Forged to Lead

by James David Victor

  Li wasn’t going to send in more Marines to die in a hopeless cause. She considered a frontal assault with the Monarch leading the charge. The destroyers and the monarch could move in and lay down a barrage that could swing the battle, but she knew her carrier group would take losses. The fleet could not afford to lose a destroyer, much less a carrier. If she could win a victory with a heroic charge, it would be a hollow victory at best, and could even result in a massive defeat. To turn a battle capable of crippling the Chitins into a crippling defeat for humanity would be the worst act of treachery from any serving captain in the fleet. Li might get demoted, sacked, or even flogged for retreating now, but she could be executed for treachery.

  “Sound the recall. All Marines retreat to the closest Destroyer. All ships, prepare for full retreat to home space.” Li leaned heavily on the holostage. She reached up to her shoulder and grabbed hold of her group captain pips. She should pull them off right now, she thought. She should do it. But the group still needed a commander, at last until they got back to home space. Then she would remove them.

  How did the battle go so wrong? She thought back over all the planning. All the intelligence she had gathered. The plan had been good. They had been assured victory. The Chits were just too hard to beat. The Marines had gone in with a huge force, but it wasn’t enough.

  Maybe the Chits had too many soldiers. And they were reckless. They had sacrificed themselves to stop the fire from the destroyers hitting their intended targets. How could they fight an enemy that was so ready to throw themselves at danger and certain destruction? The Marines were brave and tough, but they didn’t give themselves over to the enemy like the Chits seemed to do. Li looked at the holoimage of the Marine companies on the surface. None seemed to be moving. She’d ordered the retreat. They should have started back by now.

  “Why aren’t the Marines falling back?” she asked. “They need to get out of there right now.”

  “Group Captain,” a command deck officer called out in a worried voice. “Chitin Leviathan detected, sir. It’s on an intercept course.”

  Li looked at the failed battle on the moon. The Leviathan would be on them too soon for her to make an effective evacuation of the moon, not with all that Chit activity.

  Li opened a channel to her destroyer captains.

  “Captains. The battle is lost,” she said as matter-of-factly as possible. “There is a Leviathan incoming. We must withdraw immediately. It’s my call. We must save the ships.”

  Captain Lauafa spoke up. “I’m overrun with Chits, Group Captain. If I can’t recover the rest of my battalion, I’ll lose the Aries. They already occupy most of the ship.”

  “The battle is lost, Captain,” Li replied. “The battalions are lost.”

  “I might not be able to save the Aries, sir, but I might be able to save the battle.” Lauafa stood up straight, her holoimage flickering. “Request permission to ram the drydock, sir.”

  “Request denied, Captain,” Li said harshly. “You will do what you can to save the Aries. We have to preserve the ships. Set your heading for Eros and make for home space with all speed on my command, is that understood?”

  “Sir,” Pretorius spoke up. “The drydock. It’s blowing up from the inside.”

  25

  The explosion ripped through the drydock, sending up a massive blast and throwing gantries and Chitin craft fragments with it. The blast rippled through the glassy surface of Proxis, fracturing it under Jack’s feet. He ran and stumbled forward with his Marines. The blast wave from the massive antimatter explosion threw them forward and into the eastern defensive trench system.

  Jack landed heavily. He felt his muscles tear in his shoulder, and his meat suit immediately administered painkillers. Jack instinctively brought up his pulse rifle, but his arm would not cooperate. His meat suit reported a right shoulder dislocation, so Jack grabbed the pulse rifle with his left.

  The Chits nearby were pouring fire on B Company from their spitz guns. Jack readied himself to assault the guns. The small group of Marines came up alongside him.

  “You okay, boss?” Osho asked.

  Jack nodded. He felt nauseous from the pain and the painkillers.

  “Look at that thing blow,” said Bubble.

  The antimatter explosion in the drydock was blasting energy upward into space, converting kilos of matter into energy. The ground began to shake violently. Jack began to worry.

  “We’re too close,” he said. “We’ll be swallowed up by the blast. We have to move. There’s only one way to go. We have to move through this trench and clear it out as we go, and we’ve got to go fast.” Jack aimed his pulse rifle with his left hand, his right useless at his side.

  “You can’t fire with your left, boss,” Torent said, stepping in front of Jack. “I’ll take point. Stay behind me.”

  Torent charged along the twisting trench, flashes from his pulse rifle flickering along the top edge.

  “Move,” Jack shouted and sent his Marines forward. With a last glance back at the explosion, he charged after his eager squad.

  As the small, mixed squad rushed forward, they took down one spitz gun after another with speed and fury. The Chits servicing the guns were distracted by the explosion and their rate of fire slackened. Jack ran behind his Marines, adding his own fire to the squad’s, dropping a Chit here and shredding another one there.

  Jack looked out at B Company. With the spitz fire lessening, Boa was free to move. Jack saw figures crawling out of their small fragments of cover and getting to their feet.

  “We’ve got them now,” Jack said excitedly. “B Company can start hitting them too.”

  As the guns fell to Jack’s Marines, he glanced out at Boa. Then the message from the Monarch came over Jack’s communicator. It was a general retreat.

