The Skarak hull around the device shimmered and rippled with flashes of blue crackle energy until the power of the Demon overwhelmed it and it too began to collapse. The dark hull followed the implosion, slowly at first and then rapidly. The shimmering surface material was torn and shredded as it fell inward, stretched and pulled into a single point where the device had been.
Boyd saw another flash far away over the hull of the massive mastership as another of the Demon devices detonated. The mastership began to shake, the rapiers nearby quivering. Waves of blue crackle energy flickered off the ends of the rapiers and gathered around the base structures. The ship was pulled in two directions toward the detonation points of the two Demons.
Then Boyd felt the tug of the bomb too. He felt it on his feet as space-time was stretched and fell in on the detonation point. It felt like a great crushing weight pulling on his lower half.
Suddenly, he was free again and racing away from the mastership that was rapidly collapsing around two points. Finally, the ship was torn apart, blue crackle energy bursting out of fissures torn in the dark ship’s body.
As the moon-sized mastership collapsed under its own weight, the warships broke formation and moved away. One warship maneuvering too close to the mastership was drawn in by the collapse, its drive section erupting in a huge explosion that silhouetted the collapsing mastership.
A group of warships swept down under the collapsing mastership and scooped up hundreds of returning fighters. Boyd feared for the people of Supra Eight. How many of them had been scooped up by the Skarak? How many were now being turned into the lifeless soldier-slaves?
As the Skarak formation broke up, the Union pressed in hard. Cruisers moved in on the exposed flanks of the warships and hammered them with mass beams, which created localized area of collapse along their hulls. The lasers punched through the warships, slicing clean through and bursting out the other side. Spitz gun fire flickered across space in all direction, targeting the fleeing enemy.
Then the Titan, broken and battered, flickered back to life. She opened fire with every available gun. Like an old prize fighter, the Titan was still up for the fight and lashed out at the enemy. The carrier had suffered heavy damage in the battle, but she had not lost the will to fight.
As Boyd moved in on the Resolute, its hangar door opened and invited him in with bright light just as more Union ships arrived.
The carrier Goliath decelerated and came alongside the broken Titan. Both fired into the scattering Skarak ships.
As the cruisers cut into the Skarak formation, the remaining warships turned and fled. They moved in strange jerking motion, moving in small flickering jumps until within a few seconds, all warships had powered away, scattering in all directions, leaving the remains of the mastership burning and covered in liquid blue fire, still crushing down into the two centers of collapse created by the Demon Detonators.
The Demons had done their job. The mastership was broken. The Blue Star Marines had completed their duty and delivered the devices.
Boyd turned to the bright welcome of the Resolute’s hangar deck. He drifted in and touched down. Sergeant Dorik landed next to him. He pulled at the tether holding him to Boyd.
“What’s this?” He held up the tether and showed it to Boyd.
“You’re welcome,” Boyd said. He unclipped the tether. “I only saved your life.”
Dorik turned his back on Boyd and walked away without even a glance out of the open hangar to the Skarak mastership burning in the void.
“Don’t mention it,” Boyd called after him. He remembered Dorik had been a grumpy old sergeant from time to time, and Boyd didn’t need thanks for saving a fellow Marine. He shrugged it off; it had been a dangerous mission and close thing. With a final look out of the hangar deck at the Union attack group, he relaxed. He looked around the hangar at the familiar sights of the old Union ship.
He was back.
16
Boyd sat on the edge of the examination table in the Resolute’s med-bay. Doc Cronin was working alongside a pair of doctors from the Goliath and a small team of medical drones. One doctor was studying Boyd with a scanner.
“I’m fine, Doc,” Boyd said. “What about Rik?” He pointed at Sergeant Dorik.
The sergeant was lying on a table with a pair of drones hovering over him. The doctor looked over and then back to Boyd.
“He’s a bit quiet, is all. Combat can do that sometimes.”
“But Dorik has been solid for as long as I’ve known him.” Boyd looked around the doctor blocking his view of Dorik.
