And the Arkana scanners were very detailed.
By the time they returned to the shuttle, they had some vegetation and fruit plus a few canisters of water. Jade was already there, hard at work. She sat at the edge of the broken deck plates, fiddling with something in her hands and seemingly balancing ten tools at once.
“Aha!” she exclaimed, startling everyone. Her green eyes went a little wide. “Sorry. I just figured it out.”
“Can you send a distress signal?” Enzo asked, sounding doubtful.
“I can,” she said, back to fiddling with all the tools at once. “It will be on a wide beam, so let’s hope there aren’t any Kriori raiders around.” She grimaced without looking up. She kind of looked like she was twelve, except for the Marine armor. “But if there are any ESS or Arkana vessels in the area, they will hear it.”
“What if we get unwanted company?”
Jade paused her fiddling and looked up. “Well, then it will be the same as it is now, just with different looks and timetables,” she said flatly.
Igno pursed his lips, but then shrugged and sighed. “Okay.”
With that, Jade went back to work. “Got it. Signal is broadcasting and will continue to do so until the internal power supply dies. Since it wasn’t damaged, it should have whatever life it would have had otherwise.”
“At least an Earth year then,” Marthe said.
“I’m kind of hoping to get rescued by then…” Dan murmured.
Marthe sat down beside Jade and looked at the device she still held. “How did you learn our technology so fast?”
Andy smiled with a hint of pride. “She’s our technical expert. Got a mind for it.”
Jade looked sheepish as she nodded. “Plus, believe it or not, some of your technology still resembles that of Earth at the time you left. Everyone has a hobby, you know?”
Marthe considered this, but whatever thought she had was apparently reconciled because she got up and walked toward the back of the shuttle. Andy took her place and leaned close to her Marine.
“They can’t change that to only call the Arkana, can they?” she asked in a low voice.
“No, sir,” Jade said. “It’s wide or bust. I made sure of it. Even if they could, our shuttle is broadcasting a signal as well, though our power supply is considerably weaker. A few weeks at most.”
“I’m hoping to get rescued by then…”
11
The Marines were back in their own shuttle well ahead of sunset, bearing their share of the discovered food and water.
“Fire?”
“What?”
Andy blinked as she was drawn from her thoughts and looked at Dan, who was standing beside her just outside the shuttle. “What if we build a fire? It could provide some heat for those of us outside, as well as some light that may keep those…things away from us until morning.”
Suddenly, she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it herself. But this is why they never worked alone—more minds made for more ideas. “Good thought, Thomas. I’m hoping since you suggested it that means you know how to do it. So, you’re volunteered.”
He laughed. “Should have seen that one coming,” he said. “With your permission, sir, I’d like to take Anallin and the scanner into the trees to find some branches to burn.”
“You need the scanner to find fallen branches?” she asked.
“No, I need the scanner to make sure burning the branches won’t release toxic fumes that will kill us…or make us high.” Dan grinned a bit cheekily.
Andy chuckled and shook her head. “Also good thinking,” she said. “You have my permission. Get to it.”
He nodded and went to find his blue-skinned comrade. Andy turned to find Anath leaning against the shuttle. “I don’t like this place,” he declared, sounding almost a little petulant, like a teenager.
“I can’t say I’m especially fond of it either,” she said wryly. “We’re here now, though, so until we get rescued, we have to make the best of it.”
“Don’t be so practical when I’m trying to sulk, dear sister,” he said without actual rancor. In fact, the expression he made at her looked just about as adolescent as his words had sounded before. “The alternative is too much thinking.”
She nodded her understanding before going inside to check on the pilot, Ellis McNamara, and Jade. They had sequestered themselves up in the cockpit again, doing all they could to get as many systems working as possible. Andy worried that by this point, it was a lost cause, but she wasn’t going to stop them. After all, maybe they would manage to get something useful functioning.
Dan returned with the wood and began building a fire. It was going pretty well by the time they sat around it to share a meal of strangely colored but decent tasting plants. After that, the sun slowly began to set. Andy appointed herself to the first watch, keeping close to the shuttle, and sent everyone inside to get some rest.
There was something unsettling about this planet, especially at night, that was unlike anywhere else Andy had ever been. She didn’t know if it was something from the planet itself or if perhaps those creatures had some ability. Andy felt the former was far more likely, since her Arkana side gave her a high resistance to most species’ psionic abilities.
Behind her, she could hear the dull murmur of her Marines as they talked amongst themselves, some of them at least. She knew some would already be asleep, and others would be asleep soon. You had to sleep and eat whenever you could, after all. But she was sure they were feeling the unsettled feeling that she was.
The fire flickered.
It had been flickering all evening, because that was just what fires did, but something about this drew her eye. She frowned. Looking at the flames, it flickered again. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something…
Something big and heavy slammed into the top of the shuttle. The metal creaked slightly, as though it had bent beneath whatever just hit it. It didn’t take two guesses to figure out what, so she didn’t waste time trying to figure it out as she spun to face the shuttle. She brought her rifle up, waiting for the thing to jump down.
