Stranded
ESS Space Marines, Book 7
1
Laughter echoed inside the confines of the Marine shuttle from the ESS Star Chaser as it made its way home, not dawdling but not rushing either.
“You are so full of crap,” Jade exclaimed. “So full of it!”
“I swear by all that I call holy,” Dan replied.
“And what would that be?” Roxanna interjected with a teasing smirk. “Your deck of playing cards?”
Dan gave her a withering look, but the effect was ruined by the joviality almost ever-present in his brown eyes. “You wound me, Sergeant,” he declared. Laying his hand over his chest dramatically, he straightened in his seat and looked very serious. “I’m not lying. I can touch the tip of my nose with my tongue.”
Everyone except Anallin started laughing again who instead showed amusement in the way of Hanarans…which no one was sure how exactly that was, but the blue-skinned one said it was amused.
“Prove it,” Anath challenged. “Words are cheap, big man.”
“Ooh, someone is learning Earth phrases pretty fast,” Dan returned quickly.
Andy’s Arkana half-brother just flashed his bright white smile in his bright white-skinned face. “Talk, talk, talk.” He even made the “chattering” gesture with his hand to goad the other man along.
What followed was the single most un-Marine-like display in the history of the Marine Corps since it’s earliest days.
Corporal Dan Thomas tried to touch his nose with his tongue.
His entire face—normally a fairly attractive one, by most standards—seemed to suck inward as his eyes crossed and his lips pursed around his protruding tongue. It curled upward and came absolutely nowhere near the tip of his nose, but the harder he tried the more everyone laughed.
When he eventually stopped, a little pink for his efforts, everyone was about to the point of hysterics.
“I told you,” Jade gasped. “You are full of crap, but I don’t even care.” She came very near wheezing, holding her stomach over the restraints. “I haven’t laughed like that in a long time.”
“Thomas, I may just need to recommend you for an award,” Andy said with a grin, having been unable to do anything but join in the laughter herself.
Andy and her alpha squad Marines were on their way back to their ship after spending two weeks on the ESS Stellar, using their unique experiences in fighting the Arkana to train the squads of the 27th Marine Detachment, both in tactics and weaponry. Andy, being half-Arkana, and Anath, being a full-Arkana defector, had insights to offer that no one else in the ESS Marines, or ESS entirely, could offer.
It made them, as Dan called it, a “hot commodity.”
“We’re receiving a communication from the Star Chaser,” the pilot announced from the shuttle’s cockpit.
“Put it on speakers,” the major ordered, forcing as much of her humor from her voice as possible. She was, after all, the commander of a detachment of ESS Marines and was about to speak with the ship.
“Major Dolan,” the voice of Captain Wallace came into the cabin. Although not “congenial,” his tone was friendly and easy.
“Captain,” she returned. “I hope this call means that the Star Chaser is returning to our rendezvous point?”
“You would hope correctly,” Wallace replied.
It had been one of those “of course you do” moments when the squad had been getting ready to leave the Stellar and head back to the Star Chaser when they received word that their ship had to divert. On the upside, they had all agreed, the ship hadn’t been attacked by the Arkana.
One never knew where they were going to show up.
“We will be approximately two hours late, but we will be there. There has been no reported Arkana activity in the area and the Nebula passed through a few hours ago, so you shouldn’t have any problems. Keep yours eyes open and play nice.”
“Yes, sir,” Andy replied, thinking that they always played nice with each other. It was the enemy who didn’t want to share the universe.
“Wallace out.”
There was a short chirp, and the channel was closed.
“All dressed up and nowhere to go,” Dan quipped. “I’m going to have to wait two hours longer to show everyone my amazing skill.”
“The skill that you were not able to accomplish?” Anallin asked, sounding genuinely confused because Dan hadn’t actually been able to do it.
“Not that one,” Dan said, waving his hand.
Jade smiled at him and then looked at Anallin. “I believe the skill he refers to is making people laugh,” she said.
Dan made the gun-fingers “you got it” gesture and winked at his not-so-secret girlfriend. As long as it didn’t affect their working performance, Andy chose to not make an issue of it. They were at war. While she needed every one of her people at their best, she also needed them all to have things in their lives that reminded them of why they fought at all.
Andy glanced at her second-in-command, Sergeant Roxanna, and found that the Selerid’s skin was a slightly darker purple, but it was calm. That was a nice change of pace, the major thought. When an empathic Selerid became frightened or agitated, their skin began to show swirling tones of its native purple.
Over the course of the many months and many battles, Roxanna’s skin had been swirling more often than not.
The pilot kept the shuttle on its course, and Alpha Squad continued their easy banter, just blowing off steam and relaxing for the short amount of time that they didn’t really have anything to do. After all, the Marines were a busy group during a war, so they hardly ever didn't have anything to do. The quiet moments were rare, and to be appreciated.
“We’ll be at the rendezvous point in fifteen minutes, Major,” the pilot reported.
“Thank you,” Andy replied, then called back to the rest of the squad. “We’re gonna be home soon, kids.”
There was a collective murmur of appreciation, but it was just a couple of minutes later before the pilot managed to silence what he had started.
