“And what would you know about it?” Harts shouted at Jack. “You thought you were so special, like you could fly this thing on your own. Well, look where that got us.” Harts reached out again for the elevation systems control.
“I didn’t crash this boat, I almost saved it from your incompetence.” Jack was furious with Harts, not just for his inability to fly the landing craft, not just for getting the posting to fly the Marine landing crafts ahead of Jack. Jack was still angry with Harts for stealing his watch and putting the finger of blame on Torent. Jack knew punching Harts would have no effect, though, since the suit would deflect any blow.
Jack checked the flight data and error reports in the lander’s console. A gun camera showed the wild flight the landing craft had been on, spinning, lurching and stalling. Jack spotted a dark shape on the horizon of one of the images. A dark tower that stood out from the pink sand towers.
“What’s that?” Jack re-ran the images and zoomed in on the structure. There was a pattern on the surface of that structure, difficult to make out but it reminded Jack of the fine twisting lines that he’d seen on the Chitin that Reyes had been working on in the maintenance hangar. “Is that... Is that a Chitin structure?”
“Chits?” Harts tutted. “Sounds like you are still scared after our little skirmish on the training moon. You heard the commander, there are no Chits here. The area is clear.”
“You think the fleet has never made a mistake before? Get up.” Jack pulled Harts out of his seat and pushed him toward the exit.
Harts moved unwillingly, but Jack encouraged him with a series of shoves. “I know you are a lousy Marine, Harts,” Jack said, giving another shove, “but you are all I have to work with. We need to scout the area and check for enemy, and we need to check the boat for damage.”
“We should just head back to base camp,” Harts said, resisting another shove from Jack. “I know better than to listen to an order from a known mutineer.”
Jack felt his anger at Harts rising again. He was right, Jack had a record for insurrection. But Harts was the worst kind of traitor, undermining trust between people who should be allies, and sowing division between friends. Harts was worse than any dissenting voice, he was a parasite sucking the life out of the Marines with his devious and malicious scheming.
Harts opened a channel. “Commander Finch.” Harts looked at Jack, daring him to interrupt.
Jack knew that any attempt to stop Harts now would lead to the nasty little rodent spinning a tale where Jack was attempting to prevent Harts doing his duty and reporting to Finch.
“Finch here. Go ahead, Harts.”
“Forge crashed the landing craft, sir. He wants to scout on foot.”
Jack felt the fury rise in him. In essence, what Harts had told Finch was true. However, there were huge chunks of missing information, but Jack had no doubt that Finch would accept Harts’s assessment. Any report that further condemned Jack would be a welcome report in Finch’s eyes.
“Scout the area?” Finch shouted. “Negative. Terminate scout action immediately. Your priority is to get that landing craft in the air.”
“Sir,” Jack said, “I want to clear the area before burying my head in the engine assembly.”
“Negative, Forge. The Scorpio has checked the moon from orbit. We are clear. Patch up that landing craft, and continue your scouting mission. That is your priority.”
“But, sir, if the Chits are nearby, they will fire on us the moment we get airborne. And they will know we are here.”
“The area is clear,” Finch said.
“If the area has been cleared then what the krav are we doing on the ground?” Jack exploded with frustration.
“What you are doing is fixing that landing craft, Marine, and if you attempt to fly a craft you are not rated for again, I will have you before a court marshal for insurrection. Do not leave the crash site. Assess any damage and take steps to make repairs. And if you cannot fix the craft, I will have to call the Scorpio for extraction. And you can be sure I will tell them that you have jeopardized the mission and trashed a significant piece of military hardware. Follow my orders, Forge, or believe me, I will see you flogged until the skin hangs from your back. Do you get me?”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Jack shouted.
“Harts, oversee operations there. Forge, fix my landing craft.”
Harts stood in front of Jack and jabbed a finger into Jack’s chest. “You heard the commander...”
