Griff looked at the tac boat. It was stuffed with ammunition boxes and a few crates of rations. He even saw the packing crates for the fixed position pulse laser. There was no doubt the supplies were necessary, but the time was not right.
“Stand down, maintenance technician.” Griff leaned in and looked at the dirty nametag on the coveralls. “Reyes.”
“We can’t leave him down there without the right tools for the job,” Reyes said.
Griff pulled his pulse pistol and aimed it at Reyes’s face. “You clear my hangar now or I will drop you where you stand.”
Pretorius’s voice came over Griff’s communicator.
“Major. We have a priority request for supplies on Brecon. Commander Forge took a beating and he needs supplies. He reports he won’t stand another attack without them. I have a detachment of Blades holding to escort your supply drop. Are you receiving, Major?”
Reyes looked at Griff. “I fixed the boat myself. It’ll get there.”
“You sure you can fly it?” Griff put his pulse pistol away.
Reyes nodded. “Yeah, I can fly it.”
“Major.” Pretorius spoke again with a hint of anger at being kept waiting.
“Thank you, Captain. Launching tac boat supply drop from starboard hangar in two minutes.” Griff stared at Reyes. “You got two minutes to get it off this ship.”
Reyes turned and ran up the ramp of the tac boat, and it closed behind her.
Major Griff walked to the aft exit of the Marine hangar. He still had positions to check, but then Pretorius called again.
“Major. We have intruders in the port side, aft section.” Pretorius sounded calm.
“I’m heading there now, Captain.”
“Don’t let them near the engine room.”
Griff walked out of the aft hangar exit. He glanced back at the tac boat. It was purring like a kitten and sounded like it was fresh off the production line. The claxon alarm and flashing alert lights at the exterior hangar door informed Griff the tac boat was ready to depart.
He closed the door and sealed the hangar deck. He watched the exterior doors slide open and the tac boat move out gracefully into space.
Griff ran along the short corridor and joined up with the main corridor that would take him to the aft section of the ship. Intruder calls were coming from multiple locations. He opened a channel to Adder Company.
“We will not lose this ship today. You are Adder Company. You will stand. Kill every Chit you see. Don’t let them take you alive. Major Griff out.”
Griff turned off the starboard corridor into a side corridor to the port-side main corridor. He saw the shadowy movement along the main corridor up ahead. The Chits were moving along the port-side corridor. He’d seen the Chits up close before, killed Chits up close before. Griff pulled out his pulse pistol and moved silently forward.
Reyes moved out into space. The vast openness all around the tac boat’s cockpit was awesome and awe-inspiring. Then Reyes noticed the chaos of battle as the energy and kinetic weapons of two destroyers fired at a mass of oncoming Chitin craft.
A sudden movement caught Reyes’s eye. Up and to her right, she saw something moving out of the black toward her. She flinched in her pilot’s seat and worried the worst was about to happen, but then she recognized the sleek lines of the Fleet’s fighter ships. A detachment of four Blades dropped into formation around her tac boat.
“Tac boat pilot, this is Commander Scherer. I’ll be your lead escort. We will be descending to the moon Brecon in as short a time as possible. There is a high probability that we will be pursued by Chitin Krakens determined to destroy us. Probability of receiving ground fire is almost certain. So if you will hit your main drive up to suicidal speed, we will get this little jaunt to Brecon underway. Scherer out.”
Reyes looked out through the transparent composite of her cockpit to the cockpit of the
Blade flying so close as to be almost touching. The pilot gave her a casual salute and then pointed downwards.
“Whenever you’re ready, beautiful,” Scherer said.
Reyes pointed the tac boat directly at the planet and hit the drive, pushing it to its max.
The flight to the surface was fast and frenetic. The Blades danced around the tac boat’s cockpit, spinning their craft through maneuvers so fast they were dizzying. One Blade on Reyes’s left turned and pointed his nose behind them. His flank cannon flashed briefly before he turned again to face the direction of travel. The Blade on her right broke formation and raced away. A shower of fire and debris clattered across the front of the tac boat and then the Blade was back in formation. Reyes looked and was sure she saw the pilot wink at her through his heavily-frosted faceplate.
