The Great Betrayal

The Great Betrayal - By Michael G. Thomas


CHAPTER ONE

The four racial groups of the Helions purported to represent all of their culture. The ANS Conqueror Incident of 360CC, however, revealed a massive underclass known as the Zathee who had been exploited for centuries. These people had fought as cannon fodder in the wars with the Biomechs and now lived as little more than servants. The Zathee Insurrection, as it soon became known, spread through the entire planet of Helios before igniting slave revolts on other Helion worlds. Within three months, the flames of revolution had spread as far as the empires of the Anicinàbe, Byotai, and even the Khreenk.



History of Slave Labor





The dull blue star sent a shimmering glint of light over the thousands of ruined and smashed ships. The ancient graveyard circled the system’s single sterile planet like a cloud of pestilence that betrayed some apocalyptical battle hundreds of years earlier. One capital ship waited while a small group of robotic fighters hurtled through the debris in search of their quarry. A larger shape moved ahead of them, a spacecraft bearing the markings of the old Centauri confederacy.

“Here they come. Let’s do this!” shouted Khan.

Spartan nodded and activated the controls that sent a surge of power to the maneuvering thrusters. The obsolete Broadsword class heavy bomber spun about on its axis so that it was facing in the opposite direction. Due to the peculiarities of space travel, the bomber continued on its original trajectory but now faced directly at the group of pursuing Biomech fighters. All of them were forced to travel slower than they were capable of as they moved through the thick debris field. The front of the delta shape spacecraft exposed a plethora of weapons, each one easily capable of tearing apart a fighter.

“Now!” shouted Spartan as he depressed the trigger.

He expected to feel the shudder through the structure as the array of weapons opened fire, but instead there was only a deathly silence and three red indicator lights on his gunnery control panel. He pressed it again and again but was met by nothing more than the click of the trigger.

“Good work, Khan, still no guns!”

He shook his head and hit the thruster controls to bring the vessel back around. A rocket rushed past them on the left of the craft and exploded when it struck one of the many pieces of debris floating about in the polluted zone of space.

“I can get the turrets working, just give me another minute!” called out his friend.

“Yeah, if you say so,” Spartan muttered under his breath.

He redirected a burst of emergency power to the dorsal thrusters just in time to move past a large piece of capital ship wreckage.

Bloody hell!

His heart pounded as he half expected the top of the craft to tear open from the impact. As they moved past, he watched the top with his right eye. Luckily, nothing untoward happened, and he was able reset their course without further damage to the aging bomber. He reached out instinctively with his left arm to try and speed things up before remembering the hideous wound caused by the Biomechs. His left arm was now no more than a stump. The thought of what had happened merely increased his zeal. A flashing light above his head caught his eye.

What now?

Glancing at the light, he spotted the fuel-warning marker next to it. For a moment Spartan thought that was it. They were out of fuel; and would soon be dead and adrift in space. The light flickered though and then burst. With no indicator, he was forced to check the management screen on his left. There were three tanks and all showed as being well stocked with fuel.

Must have been a faulty light, he hoped.

The computer system monitored the debris thousands of times a second and brought up potential vectors for them to follow. Unfortunately, the safest routes made them the easiest targets for the fighters. They had also been forced to alter course, and this bought them a few more seconds. Spartan glanced out through the tiny windows on the sides and at the space junk flashing by. Most of it was unrecognizable, but some parts were visibly ship related.

There must have been one hell of a battle here.

He tried to imagine how many ships would have been crippled and torn apart in such a small part of space, but the sight of the robotic fighters brought his attention back.

Concentrate you fool. You have to escape!

The battered and exhausted looking Jötnar shook his head. He’d been pulling on cables and panels for the last five minutes to no avail. The interior of the bomber was hardly conducive to a warrior of his oversized stature, and he continually struck his head or became stuck as he moved about. Since their escape, he’d managed to bring a number of key systems online, including the prized countermeasures. The weapon system had unfortunately so far eluded him.

