Marching off the deck, Thresh followed.
“This is a one-person job, Thresh,” Boyd said.
“If anyone can get a big enough bang out of the reactor on that old bus, it’s me,” Thresh said. “Captain?” She turned to Poledri.
The captain was enjoying himself, moving the ship from one firing position to another. The ship took a hit from the Skarak weapon, shaking the half-smile from his face.
Poledri waved them off the bridge without looking up. “Go. The pair of you. Kill that bastard.”
Boyd and Thresh ran along the corridors. Alarms were sounding. A whistle in the air suggested a minor hull breach somewhere.
“Are you really this desperate to get yourself killed?” Boyd asked Thresh as they came to the shuttle bay.
“Just want to make sure you don’t try to run out on us. There’s something not right about you.” Thresh smiled.
Bursting into the bay, the pair pulled on flight suits and squeezed into the bus. Boyd dropped into the pilot’s seat while Thresh went to the rear section.
“I’ll give you enough power to get us there,” Thresh said, “then this old bus is going to go out with a bang.”
Boyd watched the outer door open. The massive Skarak warship was twisting and turning, its blue beam firing at the two ships dancing around her. The hail cannons were just pinpricks on a giant.
“I will fly us directly at the primary weapon.” Boyd set off across to the void toward the massive Skarak ship.
One huge blast from the drive and then Boyd cut the power. The bus fell toward its target, thruster jets keeping it on track and avoiding the battling ships—a small, insignificant ship in a battle of giants.
The two Faction ships were small by comparison to the Skarak ship, and the bus was smaller still, and with no drive trail or energy signature, they were practically invisible.
The bus fell in closer to the large rapiers. Blue energy crackled deep inside the outer surface. It was as if the surface existed at several levels, and the blue energy seethed within.
“This old reactor only has a few million kilometers in her anyway,” Thresh said, stepping forward. She leaned over Boyd’s shoulder and looked out of the forward transparent composite, the rapiers of the Skarak ship all around.
“Let’s go,” Boyd said, standing up. He checked his suit and realized it was pointless at this stage. It either worked or it didn’t. There was no backup plan.
Boyd stepped over to the hatch and slid it open. He stepped out from the bus, Thresh grabbing his hand.
“Our combined thrust should be enough to get clear,” she said.
“Should be?” Boyd asked. He hit the suit’s thrust and looked back over his shoulder nervously.
The bus disappeared into the depths of the Skarak’s dark rapiers, and then a white flash lit them up, silhouetting the entire ship. It hung there for a moment of stillness in the dark.
And then the blast wave hit.
Boyd felt the blast like a hammer blow. His vision blurred, his suit began reporting malfunctions, and his life support was compromised. He only had a few minutes before he suffocated or froze to death.
Thresh was out for the count, her body limp next to him. He dragged her closer to him and pushed his suit’s thrusters to the limit.
Looking back, the Skarak ship was turning. Hail cannon fire still flickered over its black hull. And then it was gone, racing toward the outer asteroid sphere and away from the Scorpio System.
“This is Boyd. Thresh is out cold. I’ve only got a few minutes. Any chance of a pickup?”
The helmet speaker crackled to life and Boyd heard the delighted cheers from the flight deck of the Fist.
“Great job, Boyd,” Poledri said. “The Skarak have turned tail and are running. I’ll come about and pick you up. Hang tight. I’ll be there in a moment. Poledri out.”
As Boyd drifted, he saw Thresh’s eyes flicker to life again.
“Where are we?” she asked. She reached around Boyd and held him tight.
“Just floating,” Boyd said. “Awaiting pickup.”
“Did we win?” she asked in a sleepy, lazy, dreamlike tone.
“Not yet. I think the war has just begun,” Boyd said.
“Maybe we can have a rest before our next battle.” She rested her head against his, their helmets knocking lightly.
The Fist came racing in then turned to present its open shuttle bay. It swallowed the pair up. Artificial gravity caught them both and they fell to the deck as the hatch sealed behind them.
