Jack spotted another set of Chitin teeth and the horror of what he was seeing came over him. The Chitin crew was piled in a heap, their bodies partially melted together. Jack looked closer and could see that the Chitin soldiers’ outer shells had fused together, presumably in the fierce heat created during the crash landing. At least two of the Chitins were still alive, at least partially so.
Jack needed a headcount. He knew the Hydra-class craft could hold up to eight Chitins. He looked again at the black mass. It could be the eight Chits melted together. The only way to be sure was to pull them apart and count the dead. First thing to do was to make sure they were all dead.
“Tyler,” Jack said, looking over to the frightened Marine. “Get in there and put a pulse rifle round in anything that looks like a Chitin head.”
Tyler nodded and nervously stepped into the breach. She raised her pulse rifle.
“Not too close, Marine,” Jack said, but it was too late.
The rigid tentacle stabbed out from the melted mass of Chitin bodies and pierced Tyler’s suit at the chest. She fell forward as the tentacle was pulled away, blood spurting from the wound. Jack reached out and grabbed Tyler to stop her falling deeper into the Hydra’s interior, and closer to the melted Chitin mass. He pointed his pistol around the corner at the black mass and fired a handful of rounds.
The rigid tentacle stabbed forward again, and again, cutting into Tyler’s suit. As she fell from Jack’s grip, her life signs dropped to critical and then she flat-lined. Blood loss and major organ failure was reported to Jack via Louise Tyler’s medical package.
Jack moved back into cover and gasped for air. He played back a recording taken with his helmet cam and saw the black mass of melted Chits and the one nearest the breach stabbing out. Jack fired blindly into the mass. He peeked and saw more of the tentacles writhing about, stimulated by the appearance of Jack and his team.
Jack studied the image taken with his helmet cam. There were clearly several Chitin soldiers and they were clearly melted together. They were so helplessly fused that movement appeared impossible. The tentacles could writhe about and they could still form the stabbing tentacle, but they appeared unable to activate their plasma spears. Jack wasn’t going to take another chance. He pulled a grenade from his belt and set it to high-yield incendiary.
“Move back,” Jack called to his team. He grabbed Tyler’s boot and dragged her body free from the Hydra, then he tossed the small grenade inside.
Intense heat and light poured out of the Hydra’s interior. It lit up the asteroid, the light glinting off the walls of the trench that the Hydra had dug through the asteroid’s jagged surface.
Jack looked into the inferno. He set filters on his helmet to allow him to see into the light. The Chitins were writhing in the intense heat. Every tentacle seemed alive now but the bodies appeared quite dead, with only the slight rasping of the round mouthparts from one of the Chitin soldiers as evidence of life.
Then the mouthparts melted, and the tentacles burned away in the heat. The black mass of fused Chitin soldiers became a white-hot blob of melted matter.
The light died away after a few moments, but Jack’s suit warned him of the intense heat that remained. He stepped forward cautiously and looked at the melted heap. He scanned the mass and tried to identify individual Chitin soldiers. However many Chits had been in there, it was now impossible to tell.
Jack reported the elimination of two confirmed Chits in a crashed Hydra and the loss of one Marine. The response from Fleet came back almost instantly, informing Jack to mark the Hydra’s location and proceed on task. With no mention of how to deal with the fallen Marine, Jack decided to bring the body of Louise Tyler with him so she could be returned to Eros for a proper burial. For all her faults, she didn’t deserve to be left alone on this asteroid.
Jack called Attah and Drake over to collect Tyler’s body and return her to the tac boat. Jack called Garcia to join him.
“We have still got a lot of this asteroid to cover,” Jack said. “We will proceed in a search line, ten meters apart. Copy?”
Garcia nodded. “Copy,” he said. His voice was calm but slightly muted. He might be indifferent to his life as a Marine, but he was not heartless, and he had just seen a Marine fall to the Chits. Many had fallen and although the Chitins had seemed to have pulled back from the inner system, there still were threats and Marines were still falling victim to their hated and deadly enemy.
