Recon Marines

by P. K. Hawkins

  “Marsden, help!” Axel said. “Essentia somehow opened one of the bubbles while she was trying to roll it out the hatch.”

  “This sucker’s stronger than it looks,” Bayne grunted. The parasite had one of its tentacles suctioned on each side of Essentia, and it was trying to pull itself into position. Despite Bayne’s enormous strength combined with Axel’s health, the creature was gaining ground. From this angle, with the parasite not yet attached to Essentia’s back, Marsden could see some kind of mouth-like structure on the underside. It was rimmed in sharp fangs to rip apart the flesh underneath, and a number of smaller tendrils lashed out from the opening. That would probably be what it used to get into the person’s system once it had made a sizeable enough hole in the body.

  Marsden swore and kneeled down next to them, deciding after a moment to set his side arm aside and just go with the knife. His pistol might be better at doing damage to the parasite, but there was too much risk of accidentally hurting one of the others in the process. And too many Recon Marines had already died today. He refused to let even one more go down under his watch.

  “Please, you’ve got to swear,” Essentia said in a soft, worried voice. “If it gets me, you have to kill me. Don’t let me become like the others.”

  “You’re not going to become like the others,” Marsden said as he looked for the most likely place to stick his knife in the creature. The underside near the mouth looked the most vulnerable, although he didn’t want any of the tendril to touch him.

  The creature suddenly whipped a couple of its other small tentacles at all of them at once, causing Marsden to pull back. Both Bayne and Axel’s grips slipped on the parasite’s slimy skin, and the creature landed on Essentia’s back.

  “No!” Marsden yelled, immediately forgetting all thoughts of going after the creature with medical precision. Instead he repeatedly stabbed the creature, over and over.

  Essentia screamed. It wasn’t just the cry of someone who had been startled by something landing on her. It was the deep, true-pain scream of someone who could feel her back being ripped apart.

  Bayne and Axel, no longer held back by trying to keep the parasite at bay, also pulled out their knives and hacked at the monstrosity. It was all over in a matter of seconds, but Marsden feared they were still too late. As Bayne and Marsden pulled the dead monster off Essentia, Axel took her PDM and checked Essentia’s vital signs.

  “Brainwave activity is still normal,” Axel said. “It didn’t get that far into her nervous system. Heart rate is elevated, but that’s to be expected. She seems fine.”

  “Essentia, are you okay?” Marsden asked.

  There was a long moment before Essentia replied. “I can’t feel my legs.”

  Marsden hissed and took a closer look at the spot where the parasite had tried to invade Essentia’s body. There was a ragged hole at the base of her spine that clearly showed cracked bone. Some kind of fluid was oozing out that Marsden was not familiar with. Axel identified it for them. “Spinal fluid. She needs a doctor immediately, or else she could risk permanent spinal damage.”

  “Axel, do your best to keep her from bleeding out for the moment and then strap her in. We’re about to have a very bumpy ride, and I don’t want it to do any further damage to her. Bayne, dump the last two spheres out the hatch. And hurry, both of you. Time’s almost up.”

  Marsden couldn’t afford to wait and make sure they’d done what he asked. He trusted them both to take care of their duties quickly and efficiently while he ran back to the pilot’s chair, strapped himself in, did a final check on the dropship’s status, and then lifted off from planet Bullfinch-2. He sincerely hoped he would never have to see this useless ball of rock ever again.

  “Everyone brace yourselves,” Marsden called back to the others. “I’m about to do some really stupid things.”

  He pushed forward on one control stick and pulled back on the other fast enough that, if he’d still been with his old instructor back in training, the instructor would have berated him for putting everyone in danger and then stuck him with a full month’s worth of cleaning duties. Marsden didn’t have the luxury of being safe and by the book, though. He did some quick mental calculations. Axel had given the first dropship about eighteen minutes to reach the Dixon in its current condition. They’d just had to use about eight or nine minutes prepping the ship, clearing it out, and saving Essentia.

