“I’m fine, Doctor. Thank you. How are you feeling?” Jack looked at the relaxed, carefree expression with suspicion.
“I’m just fine. I took a few meds just to take the edge off the fear. Think I may have overdone it a bit.” The doctor let out an involuntary laugh. “I definitely overdid the meds a bit, but I can still perform my duties, better than if I was soiling my pants in fear.” The doctor pulled a small med-pack from his pocket. “Do you need a little dose of something to take the edge off?”
“No,” Jack said, pushing the med-pack back toward the doctor. “I’m just fine.”
“You are not fine, Marine,” the doctor said, slipping the pack back into his pocket. “You are tired. You are under stress. I would suggest a week off and some rest and relaxation, but since I can’t prescribe that, I’ll have to suggest you instruct your suit to apply a stim shot for the fatigue or a sedative for the stress.”
Jack nodded at the doctor. “Thank you. But I had better keep a clear head if I can.”
Jack heard someone run up behind him. The doctor looked to the newcomer. Jack saw it was Sam.
“It’s the Marine with the Mech arm,” the doctor said, stepping up to Sam. He grabbed Sam’s wrist and checked the tactical suit’s readout.
“That new arm of yours had us all quite intrigued—” The doctor checked the readout and confirmed Sam’s name. “—Commander Torent. If we get out of this, I’d like to study your new arm if I can?”
Sam sent a private communication the Jack.
“They are moving in fast. We will be cut off if we don’t get away now.”
Jack spoke up.
“I am not leaving these people to die, Sam,” Jack said. He realized his harsh tone too late.
The smile fell from the doctor’s face for a moment. Jack thought he saw beyond the doctor’s med-induced calm to the underlying, well-contained panic. It rose to the surface briefly before the doctor suppressed it again.
The doctor looked at Sam.
“You are extremely tired. The effects of suddenly developing that mechanical arm, no doubt. Take a stim shot and try not to exert yourself too much.”
The doctor nodded a farewell and then went to check a sleeping civilian lying on the thinly-padded floor nearby. He dragged his oxygen bottle with him. Jack saw the pressure gauge. It was nearly empty. The doctor would soon be taken by the vapor too.
“Call Commander Bale,” Sam said. “Have him target the puncture arms with the laser assembly on the frigate. Maybe the detonations from the power cells have weakened them enough that a blast from the frigate’s laser...”
Sam trailed off as he saw Jack shake his head slowly in disagreement.
“The instant Bale shows himself he’ll be attacked. The warship has a squadron of raiders in support. Bale wouldn’t last five minutes on his own.”
“That frigate could take out a dozen raiders, no problem,” Sam said.
“Yes, maybe, with a full crew and fully armed. We are on our own. If we don’t defend this ship, then all is lost.”
The sound of pulse pistol fire from a doorway caught both Jack and Sam’s attention. A militiaman ran across to support the fight at the door. He fell back almost instantly as a stream of white energy bullets blasted into his chest.
Jack looked for the doctor to instruct him to assist the fallen man, but the doctor was slumped on the floor, his mask still on and attached to the empty oxygen bottle.
“Hold them,” Jack said. He waved another militiaman over to the fight at the small entrance through the short, narrow corridor.
He called up an image of the arena on his wrist-mounted holostage. There were dozens of doors on multiple levels, all leading into the central arena. Even with most of them mechanically sealed, Jack realized he could never hold the Devex off for long.
A Devex warrior stepped into the arena from a corridor on the far side from Jack and pointed a device at the sleeping civilians. They began to levitate and drift away. Jack ran at the Devex, pistol aimed and firing. He struck the Devex with a number of well-aimed shots to the helmet, the Devex head jerking this way and that as the helmet took the hits. The Devex holstered the small levitation device and swung up the blaster that was slung across its back, but Jack rained shots in on the Devex and finally delivered a telling shot that dropped the enemy.
The shouts from the militia filled the arena. Flashes of light in Jack’s peripheral vision came from the Devex blasters, energy bullets tearing through the dark area.
