Forged Under Siege Read online

  “Clear, Commander,” Folau replied.

  The mass of Chitins came ever closer and Jack heard the pulse rifles move into the short burst firing pattern. The short bursts of pulse rounds struck the front of the Chitin wave and Jack saw the Chitin advance halt for a moment. But it was only a momentary halt until the press of numbers overcame the bursts of rifle fire.

  “Stand by on those blast lasers. Tac cannon, fire.”

  The purring of the tac boat’s kinetic hail cannon echoed around the entrance hangar. The rapid firing cannon cut a swath through the advancing Chits, a hundred Chitin soldiers torn to fragments by the brutal weapon. Designed to smash a Hydra’s hull, the tac boat’s cannon made short work of Chitin exoskeleton. The cannon stopped firing and the coolant system vented with loud hiss. Then it fired another burst, its gentle purring belied its deadly nature.

  Still, the Chits came on. Still, there were thousands. They would not stop. This was to the death. Jack noticed the Blades in the distance, dancing around in a deadly aerial ballet with Krakens as more Hydras landed to unload fresh Chitin soldiers to the attack.

  Thousands had already died, thousands more would die, and Jack didn’t want to lose one more Marine. He couldn’t lose one more Marine.

  “Stand by on the blast laser. Planar beam. Fire.”

  The blast laser fired the moment Jack gave the command. With the weapon set to planar beam, it sent out a flat, wide beam of deadly energy. The green laser plane sliced through the Chitins that it connected with. The plane held for a second and then disappeared, leaving a battlefield strewn with dissected Chitin soldiers, some writhing in their death throes.

  The tac boat cannon purred again and knocked another swath through the advancing Chitins. Then the blast laser fired another deadly sheet of laser that cut another hundred Chitins in two.

  But still they came. The front line of the Chitin advance was reduced to a few scattered individuals. The Marines pulse rifles targeted and finished them.

  But still they came.

  And then came a communication from Pretorius. A private message for Jack.

  “This is classified, Jack,” Pretorius said. “But you need to know. The Chits have destroyed Eras.”

  Jack’s breath stuck in his chest. The Chits couldn’t destroy a planet. It was impossible.

  “What?” Jack asked, stunned.

  “They slammed an asteroid into it. It was massive. Fleet HQ thinks it must have been a neutron star fragment. It punched right through the planet. Eras is gone. We’ve lost all communication. The ships positioned there are trying to regroup with us here at Eros, but it looks like they are cut off by the Chitin blockade.”

  Jack was stunned. He stood, open-mouthed, staring at the firing line and the Chitins who were coming ever closer.

  “No,” Jack said in stunned disbelief.

  “I’ve seen the data. It’s true.” Pretorius paused. “Are you okay, Jack?”

  Jack mentally shook himself. “Yes, sir, just a little shocked is all. It’s a bit much to take in.”

  “Get used to it. Eros is probably next, unless we can break this kravin stranglehold they have on us.”

  “How are you, sir?” Jack asked. Anything to change the subject from the shocking news. “How is the Scorpio?”

  “We are managing. Marines from the Aquarius transferred over. We’ve secured the ship and the Chits are all but finished.”

  “Good to hear, sir,” Jack said. He saw three Blades race across the entrance and blast a concentration of Chits that had herded together from fear of the blast laser’s deadly cutting planar beam.

  “You hold that cannon, Jack,” Pretorius said. “If that facility falls, it’ll be over in a matter of hours.”

  “We’re holding our own, Captain.” Jack checked the view through his field scanners. A Blade was struck by ground fire and crashed to the moon’s dusty surface. The explosion that followed suggested the pilot was surely lost.

  “Good luck, Jack,” Pretorius said.

  “Commander,” Folau’s voice came over Jack’s communicator. “The Chits. They are in the facility. They smashed the small rear door. They are inside, sir.”

  Jack climbed down from his vantage point and headed for the rotating airlock to the inner complex. “Those side doors were never going to hold them out. But they can’t deploy numbers against you in the corridors. As long as you’ve got ammunition, they can’t take the corridor.”