Jack grabbed the finger and twisted it. “I heard you too. The flight recorder will tell everyone who was in control and what happened on that flight. Your incompetence put us in danger and I saved us. If I hadn’t been fighting so hard to regain control of the boat, we might have been destroyed.” Jack released Harts’s finger. “You assess the damage. I’m scouting the area. Try and work out what systems are damaged on the boat. I’ll make a start on repair when I get back.”
“The commander ordered you to fix the landing craft.” Harts spoke, but his voice lacked any degree of conviction.
“We need to fix the boat for sure. But if you tell Finch I’ve gone off mission, you will regret it, Harts. If I’m right, you’ll be glad I went and checked it out. I will be responsible for saving your worthless ass twice in one day.” Jack leaned close to Harts. “You already owe me. Start paying it back.”
Jack swung up his pulse rifle and ran off through the pink trunks of the Kratos sand forest.
The sandy surface made for a heavy running track, but activating his power assist helped Jack maintain a steady pace. The sand clung to his boots and gathered in clumps that he had to periodically pull away. The sand trees that grew out of the surface created a labyrinth of strange branching pillars that Jack had to weave between.
Stopping for a moment to check his sightlines, Jack leaned against a sand tree. He pushed a clump of the pink sand out of the trunk. The sand was clinging together the same way as it clung to his boots. It was how these huge towering and branching sand trees were built. An electrostatic charge on the grains was creating and sculpting this pink sand forest.
It was a strange world and Jack began to doubt what he had seen in the landing craft camera. The dark tower could have been anything.
“You know what you saw,” Jack said to himself, scanning between the trunks through his pulse rifle sights. “Don’t go second guessing yourself now. That was a Chitin structure alright.”
Jack checked his suit’s biomonitors. He needed to hydrate. He activated the water tube in his helmet and allowed himself a small sip, just enough to wet his dry mouth. Then he was off again, running through the pink sand trees.
Running was always a pleasure, even in this strange, sticky sand. He felt free when he was running and almost forgot the reasons why. He dropped to a knee and scanned the area again.
Through the trees, he spotted a movement—a black slithering movement. Maybe it was shadows cast through the forest by a cloud overhead. Maybe. Jack trusted his instincts. He knew what he had seen. It was a Chit. He would recognize that motion anywhere, no matter how hidden. Just the merest glimpse of those tentacles, that long head with the antenna flicking about, every part of the creatures was burned onto his mind. He was alert to the merest flicker of Chit activity.
Jack adopted a prone position and took cover behind one of the thick pink trees. He knew the structure of these trees was tenuous, only being held together by some electrostatic charge or a slight surface tension. It was not substantial enough to resist a Chit plasma spear, but it would hide him from sight.
Jack watched carefully and then he saw the dark slithering shape again. It was a Chitin soldier alright. The writhing tentacles moved it across the pink sands. Jack noticed that the grains didn’t stick to the Chit like they did to his boots. If it came to a running battle, the Chits would have another advantage. It came as no surprise that the sand forest was against the Marines as well as the Chits.
Jack noticed that the sand grains in front of him were creeping u
p over his arms and he propped himself up off the floor. He wasn’t sinking. The grains were climbing. He pulled his arm upward and came free of the sand effortlessly, the grains simply falling away to the ground, leaving tiny sand trees on the surface, like a miniature forest where his arm had been. The distraction nearly cost him.
The Chit soldier moved across Jack’s field of view again as he ducked for cover. It looked like the alien was moving along a predetermined path. Jack watched from his position until he saw the pattern. The Chit was moving slowly back and forth as if on sentry duty.
Jack scanned the area to the Chit’s left and right, searching for other sentries. He couldn’t spot any from this position. He waited until the Chit was out of view and began moving to his right, taking care not to give away his position.