A Kraken raced up from the planet below, its cannon spitting fierce plasma bolts toward Reyes. The forward laser from the Blade holding formation below her made the kill. The Kraken broke into a thousand flaming pieces that clattered over the clear composite cockpit.
The planet was racing upward fast. Reyes reached out to the controls and was about to slow for approach speed.
“Don’t touch the control,” Commander Scherer said. He was flying upside-down above Reyes. He was looking down into her cockpit and watching her every move.
“I can’t take it in too fast.” Reyes said, reaching for the reverse thrust.
“You can and you will. We are already too slow. We’ve got incoming on six sides. Take it to the deck and then we’ll fly you right into that hangar. Copy?”
Reyes nodded. “Copy,” she replied.
The Blade to her left spun and fired to the rear. The spitz fire ripped over the cockpit and broke the fighter in two. The Kraken raced over the top of the burning, tumbling wreck.
Reyes looked horrified as the wreckage tumbled alongside her tac boat. Her attention was pulled back to the flight panel with the sound of an emergency alarm. Spitz fire had scorched her port side and she was venting fuel.
“I’ve been hit,” she said. “I’m going to have to bring her down to approach speed. I’ll be at one hundred meters altitude above Brecon in thirty seconds.”
The Blades suddenly moved off in a triangle formation. They fired at the surface of Brecon as it rapidly approached. The smooth white surface was becoming more detailed with every second and now Reyes could see craters and rocks. There were several large dark craters. A second later, Reyes could see they were the wrecks of ships. One was definitely Chitin. The others looked more like Fleet vessels. There were things moving about, dark spots on the pale surface. She realized they were Chitin soldiers. She was heading straight for them.
The automatic countermeasure alarm beeped, and Reyes knew the tac boat was under attack again. The counter measures would deflect the spitz fire and save her boat. The three Blades came up from the moon where they had been attacking a concentration of ground forces. They flew past her with such speed and so close that Reyes gasped with heart-stopping surprise.
The Blades returned and took up formation in front of Reyes. Only two. She looked around her all-around view for the third. All she could see was a billowing fireball behind. Another Blade was gone. Reyes focused. She needed to bring this equipment to Jack or it would have all been a horrible waste of time and life.
She aimed her tac boat at the planetary defense cannon entrance hangar and brought the speed down. She still seemed to be going too fast, but the Blades were even faster. The pair fired at the ground and then turned about and fired toward Reyes.
Reyes ducked as the forward laser and the flank cannon on the pair of Blades lit up. The Blades’ weapon fire was not intended for her and it flashed past her. She could only guess at how close her pursuer had been. Commander Scherer spoke over Reyes’s communicator.
“Scratch up another Chit for the Blades.”
Reyes leveled out her tac boat and saw the open entrance hangar a few hundred meters away.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Reyes sent her communication to her escort. “I can take it from here.
Good luck.”
The Blades raced toward her and then were gone in a flash. “You have been flying with the Orphan Blades,” Scherer said, “Thank you for choosing to fly with us today and we wish you a safe onward journey.”
Reyes brought the tac boat as low and pushed the speed as fast as she dared.
Then the sudden thump sent her sprawling forward over the control panel. She re-gathered herself and looked at the sudden appearance of countless yellow and red warning lights on the control panel.
Reyes reached for the emergency landing panel when the tac boat hit the surface of Brecon. She saw the pale surface race up to greet her a moment before her head smashed into the control panel and she blacked out.
Jack ran toward the hangar entrance. His hopes of a supply drop were dashed as the sudden eruption of ground fire slammed into the approaching tac boat. He paused, and watched with bated breath, expecting the tac boat to explode. It took a second’s hesitation for Jack to act. It was a second too long, but Jack could write a disciplinary note in his own record later.
