Despite all he'd done, sorrow still swelled in Andy's heart. "I know what that's like," she said quietly. "I've kind of gone the opposite way, you know? From having no one to having a brother." She smiled a little at him. "I'm sorry that happened to Commander March, but I can't say I'm forgiving his choice of action."
"Naturally not," Wallace agreed firmly. "He will get his evaluation, and then they will determine what is best to do with him. Wherever he goes, he will be incarcerated for a while and he'll get whatever help he needs."
"That's something at least," Andy agreed wearily, sinking back into her pillow.
Wallace bid her and her brother farewell and then left. Through the half-open privacy curtain beside her bed, she watched him duck out of the way of Doctor Martin and then scurry out without being caught. That made her smile a little. She could see all the way to the door and saw four heads lean in.
They managed to each see each other, and Andy waved. Her squad smiled back and even saluted, but then turned and left. They better be going to get some food and some sleep, she thought fondly.
"I was really worried I'd lost you," Anath said quietly after a few moments had passed and Andy settled back into the bed. "I almost lost my mind. I mean, I knew we had been getting close, and I like having a sister. I, well...I didn't realize just how much you came to mean to me. Like...I have a sister, and she's a good person, and now she’s all I have. I thought I'd lose my mind if you died."
"Like Gregory March," she said tiredly, sadly. "Knowing this now, I guess I can almost understand why. It still wasn't okay, but, I mean, I get it."
Anath nodded a little.
Andy sighed. She stared up at the off-white ceiling with its gently glowing recessed lights, and she tried to not think of Gregory March. She knew in time she would pity him and maybe even forgive him. But right then, it was too hard to harbor any tender feelings she might have for his condition after all that had happened.
She wanted to focus on the fact that she was home again and back with her family—all of her family. She had to heal and get better, so she could get back to work. If she wasn't out there doing her job, then she wasn't helping work toward ending this war. She had to be out there working to do that so there weren't any more Gregory Marches.
"Can we win this war, brother?" Andy whispered, eyes still on the ceiling.
He didn't reply right away, squeezing her hand gently as he leaned his head against their intertwined fingers. The silence was as telling as any words he might have used, but she didn't say anything and waited for whatever reply he would give.
"We have to," he finally said. "There is no choice. Like that quote from ancient Earth history...failure is not an option. If we don't stop our father's people, they will sweep their way toward Earth and murder or subjugate or exile every non-human being. Every human that does not go along with them will meet the same fate. Our father, and all his race but us, believe they are superior to everyone else. They believe they have created the image of perfection within themselves. They will remove anyone who opposes them in their quest to conquer and rule. We cannot let that be. Maybe it is that we are the ones between Earth and the rising tide, and so be it. If we must fight till the end, then so be it. But this war has to be won by us, by Earth and humanity, and all the races we call an ally."
It made Andy smile to hear her brother, fully Arkana, saying "we" when talking about himself and humanity. It pleased her.
"So, we have to win. We have to do all we can. If we have to take this battle all the way to our father...so be it." He sighed.
A chill ran through her. "So be it," she whispered.
Lykos
ESS Space Marines, Book 6
1
“Are you still having nightmares?”
Andy sat with her arms folded over her chest, back straight, and body leaning away. It didn’t take an empath, or even a trained counselor, to read Andy’s body language at that moment. It screamed ‘does not want to talk’ and ‘don’t want to be here’ as if someone had painted it over her head in big, bright red letters.
“Yes,” Andy admitted tightly.
It wasn’t that she had anything against Lieutenant McKenna Connors, not personally, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be here. However, orders were orders, and she was following them.
“Do you want to tell me about them?” Connors asked, her voice level and gentle, measured.
It annoyed Andy.
The truth of it all was that the ESS was embroiled in a war without an end in sight. War meant death, and trauma to those who didn’t die. Counselors were now required on every ESS vessel.
This lieutenant was the one assigned to the Star Chaser. She was…young.
Andy knew that the other woman probably wasn’t much different in age from herself, but these days, she felt…old. Worn down. This pretty blonde woman had bright hazel eyes and the sort of look to her face that just made her so different from how Andy felt about herself.
She pried her lips apart. “Not particularly.”
The counselor sighed. “Major Dolan,” she said, never losing the evenness of her tone, “I know you don’t want to talk to me. As you can imagine, this isn’t exactly a unique reaction when I see people, but I am here for a reason. And that reason is to help you. I can’t do it alone. I’m not expecting you to treat me like your best friend, but I can help…if you let me.”
Andy looked at her for a moment, and Connors looked back, waiting patiently.
“I’m sorry,” Andy said grudgingly. “I haven’t had good experiences with people in your profession. I had to see one as a teenager and it left a bad taste.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Connors said, and Andy thought she sounded like she meant it, but then again, she was trained to sound like that. “I will work to make sure that your time with me does not leave you feeling the same way.”
“I guess we’ll see,” the Marine said. “I’ll try to be less petulant.”
