Forged in Battle (Jack Forge, Fleet Marine Book 5) Page 7

  The Marines advanced and poured fire through the beach. Jack had a message on his communicator from Jarett in the control tower.

  “Sir, we got them all. No more Chits inside the perimeter. We beat them.”

  Jack nodded. For now, at least, the Chits were gone. But Jack suspected that the Chits would be back. The best way to deal with this situation was to not be here when they did return.

  “Copy that, Jarett,” Jack said. “Keep a watch on those sensors. Let me know if anything shows up.”

  Jack posted Marines at the two breaches in the main compound wall. He needed to keep the Chits out and the prisoners in. There was a determined enemy on one side and a desperate enemy on the other, Jack and his Marines in the middle. He assembled a squad and marched with them to the landing bay. If he was going to fix that landing craft he was going to need it clear of prisoners.

  The noise from the landing bay was deafening. Sixty voices shouting at once. The prisoners were crowded around the landing craft shouting to be let in.

  “The pilot is under orders not to open up,” Jack shouted. He couldn’t be heard over the noise of the prisoners. He used his meat suit’s amplifier to speak over the noise. “If you want out of here I’m going to have to fix that landing craft. I can’t do that with everyone crowded in here. Return to the main compound.”

  A shot rang out from within the group of prisoners. A Marine next to Jack fell, a pulse round smoldering on his chest plate. Then another shot as a Marine returned fire.

  “Hold your fire,” Jack shouted out.

  Then Jack saw the arm reach around his neck and felt the pulse pistol bump into the side of his helmet. Out of the corner of his eye Jack saw Butcher.

  “Listen to the soldier boy. Hold your fire or this officer will have the worst and shortest kravin headache ever.”

  14

  Pretorius watched the pursuing Chitin Krakens close the distance to his ship. The fighters from the Monarch were fleeing just ahead of the Krakens and were increasing their distance from the Chitins. The fighters caught up with the carrier group and deployed themselves by squadrons throughout the group.

  The Overlord carrier group was closing in. Pretorius readied himself to stop running. In just a few seconds he would come about and re-engage the Leviathans. With two carriers and six destroyers the massive Chitin craft would be destroyed. It was simply a question of numbers and in this instance the Fleet had them.

  But first Pretorius needed to deal with the Krakens.

  The Krakens were spread out behind the retreating Monarch carrier group. The group deployed drones as space mines and they detonated as soon as they came within effective range of the Krakens. But the small Chitin Krakens were spread out so thinly that only token kills were achieved.

  Pretorius knew he was wasting his most devastating weapon. He wasn’t going to spend a drone for one Kraken kill. It was question of numbers, and in this instance the Chitins had more.

  “Load all tubes with combat drones. Set for maximum yield.” Pretorius was going to hit the first Leviathan with all he had. He watched the range finder on the holostage. The Krakens were closing in.

  The rearmost of the Scorpio’s high energy laser batteries was fully rotated and aimed toward the pursuing Chitin Krakens.

  “Laser to give pulse fire,” Pretorius called out. “Automatic target selection.”

  Commander Chou rushed to the laser control position and programmed the firing solution.

  “Fire when ready.” Pretorius watched the holostage with a cool head. The battle was a constantly developing beast. It could change any moment. He needed to be alert, he needed to feel the pulse of the fight and prepare to change his attack if and when it was necessary.

  The aft pointing laser let out a bolt that seemed to travel instantaneously to the target point. That point was a meter inside the hull of the nearest Chitin Kraken. The holostage recorded the kill.

  The high energy laser took one and three quarter seconds to charge and re-aim. Then another Kraken was annihilated by the Scorpio’s rear laser battery.

  The rear facing lasers on the Pisces and Aries were pulsing away. The Monarch had its rear assembly of four high energy laser cannon firing pulses of high energy laser. The pursuing Chitin Krakens were being destroyed at a rate of four every second.

  Still they had the numbers. They came into firing range, their forward spitz cannon blasting out a plasma rain that homed in on the Monarch’s engine assembly.

