It didn’t take long for the crash to draw the attention of the locals, who came streaming towards the high school on foot, on horse, and in repaired cars. Before he could reach the ship, there were close to one-hundred civilians around the crash, many of whom were armed.

  The first indication the SC had that told him he was going to have trouble was when a .303 bullet slammed into the side of his head. Snapping his head in the direction the shot came from, the machine spotted a male, mid-40s reloading his rifle. Without a second thought, the SC switched his weapon to stun mode and fired at the male.

  The shot hit him and sent him falling back to the ground.

  “Hold your fire!” The SC barked over his external speakers.

  It did no good. Another shot hit is back.

  “Die! Alien scum!” A shout rang out.

  “Leave!”

  “Get out of our town!”

  “Leave Kansas!”

  “Earth for mankind only!”

  “Jesus commands you to leave!”

  The shouting and the ad-hoc weapons fire kept coming in, and eventually, the SC had enough of it. Turning to his right, the SC engaged every human that was in his line of sight. Male, female, if they were a mature adult, he dropped them. That did leave a lot of young children concerned about their parents, but he felt confident that he had got the message across.

  Reaching the ship, the SC found the closest airlock and pried it open. Entering the ship, the SC accessed the ships AI through the airlocks data-panel. He ran a bio-scan first, checking how many crew members were still alive, then contacted the bridge, where he assumed he would find the commanding officer.

  “Who is in command?” He demanded. His voice boomed over the intercom system of the entire ship. There could be no doubt that he was a formidable foe. After all, he had almost single-handedly destroyed their vessel.

  After a pause of almost two minutes, a female voice came back in reply.

  “This is Assistant Controller Franska.”

  “Assistant Controller, this is Sentinel Commander of the Alliance ship Epsilon. You are in an environment where the air is not breathable. Recommend you treat your wounded and remain where you are inside the ship until the proper authorities arrive.” The SC said.

  “I.”

  “You do not want to fight.” The SC cut the commanding officer off. “Your ship is down, and you are out of the fight.”

  “Ship Master Ranix.”

  “Go, SC.” Ranix replied.

  “Require Alliance forces to take this ship’s complement into custody.”

  “I’ll send the message higher.” Ranix replied.

  The Sentinel Commander checked that the internal seal in the airlock was secure, then stepped back outside. He found a larger crowd than had been outside earlier, and they were again armed.

  Lowering his weapon, the SC put his left hand up in the air, but before he could speak to the crowd, a 7.62mm bullet slammed into his forehead.

  “Good shot!” He shouted in an almost deafening tone towards the crowd, then brought up his rifle.

  68-Dr Keegan Beck

  Keegan was out of breath and lying on his back in the dirt. Looking to his right, he could see a destroyed Abrams tank. To his left, the same thing. It had been a brutal fight. Once they were inside the protective layer of the shielding, it had been a gun-fight in a phone-booth as one of the TSG members had said to him when he had checked on the doctor.

  Sitting up, Keegan took in more of the scenery. It was a mess. There was smoke billowing from several destroyed vehicles. Bodies in various uniforms lay scattered on the ground. Many had been killed by energy weapon blasts. The fight had been short and brutal. Once the shield had been penetrated, and the elite TSG members had got stuck into the Coalition troopers, their will to fight evaporated quickly. Only their droids fought to the end.

  Pushing himself up, Keegan brushed some of the dirt off his front, then pulled out the radio from his pocket.

  “This is Beck.”

  “Go ahead, Doctor.” John Riley replied.

  “I think we’re good here.”

  Keegan killed the channel.

  At least that phase of retaking the planet was over. Now he just needed to hope that the boys in space could fulfil their end of the bargain.

  69-TSG Command Group

  “Ships are exiting the hangar.” The weapons officer on the shuttle replied.

  Kol Fine looked at Mike Tattersall. “Probably jump capable, trying to make a run for it.” He looked at the rest of the TSG Command Team. “When we board, keep your suits buttoned up at all times, on wreckage like this, there could always be drops in pressure or temperature fluctuations that could be fatal.”

