Chaos Tactics (The Reckless Chronicles Book 1)

by Trent Falls

  “That’s the thing that took out the Ao Shun?” a lieutenant asked over the com.

  “Our spotters noted these coordinates when they saw that massive energy ball fired into the sky.” The squad leader replied. “Based on the energy that thing must have used this is very likely the spot.”

  “Sir, the energy readings ahead are growing.” A worried second lieutenant noted from his fighter on the far left flank.

  “Damn! Pour it on! That thing’s getting ready to fire on the Nanjing!” the squad leader shouted, jamming the throttle control on his left side forward.

  The Specter fighters blasted forward, breaking the sound barrier in seconds. They had outed themselves with the sonic boom if anyone had been running audio sensors but there was no avoiding exposure. The Nanjing was not just manned with their fellow Xen; it was also their only ticket home.

  The Specter fighters raced over the ocean, flying a few hundred feet above its dark blue black rippling surface.

  “Try and get the best lock possible.” the squad leader spoke into his com in a calm voice.

  The land mass ahead was growing quickly on his forward scanners. He turned his fighter in to the left gently with his control stick. The targeting computer tried to fix itself as best it could on the energy source.

  An alarm sounded, signaling the weapons release point.

  “Shark One. Fox Three!” the squad leader yelled out.

  A pair of missiles dropped from the missile compartment of his fighter. The missiles screamed ahead of the supersonic fighters, each with a bright blue light at their thruster nozzle. The other fighters on the attack run fired their missiles as well, sending about three dozen streams of missiles towards the island ahead. The missiles shrieked over the water, past the beach, and well into the jungle before slamming into their unseen targets in the jungle.

  The jungle erupted in a hellish fire.

  The Specter fighters flashed past the island in an angry display of pure speed.

  The Xen pilots didn’t see the slivery glints of light in the sky behind them. There were a number of explosions in the sky. One by one, the fighters comprising their high air cover disappeared from the Xen sensor screens. The flaming remains of the Xen cover starfighters fell from the sky.

  In seconds about a half dozen silvery white glowing triangles flew out from the thick clouds above. The silver triangles glinted in the sunlight, flying at incredible speed down from above to turn up a hundred feet or so above the ocean. The silvery triangles flew madly after the Xen fighters, beyond the flight capabilities of all known aerodynamic principle. They closed with the swept wing starfighters in a few moments time. Each silver triangle fired a laser from their pointed front end after the Xen fighters.

  The squad leader’s fighter exploded, as did the rest of his team. The fighters were vaporized in seconds.

  John raced out into the jungle. It was as terrifying as any battlefield that he could remember. Two Xen soldiers were dead in the tall grass beyond the watchtower entry. Their bodies had been mutilated by a massive force; the rock creatures.

  The memories of the creatures alone terrified John. The rock creatures were out there. He could feel the heavy footfalls of one nearby quaking through the ground.

  John looked down among the bodies of the soldiers hoping to find a weapon. Their rifles had been crushed and twisted. John reached for the holster of one of the mangled bodies. It had been a long time since he had seen a dead human in such bad shape. He winced as he pulled out a Xen pistol. It wasn’t much but it might at least offer him some protection against the Xen on the island. John found a few clips for the pistol on the soldier’s web belt. He quickly pocketed the clips and ran off towards the direction of the beach where they had landed.

  The remnants of the Xen special ops team regrouped near their evac zone. The rock monsters were rushing them. Three stone humanoids in total, their eight foot tall forms shook the surrounding trees with each step. The air was filled with the angry rage of automatic weapons fire from the spec ops soldiers, the remaining four, firing on the stone creatures in vain.

  John found himself drawn towards the sound of the weapons fire. He was cautious not to approach the firing soldiers directly head on. Many of the bullets that had missed the rock beasts whipped through the trees several feet from John, snapping branches and popping through broad leaves and zipping off rocks.

  A bullet snapped in the air near John’s ear. Missed him by about three feet he reckoned by the intensity of the near miss.

