Jack saw a three-meter-tall Devex step out of the arm. It kneeled in the corridor and looked toward Jack’s defensive line and then the other way, into the undefended corridor. More human-sized Devex came and pressed into the gravity trap, where they received concentrated fire from the small group of defenders.
Jack noticed a militiaman step forward as he fired round after round from his pulse pistol into a Devex crawling along the deck. The frustration in the man was clear. The Devex were taking everything the team was throwing at them. And still they came.
Another Devex fell still. Then another. Once the Devex fell, their bodies drifted back to the puncture arm and were pulled away. But still more came. The corridor was filled with crawling Devex warriors, and behind them all kneeled the giant Devex, pushing the smaller warriors forward into the gravity trap and the storm of pulse pistol fire.
They were going to break through. It was inevitable. Jack knew he couldn’t hold them, but that wasn’t his plan.
A Devex warrior on the deck came another centimeter closer to the edge of the high gravity field. Jack knew it was time to move his plan to the next stage.
“Fall back,” Jack shouted. He repeated the order, but the team was already running. “Move to second position.”
Jack was on his feet. He saw the Devex warrior reach the edge of the gravity trap just as he turned to run. The jolt in his upper left shoulder threw him forward and he staggered, slightly off balance. His suit reported the energy bullet strike. A stream of bullets raked the corridor alongside him, hitting the outside of the gentle curve of the walls as he ran around the bend and into cover.
He was relieved and proud to see the militia standing at the second position. A barricade erected across the corridor at waist height would provide some cover. A second gravity trap would slow the Devex advance.
“You know what to do?” Jack said to his team.
They nodded as one. A portly old sergeant spoke up in a gruff city accent.
“We’ll hold them as long as possible. Then we’ll fall back to final position. I’ll be the last to leave.”
Jack nodded. He felt as if a speech was in order, but the white energy bullets came fizzing along the corridor and struck a militiaman in the chest.
They responded by taking cover and returning fire. The gravity trap was activated. Jack glanced at the fallen militiaman. He gave Jack a weary thumbs-up and moved to join his team.
Jack hated to leave these poorly-trained, poorly-equipped militiamen to do the hard work, but he needed to move to the next stage of his plan. That meant he had to abandon them. It was the only hope for any of them. As much as he hated it, he needed to move. After a final blast from his pulse pistol in support of his team, Jack turned and ran.
The sounds of the Devex blasters and pulse pistol fire echoed along the corridor. Jack came to the internal transit channel access. He opened the control panel and sent a maintenance override code to the transit system. The pod was sent away along the channel and the channel access opened. Jack adjusted his suit’s gravity field and then stepped into the dark, empty channel.
A map on his wrist-mounted holostage showed him the way with a red arrow on a dark green outline of the surrounding transit system. He followed the fastest path to the puncture arm where his team was fighting off the Devex invaders.
Now he was on the attack.
The suit’s gravity field moved him swiftly and silently along the channel until he was in a space just above the corridor where the Devex were entering into the ship. Jack readied a power cell and then checked the status of the other teams.
The holoimage showed the red dots where the other volunteers were, all armed with power cells set to overload. Jack was in position. Hawke was in position on the far side of the ship. Several others were proceeding toward their positions. The plan was working.
Sam Torent was not in position. Jack opened a silent channel to Sam.
“Progress, Sam?”
“The grav trap is failing intermittently. I haven’t been able to hold them. I’ve lost half my team. We are about to be overrun.”
Jack understood Sam’s reluctance to leave a team that was taking a beating, but the plan had to work as a whole.
“Leave them, Sam. We have to hit the puncture arms in a coordinated strike or this is not going to work. Leave your team and proceed with the plan. Copy.”
“Copy that, Jack.”
On silent communication, he could not gauge Sam’s tone but if Jack knew Sam at all, he guessed he would not leave until he had at least tried to balance the odds and give his team a chance.
“Proceed on task now, Sam. That in an order.”
Jack checked Sam’s marker. He was moving. He was getting into position. The others all sent their ready status to Jack. He would initiate the attack so that it would be a combined effort and hit the Devex all at once.
Sam was nearing his attack position. Jack set his first power cell to overload and made ready to deploy the device.
Then Captain Morton’s voice burst over Jack’s communicator.
“Environmental controls detect Devex Dox vapor entering the ship. I’m sealing off the command deck. Good luck, Major.”
The Devex appeared intent on capturing the civilians alive. They would all be unconscious in moments. It did not interfere with Jack’s plan and he initiated his attack.
Pulling up the panel below him, Jack looked down into the corridor at the site of the Devex puncture entrance, where a massive Devex warrior was kneeling. Jack was in the perfect spot. Smaller Devex warriors were marching in twos and then splitting, one heading left, the other right, flooding into the ship in a steady stream.
Jack dropped the power cell into the corridor and closed the panel. He heard the clatter of energy bullets on the panel. The super-heated spots where the bullets hit were slowly burning through the composite material.
And then the power cell detonated.
The panel was flung upward, turning end over end. He jerked away as the panel narrowly missed him. The blast wave knocked him back, but his suit’s stability field kicked in and held him steady.
