“Well, we better make the most of it,” Andy said. They weren’t going to let any grass grow, as they would say on Earth. “I’ll be right there.” She closed the channel and then turned to the captain.
Captain Wallace was standing in front of the center seat, his arms folded over his broad chest as he watched her. She knew he could tell that she’d gotten some interesting news, but he had not been able to hear both sides of the conversation. His left brow—which now bore a scar from an engagement two and a half months ago—rose as he waited.
“Sergeant Atad reports that we have a prisoner who remains alive,” she said, then watched as he had the same reaction she had.
“Let’s get down there.”
Andy nodded once. “Yes, Sir.”
She headed for the exit immediately, but stopped by her squad. “Roxanna, status of the prisoners?”
The answer was as expected. “Being carted to the morgue,” she replied. The Selerid’s purple skin swirled with pearlescent shades, as it always did when she was agitated or feeling an adrenaline rush. Battle had not yet left her veins. “It just happens so damn fast.” Her purple brows knit while she blinked, slowing shaking her head. “Why is this guy still alive?”
Andy shrugged. “Maybe it didn’t work,” she said. “Or maybe he just doesn’t want to die. I will find out. Sergeant, keep working on the cleanup here and check in with the other squads one more time. I’ll be in the brig.”
“Come on, Major. I thought you were supposed to be a good role model for us and not get in trouble,” Lance Corporal Dan Thomas chimed in with his usual sense of humor.
“Just get to work,” Andy said with a half-smile and shake of her head.
Any humor she felt, however thin, vanished when she left the bridge with the captain and they walked past the line of bodies where recently alive prisoners had been. Even though the Arkana were the enemy, it bothered her that they took prisoners who then refused to stay alive. They would not be mistreated in custody, but they never gave themselves a chance to find out.
Of course, her feelings were clouded further by the fact that her father had been Arkana. She hadn’t known this until six months ago, having spent all of her life assuming she was fully human while wondering who her father was. When she began to show shocking resistance to alien abilities and had some “strange DNA” pop up in her body, it was clear that she was something other than human.
Then the Arkana showed up on her ship, forcing her to choose a side.
Neither she nor Captain Wallace spoke much as they headed for the security deck and entered the foyer of the brig. In the very first cell sat their prisoner, who was still alive. Andy had almost expected him to kill himself before she could get to the brig, but that hadn’t happened.
“It’s you,” he drawled as he lifted his head and looked at her. Those icy blue eyes were penetrating no matter which Arkana’s face they stared out of. She didn’t let it show, of course, and just folded her arms across her chest as she returned the look. He stared at her without blinking from a face well-bruised on one side.
“Yes, it’s me,” she drawled right back.
“I knew you were on this ship. Everyone knows you’re on this ship. No one in the history of the Arkana has ever refused to join us when they found out they were one of us,” he said with an almost maniacal smile. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to our leadership?”
Andy tilted her head slightly. “I imagine they were not pleased.”
He laughed, maybe. It was a high-pitched barking sound that may have resembled a laugh, although she wouldn’t swear to it. “Yes. Yes, that’s one way to put it. No, they were not and are not pleased. More than that, every Arkana alive is obsessed with you. And they all want your blood. Your mixed, muddy, half-human blood.”
“Not you,” Andy said on a guess.
He shrugged. “I don’t care so much.”
Captain Wallace stepped in, apparently with a question that had been on his mind a great deal; it was something on everyone’s mind. “If humanity created the Arkana, why are you so hell bent on killing us now?”
The Arkana turned his head slowly. “We were created to conquer; to kill those who stand in the way. It matters not if you are human. Humans are our creators, our parents, and is it not symbolic, and sometimes literal, that the parents must die for the children to take their rightful position in the universe?”
“Why aren’t you dead?” Andy asked bluntly.
“I have my reasons,” he replied enigmatically. “Similar reasons for why I don’t hate you as much as the rest. Maybe I admire you.” He smiled cynically.
She knit her brows as she stared at him. “Admire me?”
He stared at her for several long moments without reply. It was long enough to unnerve her further, but she kept her Marine face on.
“Don’t let the Arkana take a planet,” he finally said, not answering her question at all and instead confusing her. “If they get a planet, they will start to gain a foothold you will not be able to overcome. They have their eyes set on one. Only one city need be taken to possess it, and then the real trouble starts.”
“What planet?” Andy asked skeptically. Why was he telling them this?
“Don’t let them take a planet,” he repeated, and then turned his face forward again. They asked more questions, but he would say no more.
Could they afford to trust him?
Could they afford not to?
3
“It could be a trap,” Andy said for the fifth time.
“Yes, it could be,” Wallace agreed patiently. “It doesn’t walk us into it, however, to look at a freaking map.” Okay, maybe he wasn’t so patient.
Andy realized that she should hold her tongue at that point.
