Project: Spectre

Chapter Eight: Sparta

November 22nd, 2097

Williams was almost silent for the rest of the flight to the outer core world of Sparta. The first time I heard her speak was when she gave me information on the planet. "Sparta was one of the first worlds colonized by the USC. It's currently home to about three billion people. I don't see any signs of attack, your best bet would be to talk to the military commander stationed here."

"Roger. Take us in for a landing." Williams nodded and got to it. I assembled the remnants of Omega squad in the cargo bay. Everyone was silent while getting their arms and armor. The only sounds I heard were the clicking of weapons when mags were loaded, Vega's sword being put into its sheath, and the sound of weapons hitting armor as they were magnetically holstered. The first mission without Hawk. It seemed to take its toll on everyone except Daisy, who wasn't here long enough to know him. She was already quiet enough though. The Eclipse landed at one of Sparta's military spaceports. The spaceport was four holes in the ground, lined with hangars. The hangars closer to the top were designed for fighters and the ones towards the bottom were large enough for craft the size of frigates. Once the ship was on the ground, the cargo bay door opened and we saw two squads of Army troopers lined up under the exterior of the crew deck, arms raised to their heads in salute. An officer was standing dead center at the end.

"Welcome to Sparta, Omega squad. I'm Commander Taylor, I've been assigned to assist with your mission." The young officer said. He looked nervous. Omega team was in full armor, and Vega was the only one that wasn't a head taller than him.

I returned the salute. "Commander, our mission is to hunt down a rogue assassin mech. Has any unusual cargo passed through here recently?"

"No sir." The Commander said. "But we have picked up some unusual signals in one of the planet's undeveloped regions. Well, not really unusual signals, it's more along the lines of no signals."

"What does that mean?" Daisy asked.

"The motion detectors placed during initial colonization to detect large unauthorized landings have gone dark. Right now, we don't know what's out there." He reported.

"Can you get us transport out there?" I asked.

The commander saluted once more. "Yes sir! Come with me." He turned and started walking towards the elevator on the far end of the Eclipse hangar. While walking, he raised his fingers to his ear and activated his radio. "This is Taylor, I need an AV-23 prepared for troop transport to the uncolonized region." The elevator led us to a hangar at about mid height in the pit. It was full of AV-23 dropship/gunships and various land vehicles. One AV-23 had a troop bay mounted underneath, as well as two troopers who saluted when we entered the hangar. A pilot ran up and told us that the craft was ready to go. As soon as we were on board, the craft took off. I watched out the back of the troop bay and saw Taylor just standing there watching the ship take off.

Within a few hours we were flying over a dense jungle. I saw a large metal pillar sick out from the canopy through the ship's viewport. "We've reached the the motion detector, sir." The pilot yelled. I felt the craft start to descend. After we landed, Daisy ran over to the motion detector, kneeled down, and opened a panel.

"Can you fix it?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's actually quite simple. Whoever did this definitely wasn't trying to permanently damage the colo-" About then, the drop ship exploded. Daisy was off the ground and on her feet with her rifle drawn faster than you can say "holy shit." A suit of armor with a jetpack equipped dropped out of the sky and landed where the dropship used to be.

The armor was purple with yellow designs. It had helmet that seemed to be reinforced, and had a silver skull painted on a jet black visor. The body armor looked like that of an artillery gunner, but had extra plating added, making it look really heavy. One bracer had a flamethrower, the other had a blade like the one on Spectre amor. The warrior raised a light machine gun as my team took cover in the trees as the set of armor effortlessly sprayed fire at us. Vega unsheathed his katana, ran around the other way and attempted to strike between armor plates on the shoulder. However, the soldier shifted, and the sword hit the already scarred purple armor. There was a clank noise as the sword stopped as soon as it made contact. The soldier raised one arm and threw the mercenary back. I started shooting in an effort to direct attention away from the most vulnerable member of the team. The soldier just dropped the LMG and pointed the flamethrower at me. It didn't take long before the jungle was on fire. Omega started running, hoping to escape the blaze, and the purple armor pulled out a grenade launcher with a remote detonator and started lobbing them at us as we ran. I remember splinters hitting my armor as a tree exploded near me. I got seperated from my squad.

Eventually, I made my way to a river bank. The soldier just walked through the fire like it was nothing. I cloaked and grabbed a demolition charge. I ran past the soldier and dropped the charge at its feet. As soon as the suit's energy reserve ran out, I hit the detonator. Just as I had hoped, the charge knocked the soldier off her feet and blew off portions of her armor. She got up, used the jetpack to propel herself towards me and activated the blade built into her gauntlet. She managed to tear my rifle from my hands. I eject my blade and started swinging. She managed to cut between the armor plates on my shoulder. I used my other arm to grab her forearm and I twisted until I heard snapping. I then jab my blade deep into her recently exposed leg. She fell to her knees. I grab the jaw of her helmet and pull it off. I yelled at the blonde woman, "Who are you? Where is Smith?"

Through the pain, She said, "Not here. The name's Tera Sanders. I was one of the mercs Smith hired to go after you. I led the Alliance assault on Athens. I told that trooper to carry that datapad. He was never on Abyss, and he was never here. Now if you're going to kill me, just get it over with."

"You're responsible for the death of one of my best friends. He once wanted me to kill an unarmed hostage and I told him exactly this: there are some rules I do follow." I drop her helmet, punch her across the face and walk away from the unconscious merc. I activate my helmet radio and contacted Commander Taylor. "Commander, our dropship got destroyed. I'm sending you coordinates for evac." The commander said another drop ship would be prepared ASAP. I then tried to contact my squad. Vega, come in. Daisy, are you there? Wraith, do you hear me?"

I finally got a reply. "We made our way to a river bank. Vega told me it was a merc named Tera Sanders that destroyed our drop ship. Best I could tell, she was going after you. Are you safe?" Wraith said.

"I took care of it. I also called Taylor and he's sending another ship. I'm sending you my coordinates now." Within ten minutes, the team regrouped. Within an hour, our evac ship arrived.

The commander was on the dropship, along with a security detail to take the merc into custody. "Ghost, what happened out here?" He asked as he saw the jungle burning.

"A mercenary was hired to kill me. She planted the evidence that brought me here and sabotaged the motion sensors." The VTOL took off and we started back to the spaceport.

"How did the fire start?" He asked. I could tell by his voice that he didn't really want an answer.

"She had excellent gear. It wasn't enough to drop a Spectre, though." Wraith cut in.

"Good to hear it. Thanks for your assistance and sorry for not being able to help you." He said.

Once we returned to the Eclipse, I told the comm officer to connect me to Denver Station. We failed. The invasion of Abyss was completely unnecessary, as was our field trip to Sparta. Unfortunately, the comm officer couldn't connect. I told Williams to get us in orbit, and for the officer to keep trying to reach FLEETCOM. I went to the armory to drop off my gear, but halfway there, Williams contacted me over the comm. "Sir! We just got an SOS from the USC Leviathan. Earth is under attack! A ship matching the one Smith used to leave the Eris is leading the assault."

"Get us there, pilot!" I yelled.