Rescue

  Rescue

  Jack Forge, Lost Marine, Book 2

  James David Victor

  Fairfield Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 Fairfield Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author.

  This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Thank You

  1

  The hull of the frigate vibrated violently. Consoles around the command deck threatened to fly loose of their housings as the frigate bucked like a wild animal while racing across the interstellar void. Space-time in front of the frigate compressed into a dense point just short of a singularity and pulled the ship forward at terrific speed. The ship’s wake of tortured space-time eddies did nothing to slow or deter the pursuers; they were steadily catching up. Jack Forge leaned forward in his command chair and looked at the holoimage showing his frigate surging through space as well as the pursuing ships, hot on their heels. Knowing they would not fire on his frigate brought no ease. Jack knew the Devex raiders were not there to destroy his frigate, they were there to capture him and his crew alive.

  “Slow the ship, Major.” Commander Gerat Bale looked at Jack in the command chair, his face screwed up in fear. “The hull can’t take it. You’re going to get us all killed.”

  “Focus on your job, Mr. Bale,” Jack said calmly as he saw the holoimage of the Devex raiders drawing a fraction closer. “Keep those sensors tuned. I don’t want us colliding with any rogue interstellar objects.”

  “The frigate’s reactor is close to failsafe shutdown,” Ripa reported, her voice quivering. She moved from the navigation to the engineering console, losing her step and falling as the ship lurched. She fell toward Sam Torent, who was staggering onto the command deck.

  “What’s our weapons status, Sam?” Jack asked as he checked the reactor condition.

  “All guns ready. I’ll service them from the central weapons console. We really need a few more bodies in this crew if we want to service all these guns to peak efficiency.”

  “We are nowhere near a recruiting office, Sam, so we’ll just have to make do for now,” Jack quipped.

  “It’ll be okay,” Sam said, walking unsteadily toward the console. “We haven’t got much in the way of ammunition anyway, so our guns will be useless soon.”

  The frigate creaked as the ship was pulled violently to port, a distortion forming in the gravity channel as the reactor power fluctuated. The slight change of course at full speed pushed the hull almost to the point of catastrophic failure.

  “You are going to tear the frigate apart,” Bale complained loudly. “Let me try and communicate with them again. Maybe we can cut a deal.”

  “The Devex are not interested in talking to us. We’ve seen what they want. Prisoners. Standby on the weapons console, Sam,” Jack said calmly. “The first raider will be in weapons’ range in a moment.”

  Sam leaned against the weapons console trying to maintain his balance on the rattling deck as he aimed the upper laser assembly with his single arm. With the drones recalled, the sensor range was limited. He adjusted the targeting sensors and sacrificed resolution for range as he searched out his first target. The Devex raiders were big enough for Sam to hit at this resolution. He could put a lancing beam from the laser assembly straight through a raider, he just couldn’t target any specific areas of their ships.

  “A new signal,” Bale reported the instant he spotted the blurry, indistinct signal.

  “What is it?” Jack said.

  Bale turned from his console and looked up at Jack. “Whatever it is, it’s right in our way. It’s cutting off our escape route.”

  Jack had always known there was no escape. The Devex raiders had matched their every move for almost a day. Even at full power, the frigate was only able to delay the inevitable. The Devex would catch them sooner or later.

  “Look to your console, Mr. Bale,” Jack said calmly to the man who was clearly not used to receiving orders, “and tell me what exactly is blocking our way.” He gripped the armrests of the command chair as the ship shook violently all around him.

  Bale checked his sensors and then turned back. “Devex,” Bale reported. “It’s another squadron of raiders. Dead ahead and moving in fast.”

  The vibrations running up Jack’s arms and spine brought a feeling of nausea that sat deep in his stomach. He felt the fear of failure creeping up on him along with the urge to vomit. He had failed to avoid the Devex. He had gotten his ship and crew in the jaws of a trap. He had put them in a situation that they might never escape from. On top of that, his ship was flying itself apart and he didn’t have enough ammunition to stand and fight off the threat. Jack pushed doubt from his mind—doubt was a leader’s greatest enemy. He was still in command, of the crew, the ship, and himself. He hadn’t lost yet, and he wasn’t going to lose to fear and doubt. He plotted a course adjustment, determined not to get caught in the raiders’ pincer move.

  “Lieutenant Ripa,” Jack shouted as a heavy vibration threatened to throw him from his command chair, “input course correction.”

  “We won’t make the turn at this speed unless we can smooth the fluctuations in the main reactor,” Ripa said. “We’ll lose the outer hull, or the drive assembly could shear off. We will throw the ship out of the gravity channel for sure. It’ll collapse the ship in an instant. We’ll be crushed.”

  Lieutenant Ellen Ripa’s voice quivered. Jack knew it could be partly due to the vibrations that tortured the frigate’s command deck, but it could also be a heavy dose of fear. He knew she was young and inexperienced, and it was a near-impossible challenge to overcome fear. Every young officer had to face that challenge at some point, but Ripa had had to face it as part of a small crew, lost and alone in deep space. Nervousness was as much a part of her tremulous tones as the vibrating ship. But Jack knew she was right. The maneuver would be suicide.

