Forged by War (Jack Forge, Fleet Marine Book 9) Read online

  Scrambling down the crater wall, Jack spotted the deep, dark hole that the Marines had cleared. He pointed his flashlight at the hole and spotted a buried stairway.

  “Sam, take charge up here. Keep the way clear for me to get out again,” Jack said as he reached the edge of the buried stairway. “Create a perimeter and hold off any Chits. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  Torent stepped in front of Jack and blocked his access to the stairway.

  “No, sir,” Torent said. “I’m not letting you go in there alone. I’ll send a team with you.”

  Jack looked Torent in the eye. Nowhere was safe. The buried corridors could be crawling with Chits, just as the surface would be in a very short time. Jack looked around at the rubble-covered ground. The Marines of Cobra would be exposed to the deepest cold of night and assault by the Chits if they remained above ground.

  “Commander Torent,” Jack said.

  Torent set his jaw as he prepared to have Jack reaffirm his order.

  “Call in Cobra Company,” Jack said. “I want every man underground”

  Torent turned to the Marines from the excavation team. “You heard the major,” Torent said. “Inform all squad leaders to bring in the perimeter guards and get underground.”

  The Marines ran off. Jack looked down into the dark hole. His flashlight illuminated the floor of a corridor four meters down.

  “Quite a drop,” Jack said as he sat on the edge of the opening. “You don’t mind if I go first, do you, Sam?”

  Torent checked they were alone. “Just don’t smash your legs when you land. Last thing I need is a broken Marine major to look after.”

  Jack lowered himself into the dark and let himself drop.

  The ground hit hard. A long drop into the dark was as terrifying as any encounter with the enemy. He missed his footing and stumbled over a step, sliding down a few more and knocking his elbow and hips against the hard stairs. Finally coming to a stop, Jack pointed his flashlight down. The stairway went down into darkness.

  “Jack? You dead yet?” Torent said.

  “It’s a nasty landing. Get Cobra down here quick. You come last, copy?”

  “Copy that, and I was so looking forward to jumping in right away and smashing my prosthetic arm on the landing. Now I’ve had time to think about it, I might try and keep it.”

  “You better,” Jack said. “Last thing I need is a one-armed company commander to have to look after.”

  “I can shoot just fine without it,” Torent said. “Still a better shot than you.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Jack said, taking a few steps into the dark.

  “Here they come, sir,” Torent said, shouting down to Jack. “Third squad coming in first.”

  Jack pointed his light for the Marines to judge their landing. They dropped in one after another. A second to drop and a second to move, the entire squad was in the stairway and moving past Jack in under a minute.

  Waving the Marines of 3rd squad past him and down the stairs, Jack called up to Torent. “Get them moving, Sam. Let’s speed things up.”

  The next Marine landed and tumbled down a few steps, bumping into Jack, who held the man up and stopped him tumbling even further.

  “Thank you, sir,” the Marine said. “Sorry to bump into you, sir.”

  Jack gave the man a heavy slap on the back. “Just glad you’re down here safe. Move down the stairs.”

  “Copy that, sir,” the Marine said and moved down in to the dark.

  Watching the Marines dropping into what was for them the complete unknown gave Jack a huge sense of respect for his entire team. They were stranded on an enemy-infested planet and being told to drop into a dark hole in the ground, and they came on without a sound, without hesitation. He moved them down the stairs, catching the occasional Marine who stumbled as they landed on the stairway.

  “How we doing, Sam?” Jack shouted as he steadied another stumbling Marine.

  “That’s the last of fifth squad. Only fourth squad left, and they’re on their way. Hundred meters out.”

  Jack felt a sense of relief that he had nearly brought all his Marines down into the subsurface corridors of Fleet HQ. But the relief was suddenly marred by a feeling that time was cruelly short. The uneasy feeling was confirmed the very moment he thought it.

  “Chits,” Torent said as loudly as he dared, calling down to Jack.

  “Tell fourth squad to hurry. You get down here right now, Sam.”

