Emotions lingered in the background, and the knowledge that the ship itself might kill them before the Arkana did was enough to make anyone anxious. She felt it and knew it was there, but she couldn’t let it get to her.
Andy was sure that the others were feeling it too, but she couldn’t stop to look back and check on them. She had to keep eyes forward. Even so, she could imagine that Jade’s green eyes were wide, set in an otherwise calm face. Roxanna’s purple skin would be swirling with pearlescent hues. And she could hear Anallin’s reaction, eyes clicking rapidly. Andy still didn’t understand the biological mechanisms that made the Hanaran’s eyes click, but they did and it was how she best could tell how it was feeling.
Dan was probably making a dozen jokes in his head that he couldn’t say out loud in their present situation. That, at least, brought a small smile to her face.
The five Marines made their way down the corridor, moving cautiously but with a sense of urgency. They knew that time would be of the essence if there was trouble in engineering. They moved through the vague shadows and looked at everything within the tunnels of light from their flashlights connected to their weapons.
“Here,” Dan said in a low voice, nodding at the access hatch in the wall.
The hatch would lead to the tubes running through out the ship that allowed the engineers to reach various parts of the ship’s systems to keep it all running. They made for a tight fit, but you could move through them and access other parts of the Star Chaser. It would be particularly useful for them since they couldn’t use the lifts.
“Cover,” Andy said, slinging back her rifle and pulling out the opening device. The other four moved into position to keep watch down both sides of the corridor while she approached it, then forced the door open. She couldn’t slide it fully back into the bulkhead, but it was open enough for the five of them to get through—if barely.
“Roxanna,” Andy said, stepping back and picking up her rifle again.
The sergeant shifted back from her position and then entered through the hatch first, bringing her weapon and flashlight up to view ahead. “Clear,” she reported and then started crawling forward. It was roomy enough to be on all-fours without bumping one’s head on the top, but there wasn’t enough room to stand.
After she gave them the go-ahead, Anallin went in, followed by Jade, then Dan. Andy covered them, then entered last. She went in backwards, bracing herself against the tunnel wall to pull the hatch as far shut as she could from inside. She wanted to cover their tracks as much as possible, just in case. It wasn’t perfect, but it was all she could do.
From there, she made the slightly agonizing turn-around and followed her squad forward. Roxanna knew where they needed to go and Andy had total faith in letting her lead; the Selerid was her second-in-command for a reason.
As they crawled, Andy wondered how the ship “felt” to Roxanna. The Selerid were an empathic people, which was a trait that had actually come in handy for their squad but was also something that made the job even more difficult for the woman. Andy was frequently surprised that the Selerid had chosen to become a Marine. Most of her people that joined the ESS chose medical positions, or science. Combat was not a fun place for an empath to be.
And now, everyone on the ship had to be scared and tense. Being in a battle was bad enough, but the sudden dark and quiet was...unnerving.
They made their way forward even more slowly than they had been walking in the corridor before and their lights bobbed along with them. Now that they were in the tube, there was even less light than before. Emergency lighting inside the tunnel was further apart, although the occasional sparks from troubled systems within the panels added a bit of light, and some more tension.
“Ahead,” Roxanna announced.
They were coming to a junction of the horizontal and vertical tunnels, where they could continued forward as they were or move onto the ladder and start climbing down. They were on deck one, so down was their only option. They had to climb down eight decks to deck nine to reach engineering.
That was no small feat, but they were well-conditioned.
Reaching the open hatch to the ladder, Roxanna shone her light down. “Clear,” she announced before slinging her weapon back and moving her feet to the rungs. She started on her way down, followed one by one by the other Marines into the open tunnel that would take them down. Roxanna would nearly be to the next deck by the time Andy started down.
Andy hadn’t had to spend much time crawling around in these tubes or up and down these ladders, fortunately, but it wasn’t the first time she’d been forced to use them during an emergency either. That was months ago, she reflected, when they had first learned of the Arkana and nearly lost their ship to those bloody snowflake people for the first time. That was when they had gotten them by surprise. Now, it was war, so at least they knew they were there and what to do about them.
Moving down the length of one deck, Roxanna came to a halt. She held onto the ladder with one hand while shining her light down.
A beam of energy weapon discharge appeared below them. With five Marines in the way, Andy didn’t get a good look but she could see that much. Were the damned Arkana down there already? Roxanna fired a shot, but the angle was bad and she couldn’t truly see the enemy. It ricocheted off a deckplate without hitting anything else.
“Wait!” a voice cried out. “We’re ESS!”
Chapter 13
“That sounds like Wilkins,” Roxanna commented. She kept her gun close and shifted her body to get a better look. Andy waited nervously until the sergeant called up that they were ESS after all. That was when she slid her rifle back and finished climbing down, crawling into the tunnel on the other side.
She recognized their uniforms as engineering personnel. They both looked human, with the woman sitting upright and the man laying back, holding himself half up with his elbow but looking ashen even in the poor light. In the glow of her flashlight, she could see a sheen of sweat across his shivering skin.
