Blue Star Marine Boxed Set

by James David Victor

  Rolling out of cover to his right gave Boyd a line of sight on one of the troopers crawling awkwardly toward him. He fired and the trooper’s dirty helmet cracked, blood oozing out onto the reactor base plate. Boyd kept rolling.

  With his rifle held close, he kept firing at the troopers who were now under attack by the Blue Stars coming through the partially opened hatch. A distant alarm sounded. It was a fire alarm. A huge crack of an explosion followed and rocked the ship.

  Boyd fired at the second trooper who was trapped under the reactor. The trooper stopped struggling when Boyd’s pulse rounds hit. With the pair of troopers under the reactor dealt with, Boyd rolled onto the narrow sidewalk around the edge and came out from under the reactor. He climbed to his feet and advanced, low and fast, toward the forward bulkhead and the group of troopers defending the hatch.

  Opening a group channel to his squad, Boyd called a warning, “Grenade out!”

  He tossed a grenade toward the troopers, and the detonation ripped through them. Boyd’s faceplate blocked out the high-energy flash, but let enough light through for him to see the devastation. It had scorched the partially opened emergency hatch and flung bodies aside.

  “Clear,” Boyd said.

  The Blue Stars came in one by one. The last two took up positions on either side of the hatch and waited, ready to fight off any counterattack.

  “The rear of the reactor,” Boyd called out, “that’s where the self-destruct can be isolated. It’s between the reactor and the main drive assembly bulkhead. Watch out for snipers on the upper walkway guarding the initiator.”

  Boyd led the assault squad along the narrow catwalk lining the reactor and emerged into a tall section crossed with conduits running from the reactor to the drive assembly. A set of steps led up from the base deck to the top, the entire three hundred meters from upper to lower hull.

  The pulse rounds came slamming into the deck at Boyd’s feet from high above, narrowly missing. A Blue Star would never have missed the shot.

  Boyd moved fast to the stairway, a set of composite steps jutting out of the side bulkhead with a simple handrail on one side for safety. As Boyd ran up the steps, the pulse rounds burned into the handrail and the bulkhead next to him.

  “Covering fire,” Boyd called. He ran up the stairs and aimed at a sniper in cover high above. He laid down a burst of fire.

  Boyd swung his pulse rifle over his shoulder and pulled his pistol. He moved faster with the smaller weapon in hand. He took aim, picked a target, and opened fire—all while moving up the steps at a smooth, fast pace.

  Reaching the top of the three-hundred-meter climb and starting to feel the strain in his calf muscles and his lungs, Boyd took cover and gathered his breath. He had been out of the Blue Stars on his undercover mission for too long and had lost the edge of fitness he always used to rely on in a tight spot. But he had no fear of these Faction troopers and that gave him a fresh, dangerous edge.

  Spotting one of the snipers moving behind their cover was his moment to act. Boyd broke cover, advanced, and opened fire. He struck the trooper twice in the chest. The trooper crumpled and fell forward. Boyd didn’t break his stride.

  The pulse rounds from the Blue Stars below were tightly focused on the second sniper’s location and showed Boyd the way. He ignored the huge drop below and advanced.

  “I surrender!” the sniper shouted, tossing his rifle.

  Boyd stopped advancing; he holstered his pistol and swung up his rifle in one slick move.

  “Come out, trooper,” Boyd called.

  The trooper stepped out. He was wearing a dark dappled jacket with a fresh Faction insignia on the upper arm. Boyd recognized this was a new breed of Faction trooper, not the glorified pirate soldier but a centrally-trained and more disciplined trooper, the sort of thing Kitzov was trying to achieve—a central authority rather than a ragtag bunch of pirates and criminals.

  “I can help,” the trooper said. He took a step forward with his hands behind his head.

  “Hold,” Boyd said and aimed at the trooper’s chest. “Stop moving. Stay where you are.”

  The trooper took another step. “I have information. I’ll tell you everything. Just spare me the noose.” He stepped forward again.

  A message from the Blue Stars below came over Boyd’s helmet communicator. “He’s got something behind his head. Watch out, Sergeant.”

