Jack hauled her to her feet and fired at the doorway as another Chit came in. It didn’t last long and was soon lying on the deck next to the other dead Chits.
The captain’s voice came over the ship-wide address. “Incoming Chitin Leviathan. All hands, keep fighting, and good luck.”
“Get that engine started, Jack,” Visser shouted from the gantry above.
Jack took Reyes in his arms and jumped down to the base deck. He landed hard but saved Reyes from the impact. She ran to the area she needed to get to, while Jack walked slowly backward, keeping his eyes and the muzzle of his rifle trained on the entrance to the engine room. Another Chit stuck its shiny head in and was struck by a burst of rounds from Jack’s rifle.
Jack turned and watched Reyes kneel in front of a small panel. She struggled to open it and then cut it with the electron blade on the pulse pistol.
Jack caught sight of another Chit entering. He fired. The Chit moved forward and into cover. Another Chit came in after. Again, Jack fired a number of rounds into the target, but that one also took the punishment and moved out of sight. Then another came, and another. Jack let loose and poured as much fire into the doorway as he could, and yet another came through.
“How’s that engine coming along, Sarah?” he asked. He turned and saw Reyes sitting on the floor looking up at him. She nodded.
“Engines to full.” The captain’s voice came over the ship-wide address. “Stand by for full engine burn.”
Then Commander Griff came on, “Intruders on all decks. Scorpio Battalion, defend all vital systems.”
Jack opened a communicator channel to the command deck. “This is Forge,” he said. “Send support to the engine room.” Jack fired as a Chit showed its snarling circle of white teeth. “I can’t hold them off alone.”
Reyes nudged Jack and indicated he follow her. Jack fell back, firing as he went. He could see more Chits entering the engine room. He followed Reyes and they backed into a deep but narrow recess, the composite walls rough on either side.
It was a defendable position, but they were trapped. Jack fired as a Chit came around the corner. Reyes loosed off a number of rounds from her pulse pistol.
Jack looked at Reyes. All he’d wanted was to spend time with her. “I’ve always wanted to be with you, Sarah,” Jack said. A Chitin appeared and fell to their fire. “Ever since I met you, I’ve wanted to be with you.”
Another Chit stepped around the corner and fell to their fire.
Jack looked at Reyes, her mouth taped up, dirt and tears on her cheeks. Jack thought he could kiss her, if only her mouth wasn’t covered.
A Chit appeared around the corner of the narrow recess. Jack fired and the Chit fell back, then another burst of fire leapt up from alongside the Chit and sent it sprawling sideways.
“Friendlies,” a voice said. A hand waved around the corner. “That you in there, sir?” Torent’s head popped around the corner. “Engine room secure,” he shouted. “Sixth Squad, go and support the Marines around the command deck.”
Jack leaned heavily against the wall. “Sam, good to see you. Let’s go secure the command deck.”
“It’s alright, Jack,” Torent said. “They’ve got them beat. I can leave you two alone there if you like?”
Jack looked at Reyes. Reyes mumbled something from behind the mass of tape.
“There’s still work to do, Sam.” Jack walked out of the recess. “Let’s sweep the area.”
“Yes, sir.”
Reyes managed to pull some of the tape away so she could speak. “Get me to maintenance, Jack. There’ll be a load of patch-up work to do. The sooner I get started the better.”
Jack nodded. He sent Torent ahead and then walked behind with Reyes. Jack looked up to the gantry above. Visser was still standing there. Jack shouted up, “Do you need any assistance with your prisoner, Agent Visser?”
Visser shook her head. Even from this distance, Jack could see her stern expression. Then she raised her hand and saluted Jack. “I’ve got this covered, Commander. Go and secure the ship.”
Jack returned the salute. Walking out of the engine room, stepping over the fallen Chitin soldiers, Jack wondered how close they had come to disaster. Too close. The Chitins had nearly silenced them all.
20
Jack hadn’t seen Eros for over a year. He stood on the Marine hangar deck and looked down at the bright blue planet below. He reached out and took Reyes’s hand.