  John caught sight of the spec ops soldiers first firing on some unseen point. He then saw the rock creatures themselves.

  He froze at the sight of them for a moment. Eight foot tall living rock. It scared the living hell out of him.

  No, he needed to control that fear!

  He saw Shin pushing Alex forward. They were about a hundred meters or so ahead of him. He saw Zao. Zao turned the Norn staff he had stolen on the rock monsters. A blast exploded half of one of the creatures away. Another was pulverized by a second beam from the staff. Euler appeared, running past Zao as he fired into the third stone creature to destroy it.

  A Xen drop ship screamed down overhead, slowing down and pitching its nose up as it neared the land. It was Shin’s extraction ship. They were getting away!

  John quickly scanned the ground around him.

  A Xen rifle was laying in the sand a few meters away. John rushed to grab it. He examined it in a few blinks of an eye. It seemed undamaged and, hopefully, functional.

  John knelt. He rested the elbow of his left arm on his left knee and sighted the weapon.

  The drop ship hovered over the ground near the beach about a hundred and fifty meters away. He could still see part of the spacecraft through the palms shaking madly ahead of the ship. The side door slid open to allow the Xen soldiers to enter.

  John sighted the ship, verifying that it was one hundred and seventy one meters away. He was on an island with a strong breeze blowing laterally. He was calm. He saw Shin throw Alex into the drop ship through the scope. He took a breath. Euler hopped into the ship behind one of the Xen spec ops soldiers. John saw Zao running towards the ship holding the alien staff. Another breath. He sighted Zao.

  A bullet snapped past Zao as he sprinted over the loose white sand. Before his head could spin back to look over his shoulder a high velocity rifle shot burst forward through his chest. The exit wound was massive. It was a mortal shot. Zao was dead before his body hit the sand.

  The Norn staff fell away from Zao’s lifeless palm.

  John immediately turned his sights on the drop ship. Before he could squeeze the trigger he noticed the remaining Xen soldiers on board the drop ship were firing back at him.

  “SHIT!” John incredibly dropped to lay flat as the bullets flew past him.

  It was a miracle John wasn’t hit. The Xen soldiers found themselves firing from a moving vehicle as the drop ship lifted off.

  John remained on the ground, keeping his hands over his head in a useless panicked means of self-protection.

  The danger subsided. People were no longer shooting at him. John stood up and looked to the sky to see the greenish gray Xen personnel transport flying up into the white clouds and blue sky above.

  They were gone and they had taken Alex with them.

  The door slid shut on the Xen transport. It was a sudden gripping calm. The transport shook violently as it narrowly missed some kind of explosion outside.

  Captain Quan Shin’s hands shook as he held his service pistol. He carefully unloaded the weapon and breached it as he didn’t trust his own trembling hands or his own trauma. His mind was a mishmash of thought. What had he seen? The cabin of the drop ship was dark and still, a wondrous contrast to what he had just encountered. Of all the men that had landed on that island only three spec ops soldiers and Scott Euler sat within that cabin with him for the return flight up to orbit.

  Agrev was dead. Zao was dead. Hedges – dead. Nine of his best commandos; d
ead!

  Shin took a trembling breath, looked down, and placed his head in his hands. He exhaled sharply. Shin remained looking down, dumbfounded, for a moment.

  The Ao Shun. Destroyed! All hands on board were very likely dead. It was the end of his command. It was the end of his career. A part of Shin wished he had died with his men on this ship.

  Shin’s eyes turned up slowly to look at the dark skinned man sitting across from him. Alex Scoffield stared back at Shin calmly. The silver glow was gone from his eyes. The color had reverted back to brown.

  “Well.” Shin allowed himself to speak. He quickly regained his composure as he stared back at Alex. “I hope you were worth it.” Shin continued in an even tone.

  “There’s nothing you can get out of me that will be useful.” Alex replied in a calm tone.

  “We’ll have to see about that.” Shin responded to Alex, his voice peppered with psychosis.

  Shin then looked back over his shoulder through the opening to the shuttle’s flight deck.

