Last Stand Boxed Set

by James David Victor

  The green fire was heating the door from the other side. Several blasts of green fire shot through the gap and carried on along the corridor, finally dissipating and fizzling out as it slammed into the bulkhead at the other end.

  Lane unclipped a grenade from his tactical suit and activated the detonator. He tossed it through the gap and it clattered along the floor all the way back to the Skalidions.

  “Take cover,” Lane shouted as he turned his back to the door.

  The detonation from the grenade rocked the corridor, and a blast of superheated white plasma erupted through the gap. The detonation died away a fraction of a second later. Lane risked a look and saw Skalidion fighters writhing in the white plasma, weapons abandoned.

  Lane checked his holostage for signals of Skalidion fighters. The Scorpio surveillance network at the forward section of the Scorpio was going on and offline, giving him an incomplete view of activity there, but Lane could see clearly that the front of the Scorpio was missing.

  But where the surveillance network was still active, Lane could see Skalidions already advancing on both sides on several decks, all moving toward the forward intersection that would lead to the command deck. Lane looked at his small squad of half a dozen raw recruits. All under the command of a squad leader whose only qualification for the job was that he could pilot a tac boat.

  Lane moved. He ran back toward the next bulkhead and opened it. It slid aside fully and let the whole squad through. Just as it was closing, Lane saw the Skalidions coming through the small opening in the bulkhead he had just been defending. As the emergency bulkhead doors sealed, Lane looked again at his wrist-mounted holostage. There was no way he could defend the forward intersection with Skalidions arriving there from port, starboard, and the upper and lower decks. He would be flanked on all sides and his squad would be destroyed in a matter of moments.

  The only way they could stand a chance was to blow these bastards back out into space.

  Lane saw the sealed blast door glowing as the Skalidion green fire poured into it on the other side. He looked at his holostage and expanded the view of the forward section, the green holoimage showing him every corridor and the location of the intruders. Hundreds of Skalidions were now on board the Scorpio and advancing through emergency bulkhead doors moment by moment.

  Lane had to act fast. He knew that he should contact the command deck and get permission from Major Forge and Captain Pretorius to do what he intended, but he had been given a job, and time was short. Lane had to act now. He accessed the door control systems.

  He was denied command access.

  Lane glanced up at the emergency bulkhead in front of him that was close to collapse under the green fire assault. He looked back to his holostage. If there was one thing he could do other than pilot tac boat, it was hack a system. If he survived, he may well face a court martial, he may face a flogging, or possibly a firing squad, but if he did nothing, he would certainly be dead.

  “Stand by, squad,” Lane called out. “It’s going to get a bit breezy. I am going to blow these bastards back out the way they came. I guess we’ll get blown along with them, but at least we’ll clear the Scorpio. Good luck, squad.”

  And with that, Lane hit the holobutton on his wrist-mounted holostage and opened every emergency door across the forward section of the Scorpio. The door in front of Lane opened in a fraction of a second, sliding aside instantly. The Skalidions on the other side were practically nose-to-nose with Lane, but only for a moment.

  And then the atmosphere contained behind the emergency bulkhead doors shot the Skalidions and the Marines out of the corridor like bullets from a gun. They tumbled away at sudden speed, cartwheeling and tumbling, colliding with the walls, ceilings, deck plates. Some were smashed into others, and some smashed against the walls. They left green bloody slicks along the dark composite of the Scorpio’s corridors.

  Lane lost grip on his pulse rifle in the whirlwind. He pulled his pistol off his hip and fired at the Skalidions even as he was blown along, tumbling toward the open end of the corridor and open space.

  And then suddenly, the corridor was gone, and Lane was floating in the empty expanse. He looked at the Scorpio as he drifted away. The front section was battered beyond recognition, almost every deck open to space, but the Scorpio moved on.

  Lane checked his holostage as he drifted away from the Scorpio and it drove onwards. The Marines blown out with him were drifting in all directions.

  He heard a panicked communication from one. Lane looked over to where the Marine was, a tiny speck in the void. A Skalidion fighter swept down out of the swarm and poured green fire into the Marine. The tactical suit was no defense against a Skalidion fighter’s main assault weapon. The suit was vapor in a second.