“He’s hurt,” the female crewman supplied.
“Why didn’t you keep going to sickbay?” Andy asked.
The woman shook her head a little. “I’m hurt too and I can’t carry him.” She looked at him then with an apologetic look in her eye. He waved the one hand he had free, and Andy could see drying blood on part of it.
The major stifled a sigh. “I’m sorry that we can’t stay and do much for you. We’re not medics, and we have to get to engineering.” She reached down to one of her pants pockets and pulled out her med kit. “Use this as best you can.”
“Thank you,” the woman said. “If you’re going to engineering, I have to warn you. The hatch you’re on is not just closed, but locked. We had to lock it. There was damage that we couldn’t repair in the systems there. It’s what injured him. We just barely got up here and sealed the hatch against it, locking it in that section. But you can’t go through there until repairs are made.”
Andy cursed inwardly. Of course. That meant they were going to have to crawl through this tunnel for a while until they reached a hatch to exit onto the deck, go further down to a second access hatch and return in another area of tubes.
The “time was of the essence” time line was getting trickier every moment.
“When I can, I’ll alert medical that you’re here,” Andy promised. “I’m sure you’re aware that communications are down.”
“Yeah,” the woman said. “We tried contacting medical ourselves.”
Andy nodded, frustrated that she couldn’t do more. The best she could do was getting her own job done, securing the ship so people could get it working again.
“Hang in there,” she said, feeling almost foolish for the platitude but it was the best that she had to offer. “Like I said, I’ll alert medical as soon as I can, and we’re going to get to engineering and make sure things are okay there. We’ll get the ship right.”
Both engineers smiled weakly. She worried that they may not have much longe
r to wait, but again, she couldn’t do anything more.
“Good luck, Major,” the man said, his voice hoarse.
Andy nodded once and then uncomfortably turned around, gesturing for her Marines to continue down the tunnel. “Until the next access hatch so we can cross the deck.”
And so, onward they began to crawl again. What had been a multi-deck ladder trip was now becoming something more like a maze, and the prize at the end was just as likely to be nothing at all or a big battle for engineering to clear it of enemy soldiers.
Either way, the risk-reward ratio was imbalanced, but that was not unusual.
“Ahead,” Roxanna announced.
They reached the next hatch and this time, Roxanna pulled it open. Every Marine had their own micro jack, since one never knew when they’d be separated from one of the others.
Exiting the access tunnel, they entered the corridor and looked each way. The straightaway was clear, but the other side was a T-junction and they couldn’t see very far down either direction. Andy moved to take the lead again with Dan beside her, back in their original formation. They started forward toward the junction and Andy gestured left.
She reached the corner with her back against the wall, pausing before turning the corner carefully. Just as she began to move her body around the corner, energy beams shot down from that side of the corridor and she swung back into place.
“Enemy located,” she declared dryly. Apparently, the intruders on deck two were still on deck two.
“Let’s clear the way,” Dan said, bringing around the projectile rifle. He still had the stolen Arkana rifle slung around his back, but they kept that as a weapon in reserve. They had yet to figure out how to recharge them, even with Anath’s help, so they used them sparingly. Though with the number of battles being waged, there was usually a steady supply.
Andy looked back and gestured for Anallin to change positions with Dan. As the best shot in the team, she wanted the Hanaran to have first shot at the enemy. Once that was done, Andy and Anallin met each others’ eyes and nodded once.
They swung around the corner, guns up. Energy bolts shot toward them, but didn’t even come close to hitting them. Andy took a moment to realize that the Arkana ahead didn’t have their own lights, so they were operating half in the partial darkness and half in the sudden glare of the ESS lights. Andy and Anallin took advantage of that fact and returned fire quickly. Their bullets crossed the distance in a heartbeat and there were two less energy weapons firing.
Another bolt came at the Marines, scorching the walls over their heads.
Andy’s next shot missed and a “ting” sound echoed back as it didn’t hit its mark, but Anallin’s next shot took care of that. There was a quiet gasp and a thud, and no more energy discharges coming their way.
Lifting her rifle and light, she surveyed the corridor ahead.
There was a panel hanging down with the smell of electrical smoke and the occasional jumping sparks. With no more active Arkana in sight, Andy gestured for everyone to start forward. Their lights moved back and forth over the bodies on the floor. Only one was moving, and that was feebly. Andy noticed that one was still sitting up, leaning back against the bulkhead with the head of its comrade on its legs and one hand over a vivid red hole in the other’s chest. It struck a chord in her and made her shudder.
It looked...familiar. It looked human, until you saw the pale white skin and hair; until you remembered that this was the enemy. That these people were trying to kill and conquer their way through every corner of ESS space until they could reach Earth and “reclaim” it for the Arkana and any humans who “thought correctly.” The Arkana were, technically, human as well, but what they considered to be a more elevated level of humanity.
Here in this damaged corridor, Andy could see the similarities again. The protective soldier with his wounded companion could have just as easily been ESS. In fact, they were; they were the engineers that Andy and Alpha Squad had just seen in the access tunnel. Why were they fighting? Why did they have to fight?