  He had less than ten minutes to reach Alpha before it docked at the Dixon. That seemed impossible, but he was the master of winning the impossible bet. He had to do some things to put the odds back in his favor.

  “Axel!” he called back. “Get on the ship’s comm system and try to contact the Dixon. Do everything you can to convince them that we’re the ones who are uninfected.”

  “On it!”

  “Bayne, get your ass up here and get into the co-pilot’s seat.”

  “Uh, I can’t walk in this ship when you’re flying like that. And I don’t know how to co-pilot.”

  “Quit being such a baby. And I don’t want you to co-pilot, I want you to take control of the weapons systems on this thing. I can’t try to shoot at the other ship and put it through idiotic maneuvers at the same time!”

  Bayne grunted. “Fine.” The ship’s erratic movements caused him to bounce around against the walls before he finally made it to the co-pilot’s seat. He didn’t perk up until he sat down in his chair and saw what he had to work with. “Oooh. I didn’t know these things were equipped with a Winchester ’43 Gatling System. I’ve always wanted to play with one of these.”

  “Then now’s your chance, big guy,” Marsden said. “Although I would strap in first. Everyone else in this ship is going to do a whole lot of cursing at me before I’m through with this.”

  He could hear Axel trying to hail the Dixon from behind them, and urging the Dixon crew to make Murakame show them her back before they would let her dock. Judging from the pause after this, Marsden guessed that she followed this up by pointing the camera at her own back. Very clever, but given the way she had to repeat the message over and over, Marsden wasn’t sure if she was getting through to the troop transport, and he didn’t have a spare moment to check, either. Several of the gauges in front of him went from green to yellow as they told him that he was pushing the ship to a speed that it had never been built to handle. Things were made all the more complicated by the damaged wing, which caused the entire dropship to shimmy worryingly the more he pushed it to its limits.

  As the purple sky of the planet’s atmosphere gave way to the darker blue and then black of space, Marsden saw the other dropship appear on his instruments. A quick scan told him that the ship was moving even slower than they had guessed. Either the damage had been more extensive than it looked, or the parasite infecting Singh still hadn’t pulled all the information needed from the marine’s brain to fly the ship properly. Either way, it meant that Marsden’s odds were getting better here.

  A message came over the ship’s system. “Dropships Alpha and Beta, this is del Mar on the Franklin Dixon. You are both ordered to cease your approach of the Dixon and hold your current orbit until we can properly assess the current threat level. Do you read?”

  Marsden grimaced. He was sure that the Dixon would turn its weapons on them if they didn’t comply, but he wasn’t sure that he was comfortable following the order while Alpha still made its approach. “Axel, tell the Dixon that as Dropship Alpha is the closer of the two of us, we will only comply if we see that Alpha is complying first.” He waited to hear what Alpha might say in response, but there was nothing from the other dropship. Instead, Marsden’s instruments told him that Alpha sped up.

  “They know the game is up,” Marsden said. “They’re probably going to try some desperate move like crashing through the Dixon’s airlock to get the parasites inside. Bayne, I hope you’re ready with those weapons.”

  “Hell yeah, I’m ready!”

  Marsden pushed the controls harder. The ship shuddered and ma
de several very worrying noises from the direction of the engines. Multiple gauges in front of Marsden went from yellow to red, flashing a bright “Warning!” light that several of the ship’s systems were now in dangerous territory. But the distance between them and Dropship Alpha continued to shorten, and Marsden could now see the other dropship for ahead of them against the backdrop of space.

  He could also see a speck that he identified as the Franklin Dixon. And if the two ships could see each other, that meant that they were now in range of the Dixon’s weapons.

  “Bayne, can you get a lock on Alpha yet?” Marsden asked.

  “Still too far away. You have to get us closer.”

  “Seriously? What do think I’ve already been trying to do here, bake snickerdoodles?”

  “Aw, you had to go and mention snickerdoodles. Now I’m hungry.”

  “Focus, Bayne!”

