Omega Page 16

  HAWK LED THE SMALL group up to the next level as fast as he could, spurred on by the knowledge that if they didn’t reach the test range and retrieve some more fire power then their chances of getting out of this ranged from slim to none. The loss of all those lives was something he would just not allow, not while he still had an ounce of breath left in his body.

  As they reached the next level they weren’t surprised to see it was deserted, all non-essential personnel having evacuated the building via one of the fifteen exit tunnels the moment the alarm had been raised. The computer would have sent out the evacuation order to each NI so there was no need for klaxons or sirens, everyone would know what was happening and where to go. For some reason this hadn’t happened to those in close proximity of Tanya Wilde, a fact that was beginning to dawn on Matt Hawk.

  Touching his right ear to activate the com. bug Hawk said, “General Sinclair, what’s the security protocol for evacuation procedures?”

  “The computer sends out the evacuation order to each individual NI informing personnel of the situation, it’s fast and ensures everyone is informed simultaneously which gives people a better chance of survival. Why do you ask?” replied Sinclair, his voice quiet yet distinct in Hawk’s ear.

  “Because I never got the order and, I suspect, neither did anyone in our group,” Hawk stated.”

  “Now you mention it, I didn’t either and until now, it never occurred to me,” Sinclair admitted.

  “We were rather busy, sir. I’m not sure if it’s relevant or significant but it does explain why we saw no one as we left Tec Division and why this level is deserted, but it doesn’t explain why we or Tec Division didn’t get the call.”

  “What makes you think they didn’t?”

  “Because the first thing Major Purvis said to you was ‘what was happening’ and ‘were we under attack’ remember, sir? If he’d received the call, chances are he wouldn’t have even been there to meet us.”

  “Of course you’re right, what do you think it means?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’m leaning towards the supposition that if Wilde was using Tanya’s NI to target us that somehow he used that proximity sensor to send down a localised jamming signal just so that we wouldn’t be warned like the rest. He didn’t stop us using the com. channels though, whether that was by design or beyond the frequency or power I suppose we’ll never know. It’s just a theory sir, like I said,” Hawk finished, bringing the group to a halt, they had arrived at the test range.

  “DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS,” Rygar said to himself as he viewed the sensor readings relayed to his palm pad. There were a few life signs down in the lower levels, a few isolated in a group on the first sub level but, apart from that, nothing, the entire lower levels were deserted. He knew warnings would have gone out, that was standard operating procedure for any life-threatening situation but he had thought because Wilde had ordered so many of his troops down here to kill everyone left that there would be more targets, a point he was about to clarify with the man himself.

  “Sir, the building is deserted apart from a small group moving up from the lower levels and another in the first sub level,” he said through a com. channel opened via his NI.

  “The first sub level will be where Ops Centre is and the other group will be General Sinclair and my daughter. Send half your force to shut down Ops Centre and you take the rest and capture General Sinclair and my daughter, the rest you can kill. My original order about my daughter still stands, kill her if she gives you a problem and do it fast Rygar, reinforcements are on their way,” Wilde replied not really answering the question that Rygar didn’t really ask. Deciding against further probing he chose to take the matter up at a later date and concentrate instead on the task at hand.

  Dividing his troops he said, “You lot take Ops Centre on sub level one, shut it down and kill everyone there, the rest of you with me. The man in charge wants General Sinclair and his daughter alive, the rest are expendable. Let’s move out.”

  AS THEY ENTERED THE test range again they encountered a totally silent and empty room. Spacious and lengthy, the test range comprised of long aisles with one person-sized booths at one end with a small ledge for the weapons being tested to be placed upon prior to firing, so the user could familiarise themselves with it. At the far end of each aisle were targets placed on a simple hook attached to an overhead rail that ran down the length of the aisle.

  Along both walls at the front end where the shooter would stand were an assortment of pistols, rifles and battery clips held in racks lined up like soldiers on parade.

  “Help yourselves to whatever you’re familiar with or whatever you think you can handle,” Hawk said as the marines rushed to the racks. “I want everyone armed with at least a pistol, so if you’re not sure how to use it one of the marines or myself will instruct you. Make sure you have at least two spare battery clips for each weapon you choose,” Hawk instructed.

  Sinclair grabbed a Sig P996 for himself and one for Tanya. “Here you are my dear,” he said as he handed her the pistol, “it’s quite simple to operate.” He ejected the battery clip from the butt, rammed it back home with the palm of his hand, pulled back on the slide on top to prime the weapon, then turned the selector by the thumb position on the butt to ‘Full Power’. “See, simple, it has to be for marines to be able to handle it under fire. To use it just point it at the enemy and fire until they fall down,” he added trying to make it seem easier than it was so she would feel better about carrying and perhaps having to use a lethal weapon.

  Following his lead she did as she had been shown then once the pistol had been primed she sighted down the barrel holding it in a two-handed grip and at arm’s length. “I see what you mean,” she said smiling self-consciously.

