“Maintenance?” Jack said. He spoke so quietly, the words trapped in his throat. He mentally kicked himself for not speaking up more forcefully.
“Yes,” the master said. “I’m Doyle. What do you want, Marine?” Master Doyle spotted the boy playing with the electron scalpel. He carefully took it from the boy and handed it to the tall man.
“Don’t tell me, you are the new maintenance crew? A one-man crew?” Doyle turned to his tall colleague. “I ask for relief for weeks and then they send me a kravin’ headache. You ever held a wrench, dough head?”
3
Master Doyle led the way back to the maintenance department. He sent his tall colleague to the secondary aft airlock at one junction, then walked through the maze of corridors with Jack and the boy who had been hypnotized by the blue electron blade. In one corridor, a wall opened out into a large hangar. It would have been big enough for a game of interdepartmental football if the area wasn’t filled with work benches and the many large pieces of free-standing equipment. At the far end of the hangar, Jack saw one member of the maintenance crew working at a bench.
“Where is everyone?” Jack asked, thinking the rest of the department were out fixing the many minor problems the Scorpio seemed to have, not to mention the general untidiness he’d seen about the ship.
“Slim is in the secondary aft airlock stripping out some materials. The kid never leaves my side.” Doyle jerked his head toward the youth. “Reyes is over there working on our pet Chit.” Doyle pointed at the figure at the workbench in the distance. Doyle noticed the shock on Jack’s face. “Don’t panic, soldier. It’s strapped down. It’s not going anywhere. And neither are you. And now we are four. Four maintenance technicians and about a thousand square meters of destroyer to look after. If you thought this would be easier than life in the battalion, you are even more stupid than you look, dough head.”
“I didn’t ask to come here, sir,” Jack said. “I was sent here.”
“Someone must really hate you,” Doyle laughed. “And don’t call me sir. I’m not an officer. Call me Doyle. Or Oily.”
“Or shithead,” the boy said.
Doyle turned suddenly toward the boy. “What?” he growled.
The boy cowered, lowered his gaze, hunched his shoulders, and backed away. “Slim calls you shithead.”
Doyle reached out, grabbed the cowering youth by his coveralls, and dragged him close. Doyle laid a big hand on the boy’s smooth cheek. “That’s not a nice thing to say.” Then turning to Jack, “Call me Doyle. Now, what can you do, soldier?”
“I fixed a drone once.”
“Saints and mothers bless us all.” Doyle raised his hands and looked up. “Someone useful for once.” He pointed to a bench in the middle of the hangar. “That drone needs a new AI. Strip one out from the junk pile—” Doyle pointed to a distant pile of junk. “—and fix up that drone. Fire control wants to blow it up when they test the port side battery later so they don’t need it to be pretty, they just need it pretty quick.”
Jack looked at the drone and the junk pile, then back to Doyle and the boy who stood fully in Doyle’s shadow.
“Do you need a manual?” Doyle asked Jack.
“No. No, thank you,” Jack stammered.
“Thank you?” Doyle growled. “Thank me when they send you back to the battalion to get shot up.” Doyle pointed again. “Drone! AI! Work! Now!”
Jack opened the drone AI service hatch and hooked up the diagnostic tool. The AI was dead. Jack remembered working on AI systems in university, one module a week for a half session on Thursday mornings. He’d picked up the basics. The interior of this drone was old and untidy. He tested the surrounding components to check it wasn’t a short or that a new AI wouldn’t automatically blow once installed.
The maintenance hangar was quiet. Doyle and the boy had left and only Jack and Reyes remained. Reyes was dressed in a coverall with a large protective head-guard. Jack looked over and saw a long tentacle writhe up off the work bench in front of Reyes.
“Our pet Chit,” Jack said to himself. He’d thought Doyle was messing with him, but it looked as if it were true. Another long tentacle, an unmistakable Chitin tentacle, rose off the bench, coiling back up and dropping.
