Duty, Honour, Love
Chapter 11

An hour later he had his reports. The ship and crew had fared better than he could have hoped. The only bright star on a bleak horizon. Jane stood at his side clearly relieved they were down. The Doc had securely strapped in her patients and there had been relatively few injuries mostly scrapes and bruises. Unfortunately the equipment hadn’t fared so well none of the sensors were working. Mark couldn’t delay things further. With no knowledge of what awaited him out side he had assembled a small team by the forward escape hatch. He gave Jane an annoyed look he would have preferred that she stayed on the ship until she told him she was the best shot on the ship. He was there because he was fluent in Galactic. Taking a deep breath and holding it he keyed in the code to unlock the hatch. It hissed open to reveal a short drop to an airlock door the first of two. Mark dropped down to the airlock and keyed in his code the door slid open to another short drop to the outer lock. He hesitated and opened the final door. With a hiss as the internal and external atmosphere equalised and the door slid open. He released his breath on smelling the sharp tang of the sea in the air. A breath of fresh air sweet and clean unlike the recycled air of the ship. He had half-expected on opening the final air lock to replace that they would have to dig their way out. There was another airlock on the top of the hull. It wasn’t much of an option with wounded crew to deal with. Between the hull and the surface of the planet was a good two-metre drop.

“Right I’m going first!” he announced before anyone could object and jumped.

The sand was soggy under foot as he made his way up the beach from the hull. The water and sand soon filled his dress shoes and he began to regret his choice of footwear. “At least my feet are getting the wash I’ve craved for weeks,” he thought to himself. It wasn’t hard to see the devastation the ship had caused in landing. The wash from the sea had pushed debris up the beach. The sand was firm and damp as he walked from under the shadow of the ship and into almost blinding sunshine. He heard the sounds of birds in the distance and noise made by his crew as they dropped from the ship. They had six pistols and that wasn’t going to hold anything off that desired their deaths. The forward quarter of the ship poked out of the water and from what he could see the engines where completely submerged.

Mark turned his gaze to the surroundings using his hand to shade his eyes from the harsh glare of the sun. Tall bushes edged the sand enough to hide s small army. From his vantage point he could see the remains of a parking lot overgrown grass pushed up between the cracks in the lot’s surface. Behind the parking lot was a low building as overgrown as the rest and appeared to be abandoned. The desolation of the place did nothing to negate the feeling that he was being watched.

Jane walked over to him her hand shading her eyes as his was.

“Sir?” she said her hand on the holster of the pistol on her hip.

“It’s quiet,” he said to her his eyes never leaving the bushes in front of him.

“Sir?”

“It’s too quiet,” he replied and removed his hand from his eyes and turned on his comms. It blinked the message ‘no connection’. He hadn’t really expected any change his like all imperial comms units were set to the ships comms relay. He slowly did a three hundred and sixty-degree turn surveying the beach and the surrounding land. The planet couldn’t have been abandoned he was certain they had detected tilled fields and farms on their first pass through orbit. “Something happened here?” he said quietly to Jane.

“What sir?” Obviously he was seeing something she wasn’t.

Mark pointed to the remains of a road, which looked like it a dip between two tall bushes to her eyes.

“I think that’s a road,” Mark told her. “Wait here I’m going to investigate.”

“It should be me that does that sir,” Jane protested. “Regs state the first officer should head any away missions where a senior officer is required.”

Mark turned to her. “If there are any locals about you don’t speak Galactic I do.”

“But…” Jane pressed her point. “You shouldn’t go alone.”

Mark was too tired to argue. “Very well stay at least two metres behind me.” He waved to the others to stay where they were. He strode forward or the best he could manage with the fatigue he was feeling and difficulty of walking in sand in dress shoes. He could feel the sand covering his socks and the grit between his toes. It was slow going he angled his approach for the road thinking he would make better progress than wading through the sand.

Suddenly ahead of him Confederacy soldiers rose out of the bush weapons at the ready their green and grey camouflage blending easily with the terrain.

“You took your damn time,” he snapped at them. His exhaustion was making him reckless.

The wait for the Terran ship was an anxious time for Karasena, here in a place none of her soldiers wanted to be.

“Ino,” called over her comms. Ino was safe in the base while Karasena, Dareia and a dozen of her hand picked soldiers where concealed in the bushes awaiting the ship.

“Ma’am?” Ino answered promptly.

“What’s the status on the Terrans?”

“Still on course.”

“And anything on the WM sensors yet.”

“Nothing ma’am.”

Karasena knew it was a stupid question but she had to ask. “Those sensors working?”

“Receiving full telemetry from them.”

“Inform me the instant that changes.” She clicked of her comms and caught Dee looking at her. She couldn’t see Dee’s expression through her helmet but she was sure Dee was reading her mind. “What?” she sniped at her friend and immediately apologised in her mind.

Dee just nodded and turned her attention back to the beach and the horizon beyond it. Karasena had parked her ATV transports under the cover of trees behind the derelict shop and restaurant. Concealed from sight but they still could be easily picked up on sensors. The building provided cover from any incoming fire. Karasena didn’t want it to come to that but she had to be prepared for the worst. To that end she had set up a MARs launcher with a commanding view of the beach. She worried that Wenasi’s prediction was incorrect and had stationed a larger force at the spaceport. Most of her troops were concealed behind a low wall overgrown with tall grass and bushes. The occasional green stalk of an aravi peeked out their ears heavy with seed.