  The Fleet fighters were already engaging. The Blades accelerated toward the Krakens, fighting fire with fire. The Krakens continued to take the punishment from the massed laser barrage but still they outnumbered the fighters two to one.

  Pretorius could do nothing more for now. The group was nearing grid Eight, Eight, Thirteen. Any moment now he would be turning back to the fight.

  “Stand by for combat breaking.” Pretorius called out. He activated the ship wide communicator. “Combat breaking alert. Stand by.”

  The blades from the Overlord carrier group came streaming forward. They joined the dog fight with the fighters from the Monarch. It was a question of numbers. The Chitin Krakens were outgunned, out maneuvered and outclassed by the fleet fighters.

  The Krakens turned and withdrew. The Blades won their victory over the small Chitin interceptor craft. Now the big ships would go to work.

  As the holostage showed the Krakens withdraw Pretorius resisted the urge to celebrate with the rest of the command deck. The Chits weren’t running scared. Pretorius knew this was tactical. Everything about the Chits was tactical.

  The Monarch group came up on grid Eight, Eight, Thirteen the same moment as the Overlord group. Pretorius activated combat breaking and brought the starboard flank around toward the advancing Leviathans.

  The Scorpio decelerated violently, the stress on the composite hull transferring through the superstructure to be absorbed by the internal dampers.

  The monarch and the Overlord fired their high energy laser cannon. The full complement of cannon on both carriers lighting up the nearest Leviathan. Then the destroyers, a fraction of a second behind the carriers lit up their laser beams.

  A devastating beam assault slammed into the nearest Leviathan. The combat drones from all ships raced away from their launch tubes toward the Leviathan.

  Then the Chitins return fire came on.

  The Leviathan plasma cannon spat huge gouts of plasma toward the Monarch as she turned to present her starboard battery to the Chitin Leviathans. The gouts of plasma came on slowly but surely. They reached their target and detonated at the engine assembly. One of the engine nodes spluttered and died. Another spluttered but maintained a semi functional state.

  Then the plasma arcs slashed across space, one from each Leviathan, arcing in a seething orange strand of barbed fire. Both plasma arcs slashed across the Monarch, catching her amidships. The composite bubbled away under the punishment from the Chitin weapon.

  The fire from the combined carrier group focused on the first Leviathan. The fire from its plasma cannon came at a reduced rate. Pretorius could see the carriers groups were dealing damage. One Leviathan was losing power, but the monarch had taken engine damage and was never going to get away from the battle. The Leviathans needed to be destroyed, or the Monarch would be.

  The holostage was a mess of ship markers, energy weapon markers, ships headings prediction markers and waypoints. Pretorius could see the battle was an evenly matched one. It would take one moment of genius, or one mistake, to create an advantage. But for now all Pretorius could do was stand his ground and fight.

  The lights flickered on the command deck as the power fluctuated. All energy was devoted to the weapons systems. All energy needed to be devoted to maintaining the fire. Only by maintaining their fire could the balance be held. If one ship dropped their fire for a fraction it might be enough to tip the scales in the Chitin’s favor. Once that happened it would be an inevitable slide to destruction.

  The suppor
t craft added their fire to the fight. The corvettes and frigates dived in and out of the combat zone delivering blows from their own weaponry. The support craft were lightly armed and not built for a full blooded slugging match between two massed forces, but their powerful addition could provide that tipping point and give the Fleet that crucial margin of superiority.

  The first wave of support craft attacks were focused on the only Leviathan to have taken any damage. Its plasma arc whipped across space toward the Monarch in a wide curve that put it in the flight path of the support craft as they raced away from their sortie.

  One corvette failed to predict the plasma arc’s path and was sliced in two, both halves tumbling away into the space beyond the battle.

  Griff looked at Pretorius as the distress call came in from the corvette. Corvette M9 was disabled. Her crew in survival gear awaiting recovery.

  “I can have a Tac boat underway in three minutes.” Griff said to Pretorius.

  Pretorius looked at the battle on his holostage. It was finely balanced. It was not the time to go chasing lost personnel.

