“Fair point, Major,” he replied. “Make the arrangements. We have fifteen minutes before we’re in position.”
“Yes, sir,” Andy said with a crisp nod, turning to leave the bridge.
“Oh, and, Major?”
She stopped and looked back.
“Try not to crash this one,” he said with a wry smile.
“Yes, Captain,” she said with a faint laugh, leaving the bridge.
Andy’s mind didn’t exactly race, but it moved quickly as she worked through the plan that she had a quarter-hour to create and put into action. The Star Chaser would have to move fast to spit out the shuttles and leave quickly to avoid being caught by those three carriers. That meant they had to have everything figured out ahead of time.
“Major Dolan to the Marines of the thirty-third,” called over the comms as she made her way down to the hangar. “Suit up. Prepare for combat drop into a hot zone. Meet in hangar at your assigned shuttles in ten minutes. Dolan out.”
She hurried to the locker room and found the majority of the detachment already there and suiting up.
“Combat drop, eh, Major?” Jade asked, checking the seals on her suit. “Like to live dangerously?”
“It’s why I joined the Marines,” Andy replied with a half-smirk. “I think you’ve been hanging around Thomas too much. You’re developing his sense of humor.”
A faint blush came to her pale cheeks, but she just smiled and shrugged before turning back to her locker.
“We need to get as close as possible,” Andy said, “and there’s nowhere for the shuttles to land that’s not going to require a long walk. The shuttles will move off to safety and come when we call.”
The Star Chaser had been going at top speed for six hours on the way to Jiikar, and the Marines had been briefed on the situation during that time. Everyone had known that there was a running clock before they would be heading down to the planet. Now was the time, and everyone was getting ready. There was an undercurrent of nervous tension, but outwardly, they were all calm and focused.
“Captain Wallace to the thirty-third,” came the call from the bridge. “Five minutes till we’re in position. Be ready to launch.”
“You heard the captain!” Andy called through the locker room. “Get your butts to the shuttles or you go through the airlock.”
With that, three dozen Marines hustled out into the hangar bay where six armored shuttles were sitting with their hatches open, just waiting to be boarded. Roxanna led Alpha Squad onto theirs, she knew the drill, while Andy stood in the center and waited, watching, that everyone else got on board.
Once the last Marine was on board, she hurried to join her people.
Andy and her Marines, and Anath, sat in their seats and fastened their restraints. The lights dimmed as the shuttle prepared to take off at a moment’s notice, waiting on the call from the bridge that they were as hidden as could be.
“Get ready to launch,” came from the bridge. “In five…four…” The bay doors opened, revealing space beyond. “Three…” The shuttle rose off the deckplates. “Two…one…”
Their shuttle rushed out of the bay and out of the Star Chaser at a speed that Andy was pretty sure was higher than was supposed to be allowed. They raced away from the ship and began an instant descent through the atmosphere, the shuttle bouncing around and shaking more the further they went.
“This is always my favorite part,” Roxanna said sarcastically, gripping her restraints.
“Just hang on,” Andy said. “With the way our pilot is flying, it won’t be long.” She made sure to say that part loud enough for the pilot to hear, and he laughed.
“Hey, we’re in a hurry. Places to go, people to see, enemies to fight,” he called back over his shoulder. “I’ll get you low enough to jump out without needing a parachute, but I hope you know how to tuck and roll.”
Andy snorted. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant. We’ll manage.”
As they broke into the lower atmosphere, the ship began to stabilize. Andy looked ahead and saw through the view screen that the planet was rushing toward them. There was a long streak of clearing between sparse lines of tall trees. The shuttle got lower and lower, but without the comfort of getting slower and slower.
“Get ready,” the pilot called.
“You heard the man,” Andy called. “Out of your restraints and line up!”
All six unfastened themselves and took up their weapons, getting in line at the back hatch of the shuttle. Roxanna took point, while Andy brought up the rear. With guns in one hand and the other on the railing running the edge of the ceiling to keep their balance, they watched the shuttle open and the ground race by underneath.
“Move fast so we don’t get separated too much,” Andy shouted over the sound of the wind.
“Now!” the pilot shouted.
One by one, each Marine jumped out of the moving shuttle. Andy knew that everyone else was doing the same, hitting the ground and rolling to a stop that wouldn’t leave them damaged. As the last one left each shuttle, the craft rose up again and went to a safer location to wait for their call.
