“Jack. It’s fine,” Torent said. “I have this under control.”
Jack pressed his lips tightly together in case he let a curse slip out. Torent had been too hasty and had pressed ahead too often. But of all the squad leaders and Marines in the task force, Jack trusted Torent the most.
“I’ll contact the Scorpio right away. I should be up and running again before you complete the next phase of the sweep.”
“You take it easy,” Torent said. “Put your feet up and wait for the maintenance crew. You deserve a break.”
Jack couldn’t agree more. He was starting to feel worn out, but this was not the time for a break. He needed to get his boat back in formation as soon as possible.
He sent out his distress call to the Fleet. A non-critical failure of his tac boat. It meant they would get to him when they could. Jack knew he would be waiting for some time. The fleet was already stretched extremely thin with the inner system sweep, and because of the severe lack of crew due to the devastation of the war with the Chitins, every operation was taking longer to complete.
Jack knew the Fleet was hanging on by its fingernails. If the Chits hadn’t withdrawn when they had, Jack knew that all humanity could well be gone, wiped out, the entire human presence in the Eros System destroyed.
Jack looked at the small holostage and looked for the nearest ship that could provide support. The two massive carriers were both in orbit around Eros. The destroyers were spread across the inner system. The smallest craft, the tac boats and the fighters, were spread through the asteroid belt.
The nearest destroyer was the Virgo. Jack sent a message to the maintenance crew on the Virgo and requested parts for his boat. The reply from the chief was short and brusque. Jack guessed from the blunt impoliteness of the message that everyone was feeling the pressure.
Jack searched for the Scorpio. It was not close, but at least it was on the same side of the star as Jack’s tac boat. The Scorpio was holding position amongst the debris of the planet Eras, destroyed by the Chits only hours before they had turned and fled the inner system.
Jack accessed the captain’s communicator. He could personally request assistance and if the captain could help, then Jack was sure he would.
“Jack, my boy,” Pretorius said. “I hope you are not calling to ask me for a favor.” The captain’s voice was relaxed but firm.
“Yes, in fact, I am asking for assistance, sir,” Jack said. “My tac boat is adrift.”
“And you want me to do what? Rescue you? Would you like Mister Chou to give you a push?”
Jack could hear the captain moving around. Jack could almost see him hard at work on his command deck, managing some operation, or even several.
“You are right, sir. Sorry to have bothered you.”
“No bother, Commander,” Pretorius said. “Have you reported your condition to Fleet Command and Control?”
“Yes, sir. I expect they’ll get to me as soon as they can.”
“Jack,” Pretorius said brightly, as if struck with an idea. “Mister Chou suggests you ask our maintenance department for assistance. They might have the parts you need. We can send it over on a drone if we have one spare. Okay?”
“Yes, sir,” Jack said. “Thank you, Captain. And thank Commander Chou for me too.”
“No thanks required, Mister Forge. I haven’t done anything yet. Pretorius out.”
Jack felt a smile creep over his face and a lighter feeling in his heart. He opened the Scorpio channel and directed the communication to the maintenance department. If he was lucky, someone would be in the familiar old workshop, with its benches and its dark coffee and its familiar personnel.
Jack recognized the gruff tones of Slim, the chief maintenance technician.
“Slim, it’s Jack. Can you talk?”
“Have you heard?” Slim asked heavily.
“Heard what?” Jack said, concerned.
“It’s Reyes…”
“What about her?” Jack asked in a panic.
“They took her.”
“Who took her?” Jack felt his voice rising in confusion and anger.
“Fleet Intelligence. They took her away.”
“What?” Jack said. He struggled to comprehend. “Where?”
“I don’t know where. They came in and just took her away.”
Jack slumped back in his chair. His mind raced. Why?
A long time ago, Jack and Reyes had come under the attention of Agent Visser of Fleet Intelligence. But that had all been cleared up. Why would Fleet Intelligence want Reyes now?