  “Right people, we need to get moving,” Hawk said as he strapped on a second shoulder holster holding another Sig P996. He had a Remm Mk III assault rifle slung over his other shoulder. On the belt around his waist were pouches filled with spare battery clips. The pouches had contacts inside connected to a small recharging unit integral in the belt. When the clips were in the pouches they would constantly recharge supplying the modern marine with an almost inexhaustible supply of ammunition.

  Looking around at the expectant faces before him he saw people who were looking to him for leadership and guidance to get them through the next few moments and on to safety. Only two men had enough experience to see the situation clearly. Colonel De Boer understood the chain of command and that in situations such as this only one voice was needed, one leader to give commands and clear directions. In this case he realised that Matt Hawk was in charge here not because of rank but because it was an extension of an operation that was still ongoing. General Sinclair understood the same and looked on with pride.

  Seeing those faces watching him, Hawk knew he couldn’t let them down. He would do everything in his power to lead them to safety.

  “Okay people, let’s move out,” he said with calm determination.

  LIEUTENANT SEVERS HAD initiated a complete lock down of the Ops Centre. All three entrances to the circular room were locked securely with force fields in place to ensure no one could gain access.

  Another step he took to ensure the safety of the men and women under his command was to arm them all. Everyone was issued with a Sig P996 and, as standard operating procedure, the two security guards, also Recon Delta marines were armed with Remm Mk III assault rifles.

  Severs positioned all his personnel in the middle of the centre console so they at least had some cover should the hostiles breach the security measures that were in place.

  He had done everything he could, all that was left was to wait and see what happened next.

  He didn’t have to wait for very long.

  Pounding, loud and booming was heard from outside the room as the assault began.

  “Hold your positions people, the fortifications should hold,” Severs said. “Only fire if they breach the room. Pick your targets and fir
e in short, controlled bursts to conserve ammunition,” he added.

  The pounding continued, increasing in intensity. The doors began to buckle under the onslaught of such concentrated firepower.

  Sparks flew out from the doorways towards the interior of the room.

  Severs glanced around at his people, at the worried, fearful yet resolute expressions and he knew that even through the fear they would fight, to the very end if need be.

  The doors began to glow from the barrage of pulsed plasma bolts. Sparks flew across the room more frequently as the force fields struggled to maintain integrity on the verge of overloading.

  Suddenly an explosion rocked the Ops Centre as one of the doors blew inwards, the force fields having failed. Debris mixed with the fiery cloud generated by the explosion blew inwards forcing everyone to duck down behind the centre console.

  Before they had time to react another door blew inwards followed closely by the third and final one.

  Severs was the first one to come up from behind cover, holding his Sig at arm’s length in a two-handed grip he fired off a two shot double tap at the first hostile he saw. The two pulsed plasma bolts hit the Rover5 high on the chest and throat respectively, the second shot almost severing his head in a mist of blood. He was sent flying backwards to collide with the group of hostiles directly behind him, slowing them down long enough for him to pick two of them off with carefully but rapidly aimed head shots. The Rapier battle tec helmet the hostiles wore was no match for a full power shot from the Sig at close range so, when the bolt hit, it destroyed their heads, spraying blood, gore and helmet parts.

  The hostiles poured into the room in large numbers through the three open doorways that acted like a funnel and actually gave the defenders time to shoot them. Before they could spread out and use their own weapons, Severs and the two marine guards kept them at bay, each focusing on one doorway.

  Helped by the less experienced defenders, Severs and the marine guards shot and killed as many hostiles as they saw entering the room and soon the dead bodies piled up hampering their invasion as they became an obstacle to climb over to get inside, almost a barrier.

  From around the doorways the Rover5s began firing blindly towards the defenders. Remm assault rifles fired on fully auto could send an awesome amount of firepower their way and Severs heard a cry to his left as a colleague was shot and killed.

  Severs kept firing, changing battery clips as fast as he could and willing himself to stay calm. Panic at this stage was something he could ill afford or it would spread through the group like wildfire and their defence of the Ops Centre would crumble just as fast.

  Suddenly his peripheral vision caught sight of an object hurled into the room. Small, dark and familiar he was aware of it arcing overhead towards the centre of their group. Not daring to tear his eyes away from the hostiles who were still trying to gain access to the room, he lost sight of the object as it passed over his head to drop behind him.

  Acting on an unspoken command the hostiles either dropped to the floor or pulled back outside the room and in that moment Severs knew what the object was. He realised what his subconscious mind had been screaming at him and he knew they were all dead.

  When the grenade exploded behind the group the shockwave pulped their internal organs turning them to mush while the shrapnel lacerated and tore at their flesh. Body parts went flying outwards from the blast core as the shockwave expanded killing everyone behind that centre console.

  The assault on Ops Centre was over. Severs, the two marine guards and the seven staff members were all dead along with twenty-three of the forty Rover5s sent to capture it.

  The rest of the invading force entered Ops Centre and began inspecting what was left of the defenders; checking for life signs in vain because no one survives a grenade explosion at such close range.

  “Sir, Ops Centre is under our control,” said a Rover5 via his NI through a battle com. channel.

  “Shut it down,” replied Rygar. The Rover5 signalled to the rest of the team by bringing the thumb of his right hand across his throat, and they went to work.