  And then another Marine firing his pulse rifle into the swarm was consumed by a barrage of green fire.

  Squad Leader Lane pulled a grenade and activated it. He tossed it toward the swarm. The explosion hardly impacted the swarm at all. He saw one Skalidion fighter slightly alter course to avoid the blast.

  Lane had given the Scorpio a chance. Now if he stayed quiet, maybe he would have a chance of avoiding the Skalidion. Maybe a Fleet vessel would pick them up after the battle.

  If the battle could be won.

  9

  Sam Torent’s body lay in the corridor where it had fallen. Blood pooling inside his tactical suit had begun to leak out of the hole in the chest cut by the electron blade that Beretta had thrown. His body was growing cold, and the blood was coagulating.

  The Mech tissue of Sam’s arm fell away from his body, losing its form, reduced to a pool of black liquid. The fine tendrils that had weaved into Sam’s flesh oozed out of his residual limb.

  The Mech tissue began to move. Like a flat, black slug, it crept up the arm of the tactical suit, over Sam’s shoulder and around his neck before sliding down his chest to the open wound.

  The liquid tissue flowed over the wound and crept inside, penetrating Sam’s dead chest. The Mech tissue surrounded Sam’s cold heart.

  It surrounded the heart, seeping into every chamber of the still organ and coating it completely. The Mech tissue formed the plug over Sam’s chest cavity where the electron blade had punctured his sternum and joined his smashed sternum and ribs together.

  Then the tissue compressed in waves around the heart. Black Mech liquid pumped through the chambers and into Sam’s body. It flowed along the arteries, absorbing the congealed blood that filled them, and then flowed, pumped by the Mech-powered heart.

  Sam Torent gasped a huge, rasping breath. His eyes opened. He twisted and squirmed on the corridor floor, scurrying back until he hit the corridor wall. He clawed at his throat and neck with his one arm. He looked at his tactical suit and saw that the right sleeve was flapping around loose where his arm should be, his Mech arm, but the Mech tissue was no longer there forming the cybernetic arm. Now, it was forming his heart and his blood. His very life was being powered by the Mech tissue.

  Sam climbed up to his feet. The corridors of the Scorpio appeared familiar and strange at the same time. He could see them in a new spectrum that he had never observed before. The cold corridor showed slightly warmer patches where footsteps had been. The latest of these, Sam could see the familiar gait of his friend Jack. And at the far end of the corridor, Sam identified the footsteps of his killer. Lou Beretta.

  Sam ran. He followed the footsteps of his killer, driven by a cold, detached, merciless craving for revenge.

  Then Sam could hear the voice of his old friend Jack Forge on the command deck of the destroyer. The tactical suit was still powered, and the communications systems were live. Now Sam began to remember where he was and what he was doing. He could hear Jack’s voice in the distance, almost like a memory. But Jack was active on the command deck, and the ship was in danger.

  The Mech tissue fused with his ident chip and gave him direct access to every part of the Scorpio simultaneously. The near total neural connection with
the Scorpio via the Mech-powered ident chip almost felt for a moment like Sam had become the Scorpio. Sam accessed the surveillance system. He identified Jack and Pretorius on the command deck. They were plowing the ship at speed through the Skalidion swarm.

  Then Sam identified Beretta. He was moving quickly and cautiously through the corridors toward the hangar deck. Sam’s consciousness moved to the hangar deck. There was a single tac boat.

  Sam ran towards the hangar. On his way, he passed the Marine equipment locker. He stopped as if a distant memory had suddenly occurred to him. He stepped inside. Recorded on the Scorpio’s classified manifest was the single Devex matter transport device. Sam located the sealed, high-security locker. Only the ship’s senior Marine, the ship’s captain, or a Fleet Intelligence agent could normally access this locker.

  But with no more than a thought, Sam opened the door. Inside, a single Devex matter transport device. Sam picked up the small backpack containing the device and slung it over his shoulder.