  “The carriers are better equipped to deal with that, Major,” Pretorius said.

  Griff gripped the side of the holostage. Pretorius could see the Griff’s frustration. The battle was raging and here he was, standing idle. Pretorius knew Griff had been a front line Marine and was used to being in the eye if the storm.

  “I just need to do something,” Griff said.”

  “You are doing something,” Pretorius said. “You are defending the command deck. I’ll be relying on you if the Chits board us, and you know how they like to do that. Review the battalion’s deployment if you need to keep yourself occupied.”

  Then Pretorius saw the Chitin’s mistake. The Leviathans picked separate targets. One directed its plasma cannon at the second sortie from the corvettes and frigates. The second continued to fire at the Monarch.

  “We’ve split their fire.” Pretorius said. He put a call out to the group captains. “That’s their first mistake,” he said.

  The image of Group Captain Li and Group Captain Wellard appeared on the holostage. The image of Li flickered as another salvo from the Leviathans plasma cannon struck the Monarch.

  Li was buffeted from side to side and the image flickered even more. A plasma arc slammed into her and all power was momentarily lost.

  “How are you holding up?” Wellard asked Li.

  “I’m still in the fight. Let’s take down one of these kravin Chits before they do too much damage.”

  The holoimages of Li and Wellard disappeared. Pretorius reviewed his status. The Scorpio was firing at its ultimate rate. His laser cannon were delivering punishing beam assaults to the first Leviathan. The shot cannon was sending out one salvo after another of devastating kinetic hail and high explosive rounds. His combat drones were running low but he continued to send wave after wave of the self guiding antimatter weapons toward the Leviathan.

  Then the Chits made a second mistake. Pretorius watched as both Leviathans targeted the destroyer Taurus.

  With the pressure taken off the carriers both the Monarch and the Overlord were able to divert all power to their weapons. The full brunt of a high energy beam assault slammed into the first Leviathan.

  The Leviathans ignored the devastating attack. Their plasma arcs slashed across the Taurus, both tearing over the hull from forward to aft. The plasma cannon from both Leviathans targeted the engine assembly. The Taurus’ engines spluttered and died. A fresh salvo of plasma cannon fire from the Leviathans slammed into the dead engines.

  All Fleet craft poured their fire into the first Leviathan. A sudden flicker of light, running across the surface of the Leviathan, branching like lightning across the entire Chitin craft, told Pretorius that the ship was going down. It had taken the punishment from two carriers, six destroyers and a full complement of support craft.

  The Leviathan was out of the fight, but not before its final shot, a dying blow. Its final plasma arc slammed into the engine of the Taurus. The fiery arc cut into the destroyer and instead of slashing across space was contained within the destroyer where it slashed about, filling deck after deck with the seething orange barbed fire.

  The Taurus’ weapons ceased firing. The ship tumbled slowly, engines dead and out of control. It drifted toward the critically damaged Leviathan.

  The Leviathan exploded in a ballooning cloud of boiling plasma. The cloud engulfed the Taurus, smashing its broken hull to pieces. The billowing cloud grew further and slammed in to the Overlord.

  Pretorius ignored the automatic distress call from the Taurus.

  “Trace,” Griff said. He looked at Pretorius, “Trace Matavesi was only just posted to the Taurus.”

  Pretorius redirected the Scorpio’s fire at the remaining Leviathan.

  “We need to launch the battalion’s Tac boats,” Major Griff said frantically. “There could be hundreds of survivors out there. The Marines in their suits will be well protected but we have to get them now.”

  Griff walked around the holostage to Pretorius. He grabbed the captain by the arm.

  “Captain,” he shouted, “we must do something.”

  “Harry,” Pretorius said calmly, “we are doing everything we can.” Pretorius looked down at Griff’s hand on his arm and then back up to the Major. He looked Griff in the eye. “Let go of my arm, Harry. I need to work.”

  Griff let go of Pretorius. His hand dropped to his side.

  “You knew Trace, captain. She was a company commander on your ship for years.”

