“Now, if only I can get back to the Scorpio, I might actually survive this,” Reyes said. She tapped away at her console and tried to pilot the Chit shell and get herself to safety.
“One of the Chit craft has detached from the hull, Captain. They appear out of control. Venting gas and fluid from a large opening.” Commander Chou wiped sweat from his brow with his sleeve.
“Destroy it, Mister Chou.”
“Dorsal battery has it. They fired on it. It’s destroyed.”
“Second craft detaching now.”
“Fire on it.” Pretorius leaned heavily on the holostage.
“They are accelerating away. Port side battery firing. We’ve lost them, Captain. Sorry.”
“That’s not all we lost. I want a list of missing and dead. I’ll assess the damage to my ship.” Pretorius picked up the sidearm off the holostage and returned it to the arms locker. “And if they ever get this far into my ship, I won’t need a sidearm. I’ll destroy the Scorpio. Those Chit bastards won’t be dragging me off to krav knows where.”
“Captain.” Commander Chou shuddered.
Pretorius walked back across to the holostage and saw what had caused Chou to shudder.
“A Chitin war ship detected. It’s a Leviathan, sir. It’s on an intercept course. Should I call the Scorpio to action stations?”
Pretorius tugged at his cuffs. “No, Mister Chou. We’ve had our fight. Bring us about. Full speed. Calculate a slingshot maneuver around the planet.”
“What heading, Captain?”
Pretorius expanded the holograph image to show the system from their current location around the gas giant’s outer moon to the inner system worlds of Eros and Eras. The positions of the fleet were indicated. The nearest vessel capable of offering support against the Leviathan was the carrier Overlord and its flotilla.
“Set course for the Overlord.”
Pretorius refocused the display on the Penthus system. The Scorpio was diving toward the boiling clouds of the giant planet. The Chitin warship was bearing down on them. The Scorpio fired its massive engine assembly, antimatter was annihilated in the reaction chamber and blasted the Scorpio on its slingshot around the planet and away toward the distant carrier.
Pushing himself away from the holostage, Pretorius turned on his heel and walked toward the command deck exit. He unbuttoned his jacket. “Send a message to the team on the ground. Let them know we haven’t forgotten them.”
15
Jack moved fast and low a few meters ahead of Finch, scouting with a watchful eye out for any Chitin activity. His scanners were set to maximum range and running in tandem with the scanners on board Finch’s suit.
A flash overhead caught Jack’s eye. He dove to the ground and scanned the area for danger. Then another flash and Jack realized it was coming from orbit.
“The Scorpio.” Jack turned back to Commander Finch. “They’re firing.”
“Get moving, Marine,” Finch called out, climbing to his feet. He brushed the sand off his suit in exaggerated sweeps that showed his frustration.
“That’s why I couldn’t raise them on comms. They were hiding from the Chits.”
“You don’t know what’s going on up there. Now get moving. Back to the Lander, on the double.”
Jack saw another large flash from above. If the Scorpio was taking a beating, Jack guessed they would be forgotten and abandoned. He pushed the worry out of his mind. The Chitins were building something and he was going to stop them.
Moving again and watching out for more signs of battle in orbit Jack kept his rifle pointed forward ready to respond to any threat. A flash of light came from behind, sailed over head and crashed into the ground a kilometer ahead, not far from the landing crash site. The pink sands of the moon erupted high into the air.
“Hold, Marine,” Finch’s voice hissed into Jack’s helmet. “Hold position.”
Jack dropped to one knee and scanned the horizon. Something had come down to the surface and was sitting between him and the landing craft, his only sure way off this kravin’ pink hell. His scanners detected movement.
“Movement detected up ahead, sir.” Jack adjusted his pulse rifle sights and studied the horizon.
“Hold.” Finch came alongside Jack.
A large flash from overhead lit up the brown atmosphere of Kratos. A large ball of light hung there like a small sun. Jack looked skywards to the flash. Finch was on his feet, head tipped back to look at the large ball of light.
“It’s the Scorpio main drive, sir. They are leaving.”
“Negative, Marine. They won’t leave us down here.”