  A body dropped into the stairway from above and stumbled into Jack. Jack pointed his flashlight at the Marine. It was not Torent.

  “Sam, get down here, now,” Jack called up.

  Another Marine dropped and then another. They rushed down the stairs.

  “Where is Commander Torent?” Jack asked the next Marine. The Marine pointed up and then moved on to let the next Marine drop into the stairway.

  “Sam,” Jack shouted up. “Get down here now.”

  “Nearly ready, sir,” Torent said as another man dropped in.

  Jack recognized the squad leader of 4th right away. Taku Folau.

  “Only the commander left topside, sir,” Folau said.

  Jack sent Folau ahead. “Move the company down, Squad Leader,” Jack said. Turning back to the opening above him, he called again. “Sam. Get down here now.”

  Silence.

  Jack took a few steps toward the opening. He spotted Sam Torent’s legs dangling over the edge of the hole above.

  “Sam. Commander Torent. On me. Now.”

  “Copy that, sir,” Torent said.

  Jack waited another second. Torent still hadn’t moved.

  “Sam, do we have a problem?” Jack hissed.

  “No, sir.”

  Jack waited.

  “Sam, for krav sake. Get down here now.”

  “Jack,” Torent said in a tone Jack had never heard from the tough Marine before.

  “What is it, Sam?”

  “I can’t jump down, sir. The Chits are nearby. I’ll hold them off. Go.”

  “I’ll blow the entrance once you are in,” Jack said. “Drop now.”

  “I’ll fight them off, sir,” Torent said.

  Jack detected the tone again and he recognized, suddenly and surprisingly, that Sam Torent was afraid. Jack realized that his old friend was afraid of dropping into the dark hole at his feet.

  “I haven’t got time for this,” Jack said to himself as he walked down the stairway until he came up to Squad Leader Folau.

  “We are moving sir,” Folau said. “It’s just taking a little time. The stairs are narrow and it’s slowing us down.”

  “Commander Torent is having difficulty getting down. Go and drag him down here. Copy?”

  Folau nodded once sharply and rushed up the stairs. Jack watched as Folau jumped up and grabbed Torent by the ankle dangling through the hole.

  Jack heard Folau grunt as he tugged violently at Torent’s ankle until Sam Torent was finally dragged down into the subterranean stairway.

  Jack stepped over to the pair lying in a heap on the ground. He pulled Folau up. “Get my Marines moving, Squad Leader,” Jack said.

  Folau saluted and ran off, calling out the orders in a hissing whisper. Jack pulled Torent to his feet.

  “You would rather face a swarm of Chitin soldiers than drop into a dark hole, is it?” Jack said with a smile.

  Torent shrugged Jack off. “Shut up, Jack,” he said testily.

  Jack smiled broadly, then snatched a demolition charge off Torent’s Jacket.

  “Better get moving, Sam. I’m going to blow this entrance before those Chits get here.”

  Jack rushed down the stairway and into a long corridor where Cobra Company had halted. He closed the stairway door behind him. He waved the Marines to move further along the corridor, then detonated the charge he had planted at the entrance. The dull thump was followed by the sound of rubble falling into the open stairway. The rubble crashed into the door and pressed it open slightly before stabilizing with on
ly a distant sound of grit falling between the larger pieces of rubble.

  Jack looked at the wrist-mounted holostage and planned a route to the workshop. He walked past the Marines who were taking a moment to rest against the walls. Some were sharing ration blocks and water. One offered Jack a ration block as he walked past. He realized he hadn’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours, so he took a pinch of the dark, sticky block and pressed it into his mouth.

  “Thank you, Marine,” Jack said.

  “Yes, sir,” the Marine said as Jack walked on.

  The corridor on the map stretched away for a few hundred meters before ending at a set of offices. Halfway along the corridor was another stairway. Jack mapped the route down through the maze of corridors to the workshop. It was going to be a long walk. He hoped it was clear all the way.

  “Commander Torent, front and center,” Jack said as he marched off toward the stairway down.

