“We just lost the Pisces,” Pretorius said heavily. “Good luck, Jack. Scorpio out.”
Jack knew there was nothing else to be said. The channel went dead as the Scorpio went silent for its escape attempt. Jack looked up. Somewhere up there was his home, the Scorpio. He saluted in the direction of the Scorpio, hidden from view hundreds of kilometers above in the space swarming with Chitin craft. He spoke quietly to himself, “Fly true, Scorpio.”
A huge explosion in the distance caught Jack’s attention. Somewhere on the horizon, an energy plant had been destroyed. Its towering blast cloud raced skywards in a huge, gray billowing cloud, and then another went.
“Major Forge, this is Osho. I’ve got all the civilians aboard. I can’t see any more in the hangar. And I’ve got some very angry fat man here telling me to bring back his luggage.”
Jack smiled to himself. “Tell the fat man to get the luggage himself, but you are leaving. Do you copy that, Osho? Take sixth squad and leave.”
“I can’t leave the battalion, sir,” Osho said.
“The people on that transport will need you more than we do. You know that sixth squad is the best squad in the battalion. You are a capable leader, Osho. Take care of them. Take care of the civilians. Go now. Good luck.”
“Good luck, sir,” Osho said. “Sixth squad departing.”
Jack looked to the wide, tree-lined boulevard leading to the entrance of the capital hangar facility. Hundreds of Chitin soldiers were stalking forward. Hydras filled the sky. Then, rising from the hangar behind him, Jack saw the huge transport ship lifting off. A flight of Hydras ignored the huge, pale ship as it rose skyward.
Jack received a communication from the Marine general aboard his transport ship. It was text only. Jack read it quietly.
All Marines evacuate Eros by any and all means, by order of the Marine general.
Jack read it again. To leave in a ship with inadequate supplies and no chemical cloak was suicide. To stay and fight was the only chance of survival. Jack looked at his battalion in the scarred battlefield below—broken fences, plasma arc impact craters, and the scattered luggage of a thousand abandoned civilians. Jack knew he had to stay and fight.
“Jack.”
The voice on his communicator lifted his spirits.
“Sarah,” Jack said. “Are you safe?”
“I am. I’m with the Fleet Intelligence Service on a transport ship. We are past the Chitin armada and heading out of the system. I’ll be out of communicator range soon. Listen, Jack. I know where you are. They wouldn’t let me transmit the cloak production procedure to you. Worried the Chits will intercept the message. But, Jack, if you find my old workshop, I’ve left details on the method for you to find. It’s hidden in plain sight. You’ll know it when you see it.”
Jack looked out at the Chitin soldiers covering the ground in the far distance, slowly closing in on his position.
“Good luck, Sarah,” he said.
And then the channel cracked out of range and was lost.
Jack climbed down from his observation tower. He opened a battalion-wide channel.
“Attention, Marines. As far as we know, we are the last offensive force left on Eros. We are outnumbered and outgunned, but we know this enemy, we know their capabilities. We will continue to fight them as long as we have breath in our lungs and ammunition in our rifles. There are people out there who are going to need our help. We will defend them as best we can for as long as we can.”
Jack stood and looked at his battalion. If he was going to maintain the battalion’s combat effectiveness, he would have to lead them better than ever before. He knew he could lead them, and he knew they would fight. Jack had no doubt about the Chitins’ capabilities. He had no doubt about his own capabilities either. If he was going to stay here on Eros, he would have to fight. He would fight. He was Major Jack Forge of the Scorpio Battalion. He had forged a perfect trap, but now he was trapped himself.
Forged by War
1
A fresh wave of Chitin Hydras came racing over the smoldering ruins of the capital, black smoke and dust swirling in their wake like the wings of a giant black bird. Fires burned in the ruined shells of city towers, standing like massive torches. Looking out at the approaching wave of Hydras from a rubble-filled crater, Jack Forge was already planning his next move.
