“Now that you are a major, you have access to information that other ranks do not. It is by no means a pleasure for me to show you this, Jack, but it is my duty.”
Pretorius sat behind his heavy timber desk. He tapped the holokeys projected onto the timber’s polished surface and activated a holoimage of the system. He looked up at Jack to make sure he had his attention. Then Pretorius zoomed the view out to the widest extent. Around the system, in a sphere several light-weeks across, there was a scatter of thousands upon thousands of tiny orange dots.
“The fleet sent micro-surveillance drones out the moment the Chits withdrew after you delivered our stunning victory at the Battle of Brecon Moon. The drones have returned their data. Every dot in this image is a Chitin craft. We estimate ten percent of them are Leviathan-class vessels.”
Jack felt his heart drop to his stomach. He felt ill and dizzy. The entire system was surrounded by thousands of Chitin craft.
“This information is classified as top secret. No one below our rank is to know of the true threat we face. As far as I can tell, Fleet has not yet decided our best course of action, but it comes down to one of two options.”
“Stay and fight,” Jack said, “or run. Completely abandon the system.”
Pretorius nodded.
Jack staggered toward the chair opposite Pretorius and sat down heavily.
“How many?” he managed to say.
Pretorius shook his head. “That information is above our level of clearance, but I think it’s clear that there are too many for our current force to reasonably deal with.”
“Why don’t they attack?” Jack said, feeling ill.
“We don’t know. We expect to have mobilization orders in the next few hours. Organize the battalion, Jack. Use whatever personnel you have available. I don’t think we’ll be getting any more replacements.”
Pretorius switched off the holoimage, then pulled out a bottle of amber liquor and two heavy tumblers from his desk draw. He poured two measures of the sharp liquid.
Jack didn’t really like the taste of the liquor, but he grabbed the glass and downed it all at once.
“You okay?” Pretorius asked Jack.
“Yes, sir. Just a bit of a shock, is all.”
“Indeed,” Pretorius said. “Go and rest. You will need your strength.”
Jack nodded but remained seated.
“I can’t order you,” Pretorius said as he turned to leave, “but I do encourage you, Jack. Go and rest.”
“Alistair.” It felt weird to call him by his first name. “Do you know anything about Sarah Reyes?”
Pretorius stopped at the door and looked back at Jack. “That’s classified, I’m afraid,” he answered. “All I know is that Fleet Intelligence is gathering up anyone and everyone they think might have knowledge of the Chitins.”
“Okay.” Jack had expected as much, but had still hoped for more information. “Thanks, Alistair.”
He had never felt so isolated. He had learned much, but it seemed like there were more questions than answers, still. He was in sole command of the Scorpio Battalion now, and alone in the knowledge of the crushing threat that lurked just beyond sensor range.
Jack knew he would soon be put to the ultimate test. He smiled grimly knowing his skills had been tested and forged on the hunt.
Forging a Trap
1
Major Jack Forge sat in the conference hall surrounded by a host of unfamiliar faces, each one belonging to a high-level officer in the Eros System Fleet or the Fleet Marines. This room in Fleet Command and Control Headquarters was a large amphitheater that looked down onto a large central holostage. The tiered seats dropped away sharply to the floor below where the holostage was displaying an image of the planet Eros. Jack sat in the furthest row back, the highest of the circular tiers. He felt as if he was flying over the world below.
A pair of battalion majors next to Jack chatted amiably. Jack could tell they were old friends meeting up after a long time. They asked about each other’s family and reminisced about old times, but neither mentioned any of the many engagements of the long Chitin War, engagements they would have both been heavily involved with. One of the two majors glanced at Jack and gave a minute but friendly tip of the head.
The row in front of Jack was occupied by Fleet Marine colonels. These officers were a rank above major, and Jack was surprised by how many of them there were. Most of the colonels were based at Fleet Command and Control Headquarters. They were all desk jockeys, middle management Marines who hadn’t picked up a Fleet Marine Pulse Rifle in years. Some were flabby, most were graying, and all looked comfortable in the large conference hall where they had spent more time talking about the war than fighting it.