  He canceled the course adjustment with a few taps of the armrest command controls. “Copy that, Lieutenant. Maintain heading.”

  Jack tapped the control panel again and checked the condition of the reactor. The core reaction was exceeding acceptable variance every few seconds and was close to failure. The reactor housing could only withstand so much variability in the reaction and was reaching its peak tolerance.

  The Devex raiders in front and behind were spreading out and cutting off all lines of escape. The frigate’s upper and lower laser assembly, and two batteries of kinetic hail cannons, could smash a Devex raider. The raiders were determined but cautious. They were closing in but holding just beyond weapons’ range. Jack knew they were waiting for their prey to tire and come to a halt, which would happen soon, and then they would close in. Jack would fight, but there were too many to fight off. The end was drawing closer. Capture, or death, was becoming ever more inevitable.

  “Maybe we should surrender,” Bale said, throwing his arms in the air.

  Sam looked at Bale with utter contempt, then turned to Jack in the command chair. “Surrender is not an option, Jack. I don’t want them to take me alive. Krav knows what they do with their captives, and I don’t want to find out.”

  Jack looked at Sam. He shared his friend’s fear of captivity from t
he Devex.

  He looked at the holostage and the positions of the Devex raiders that were close to surrounding the frigate.

  “Can you plot any sort of firing pattern to take on all these ships, Sam?” Jack said.

  “We can take one or two,” Sam said.

  Commander Bale shouted across the rattling noise of the command deck, “A new signal, just coming into range. An Oort cloud of a star system.” Bale turned to Jack. “It’s super dense for an Oort cloud. We could lose them in the asteroids, if we can make it there.”

  “Send coordinates to the navigation systems now,” Jack said.

  Bale complied quickly. Jack sent the coordinates to the main holostage and threw up the image of the star system. Far below the frigate, a distant system showed up as an indistinct blur, obscured in part by a dense Oort cloud of orbiting asteroids surrounding it. The unusually dense cloud would make a perfect place to evade the Devex. And it might buy Jack time. At this point, delaying the inevitable sounded like a win.

  “Good find, Mr. Bale,” Jack said. “We will make it before the Devex raiders trap us, and we’ll hide from them in there. But we’ll have to shut down all power and go completely dark if we hope to hide. We’ll be defenseless if they find us.”

  “How can we change heading, Jack?” Sam said almost too casually, as if his life was not on the line. “We’ll destroy the ship.”

  “I’m going to disengage the reactor from the drive assembly. I can only hold it for a few seconds before I’ll have to reengage it. We can change heading with thrusters only and then I’ll throw the power back into the drive.”

  “But the Devex will be on us in a second if we cut the drive.” Bale complained

  “They will, but they might not be able to react in time and should over-shoot us by hundreds of kilometers. Let’s just hope they don’t collide with us when we stop. Just be sure to give Ripa the sensor readings on that Oort cloud so she can set the new heading.”

  Jack called out to Ripa as he prepared the bold maneuver. “You ready for this, Lieutenant?” He saw her nod. She was already focused on the thruster commands at her console. “Stand by to adjust heading for the Oort cloud the moment I cut the power.”

  The sudden power cut sent the ship tumbling out of control, and it twisted and pitched as it fell through space. With the reactor offline, power to the gravity generator was cut. Jack felt himself floating free.

  “Thrusters responding,” Ripa shouted. She sounded terrified but still focused on her job.

  “Devex closing in fast!” Bale called out. “They’ve overshot us. They are slowing and turning. Now moving in. They’ll be on us in a few seconds!”

  This was a risky operation, and they all knew it. Jack consoled himself with the knowledge that if it went wrong, he probably wouldn’t know about it. The reactor failure would vaporize him, the frigate, and probably a few of the Devex raiders too.

  “Heading reset,” Ripa shouted. “Kick on the reactor, sir.”

  Jack hit the drive engage tab on the command chair armrest. The inertia buffers and artificial gravity kicked in a nanosecond before the drive re-engaged. Jack was pinned back in his command chair the moment the drive assembly threw the frigate forward.

  Sam sounded unusually nervous as he reported their situation. “Breach in the outer hull. Integrity field can’t draw enough power from the reactor. We’ll lose the ship if we don’t divert power from the drive. The consoles are practically shaking themselves free already. Not sure the ship can take any more.”

  “The Devex raiders will be on top of us if we don’t push it,” Jack said. He jumped down from his command chair, landing awkwardly on the vibrating deck. “We have to make it that Oort cloud.”

  “Where are you going?” Sam called out.

  Jack staggered toward the exit.

  “I’m going to cover our escape.”

