Warrior Chronicles 2: Warrior's Blood (6 page)

“Yes, General. I can. You allowed your personal interests to interfere with colony operations,” Lee Pan said. Pan was the Director of Off-Earth Sciences, the department which oversaw the Oxia Palus colony, as well as space station and satellite sciences. “You had no right, and very questionable authority to send over one hundred armed men to my colony.”

“Governor Taps req...” General Taps started, but Pan interrupted him.

“General, your brother violated the colony’s charter regulations by imprisoning Rand Gaines. Atlantica law is very explicit. Any colonist is expunged of all crimes,
real or perceived
, upon arrival at Oxia Palus. They may not be detained unless found guilty of a crime on Mars. Further, your brother was probably guilty of election fraud in the first place. That he requested additional security from you
before
the first incident involving Mr. Addison, and not through official channels, is indicative that he wanted an iron fist to enforce the legitimacy of his election.

“Doctor, I am offended that you would imply I used my position to furth...”

Pan stopped him again. “Shut up, General. Regarding Mars population, it has only declined because of the deaths of your men. Colonists who have chosen to move to the Aeolis site are still Atlantica citizens, and are still officially colonists. So far as we can tell, only Mr. Addison is not a citizen of our alliance. Governor Keen is acting within his jurisdiction to provide security for the colony. Either by use of our military personnel, or by other means. In this case, he has chosen ‘other means’, and we approve. There has not been a single serious offense on the colony since Mr. Addison’s people took over security.”

Pan stared at the general. “Of course prior to Mr. Addison’s actions on behalf of the colony, every serious offense on the colony in the last year had been committed by
your
security people and ex-governor Taps’ staff. Governor Keen has our full support. Unless you have other business, General Taps, you are dismissed.” Pan stood and pointed at the office door. “Good day.”

As he walked out of Pan’s office, Taps was fuming. He keyed his comm, said, “Activate ‘Ares Vanquished’. Now.” and placed the device back in his pocket.

--

A year on Mars lasts six-hundred and eight-seven Earth days. Because their orbits are different, the distance between the two celestial bodies varies from fifty-five to four hundred and one million kilometers. Accordingly travel time between the two planets varies greatly. Even from one day to the next. When the first
Diomedes
mission launched, the travel time to Mars would take twenty-three weeks. It would take twenty-five weeks for the second launch, and twenty-six for the third. The modules each targeted one of the three colony sites.
Diomedes One
was assigned to the Aeolis site, with the mission goal of disarming the facility completely.
Diomedes Two
would assume control of Oxia Palus. If both were successful,
Diomedes Three
would establish a stronghold at the Argyre evacuation site. If either of the first two missions were less than completely successful, module three would land and reinforce them as necessary.

All three launches would replace already planned supply missions. Fortunately for General Taps, none of them were scheduled to contain personnel, so he was able to replace all three cargoes with his own modules fairly easily. Under the guise of government secrecy, Launch Coordinator Alt didn’t even question the orders.

“And Mr. Alt, I don’t need to tell you how important it is that no one knows about the changes in cargo modules.”

“Of course not, General,” Alt said. “The first launch will be in three days time, with the other two launches following every thirty-six hours. That window will allow us the time to reset the tethering satellite and refuel the cargo flights.”

“Very well. The safety of the cargoes is paramount, so while I would prefer to launch more rapidly, I accept your safety windows. Thank you.”

Aeolis Colony

“Dr. Wills,” Cort said, “I have the rails aligned, begin module descent. Is the training group in place?”

“Yes, Cort. Three of our people and the trainees from Oxia Palus are with me. Once I open the module, they will conduct a mock customs search.”

--

Five hundred miles above the colony in geosynchronous orbit,
Diomedes One
rotated its gravity plate and began to apply its gravity well to the top of the module. Its onboard computer began to decrease its pull on the freighter module and the module descended, perfectly balanced between the gravitational pull of the gravity plate and the planet below.

“Okay people, game time. Neutralize any threats, then secure the area. Disruptors on setting two. Once we have a beachhead, we will send squad two to the control center while squad three confines the prisoners. Brace for touchdown.”

--

Cort pushed the module into place after it landed on the rails. The magnetic locks engaged and while Cort inspected the module exterior, Dr. Wills began making the power and environmental connections. The first indication something was wrong was that the interior of the freighter was already pressurized. This module wasn’t scheduled to have perishables, but Dr. Wills didn’t know that. He didn’t mention it to Rand in the control room, so Rand didn’t halt the connection procedure and double check the manifest.

--

Inside the freighter module, the lieutenant ordered the lights shut off.

--

“The exterior is clear, Doctor. I’m on my way in, open her up,” Cort said.

“Activating the airlock now. At least we won’t have to wait for it to pressurize,” Wills said over the comm system.

Rand was watching from the control room. This was a cargo module, it shouldn’t have been pressurized. “Wait! What do you mean, Doc?” But it was too late.

Cort felt the hair on his neck stand up as he listened to the exchange. He considered ripping the terminal airlock off the freighter module, but the damage to the rest of the colony would be extensive. It would also mean certain death to the people standing between the intruders and the rest of the colony. He was powerless.
For now.