  “I’ll make every shot count,” Folau said.

  Jack went to the rotating airlock door to the inner complex and headed inside. If the Chits were in the complex, Jack wanted to be sure Reyes was safe. He could keep her safe.

  He ran to the small office. Reyes was gone.

  “Sarah,” Jack called into his communicator. “Reyes, come in.”

  17

  “Sarah?” Jack called as he ran along the corridor of the inner complex. He flung open one door after another looking for Reyes. They’d had so little opportunity to spend time together these last few weeks, and Jack didn’t want to lose her now she was so close.

  Jack threw open a door and spotted Reyes sitting at an engineering station of a control room. A holoimage rotated slowly in front of her, showing a network of pipes and cables that looked like a mess of noodles to Jack. Reyes was transfixed and clearly saw something else in the image. Jack walked over to her.

  “Sarah, I was calling you. The Chitins are...”

  “Look at this, Jack,” she said, not taking her eyes off the holographic technical diagram. “It’s what makes the planetary defense cannon work. Isn’t it amazing?”

  “Sarah, we’ve got to go,” Jack reached out and took Reyes by the hand.

  Shrugging Jack off, she tapped a few controls. The diagram disappeared, and a list of data started streaming across the holoimage.

  “I found data on the cannon’s activity. It’s a brilliant piece of equipment. Look how it tunnels through spacetime directly to the center mass of the target.”

  “I’m sure it’s amazing, but we need to get you somewhere safe.”

  Reyes rolled her chair along to the next terminal and taped a single button. The Eros System appeared with the surrounding Chitin armada. “Nowhere is safe anymore, Jack.”

  Jack looked at the holoimage of the Chitin armada. The Chitins had Eros surrounded. They would move in for the kill sooner or later. Jack was determined not to let them take him without a fight.

  “Can you do anything to extend the range of the cannon?” Jack asked.

  Reyes was shaking her head. She rolled her chair back to the first terminal.

  “No,” Reyes said. “The range is a function of the energy transfer. Any further and the energy is reduced to practically zero. It just evaporates, but look at this.”

  Reyes changed the holoimage to show a Chitin Leviathan.

  “This is data from the last attack. Look where the particle beam emerges in the interior of the Leviathan. The data shows the Leviathan fails instantly, but look here. The previous attack and the energy was much higher, but the focal point of the beam was off by only a fraction”

  “No, I don’t get it. You’ll have to make it a bit easier for me, Sarah.” Jack tried to see what appeared so obvious to Reyes.

  “Okay, look here…” Reyes tapped the console. An image of a Leviathan appeared. It seemed to be tethered to the surface of a planet, or a moon. Then Jack recognized it.

  “That’s the Leviathan we took down at the Battle of Kratos Fuel Station.”

  Sarah looked up at Jack and nodded. “I located the data in the Fleet database.” She looked back at the image. “Don’t ask me how I did it because I don’t think it was strictly legal.”

  “What is that telling us?” Jack leaned in, as if getting closer to the image and the data steaming over it would make any more sense to him.

  Sarah stopped the data scrolling over the image and highlighted a single data point.

  Jack recognized a set of coordinates when he saw it. He
knew that much.

  “Coordinates. What for?” Jack asked.

  “For this.” Reyes pointed at the image of the Leviathan. She expanded the image and showed a point deep inside the Leviathan.

  “That is where the damage was done to the Leviathan we destroyed at Kratos fuel station.” Reyes called up the image of the Leviathan destroyed by the defense cannon. The same point was highlighted.

  “I don’t think they’ve spotted it but look, Jack. The Leviathans are tough ships, right? They have taken a beating from our biggest ships and barely take a scratch until they crack. Well, I think they are superbly strong, but all that is somehow dependent on this one point in the ship’s interior.”

  Sarah looked up at Jack.

  “So,” Jack said, “it’s like a weak point.”

  Sarah looked back to the image. “Kind of. More like a hinge point. You know like when the doctor checks your reflexes and makes your leg jump with a little tap from a hammer? It’s like that. Little force, big reaction.”

