War for Orion: Ghosts from the Past (14 page)

Moran nodded and started running down the
hallway. Armino activated all three of the concussion grenades at
the same time and tossed them all down the hallway before running
after Moran. He heard the explosion of the three grenades, but
couldn't be sure how many enemies he had knocked out, if any at
all.

"It leads back to our men!" Moran shouted
from down the hallway.

Armino had almost made it to the end of the
hallway when it started to seal off like the first one had. He
pushed his body forward and slid on the floor, barely making it
underneath without being crushed. He quickly raised himself from
the floor and faced his men.

"Get back up the stairs!" he shouted. "We
don't want to be cornered in this room to be target practice! We
need to regroup and think up a better strategy. The enemy has been
alerted of our presence and has their attack plan well thought
out."

The men ran up the stairs to see that the
room was no longer the same as when they had arrived. There was
little light streaming into the building, as all of the windows had
been blacked out. The smell of gunfire lingered in the air, but not
a single fire had been shot yet.

Armino looked down the hallway that they had
come down. "I can see a little bit of light from the doors that we
blew down. Let's make our way back to the ship, I don't like the
feeling I have right now."

Armino turned around to the sound of stone
rubbing against stone and saw the wall in front of him moving
upward, revealing five warbots standing ten feet tall. Their
weapons were raised and were pointed right at his men as they
exited.

"Get out of here!" Armino shouted to all of
his men. "There's warbots ready to take us out!"

The warbots immediately started targeting in
on Armino's men and firing a variety of weapons. Explosions rocked
the building and the circular room lit up with flashes of red and
orange from the impact of the weapon rounds.

Armino pointed at two men. "Moran! Ferris!
Fire your sonic grenade launchers at them!"

The two men fired their weapons at the
warbots, but they didn't go down on impact. After realizing their
weapons were useless against the bots' armor, they redirected their
fire to the feet of the warbots, creating a cloud of dust that gave
them temporary cover from the pursuing warbots.

Armino pointed to the hall he had come down
with his group. "That's our way out! Go!"

All of the men started running down the hall
while Moran and Ferris continued firing at the warbots that were
now quickly closing in on them.

"Go get the ship ready for take-off Armino!"
Moran shouted.

"We can hold them off while you get it ready
to get out of here!" Ferris urged.

Armino ran down the hallway and was relieved
to see that he had been correct about the sealing door being broken
from their explosives. He got on the ship and fired up the engines
no sooner than arrival of Moran and Ferris.

"Our weapons are useless on those things!
Their armor is impenetrable!" Ferris yelled exhausted as he entered
the ship, still firing uselessly outside.

Armino rotated the ship to face the entrance
of the building just in time to see the warbots emerging. He locked
in on them with his sonic cannons and fired them along with his
laser guns on the nose of the ship. The warbots exploded in flames
immediately.

"Nothing is impenetrable Ferris," Armino
said.

He quickly stopped laughing as five enemy
ships approached them from all directions, firing upon seeing them.
"That includes us," He strapped himself in his seat. "Moran get in
the co-pilot seat!" He started lifting the ship off of the ground.
"We're getting out here now!"

Moran jumped in the seat and immediately
applied the force shield around the ship to stop the enemy's
weapons from damaging the ship and taking them down. "Sonodrive is
ready as soon as we are off of Plouton."

Armino nodded while applying the thrusters to
the maximum level. He got on the com of the ship. "Take your
positions in the turrets and keep those ships off of us!" He
ordered his men. "Start fending off these enemy ships. It looks
like there's eleven of them now." He told Moran.

Moran took over control of the weapons and
started firing the cannons and guns at incoming enemy ships. Armino
could see enemy ships exploding and going down all around him, but
it seemed like there were always others to replace the fallen ones.
Though they were heavily outnumbered, he knew their ship could take
the beating temporarily until the exited Plouton. This ship was
much faster than the pursuing fighters and he wasn't going to let
them take his ship down.

As soon as he piloted the ship out of
Plouton's atmosphere, he initiated Sonodrive. "We're safe now," He
leaned back in his chair and let out a deep breath.

Moran rubbed his hands down his face. "It's
like they knew we were there before we were even there! They just
waited for us to be at our most vulnerable before attacking!"

"I was just thinking the same thing
myself."

"Did everyone make it out?" Moran asked,
turning in his seat.

"Donnchadh is the only one I know of that
didn't. Go take a head count for me."

Moran got up from his seat to check up on all
of the other men. Armino stared out of the cockpit window in
disbelief at how wrong the mission had just gone. He had never had
any mission go this bad, and it was his first failed mission in
years. He reclined back in his chair and closed his eyes.

He had known that the Deimos Brotherhood had
committed over a dozen crimes with precision he had never seen from
a criminal group, but he never thought they'd be able to defeat his
squadron with such deception. They were just common criminals, how
could they be better than the Queen's Galactic Special Operations
Unit?

Moran interrupted his thoughts. "Donnchadh
was the only one that we lost. There are a few injuries, but
everyone else made it."

Armino didn't reply and stared out of the
window into space. Moran took a seat next to him and prepared for
the long journey back to Hera. He had been fighting alongside
Armino since joining, and they had lost a few men, but they hadn't
ever failed the Queen this miserably before.

Moran looked at Anlon. "That was the last
time we ever saw Donnchadh," He looked down at the floor. "Your
father saw him gunned down with his own eyes."