“Intruders! Crewmembers down! Corridor four, terminal section! Facility lockdown!” Rand screamed colony wide. “Evacuate corridor four!”

Wills felt the disruptor hit. With the original synthetics in his system, he was instantly paralyzed. Even though he couldn’t move, he could still watch all of the customs trainees drop in front of him. The regular Aeolis security people were armed and brought their disruptors up and fired.

Sergeant Mai saw a trooper go down.
The idiot must not have activated his suit’s energy cage.
Without power, the suits were useless and unable to deflect the disruptor blasts. Fortunately, he would be fine when he woke up, and he was the only one to make the mistake.

Some of the members of the Addison pack who had former military experience had been trained and cleared to deploy the old style chemical propellant weapons Cort had brought with him. Two of those men, Dave Gaines and Mike Rage were playing dominoes in the cigar lounge. When the lockdown sounded Dave asked Rand not to block their route to the combat area. They stopped at the main armory cabinet and grabbed assault rifles and sidearms. Kay was in the control room now, and started operating the airlocks as the heavily armed pair passed from section to section.

“Dave, this is Addison. Pin them down with suppressive fire while Mike gets our people out. Kay, disconnect all power and environment from the terminal module. Once they have our people out Mike, you will have to disconnect the maglocks and the physical connections. Then these bastards are mine. Rand, warn Rhodes. They aren’t just stopping here. Total lockdown until our arrival. Then jam all communications.”

Dave began firing three-round bursts down the length of the two modules, careful to fire over the head of Mike Rage, who was crawling down the corridor.

“Prowlers, now!” Sergeant Mai yelled. Lieutenant Marks was down. One of the bursts from a colonist weapon had killed him. Another man was injured too but still moving. Blood was everywhere.

Mike pulled Dr. Wills out first. He didn’t feel paralyzed though.
Maybe they just stunned him.
Next he pulled out the trainees. Finally, he got to the last of the Addison crewmembers. Halfway back to where Dave was covering him, he took a Prowler hit to his legs. The heavier disruptor left him twitching on the floor of the module. The man he was dragging back had already been immobilized with a level three disruptor hit. In sleep mode, his synthetics completely deactivated. He died a moment later.

Dave saw the two go down. Dropping to his knees, he scrambled into the terminal module and pulled Mike out. Once past the airlock, he ordered Kay to close the doors.

“What about...” Kay started.

“Dead. Close the doors, dammit!” After the airlock was closed, he disconnected the two modules. “Full disconnect. Go get ‘em, Grandpa!” Everyone on the comm channel could hear the grim humor in his voice.

Mai felt the two modules begin to move.
What the hell? Oh, shit.
“Prepare to repel boarders!” He had the feeling that the predators had just become the prey. He fired off a burst transmission to the other two Diomedes modules.

Cort pushed the two modules five meters away from the rest of the colony. Then he climbed up to the top of the terminal module.
Let them listen to their deaths approaching.

“What is that, Sarge?” Corporal Kind asked Mai as they heard heavy metallic footsteps move down the top of the module.

“Bad news. Turn on your atmosphere. It’s coming in.”

Cort reached the end of the freighter and jumped down. He activated his vid and started recording visuals from the suit as well as his own audio. “What you are about to see is what happens when you invade our sovereign nation. Let this be a lesson to you all.” As he finished speaking, he forced the doors open.

Mai stood in front of his men as the doors opened. “Kill me if you have to, but they are just following orders. Let them live.”

“A noble sentiment, Sergeant. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. We can’t take prisoners because we could never trust them. And here on Mars, trust is why we survive. Their deaths will be reasonably painless. Yours will not.” Cort tore the man’s head from his torso, then he raised a sidearm and killed the others.

--

Inside again, Cort took off his helmet and surveyed the dead and injured. Kay was crying next to Dr. Wills. “Why haven’t you woken him?” he asked.

Rand said, “He’s dead. We don’t know why. Tom Depp is dead also. He took a prowler hit while immobilized. It probably killed his synthetics. Mike is going to be okay. He pissed himself from the electrical shock. We don’t know what killed Doc though.”

Cort put his hand on Kay’s shoulder. She looked up through her tears and said, “Make them pay.”

“I will.”
I promise.
Turning to Rand he said, “I want the schedules for all
en route
freighters. And I want to talk to Dar.” Cort looked at Kay again and said, “After you are done here. Right now, Kay needs you, and we have at least a week or two.”

--

“They tried to get off a transmission. It looks like it was just as you pushed them away from the colony. It did not go through. Still, someone somewhere, on Earth or on their way here, is wondering why they haven’t heard from these guys.” Rand had been with Cort for the last hour. Kim had arrived from Oxia Palus and was with his mother now.

“According to the schedule, there are two other shipments that Dar can’t verify. He’s working on it though,” Cort said. “Both are headed for the other colony. But they can change landing sites if they have personnel on board. So that means three possibilities. Here again, Argyre, or Oxia. My money is on Oxia. I would have sent one here, then one to the main colony, and finally one to secure Argyre. If they follow standard invasion and occupation tactics, that’s how they will play it. The third module is back up unless all goes well. In that case, it becomes a remote garrison.”