Last Stand Boxed Set Page 12

  “Guys. Guys. Come on, Second Squad, let’s all line up for the officer.”

  Heaton walked in amongst the crowd and pushed the Marines for his squad back toward their grid on the Marine deck.

  And then Gilchrist started shouting. Jack could see the veins on the side of his head popping as he shouted. His voice loud and gravelly. He went into the crowd and began shoving Marines roughly toward their squad grid.

  Squad Leader Lane stood in front of the crowd, his hands behind his back. Although he stuttered slightly, his voice was loud and clear. “Third Squad. Fall in. Attention.”

  Members of third squad began to leave the crowd where Heaton was still walking, coaxing, and gently shoving members of his own squad to where they bumped into the members of first squad as Gilchrist bullied them into formation.

  Third squad came together in good order, standing to attention in front of Lane. He turned to face Jack once he was sure his squad was in formation.

  Jack waited a few moments more while Gilchrist and Heaton formed up their squads. A little slow, a little unorthodox, but they got the job done. Jack guessed it would have to do, for now.

  “Listen up, Marines.” Jack walked along the front of the groups. “We are going to be the first people to set foot on this planet. We know nothing about it, and there is danger in the unknown. I need every Marine in this group focused and disciplined. Listen to your squad leaders, and listen to me, and if you think you have a better idea, alert your squad leaders and they will relay that to me. But be decisive, keep your actions clear, and remember your training to focus on your tasks.

  “Squad leaders, take your squads to your tac boats and strap in. We will be departing Scorpio in five minutes.”

  Jack watched as the three squad leaders moved their squads to the tac boats in their own styles. Gilchrist shouting, Heaton cajoling, and Lane simply issuing the order.

  The Marines jogged across the deck and up the boarding ramps of the waiting ships. The familiar sound of boots on the composite deck plating. Jack had run that pattern himself so many times. He watched as the squad leaders boarded the boats. Jack followed and boarded Tac Boat One.

  Squad Leader Gilchrist was checking that the final Marine was secured in his seat when Jack Forge stepped inside. He tapped the control panel, and the boarding ramp began to close.

  Gilchrist looked to Jack. “Do you want to pilot her, sir?” he asked.

  Jack Forge shook his head as he walked toward the flight console. “You take her down, Squad Leader. I’ll scan for a landing site,” Jack said, opening a line to the other two boats. “Get ready to move off. Begin your preparations for takeoff and egress.”

  Gilchrist nodded and walked to the flight deck, where he dropped into the pilot seat and began to study the controls.

  Jack dropped into the co-pilot seat and activated the holostage on the flight console. The planet was positioned in the center of the small holostage. Jack zoomed in as far as he could and looked at the day side of the large blue planet. It looked so much like the planet where he’d grown up, or at least it did from space. Green and blue with wispy white clouds.

  A message appeared on the holostage, a text from the Scorpio’s command deck. First Officer Chou advised Jack that the Scorpio was entering a high geostationary orbit above the equator on the sunward side of the planet. The planet’s rotation had been estimated to be extremely slow and one day on the surface would last over a hundred hours. It meant a day on the planet would be equivalent of ten watches of Fleet time.

  “The boat is yours, Gilchrist,” Jack said. “Take us out when you’re ready.”

  Jack looked over to see that Gilchrist hadn’t even begun to prep the boat for flight down to the planet surface. “Is there a problem?” Jack asked.

  Gilchrist looked at Jack. His gruff demeanor was slipping, and Jack could see a lot of insecurity behind it.

  “You are rated to fly a tac boat, are you not, Squad Leader? Every squad leader should be rated on tac boats. We don’t expect combat piloting skills, but you should be able to put your squad onto the surface of the planet.”

  Gilchrist opened his mouth to answer but knew there was no point arguing with Major Jack Forge. Forge was a legend in the Fleet and a respected Marine. Gilchrist knew he would get no change from arguing with him.

