Lost Marine

by James David Victor

  That meant a medical suite on a destroyer or a carrier. The frigate med-bay and automated med-packs were the best Jack could provide for the fallen officer. The insignia and nametag told Jack this was Lieutenant Ripa.

  Jack’s communicator alerted him to an incoming message from Sam as he tried to lift the lieutenant.

  “Jack. Hull breach repaired. It’s fine work, even though I did it singlehandedly. It would be good if we had a chief who could check my work.”

  “Singlehandedly?” Jack replied with a smile as he picked up the lieutenant and wrapped an arm around her waist.

  “You know what I mean,” Sam replied. “Heading back inside now.”

  Jack took the weight of Lieutenant Ripa. Her head drooped forward. As he moved her toward the command deck exit, he noticed a silhouette filling the dark doorway.

  7

  “I’m Chief Stone,” the silhouette challenged. “This is my boat. Who are you?”

  Jack looked at the man in the doorway. His uniform was in tatters and he was bleeding from a wound on his chest. The blood soaked through his dirty shirt.

  “I’m Jack Forge,” Jack said. “Fleet Marines. You’re injured, Chief. You need to sit down.” He carried Ripa, her body limp.

  Stone slumped against the edge of the command deck entrance. He held his arm uncomfortably. Jack saw the line of his arm through the shirt. It was clearly broken.

  Jack activated his communicator. “Sam, I need you over here as soon as possible.”

  “On my way, Jack,” Sam replied.

  “This is my boat,” Stone repeated as he slid down the door frame.

  “Just sit tight, Chief,” Jack said. “I’ll be back for you in a moment.”

  The dark corridor felt longer now that Jack was carrying the limp body of Lieutenant Ripa. He could feel her heart beating against him, but it seemed erratic and weak. Jack moved as quickly and carefully as possible, taking Ripa to the med-bay.

  “I’m crossing over to the frigate now.” Sam’s voice over the communicator gave Jack a burst of energy and he carried Ripa down the last few steps to the lower deck. The med-bay was now only a few steps away.

  “Get to the command deck, Sam,” Jack said over his communicator. “The chief of this boat collapsed in the doorway. Bring him down to the med-bay on the lower deck.”

  “I am with him now,” Sam replied a moment later.

  Jack heard the sudden yell of pain echo through the corridors followed by some incoherent cursing. Jack realized Sam was hauling the chief to his feet.

  “Careful with him, Sam” Jack said.

  “I think he’s got a broken arm,” Sam replied. “I tried to grab him by it. He’s out cold now.”

  “Bring him down here. Let’s get him hooked up to a med-pack and then we can take a look at this ship.”

  Jack laid Ripa down on one of the medical bunks. He pulled out a fresh med-pack from the cabinet and activated it. He pressed it to Ripa’s neck and then waited a few anxious moments for the diagnosis. The diagnosis flashed on the package’s display and showed that Lieutenant Ripa was concussed. The package administered a series of meds and then advised another package be applied to her lower left ribcage.

  Tearing away Ripa’s shirt, Jack saw the large red and blue bruise on her lower left side. He held the med-pack over the site and watched the fine threads reaching out from the pack to the bruised skin. The threads took hold and the med-pack pulled itself into position.

  Jack stepped back. There was little more he could do. If the med-packs couldn’t save this crew, then there was no hope for them. The nearest fully-equipped medical facility with medical drones was with the fleet. He was working hard to identify the fleet’s location and to catch up, but he was sure he was several days behind them, at best. That distance was only increasing the longer he stayed here, adrift in deep space. This crew needed a lot of luck if they were going to recover from their beating.

  Sam appeared at the door. He was holding up Chief Stone, who had apparently regained consciousness. Neither looked satisfied with the situation.

  “Put me down, carefully,” Stone said tersely.

  Sam walked over to one of the remaining medical bunks and let Stone climb onto it himself. “You’re welcome,” Sam said. He turned to Jack. “Anyone else you want me to drag in here?”