The doctor shrugged and moved into Boyd’s view again. “You are fit to return to duty, Sergeant.”
Boyd nodded, thanked the doctor, and slipped off the examination table. He glanced over at Dorik, who was staring up with a blank expression. Boyd knew he was getting the best treatment available. He wanted to go over, ask Dorik what he had been staring at in that Skarak hull, but he thought better of it. He could ask another time. Better to leave Dorik in the hands of the experts.
Boyd walked out of the brightly-lit med-bay and into the corridor. The sounds of post-battle celebrations were heard throughout the ship. Boyd saw a friendly face walking toward him.
“Sergeant Will Boyd.” Yanic Knole clapped a hand on Boyd’s shoulder. “Didn’t know if you were ever coming back. Those Faction girls can be a bit wild, eh?”
Boyd smiled. “Sure, maybe I’ll hook you up, if you can tear yourself away from Curveball for a second.”
“Hey, I can multitask. You are a Ravens fan, right? Just like the major. There’s a match coming up soon. I’ll be happy to watch with you.”
“Sure,” Boyd said. He shook Knole by the hand. “Good to see you.”
Knole called after Boyd, “You too. Welcome home.”
Boyd dropped by the command deck. He stepped in. It was quiet. Second watch was on duty, but the major was sitting in his command chair studying after-action reports on his armrest holo-display.
“Major,” Boyd said. “I’m not disturbing you, am I, sir?”
Featherstone stopped what he was doing, looked down, and instantly a huge grin spread across his face.
“Sergeant Will Boyd, back from the brink twice in one day. I declare, they haven’t built a bad guy yet who could put you in the ground.”
“I hope not,” Boyd said with a smile.
“Good work out there today,” Featherstone said.
“I’m not so sure about that, sir,” Boyd replied. “The ship I escaped from—the Silence. Any plans to get after it?”
“Crumbs, Boyd. You’ve just had a heck of a fight. Don’t you want to at least take the evening off? I hear they have some brews in the mess hall. Take it easy, you deserve it.”
“Yes, sir, but…” he trailed off.
“I know,” Featherstone said. “Kitzov, that slippery pirate. Well, it looks like the Skarak may have done our work for us. We traced his ship as best we could, but the signal suggests he ran into a couple of Skarak warships north of the ecliptic, just by the edge of the Sphere. It wasn’t just the mastership attack on Supra, Sergeant. There was a massive Skarak incursion all across the system. They were attacking any ship or settlement from Supra to the Sphere. But if Kitzov survived, and that old pirate could well have done it, we’ll have to let him go for now. The fleet is making the Skarak our priority. The entire fleet is pulling back to the belt and we are defending the inner system from there. The Faction will have their wish at last, they are finally on their own. They want the outer system, and it looks like the politicians are prepared to let them have it, at least until we can get a grip on this Skarak situation.”
“What about…” Boyd hesitated. He wanted to ask about the crew of the Silence, and one person in particular, but he bit his tongue.
Featherstone looked down at him.
“What about Supra? If the fleet pulls back to the belt, won’t Supra be vulnerable?”
“Supra’s orbital defense is getting an upgrade. A co
mpany of Blue Star Marines will be stationed there with a Demon Detonator just in case a Skarak mastership arrives, but something tells me we have seen the last of the Skarak. Every time they show up, we have handed them a devastating defeat. If they had any sense, they would stay away.”
“I’m not so sure,” Boyd said.
“No? Why not?”
“They have been watching us for longer than we know. We don’t know them half as well as they know us. We don’t know how they think, we don’t understand their tech, and we don’t know what they even want.”
Featherstone nodded. “You might be right, but tactical intelligence thinks we can hold them off. Now, get out of here, Sergeant. You did well today. Go take a break.”
Boyd looked over at the pilot chair, lingering a while.
“Miss the old chair, do you?” Featherstone said.
“A little, I guess,” Boyd admitted before saluting the major.
Featherstone returned the salute and then returned to work.