“Bevan. Allen.” Jack called to the two most experienced squad leaders in the trench. The pair were up and out of the trench, running toward Jack, before he took another breath. Pointing at the tac boat crash site two hundred meters away, he shouted, “Take your squads and secure that crash site. Torent. Leave sixth squad and get up here now. Take over from me. I’ve got someone to see.”
The supply drop was just within reach. Jack had one of those horrible feelings that things might just go his way for once.
14
Jack ran out of the hangar onto the dusty surface of Brecon. He checked that his sensors were active and searching for any nearby Chitins. He swung up his pulse rifle as he ran. The tac boat was not far away but in hostile territory. Out here, a company of Marines could be isolated and surrounded. Jack knew he would have to move fast.
Allen and Bevan were deploying their squads around the tac boat. The Marines scanned the area for Chitin movements, their pulse rifles slowly sweeping in arcs.
Jack rushed to the tac boat and pressed the control panel to open the boarding ramp. The ramp opened with a screech until the mechanism seized up with the door partially open. There was just enough room for Jack to scramble inside.
The interior was a mess. Some of the supply crates had broken free of their straps and lay smashed open, spilling their contents over the hold floor. Jack was satisfied to see the ration block and ammunition crates. All he needed to do was get it back to the facility.
Jack stepped over a crate and leaned into the cockpit. The pilot was slumped over the control console. Jack accessed the flight suit’s medical readout. The information appeared as a holofile over the pilot’s right shoulder. The pilot was unconscious, but the life signs were stable. Then Jack spotted the pilot’s name on the holofile.
Reyes.
Jack climbed into the cockpit and pulled Reyes away from the console, leaning her back in the seat.
Sarah Reyes.
A message from Allen came over Jack’s communicator.
“Commander. Chits. Approaching on all sides. Engaging.”
The sounds of pulse rifle fire followed a moment later. Jack stepped back into the tac boat hold and went to the door. The pneumatic rams that controlled the door were buckled and the door was stuck only partially open. Jack fired up his electron bayonet and applied the fierce white blade to the first pneumatic ram. The composite fizzed and spat as the bayonet cut through. The ram jerked as it was cleaved in two. Jack went to work on the second.
Jack saw the flash of plasma spears and pulse rifle fire through the partially-open ramp.
“Allen, report,” Jack said.
“They are all over the place. Fire coming in from all sides. We are in an exposed position, sir.”
“Copy that, Allen. Move clear of the boarding ramp. It’s coming down.”
Jack cut the second ram and the ramp fell. It landed in the dusty surface and threw up a billowing cloud. The plasma spears came thick and fast toward the open door until, with the dust reducing visibility to practically zero, the plasma spears died down.
Jack went back to the cockpit and began unclipping Reyes from her seat. She was waking and moaning quietly.
“Bevan. Allen,” Jack said to the two squad leaders. “Hold those Chits off. I want these supplies back to the hangar.”
“I can fly,” Reyes said in a weak voice. Her hands began moving over the control panel that was covered in blinking warning lights.
Jack climbed into the copilot seat and looked more closely. The landing gear was smashed, life support system was wrecked, the drive assembly was powered down, and the reactor was overheated.
Jack could see the workaround. The tac boat would not make it back to the Scorpio, but it might make a few hundred meters over the moon’s surface.
“If I disconnect the reactor heat dump controls,” Jack said.
“No. I’m routing the life support gas scrub pump through the reactor cooler. Cut that boarding ramp away.
“Bevan. Allen. Get your Marines in here.” Jack was out of his seat and picking his way through the supply crates, the scattered ration blocks and pulse rifle rounds. He stood on the boarding ramp and fired up his electron bayonet.
The Marines began clambering into the tac boat. Bevan and Allen had a rear guard, giving covering fire as the Marines clambered inside.
The plasma spears came again, a sustained fire, the white fire lances slamming into the side of the tac boat and into the dusty ground all around the craft. A Marine on one knee blasting away with quick bursts of pulse rifle fire took a plasma spear to the side of his helmet. He was flung backwards and to the side as the spear ricocheted off the helmet and into the side of the tac boat.