Then Jack remembered the human survivors on the downed transport craft. Agent Visser had swooped in to take them away before Jack could have them transported. It was as if they had been waiting to find humans who had come into contact with the Chitins.
Jack knew the Chits had found a way to get inside the heads of people and bend them to their will, making them unwitting and unwilling Chitin spies. Maybe Fleet Intelligence thought Reyes knew too much about the Chits. She had helped bring down a Leviathan at the Battle of Kratos Fuel Station. Reyes had helped Jack break the siege of the home planets by showing Jack where to attack the Chitin Leviathans. Maybe her inside knowledge had brought her to the attention of Fleet Intelligence.
Whatever the reason, Jack was suspicious of Agent Visser and he feared Reyes was in as much danger from her as she was from the Chitins themselves. More than anything else, Jack felt he needed to help Reyes.
Jack stood up and paced back the small tac boat. He felt the confinement more keenly than he had since beginning the sweep operation. He needed to find Sarah Reyes and protect her from Fleet Intelligence. But, as he overcame his frustration and started to think more clearly, he realized he had no real way of even finding out where Reyes was.
The collision alarm sounded from the flight console. Jack turned and saw the massive asteroid, BP-13, up ahead, and getting larger as the tac boat moved closer.
Jack jumped into the pilot chair and activated the reverse thrusters, slowing the boat. The asteroid came closer and closer, slowing down but still racing toward the tac boat. Jack threw everything into the thrusters, but they were still approaching the asteroid too fast.
Jack cursed his team for not noticing the approaching asteroid. Then he cursed himself for passing the buck. His frustration was making him irrational. He knew he should not have been distracted, even over Reyes, even for a moment.
“Get those helmets on and strap in,” Jack said as he slowed the boat another few meters per second and then rotated, positioning the doorway toward the asteroid.
“Overriding the depressurization safety systems,” Jack said. “Opening doors now.”
The doors opened a crack and the air rushed out, creating massive extra thruster jet that slowed the boat even more. Jack looked back at the open door and saw the asteroid getting bigger by the second. He could see features on the surface, growing in detail, as the asteroid, now looking like a small moon, came racing closer.
Jack turned the tac boat again and presented the lower hull to the approaching asteroid. The landing was going to be hard but hopefully not catastrophic. With the landing thrusters firing and the landing struts extended outwards, the boat approached BP-13. The speed was way above regulation landing speed, but Jack was sure the boat would take the hit.
He closed the door again just to preserve the hull’s overall strength. And with the thrusters still firing at their strongest, a collision warning sounded through the tac boat.
The ship hit hard. Jack felt himself pressed into the seat as inertia threatened to carry him through the lower hull and into the surface of BP-13.
Jack checked for damage alerts on the flight console. No damage was reported, not even from the landing struts. They must have taken a load far in excess of what they were expected to withstand at nominal landing speed.
The power systems were all operational, only the systems Jack had deactivated after the encounter with the Kraken were not functioning.
“Sound off,” Jack called to his team. They replied one at a time, each sounding a little shaken but reporting themselves unhurt.
Opening a channel to the fleet, Jack felt foolish for letting the ship crash land. He had been distracted. It was inexcusable. He was supposed to be bringing his team of Marines up to the expected standard. He was determined not to let them drag him down to their level.
“This is Commander Forge, Task Force One. My tac boat is experiencing mechanical failure. I’ve set down on BP-13. Request tac boat repair team to my location. I’m continuing with my sweep of BP-13. Forge out.”
Throwing off the chair straps and climbing to his feet, Jack felt the pain caused by the unorthodox landing. He tested his weight on his legs and walked about carefully. Attah, Drake, and Garcia were all looking up at him, waiting for instructions.
“On your feet, Marines,” Jack said, moving toward the door. “We’ve got an asteroid to clear.”
“But we’ve just crashed,” Attah said. “I think I’m hurt, sir. I need a dose of pain relief before I can do anything.”
Jack accessed Attah’s med package. His stats were all in the green. The Marine was in the best shape he had been in for years.
