Last Stand Boxed Set by James David Victor

Author:James David Victor [Victor, James David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fairfield Publishing
Published: 2020-03-30T22:00:00+00:00

5

The crash of the foliage, vines, and branches, all slashing against the outside of the tac boat, echoed around the flight deck as the sturdy craft tore through the jungle, heading toward the ground. The forward view displayed on the holostage flickered wildly. A report from the communication systems informed Jack that local gravity field variability and a wildly-fluctuating geomagnetic field was interfering with communications.

The boat lurched violently to one side, throwing Jack about in his seat. The starboard thruster assembly flared, instructions from the flight management system becoming scrambled. Jack compensated, using the holostage image to help him steady the boat. Then the holoimage flickered and vanished. Jack was flying blind. Using his own balance as a guide, he kicked in the reverse thrusters and stabilized the boat’s descent. The holostage flickered back on for a moment and Jack saw the bright reflector of Tac Boat Three half-buried in thick jungle soil. Flickering over the image, Jack could see the unmistakable signal of pulse rifle fire flickering out from the tac boat and into the jungle in all directions.

The tac boat kicked sideways as the port thruster assembly cut out. Jack rocked violently in his seat. The sudden variance in the local gravity field caused the boat to drop ten meters in less than a second, and Jack felt himself lift out of his seat. The readout on the flight panel showed Jack was a hundred meters from the surface, but he did not know if he could trust the readings on the constantly-flickering instrument panel. The boat was descending at a slow rate now as the branches and foliage all around slowed his descent. He knew the tac boat could take a crash landing from this height and be fine, so he activated an emergency shutdown of all systems.

Jack flipped open the panel for the system-wide deactivation control and pressed the small button. He pressed it firmly and it replied with a satisfyingly loud click. And in that moment, the boat went dark.

Jack felt himself lifting out of the seat again as the tac boat fell. He felt it roll, caught on the side of a tree trunk. It tumbled over completely. Jack activated his tactical suit’s onboard stability field to keep him in the seat, but he knew he was upside-down. Then the boat lurched forward and stopped violently, the craft’s blunt nose slamming hard into the ground.

Jack climbed out of his seat and realized the boat was lying at an angle, pitched forward and dipping slightly to the port side. The boarding ramp on the starboard side opened to show Jack a view through the jungle foliage to the canopy above. The sky was barely visible through the thick overlapping branches and leaves of the deep green and black foliage.

Jack heard pulse rifle fire and the shouts of panicked Marines. He climbed onto the side of his boat and saw Tac Boat Three, its drive section partially buried in the thick soil, surrounded by Marines firing wildly into the jungle.

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