“We won’t make it to the Rift at this rate!” Spartan shouted.

Khan turned from his work and threw an angry stare at him.

“Not helping. Spartan not helping at all. Just keep flying.”

The crew area was placed a quarter the way along the twenty-two meter long body of the spacecraft and filled almost half of the interior. The design was very different to those in the commonly used Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter or the much more modern Hammerhead. It was considerably larger and unable to carry an assault team or dogfight in atmospheric flight, but its great strength lay in its range and capacity to sustain damage. Like most vehicles of its time a generation earlier, the heavy bomber was a spacecraft designed for a specific role rather than the universal design now being used. It could travel for weeks, even months at a time to support warship squadrons of the Confederate Navy in battle. At least that was how it might have been used twenty or thirty years earlier.

“Tell me something, Khan; I don’t care what, just something!”

Khan shouted at the engineer panel inside the filled the cramped interior, as once more he tried to bring more of the systems back on. Each time he tried to divert power from one place to another, he lost access to an existing system, and it was starting to annoy him. He looked at the last active system with surplus power, the emergency life-support package and moved his hand to alter the power. It dropped enough for him to divert a small portion to the secondary capacitor and instantly rewarded him with a series of status indicators flashing green.

“Railgun is charging up. We have a gun.”

He scanned the figures on the screen before allowing himself to smile.

“Even better, we have power reserves building in the primary and secondary capacitors.”

Spartan looked back from his pilot’s seat almost eight meters further along the craft. He was jammed into the front of the bomber, and a dozen screens around him fed information from the many complex systems aboard the craft. They bathed him in a mixture of pale blue and red light.

“Which gun?”

Khan nodded with a smile that seemed excessive even for him.

“Just the one, the one down there.”

He point at the floor of the craft.

Spartan smiled for the first time in what seemed like months.

“Now that’s more like it. Shame about the others.”

“Hey, it’s a damned big gun; just make sure you hit something with it.”

Spartan struck the emergency reverse-thrust button, and the directional cowls on the engines altered shape to direct most of the thrust ahead. Spartan pushed forward in his seat and would have crashed into the controls, if it weren’t for the heavily worn, yet extremely sturdy straps. Khan was also strapped in, but the rapid deceleration caught him by surprise. He coughed out as the air was forced from his lungs. A structural warning alarm sounded near Spartan, but he ignored it and instead watched the enemy fighters on the rear display.

Here they come.

With the bomber already slowing, the pursuing craft flew past him and into a position half a kilometer ahead. They were quick to realize what was happening and slowed down before spinning about to face him while continuing on the same vector. Spartan activated the main weapon coils and depressed the primary trigger. As the button clicked, he held his breath, waiting for the inevitable failure.

“This had better work!”

The hull of the spacecraft shuddered as the massive weapon accelerated a dense projectile the size of a man’s fist toward the fighters. The railgun was a simple weapon that had been shrunk down to a manageable size in the craft. Even so, it used up vast reserves of power and would not be able to fire for another ten seconds. Spartan watched with glee as the ultra-high velocity round slammed into the nearest Biomech fighter, smashing a hole through its center. Sections ripped off, and it drifted on its original path, now lifeless and useless.

“One down, three more to go!” he laughed.

Khan would love to have joined in, but he was back to the main computer system and checking their route. He looked at the scanners once more before crosschecking with the data on the bomber's navigation computer.

“Spartan, none of this makes sense. The computer has no idea where we are.”

The gun was ready again, and Spartan released another shot; but this time the Biomechs were ready and altered their velocities just enough for the dense charge to flash by them.

“Who cares? The scanner still shows the open Anomaly, right?”

Khan checked it for what felt like the fiftieth time.

“Yes, it’s open. There’s one cruiser blocking access.”

“Good. Then we’re going for it. How much further?”

Khan looked at the shape of the three Biomech fighters before answering.

“About ten more hours, assuming we can get past those three.”