Jack walked over to the pile of scrap to try and dig out an AI unit. His eyes were drawn every time a Chitin tentacle rose off the bench. He looked across the junk pile and spotted a few junked systems that would have AI installed. He checked a broken power suit. The AI unit was functioning. It was lower grade to the standard drone AI, but if it was going to get shot up anyway, what did it matter?
From the corner of his eye, Jack saw three Chit tentacles suddenly animate and thrash around violently. Reyes was backing away then moved quickly toward the Chit.
Jack remembered the first time he’d seen a real life Chit close up. He remembered how hard they were to stop, even with a pulse rifle. Reyes seemed in control until a tentacle lashed out and struck Reyes’s head-guard. He fell and the three tentacles writhed and thrashed on.
Jack ran over to the fallen Reyes. He avoided the thrashing tentacles and reached out to help Reyes. The technician was already standing up and reaching out to a control panel that was wired to the Chit.
“Kravin’ feedback problems every kravin’ time,” Reyes said and then punched a button on the panel. The Chitin’s writhing tentacles flopped down hard. Reyes pulled the head-guard off.
The first thing Jack noticed were her cheeks, flushed red with frustration and anger and effort. Then he noticed the thick brown hair falling out of the head-guard to tumble over her dirty coveralls. Then he noticed her brown eyes staring at him.
“Who are you?”
“Jack,” Jack whispered.
“What are you doing here, Jack?” Reyes asked, turning to the Chitin.
“I’m the new maintenance guy. Who are you?” Jack heard his question and realized he sounded like a lovestruck kid, not a battle-hardened Marine. He blushed as he realized that was exactly what he was.
Reyes was a few centimeters taller than Jack and few years older. She was clearly clever and bold, and she filled her coveralls in a way that made Jack interested and uncomfortable, nervous and keen.
“I’m Reyes. Sarah Reyes.” She unzipped her coveralls and pulled it off her shoulders. She tied the arms around her waist. Her t-shirt strained over her chest as she heaved a heavy sigh and studied the Chit. “And this is Fido, our new pet.”
“Is it…dead?” Jack leaned in for a closer look
Reyes grabbed a bottle from the bench behind and popped off the cap. “Something in there is.” She tipped her head back and drank greedily, water spilling out of the side of her mouth and trickling over her sweaty skin. “I think what we know as a Chit—” She poked the fleshy tentacle. “—is just an exo-suit of some kind. The actual Chitin is in there somewhere.”
Jack stepped up and looked at the instrument panel wired to the Chit. Cables were strapped on and stuck into the Chit at various points. “You sure it’s dead?” Jack asked.
Reyes nodded and took another drink.
“Where did you get it?” Jack asked, touching one of the tentacles.
“We captured it when we were attacked at grid three-five-eight. A Kraken, a small Chit craft, attached itself to the hull and cut in. We had a dozen of the bastards running around. This one was killed. Doyle had it brought here.”
“The ship was boarded?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. They took five people.”
“Took them? Where?”
“Oh, they didn’t get very far. The captain shot them down when they tried to get away. You see, they wanted to study us. It was a smash and grab raid, right. But they ended up giving one of them to us and now we can study them. You know, they say they must be intelligent because their weapons are so much more powerful than ours, but I’m not so sure. A bird isn’t more intelligent than you because it can fly, right? It’s just an ability.”
Reyes pulled her coveralls back
over her shoulders and grabbed her head-guard off the floor. “Unless you want Doyle kicking your ass all up and down the Scorpio, you better get busy with something.”
“I’m fixing that drone,” Jack said enthusiastically, hoping to impress the intriguing Sarah Reyes.
Reyes pulled on the head-guard. “Have fun,” she said and then stepped up to the Chit and the control panel. “Don’t let me keep you.”
But Jack was not going to be able to get away from Sarah Reyes, no matter how far he went. There was something about her he couldn’t get out of his mind. He backed away slowly, watching her, mesmerized by her every move.
Jack eventually made it back to the drone and attempted to bury himself in work. He would show her how good he was by making this drone work even better than it had before, even if it was only for a few moments before it was incinerated or fragmented by the Scorpio’s guns.