"But how did he survive?" Anlon stuttered.
"Why did he kill my Dad? They were friends."

"We don't know how he lived," Moran put his
hand on Anlon's shoulder. "He became one of the Deimos
Brotherhood's members though, that is obvious," He removed his hand
from Anlon's shoulder. "From recent reports, he has become one of
their best and we were hunting him down."

"You knew?" Anlon exclaimed. "How long have
you known he was one of them?"

Moran sighed. "We found out about a year
later. We caught an image of him on a security camera. We were
skeptic at first that it was him, but when Armino saw, he knew
without a doubt."

"But I thought that they stayed hidden and
let other groups carry out their stuff. Quick, precise, and
undetected."

"That's how they used to be, but after we
tried to take them out they stopped hiding from us. They started
taking credit for their attacks and recruited members from the
other organizations before eliminating them completely."

"I don't understand," Anlon started.

"There's a lot you don't understand right now
Anlon, but you will in time. Donnchadh is a traitor, but we never
thought he would go after any of his old brothers, especially like
this. But now it's time to get him back, we won't let him get away
with this."

"How?" Anlon asked.

"I've brought two people to Gaea to train you
how to survive and kill. You will learn both just like
Donnchadh."

"When do I get to start training?"
Moran put his hand back on Anlon's shoulder. "Tomorrow. You will
meet Ferris and Emer." He pulled out a piece of paper from his
pocket. "You will train at my place. Put this combination in the
elevator and you'll be taken to your training room."

Anlon pocketed the paper. "What about weapons
and a ship? I'll need those too if I'm going after these
races."

"We'll worry about all that other good stuff
later," he replied. "For now, you need to train and that's all you
need to worry about. When you're ready, I'll show you your weapons
and take you to your ship."

"You already have them?"

Moran smiled. "Finish your training and then
I'll answer that question."

Moran stood up and walked to the door. "This
is the only way I can help you Anlon. The GSOU won't allow me to go
on any rogue missions, but you're not a part of the GSOU. You'll be
trained like one and there's no stopping you from doing what you
want once you've completed training."

Moran opened the door and saw Kanti and
Giustino pulling up in their police car. "You have visitors
Anlon!"

Anlon approached the door and watched as
Moran left his house. Moran hadn't even so much as glanced at the
officers as he entered his cruiser. Anlon waived at the two
approaching officers.

"Hey Anlon," Kanti greeted.

"What was Moran doing here?" Giustino
asked.

Anlon shrugged. "He just came by to check up
on me and see how I was doing."

Kanti smiled. "That was nice of him."

"There's someone else who wants to check up
on you too Anlon," Giustino said.

"Someone else?" he asked, confused.

"Queen Adira," Anlon stared at both of them
speechless. "Pack your things. You leave tomorrow," Giustino said,
as he turned around to go back to his car.

Anlon looked over at Kanti for an
explanation. "I don't know Anlon. He just got a call this morning
from the Queen's personal adviser and he said the Queen wants to
see you immediately. He hasn't told me anything other than
that."

"Why does Giustino seem so mad about it?"

"I don't know. He was fine this morning, but
after that call he seemed very agitated," She smiled at him before
she turned back around to get to the honking car. "You get to see
the Queen, Anlon! You should be excited!"

Anlon turned around and went back into his
house. This wasn't good. He was supposed to start training tomorrow
and now he had to go see the Queen for reasons he didn't even know.
It could play out in his favor. His father was a friend of hers, so
maybe she could help him. He went to the living room and picked up
his comlink.

"What's wrong Anlon?" Moran asked.

"The officers came to tell me that the Queen
wants to see me."

"The Queen? Why does she want to see
you?"

"I don't know Moran, they just said I have to
leave immediately," he replied. "I wasn't given a choice, they said
I have to leave."

"When did they tell you that you have to
leave?"

"They told me that I'm leaving tomorrow,"
Anlon answered.

"Okay Anlon. This may actually be a good
thing," Moran told him.

"Good?" Anlon exclaimed. "Good in exactly
what way? It's going to give Donnchadh just that much more time to
get away."

"Anlon, listen to me," he said. "If the Queen
wants to see you, then she knows what happened to Armino, trust me.
She may want to ask you more questions so she can send a GSOU team
to get these guys. Right now, she knows just as much as the
officers and probably thinks she can get more out of you than they
could. She also probably knows you're as stubborn as Armino and
that you held a few things back so you could act on your own."

"You're telling me that I should tell her
what's going on?" he asked. "How do I even know I can trust her?
She could put me in jail for lying the first time!"

"Anlon trust me," Moran insisted. "She was
very close to your father, so she's going to want to catch these
guys as much as you. She won't care that you lied and there is zero
chance she'll lock you up for it. Remember that she has many more
resources at hand that even I can provide for you."

"Fine. I'll tell her what she wants to know,
but I won't make it easy."

"I don't care if you come out and tell her
right away or if you wait," Moran said. "But you
have
to
tell her that Donnchadh was involved. The Queen and your father
were too close to keep something like that from her."

"What about my training?"

"You can do it when you get back," Moran told
him. "I think seeing the Queen is going to work out in your favor
Anlon. Donnchadh won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

"Okay," Anlon breathed out. "If you think
so."

"You can't do this all on your own Anlon, you
need allies in this. Having the Queen on your side will be a good
thing. Make sure that she's on your side."