A second Devex stepped in behind the one he had just dropped. Jack moved and fired. The rapid-fire blaster poured a deadly stream of energy bullets at him. He leaped, his suit letting him climb over twenty meters toward the high arena roof. He maintained his aim and fired down at the Devex, every hit landing on the upturned faceplate.
The Devex toppled backwards as Jack came down from his leaping arc. Another Devex came in, blaster aimed. He activated his thruster jet and powered toward the floor. With his electron blade held out in front of him, he dropped as if in a ten-G field and landed on the Devex, the blade slicing through the helmet and into the Devex skull within. Jack’s suit cushioned his landing and saved him from a couple of shattered ankles. He landed on his knee, one hand on the deck with his pulse pistol at his side, the electron blade fizzing and ready for work.
As the next Devex came in, Jack was looked up and brought his pistol to bear. The Devex aimed a small device that Jack had seen once before.
A shimmering, circular concussion wave burst out of the end of the device, and it spread out into a widening wave that drifted forward. Jack moved away from the wave, firing at the Devex on the other side of it. The pulse rounds struck the wave and sent thick ripples out from the contact point. The pulse rounds slowed and struck the Devex with next to no force.
After twenty pulse rounds ripped through the concussion wave, it lost cohesion and was gone. Jack kept up the fire. The Devex activated a second concussion wave that shimmered and spread out. Jack walked backward, firing as he went, the pulse rounds hitting the second wave until it too dissipated.
Jack glanced over his shoulder for an escape. Sam was there, backing away from a concussion wave creeping forward from the other direction.
Sam grabbed hold of Jack.
“No arguments, Jack,” Sam said. He activated his suit’s thrusters and pulled Jack upward.
Jack flew up to the high arena ceiling and looked down. The waves were corralling the militia that were moving away from them. Then, trapped in a shrinking space, the wave contacted the first militiaman. He fell in a quivering heap, and then another fell, and within a few seconds, the remaining militia were lying on the deck.
He looked up. The lighting rig above the arena was a maze of walkways and cables. Sam pulled Jack up into the tangle. A small access hatch in the upper ceiling was just a few meters away.
“You did your best, Jack,” Sam said. “But it’s no good us getting caught.”
Jack looked at the small access hatch and sliced at the seal with his electron blade. The entire cover fell away, and he pushed Sam into the small recess behind. Below, the Devex were targeting the sleeping people with levitation devices and sending them floating away. Jack saw a Devex pull the clear breathing mask from the doctor and throw it aside. Then, the doctor was targeted with the levitation device and he too floated away, out of the arena.
A Devex suddenly looked up at Jack as he maneuvered himself toward the small hatch. The warrior aimed his concussion field device at Jack and launched a shimmering wave.
Jack pressed himself in behind Sam, into a narrow crawl space, with no idea how to proceed, sure only that he and Sam were the only conscious humans left on the entire civilian transport ship.
8
Jack and Sam scrambled through the narrow crawlspace to a small hatch that opened out into an empty corridor. The silence was as worrying as the noise of battle. The silence indicated that the fight was over. The ship had been lost. The civilians were being taken. O
nly Jack and Sam remained as an offensive force.
Kneeling in the corridor on the outside of the gentle curve, Jack dispatched a couple of microdrones from his tactical suit and they flew off along the corridor in both directions, sending back scanner data on the surroundings. He activated his wrist-mounted holostage and fed in the data from the microdrone. The image showed that the corridor was empty.
Jack opened a private communication channel to Hawke. The young squad leader had been heading to the drive room in the transport’s aft section. He was the only Marine defending the drive room.
Hawke did not respond.
Jack opened a channel to the command deck. Captain Morton answered. His holoimage was shaky, but Jack thought he looked pale.
“Captain. Status?”
“We’ve lost main power. The drive room has been taken. The command deck is secure, for now, but we’ve got a dozen Devex trying to cut through the command deck door.”
“Can you hold them, Captain?” Jack asked quietly.