  When the Master Grade had informed Mike and the rest of the bridge on the Seven that he wanted to board what was suspected to be the Coalition’s flagship, it drew some odd looks from Admiral Taark.

  “Are you sure?” The Admiral asked.

  Fine nodded. “Yes, Sir.” He glanced over at Mike. “Might as well give your team a crash-course in ship boarding, and we might be able to retrieve some actionable intelligence.”

  The admiral had given his blessing.

  The Command Team only had four members, Mike, Alex Jefferson, the TSG’s 2IC, and Sergeant Aniston, an ex-SBS operator, and Corporal Ocean, an ex-SAS man. The team might have been small, but Mike had chosen the two most experienced British operators to round out his team.

  “We don’t know what’s going to be happening in the hangar bay when we arrive.”

  Mike’s eyes went wide. “We’re just going to fly into their hangar bay?”

  Kol Fine smiled. “Their ship is in distress. They’re attempting an evacuation. Even if they’re preparing a defence, it will be haphazard and poorly organised.’

  Mike looked around the compartment of the shuttle. He counted six members of the assaulting team. Four humans plus Kol Fine and Z7. It was a tiny strike force by his estimations to raid an enemy warship, regardless of how stricken it may have been.

  “Eyes on the hangar.” The pilot reported.

  “Take us in.” Fine ordered.

  “Z7 and I will take point. Major Tattersall and Aniston take the middle position. Major Jefferson and Ocean will take up rear security.” Fine flipped his blast shield down. “There will be a lot of chaos on the ship. Don’t kill anyone you don’t have to.”

  The rest of the team flipped down their blast shields, other than Z7. The Light Sentinel was carrying a heavy energy cannon and had recently had a fresh green coat of paint put on his chassis.

  The rest of the group had armour with a base grey colour scheme and green highlights. It wasn’t tactical, but Mike thought it looked good.

  “Opening side hatch.” The pilot said.

  Instinctively, all the members of the TSG dropped down to one knee and readied their weapons.

  When the hatch slid open, it revealed an off-white cavernous space that was filled with several different types of small shuttles, and numerous figures rushing about.

  “Let’s go!” Fine yelled over the net and jumped out of the moving shuttle.

  Mike had assumed that they would stop before disembarking, but hey, this was the sharp end of the stick.

  Z7 disappeared shortly after Fine had leapt, leaving the four Brits in the transport.

  “Fuck it!” Mike yelled, rising to his feet, he moved towards the hatch and jumped out.

  Flying through the air, Mike’s Heads Up Display was working rapidly, identifying every Coalition member in the hangar. Those with weapons were highlighted in red.

  Focusing on his landing, Mike was flying towards an upturned loading truck. He quickly brought his feet up and braced for impact. Hitting the vehicle, Mike’s armour compensated for the collision, and absorbed the shock.

  Coming to a complete stop, Mike dropped to the deck, and quickly checked his team tracker for the rest of the elements. Kol Fine and Z7 were already moving towards the main exit of the hangar, while Jefferson, Ocean and Aniston were also closer to the hatch, while the shuttle they had arrived in had already turned around and was flying out of the hangar as fast as possible.

  “Stack on me!” Fine called out on the comms.

  Mike quickly scanned his immediate vicinity and could only see members of the crew with terrified expressions on their faces who weren’t making any movements towards him. Being in a suit of combat armour probably helped put the fear of God into them.

  Rushing to catch up with the rest of the assault element, Mike passed half a dozen crew members who all scattered at the sight of him. Reaching the main hatch to the hangar, Mike stacked up behind Sergeant Aniston on the wall next to the large opening into the rest of the ship.

  “We are amidships. The bridge will be towards the bow.” Fine said. “Let’s move.”

  Mike watched Fine and Z7 step into the breach and move to the left. They immediately received weapons fire, which cut down the corridor.