Again the main gun fired, but there was little chance of them striking the smaller Biomech fighters. They were half the size of an Alliance Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter and reacted with great speed. The shapes were anything but streamlined and looked something more akin to a small, crewless resupply shuttle but bristling with weapons. Large retro thrusters were fitted to each corner, and a single powerful engine was planted firmly in the center of the rear. Khan watched one fire a blast at them, and a single round penetrated the starboard armor and opened multiple breaches. Alarms activated, and small clouds of sealant rushed to the small tears, sealing the craft to stop it ripping itself to pieces. He turned back to the computer system and tried once more to redirect power from one of the communication arrays to the turret controls.

“Work…you useless piece of…” he shouted before spotting an override lever.

He turned away from his system and pulled at the fallen storage box near the side of the computer. He hadn’t seen it before because a crate of spare parts had covered it. The chase must have shaken them free, revealing an entire engineer’s panel. As well as a computer display, it was fitted out with mechanical overrides to a number of systems. Without thinking, he pulled on the lever. A low hum spread through the inside, followed by the whine of motorized turrets.

“Khan? What have you done?” asked Spartan in an accusing tone.

He didn’t need to ask any further. Lines of status lights lit up all around the cockpit.

“Uh, Khan, we have power,” he said, barely believing what he was saying.

Khan laughed back at him, and Spartan tapped the icons for each of the enemy fighters. The turrets were fully automated and tracked the craft, each turret taking careful aim with their twin automatic cannons. They were simple affairs, nothing like the railgun, yet perfectly suited for use in the coldness of space. There was no trigger for these weapons. Instead, each turret adjusted its fire pattern based on their current trajectory and velocity as they fired. Two turrets eliminated their targets with minimal ammunition, but the final turret fired once and then exploded. It caused no major damage to the bomber but did tear the weapon from its mount, whereupon it vanished into the darkness. The other two turrets spun around as though in a race and tore the last fighter to pieces with a final burst.

“Uh, is that it?” Khan asked.

Spartan checked his scanners and then the damage indicators for the bomber. A sickening feeling ran through his body as he checked the gauges and status bars, each time expecting to come across the one result that would leave them stranded in uncharted space for the rest of their lives. The four-engine heavy bomber was a resilient war machine, but it had already been considered obsolete when captured two decades earlier; and previous battle damage showed along its long fuselage. They had escaped from the Biomech fleet almost a month earlier and had followed the telltale trail of debris and fuel emission through four separate Rifts before coming to this one.

“Looks clear to me, just that cruiser guarding the entrance.”

Khan nodded and finally unclipped himself so that he could pull himself through the interior of the craft to the gunnery position just behind Spartan. The space was far too small for him, so he pulled the straps from two seats around him in an improvised but useable fashion.

“How many does that make it now?”

Spartan checked the scanner before answering.

“Eleven fighters so far. I think that one might be more of a problem.”

Khan shrugged.

“I don’t care. Anything is better than being a prisoner on that dammed ship.”

Spartan nodded ruefully. It was true; both of them had experiences aboard the Biomech command ship they didn't want to remember, and neither knew how long they were there. It might have been weeks, but it could as easily have been months or even years. The interrogation, punishment, and torture had taken its toll on the two of them. Their escape had been violent, and it had taken no small degree of skill and ingenuity to slip the fleet and make it this far.

“Yeah, I’m not arguing with that.”

He nursed his stump where one of the Biomech machines had torn away his arm. The pain had long gone, although he was convinced he could still feel where his hand had once been. The machines had done that to him, but he was certain it was for nothing more that perverted pleasure. The thought of the blades cutting into his flesh made him queasy, so he shook his head and concentrated on the pulsing shape waiting for them at the end of the debris field. It was one of the largest Spacebridge tunnels he’d seen so far.

“What do you think is on the other side of that Rift?”

Khan lifted up the side of his lip, an expression he often gave when confused.

“It might be a friendly region of space; it might be another region they have passed through. Either way it won’t be here.”

“What happened here though?”

He pointed to the debris circling the planet.