It had been over an hour since Jack had seen anyone other than a Marine from Scorpio Battalion. The afternoon was presently warm, and the street cafés should have been filled with people enjoying the day. The smashed streets were empty now, though. All the civilians and military personnel were either on a transport out of the system or in hiding somewhere on the devastated planet of Eros.
“Take cover!” Jack called out. The call was taken up by the battalion commanders and then the squad leaders, rippling around the area as the Hydras raced in.
Jack pressed himself into the rubble. The sound of the enemy spitz cannons and the plasma arcs smashed the broken ground. A Marine lying next to Jack looked anxiously as the Hydra raced overhead and away toward the darkening horizon.
“Easy, Marine,” Jack said to the man, and with the latest danger past, he stood and shouted.
“Move! On your feet, Marines! Move!”
Scorpio Battalion broke cover. All around, the Marines clambered out of their hiding places and ran. They were heading away from the center of the city that was already swarming with the enemy ground troops, the massive Chitin soldiers eerily scuttling, their tentacle-like limbs thrashing.
Jack hoped that the edge of the city, amongst the sprawling housing complexes and long avenues, would provide cover for his battalion. They were looking to him for leadership and he had made his call: Scorpio Battalion was to leave the city.
A forward scout came running back. Jack watched him come closer, leaping over the rubble and weaving between smashed street-level transports.
“Major Forge,” the scout said, gasping for breath. “Chitins to the west, sir. About five kilometers out. They are moving dead slow. I saw a group putting up resistance. Civilians.” The Marine dropped his head. “They didn’t last long, sir.”
Jack looked to the west. If the Chits were moving in from the western suburbs, it was a safe bet that they were also moving in on the other flanks too. If they were moving slow, it was so they could check every square meter of the city and dig out every last living human. After the evacuation of Eros, there should have been few civilians left, but Jack knew many had been left behind.
A shout came in from the northern edge of the battalion’s formation.
“Incoming Hydras! Take cover!”
Jack ran to the wall of a low-level office building and pressed himself against it.
“What do we do, Major?” the scout asked.
Jack had been an officer in the Fleet Marines for some time and he had led Marines of Scorpio Battalion against the Chitin forces on many occasions, but now he was stranded on Eros. The fleet was gone, the Marine service was gone, and now he was the highest-ranking Marine on the planet. For the first time in over a year, Jack wished there was someone who could tell him what to do.
He was lost in a broken city. Jack had visited the capital several times as a young man but did not know the city. He was only a boy from a small town bound by wide yellow fields. He was trying to get back to the open spaces he knew, but he was trapped here and in command of a battalion of anxious and frightened Marines. They had all been abandoned. They needed a leader. As much as Jack was surprised by it, the leader was him. They looked to him for leadership. Jack would not abandon them.
“Take cover, Marine,” Jack said calmly. He heard the drive systems of the Hydras roaring in the hot city air.
The Hydras raced over head, their weapons blasting the already smashed city. Gray dust billowed up in massive clouds, swept along by the rush of air that followed the ships.
Jack watched them race away to the south.
“What do we do now, sir?” the Marine asked.
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Jack climbed to his feet. “Stay down,” he said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. Then Jack walked along the quiet street, calling out in a harsh whisper.
“Hold position. Stay in cover.” The Marines looked up at Jack as he walked from one team to another.
“Pass the word,” Jack said to the huddled men and women around him. “Company commanders on me now.”
Jack walked over to a building with its large bottom window blasted out. He stepped through the doorway. The building had recently been an office and there were a few scattered chairs and desks. He turned a chair right way up and positioned it at the desk.
“Doing a spot of housekeeping, Jack?”
Jack turned at the sound of his old friend’s voice. Sam Torent climbed through the smashed window.
“Sam,” Jack said. The sight of him gave Jack a welcome confidence boost. “Take a seat.” Jack pointed at a chair lying on its side amongst the smashed office equipment.
