Ghost Soldiers

by Michael G. Thomas

  "Hush," said Kanjana.

  Her voice was a whisper, little more than an echo in the dark passageway, but both marines halted in their tracks and reached for their firearms. Kanjana shook her head slowly and lifted the knife in front of her visor. At that moment a small aerial vehicle, little bigger than her head, drifted into view. It buzzed quietly as it entered the shaft and then scanned in the direction ahead of where they were going. Three small ducted-fans provided the lift, and Kanjana noted the thing looked suspiciously like the units used by the Maverick suits, but for reconnaissance.

  Wait, what's that?

  For a moment, Kanjana had relaxed at the sight of the reconnaissance drone. There was one detail that was off, and as she looked closer, she could see other pieces of equipment as well as wiring that had been fused directly with its body. It turned and began to move closer, and that was when she struck. A quick movement saw her blade punch up into one of the rotor units, and it quickly lost control. She then grabbed it and threw it to the floor, smashing her boot down hard on the thing.

  "What? Why?" Richards mumbled.

  Kanjana bent down and pulled at the wiring with her blade.

  "Because it's been compromised. Now, keep moving. We have a job to do."

  She moved away and completely ignored the questions they'd asked her. Until now it could have been assumed the enemy was defeated, or at the very least in hiding. This drone proved one thing them; the machines of the enemy were active, and that they were still looking for them.

  Kanjana lifted a foot over a mound of electrical cabling, one of which had split and was sparking intermittently. Each time a spark touched the floor, it would send ripples of white and blue across its surface. By the time she had passed it the other two were close by, and also trying to pass over without touching it. Richards made it, but Jarvis tapped the flashing blue shapes with the heel of his boot. Patterns spread back into the shaft, and the sound of the mechanical creature began to increase.

  "Run!" Kanjana said.

  Ten paces were all it took to clear the shaft and she was out, and inside a wider passage. The two marines were close behind, and both had their carbines ready for battle. The machine sounded louder and louder as it homed in on the exit point of the shaft.

  "Move it, marines!"

  They made it another thirty metres when the thing burst out from behind a bulkhead seal. It opened fire with a weapon that emitted a scream of electrical energy in a burst. It looked like bolts of lightning as they crashed into Jarvis' armour, each impact sending incredible energy inside and cooking him alive. His screams sent Richards into a panic, and he stumbled back, falling flat onto his back.

  "Fire!" Kanjana screamed.

  She had already whipped out her pistol and opened fire. Unlike most pistols, this one was fully automatic and released magnetised slugs that punched small holes into the thing's structure. It appeared lightly armoured, and each strike caused some damage. The machine scuttled to the fallen Richards and lifted a hidden limb that extended out into a cruel looking spike.

  "No!"

  Kanjana rolled across the floor and grabbed the XC1 carbine that Jarvis had lost. She ducked under the first impact from the machine's limb and placed the muzzle on its carapace. One shot after another sent super-heated plasma deep into its core, pulverising its innards and melting wiring, metal, and motors with ease. As it thrashed about, it swung the spike towards her, the hardened tip heading for her lightly protected neck.

  "I'm here!" Richards yelled.

  He'd already lifted himself from the ground and jumped in its path. Either through luck or judgement, he managed to take the block on the shoulder, and the spike slid down, leave a deep gash almost half a metre long. Incredibly, it only punctured the outer layer. The impact was still enough to send him staggering backwards. Kanjana took the opportunity to fire six more shots. All of them slammed into its centre mass, obliterating what remaining of its control and power circuits. With a final shudder, it dropped to the ground like a dead spider.

  "Look at that, what is it?"

  Richards pointed at the point where the damaged machine touched the blue pulsing floor. Ripples were moving about its broken form, and it was already beginning to shudder. Both of them took aim and blasted it one after the other until little remained. Kanjana looked to the marine.