  “This is Group Captain Li. Attention all ground Marines. Withdraw. Mission accomplished. Drydock destroyed. Make for nearest destroyer. Leviathan incoming. Withdraw with all haste.”

  Jack slowed to a walk. His small team punched the air in celebration.

  “We’ve still got to get out of here,” Jack said. “Tactical advance with speed along the trench. Watch for Chits and let’s find a TAC boat before they all take off. Go.”

  Jack ran with fresh determination and enthusiasm. They beat back the remaining Chitin soldiers and cleared the trench. Climbing out, Jack looked back the way he had come. The ground was moving. Jack guessed it was the detonation disturbing the ground. He needed to get away before all was consumed in the antimatter reaction. But it was not the ground that was moving, it was a hoard of Chitin soldiers, hundreds and thousands, pouring over the black glassy surface toward Jack’s position. They would be on top of Jack in moments if he didn’t move. Not even an entire battalion could stem that flood of Chitins. Jack turned his back on the monstrous sight and ran. He ran with his demolition team, running to catch up with the retreating B Company. He ran in the hopes of finding a way off this dark and dangerous moon. He ran in pain and in hope. With the massive drydock erupting in a violent explosion behind him, he ran forward to the lights of TAC boat engines powering up.

  26

  The crisp sheets of the med bay bunk felt strange against Jack’s skin. A medical drone came into his cubicle and grabbed his right hand, pulling hard on his arm. The shoulder crunched back into place and sent hot flashes of pain through Jack’s neck and spine.

  He yelled out. The medical drone prodded the reset shoulder, and Jack winced. The drone administered a shot to Jack’s neck and quickly left.

  Jack slumped against the pillow behind him as the painkillers and sedatives kicked in. The clear composite walls of the cubicle seemed to warp and twist as Jack felt the drugs take him.

  “Hey, Jacky.” Torent came alongside Jack’s bed. “Didn’t get hurt enough to get a new arm, eh, old pal?” Torent flexed his prosthetic arm in front of Jack. “Just a dislocation for you. Call that commitment?”

  Jack tried to speak, but his tongue wouldn’t
cooperate.

  “Take it easy. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but Griff just made me squad leader again. Sixth Squad is mine again, old pal.” Torent tapped his badge with a finger of his prosthetic arm.

  Jack couldn’t reply, but he was pleased for Torent. He was a good squad leader. He had authority and the respect of the Marines. Jack would make him squad leader if it was his decision.

  “Someone wants to say hello,” Torent said. “I’ll see you later.”

  Jack watched as Torent left and another person came forward. His vision was badly blurred, and he strained to see who it was. Then he felt a gentle hand on his forehead.

  “Take it easy, Jack,” Reyes said. “You need to rest.”

  He recognized her touch and her voice. He wanted to reach out and take her hand, but he couldn’t.

  “Just rest. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  Jack looked up at her face. He struggled to keep his eyes open and fight off the sedative washing over him. After all he’d been through, all he wanted was a minute with Reyes. Hopefully when he woke, they would be safe, far from battle and the war, and he could spend hours and days with her.

  Jack lost the fight to keep his eyes open and drifted off into the comfortable darkness of sleep.

  THANK YOU

  Thank you so much for reading Forged to Lead, the third book in the Jack Forge, Fleet Marine series. Jack has become a leader, but we definitely haven’t heard the last of Finch and what really happened at the Kratos Fuel Station. I hope to have the next story ready for you in February.

  If you enjoyed the story, it would be awesome if you left a review for me. That really helps me reach more readers because Amazon features books with lots of good reviews.

  And if you would like to be notified when the next book is released plus learn about all kinds of new books and special offers, you should consider signing up for our Science Fiction Newsletter. The details are on the next page (or in a couple pages depending on how the book is formatted on your device). You will get a free story that is only available to newsletter subscribers when you sign up.

  The last thing I have for you before I go is a preview of Discovery which is the first book in the Niakrim War series which is published under my primary pen name (and real name) David J. VanBergen Jr. It’s right after the information about our newsletter. After you read the preview, you can download the book on Amazon.

  Get Discovery here: amazon.com/dp/B071NJBNH4

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  Preview: Discovery

  Space is so boring!

  This was certainly not what Violet had expected space travel to be like. She had dreamed of this since the first time she looked up at the stars in the sky, but none of those dreams had included endless days of nothingness. The only excitement she had experienced during the first days of the journey was when an occasional piece of space debris penetrated the warp field forcing the pilot to take evasive action. Even those potentially deadly encounters were brushed aside, as if they were no more bothersome than a fly buzzing around the room, by the Krim Sprinter's legendary pilot, Cyrus Jones, who was as much machine as man.

  The captain had assured her that the Krim Sprinter was the fastest ship in the fleet, which made it the fastest ship in the known universe, when he reluctantly brought her on board the week before. The problem with space travel was the incomprehensible distances between planets. Even at three hundred times the speed of light, the travel time to Proxima was listed as seven days. The captain had assured her that they would be there in five. When she asked what they would do on the Proxima outpost for two days while they waited for the rest of the crew to arrive, Captain Mitch Cooper had just smiled and walked away.