  Jack ran off the command deck and out onto the main deck, through the wide corridor to the hail cannon service stations on either side of the wide deck, which were loaded and ready to fire. He reached the ladder down to the lower deck, slid down, and landed heavily again. His ankle twisted and nearly hit the ground as it gave way under his weight. He pulled himself upright and pushed the pain from his mind as he continued on toward the ordnance cache. The walls of the corridor appeared to shudder and vibrate as all the reactor’s power was drawn into the drive systems, hurling the frigate across space toward the Oort cloud.

  “I’m going to rig a high-ex warhead to act as a space mine,” Jack said over the crew communicator channel. The lights were dim and flickering on the lower deck as the power was drained to the drive. “Let me know when we’re in cover.”

  Jack slid open the ordnance cache. The racks of ammunition for the hail cannon were running low. The frigate was never meant to operate alone for such a length of time. The empty shelves struck a note of dread for Jack. So far, they had been lucky to avoid contact with the Devex. With supplies running low, any contact could be their last.

  The sound of the lower laser assembly startled Jack. Then he heard Sam calling out the shot.

  “Devex in range of lower assembly. That’s one less raider. Lancing beam cut straight through, forward to aft.”

  Then Jack felt his hairs stand on end as the laser assembly discharged again, this time accompanied by the sound of the laser assembly failing mid-shot. Sam’s voice, filled with frustration, came over the crew communication channel again.

  “Krav it! Laser main power ring fused. Laser out of action.”

  Jack carefully pulled a high-ex warhead off the rack. It was heavy for its size. Jack carefully set it down on the deck, though the vibrating worried him. If the warhead detonated now, it would be the end of a long and difficult road for him. He had always hoped he could eventually settle on a new world, but for now, he was racing through space hoping to escape with his life.

  In the last few weeks, Jack had been so busy he had barely thought of his future, but when fleeting thoughts had occurred to him, it was still of finding a way out of the constant threat of hostile space, to link up with the fleet, and then to find a place to settle and call home. If this warhead detonated, it would be the end. The thought was grim. Jack took a calming breath and hunched over the device. He carefully opened the warhead’s control panel.

  And then the vibration stopped.

  Jack froze. The ship had been vibrating for hours in their frantic escape. The sudden disappearance of the vibration made Jack think for a fraction of a second that the warhead had detonated, and he was dead. The realization that the very thought meant he still lived welled up in Jack with relief and humor. He laughed.

  “Approaching the Oort cloud outer edge,” Ripa’s voice came over Jack’s communicator. She sounded calmer than she had been for hours. “I’ve cut all power to the drive assembly. It’s too dense to navigate at speed. Proceeding with thrusters only.”

  “Copy that.” Jack tapped away at the detonation circuits. He rigged the warhead to detonate on his command and carried it to the lower airlock and placed it inside. The small window in the inner hatch let Jack see the warhead drift out into space.

  “What I wouldn’t give for just one combat drone right about now,” Jack said to himself. He pushed himself to his feet. A shooting pain in his ankle reminding him of his awkward fall down the ladder. He limped back to the ladder and climbed up to the main deck.

  Sam’s voice came over Jack’s communicator, and he heard it echoing through the corridors from the command deck.

  “Jack. Jack, you need to get up here. You have to see this.”

  Jack could sense the nervousness in Sam’s tone. Jack moved quickly, hobbling on his painful ankle. Sam was not one to become nervous easily. The fact he was shouting and uneasy made Jack uneasy.

  He ran for the command deck, ignoring the discomfort in his ankle.

  Sam climbed down from the command chair when Jack walked onto the deck. Bale was standing at the main holostage. The image of the fri
gate was projected in a mass of asteroids. At full zoom, the ship was a tiny point of light. Behind them, just beyond the Oort cloud, was the squadron of Devex raiders that had been pursuing them and had nearly trapped them. The Devex had slowed and were holding position. And there, another new signal. Far below Jack and his frigate, there was a massive Devex warship, holding position just outside the Oort cloud on the system’s ecliptic plane.

  “We’re on passive scanners only, Major Forge. Those Devex are searching for us,” Bale said, leaning heavily on the side off the holostage. “We’re not out of this yet.”

  Jack would like to think they were out of danger, but the Devex would not give up easily. Still… an entire warship, for one frigate and a crew of four? It seemed unlikely to Jack that the warship was here for them.

  “And here’s something else too,” Sam said. He pointed at a planet on the holostage, the fourth planet out from the star, a little larger, and much colder, than Jack’s former home planet that humanity had abandoned. Jack noticed the holotag displayed next to the planet, a Fleet code transmitted to any and all Fleet ships that would pass the system.

  On the surface of that planet was a ship.

  Jack climbed up into his command chair and tapped the holoimage projected above the armrest. He accessed the code. The full information came streaming over the small holostage. He transferred it to the main holostage. The image of the star system and its dense surrounding Oort cloud vanished and was replaced by an image of a city-sized ship.

  “It’s a civilian transport ship,” Jack said.

  “They don’t know we are here,” Sam said. “Should I contact them?”