Black Legion: 03 - Warlords of Cunaxa (21 page)

Damn it! That is supposed to be fixed!

She sat up and did her best to ignore the pain. In her limited experience of wounds, the ones that you couldn’t feel were the most problematic. It had been days since the work had been done, and the metal replacements for her damaged limb should in theory give her an even stronger joint. She swung her legs to one side and lowered her feet gingerly to the ground. It gave her a good view of her legs, and what she saw didn’t impress her. The knee had been shattered, and the replacement parts had required the removal of the damaged tissue. The grafted skin was almost finished but retained a red discolouration, giving her leg a mottled, almost burnt appearance. One of the soldiers spotted her movement and took a step closer. A loud smashing sound shook the room, and two girders tore from the ceiling, crashing to the ground. The soldier managed to dodge the first one and jumped aside towards the doorway. He lifted himself up, looked back and then ran.

“What a bastard!” she snarled at the sight of the noble warrior abandoning the wounded.

Both her feet were now firmly on the ground, and as she lowered her weight down, a pang of pain show up her left leg. It reminded her of the visits by the physio over the last week.

Got to power through this!

Tamara pushed from the bed and found herself upright but poorly balanced. Now she could see the medical gown that all the patients in this room had to wear. It was light grey and based on a three-armhole design that needed no ties or snaps. It felt quite light and as far as she could tell, it seemed to be made from some type of demure cloth. It was actually quite comfortable but nothing like the kind of clothing she was used to. As a young, aggressive woman, she favoured tight clothes, leather jackets and generally anything that got her the attention she wanted. A dull grey gown left her feeling vulnerable and weak. She took a step from the bed and was amazed to find herself still standing. More explosions through the Rashnu required her to grab the bed, rails and finally the wall as she staggered from the room. The wailing soldier had stopped, and she couldn’t find any sign of him or the man that had been helping. They were either dead or had left. Either way it didn’t matter to her. They had all abandoned her, and she had no loyalty to them.

Medes bastards, I won’t forget this!

She made it out of the door and into the corridor. There were a number of bodies on the floor as well as a soldier wearing Terran armour. She stopped and bent down to examine him. He was face down and it required great effort to roll the man over. Upon seeing his Terran face, she took a step back in surprise.

Terrans? On the Rashnu? What’s going on here?

Tamara looked down at the man, and her attention was drawn to the clothing. It definitely wasn’t the style used by the Legion. The more she looked, the more she recognised insignia and styling taken directly from the Medes. His weapon was a standard issue Medes rifle. Nothing particularly special, but the fact that a Terran carried it suggested only one thing to her; he must have been fighting for Artaxerxes. The insignia was definitely not from the Black Legion, and no Terran made use of Medes weapons. She grabbed the rifle, checked it was loaded and continued further down the corridor. There were signs of battle throughout the ship, and it appeared multiple boarding parties must have made it inside before being cut down. The ship shook again, and she was thrown heavily against the wall. She saw movement at the end, so she leaned against the wall to make herself as small a target as possible.

“Tamara?” shouted the nearest. She quickly recognised the voice.

“Xenophon?”

The group ran along the corridor and directly towards her. As they closed the distance, she recognised them and their Terran weapons and armour. Roxana, Artemas and Glaucon ran with him and reached her in seconds.

“What’s going on here?” she demanded. Xenophon was pulling her back in the direction they had arrived. Glaucon spotted the difficulty with her leg and placed his arm behind her shoulder blade to help support her weight.

“We’re in orbit over Cunaxa Secundus. Artaxerxes is sending his ships in with suicide runs against the capital ships. Rashnu is burning, along with half the fleet.”

She looked at him in surprise. “We’re losing the battle?”

Roxana was scouting ahead of the small group and looked back, shaking her head.

“No. The Legion is on the way but right now, Cyrus and his forces are making their way to the surface.
”

They kept moving, but the increasing shudders coming up through the ship made their journey even more perilous. Roxana was thrown to the wall at one point and fell down in front of Glaucon. He then tripped, and the entire group fell to the floor. Xenophon looked to them as he lifted himself back up.

“Come on, I don’t think she has long to go. You saw from the windows on the way here; the ship is on a decaying orbit to Cunaxa.
We need to get off before
she’s
dragged into the atmosphere and burns up.
”

The others helped Tamara to her feet, and they pushed on through the damaged corridors. One screen was still active on their right, and Tamara grabbed at it, desperate to see what was happening. It showed the exterior of the ship just as if it was a glass window, but in reality it was repeating the view on an external camera mount.

“Look at it,” she said with awe; perhaps even reverence in her voice.

The other three gave the screen no more than a cursory glance. Above the planet the great columns of ships continued their death struggle while hundreds of smaller craft descended to the planet below.

“What will happen to the fleet?” she asked.

Roxana, the most experienced of them all in Naval matters, looked at the ships and quickly assessed the situation.

“The sides are evenly matched, but Artaxerxes has orbital platforms and more fighters. Over time, he would win, but Clearchus is coming with the Legion. That’s why he has ordered most of his ships to launch suicide runs on Cyrus’ larger ships, like the Rashnu. He hopes to cripple the major vessels and potentially kill Cyrus. That’s probably what the boarding troops were doing here. Why else send mercenary Terrans aboard? So yeah, t
he fleet will survive, well, some of it.
”

Tamara rubbed her face, her body still wracked from the pain in her leg.