  “I can’t remember how to start,” Gilchrist said quietly. He glanced nervously over a shoulder at the squad sitting behind them, strapped into their seats, pulse rifles on their knees, helmets locked in place. “I didn’t even want to be squad leader.” Gilchrist looked down at the flight panel.

  Jack sighed and began the startup procedure himself. He noticed Gilchrist had let his head drop and was staring at the console. Jack nudged him. “Pay attention. You might have to bring the tac boat back. You should at least be able to activate the onboard flight systems and have the thing autopilot you back.” Jack glanced at Gilchrist and could see the squad leader was paying attention. “How were you expecting to get down to the planet if I hadn’t come on board?”

  “I was going to use the cheat manual.”

  Jack looked at Gilchrist. “Cheat manual?” Having come up through the ranks, Jack thought he knew all the little tricks, but a cheat manual for tac boat pilot operation was something he’d never heard of or even thought could exist.

  Gilchrist pulled a small holochip out of a pouch on his suit’s webbing and showed it to Jack. He tapped the top of the holochip and a small holofile appeared with a set of simple instructions along with diagrams of a tac boat flight console.

  Jack looked at the instructions and his mouth dropped open. He read the first instruction.

  “Engage drive chamber. Press third red button on the left of the large gray panel under the red dome-shaped object?” Jack grabbed the holochip from Gilchrist. “What? Who?” Jack looked again at the first operator instruction on the cheat manual. This manual had been designed for someone who didn’t even understand the basics of the flight console, let alone how to pilot TAC boat.

  “If you engage the drive chamber before you seal the plasma loop, you could end up blowing out one of the main drive assemblies. And the large dome-shaped object—” Jack pointed at the drive reactor polarization actuator panel. “—is an essential piece of equipment and you should not be going anywhere until you know exactly why it is so important and how to use it.”

  Jack tucked the holochip in his suit and made a mental note to track down and destroy any and all cheat manuals that he feared were circulating around the new Marines. He finished prepping for launch and then opened a holovid feed to the other two boats. The images of Heaton and Lane appeared on the small holostage. Lane was still tapping the console in front of him. Heaton was deactivating and hiding a holofile. Another cheat manual, Jack was sure.

  Jack shook his head. The Fleet Marine training for new recruits was inadequate to say the very least. Someone had tried a shortcut and gave the squad leaders an easy-to-understand manual that could really only lead to disaster.

  “Tac Boats Two and Three, stop all operations. I’m accessing your flight systems from Tac Boat One. Standby.” Jack connected his boat to the onboard systems of boat two. He looked at the startup procedure that Heaton had been going through. This was not standard startup procedure. Jack could see Heaton was following some system of shortcuts. Jack canceled all the operations and reset the boat to its resting standby configuration.

  Jack tapped into prep data on boat three. The first operation was correct. Jack had hope that young Lane was following the correct procedure. Jack checked all the instructions Lane had sent from the flight console to the boat systems, and apart from the time stamp showing he was taking too long, he was at least doing it correctly.

  Jack opened a private channel to Lane’s ident chip.

  “Continuing boat startup, Squad Leader,” Jack said. “We’ll be taking off soon. Are you able to pilot yourself?”

  “Sir. Yes, sir,” Lane replied.

  Jack could
not hear even the slightest flicker of enthusiasm in Lane's voice, but at least the job was being done correctly.

  Jack initiated the remote access interface for boat two and began to prepare the flight system, starting them correctly. He then opened a private channel to Heaton.

  “Squad Leader Heaton, do not ever use that cheat manual on one of my tac boats again. Is that clear?”

  Heaton replied correctly, but his tone was flippant and, Jack felt, borderline insubordinate. Perhaps Heaton could not take the discipline of the service and could only behave in a slightly jovial and offhand manner. It didn’t necessarily mean he was a bad Marine or a bad squad leader, and Jack was prepared to give anyone a chance to prove themselves. Even though Jack suspected Heaton was not a good choice, resources were severely limited, and Jack would have to give him a chance—maybe more than one. Jack knew everyone could make a mistake. It was how you responded to that mistake that was an indication of your character rather than the mistake itself.

