Last Stand Boxed Set Page 14

  Every system that had been installed on this civilian recreational holiday vehicle was there to provide comfort for the passengers, but all had failed or were failing. The small galley was way out of order. The shower unit was leaking, when he had enough water to take a shower, and the cruiser reeked of his two-man crew. They were two of the brightest of his criminal thugs, but certainly not the cleanest.

  Ivan and Titch had secured the civilian cruiser from its former owners, and now it was part of Beretta’s criminal empire. This part of his empire was tiny, only big enough to carry Beretta and his two new tenants, but his empire was bigger than anyone in Fleet Intelligence realized. He had cells on every civilian transport, hundreds of associates on dozens of ships, even some in the newly-recruited Fleet Marine Service. Beretta was the single most powerful man outside of the military.

  But he was trapped on this tiny ship. It was just not worthy of him.

  As the three destroyers headed off to survey various stellar systems, Beretta found he was more easily able to move through the fleet with only the Scepter still in formation with the civilian craft. Although the fighter Blades still flew their combat patrols, Lou Beretta knew he could stay out of sight.

  Micro-drones attached to the hull of the three destroyers fed back data on their locations. One, the Scorpio, had discovered a habitable planet. Beretta sifted through the data excitedly. It looked like the destroyer was leaving orbit, leaving a detachment on the planet.

  “That’s the one,” Beretta said. “That’s where we are going.” Beretta stood up and picked his way through the trash that littered the cabin, stepping up to the flight deck at the front of the cruiser. He grabbed Ivan by the shoulder and pulled him out of the pilot’s seat.

  Beretta set a course for the blue planet.

  “You want to go somewhere, boss?” Ivan said in his deep, stumbling voice.

  “That destroyer has dispatched tac boats to the surface of the blue planet.”

  “Marines,” Titch said. “We want to stay away from them. Right, boss?”

  “If they were any good, sure. But do you think they are going to send the best and brightest down to look at the planet and leave their precious destroyer unguarded? I don’t think so. I bet all we got down there is a bunch of kids and old men. And the tac boats are fresh for the taking. We can get rid of this old bucket and pick ourselves up a new flagship for the Beretta fleet.”

  Beretta positioned his cruiser in the sensor shadow of one of the civilian transports on the edge of the formation and then leapt away toward the blue planet around the blue giant. As he neared the system, he intercepted transmissions between the Marines on the surface and the destroyer moving away from planetary orbit, its heading taking it toward one of the system’s gas giants.

  Beretta recognized the voice of the Marine on the planet, and it sent a shiver down his spine, a shiver of excitement and anticipation.

  “Jack Forge,” Beretta breathed, his voice quivering over the name as he imagined getting one over on the Marine that had killed his friend and most trusted gangster.

  “Isn’t he the Marine that killed Lars?” Ivan said.

  “That’s the one,” Beretta said. He watched as the planet drew closer on the cruiser’s holostage.

  “You want we should call in some guys and finish this Marine?” Titch said, his voice chattering like a rat.

  “If the opportunity presents itself, I sure would like that. But look here.” Beretta flicked to the intercepted data coming from the planet. “Three tac boats on the surface, and one of them is currently sitting on this wide-open plain. One is lost in this jungle area, and then there’s this one in the air. I say we drop down next to the first and take it for our own.”

  “What about this one, boss?” Ivan asked. “Don’t you like the old bus? She’s a beauty.”

  “When she was new, she was average at best.” Beretta cut the drive and let the blue planet’s gravity pull the ship down. “Now it’s only got one more use. I think it would make one hell of a bang, don’t you?” Beretta adjusted his heading with a few flicks of the thrusters and set his heading toward the ship on the plain. “Grab a couple of weapons and get ready. Things could get hot down there.”

  The cruiser slammed into the atmosphere. Alarms across the flight console caused Titch to become animated and anxious.

  “She’s burning up, boss. We have to slow down.”

  “No, she’s fine. She’ll make it. I’ll just put us down next to that tac boat and we can be away.”