That made Connors smile a little, which made Andy smile just a little. She made a conscious effort to unclench herself and relax her posture, although it was a great deal of effort to do so and she knew she was far from relaxed. It wasn’t much of an improvement, but you had to start somewhere.
“I’m sure everyone has a particular interest in making sure you talk to me,” Andy said. “The ESS Marine who is half-blood with the enemy? There’s a lot of eyes on me.”
“Such as the man who abducted you on Starbase Eclipse a month and a half ago,” the counselor suggested gently.
“Yeah.”
“That must be difficult for you,” Connors went on. It wasn’t a question, but she still managed to do that thing that counselors did, where they make a statement that managed to make itself into a question anyway. The kind that made a strong request for an answer.
“Yeah, you could say that.” Andy snorted. Then she remembered that she was trying to be less of a hard-ass, not more of one. Sighing, she rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t feel safe off this ship anymore. You know, I’m a Marine, and now in command, so I suppose that’s common. The majority of the time when I leave this ship, it’s because I’m going to shoot at some people who are shooting at me.
“Now, though, I can’t even set foot in a friendly port. Anyone who watches the ESS News Wires knows my face and my history. I could shoot the reporters who put all that out there on the wires.” It made her uncomfortable to look at Connors while talking about this, because it made her want to shut down again, so she was spending a lot of time looking at everything but the woman.
“Do you think that everyone feels the same way about you as the man who abducted you?” Connors asked.
Andy stopped herself from answering that right away. She forced herself to take a moment to think through what she actually felt and thought. “No,” she finally said, cracking her knuckles. “I don’t think that everyone feels that way. The problem isn’t that I think they do, though.”
After she didn’t say
anything more, Connors prompted, “Then what is the problem?”
Andy finally looked at the woman and smiled sadly. “I don’t know who feels that way and who doesn’t.” She sighed heavily. “Think about my job. At least when I step on a battlefield, I know that they are going to shoot at me and I am going to shoot back. I know my enemy. When I step onto an ESS station or colony, I don’t know who is friend and who is foe.”
“That has to be stressful for you,” Connors said, carefully prodding the conversation along.
The Marine barked a laugh. “Stressful. You think? Any one of these people who is supposed to be an ally, who I am risking my life to defend, could be someone who wants to kill me just as much as the enemy does!”
Connors was quiet for a moment. “The enemy being the race of your father,” she said.
Andy had known they’d get to this at some point. How could they not? It didn’t mean she had to like it. “Yeah,” she said. “The race of my father. Who has now branded me a traitor. And rightfully so. I chose the ESS over the Arkana. Although I suppose the word ‘betrayal’ suggests there was a loyalty to be broken. There wasn’t. I didn’t even know who they were until they decided to wage war.”
“Still,” Connors said. “You are outcast from the people of your father, and unsure about the people of your mother.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Andy muttered. “Yeah. That’s about the whole of it. I don’t really belong…anywhere. My father is some sort of bigshot in the race trying to kill us all, and my mother is dead. My mother who never really wanted much to do with me anyway. I truly don’t belong anywhere.”
“Do you not belong here?” Connors asked. “According to what you’ve said, and what your captain and others in your detachment have said, you call this crew your family, and this ship is your home. Doesn’t that mean that you belong here?”
Andy smiled again, a little ruefully. “Yeah, I do belong here,” she agreed—and she meant it—but this was a limited world to feel safe in. “I just don’t belong anywhere else.”
2
The next day, Andy walked into a staff briefing at 0900 hours. Half the senior staff was already present, and the others—including the captain—came in right behind her. Almost every officer had a cup of coffee in hand.
“Should we perhaps have the doctor here figure out how to connect us all intravenously to the stuff?” Andy asked dryly as she took her seat and peered around. It was a thin attempt at humor, since she wasn’t feeling particularly funny that day—if she ever did—but she tried.
The months had worn them all down, and you could see it in the faces of most. She was sure that Captain Wallace had aged years in the time since war was declared, and their first officer’s green…things…growing from her neck seemed a little withered. And that was only the command staff.
No one was coming through this unscathed.
“Some of you have already tried,” Doctor Martin said with a faint smile on his pale purple lips, “but we have yet to devise a suitable means. Besides, I have also been assured that the act of drinking and sometimes even the taste is part of the experience.”
Of course, neither the doctor nor their chief of security would know about this, since both of their races—the Selerid and the Hanarans—handled caffeinated beverages poorly. It could be lethal for the latter, and was just really unpleasant for the former. They had their own comparable substances.
“As much as I would like this briefing to be about the pros and cons of coffee, and the most efficient means of delivery, I’m afraid we have some actual work to do,” Captain Wallace said, his big voice quieted everyone, and they settled into their seats. The captain remained standing, positioning himself beside the screen in the wall that he used for visual aids.
Andy waited and watched curiously. This meant that they had a specific mission to embark on, which was both good and bad. The ship had managed to go an entire week in transit without running into an Arkana ship and ending up in a fight. That was a good thing, because it meant everyone was still alive, but it also made the tension grow.