Sitting alongside the row of colonels, Jack spotted the two colonels of the Eros fleet that were on active service, who were attached to the carriers the Overlord and the Scepter. They were the highest-ranking Marines on active service with the fleet. Although they rarely left their home carriers, they had been involved in every major engagement of the Chitin War. They both looked stern and surrounded by a chill determination. The middle management colonels based at Fleet Command and Control headquarters wore clean, pressed uniforms with shining braid and buttons. The two carrier colonels wore the medals and the stern expressions won in battle.
In front of the colonels sat the small group of high-ranking officers, the brigadier generals. These officers rarely left headquarters. They were the Marine Service upper management. These were the planners and organizers of the Fleet Marines. Jack recognized only one of them.
Brigadier General Rex Telford was the hero of Haydes. Early in the Chitin War, he had fought a desperate battle against a mass Chitin attack, the first Chitin ground attack of the war. He had been a lowly squad leader at that time and his heroics had been wall-to-wall broadcast news. Telford looked relaxed, confident, and extremely tough. He was an officer Jack felt he could trust.
Across the amphitheater and opposite Jack and his Fleet Marine officer colleagues were the officers of the Eros System Fleet. The fleet captains sat together with space around them for double their number. They were a much smaller group now than at the start of the Chitin War. Every one of them had lost friends and colleagues, but they were at ease and chatted casually. Jack spotted Captain Alistair Pretorius amongst them. The Captain of the Scorpio, Jack’s ship, was studying a small holofile on his handheld holostage. In all the time Jack had known Pretorius, he had never known the Scorpio’s captain to take a break. He was dedicated, hardworking, and a brilliant combat captain. Jack had quickly realized how lucky he was to have been posted on the Scorpio.
Pretorius was sitting next to a tall captain with a gray stubble-covered face who talked to all the captains around him, his constant chat punctuated with huge bursts of laughter. He moved a lot, reaching out to roughly pat his fellow captain on the back or deliver a friendly punch. His laughter filled the amphitheater. Jack ran a quick search through his enhanced data view and discovered he was looking at Captain Finley Cuthbert of the destroyer Virgo. Jack had never met the captain of the Virgo before, but he was an impossible person to forget. He was loud, and his near constant laughter was boisterous, but Jack could see the steely edge to the otherwise jovial captain. There was no doubt that he was a different man in the heat of battle.
In a row in front of the captains sat two fleet officers that Jack knew instantly. They were group captains of the carrier-class vessels—Group Captain Gregor Wellard of the Overlord and Group Captain Mashiro Tanaka of the Scepter. They were the captains of the only two remaining carrier-class vessels in the Eros fleet. They were sitting next to each other and were carefully studying a small holofile.
The Fleet Intelligence agents sat to one side of the amphitheater in between the officers of the Fleet and the officers of the Fleet Marines. Their black uniforms and silver braid hinted at their secretive operations...and their dark deeds. Jack looked across the group and saw a familiar face amongst
them, one he didn’t care to see again. Agent Corli Visser. She had investigated Jack once, and he often wondered if she had ever really taken her eyes off him.
In the very center of the amphitheater, the ring of seating at floor level around the holostage was vacant. Everyone waited. Jack wished he felt as relaxed as everyone else looked. Then he felt the tension in the room rise a notch as two Fleet rear admirals and a Fleet Marine brigadier general entered.
Soon after, the leader of the Fleet, Admiral Henson, entered along with Marine General Russell Wallace, the highest-ranking officer in the Fleet Marine Service.
The chatter in the room died in an instant, and everyone rose to their feet.
“Sit. Sit.” Admiral Henson waved everyone back to their seats. He took a seat in the front row, directly in front of the holostage. Wallace took a seat opposite the admiral in front of his Fleet Marine Officers.
One of the rear admirals stood at the holostage. Jack searched for the Fleet Officer’s public record on his enhanced data view and discovered it was Rear Admiral Tel Jackman, the man in charge of fleet operations across the Eros System.