Boyd was back aboard the Odium Fist. Back with the Faction crew he had just saved. Saved for now, at least, but one day, he would destroy them. First, he needed to get close to Kitzov, then he would take down their leader, along with the crew of the Odium Fist.
Boyd was a Blue Star Marine, after all, and he was going to destroy the Faction.
16
Boyd sat in his cabin, the image of Major Featherstone hovering over his clandestine transmitter.
“I was this close,” Boyd said, holding his finger and thumb a centimeter apart. “This close to Kitzov.”
“It was good work, Sergeant,” Featherstone said. “No one has ever gotten that close. If the Skarak hadn’t had come into the picture, we would have Kitzov at the end of a rope by now.”
“Sir,” Boyd said. “The Skarak? Who are they? What do they want?”
“The tactical intelligence believes they were just observing us. As soon as we discovered them, they started to leave. They have been watching us, though. Studying us.”
“Does the tactical intelligence believe they are gone for good?”
Featherstone avoided the question.
“We heard about the Truth,” Featherstone said.
“It was an impossible situation, sir.”
“It’s a tough job, Boyd. It’s why you got it.”
“Maybe I should request extraction. If the Skarak come back, the Union is going to need good pilots.”
“Kitzov is still one of the most dangerous men, if not the most dangerous, in the Scorpio System. We can’t fight the Skarak and the Faction. Taking Kitzov out is still a priority for the Union, and you are still our best chance of achieving that. You are to hold your position and try to get close to this Faction Leader. Without him, they will be little more than a scattered bunch of gangsters and pirates.”
Boyd nodded. He wanted to take Kitzov down. He had more reason than most in the Union to want to see the man destroyed. Kitzov was a killer, and Boyd wanted justice…and revenge.
The corridor proximity alarm sounded in Boyd’s ear. He canceled the transmission, Featherstone’s image vanishing in a second. Boyd stuffed the transmitter up his sleeve and sat on his bunk.
The door to his cabin burst open, and Enke Thresh was standing there. She was wearing a tight tank top, her arms heavily bruised from the blast wave thrown out from the exploding bus.
“Not another sparing match?” Boyd asked.
Thresh grinned. “I know you couldn’t take it.”
Boyd looked up at Thresh. Her thick, dark hair was covering a heavy bruise on her upper cheek, and her eye was bloodshot red.
“You need a med-pack?” Boyd asked.
“The captain wants you on the flight deck.” She leaned against the doorframe.
“What now?” Boyd complained, standing up, making sure the clandestine transmitter stayed up his sleeve.
“Unless you have something else you’d rather be doing.” She grinned.
“Better see what the captain wants first,” Boyd said.
“I knew you had a strong streak of self-preservation about you. It’s almost cowardly.”
“You have no idea,” Boyd said. “You think I want to get myself killed?”
He stepped past Thresh in the doorway. She made him squeeze past her.
“I think they have a bottle of something cold for you, as a thank you for saving the Fist and the Creeping Fate.” Thresh fell in step alongside Boyd.
“Oh, good, something to take the edge off,” Boyd said, but he needed to stay alert. He needed to keep a clear head. He was still in enemy territory. He was still in danger.
And a second war had just begun.
Alien Assault
Blue Star Marine, Book 2
1
The flight deck of the Faction raider, the Odium Fist, was dimly lit, with only a flickering holo-image lighting the faces of the bridge crew around the deck. Running at stealth approach, the ship and crew were silent, watching the target up ahead. Will Boyd sat in the pilot’s seat, focused entirely on his flight controls.
The Union heavy freighter lay just on the edge of the Fist’s sensor range, which had been boosted by a small surveillance drone travelling ahead at a distance of three hundred thousand kilometers. Boyd held a steady speed, keeping the drone at the exact same distance without wavering by more than a meter.
On a state-of-the-art Union cruiser or frigate, it would have been an impressive display of piloting skill. Here on the Fist, a battered old raider, it was nothing short of incredible, impossible for any pilot other than Boyd.