Captain Morton held up his pulse pistol for Jack to see. “We’ve got nothing to do up here but hold until we get main power back. I’ve got an auto-sentry gun up here. I never thought I’d be forced to use it. We’ll hold them off as long as we can.”
“Good,” Jack said. “I’ll retake the drive room.” Jack spoke with a confidence he did not feel. There could be a thousand Devex between him and the drive room.
“Then what?” Morton said.
“Let’s get main power back first,” Jack said, “then we’ll plan the next step. Agreed?”
Captain Morton nodded and gave Jack a clumsy salute, but the thought was there.
“Good luck, Major.”
The holomap on Sam’s wrist showed a small lobby up ahead with a stairway up and down and several corridors leading off. The bodies of civilians were floating along the corridors, converging from the decks above and below and streaming off in a sedate river of unconscious humans.
Then, coming into the sensor field of the microdrone, came two Devex. They stood in the lobby as the bodies floated past and away toward the nearest puncture arm and into the belly of the Devex warship.
Alerted to the presence of the microdrone, both Devex raised their rapid-fire blasters and took aim. Their blaster fire smashed the microdrone and the data feed was lost.
“We have to move,” Jack said.
He indicated the corridor away from the two Devex. Sam released a microdrone and sent it ahead. Jack moved off at a light jog, Sam on his heels, their pulse pistols in their hands.
Sam grabbed Jack by the arm and stopped him. The pair took a knee. Sam showed the holomap on his wrist to Jack.
Two more Devex were advancing on their position, heading straight toward them, hidden for now around the curve of the corridor.
Jack pointed at a doorway on the outside of the curving corridor nearby. He instructed Sam to take up position there and then he indicated that he would hold at the current point, in cover and out of sight around the curve.
Sam recognized the tactic. The Devex would walk into a crossfire.
Sam moved quickly. The door was shut tight. He moved his fingers over the seal, and then Sam felt the fingers of his right hand begin to unravel into fine strands of Mech tissue. Quickly, he removed his glove to let them loose. They were so thin they could slip through the seal. The door popped open a fraction and he forced the fingers of his left hand into the gap. He pulled with both hands and the door came open easily. Sam slipped inside, into a dark cabin.
Jack tapped into the microdrone feed just in time to see the two advancing Devex open fire on the it.
The two Devex were the smaller kind, not the over-sized giants that struggled with the corridors of the civilian ships. These two were both less than two meters tall. The dull metallic exoskeleton armor was just as formidable, though, and the massive rapid-fire blasters looked just as deadly.
The sound of the Devex footsteps came into earshot, their heavy boots thudding on the soft decks. Jack could see Sam in the shadows of the open cabin across the corridor. He made a series of hand signals informing Sam how the ambush would happen. Jack would give away his position and fire first. Then it would be Sam’s turn to join the attack.
Jack peered around the bend in the corridor. He judged his timing perfectly.
Stepping across the curve in the corridor, Jack appeared to come from nowhere. He fired a shot into the faceplate of one of the Devex. The pulse round jerked the Devex’s head back, but the warrior hardly even broke its stride. It raised its large rapid-fire blaster.
Stepping back to the inside of the curve, Jack found cover the instant that the white energy bullets raked the corridor.
Hearing Sam open fire was Jack’s signal. He moved out of cover again and rolled out along the floor, appearing on the ground in front of the two Devex. One was turning to fire on Sam at their rear, but the long rapid-fire blaster was difficult to swing around in the corridor.
Jack fired a series of rounds into the Devex that was still approaching. He saw Sam dash out of cover and drive his electron blade into its helmet. The warrior dropped. Sam walked over the body of the fallen Devex and attacked the second.
Jack stopped firing for fear of hitting his friend with a stray pulse round. He rolled back into cover just as Sam dropped the second with his thrusting electron blade.
Jack got up to his feet and went to join Sam, who was standing over the fallen Devex. He deactivated the blade and looked up at Jack.
“How many more do you think there are?”
Jack stepped over the fallen. “Too many. We can’t defeat them all, Sam.”
