Machine Gods (Star Crusades Nexus, Book 2) (6 page)

“
What the hell is
going on?
” shouted Spartan, more to
himself than the others.

He spun about wildly
and crashed into the back wall. The weight of the Biomech was
immense, and if it hadn’t been for the reinforced torso of his PDS
suit, he would have been crushed to death by the impact. One of the
Biomech’s arms flailed out and knocked his carbine from his
hands.

Bastard!

Spartan was used to
this kind of messy close-up
combat and so
tugged the M11 tactical bayonet from its sheath. The precision-made
high carbon steel weapon was perfectly built for the Marine Corps.
It was one of the few pieces of equipment he’d been allowed to keep
after leaving. Though simple in its design, it was constructed to
be capable of functioning without breakage in operating
temperatures of -25 to 135 degrees Fahrenheit. With the skills he’d
learnt back well before being a marine, he stabbed the weapon
repeatedly into the Biomech’s neck. Most amateurs would have used
the edge of the blade, but he knew the power of this weapon lay in
precise and powerful strikes with the tip. Each stab embedded the
blade deep into the thing and sent spurts and blobs of blood
pumping from its flesh.

“
Spartan, there are
more!” shouted Khan
.

At the same time,
Khan snapped the creature’s neck that lay just a few centimeters in
front of his face and threw his spare carbine from his armored suit
to Spartan. It drifted and almost missed, but a last minute grab by
one of his other operatives caught it and spun it back around to
Spartan. He pulled back the slide and took careful aim. It was only
a low-powered sidearm but did carry a substantial twenty-round
magazine with reinforced tip ‘castles’ ammunition. The final
creature pulled itself toward them, but this time they were all
ready. The volley of gunfire tore holes out of the enemy as it
moved lifelessly toward them. They moved off to the sides where
they could be certain of keeping their flanks protected, and then
pushed on.

“
All units
secure your positions. This ship is infested
with Biomechs, I repeat; this ship is infested with Biomech
creatures. They are hostile and will attack you on sight. Stand
your ground and prepare for assault. You have full clearance to use
your weapons.”

The confirmations
from the two other squads still in contact quickly acknowledged his
order. Spartan knew full well that wandering about in such an
infestation could quickly result in the loss of every single one of
his operatives. He’d seen it so many times before where teams of
soldiers or marines had been trapped or surrounded by the
creatures. In a confined space, they had a massive advantage where
their strength, speed, and ability to sustain terrible wounds were
more useful than long-range firepower. Of all the men and women in
the Alliance, Spartan was probably the single most experienced and
successful fighter of the Biomechs.

“
Spartan, we’re
getting readings from deeper inside the ship. I’d say the Biomechs
are here to protect something. I also have three signals falling
back to this part of the ship.”

Spartan looked to
Khan. The Biomechs falling back was something unfamiliar to him. In
previous battles, the Biomechs had simply pushed on repeatedly
until they had achieved total victory. By withdrawing, they were
allowing a level of tactical skill and awareness that hadn’t been
seen before.

“
Maybe there is
something a little more interesting than these bastardized
creatures on this ship?”

He stamped his heavy
magnetized boot onto the skull of the nearest dead Biomech, as if
to emphasize his anger. It crunched through the creature, leaving
broken flesh and bone on the bulkhead. Even though he wore a fully
sealed suit, his face was easy to see, and he was angry, very
angry. As he looked down, he seemed to pause, fascinated by the
grisly destruction on the ground.

“Khan, do these look familiar?” he asked
bitterly.

Khan was already
picking through the remains before casting them aside. He nodded at
Spartan.

“
Yeah, they are
similar to the beasts we still hunt on Hyperion, same bone
structure and muscle placement; no way are these synthetics.
They’ve been butchered, just like our creatures.”

Spartan looked as
if
he was waiting for something
different. Khan looked back at the skull and spotted something. He
moved his head slightly to get a better look.

“
You’re right, they
aren’t exactly the same. These creatures are closer to the T’Kari
than us. Look at them.”

He held up the
shattered head of the nearest dead creature. Though badly crushed,
it still retained most of the shape. Spartan looked at it
carefully, paying particular attention on the muscular jaws and
forehead. He’d actually met similar ones on board a transport
trying to flee the fighting at the Siege of Titan. Just thinking
about that fight sent trembles through his body. They were fast,
strong, and deadly in close combat. He looked down and examined the
broken arms of the thing.

“
Yeah, they are far
less developed than the ones we fought back home. I think you’re
right. They’ve been harvesting
T’Kari and
using them as raw materials for these creatures. I bet that’s how
they beat them in the end. The two things we know about them is
that they are highly advanced but also completely useless in
physical violence. These creatures will have been the perfect
weapon to use against them.”

Khan shook his
head
.

“
They aren’t as
strong as our enemies
though, and we
still beat them,” replied Khan with unashamed pride; the fact that
his people still hunted the mutated creatures, once more confirming
his feeling of superiority.

“
Alpha, the Raiders
are about to leave the wrecked ship. You’ve got eight minutes,
tops.” It was a dull voice from the well-hidden transport they’d
all arrived on.

Spartan nodded to
himself at the n
ews. It forced his hand
but made his job much easier. He had no interest in staying aboard
this ship a second longer than was absolutely necessary.

“Affirmative, prep yourselves for immediate
extraction.”

He then looked back to his small team.

“Let’s finish this.”