Captain Wallace and his first officer, Commander Shailain, stood around a broad table, where the entire interactive tabletop screen was showing a star map of ESS and Allied space. It had little light dots to show where there had been Arkana attacks and raids, as well as battles and skirmishes. So far, as the prisoner had pointed out, the Arkana had not taken any planets. They had managed to capture and maintain control of several ESS and Allied stations, as well as moon and asteroid outposts, but no planets.
“They are moving,” Andy said with a tactical eye. “They seem to have a direction, much like a swarm of bees. A few outliers, but a general cluster that suggests they are moving in one direction. Problem is, the swarm is pretty freaking wide.”
Shailain pointed at a few different colored dots. “Satellites and long-range sensors have picked up on Kriori Armed Forces engaging them in this area, but the Kriori still won’t talk to us and after that last battle when they shot us as much as the Arkana... Well.”
Andy sighed, knowing all too well the situation. The ESS were not the only ones fighting the Arkana, as it turned out. Non-Allied races were as well. Some of them were willing to at least communicate and form some cooperation with the ESS, even if not an alliance, and then others—like the slave-trading Kriori—didn’t even want to talk. It made for some messy situations, to say the very least.
“What planets are in their range along this line?” Wallace asked, tracing a curve on the map that seemed to be the forward edge of the Arkana front.
Shailain pressed some buttons, and the map narrowed in. “There are at least a dozen inhabited planets in just a narrow band. They could of course skip past any of those for any reason. Aside from the goal of conquer or kill, they haven’t displayed any discernable strategy. It’s not even the straight path back to Earth. It’s like they want to take as much space as they can before they even turn for...home.” Her pale lips pursed in her green-tinted face, the leafy tendrils of the Ivven species waving from behind her ears and over her shoulders.
Andy peered closely at the map. “If we believe this guy,” she began, skepticism heavily weighting her voice, “then it’s not a big planet they are aiming for. It’s one they think they can take. Perhaps with the idea that
if they take one, they get the foothold he warned us about.”
“Do you think he’s right?” Wallace asked, almost philosophically. “Will we suddenly have a harder time repelling them if they get a planet?”
His question was directed at her, ostensibly for the fact that she was the commander of his ship’s Marines but she knew there was an undercurrent referring to her genetics: these were her people, so surely she had to have some kind of insight about them.
“It’s possible,” she granted. “He could have been speaking from a tactical point of view, a morale view, or both. Capturing a planet is a big victory and would likely rally them after the recent defeats we have handed them. Strategically speaking, a planet offers them things that an outpost or starbase can’t. With a planet, they can form headquarters from which to better arrange and advance their forces. A planet will also provide them with resources and a place for production.”
The captain sighed heavily, rubbing at the scar in his eyebrow. “There are a lot of reasons to not trust the word of a captured enemy, but what he has said so far makes sense. He wouldn’t tell us what planet, though.”
Andy shrugged, unwilling to concede too far. “He could be playing a game with us.”
“He could be,” Wallace agreed with a slow nod. “Or he could be playing a thin line between desire and loyalty. It’s not unheard of, historically speaking. And the Arkana were built from human genetics, so there is an element of similarity that we can try to get a read on.”
“And the ESS psychologists and Selerid College of Behavior Sciences has a field day,” Andy said ruefully. “Okay, so, looking at this map as if we are taking him at his word.” She began to trace her finger from planet dot to planet dot. “He said it’s a planet that can be taken with just one city; that they take the city and they have a planet. This suggests it would be easy to capture, though there has to be reason to take it too.”
She didn’t blink as her dark eyes roved over the map.
Finally, she found a point that stood out in her mind. She tapped on the screen at the relevant dot. “Baccem.”
“Yes,” Wallace said with the inspiration of agreement.
“Baccem...” Shailain repeated with a small frown. “Class M planet, jointly colonized by the Ronnor and humans.”
Andy nodded quickly. “It’s a small planet, however, and all of its important systems come out of its capital city of Hakar. The planet’s power, communication systems, defenses, and weather control all come out of Hakar. If you could control the city, you would control the planet.”
“Why take Baccem?” Shailain posed.
“Production,” Wallace offered. “The planet is a huge production hub for spacecraft pieces and assembly of certain types of crafts. Their communication satellites are also among the most sophisticated in the area. If the Arkana get Baccem, they can amp up production and repairs to their own crafts while in ESS Allied space as well as use the planetary communications to keep in better contact with each other.”
Andy pressed her lips together for a moment. “The planet is full of smart people and they know they’re a target. According to the Marine service wire, they are working on a full planetary defense system to make them less vulnerable, but they aren’t there yet. It’s close, though.”
“Putting the Arkana on a timeline,” Shailain filled in. “If they want to get this planet, they have to get to it soon. And they have taken quite a few black eyes since this all began. If it were me, I would want a base of operations. Especially one with a planetary defense system.”
Wallace and Andy both nodded in agreement.
“It looks like we’re setting course for Baccem,” Wallace declared. “I’m going to call ESS Command. Shailain, call a staff briefing.”
4
Less than an hour later, the Star Chaser was racing through space. Wallace had made his call and now sat in the briefing room with all of his senior staff.
