EVE®: Templar One (54 page)

“You’re entitled to your opinion,” Admiral Freeman said.

“Aren’t we all,” Mordu said.
“You know what a Moros dreadnought can do, and he’s within firing range of your surface troops.
If he had any hard feelings, you’d have known about it—”

Before he could finish his sentence, the Avatar’s Judgment beam lashed out, obliterating one of his dreadnoughts in a terrifying flash, and with it some four thousand souls.

The beast then began aligning itself with the planet’s surface, pointing its mammoth bow toward the Admiral’s fleet.

“That’ll be one of yours next,” Mordu warned.
“Whatever it is you came here for, you’re not going to get it unless we cooperate.”

“Sincerest condolences on your loss, Commander,” Admiral Freeman said.
“We don’t have enough firepower to take that titan down, but we can hit her supporting ships.”

“Now you’re being sensible,” Mordu said.
“Can you spare a fighter wing?
If our bombers focus on their logistical fleet, our capital weapons will be much more effective.”

“I’ll give you two fighter wings, plus a few drone carriers if I can get them in range,” Admiral Freeman said.
“You can call primaries and assign wings to escorts, but they’ll confirm the order with me.”

Mordu’s tactical display erupted with more chatter—above and beyond the cries for help in his own fleet—as nearly three hundred new contacts warped into the field, almost directly on top of Admiral Freeman’s fleet.

Every single one had a Caldari State IDENT signature.

*   *   *

“WHAT THE FUCK!?”
Admiral Freeman shouted, as collision alarms sounded throughout the bridge.

His immediate thought was that Mordu had somehow betrayed him; this was quickly discounted when he realized these were all Caldari ships.

He next believed this new fleet was the Caldari Navy coming to the assistance of the Amarr.
But instead of targeting him, the armada charged directly past, blasting through the Imperial ships in the way and rushing forward to establish position over the colony.

The fleet, he finally realized, was comprised entirely of Ishukone Watch ships.
Sixteen Wyvern-class supercarriers were now in the battle.

One of them began hailing him, as the glow of its six engines passed over the Nyx’s forward runways.

“GFS
Passaic
, this is Chief Executive Officer Mens Reppola of Ishukone,” the voice said.
“We have no quarrel with the Federation Navy or the Gallente Federation; we are acting independently of the Caldari State, Tibus Heth, and the Caldari Navy.
You are in no danger from us.
I repeat: You are blue to our fleet.
To demonstrate our goodwill, we’re going to assist your operations against the Imperial Navy.”

A barrage of directed railgun fire obliterated an Imperial Abaddon-class battleship trading long-range fire with the
Passaic;
a second volley annihilated its cruiser escorts.

“I do have one request, though,” Mens said.

Admiral Freeman saw a pair of Phoenix-class dreadnoughts warp into the gauntlet, not one hundred kilometers from where the Mordu’s Legion battlecruiser
Morse
was positioned.

“Please do not interfere with our surface operations,” Mens continued.
“We’re aware that Federation troops are on the ground.
They must not enter the Core Freedom perimeter: Doing so could cause confusion that leads to unnecessary casualties.”

The Phoenixes began deploying fleets of dropships.

Ishukone Watch was invading Pike’s Landing.

“Mens, thank you for the assist,” Admiral Freeman said.
He had to buy time somehow.
“You’ve certainly given us a lot to think about.
Stand by.”

He noticed that Eagle One was frantically trying to reach him, and switched channels.

“Go ahead, Eagle One; make it fast,” he said.

“Commander, we’re with the Three-eighty-eighth division moving west toward Core Freedom.
We have high assurance that the HVI we spotted earlier is your target.”

“How do you know?”

“Because there’s no way a man walks away from the carnage we saw,” he said.
“The whole thing was caught on gun camera; you have the footage on WARCOM to see for yourself.
Immortal or not, those HVIs were using the toughest biotech I’ve ever seen.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“He just breached the colony perimeter,” he said.
“We’ve got fast movers tracking him, but they’re busy dodging SAMs.”

“Keep your eyes on him but slow your advance west,” he said.
“Ishukone Watch is dropping two divisions onto the elevator terminus.”