  “Come on! Get us the fuck out of here!!!” Shin yelled back at them.

  The drop ship picked up speed, nosing up towards the sky. The pilot, urged by his captain to go faster, adopted an ‘old school astronaut’ flight profile. Rather than a gentle climb out of the atmosphere the drop ship’s nose was raised almost vertical. The two main thrusters of the drop ship surged to full power, rocketing the vessel on a classic parabolic ‘rocket’ flight path towards escaping the atmosphere.

  John ran back towards the temple carrying the Norn staff Zao had originally stolen. He had taken the weapon to protect himself from the rock creatures. He spotted none of them on his route back. Several mounds of rock here and there hinted at the remains of the ones that were destroyed. He encountered the bodies of two of the Xen special forces operators on his way back as well. Their bodies had been mangled and contorted from the grizzly manner that they had met their end.

  Taos stood ahead of John on a stretch of white sand near the watchtower. He looked much paler in direct sunlight; human yet with a hint of alien features. Lyle Ramirez stood with him along with Julie. Lyle appeared a bit more human than Taos by comparison. Julie was dirty and her hair was frizzy. Her jumpsuit was dusted with sand and dirt in patches. His eighteen year old niece looked to have had an extremely rough day.

  John looked to Taos first as he slowed from a running pace to stand before the white robed humanoid alien. There were still plenty of blood stains on Taos robes. His blood was red like his. Taos moved and walked as though absolutely nothing had happened.

  “Zao is dead.” John threw the staff at Taos, who caught it reflexively. “Shin and Euler got away with Alex.”

  “Their fighters damaged our main weapon.” Taos observed aside to Lyle. “We can retask the Ona to fly to their second vessel and destroy it.”

  “That would take time. The second vessel is further out and a frigate sized vessel.” Lyle observed.

  “We disable it then.” Taos continued. “Give their escape shuttles time to land on the main vessel and destroy it with the main weapon once it is repaired.”

  “Shuttles time to land?” John asked aloud. “You mean the ship with Shin, Euler, and Alex?”

  “Yes.” Taos turned his eyes for a moment at John.

  “I still can’t believe this!” John boomed. “You’re so intent on killing Alex. Why not try to rescue him?”

  “Alex must not fall into the hands of the Xen or the Terrans.” Taos replied sharply. “We don’t like this either but your species has already proven itself to be far too dangerous with advanced technology.”

  “Come on! You guys are like Gods! Powerful! You’re not going to even attempt a rescue? The three of you could breach their ship and turn it inside out with your staff weapons.” John agued

  “We wouldn’t be as effective on their ship as on this planet. Most of our power is centralized here.” Taos explained. “Sending more Norn there would also risk them capturing another one of us. Alex is but one. Having two Norn in human custody would be a disaster. As I see it there are two options. One is destroying that ship and everyone on it before they can leave this system. The other option would be activating the purge and eliminating all human life throughout the Terran and Xen star systems.”

  John stared blankly at Taos for a moment. He still couldn’t believe he was serious about wiping out all of human life. Genocide on that level didn’t seem like it should be so mundane for any race, let alone what was supposedly an advanced extraterrestrial civilization.

  John shook his head to clear his thoughts. “Let me go then.” he pleaded stubbornly.

  “Foolish.” Taos bit back. “You’re one man. There are nearly two thousand beings on that vessel. What could you hope to accomplish?”

  “I have some ideas.” John argued. “I can’t leave him behind.”

  “He’s already lost.” Taos said in return.

  “No! I can’t accept that! Alex stuck his neck out to help me get my niece back! He…”

  “He did nothing of the sort!” Taos shouted back, echoing in John’s mind. “Alex was assigned to keep watch over you and to protect our secrets.”

  “Well, I like to think Alex and I are friends.” John’s voice took on a tone of bold authority he hadn’t used in some time. “I’m a Colonial Marine!” John looked over at Lyle directly. “We don’t leave our people behind! I’ll get him back!”