  Torent came up alongside Jack. He was flexing his prosthetic arm, waving it in circles around his shoulder.

  “Arm okay?” Jack asked as he consulted the holomap.

  Torent was silent.

  Jack pointed at the map projected above his wrist.

  “We are here. This is our destination. We go down another level and then along to this point here.” Jack looked up at Torent. “You listening, Commander?”

  Torent looked at Jack. “Sorry, sir. Yes sir. Just…” He hesitated.

  “What?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t like dropping into the dark.”

  “Understood,” Jack said. “You okay now?”

  Torent nodded.

  “Okay,” Jack said gently. He had never known Sam Torent to show fear and it would have been concerning if he didn’t already have a hundred other concerns. Torent would just have to suck it up and deal with his phobia, Jack couldn’t help him with it now. Then, returning his attention to the map, he gave his instructions to Torent.

  “Move Cobra down to this level and hold for me at this point. Go.”

  Torent moved the Marines down the stairway. Jack watched them stream past him and recognized so many of these Marines. This was Cobra Company. He knew every squad leader by name, and he knew the face of every Marine. He had fought beside them on so many occasions. Now he was leading them for what would hopefully be the last time before they escaped Eros and the threat of attack by the Chitins forever.

  The corridor Jack turned into looked familiar even in the dark. He had been here a number of times recently. The doorway along the side of the corridor led to the entrance to Reyes’ workshop. Jack stepped up to the door and pushed it open.

  The burst of rifle fire slammed into the partially open door, tearing chunks out of the composite door and throwing the door shut. Jack fell backward and moved quickly to the cover of the side of the door frame. He would recognize the sound of Fleet Marine Pulse Rifle fire anywhere. That was no Chitin soldier behind this door.

  “Hold your fire,” Jack called out. “Hold your fire.” Jack identified himself to whoever was behind the door. “Fleet Marines. Scorpio Battalion. Cobra Company. I’m Major Forge.”

  Jack pressed the door carefully open.

  “Stay back, Major,” a voice from behind door called out.

  Torent looked at Jack. He pointed at his Fleet Marine Pulse Rifle. Jack shook his head. He stood up and raised his hands.

  “Don’t shoot,” Jack said, stepping in front of the partially open door.

  The small room behind the door was the security entrance to the workshop. Inside the small room were a Fleet Intelligence agent and two Fleet Intelligence enforcers. The enforcers stood on either side of the secured door that led to the workshop. The agent was taking cover behind a small desk. It was inadequate cover and any serious attempt to gain entry would hardly be slowed by these three sentries.

  The agent rested his pulse pistol on the desk and aimed it at Jack with shaking hands.

  “I have my orders Major. No one is allowed to enter.”

  Jack walked in slowly. “I need to get inside that room,” Jack said calmly. “I am an officer in the Fleet Marines and I need something from that workshop if I am going to be able to do my job.”

  “I don’t care what your job is,” the agent said, standing up. “Mine is to keep that door secure for as long as I am able to stand.”

  Jack looked at the enforcers behind their black meat suit helmets. “And what about you? Are you ready to stay here until you either starve or get chewed up by Chits?”

  The enforcers stood stock still.

  The agent stepped around his desk, the gun pointed shakily at Jack’s chest.

  “Leave now, Major.”

  Jack smiled, then laughed. He looked at the agent and the enforcers. They had presumably been told to stand here until death by Fleet Intelligence and despite the devastation raging outside, they were still here following an order given by someone who was probably safely tucked up on a transport ship, or more likely one of the fleet’s two carrier class vessels, and halfway to another star system by now.

  “This is no laughing matter, Major,” the agent said

  “Major?” Jack said, laughing. “There’s no civil or military authorities left on Eros. Just you and me. I’m not really a major anymore, and you are not an agent. We’re just people trying to survive. Step aside.”

  “Stand down or I will fire on you,” the agent said.

  Sam Torent walked briskly into the small room and a team of Marines came with him, walking smoothly and determinedly, their pulse rifles raised.

