New Enemy (Jack Forge, Lost Marine Book 4) Read online

  Jack couldn’t see the information in front of Mallet. He had never felt the need for formal counseling. He had talked through his concerns with his friend and mentor, Captain Pretorius. He had the support of his friend and Marine brother, Sam Torent.

  “I received additional training following their loss,” Jack said.

  He remembered the days of virtual reality combat training with an elite group of Marine Service leaders. It had been some of the most challenging encounters and missions he had ever undertaken, and even though he knew they were simulations, he had engaged with them fully and learned much about Marine tactics and the leadership skills he would need to make the most of his major’s star.

  “And after all that extra leadership training, all those extra hours and resources poured into helping you, again you abandoned your post during the final battle for the Eros System. A battle we eventually lost.”

  “The planet was lost. The fleet and the civilian transports had all left the planet. I was alone in the capital, me and the remnants of Scorpio Battalion. Once the fleet had left, there was no authority left on the planet. I was the highest-ranking Marine left on Eros. And I had information that could lead to a way of saving all the people who had been left behind.”

  Jack remembered bitterly the hundreds of thousands of people abandoned on the planet, left to the mercy of the Chitin hoards. He remembered the departure areas littered with abandoned luggage. The pitiful sight of so many without a hope.

  “We couldn’t save them all,” Mallet said icily.

  “You didn’t even try,” Jack retorted. “At least I tried. When I left, it was only because I couldn’t go back. But at least I left the populations safer than they had been before. I would have sacrificed everything to save them. I am happy the plan worked and I gave them all a chance to live.”

  Mallet leaned forward, a smiled tugging at one side of her thin lips.

  “Are you trying to tell me you saved the world? Do you think it will save you from facing justice?”

  “I did what I thought was best under the circumstances, given the information I discovered after the fleet left. I acted. As a leader, I must act. If I hesitate or fail to make a decision, all is sure to be lost. And,” Jack said, leaning forward, “I will face any accusation squarely. I know in my heart that I have always done the best I could, often under difficult, dangerous, or deadly circumstances. There isn’t ever time to consider the fallout of my decisions. I must trust my judgment and act.”

  “And was it your judgment to execute Chief Stone? Was that a considered decision under difficult circumstances, or did you just act?”

  Jack sat back in his chair, the breath snatched from his chest. He hadn’t wanted to kill Stone, despite all he had done.

  “Stone was in danger. I saved him from a fate worse than death. I didn’t execute him. It was a mercy. I didn’t want to do it. But he had brought it on himself.”

  Mallet stood up and banged the table.

  “Chief Stone was a great fleet chief, a better engineer than you will ever be, and a better leader. He saved the crew of that frigate. They were lost and alone and he brought them almost back to safety. And then they met you. And you hijacked his ship, turned the young frigate crew against him, and shot him on the command deck right in front of Commander Bale.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Jack said, looking up at the furious Mallet.

  Mallet walked around the table and leaned heavily on the arms of Jack’s chair.

  “Then you tell me what it was like, Forge. I will have your side of it, and then you will face the justice you deserve. Too long you have evaded the Fleet Intelligence Agency. Too long you have run rings around your superiors. You are a criminal, a coward, and a traitor, and I will see you face the consequences.”

  Jack bit his lip. Mallet made it all sound like he was a rogue, but he was good Marine. He knew in his heart and gut that he was.

  “I am innocent of these charges,” Jack said calmly. “I am entitled to representation. Can I speak to Captain Pretorius? I need advice from someone I trust.”

  Mallet pushed herself away from Jack’s chair.

  “You will see who I permit you to see. I’m not having you conspiring with your party of traitors and criminals. You will answer for yourself, Forge. I will hear you confess before the end.”

  Mallet flicked through her files. Jack braced himself for the next twisted truth to be thrown at him.

  “Where is Sam?” Jack asked. “Commander Sam Torrent. Where is he?”