“Beautiful,” he said. “After all the darkness, after all the pain, what I wouldn’t give for a day of planet leave.”
Reyes moved a little closer. Jack felt the warmth of her body.
The sound of footsteps caught Jack’s attention. He turned and watched the group marching onto the hangar deck.
Agent Visser was walking next to Finch, who was shackled to two Marines wearing meat suits.
“We have to stay up here but he gets to go down to the surface,” Reyes said.
“I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes,” Jack said, turning back to the view below. He heard Finch shouting as he was marched toward a waiting tac boat.
“We will meet again, Forge.”
Jack ignored the comment. Reyes turned to look. She whispered to Jack, “You should have killed him when you had the chance.”
“Someone told me once, don’t pick a fight with Fleet Intelligence.” Jack turned in time to see Finch get marched up the ramp of the tac boat. “But maybe it is better that we learn as much from him as we can. The information we gain could take years off the war.”
“As long as they don’t find out about us.” Reyes pressed herself closer to Jack.
“Us?” Jack said. “There’s an ‘us’?”
“You know what I mean,” Reyes said.
“We’ll be okay,” Jack replied, and he really wished he believed it.
Jack knew the war would be long and he might not survive much longer, but he was determined to survive anything that Finch could throw at him. It was a belief forged in the darkness of space.
Forged in Battle
1
Jack sat in the cockpit of the landing craft and looked at the distant asteroid. It was massive, larger than some of the moons around the system’s gas giants.
“Let the tac boats go in first,” Jack directed the pilot. “Watch out for ground fire.”
The asteroid belt was filled with these huge chunks of rock and metal. They had been a perfect resource in the early days of the system, but now they were so vulnerable to Chitin attack that few were still in operation. This one had reached the end of its working life a few days before when the Chits discovered the community and attacked.
The asteroid belt was littered with active mining colonies. There were also rogue settlements in the mined-out husks of the bigger asteroids. Rogue settlements were being given as much attention as legitimate ones. All humans were to be withdrawn from the outer system.
The engine from the lead tac boat flared as it powered toward the asteroid. The remaining ships lit up in unison and followed the leader, while Jack and his landing craft brought up the rear. The landing craft was going to transport the miners from the asteroid to the relative safety of the destroyer, the Scorpio. Before that could happen, Cobra Company had to destroy the Chitin attackers dug in on the surface of the massive asteroid.
The surface was dark, the crust baked in cosmic rays over billions of years. The habitation complex and the surface gear for the mine would usually be a glittering array of lights, but the community was dark. Their last transmission informed the evacuation flotilla that the Chitins had surrounded the mine. The miners had cut all nonessential power and were now dug in for a siege.
Jack knew there would be lights before long. Fleet Marine pulse rifles and tac boat hail cannons would soon be alive, peppering the Chitin positions. Chitin plasma spears and spitz cannons would light up the dark asteroid when they very quickly poured return fire into Cobra Company. Jack did not care whether it was the Chitins or Cobra Company
who fired the first shot. He was determined that it would be Cobra who fired the last. He was here to rescue the miners. If he could destroy the besieging Chitin soldiers, even better.
A flash of light on the surface caught Jack’s eye. A lone flare arching away from the community structures, arching over the dark ground around the mine.
“Hold fire,” Jack messaged the tac boats. “It’s a flare from the miners. They want to show us the enemy positions,” Jack said. “We’ll see them soon enough.”
They most certainly did. A scattering of flashes from the surface gave away the Chits’ positions as dozens of spitz cannons burst into life. The bright energy pulses raced away from the surface toward the incoming Marine company craft.
The pulses slashed around the cockpit, each one narrowly missing as they were cast aside by the forward deflection field.
“Scorpio’s returning fire, Commander,” the pilot said.
Jack saw the high-density shot flash past the landing craft and the tac boats, the rounds super-heated by their launch from the Scorpio’s port-side cannons. The rounds slammed into the asteroid, creating small balls of light that grew suddenly out of the dark surface. The lights died away, and the spitz cannons on the ground went dark.