  The dark sky lit up as the Franklin Dixon started firing on Dropship Alpha. Alpha juked from side to side, dodging the majority of the fire, although it looked like some of the ammo might have clipped it. Dropship Alpha got noticeably wobbly. Marsden took advantage of that as he continued to push Beta beyond its limits.

  “Marsden, something’s smoking back here!” Axel called. “I think you might have blown the auxiliary synergy link!”

  “See if there’s anything you can do to stabilize it,” Marsden replied. “I can’t pull back now!”

  “Alpha will be in range in twenty seconds,” Bayne said. Ahead of them, Dropship Alpha’s movements became more erratic as it did its desperate best to get through the Dixon’s volley. According to Marsden’s instruments, at this rate Dropship Alpha would be able to make it to the Dixon and punch through into the ship bay in roughly fifteen seconds.

  Marsden pushed the ship harder, trying to make up the deficit. Something small sounded like it exploded in the rightmost engine. Immediately two of the gauges went from red to complete black to indicate that their systems had gone into shutdown. It was only one engine though. He still had three more, although every one of them looked like they were going to join the first engine in any second.

  “Range is dropping,” Bayne said. “Alpha will be in our range in only three, two…”

  Bayne never waited for one. He immediately let loose with the weapons systems, focusing all of the dropship’s fire onto Alpha.

  Their shots hit something vital in Dropship Alpha’s rear. It wobbled erratically for a moment, then exploded.

  Marsden’s first impulse was to celebrate, but as Beta crashed through Alpha’s debris field, he realized they and the Dixon were still in danger. Dropship Beta was now headed directly for the Dixon at a ludicrous speed. Marsden pulled up, but the previous damage to the wing and the additional damage they had received flying through the remains of the Alpha affected his ability to change course.

  “The Dixon is re-aiming to target us,” Bayne said.

  “Dixon, this is Dropship Beta. Do not fire!” Axel yelled into the comm system. “I repeat, do not fire! We are not infected!”

  Marsden grimaced at the force with which he had to yank back on the controls. The Dixon began firing, but they were too close and going too fast for the troop transport to hit them. Marsden watched the screen as the Dixon got closer and closer, yet also lower with each passing second. If he could only… just… keep… holding back… on the controls…

  There was a slight screech as the bottom of Dropship Beta barely scraped against the top of the Dixon, and then they were over and past it. Several more of the red gauges went dark in front of him, but more of them dropped from red to yellow, then yellow to green, as Marsden finally let the ship slow down and come to a halt.

  “Dropship Beta, this is del Mar on the Franklin Dixon,” del Mar said over their communications channel. “Our instruments are telling us that there are four people onboard, and that none show the vital signs that were supposedly evident for this parasitic infection. Can you confirm this?”

  Marsden finally addressed del Mar himself using his PDM. “Dixon, we can confirm this. Essentia is badly wounded, though, and needs immediate medical attention.”

  “Affirmative, Marsden. We will allow Dropship Beta to board once we have done a thorough scan and sweep of your ship to insure that everything is as you say it is. Given the circumstances, I’m sure you can appreciate our caution.”

  Marsden let out a long sigh, all the tension that had been building up in his body finally leaving. “Roger that, Dixon.” He paused, then added, “And holy crap, do we ever have some stories to tell you.”

  August 3, 2147 (Earth Calendar)

  0106 Greenwich Mean Time

  Location: Troop Transport Franklin Dixon, near Bullfinch-2

  Marine Heartbeats Detected on Ship: 11

  Their debriefing took longer than the time they had actually been on the planet.

  Essentia, as she had to immediately be carted off to the med bay in the hopes of saving what remained of her spine, was the only one who didn’t have to go through the grueling process. First Marsden, Bayne, and Axel had been forced to go over everything as a group, repeating it all to one of the commanding marines who had been lucky enough to stay on board the ship. Then each one of them had needed to go over their stories individually. After that, there had been the tech report where they’d had to go over the data they’d gathered and saved into their PDMs. Then they all had to go over the story again, this time with their interviewer asking pointed questions on everything from their decisions on which bodies to leave behind to exactly how bad Hairy had smelled. All the while they’d been continually poked and prodded by a doctor, who checked for everything from alien viruses to whether their heartbeats and reflexes were responding normally. Finally, only after it was all done, were they allowed to go into the mess hall to eat.

