War Fleet: Conspiracy by Daniel Young

Author:Daniel Young [Young, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-02-09T16:00:00+00:00

24

“We’re getting arrested, sir,” Novak said over the intercom. “I’m sorry, but we had no choice. They have tanks.”

Olsen changed the view to a camera mounted on the Extractor’s underside of the Extractor. He could see the tanks, four of them, and hundreds of Foorints lined up in a neat circle around the shuttle. “I can see that,” Olsen said, and he swallowed hard. “I’ll get you out of there, Novak. We’ll find a way.”

“You should go, sir,” Novak said. “If we can escape, then we’ll find a Foorint ship and come and meet you.”

Olsen glanced up at James on the screen, trying to read his expression, but he couldn’t see what James thought. “I got you into this, Novak, and I’m going to get you out of it.”

“Okay, sir,” Novak replied, and Olsen watched the small rectangle on the screen, showing her shoulder cam view as she made her way down the ramp. Once she reached the bottom, a Foorint soldier pushed forwards, and then the butt of his rifle came towards the camera, blacking the feed out.

Olsen continued to monitor from the camera on the Extractor. The other Marines went down, including Riley with Chang. Olsen clenched his fists, realizing that he was powerless. He could do nothing to help them right now. He could only watch as the Foorint soldiers tied their arms behind their backs with taut ropes, threw their cameras and wristwatches on the floor—stamping on them to disable them—and then marched them off. They placed Chang on some kind of wheelbarrow—tossed in like he was a bag of soil. Redrock and Sandbach were the last to go.

“Okay,” Olsen said to his crew and James over the feed. “What now?”

“We still have a chance to escape,” James said.

“Dammit, James,” Olsen replied, “I’m not leaving them here. This is my crew.”

“And Sandbach,” James replied. “And my Marines. But this is war, Olsen.”

“And meanwhile”—Olsen glanced towards the fleet—“the enemy has two superweapons, a fleet that looks equipped to destroy anything the humans or Arstans might throw at it, and we still haven’t worked out the source of that monster.”

Schmidt had put some shield generators in position, and the Benedict had also deployed some shields. The Okranti and Benedict had also started firing up their weapons. But the Foorints hadn’t yet fired, and Olsen and James both thought it better if the Foorints made the first move.

James nodded, and then he paused a moment. “Okay,” he said. “You make a good point. I guess we’ve been running so long on the Benedict that we’ve forgotten what it is to stand and fight here. But you need us, Olsen. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but a super-dreadnought on your side is invaluable.”

“Not arrogant at all,” Olsen said. “We just need to decide which will be more valuable to us: the cloaking superweapon, or the cellular modifier.”

James put his hand to his chin. “The cloaking superweapon looks easy pickings, but if we can use that cellular modifier to convert

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.