  "That is why we keen on going. This creature has control of energy and equipment. Spartan wanted us there, to be able to disable the power on command, and that is what we're going to do. It might be the only way to buy time for our friends."

  Richards still wasn't sure what the point was. But with Jarvis dead, and his ribs burning from the spike's impact down his body, he decided to stick to her suggestion.

  "Okay. But you're going to have to explain to me something."

  "What's that?"

  He looked back and pointed at the machine. "What the hell is going on out here?"

  * * *

  Unidentified Derelict, Sector Sixteen, T’Karan

  "Spartan...Spartan! Open your eyes, you fool!"

  He opened his eyes and found Khan looking down at him. The JAS armour was battered to a degree he'd never seen before. There were jagged marks running along the chest as though a giant shark had bitten him. Dark patches marked with electricity had lashed about him, and blood ran from a dozen small puncture wounds.

  "What...what happened?"

  Spartan tried to sit up, and a dull agony rushed through his body. The armour automatically pumped in stimulants, painkillers, and a boost of adrenalin. He could already feel his muscles beginning to relax, and his body adjusting to the fact he'd been lying on his side and bent over a shattered machine, presumably for some time.

  "It's gone. I think it's gone, anyway," said Khan.

  Spartan looked about where they had fallen, but there was little left to mark the scene of their violent battle. Khan spoke again, but something else caught his attention. It wasn't Khan, but the sound coming from his internal communications.

  "Wait, hold on," he said firmly.

  The audio was difficult to make out, and he detected multiple voices, all distant and heavily distorted. Even this dazed and confused he knew it meant something violent was occurring.

  "...dead...breaches, level five. Fall back behind the SAARs!"

  Spartan immediately recognised the nervous orders from Lieutenant Anne Lee.

  "More of them coming from below. Stay in your quadrants. Keep firing. You heard our orders. Nothing gets through, not one damned machine!"

  Spartan felt a flutter of pride at her calm demeanour. Whatever had happened, it was obviously bad, and he suspected his entire force might have been overrun while he'd been away. What made it worse was that he was convinced they'd already won the battle. The sound corrupted badly, and then cut, only to return with a different person speaking.

  "Two dead, three wounded. Falling back to the dropships."

  "Lieutenant Kipling, there are more of them coming, and the barricades are not ready. I've only got eleven marines here, all of them are wounded, and we're running low on ammunition."

  The sound of her voice was replaced by heavy breathing, and Spartan could hear her barking orders to her marines. Finally, her voice returned, but he could sense the shakiness to it. He activated the command network.

  "All units, this is Spartan. Respond."

  The confusion of voices was immediately silenced and replaced by the voice of the Lieutenant. Though the officers were technically of the same rank, it was clear she had taken over as the officer in charge.

  "Major, we thought you were dead. The energy surge destroyed over fifteen decks and blew out the habitation dome. We assumed your team had been destroyed in the attack."

  She swallowed uncomfortably.

  "We received a single message from the Admiral Jarvis Naval Station. Help is coming. We have to hold on for another six hours until help arrives."

  Spartan turned a little back at Khan.

  "Six hours,
how can they get here that fast?"

  Khan shrugged, and his JAS armour groaned as he moved his muscles. Only then did the two of them spot the battered Maverick armour of Sergeant Tyler. He lifted up onto his feet and staggered towards them. Gashes in the armour were so deep it was possible to see him inside and his M-3 close-fitting body armour.

  "It's not possible, not using a conventional ship."

  Spartan and Khan both spoke at the same time.

  "Gun!"

  The Sergeant dropped to one knee and Khan reached out to help him. Fluid dripped from the left flank, but it thankfully it was lubricant from the motor system, not from the man himself.

  "Major, we regrouped at the canteen as ordered and have barricaded it securely. I sent out teams to find you, but all were ambushed and forced to move back. We assumed you were gone. It was our intention to hunker down until relieved."

  Spartan spoke over the channel, but doing his best to keep his voice calm and assured. He wanted to ensure his people remained motivated and effective.

