Forged to Hunt (Jack Forge, Fleet Marine Book 7)

by James David Victor

  “Okay, then. Let’s get to work.”

  8

  The drones returned to Jack at his position where Drake and Attah had fallen. Jack sent them sweeping out, low across the surface. Within minutes, they had swept the asteroid again. Still no sign of the Chit that had attacked them. Jack crawled over to the faint tracks on the surface, keeping low. The tracks led off in the direction where the single plasma spear had come from, but the tracks had no obvious point of origin.

  Jack called up the drone scan data from when they had first moved over this point. The area was clear. How could the Chit just appear out of nowhere? Jack touched the track mark. The chitin had been moving so lightly it had barely left a mark. Jack spotted a line in the dust. A straight line. Jack traced it with his finger. He moved the light gray dust aside. A few centimeters under the dust, Jack found a hard surface. He brushed the dust aside and revealed the hull of a Chitin craft.

  Jack revealed a hatchway to a Chitin craft. He pulled his pulse pistol and activated the electron blade. He pressed the blade into the join between hull and hatch and cut along the edge.

  The hatch slid open. Jack called a drone to him and sent it inside. The data streamed through to Jack’s meat suit and he could see inside. It was clearly a Chitin craft, the walls covered in short tentacles and polyp arrangements, but unlike the active Chitin craft Jack had seen, this one was dull and lifeless. It was an unpowered craft.

  As the drone moved deeper into the craft, Jack saw that a large jagged rock of the same pale appearance as the rest of the asteroid was protruding into the craft with the hull burst inwards.

  “It is a Chitin craft for sure,” Jack said. “Looks like it was a crash landing.” He let Garcia access the drone data. “That rock has punched clear through the hull.”

  “They must have come down hard,” Garcia said.

  The drone moved slowly around the dark interior. Then in the shadows, Jack saw a familiar image.

  Garcia jumped as the sight of the Chitin soldier came out of the dark. Jack grabbed Garcia’s arm to stop him scurrying backwards.

  “It’s a lifeless corpse. Look.”

  The Chitin toppled forward and fell slowly to the deck. The drone moved back to let the Chitin soldier fall. There behind the first Chitin was another.

  Jack sent the drone forward to bump into the Chitin in the shadow. The drone’s scanner imaged the interior and returned the data to Jack.

  “Seven dead Chitins,” he said. “And the size of the craft looks to be a Hydra-class vessel. The crew is all dead, except for one.”

  Garcia looked to the horizon. He pointed with his pulse rifle. “That one,” he said coldly.

  “That’s right,” Jack agreed. “But it won’t be around for much longer. You ready to move out?”

  Garcia nodded. “Ready, Commander,” he confirmed.

  Jack clambered to his feet, cautiously watching the horizon. “Keep the communication channel open,” Jack said. “Spread out. Fifty meters. Go.”

  Garcia got to his feet and moved off quickly, keeping low and watching the horizon.

  “I’m sending the drones ahead,” Jack said.

  Jack had a drone study the tracks left by the Chitin soldier and then set the drone to follow the markings. The rest of the small swarm spread out around Jack and Garcia to watch for danger.

  The drone following the Chitin trail stopped. Jack looked at the drone’s data. The tracks had vanished.

  “Is it another buried ship?” Garcia said.

  Jack hoped not. If there were more than a handful of Chitins on this asteroid, then he and Garcia might not survive for very long.

  Then the drone stopped delivering data.

  “Get down,” Jack said as he dropped to the ground. The plasma spear came from low on the horizon, narrowly missing Jack as he hit the ground.

  “Commander?” Garcia called. “Are you okay?”

  “Stay down,” Jack said. “We’ve got it. It has given away its position.”

  The last location of the drone following the tracks was just up ahead. Jack studied the visual data from the drone taken moments before it was destroyed.

  “That drone was right on top of it,” Jack said, “The Chitin destroyed the drone and then fired at us. Stay down, Garcia. Keep still.”