“This was no skirmish. It looks like hundreds of thousands of ships, and a lot of them are as big as very small moons.”

Khan looked at them. Spartan watched him, wondering if his friend was merely examining their shapes, or if he genuinely had an explanation for what was going on. Neither said anything for almost a minute before Khan turned back to him.

“I’d say this was an extermination battle. Just look at the numbers. We have capital ships, remains of transports, and smashed space stations…and what about the planet?”

Spartan looked at them and tried to visualize the scene of what must have been the greatest ever space battle. He had seen enough battles in his time, but even the massive battles in the Uprising had rarely involved more than a score of major ships on each side. Even the accounts of the Great War fifty years before had shown battles with no more than fifty ships as the norm.

He’s right. This is a graveyard.

The planet showed no signs of life, its atmosphere was toxic, and there were clear signs of destructive activity showing up on the scanners. Spartan used the long-range targeting cameras to examine the area in more detail before the glowing entrance moved into view. It instantly brought his attention back to their current predicament.

“Remember the Biomech fleet, Khan, how many ships were there?”

Khan lifted his shoulders slightly.

“Who knows…a lot I would think.”

“Hang on,” said Spartan; shifting slightly in his seat, “that’s not a cruiser, look.”

He turned the scanning unit toward the ship guarding the entrance to the Rift and activated the passive scanning equipment. They had made that assumption based on the size of the vessel. The shape was different though, and as they watched, it became clear that it was something else.

“You’re right, look at the configuration. A control station,” said Khan.

Spartan altered the settings to show an even closer view of the station. It looked in poor shape, but even from that distance, they could make out the outlines of a substantial powerplant that was attached via a series of reinforced gantries.

“Exactly. This must be one of the entrances to more enemy space. Why else have a station to monitor and control it?”

Khan placed his chin in his hand and considered their problem.

“In that case, how the hell will we get through without them stopping us?”

Spartan had already returned to the small tactical map shown on a computer display to his left. It showed the dead worlds and the debris field, as well as this destination.

“We can’t stay here. Look, the carrier that followed us here is moving up out of orbit. I’d say three, maybe four hours, and they’ll catch up with us.”

“Unless we make for the Rift?” he asked rhetorically, “But if we do, that station will just shoot us down as we enter the place.”

Neither seemed to have much of an idea. Instead, Spartan made the final adjustments to leave the higher layers of debris prior to breaking out to the Rift. Khan watched the station and scratched his forehead.

“It’s not right, Spartan. We can’t make it this far, kill so many, only to be stopped by that thing.” He pointed at the image of the station on the screen. Spartan twisted his head around and smiled at him.

“I have a plan.”

He said it with a firm tone and familiar look that brought a grin to Khan’s tired and scarred face.

“Does it involve doing some serious killing?”

Spartan nodded, his smile wide.

“Have my plans ever been anything else?”

Khan wasn’t particular bothered by what the plan might be, just as long as there was one, and if it involved violence, then that was even better. He watched Spartan and noticed him checking the escape sequences for the bomber. It could mean only one thing.

He means to jump ship. Sounds just like one of Spartan’s plans.



* * *





Jack lifted the glass of port and threw back yet another mouthful of the reddish liquid. No sooner had he swallowed it, he grabbed the bottle and poured out the last drops into his glass. He dropped the bottle back down on the unit at the side of his desk and drank back the last of the fortified wine. Unthinkingly, he had not bothered to filter the wine, or even to decant it prior to drinking. A small amount of sediment dripped into his mouth and snapped him out of his daze. He almost choked as the dry pieces clung to his throat, and he was forced to grab the bottle of tepid water nearby and gulp down mouthfuls. The water ran down his cheeks and mouth, covering his stained marine tunic and even his pants. The door swung open, and a bright yellow light filled the room like a blazing sun.

“What the hell!” he muttered, knocking the water over.

His eyes could barely adjust to the light conditions, and the levels of alcohol in his body blurred and slowed everything into a dreamlike state. He tried to stand but staggered and fell to the ground, directly in front of whoever had just entered his bunk space.