He
pushed away from the walls and drifted further
inside the ship. Khan was right behind, followed by another two of
the operatives. They moved quickly through the vessel but came
across no signs of the T’Kari or their mutated creatures. It took a
full minute to cover the distance to the main corridor directly in
the center. A number of large doorways ran off in different
directions; the largest surrounded by glyphs. Spartan recognized
them immediately as T’Kari writing.

“
This is
it. Ayndir explained to me at the intelligence
briefing that this is the marker for the command section of the
ship.”

“
Let’s get in there
then,” s
aid Khan.

He pulled himself
through the doorway and inside what should have been the command
section. The lighting was low, but the sensors on all the
operatives’ suits were flashing with warnings. There was life in
this part of the ship, more so than anywhere else. They moved even
deeper until coming to a bank of machines surrounded with clear
tubes filled with fluid. The pipes ran out into the walls and
bulkheads. Spartan looked at it all with a mixture of surprise and
repulsion.

“
Above!” cried Khan,
simultaneously lifting his right arm.

The
brig
ht flashes from his arm-mounted
weapon slammed into the creature’s soft flesh, and just as before,
each one was cut to pieces and chunks of flesh scattered around the
weightless interior of the ship. Three more of the creatures
emerged from the shadows before the assault finally stopped. Each
of the APS operatives moved closer to the machine and the pipes.
Spartan examined the structure but noticed the engineering was
definitely not the same as the equipment he’d seen on human ships.
The principles were the same, but this looked unique to the T’Kari.
The head was the most obvious part of the creature that shared some
of the important facial features of the T’Kari.

Why the
hell are there Biomechs on a
T’Kari Raiding ship?

As the four looked
on
, a dark shape appeared from the
blackness. They all lifted their weapons, expecting another
onslaught from the foul things. Instead, it was a man wearing a
respirator and odd clothing. He staggered and flailed about as if
he’d never moved in a weightless environment before. Khan lowered
his arm slightly as he looked at the figure, a glimmer of
recognition showing on his face. Spartan knew him
immediately.

“Pontus?”

The man looked as if
he was nodding but then twisted his head about. He lifted his hands
and drifted up to the ceiling before crashing and spinning out of
control. He then dragged and clawed at the floor, trying to move
toward the APS operatives. Unlike the biomechanical creatures, he
was having a hard time making any sort of progress in the zero
gravity of the ship.

“
What the hell is
wrong with him?” asked one of the two operatives, waiting at the
flanks of Khan and Spartan, but neither looked at them, as both
seemed awestruck by the sight of the man. One of them lifted his
carbine, but Spartan reached out and blocked him.

“No, not yet!”

Instead, he moved
out in front and grabbed hold of the man. He pulled him straight
and pushed his weightless body up against the wall. His clothes
were different, more like those worn by the T’Kari civilians, and
there were bruises and cuts on his face. He yanked and tugged at
the mask on his face, gasping in the thin, barely breathable
atmosphere.

“
Who...who are you?”
he demanded with great effort.

Spartan pulled him
close so that the man was directly in front of him.
He’d wanted this man for so long, and it took
every measure of self-control not to shoot him where he
stood.

“
You know me, I’m
Spartan,” he said through clenched teeth.

Pontus looked back
at him without even a glimmer of recognition on his face. It was
then he spotted the smashed remains of the Biomechs and recoiled in
terror. It was this reaction more than any other that surprised
Spartan. The last time Spartan had seen Pontus; he’d been with the
machines and Biomechs of the enemy as one of their trusted
commanders. Spartan gripped tighter and pulled the man close once
more.

“
Don’t play games
with me. Your name is Pontus, and you are the most wanted man in
the galaxy.”

Khan moved to
Spartan and gazed upon his sworn enemy. The man seemed just as
terrified at the sight of Khan as he was at the other non-human
creatures on the ship.

“
You worked with the
machines,” he stated, his voice dripping with venom. “You helped
them and the Biomechs to wage war against your own people. Millions
died because of you.”

Khan, normally stoic
in these situations, clenched his right fist, desperate to exact
some revenge for the massed suffering of his own comrades at the
hands of Pontus and his friends.

“
Pontus?” cried out
the man, “No...no, that’s not me.”

Spartan lifted his
armo
red fist in a threatening manner and
looked into the eyes of his enemy. He could see genuine horror and
fear staring right back, and it worried him.

“
I don’t know
who...my name?”

He reached for his face as though expecting to find
somebody else.

“
Who am I? Where am
I? Are we in space?”

Khan shook his head angrily.

“
Tell us
what are you doing here?”

Pontus started
spluttering, his voice confused and scared. Spartan was forced to
lower his hand to try and calm the man. After a few more confused
words, his voice started to make some sense.

“
I woke up on the
bed in there, with the others. The pod opened, and I fell out, and
moved toward the door...and here.”

He then turned to Spartan and grabbed him, pleading
desperately and pathetically.

“
Please...you have
to help me. There are things in there, terrible things.”

The other two
operatives pulled themselves around the pipes and machinery in the
center of the ship. They moved with great skill in the weightless
environment, better in fact than most marines could have managed.
One disappeared behind the large pieces of metal before quickly
reappearing.

“It’s like the AI hubs they used on our ships.”

“Hubs? Are you sure?” asked Spartan.

The man nodded back without even checking.

“
Yeah, I saw the
vids. T
his is definitely the same
tech.”

Spartan had expected
to find exactly that. He recalled the incidents years ago where the
Zealot
s, a religious terrorist
organization, had made use of biomechanical creatures to wage war
on the colonies. These half-machine and half-biological systems had
been miniaturized and sneaked aboard military ships so that they
could be turned on the fleet. He suspected this ship had been
configured to operate in much the same way.