  “Move!” Mike said, moving into the hallway in pursuit of Fine and Z7. When he got his first glance down the hall, he was shocked to see his two instructors thirty metres ahead of him at a junction, along with a series of dead corpses along the way.

  Running up to where the pair were stopped, Mike made sure he had an eye on his sensor data at all times. They might have been wearing cutting edge armour, but they weren’t invincible.

  Once Mike and Aniston were set, the rear-guard element moved into position, facing towards the rear of the ship. It was silent. No emergency alarms were ringing, the lighting in the hallway was flickering, but the HUD systems were already using a blend of thermal, infra-red and motion sensor data to provide an image for the operators to use.

  “Set.” Fine said. It was a warning that they needed to be ready to move off. “You need to think and move faster.” He said in his stern instructor voice. “Tattersall on point.”

  Mike acknowledged the instruction and moved to a position next to Fine, checking that Aniston was with him.

  “Ready?”

  “Ready.” Aniston replied.

  “Move.”

  Tattersall advanced down the corridor swiftly. He was trying to move as fast as he was thinking, but he was still getting used to combat at Dynamic Operations speed. He focused on the training he had received on Jax Ar 2R. He just needed to remember that he was now capable of doing everything fast and better than he could before. It was just a question of letting the mind go.

  “Next right.” Fine ordered over the net.

  Just as quickly as the order had come in, Mike was turning right and found himself on another long corridor, this one, however, had multiple crew-served weapons positions down its length. Fighting the natural instinct to seek cover or fall-back, Mike followed the training he had been taught and attacked.

  Racing forwards, Mike opened fire on the first position, moving past it almost as fast as he had eliminated the two guards operating the post. As he raced forward, his partner, Sergeant Aniston, was laying down accurate fire to their front.

  When they reached the end of the corridor, Mike was shocked. He never thought that the upgrades that he and the rest of the TSG had been given would be so deadly. He was able to move and think faster than he could have ever imagined.

  “Hold.” Kol Fine ordered. “Bridge ahead.”

  Mike stopped, checked his ammo, and trained his weapon to his front.

  70-The Seven

  “Where is the Five?”

  Everyone in the room could see the look of concern on Joe’s face.

  “It didn’t jump with us.” Ship Master Yakari said.

  “Clearly.” Joe replied.

  “Check all data, telemetry and visual records before the jump.” Admiral Taark ordered. “Odds are, nothing is wrong.”

  “Admiral.” Shouted out one of the bridge techs.

  Hunt, Taark and Yakari walked over to the station.

  “Report.” Taark ordered.

  “It’s clear, Sir, a strange light enveloped the Five before the jump.”

  “Light?” Joe asked.

  The tech moved the monitor until Joe could see it.

  “We had several imagers trained on the Five before the jump.” The tech said. “She jumped, but she just didn’t jump here.”

  “What’s this light around the ship?” Taark asked.

  “The computers are coming up empty on that, Sir.”

  Taark looked at Joe. “Don’t worry. Doctor Stokes is safe on a ship like that, wherever she jumped to.”

  71-The Five

  “Where are we?”

  Rhea was looking at the Ship Master. His arms were crossed, there was a perplexed look on his face.

  “Well?” Admiral Rasanna asked. “We’re not in the Traxis system, that’s clear, so, where are we?”

  “Ma’am, we don’t know.” The technician at the navigation station answered. “If we encountered a trans-dimensional rift, we might not even be in the same galaxy.”

  Rhea looked down at the tiny bulge at her belly. She was starting to regret telling Joe that she was pregnant. She knew he would be freaking out now.

  “We need time to get a star-plot.” The tech looked back down at their instruments, then up at their department head. “We’re not inside borders of the Etelainen.”

  “I agree with the technician’s assessment, but we’ll need to speak with several other departments before we have a final explanation for how we got to wherever we are. Astrophysics, engineering.” He shook his head. “I can only confirm that our data suggests that we have indeed jumped somewhere, a long way from where we were.”