Jack moved quickly and carefully, searching for the next sentry. After moving five hundred meters to his right, he decided the Chit was a lone sentry. There must be very few Chits on the surface for there to only be one sentry. Maybe it was a lone Chit, in which case Jack could kill it and be done. But maybe the others were advancing on the crash site. Maybe there were so few Chits that they couldn’t attack the crash site, a craft that might have contained a whole company of Marines.
Jack needed to move in and find out more.
With the suit’s perimeter sensors set to maximum, Jack lost much of the system’s accuracy. What he lost in precision, however, he gained in distance. The Chit sentries were displayed on Jack’s enhanced data view as small dark blurs. He picked his way between them and closed in on whatever they were guarding. By analyzing the sentry patrol pattern, he deduced they were circling a perimeter five hundred meters around a central point. Jack closed in on that point.
At two hundred meters out, Jack reached the rim of a circular depression in the moon’s surface. He looked down into the depression. There in the center of the sand trees stood the dark monolith with Chitin soldiers scurrying around the wide base.
The monolith was constructed with glowing nodules and channels wound about its surface. The Chit soldiers moving around monolith touched the nodules with their tentacles, causing color changes to flash about the channels.
Jacked searched his suit’s database for a listing on the Chit structure. No listing was found. This was a new piece of equipment previously unknown to the military.
Jack requested a count on the Chit numbers from his suit’s scanners. Counting the Chits moving around the structure in the depression and the Chit sentries moving around it, the total was only eight. Chits were never found in such low numbers. They would be an easy target for 6th squad.
One of the Chits moving around the device wrapped a tentacle around a nodule. It came away from the monolith. Another Chit joined the first and together, they pulled and stretched the nodule. It morphed into a long tube structure. The first Chit took the tube and laid it over one of the monolith’s glowing channels.
Whatever it was the Chits were doing, Jack knew they needed to be stopped. The monolith was probably military in nature. Jack made an assessment; the device was either a weapon or a communication device.
But why so few Chits, Jack thought. If this was a weapon, then there would be a garrison here to service and protect it. If it was a communication device, they could soon be able to call on support. Jack couldn’t take down all eight Chits alone. He needed support from his squad.
Running back through the forest toward the landing craft crash site, Jack kept his scanners on maximum range on the lookout for more Chits. The way was clear and Jack covered it at a sprint, the meat suit assisting Jack’s muscles.
The landing craft looked just as he had left it. In fact, it looked exactly how he’d left it. “Damn you, Harts,” Jack shouted. “You haven’t even made a start on the boat.”
Jack walked around the landing craft before heading inside. “Where the hell are you hiding, Harts?” Jack walked into the cockpit. Empty. He walked along the hold and checked the alcove. “Harts? Where are you?” The ship was empty. Jack used the lander’s scanners to boost his suit’s scan range and scanned the area for Harts. Nothing.
“Damn it.” Jack slung his pulse rifle over his shoulder. He opened a channel to Commander Finch.
“What do you mean he’s missing?” Finch’s voice crackled over Jack’s helmet speaker.
“He was gone when I got back, sir.” Jack bit his lip as he realized he’d dropped himself in the krav.
“Got back? I ordered you to fix the landing craft, Marine.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“But you left. Where, tell me, Marine, did you go?”
“We’re not alone, sir. I found a nest of Chits. Don’t know what they are doing, but I bet it’ll be bad for us.”
The channel crackled for a few moments. Jack waited for Finch to chew him out some more.
“Fix the landing craft, Marine. Do you get me? And send a message to the Scorpio using the lander’s comm. The comm systems on these suits are not cutting through the field on this moon. Give them the coordinates of that nest and request they flame those Chits.”
“Sir, yes, sir.” Jack hoped the Scorpio could target the Chits accurately. He didn’t want the lander to get hit. He didn’t want to become a permanent resident.
“And watch out for my approach,” Finch added. “I’m bringing the squad up to the lander.”
“Understood,” Jack replied. Finch must be getting nervous, Jack thought. The commander didn’t like to be too far from his ride home.