“You’re fine,” Jack said. “Just a bit shaken up. Get up and moving and you’ll be fine.”
Drake got up out of his chair and grabbed his pulse rifle. “Do you know the odds of surviving that sort of landing? Extremely low.”
Jack stepped over to the door. “Do you know the chance of getting a repair team down here before we finish our sweep of this rock?”
Drake shook his head.
“Even lower,” Jack said and opened the door.
“This is Fleet Rescue,” Jack heard an unfamiliar voice over the tac boat’s communicator. “Come in, Commander Forge.”
“This is Forge. Go ahead.” Jack looked at his Marines, who were looking expectantly at him.
“We have you on our work detail. We’ll bring you in for repairs. Estimated time to recovery is fourteen hours. Copy.”
“Copy that, Fleet Rescue. Forge out.”
Garcia dropped back into his seat and stretched his legs out. “Fourteen hours,” he said with a satisfied sigh. “No rush sweeping this rock then, is there?”
Jack stepped over to Garcia, reclined in his chair. “On your feet, Marine. You’ve got fourteen hours to clear this rock, and fourteen seconds to get out of that door. Copy?”
Garcia looked up at Jack. He held his position. Jack fixed Garcia with a stern look.
Garcia was years older than Jack. It was probably difficult for him to take orders from the younger man. Jack hadn’t asked for this position, but he had decided to take on these poor performing Marines. If he couldn’t take this challenge to his authority, he would be in deep trouble, and so would Garcia.
“You’ve been in the service long enough to know the penalty for insubordination, Garcia,” Jack said calmly. The whole team knew the sanction was brutal.
“Won’t be the first time they’ve put a lash across my back,” Garcia said.
Jack nodded. “And do you know the penalty for an officer for killing a Marine for insubordination?”
Garcia nodded.
“That’s right, Marine. Nothing. So get on your feet or I will have the problem of how to deal with your dead body.”
“Okay. Okay,” Garcia said gently, hand raised and getting to his feet. “I was just joking around, sir.”
Jack didn’t believe Garcia was joking around. It was pure laziness and a deliberate challenge to his authority. He pushed Garcia back down in to his seat and stood over him.
“This is not a joking matter, Marine,” Jack said firmly. “This is a combat operation. You had better start taking this seriously or you are going to get yourself killed. Worse still, you are going to get your team killed.”
Garcia remained motionless. Jack accessed his med data. His pulse rate was rising.
“On your feet, Marine. On the double. Move out. You can take point. Copy?”
Garcia nodded. “Copy that, sir,” he said. He stood up and walked out of the tac boat, down the short ramp on to the surface of BP-13.
Jack sent a small swarm of drones out across the surface of the asteroid, mapping and scanning, relaying all data back to Jack. The asteroid appeared to be clear. There was no obvious movement.
He walked at the rear of the team that was arranged in a wide diamond formation. Garcia walked fifty meters ahead of Jack. Attah walked at the same slow pace fifty meters away to Jack’s left, while Drake was fifty meters away on the right.
BP-13, like all the belt planetesimals, was roughly spherical. It was one of the smaller planetesimals at only five kilometers diameter, but gravity was strong enough to crush it down to its roughly spherical shape.
“It’s going to take us a hundred hours to clear this rock on foot,” Attah said over the open communication channel.
“You think it’ll take that long?” Jack asked. “You haven’t done the math, have you?” Jack had calculated the time to cover the ground in this formation and he knew he had plenty of time, but this conversation was good for morale. He let it run. “How long will it take us, Drake?” Jack asked.
“Shouldn’t take us much over ten hours at this pace, in this formation, sir.”
“Ten hours?” Garcia complained. “We are going to walk for ten hours straight?”
“Fourteen hours till our repair team gets here. We’ve got time for a meal break.”
“I don’t need a meal break, but I am pretty tired, sir,” Attah said. “My med package won’t administer a stim. I think its malfunctioning, sir.”