“Private Morato, on your feet!”

Jack tried to lift his head, but he couldn’t find the strength. Instead, the face of his dour NCO, Sergeant Stone moved in front of him. As usual, the Sergeant sported a grim, angry looking face devoid of any emotion. The man was a scarred veteran, many years older than Jack, and yet a marine with experience in dozens of theaters. Unusually, he was wearing his dress uniform, although Jack was in such an inebriated state, he barely noticed. He turned and slammed the door behind with such force that a gust of air blasted into Jack. He bent down, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged the sorry looking Private to his feet.

“I know your mother is in a coma, and your buddies ain’t coming back. We’ve all been there. I’ve been there, and it will happen again. I promise you.”

He released Jack but stayed in the position.

“You have responsibilities, and it’s been far too long. Every veteran in the Corps has had to face this.”

Jack’s head tilted slightly as though the weight of his own head was proving too much to hold up. The Sergeant grabbed him and held him upright.

“Listen to me, marine. If you want a court-martial, you’re going about it the right way. Pull yourself together!”

He moved away from the inebriated marine and watched him drop down to his knees. He shook his head while looking at the pitiful Jack and bit his tongue before he continued his rant. He was well aware the young marine had suffered more than most. Even so, Sergeant Stone could recall the stories from the marines that fought in the Uprising, and although he’d been too young to join-up at the time, he had witnessed some of the fighting first-hand; especially the attacks on urban areas that had killed many of his friends.

“Private, now…get to your feet!”

Jack summoned as much willpower as he could muster to stand up straight. He swayed, and for the briefest of moments almost vomited onto the Sergeant. He held his breath and regained his balance, and then finally looked at the man carefully.

“I…uh…”

“I what?” barked the Sergeant. “I’ll tell you what you’ll do. You will get showered, dressed, and down to the dry dock. The scuttlebutt is that Conqueror will be relaunched in less than an hour, and you will be there, Private!”

He stepped to the doorway and looked back at the pitiful excuse of a marine.

“Son, you and the rest of your squad excelled yourself on Helios. Don’t let them down by falling apart.”

With that, he was out of the door, and Jack was left standing in his barely conscious state. He staggered to the small bathroom and missed the washbasin, crashing into the wall. He tried to avoid hitting his head but only managed to move quickly enough to strike his cheek on the cold metal. It opened a small cut, and a trickle of blood ran down to his neck.

It took Jack fifteen minutes to shower and change his clothes, as well as time to swallow painkillers and wash his face for the tenth time. He eventually staggered out of the small room and into the corridor. The door swung behind with a clunk, and he found himself in the bright open space of the secondary passageway in the marine quarters of Saratoga Naval Station; the brand new Alliance base situated in the heart of what used to be T’Kari. A group of five Jötnar marched past, each wearing their black marine uniforms with pride.

It didn’t take them long, did it?

It wasn’t that long ago that Jötnar had been unable to join the military, even after their sterling work fighting for the Confederacy during the Great Uprising. Now it seemed they were joining the marines in larger numbers. One nodded as they moved past, but he didn’t recognize him.

Come on, you idiot. Concentrate, the dry dock.

He looked first to his left and then in the direction the Jötnar had emerged from. There were lit signs throughout the station but most referred to sections by numbers and letters only. Finally, he spotted the sign to dry docks, at least the Alpha Three docks. He just hoped they were the right ones. It took Jack almost ten more minutes until he reached the great observation deck that looked down onto the dry docks. The term was an anachronism, as the docks themselves were actually external to the station, and in reality, positioned in the void of space where they could be worked on in a weightless environment by scores of robotic workers. The docks were arrayed like a line of coffins, and in each was a ship in different stages of completion.

It’s her!