“
Who?
”

*   *   *

MACK LAUGHED AS THE WHITE-HOT ROUNDS
of the Panther’s cannon intersected with the gold-plated armor of a Paladin, sending chunks of the man hurtling in several directions at once.

Then the sound of small-arms fire peppering the fuselage sobered the mood.

“Shit,” Jonas muttered, wrenching the craft over and pushing it past the cover of several buildings.
At times they were flying as low as a few meters over the ground, weaving in and out of the colony’s outpost structures while taking shots at ground forces and the occasional mobile SAM site.

But they were starting to get desperate.

“What the hell are we doing here?”
Jonas cursed, as the nose gun spat out some more rounds into a building.
“For all we know, the last guy you gibbed might have been him!”

“We’re hoping for a miracle,” Gable said.

“Well, you better hope a little harder, because things are looking pretty fucking bleak,” Jonas said.

“Bad feeling,” Mack admitted.
“Gut says we should go.”

“How much fuel is left?”
Gable asked.

“At this rate, less than ten minutes’ worth,” Jonas answered.

“You said it yourself,” she said.
“We’ve sacrificed so much.
I say we keep looking for another ten minutes, and then we can leave with a clear conscience.”

“And drag everyone else through mud?”
Jonas said.
“The fleet is getting hammered!”

“That didn’t matter to you before we got into this,” Gable said.

ESSENCE REGION—VIERES CONSTELLATION

THE LADISTIER SYSTEM—PLANET IV, MOON 4: RÉNEALT

PRESIDENTIAL BUREAU STATION

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE GALLENTE FEDERATION

Jacus concluded his press briefing and left the podium, exiting through a hallway leading from Federation Hall to the Ready Room.
Grand Admiral Ranchel was waiting for him inside, along with Directors Orviegnoure and Blaque, all of them having followed his communications with Admiral Freeman.

They all erupted at once.

“Why the hell did you send down the entire division?”
Admiral Ranchel roared.
“Could you be any less discreet about this?”

“You let both suspects in the disappearance of my men go free!”
Director Blaque said.

“And you’re assuming too much from entirely circumstantial evidence,” Director Orviegnoure moaned.
“You’ve committed us to war on a personal whim and broken the most delicate foreign policy we have!”

Jacus glared at each of them for a moment and then cleared his throat.

“All of you, leave the room,” he said.
“Now.”

“What is this?”
Admiral Ranchel blustered.
“Some kind of joke?”

“Admiral, either get into a ship and protect this nation’s borders or send me your resignation,” Roden snapped.
“While you’re deciding, get out of my Ready Room.
Same for all of you.
Out.
”

Roden’s eyes glowed green, staring each of them down.

Ariel was the last to leave, shaking her head as she did.
When the door shut behind her, he keyed the fleetcomm TACNET.

“Admiral Freeman,” he said, pacing back and forth.
“Please ask Mordu and Mens Reppola if they’ll join me for a conference.
Tell them it’s personal.”

“Stand by.”

Jacus waited, mindful of the fact that everyone in the office was staring at his cabinet members arguing outside the Ready Room.

“Alright, Mr.
President, we have Commanders Reppola and Mordu listening,” the Admiral said.

“Thank you,” Jacus started.
“Gentlemen, we have a history of shared interests.
The Federation is here because we recognized a threat to our national security.
So it’s time to come clean about our reasons for coming to Pike’s Landing—just among us, no one else.”

There was silence at first, which Jacus saw as dangerous given they were all in a firefight.

“We can contribute to each other’s goals,” he continued.
“So I’ll speak first: We have reason to believe the Amarr have deployed immortal soldier technology on Pike’s Landing.
We lost contact with a team sent in to investigate, then sent more troops to recover them.
During this operation we made contact with a prototype and are actively tracking its movements as we speak.”

“Mr.
President,” Mens Reppola said.
“You are aware that I’m acting independently.
Tibus Heth has nothing to do with this.”

“Yes, I understand,” Jacus said.