“For krav sake,” Jack said as jovially as he could. “What with you and Garcia complaining, I’m surprised we have time to talk about anything else. How many complaints a minute is that now, Drake?” Jack asked.
Drake’s med data suddenly flashed on Jack’s enhanced data overlay. Drake was in critical condition, his life signs failing.
Jack looked over to Drake on his right. The Marine had collapsed.
Jack started running. “Drake, respond.”
Drake’s medical data red-lined and reported a fatality.
“Garcia. Attah. On me.” Jack ran. He saw the fallen body of Drake, face down in the loose gray rocks with his helmet lying beside his lifeless body.
Jack slowed and approached the fallen Marine. Body fluids were expanding and boiling away in the vacuum of space, leaking out and drifting over the dusty surface of BP-13.
Attah was the first to arrive. He kneeled next to the body and put a hand on the Marine’s back. Jack stooped down and picked up the pulse rifle. He handed it to Attah, who slung it over his back.
Garcia arrived and looked down at the body. Then he picked up the helmet that lay just next to Drake.
“Why?” Garcia asked. “Why did he take off his helmet?”
Jack shook his head. He had only known Drake for a short time, but they had spent the last few weeks so close together. This team of Marines was as familiar to Jack now as any of his closest friends.
Jack reached out to Garcia and asked for the helmet. Jack turned the helmet over in his hands. It was not damaged in any way. It appeared to have been removed by the usual release mechanism.
Jack looked around. The pale asteroid surface and the black of space with nothing else to see. He looked up and down for any sign of any reason why Drake would have removed his helmet.
“Space mirage?” Attah said. “Marines sometimes see a space mirage when they are overworked. Maybe he thought he was back at home.”
Jack handed the helmet to Attah, who was still kneeling beside Drake’s body.
“Cover him over and mark the grave with his helmet,” Jack said.
“We are not a grave detail,” Garcia complained.
Jack turned on Garcia with a fury that scared even Jack himself.
“I don’t expect you to like the work, Garcia, but I expect you to do it, or I will put a pul
se pistol round through your lazy head. Do you copy that, Marine?”
Garcia squared off against Jack. “Do it. Save me the trouble of doing it myself,” Garcia said.
“Too lazy to work. Too lazy to die.” Jack was furious. “How do you even manage to keep breathing?”
The flash of light from the horizon caught Jack’s eye. Before he could turn, a plasma spear had slammed into Attah’s helmet.
The medical data on Jack’s visor showed another fatality. Attah was dead before he hit the ground.
Jack dropped to the ground. Garcia was still standing, looking down at Attah and the burning hole in his helmet. Jack reached up and pulled Garcia to the ground.
“Chitin,” Jack said as he looked to where the plasma spear had come from. There was no sign of any movement, no sign of any Chitin.
Jack looked across the surface of the asteroid. He could make out a light trail across the dusty surface. It was so faint, he had missed them when he was standing up, but down close to the ground with the light of the distant sun shining at a low angle across the surface, he could just make out the familiar tracks of a Chitin soldier.
Grabbing Drake’s helmet, Jack took a closer look. There was a thin film of slime across the faceplate of the helmet. It was as if it had been gripped by a Chitin tentacle and twisted off.
“Where are they?” Garcia asked, pressing himself as close to the ground as he could get. He pulled the body of Drake in front of him for cover and pulled up his pulse rifle.
“Just one,” Jack said, looking at the horizon for any sign of movement. “And it’s gone.”
“Good,” Garcia said. “Let’s get back to the tac boat and hunker down. We can wait it out until the rescue team gets here.”
“First,” Jack said, “it’s a repair team, not a rescue team. Second, this is a search and destroy operation, and it looks like we’ve got a target to destroy.” Jack turned to Garcia. “And lastly, you had better do as I say or there is a real chance that neither of us will be getting off this rock alive. Copy?”
Garcia nodded. “Copy that, sir.”
“Okay, then. Let’s get to work.”
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