Black Legion: 02 - Assault on Khorram (32 page)

The mood of the landing bay transformed at the news they might be involved in an action aboard the enemy flagship. They had no time to cheer though as the Dukas continued his speech.

“...she is named after the Ancient Medes’ divine angel of justice and last judgement, and the personification of righteousness. These barbarians believe Rashnu guards an ancient bridge leading to heaven where he weighs the souls at Judgement. We will explain to them today that Rashnu is no angel, just a hulk of metal that we will turn into a bar!”

The ship reverberated from more impacts, but they seemed to be hitting the rear of the vessel, indicating they were indeed moving away. A small fire started near one of the emergency doors, but a crewman put it out quickly.

“Now, I suggest all of you that pray, do so now. This is no minor assault I speak of, and it will be a first. As I speak, this entire flank is withdrawing, and we are taking a large part of their flank with us. When Clearchus gives the signal, we will reverse course and smash into the heart of their forces. We will not be pulling alongside her, no, sir! We will drive the bow of this mighty ship directly into her flanks. With the mass of this ship, and any other cruisers that can make the charge, we will smash her shields, drive into her landing bays and take her by force!”

Now he was answered by an approving roar. Xenophon looked to his friends and noticed even the jovial Julius seemed a little surprised at the plan. The rest continued cheering, but Roxana and Glaucon looked particularly worried. Roxana leaned towards him and shouted so that he might hear her.

“Ramming a battleship? Won’t we just breach our own armour and explosively decompress?”

Xenophon scratched his chin and looked to Glaucon and Julius, both of whom had stepped in closer.

“If we do this, we’ll lose Vendetta. This is a one way trip, you know that, right?” asked Julius.

Glaucon shook his head disapprovingly.

“I don’t like this, not at all!”

“Wait!” Xenias called out with one hand over his left ear. The crowd quietened down as they waited, each expecting to hear that the battle was over, that they had won or a deal had been brokered. Instead, he lowered his arm and grinned, the widest grin any of them had probably ever seen.

“Now, we go! Check your weapons, the attack on the Rashnu has begun! We have the honour of leading the attack.”

The roar of excitement was contagious, and even the recently dour-looking Tamara seemed to be caught up in the mood. There was little for the warriors to actually do as they waited, although if they could have seen what was happening outside, they might have preferred to stay deeper inside the ship.

The Titan Herakles had performed a complete direction shift and doubled back towards the gap created in the Medes line. It wouldn’t be there for long, and the fast Titan and her formation of heavy and light cruisers accelerated as quickly as they dared. They made it halfway before their plan was realised and the pursuing Medes ships changed course to pursue them, but by then it was too late. Herakles used all her power to keep her shields at full strength until within a kilometre of the enemy flagship. At this point blank range, it almost looked like the Titan would smash into the Rashnu, but at the last moment her engine erupted and slowed the ship until they were only a short distance away.

Flash after flash indicated the heavy weapons being blasted into them both and gave the impression the two great beasts were lashed together in some kind of mortal death grip. The cruisers moved in under the cover of the Titan’s own attack and wriggled though the skirmish line of fighters, destroyers and the escorting Elamite battleships. Of the formation, only half of the eight ships made it through without being forced back. Vendetta was the only one to make it to within five hundred metres before being hit by defensive fire. The reverse engines had been burning for some time as the vast hulk of metal smashed into the lower decks of the Rashnu. The meeting of the two shields sent a sound like a thunderclap through the innards of Vendetta, and every man and woman was thrown by the impact. The combined speed of the impact was modest, but even that was enough to ensure not a single Terran remaining upright.

“Everybody to your feet!” shouted Xenias as his bodyguard helped him up.

One of his men passed him his carbine that he had dropped during the impact. He turned to glance at movement in the smoke and sparks towards the hull of the Rashnu.

“Prepare yourselves!” shouted one of the Dekarchos, but it was hard to see who was speaking in the confusion of the injured. Most of the Terrans lifted themselves up, but a small number stayed down, either knocked out by the collision, or hurt in some way by fallen equipment or other stumbling people. Steam blasted from dozens of ruptured pipes, and the internal alarms echoed repeatedly throughout the ship. Glaucon was up and already had Tamara on her feet before Xenophon even realised what was happening. Roxana and Artemas moved over to assist him, and he was sure that even in that brief moment he sensed hostility between them. There wasn’t time to start a boarding action. The Rashnu must have carried thousands of Median warriors, and they were already swarming through the scores of breaches inside the structure of Vendetta.

There was no warning as a group of the Medes foot soldiers rushed inside. They were lightly equipped, and some appeared to be carrying tools rather than weapons.

“Engineering detail!” called Pentarchos Hughes, and without checking with her comrades she rushed forward and struck the first with the butt of her rifle. The Medes male dropped to the floor and lifted his hands in a pleading gesture. She was already past him though the smoke. The other spatharii watched her go in astonishment, and then with a cry rushed to join her. The handful of Medes panicked, but they were cut down with blades and gunfire.

Xenias looked in pleasure at the aggression being shown and moved to the door with his carbine held low and ready. His bodyguard stepped in close beside him with two carrying the heavy shield generators. Xenophon, Julius and his comrades moved towards their leader as the sound of combat could be heard further away.

“Follow me, we have an Empire to win!” he shouted.

Anybody that could move followed him into the breach, and even Artemas stepped forward, her own weapons at the ready. Xenophon and Glaucon moved as a pair quickly past the Dukas and into a wide corridor that was venting gasses.