“I have detailed schematics of the tech,” Mens said.
“We haven’t had time to analyze it yet, but the source is reliable.
We’re here because we need a prototype to help reverse-engineer it.
Doing so in the shortest timeframe possible is of utmost urgency to Ishukone.
We have no intention of profiting from it.”

“Understood,” Jacus said.
“Now, why is the Legion here?”

“We made contact with a prototype,” Mordu said.
“One of our mercs knows the man personally.
We’re attempting to recover him right now, with the intent of developing the technology ourselves.”

“So we’re all here for the same thing,” Jacus said.
“But to what end?
Deterrence or aggression?”

“Amarr has done enough to leave its mark on history,” Mordu said.
“I won’t let them paint our future in gold.”

“Heth will destroy Ishukone,” Mens said.
“I need this technology to defend it from him.”

“And I can help both of you,” Jacus said.
“If my government objects … then I’ll bring the assets of Roden Shipyards to bear on this matter.”

“So then how do we help each other right now?”
Mens asked.

“Simple,” Roden said.
“You have the blueprints.
I know where the prototype is, and Mordu has the best chance of capturing him alive.”

“If we get him,” Mordu asked, “what happens then?”

“We start the research,” Mens said.
“I own a facility in nullsec.
It’s secure.
Including me there are three people alive who know where it is.
I can make arrangements to have your personnel brought there to participate in research, on the condition its location remains a secret.”

“I agree to those terms,” Roden said.
“So we have a joint venture now?”

“How do we know that everyone will honor their word?”
Mordu asked.

“We don’t,” Roden said.
“But we have no reason to distrust each other now.”

“Fair point,” Mordu said.
“I’m in.”

“Done,” Mens said.
“Where’s the prototype?”

“Admiral Freeman is now authorized to disseminate that information,” Roden said, glaring at his incompetent cabinet through the glass.
“I’ll leave the tactical collaboration to you.
Work together, gentlemen.
You need to be your best right now.
Good luck.”

34

MORE SMALL-ARMS FIRE PEPPERED
the underside of the Panther as it raced through the colony, hugging the terrain to avoid the deadly SAM sites located throughout.

In the back of his mind, Jonas had known all along that he was in over his head.

With no formal military training as a dropship pilot, Jonas had picked up his skills mostly on his own money from commercial flight schools in the Caldari State.
Flying and ship captaining were hobbies long before they became the enduring profession of his life.

As it was, commercial schools did little to teach pilots some of the more crucial aspects of military flight, like learning how to avoid surface-to-air-missile fire.
Granted, automated electronic countermeasures and stealth systems—the Panther was well equipped with both—did more to neutralize attacks than human reflex did, especially at high velocities.

Military academies taught students that flying low and fast were advantageous if the objective was to hide from opposing gunships and radar installations.
However, this tactic was not advisable when the antiaircraft system was designed to strike targets from above.

The Viziam AV-11 “Block” antivehicle missile had two acquisition modes: “direct optical,” in which the operator pointed the weapon at a target manually and waited for the guidance system to lock its image into memory; and “seeker” mode, in which the user selected from a list of known vehicle types and fired blindly.
Not only was the Block’s targeting software smart enough to recognize the shapes of different aircraft, but it could also recognize their heat signatures, meaning it could defeat adaptive camouflage systems.
If the guidance system spotted the designated target within its sensor cone, its 4.5 kilogram shaped charge warhead was hurled toward the target at speeds that made it all but impossible to evade.

Once the warhead cleared the launcher, it traveled straight upward, tipped over, and sought its prey from above.
There were no active targeting systems, and thus little to warn recipients that trouble was imminent.

An inexperienced pilot could easily mistake its signature vertical contrail as an errantly fired missile.
And by now, enough Paladins had seen the Panther skirting in and out of cover around the colony to tell the weapon exactly what to look for.

As such, a Block missile rocketed off a rooftop that Jonas saw clearly but ignored, and slammed into one of the Panther’s Vectorex engines from above.

The craft pitched and spun wildly, sideswiping buildings twice as it lost power.
To his credit, Jonas held on to the stick and made a commendable effort to control the craft’s final descent.

But the landing was going to be violent no matter who was flying it.