“We can try,” Sam said.
“We will,” Jack replied and headed off the way the Devex had come. “We need to advance to the drive room and secure the area.” Jack released a microdrone and sent it along the path to the nearest transit channel access.
The nearest hatch was only a few dozen meters away, and the drone showed that the area was clear. Jack and Sam activated their suits’ gravity fields and stepped into the dark transit channel. The channel took them directly to the drive room, the hatch opening at the main entrance.
Jack and Sam came out slashing with their electron blades and dropped the two Devex standing at the entrance. Jack sent the microdrone inside. There was a pair of Devex walking along the main heading between two of the reactor cores. Unconscious people littered the deck. Jack spotted the fallen form of young Hawke. His suit was transmitting his status, and Jack’s suit received the stream. Hawke was unconscious, but his suit was intact. Felled not by the Dox vapor but by the Devex concussion wave.
The Devex came closer, as seen on Jack’s wrist-mounted holostage. Jack and Sam looked around and found cover. They exchanged a glance. Both knew how to proceed. They ducked into the shadowy areas nearby and waited.
Jack watched the approaching Devex on his holoimage. He held up a hand for Sam to see, the signal to hold and wait. When the Devex were within striking distance, he gave the signal to attack.
Jack stepped out of cover within arm’s reach of the Devex warrior. The electron blade sliced cleanly through the dull gray exoskeleton at the chest. It went limp and slid off the blade, collapsing to the floor.
The second Devex was raising its massive rapid-fire blaster, the huge weapon unsuitable for the tight confines of the drive room. Sam stepped out alongside the Devex and brought his blade down on the its left arm. The arm fell, severed. The blaster, unsupported at the barrel, fell. The one-armed Devex turned on Sam.
Jack’s blade slid easily into the base of its helmet, and the warrior fell toward Sam.
Sam pushed the dead Devex aside. He stared at the arm on the deck, bright red blood flowing out of it. Sam looked at his right arm. He had lost it long ago, but the trauma had never faded. He had made light of his cybernetic arm, playing up the fact that he hated it and that he would rather go with no arm than the painful prosthetic, but the neural connections felt cold on his brain. Ever
y slight twitch, voluntary or otherwise, created stabbing pains behind his eyes. As a Marine, he had been dutybound to wear it. It was part of his uniform as a serving Marine. He could not take it off in action any more than he would be allowed to abandon his pulse weapon or remove his rank insignia.
The new arm was different. Sam looked at the arm, wrapped now in a tactical suit. The arm was foreign, and it felt different than his own arm. It was not uncomfortable, not painful. It felt quite comfortable, but it was not natural.
Sam flexed his fingers experimentally. The arm was powerful, much more so than his human-made cybernetic arm. But it was alien. The Mech technology was closer to biology than machine, and the strands that weaved together to form his arm were so fine they felt more like a liquid metal. The arm was strong, and Sam knew its strength.
“Sam,” Jack said, patting him on the shoulder. “You okay there, buddy?”
Sam looked at Jack.
“It’s not my arm, Jack. What have the Mechs done to me?”
“We can talk about it,” Jack said, “but not now. We have to keep moving. We need to restore power and then find a way to get up to the command deck. Copy?”
“But my arm. It’s strange. I can feel it. It does what I want it to do, but what if it chooses to do its own thing?”
Jack had sympathy for his friend. Sam had given so much in the long war, and even now he was fighting to save thousands of people who would never thank him, or even know the efforts he had made. But he could not let Sam sink into melancholy.
“I’m sure it’s fascinating, Sam,” he said, “but you’ll have to wait until we are clear before you get too philosophical about it.”
“But, Jack…” Sam began.
“Not now, Sam. We’ve got work to do. We are probably the only force left on this massive ship and we need to do what we can to fight off these Devex. So stow your personal problems, fall in, and get ready to move out. Do you copy?”
Sam felt the sudden introspective depression lift at the sound of an order. He pulled himself together in a moment.
Escape (Jack Forge, Lost Marine Book 3) Page 5
