it was back as before and was replaced by a small group of people rushing up the staircase. Hunn leaned over the edge, looking down at the figures heading up.

  “Wait, I’ve got something,” said Jack from his position at the side of the room.

  “Yeah, we’ve got Zathee falling back this way too. What have you got?” asked Wictred.

  The two Jötnar moved aside, as the group of Helions climbed past them and then moved on upward. They wore a mixture of dull colored clothes, and one held a small pistol sized weapon in his hand. The group gave only the briefest of glances as they passed by the doorframe and were gone. Jack looked at Wictred briefly and turned back to the crack in the wall to keep a close eye on what was happening outside.

  “I can see the Captain and about a dozen of our Alliance crew; they must have just reached the ground.”

  Lieutenant Rossen stood up at this news, a look of relief forming on her brow. Her entire body language transformed at this piece of information.

  “That’s it then. We have our people on the ground and safe, and Helion reinforcements are here. We’ll get this sorted out, and then find out what your Zathee friends have been up to.”

  Jack shook his head.

  “No, that’s not it at all. You saw the Helion transports when they came in. Their guns were tracking us. I don’t trust them,” he turned to look at Salene, “any of them.”

  The Lieutenant was having none of it. She walked to the stairwell and reached the first step when Jack called out to them in a quiet yet firm tone.

  “Uh, guys. This doesn’t look good. Stay down!”

  Lieutenant Rossen took three more steps and then stopped.