“They killed them all,” the pilot said, nervous and excited.
“Don’t be too sure,” Jack said calmly. “Some of them were stupid enough to give away their positions once. Now they know the Scorpio will engage them and they won’t do it again, at least not until we are on top of them.”
Jack checked the surface data on the cockpit holostage. The locations of Chit spitz cannons were mapped now. A network of prepared positions ringed the mine buildings and ensured that the trapped miners stayed trapped. All Cobra had to do was punch a hole through that ring and keep a corridor open for the miners to escape to his landing craft. He hoped he could get all his Marines off the asteroid too, but the priority was the civilian miners. As a commander, his duty was to accomplish the mission. Every mission had its objectives, and every mission had its cost. Jack knew the costs all too well.
Unclipping his harness and standing up, Jack gave the pilot an encouraging pat on the shoulder.
“Keep her steady and put her down safely, pilot,” he said, then stepped onto the passenger deck. His old squad was sitting near the starboard-side exit. 6th squad was low on numbers but high on experience. Sam Torent was squad leader and 6th squad trusted him. Osho, Jenks, and Bubble had been with Jack from the first days of training. Bailey was one of two recent replacements and the only replacement to survive their first action with 6th squad. The boy was brave but nervous.
“Ready your gear,” Jack said. “We will be touching down in moments. Move fast. Keep low.” Jack turned to Bailey. “And don’t get lost.”
“This rock is too small to get lost on, kid,” Torent said. “Stick with me and you’ll be okay.”
Bailey looked at Jack. Commander Forge was fast becoming a legend in the Fleet Marines, his name known to all recruits. He was the Marine who had singlehandedly killed a Chitin Leviathan, the Marine who’d saved a destroyer. Jack was the Marine’s secret weapon against the Chitins. Bailey didn’t believe half the stories that had circulated about his training squad, but he knew Commander Forge was real and he was grateful to be in his company.
“You listen to your squad leader,” Jack said, “and fire at the Chits.”
The pilot shouted back from the cockpit. “Thirty seconds. Good luck, Commander.”
Jack checked the medical data for each of 6th squad. Torent was calm. Osho and Jenks were getting nervous. Bubble was quaking and letting out his usual involuntary murmur of fear. Bailey’s heart rate was through the roof.
Jack stood by the exit and checked his pulse rifle one last time.
“Ten seconds,” the pilot called out.
“Keep those electron bayonets powered down,” Jack said. “We don’t want to show them where we are.”
The landing craft touched down and the door fell open, hitting the ground hard. Jack ran down the short ramp and onto the crusty surface of the asteroid.
“Move,” Jack called.
Sam Torent was already running down the ramp, his pulse rifle on his shoulder. He moved in a semi crouch, his legs shuffling fast and his rifle steady, aimed forward and ready to fire.
Half a kilometer ahead, the tac boats had already touched down and the rest of Cobra Company was spilling onto the surface of the asteroid. The Chits were keeping their plasma spears and spitz cannons quiet for now.
Jack moved behind 6th squad, his eyes fixed on the horizon. He scanned left and right for any hint of Chitin movement.
“Maybe they’ve all gone,” Bailey said.
Jack recognized the hope and fear in the boy’s voice. “Focus, Bailey. Watch for movement.”
The movement, when it came, was sudden and close. The ground next to Jack seemed to writhe and erupt in a mass of black tentacles as the Chitin soldier next to him broke cover.
“Contact right,” Jack shouted as he turned. His pulse rifle burst to life and poured a hail of pulse rounds into the Chitin.
The Chitin staggered and thrashed about as the rounds hit home, smashing chunks out of its thick carapace.
“Contact left,” Osho said as another Chit rose from the ground. She fired a burst of well-aimed pulse rounds at the Chit.
Torent called out as he fired at a Chit that stood up in front of the advancing 6th squad. “Contact front.”
Jack stepped back as the Chitin came toward him. He maintained his fire and targeted the massive head. The Chitin fell, its tentacles thrashing the ground, throwing up fragments of the crusty surface.