  "How long have we been gone?"

  The audio crackled and distorted the first few words.

  "... least twenty hours."

  Spartan gasped at that. He assumed they might have been knocked out for minutes, perhaps an hour. Not almost a full day. It was barely credible to him.

  "Sir. In the last three hours we've been hit by sporadic attacks. They were nothing major at first, but they have not stopped. I suspect the surviving war machines are looking for signs of weakness, a way in so that they can breach our defences. In the last fifteen minutes they have increased in their intensity. I suspect they monitored our communications and know help is coming."

  "Understood," said Spartan.

  He deactivated their audio for a moment so that only Khan could hear him.

  "They want us dead before help arrives. This will be an overwhelming assault."

  Khan said nothing for the moment, so Spartan reactivated the audio.

  "We found the creature, a massive artificial war machine that has taken control of this vessel. It is powerful and resourceful, capable of bending machines and technology to its will. We fought it, and it vanished in a massive denotation."

  "Detonated, Sir? Is it definitely dead?"

  Spartan looked over to Khan, who had had bent down to look at the shattered parts of the enemy war machine. Little remained, with much knocked into the vast chasm like pit. Chunks were embedded in the walls, and yet that which remained was enough to build something the size of a Maverick armoured marine. Spartan moved closer and pushed a piece of broken metal to the left.

  "It was a marvel of engineering, a true fusion of hardware and software. On'Sarax would have been intrigued."

  Khan cleared his throat.

  "Yeah, it was a bloody miracle, Spartan."

  He then pointed to large scratch marks on the floor.

  "Something dragged itself away from here."

  Then came that horrific high-pitched whistle, the sound they had last heard when confronting the machine. The sound told them one thing.

  "It lives," said Sergeant Tyler.

  Spartan was already heading back the way they had come from. His massive armoured suit made loud thuds as its boots crashed into the floor.

  "We're coming in. Get ready, their final assault is imminent."

  "Understood, Sir. We're defending four compartments connected to the primary passageway leading into the derelict, as well as the canteen and the bridged passageway you used. What is coming?"

  Spartan growled back, "I don't know. Dig in and use everything you have to keep that passageway clear. Do not, I repeat, do not let anything come through. You're all that is protecting our ability to leave the ship. If they get past you, they will move around us and capture the landing bay. Do you understand?"

  The radio crackled gently.

  "Yes, Major, understood."

  "Good. Do not let them in. Seal the breach at the bow and blast apart anything not human. We're coming to the canteen blast door. Be ready for us."

  "Yes, Major."

  He threw a quick glance at Khan.

  "This is it, old friend. We need to get back."

  "What about that thing?"

  Both of them looked at the wreckage littering the ground. It was then that Spartan noticed the pulsing energy on the floor. It was subtle but had altered shape slightly around the broken machine parts. One of the limbs was vibrating ever so gently. Spartan swung his leg and kicked the wreckage over the edge of the massive pit.

  "Fair enough," said Khan.

  Spartan was off at a slow jogging pace, and his armour emitted all manner of sounds as he moved. Usually, the Maverick armour was the epitome of advanced engineering and quality, but with the damage they'd sustained down here it was incredible any of the equipment even worked now.

  "Let's go."

  They rushed back through the derelict, throwing caution to the wind and trading safety for time. The ground was littered with the shattered remains of soldiers, some recent, and others decades old. Behind him ran Khan, his powerful limbs propelling him forward just as fast as Spartan, whose own body had been amplified by the Maverick armour.

  "Target, left passageway," said Sergeant Tyler.

  They were moving so fast that all three were in the passage as a machine moved in to block them. This one was wheeled and looked suspiciously like the fusion of the upper body of a Grunt, along with the lower half of a SAAR robot. It cradled an L48 rifle in its arms, likely one of the support weapon taken from a fallen marine. It must have expected to ambush them, as it moved slowly, cautiously, and took careful aim at the centre of Khan.

