The Squad Novelettes 1-5 Read online

  THE SQUAD

  Novelettes 1-5

  By: Stephen Arseneault

  View the author's website at www.arsenex.com

  Follow on Facebook at StephenArseneault10

  Follow on Twitter at @SteveArseneault

  Join the email list or leave a comment at [email protected]

  Copyright 2018 Stephen Arseneault. All Rights Reserved

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  THE SQUAD Novelettes 1-5

  Orion's Belt

  The Derelict

  Revenge

  Cygni Station

  Mintaka Melee

  What's Next?

  Books

  Orion's Belt

  (THE SQUAD Novelette 1)

  Chapter 1

  * * *

  "Collins!" I yelled. "Get your sorry ass in gear! We aren't out here picking flowers!"

  Tanner followed, "I think he likes it down there, Sarge."

  The ornery corporal stood, spitting on the dead Maxan body he had used as a shield. "I was gettin' up, Sarge. Was just makin' sure I didn't take a stray bolt to the back."

  Tanner laughed. "From friendlies? Yeah, I could see that. Being as popular as you are and all."

  Collins gripped the handle of his combat knife. "How about I just gut your smart-ass right here and—"

  I thrust out my arm with two hard fingers pointing at the two best members of my team. "Shut it! Both of you! We have another six decks to clear before this tub is clean. Barnes. You take point. You two pulse-jockey's take his six. Squad 4 will have yours. I'll be following up in five after escorting Mr. Higgins to the pipe."

  The three Marines moved forward. I had to shake my head as they stepped over the sea of dead Maxans that lay before them. Tanner made faces at Collins as he repeatedly threatened his closest friend with a slashed throat from the razor edge of his combat blade. The five members of Squad 4 mumbled as they passed my position.

  I reached out and grabbed Oliver Higgins by the shoulder of his lab suit and squinched up my nose with a scowl. "What's that smell?"

  "I may have had an accident while in captivity."

  I shook my head as I pushed him forward, almost at a carry. "Let's get you through to the ship. Command wants a debrief as soon as possible. We need to know exactly what the Maxans got out of you and the others."

  Oliver Higgins sheepishly held up his hand. "I swear, I didn't tell them anything!"

  I looked over his clothes. They were as clean on the outside as they had been two days before when Orion's Belt, a research vessel out of Alday Port, had been overrun. The crew of eight were butchered while the fourteen scientists were taken aboard the Rohox. I had no doubt Oliver Higgins had soiled his suit on the inside while spilling his guts to his captors. My nostrils confirmed it. Half of me detested his lack of nerve while the other half pitied this civilian for getting caught up in our war.

  The Maxans had broken a longstanding agreement that civilian populations, and the vessels that served them, would be left alone. There were more than enough warships teeming with bloodthirsty soldiers for each side to work out their hostilities toward each other. It had been thirteen years since the last civilian incident. Now we had seen four in one month.

  When we reached the doorway of the docking tube, I yelled across at the two guards watching over the opening. "Got another breeder for yah! See that he's passed through straight to the debriefing room. And if you let him so much as utter another word to anyone else on the way, I will personally come back and space the two of you!"

  The guard on the right hurried forward. "I got him, sir!"

  I looked down at my shoulder. "Private, you see any bars here?"

  The private slowed, taking hold of Oliver Higgins' arm. "No, sir—I mean sorry, Sarge. It's been kind of hectic around here with all the fighting and such."

  I shook my head. "What's your name, Private?"

  A nervous reply came back. "Montague, sir—I mean, Sarge. Sorry."

  I gently pulled the remains of a stogie from my top right pocket, slipping it into the corner of my mouth. "Mr. Montague, am I guessing right that this is your first assault?"

  Montague nodded. "Yes, sss—Sarge."

  I reached out, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. "Well, you better get your nerves in order, son. If you’re pissin' your drawers while watchin' the pipe, just what are you gonna do when you have a shag-o-Maxans slingin' bolts at'cha?"

  Montague pursed his lips. "I guess I'll be pissin' my drawers then too, Sarge."

  I shoved the stogie to the other side of my mouth with my tongue. "Ha!"

  I squeezed the private's shoulder hard before releasing it. "If you can keep that bit of humor when you get out there in the fight, you'll do OK, Mr. Montague. Now, take this squealer to debrief for me. I've got some work left to do before we torch this bucket."

  The private nodded as he pulled the rescued scientist toward the docking tube, known to the Marines as 'the pipe'. As I watched the two disappear into the pipe, I began to wonder how many times I had come charging through a similar tube during an assault. I had to guess it was hundreds, if not a thousand. I had crossed through onto an enemy vessel more times than most Marines had days in the service. The two years of mandatory for every citizen, had not served us well.

  The Rohox was not my first assault party. For that matter, the Maxans had not been the only enemy I had freed from a living, breathing existence. The galaxy was full of species who had every interest in stopping the advance of Man. As a member of the Earth Alliance Terran Marine Element, Confederation Defense Force, I had every interest in seeing to it they didn't.