  Jack shook his head. He carried a med-pack over to Stone and held it to the broken arm. The package positioned itself around the broken bone and tightened. Stone winced as the package pulled tight, but the painkillers took effect almost instantly and left Stone looking drowsy as he examined his injured arm.

  “Where the krav did you come from?” Stone said. “I thought we were the only ones out here.”

  “Apart from your attackers,” Jack said. “Who are they?”

  Stone moved his arm about, testing it, then winced in pain. “Mechs,” he said, cradling his arm. “They hit us a few days ago. They haven’t stopped since. Good thing you showed up. I thought we were finished. What are you doing out here anyway?”

  “We’re trying to catch up with the fleet,” Jack said.

  Stone laughed with a single grunt. “Good luck with that. We dropped out of formation just hours after the evacuation. We lost active scanners for a few hours and when I got them back online, we were out of touch. We’ve been searching for them since.”

  Jack nodded. “We picked up a signal a few days ago. That put me back on their trail. I had to stop for a supply run, and I lost them again. We are a bit beaten up, to be honest. How are you holding up?”

  “Well enough.” Stone twisted on the bunk. “We’ve lost a lot of systems. This boat hasn’t had a proper service for over a year. I’ve been trying to patch it together as we go.”

  “It looks like a good boat. I’ve flown in worse, for sure,” Jack said.

  Stone tried to sit up, moving awkwardly. Jack put a hand on his shoulder and held him on the bunk.

  “Don’t get up, Chief. You need to rest.”

  “Did we finish them off?”

  Jack nodded. “Your attackers were destroyed. One fled.”

  “Then they’ll be back. We need to move, and I need to get back to work. I’ve nearly finished. I need to finish before they come back.” Stone suddenly became alert, his eyes wild. “Krav it, how long have I been out?”

  “Not long, half an hour.”

  Stone let Jack press him back to the bunk. “I need to get to work. We will be sitting ducks like this. We have to get our weapons systems online.”

  Jack nodded and looked down at the drowsy chief. “Sam, get a power transfer conduit set up and let’s get some power in here. I’ll check the weapons. We stand a better chance if we stick together. Chief, let that arm mend and sit back for an hour. I’ll need you soon.”

  The movement in the next bunk caught Jack’s eyes. Commander Bale was stirring but still heavily sedated. He mumbled to himself, his head lolling back and forth.

  “Get us out of here. Drive. Drive.”

  Jack checked the med-pack. The commander was stable, but he still required rest. He checked Lieutenant Ripa. She was in an induced coma, but her ribs were already mending. Jack walked back to Stone.

  “The crew is out of action, Chief. I’ll assume command for now and get this boat ready for a fight. We will be a stationary target, so it is vital we have every gun ready for action. My only order to you now is to rest. You won’t be able to fully heal before I need you all on your feet, but every minute will help. Let the med-packs do their job. Do you understand?”

  Chief Stone nodded and fell back to the bunk. His eyes flickered as he struggled to keep them open.

  “Good,” Jack said. “I’ll call you when I need you.”

  The command deck of the frigate was much larger than the cramped two-man flight deck of the corvette, but it essentially had the same layout. The corvette and the frigate were both Fleet support vessels built for speed and maneuverability. The corvette had the edge in terms of speed and maneuverabilit
y, but the frigate was the more powerful in terms of offensive ability.

  The frigate boasted two laser assemblies, one upper and one lower. It had a rear hail cannon and two batteries of three cannons each, giving it three more than the corvette, as well as an extra laser. The drive systems were comparable, active scanning ability virtually identical. The one thing that currently set the two boats apart was that the frigate had been under near-constant attack for many days. Its power systems had failed, and half its hail cannons were offline.

  Jack climbed into the command chair, tapping the console on the armrest. The command interface was offline. He jumped down and went to the operations console. It too was dark and unresponsive.