Rear Admiral Jackman tapped the controls on the holostage. The image of Eros grew in size until it was ten meters across and filled the center of the amphitheater. This was real time current data and Jack could make out the tiny images of the orbiting fleet—the carriers Overlord and Scepter holding position at the poles and the ring of destroyers at the equator. The labels were just big enough for Jack to read. He saw the tiny image of the Leo drift by in front of his view. Then came the Sagittarius, then the Virgo. Jack found his ship, the place he had come to think of as home. The Scorpio appeared on the far side of the holoimage. It seemed so small and far away.
“The reason we have you all here today is to inform you, as a group, of the next operation in our struggle against the Chitin forces.”
Rear Admiral Tel Jackman tapped the side of the holostage and the view rescaled rapidly, Eros shrinking to the size of a baseball. The sudden resizing of the planet was dizzying, and Jack almost felt as if he was falling. The Eros System star appeared at the center of the image and shrank as the image pulled further out. The asteroid belt appeared and shrank to a small ring around the star at the center of the image, but still the scale raced down. The outer gas giants raced away, shrinking until the image of a thousand red dots scattered in a sphere around the tiny star at the center of the Eros System appeared. The image stopped resizing and held with the image of the sphere of red dots filling the center of the amphitheater.
“We have all seen this data,” Jackman said. “This is the extent of the Chitin forces. There are just over five thousand individual craft, according to our latest count. More craft are being detected joining the armada on an hourly basis, all arriving from outside the system. We estimate that one in fifty craft currently in the armada are Leviathan-class vessels. That makes over one hundred Chitin Leviathans. There are over three thousand infiltrator fighter craft, the Krakens. The rest of this armada is made up of Hydra-class vessels.”
Jackman switched the holoimage to show a file on each of the Chitin craft. The images rotated to show the craft from all sides, streams of data accompanying each image. The largest of the Chitin craft dominated the holoimage—the Leviathan, a massive warship with its many tentacle-like structures reaching out before it. Then there was the Hydra, a robust troop-carrying fighter capable of delivering eight Chitin soldiers to the fight, and finally the smallest and fastest of the Chitin craft, the Kraken, a highly maneuverable and destructive infiltrator. All craft were heavily armed with plasma arc weapons and spitz cannons. They were all extremely robust craft capable of delivering staggering amounts of damage. Jack had faced them all and knew he would have to face them again.
“We are outnumbered, outgunned, and standing on the verge of destruction.” Jackman paused. “We believe the Chitins are preparing to strike. Given their current force strength, we believe they would be utterly unstoppable. We have only one option. Our next operation is to abandon the Eros System.”
The noise level in the amphitheater jumped suddenly as every officer made a small comment to their neighbors. Jack remained quiet and the stared at the image of the Leviathan that slowly rotated above the holostage.
He had encountered the massive Chitin warships more times than he cared to remember. If he could leave the Eros System and never have to face them again, he would, gladly. Jack was not alone in that thought, but some in the assembly clearly held a different view.
“Retreat?” a Fleet officer stood up and shouted. “After all we have given? After all they have taken?”
Admiral Henson stood up slowly and turned to face the officer, a captain that Jack now recognized. It was Captain Finley Cuthbert of the Virgo.
“Sit down, Captain,” Admiral Henson said in a low and heavy voice.
Cuthbert sat down. Jack watched the admiral. He remained standing for a moment. The room waited. Henson finally sat down. Once seated, he nodded at Rear Admiral Jackman as an instruction to continue.
“We withdraw,” Jackman said, looking first at Cuthbert and then around the room. “Our final operation in the Eros System is to withdraw and transport the civilian population to a new system and a new home.”
The murmurs around the amphitheater were low and muted, but they were impossible to ignore.
“Fleet Intelligence has known for some time about the armada, but we have been unable to respond effectively. Now we have been given an opportunity to withdraw. The Chitins have pulled the vast majority of their force back to a sphere about fifteen billion kilometers away. We can thank some creative thinking from a small number of individuals for scaring the Chitins off during our last major encounter. They are holding back, at least for now.”