Jack climbed into the landing craft and made his way back to the cockpit. The lander’s power systems were still operational. Jack opened a channel to the Scorpio. He sent an opening shout and waited for the Scorpio to respond. Knowing he would have a few moments, Jack activated the scanners. He could scan the area for Harts. Perhaps he was sightseeing, although there was nothing to see once you had marveled at the strange sand tree structures. The lander’s scanners were more powerful than his meat suit’s scanners, but only when the craft was airborne. Sitting on the ground, it was only a little better. Jack set the scanners on their widest beam. It gave the furthest reach, the two and a half kilometers to Kratos’s horizon. If Harts was within that area, he would appear as a fuzzy dark blob.
The only reading to come back was the activity from the sentry Chitin moving around the small construction site in that small depression. Maybe Harts was in a similar depression and out of sight of the scanners. He guessed if he could launch a drone or a probe vertically, he could get a better view and maybe find Harts.
Jack searched the inventory for anything that could fly above the lander and be used to extend sensor range. There was nothing. Not even a supply of nanodrones. Jack slumped back in his chair and considered his options. He would have to fix the lander if he was going to search for Harts. The devious little scroat didn’t deserve to be found. Jack should leave him behind. But Harts was still a Marine, and Jack knew he couldn’t abandon him.
The opening shout was still blinking on the console. It was still unanswered. If the Scorpio was on the far side of Kratos then the signal would not reach them. But surely the Scorpio would be holding a geostationary orbit above the ground team. Jack checked the comm and resent the opening shout, then started to work on the ship.
The lander diagnostic reports on the console showed Jack that the damage to the craft was serious but not devastating. He could see a few ways he could work around the problem. Some systems would have to be bypassed, some would have to be boosted, one lift compression filter would have to be removed. That was going to create a bumpy ride and the emergency alarms would complain loudly and constantly all the way back to the Scorpio, but at least they could make it back to the Scorpio, maybe.
Jack checked the opening shout again. Still no channel. He climbed out of the pilot’s seat and went to make a start on jury-rigging the boat.
12
Captain Pretorius ran onto the command deck, his open jacket flapping as he moved. “Mister Chou, report.�
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“We’ve detected three small Chitin craft speeding in. Kraken class ships, sir. They are on a course for Kratos orbit insertion. They may have already detected us, but none are moving to intercept.”
The holostage showed three distant points and their predicted course. “Action stations, Mister Chou. Deploy combat drones. Move the Scorpio behind the horizon. If we are going to take these Chits down, we are going to have to take them before they know we are here.”
A command deck communication officer called out that he’d received an opening shout from the landing craft on the surface.
Pretorius looked at the holostage and the incoming Chit Krakens. He looked at Commander Chou.
“The Chitins will hear us if we respond, Captain.”
Pretorius looked back to the holostage. “Move the ship, Mister Chou. Put us behind Kratos and out of sight of those Chitins.”
“Aye, Captain. Drones deployed. Armed and holding. Ship moving now.”
“Captain,” the communications officer called out again. “We have a repeat of the opening shout from the landing craft.”
“Send no response. All communication channels on silent now.” Pretorius calmed the young communication officer. “The ground team will have to look after themselves for a short while. There are some good Marines down there. They can hold out for now.”
Pretorius watched the holostage and the small points of the Chitin craft. They had moved in fast, but now were slowing for orbital insertion just as the Scorpio was slipping behind the moon, almost hidden.
An alarm sounded across the command deck. Pretorius buttoned up his jacket.
“Sir, three more craft speeding in toward Kratos from the opposite side to the first three. Kraken class, sir. They are the Chits that like to clamp on to the hull, sir.” Commander Chou rushed to the next side of the holostage to check the status of the combat drones. “Permission to launch another flight of combat drones, Captain.”
Jack Forge, Fleet Marine Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9) Page 13