  Jack went through the startup procedure for the two boats, then opened a channel to the other two. “Attention Squad Leaders, I’ll be taking out Tac Boat One. Tac Boat Two is programmed to run convoy with the lead. Tac Boat Three, follow in convoy and be ready to change heading on my command. Forge out.”

  Jack activated the thrusters and moved the boat off the deck and out toward the hangar deck’s main doors. The holostage showed the doors slide apart. The port-side hangar opened out to show the huge super terrestrial planet ahead. The Scorpio was in orbit, and the blue planet filled Jack’s holostage.

  Jack maneuvered the boat out. The holostage showed him his remote connection to boat two was stable and it was in convoy. Tac Boat Three lifted off the deck with a slight wobble and then followed slowly. Finally, the three boats left the Scorpio, slipping out into space and moving off toward the planet.

  “Scorpio, this is Forge on Tac Boat One of the planetary landing advance force. We have left the Scorpio and are heading down to the planet now. Forge out.”

  Captain Pretorius appeared on the holostage. His image appeared at thumbnail size shrunk down to the corner of the holostage just in front of huge image of the blue planet.

  “Copy that, Major. Have a pleasant trip. Scorpio out.”

  Jack set his heading for a flat plain on the equator of the planet near the west coast of the single continent. The plain extended a hundred kilometers inland and ran the entire length of the landmass. A sandy beach two hundred kilometers long with the vast grass plain before the terrain merged into dense jungle that stretched from the equator to the tropical zones. Almost the entire sunward side of the planet showed jungle. Dense, dark green jungle.

  The tac boat behind remained in perfect formation while boat three was already veering off course, rotating slightly to port and drifting off to starboard. Jack opened a channel.

  “You are drifting, Lane. Is there a problem?”

  Squad Leader Lane appeared on Jack’s holostage. He was flustered, his hands dancing uncertainly over the flight console. His head and eyes darted this way and that.

  “I’ve got an alarm on the port-side stability field. It’s overpowered and is throwing the boat off course. I also have interference from the planet’s magnetic field, and I’ve got drive assembly instability. I think there’s asymmetry in the reactor. I’m going to have to shut everything down.”

  Jack tapped into Lane’s flight systems, flipping his own boat over to autopilot. He checked the readouts on boat three and Lane was right, there was too much power running through the stability field and an asymmetry in the reactor. Jack sensed someone had been starting the boat using the cheat manual and that was throwing the calibrations on a dozen systems out of whack.

  “Listen to me, Lane. No need to power down. Just recalibrate the hull stability field generator. Then deactivate drive assembly three. Your symmetry on the others is just within tolerance. We will run a full calibration and diagnostic once we get down to the planet. If you shut down now, you might not get her powered up again and will be drifting in orbit for weeks. Do you hear me, Lane?”

  “Sir. Yes, sir. I’ll do as you say. But I can’t stop my TAC boat drifting off course. I’m not going to make the landing site.”

  And then the signal went dead.

  Jack centered the image on his holostage on the three-boat flotilla heading to the planet. Boat three suddenly veered violently off course. A drive flare erupted from one of the main assemblies, then there was a small explosion of orange plasma on the port-side stability field generator as the power surge discharged. The tac boat spun tumbled toward the planet.

  Jack attempted to open a channel, but the system was not responding. Jack clenched his fist. Too many people were taking too many shortcuts. This was not the service he had served. This was a poor shadow of its once great power and organization. People were going to get hurt. People were going to get killed. And there was nothing Jack could do about it right now. He had two boats under his control with twenty-four raw Marines packed inside.

  If any of them survived this, they would all be a lot more experienced. This would knock some of the rough edges off them all.

  Jack dispatched a surveillance drone over to Tac Boat Three as it tumbled wildly out of control, falling to the planet. The surveillance drone attached to the hull just as it hit the upper atmosphere. Fire from the heat of entry poured over the boat as she fell, and the hull started to glow as it dropped through the atmosphere like an fireball. But with the surveillance drone in place, Jack would be able to keep tabs on the location of Lane and Tac Boat Three.

