War of the Exiles Page 5

  Arana grabbed his arm, and his expression changed immediately.

  "Wait a minute. You've double booked us? We've given up good paying work for this gig."

  Her frustration was obvious, but she could also see the officer was not amused. The Merc units might not technically be part of the chain of command, but they were expected to at least respect the rank when working together. Arana released her grip but remained close to the man.

  "I know, and we have already arranged for a retainer fee. It is in your account and will more than cover three months back work, even if you do not accept this job."

  Arana turned to check with her sister.

  "Fair enough," she said, simultaneously checking their account on the cortex via her secpad. It didn't take long before she gave the nod.

  "He's right. They paid up."

  She did her best to not sound surprised, especially as the money was more than they would have been paid had they been working elsewhere for three months solid.

  "Now," began the Lieutenant, "We need you to run the course on the network details we sent to you."

  Arana nodded.

  "No problem, we're ready."

  "Very well. Follow me to the start zone."

  They followed, with the dozen heavily armoured shapes of the Widows right behind them. Their dark coloured armour made them almost disappear as they moved in and out of shadows. Quiet voices spoke in the background as the famed combat unit entered one side of the arena. Syala had expected it to be open and airy, especially after Spartan's detailed description of the place, but it had more in common with the sandy surface of Karnak, with rocky walls and small hills.

  "Impressive scenario," said Syala.

  She then turned back to look at their squad.

  "You're team Alpha, and you've trained for this work. Be ready."

  A loud klaxon roared, but was almost drowned out by the sound of heavy machinery as a pair of Maverick armoured marines went at each other. The arena was so big the scenario area took up little over two-thirds total space, the rest still being used by those practicing martial arts and close-ranged techniques. The Lieutenant moved back to them.

  "Okay, the scenario has been reset. You are leading a diversionary assault on a strongpoint in the defences."

  He pointed to the structure in the distance.

  "Your ground forces are ready to hit the wall half a kilometre away in ten minutes. You have until then to draw away as many as you can."

  "What are our numbers in the main assault, and what are the defences?" Syala asked.

  Lieutenant Kipling seemed happy with the questions and nodded to a projector unit showing the model of the mock battle arena.

  "The region is dry, approximately standard gravity. The defences are based upon the existing civilian structures and heavily reinforced. We have large towers at key points. One is modified from a natural gas wellhead that reaches up almost thirty metres."

  He pointed off behind him to an odd pillar cast from thick, hardened metal and curved to deflect energy, as well as provide a clear route from which fluid could travel. It wasn't a perfect recreation, but the impression given was of a battered, but hastily reinforced oil wellhead or similar in the middle of a desert. If she closed one eye, and ignored the shape of the arena she could almost imagine the site was real.

  "For purposes of the simulation, you will assume that this section, not present in the simulation, is the target for three squads of Jötnar, all equipped with assault-level weapons and siege equipment. They are the lead element, and will then be followed up by a company of ground troops."

  Arana raised her eyebrows and looked to her sister.

  "So, our fourteen will keep them busy, and long enough for more than a hundred and fifty to hit the wall. Suggestions?"

  Syala grinned. Arana had always taken the lead, even when they were children. Syala, on the other hand, was the more direct and much wilder. If they hadn't been twins, it would have been easy to assume Arana was a number of years older. She answered her own question.

  "We have the armour and firepower. The best diversion is one that doesn't look like a diversion."

  "Exactly," replied Arana, "We will give the impression that we are really the primary assault, and how do we do that?"

  Syala nodded slowly.

  "By hitting the defences so hard that if they don't redeploy, we will perform the actual breach ourselves."

  Lieutenant Kipling looked at the two in surprise.

  "You intend on assaulting the wall, with fourteen?"

  Syala answered for them.

  "You'll see, soon enough."

  Lieutenant Kipling ensured the Mavericks were fully cleared of the area before directing the Black Widows to their starting position. As they waited, a large, transparent screen started to move down from the ceiling, providing a barrier between the free-fire zone and anybody else that might be there.

  "You have thirty seconds for the atmospherics. When the siren sounds three times, you're in. Good luck."

  With that, he limped off and through the gap under the barrier, just before it reached the ground with a thud. The sisters looked to each other, and Arana spoke first.

  "Wide dispersal, and use the manoeuvring jets?"

  Syala nodded.

  "Oh, yes. We confuse the hell out of them and then smash them hard."

  * * *

  "Wait a minute. I want to see this. I can't believe they've changed so quickly. It's been more than a month since we extracted them from the Tasquiqui space station."

  Spartan nodded to himself.

  "Mr Walker was right, after all. They want nothing more than payback against the Anicinàbe."

  Spartan wiped his brow with a towel and then turned away from the arena for a moment. The interior of the World Ship rang out with the sounds of close quarter weapons and gunfire, but the sight of one of the new units proved far more interesting to him. Khan stepped to his side and fidgeted, clearly bored with waiting, but Spartan seemed especially curious.

  "That’s the last of the new platoons. Nearly two hundred of them, and all with at least a month’s training. I'd still like to know how CTC managed to locate them so fast. Neither us, nor the Byotai knew the base was there."