Jack noted that Attah and Drake had returned Tyler’s body in the tac boat and were now sitting idly by.
“Marines,” Jack called out. “Spread out. Form a search line. Let’s clear this rock.”
2
Resting in a tac boat with the body of a fallen Marine was not easy for Jack. He had lost Marines on operations before and he was sure Louise Tyler would not be the last fatality in this war. It was true that the Chitins had fallen back, but the asteroid belt still held the scattered remnants of their once massive fleet, and every Chitin was a threat.
Jack looked the meat suit holding Tyler’s dead body strapped into the seat at the back of the small tac boat. The Marine Extreme Environment Tactical suit’s acronym had always been a dark joke amongst the Marines, but Jack didn’t find it funny today. The meat suit was set to preserve Tyler’s remains until she could be delivered to her loved ones for burial. Jack checked her files. She had no next of kin recorded on her file. She was more like Jack than she would ever have known.
With no loved ones to take care of her body, it would fall to her battalion commander to conduct the funeral ceremony aboard a ship of the line. Scorpio Battalion currently had no commanding officer, not since the death of Major Griff. Jack would offer to take the sad duty himself, and as she was a Marine in his company, Cobra, he was the obvious next choice.
The remaining Marines of Jack’s little team were complaining again. They sat in a huddle and ate their sticky ration blocks. Jack understood their complaints, although he would never agree with them. The tac boat was getting smaller by the day. At every rest period, the walls seemed to close in a little more. With the latest casualty of the war sitting only a few meters away, the walls seemed to have closed in even more tightly.
“Get some sleep,” Jack called over to the Marines. He knew they needed rest. They would be on this operation for at least another two weeks before they would be back aboard the Scorpio. Sleep was the one place where the Marines could escape the confines of the small ship.
Jack had requested entertainment VR programs for use during the rest periods, to give his team a chance to escape the cramped tac boat, and each other, for a short time at least. The request had been denied. Fleet Command wanted the asteroid belt checked for any Chitin presence as quickly as possible. Jack knew the reason for the haste—the fleet was low on resources and the asteroid belt was the best source of materials. Industrial activity in the belt had to resume as soon as possible if the fleet was to refit and rearm while the Chitins were absent. Who knew for how long they would be away. They may have been scared off, but no one believed they were gone for good.
Jack moved the pilot seat back as far from the console as it would go and stretched his legs out. With the tac boat pressurized, he could remove his helmet, but he was reluctant to give permission to remove the entire suit. They might be called to action at any moment. He loosened a few fastenings and made the suit a little more comfortable.
The meat suit was light and robust, with a hundred built-in features, from the on-board medical package to scanners and a wrist-mounted holostage. The suit was designed to protect the wearer from extreme environments ranging from the vacuum of space to the high-density atmospheres of some gas giants. It could sustain and protect a Marine on prolonged deployments. It was a marvel of engineering, but it was not a leisure suit. Jack tried to make himself as comfortable as he could.
Jack accessed the flight deck console and called up a holoimage of Cobra’s deployment around the asteroid belt. He had deployed every tac
boat at his disposal, and a few more that he had commandeered from other companies. The ships of Cobra Company formed Task Force One, and they were spread out in a line across the belt from the sunward edge to the outer system edge. They were moving in a coordinated sweep, covering every square meter of the belt, searching out any remaining Chits. Even with four other task forces sweeping their own quadrants of the belt, the operation was going to take weeks.
Jack spotted one tac boat from Task Force One on the holoimage that was way ahead of the rest. Most were in a roughly uniform line across the belt, but one on Jack’s starboard side, the one nearest to the outer system edge of the belt, was way ahead by several kilometers. Jack zoomed in on the advanced ship and called up the team’s data.
The tac boat was under the leadership of Jack’s old friend, squad leader of 6th squad, Sam Torent. Jack opened a channel.
The image of Sam Torent appeared on the holostage. He was reclined in the pilot seat, his feet up on the console. He was wearing a gray vest, his meat suit discarded. He held his prosthetic right arm in his left hand and had it slung over his shoulder.