  Jack angled the hull stability fields on boats one and two and dropped into the planet’s atmosphere.

  3

  Jack brought his boat down carefully onto the yellow plain, boat two landing a few meters behind. Isolating the flight systems on both, he turned to Squad Leader Gilchrist who, though he had been sitting in the pilot seat, had been just another passenger.

  “Deploy your squad to the planet surface,” Jack said. “I’m going to check on the location of Tac Boat Three. Form a standard perimeter and wait for my orders.”

  Jack opened the communication channel to boat two, and the image of Heaton appeared on the holostage.

  “That was a rough landing,” Heaton said, smiling at Jack.

  “When you address an officer, you say sir.” Jack looked at the grinning face on the holostage and felt his blood boil. It wasn’t Heaton’s fault that he hadn’t been trained correctly on the tac boat, but to criticize Jack for his piloting technique after Jack had piloted two boats down to the surface simultaneously was almost too much for him to take. The insubordination was irritating in the extreme. Jack made a mental note to send all squad leaders on an emergency remedial training course the moment he got back to the Scorpio.

  Heaton’s smile wavered and then dissolved, replaced by a grim frown.

  “Sir. Yes, sir.”

  Heaton seemed to always either be grinning or scowling, Jack had noticed. He had only known Heaton for a few hours and already had seen more of the cocky, lackadaisical man than he would like.

  “Deploy your squad to the surface,” Jack said. “Form a perimeter around the tac boats with first squad and wait for my orders.”

  Jack closed the channel and released a number of micro-drones from the tac boat, sending them skidding across the surface of the plain. Data streamed back into the sensor network, and a detailed map appeared on the holostage, expanding in real time as the drones swept over the yellow plain.

  Jack accessed a pair of micro-drones and deployed them to the east of the landing site, sending them to sweep into the jungle area and make contact with Tac Boat Three.

  A channel opened on the communications panel. Jack tapped it, opened it, and the image of Squad Leader Lane appeared. The holoimage flickered, Lane’s voice crackling.

  “Sir, Tac Boat Three reporting in. We made a heavy landing in dense foliage. We were able to partially stabilize before impact, but the r
ear starboard quarter is buried. I have ordered third squad to start digging the tac boat out so we can take off, once we make repairs to the navigation system.”

  “Okay, sit tight, Lane,” Jack said.

  Lane spoke, his fracturing channel making it almost impossible to be understood.

  “Can—repeat th—”

  Then the channel went dead.

  Jack marked boat three’s location on the growing map of the landing site where boats one and two were stationed, sitting on firm, flat ground with a view to the horizon in every direction.

  To the west were the sandy shores of the vast ocean. The plain stretched away a thousand kilometers north and south. A few hundred kilometers to the east was the dense jungle of the continental interior.

  There was plenty of land on the continent’s western plain for the entire fleet to land. Civilian transport, military destroyers, even the huge carrier Scepter would be able to make landfall. The ships of the fleet arranged across this vast strip of land would create an instant network of cities, and if the planet proved to be as habitable as Jack’s initial assessments suggested then the fleet could immediately start a colony.

  It was what everyone had been hoping for such a long time.

  Jack stepped out onto the planet surface. The feeling of solid ground beneath his feet was strange at first. He had been adrift in space with the fleet for so long that only the deck plates and grav fields of the various fleet ships had been there to give him the illusion of solid ground beneath his feet. But this was real, he could almost feel the hundreds of thousands of kilometers of rock deep beneath him.

  And even the gravity had that unmistakable authentic feel to it. Artificial gravity always had a slightly tenuous and inconsistent feeling. One deck plate could generate a slightly lighter or stronger field than another, and sometimes the grav field only reached up to knee height. Jack had become used to walking in the slightly-fluctuating gravity fields. He’d become accustomed to the changes. But here, gravity was consistent and persistent. He wanted to drop to his knees to run his hands over the surface, to feel the solid surface, to touch the planet with his hands.