Jack noticed several officers in the room turn to him. He felt their gaze and heard a few quiet comments from the Marines around him. Then he saw the admiral looking up at him. Jack felt his heart jump in his chest. His face burned with a blush as he felt so many eyes on him. Jack looked to Pretorius on the other side of the amphitheater. The Captain of the Scorpio was looking at him and smiling. He gave a brief nod and acknowledged Jack. It was thanks to Jack’s desperate, last-ditch attack on the Leviathans that had caused them to retreat. He had given the Fleet a window of opportunity and they were taking it with both hands.
“One other individual has been working closely with the Fleet through our colleagues in Fleet Intelligence. She is a capable and creative individual and has developed some useful theories on Chitin technology. It is thanks to this individual that we have been able to plan our withdrawal. The plan is simple, although getting here has been anything but. The Fleet will attempt to slip past the surrounding Chitin forces. Once beyond the Chitin armada, we will regroup, head for a new system, and rebuild.”
Jackman sat down and Rear Admiral Victor Orlov stood.
“We have been constructing a number of ships capable of transporting the population out of the Eros System. These ships have been under construction for months and have taken up a large portion of our material resources. If your bunk mattress has felt a bit lumpy and you couldn’t get a replacement, it is because of the huge drain on resources caused by this huge construction task.”
Jack had never felt that his mattress or seat cushion needed replacing, but he had often wished for a replacement reactor coil or a coolant node. He guessed Orlov was being humorous.
“Together with the ships of the fleet, we have enough capacity for every man, woman, and child in the system, all of whom are now here on Eros. We will be able to move as soon as our final preparations are complete.”
Orlov sat down and Jackman stood again.
“We know the Chitin can detect any and all human communications as well as our Fleet drive systems, but our scientists have discovered a substance that the Chitins secrete that we believe will make our ships invisible to them. We have created a chemical cloak that should hold long enough for us to clear the
system. We will have to synthesize a huge quantity of this substance if we are to cloak every transport ship, and every ship of the fleet. We will be able to proceed shortly, but we currently need a live Chitin sample to work from. We will be tasking a team of Marines with a capture mission immediately.”
Jack stood up. He raised his hand. Now all eyes were on him.
“I volunteer to capture the Chitin, sir,”
The silence was terrifying.
“Major Jack Forge,” Jackman said after the pause where he had presumably searched for Jack’s profile. “Thank you, Major. Speak to me later.”
Jack sat down. He saw the head of Marine General Russell Wallace turn and then he saw the deep, dark eyes look up at him. Jack felt uncomfortable under the stare. Thankfully, the general looked back to the holostage, leaving Jack feeling relieved.
As the two rear admirals delivered their addresses, Jack observed the officers around the amphitheater. Many were tired, their uniforms shabby and worn. The war had been brutal on the Fleet. Ships had been lost, and with them many of the highest ranking and most experienced Fleet officers. The few that remained were worn out but retained a level of determination and defiance that only the truly dedicated could manage.
Although they wore the same uniform, the people inside them were all very different, from the jovial Cuthbert to the practical Pretorius, to others who were grim and dour, their characters etched on their faces along with the rigors and responsibility of command.
Jack wondered how battle-worn he was looking these days. He had fought the Chitins back and forth across the Eros System. From the surface of moons and asteroids to the empty void of space, Jack had fought them on every type of battle field and every terrain.
Listening to the senior command officers tell the assembled officers how they planned to end the war, by withdrawing and leaving the Eros System to the Chitins, Jack felt a year’s worth of fatigue creep up on him.
Rear Admiral Victor Orlov stepped up to the holostage and displayed an image of one of the massive transport ships. For scale, an image of a Fleet carrier was displayed next to it. The transport ship was almost twice the size. Jack noticed with a sudden chill that the carrier being used for scale was the Crown, the first carrier to be destroyed by the Chitins.
Jack Forge, Fleet Marine Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9) Page 66