Which was, of course, when she heard the branch snapping to her left.
Andy part-turned, angling herself to face both threats as best she could. She listened for the footsteps on the top of the shuttle as well as footsteps in the foliage, but even with the fire and dim light from the shuttle, she could barely see what was around her. Fear tried to slither its way into her mind, past her training. That gut level fear bred into humans over many long millennia of evolution.
The fear of the dark. The fear of what can’t be seen.
It was what made children afraid of something under their beds, and what made the world fear the very lowest depths of the ocean…
Something was out there, but she couldn’t see it.
She gripped her rifle a little tighter as her eyes swung side to side.
The others came out of the shuttle, armed and wide awake now. That was when the steps on the shuttle’s roof began, drawing closer but echoing off the trees so they couldn’t be sure which side it was coming from.
“Roxanna?” Andy asked, her voice low and tight.
“I’m sorry, Major. The sense is coming from all around…so either their mental resonance is wide, or…”
“They have us surrounded,” Dan offered.
“Very astute, Thomas. Thank you.”
Something roared just as its large bulk leapt into the air, falling straight toward Andy’s position. She leaped back, firing her rifle at the same time, but the combination kept her aim from being ideal. One of the shots hit the beast, which she recognized from the sound, but she couldn’t tell where it had hit and the thing didn’t act like anything had happened.
The Marines formed up in a rough circle, back to back as they covered every angle as best they could. Anallin fired a shot from beside her, and Andy noticed that the Hanaran had taken up one of the energy weapons. Maybe it would have more luck.
It was p
ainfully clear the rest of them didn’t have any.
Now that the beasts were on the ground, at least some of them, the flickering fire allowed for some view. Andy tried to take the sight in, but she didn’t like it much. The creature facing her was well over her head, probably seven feet tall or more, and it had four arms. Each arm ended in a primate-like hand with wicked claws, and similar fangs filled an almost wolf-like head.
She aimed and got off two shots as quickly as possible. The second one hit the thing in the eye, which dropped it instantly.
Apparently, the brain is the same… The errant thought leapt through her mind for the split-second it could. As soon as the beast hit the ground, there was an ear-piercing roar as another of the creatures—just as big—flew over the body of the first, coming straight for Andy in one frightening leap.
Two arms were forward and the others back, like it was preparing a haymaker. Andy dodged to the side, getting off another round, but she wasn’t fast enough. One of the forward arms caught her, pulling her into the incoming hit from the others.
One hand caught her on the side of the head and the other against the ribcage. Her helmet and body armor caught much of the impact, but the sheer brute strength of the beast still sent resounding pain through both spots, so much she felt like she was vibrating. She bit her tongue and tasted the metallic hint of her own blood.
A shot from one side caught the creature’s attention enough to hold the next hit for a second and Andy dropped down, rolling to the side and coming back up on her knees to take aim again. This time, she was shooting from the side and couldn’t get another eye shot, but she could wound it a few times.
Just behind the creature she was shooting at, Andy saw another go leaping with preternatural height and speed across the distance. A well-aimed shot sent it off trajectory, bringing it to land on the fire.
The thing screamed at such a high pitch that Andy thought her ears might be bleeding, and it flailed all four arms as it fled. Leaping from the ground, still screeching, it jumped into the trees…lighting a trail of branches and leaves as it went. As it did, the forest floor below lit up and the remaining beasts fled from the light.
“Well, that was fun,” Dan said wryly.
“Keep that fire high,” Andy said quietly. “We just have to hold on until morning.”
12
The problem was that morning never came.
There were a few functioning devices on the ESS shuttle that let them know the amount of time passing, which they used to divide the shifts at watch. Andy finished her shift, and then Dan and then Roxanna. They kept the fire stoked high, and there were no more ‘visits’ that night.
But now those clocks were saying it was morning, as determined by the last sunrise…and yet there was no sunrise in sight. The forest remained just as dark as it had been..
“Could the clocks be wrong?” Anath asked as most of them stood inside the shuttle, tensely discussing the matter.
“It’s not impossible,” Jade said, “but unlikely. I’ve checked the systems multiple times and they are working fine, by everything I can tell. If something changed, my money is on the planet.”
“I’d bet on the planet being weird over Jade being wrong about a computer any day of the week,” Andy said, although she wasn’t exactly happy about it. A technical glitch would have been much less frightening.
Andy felt a strong urge to pace, but she didn’t really have the room to do so. Only so many people could fit around the door to the cockpit, and they were already over that number. She had never been a claustrophobic person, but she was beginning to worry that she wouldn’t leave this planet without the condition. Or at all.
Since there wasn’t really anything else she could do at that moment, she pushed her way through the small crowd and walked outside to check on Anallin, who was on watch. It looked like the dark watch was going to go on a while.
“All clear on the eastern front?” she asked as she walked up to the Hanaran.
