The Last Praetorian (32 page)

Gunny had taken point at the front of the Marines and was
almost at the corridor intersection where the Syndicate troops had taken cover
when one of the soldiers appeared, grenade in hand!  Being only inches apart
the soldier was too close for the Marine sergeant to bring his weapon to bear;
at any moment the soldier was going to overcome his shock and release the
grenade!

In desperation Gunny did the first thing that came to mind,
releasing his own weapon and grasping the enemy soldiers hand in a vice like
grip, totally encompassing the grenade.  Having overcome the shock of appearing
face-to-face with one of the Marines and realising that he could not throw the
grenade the soldier brought up his energy pulse pistol and depressed the
trigger.  At point blank range the weapon couldn’t miss!

Almost immediately Gunny could feel the excruciating pain
spreading from his abdomen region, along his veins, like fire spreading across
dry kindling.  With alarms blaring in his encompassing suit of armour and
realising that he was only seconds away from blacking out, Gunny took the only
option left to him.  With the powerful actuators that were built into the suit
Gunny picked the soldier up like one might lift a small child and with a
massive heave threw the stunned soldier back down the intersection.  Moments
later a blinding light and massive explosion threw the Marine back against the
wall and he finally blacked out…           

Sometime later Gunny slowly came back to consciousness; the
first thing that hit him was the pain of a massive headache, caused when he had
hit his head due to the force of the explosion.  The burning in his abdomen
where the pulse pistol had hit quickly followed.

“Hey Gunny, you OK?”  The voice came from above him and,
finally managing to focus, he recognised the face of Jonas, one of his fellow
Marines peering down at him with a concerned expression on his face.

“Have we secured the shuttle yet?”  Reynolds demanded with a
hiss of pain as he breathed in.

“Not yet Gunny, we are just about to assault it now.  You
did a real number on that Syndicate squad with that grenade.  Well it’s their
own fault, what ass waves around an armed grenade!”  Jonas snorted in
professional incredulity.  “You need some help?”  He asked, noticing the chief
still on the ground and obviously in some pain.

“I want that shuttle so we can get off this piece of shit! 
So get moving, Marine!  I’ll bring up the rear to cover the retreat,” Gunny
insisted stifling another groan.  Jonas just grinned at Gunny before ordering
the other Marines.

“Let’s move out Marines!”  He called, “we have a shuttle to
secure!” Biting back another groan and trying to keep his movement slow to
avoid slipping back into unconsciousness, Gunny slowly pulled himself to his
feet.  Reaching down he picked-up his rifle from the floor and slung it across
his shoulder; no veteran Marine would ever abandon his weapon.  Using the
corridor to support his weight he slowly followed the other Marines towards the
docked shuttle.     

Fortunately there was only a token amount of resistance left
to protect the shuttle, as the main body of the Syndicate security forces had
already been overpowered, restrained or incapacitated by the Marines.  Hence
having quickly secured the shuttle bay, the Marines were just waiting for Jon
to give them the all clear to depart.  It would look damn silly to have come
all this way, secure the computer core, and fight though the syndicate
reinforcements simply to be blown to bits by a Syndicate fighter while
departing the station.

“Gunny, I think you had better come and have a look at
this,” one of the marines reported, grim-faced.

Gunny looked up in surprise; anything to turn a Marine’s
stomach was not good.  The shuttle bay broke out into several storage rooms,
where cargo both coming onto the station and departing could be temporarily
stored.  Leading the sergeant to one of the larger storage rooms, Patrick
almost gagged at the sight.  Crammed into the room, shoulder-to-shoulder, gaunt
faced, half starved to death, were rows upon rows of people.  Predominantly
women and children, but some men, all wore the expression of one resigned to
their fate.  Gunny did not need to take a second look to recognise people sold
into the misery of slavery.