The panel fell back down with a clatter. Jack moved it aside and aimed his pulse pistol into the corridor.
The massive Devex was lying on the corridor deck, smaller Devex warriors around it. Jack was unsure if they were simply stunned, but then he noticed they were already being lifted off the deck by an unseen force and were drifting back along the puncture arm. A sure sign to Jack that these Devex had been overcome by the blast. The Devex always collected their dead.
Jack dropped down into the corridor. The smooth white walls were peppered with dark debris. More Devex were floating back along the puncture arms. Jack’s enhanced view showed him Devex lying in the corridor, but more were marching forward with their rapid-fire blasters raised.
He took cover behind a floating Devex as it was drawn into the dark corridor and followed it into the puncture arm. The walls were dark and rough. The ceiling was three meters above him and was large enough for two of the three-meter-tall Devex warriors to walk side by side. The floor had a sticky texture and it kept his feet on the ground as he walked. No gravity field in the puncture arm, just the tacky grip surface.
Then the Devex fire came on in a stream of the small but powerful white energy bullets fired by the advancing warriors. The bullets slammed into the massive Devex that Jack was taking cover behind. He walked a few steps into the corridor, then broke cover and popped up over the floating Devex and opened fire. His pulse pistol rounds slammed into the faceplate of the short, lead Devex. The pulse round forced its head back and knocked it off balance. Jack ducked back into the cover of the floating Devex just as a stream of fizzing energy bullets poured toward him.
Six meters into the black Devex puncture arm, Jack set the power cells. The overload was primed, so he would only have a few seconds to clear the area. He dropped the cells and they drifted in front of him. The local gravity was zero. Jack pressed t
he power cells against the floating Devex warrior and turned.
The white walls of the civilian transport lay ahead. He made to run, but his feet stuck on the tacky flooring and slowed him. He activated a maneuvering thruster on his suit and pushed himself forward. More dead Devex were drifting back into the puncture arm from the transport corridor. They came one by one, an indication that the defense was still holding and the Devex were fighting for every centimeter of ground.
Jack came to the opening and stepped back into the transport. A civilian came drifting along the corridor. The Devex had already started snatching civilians and sending them back toward the massive Devex warship, carried by the same energy field they used to retrieve their fallen.
He ran to the floating civilian, a young woman with a pregnant belly, and pushed the woman back away from the Devex puncture arm and along the white corridor. The energy field drawing her to the Devex ship was strong, but Jack pushed his suit’s thruster harder. He was not only running for his life, he was trying to save as many lives on the transport as possible. But right now he had to save these two lives, a woman and her unborn child, lives that were completely in his hands. It turned the abstract notion of saving the civilians into a tangible one.
Throughout the Chitin War, Jack had known he was fighting for the people on his home planet, to save them from a determined and merciless enemy. But it had always been abstract. They were distant, and most of the time it was easy to forget them. He had fought his hardest for the man next to him, and so often that man had been Sam Torent. But now, alone, with a power cell set to explode any moment in the dark Devex puncture arm behind him, Jack held the reason he fought in his arms.
Pressing further along the white corridor, Jack saw a steady stream of civilians drifting toward the puncture arm, fallen Devex among them. All floating in that lazy way that appeared so peaceful and so disturbing at the same time.
Jack felt the seconds slice away. He pushed his thrusters to their max and grabbed as many of the floating civilians as he could—an old man here, a young boy there—but he could not grab them all. Time was up.
The detonation roared along the corridor, blown out of the puncture arm like a shot from a cannon. It slammed into the opposite corridor wall and smashed the white composite panels to bits. The blast raced in all directions. Jack was flung violently forward, and he lost grip of the old man, keeping the pregnant woman and young boy, only just, in his grasp.
His suit’s stability field kept Jack orientated as he was thrown forward. The blast raced around him, and he was engulfed in a cloud of dust.
As the blast settled, Jack fell to the deck. He laid the two he had rescued in a small cabin to the side of the corridor and turned back to the site of the blast. He crouched and advanced back toward the Devex puncture arm entrance. He activated his electron blade, raised his pistol, and walked into the billowing dust thrown up by the power cell detonation.
7
The dust adhered to Jack’s tactical suit as he walked into the cloud. The bodies of fallen Devex, and the bodies of civilians too, lay on the deck. He stumbled forward, his helmet’s enhanced view showing him the way. He approached the corner of the Devex puncture arm.
Jack looked inside. The wide corridor of the puncture arm was intact. Jack ran to the site of the explosion and checked the walls of the arm. The suit’s scanners analyzed the walls. There was no damage. The arm should have been smashed apart by the blast, cut away from the civilian transport.
Frustration welled up in Jack and he plunged his pistol’s electron blade into the wall. The short blade slid easily into the dark material. As he withdrew the blade, the walls closed up easily.
Jack saw movement in the dark distance along the corridor. The Devex were marching toward the transport again. He grabbed a stun grenade off his hip and tossed it along the corridor. It would at least cover his retreat.
Their attack had failed. His plan to smash the Devex puncture arms had failed. Now he could only retreat.