Boyd stepped off the command deck and out into the familiar corridors, but they felt strange to him now. He slipped into the sensor main core and looked at the data the Resolute had gathered on the Silence as she fled, leaving him behind. He scanned the path she had taken, hoping to find any evidence of her current location. He searched through all available Union sensor data.
Somewhere out there was Thresh. He would do whatever he could to find her and make sure she was alive. And somewhere out there was Kitzov. Boyd might be back amongst the Blue Stars, but his mission to capture Kitzov was not over, and it would never be over, not until one of them was dead.
Terminal Risk
Blue Star Marine, Book 4
1
The Resolute raced across the rings of Supra and headed back into the system with instructions from Union Fleet Command to investigate the strange signal coming from deep inside the asteroid belt. The Skarak had been quiet since their defeat at the battle of Supra Eight several weeks ago, but many thought they would be back. Tactical intelligence believed they had not even left. The Blue Star Marines would undoubtedly be the first to face them when they showed themselves.
Sergeant Will Boyd sat back on his bunk on the Resolute. He had tapped into the feed for the main holo-stage on the command deck and was watching the image that the crew there was currently watching.
Watching the feed closely, Boyd ignored the clicking and tapping coming from the small group of Blue Stars conducting a pulse pistol strip-and-reassemble challenge in the center of the bunkhouse. The image on his wrist-mounted holo-stage was small, but no less impressive. The Resolute was skimming the rings of Supra, her drive field at maximum as she headed out from her berth in the Supra orbital base.
The Resolute’s target location was back toward the inner system and the blue giant Scorpio. It sat at the center of the image. Between the ship and the star lay a billion kilometers of space. The Resolute’s destination was a ring of asteroids that circled the entire system. It lay between the outer rocky planet, Glacies, and the gas giant, Supra. It was a notoriously dangerous hunting ground for Faction pirates.
Shipping lanes through the belt were heavily patrolled by the Union to ensure safe passage for the convoys of Union heavies that regularly traversed it, but beyond the patrolled areas, the belt was as lawless as ever.
But patrols were now stretched out and the Union was on high alert, its fleet spread thinly across the system. The Skarak had been beaten out of the Scorpio System once again, but ships were still going missing. With the Faction active in certain areas, it couldn’t be discounted that missing ships were falling to the pirates, but Union ships usually managed to get a distress call out in those attacks.
The worryingly common feature of the recent cases was their complete silence. As if they were plucked out of the system in an instant. Lost forever.
“You’ll get shot tapping into the main holo-stage,” Sergeant Dorik said as he walked past Boyd’s bunk.
“Well, good,” Boyd said. “It’ll kill the boredom.”
Dorik reached over and tapped the control panel on the side of Boyd’s wrist. The image flickered and blinked out.
“Hey, Rik, why did you do that?” Boyd reactivated it.
“Don’t make me report you to the major, Will.” Dorik again deactivated the device.
Boyd rolled over in his bunk and lay face down. He yelled into his thin pillow. “Bored!”
“Then catch up on some operating procedures. Command sent plenty while you were away on your undercover mission. Your file is probably bursting with ‘cedures for you to catch up on.”
Boyd turned side on and faced Dorik. His upper bunk put him face to face with his Blue Star comrade.
“I’m bored,” Boyd said, “not suicidal. But if you do want to finish me off for good, just say the word ‘cedures again.”
Dorik grabbed Boyd by the waistband and pulled him from the bunk.
Boyd had forgotten how powerful Sergeant Dorik was. He was one of the toughest warriors Boyd had met in either the Blue Star or regular Marines. He was strong, brave, and had no fear of dragging Boyd off his bunk.
Boyd crashed the meter and a half to the cold deck. A handful of Marines gathered at the center bench nearby laughed as he hit the deck, but soon returned to their pistol strip challenge.
Boyd snarled at Dorik and clambered to his feet, fists bunched and ready for action.
Dorik smiled and took a defensive stance, ready for the attack.
Boyd glanced down at his knuckles as they turned white. He looked up at the smiling Dorik and relaxed.