  Jack lurched from side to side as the Scorpio plowed forward through the swarm. The angled hull stability field was failing and Skalidion fighters were colliding with the front of the Scorpio as she powered ahead. Hull composite was smashed away in huge chunks, vaporizing and erupting in a superheated cloud of dust and gas.

  The forward section of the Scorpio had been pulverized, exposing her to space. Bulkhead emergency doors were sealed, preventing the entire atmosphere of the Scorpio from blasting out through the ruptures in the forward section.

  A group of corvettes, clinging tightly to the Scorpio and using the hull stability field in conjunction with their own, fired their weapons into the swarm to punch holes where they could. The destruction made the swarm less dense and the Scorpio powered on, punching its way forward, causing further destruction to her forward sections and the Skalidions that stood in her way.

  “We are nearly through the swarm,” Jack said.

  “I’m opening a channel to the support fighters. They need to protect our drive. If you’ve got any hidden secret weapons we can use, now is the time, Jack.”

  Jack had become accustomed to Pretorius’s calm command style. And now in total jeopardy, the captain appeared as relaxed and at ease as ever, even a little cheerful.

  “This is the Scorpio, support craft. Fall back and protect our drive assembly. The Scorpio must make it to the nest asteroid. Give everything you can to protect the Scorpio’s drive section. Pretorius out.”

  Jack looked at the central holostage. This swarm was concentrating their attack on the two destroyers and the majority of the fleet sitting in orbit just above planet Blue. Civilian transports were burning through the atmosphere and setting on the surface. Others, losing control, were dropping toward the planet surface and impacting catastrophically. A small group of Skalidion fighters had broken away from the swarm and were chasing the Scorpio. They fired their green fire weapons into the destroyer’s drive system.

  A squadron of Blades broke through the Skalidion lines and engaged the fighters on the Scorpio’s tail, blasting them out of the void with their flickering high-energy lasers. The corvettes holding formation on the Scorpio’s tail fired backward, catching the Skalidions in a laser trap.

  But the Skalidions were too many. A corvette fell to the fire as another group of Skalidions cartwheeled and fired back at the pursuing Blades, each one destroyed in a flickering pattern of light.

  And in the distance, still several thousands of kilometers away but drawing nearer, was the nest asteroid.

  “There she is,” Jack said, pointing at the signal on the main holostage. “The nest asteroid. We are nearly there.”

  “I’m going to put everything into the drive system, Jack. We don’t need life support, atmospheric controls. We don’t need gravity. We don’t need the drinks machine in the crew canteen anymore. Let’s put everything into the drive and get this done.”

  “I’ll see if I can find another couple of megawatts of power,” Jack said as he staggered over to the next console. It was the internal surveillance console. On the small panel, Jack saw movement.

  “Lou Beretta is still on board,” Jack said as he identified the movement.

  “He’ll soon be very sorry he is,” Pretorius said with a smile, “but only for a brief moment. We are approaching detonation range.”

  “And there is movement in the Marine hangar deck too,” Jack said. He looked up at Pretorius, slightly confused. “That’s two people aboard. Neither of them with an ident chip. Who is this?”

  “It doesn’t matter now, Jack. Just put everything into the drive and let’s slam the Scorpio into that nest asteroid.”

  Jack accessed the surveillance feed for the hangar deck. He could see the tac boat sitting in the cavernous hangar. And then someone running toward it. Jack zoomed in. It was Lou Beretta.

  Jack punched the console. “Krav it. That bastard is getting away.”

  “Focus on your job, Major.” Pretorius said. “If he gets away or stays, it’s irrelevant if we don’t take down that nest asteroid. I need you here with me if we are going to get this done. Double-check the combat drones are ready for detonation. I want them to collapse their antimatter containment field the moment we impact that asteroid.”

  Jack ignored Pretorius and zoomed in on the second signal, the second person running into the corridor. The surveillance node was finding it difficult to pinpoint the individual’s location. Maybe it was just some forgotten crewman, a forgotten Marine, maybe a civilian who had somehow become trapped aboard the Scorpio on her final suicide mission.