  Boyd stepped forward. “Drop to the deck, trooper.”

  “I don’t want to be Faction anymore,” the trooper said taking another step forward. “I just—”

  Boyd saw the intention flicker across the trooper’s face.

  “—want to kill Union scum.”

  The trooper brought his hands around and tossed a grenade at Boyd. A green light was blinking, and its rate was speeding up—nearing detonation.

  The trooper turned and ran but was met with a surge of rifle fire from the Blue Stars on the deck three hundred meters below. The pulse rounds shredded the trooper’s new uniform and he collapsed to the platform.

  Boyd was moving too. He climbed up on to the slim handrail at his side and jumped off the platform, leaping toward the top of the reactor.

  He wasn’t going to make it. He pushed his suit thrusters and inverted the grav field to give him a chance. He was still not going to make the top. He slammed into the end of the reactor and grabbed hold of a recess, barely clinging on by his fingertips.

  Then the grenade on the platform behind exploded.

  The detonation slammed into Boyd like a hammer blow across his entire body. He was momentarily pressed into the reactor housing before he dropped, losing grip on the small recess and dropping to the deck below.

  His suit’s grav system was resetting, the blast having knocked its calibration temporarily out of alignment. Boyd kicked off the reactor and spread his body out like a sky diver. He pushed all thrust on the front of his suit to slow his fall. The deck was racing up fast, proximity alert warnings flashing over his faceplate’s enhanced data view.

  The grav system reset and balanced, inverting the local field to slow his descent, and Boyd hit the deck at a painful twenty-five kilometers-per-hour. He laughed as soon as he recovered his breath. He was hauled to his feet by the squad.

  “Took a tumble there, sarge,” one said.

  Boyd laughed. He ran over to the primary reactor control panel. A security cover was over the controls, which he slashed down the side with his rifle’s electron bayonet. The cover showered sparks and globules of molten composite as it came away. Boyd pulled it aside to uncouple the reactor from the power distribution systems.

  The ship’s power was at his mercy. In a few moments, all ship’s power would be cut.

  “Boyd, this is Featherstone.” The voice of the Resolute’s commanding officer came over Boyd’s helmet communicator. “We have support incoming. A cruiser will be there in moments. We have orders to abandon the raider. Withdraw now, Sergeant. Do you copy?”

  Boyd looked down at the control panel.

  “The raider’s drive room has been secured. Give me a moment to lock it down and deactivate the self-destruct.”

  “We have orders, Sergeant. Withdraw immediately. The regulars aboard the incoming cruiser can take over.”

  “Incoming!” one of the Blue Stars in the drive room door called out.

  Hearing the familiar sound of pulse rifle fire striking composite bulkheads, Boyd felt the urge to dive into the fight.

  “They’ll retake the drive room if I abandon it. I’ll hold the drive room until the regulars can get here. Agreed?”

  “No, Will. Not kravin agreed. I order you to get your kravin ass back aboard the Resolute right kravin now. Is that clear?”

  Boyd saw the pulse rounds slamming into the hatchway to the drive room. Then he saw the light on the control panel for the self-destruct. The reactor was in overload. In minutes, the raider would be an expanding ball of plasma.

  “Tell the regulars not to bother,” Boyd said to Featherstone. �
��They have activated the self-destruct.”

  “Just get out of there, Sergeant,” Featherstone said.

  “Blue Stars, fall back.” Boyd wasn’t going to argue this one. The raider was going to explode, and Boyd was not sure he could do anything to stop it. Once the self-destruct had been initiated, it could not be halted. The overload was inevitable. It was just a matter of time, usually very short amount of time. Unless…

  “Abandon the raider and return to the Resolute. Move. Now.”

  Boyd swung his rifle over his shoulder and looked down at the control panel. If he could deactivate the reactor, he could stop the overload. He accessed the main power shunt. It was locked. The reactor kill switch did not respond. The self-destruct protocols were overriding all reactor power termination systems.

  The Blue Stars were attempting to fight their way out of the drive room into the cross-corridor. It was going too slowly.