Bevan ordered two of her squad to start cutting away the boarding ramp, then she stepped up to Jack. She pushed Jack away from the open doorway.
“Get to cover, sir,” Bevan said.
Jack was reluctant to hide, but Bevan was insistent.
“You can’t get hit, sir.”
Jack was moved by the force of Bevan’s argument. He had respect for the young squad leader and knew that she was thinking of the company and the mission. Jack stepped back to the cockpit as a plasma spear came in through the open doorway to explode in a shower of white plasma globules across the tac boat hold.
Jack stepped into the cockpit. “Put those fires out.” Jack saw Reyes powering the engines. He felt the tac boat juddering and then it lurched forward.
The nose of the tac boat plowed through the pale, loose dirt.
“We’re too heavy,” Reyes said.
“Push it,” Jack said. With one blast from the stuttering engines, the tac boat had covered fifty meters.
“It won’t make it,” Reyes said. She canceled a warning light that blinked rapidly. A catastrophic failure was imminent.
Jack knew to trust Reyes. She could push a machine to its absolute limit, but a total mechanical failure was inevitable. Jack needed these supplies moved another hundred meters at least.
“Bevan. Allen,” Jack called to his squad leaders. “Get your squads out of here on the double. We need to lighten the load. Get back on foot. Go.”
Jack looked around and saw Bevan order a Marine to jump. The Marine went without a moment’s hesitation. Bevan waved her hand, sending the rest of 7th squad after. Allen stepped up and leaped out of the tac boat to the ground racing by, dust and rock thrown up by the nose plowing through the loose ground.
Allen jumped next, calling to his squad to follow. Jack watched the Marines bail out. He turned and saw Bevan jump last.
“That’s it,” Reyes said. “We just bought a few meters more.”
Jack watched the hangar of the cannon facility come closer. He could see the Marines in the trench and the Marines on the roof. They were all firing past the approaching tac boat, giving covering fire to the squads of Bevan and Allen.
“Nearly there,” Reyes said. “Where do you
want me to put it?”
The tac boat was bumping over the ground. It would make a mess of the trench if it went over it and into the hangar. Also, the tac boat was in danger of a catastrophic failure any moment. It would be a bad idea to put a potential antimatter detonation inside the hangar.
“Drop it in front of that trench,” Jack said. “Can you turn it so the open door is facing the entrance hangar?”
Reyes began tapping the control panel. “I can try.”
The tac boat lurched again. Jack was pitched forward. The tac boat turned violently to the side and skidded to a halt. Dust came flying into the tac boat hold and cockpit.
Jack wiped the dust away from his helmet face plate and jumped out of the cockpit to find himself only five meters from the trench. The Marines in the trench were punching the air.
Jack ran around to the side of the tac boat and looked for the Marines he had left on the surface in hostile territory. The two squads of Marines were running for the relative safety of their trench, a hail of plasma spears slicing through the dust cloud thrown up by the tac boat’s unorthodox maneuver. Jack counted—all his Marines were coming back. Some were wounded and being assisted by their squad-mates. Some were stopping, turning and returning fire. Jack opened a channel to the two squads.
“Get back here. On the double.” And then, over a company channel, Jack said, “Give those Marines covering fire. It doesn’t need to be pretty, just aim at the flashes from those plasma spears and give them a blast.”
The Marines in the trench and the Marines on the roof fired into the white dust cloud with a terrifying intensity. Jack jumped into the trench and grabbed a couple of Marines. “Unload those supplies,” he said. The Marines slung their pulse rifles across their backs and jumped to it.
“First Marine to find a fixed position blast laser and set it up next to the tac boat. Make it ready to fire as soon as possible.”
The plasma spears began to die down. Then the pulse rifle fire subsided. The dust cloud thinned and drifted away. The deep furrow plowed by the tac boat ran across the surface of Brecon away from the facility. And further away, Jack saw the movement of Chitin soldiers moving into cover.
Jack Forge, Fleet Marine Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9) Page 54