*   *   *

“JONAS IS DOWN!”
Miles yelled.
“Korvin, can you see him?”

“Affirmative.
I see them,” he responded.
“There’s movement; stand by.…”

The Panther crashed into the rubble mound of a partially collapsed building; the entire wing with the destroyed engine had broken off on impact and tumbled a short distance to the bottom, where it continued to smolder.
Though listing to one side, the craft was resting on its stomach and, other than the gaping hole in the fuselage where the wing once hung, was surprisingly intact.

Korvin saw the rear ramp open partially and jam; then he saw the sparks of plasma torches erupt from the seams.
When the door fell away a few seconds later, the craft’s six-legged Rantula sentry drone emerged.
Standing at nearly two meters tall, the machine began circling the wreck, gracefully navigating over rubble and debris, searching out its surroundings for hostile targets.

Mack hurried out next, clawing his way to the top of the Panther’s intact wing, where he tore open a service hatch and plunged his hands into the cowling.

“
Morse,
we’re alive,” Jonas said.
“Ah … is there a way out of this mess?”

“Jonas, stand by, we’re working on getting you air support,” Blake said.

“Right,” he said.
“Korvin, what’s your recommendation?”

“Dig in and get ready for a fight,” he answered.
“About two dozen foot mobiles are approaching your position, and a pair of tanks is within three klicks.”

“Tanks?”
Jonas asked.

Mack had pulled the gun turret out of its housing and set it down; he was now frantically pulling out belts of 20mm-charge ammunition.

“How bad is Gable hurt?”
Miles asked.

“I’ll live,” she said, obviously in pain.
“Jonas can’t fly worth shit.”

Blake saw something terrible unfold on her display and froze.
The Avatar had just blink-warped across seven hundred kilometers of space, positioning itself within firing range of their group.
The fighters were now escorting the titan as it prepared to fire its Judgment weapon.

The shrill alarms sounding off on the bridge alerted everyone to the danger.

“Korvin!”
Blake exclaimed.

“I know,” he said.
“There’s nothing we can do about it.
Blake, get the
Morse
at least thirty clicks away from me and take that destroyer ring with you.”

Korvin activated an automated warning for his crew to abandon ship.

“What’s going on up there?”
Jonas asked.

“Tell Mack to set that cannon up facing the northwest; that’s the direction six of the bad guys are coming in from,” Korvin said.
“I’m going to bombard those tanks.
Pay attention to my countdown; you’re outside the blast radius, but you better be behind cover when the hate comes down.”

“Korvin, it’s targeting you,” Miles warned.
“Wait a second—what are you doing?”

Life pods began ejecting from the Moros; the siege-door bays had retracted, and dozens of shuttles and dropships were pouring out.
Korvin began losing control of the ship: It was now stuck in its present orbit with its propulsion systems disabled.

The only equipment that worked were his camera drones, surface optics, and siege cannons.

“You guys are in charge of picking up my crew,” Korvin said.
“Now get out of here!”

*   *   *

GABLE WAS WONDERING
if her back was broken.

“Are you hurt?”
Jonas asked, looking her up and down.
“I don’t see any injuries…”

She reached inside her vest and pulled out the pendant.

“Mack, overwatch,” Korvin said.
“Six tangos approaching from the northwest, sixty meters out.
Two from the east at forty meters.”

“Gable, we’re in deep shit,” Jonas said.
“Can you walk?”

She took Jonas’s outstretched arms and attempted to get out of the seat, but she felt incredible pain radiate from her lower spine through her hips and legs.

That was actually a good sign, she knew, even though she screamed.

“Alright, well … this is going to sting a little,” he said, as she felt a needle plunge into her neck.
A furious adrenaline rush made the pain fade—somewhat.

As she gasped for air, he pressed a rifle into her hands; she tried to refuse it.

“You have to fight!”
Jonas said, pointing her toward the open hatch in the rear of the craft.
He pulled up a collapsible blast shield in the deck and let it fold over onto its back.
“Stay behind this, rest the barrel on top, and shoot anything that moves.”