It had been about a month and a half, but Andy still wasn’t used to sitting in this room. Just two months back, she had been a sergeant and leading Gamma Squad. But as it’s said, desperate times call for desperate measures. Major Carson, commander of the 33rd when she came on board, had been transferred elsewhere. Andy had served with distinction and proven her loyalty to the ship, as well as shown skill against the Arkana. It had been she and her squad who pioneered effective combat tactics, such as favoring traditional projectile weapons over energy pulse weapons.
A wartime, battlefield commission had been dropped unceremoniously—quite literally without any ceremony—on her head. She was promoted to Major and given command of the 33rd, at an age generally unheard of for the job but this was war. The ESS had not seen a war in a long time, so things had to change.
Andy had requested that her squad come with her. The request had been immediately granted since there was no one available to replace her so Gamma was now Alpha and her people remained at her side. They had been through a lot together and she knew she could trust them all. It did mean that they were frequently without direct guidance while she sat uncomfortably in senior staff meetings, though. So far there hadn’t been any major disruptions.
“We have chosen to take the information gained from the prisoner as truth, mainly because we can’t take the risk,” Wallace explained as he sat at the head of the oval-shaped table.
“So far, the Arkana have not actually shown a penchant for deception,” Counselor Morrissey pointed out. “They have proven so far to be very upfront, even painfully so. Rather than lie through questioning, they commit suicide. Rather than deceive through hails, they ignore. They attack straight on, claiming theirs the more important high ground, motivationally speaking.”
“Fair point,” Wallace agreed. “It adds to our justification to trust him, at least enough to go check this out. The strategy is too strong to not follow up.”
Giinoran spoke next. “Where are we headed, Captain?” The Hanaran was calm. Andy didn’t know Giinoran as well as she knew the Hanaran in her squad, but she had learned to pick up on the race’s unusual emotional cues. The biggest was this strange clicking sound that came from a hidden set of eyelids. The clicking would grow in volume and speed the more upset or angry they became. Giinoran was perfectly quiet.
“Baccem,” Wallace said, pressing a button on the edge of the table. An image of the planet came up on the screen, overlaid on a map of the system. “A tiny Class M planet that produces most of our small spacecraft. They are also a critical communications hub.”
“Makes for a good target,” Giinoran agreed. The Hanaran was the tactical chief for the ship, who handled the weapons and defense systems, and when necessary, the staff to support the Marines when ship defense became a necessity. Andy knew, strategically speaking, that that was about to happen again.
“Has Baccem been notified?” Doctor Martin, the ship’s chief medical officer, spoke up. Of course, ‘Martin’ was not the Selerid’s real name, but as a point that had been made over and over, the human tongue was completely incapable of pronouncing a single word in the Selerid’s native tongue, in any dialect. ‘Martin’ was as close as they could get.
“They have,” Wallace said. “They support our aid in their defense, of course. They are hard at work on planet-wide defenses, but they are not yet ready to be activated. It is our job to fend off any attack and help keep the planet safe until that time comes.”
There was a long moment of silence as each department head contemplated this.
“Do we know when any of this will happen?” the tactical chief asked. “When will the planetary defenses be ready? When will the Arkana attack?”
“By all that we can tell,” Wallace said, “the closest Arkana ship was the one that we encountered today. There are others, though, that are seeming to move in the planet’s general direction. They could arrive soon after we do, giving us only a small lead. Unless sensors pick up a sudden diversion from their current courses, we have to assume that those ships are heading for Baccem.�
� Wallace paused and looked at the table, tapping a few buttons and reading what came up. “According to the city administrator, the defense system will be operational within a week. That is not, however, time enough to get it online before the Arkana ships reach them. We may have to defend the planet for several days.”
Andy didn’t say anything, but she listened to every word and her mind whirled. It would be her first time leading the 33rd in a planetary engagement. She had fought in some, though never as part of a full-scale war. A part of her was intimidated, even scared, but she wasn’t going to let that happen. She would feel the fear, because to ignore it would be dangerous, but she would not let it rule her.
That was an important difference, and one she had to find a way to hold to.
“What other Marine detachments are in the area?” Andy finally asked.
“The 15th and the 21st are the closest and they are also heading to Baccem. When we reach the planet, since we are the closest, we’ll be able to use the planet’s sensors and communication systems to get a better idea of just how close they are. They are coming from the other side of it.”
Andy nodded and settled back in her chair, deep in thought. She knew of both detachments and could even remember the names of the commanders. She had never met the leader of the 15th, and had only met the 21st during her training. She doubted he would remember her. She hadn’t seen either of them since the start of the conflict and her rapid rise in the ranks of the 33rd. She wondered how they were going to handle that, and how they were going to handle the fact that she was half-Arkana.
It wasn’t physically obvious, but news had quickly spread throughout the ESS. Everyone on the Star Chaser was entirely confident in her, but others...
It wasn’t going to be easy. She hoped there wouldn’t be any trouble, but knew she had to prepare for it.
Earth Space Service Space Marines Boxed Set Page 15
