Chimera Company: Rho-Torkis. Issue 1.: A sci-fi adventure serial Page 6

  Friendlies or hostiles? All Osu could be certain of was Malix’s orders to stay unobserved. “Zy Pel, add your eyes onto the infantry. Stryker, you’re with me putting eyes on Camp Faxian. The rest of you, ready to move out.”

  Back at the main base, the turrets had finished traversing inward. There were no other signs of unusual activity. If sirens were blaring or shots being fired, they should hear it from their location. If there was a BattleNet call to arms, he was plugged into the general broadcast frequency. But there was nothing. Perhaps this was an exercise. Every system had to be tested sometime.

  “Something’s bothered the infantry,” said Zavage. “They’re conferring.”

  Osu shifted position and trained his binocs on the soldiers in the snow field at the base of the glacier. Looked like an officer was giving orders. An officer pointing excitedly at Camp Faxian. Beyond them, dark figures could be glimpsed headed north through the trees, not toward the camp but in the direction of the dig site itself. They had the outlines of legionaries, but the way they marched wasn’t right. Some jerked like marionettes, while others possessed an uncanny smoothness to their movements as if oozing slugs. And they were bunched too, the awkward ones following those with smoother movement.

  “Zavage, Zy Pel, notice anything strange about that infantry?”

  “Yeah.” Zy Pel spoke with relish. “They aren’t legionaries.”

  “Speculate. What are we facing?”

  “Rebels in captured suits,” suggested Zavage. “If those newts were given force shields, why not give humanoids Legion armor?”

  Zy Pel wasn’t listening. He threw back his hood and sniffed deeply at the frozen air. He shook his head and replaced the hood over a face already burned red by the brief exposure to the cold. “Don’t know,” he said. “Can’t be sure.”

  Before Osu could question the man further, they ducked instinctively in the deep hollow as the clear skies cracked with thunder.

  “Aircraft inbound from western horizon,” Stryker announced. “Twelve Saturn bombers with Falcon escorts. I estimate forty fighters.”

  Below their concealed position, the suspect legionaries were staring at the incoming aircraft, mostly in a very un-Legion level of consternation. The soldier with the personal missile launcher was one of the few to act like a professional. He dropped his tube onto the snow and began to swap out his load, pulling a round from the store on his back.

  It was painted with a blue band. Surface-to-air munition.

  The man took a knee and readied to fire at the incoming aircraft.

  “We’ve got to help.” Stryker sounded shaky.

  “Keep it together,” snapped Osu. “We stay on mission.”

  “Why aren’t they firing?” said Zavage.

  Good question. The camp had anti-air defenses that would extract a high blood cost from the Saturn bombers if they dared to attack. Missile strikes would have to penetrate a formidable point defense grid backed up by the other smaller forts that surrounded the all-important dig site.

  So why weren’t they firing?

  The throb of powerful engines resonated in Osu’s chest. The Saturns were coming in low for tactical bombing. Either their pilots were suicidal, or they had a reason to be so confident.

  A few missiles rose from the legionaries running to man the camp defenses, but it was a pitifully ragged response. Below Osu’s position, the soldier with the SAM ready seemed to realize that his unit was not the target and held his fire, jogging for cover in the trees.

  Even through the optical wizardry of his goggles and binocs, it was difficult to see what was happening in the air as the fast-moving aircraft screamed in against the backdrop of a huge sun setting in a blood red sky.

  A fireball bloomed overhead. One of the attackers had been dusted, but fighter or bomber, he couldn’t tell.

  But if it was difficult to see the results of the battle in the sky, on the ground it was hideously apparent.

  The turret guns thundered as they fired upon their own camp.

  Accommodation blocks exploded into a twisting plume of dust, and flame.

  Two turrets combined fire to blow out the southern wall from the inside.

  And all around, legionaries were running, shooting back, and trying to coordinate a defense in a crazy situation where friend had become foe. Mostly, though, they were dying.

  Another thunderclap announced yet more aircraft entering the battle as the first wave of Falcons screamed in, shooting plasma bursts at ground targets, not only in the main camp, but burning up the secondary forts too.

  Plasma guns were usually only effective in space, because in a planetary atmosphere you had to close to within spitting distance to get maximum effect. But with the air defenses off-line, that’s what the Falcons were doing, coming in so low over the trees that their crowns were flattening before diving inside the camp walls and hurling gouts of burning plasma over helpless legionaries.

  The treacherous main guns paused to avoid hitting the aircraft. Then they resumed fire the moment their target zones were clear.

  Not one of the northern turrets, though. It collapsed, toppling outward and throwing up an enormous dust cloud.

  And maybe the legionaries weren’t entirely helpless. The air crackled with small arms fire from Camp Faxian. Two of the first wave of Falcons emerged from their strafing run with smoke belching from their engines. One exploded as it tried to regain the air; the other crashed into the trees, which began blazing with fire despite the cold and ice.

