Forged to Lead

by James David Victor

  Terry placed the freshly poured cup in front of Bubble. “If we both get back, I’ll give you double.”

  Bubble crossed his arms over his chest and looked darkly at Terry. The two laughed. “You better come back,” Bubble said, “so I can kick your ass for being a kravin scroat.”

  Terry stood up and leered darkly at Bubble. 6th squad cheered at the insult. Terry finally let his smile spread over his face and held out his arm to Bubble. Bubble took Terry’s hand and stood up. The two shook hands, smiling.

  “Toast,” Torent said. He raised a cup. “To the best squad in Cobra Company.”

  “Best in Scorpio Battalion,” Terry said.

  “In the fleet,” Osho said.

  “I’ll toast that,” Jack said. The squad knocked their cups together and drank as one.

  The mess hall speaker suddenly crackled and Commander Griff’s voice spoke out. “Scorpio Battalion. Form up on the Marine deck. Parade in five minutes. That is all.”

  Jack was on his feet. “Move, Sixth Squad, you heard the commander. Parade. We don’t want to be the last squad in formation.”

  Jack saw the other squad leaders motivate their squads. Across the hall, Jack caught Navidi’s eye and they looked at each other for a moment. They knew they were getting ready for battle. They were getting closer by the moment. They gave each other a brief nod in acknowledgement.

  “Move, move, move,” Jack shouted.

  “You heard the boss, Sixth Squad,” Torent added. “Move.”

  6th squad moved as a group toward the exit. Jack knew his squad. They had trained together, fought together, lived together. Now they were going into battle together. They all knew what was in store for them, noise and fury and fear and courage. Jack couldn’t pick a better squad. Whatever happened, he knew he’d be with people he trusted and respected. They were just like Jack. They were true Marines. The best in the fleet.

  16

  Major Cruz stood at the front of Scorpio Battalion in conversation with the three company commanders. Jack had never seen Major Cruz on the Marine deck in person before. Jack could feel the tension build inside him. The signs were there that the coming operation was going to be no minor skirmish.

  Commander Griff called the battalion to attention. Major Cruz stepped up and spoke.

  “For some of you, this will be your first encounter with the Chitin. Others among you have fought them before. By the time this operation is over, we will all be seasoned veterans.

  “The carrier group is assembled for an operation to deny the Chitins free movement about the system. We will attack and destroy a drydock on the moon Proxis. The facility is used by Chitin Hydra craft and is also capable of servicing their Leviathan-class craft. When we have destroyed the drydock, the Chitins’ largest craft will only be able to operate from their home world.

  “The fleet has assembled three destroyers for this operation. Our objective is a ground-based orbital defense battery. We will destroy this facility ahead of the main assault on the drydock itself.”

  As Jack listened, he heard the determination and professionalism in the major’s voice.

  “The drydock is defended by two ground-based orbital defense batteries, situated approximately three kilometers to the east and the west of the main facility. Cobra Company will assault the western battery. Boa Company will assault the eastern battery. I will lead Adder Company in the main assault on the drydock itself. The main assault will be assisted by two companies from the Pisces and Aries battalions, but this is a Scorpio Battalion operation.

  “Your orders, Scorpio Battalion. First watch, you will study the battle plan. VR maps are available to you now. You will walk through your objectives and study the terrain. Second watch. You will rest. In your bunks. No drinking. No fighting. Third watch. Final battle prep, full battle readiness parade. Zero hour is at the end of third watch.

  “We will deal the Chitin a debilitating blow with this assault. We will fight them. We will beat them. They will remember Scorpio Battalion. They will fear Scorpio Battalion. Do you get me?”

  Jack shouted out with the entire Scorpio Battalion. He had encountered the Chitins on several occasions. He’d been in close quarters combat. He’d stood against them, full of fear and courage, yet he’d never had any reason to think the Chitins felt anything at all. But the major’s words were inspiring. Jack almost believed it.

  “Sir, yes, sir,” they shouted.

  Major Cruz handed the battalion over to the company commanders and left the Marine deck.