  “But if there’s a tac boat, there will be Marines. They’ll shoot at us,” Ivan said, crashing through the trash in the cabin.

  “Easy, big fella. No one’s going to shoot at you.” Beretta made a few adjustments to the falling cruiser’s course.

  “How can you be so sure?” Titch said in his reedy voice.

  “Because they can’t shoot at what they can’t see,” Beretta said and sent the last reserves of energy to the thrusters.

  The cruiser came tearing through to the lower atmosphere and skirted across the waves over the ocean to the west of the single tac boat on the yellow grassy plain. Beretta pushed the cruiser as low as he dared. The sea boiled underneath the red-hot hull of the cruiser. He sucked in the boiling water vapor as he raced toward the coast. With the craft only a few hundred meters ahead, Beretta banked and raced over the heads of the nearest Marine. He drew billowing cloud of boiling water vapor and burning hull composite fragments behind him.

  The cruiser was on the point of breaking apart, but just before the forward view screen failed, Beretta saw the Marines stationed in a wide perimeter around the tac boat open fire. They poured pulse rifle rounds into his burning meteorite of a ship. Beretta pressed the ship even lower, setting the grass on fire, only for it to be extinguished by the boiling clouds of vapor pouring off the sea in his wake. And then he slammed the ship into the ground. The hull stability field only just survived, only just protecting the three occupants of the craft.

  As the cruiser skidded to a halt, digging a deep trench in the light dirt, Beretta was out of his seat and grabbing hold of his pulse rifle, one he had liberated from a Fleet Intelligence enforcer when he had last been under arrest. He activated the electron bayonet and thrust the meter-long fizzing blade into the side of the cruiser, cutting his way out of the melting ship.

  “Let’s go,” Beretta said, kicking out the panel he’d cut in the hull. He dropped out of the transport and landed on the planet.

  Beretta knew he was a good pilot, but seeing how close he had brought the cruiser to the tac boat impressed even him. He was only a few strides away. In the distance, he could see Marines running back toward the boat.

  Titch dropped out of the hole in the side of the civilian cruiser and immediately gave fire with his pulse rifle. He poured a sustained fire toward the distant targets. Beretta grabbed Titch by the neck and dragged him.

  “They are too far away for you to hit,” Beretta said, shoving Titch toward the boat’s open boarding ramp.

  Ivan dropped out of the cruiser last and ran to catch up with Beretta. The big man was slow. He was a heavy hitter, and Beretta was impressed with the man’s stamina, but he could not run. There was always a danger he would be left behind.

  “Don’t wait for me,” Ivan said through huge heaving breaths, his deep voice echoing off the side of the vessel in front of Beretta.

  Beretta waved Ivan to him, encouraging him to run faster and catch up. He threw Titch at the boarding ramp and shouted after him.

  “Get this thing started. I want to be off the deck in thirty seconds.”

  The nearest Marines were only a few meters away now, leaping through the sky using their anti-grav systems and thruster jets to clear the space in moments. Beretta took aim at the closest and laid down a stream of fire. The return fire came in from the leaping Marines, but their aim was inaccurate, and the pulse rounds slammed harmlessly into the ground a dozen meters in front of Beretta as Ivan came lumbering forward. />
  The whine of the tac boat systems coming to life told Beretta that Titch was at the controls and the ship was ready to go. He stepped up onto the boarding ramp and urged Ivan to run, the big man’s red face eager and excited.

  Streams of pulse rounds tore through the yellow grass and cut across Ivan’s trailing leg. He went sprawling through the dirt and shouting in pain as another stream of pulse rounds slammed into his back, punching huge wounds into the big man’s back.

  Beretta turned his back and stepped up the boarding ramp. He hit the panel to close the boarding ramp and called out to Titch to take off.

  “What about Ivan?” Titch said.

  “What about him?” Beretta said. “He was always too damn slow, that one. Get us out of here, Titch.”

  Beretta felt the tac boat leap into the air and race away. He turned and looked at his new ship. A Fleet Marine tac boat, no less. Fully kitted, fully armed, and fully functional.