  Taking small charges of T6 explosive from their belts they placed them around the room on pieces of equipment and then, as one, they left the room walking away from Ops Centre.

  Without looking back or giving a thought for their fallen comrades they continued to a safe distance where they detonated the T6 charges by remote.

  The ensuing explosions tore through Ops Centre destroying all the equipment and the bodies that had been left there.

  The blast cloud blew through the walls and down the ventilator shafts, destroying anything in its path.

  The shockwave reverberated throughout what was left of the building and down through the sub levels below.

  “What was that?” Tanya Wilde asked fearfully.

  “They just shut down Ops Centre,” Hawk replied coldly.

  21

  Almost to the second that Ops Centre was destroyed two other things happened.

  Firstly, the other fighter craft that had been promised from Fort Bragg flew over the ruined headquarters building then angled it’s flight trajectory upwards to engage the Nemesis and secondly, the Justice and Legend emerged from hyperspace on either side of the aforementioned battle carrier.

  The two cruisers were dwarfed by the battle carrier, each of them at fifteen hundred feet in length were less than a third of the size of the behemoth, but their smaller size gave them the advantage of greater manoeuvrability and this was needed from the word go for as soon as they emerged from hyperspace the Nemesis trained her weapons systems on them. The captains of each cruiser had only seconds to react and issue the orders that would save their lives and those of the hundreds of men and women on board.

  The Nemesis opened fire with her pulse cannons on each cruiser, missing with the first salvo as the targets took evasive action and opened fire with their own pulse cannons.

  The fighters joined the fray, swooping in on the huge carrier and firing their pulse cannons as soon as they came within range.

  On the bridge Jonas Wilde calmly strode around seemingly unnerved by this new development.

  “Captain, unleash our fighters to take care of those annoying bugs and then deal with those two cruisers, if you don’t mind,” he said sarcastically when the Nemesis’ gunners ineffectively fired and missed, again.

  “Aye, sir,” the captain replied rather nervously. “You do realise, sir, that to launch the fighters we’ll have to momentarily drop the shields. We’ll be vulnerable to attack during that brief window,” he added.

  Wilde, his anger boiling to the surface turned on him, “Of course I realise, you imbecile, what do you take me for some sort of rookie?” he barked, furious at the implication.

  “Of course not sir, I just...” stammered the captain, unused to being spoken to in that fashion aboard his own ship and in front of his crew, but this wasn’t his ship, it belonged to OMEGA and Wilde was the commander of OMEGA so he was in charge.

  “Well, I took you to be competent at your job and, as such, I expect you to do the job you are being paid rather handsomely for. Find a way to launch those fighters, now, with minimum risk to those on board.”

  “Aye, sir,” the captain replied, somewhat subdued.

  “And Captain, if you’re not up to the job I suggest you say so now. Replacing you would be an inconvenience, I admit, but only a minor one. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

  Before responding, the captain glanced at the bridge crew who were furtively stealing glances towards them hoping to catch what was happening without being too obvious. Then when he spoke his voice was calm and steady.

  “Yes, sir, perfectly. Alert all remaining fighters, launch in ten seconds. Gunners, lay down suppressing fire against the two cruisers. I want a full missile spread fired the second the fighters launch and the moment they’re clear of the bays and past the range of our shields I want them back up again,” he said.

  Wilde allowed hims
elf a slight smile; sometimes it was beneficial to light a fire under those under your command, he thought, just to spur them on to even greater endeavours.

  “Okay people you have your orders, on my mark, mark!” the captain said confident his orders would be carried out efficiently.

  THE TWO CAPTAINS OF the cruisers knew that the carrier would scramble her fighters to counter those sent against her and so they ordered their weapons to fire the moment they saw them emerge. They targeted the shield generators, as that would be when the huge leviathan would be most vulnerable. If they could disable just one of them then the carrier would be more susceptible to damage and the captain may be forced to rethink his motives for being there, and bug out.

  At least that was what they hoped; they had no way of knowing what kind of man they were facing.

  “SIR I HAVE TWO TROOP carriers inbound for the target area, ETA eight minutes,” ops said on board Nemesis.

  “Can we target them from here?” Wilde asked.

  Before ops could reply, Nemesis was hit by weapons fire from the Legend and Justice. The huge star ship was rocked as the pulsed plasma fire and Sabre missiles struck whilst the shields were down for the launch of the fighters.

  Explosions destroyed whole sections of the craft as the Legend and Justice had concentrated their fire on just one section.

  On the bridge there was surprise and fear for the first time on the faces of the crew.

  “Sir, we’ve just lost primary shields and most of the secondary too,” screamed ops.

  Wilde shouted, “What the fuck just happened?”

  “They targeted the shield generators while we launched the fighters,” explained the captain. “The timing was really quite remarkable,” he added with a certain amount of respect for the skill involved.

  “Get the shields back up now!” ordered Wilde wide-eyed; this was something he was not prepared for. He had been so confident in the perfection of his plan, backed by the seeming invulnerability of the Nemesis, that the thought of failure never even entered his mind.