Echo Marines
Dora Esquivel
Chapter 1
Star Bright
Axel stared out at the rest of his crew. Thirty weary bodies groaned and fidgeted, adjusting weapons and uniforms. The air was thick with tension and restlessness, a bad combination when space hopping from one planetary warfare site to the next. He had two hours before their cargo ship jumped onto the next battle, but first they needed to go through Pion wormhole. They would end up near the Humanoids latest communication system, located on a small desert panet, if they survived their trip through Pion.
For the past twenty-two years, all he’d known was war. War for food, war for water, war for natural resources, war for survival. As the last humans from planet Earth, they had finally managed to win back some of their previously occupied territories. They couldn’t afford to lose any more battles to the more technologically advanced Humanoids.
He stretched his neck out, only to find his brooding first sergeant staring at him as he adjusted his eyepatch. Ever since that night, they had been finding it harder to work together. Too many things unsaid. Too many feelings not spoken. If he admitted to himself how he actually felt about Gideon and wasn’t such a coward, he’d get out of his seat and kiss the arrogance out of Gideon. But he wouldn’t. He could fight ten or twenty humanoids at once but couldn’t admit his feelings about Gideon. Twenty-two years they had fought and lost together, and in one night he had destroyed their bond.
Fuck it! Part of him wanted to run over there, grovel and swear fidelity and loyalty to Gideon, but he wouldn’t. One thing war had taught him was to live for the moment. Getting too personal and attached to someone served no purpose. Not when the next jump could be your last.
The ship started buckling, and the lights flickered. He could feel his stomach sinking as the ship prepared to jump. He hated jumps, he always ended up queasy. It took him ten space hops to stop throwing up, and this, being his forty-second jump, was no better.
This time, the lights didn’t come back on, and the automatic seat belts engaged, squashing him to his seat. Nothing better than being confined inside a space tin can, hammered by radiation, strapped down to his seat, and in total darkness. This got easier every time. Sure!
Axel closed his eyes and endured the violent shaking of the wormhole. He hated those things since the last wormhole had collapsed on his old commander’s ship, killing all two hundred Echo Marines on board. From what he understood of wormholes, they were unstable as fuck. The one that had collapsed had been used for over twenty years with no problems then bam! It crumpled, devouring anything nearby and inside its tunnel. The scientists could still read its unique gravitational signature but couldn’t see it. Axel held out hope his old commander and crew were still alive and had been sent out to a different universe or dimension. The prospect of ending up in some unknown universe or a different part of the cosmos was no better than death.
The lights still hadn’t come back on, what was taking so long? It didn’t take this long to finish the trip. After so many flights, he knew something was wrong, but he didn’t know what. The pilots hadn’t said anything. He could feel the tension of his crew spiking. The jump usually only lasted seconds, and this time it had been more than two minutes.
Axel pressed on the emergency release on his straps, but nothing worked, he tried pulling himself up from his seat, but who was he kidding, he couldn’t lift anything. The gravitational force of the wormhole had him glued to his seat. He finally opened his eyes and could see behind him where he had entered, and in front of him, he could see where they were heading.
This part of the trip always thrilled him. Behind him was the past and in front the future, albeit seconds or minutes. Every time he arrived at his destination, he was always two or three minutes older than when he had entered. Collectively, after forty missions those seconds added up, and he was grateful for his self-replicating Nanos that keep him healthy as a twenty-two-year-old.
His cochlear implant buzzed to life, “Axel, what the fuck is going on?” Gideon’s deep baritone voice came alive in his mind.
“Do you think I know, Gideon?” Axel answered back. His first sergeant was the only one he shared a mind link with through their implants, and he was so glad for it now. “Can you get out of the straps, Gideon?”
“No, I tried reaching for my boot knife and can’t even move my arms, the gravitational
pull of the wormhole is too intense, I’m molded into my seat. Plus, back here there are cracks that are forming across the ceiling. If these cracks get any bigger we will disintegrate. Have you tried contacting the pilots?”
“I had earlier, but I couldn’t get a response from them. Too much static. How long do you think we’ve been going through the tunnel?” Axel asked, hoping he was wrong about the time.
“My guess, it’s been four minutes, they only said it would take thirty seconds to reach Humanoid space, not sure what the hell is going on, but my Nanos seem to be working overtime.”
Axel had felt the slight tingle of his Nanos buzzing through his body, always an odd sensation, the only time he felt them like this was when he was severely injured, but he didn’t feel sick, or in pain. He had no idea what was going on.
“We will have to ride it out. This is all we needed, an unstable wormhole.”
“Do you think this is what happened to Commander Wolfe?” Gideon asked.
Sighing Axel responded, “It did cross my mind, that this must have been what Commander Wolfe and his team experienced.” This is not how he had planned to go, he always thought he’d go out in a blaze of glory, not strapped down waiting for death, but that’s how his world was ending today.