  The communicator was on an open channel to Sam. He could hear Sam grunting and puffing as he struggled with something.

  “How’s that power transfer couple coming along, Sam?”

  “Kravin’ heavy,” Sam said.

  Jack heard Sam’s voice from the corridor just outside the command deck. A large conduit at his feet. The dark cable stretched away down the dark corridor.

  “Where do you want this?” Sam said, picking up the loose end of the conduit.

  Jack waved Sam over to him, then kneeled on the cold deck and opened the floor panel at the base of the operations console. Together, they dragged the heavy conduit over to the open panel.

  Jack pulled a bit of slack to him and connected the power conduit. The standby lights on the operations console lit up. He stood in front of it and accessed the main command interface.

  The lights in the command deck came on and all the consoles that were still functional flashed and came into standby mode. Sam crossed to the laser control console.

  “Both of the lasers are burned out,” Sam said. “Might get some use out of them with a bit of a service, but they won’t be firing today.”

  Jack checked the boat’s inventory. The frigate was low on ammunition, low on supplies in general. There were a number of hand-weapons listed in the inventory: pulse pistols and pulse rifles. He saw the frigate also had a set of Fleet-issue extreme environment suits, similar in many ways to the Fleet Marine tactical suits. He hoped the commander would let him take one. He would ask as soon as Bale had recovered enough. The frigate only had a few ration blocks, a week’s supply at most.

  “They really were on their last legs,” Jack said. “Hope we’ve got enough of the blue goop for everyone.”

  “All hail cannons are serviceable. If only we had a gun team,” Sam said as he wiped some debris from the hail cannon console.

  “We’ll have to control the weapons centrally,” Jack said. “They have managed this long. If we can get them underway, and with us in support, we should be able to put up a fight.”

  Jack climbed back into the command chair. The command interface was powered up, so he activated the small holostage. He called up an image of the two ships, the corvette sitting above the frigate, a soft dock tunnel running between the two.

  Jack tapped into the corvette’s systems and launched the drones. “Maybe we can get a bit of an early warning on the next attack,” he said.

  “Jack?” Sam asked in a soft tone that worried Jack.

  “Yes?” Jack replied

  “What are we doing here? Let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”

  Jack stopped what he was doing and looked at Sam. He had never known Sam to walk away from a fight before.

  “We can’t leave them in this condition, Sam.”

  “This boat is sunk,” Sam said, looking around at the smashed command deck. “I say we strip what we can and get out of here.”

  “But—” Jack began.

  “We’ve lost time and energy on this boat. We are losing power every moment we are hooked up to this wreck. Let’s take the crew, for sure, but let’s dump this pile of trash and get back to chasing the fleet. We’re dead out here on our own. We need to catch up.”

  Jack nodded. “I know what you’re saying, Sam, but we can’t all live on the corvette for an extended period of time. We’ll end up killing each other. And this is a good boat.” Jack looked around at the mess. “They have a med-bay. They have the extra firepower. We stand a much better chance of finding the fleet if we work together.”

  “If they recover from their injuries and if we survive another attack.”

  “Not worried, are you, Sam? A short time away from combat and you’ve lost your nerve?”

  “Krav you, Jack,” Sam said with venom.

  Jack laughed. “So you do still have some fight in you?” He dropped down from the command chair.

  “I’ll take you on, singlehanded,” Sam said, and he brandished his one fist at Jack.

  “I fear you with one arm more than any other man with both of theirs,” Jack said. “See what you can do with the laser assemblies. If we can get even one of them working, it would be helpful.”

  Jack tapped away at the command interface and accessed the drive system.

  “There is something wrong here,” Jack said out loud, speaking to himself. “The power configuration looks screwy. I don’t know what’s going on, and I can’t make any sense out of it. The command interface won’t let me run a diagnostic. It must have taken some damage. I hope we can get it straightened out or we might have to abandon this boat after all.”

  Sam grunted and pored over the data on the upper laser assembly. “You talking to me?” he muttered darkly.