“Cyrus, where is here? Is he on board?” she asked, already forgetting what she had been told in the last few minutes.

Glaucon helped her away from the screen.

“No, he got off the minute we were rammed. Most of the Anusiyans boarded landing craft twenty minutes ago. He is l
aunching a full-scale ground attack on the Imperial compound.
Cyrus means to end this war once and for all.
”

Xenophon stepped away and beckoned to the T-junction ahead.

“Right leads to the weapons arrays and evacuation point, left goes further inside.”

“So?” replied Glaucon. “We need to get off the ship, so take the right.”

Xenophon paused, much to the surprise of the others.

“I don’t know. We could stay on board, ride the ship through the atmosphere and then use the evacuation pods to escape.”

Roxana looked at him and laughed.

“Are you serious? Why bother? The chances of surviving re-entry are low, and we still have to get off the ship. Let’s stick to the plan and get out now!”

Another heavy impact shook the corridor, forcing them to move. Xenophon followed Artemas. She had taken the right turn and was already well on her way to reaching the weapons array deck. The others gave chase and in less than three minutes, all of them were in the ruins of the deck. Boxes of parts and bodies from both sides lay around the gun mounts. Artemas lifted her hand and pointed to a series of dull yellow dots. They moved to the end and veered off into a poorly lit area.

“That’s the place!”

She ran towards it. Glaucon and Xenophon helped Tamara, and they all chased after her. The bend led to a line of circular entrances, of which only two remained open. The others were sealed up and showed signs of thermal scoring. A body lay near the entrance to one of the open doorways. Roxana ignored it and moved inside the waiting escape pod. The others followed her, placing Tamara into one of the thirty seats inside.

“Why so big?” asked Glaucon as he helped Tamara strap herself in.

Xenophon sat down next to her and pulled his own straps on.

“You’ve seen these ships, haven’t you? Over crewed with more people than you could ever possibly need and crewed by people of dubious quality. They probably have a few thousand crew on this ship alone.

“Few thousand?” said Roxana as she hit the sealant button. The entry door slammed shut, quickly followed by two internal airlock seals. With the final dull thud, the vessel started its automatic escape mode.

“An Immortal class battleship has over six thousand crew, all automatons plus detachments of Anusiyans for security. Rashnu is bigger again.”

With that, Roxana dropped into the nearest seat and strapped herself in. A loud clunk indicated they had broken the seal with the super-battleship, and then they were away. Unlike the larger ships, this small vessel was equipped with a number of photosensitive reinforced glass portholes. They were double layered and small, but did allow a view of the battle as the craft drifted downwards.

“Look at it, have you ever seen a battle like this before?” asked Glaucon.

Roxana shook her head.

“No, not even the fighting at Fort Plymouth matched this.”

The mention of the massive Alliance space station took Xenophon right back to his time in the Navy. He’d been conscripted like many others to fight in the hopeless war against Laconia. The ambush of the Alliance fleet and the subsequent terrible defeat had shaped all of their futures. Now it was simply referred to as the Battle of Aegospotami, after the region of space. It had been the final climatic battle of the war, with the result being the unconditional of surrender of Attica and occupation by Laconian soldiers.

“At least this is a battle,” he added, still bitter about what had happened.

“You were at Aegospotami?”Artemas asked. Until now she had seemed uninterested in their tales of battles past.

Both Xenophon and Roxana looked to her, surprised at her interest and also suspicious of the tone in her voice. There had been rumours during the war about possible military assistance by the Medes on the side of Laconia, but it had never been proven.

“Why the interest, Artemas?” asked Roxana.

Artemas looked back to the window and the space battle. The beams of light lit up her face through the photosensitive glass and flickered in a kaleidoscope of colours.

“My uncle told me about the battle. He spent a lot of time with Terrans after the death of his father Darius. That is where he came across people like Clearchus and the other Dukas. He told me it was your feelings of superiority over our people that gave him the idea to create the Black Legion.”

Tamara turned from her view out of the window and to Artemas. She looked genuinely interested in the last part of what she had to say.

“Cyrus’ father, Darius? Wasn’t he the Emperor?”

Artemas smiled at her.

“Yes, he was the God King, sometimes called the Great King or the Emperor. They are one and the same for our people. Cyrus and his brother were both there when Darius died. Tissaphernes the Betrayer accused my uncle of plotting to overthrow Artaxerxes, the new Emperor. He was to be executed, but his mother, Parysatis, persuaded him to send Cyrus to the border. That was where he met many Terrans, and once you had finished your wars, what did he find?”

Glaucon nodded at this point.

“Terran worlds occupied by the League, disgruntled citizens, exiles and soldiers without work.”

“So that was how he started this whole expedition,” explained Xenophon to himself, loud enough for the others to hear. He looked back to Artemas.

“I thought Cyrus had explained to our commanders that he had chosen his place on the border. It was something to do with an argument. Is this the same story?”

She smiled.

“Xenophon, you should know by now that the same event often comes with many different stories. The facts are simple. There was a disagreement with the brothers, and Cyrus travelled to the border with the Terran worlds.”

Glaucon laughed.

“And now we are in the heart of Median territory with a mixed army of Medes and Terrans to topple the God King,” he said, slowly but sarcastically.