  Khan lifted his shoulders, shrugging in the exaggerated way that was so easy for his kin to perform.

  "Yeah. I heard the prisoners weren't just from ships, though. Others I've spoken to say they were evicted from the planets by both sides."

  Spartan looked at him and noticed Khan looked uncomfortable. Khan grumbled and looked back at the new unit.

  "That's what they are saying. Strange. Handy that Walkers' CTC agents just happened to come across information on the site. Otherwise where would these prisoners have ended up?"

  Spartan looked at him and rubbed his chin as his mind began to wander. Most of the inhabited nine quadrants of the Empire were unknown to him. Few ever visited regions away from the core territories in the Trinity quadrants, but this new group fascinated him. They were classed as equals in the Empire, yet they had been pushed away after fleeing the Tenth Quadrant until they felt they had no choice but to become Exiles. If Khan's information was correct, it might not have even been the Anicinàbe that evicted them.

  What is Walker up to? I've asked him three times now, and each time he fobs me off with coincidence.

  Khan pointed to the soldiers as they continued onwards.

  "In any case, they performed...well, I'd say better than can be expected in the time we had. The half-blood Tenskwatawa might have appeared out of the wilderness, but he has brought them together and more important for us, he's stopped them arguing."

  He paused and then nodded in the direction of the column of soldiers.

  "If I had to guess, I'd say most have at least some combat training. Doesn't that seem a little odd?"

  Spartan couldn't argue with that, even though he found it very disconcerting that the large group of argumentative Exiles seemed to fall in line u
pon seeing this one individual. He was convinced more was going on, but neither High Command, or Mr Walker and CTC would accept that. The official line was that the Exiles had sought assistance to return to Karnak, after being refused rightly to return to the Empire.

  So why have we never come across this Tenskwatawa before, or these Exiles?

  Spartan lifted his eyebrows in irritation. Tenskwatawa was just as much of a surprise, and had arrived with a small retinue just five days after the Exiles, as they were now known, were rescued by Spartan and his comrades. Unlike them, he'd come from somewhere near the Tenth Quadrant, though nobody would say where. He looked at the figure and shook his head once more. Khan could see who he was looking at and grimaced.

  "He might be some kind of spiritual leader, but I can tell you now, he doesn't know much about commanding large military units. I don't think he is up to the job. You saw the assault drills, and they were adequate at best. They will need a lot more training if they are to do the job on..."

  "I know," said Spartan, cutting off his friend before he could finish. He found Khan's pronunciation of the leader of the Exiles to be most amusing, "But look at them move. Whatever they lack in skill or experience, they make up for in spirit. Have you ever seen such a group like this?"

  Khan grumbled.

  "Look, I don't know his story, and I'll bet there's more to it than he is letting on. I'll give him credit for being one hell of a unifier, though. He's turned an entire force of argumentative Exiles into a force with a single goal. We could do with somebody like him back home. It would have solved a lot of problems."

  Khan didn't seem quite so positive.

  "Maybe. But what exactly is their goal? Are they heading to Karnak to help their Byotai kin, or do they just want to stake a claim like everybody else? You saw the attitude of the pure-blood Byotai to them."

  Spartan then turned his attention to those at the front of the unit. It was a single large formation of eighty soldiers, and they marched four abreast as though out on parade. They moved away from the arena in silence, with only their armoured boots making a sound on the ground. Though heavily equipped, they still had more in common with the foot soldiers of the Helions or the Anicinàbe than the advanced and well-equipped warriors of the Alliance Marine Corps or the Interstellar Assault Brigade.

  Just ahead of the unit was the lightly armoured shape of Tenskwatawa. Though he wore body armour, his arms were bare, as was his face. He carried a staff in one hand and pressed it lightly to the ground as he walked, making a sharp clacking sound.

  "Spartan," said Tenskwatawa.

  Spartan nodded to the leader of the Exiles.

  "Tenskwatawa, your soldiers are improving every day. I commend you. Some seem to have more experience than we were told to expect."

  Tenskwatawa made a gesture with his face, but said no more and continued past Spartan and Khan. Each of the soldiers carried a Helion or modified Thegn firearm on their shoulders, the same equipment that littered the surface of both Helios Prime and Spascia. The soldiers were of vastly different builds, some as tall and thin as an Anicinàbe clan warrior, others little different in shape to a Khreenk or even Byotai civilian. Any identifying features were hidden by their heavily modified iron coloured helmets and body armour. Each piece had been carefully modified from pieces taken from the battlefields, some of which still bore the marks of old, now long lost combat units.

  "They look more like an army of the dead," said Khan.

  Spartan agreed with him. There was something about the expressions on Tenskwatawa's face that made him uneasy, yet he had nothing other than suspicions to share with anybody else. He tried to look positive, knowing something was not quite right about the whole thing.

  "Based on their history and their gear, you're not far wrong, my friend. I'm surprised most of them want to return to the Quadrant after what's been happening."

  "True. Half-bloods, or anybody else with previous connections to the Anicinàbe border clans, are not exactly popular these days. I doubt they are loved by the Anicinàbe any more than by the Byotai traditionalists. What home do they really have, anymore?"