  Jack raised his hands. “Gentlemen, let’s just be calm. The Chits are lining up to kill us up there. Let’s not do their jobs for them.”

  “I will,” the agent said, stepping forward, his pulse pistol almost touching Jack’s chest.

  “Sam,” Jack said, his tone an instruction for Torent to act.

  Torent stepped forward and in a swift movement, he grabbed the pistol with his prosthetic arm. The pistol fired as Torent levered it upward, then he smoothly disarmed the agent and delivered a left jab to the agent’s nose. Torent tossed the pistol to Jack and grabbed the agent as he staggered back. Torent moved the agent around his desk and sat him in the small chair.

  “Sit down, freckles,” Torent said.

  “Do you have any idea of the penalty for punching a Fleet Intelligence agent?” The agent tipped his head back as blood flowed from his nose.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Jack said, stepping up to the control panel. “Is it getting left behind on a planet swarming with Chits? Could it be any worse?”

  Jack stepped in front of the two Fleet Intelligence enforcers, a line of Marines behind him with rifles raised.

  “I am going through that door,” Jack said. “You are welcome to continue to guard the door, and when I am done, you are welcome to join me and my Marines. You have time to think it over.” Jack turned to Sam. “I need that agent’s hand to open this door.”

  Sam fired up his electron blade and let the fine white energy blade fizz in front of the sweating agent.

  The agent stood and moved cautiously past Torent.

  “Okay. I’ll open the door.”

  “Good choice,” Jack said. He tucked the agent’s pulse pistol in the waistband at the small of his back. “You might have saved us all.”

  The enforcers lowered their pulse rifles slowly as the agent stepped between them and up to the door access panel.

  “Okay, stand down, Marines,” Torent said, and the line of Marines lowered their pulse rifles.

  The double door slid open into a dark corridor that ran at a right angle to the entrance door and so blocked the view to the workshop. Jack walked in, a flashlight lighting the way.

  The corridor led to a wide viewing gallery that looked down on the cavernous workshop. Here Jack had seen firsthand the results of the Chitin chemical cloak devised by Reyes. She had left him a message before her departure from the Eros System that there were instructions here for him to find, instructions
that would enable him to create the chemical cloak himself.

  “Hidden in plain sight,” Jack said to himself. Except the workshop was in darkness. “If only I could see.”

  The power across the capital was intermittent in places, but here in the ruins of Fleet Command and Control, it was completely cut off. Jack marched back to the small entrance and called a squad of Marines to follow him. Sam Torent decided to join Jack too.

  “So do you know what you are looking for?” Torent said walking alongside Jack.

  “No,” Jack said.

  “Do know what to do if you do find it?” Torent asked.

  “No.”

  “Bet you wish Reyes was here?”

  “No,” Jack said. He called to the line of Marines along the viewing gallery to direct their lights into the workshop.

  “Are we going in?” Torent said.

  Jack nodded and walked to the small doorway at one end of the viewing gallery. He slid the door open and walked down the few steps into the workshop.

  The lines of benches were covered in tools and devices all neatly arranged as if the next shift was due to begin work. Jack called Torent to join him. The benches threw long shadows as the beams from the Marines’ flashlights pierced the darkness.

  “This place is huge,” Torent said, jogging up beside Jack. “How far back does it go?”

  “Pretty far,” Jack said, looking at the benches as he slowly passed.

  “What were they doing in here?” Torent asked. He picked up a device off one of the benches and turned it this way and that, trying to discern its purpose.

  “This is where the Fleet Marine Pulse Rifle was designed and built, or at least some place like it. All of our equipment came from workshops like this.”

  “What’s so special about this one?” Torent said, tossing the device onto a bench and letting it clatter over the surface.

  Jack came to a halt. In front of him was a large cage. Lying at the bottom was a dead Chitin soldier.

  Torent brought his pulse rifle up in a swift and smooth motion the moment he saw the fallen Chitin, ready to engage the enemy.