It was beyond comprehension, when one really got down to it.
Andy didn’t have to understand why, though. She was a Marine, and she would fight against those who would destroy them.
No matter how alike they were.
Chapter 14
Things continued to not go as planned.
Alpha Squadron made it through the corridor of deck two without encountering any more of the enemy and entered the next access hatch. They made it down to deck five before they found their way blocked again by more damage. This time, it wasn’t a locked hatch but actual debris that they knew would take longer to clear than crossing another deck.
Deck five was the tactical deck. The Marines’ locker room and armory was located there, as well as the ship’s armory and the brig.
It occurred to her once her feet were on the deck plates of deck five that she hadn’t even thought about her half-brother. Andy’s mind had been fully focused on the job, her Marines, and the ship itself. Somewhere in her mind, she felt a wash of guilt, but that part of her brain was ignored because like so many other emotions, it wasn’t useful.
As they kept moving forward, steadily and cautiously, she contemplated if she should make a side trip for the brig and make sure Anath was okay. Could she afford the time? After all, he was part of the Star Chaser’s crew now, sort of. He had turned on his own people and helped them fight the Arkana, didn’t she owe it to him to not just abandon him? And yet, she had just left behind those engineers in the tubes because she couldn’t afford the time.
However, the decision turned out to not be hers to make.
After several minutes of walking, they heard the sound of a fight. A few quick glances were exchanged before they quickly changed course down a corridor to move toward the sound, and Andy realized just a moment later that it was coming from the brig.
Alpha Squad rounded a curve and as they did, the source of the noise came into view. There were the backs of three Arkana fighting against another. It was pretty easy to see that the one facing them was Anath and he was doing his best against the three soldiers in front of him, but he didn’t look like he was armed with a gun. What he had in hand, she couldn’t tell, but the blood running from his temple stood out in stark contrast even in the dim light.
“Try not to hit my brother,” Andy said in a low voice, pitched just for her Marines to hear.
None of them acknowledged her aloud, but she and Anallin raised their rifles. Suddenly, the gunfire was painfully loud in the ship’s silence as each Marine fired once. Two Arkana immediately arched back and dropped. Anath looked shocked for an instant before realizing what was happening. Before either Marine got a second shot off, he had driven his weapon into the final Arkana and let him fall with the others.
Once the immediate threat from the three Arkana was over, Andy surveyed the scene and realized that there were another two on the ground. Had her half-brother really held his own against five Arkana, single-handedly?
Anath looked up at them and held himself against the wall, panting heavily. “She’s hurt,” he said, pointing down at the tactical crewman on the floor, sitting back against the wall and holding her side.
The Marines hurried forward. Roxanna knelt beside the tactical crewman and pulled out her med kit, while Andy moved to her brother.
“What happened?” she asked.
She reached down for her med kit and then remembered that she left it with the engineers. She turned to ask Dan for his and found that he was already standing beside her with it out. Andy smiled slightly and nodded her appreciation before turning back to her sibling.
“I’m not sure which hit did it, but one of them knocked out the energy field,” Anath said, still panting but it was starting to calm. “There was an intruder alert so Lisa—” He nodded to the woman against the wall. “—chose to trust me to fight with her and she unlocked the gate. I came out just as they came in. She took out one but two others got her bad. I
took out another and could only hold off the remaining ones.”
Andy cleaned the blood away from the wound, making him wince but he didn’t complain about it. Instead, he looked over at the tactical crewman, Lisa.
“Is she going to be okay?” he called to Roxanna.
The Selerid turned her head to speak over her shoulder. “I think so,” she replied, “but she can’t move from here. We’re going to have to leave her. We’ll have to send a proper medic as soon as we can.”
Anath’s pale face drew in, brows knitting a little and lips pursing. “She’s been good to me,” he said, although his voice was quieter now. His steel blue eyes turned to Andy. “She must survive.”
Andy managed a faint smile. “We’ll do all we can,” she said, “but we’re just Marines. I don’t have a medic in this squad.”
He nodded quickly, then stopped when she glared at him because she was still treating his head wound. “I know.” He took a shallow breath. “I’ll stay here and protect her.”
“No.” This came in a weak voice from the other side of Roxanna. “Anath, you should go with them. You’re a good fighter and they’re going to need all the help they can get. I can take care of myself until the medic comes.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Anath replied without hesitation. “You’re hurt. How can you fight like that? If they show up, they’ll just kill you.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she replied. Her voice wasn’t strong, but it was stubborn. “You need to help them. If the ship isn’t secured, then what does the state of one tactical crewman matter?”
Andy glanced over Roxanna’s shoulder at Lisa’s ashen, but resolute, face. “She has a point,” she said, turning back to Anath and applying the wound sealant. “We’re on our way to engineering. We weren’t able to get in contact with them before everything went down. I’m worried they were overrun and the Arkana have engineering, or are at least have them pinned down. We need to make sure the engineers can do their work and keep the ship from dying.”
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