  Jack applied various filters across the visual data and viewed the trail in a variety of spectral forms. The track did stop. Jack rescanned the data over and over and began to see the faint outline of the Chitin soldier in the dusty surface.

  “There,” Jack said. “See it?”

  Garcia muttered in agreement and then after another few moments, he replied excitedly. “Yes, I see it. It’s in the dirt. It’s hiding in the dirt.”

  Jack ran his fingers through the gray dust in front of him. It was deep, but not deep enough to bury a Chitin soldier.

  Jack sent a drone high above the point where the drone had been destroyed. Zooming in on the spot, Jack could see the Chitin soldier’s outline pressed against the ground. It had flattened itself against the ground and covered itself in the dust.

  “Got it,” Jack said. “Keep a close eye on it and move in. Stay low. If you have a clear shot, take it.”

  The image from the drone was swamped by a sudden bright light as a plasma spear slammed in to it. The feed was lost and Jack spotted the bright flash against the black of space as the drone was destroyed.

  Jack’s communicator burst into life. Jack, startled, dropped to the ground. He berated himself for reacting like a startled creature.

  “Jack, are you okay?” It was Sam Torent. “The whole of Task Force One is standing by to offer assistance.”

  “Hold your position, Sam,” Jack said. “I’ve encountered a single Chitin soldier. It’s isolated and alone. My team is moving in now.”

  “Sir,” Garcia called out. “Movement.”

  Jack looked toward the last known location of the Chit. A clear outline of a Chitin soldier appeared on the horizon, framed against the black of space. The outline was familiar, but the color was unusual. It was the same pale gray as the asteroid’s dusty surface.

  “It’s giving away its position, sir. I’m taking the shot.”

  Garcia fired his pulse rifle from the prone position. Jack aimed his pulse pistol and fired a few rapid shots at the distant pale Chitin soldier.

  Garcia was up on one knee and firing another blast. Jack moved forward a few steps, dropped to a knee and, with a quick but careful aim, he fired another few rounds.

  Garcia was standing up, pulse rifle at his shoulder, firing several rounds for every step he took toward the target.

  “Keep down, Garcia,” Jack called. He watched Garcia advance steadily, firing as he went. Jack got on his feet and walked toward the chitin on the horizon, pulse rounds flashing all around it. The Chitin raised a number of tentacles and they writhed around it.

  Jack knew he was too far out to be sure to hit the Chitin with his pulse pistol. He moved in closer. The Chitin soldier was backing away as Jack and Garcia moved in.

  “It’s trying to get away, sir,” Garcia said. He started moving faster, running toward the Chitin, pulse rifle pouring fired toward the Chit. The rounds went all around the Chitin, many of them slamming into the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust that began to obscure the pale soldier from sight.

  “Slow down, Garcia,” Jack called. He began to run and fire, trying to support Garcia’s lone attack. The dust was billowing up and the Chitin soldier was almost lost within its swirling clouds. Then the whole cloud lit up from within and a single plasma spear sliced out, slamming into Garcia’s chest.

  The medical data reported Garcia’s life signs failing. Jack dropped to the ground as a second plasma spear came shooting toward him. The silhouette of the Chitin within the dust cloud illuminated as light from the plasma spear defused through the dust hanging over the surface of BP-13.

  The med data streaming to Jack’s meat suit informed him of a fatality. Jack deactivated the med data si
gnal from Garcia. There was only one Marine left on this rock. Jack didn’t need to be distracted by med data.

  Jack grabbed a fistful of the dirt and brought his fist down hard on the surface of the asteroid. He had failed. He had brought this group of Marines out into the field with him to bring them up to the proper standard, but instead, he had gotten them all killed.

  But there was no time for self-pity. No time for sorrow. A Chitin soldier was on this asteroid and Jack’s only duty now was to ensure that it was destroyed.

  Jack looked up and saw the indistinct outline of the Chitin soldier in the dust cloud moving slowly away.

  In all his time fighting the Chitins, Jack had come to know them. They were relentless and bold. They threw themselves into battle with scant regard for their own safety. Their power was in their numbers, and they had used their numbers to overwhelm the human defenses time and again.