  “Resolute, this is Boyd. I need fire support.” He tapped the controls on the power console. He accessed the raider’s hull stability field and localized a point on the starboard side of the drive room’s cross-corridor. “Give me a tight beam from the high-energy laser on these coordinates.” He transmitted the exact spot on the outer hull that was next to the corridor.

  Boyd ran to the security hatch and took position on one side, moving the Blue Star in that position out of the way.

  “This is weapons control. Be advised, fire request is at your current location.”

  “Hi, Doc,” Boyd said, recognizing the voice of Cronin at weapons control. “I’ve got a bulkhead between me and your beam. Make it a good shot, Doc, and I can get my assault team out of here before the whole raider explodes.”

  “Authorization for fire support has been given. Stand by, Blue Stars. Incoming fire.”

  The impact rocked the raider. The location where the hull stability field was weak let the beam strike the ship itself and punch through the outer hull. The bright red beam lit up the cross-corridor, the beam filling the corridor just centimeters from where Boyd was in cover.

  Then the beam was gone, but the image of the beam still burned brightly on Boyd’s retinas. It had overpowered his helmet’s filter.

  Then came the wind. The laser had punched a hole in the hull and the atmosphere was being blown out into the vacuum of space. The hatchway was suddenly filled with the troopers from the counterattack as they were blown out into space, their wild yelling barely audible.

  “Blue Stars, move, go, now!”

  Boyd waved the assault team out into the corridor where they were snatched up by the wind and blown toward the breach. Finally, with every last Blue Star from his squad away, Boyd moved. He stepped out into the corridor, half-blown by the wind. He was picked up off his feet and thrown toward the breach in the hull. The hole was a clean circle exactly two meters across, its edges were still glowing white-hot. Boyd used his suit’s gravity field to move in a controlled flight along the corridor and was shot out head-first like kinetic hail from a cannon.

  Once outside the raider, Boyd pushed his thrusters to the maximum and raced across the void back toward the Resolute.

  Looking over his shoulder, he saw the raider buck then disappear, consumed in white plasma fire. The ball grew rapidly, expanding toward him. He turned to face it, grinning at it as it came closer and closer.

  The plasma fire stopped expanding just meters from him. He reached out and almost touched it as he raced away from it. Then, having reached its fullest extent, the ball of plasma instantly began to retract.

  A pair of Blades swept by the fireball, grapple beams gathering up the few escape pods that were moving away from the raider. Not all Faction members were prepared to go down with the ship.

  Boyd turned to the Resolute and crossed the final few meters to the Marine deck. A fighter was landing just ahead of him, its rear port side badly scorched with laser strikes. It had heavy composite paneling damage, and where some panels were missing, Boyd could see some internal damage.

  Boyd touched down and moved to a casual walk, wiping his hand across the hull of the Blade next to him as the outer deck doors slid shut.

  “Took a bit of a hit there,” Boyd said with a grin to the pilot as he clambered out of his cockpit.

  “Sergeant Boyd,” Featherstone’s voice came over Boyd’s helmet. “My office. Now.”

  6

  Boyd marched onto the command deck still in his extreme environment combat suit, his helmet held in his fist. He walked to the door to Featherstone’s office.

  The door slid open. Featherstone was sitting behind his desk, a holo-file on his desk. He waved Boyd in and cancelled the file. The image vanished, leaving the smooth, dark desktop.

  “It is one thing to take risks with your own life, Boyd, but taking an inexperienced Blue Star on an assault on a Faction raider is too much.”

  Featherstone tapped his desk and an image of the young technician appeared.

  “Allen had been aboard the Resolute for less than a week, and you took him on a high-risk mission? What do you have to say in your defense, Boyd?”

  “Every mission is high risk, sir,” Boyd said. “What was your first mission?”

  “We are not here to talk about my service history, Boyd.” Featherstone slammed his hands on his desk and stood up. “I want to discuss your undisciplined behavior.”

  “The kid looked bored. He was happy I invited him on the raid. I can pick my own team, can’t I?”

  “Don’t quote the rulebook at me, Boyd. You are not keeping to the rules yourself. You are taking too many risks. You are putting yourself in danger, and now you have gotten a young Blue Star killed.”