Torent picked up the chair and dropped it on its feet. He wiped the rubble off the desk and sat down with his feet up, leaned back in the chair, and waved his right arm in a wide circle, stretching and flexing it as if to shake off fatigue. Jack knew it was Torent’s prosthetic arm and it was probably starting to feel uncomfortable.
The sound of boots on the shattered glass caught Jack’s attention. Walking along the front of the smashed window was Commander Bevan. She stopped on the sidewalk and looked in.
“Bevan here, sir,” she said.
Jack invited her in with a nod.
“Stuart is just coming now, sir,” Bevan said, pointing along the street.
Jack sat at the desk as Stuart Laidlaw, Commander of Boa Company, came rushing through the door.
“Hydras!” he shouted. “Cover.”
Bevan ducked under the desk. Jack and Torent remained seated. The Hydra’s drive system disturbed the dust on the desk, and the desk began to vibrate. The dust danced, creating a vibrating pattern that might have looked pretty in another time and place.
“I think we’re in good enough cover, Erin,” Jack said, pulling Commander Bevan out from under the furniture. “As good as we’re gonna get, anyway.”
Laidlaw picked up a chair and brought it to the desk. He sat down heavily.
The cut on Laidlaw’s forehead and temple was wide and long. The blood had dried on his cheek and around his ear, but the wound was still fresh.
“You’re wounded,” Jack said.
“Stings a bit,” Laidlaw said.
“Why isn’t it covered, Commander?” Jack said.
“Lost the bandage a few minutes ago diving for cover, sir,” Laidlaw said.
Jack fixed Laidlaw with a stern look. “Cover it now, Stuart,” Jack said firmly.
Bevan pulled out a med-kit and handed it to Laidlaw.
“My arm hurts, sir,” Torent said with a cheeky grin, flexing his prosthetic arm.
“We’re going to be caught in a trap before long,” Jack said. “Chits closing in from the west, probably coming in on all sides. Chits in the air too. They are hunting down every living person and we are not going to be able to evade them for much longer.”
Jack looked around. Torent took his feet off the desk and sat straight. Bevan held a hand to her mouth. Laidlaw flushed his wound with sanitizer and pressed a bandage to it. All three looked to Jack.
“I didn’t want to do this, but I think it’s going to be our best chance. We have to split up.”
The three commanders nodded in silence. Together they were a powerful fighting force, but they were too many to continue to hide.
The sudden noise from Jack’s communicator put everyone immediately on edge. A group of Marines came to the smashed open window and looked in. Jack turned the volume down on his communicator.
“Who’s using a communicator?” Bevan said. “They are going to get found.”
Jack listened to the voice, stammering in fear, as it came over the weak communication channel.
“I need help.”
It was the voice of a young man.
“I’ve got the communicator to work, but the power supply is not great. I don’t know how long I can keep talking.”
“Turn it off, you fool,” Bevan said.
“I’m at the base of the capital orbital elevator. If anyone has a ship, if anyone can get me off Eros...”
The channel went dead.
The orbital elevator was on the southern edge of the capital on the equator of Eros. The elevator had somehow remained undamaged in the attack, until now.
Jack shouted out to the Marines gathered outside the window.
“Find an elevated position and investigate the orbital elevator. Go.”
Two of the Marines dashed to the other side of the street and into a tall building.
Jack ran a finger through the dust on the table. He began to draw a rough outline of the city in the dust.
The battalion was too small to take on the Chits in a stand-up fight, but too big to sneak around as a group. The three companies might be able to move more stealthily if they acted alone.
“We can’t get out of the city,” Jack said, running his fingers through the dust. “We can’t hide much longer. We need to plan our escape.”
A Marine outside the window called out.
“Lookout in position, sirs,” the Marine said.
“Can they see the elevator?” Jack asked.
The Marine looked up to the lookout and made a series of exaggerated hand signals. He then reported back.