  “So all we need to do is to give them a little tap with a hammer?” Jack said.

  “Well, not that little, but if it’s in the right spot, it doesn’t need to be massive, not nearly as much as the planetary defense cannon can apply. A kiloton should be more than enough.”

  “You are a genius, Sarah.” Jack leaned down and kissed her cheek.

  Sarah blushed. “I’m sure anyone could have spotted it eventually. We should tell Fleet HQ right away.”

  Jack felt a sense of elation. They could break the Chitin blockade. The fleet could target the specific area of the Leviathans and push the Chits back to their home world. All Jack had to do was inform Fleet Command and Control. Jack was about to open a channel to the nearest Fleet officer when he hesitated.

  “What if the Chits intercept the transmission? They will know we have found a chink in their armor.”

  Sarah switched off the terminal. “I deal with the technical stuff, Jack. Tactics is more your thing.”

  “A kiloton explosion,” Jack said to himself. “A few antimatter power cells ought to do it. I just need a way to get it in place.”

  “You?” Reyes said, suddenly alarmed. “No, Jack. Tell Fleet HQ. Let them do it. You can’t take on the whole Chitin armada by yourself.”

  “I won’t take them on by myself. I’ll have help. Sarah, can you get one of their Hydras flying?”

  18

  The trench line was quiet at the front of the entrance hangar. Jack looked out to the moon’s surface. Torent stood next to him, silent. The moon around the facility was crawling with Chitins, the survivors of the last assault. It would be a dangerous thing to do to break cover and attempt to cross the surface of Brecon with all those Chits out there. But Jack had no option. He had to act and act fast.

  Jack called Corry Allen, the squad leader of 3rd squad, over to him. “And you too, Bevan.” Jack waved the young squad leader over to him. “Fall in with me.”

  Allen and Bevan came over quickly and smartly. Bevan saluted Jack and came to attention.

  “At ease, guys. Corry, I know you have faced off against the Chits plenty, and Erin, you’ve spent time adrift in open space. You two have the experience I need on this job. You survived for days in the wreckage of the Taurus, right?” Jack asked Bevan.

  “I did, sir,” Bevan replied confidently.

  “I need more Marines who have experience in open space.”

  Torent folded his arms and nodded. “I’ve been in that sort of situation with you before, sir,” Torent said. “Where are we going this time?”

  “Not you, Sam,” Jack said. “I need you to take over down here. We are going to destroy some Leviathans.”

  Jack sat in the trench with Reyes, Allen, and Bevan. They each carried a pack stuffed with pulse rifle power cells and had a guidance system activated on their wrist-mounted holodisplay. The Marines on either side of the Jack’s little team looked at Jack for the signal.

  A final silent check with his small team and they all nodded that they were ready to go. With a simple gesture, Jack sent the Marines forward.

  They climbed over the top of the rampart and rushed forward over the moon’s surface. They ran in a spear head formation with Jack and his team running behind the tip of the spear. Jack knew in only a short while, this team would be the only hope for humanity’s survival.

  The plasma spears started up from positions around the area, small pockets of Chitins taking the opportunity to fire at the Marines in the open. Jack saw the first Marine fall. He went down hard, a plasma spear’s residual fire smoldering on his helmet.

  Another Marine ran up and took the fallen Marine’s position. They began to return fire, but it was difficult to fire accurately or in a sustained burst while running. Short blasts of pulse rifle fire flashed across the surface of Brecon as Marines fired at the hidden Chits that their scanners detected. The shots were inaccurate, but it served to keep the Chits’ fire to a minimum.

  The scanner on Jack’s wrist showed him the location of a Chitin Hydra. The Chitin transport craft lay open and hopefully empty.

  They ran directly for the opening of the Hydra. This was no time for finesse, this was a rough and ready operation, and it needed to be quick.

  The first Marine to reach the Hydra was the Marine on point. She rushed inside, her electron bayonet carrying her forward into the dark interior of the alien craft. A second Marine followed and by the time Jack and his team arrived, the two Marines were stepping out and giving the all clear.