  "Mine!" Spartan yelled.

  He pushed off the ground and leapt ahead, crashing shoulder first into the machine. Both slid along the floor and jammed up against the wall. Spartan pulled back, activated his arm hammers, and then punched away, one after the other. He began to shout as he struck, and with each impact the adrenalin surged through his body. The boost of adrenalin provided extra power and mobility to his aching body, and the intensity of the strikes increased. Khan moved up, crashed his fist into the machine, and then dragged Spartan off it.

  "Enough, we have to move."

  His voice was stern, and Spartan struck the machine one more time before looking away.

  "These machines, they're really starting to..."

  "I know," agreed Khan.

  Sergeant Tyler arrived a short distance behind Khan. He panted, and Spartan suspected he might have suffered broken ribs, or even worse, a lung injury.

  "I have more reading behind us. They must have thought we'd been killed, or at least incapacitated."

  "Yeah, well, we're not," said Khan.

  Spartan cast aside the smashed chunks of machine and returned his fists to their normal articulated shape. He then pointed off into the darkness.

  "In that case, let's take this up a notch, both of you. It's time to get the hell out of this place."

  Ignoring pain or discomfort, all three broke out into something bordering a sprint. Each time something moved in the shadows, Spartan would want to take cover and clear the way ahead carefully. There was no time, though, and instead of stopping they opened fire as they ran. At one point they moved into as hall where a trio of walking machines were waiting on a balcony, ten metres up and directly ahead. Spartan and Sergeant Tyler blasted them with their shoulder-mounted HEC-1 cannons, and Khan unleashed a long burst from his Gatling gun. They never checked to see if the targets were damaged or destroyed, and simply surged on ahead.

  Spartan's stomach was tight from the tension as he expected to run into an ambush or booby traps. He might have slowed down, but the shouts for help on the command network encouraged him to move faster. Unlike the majority of the marines, the Maverick armour he wore would allow him to absorb the brunt of a major attack, even to level of vehicle-mounted heavy weaponry. In a bizarre twist of fate, the armour he'd developed was almost purpose built for this new task of
navigating a treacherous vessel such as this.

  They finally reached the chasm that marked the barrier between the long-abandoned Trusskan cruiser and the rest of the derelict. As Spartan led them across, he thought back to his last two encounters with the machine. The first time he'd been convinced he was winning, and the second time ended in a blast. Now all he could hope was that if it came to another fight, he would be able to muster the numbers and firepower to deal with it. The creature, or entity as some still called it was unknown to him. Its ability to create a weapon was unlike anything he'd seen before. To operate independently, and to modify and construct on its own, was advanced to a level unimaginable in the Alliance. What truly astounded him was the technology here on the derelict was ancient, hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years old.

  What would the Trusska be like if they were still alive today? Their civilisation would be generations ahead of us. They might be like Gods to people like us.

  That thought sent a shiver down his spine. He'd had quite enough of so-called master races for now. He skidded along the floor and narrowly avoided crashing into the wreckage of a machine.

  "Major. The machines have breached the blast doors. We're falling back to the barricades."

  Spartan swore off channel and looked back to make sure the other two were with him. The route through the bow of the cruiser was a weak point and less easily defended than the canteen. More important, it had multiple small passages and shafts that led right back to the landing bay. He stopped and then activated the command channel.

  "Lieutenant Kipling, how many Mavericks do you have?"

  There was a pause of three seconds, a time delay that left him more than a little concerned.

  "Major. Four, but one has a non-functioning primary weapon."

  "Not a problem. Send them to Lieutenant Anne Lee, and hurry, 3rd Platoon needs help fast. We cannot let them breach 3rd Platoon's barricades."

  "Yes, Sir."

  Khan activated the blades on his arms and lowered his stance a fraction, all the better to defend himself. Spartan looked to his friend and felt that deep down pang of guilt he always did when sending somebody off on what could be their last mission.