“Gideon, I can be an asshole, and shit, you know how I feel about you…”
“You really are not giving the forever love speech, are you? Kind a lame if I say so, you wait until we are dying to realize how you feel about me? If I were not strapped down, I’d deck ya for being an idiot, for waiting twenty-two years for you to realize your feelings about me. Just don’t, Axel. You telling me you love me when we are about to die, well shit on me.”
Axel didn’t want to love him, but he couldn’t help himself, “I do love you Gideon, you need to hear it. Leave it up to me, to have bad timing and for you, even at our dying breath, to still be cracking smart ass comments.”
“Major, it’s been an honor fighting next to you, and it’ll be an honor to fight with you in the next life.”
For a spilt second, Axel choked up; emotions thick and heavy in his throat, he responded, “Ditto.”
The ship buckled violently, he heard screams and moans. He could hear the ship tearing itself apart, and he smelt smoke. This was it. The last thing he remembered was a bright flash of white lights.
Chapter 2
Time Zones
Gideon groaned. His head hurt, and it felt like he had broken his left arm. He tried opening his eye, but it felt like a monumental feat. He tried moving his head, but that disagreed with him too.
He felt around with his right arm, the ground felt hard, like dirt. He realized was lying face down, no longer strapped to his chair. If he could stop his head from hurting for a second, maybe he could face whatever shithole situation he’d found himself in.
Slowly, he opened his eye, and as he figured, was on top of tough, orange, caked dirt. The terrain seemed to stretch for miles, just orange. The sky was hazy with a deep reddish tint to it. Gideon managed to lift his torso and looked around. He could see small sections of the cargo ship thrown about. The pieces were not that big.
Wobbling he stood slowly, head aching. He looked around for other survivors but couldn’t see any other Echo’s. Lady luck had always had it in for him, why would it change now; even after death, if this was his dea
th.
Nope, he wasn’t dead yet, he shouldn’t be able to feel his broken arm. Gideon sensed his Nanos repairing his broken bones, cuts, and the other multitude of internal injuries he had suffered, crashing on this planet. He had lost his eye patch, and now his bionic eye was assaulting him with all types of information. Information he couldn’t handle, with the way his head throbbed. This was why he always wore that damn eye patch.
He blinked his right eye to return his bionic eye to normal vision. His robotic eye stopped bombarding him with details about the air pressure, temperature, radiation, and the entire electromagnetic spectrum from radio to gamma waves.
Gideon’s bionic eye served him greatly when he was in combat as he was able to “see” heat, identify different types of gases by sight, and even look through walls — which helped greatly when he was sniping. However, after a while, the information became too much, and even with the enhanced electrodes and neurons, his brain needed a rest.
His left arm slightly ached but was no longer broken. Gideon looked around to see how bad his situation was. Weapons, food, and water were his top priority. Walking around the debris, he located several plasma guns, one water bottle, and several energy bars, no real food. He blinked while looking left to get his bionic eye back on line. He scanned the whole area, and with the help of his eye, he was able to gather more supplies.
Gideon had been desperately trying to reach Axel through the mind link they shared and nothing. After several times, he tried contacting Argus, his brain implant, and after forty-five minutes, the thing sparked to life, creating another tsunami of a headache.
“Argus, tell me where I am? What planet?” After thirty seconds, with no response from Argus, Gideon repeated his question, “Argus, what planet am I on?”
“Sir, I don’t know,” the haughty robotic voice answered back.
“You have got to be joking! You don’t where we are?” Gideon retorted back.
“No, sir, I do not joke.”
Of course, the damn thing didn’t joke about anything. He hadn’t wanted the annoying upgrade, of all the advances they had done on him, the brain implant was still one of those which had a high failure rate. Argus had been the latest and greatest design, and he had gotten volunteered because of his bionic eye implant. The two of those things would sometimes bypass his control and act without his permission. After this mission, he was going to ask command to take Argus out, but now he had no clue what in the hell was going to happen to him, or the rest of the crew.
“Look Argus, I need to know where I am, can you sense any other survivors?”
“Sir, I sense ten more life signs, 804.672 kilometers from here. I sense no more Echo life signs, but I do sense other life forms to the west of here.”
“Other life forms? Are you telling me this planet has intelligent life?”
“Yes sir, this planet seems to be occupied by several different life forms, some humanoid, others I do not know what they are, and then the ten surviving Echo members.”
Humanoid! Even going through a collapsing wormhole, he couldn’t escape his bitter enemy. Now he had to deal with other types of life forms, not ominous sounding at all. If he survived this planet, he was retiring from the Echo’s. He had given up many things for the Echo’s. He even lost an eye to the cause.
“Sir, I cannot seem to reach central command.”
Gideon scanned east to where his fellow surviving Echo crew members were, roughly six days to reach them if the crew didn’t leave the area, and if the weather on this planet cooperated with him. He hesitated in asking the next question, but found himself asking Argus, “Is Major Clah amongst the survivors.”
