Implacable by Jack Campbell

Author:Jack Campbell [Campbell, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

TEN

“EMERGENCY evacuation!” Colonel Savchenko sent to all of her Marines. “Everyone off the ship, on the double.”

“Colonel,” Captain Cayedito protested, “we’re—”

“The ship’s power core is about to blow. Get to the shuttles. Bring all the civilians you can carry with you, but get to the shuttles!”

On the virtual windows before Geary, the views from Marine armor began jerking quickly as the Marines scooped up any living but unconscious civilians within reach and dashed back for the air lock accesses.

Geary gestured to Desjani. “Move the battle cruisers to a safe distance from Fortuna.” If the civilian ship’s power core blew up it might seriously damage other ships if they were too close.

“Moving them now,” Desjani said, passing orders to the rest of the battle cruisers.

“I’m going to do it!” Yangdi was screaming. “I’m going to do it better than anyone else ever did it!”

“Ron,” Geary said, “everybody is leaving the ship. You don’t have to do it. Please don’t do it.”

“You don’t think I can do it!”

He didn’t have to lie this time. “I think you can. I very much think you can. You don’t need to prove it.” Yangdi paused, breathing heavily, eyeing Geary. “Ron, please. Reactivate the safeties on the power core.” What argument would convince him?

Colonel Rogero spoke in a low voice. “Point out how much his ship is worth.”

“You’ve got a very expensive ship here,” Geary said. “A . . . magnificent ship. It’d be a shame to . . . lose that ship. Lose that investment.”

Yangdi’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “I spent a lot of money on it,” he bragged. “Highest-quality fittings everywhere on it.” His hands moved on the desk, but paused. “Those people are still on the ship.”

Geary checked the armor views, seeing the Marines had crowded into the big air locks. While they were inside, other Marines had rigged tubes from the air locks into the shuttles so everyone, including the unconscious civilians, could go straight from air lock to shuttle without being exposed to space and without the need to wait for the air locks to depressurize. “They’re leaving as fast as they can,” Geary said.

“Power core readings from Fortuna are fluctuating,” Lieutenant Castries said.

“Abandon the access tubes,” Geary told Colonel Savchenko. “Don’t waste time recovering them. Commander Balboa, the moment you get the last shuttle aboard, get Tsunami away from that ship.”

“The shuttles are overloaded,” Balboa pointed out. “Some of those aboard them might get beat up.”

“Better beat up than dead.”

“I agree, Admiral.”

Geary had heard that assault transport captains and crews tended to be cool in even the hottest situations, and took pride in never failing to drop their Marines where intended, or recover them regardless of risk. Watching Commander Balboa handle this evacuation so calmly, Geary wondered again why those traits hadn’t earned the assault transports higher status in the fleet.

“Our chief engineer says Fortuna’s power core is wobbly,” Lieutenant Castries reported. “It could blow any second. She recommends all units clear the danger region as quickly as possible.”

Geary tried not to despair as he saw how close the shuttles and Tsunami still were to Fortuna.

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