Conducting a quick head-count Gunny found over fifty people
packed into the room.  Far too many people to fit into the small assault
shuttle, even if the Marines discarded their bulky assault armour.  As a
soldier Gunny had faced difficult battlefield decisions before and he
considered, briefly, leaving them behind to the Syndicate.  A quick glance into
the eyes of one of the terrified children, cowering behind its mother, quickly
dispelled that option.  The child was little older than Lieutenant Castle’s
daughter, whom he often read bedtime stories to.  He would not condemn any
child to a life of such purgatory.  Additionally, the sergeant did not even
want to consider what Jon would say when he reported abandoning so many
families to the Syndicate.

“Commander, Reynolds here,” Gunny called Jon who was on the
Eternal
Light
.  “We have a problem here.  We need a bigger ship…”

*****

Jon listened in growing disbelief to the report that Gunny
made regarding their gruesome discovery on the Syndicate station.  Cursing the
Syndicate, being involved in almost every illegal and underhand deal in the
sector, slavery was a new low; even for the Syndicate.  Jon swore that he would
put an end to this dreadful trade in human misery.  However, putting aside his
personal feelings Jon focused on the significant tactical problem at hand. 
With the
Eagle One
out of communication range in FTL and neither of the
ships in their possession possessing the capacity to transfer so many people,
they had a significant logistics problem.  Waiting for assistance was out of
the question, who knows who else had picked up the distress signal; for all Jon
knew further reinforcements were already on the way.  They needed a new ship –
and fast!

Checking the sensors, Jon was relieved to detect that
another freighter, already docked at the station, a few bays away from Gunny
and his marine team.  He had no way to know the status of the freighter as the
ship’s sensors reported that all of its systems were powered down.

“Gunny, I am detecting a docked freighter approximately 500
meters from your position, outer docking ring, three bays counter-clockwise. 
Status unknown as it is currently powered down.  Can you fly that thing?

“I can fly it,” was the confident response from Gunny. 

“Then double time-it Gunny.  I think we can expect further
reinforcements, of the unfriendly variety, very shortly.  I’ll give you cover.”

“Acknowledged, Reynolds out.”

Taking off his headpiece so that the already frightened
people could hear him without the suit’s amplifying speakers he called out. 
“Everybody listen carefully, my name is Gunnery Sergeant Patrick Reynolds, with
the Imperial, ugh…Confederation,
damn
… we’re the
Marines
and we
are here to rescue you!  We have a ship big enough to take us all that’s not
far from here.  I need you all to keep together and follow me.  I repeat we are
here to rescue you and take you to safety.”  The group of people just stood
motionless, just staring at him in disbelief.

“MOVE IT PEOPLE! NOW!” he screamed at the top of his lungs
in his best Marine sergeant tone of voice.  The terrified people fled out of
the room, in the direction of the shuttle bay, escorted by the other Marines
that had fallen into formation around the civilians.  Patrick momentarily felt
bad about shouting at the obviously deeply shocked prisoners, but unless they
moved quickly, none of them were going to be making it off the station alive.

Fortunately having incapacitated most of the station
security, following their assault on the computer core and then the Syndicate
reinforcements, on their way back to the shuttle, the remaining resistance was
extremely light.  Arriving at the freighter docking port, Gunny was relieved to
see the freighter still firmly docked.  He had nightmares on the journey of the
freighter departing, and the Marines being stranded on the station with the
rescued prisoners.

Instead all that awaited them was a small maintenance team,
frozen in disbelief at the sight of armoured marines, shepherding dozens of terrified
victims into the docking bay.

“Everybody that does not need to be here, out, NOW!” shouted
Gunny at the immobilised engineers.  After all, there was no point wasting time
and resources restraining the engineers when the entire station,
hell probably
the entire system
, knew that they were there.  Grabbing one of the
engineering crew as they scurried past Gunny lifted the poor man a couple of
feet off the ground, with the powerful actuators built into the armour.  “What
is the status of the freighter?” Gunny demanded of the terrified engineer. 
Eyes wide with terror he could not, or would not answer. Pointing his assault
rifle that was longer than his arm, at the engineer, he repeated.  “I won’t ask
the question three times, what is the status of the freighter,” Gunny
enunciated each syllable individually.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” the engineer babbled, falling over
his own words to answer the question.  “We were just told to secure it and
power-it down until its next run.”  Gunny tossed the poor tech aside and strode
powerfully towards the freighter.  The docking port had been sealed and
required a passkey to enter; fortunately this was not an armoured airlock, just
a standard security door.  Hence Gunny’s powered fist punched straight through
the door on the first attempt!  Actuators straining from the effort, Gunny
pulled the door wide open.  Looking through the docking port, Gunny was
relieved to see both the station airlock and the freighter airlock open.  Both
being thick and heavily armoured Gunny knew they would have taken considerable
effort to open.