Captain Poledri slipped down from his command chair, his feet touching the deck silently. He moved slowly across the flight deck—as if he thought he could give away the position of his ship with a loud or sudden movement—and came up behind Boyd
Poledri placed a hand on the back of Boyd’s seat.
“Great flying, Boyd,” Poledri said quietly.
Boyd simply nodded. He focused entirely on the range to the drone.
The holo-stage flickered again. Every time the holo-stage flickered, the image of the Union heavy lost a little more clarity, and now, flickering wildly, the image returned as an indistinct smear across the display. Boyd felt his heart jump. The drone was small and built for a hunt, but if the heavy was alert and actively searching for raiders then the small composite device would show up if it drifted too close to the target.
Boyd was flying the Fist and the drone simultaneously, keeping both just within range of each other.
“Steady, Boyd,” Poledri said, stepping around the pilot’s chair and walking over to the holo-stage. He stood with his hands behind his back, looking up at the image of the Union ship.
The image flickered again, losing all color, before finally settling and resolving back into clarity.
“Where’s Thresh?” Poledri said. “Can’t she fix this kravin’ holo-stage?”
“She’s at the reactor shunt,” Noland said from his position at the surveillance and communication console to the port side of the flight deck.
“I know where she is. It was a rhetorical question.” Poledri tapped the controls on the holo-stage and attempted to clear up the image on the aging unit.
“You know what rhetorical means, don’t you?” Boyd said, looking over at Noland with a grin.
Noland mouthed an obscenity at Boyd before speaking. “Do you want me to answer that?”
Boyd turned back to his flight deck, and the pair laughed at their joke.
“Quiet,” Poledri said, hissing in frustration.
Boyd looked back to his controls. The drone was drifting, a localized gravity anomaly pulling it off course. Boyd corrected the Fist’s course and made a minute adjustment to speed with a brief blast from a starboard thruster.
The flickering image of the distant freighter was surrounded with holo-text showing the Union ship’s speed and heading as well as its various physical dimensions. Boyd watched the numbers on speed and distance closely.
Then they changed. The distance was reduced radically in an instant. Boyd hit the anchor field generator and stopped the Fist dead in its tracks. The hull stability field on the Fist was out of alignment by a fraction and the inertia regulator was out of calibration. Boyd felt the result as a sickness in his gut and a dizzy feeling in his sinuses.
“The heavy is coming about,” Noland called from the surveillance console.
“She’s running a crazy pivot,” Boyd said as he reversed the drive field and pushed the Fist back, maintaining the distance between the Fist and the Union ship. “Pull in the drone. If the freighter crew is as jumpy as they look, they will be scanning for a tail drone.”
“No,” Poledri said. He turned his back to the holo-stage. “Full speed ahead, Mr. Boyd. We will attack.”
“Yes, sir,” Boyd said and immediately pushed the Odium Fist up to speed. Boyd had been in Poledri’s crew long enough to know to respond quickly to the captain’s orders.
The sudden acceleration was jarring as the minor fluctuations in the stability field again caused waves of sickness. Only Boyd was seemingly affected. He was still relatively new to the ship and was not used to its moods, but he could still fly it better than anyone else aboard.
“She will detect us in a few seconds for sure, Captain,” Jemmy Noland said, looking at the captain.
Poledri was bouncing across the flight deck to his command chair.
“They will be so anxious about getting their crazy pivot maneuver correct, and fearful that they might find a pirate on their tail, they will hit full-blown panic stations when they do see us. We will have surprise on our side.” Poledri opened a ship-wide channel. “This is Poledri. Troopers, suit up and prepare for boarding.”
Enke Thresh came on to the flight deck, her maintenance overalls covered in tiny, dark plasma burns. She smelled like an overpowered core conduit. For just a moment, Boyd was distracted by her entrance. She had a way of doing that.
“What are you doing to my reactor?!” she shouted as she stepped up to the engineering console. “Throwing up the anchor field and then jumping to full drive. Is this your idea of good piloting, Boyd? Do you want to tear her apart?” Thresh looked down at Boyd.