  After four days of watching countless specks of light stream past in a blur, Violet wished her childhood dream had involved something less monotonous...like being an accountant. She was wondering if it was possible to actually die of boredom when the ship violently lurched, throwing her from her chair. She froze in the air momentarily as the warp drive was forcibly shut down, dropping the ship back into real time, before being slammed into the navigation console. Everything went black.

  When she came to, the ship’s bridge was in total chaos. Warning sirens were going off. Red lights were flashing. Captain Cooper was rushing from station to station, assessing damage and muttering to himself. She had a pretty good idea of what he was saying.

  "What the hell just happened, Cyrus?"

  "We were hit by a photon torpedo, Captain," he answered calmly as he stared at the seemingly empty space in front of the ship.

  "That's impossible!"

  "Yet here we are."

  Captain Cooper looked ready to explode. Instead, he took a calming breath as he ran both hands through his grey hair. "Did you drop us out of warp before we tore the ship apart?"

  "Of course," Cyrus replied without taking his eyes off the still empty space in front of the ship. "Belzaire's not gonna be happy, though. There's no telling how much of the warp system we tore up shutting it down that quickly."

  Violet had pulled herself to her feet and was using the navigation console to steady herself. "So what just happened?"

  "Somehow, we were hit by a photon torpedo while traveling at warp three," the captain muttered.

  "How is that possible?"

  "It's not."

  The captain raised his hand to head off further questions. "We'll talk later. Can you find your way to engineering?"

  "I think so."

  "Get down there and help Belzaire. There's bound to be damage of some sort."

  She was leaving the bridge when Cyrus quietly said, "There's something out there, Captain."

  "Where?"

  "Right in front of us."

  "What is it?"

  "I don't know," Cyrus answered. "I can't see it."

  "If you can't see anything, how the hell do know something's there?"

  Cyrus just shrugged.

  The captain pointed at Violet. "Get to engineering. Tell Belzaire to get that warp drive back online."

  "I'll do what I can."

  The last thing Violet heard as she headed to engineering with a renewed sense of urgency was Captain Cooper telling Cyrus to put everything they had into the shields. All their lives might depend on it.

  As Violet rushed into the warp room, she was confronted with a scene straight out of her nightmares. Glowing green warp fluid squirted everywhere. Steam leaks sprouted like geysers. Blinking red and yellow beacons were the only discernible source of light. When a huge man with deep red skin and jet black hair rounded the corner screaming curses, she thought, just for a moment, that she had been transported to Hell and was facing the devil himself.

  "What are you doing here?" the large, angry man growled through gritted teeth.

  "I...I...I'm here to help," she managed. "Captain said to help you get the warp system back online."

  "Oh," he said with a sudden smile. "Glad to have you. I'm Belzaire. Come with me. We've got a lot of work to do."

  Belzaire turned and walked straight into the chaos, not even bothering to avoid the steam blasts or leaking warp fluid. Violet followed tentatively, doing her best to avoid both. When she caught up to him, he was in the process of sliding a very heavy looking cabinet to the side, revealing a trapdoor in the floor.

  "What's in there?"

  "Warp fluid," he replied nonchalantly.

  Before Violet could ask why the warp fluid was stored behind a hidden trapdoor, Belzaire pulled the door open to reveal a deep chamber with hundreds of clear cylinders full of glowing green fluid. There was easily ten times the legal limit of warp fluid in there.

&n
bsp; Belzaire answered her unasked question with a mischievous smile and started pulling out cylinders. "We lost almost two hundred liters before I got the system shut down," he said. "I'll fix the leaks while you refill the system."

  "Two hundred liters is more than a ship this size needs for the entire system," Violet sputtered, finally coming to terms with what she was seeing. "Not to mention twice the legal limit of reserves allowed on a ship like this."

  "I've made some modifications," was all he said while he continued to pull out more cylinders of the precious liquid.

  When he had retrieved twenty-five cylinders, Belzaire stood up and looked at Violet, who was staring at him with wide eyes, trying to comprehend what was going on. "Now, look," he said firmly. "If the captain sent you down here to help, something is seriously wrong. We need to get this ship back up and running. You deserve an explanation, but now is not the time."

  Sensing the gravity of the situation, if not the cause, Violet nodded slowly. "What do you need me to do?"

  Belzaire smiled reassuringly and pointed across the warp room to the half-empty tank of warp fluid. "We need to refill the reservoir. Can you do that while I fix the leaks?"

  "I think so."

  "Good. Just put a cylinder on the fill pad and hit the green button."

  Those were the only instructions he gave before turning away and heading to a pipe leaking warp fluid on the far wall. Violet looked around the room briefly, wondering what she had gotten herself into, then started transporting the cylinders to the reservoir.

  It took far longer than she had anticipated because she was constantly stepping over debris and around puddles of warp fluid, which she learned the hard way were very slippery. By the time the last cylinder had been sucked into the tank, Belzaire had finished repairing the leaks and was gathering the empty cylinders and putting them back in the hidden compartment. When she attempted to ask about them, Belzaire simply said, "Later," and closed the trap door and slid the cabinet back into place.