“Jacky,” he said cheerfully. “What can sixth squad do for you?”
Jack had known Sam Torent since day one of his Marine career. Sam had always treated Jack with a casual and familiar manner. Jack was pleased that Sam always showed the proper respect for his rank when any others were present, but when they were alone, Torent was informal to say the least.
“Sam,” Jack said sternly. “You’re out of your suit?”
Torent waved the prosthetic arm at Jack. “My arm is itching like crazy. I needed a break from the kravin thing.”
Sam Torent had lost his arm in an encounter with the Chits on a stealth mission led by Jack. Jack knew Torent had problems with the prosthetic. He didn’t complain about it, but he did remove it at every opportunity. As much as Jack had sympathy for Torent and his uncomfortable prosthetic, this was not a suitable opportunity to remove it. Jack’s standing order for the operation was for all personnel to remain suited, only the removal of helmets was permitted, and only during official rest periods.
“What if you come into contact with a Chit, Sam?” Jack said. “You won’t have time to get suited up.”
“There’s nothing out here, Jack,” Torent said. “You scared them all away.” Torent grinned. He reached over his shoulder with the prosthetic and gave his back a scratch while letting out a deep and satisfied sigh.
“I can have you returned to the Scorpio for a medical checkup if you can’t handle it,” Jack said.
Torent sat up in his chair. He lay the prosthetic arm on the flight console and sat back. “Watch this, Jack,” he said.
The fingers of the detached prosthetic began to wriggle and then crawl forward over the console, dragging the rest of the arm behind it. Torent pointed at the arm as it seemed to move independently.
“I’ve been practicing. I can activate it from a few meters away now.”
Jack couldn’t help a small smile creep over his face as much as he tried to maintain his composure and his authority.
Torent called the arm to him and the fingers crawled over to his waiting hand. He picked up the arm by the wrist and held it aloft in triumph.
“Enough, Sam,” Jack said through his stifled laughter. “Reattach your arm and suit up. Copy?”
“Copy that, Sir,” Torent said with a casual but reconciled tone. He positioned the prosthetic next to the housing on the end of his arm. The black tendrils of the prosthetic found their way into their housing and the arm pulled itself on tight. Torent pulled the meat suit back on.
“One other thing,” Jack said. “You are getting too far ahead. We need to maintain formation for an effective sweep.”
Jack noticed the flicker of frustration on Torent’s face.
“Do we want to clear the belt or not, Jack?” Torent asked.
In the background of the holoimage, over Torent’s left shoulder, Jack saw Osho and Terry standing at the rear of the tac boat. They were listening in to the conversation, and Torent was on the verge of becoming insubordinate.
Jack didn’t need to explain his reasons to Torent, although he was always ready to discuss tactics with his Marines, particularly his squad leaders, but Torent was already disobeying a standing order by removing his meat suit, even if he did have the unique circumstance of his prosthetic arm. But now Torent was questioning the deployment and willfully moving ahead of the formation.
“Return to formation, Sam,” Jack said. He spoke calmly. There was no need to pick a fight with Torent.
“I can just wait here for you to catch up,” Torent said with a smile.
Jack was losing patience. It had been a long operation and they were only halfway through. he spoke to Torent slowly and firmly.
“Back in formation, Marine.”
Torent slumped back in his chair. “So you want me to sweep the same section of belt again after the rest period, is it?”
Jack guessed that everyone was feeling the strain, but his orders were not a matter for debate. He repeated himself with the same calm tone.
“Return to formation,” Jack said ,but there was a slight edge to his voice that he hoped Torent would detect, an edge that made clear the discussion was over.
“Yes, sir,” Torent said. He leaned forward and tapped a few controls on the flight console.
“Good work with your sweep so far, Sam,” Jack said. “Does your team have everything it needs?”
Osho, partially hidden in the shadows at the rear of Torent’s tac boat, shouted, “We could use a new squad leader.”