  John left out the next line in his train of thought, that he would get Alex back or die trying. He hoped Taos would read his thoughts to know he was serious – all the while without getting Julie upset.

  Taos stared at John for a moment. “You had something in mind then?”

  “Alex’s ship, the Tequesta, is on this island, isn’t it?” John asked quickly.

  “It is.” Taos answered.

  John again looked again at Lyle. “Do you still remember how to fly a Class C cargo shuttle?”

  The Tequesta was parked near a lagoon at the end of a natural crater. The sides of the lagoon were enclosed in the same thick dark grey rock as the volcanic mountain chain enclosing the island. John was stunned by a moment of the beauty of the place. It he hadn’t been on an alien planet or in a shooting fight against the Xen he would have loved to stop and relax, or even vacation, at such a spot.

  The Tequesta was as John remembered it. The rear ramp remained open, extended out towards a flat patch of mossy ground. Lyle and John ran up the ramp, their boots hammering with each stride into the thick deck steel.

  “I’ll get the ship fired up.” Lyle rushed on ahead through the cavernous cargo compartment towards the tunnel leading to the flight deck.

  John slowed down halfway along the cargo bay. His eyes scanned around him quickly, searching.

  “I’ll make sure Alex’s pressure suit is here.” John noted. “We can’t pull this off without it.” John hurried towards a bulkhead panel that he thought was the locker containing the suit. “I know I’ve seen one in here. I just… don’t remember…”

  Lyle was already out of earshot. He disappeared into the hall leading to the flight deck. John continued looking for the pressure suit closet.

  The rear ramp retracted. The engines fired up.

  “Hang on, we’re lifting off.” Lyle’s voice spoke electronically through the cargo bay speakers.

  John paused his search to sit down in one of the flip-down seats at the side of the cargo bay. He strapped himself in really quickly as the Tequesta built up speed. John could tell by the feel of the ship that Lyle was still a good pilot. The Tequesta was airborne and two thousand feet above the island in a few moments’ time, adopting a steep angle of escape. The main engines surged, sending the Tequesta shooting up into the bright sky at the head of a white contrail.

  It took about twenty seconds or so for the Tequesta to break out of the atmosphere. John could feel the artificial gravity build up in the decking below him, shifting his weight and dampening his forward inertia to the point where he once again
felt oriented upright in a stable room. He clicked the five-way strap of his chair off and ran away from his seat towards the front of the cargo bay. He remembered where the pressure suit was stored.

  The closet was just outside the entry opening to the passage leading forward to the cockpit. John reached the locker, pulled its release handle, and swung its metal door open.

  Inside was a brand new white pressure suit. It was white and form-fitting, similar to the Mercury or Gemini pressure suits that the early American astronauts used. A wide metal collar held the lower part of a breathing mask below the wearer’s head.

  It was white! New and white! John remembered the suit being grey but white was a disappointment. Where he was going the white space suit might as well have been hot pink.

  The drop ship carrying Captain Shin, Euler, and Alex Scoffield landed in one of the rear garage style hangar bays of the Nanjing. The thick steel parting pressure doors at the back of the hangar were pitched slightly back. The drop ship floated in over the wide cleared deck and settled down on its four landing arms. The sliding barn doors closed at the back of the bay. Jets of air fired down from the ceiling as the hangar repressurized.

  Red lights flashed throughout the modestly sized hangar bay, indicating that the Nanjing was at battle stations.

  Captain Shin slid the side door of the transport open as soon as the green light above the exit showed a habitable atmosphere.

  Two Xen marines and a bridge officer entered the hangar and hurried to the side of the drop ship just as Shin and the others inside disembarked.

  “Sir! Welcome aboard the Nanjing!” the officer, one Lieutenant Wong, said in worried haste to Shin, still trying to maintain some adherence to protocol despite the crisis unfolding around them. “Captain Sands regrets he couldn’t meet you personally and…”

  “I understand completely, Lieutenant.” Shin shouted back over the din of hissing compressed air and heavy machinery around them. “What’s the status of the Nanjing?” Shin demanded.