Anallin looked at her, eyes clicking erratically. She had come to learn that was usually indicating curiosity. “What’s that, Major?”
She smiled wryly and shook her head. “Never mind. No signs of our adversary out there?”
“No, sir. Neither the four-armed things nor the Arkana.”
Andy started to nod, but as if fate wanted to disprove her squad’s sharpshooter, there came a sound from the trees. Anallin had its gun up in an instant, and Andy was just a heartbeat behind. The noise was not hard to trace, and it sounded like something smaller than what they’d faced the night before. Moving faster, and without stealth.
A moment later, Viator came staggering through the trees and fell to the ground just outside their fire. There was fresh blood on the side of his face.
“We have a big problem,” he gasped.
“Could you say that again?” Andy asked tightly. Her brain refused to process the words it had just heard.
Marthe looked at her wearily. “It won’t sound any better a second time,” she said.
None of them had wanted to travel at night, but Viator told them the news. To show them anything more, they had to see it at the Arkana shuttle. Andy made the decision that no one would be left behind, so the whole group—with guns and flashlights and actual torches—made their way through the dark forest to the Arkana shuttle.
“There is some sort of atmospheric storm taking place,” Enzo said with a heavy sigh. Even Ingo seemed to have lost some of his fire. “It’s unlike anything we’ve encountered before, but we’ve been able to see and track it since getting some of our ship’s sensors functioning.”
“It was a small bit of luck that the sensor array was not in the half of the ship that got torn off,” Viator said tiredly.
“We have seen that while it built fast, it’s moving and dissipating very slowly. And it’s blocking this planet’s sun. I don’t know how long it will last, but I don’t expect daylight for some time,” Marthe repeated what she had already said a few minutes ago.
“That’s just…fantastic,” Dan blurted out behind them, though his sarcasm was giving voice to what they were all feeling.
“You were attacked again?” Andy asked, even though it was obvious that something had happened. There were blood and injuries that hadn’t been there when the Marines had left them the night before. Although something else could have caused injuries, it seemed unlikely.
“We were,” Viator said. He seemed like he’d taken the worst of the visible injuries. “We fought them off, at least.”
“We were also attacked. We discovered that fire is a big deterrent,” Andy said.
Roxanna spoke up at that point. “Although it was interesting… They didn’t seem to pay it any mind, at first. Almost like they had never encountered it and only learned how bad it was when that one fell in it.”
Andy frowned thoughtfully. “Whatever the case may be,” she finally said, “they don’t like it, and they burn just like anything else.”
“We can use that to our advantage, at least,” Viator said, rubbing the side of his neck.
As they were talking, Andy started taking a look around the Arkana shuttle. They may have been able to get some systems working, but it was still a disaster. She frowned, not liking the thought that was crawling through her brain on its way to her tongue. But, tactically speaking…
“I don’t know if you can stay here,” she stated with a sigh. “I know neither of us like the idea, but this could well become a siege. If night is not going to pass, just holding out has become much harder. Our shuttle is in better shape. We can hold up in that better than you can here.”
The Arkana all looked at each other. Marthe finally sighed. “We won’t leave our injured here.”
Andy frowned. “I wasn’t going to suggest it.”
“At least we’re all agreed that none of us are happy about it.”
The major laughed quietly. “Yeah, we can agree on that.”
13
The two injured
Arkana were in bad shape. Only one was even coherent. The other was conscious, in a way. He was feverish and hallucinating, gibbering at random intervals. His mental and emotional chaos was difficult against Roxanna’s empathy, but she focused on her internal ‘shields’ against it.
They created stretchers out of pieces of the shuttle. The Arkana would carry their injured crewmates as they made their way back through the darkened forest to the Marines’ shuttle.
Tension was high. Almost painful. Although they had their ‘cease fire,’ neither side trusted the other so no one wanted to be crammed into the same small space. Yet, they all realized that Major Dolan’s tactical thinking was sound. The Arkana shuttle was a disaster and offered little protection.
Even if the Marines’ shuttle was damaged, it was at least enclosed and mostly intact.
The Marines took up a defensive position around the Arkana as they moved with agonizing slowness through the trees. The pilot, who Andy would not leave behind either, carried the torches. He was not combat trained, after all, but he could carry things and the fire seemed to offer him some level of comfort in this trying situation.
“Sergeant?” Andy asked tightly.
“I’m not sensing anything nearby,” Roxanna replied, trying to watch the trees with every sense that she had. “But I can always sense them somewhat. There are many of them in this forest. I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many.”
“That was more information than I needed, Sergeant,” the major replied wryly.
“Sorry, sir.”
The tension seemed to rise with every step, and Roxanna felt nearly choked by it, but she pressed on. The fire from the torch, since the pilot was right behind her, started to heat the back of her neck. She felt her skin swirling with her agitation, that faint tingling that moved just beneath her skin.
World Breaker Boxed Set (ESS Space Marines Omnibus Book 3) Page 4