Xenophon sniffed the air. He could smell burning components and cabling. It looked like the battleship had sustained more damage in this section than they had realised. Ahead of them, the spatharii were spread out and looking for any signs of the enemy. Apart from the odd crewman, the ship appeared deserted. Xenias proceeded further inside until they reached an access hub. It was a large open space about the size of a small sports hall but with cylindrical tunnels moving off in a dozen directions. The rest of his warriors gathered around him in a knot of just over fifty men and women.

“They must have abandoned the landing bays when we started our approach!” suggested one man.

Roxana quickly assessed what this actually meant and turned to Xenophon. Both had a look that told them they were thinking the same thing. It was Tamara, surprisingly, that spoke first.

“That means they know we’re here, and it’s a trap!”

A group of spatharii appeared from one of the tunnels. They were running back towards the ship and changed direction upon spotting Xenias and his group waiting in the middle of the access hub. Dukas Xenias seemed unconcerned at the movement and tapped his temple as he spoke to Strategos Clearchus.

“This is Dukas Xenias, we are in the secondary landing bay, objective secured, moving inside,” he stated calmly and then moved as though to push ahead. A bright blue streak whistled passed him and cut one of the spatharii in half before exploding into one of the thick walls.

“Ambush!” shouted Julius and jumped in front of the Dukas. Those few with shield generators dropped them to the floor and activated the units to create a partial energy shield around the group. In seconds, the assault force had transformed from a loose formation of warriors to a small knot, much like an ancient schiltron of warriors, all shuffling in close around their leader. Artemas, with her keen sense of smell and hearing, spotted the enemy first.

“Here they come!” she cried.

Like insects crawling from a nest, the enemy rushed from five different tunnels towards the small formation. This time it wasn’t Median engineers, or even Medes warriors. This time the enemy were a motley collection of Mulacs and Taochi warriors. Both were members of the many races defeated by the Empire and forced to fight on its behalf. The Mulacs were more like men in build but thicker set and armoured in a crude fashion. All carried the edged weapons they so favoured, but some carried firearms. Mixed in with them were the bullish Taochi, the large warriors with massive rippled muscles and a mixture of close quarter weapons.

Xenophon watched them in awe, reminded for a moment of the paintings and artwork he had seen of these beasts fighting the Terrans on edges of their space. He had already faced the Mulacs before but never those in actual Imperial service. They wore uniforms and even reasonably similar helmets. But the Taochi were something else. Nothing in his reading or studies had ever prepared him for the sheer size and bulk of these real minotaur-type monsters. A ripple of light gunfire flashed around their position, and several pulse rounds bounced from the shields. They wouldn’t hold them forever though.

“Fire!” barked Xenias.

From the small circle of warriors a blistering amount of fire erupted as rifles, carbines and the odd pulse-cannon blasted the onrushing horde. Xenophon lost count of the number of Mulacs that fell beneath their guns, yet still they came. The Taochi took round after round, and only one fell before they reached the Terrans. Xenophon, Tamara and half a dozen other warriors pushed to the front, stabbing wildly as the monsters broke into the position. Two Terrans were crushed by the first before a long burst of pulse-cannon fire from Glaucon brought it down. Another reached a metre in front of Xenias, but his loyal bodyguard fired, stabbed and slashed with blades and carbines until he was safe.

“Forward!” he shouted, and as one the formation widened into a loose line towards the now scattered group of fighters. Two Mulacs rushed for Artemas, but she ducked passed both of them, slashing with her wickedly sharp blade as she moved. Those behind her finished them off on the ground before continuing. The shock troops panicked and finally turned to flee before the violence of the Terrans.

“You, Artemas, do you know the layout of these ships?” shouted Xenias over the din of battle.

She blasted with her carbine and moved alongside him.

“Yes, it is a standard design in the Imperial Fleet. Where do you want to go?”

“The Emperor, where will he be?”

Artemas smiled at him, “Yes, his throne room. It doubles as his royal household and much like your command deck.”

Xenias lifted his arm, blasted apart a Mulac and looked back to her with an urgent look in his eye.

“Where is that?”

Artemas look directly upwards.

“Four decks, directly up, right inside the heart of the ship.”

Xenias smiled and contacted Clearchus with the news. Artemas moved back to those at the front and took up position beside Xenophon. They were keeping up a consistent fire and were pushing back the enemy with only minimal losses. Xenophon slid in a new clip into his carbine and shouted over to her.

“Where are we going?”

“Up there!” she replied, pointing to where she had shown Xenias.

* * *

“They made it inside, excellent,” said Clearchus.

        
Tactical Officer Coxand sent him two screens of data on the Rashnu, along with live video feeds from the troops using the equipment. His expression had changed as he listened to the words from the four Dukas that had now made it aboard.

Xenias, even though using the smaller force, had now penetrated the furthest and expected to reach the main levels in less than ten minutes. According to the data they had on the Rashnu, she would have an estimated complement of about one and a half thousand crew plus an unknown number of warriors for defence. There was the issue of it being the flagship, and this would probably mean some form of Royal garrison as well.
 
The battle had now turned into a total mess, as the Medes tried to stop any more Terran vessels approach the boarded Rashnu. The Titan Valediction was already powering towards the ship when it took two broadsides from her accompanying Elamite battleships. The ship shook and three alarms sounded before being quickly silenced. He noticed on the tactical map that they were moving no closer to the ship.

“What’s the problem?” he shouted.