The Marines were on their own now.
12
The fly-by drop-off got them a lot closer than they would’ve been had they landed, but it wasn’t directly on top of the hospital either, so they still had a bit of a walk.
Thirty-six Marines moved quickly but cautiously through the unfamiliar terrain. Although that wasn’t precisely accurate, since it looked like other terrain they were familiar with, even for those who had never been on this particular planet before. Dan looked at it through the eyes of early childhood.
He had still been young when they moved back to Earth, but all of his earliest memories took place on this planet. Not here, though. He couldn’t recall having been to this region, but it didn’t seem to matter. His mind still knew that this was the place he had been born, and now he was here to defend it against a heartless, ruthless enemy.
That was a life path he never could have envisioned as a child playing in the Jiikari forests.
From his peripheral vision, he saw the major touch her ear and then hold up a fist. Those around her stopped, which made for a wave effect that brought everyone else to a stop as well.
No one spoke, waiting to see what had brought about the silent order to halt.
She touched her ear again and then gestured for them to keep moving. Apparently, whatever had been sighted by one of the other squads wasn’t a concern after all.
Just up ahead, the large building of the medical complex came into sight. It had been built before Dan was born, back at a time when they hadn’t conceived of the idea that they might come under fire or even become a pawn in an inter-species war. The building had been made to last, and it had.
How much longer would it remain standing after the Arkana steamrolled their way through?
Dan could remember hearing stories about this hospital as a child. It was one of the most advanced across several systems, and some patients who had come through here with next to no chance for survival had gone on to live long lives.
Since the war began, it had been doing the same for fallen soldiers and civilians injured in battles. Once long ago, it had been agreed upon by many nations to not attack hospitals. They would be adorned with red crosses to make it clear that they offered humanitarian aid.
But those days were long gone, and there was no convention between the Arkana and human decency. They may have originated from the DNA of humanity, but elements of that origin had long been bred—or more accurately, engineered—out of them, if it had ever been there in the first place.
Then again, it probably hadn’t been there.
By now, everyone knew the story.
The Arkana had begun as genetically-engineered humans. When humans began to meet other species and extend their reach into the galaxy, one group of people—scientists among them—had decided they didn’t like that. They decided that they needed to protect themselves against an
ything and everything. So the Arkana were born, engineered to be resistant to the natural abilities of every alien encountered so far.
And then, they’d somehow ended up in space. Far away. That story was a little hazier, but now they lived on some home world that no one knew where and had decided that they were a superior race—even over humans who willingly consorted with non-humans. They were also determined to return to Earth, take it over, and kill anyone that stood in their way.
Now, they were here.
“Who’s there?” a voice shouted at them.
Andy held up her hand again, calling them to a halt as they all looked around for the source of the voice.
On one of the rooftop walkways, a head popped up with the tip of a rifle beside it.
“Major Dolan of the ESS Thirty-Third Marine Detachment,” the major shouted back. “We are here to help.”
The eyes that rose above the railing seemed to look them over for a moment and then recognized their uniforms. The man rose to his full height, although it wasn’t much. “We are so glad to see you! Come in!” He ducked back inside.
Andy looked at her squad to either side of her. “He was wearing a nurse’s uniform,” she commented. “They’ve got nurses running lookout.”
“At least they’ve thought of it,” Roxanna said. “It isn’t always the sort of thing that the medical groups think of.”
No one argued with that. It was their job, the jobs of the Marines, to be paranoid.
They moved toward the hospital. There was still some caution on their movements, since they were what they were, but they let themselves relax the tiniest bit. When they were almost to the doors, they opened and a tall man walked out. He looked human at first, but after a moment, Dan could see the slim respirator device that curved around behind his neck. Dan couldn’t remember the name, but recalled that he was from an oceanic world that required a breathing aid when out of water.
“We are so glad to see you,” the man said. He approached them with ground-eating strides. “As you saw, our security situation is…” He smiled wryly and held out a slender, gray-tinged hand for the major to shake, which she did. “I’m Doctor Kyt. I’m the chief of medicine for the Jiikar Hospital Complex.”
“I’m Major Dolan,” she introduced herself. “We know that this situation is far from ideal, but we’re here to keep you safe and get you to the bunker until the medical evac ship gets here.”