Working in maintenance was going to be harder than he had feared, and more exciting than he had thought it could be.
4
The holostage at the center of the command deck showed the Penthus system. The gas giant, scaled down, sat at the center of the display. The planet’s three major moons were displayed at their relative positions around the giant. The Scorpio appeared on the edge of the holostage projection, scaled up to be visible.
Captain Pretorius stood at the edge of the holostage, with Commander Chou to his right. The display screens at the operation stations around the command deck flashed various details of the Scorpio’s status. Some were manned, but many were given over to AI. The command deck had once been a busy hub, the beating heart of the ship, and Pretorius had been at its center. Now, the crew was depleted to a virtual skeleton staff. Pretorius had taken over jobs he had once delegated to his command officers. Now his command staff consisted of Commander Chou and himself. AI was able to monitor data and give alerts. AI could throw out a strategy quickly. Human conversation was slow and clumsy, but Pretorius trusted the ideas that emerged from the mess. Trusting his ship and his crew to a computer was not in his nature.
Pretorius knew of a captain of a corvette who had dismissed his entire command and had taken over direct control of all operations, linking with his AI through a neural processor. It worked for a fighter or a cruiser pilot, but Pretorius didn’t think it suitable for a battleship.
“All stop.” Captain Pretorius looked at the Penthus system as Commander Chou issued the orders to flight control to bring the ship to a full stop. Chou was a capable commander and would soon have his own ship. Pretorius trusted him to take the necessary steps to take care of the ship. The captain didn’t have to order the activation of gun batteries and active scans. Chou ordered it.
It was too much ground for one ship to cover. Only a few years ago, even a brief scouting mission would have been done by a flotilla, consisting of a destroyer plus several frigates and corvettes, and possibly even a carrier if there was a hint of danger. Pretorius was not going to take any risks.
“Launch surveillance drones, Mister Chou. Launch them all. Full spread. I want to see around every corner.”
“Aye, Captain.” Chou issued the orders, tapping his info panel on the holostage and sending messages to AI through his neural processor. The holostage image around the Scorpio lit up as a dozen fine orange lines spread out from the Scorpio, marking the flights of a dozen surveillance drones. They moved swiftly away from the ship, extending the sensor range and giving a line of sight to the far side of the moon Kratos.
Pretorius watched the drones move away. It would be hours before he had even a fragment of information on the Penthus System. Kratos was his target, but Chitins could be hidden anywhere. There were two other major moons, and several minor moons that were no bigger than some asteroids. There was also the gas giant itself. The Chitins lived in the atmosphere of the gas giant, Zelos, and there was no reason not to believe that a Chitin craft could easily park within the upper atmosphere of Penthus.
The Chitins themselves could not exist in that atmosphere as they could in the clouds of their home world any more than a human from Eros could exist in the cold, thin atmosphere of its sister world, Eras. But a Chitin craft could quite conceivably hold station in the upper atmosphere. Pretorius eyed the holographic representation of the giant with suspicion. First, he needed to verify that the nearest moon was clear of enemies. Then he would check the next, and then the next. He would keep a watchful eye on the swirling clouds of Penthus. The Chitins always attacked from cover, and the Penthus system had plenty of cover.
The first of the drones achieved a position to give a sensor reading from the far side of Kratos.
“Far side of the target is clear, Captain,” Chou reported.
Pretorius tapped on his console and focused in on the target moon. He positioned the moon at the center of the display and fed all live data to the image.
“Mission directives clear us for approach, Captain.”
Pretorius studied the rotating image of the moon. He’d studied the surface thoroughly during the flight here. He’d studied every mountain range and deep ravine on that surface, anywhere where a Chitin craft could hide. He used the live data streamed through the drones to study more closely the areas he’d identified as being the greatest threat.
“Sir,” Chou urged Pretorius.
“Move the ship into orbit around the moon, Mister Chou.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Leave one drone in orbit at the opposite side to the Scorpio and send the rest in system. I want every centimeter of the other moons scanned.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And keep a sensor watch on the planet. I want to know if anything bigger than a hydrogen atom escapes that atmosphere.”