  Mallet didn’t look away from the holofile hovering in front of her. She either hadn’t heard Jack or was ignoring him.

  Then there was a knock at the door.

  Mallet heard that.

  Standing and turning off the holofile, Mallet gave Jack a suspicious look. Jack felt she was about to deliver another barbed comment, an indictment of his ability and his character, but she turned and opened the door to the small interview room.

  A young officer stood there. He looked at Mallet nervously.

  “Speak, boy,” Mallet said with the casually dismissive tone of a Fleet Intelligence Agent.

  “We’re under attack,” the young officer blurted out. He looked past Mallet at Jack sitting at the desk.

  Jack sat forward and felt the containment field that held him in his seat.

  Mallet looked back at Jack.

  “We’ll continue this later,” she said as she left.

  The door closed. Jack dropped back into the molded composite seat. There was nothing he could do other than look around the interview room. He had been there for hours, maybe an entire watch rotation. He hoped Sam was in a better position than he was, but he feared Sam’s position might be considerably worse. Jack tried to clear his mind and rest, but thoughts for his friend, the news of an attack on the Scorpio, and fears for his own safety played on his mind.

  It was easier to fight than sit and wait, but all he could do was wait.

  3

  Captain Pretorius looked at the holostage on the command deck of the Scorpio. Close to a hundred Devex raiders were racing toward the small flotilla. The Scorpio and a squadron of Blades were protecting a civilian transport and escorting it back to the fleet. Pretorius had hoped they could rejoin the other ships without incident or delay, but it was not to be.

  “Time until the Devex intercept us?” Pretorius asked as he watched the holoimage.

  Commander Chou, Pretorius’s second-in-command, tapped the console at the front of the holostage and the time to intercept was displayed between the images of the Scorpio and the raiders.

  They were only minutes away.

  “Time to the fleet rendezvous, please, Mr. Chou.”

  Commander Chou extended the image on the main holostage to show the distant fleet, hundreds of ships, civilian and Fleet, all still over twenty hours and hundreds of astro units away. Pretorius was close, but not close enough to receive any support. They were on their own.

  Pretorius tugged his cuffs. “Prepare all hail cannon to lay down a hail curtain defense. All Blades take positions to defend the civilian transport. Put me through to Commander Bale on the frigate.”

  Bale appeared on the holostage. Even through the holographic image his nervousness was clear.

  “Captain,” Bale said, making an effort to sound in control of his emotions. “Your orders, Sir?”

  “Hold position above the Scorpio’s upper hull. Prepare all weapons. We must defend the civilian transport. Copy?”

  “Copy, sir,” Bale replied.

  Pretorius detected the hesitation in Bale’s voice.

  “What is it, Commander? Quickly.”

  “Major Forge,” Bale said. “He’s been in command of the frigate for such a long time. I wondered if he was coming back.”

  “Major Forge is a Fleet Marine. He’s not rated for Fleet ship command. You are. Frigate M-9 is your ship, Commander. You’ll just have to manage without him. Copy?”

  Bale hesitated.

&nb
sp; “You have a full crew?” Pretorius said, knowing that a full complement had been detached to Frigate M-9 from the Scorpio’s own crew.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you will have no difficulty in doing your duty. Correct?”

  “Yes, sir…but…” Bale said, “Major Forge was—”

  Agent Mallet came striding onto the Scorpio’s command deck. She looked at the holoimage of the nervous Commander Bale.

  “Major Forge is a criminal,” Mallet said to Bale. “And it may turn out that you were negligent, complicit, and possibly also a criminal to let him take command of your ship.”

  Bale’s nervousness peaked and he looked from Mallet to Pretorius.

  Pretorius fixed Bale with a stare.

  “Prepare your ship, Commander,” Pretorius said. “Devex raiders will be in range in moments. Scorpio out.”

  Mallet stepped up to the holostage next to Pretorius. She looked at the image of the Scorpio and the Devex bearing down on them, and the fleet still so far away, too far to be of any help.