Boyd grinned and pointed over his shoulder at Poledri. “Just following orders.”
“Get the weapons ready, Thresh,” Poledri said, his voice brimming with excitement. “We are going to take that ship.” He pointed at the flickering holo-stage.
Thresh transferred to the weapons console next to her engineering station. Her hands moved across the panel in one smooth move.
“Spitz guns to full power. Hail cannons standing by.”
“She’s spotted us,” Boyd said as he noticed the Union heavy turn sharply to port, her drive field clearly at full power as the slightest hint of a drive flare came curving out of the assembly. Then the Union freighter was flung across space at maximum drive.
“After her,” Poledri said. “Thresh, make sure the drive assembly has all the power it needs. I’m not letting this prize escape.”
Boyd maintained his alertness, ready to match any evasion maneuver from the heavy, but the Union ship was not trying anything fancy. Her captain surely knew that only pure speed could save his ship from the Faction raider on his tail. Boyd knew it would only save them for a short time.
The Odium Fist was old, but she was fast, and her drive systems were in excellent shape. The Union freighter was built for haulage and distance. Built to travel from one side of the Scorpio System to the other, fully laden with material, and then back again for another load. The crew could run a three-watch rotation for weeks if necessary, but the freighter could run for years on end if nothing interrupted its operation.
Now the Odium Fist had interrupted, and she posed a deadly threat to the freighter.
The Odium Fist was one of the first Faction ships designed for this kind of raiding operation. Rather than being a modified version of a Union ship, she was configured explicitly for this type of work—sneaking up on Union heavies or chasing them over distance, then making them a little bit lighter by taking their most valuable cargo.
The Fist was lightly armored, its defensive capabilities based on a combination of hull stability fields, deflector shielding, and an aggressive fighting capability.
Like all Faction raiders, it was heavily armed with flank hail cannons and a dozen spitz guns. The rapid-fire spitz guns were essentially an upscaled version of the Union Fleet
Marine pulse rifle. They were overpowered and based on a stolen Union design. The hail cannon was outlawed tech, and possession meant death by hanging for any and all ship’s crew carrying them. But as the penalty for any Faction crew was death anyways, there was little to deter Faction ships from carrying the cannons. Old as they were, dating back to the fleet that first settled the system, the hail cannons were powerful and able to punch holes in a Union cruiser at close range.
“We’ll be alongside her in a few minutes,” Boyd said. “But she’s a powerful ship. I don’t think the grapple field will hold her if she decides to suddenly dump a load of speed. We’ll go flying right by her if she decided to stop.”
“You better hope the grapple field does hold, Boyd,” Poledri said. “You’ll be going over with the boarding party.”
Boyd looked back at Poledri. “Yes, Captain. But who will fly the Fist?”
“I know how to handle my ship,” Poledri said. “Just get us alongside her and deploy the grapple field. If she tries to get away, I’ll keep her from running too far. And I’ll remember to come back and pick you up if you get lost in space…maybe.”
Noland laughed loudly. “Hope you don’t puke in your helmet, Boyd. I hear traversing through a grapple field can get a bit bumpy.”
“I would have let you take my shuttle,” Poledri said as he tapped away at his armrest holo-display, “but you blew up my beautiful little bus, didn’t you.”
Noland laughed again, shaking his head in amusement.
“And you can stop laughing like a Union banker, Noland,” Poledri said. “You’ll be going along with him. Make sure the troopers don’t blow holes in all my plunder.”
Then it was Boyd’s turn to laugh.
“When did you last make a traverse?” Boyd moved the Fist alongside the Union ship. The holo-stage flickered, and the flight deck lights dimmed as Thresh threw power from the core into the grapple field.
The freighter pushed its drive and then threw up an anchor field to stop itself dead. The power fluctuations across the Fist dimmed lights until almost pure dark, and a power conduit blew out in the recreation suite, but a Faction raider was built with grapple fields as a priority. What would be the point of catching up with a freighter if it couldn’t be held?
Blue Star Marine Boxed Set Page 13