  Jack waved Reyes, Allen, and Bevan inside. The Marines established a perimeter and took cover on the surface as best they could. The plasma fire began raining down furiously. The return fire from the Marines was equally furious, and now that they were stationary, the fire was well aimed and deadly.

  Jack stepped into the Chitin Hydra.

  The interior was a mess of tentacles dangling and hanging from very surface. In between the tentacles were pockets of polyps that were lighting up. Jack pressed his way toward Reyes. She was in a chair-like structure made of tentacles that were wrapped around her body. She was pulling tentacles and pressing the colored polyp panels.

  “How long before we are on our way?” Jack asked on a secure communication channel open to the small team.

  “We already are,” Reyes replied cheerfully. “Look.” Reyes wiped her hand over a panel and the hull appeared translucent, showing the surface of Brecon falling away. The Marine escort was already hurrying back to the defensive position at the planetary defense cannon. The surface of Brecon was littered with dead Chitins and crashed, burning Fleet fighters. There was a shimmering oily edge to the display that made it all seem unreal. Jack knew battle too well, but it always looked strange and surreal to him.

  “Once we are within range, we go on alone,” Jack said. “Suit thruster jets only.” Jack pulled out his pulse pistol. “The electron blade is our door key.” Jack tapped the holodisplay on his sleeve. It showed the point in the Leviathan where they needed to plant their explosives. “We plant our package at this point and no other, copy?” Jack said.

  Allen and Bevan looked at the holoimages on their own sleeve holodisplays. The route to the Leviathan’s weak spot was highlighted.

  “Easy as falling off a log, right?” Allen said.

  Jack nodded. He hoped they would all make it back alive. He would be able to joke about it then too.

  “Nearing the first insertion point,” Reyes said. “I’ll open the doors now.”

  Jack nodded, surprised at how quickly they had crossed into enemy territory, and equally thankful their stolen Chitin ship hadn’t been targeted. He looked at his small team. “We don’t know what we’re going to find in there, but we need to get these charges in place. We must not fail.”

  The two Marines nodded.

  “You’re good to go,” Reyes said.

  Allen went first. He moved to the door with purpose and stepped out into the black without hesitation.

  Jack followed
his progress on his scanner until he was out of range.

  The three insertion points were set so the three Marines would arrive at their target Leviathans simultaneously. The detonations should occur within seconds of each other. If Jack’s plan worked, the Chitins wouldn’t know what had hit them.

  “Insertion point two,” Reyes said.

  Bevan gave Jack a smart salute and then ran out of the Hydra.

  Jack went over to Reyes. He put a hand on her shoulder. She turned to look at him, and their helmets bumped together lightly.

  “Take care,” Reyes said

  Jack knew he was heading into danger and he needed to win, not take care.

  “I’ll see you soon,” he said.

  “Insertion point three,” Reyes said.

  Jack turned and walked toward the open door. He stepped out into the black and activated his meat suit’s thruster jets.

  The Leviathan looked huge. It hung in space, the light from the distant star glinting off one aspect and then another as the massive Chitin warship turned slowly in space. As Jack came close, he could truly appreciate the scale.

  He had seen a Leviathan up close before, but they never stopped looking imposing. They seemed to grow every time he encountered them. If his plan was successful, Jack hoped he might never encounter one again.

  The holoimage on his wrist directed him to the access point on the Leviathan. He moved in closer and closer, the black hull seeming to fall further into the black of space the closer he got. He felt he was falling down a dark hole with the ground racing toward him and away at the same time.

  Jack felt the fear in his chest, the fear of any small creature next to a deadly one many times its size. He was hoping he could swim into the shark’s mouth because the shark didn’t now he was there or didn’t consider him a threat. If that Leviathan spotted him, or decided the puny human had wandered too close, Jack guessed that at least the end would be swift.

  He came up to the Leviathan hull. It was a strange black, not just the absence of color, but almost absence of matter. The construction was so durable, so tough, that it took hundreds of fleet munitions to crack it, but up close and with his pulse pistol’s electron blade applied to the hull firmly, the shell opened easily.