  “Please try not to scare my people just before a fight, Special Agent,” Pretorius said in a kindly, too-gentle tone. “It makes them jumpy.”

  “Your plan?” Mallet asked coldly, ignoring Pretorius’s comment. She was standing next to the captain, but was looking directly at the holoimage, her hands behind her back, assuming a position of total calm and authority.

  Pretorius was impressed with Fleet Intelligence and how detached they could be. The threat from the Devex raiders was substantial, but Mallet spoke as if they were nothing more than a swarm of bugs.

  “I will lay down a curtain of kinetic hail as a first line of defense. The laser assemblies are charged with broad sweep beams.”

  “That will limit their range, won’t it?” Mallet made every comment sound like an accusation.

  “Yes, but we will be able to engage more targets more rapidly. These are not Devex warships approaching us now. These are smaller craft. They are not as heavily shielded and are much more vulnerable. The broad sweep beams will be more than sufficient to destroy them.”

  “So you will be able to hold them off,” Mallet said. She looked at the holostage. Emotionless.

  Pretorius shook his head. “No, Special Agent, I don’t think I will be able to hold them all off. Some of them will get through and they will attempt to capture the Scorpio before attacking the civilian transport.”

  “And what do you intend to do about that?” Mallet looked at Pretorius.

  “There is only one thing we can do. Deploy the battalion throughout the ship.” He opened a ship-wide channel “All hands, arm yourselves, and prepare to repel Devex boarding parties.”

  Mr. Chou stepped between Pretorius and Mallet. He handed Pretorius a pulse pistol. Chou offered one to Mallet. She shook her head and looked up at Pretorius.

  Checking his weapon before clipping it to his hip, Pretorius adopted a confident appearance, but he felt nervous. Battle always made him nervous. The trick to command was not showing it. Only a fool would be unafraid. He looked at Mallet. She showed no emotion at all. Ever. Maybe she was incapable of being afraid. Maybe the intelligence agents had their fear removed as part of their training. The best Pretorius, his ship’s crew, and the battalion of Marines that provided ship-wide security could hope for was to manage and overcome their fear.

  The weapons officer called out the Devex raiders were approaching weapons range.

  “Hail curtain.” Pretorius stepped away from the holostage and climbed into his command chair. “All guns, all batteries, open fire.”

  The distant, dull thump of the hail cannon batteries opening fire filtered into the interview room where Jack was sitting.

  This is intolerable, he thought. He was on a ship under attack, yet he could do nothing. He could not assist. He could not help in any way to fight off this attack.

  Jack felt useless.

  He thought about Bale on the frigate that he had so recently been aboard. The man was not a great commander, he was too inexperienced. The young Bale had some natural ability, sure, but it was barely adequate without a lot of experience to back it up. Maybe, one day, he could become a useful commander, but it was too soon. Jack wondered if he would survive this day. If he did, the experience would serve him well.

  Bale had worked passably well under orders. Jack hoped Pretorius would recognize that and give him clear instructions. Bale would not be able to act well on his own initiative, and certainly not under the extreme pressure of battle.

  Thinking about Bale and the frigate, Jack was reminded of his friend Sam. He was also somewhere aboard the Scorpio, likely in an interview room such as this, also sitting and having to endure the sounds of battle as they filled the ship. He guessed his old friend would relax better than he was able to. Sam was somehow able to filter out the battle and ignore the threat until he was forced to deal with it. Then he would deal with it, decisively and aggressively. But if he was asked to sit back, ordered to sit back, Sam could easily sit back.

  Jack tried to be more like Sam and ignore the battle, but it was impossible. He needed to help.

  The workshop deep inside the Scorpio was dark apart from a pool of light around the group of intelligence agents from the science division and the workbench they stood around. Sam writhed in pain as the agent’s equipment probed his right arm. Sweat burst over his naked upper body. The shouts of pain were silenced by the anechoic field around his mouth.