  Pretorius nodded. “She was with the battalion when we first came on board. I knew her longer than you did, major. If she is lost then I will be sorry but,” Pretorius moved close to Griff but kept his voice down, “but we will lose more people if we don’t fight now.” Pretorius looked at the holostage. The combined carrier group was winning this fight, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t take further losses.

  “We will send out rescue boats if we win. No point bringing rescued personnel aboard a ship that might yet be destroyed.”

  The battle was going well. The Fleet had destroyed one Leviathan for the loss of only one destroyer and a small number of support craft and fighters. The last Leviathan was standing its ground and delivering a punishing fire to the Monarch but it was already doomed. It couldn’t run, it was slower than the Fleet ships, and it couldn’t win, it was hugely out gunned. It was only a matter of time.

  The report from a corvette scanning at the edge of the battle detected an incoming signal. The carriers focused their scanners on the target, the wider signal range and combined data resolution confirmed the target.

  A Chitin Leviathan with a swarm of Hydras was incoming.

  “What does that mean?” Griff asked.

  “The remaining Leviathan is going to do as much damage as it can to soften us up for the next wave. We can either run or fight.”

  The image of Group Captain Li appeared on the holostage.

  “Hit that Leviathan with everything you’ve got. I want to take that Chit down fast before we move to intercept the next target.”

  “But what about the survivors from the Taurus and the support ships?” Griff said.

  Li looked out from the holoimage at Major Griff. Her image flickered as a plasma arc slashed across the Monarch.

  “I’ll discuss battlefield ethics with you another time, if either of us survives that is. The Chits have made more than one mistake. They have split their power. If we have a chance to take down a fourth Leviathan I will take it. Li out.”

  15

  Jack sat on the floor with the Marines. Their helmets off and their hands behind their backs. A group of prisoners pointed the stolen pulse rifles at them while the thug, Butcher, walked back and fore, strutting and pointing his stolen pulse rifle at the Marines. He stopped in front of Torent.

  “Sammy.” Butcher stopped. “I never thought you’d end up in the military.” Butcher tapped the stripe on Torent’s arm with the muzzle
of the pulse rifle he was holding. “And they made you an officer, did they?”

  “I’m not an officer, Butch,” Torent said. “I’m a squad leader.”

  “They made you a squad leader,” Butcher laughed.

  “I know, right,” Torent said. “They are so stupid, right. You know how I got this stripe?” Torent moved his hand from behind his back and tapped the stripe with his finger. “I stole it.”

  Butcher laughed. “I know you are a good little thief, Sam, but they wouldn’t let you keep it if you stole it.”

  Torent laughed. “I made them think I was proper Marine. I played a long game, you know. It’s a classic long con, Butch. I get up to squad leader and then maybe battalion quartermaster. You know what the quartermaster does, Butch?”

  Butcher shrugged.

  “They look after all the kit. Do you know how much one of those pulse rifles is worth?”

  Butcher looked at the rifle in his hand.

  “The power cell alone is worth a decade of free power. Imagine how much you can sell a pulse rifle power cell for if it’ll give you ten tears of free power?”

  Butcher nodded.

  Torent looked to his sides. The Marines sitting either side of him were scowling at him. He looked up at Butcher and with a tip of his head asked if he could stand and impart some secret.

  Butcher waved Torent to his feet. Torent moved close to Butcher so no one could hear. “We get them to fix than landing craft and we can have the whole kravin lot. Lander, pulse rifles. The lot.”

  Butcher looked sideways at Torent. “You always were a devious scroat. So how do I get this thing flying?”

  Torent pointed at Jack. “Him,” Torent said, “The University reject. I’ve seen him fix stuff.”

  Butcher walked over to Jack. “This one?” he asked, looking toward Torent.

  Torent walked behind Butcher. “That’s him.”

  “Don’t look like much,” Butcher said.

  “He ain’t nothing, Butch. Just a pair of soft hands and a bleeding heart. He ain’t nothing,” Torent took another step closer to Butcher, “but he could be a ticket out of here.”