  But this Chitin was different. It was not rushing on mercilessly, fearlessly. It was keeping out of sight. It was hunting its prey. It was stalking and then striking from cover, before melting away into cover again.

  Jack felt unnerved by the new tactics, and he felt as if he was being watched.

  Pressing himself deeper into the loose gray soil of BP-13, Jack accessed the swarm of drones. Only a few still remained. Jack could search the asteroid for hours with his small number of drones and not catch sight of the Chitin.

  Jack needed support. He opened a channel to the Sam Torent.

  The dead channel was unexpected. Jack re-opened the channel. It was silent. Jack reset the channel to all squad leaders in the task force. Again, nothing but silence.

  Running a diagnostic program on his meat suit’s communicator, Jack hoped to fix the connection problem swiftly. The diagnostic program returned its results. The communicator relay on the tac boat was not transmitting.

  Jack didn’t know how it had happened, but the communicator was jammed. The Chit must have jammed it. There were three dead Marines on this asteroid, all of them with a fully functional meat suit. If the Chitin had accessed one of the communication units in one of the suits, it could have found a way to block Jack’s signal for help.

  Jack scanned the horizon with a growing sense of unease. He was trapped here with the Chitin, his enemy.

  “Defensive position,” Jack said to himself. “Establish a defensive position.” Jack accessed the drone data and called all the drones to monitor his surroundings, scanning for Chits within weapons range. He looked down at his only weapon, the pulse pistol. It was an adequate sidearm, but it lacked the range and accuracy of the pulse rifle. There was one in the tac boat. And that tac boat was the best place to establish a defensive position. It was good cover and had the powerful hail cannon that could hold back a hundred Chitins. Jack knew the boat was behind him and only a few kilometers away.

  The small swarm of drones came in and scanned the area. Jack checked the composite drone view on his wrist-mounted holostage. The area was clear. No signs of movement. But this Chit was cunning and could be hiding. Jack decided to sacrifice one of his drones to set off a seismic wave that might reveal the location of the Chit. He sent the small device hurtling to the ground. It impacted at a speed sufficient to set off a ground wave. The rest of the drones monitored the resulting shockwave.

  The image of Jack lying prone on the surface came back as a reflector in the ground wave data. If that Chit was anywhere nearby, it would be highlighted too.

  The data suggested that the way was clear. With caution, Jack began to get to his feet. He had the drone data feed on his helmet’s visor giving him an enhanced view of the surroundings in multiple spectral fields.

  Jack turned for the tac boat and sped off.

  The tac boat door was open, as Jack had left it. He approached cautiously. The drones swept around the perimeter and Jack sent one inside. It was empty. Jack went inside and closed the door.

  The small boat had been his home and base of operations for what felt like months. It had started to feel cramped but now, alone, it seemed vast and empty. He sat in the pilot seat ready to access the flight console. The communicator relay in the tac boat was much more powerful than the meat suit communicator and was able to transmit directly to Fleet Command and Control on Eros.

  Jack tapped away at the console and found it unresponsive. He tapped again. As he picked his gloved finger up off the console, he saw the thin strand of slime drawn up from the console. Then he noticed the shimmering sheen spread thinly and evenly across the panel. He hesitated. Then lowering his head to look obliquely across the console, he saw an unmistakable coating of slime, just like the substance Jack had seen on Chitin controls in their own craft.

  Drawing his gun and spinning around, Jack feared the Chitin was inside and already launching its attack. The tac boat was empty.

  “Lights up. Maximum illumination.”

  The light came up to a brightness greater than a summer’s day on the prairies of Eros. The tac boat had no place where the Chitin could hide. It was empty. Jack stood up and walked the few paces to the back.

  Jack realized suddenly that the boat was in fact totally empty. Where was the body of Louise Tyler? The fallen Marine had been strapped in the furthest seat back, waiting to be returned to the fleet. The body had been taken.

  The drone swarm outside detected movement on the horizon.