  And occupied.

  “What do we have here?” Beretta said, looking at the Marine strapped into the restraints at the back of the cabin. “It looks like we have a passenger.”

  “Yeah,” Titch said. “I saw the scroat, but I didn’t have time to kill him yet. Looks like they got him strapped in good. You want me to throw him out when we get into orbit?”

  Beretta stepped back and looked at the Marine. He smiled.

  “I know you,” Heaton said. “You are Lou Beretta. You run the boxing, the cards, the liquor. You’re a legend.”

  “And you’re about to become history,” Beretta said easily. He turned his back on Heaton and looked at the laser assembly control bay on the side of the boat.

  Beretta accessed the targeting systems for the lasers and targeted the burning cruiser that had been his home, and his prison, for far too long. He activated a high-yield pulse and fired. The small targeting screen on the weapons panel showed him the destruction below. The cruiser, half-molten and smoldering from its rapid entry flight, erupted as the laser struck, vaporizing the cruiser and punching a crater a hundred meters across into the planet’s surface.

  Beretta turned again to the Marine captive in the back of the tac boat.

  “Or would it be better to keep you alive?” Beretta wondered aloud. “Tell me, what is a Marine doing under arrest? And has he got anything to do with Jack Forge?”

  “Jack Forge,” Heaton said, nodding nervously. “Yes, he put me here. Is he a friend of yours?”

  Beretta laughed. He walked over and patted the Marine heavily on the cheek.

  “Something like that. Now tell me, what’s your name?”

  5

  The crash of the foliage, vines, and branches, all slashing against the outside of the tac boat, echoed around the flight deck as the sturdy craft tore through the jungle, heading toward the ground. The forward view displayed on the holostage flickered wildly. A report from the communication systems informed Jack that local gravity field variability and a wildly-fluctuating geomagnetic field was interfering with communications.

  The boat lurched violently to one side, throwing Jack about in his seat. The starboard thruster assembly flared, instructions from the flight management system becoming scrambled. Jack compensated, using the holostage image to help him steady the boat. Then the holoimage flickered and vanished. Jack was flying blind. Using his own balance as a guide, he kicked in the reverse thrusters and stabilized the boat’s descent. The holostage flickered back on for a moment and Jack saw the bright reflector of Tac Boat Three half-buried in thick jungle soil. Flickering over the image, Jack could see the unmistakable signal of pulse rifle fire flickering out from the tac boat and into the jungle in all directions.

  The tac boat kicked sideways as the port thruster assembly cut out. Jack rocked violently in his seat. The sudden variance in the local gravity field caused the boat to drop ten meters in less than a second, and Jack felt himself lift out of his seat. The readout on the flight panel showed Jack was a hundred meters from the surface, but he did not know if he could trust the readings on the constantly-flickering instrument panel. The boat was descending at a slow rate now as the branches and foliage all around slowed his descent. He knew the tac boat could take a crash landing from this height and be fine, so he activated an emergency shutdown of all systems.

  Jack flipped open the panel for the system-wide deactivation control and pressed the small button. He pressed it firmly and it replied with a satisfyingly loud click. And in that moment, the boat went dark.

  Jack felt himself lifting out of the seat again as the tac boat fell. He felt it roll, caught on the side of a tree trunk. It tumbled over completely. Jack activated his tactical suit’s onboard stability field to keep him in the seat, but he knew he was upside-down. Then the boat lurched forward and stopped violently, the craft’s blunt nose slamming hard into the ground.

  Jack climbed out of his seat and realized the boat was lying at an angle, pitched forward and dipping slightly to the port side. The boarding ramp on the starboard side opened to show Jack a view through the jungle foliage to the canopy above. The sky was barely visible through the thick overlapping branches and leaves of the deep green and black foliage.

  Jack heard pulse rifle fire and the shouts of panicked Marines. He climbed onto the side of his boat and saw Tac Boat Three, its drive section partially buried in the thick soil, surrounded by Marines firing wildly into the jungle.