  “And that?” Ship Master Jalei asked, pointing at the main view screen. “What is that?”

  Rhea looked at the view screen, and the massive object that was on the screen. Whatever it was, it was mega.

  72-TSG Command Group

  Mike Tattersall was stacked against the wall next to the entrance to the bridge. Just behind him was Corporal Ocean, then Major Jefferson and finally Sergeant Aniston. Across the hall, just across from the doors his two instructors were standing, looking rather calm.

  “Right.” Kol Fine pointed at the doors to the bridge. “I want a clear breach.” He looked at Z7, who was standing next to him. “How many hostiles do you estimate?”

  The Light Sentinel took a moment to run the calculations. “Fewer than twenty.”

  Kol Fine nodded. “You heard Z7. I want a zero body count. Everyone on the bridge will probably be bridge crew, which makes them valuable assets for fleet intelligence.”

  “Weapons to stun.” Mike ordered.

  “Take the ship, Major.” Kol Fine ordered.

  Mike tightened the grip on his weapon, rechecked the hatch, then looked over to Kol Fine. “Don’t you want to move? You’re in the line of fire from the bridge.”

  “Don’t worry about us.” Fine replied.

  Mike frowned inside his helmet and checked his position. The pad to open the doors was just next to him.

  “Breaching in five, four, three,” He put his gloved hand over the pad. “two, one.” He suppressed the pad and started moving forward at the same time.

  The doors opened, and the four members of the Command Group stormed onto the bridge. Mike, first in the door cut left, sweeping the room clockwise from the nine o’clock position. Corporal Ocean followed him in and swept from the eleven. Major Jefferson and Sergeant Aniston cut right when entering the room and swept from the three o’clock position.

  When the four operators had finished sweeping the room, without firing a single shot, Mike was on the comms to Fine.

  “Multiple contacts.”

  “Entering the bridge.”

  Mike kept his rifle up at all times, sweeping back and forth. There were fifteen figures stationary on the bridge, hands in the air, looking back at the armoured invaders. Scanning each crewmember, he was trying to determine who was in command when Fine entered the bridge and strode right past him and the rest of his team, his rifle already slung, his blast shield flipped up.

  “Who is in command?”

  73-The Seven

  “It’s over.”

  Colonel Joe Hunt was bent over, almost out of breath. The Sol System was back in the hands of the hands of the Alliance, and more importantly, Earth was safe.

  “All ships stand-down to Condition Two.” Admiral Taark ordered. “Damage reports to the flagship at once.”

  “Colonel.”

  Joe’s communicator beeped to life.

  “Go major.”

  “Coalition flagship under our control.” Mike Tattersall reported. “We have prisoners.”

  “Well done Major.” Joe replied. He looked over to Taark. “Now,” He righted himself. “Where the hell is the Five?”

  Taark pointed towards the science station. “Go talk to them.”

  Joe looked at the station that was almost twenty metres away. “Yeah.”

  74-Planetary Command Ship

  Lord Soturi was standing just behind the Ship Master’s position on the upper deck of the PCS with Sector Prefect Dinalis right next to him. Frustration was a word that Soturi knew all too well. Having to deal with beings that weren’t up to his mental capabilities was a daily struggle, and spending almost five months on the bottom of the Bering Strait had pushed the limits of his tolerance for waiting to the limit.

  Soturi had seriously considered a move to the ocean’s surface before there was a chance of the Alliance making a move to retake the system, but the overly cautious Sector Prefect Dinalis from Alliance Diplomacy has convinced him to stay concealed and wait. And wait they had. Now that they were finally rising to the surface, the fight was over, and they had missed contributing entirely. No chance to showcase the powers he had developed during their months in hiding.

  “We are clear of the ocean’s surface.” Reported the navigator.

  “Very well. Make for the Alliance command ship.” The Ship Master ordered.

 

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