Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars Book 2) by Joel Shepherd

Author:Joel Shepherd [Shepherd, Joel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-12-16T05:00:00+00:00

20

After Medbay rounds and ship rounds, it took Erik a full two hours to finally intercept Trace in Assembly. They were two jumps out of Kazak and still on orange alert in case the sard pursuit found them again, but there hadn’t been any sard vessels on scan when they’d made the second jump, and Tobana System had no nav buoys to interrogate and tell later vessels where the earlier ones had gone. They were in fast transit now across a desolate and unsettled system known only as GH-14, three thousand K off Makimakala’s flank with Rai Jang another forty thousand K in front. Rai Jang’s two companions had not joined them in the first jump, and Erik had been surprised at the smaller ship’s speed — it had arrived only fifteen minutes late on each occasion.

Now he walked tiredly along the steel gantries of Assembly, with its endless racks of armour suits and weapons that climbed maze-like toward the outer hull. Automated stacking arms whined and crashed as marines shifted suits that no longer moved under their own power, and the repair bay howled and sprayed orange sparks as bare-armed marines did panel-beating jobs on battered armour. Some of the damage was scary, armourplate torn like paper. Some armour still had blood on it. Marines who had just recently been fighting, then pushing huge Gs through twin combat jumps, now blinked back exhaustion and got their gear back into fighting shape as best they could.

Erik found Trace on a lower gantry by the ammo transport rails, big crates of Koshaim ammunition humming from level to level, and now being unloaded and snapped into empty magazines by hand. Trace wore an open jacket, sweaty like the rest in Assembly’s hot air, and shouted with several marines about their progress. Erik recognised one of them in particular — Lance Corporal Penn of Charlie Platoon, Second Squad, who had been personally escorting Lisbeth when things went bad.

“LC,” said the Corporal with a nod. He looked grim — just a young guy, pale with dark hair and square features, in civilian life the kind of guy you wouldn’t look twice at if you passed him on the street. But Penn was a five-year vet, retired for one year but volunteering through mutual friends of Sergeant Hoon on Homeworld after seeing what Fleet did to Captain Pantillo. And now he’d saved Lisbeth’s life.

“I just talked to Private Herman in Medbay,” Erik told him. “Docs say they can synth a new leg, he’ll be walking in maybe three weeks. Could even get back to service four weeks after that if he wants.”

“He’ll want,” said Penn with conviction. “He’s a good marine.”

“And I’m sorry about Bernardino.”

Penn exhaled hard. “Yeah. He was a good marine too.” He managed a tight smile. “It’s a bit of a change from selling furniture.”

“That’s what you were doing on Homeworld?”

“Yes sir. It was a jobs program that places former vets, the owner was a vet himself. It was just temporary, I hadn’t decided what I really wanted to do… maybe go back to school.

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