  When the moment of remembrance had passed, I turned to find an angry lieutenant shouting at me. "Doesn't your squad have decks to clear? There are another half dozen hostages we need to free, Sergeant! Get your hairy-ass back up there and bring them out!"

  "Yes, sir!" I said as I shoved my way past.

  Lieutenant Coddle was one of those new young officers that screamed to be beaten to a pulp and then jettisoned from an airlock. I sometimes wondered if the officer's corps recruiters back home were playing a sick joke on the battle-hardened lifers every time one of those squeaky-voiced bar-polishers showed up for a raid.

  I had seen more of them die on their first assault, due to the stubbornness the officer school infused into them, than I had lost squad members. While on a raid in the Bakkan sector, I lost count of officer casualties after seeing my twenty-second greenhorn tagged by a split and splattered about the corridor walls in front of me.

  For a while the slate-gray body bags were called green bags. Use of that term had come to a quick end when the admiralty caught wind of the meaning. Greenhorn officers just didn't seem to last. But this was war and there always seemed to be an ample supply.

  Chapter 2

  * * *

  After a short jog, I found myself coming up behind the remainder of my squad. I hunkered beside Corporal Tanner, plucking the short stogie from my mouth before gently placing it back in my top right pocket.

  Tanner nodded toward the cigar. "You ever gonna light
that thing, Sarge?"

  "Saving it for a special occasion," I said. "I'll let you know when that time has arrived."

  Tanner half smiled as he gestured back toward the hallway corner in front of us. "Barnes popped two splits before they forced us back." A candy bar was pulled from his pocket and half consumed in a single bite.

  "How can you snack with all the guts and gore around here?"

  "They aren't my guts, Sarge. Maybe dead splits make me hungry or something."

  I had to laugh just a little inside every time I heard the Maxans referred to as "splits". Their heads were shaped similar to our own, only with a large crease that ran from the center of the forehead back across the top of the skull and down to where the skull met the neck. It gave them the appearance of a normal head that had been cleaved and then healed without the two halves being pushed back together. Aside from the comedy of it, calling them a split was a good descriptive term.

  I looked around. "Where's Squad 4?"

  Barnes pointed at the stairwell. "Lieutenant called them off. They went down just before you came up. Would'a thought you'd have passed 'em."

  "They must have stopped on deck seven. Lieutenant’s probably got them doing some dumbass cleanup work when we haven't even taken this barge yet."

  Collins grinned. "Wish he was up here fighting in front of us. I'd—"

  I held up my hand. "You need to watch that mouth, Collins. It's gonna land you a few days in the brig if any officer ever hears what you're spewing."

  Barnes looked over his right shoulder, keeping his left ear tuned to the sounds coming from fifteen meters down the hall. "I counted six before I bugged back to here, Sarge. At least two had repeaters."

  The Maxan repeater was responsible for more deaths in the Alliance Corps than all other weapons combined. If you got pegged by a mag-tag, there was a high chance your number was being called, you might as well punch out. Escape was rare after a tag.

  The magnetic tag was a line-of-sight, kinetically applied marker that attracted free-ion bolts from the repeating rifle. Unlike the standard bolt, the free bolt would bounce off walls, or any other obstruction, for several seconds before dissipating. If you were unlucky enough to get tagged, the free-ion bolts would search you out from around corners or behind shielding.

  Collins nodded his head toward the hallway. "Should'a brought a couple of those big-brains with us as ion fodder. Ram 'em down the hallway and come out blasting after they soak up the tags."

  I touched the activator on my wrist-comm. "This is Sergeant Balls. I need two grunters brought up to my position."

  A voice replied, "Roger that. ETA of ... seven minutes."

  Collins furrowed his brows. "Lizards? Sarge? What are you gonna do with those?"

  I held out my hand. "Give me those ion grenades off your belt."

  Collins looked down and then back. "Those are my last two, Sarge."

  I angrily stared at my corporal until the grenades were placed in my hand. "Your lame idea of ramming civilians down that hall gave me a better one. We're gonna arm those two grunters and sic 'em on the Maxans. If there's one thing they hate, it's a grunter, and with ion grenades strapped on 'em, the Maxans will do everything they can to kill 'em before they reach their position. With their attention occupied, we'll make our charge into that corridor."

  Collins looked back at the hallway corner. "How far you think they'll make it?"

  I pulled a small roll of two-sided combat tape from my satchel. "Far enough. If you've ever tried to kill one of those things, their hide is about as thick as your thumb, and those plates on their backs are naturally high in copper. The free-ion bolts of those repeaters have a tough time penetrating with the way those plates bleed off charge. Instead of killing them you just piss them off more."

  Collins sat back against a wall, pulling a stick of gum from a pouch on his combat suit. "If these grunters are such terrors to the splits, why don't we have more of 'em?"

  "The only grunters we have in service are those we have captured. That science vessel, Orion's Belt, they were working on breeding grunters. Command thinks that's why they were targeted by the Maxans. They've decided to broaden their definition of military targets to any civilians they view as supporting war efforts. When it comes to studying the breeding of grunters, I have to agree with 'em. We have no other use for 'em except combat."