Mack lumbered past the open hatch, dragging several coils of 20mm ammunition with him; his enlarged cybernetic arm was hoisting the enormous cannon like a bag of luggage.

“Get ready,” he said.

“I’ll be right up front,” Jonas said, now looking scared.
He was out of his element; this was not his game.
“Yell if you need me.”

Hurrying through the twisted cabin, he made his way toward the gaping hole where the wing used to be.
He braced himself against the fuselage and pointed a rifle through.

The Rantula suddenly took off, bounding down the rubble hill and stopping midway; a 40mm shell was fired with a
thoomp
from its weapon mount into the third-story window of the building across the street.

Jonas saw two men blown out of the wall in the resulting explosion as the drone scurried back toward the rear of the craft where Gable was and stopped, its multifaceted head swiveling about, scanning for more danger.

Beam fire lanced out at it from the northwest; one struck the drone in a flash of sparks.
Damaged but not incapacitated, the Rantula began moving away from Gable’s position, drawing more beam fire.

Then Mack unleashed the 20mm cannon.

Gable was deafened by the sound as it thundered in the same direction that the drone was now firing.
Its rounds cast an eerie strobe in the night as they passed over the rubble and silt.

“Good hits, good hits,” she heard Korvin say.
“Mack, the roof of the building at your twelve o’clock … Wait until he gets to the edge.… Now!”

She saw the rounds streak up until they hit the top of the structure; Mack howled in triumph as the material exploded and a sniper fell four stories in a hail of debris.

“Strike coming down in ten seconds!”
Korvin yelled.
“Three targets approaching from the south!
Gable, that’s your line of fire!”

The Rantula darted back toward the front of the craft to help Jonas, who was now shooting into the darkness.
She looked through the thermal optic scope of her weapon and saw the bright white heat signatures of several Paladins sprinting toward her from more than a hundred meters away.

“Five seconds,” Korvin warned.
“Gable, you have to shoot.”

One of the figures fired; the pulse beams were off target but hit the fuselage nearby.

“No,” she said, caressing the Amarr symbol around her neck.
“I won’t do it.”

“Lifegiver, please!”
Mack shouted.
“Shoot!”

The sky brightened; streaks of lightning lashed out of the clouds as a bluish white beam erupted from a vortex in the sky.
A clap of thunder slapped at them nearly the same time as the sound of the explosion itself.

“Heads down!”
Mack warned, too late.

A bubbling wall of dust nearly as tall as the buildings rushed over their position; all three of them started coughing.

“Gable, listen to me,” Korvin said gently.
“No matter what you believe in, if you don’t defend yourself, they’ll kill you.”

She looked through the viewfinder; two of the Paladins were getting back up to their feet.
Jonas began firing again; the Rantula was wreaking havoc farther down the street.

“I don’t kill,” she said.
“I’m sorry.”

“That’s admirable,” Korvin said.
“I wish more people had your strength.”

Mack was the only one who could see it: A bright star in the sky, so bright it could be seen through the dust cloud swirling around them, suddenly went nova as a beam of light impaled it.

Grabbing the remaining 20mm rounds, he leapt down to where Gable was.

“Jonas!”
he shouted.
“Time to move!”

*   *   *

KORVIN SAW THE BEAM
hit his ship from the outside perspective of his camera drones; then the imagery shook and went black as his pod mechanism attempted to activate.

He was dead by the time he realized it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway.
The Judgment beam was too powerful, melting through the dreadnought’s shields, armor, and hull in an instant.
But that realization happened inside the mind of a clone—not inside the mind that had just been vaporized over Pike’s Landing.

There was an incoherent darkness that lasted for a few moments.

“Good morning pilot,” a woman’s voice said.
“Try to relax.
Your vital signs are excellent.
Do you know what your name is?”

Having been through this a few times already, Korvin knew he was inside a CRU.

“Korvin Alexander Lears,” he answered.

The screen in front of him retracted.
Two Federation MPs and a spindly looking officer in a Navy uniform were standing over him.

“Captain Lears,” the officer said.
“You’re under arrest for the charge of treason against the Gallente Federation.
Do you understand this charge?”

Korvin remembered everything that had happened to him since the last time he died.