“Not good,” he said, eyes wide as he stared at his console screens. “I’ve picked up an Arkana ship, and it’s on an intercept course!”
2
“Oh, come on!” Dan shouted with frustration.
Andy ground her back teeth together, but she didn’t say anything. Her reaction reflected the corporal’s, but she didn’t have the luxury of saying everything that came to mind. “Strap in, Marines,” she announced instead.
They were part of the Earth Space Service, but from inside this shuttle, they couldn’t do much. They still fought on the ground, really , so unless those Arkana boarded their shuttle, the Marines could only hope for the best. They were already buckled into their restraints, so they had that going for them.
“What are the weapons on this bucket again?” Andy asked the pilot, her voice low and tight.
“We have two forward and one rear-facing lasers, and one kinetic shot cannon on top,” the pilot replied without looking up or pausing as his hands moved rapidly over the controls. “Standard energy shielding on the outer hull plates.”
Andy looked at the co-pilot’s console before her. These shuttles didn’t require a co-pilot, so she usually didn’t have to do anything, but she knew how to operate most of the controls on a basic level. She had gotten basic training on the shuttle controls when she had originally been promoted to squad leader.
The screen showed one approaching vessel.
“It’s small,” Andy thought out loud. The measurements scrolling down her screen showed that the Arkana ship wasn’t all that much larger than their own shuttle, so that was something at least. “Attempting communication.”
Everyone in that shuttle knew that the Arkana wouldn’t answer. They never did. Even so, it was required that they try.
The shuttle shook as the first energy pulse hit it.
“Remind me to have words with the Nebula if we survive this,” Anath said.
“No
ted,” Andy replied tightly. “Bringing the forward lasers online and targeting the enemy vessel.” The moment felt strange for Andy, but she would do what she had to. She ran her fingers down the side-pad control, aligning the targeting scanners on the Arkana ship coming at them. The ship had initially been head-on, but the pilot’s evasive maneuvers put them on the port-side.
She never wanted a job as a ship’s weapon officer, she was sure of that, but she locked onto the Arkana ship. “Firing forward lasers,” she announced as she pressed the button to let loose the pulsing energy fire. She watched on the screen as those pulses leapt across the open space between the two ships. Some of them hit, and some didn’t.
The Arkana shuttle made a sudden course correction and evaded further damage . At least now they knew that the ESS shuttle was not a helpless target.
“Incoming!” she called the moment she saw a return shot headed for them.
She felt the sudden course shift of their own ship, energy from the stabilizers and dampeners shifting to other systems. The shot hit the backend of the shuttle with enough force to jerk it back, the pilot cursing as he wrestled control back from inertia.
“I shouldn’t have eaten so much for breakfast,” Dan groaned from the cabin.
There wasn’t anything they could do but try to not get shot to pieces.
“Reacquiring target lock,” Andy said through gritted teeth. “Got it. Firing kinetic shot.” The ESS shuttle shook slightly from beneath as that cannon launched its physical ammunition. Andy watched it fly, hoping it would hit. The physical ammunition was the most effective, and of course the most limited.
As the shot hit the Arkana, the Arkana fired back. Two energy bolts flew toward the little Marine shuttle. It shook and spun, Andy clinging to the edges of the console out of habit more than necessity. Her restraints held her in place.
“For a small craft, they have bigger guns than we do,” Andy said, frowning as she read the automated damage reports. “The energy shielding is failing on many of the hull plates. I think we need to run.” Andy thought fast to remember her training on these systems, and expanded the sensor view to see what was in the space around them. “I’m looking for a nebula or planet to hide us.”
“Look faster, Major,” the pilot said tightly, spinning the ship again. “Setting course away from the enemy now.”
“Bringing up rear-facing laser,” Andy returned. “Let me see if I can at least slow them down. No one tell the ship I was doing this, though. Our real weapons officer will laugh at me.”
The shuttle ended up feeling more like an amusement ride back on Earth after a short amount of time, and Andy longed to be back on the big ship or on the ground. She did her best to keep her focus on the screen in front of her to return fire on the Arkana ship behind them, but they kept moving out of her view.
“I can’t seem to shake them,” the pilot groaned.
“I’m trying, but they move like a viper,” Andy said.
“If I could spare the thought, I would ask what that was,” the pilot said.
The chase dragged on at hyper-speed. The ships both danced, side to side, up and down. Andy would have sworn he was doing circles and barrel rolls, but she wasn’t about to ask. Time was passing fast and slow, and she wasn’t looking at the clock to find out how long they’d been running.
She wasn’t sure how long they could last.
Their armor was gone. She had gotten some shots in on their pursuers, but they were still pursuing.
Suddenly, the ship went into a spin. A very clear spin. The pilot’s cursing made it clear that it wasn’t something in his control, and Andy felt her stomach bouncing between its usual location and her throat then back again. Flashes of Lykos Colony and their “difficult” landing there came to mind and she disassociated for a moment. Asking herself why this was happening to her twice, and then realizing she could only hope that they were headed for some sort of planet.
She tried to look at the screen again, even as her brain banged around the inside of her skull.
