Valdar's Hammer (Terran Strike Marines Book 3) by Richard Fox & Scott Moon

Author:Richard Fox & Scott Moon [Fox, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Triplane Press
Published: 2018-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

“Gor’al, you need to work faster,” Hoffman said as he looked at the mission clock on his visor. By the operations order, the other Dotari Marine teams hidden throughout the broken moon were readying to launch on their targets.

“The forward graviton emitters sustained some damage,” the alien said. “I just need to…reroute the auxiliary power and…” A burst of sparks came from the front of the sled and sprayed across Gor’al’s helmet.

“Gluten-poisoned baked goods!” He fell back on his haunches, picked up a spanner from the ground and went back to work.

“You got one for us, sir?” King asked.

Hoffman zoomed in on a clawship flying around a rock fragment the size of a skyscraper.

“Mission calls for us to hit the closest one,” Hoffman said, “keeps more than one team from going after the same target. But if we don’t have a clear shot on the dreadnought, then we’re just pissing in the wind.”

“There is no movement of air to urinate in!” Gor’al whacked the side of the sled with his tool and the graviton generator came to life, sending a puff of dust out from the rock face.

“Thar she blows,” Duke said, sending a live feed from his scope. A Kesaht dreadnought flew out from behind a distant moon shard. The hull looked like sections of bark removed from a tree and haphazardly nailed back to the trunk. Energy cannons dotted the hull in even lines, and a pyramid-shaped structure placed a third of the way up the ship from the engines served as the command and control center.

“Five miles from stem to stern,” Duke said. “Not as big as the Toth monster that’s crashed on Luna, but still…”

Garrison put a hand on a crate full of explosives on the grav sled. “I knew I should’ve packed more boom boom.”

“Not the mission,” Hoffman said. He switched to infrared and found a clawship a few dozen miles away. “There. That’s the one.”

A wavering in the void caught his attention, like air over a fire. He zoomed in and found a sphere, the surface swimming with fractals.

“That’s the Xaros tech, right?” Max asked. “The gravity field generator?”

“One of a couple hundred through the moon,” Hoffman said. “The mass from the Kesaht fleet must be upsetting the field keeping all the fragments in check…Load up.”

“I’m driving!” Garrison hopped onto the sled and grabbed the control stick. As the rest of the Marines got in, unpleasant memories of Strike Marine selection came back to him. Days in the surf around Coronado Island, harkening back to the American SEALs that later became the first Strike Marines, along with Green Berets and other special operation forces of the now-extinct Atlantic Union.

The sled spat out from under the camo tarp and pulled up and away from the moon fragment. Garrison steered them toward the Kesaht clawship Hoffman marked out as their target.

“Anyone having rigid inflatable boat flashbacks?” Max asked. “We may be in the middle of a broken moon, but at least we’re not cold. And wet.

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