  With his right arm dispersed into the finest Mech tissue strands, the sci division agents tested another quantum wave. The pain of his arm being pulled to shreds was too much to bear and Sam blacked out momentarily, only being jerked back to consciousness as a change in frequency caused his Mech tissue to clump and knot and gather up to his residual upper arm. His Mech tissue arm climbed up over his own flesh.

  He relaxed momentarily as the field was deactivated, and his arm returned to its human form. Sam breathed heavily, fear and pain wracked his body. Tears ran down his cheeks and mixed with the snot and sweat.

  “Try and detach the material one strand at a time,” one of the agents said.

  Sam cried out in fear, begging the agents not to activate their equipment again, but no sound made it through the anechoic field. The silence of his shouts for mercy heightened the dread already overwhelming him. He sobbed hopelessly until the pain hit. The sudden jolt stopped his cries as his breath was snatched away. And as the arm was shredded again and a single strand of Mech tissue teased away, almost to breaking point, Sam felt his entire body shudder and he blacked out again.

  Then the field dropped away. His Mech arm released. The light around the workbench dimmed. Sam came back to consciousness and heard the distant sound of hail cannon.

  A sci agent tapped the controls along the side of the platform that Sam was held upon. He could detect the agent’s frustration.

  “They’ve cut the power. Find out why they’ve cut the power.”

  Sam heard the distant wump, wump, wump of hail cannon firing from their positions on the outer hull of the Scorpio. No pain remained from the tests and the attempts to remove his Mech arm. No pain, only fear that they would try and try again, until they succeeded in removing the limb.

  Pretorius watched as the Devex raiders maneuvered around the hail curtain. He redirected his fire to cover the flanks, but the curtain was being stretched too thin. It was only a matter of time before they overcame it and burst through.

  He watched the enemy ships on the holostage. They raced around one flank of the curtain and moved toward the civilian transport. Pretorius moved the Scorpio to cut off the attack on the defenseless civilian ship.

  Then the Devex came into range of the laser assembly.

  The flickering laser beams struck out with short energy bursts. Laser assemblies aboard the Scorpio and the frigate lit up and delivered a deadly fire. The Devex raiders, unable to withstand the laser weaponry, began exploding one after another in rapid succession as the beams struck one D
evex ship before flicking to another target.

  But they were too many, and too many were getting through.

  The raiders came in close to deliver their streams of white energy bullets, all concentrating their fire on the frigate. Pretorius knew that to knock out the smaller craft first would give the Devex a chance at destroying the Scorpio. Once the two Fleet ships were destroyed, the Devex warship that was holding position an astro unit away would move in and capture the civilian transport, beginning the conversion process of turning the thousands of civilians into mindless Devex warriors.

  Tapping the armrest of his command chair, Pretorius opened a channel to the frigate.

  “Commander Bale,” Pretorius said, “re-deploy to the far side of the Scorpio. Reset laser to high-energy offensive beam and give the Scorpio covering fire.”

  The holoimage on Pretorius’s arm rest showed him a frightened man.

  Bale’s holoimage flickered as the frigate took a sustained stream of weapon fire from the attacking Devex. “Copy, Captain,” Bale said. He rocked in his seat and the holoimage flickered again as the frigate took fire from another wave of raiders.

  Pretorius looked at the main holostage and the battle raging on the port side of the Scorpio—the flight of Devex moving in from aft. The frigate took heavy fire as it fell back to a new position, protected by the destroyer.

  While opening a channel to the Blade squadron commander defending the transport, Pretorius called Special Agent Mallet to him with a click of his fingers.

  Mallet looked at him with distain. Pretorius ignored her and clicked again. The channel to the Blade commander opened.

  “Commander Scherer,” Pretorius said, “move to these coordinates and give the frigate supporting fire with your squadron.”

  “Copy that, Captain,” Scherer said with an unflappable tone, and then closed the channel. Pretorius watched on the main holostage as the Blades swooped in and opened fire on the Devex raiders focusing their fire on the frigate.