Jethro 7 Snippet 1

 Sitrep:

  Another story for Multiverse 5 is done, I finished it last night. Two more to go. It'd be cool to finish it this month but doubtful.

   In other news, we are now in the window to get J7 back from Goodlifeguide. Hopefully we will see it before the end of the month as I promised.

On to the snippet!

 

Chapter 1

 

UFN-80P, Deep Space

 

During the hasty evacuation of Horath 4, shuttles had poured people into the small prowler cadre transport. They had abandoned two of the shuttles once they had been evacuated, but the last two had been repurposed into booster engines by the Cadre.

The Cadre had worked under Warrant Officer Ox's directions as a collective hive to guide their nanites into the ship in order to facilitate their escape. They had used force emitters from the shuttles as well as from the cadre suits in order to shield the ship long enough for it to escape into hyperspace.

Each of the suits had been virtually drained of energy during the process as had the ship's systems. They had a small reserve left but were very low on power. So low they had been forced out of hyperspace one day out, coming out thirty-four light days from the expanding super nova.

To the 266 people on board the ship, it seemed that they had traded a quick clean death in the inferno from a dying star for a cold lingering death in deep space waiting for power, food, or life support to run out.

“We aren't dead yet,” Bast whispered in Jethro's ear.

He clacked his teeth together gently. “True,” Chief Warrant Officer Jethro McClintock rumbled ever so softly. He was a black Neopanther, an ebony shadow that had haunted the newly-reformed Space Marines before eventually being tapped to reform the Cadre.

“Well! This is another fine mess we've gotten ourselves into,” he muttered.

Bast flicked her long ears at him in mild amusement and reproach.

Bast, short for Bastet, was his personal A.I. She was embedded in his body, his mind, his implants, in the nanites in his body, and in the nanites in his armor. Together they forged a nearly unbeatable combination in combat.

Now they were in a different form of combat, this one he was ill prepared to handle either mentally or physically. No amount of training would prepare them for this sort of scenario. It was one of the worst nightmares of any spacer—to be marooned without hope of rescue.

~~~-^-~~~

Captain Lizel Tally nodded to herself as the latest reports came in. She had gotten her crew busy organizing the survivors and doing a thorough inventory of their resources. She'd made it clear she had wanted everything noted, right down to the nuts and bolts and skill sets of the passengers.

The A.I. and navigators were doing their best to plot their location. They knew how far they'd traveled from Horath based on their hyperspace odometer readings, a full thirty-four light days.

Now thirty-three days before the wave of energy from the supernova reached them.

She had them looking for a way out of the fix they were in.

Meanwhile, the lead engineers were busy trying to do what they did best, finding a miracle in their back pockets if possible.

Given that they'd been so low on fuel they'd been forced out of hyperspace, she knew it was going to be a tough one to pull off.

There was talk of rescue among the crew but she knew better. No, the only way to survive was if they rescued themselves.

~~~-^-~~~

Jethro hated the situation they were in. He felt trapped, helpless, and useless as time grew. He hated the feeling; it wasn't something he was used to having.

“Damn it, I'm an operator and a shooter,” he muttered to Bast. She nodded.

“You can't shoot your way out of this,” she murmured, caressing his ears with phantom hands.

He nodded. He knew a part of his problem was the feelings of loss of Letanga and his friends. For all he knew, most of his friends were now dead.

Just about every Marine and army soldier had been involved in the invasion of Horath. The elite at the very least, which included him and the Cadre. They had been sucked in, and when they'd been busy in ground combat operations, the “Pirate Empress” bitch had struck. She'd set off a nova bomb and destroyed her own home star system with who knows how many billions of her own people in the process.

Thinking about it objectively, he knew it was a strategic stroke of genius. Second Fleet had been shattered and most of the ground troops obliterated. She'd gotten away too.

The navy had tried to get some people off but he doubted they'd gotten many. Certainly not Letanga and some of the other troops.

He closed his eyes in pain. They probably were dead; the navy hadn't stuck around long to evacuate many of the troops. There had been little time to escape as it was, they'd barely made it, and only just so because the Cadre had intervened with their nanites. The other units didn't have their A.I. support or nanites.

Besides, he knew people like Valenko would put civilians, even Horathian civilians, over their own survival.

~~~-^-~~~

With multiple A.I on board, they divided up the sensor feeds and managed to plot the stars around them. Spectrographic analysis and a comparison to their star charts gave away their location on the third day.

They were in deep space far above the plane of the ecliptic of Horath and far away from the jump lines to Finagle or H001. The navigators were already saying there was no way back.

“First things first,” Captain Tally said once they gave her the grim news.

“What?” Ensign Hatfield asked in confusion.

“A memorial.”

“Oh.”

“Really? Now, ma'am?” Chief Koda asked.

“Now. We owe the dead that much. Not that they'd complain if we waited, but I think we should mourn our dead and then move on.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.”

“Chief, put the word out that we are going informal for obvious reasons. Quick and simple.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.”

~~~-^-~~~