“Aye, sir.”
Pretorius looked at the moon. The admiralty had identified this location as a prime spot for a surveillance facility that would give them data on movements throughout the solar system. If they could identify the location of a single Chitin craft before it attacked a ship of the fleet then it might be possible to outflank, outmaneuver, and outgun the enemy. Maybe a listening post out here could turn the tide of the war. Maybe it was the latest straw the admiralty was clutching at. And here was Pretorius, the hand reaching out. Hopefully, the Chits wouldn’t leap out of hiding and cut it off.
Pretorius tugged at his cuffs and stepped away from the holostage. “Mister Chou, inform Major Cruz to assemble his team on the Marine deck. Let me know when they are ready. I want to meet the squad we are sending down there.”
5
Jack installed the AI unit pulled from a scrapped water purification system. The drone needed a software update, but it was otherwise ready for action. Connecting the drone to the Scorpio’s AI, Jack patted the composite hull of the doomed little drone. He glanced across the maintenance hangar to Reyes. She was still busy with the Chitin.
Jack saw a Chitin tentacle stiffen and stand out from the others. Then another. Jack walked slowly toward Reyes and her Chitin experiment. Another of the Chitin’s tentacles stiffened and stood out. And then the four tentacles suddenly lost their rigidity and flopped down to the bench. Reyes pulled her head-guard off and sat against the bench. “I’m getting there,” she said. She took her water bottle and drank.
“I’ve seen these in action,” Jack said. sitting next to Reyes. That brought a look of surprise and admiration from Reyes.
“I thought you were pretty green?” she asked, looking back to the Chitin on the bench.
“I am,” he admitted.
“I never thought I’d see one moving around,” Reyes said. “I thought I’d be safe on a destroyer. Hope I never see another moving around again.”
“Except for this one,” Jack said.
Reyes nodded and took another drink. “Except for this one. Only this is just the exoskeleton, a suit, an environment suit,” she said. “Whatever the Chitins are, they are inside these. I’m trying to get the damn thing open. I think there is a Chitin inside.”
Re
yes pulled her head-guard back on and looked at the control panel. “Step back a bit,” she said. “They can give you a real heavy blow with those tentacles.”
Jack stepped back and put a work bench between himself and Reyes. He climbed onto the bench and looked over Reyes’s shoulder to see what she was doing. The panel she had connected was delivering electrical signals of varying intensities to various parts of the Chit.
A tentacle coiled up and then uncoiled and stiffened. Reyes re-set and the tentacle flopped back down to the bench.
“It’s a bit of trial and error at the moment, but I think I have control over all movement. I just want to access some sort of opening in the body of the beast.”
Jack looked closely at the Chit for the opening Reyes was looking for. The tentacles sprouted from the dark body. In many places, it was matte black and speckled with purple and green. Some places, the body was smooth. It was shining under the lights of the maintenance hangar and almost looked translucent, as if showing the black heart of the beast. Between the matte, speckled parts and the shining smooth parts, there was a network of fine, convoluted twisting lines. The body seemed to have smooth areas on the top of the head around the snout with its circle of white teeth.
Reyes began directing pulses and varying frequencies to various parts of the Chit. The head moved sideways, the mouth parts pulling back to reveal more of the white teeth.
“That’s better,” Reyes said. “You see that?”
Jack remembered only too well how he’d seen that snarling action close up during the Battle of Training Moon. He had hoped to never see it again, but here was Reyes, excited by it.
The Chitin head flopped as Reyes cancelled the current. “I think it’s about location and frequency. If I can just get the right...”
Jack felt his heart leap as the body of the Chitin cracked along the fine twisted lines in its shell. The crack opened up slightly. There was a sudden hiss, like pressure being released. A deep purple ooze bubbled up and out of the crack, slowly flowing out and over the shell of the Chitin, the bench, and to the floor.
Jack Forge, Fleet Marine Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9) Page 9