  “The Chit,” Jack said, and he stepped over to the hail cannon turret. Climbing up the few steps to the turret, he accessed the targeting display. The display was showing the point on the horizon where the drones had spotted the movement. Jack zoomed in the targeting display. Nothing. All the targeting display could show was the pale gray dusty surface of BP-13.

  Then the view was transformed into a sudden brightness. A plasma spear launched from the horizon.

  The impact rocked the tac boat. The interior lights flickered and the targeting display went blank. Damage reports flashed up on the hail cannon interface. One of the four cannons was damaged beyond use.

  Then another flash and another collision as yet another plasma spear slammed into the boat. Jack sent a drone out toward the location where the plasma spears were coming from. Jack had the view from the drone relayed to his helmet visor. The flash of light as the plasma spear struck the drone was so bright it was painful, and Jack clenched his eyes shut and turned his head as a reflex. He canceled the drone display before he opened his eyes again.

  Jack had the drone’s final data analyzed. The Chitin had been detected a moment before the plasma spear had been launched. The Chitin soldier was low to the ground and partially covered in the gray dust.

  Jack sent the rest of the drones high above the asteroid and attempted to firmly establish the Chitin’s location. If he was going to attack, he would have to know where this Chitin was.

  The drones were lost in rapid succession as they were blasted out of the black sky by a few well-aimed plasma spears. Jack withdrew the drones as quickly as he could, bringing them to cover. If he lost these drones, he would effectively lose his eyes, then he would struggle to win this duel.

  Only two drones came back and settled to the surface of BP-13, out of sight of the Chitin plasma spear.

  Then the plasma spears struck the tac boat again. Each one rocked the small boat and then, by the third or fourth, one burst through the light armor and exploded around the interior. Tiny, white-hot fires burned on the surfaces in small, fizzing and spinning beads of plasma. The smoke from the smoldering hull filled the ship.

  Another volley of plasma spears slammed into the boat and more burst through. Jack dived to the deck and took cover in the small recess in by the door. The view screen exploded as a plasma spear burst through the forward hull, shattering the view screen mounted above the flight console.

  Jack reached up to tap the door control panel, but at that moment, a plasma spear struck the central power distributer node and interrupted all power supplies. With the central power distributer node disabled, the tac boat was in da
nger of a power overload. The reactor core retarder would eventually fail and then, with the reactor coil fully polarized, the reactor would develop a meltdown cascade.

  The boat fell into partial darkness, only the burning plasma fires giving Jack a light to see by. Then the plasma fires were blotted out by the thick smoke that filled the interior.

  Jack flinched as a plasma spear blasted another hole out of the forward view screen before slamming into the deck next to him.

  The tac boat was a defensible position, if he could get a shot at the enemy. At the moment, the tac boat was an easy target and Jack was trapped inside.

  Activating his pulse pistol’s electron blade, Jack began to formulate his response. He jammed the blade into the base of the door and started to cut away the base clamps so he could push open the gull wing door.

  Jack knew that a plan was vital. He needed to have a clear set of objectives to follow if he was to stand a chance. First objective was to evacuate the tac boat. As the electron blade cut through the first clamp, he decided his second objective was to take cover behind the boat. Then Jack would send out the final two drones and acquire the target. Only then, after locating his enemy, could Jack engage and hope to destroy the lone Chit. For now, he needed to evade.

  Jack cut through the second base clamp and then pressed against the door. It moved up and away from the side of the boat, the movement clearly attracting the attention of the Chit. A plasma spear struck the side of the door and sent a shower of plasma fire raining down on him.

  Jack tumbled across the deck, dropped out of the doorway and down to the surface, throwing up a small puff of dust. A plasma spear struck the ground next to him and threw up another billowing cloud. Jack scurried across the ground to the rear of the tac boat and into cover.

  The fire from the plasma spears stopped. Jack sat, his back against the rear landing strut. He felt his heart beating in his chest. He made a concerted effort to control his breathing. He relaxed.

  Checking his weapon, Jack felt ill equipped for the challenge. Only a pulse pistol and a couple of drones at his disposal. He needed to get close enough to strike.