  Sudden movement in the trees caught Jack’s attention. He saw the creature coming toward him at speed, half-falling, half-swimming through the trees—a dark, green creature with a shimmering cloak covering its head and body. It moved easily, its hands and feet gripping the hanging branches as it swung through the foliage. The creature snarled at Jack as it came in for an attack.

  As the creature came closer, Jack could see the features buried in its deep hood. In those shadows, Jack could see the wide mouth open to present rows of jagged teeth. The creature let out a piercing cry as it swung forward.

  The creature raised one hand, the three slender fingers gripping a primitive weapon—a short, thick stick with a stone head fastened to one end with a crisscross arrangement of sinew and string.

  Jack drew his pulse pistol and took aim at the creature as it came within a few meters. This primitive shrieking thing would be no match for his Fleet Marine tactical suit, or his pulse pistol.

  Jack fired a low-yield pulse into its body. The energy from the pulse crackled and dispersed over the cloak that the green-skinned creature wore. And still it came forward, bringing back its stone-headed club ready to strike.

  Jack brought up his left arm to fend off the blow, fully confident that his tactical suit could take a blow from the primitive weapon. The tactical suit could deflect micro meteorites traveling at several thousand meters-per-second, so it should have no difficulty with this handheld club.

  The club struck Jack’s forearm. The impact itself was negligible, but the shower of electrical force that erupted from the impact sent Jack hurtling backwards, thrown aside by the force of the sudden electrical discharge. He dropped back into the tac boat.

  And the creature dropped in on top of him.

  As the creature dropped into the boat, its hood fell back and Jack was staring into the smooth, green face of the wild creature. Its wide, round, black eyes sat above the gruesome horizontal slit filled with razor-sharp teeth. The eyes glistened, and the teeth sparkled as the creature fell on top of him. The side of the head was smooth with a series of red fleshy strips where human ears might be. Its neck was thick and muscular, and Jack saw tiny discharges of electrical energy flicker around the creature’s throat.

  The creature grabbed Jack with its feet, the three long toes gripping his arms and pinning him to the deck. It raised its stone-headed club high above its head with both hands, staring down at Jack, a thick dribble of slime running from the creature’s wide mouth.

  Jack set his pulse pistol to high-yield rounds. With a flick of his wrist, he activated the electron blade. He twi
sted his arm to point the pistol up at the creature. The electron blade touched the ankle near the long, snakelike toes gripping his forearm. As the electron blade touched, the creature was flung away as an eruption of sparks and a sharp electric jolt ripped between the two.

  Jack’s arm slammed back into the tac boat’s hull, the pulse pistol lost from his grip. The creature shrieked as it was flung back by the force of the discharge, then it leapt up and grabbed the open boarding ramp above with both hands, the club now gripped in its right foot. It snarled at Jack and then climbed out of the tac boat. Jack saw the dark shape swing off into the jungle.

  He quickly got up and scrambled over to his pulse pistol. He deactivated the electron blade that was slowly beginning to burn a hole in the deck plate where it sat. Jack set his suit’s local gravity field to a low level and leapt up through the opening, floating up through the trees that surrounded the tac boat.

  Lowering himself back down to the tac boat, he stood on the port-side hull. He scanned the jungle for any sign of the creature and released a micro-drone to keep watch and give him an early warning, but the drone’s connection to his wrist-mounted holostage was intermittent at best. Jack would have to rely on his own vision, and his own instinct for approaching danger.

  Standing on the side of his boat, Jack looked over to boat three, where the Marines were huddled around one side with their electron bayonets activated. They had created a small defensive formation with the meter-long electron blades sticking out on all sides.

  Jack watched as one of the tree creatures went swimming in through the foliage and leapt screaming, feet first with its axe high above its head, and tried to break into the defensive formation the Marines had formed.

  The creature struck one of the electron blades, and the sharp explosion with the sound of an electric twang cut through Jack’s suit. He felt his hair stand on end. The Marine holding the pulse rifle was thrown back to the ground while the green jungle creature was flung away with force, its cloak falling away to reveal its smooth, dark green skin.