  Another of the camp’s main guns fell silent, fingers of smoke curling up from the turret.

  The others continued to rain destruction.

  Osu’s team was stunned into silence. His every instinct screamed to disobey orders and go to the aid of their comrades in the camp, but what could they achieve?

  The bombers were almost over the target zone.

  “Colonel’s Retaliation, Colonel’s Retaliation, this is Colonel’s Remorse.” The voice came over the general broadcast frequency. “Do not respond to this message. Proceed to objective without deviation.”

  The voice was automatically neutralized to make identification of the speaker more difficult. They hadn’t exchanged call signs for this operation, but this had to be Malix himself.

  High in the sky, bombardiers rained down bombs.

  Bombs, not missiles? Fuck! That could only mean one thing. Nukes.

  “Colonel’s Retaliation, Colonel’s Retaliation, this is Colonel’s Remorse. Do not respond. Proceed to objective without deviation. Colonel’s Retaliation–”

  Someone threw Osu to the bottom of the hollow a moment before the first of the bombs hit Faxian.

  Even with eyes squeezed tightly shut behind his goggles, the explosions were so intense, so bright, it felt as if an army of powerful flashlights had been switched on inside his skull. Giant hands slapped his brain and pummeled the air out of his lungs. He sensed a wave of heat howling overhead, but the hollow protected them from the worst of it. In fact, he realized, the hollow had probably saved their lives.

  All of them were staring at the bikes and their toxicity sensors. If they started flaring rad-alerts, then all of them would die from radiation sickness long before they reached Bresca-Brevae and this Captain Fitzwilliam.

  The seconds ticked by. The bikes stayed silent.

  Through lungs seared and bruised, the legionaries began to breathe more easily.

  They might not live out this day, but it wouldn’t be radiation that killed them.

  Osu looked out over the devastation.

  Mushroom clouds expanded over holes in the forest where the secondary forts had stood. A much larger column twisted over Camp Faxian, its cap expanding lazily into the bloody sky.

  “Nydella,” he groaned.

  Of the five outer walls of the base, two were blown out completely. Where moments before they had been gleaming like burnished gold, now they were scorched and dull.

  Incredibly, Osu could see a few dazed survivors movi
ng through the ruins.

  Survivors… Nydella might still be alive!

  “We’ve got to help them,” Stryker screamed. He jumped onto his bike and drove it off the edge of the glacier.

  NEXT ISSUE: Surrounded!

  TIMELINE OF THE SIXTH LEGION

  Ferrata Fidelis Constans

  “Iron clad, loyal, and constant.”

  —Highly Confidential—

  Home base: Wandrine-Callos, Tej Sector.

  Battle Honors: Tej Sector, Zhoogene, Taegi-28, Core-7.

  Battle Cry: “Hold the Line!”

  Current Status (FL-3030): Strategic Legion Reserve for Tej Sector, Theta-Zanovis Sector and Ishgen Spine.

  Timeline of key events:

  Note: Dates are given in standard Far Reach calendar, commencing (Year FL 0) with Far Reach Landing. In the old Orion Era Calendar, FL 0 corresponds to 2745.

  FL 71: Sixth Legion is established on Wandrine-Callos/ Tej Sector during the Nine Systems War, in which rebellious political factions ally with existing nearby civilizations to crush Far Reach, attempting to reduce it to Nine System colony status. In its motto, the Sixth is awarded the name ‘Ferranta’: ‘iron clad’ in Latin, a part of the name awarded to a Sixth Legion raised 2868 years earlier by a famous Orion Era general named Julius Caesar. At a time when the continued existence was in doubt of the Far Reach Federation and its population of Amilxi exiles, many of the new legions raised in this period stress their links to renowned military forebears of Earth and other Orion Spur worlds.

  FL 262: Supports Legion Reserve Fleet in the Tej Sector Counterattack that defeats the self-styled ‘Supremity’. In reality, the Supremity is a bandit warlord commanding a vast armada of armed vessels: the dregs of a hundred civilizations that has drifted in from the Interspiral Wastes intent on despoilment, plunder and murder. A motley pirate raid it might be, but both the Fourth Legion and the Militia system defense forces in 21 planetary systems are routed before the counterattack, and Legion losses are heavy. After the joint operation, the Admiral of the Reserve Fleet, the most renowned organization in the Legion, shares blood with the Sixth Legion’s General Weygrunth, and conveys on her command the right to use the Reserve Fleet’s famous battle cry: ‘Hold the Line!’