“It’s the main drive, sir. If that was a ship getting smashed, then we’d see debris raining down through the atmosphere. The Scorpio is escaping.”
Finch took a few faltering steps toward the fading ball of light. “No!” he called out pitifully. “They can’t leave.”
“We need to take care of those Chits back there, sir.” Jack stepped over to Finch, who was staggering like a drunk. Pulling him back to the ground, Jack repeated, “We still have work to do.”
Finch pushed Jack away. “Don’t tell me, Marine. I give the orders around here. And I order the Scorpio to get back here.” Finch was on his feet again, staggering toward the vanishing ball of light. And as it faded completely from view, Finch yelled, “I order you to come back here.”
“Sir.” Jack placed a hand on Finch’s shoulder. “Up ahead. Movement.”
Finch shrugged Jack off and walked with hesitant steps, calling out to the Scorpio to come and get him.
Jack pulled Finch to the ground and held him down. “It’s alright, sir.”
“It’s not alright, you fool. We’ve been left here to rot in this krav grit and slime.” Finch rubbed the sand away from his suit as it crept up and over him.
“No, sir. They won’t leave us, sir.” Jack tried to calm Finch. The movement he’d detected was closing in slowly. “But Captain Pretorius knows we are Marines and we can accomplish our mission, sir.”
“Yes.” Finch saluted and tried to stand up. “I’m a kravin’ Marine. I’m Commander of Cobra Company. Get back here,” Finch shouted and struggled to get to his feet, but Jack held him down. “Get back here, you cowards.”
“Sir. Movement. Something closing in. Something from orbit. Approaching fast.”
Finch dropped to the ground and clumsily brought his rifle up to his shoulder. “Kravin’ Chitin scum. Chit filth. Kravin’ evil bastards. I’ll blast it. Where’s he at?” Finch climbed up onto one knee and aimed, his rifle jerking this way and that. “Where’s the Chitin scum at?”
Then Jack spotted it, a Chitin, moving in a swaying motion across its path. It seemed to move suddenly in one direction before moving back the other. Jack watched closely, waiting for the Chit to swing into kill range. Finch was reacting strangely to what looked to be the sudden departure of the Scorpio. If Jack was going to take this Chit down quickly, he would need Finch to fire with him, or wait for the Chit to come so close that Jack could take it on his own.
“Krav it all, Marine,” Finch dropped next to Jack, bumping into him and knocking his rifle off target. “There’s a kravin’ Chit coming this way. Are you blind?”
“No, sir, just waiting for a kill shot, sir.”
“Kill shot, he says.” Finch took aim. “I’ll show you a kill shot. Been killing Chits since before you were tying your laces. Take aim and wait for my order to fire. Can you do that, Forge?”
“Yes, sir.” Jack returned his rifle to his shoulder and sighted the Chit. “Waiting for your order, sir.” The Chit was definitely close enough for them to take the shot, and the thing seemed hurt or damaged by the way it was moving. It lurched one way and then the other.
Come on already, Jack thought. “Ready to fire, sir,” he said, hoping it would prompt Finch to let him open up and shred the Chit.
Jack zoomed in with his rifle sights. The creature was covered in grains of the pink sand. It had clearly fallen over and
picked up some of the moon’s strange sand. Then Jack remembered the Chits around the construction site. None of them seemed to pick up any grains of sand and their tentacles that moved across the surface remained clean.
“Ready?” Finch asked.
Jack looked at the tentacles more closely and the sand creeping up over them just like it had done with his boots, but not like the other Chits’ tentacles. The Chit lurched again the other way. Jack saw one of the tentacles curl up suddenly into a tight knot and then drop flaccid and lifeless. The Chit lurched as another tentacle that was moving it forward coiled up into a tight knot.
“Take aim, Marine,”
Jack remembered seeing the Chit in the maintenance hangar behaving like that when Reyes had been attempting to work out the way the Chit moved. Jack aimed at the smooth head. And there, glinting on the Chit’s head, was his watch. The watch that had been his only reminder of family. The watch he’d dismantled in the Battle of Training Moon. The watch he’d asked Reyes to look after for him, the watch Reyes had slipped over the antennae of the Chit she was studying.
“Fire,” Finch called.