  An aggravated private led the two grunters up the stairwell and into the hallway behind us. "Hey, can I get a hand with these things! I thought I'd never get past that dead Maxan on the stairs! They both tore into it like they were suddenly crazed or something!"

  I gestured to Tanner to take hold of one of the reins while I took the other. "Yeah, the lizards are the natural enemies of the Maxans. They seem to go into a bloodthirsty rage when they see one. You can head back, Private. These two probably won't be making the return trip."

  The private frowned. "Ah, Lieutenant told me to wait and bring 'em back. He also said for me to tell you that they better come back alive and unharmed."

  I slapped the private on the shoulder. "Give me another minute and we'll find out. Tanner, stick that ion grenade to its back."

  Tanner complied. "How do you want to arm 'em, ten second delay?"

  "We don't. The grenades are just an added distraction. Grunters coming at 'em, with nades on their backs— that should keep 'em fully occupied for the few seconds we need."

  After a quick check with Collins, Barnes, and Tanner, I unleashed the grunters and shoved them out toward the hallway corner. The two-meter-long lizards, just lay there, unmotivated in their demeanor.

  Collins stood, waving his arms in an attempt to urge the grunters forward. "Go, you idiots! Move!"

  Barnes stepped up. Taking the boot on his right foot, he stomped on the tail of one of the grunters. It turned and hissed. With a stomp on the tail the second the alien lizard leaped forward into the main hall. Several seconds of silence enveloped the hallway as the second grunter turned its head toward the Maxans. As the exposed grunter screeched and charged our enemy, the other quickly followed.

  I slapped Collins on the back as I stepped forward. "Move it!"

  The Maxans went into a frenzy of firing mag-tags at the two approaching lizards as I broke into view. A quick shot took out the forward split as the remainder of my squad burst around the corner with their blasters firing. The Maxans were screaming in terror as the two ravenous grunters darted down the hall, bouncing off the walls, and sailing into their position.

  I yelled as we fired and ran forward, "Don't hit the lizards!"

  Collins yelled back as an errant free-ion bolt singed the right arm of his combat suit. "Screw that!"

  In ten seconds the fight was over, reduced to the screams of the Maxans who had survived the onslaught only to end up being devoured by their most feared adversary.

  Tanner, still grasping a half candy bar in one hand, winced at the carnage as we reached the Maxan position. "Man, I don't think I will ever get used to that." The remainder of the bar was consumed.

  Collins asked, "You seen them in action before?"

  Tanner nodded. "Twice. They'll rip a splits face off while you watch. Grisly."

  I turned to look back down the hallway we had just taken. "Private Damos! You can come get the lieutenant's dogs. Looks like they both survived."

  Chapter 3

  * * *

  I smacked Collins on the back. "Your turn in the rotation. Five decks to go."

  Collins nodded and smiled as he looked back at the others. "Lemme show you how you properly clear a deck."

  Barnes rolled his eyes as he stepped over a dead Maxan. "What, you gonna call 'em out for a cup of tea?"

  Tanner laughed. "Yeah, how 'bout we send 'em formal invitations, tell 'em we just want to chat for a bit. I'm sure they'll cooperate."

  Collins looked over his shoulder as he walked toward the stairwell, grasping his combat knife. "I got their invitations right here."

  I ended the conversation. "Cut the
chatter. Focus on what's ahead. You three can practice your comedy act when we get back to the ship."

  As Collins entered the stairwell, a snap could be heard as a mag-tag stuck to the top of his helmet. He knew the sound. Turning quickly, he barreled past our position as he scrambled down the hallway. Two free-ion bolts then ricocheted off the stairwell floor before heading down the hallway after the retreating Collins. The corporal disappeared around a corner as the two deadly bolts closed on his position.

  Tanner yelled as he headed back toward his retreating friend. "I got him!"

  I followed Barnes who was also racing after. When we reached the end of the hall, Tanner was standing there, slowly shaking his head.

  "Is he toast?" Barnes blurted out.

  "No. I don't know how he does it, but that's the third time he's outrun those things. His luck has gotta run out sometime."

  Collins rolled over from his sprawled position on the floor. "Thanks for that vote of confidence, jackass."

  Tanner walked over and offered a hand. "I'm just saying, it's like you keep taunting death or something."

  Collins stood, inspecting his torso for any signs of a hit. "How 'bout it's because of my lightning reflexes?"

  Tanner laughed, "Yeah, we talkin' about the same reflexes that got you tagged?"

  I cut in. "Enough of the love-in. We've got decks to clear. Move out. Tanner, you’re up."

  Collins shook his head as we walked. "That ain't fair, Sarge! Five is my deck!"

  Tanner grinned. "Sorry, Col. You screwed up and got yourself tagged. That honor's in my bucket now."

  Before reaching the stairwell, the lieutenant's voice came over the wrist-comm. "Balls! I'm sending up two members to fill out your squad. Nellis and Montague will be joining you for the remainder!"

  I sighed. "If it's all the same, Lieutenant, I'd just as soon move forward with what I have. Barnes, Tanner, and Collins are vets, sir. Nellis and Montague probably haven't even seen a live Maxan before."