“Sorry, Rik,” Boyd said. He grabbed a shirt off his bunk and pulled it over his head. “I was undercover in the Faction for too long, perhaps. Pull a stunt like that on a Faction raider and someone is going to die.”
Dorik nodded, understanding etched over his face. He smiled and then suddenly lashed out and slapped Boyd across the top of his head before returning to his defensive stance.
That was provocation enough and Boyd launched himself at Dorik with a flurry of punches. Dorik fended them off with his forearms raised and then stepped into the fight, grappling Boyd around the waist and powering him backward.
Boyd brought an elbow down hard on Dorik’s shoulder before the pair crashed into the pistol strip contest. The sounds of clattering pulse pistol parts hitting the deck was accompanied by a chorus of shouts.
“For krav sake, Sergeants!” One Marine stood, arms raised in protest. “I was going for a dozen straight wins.”
Dorik climbed to his feet and looked down at Boyd, his shirt not fully on.
“Stop your complaining, Markey,” Dorik said without looking away from Boyd. “And clear up those parts. Major Featherstone would be very disappointed to see you treating Blue Star equipment like that.”
Boyd pulled his shirt on fully, fury on his face. He launched himself at Dorik, determined to do damage.
Dorik’s communicator crackled to life. He held out a hand to stop Boyd.
Boyd recognized the major’s voice over Dorik’s communicator from the first syllable. He stopped in his tracks.
“Sergeant Dorik, report to the command deck.”
Dorik acknowledged the major’s order and turned his back on Boyd, making for the exit.
Boyd adjusted his shirt and followed. He grabbed his jacket as he passed his bunk and swung it over his shoulder.
“Better put that on properly if you’re coming to the command deck,” Dorik said without turning around.
Boyd buttoned up the jacket and adjusted his uniform as he walked through the white corridors of the Resolute.
The command chair’s back was toward the entrance. In the chair, with an overview of the command deck, was Major Featherstone.
Dorik and Boyd stepped around to the front to see the major busy tapping away at a holo-image projected over his right armrest. He held up a finger, instructing Boyd and Dorik to wait.
Boyd looked about the command deck while he waite
d for the major. A series of consoles were set in line in front of the command chair, the operators all with their backs to Featherstone. At the front of the command deck with space all around it was the large, round holo-stage—a flat holo-projector able to display data, text, or maps. It currently showed the ship’s course as she skimmed over the rings of Supra. The image showed a red line extending from the Resolute off toward the inner system, toward the belt.
“We’ve been redirected,” Major Featherstone said. “These orders come from tactical intelligence directly.”
Boyd looked away from the holo-stage and up to the major.
“Command has detected a Skarak signal in the belt.” Featherstone stepped down onto the deck. He walked between the consoles to the main holo-stage. Boyd and Dorik followed.
“The Resolute is only on reconnaissance. The Skarak signal is weak and we are not expecting to find an active Skarak ship.” Featherstone tapped the side of the stage and the image zoomed toward the belt.
The asteroids in the belt ranged from pebbles to small moon-sized objects. It was densely packed but easy enough for a nimble ship like the Resolute to pick its way through.
The image zoomed in on one asteroid, a mid-sized chunk of rock and metal.
“The signal is coming from here. A detachment of fighters sweeping the belt on either side of the convoy channels detected it. We are going to check it out.”
Dorik nodded. “I’ll assemble a squad, sir.”
Featherstone turned and looked at Dorik. “I’ll need you up here. Sergeant Boyd will lead the squad.”
Dorik nodded.
Boyd felt his chest lift. Finally, he thought, action.
Featherstone turned to Boyd. “But no action, Sergeant,” Featherstone said, as if reading Boyd’s thoughts. “This is recon only. If the Skarak are down there, tactical intelligence will want to know about it. Don’t shoot the first scaly bastard that moves, not that any of them will. This signal is possibly a Skarak power core that is decaying rapidly. We don’t think they can sustain their environment much less a crackle beam or a drive field.”
Blue Star Marine Boxed Set Page 37