Jack reached out and pushed the front of Finch’s rifle upward. The pulse rounds ripped through the thin air centimeters above the Chit’s head.
“Cease fire, sir. It’s Reyes.” Jack held the front of Finch’s rifle upward against Finch’s struggling.
“Let go of my weapon, Forge. Kill the damn Chit. Fire!” Finch shouted. He fired his rifle wildly as Jack held it pointing skyward. “This is sedition. This is mutiny. They’ll hang you for this, Forge. I’ll hang you myself.”
“Sir, it’s not a Chit. It’s Reyes.”
“Reyes? What is Reyes? One of your Chit friends.” Finch continued to fight.
“No, sir, it’s Sarah Reyes from maintenance.”
“You’ve lost your mind,” Finch screamed. He let go of his rifle and drew his sidearm, pointing it at Jack’s face.
“Sir, no, sir.” Jack held his hands in front of him for protection, knowing it was useless to try and fend off a pulse pistol shot. Not even the meat suit could protect him at this range. “She’s on our side.”
“So you admit it. You are a spy? A turncoat? You are a Chitin agent come to kill us. You sent the Scorpio away. You are the enemy here, Forge.” Finch primed the pistol.
“No, sir. Please, sir. Put the weapon down.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw the Chit that was Reyes lurch over behind Finch.
A tentacle reached out and slapped the hand holding the pistol. The weapon fired, the round zipping through the air just over Jack’s left shoulder.
Finch turned to face the Chit that towered over them both. A tentacle wrapped around Finch’s pistol hand. The pistol fired again. Purple slime splattered out of the wound the pistol blasted in the Chit. A second tentacle coiled around Finch’s other arm and lifted him off the ground, the pistol tumbling from Finch’s grasp.
“Put him down, Sarah,” Jack called. “Put the commander down,”
The coiled tentacles that held Finch off the ground uncoiled and released him. The commander fell to the sandy ground. He struggled to his hands and knees. Jack saw Finch pull an electron blade from a scabbard on his ankle.
Reyes reached out with a tentacle and flicked the blade out of Finch’s hand. The blade spun upward, leaving visual trails as it spun. The blade reached its zenith and tumbled downward, rotating still.
Jack saw the danger. Finch saw it too. Jack reached out, yelling. Finch struggled to get away from the falling blade.
The blade landed point down on Finch’s shoulder, passing easily through the suit and cutting into Finch’s shoulder. The commander yelled out as the blade cut his flesh and bone.
The blood boiled out of the wound, exposed to the thin cold atmosphere. The pressure from the suit was released in moments and then the toxins from the atmosphere of Kratos found their way into Finch’s suit and into his warm flesh.
“Sir,” Jack called out. “Commander Finch?”
Jack stood over the still and silent body of Finch. Then he looked up at the smooth head of the Chit standing before him.
16
Sarah Reyes looked at Jack on the shimmering view on the inside on the Chit.
“Jack,” she shouted. She shouted again through her tears. “Jack. It’s me.”
She watched as Jack looked down at the body of Finch and then up again at her. She saw him mouthing the words, Sarah. Is that you, Sarah?
She shouted again so loud it hurt her throat and her ears. “Jack, it’s me. Help me.”
Reyes could see that the hole in the Chit where Finch had fired was closing up, a thick purple liquid filling the hole, but the gash across the right thigh where the round had grazed her was not healing. It was bleeding badly. Some purple slime spread over her thigh. The liquid burned and she screamed, the sound of her voice echoing around inside the Chit.
“Sarah, can you hear me?”
Sarah watched Jack mouth the words. She shouted, “Yes,” and then realized neither could hear the other. She worked carefully to draw her tentacle across the sand. She wrote, Sarah.
Jack looked at the sand and the word written there. The name of the girl from maintenance who had so captivated him. Sarah. The name was like magic and when he said it, he thought only of her. He was lost in dreams of her.
“How did you get down here?” Jack said to the large smooth head. He realized she probably couldn’t hear him.