  Jack smiled to himself. It was good to be busy and focused. Too long the pair had drifted through space, and a lack of urgency had let them drift apart and into their own separate worlds. Jack was happy to be working again.

  “There is something odd about this drive configuration,” Jack repeated, looking at the readout in front of him. “Their chief must have rigged some temporary system bypass. I can’t make sense of it. I’m heading down to the drive room.” Jack pushed himself away from the console. He heard Sam muttering to himself. “Sam, did you hear me?”

  “Yes,” Sam said with mock bitterness. “That is all I can hear, you talking to yourself. Go. Don’t get lost.”

  Jack left Sam muttering and tapping away at the weapons console and headed back along the main deck to the drive room.

  8

  Bale climbed off his bunk and staggered to the medical supply cabinet. He rummaged through the few supplies and found a stim pack. He jabbed the pack into his arm. The sudden burst of mental energy was strange and powerful. It left him feeling slightly dizzy with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hesitated, thinking he might vomit, and then, with the sickness subsiding and the dizziness passing, he stepped over to Lieutenant Ripa and jabbed a fresh stim pack into her arm.

  Ripa sat up with a suddenness that surprised and amused Bale. She scurried backward along her bunk and pressed up against the bulkhead behind her. She drew her legs up to her chest. Her wild expression turned to pain as she felt the injury to her ribs.

  “Control yourself, Lieutenant,” Bale said, grabbing her upper arm. “I need you calm, do you read me?”

  Ripa nodded. She sat on the edge of the bunk, her toes touching the deck. She looked around the med-bay, feeling nausea welling upside her, rising with every slight movement of her head. The stim pack was flooding her brain with dopamine, adrenalin, and a suite of other neurotransmitters. She was reacting badly to the sudden boost. She collapsed forward, off the bunk and down to the hard deck. Supporting herself on hands and knees, she vomited.

  Bale shook his head in disgust. He grabbed a water pack and shoved it at Ripa.

  “How did we get here?” Ripa said. “I thought those Mechs had us for sure.”

  Bale jammed a stim pack into Chief Stone’s arm and stepped away.

  Stone woke with a start. He carefully touched his arm at the site of the fracture. “My arm. They fixed it? Are they still here?”

  “Who?” Ripa asked.

  “A couple of Marines,” Stone said. He moved across the med-bay to the open doorway and looked along the corridor ca
utiously. “They said they would patch us up.”

  Bale took a drink from a water pack. He stopped drinking, gasping. “What are a couple of Marines doing out here?”

  Bale looked at Ripa. The lieutenant wrapped her arms around herself.

  “Maybe the Marines can help us,” Ripa said. “Maybe they can stop these Mech ships from attacking us.”

  Stone turned around and hushed Ripa with a stern look. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sure they can.”

  Stone moved away from the doorway and back into the med-bay. He activated a console set into one of the bench-tops that surrounded the room. His engineering code gave him access to the surveillance feed. He selected the command deck.

  The holoimage showed someone tapping away at the laser console. The surveillance systems identified the person from their Fleet identity code and displayed his name on the image. Fleet Marine Commander Sam Torent. Stone cycled through the feeds until he located the second Marine, Major Jack Forge. Jack was kneeling at a control panel outside the drive room, trying to get the door to open.

  “He’s trying to access the drive room,” Stone said.

  Bale looked at Stone. For the last week, the drive room had been off limits. At first, Bale had thought nothing of it—the drive room was the chief’s domain, after all—but it soon started to annoy Bale. This was his boat, he was in command—nowhere should be off limits. Bale had decided to ignore the fact that Stone had kept the drive room on lockdown and focused on his work on the command deck. Stone was a vital member of the small crew, and Bale had let the chief keep the drive room to himself as recognition of his importance to the boat. Although the truth gnawed at Bale like a distant, barely perceptible and thoroughly irritating noise he would never admit—Bale was afraid of the grizzled old engineer.