“All squads, report.” Jack dashed back out of the puncture arm into the corridors of the transport, past the limp, sleeping bodies of civilians floating toward the puncture arms, carried by some Devex energy field.
The reports came in from all over the ship. The explosives had failed. Several squads did not report in at all. Jack knew they were lost—the explosions at those locations had possibly not even happened, or, just as likely, they had taken the team along with it.
“Hawke here, sir.”
Jack felt his spirits rise a little to hear the young squad leader’s voice, even though Hawke sounded anxious.
“Detonation in the puncture arm failed. I’m moving to the drive room. I’ll try and keep the power on as long as I can.”
“Copy that, Hawke,” Jack said. “All other militia teams, fall back to the last defensive position.”
“It’s no good, Jack,” Sam said over a private communication channel directly to Jack. Both knew no one could hear. “We can’t hold them. We should evacuate to the frigate.”
Jack ran along the corridor toward the final position, a defensive area deep in the center of the ship: the central arena.
“We can’t evacuate all these people to the frigate, Sam,” Jack said, but he knew what Sam meant.
“We can take Hawke, he’s a good kid,” Sam said. “Maybe some of the militia. They’ve got suits and can survive outside the ship while we wait for the frigate to pick us up. Everyone else is lost, Jack.”
“Not yet,” Jack said. He turned a corner. Two short Devex were walking along the corridor, their backs to Jack.
Jack ran at the two Devex. They weren’t much taller than Jack himself.
Jack ran up to the one on his left. He held his right arm across his chest, the electron blade fizzing on the end of his pulse pistol. He brought the blade around in a wide arc and sliced through the back of the Devex warrior’s exo-armor at the base of the helmet.
The Devex fell forward, face down on the deck. The second Devex was turning as the blade came around in the same arc and sliced across the faceplate. The blade traveled through the front of the helmet, slicing a line through both the helmet and whatever the Devex had for a head.
The Devex warrior fell to its knees and toppled forward. Jack continued his run along the corridor. Long leaping strides, light and silent in his heavy duty Marine tactical suit
“Meet me at the final defensive position, Sam,” Jack said. “We can still fight these Devex bastards off before they take everyone.”
“I’m already on my way, Jack,” Sam said. “Watch out for the Devex. They are everywhere. You might run into some.”
Jack carried on at a quick pace. “Copy that, Sam. I’ll see you in the last stand.”
Captain Morton dashed from one console to the next. The internal sensors were being blocked slowly as the Devex moved into the ship. They had entered in force through every one of the puncture arms that had smashed through the outer hull.
The civilians were succumbing to the Dox vapor. Only members of the militia and those in environment suits were not falling to it. The command deck was sealed and on its own power.
The detonations had been detected and the puncture arms were still in place. Morton knew the plan to shake the Devex free had failed.
He heard sounds from beyond the command deck door. Silence fell over the command deck.
Morton climbed up into his command chair. He checked the surveillance feed from the other side of the command deck door. A Devex warrior was attempting to open it. It would take them some time to break the door’s lock. Morton hoped that the major, the famous Jack Forge, could snatch victory from this disaster.
“Break out the small arms,” Morton said. “Everyone take a pulse pistol and be ready to defend the command deck.”
Morton tapped the control panel on his armrest, where a small panel slid aside. A pulse pistol was inside. Morton drew it out and checked the weapon. Satisfied it was primed, charged, and ready to fire, he s
tepped down from his chair and faced the command deck door.
The Devex were attempting to break in. Morton was going to defend his command deck to the last. There was no other choice.
Jack ran around the corner toward the last defensive position, the last stand. A pair of militiamen were crouched behind a hastily-erected barricade, a forward observation post watching for the Devex that would surely come. They tensed as Jack came around the curve of the corridor and clumsily presented their pulse pistols.
“Hold your fire,” Jack said, ducking aside. “It’s Major Forge.” Jack risked a glance, peeping around the curve. The two militiamen were aiming their weapons still. Jack called to them again.
“I’m coming out.”
Jack walked out in front of the pair looking over the panel of dark composite that lay across the corridor. A double door behind them led into the central arena. A space for theatre, holoadventure, sports or civil meetings. It was now to be the site of their last stand.
Jack stepped over the barricade. He gave both militiamen a friendly pat on the back.
“We don’t have long. Hold here. Good work.” Jack walked past the frightened but determined men of the militia and into the arena.
The civilians that had managed to make it there were all asleep, rendered unconscious by the Dox vapor. The few militiamen with functioning environment suits were joined by a few civilians with improvised breathing apparatuses. One, a doctor wearing a clear breathing mask and dragging an oxygen tank with him, was checking the sleeping civilians.
Jack walked over to the doctor.
“When they get here, stay out of the way, okay, Doctor. Assemble your team and be ready to offer assistance to any militia who need attention. Okay?”
The doctor looked at Jack. He was calm and relaxed, with a hint of a smile.
“How are you feeling, Marine?” the doctor asked. He grabbed Jack’s arm and tapped at the sleeve panel. He read the biosigns, then he looked at Jack with a degree of concern.
Escape (Jack Forge, Lost Marine Book 3) Page 4