“They’re all around us!” Bailey said, stumbling away from Torent, who was pouring pulse fire into the massive Chitin soldier towering over him.
“Fire your weapon, Marine.” Jack stood behind Bailey and pushed him forward.
“Target down,” Osho said as the Chit on the squad’s right fell. Bubble was next to her, firing and whimpering in fear.
“Target down,” Torent said.
Jack walked toward the squad leader and fired two more well placed rounds into the writhing Chits head.
“Sound off, Sixth Squad,” Jack said. He stepped around the now motionless Chitin soldier.
All Marines spoke up and reported ready.
“Move your squad forward, Sam,” Jack said. “Watch out for Chits in the dirt. They must know we are coming and they would like to kill us all.”
The light from the spitz cannons flashed in the distance. The flashes from the pulse rifles replied and Cobra Company advanced.
“Doesn’t seem right, sir,” Torent said. “The rest of the company is up there fighting and we’re back here, mopping up a few strays.”
“We are going to keep a clear passage for the miners back to the landing craft,” Jack said. “If we want to rescue any of them, there must be a clear path for them to get to their only way off this rock.”
“I guess I don’t like seeing the others doing all the work, sir.” Torent checked his weapon.
“If you want to file a grievance with the battalion commanding officer,” Jack said, stepping forward and scanning for any signs of Chitin soldiers, “I’m sure they will be happy to hear from you, Squad Leader Torent.”
“Don’t want to make work for the battalion, sir,” Torent said. “Just want to kill more Chits.”
“As do we all, Squad Leader.” Jack scanned the ground ahead. “Wish I had a dozen like you.”
A Chitin soldier popped up in front of them and fired a plasma spear. The fizzing lance of energy burned through the air and slammed into Bubble’s chest. The force sent him flying backward.
The squad fired and sent the Chit flailing back. A second plasma spear leapt from the Chitin, but it was poorly aimed and raced into the darkness.
Bailey fired as he ran toward the Chit. He stood over the fallen soldier and poured fire into the smashed carapace.
“
Stop him, Sam,” Jack said as he walked back to Bubble, who was lying face up, pulse rifle at his side.
“How are you doing, Marine?” Jack said.
“It hurts,” Bubble said. His voice steady and calm.
“Okay, Bubs. We’ll get you out of here.” Jack kneeled next to Bubble. He looked back to the landing craft just a few hundred meters away. “We’ll get you on board you’ll be the first in medbay, okay?”
“My suit is broken, sir,” Bubble said.
Jack checked the suit’s status on his enhanced data view. The suit was fine but Bubble had taken a plasma spear to the chest. The force had ruptured his lung. Smashed ribs perforated the other.
Bubble held up his hand to Jack. “Help me up, sir. I can make it.”
Jack took hold of Bubble’s hand. “Just take it easy, Bubs.” Jack used his command override to access the suit’s medical package. He administered a painkiller.
“I’m not afraid, sir,” Bubble said calmly. “Make sure they get me home.”
“You bet, Marine,” Jack said.
Bubble’s heartbeat was weak and erratic. Then it stopped.
Jack took the dog tag off the meat suit and stored it away. Torent was standing at his side.
“You want me to get him back to the Scorpio?” Torent said.
Jack looked to the flashes of light over the battle in the distance with a dead serious expression on his face. “Move your squad forward. We’ll pick him up on the way back.”
Jack reached his waypoint and took a knee. He activated the small holostage on his suit’s cuff and checked the battle’s progress.
1st and 2nd squads had punched through the Chitin perimeter and reached the outer walls of the mining community. 3rd and 4th were holding the Chits back on one side of the corridor through the Chitin lines. 5th and 6th squad were holding the other.
Navidi, the squad leader from 1st, sent the call that the miners were ready to move.
“Okay, this is it,” Jack said. “Watch for the Chitins. Check your targets. We don’t want to drop any miners. Here they come.”
Jack Forge, Fleet Marine Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9) Page 37