  The commanders stood before their companies and reiterated the major’s orders for the next twenty-four hours and then dismissed them.

  Commander Griff walked over to 6th squad as they fell out of parade formation.

  “Torent,” he called as he approached. “You are supposed to be in med bay.”

  Jack and Torent saluted the commander. Jack noticed Torent had complete control over his prosthetic arm.

  “Sir,” Torent said, “I feel great. I don’t want to miss out on the operation, sir.”

  “I wish I had a dozen like you, Torent,” Griff said. “What do you think, Forge? Have you got room for another Marine in sixth squad?”

  “Sir, Sam’s one of the best Marines I’ve ever fought with.”

  “So that’s a yes, is it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Griff clasped his hands behind his back. “Okay. I’ll inform medical that you are fit. Report to your squad leader at the top of first watch.”

  Jack and Torent walked off the Marine deck.

  “I knew we were getting ready for a big operation,” Torent said. “Let’s get down to the mess hall. I bet there’s some beer going around.”

  “Beer? I don’t think so, Sam. Have you fired a pulse rifle with your new arm yet?”

  Torent held out his arm, the black composite sinews twisting and stretching over each other. “It’ll be fine.”

  “Fine isn’t good enough, Marine. You can have beer when we get back. Right now, you need a session on the firing range.”

  “I’ll practice when we start on the VR training later,” Torent said.

  “You will start right now, Marine.” Jack laid a hand on Torent’s shoulder. “I’m not taking a rusty Marine on this operation.”

  Torent grumbled and gave in. “I guess you really are the boss now.”

  “You got it, Sam. Rifle range, now. And I’m not dismissing you until you can out-score me. You get me?”

  17

  The hours before battle were quiet. Jack checked every part of his equipment. His pulse rifle was dismantled and cleaned. His meat suit checked and readied. He checked on his Marines. Osho was withdrawn. Terry was edgy. Bubble was nervous. Torent was quietly cheerful.

  6th squad practiced the landing. The VR maps of the western battery on Proxis were studied, and Jack took 6th squad on a walk covering every centimeter of the planned route for their tactical advance.

  The battery was surrounded by a trench. The trench would be filled with Chitin soldiers, but now it appeared empty. Jack jumped down into the trench and walked the perimeter. The battery was a series of four-barrel plasma accelerator cannons. They towered above the Marines, their deadly mouths open to the sky, ready to spit their devastating firepower at any ships in orbit. The site where the demolition charges were to be planted was marked on the simulation.

  “Sixth squad will be carrying the explosives, high yield. Should take out these guns and make a crater big enough to land a frigate. Make sure you get clear before setting them off.”

  The squad rested in their bunks after the detailed training run. Jack ordered lights out and silence. The squad didn’t complain or resist. They slept. Jack had worked them hard, and they deserved the rest. It would be the last they had until the operation was over.

  With the start of third watch, the nerves began to show. Jack kept 6th squad focused on their tasks. They prepped their kits and pulled on their meat suits. They assembled with the rest of the battalion on
the Marine deck. There was a buzz of excitement, and a quiet resolve. There was an eager eye on the time and the moments that passed by with a sluggishness bordering on the interminable. Soon the moment would arrive when the chatter throughout the battalion would have to stop. Soon the officers would be marching onto the Marine deck. Soon the battalion would be going into action.

  18

  The Carrier Group took up position in high orbit above Proxis. The gas giant, Penthus, loomed in the distance, dominating the view.

  The Monarch launched it compliment of fighter craft. Dozens of highly maneuverable and deadly craft engaged the patrolling Chitin Krakens that raced to intercept. The Hydras appeared from beyond the moon’s horizon. The flotilla launched a salvo of combat drones, a dozen from each destroyer and another dozen from the Monarch. The drones raced toward the incoming Hydras, spreading out to form a curtain of devastating ordnance.

  The fighters destroyed the first wave of Krakens and then moved to fill any gaps left by the combat drones. The drones took fire from the Hydras, the plasma arcs flashing across space, slicing through the drones’ light armor. Each drone lit up the dark void in a brilliant white and orange flash.