“Jonas, inform me when everybody is aboard and strapped in.
Seal the exit behind you.  I’ll be on the bridge.”

“Sure thing Gunny.  You sure you can fly this?”

“They’ve yet to build a ship that I cannot fly, at least in
a straight line, Marine.”

“Aye, Aye, Gunny.”

Leaving Jonas to get the civilians on board, Gunny boarded
the freighter, and soon found the bridge.

“Let’s see now…” Gunny stated aloud. “We need main-engine
start.”  Flicking a switch at random, a claxon sounded throughout the bridge. 
Hurriedly flicking that one off, Gunny tried the one underneath it…
Aghhh-ha!

*****

Jon watched as the freighter’s engines powered up and the
vessel slowly pulled away from the station.

“Glad to see that you made it Gunny,” Jon called over the
ships communication system.

“Yet to find a ship that I could not fly, Commander.  Now
can I have a heading to the nearest FTL jump point?  I just need some time to
find where they have hidden the god-damn FTL controls.  Why do they keep insist
on moving these things around!”

Jon just laughed at the grumbling from the older man.
“Heading 64.8 to starboard.”

“We clear yet?”

“Almost Gunny, I still have one more fighter to shake-off
then I will follow you out.  Stay on that heading until I contact you again.” 

Running low on ammunition, Jon had been playing a
cat-and-mouse game with the last fighter.  Having seen all his fellow ships
destroyed, this last fighter was playing it safe, hanging back on the more
cumbersome shuttle’s tail and taking the odd pot-shot.  Deciding to put an end
to this game, now that the freighter was slowly lumbering towards the FTL jump
point, as he did with Miranda many months before he slowly started to reduce thrust,
ever so slowly reeling the other fighter in closer…

Unfortunately this time the
Eternal Light
did not
have the benefit of any asteroids close by, or missiles, Jon thought
disappointedly.  Well, the heavily armoured shuttle had already taken a beating;
one more hit was not going to matter.  With that Jon powered the thrusters to
full reverse!  From an external viewpoint it seemed like the shuttle stopped
dead in space.  The trailing fighter caught completely unawares suddenly shot
forward, clipping the shuttle with its portside engine.  This had the
unfortunate side effect of tearing the portside engine off, along with a good
portion of the stabiliser, resulting in the fighter going into an
uncontrollable spin.

Reversing thrust, once again, the
Eternal Light
resumed a parallel course with the freighter, and moments later both
disappeared into FTL with a brief flash of light. 

All that remained behind was a badly damaged station and a
dozen floating carcasses - all that remained of the Syndicate reinforcements;
buffeted by the solar wind from the distant star.

Present Day

Terra Nova, Zeta Aquilae System

Several weeks later the ripples from their raid on the
Syndicate station were still being felt throughout the Confederation. 

The first order of business on their arrival back at
Terra
Nova
was to see to the health of the rescued prisoners.  In a scene of
well-organised chaos, families disembarking from the captured freighter were
all given a cursory examination by one of the trained medical corps.  Those
deemed at high risk were immediately moved to the medical bay for a more
through medical examination and treatment.  Those deemed weak but otherwise
healthy were moved to the nearest cargo bay that had been hastily converted
into a triage centre.

The moment that all had disembarked from the freighter,
Lieutenant Edgar and his intelligence team descended on it like a pack of
vultures.  Starting with the ships computer, followed by the bridge, cargo hold
and engineering, Edgar and his team completed a complete forensic examination.