They all knew that it was just a matter of time before they were in another fight, and the longer it took, the worse the anticipation became.
Yet, no one was eager to jump into a fight. There had been so many of them already.
Wallace pressed a button and a star map came up on the screen. Andy peered intently, trying to recognize the location.
“This is Lykos Colony,” Captain Wallace declared, saving her the trouble of trying to figure it out for herself. “It is located on a moon orbiting an uninhabited planet. The planet itself was not fit for terraforming, but the moon was viable. This is a civilian colony, operated by the ESS Alliance.
“As I’m sure some, if not all, of you know, Lykos Colony was captured by the Arkana precisely four months ago. As far as anyone has been able to tell, there wasn’t a strong strategic reason for it. We aren’t sure what Lykos affords them, aside from a foothold in ESS territory. It has given them that.”
Andy frowned slightly as she listened, her dark brows knitting. She’d had a discussion with the command team about this very colony just a couple of weeks ago, but she didn’t say anything about that just yet. She knew the captain would get to the point soon and let them know why this had come up now.
Wallace continued, “What makes Lykos vital at the moment is that we believe it is being used to house prisoners of war.”
The security chief spoke up. “Is that where they’re housing the son of Councilor T’ash?”
“We believe so,” Wallace confirmed. “Lieutenant Valn was serving as the helm officer on the ESS Galaxy when the ship was destroyed in a battle with the Arkana. Our intelligence indicates that eleven people were taken prisoner. And that they are being held on Lykos.”
“Do we have any intelligence to suggest that they are still alive?” Counselor Connors asked from her seat at the table. Everyone was getting used to her presence. She was senior staff, after all, so she got to be at the meeting. She did sometimes provide insight, even Andy had to give her that.
Wallace didn’t reply right away. When he did, he said, “Yes and no.”
There was a long moment when everyone looked at each other, wondering what his answer meant.
“The Arkana have sent messages to the ESS,” Wallace explained. “They claim that the prisoners are alive, but only because they want them as leverage. Basically, they are being held hostage. They have included proof, although I don’t trust them as far as I could throw them, and we don’t know if they have the ability to fabricate said evidence.
“So we don’t truly know for sure that they are alive. However, the enemy holding them say they are, and for a reason.”
Andy knew much of this, though not all of it. She listened closely, tilting her head curiously. “What are they being held hostage for?” she asked. “If they are claiming leverage, it’s because they want something. What is it that they want?”
Her mind started scrolling through a list of possible answers, but it was such a long list that she stopped and just waited for the answer. Of course, she knew the answer might be “confidential,” but if she could know, she wanted to. Forewarned was forearmed, and knowledge was power, and all that jazz. If she could know it, she wanted to.
“Do you remember Baccem?” Wallace asked.
How could she forget?
It had been her first mission as major and leader of the 33rd, keeping the Arkana from taking a small planet that would have given them a major tactical advantage inside ESS space.
“They want it,” he said simply.
Over my dead body, jumped to her tongue, but she bit it just in time to keep herself from spitting it out in the middle of a staff briefing. Did she taste blood?
Wallace seemed to read her mind and held up his hand with a wry smile. “We have no intention of giving it to them.”
“I can’t imagine we want to leave our people in their grasps either, especially the son
of a member of the ESS Allied Races Council,” Doctor Martin put in.
Something suddenly sparked in Andy as she listened. She knew that the medical officer was right, and they were no doubt getting pressure from the councilor to get her son back, but there had been other POWs that they knew the whereabouts of. Not a lot, admittedly, since the Arkana tended to just kill everyone more often than not, but still, there had been some others, and she didn’t recall this much discussion about them. She hadn’t heard about any rescue ops, but she assumed that was where this conversation was heading.
It didn’t mean she didn’t think they needed to be saved, but she wondered if it really was just because someone “important” was in the group.
“Councilor T’ash has been in touch with ESS Command,” Wallace said very diplomatically. Andy imagined that was code for, “she’s giving us a hard time.” Andy understood it, though. It was her child, and she had the power to play with. Any mother would do the same, she was sure, but they both knew the risk her son took by being part of the ESS.
Then again, no one had predicted this war. No one could have. The Arkana seemed to come out of nowhere, and suddenly there was a swarm of them flowing over ESS space like locusts in ancient times.
“So, are we going to be doing something about it?” Andy asked outright. As a Marine commander, she felt like she had a little more latitude for bluntness than, say, the doctor or counselor. It seemed that as more time passed, and the war raged on, she had less and less issues with taking advantage of that.
She caught Doctor Martin eyeing her, and she couldn’t tell if it was amusement or disapproval. His purple skin wasn’t swirling, however, so he clearly wasn’t agitated. She wondered what emotional state he was “reading” from her, if he could distinguish her feelings from everyone else’s in the room. It seemed that empaths could sometimes know your emotional state more clearly than you did.
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