“Chitin Hydras converging on the elevator tower. They are firing on the tower. Something else. A Chitin Leviathan coming down. Just beyond the horizon.”
“That’s only eight kilometers away,” Laidlaw said.
“Leviathan is firing on the orbital tower. Plasma arcs. The elevator is coming apart at the base.”
Jack picked a drone out of his pocket and threw it into the air. It flew out of the window and into the sky. Jack held his arm onto the desk and activated his wrist-mounted holostage. The image of the Leviathan firing at the orbital elevator tower appeared. Jack watched as the base of the tower crumbled under the assault.
He zoomed in and watched as the base disintegrated. Then the tower pulled away from the ground, the structure freed from its link to the planet. It began to climb slowly, then raced away with increasing speed, vanishing skyward.
Jack brought his drone back and tucked it away. The communicator crackled again. Another voice this time, afraid and alone.
“I heard your message. I can’t get to you. There is one of those huge Chitin warships on the ground not far from here. It has settled over the capital stadium. There are thousands of Chits everywhere, and smaller Chitin ships flying around. I’m hiding in a tower block. I can see it all. I was waiting for the big ship to leave, but it looks like it is some sort of Chitin base. The ship is attaching itself to the ground. It looks like it is...”
The communication fell silent.
“Why do they keep using their communicators?” Bevan said.
“They don’t know the Chits can locate the signal origin,” Laidlaw said.
“Hydras!” a Marine shouted.
Jack leaned back in his chair. He watched the dust drawing of his city vibrate as the Hydras passed by.
“Listen up, Marines,” Jack said.
Torent, Bevan, and Laidlaw leaned in.
“This is what we’re going to do.”
2
Commander Bevan ran along the wide city street with Adder Company. The forward scout raised a hand. A flight of Hydras was sweeping in from the north. Bevan took cover next to a burnt-out ground transport.
Checking with her field scanner, she watched her company conceal themselves around the deserted streets. The lone Chitin Hydra raced over their heads. Bevan waited a moment, then clambered to her feet and started running.
All around her, the Marines of Adder were getting to their feet and running. Bevan felt the fatigue creep over her. Only tw
enty-four hours ago she had been on the Marine deck of the Scorpio, preparing assist the evacuation of Eros. Now she was stranded on the planet with no way to escape, unless she could find a transport.
The capital evacuation ship hangar was still a few kilometers away. Under normal conditions, she could move her company there in an hour. The Marines could advance at speed and still fight a battle at the end of it, but now, with the light failing and the constant appearance of Chitin Hydra craft in the sky, Adder Company’s progress was painfully slow.
A scout sent back another message that a Hydra craft was hovering in the street ahead. Bevan took cover at the side of the road next to a city information point that was somehow undamaged while all around it, transports, windows, and walls lay smashed and broken.
The signal came back down to Commander Bevan that the Hydra was holding position.
Bevan bit her lip. One Hydra was no threat to her company. With a surprise attack from cover, the Hydra would fall to her company’s fire, but that would give away their position. She needed to make it to the civilian spaceport undetected if she was to stand a chance of carrying out the major’s orders. She needed to find a ship if anyone was going to get off Eros.
“What now, sir?” David Jarret, the leader of 3rd squad, asked.
Bevan pulled out her field scanner and looked to the distance. She could just make out the swirling dust kicked up by the hovering Hydra, then she saw a glimpse of the hull as the Hydra drifted upward.
“Erin,” Jarret said testily. “What now?”
Bevan tucked her field scanner away and turned to Jarret. “Move through the buildings and evade the Chit.”
“We can take down one Hydra,” Jarret said. He stood up and looked to the distant craft.
Bevan pulled Jarret to the ground. “We evade the Chit and continue toward our target destination. Is that clear?”
Jarret fixed Bevan with a stare. He still resented the fact that Bevan had secured the promotion to Commander of Adder Company over him. He seethed resentment with every word.
Jack Forge, Fleet Marine Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9) Page 75