  “The Faction hail cannon killed him, sir. Not me.”

  “Is that what I tell his family?”

  “No, you tell them what you always tell them. He died fighting for the Union against the Faction, ensuring stability in the Scorpio System. You tell them he was a hero and will be missed by his Blue Star comrades.”

  Featherstone sat down. “He doesn’t have a family. He was alone in the world. Family wiped out by a Faction attack on a transport heavy. His entire family working on a single heavy. Mother, father, and older brother. He had just been accepted to Forge Farm for Blue Star training so he didn’t go on the run from the black ice mines in the Sphere.”

  “That’ll save you writing a letter,” Boyd said.

  Featherstone brought his fist down on the desk. The image of Allen shuddered. “That is far too disrespectful, even for you. You are a disgrace, Boyd. You take unnecessary risks, you get my men killed, and then treat it all like a game. This is not a game.”

  “No, sir, it is not. It is serious. I didn’t spend the last year undercover because I thought it was a game. I’ve put myself in danger every day so the Union can be kept safe. Allen did the same thing. He just got killed on his first trip out. But it doesn’t matter if we are killed on our first action, our fiftieth, or our thousandth. We all know the risk. We all put our lives on the line every second we wear the Blue Star. Sir.”

  “Risk is accepted by all. Recklessness is not. You are reckless and I consider it a dereliction of duty. That is why you are suspended.”

  “Suspended?!” Boyd shouted. “Because a Blue Star died under my command? There won’t be a Blue Star sergeant in the battalion not on suspension by the end of the watch if you suspend me for that!”

  “Not just that, Will, but because you no longer take the Blue Stars seriously. You have become insubordinate, reckless, and a danger to those around you. You are a liability, and I can stand down or activate any Blue Star under my command.”

  “I am your best Blue Star, and you know it.” Boyd gritted his teeth. He could not be stood down. He needed the danger. Since returning from undercover duty, his time on the Resolute had been too safe. Too easy. He had lived with constant danger while in the Faction and found life boring back in the Blue Stars. Pedestrian. Dull. Charging down a broadside from a Faction raider’s hail cannon was th
e only thing that gave him any feeling of being alive, that and thoughts of Enke Thresh. If she was dead, as he thought she must be, he didn’t see the need to play it safe.

  “You know what my first mission was?” Featherstone leaned back in his chair. He didn’t wait for Boyd to answer. “It was in the Battle of Dark Crater.”

  Boyd looked at Featherstone and felt something he hadn’t for a long time: respect. The Battle of Dark Crater was a legend.

  “I went in on the Huntsman. My first action. Moving against the Faction in the first major attack on their central command.”

  Boyd knew the story, every Blue Star did.

  “We took the crater in less than an hour. I didn’t fire my weapon once in the initial assault. We put them down hard and fast. It was brutal. Then we waited for dust off and evac. Then the raiders came.”

  Boyd shifted uncomfortably.

  “When the Faction attacked us in force, we were completely unprepared. We were trained for attack. A static defense was not supposed to be in the Blue Star playbook. That was what the regulars were for—to sit tight and take a beating.” The major swiveled gently in his chair. “And they came. They didn’t want to give up their base. The Faction was small. Hail cannon hadn’t been outlawed yet. They poured it on us. And so many Blue Stars wanted to give it back and attack. Discipline went out the window. But my sergeant at the time held a few of us tight and in good order.”

  “You were there the whole time?” Boyd’s mouth fell open.

  “Yes, Sergeant. I was in the defense of Dark Crater. We held them off for hours before the first carrier arrived. And do you know what got us through? Discipline. There was risk and there was danger, but if my sergeant hadn’t kept us in good, disciplined order, we would have all been lost and then Dark Crater would be a synonym for defeat, not heroic defense.”

  “I had no idea,” Boyd said.

  “Do you tell everyone about every action you’ve been involved in? It’s not something Blue Stars do. We keep our missions close. We don’t tell anyone about what we’ve done. Who, other than a Blue Star, would understand?”