There was a planet of some sort. It had no name, and the shuttle was headed straight for it. Fast.
“Losing hull cohesion!” Andy called, seeing and hearing the warning as it jumped up on their screens. Pieces of the shuttle started peeling away, flying off behind them.
Then, the shuttle smacked into the planet’s atmosphere.
3
“We have got to stop doing that.”
The words were the first thing to filter through Andy’s mind as she regained consciousness. She could hear them and understand them, although she could not immediately recognize who had spoken them. There was something sticky on her face, and it made it hard to open her left eye.
After a moment, she remembered them crashing.
Everything leading up to her losing conscious came rushing back and she had to resist the urge to lose everything she’d eaten for the past week.
She closed her eyes again and leaned her head back against the headrest. It had been Dan, of course.
“Sound off,” she managed weakly.
One by one, she counted as five groggy voices replied. Five. One of those was the pilot, so one of her squad didn’t reply. She moved through the voices and realized that it was her brother. Her stomach lurched again, but she forced herself to stay put.
“Who has eyes on my brother?” she asked tightly.
“I do, Major,” Roxanna replied. “He’s alive, but unconscious. I can still sense him.”
Andy let out a slow breath of relief. “Thank you, Sergeant.”
She took a chance to open her eyes again, very slowly, and her equilibrium stayed mostly in place. Carefully, she unhooked her restraints and pushed herself up from the seat. Although she wanted to jump right into the back and help her brother, she forced herself to be a commander. She checked on the pilot first, who was alive and about as out of it as she was. His restraints were stuck and she pulled her utility knife and cut him free before moving into the back.
Just as she did so, Anath groaned and opened his steel blue eyes. They were slightly crossed as he did, lowering his head to look around. She imagined he was feeling about the same as she had when she woke.
The major made her way around to each member of the squad, checking on them and assisting. As she did so, her eyes roamed around the inside of the shuttle to get an idea of the state of the craft. It was obvious without much looking that it was in very bad shape and might not be space worthy.
“No head injury, right, Sergeant?” Andy asked as she checked on Roxanna, looking the purple woman over.
“No, sir,” Roxanna replied with a weak, wry smile. The last time they had crashed in their shuttle, the Selerid had taken a concussion and the squad had gotten a lesson in Selerid biology: that a head injury could turn their empathy from input to output, and make everyone feel what they felt.
That had not been fun.
“I think I’ve got some bruised ribs from the restraints, Major,” Jade said with a soft grunt, touching her side as she released the belts. “But I’m ready to fight if need be, sir. Oorah.”
“Oorah,” Andy said with a smile.
Dan had a cut on his scalp that was bleeding but not very deep. Head wounds just bleed like a waterfall. Anallin had growing dark blue bruises all over its body. There didn’t seem to be any critical injuries, but no one was unscathed. Andy couldn’t imagine how the pilot had managed to pull them out of that spin and get control enough to keep them all from dying, but she was grateful.
It wasn’t until she had checked on every member of her squad that she let herself fully examine the rest of the craft. She had been dimly aware of its state—always aware of her surroundings—but now was the time for inspection.
The news wasn’t good.
Much of the back end of the shuttle was damaged beyond repairs that could be done where they were. Although it hadn’t been torn off completely, there was no getting this into space again. At best, it was going to be a shelter while th
ey were here, but that was as much as it was good for now.
She cursed under her breath, losing her composure for a moment as pain stabbed through her head and neck.
Two crash landings was enough for her. Maybe she needed to change careers.
“Do we know where the Arkana landed?” Anath asked, slurring his words slightly as he pushed himself up from his seat. It creaked with the movement.
“No,” Andy replied, still staring at the remains of the back of the shuttle. “If we can get any power to the sensors, we might be able to look around.”
“On it, sir,” Jade said, sounding just as weary. As the squad’s technical expert, she was the most qualified to help the pilot get anything on this bucket working again. “I’ll also try to get the communications going, or at least an emergency beacon. Try to reach the Star Chaser. We couldn’t have gone that far off course.”
Andy was going to argue the reality of that statement, but chose not to because it didn’t actually help. “Good idea, Martin,” she said instead. “Let me know how it goes.”
“Oh, you’ll hear me cursing if it doesn’t go well,” the youngest Marine of the group said.
Stepping closer to the openings between the outer parts of the shuttle and them, Andy realized that the light outside was dim. It was evening, or nighttime with a very bright moon.
“Thomas,” she said. “Can you stand?”
“Yes, Major.”
“Take first shift as guard here at the back, moving between inside and out to keep an eye on things. Obviously, this planet has a breathable atmosphere.” She gestured at the openings where all the air was going in and out without them dying. “So we have that going for us, but we don’t know where the enemy is. Watch out for them, and anything else that might give us problems while we figure this out.”
She heard some movement behind her and then metal on metal as she guessed he found a weapon. When that same metal clanked, she turned to see him put a broken weapon away and find another. This one apparently passed muster and he limped toward her, nodding as he stood close to the back of the shuttle.
Earth Space Service Space Marines Boxed Set Page 48
