Legions of Orion (Star Crusades Nexus, Book 1) by Michael G. Thomas Page B

more engineering
teams and patrol vessels had arrived to secure the area of space
around ANS Beagle. This meant his small taskforce was free to
explore the immediate system, planets and moons for anything of
note. Thinking of ANS Beagle, reminded him of his own losses in the
suicide attack. As always, military requirements trumped social
niceties. He’d already arranged for the dead and wounded to be
shipped back to Prometheus where they were receiving expert medical
attention, and he fully intended to return for their internment
ceremonies and subsequent investigation. It concerned him that he
had been unable to return with them, but he was also well aware of
the importance of this operation. The secpad started flashing,
gently at first and then increasing in intensity. It was a video
call from his XO.
    Great,
what is it now? He wondered before
hitting the receive button. In his experience, he was only
contacted when there was bad news, and so far he’d had quite enough
of deaths, attacks and equipment failure.
    “ Sir, sorry to
interrupt you. He
    We’ve just regained contact with the
reconnaissance drone. It is in position and starting its scan of
the surface. We are approximately four hours from making
orbit.”
    “Very good. Keep me informed of its
progress.”
    “Sir.”
    The image of his
executive officer faded away, and the details of the moon returned.
He was due to return to the CIC in the next two hours, and this was
likely to be the only chance for a short break for at least a day.
He had no doubt that if they found anything of note on or near the
moon, he and his forces would have their work cut out for them. He
closed his eyes, but the image of the moon kept appearing to him,
and instead, he sat back up and pulled the secpad to his face. The
long distance scans were speculative, and according to his
engineers, there was a high margin of error. What intrigued him was
that of the large number of planets and moons in this system,
surprising numbers showed viable atmospheres. The star system was
based around a red subgiant with a size of almost three times that
of the Sun back in Earth’s Solar System. The planet they were
approaching appeared to contain at least thirty small moons and
eight large moons, one of which was still transmitting some kind of
signal. He tapped the image of the moon in question and stared at
its glowing outline.
    What are the odds we find a moon with a
potentially stable atmosphere?
    Of
course , there was nothing random about
their arrival, but few outside of the Alliance High Command knew
where the data on the Orion expedition had originated. Thoughts of
the bridge reminded him of his new mission. With the Spacebridge
secure, the maintenance and security of the site had been handed
over to Admiral Anderson, and that had now freed up his own force
for other missions. His own orders had changed to reconnaissance
and consolidation of the Star System, provisionally known as Orion
Major. It was imperative that he set up a wide perimeter so that a
long-term presence could be established in this sector. His
briefing with High Command via video link to Terra Nova had been
clear. The Alliance intended on creating a permanent link to the
system and would build a supply and research outpost within three
months. Parts were already being sent through, to what many back
home considered to be the future for humanity. As he looked at his
secpad, he doubted their faith in something they knew so little
about. He tapped the image of the fourth plant, and it enlarged to
fill the screen with long distance imaging and statistics, low
gravity, small iron and silicate structure, and a thin corrosive atmosphere.
    Sounds
like hell , he thought half-heartedly. If the people back home could see it, I don’t think they’d
be quite so excited.
    The other planets
were less interesting, most of them rocky or ice planets with no
usable atmosphere. Two asteroid belts split the planets up into
three main groups with