  The lead Hydra was struck by a group of combat drones. The drones released their antimatter payload within a nanosecond of each other. The Hydra was crushed and tumbled out of the explosion barely in control, lurching this way and that. A squadron of fighters chased it down and finished it with a hail of kinetic rounds.

  The second Hydra twisted away from the drones that picked it out as a target, desperately maneuvering to avoid destruction. The drones annihilated themselves and the Hydra. As the battle continued, another pair of drones and another Hydra destroyed. The flanking Hydra craft maneuvered around the remaining drones and powered toward the nearest destroyer, closely followed by fighters that closed in and poured kinetic rounds into the Chitin machines.

  Group Captain Li watched the destruction on the holostage of her command deck. The surprise attack was working so far, but she knew every Chitin craft within range would be forming up for a counterstrike. That strike could come at any moment.

  “Send orders to the Scorpio. They can begin their landings. Let’s get this done and get out of here.”

  Jack ran with 6th squad to the line of tactical landing ships. He ushered 6th squad into their boat and then followed them inside. The door closed behind him. He was buffeted about by the ungainly takeoff before he fixed himself into his alcove.

  The TAC ship flew directly toward the moon’s surface. Cobra’s boats flew toward the western horizon. Only meters from the surface of Proxis, the boats turned toward their objective and raced along the moon’s surface. The craft landed roughly and the door crashed open. Jack was out of his alcove quickly and running toward the door, calling for 6th squad to follow.

  The towering defense battery was just visible on the horizon. Jack had studied the maps of the area and knew the distance exactly. If he had been without his meat suit, it would take him thirty minutes to run that distance. His meat suit would allow him to move much more swiftly. He would be on the target in less than ten, pulse rifle range in five.

  TAC ships were delivering the rest of Cobra Company to the landing zone. Griff walked out of a nearby craft, his name displayed over his shoulder on Jack’s enhanced data overlay.

  Commander Griff took a few steps toward the distant defense battery, then sent a message over the meat suit’s communicator and called the squad leaders to him.

  Jack ran over the moon’s jagged, glassy rock and came alongside Griff.

  The distant battery lit up as massive gout of plasma was blasted into space and toward the orbiting carrier group.

  “That battery is doing some major damage up there,” Griff said. “We move in. Spread out, move fast. Go.”

  Griff moved off at a jog. Jack called 6th Squad to him and took up a position on the right flank of the advance.

  The plasma cannon belched out another glowing orb of plasma that stretched into a teardrop shape as it raced toward its orbiting target. The muzzle of the cannon recoiled with the shot, the tip glowing orange. Its glow dimmed as the muzzle cooled. The cannon extended upwards and blasted another orb.

  The flash of the Chitin defense cannon lit up his faceplate, temporarily blotting out his view. Stumbling over a jagged rock, Jack lost his running rhythm, but his suit compensated and steadied him.

  His meat suit’s helmet display lit up red along the left side, a warning beep sounded, and Jack was suddenly surrounded by a hail of plasma spears. They slashed across the surface of the moon in front of him and behind him. They slammed into the Marines of first squad, who were advancing on the left flank.

  Jack hit the ground and turned toward the incoming fire. Plasma spears flashed out of the darkness, their light flickering over the crystalline surface.

  “Chitins,” Jack heard the panicked shout over his communicator. “Fall back. Fall back.”

  Jack looked up as a Marine stood and began to back away. His pulse rifle at his hip, pulse rounds blasting out wildly at max rate.

  “Get down,” Jack called out. A plasma spear slammed into the Marine’s suit, sending the soldier sprawling backwards. The pulse rifle continued firing, the rounds scattering wildly.

  The plasma spears fizzed all around Jack, and he turned to face the fire head-on. Lying with his head toward the fire made him a smaller target and it allowed him to try and locate the enemy.

  The plasma spear fire was coming from about one hundred meters away. Jack had been on the receiving end of Chitin plasma spears before, but there was something different about it this time. The spears seemed brighter and shorter, and they came at a much faster rate.