He looked across to the fallen body of Finch. The blood was evaporating out of the slice in the suit. The pink sands were already crawling up over him and he was almost totally covered. Jack accessed the vital signs readout for Finch. The data displayed over Jack’s view showed that Finch was dead. No life signs. No pulse. No brain activity. He was already listed on Jack’s display as Killed in Action.
A tentacle reached out. Jack recoiled. This massive ugly beast was Sarah? He saw the wound in the Chit body and mixed with the purple gloop that oozed out was the unmistakable trace of blood red.
“You been hit?” Jack mouthed carefully.
The Chit reached out with a tentacle again. Jack reached out too, took hold and pulled the Chit. “This way,” he said.
Jack came to the landing craft crash site cautiously and a few meters ahead of the Chit Reyes. He answered the challenge from the sentry.
“Forge, coming in.” he said.
Terry stepped forward, his rifle leveled at Jack. “Where the Krav have you been all this time?”
“Where’s Torent?” Jack asked. If he was going to bring Sarah up to the lander, he was going to make sure she didn’t suddenly get cut down by fire from a dozen frightened Marines.
Sam Torent came down the ramp from the landing craft and marched over. “Jacky. Bad news. Scorpio bugged out and we’re on our own for now. Where’s the commander?”
“Sam,” Jack said slowly, stepping forward as if approaching a wild animal. “I found someone from the Scorpio. They escaped somehow. You mustn’t be alarmed.”
Torent brought his rifle up. Terry copied the squad leader. “Why would I be alarmed?”
“It’s Sarah Reyes from maintenance. She managed to get down out of orbit.”
“How?”
“She’s been working on a Chitin for some time and she’s found out how to...”
“How to what?”
“She’s inside the Chitin, Sam.”
“Inside?” Torent tipped his head as if trying to understand.
“Just don’t fire, Sam. Promise me you won’t fire.”
“What’s going on, Jack?”
“Promise me.” Jack turned and waved to Reyes.
The Chitin appeared from behind a far off sand tree. The flailing tentacles collapsed one of the sand trees and it fell over the Chit like an avalanche of pink snow. Terry raised his weapon and called out. “Contact. Contact. Twelve o’clock.”
“No!” Jack ran in front of Terry and pressed his rifle aside. “Sam, order th
em, Sam. Hold your fire.”
6th squad came running at the sound of the commotion, their weapons ready.
Jack waved his hands wildly at the squad. “Hold your fire. Don’t fire.”
The Marines slowed and approached cautiously, all looking in awe and surprise at the Chit that lumbered and lurched forward.
“Don’t fire,” Jack said again to Torent. “It’s Sarah Reyes. She’s inside. She needs help. Look.” Jack pointed at the wound and the trickle of red through the purple gunk that was becoming caked in the fine pink sand.
“She needs a suit. She can’t survive without a suit. We must have a spare?”
“Maybe. Let’s look. Terry, keep your pulse rifle trained on that thing.”
Terry nudged Jack aside with a shoulder and stepped behind the Chit Reyes.
Jack grabbed a tentacle and pulled Reyes toward the ramp. The Marines lined up to watch the strange procession.
Once inside the hold, Torent set three Marines to seek out a spare suit in the landing craft. Osho found one in a weapons locker.
“It’s unpowered,” Torent said, turning the suit over in his hands.
“No problem,” Jack said. “We can hook it up to the lander’s power and charge it.”
Torent nodded and handed the suit to Jack. “What now?”
“Seal the landing ramp and pressurize the hold. Reyes can get out of the Chit and into the meat suit.”
Torent nodded. Jack closed the ramp and pressurized the hold. Torent ordered the Marines in the hold to train their weapons on the Chit. “One false move,” he said.
The Chit shell opened a crack with a rush of air. Purple ooze dribbled slowly out of the crack and then came Sarah Reyes. She fell to the deck hard, and the vacated Chit shell fell loudly after her.
The gasps and cheers from the Marines drew a weak smile from Reyes. She looked up and around until she saw Jack.
Jack rushed over and scooped Sarah up in his arms. He scraped away the slime. He spotted the wound on her leg. “Aid kit,” he called out. A Marine brought one forward and dropped it in front of Jack before stepping back and bringing his rifle up.
Jack Forge, Fleet Marine Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9) Page 15