  FL 291: The Relief of Zhoogene. In FL 288 the Multiplicity Alliance was facing invasion and assimilation by the supremely powerful Muryani Expansion. Despite the lack of a formal military treaty between the Federation and the Multiplicity Alliance, which at the time constituted 52 systems, the Sixth Legion feels honor bound to come to the aid of the Zhoogenes, having conducted a cultural and military exchange program over the previous decades. After seeking and winning approval from Federation President Weygrunth, herself a former general of the Ironclads, the Sixth attempts to break the Siege of Zhoogene. They fail, being repulsed with catastrophic losses. But the Muryani besiegers themselves are severely weakened, and within a year, Alliance forces sweep away the siege and other invasion forces, resulting in a humiliating peace settlement imposed on the Muryani, who have hitherto appeared invincible. The Zhoogene are so impressed by the loyal support of the Ironclads in a conflict that wasn’t theirs that they soon persuade the Multiplicity Alliance to join the Federation. In acknowledgment of the Sixth’s action around Zhoogene, the second segment of their motto is added: fidelis or loyal.

  FL 291-296: First Reconstitution. The Ironclad’s responsibilities are temporarily handed over to the First and Third Legions while the shattered Sixth is reformed.

  FL 450: Operation Orion Rearguard. The Sixth Legion and Third Fleet combine to provide military support to Operation Orion: a project to re-establish communications with Earth and the Orion Spur by establishing a corridor of colonies and trading posts across the 12,000 light years from Federation space in the Perseus Arm. Initially penetrating nearly 600 light years with relative success, Operation Orion turns into a disaster when it awakens a Gorgonthola. After a fighting retreat over 257 light years, the Sixth Legion makes a rearguard stand at Taegi-28, determined that the Gorgonthola will not follow the fleeing colonists back to Federation space. Only one ship, FRS Wavefront, survives the action, filled with wounded, civilians, and prisoners captured from the Gorgonthola’s serf armies. Only 47 legionaries survive the expedition. In recognition of the Sixth’s steadfast action, another portion of the ancient Roman Legion’s name are applied to the Legion, even though it has ceased to exist as a functioning unit. Henceforth, it is to be known as Ferranta Fidelis Constans: ‘Ironclad, loyal, and constant.

  FL 451-469: Second Reconstitution. The Sixth is reformed. The renown of its action at Taegi-28 means that only a small fraction of the multitude who volunteer can be enlisted.

  FL 903: The Razing of Core-7. For the Federation, the war against the Grunvalt Gestalt that begins FL 887 goes from bad to disastrous, and then to existential crisis in FL 901 with the Siege of Wutan-Scala-7, the first capital of the Federation. Employing the technique of ‘vacuum replenishment’ for the first time and to devastating effect, the Ironclads arrive without warning deep inside enemy territory at the principle Gestalt hub-world of Core-7. Here they annihilate all defenses within hours and force the Gestalt to surrender unconditionally. In a controversial decision that to this day inspires mobs of chanting protesters to denounce the Sixth Legion of war crimes, the Ironclad’s General Soleb deploys fusion munitions against the underground Gestalt AI spines, reducing Grunvalters to the semi-sentient drones they are today. General Soleb bullishly justifies his action, arguing that since forming the Gestalt means the Grunvalters have effectively cut out their emotions, they have rendered themselves incapable of any sense of honor, meaning any treaty with them would be meaningless. Unaware that while the Sixth was moving on Core-7, the Grunvalters have destroyed all life on the Federation’s capital world, Soleb reasons that the only way to keep the Federation safe in the long term is to render the Gestalt permanently harmless. At the time, his decision is widely backed by Federation citizens still reeling from the destruction of Wutan-Scala-7. Many see it as justified revenge. Within a decade, however, the public mood is soured by the Legion’s political opponents. General Soleb himself is ambushed by a group of political terrorists, while on vacation with his family, and murdered in FL 926.

  FL 3001-3004. The Ironclads crush the ‘Sequined Flower Rebellion’ on the Muryani border. The causes of the rebellion are still highly classified.

  FL 3025-present day. An important archaeological find on the hitherto obscure planet of Rho-Torkis leads to a flurry of archaeological activity throughout the Tej Sector. The digs, the site security and the analysis of the finds are all conducted through the Sixth Legion. The exact nature of what has been uncovered remains highly classified. However, it has been widely reported that many of the dig site locations coincide with earlier archaeological and other evidence of a war that took place in the sector some centuries before the arrival of the Exiles in Fl 0.

  Today, the renowned Sixth Legion approaches its termillennial celebration: 3,000 years of proud service to the Far Reach Federation. Whatever threats the Federation will face over the next three millennia, we can be sure the Sixth will be there to hold the line, forever iron clad, loyal and constant.

  NEXT ISSUE

  Season 1, Issue #2.

  Out 7th May, 2019.

  Available to order/ pre-order now.

  USA | UK | CA | AUS.

  For bonus stories and the latest information, check on the Chimera Company webpage.

  Why not join the chat at the Chimera Company Facebook Group?

 

 

 
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