  Jack crawled toward the spears, calling out to 6th squad to follow. In front of Jack, Marines were taking cover behind any small piece of black rock they could find. The spears slashed overhead and created a dizzying, dazzling light show. The prone Marines of Cobra Company were lit by a rapid, flickering deadly light.

  Commander Griff was calling into his communicator to the company. “Awaiting intel update from Scorpio now. Hold position.”

  A Marine climbed up to one knee and returned fire. His squad-mate pulled him back down to the ground. Both were hit, their pulse rifles useless in lifeless hands.

  The new intel from the Scorpio was delivered to each Marine. A trench system, previously undetected, lay along the axis of Cobra’s advance to the defense cannon. The Chits were operating previously unknown rapid-fire plasma spear weapons all along the edge of the trench system. Cobra had walked right into a kill zone.

  “We need to take that trench,” Griff began. A Marine, dazed by the rapid-fire spears, leaped to his feet and charged. Griff called for him to wait just as a number of spears tore through his suit, sending him sprawling, lifeless, to the ground.

  “Hold, Cobra.” Griff’s voice was steady and calm. “Fall back. We assault the end of the trench line and work along the trench system. On my command.”

  Griff got up on one knee, firing at the Chitin trench. He called as he fired. “Go. Go. Go.”

  Jack was on his feet and running, the spears ripping through the dark all around him. He heard Marines getting hit and saw some fall. The number of plasma spears around him dropped, and Jack looked toward the Chitin trench line. They would have to move fast, but Cobra could take the trench. If they rushed the western-most gun at the end of the trench line, then they would take less fire than if they assaulted the trench face on. Once the first gun was taken, Cobra could work along the trench taking one gun at a time, instead of rushing the line and taking fire from however many of the damn things the Chits had.

  Torent and Osho came alongside Jack. “Where’s the rest of Sixth?” he asked.

  Osho pointed back with her rifle. “Terry took a spear. Bubble was dragging him.”

  Jack opened a communicator channel to Bubble. Jack heard Bubble panting and mumbling and crying. “Report, Marine,” Jack said firmly.r />
  “Terry’s hit.” Bubble’s voice was cracking under the pressure. “He’s out. I’ve got him. I’m falling back to the TAC boats.”

  Jack scanned back along the kill zone in front of the trench and saw Marines scurrying back, crawling on their bellies to avoid the spears that slashed overhead or running in stooped positions.

  “Commander Griff, come in, sir,” Jack called over the company channel. “Commander, come in.”

  “I saw him firing,” Osho said. “He was giving fire, dropping to the ground, relocating, and then firing again.”

  Jack scanned the kill zone. The Marines each had their identity tag displayed over them. He couldn’t see Griff.

  Cobra needed to advance and Jack was in place to take them forward. He put out a company command. “We are going to assault that first rapid-fire plasma spear embankment, that kravin spitz gun. Rapid advance, fire and maneuver. Speed is the key, Marines. Let’s go.”

  Jack was up and running toward the western-most point of the trench. The Chit spitz gun started up. Jack dropped to the ground and gave fire. Torent on one side, Osho on the other. Jack watched as remnants of 2nd and 3rd squad raced by. They dropped to the ground and laid down sustained fire. That was Jack’s invitation to get up and run. He was joined by members of 1st and 4th. They advanced another ten meters before dropping and laying down a heavy round of suppressive fire.

  A lone 5th squad Marine ran forward with the remnants of 2nd and 3rd. They dropped, gave fire, and let Jack race forward again.

  Now the fire from the spitz gun was coming from close range. Spears of deadly light flashed through the darkness, lighting up the shining shards of rock and the Marines with their busy pulse rifles.

  Jack lay behind a very low ridge. It was not much of a defensive wall, but it would do for a moment to catch his breath. He fired blind, rifle over his head, pointing over the small rocky ridge toward the Chitin line. The next wave of Marines came up and ran onwards toward the Chits.