“I cannot sense Major Clah. It seems his life reader is not responding. All the other life readers informed me of the time of death of the other eight crew members while you were unconscious, and Major Clah is not one of them.”
What in the hell did that mean? Had Axel been destroyed in a fire or disintegrated into
millions of atoms? Gideons mind raced with memories of Axel and their missions together. Remembering the first time he had encountered the overbearing giant of a man. How much he had hated his smug face and how it took him over a year to just talk to him. Twenty-two years of memories flashed by.
“Sir, his life reader isn’t responding to me, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s dead.”
Gideon hated when Argus intruded on his memories, thoughts, or feelings. He had been
promised by command Argus would only serve to have quicker access to Echo command center when traveling such long distances through wormholes.
“Stop reading my thoughts, Argus,” Gideon ordered.
“Sorry, Sir. Your memories of Major Clah are very vivid and full of emotions. I had not realized he was your lover.”
“Shut the fuck up, Argus! Just do your damn job, try contacting central command, and don’t talk to me until I ask you a question.”
With the last command, he felt Argus recess to the farthest reaches of his mind.
Gideon had managed to scrap necessary supplies for a three-day track not six. He wasn’t sure what time it was or if it was night or day. He wished his tactical gear was on him, but usually they put it on after leaving the wormholes. All he had on was his light black tactical jumpsuit. Already half of it was ruined.
He started feeling woozy and knelt to the ground. The Nanos should be healing all his wounds, bruises, or any damage he may have suffered. Something was seriously wrong when he started throwing up.
“Argus, can you tell me what the Nanos are doing to my body?”
“The Nanos are trying to repair several brain hemorrhages,” Argus responded, concerned.
Did Argus just say several brain hemorrhages?
Gideon’s mouth was dry, and whatever was still left in his stomach was trying to come up. It seemed impossible to form sentences, even his bionic eye was losing focus from his normal vision to heat. Something was seriously wrong.
“What happens now, Argus?”
“The Nanos are trying to repair the brain hemorrhages, and they are going to place you under. You will be unconscious for several hours while they try to fix the hemorrhaging.”
Argus words sounded far away, Gideon couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, while his whole body felt lethargic. He fell face first on the compact dirt, no longer able to move or open his eyes.
Weakly, Gideon pleaded, “No, Argus. I need to find shelter. I need to find the rest of the crew. I can’t be unconscious and exposed to the elements.”
“Sir, you will die, we cannot wait anymore. The Nanos will proceed with the intensive repairs, and for this you will need to be unconscious. I have overridden your control to your own body, from here on out I will be making the best decisions for your survival. And mine,” Argus stated coldly.
Gideon couldn’t speak anymore, the best thing he could do was give Argus the middle finger as blackness over took him.
Chapter 3
Inside the Rabbit Hole
Axel’s mouth was dry, and his body felt cold. Where in the hell am I? It felt like he was lying on something hard. He tried moving his arms, but he could sense they were strapped down to a table, so were his feet. He crossed over a damn collapsing wormhole and somehow ended up in enemy hands. They can’t be friendly if they have you tied down to a table, can they?
Opening his eyes slowly, Axel could see he was in a very sterile and dark medical bay and yes, he was tied to a cold steel bed. They could have given him a blanket instead of leaving him stretched out, naked and cold. The medical bay was quiet, except for some beeping machines, that had a bunch of leads attached to his upper body and head. Crap!
Feeling anxious, Axel struggled against the restraints, knowing he wasn’t going anywhere. The worst feeling in the world to him was losing control and waiting for someone else to decide your fate. He had always believed that you made your own fate, now he needed to find patience and keep sharp.
Axel tried remembering what ha
d happened after that bright light had flashed inside the ship but couldn’t recall anything. He needed to find out about his crew. Did some of his team survive the crash? Where exactly were they? Who had him strapped down? Was Gideon all right?
Axel had tried contacting Gideon as soon as he had woken up, but nothing. He couldn’t even feel the cochlear implant anymore. Whoever had rescued or taken him hostage had taken out all his implants. This was not good. If command was out looking for his life signal, it wouldn’t register to them. He was stuck here, wherever here was.
“Hey, whoever you are, let me out of this mess,” Axel yelled out. Someone had to be monitoring him, they knew he was awake.
Nothing but the hum of the machines responded back to him. He wanted to get untied and dressed. From what he knew about humanoids, they never took prisoners. Ever. Command had always wanted to capture a humanoid, but they had never managed to get close to capturing one. The humanoids that did fall during battle seemed to disappear. For all the years he had been fighting them, he had never seen one out of their uniform. They always kept their helmets on, making it difficult to see how they looked. The only physical description he could give out was that they were tall, taller than him, and seemed massive by human standards. Twenty years of fighting an unknown enemy.
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