Jack stopped in his tracks and stared at the massive shape of the Alliance’s infamous Battlecruiser. He couldn’t believe that the two hundred and sixty-two meter long capital ship was finally repaired and ready for battle once more. The last time he’d seen the ship was when he had escaped from its burned hull, following their high-speed crash onto the surface of Helios. He looked at the ship and tried to count how many months ago it had been since the violent incident on the planet of Helios. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember.

“I told you we’d rebuild her, and quickly too,” came a familiar voice.

Jack spun about and almost lost his footing. His body moved, yet his head felt as if it were still in the same position. He almost fell to the ground again before righting himself and taking a lungful of air.

You idiot!

The shape of a man in a naval uniform moved about in front of him before he regained his balance. He focused carefully until he could make out the grizzled features of the commander of the station. He lifted his hand in an awkward salute that luckily the Admiral ignored. Anderson pointed to the gray warship.

“The damage wasn’t as great as you might think. The internal systems were fully functional, even after the crash. The major problem was the layer plating.”

Jack blinked and rubbed his eyes.

“Plating?”

Admiral Anderson could see the face of the Jack and recognized the hollow eyes and long face, an expression he’d seen hundreds of times before through three decades of war and loss. He extended an arm out to the ship and the flanks near the bow.

“The layered plating extends all around to protect from kinetic projectiles. That is what took most of the thermal damage before the crash finished off the rest.”

He turned back and smiled.

“Engines, navigation, and weapons are all still working, apart from the keel turrets. We lost every one of them.”

Jack was still stunned. He recalled the stories in the media about the loss of the ship and the ensuing public investigation. In the end, the blame had been laid squarely at the feet of the Helions.

“I…uh…I never expected to see her again, not like this.”

Admiral Anderson nodded in complete agreement.

“You had better fall in with your unit.”

He tilted his head slightly, pointing in the direction of Sergeant Stone and the rest of 3rd Platoon. He saluted as best as he could, and then marched to join the rest of his unit. As he moved, he noted the scores of military personnel, each selected from the Marine Corps and Navy units stationed on board the largest and most significant Alliance base in the Orion territory, the newly constructed Admiral Jarvis Naval Station. Built in the heart of former T’Kari space, it was perfectly positioned as a strong foothold inside the Orion Nebula. One of the marines stuck out more than the rest.

Wictred.

His loyal friend was the only member of his team that survived the bloody battle on Helios. It was a memory he wanted to avoid, and as he moved in with the rest of his platoon, he lowered his eyes and tried to concentrate on the ship rather than the people around him. Admiral Anderson had moved back to a large group of high-ranking officers while the hundreds of assembled people waited in silence. Finally, he moved away and faced them.

“Marines and sailors, you have been invited by your commander to witness the relaunch of our most advanced warship. Even after the controversial attack and crash landing on Helios, she is ready for action. Her hull is the toughest ever built, and she’s spent the last months being fully restored and upgraded to serve as heart of the Orion Fleet that is to be based here.”

He lifted his hand and beckoned towards the massive warship.

“I give you the Alliance Navy Ship, Conqueror. The heart of the Alliance Navy!”

In perfect timing with his gesture, the navigation and internal lights activated to bathe the ship’s superstructure in a myriad of tiny dots. Massive lamps lit up the ensign of the Alliance Navy, as well as the thick black letters marking out the name of the warship. He moved his head slightly as he surveyed the many units waiting, stopping at the grim face of Gun, the commander of the 17th Battalion.

“As of today, there will always be at least one complete Navy Heavy Assault group based at this station plus one or more disembarked Marine Regiments. For the next nine months, it is you, the 2nd Marine Corps Regiment. I welcome you to your new commanding officer, General Daniels, former commander of the 17th Battalion.”

The middle-aged man stepped from the crowd of officers.

“Thank you, Admiral.”

He gazed out at the men and women of the two battalions.

“When the 4th Heavy Battalion gets here from Carthago, it will be the first time all three of our battalions have been present since the Uprising. The Orion Nebula is a fractious place, and with five thousand marines, including the newly equipped Vanguard platoons and armored units, we will make our mark.”