  “Closing in on the final thousand meters, Jack.” Pretorius sat back in his command chair, relaxed. He slowly tugged the cuff of his right sleeve, then he swapped hands and gave the left cuff a gentle tug. “Check those combat drones, my boy. We are going to crash into that nest asteroid in the next few seconds. It would be a shame if we battled this far and failed to take it with us.”

  Jack pushed himself away from the surveillance console. He saw the report from the hangar deck that the doors were opening, the tac boat taxiing out. Lou Beretta was the only occupant.

  “He’s getting away,” Jack said in a gentle tone that belied his true fury.

  “Ahh well, Jack,” Pretorius said. “You can’t win them all. Now let’s get ready to annihilate that nest asteroid. If we are lucky, we will take Beretta with us in the blast. Sound good?”

  Jack hated the thought that Beretta was getting away with it. Beretta always got away with it. Jack had tried to stop him on so many occasions, and Beretta always slipped away at the last moment.

  Justice would not be served today. But the civilian fleet and all the people in the blue giant system would be saved from the Skalidions. At least Jack knew he was saving so many souls. Even if one among them was bad. It would be up to other people to bring Beretta to justice.

  Jack stepped over to the weapons console and checked the combat drones. They were resting in their racks all along the Scorpio. They were all activated and ready for detonation. The payload on the Scorpio would be enough to turn the nest asteroid into a cloud of dust and gas in a fraction of a second. The destruction would be instantaneous. Jack would not even hear a bang.

  “All combat drones ready to detonate. I’ll synchronize them all with the navigation computer so they detonate the instant the Scorpio collides with the nest asteroid.” Jack stepped away from the console, having set the combat drones to destroy themselves, the Scorpio, and the nest asteroid in one mighty explosion. Jack walked over to the holostage. In the flickering image on the holostage, he saw the single tac boat leap away at high speed into the black of space.

  The nest asteroid came closer and closer. The Scorpio covered thousands of meters a second. Destruction was imminent. Jack pressed himself off the holostage and stood upright, his hands behind his back and his chin up. He thought of all the people he would save. He thought of all the people he’d lost. He thought about how far he’d come from his first days in the Flee
t Marine to this, his last.

  Jack turned his back to the holostage and the countdown to the collision. He sat gently on the edge of the holostage and looked up to Pretorius. The old captain was sitting comfortably in his command chair. He was smiling down at Jack with calm serenity.

  And then the space between Jack and Pretorius grew dark. A deep, heavy darkness starting at a small point and growing to a huge mass of black. Then the deep black shrank away suddenly, and standing there before Jack was Sam.

  “Sam,” Jack said with surprise and delight. And then horror. “What you doing here, Sam? I saw you die.”

  “The Scorpio is about to crash,” Sam Torent said in a strange, distant monotone. “There is a tac boat within range. I am connected to the Devex transport device. I can transport us all now.”

  Sam stepped over to Jack and grabbed him by the collar, then dragged him toward Pretorius, who was still sitting in the command chair. Sam activated the matter transport device. Jack felt the air around him grow dark, and the command deck of the Scorpio faded away. He saw the countdown on the holostage count the final seconds before destruction. And then the black engulfed Sam, Pretorius, and Jack.

  As the command deck of the Scorpio vanished, new surroundings appeared as Jack was transported instantaneously across space. Jack was familiar with the configuration of these new surroundings. He was in the cabin of a tac boat. And Jack knew the only tac boat in the vicinity was under the control of Lou Beretta.

  Jack looked up to the cockpit and saw Beretta staring at the small holostage, which showed the Scorpio colliding with the nest asteroid to be replaced a moment later by a brilliant white flash.

  Beretta punched the air and cheered as the Scorpio was destroyed. He pulled the cap off a bottle of Amber with his teeth and spat the cap onto the flight console.

  Beretta raised the bottle. “Take that, Jacky boy, you kravin’ little scroat. Finally, at last, I win. And you were never even close to taking me down. But hats off to you, Jack. You were a good adversary, but not nearly good enough. That’s for killing my friend Lars, that’s for ruining my criminal enterprise, and that’s for being a total kravin’ pain in my scroat. Good-bye, Jack Forge. I think I can honestly say I’m going to miss tormenting you.”