  Spartan found it amusing that his friend knew so much of the Byotai, but he could understand how Khan might feel something for their plight; as well as his own personal angst with the Byotai conservatives that had created a leadership cast to include people like Kras. Khan's own kin had hardly been well treated in the past, but they continued to do their part even amongst the discrimination and hate. The politics of the Byotai were relatively unknown outside of the Empire, but enough to see there was a growing schism between the traditionalist Imperials, and the new generation seeking closer contact and integration with the other races of the region.

  Spartan turned his attention to the soldiers and did his best to cast politics to the back of his mind. Their armour was not the enclosed systems as used by Alliance marines, but a series of armour plates designed to protect core body parts. Loose clothing then covered the rest of the body so that it was impossible to tell them apart, or even to uncover what race they might be. Several of the technicians watched with interest as the unit moved away, led by a single IAB sergeant whose voice carried throughout the entire level.

  "So, there we have it. We have orders from High Command to put this armada together, all mercenaries and Exiles, but with IAB leadership. We just need to do our job and keep them alive."

  Khan couldn't argue with that and moved back to his previous position in the arena. Spartan, like his comrades was stripped to the waist and began to stretch, moving his muscles and preparing for what was to come. To an outsider he might look like a grizzled old marine, with his bulked up torso and rough beard, but to those who knew him a little better, he was much more than that.

  Spartan was more than just the commander of the IAB's first battalion. Even his rank of Major told little of his story. Spartan was a famed marine, veteran pit fighter, and co-founder of both the Special Weapons Division and the IAB. Even that was just the tip of the iceberg for a man loved and hated in equal measure on a dozen worlds. Spartan was a survivor, a man that had taken on all enemies, and still emerged on top. Yet for all his skill and bravery, he had lost as much as he had gained. His only son and wife were dead, killed in the Biomech War, and all traces of his family wiped from both his memory and all official records.

  "You ready yet?" Khan asked.

  Spartan tensed his shoulder and laughed.

  "I'm always ready, old man. This is just to give you time to mentally prepare. In the meantime, the two of you have work to do. Back to it, I want to see what you've been working on."

  Spartan towered above the other men and women of the IAB, and it wasn't all due to his physique. He was hardly a young man and now well into middle age; it might be expected that he would have retired from the physical struggles of combat years earlier. His body bore many scars, from bullet and blade wounds sustained in combat, to the bone crunching torture of confinement aboard a Biomech warship. Yet for all of this trauma, his body was in better shape than at any time in the past. His upper body was toned and healthy, and he moved as quickly as a man half his age. There was something more, though, a willingness to use the techniques and technology of other races to improve him that bordered on the inhuman.

  Spartan volunteered for some of the first tests of the Biomech equipment discovered at Taxxu, and the results were impressive. The regeneration techniques had done more than just prolonged his body's lifespan, it had rejuvenated muscles and organs. Combined with a rigorous fitness regime, Spartan was at his physical peak, and not even the towering monstrosities of Khan and Olik could unnerve him.

  Olik jumped past and struck at Khan's chest. His fists impacted with dull, meaty thuds, but none of it was enough to slow his comrade down.

  Spartan moved to the left, stepping quickly as he watched the pair of Jötnar fighting. Khan almost hit Spartan as they staggered to the side, but a quick twist from Spartan brought him out of danger.

&nb
sp; "Watch your ground; you need to control the environment and yourselves."

  "What?" Khan complained.

  Olik jabbed twice at his face as Khan looked back to Spartan.

  "Control the space around you. Do not stumble and stagger about like a pair of drunkards."

  Khan muttered and then pushed past Olik, striking him in the ribs. Olik and Khan were stripped down and wrestling, in a fashion that betrayed some kind of formal training only vaguely related to that taught in the Marine Corps. Khan swept his leg low and caught Olik at the back of the knee. He crashed down, rolled to the right, and sprung back up.

  "Not bad," said Khan, "but it won't win the fight."

  They locked limbs, and Spartan shouted encouragement. They were not the only warriors present in the old arena, especially as the scenario-training zone filled most of it now. There was still more than enough space for another dozen pairs of fighters, and never before had he seen so many different people participating in the mixed sparring while guns blazed away nearby.

  "Reset, and try to maintain your distance. You both have limbs, you know."

  Khan looked at Spartan, just as Olik shoulder barged him so hard, both collapsed to the ground in a heap. Spartan shook his head.

  "What did I tell you? Both of you get up."

  Khan jumped to his feet, but Olik was slower. Spartan watched him carefully as he rose and crunched his shoulders.

  "Spartan. We only fall when we fight each other. Against any other foe..."

  He laughed, but quietly, almost mockingly.

  "...anybody else will not be an issue."

  Spartan sighed and then stepped closer, pulling his tunic away to reveal nothing more than a loose shirt. He was a big man, and the upgrades provided by the Special Weapons Division, alongside his strict physical regime, now gave him the figure of a classical warrior of old. For all of his size, he was a child next to monstrous forms of the two Jötnar.

  "Really?" Olik asked.

  Khan chuckled, stepping aside as the two faced off against each other.