  As Marsden sat down at his table with a tray of synthetic chicken and rice, he couldn’t help but feel like the room was eerily quiet. Those marines who had stayed on the ship had eaten much earlier, and most of them were sleeping in normal bunks waiting to be woken up just so they could be put into dilation-sleep. That meant that there were only three occupants in the entire mess hall. The last time Marsden had been in here, it had been full of his comrades.

  Comrades who were gone. Comrades who, with the exception of Hemingford and Nooner, would not be receiving anything resembling a proper burial. Even Nooner might not get such a thing, given that the monstrosity latched to his back made him a scientific curiosity that the Science Corps would not easily give up.

  Marsden hadn’t been close to most of them. It was a survival habit that had been drilled into him through years of service in the Recon Marines. The job of a marine was tough, tougher than any civilian could possibly comprehend, and it meant that there were always a few on most missions that didn’t come home.

  But this. This was beyond anything he had ever seen. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t exactly considered any of the missing marines his friends. They had still been his brothers and sisters. And so many of them were now gone without a trace.

  Axel set her tray down next to him. Shortly afterward, Bayne did the same. For a long time all three of them ate their tasteless food in peace. Marsden finally broke the silence by saying, “Do either of you know anything about Essentia’s condition?”

  “They still don’t know whether she’ll ever be able to walk again,” Axel said with uncharacteristic solemness. “There might be some treatments that will help her, but the Thirty-Seven completely ravaged the base of her spinal column. It’s going to take more than just run-of-the-mill stem cell therapy.”

  “I’m going to love it when I can finally go to sleep,” Bayne said. “Who knew that talking to a bunch of pencil-necks for hours could be so draining?”

  “And we’re going to have to do more of it when we get back,” Marsden said. “Hell, they might even make us have a personal meeting with Mister himself. The knowledge we have now is valuable.”

  “I don’t know,” B
ayne said. “Maybe not. Maybe the Sten-Plus aren’t really a threat. Maybe this whole mess is just going to be a one-off incident.”

  Marsden glared at him. “Really? You want to bet?”

  “No,” both Axel and Bayne said at the same time.

  They all looked at each other and laughed. They had to, because the only other option would have been to cry. And they couldn’t allow themselves to do that. They were Recon Marines.

  End

  Read on for a free sample of The Last Marine.

  1

  Dax Wyldd leaned back in his seat, eyes closed, with his size-10 boots propped up on the control console in front of him. He wasn’t asleep, although it would not have made much difference if he were. The nearest object with which Fortune’s Luck could collide was 1.2 light years away, and the collision alarm would have warned him long before the ship neared the bright blue F-class star that was his destination. A soft blues ballad, heavy with alto saxophone riffs, played through the earbuds jammed tightly into his ears, barely audible in the silent ship’s bridge. Occasionally, his right foot would twitch in time with the rhythm as proof he was awake.

  From previous bitter experience, his crew had learned better than to disturb him when he was in his zone, his release from the monotony of deep space cargo runs. The blues calmed him, the more melancholy the better. His prized collection of 5,000 blues tunes covered a span of nearly three hundred years. His crew was in favor of anything that kept Dax calm. Therefore, the hand on his shoulder shaking him awake elicited a quick and expected response.

  He swatted away the offending hand and growled, “Leave me the fuck alone,” slightly louder than his normal speaking voice because of the music playing in his ears.

  Andy Byrd, 26, co-pilot and chief communications officer, liked living on the edge. Jousting with Dax was like slipping his hand into an alligator’s mouth and yanking it out before the snapped shut. He met Dax’s gruff response with an equally brusque and strident, “Distress beacon.”