Jack laughed. “You’re stuck with Sam for the time being, Osho,” Jack said.
The search signal on the flight console beeped. Jack moved toward the console and tapped the scan panel. A Chitin contact had drifted into range.
“I’ve got a contact,” Jack said. “Moving to investigate. Forge out.”
The holoimage of Torent flickered away to be replaced by a map scan of the local area. In the distance, on the edge of sensor range, was a Chitin signal. It was drifting across the asteroid belt at a constant speed. As Jack moved his seat closer to the flight console, he tapped at the controls and set an intercept course.
“Listen up, team,” Jack called back to the Marines resting behind. “Chitin contact up ahead. Intercept in five minutes. Suit up and stand ready. I want the boat depressurized and ready for extra vehicular action. Copy?”
The team replied with as much enthusiasm as Jack had come to expect from them—unmotivated and lazy. Jack hoped they would find some focus soon. Maybe it would take a face-to-face encounter with a Chitin soldier that was determined to kill them to motivate them. If that didn’t wake them up, nothing would.
Watching the holostage intently, Jack felt his heart beating with anticipation, with excitement, with dread. He had faced the Chitins so many times he had lost count, but the feelings never died.
The image of the Chitin craft appeared on the flight console’s holostage. The image was small but unmistakable. The craft appeared to be tumbling through space. It was traveling at a low speed, unpowered and out of control. Jack moved in closer.
With the Hydra now within a kilometer, Jack could make it out through the view screen. It appeared as a tiny, glinting speck in the vastness of space. As it tumbled, the light from the distant sun flickered off its smooth surface.
“What do you want to do, sir?” It was Garcia. He had stepped toward the flight deck and was looking through the view screen. Drake and Attah were standing at the tac boat door. Jack noted with some satisfaction that all had their helmets on. He checked the data overlay and confirmed that his small team was all sealed inside their Marine Extreme Environment Tactical suits, their Fleet Marine pulse rifles slung across their backs.
Jack studied all available data. The Chitin craft posed no immediate danger. It was just another target to be destroyed.
“It looks like it’s unpowered,” Jack said. He activated the t
ac boat’s cannon. The four hail cannons were capable of firing a thousand kinetic hail rounds per second. It was devastating against the Chitin soldiers and the lightly-armored Hydra craft. The Chitin’s tactics relied on numbers and their massive Leviathans. A tac boat hail cannon would not make a dent in a Leviathan, but it would tear a Hydra in two with a short burst. The Hydra’s best defense was its maneuverability. This craft was adrift, tumbling randomly through space. It would not pose any challenge at all.
Jack acquired a target lock on the Hydra and fired. A stream of orange hail raced across to the Hydra and sliced through its hull. The Hydra broke apart. Jack watched closely as the tumbling rotation caused the hull to tear open further. Then, spilling out of the Hydra came a Chitin soldier. Jack was suddenly alert to the danger that even one Chitin soldier could pose. Jack watched carefully and finally determined that the soldier was surely dead.
Then the creature moved.
The Chitin writhed in the blackness of space. It orientated itself and faced the tac boat, looking straight at it. Jack felt the Chitin’s gaze fall on him, a gaze from behind the smooth black head with its round rasping teeth.
The movements that the adrift Chitin made were utterly futile. It thrashed its tentacles in the vacuum of space, but that only served to send it tumbling even more wildly.
The cannon was useful in landing operations against massed Chitin forces, but its targeting system was pinpoint accurate and could pick out a single Chit at a hundred kilometers. Jack acquired the new target and let off a short burst. The Chitin soldier was obliterated by the burst of cannon fire.
Then Jack spotted a new target on the holostage. The view zoomed in on the broken Hydra. Another Chitin was inside. It was moving over the broken hull and seemed to be readying itself to pounce.
The moment that Jack had spotted it and identified the potential danger was the very moment that the Chitin soldier leaped from the broken Hydra. It raced across the space between its broken craft and Jack’s little tac boat.
Forged to Hunt (Jack Forge, Fleet Marine Book 7) Page 2