“We are grateful,” Kyt said with a smile that was just a little too wide, at least for him to appear perfectly human.
While the major spoke with the chief surgeon, Dan and his fellow Marines kept their eyes on their surroundings, just in case.
“We’re glad to be of service, Doctor,” Dolan said. “I’ll post some of my squad out here to watch out for the enemy. Will you take me inside and tell me more of your current status and situation?”
13
“As you can see,” Doctor Kyt said as he walked with Andy down a long, wide corridor, “we are deep into packing up the essentials.” The place was a buzz of activity that reminded the major of the Marines locker room less than an hour ago. It was the hum of just barely organized chaos, where everyone was doing everything at once because they were trained enough to do everything at once.
“We know that we have to keep things to a minimum when moving through the countryside,” Kyt was assuring her, “but that’s difficult with a hospital. Different patients need different things just to keep them alive, and much of this wasn’t meant to be mobile, and certainly not mobile without the help of the evac ship’s specialized systems.”
Andy wanted to ask what those systems were that would make something like this easier, but it wasn’t important to this situation. Now wasn’t the time to indulge in curiosity.
“What can we do to help, Doctor?” Andy asked instead. “Most of my squads will cover the outside, but I can keep some of us inside to help move things along.”
Kyt smiled again with gratitude. Andy was beginning to feel uncomfortable under the weight of that look. She knew that people often felt under-appreciated, but how often did someone feel over-appreciated. She was just here to do a job.
“Our patients are our lives, Major,” Kyt was saying. “We get the worst cases, the ones likely to die elsewhere, and now they all might die just because they’re here.” He was rubbing his hands together in a clear gesture of anxiety.
Andy stopped them in the hall for a moment, looking him straight in the eyes. “We are here to help. Tell us what to do, and we’ll get you and your patients to safety.”
Doctor Kyt nodded and that seemed to bring him back around. “Of course, Major.”
With that, he put Alpha Squad to work.
Jade was put to work on the computer systems. They wanted all of their information backed up, but it had been a lower priority for the doctors and nurses than the patients and the equipment.
Everyone gave Anath—who had somehow gone unseen until this point—some sideways looks until Andy set them straight. He stayed with her, however.
Roxanna worked with the doctors and nurses on helping to keeping the conscious patients calm. Although she hadn’t chose to pursue a psychological field, like so many of her race, she still had her empathy.
Dan and Anallin were put on more “grunt work” tasks, helping to move equipment, beds, and patients onto the land conveyance that would carry them through the forest and plains to the bunker.
Andy and Anath helped a little of everywhere, but Andy also had to be free to check on the squads and make sure that everything was going alright. There was a small coil of tension sitting in the bottom of her stomach, feeling like those seven land conveyors out there were just sitting ducks waiting for the Arkana to come get them.
“You look like you’re going to break a blood vessel if you keep standing so rigidly,” Anath said quietly in her ear.
She blinked and looked up at him. “What?”
He smiled a little. “You’re standing so tense and straight that you’d think a four-star general was about to walk by,” he said.
That made Andy laugh softly. “I just need things to move faster. I hate just standing here. I feel like I’m waiting for the enemy to come pouring in on us. They are moving this way, reports are still confirming it. A hospital. A freaking hospital. Do the Arkana really not having any shame?”
“No,” Anath said with a small shake of his head. “If they are born with it, they are trained out of it.”
“So what happened to you?” she asked ruefully.
“I’ve been wondering that myself,” Anath said seriously. “At least, I used to. I don’t think about it very much anymore. I’m not sure it matters anymore.”
Andy nodded thoughtfully, gesturing for him to walk with her as she moved back to the door to check on the trucks and her squads out there. “I suppose it doesn’t,” she agreed. “I still wonder, though. I mean, how many children—half or full blood—does our father have? And they have all followed him but for us? Why are we different?”
He shrugged. “Maybe there is one rebellious gene that only our mothers shared, hence us.”
Considering this for a moment as she looked around, she then nodded. “I guess that’s as likely an answer as anything,” she agreed.
A pair of orderlies came down the hallway with a stretcher between them, but there wasn’t a patient on the hover-stretcher. The hover was working overtime under the weight of the boxes, so the orderlies had to help carry it as well. Andy moved to open the door while Anath slipped out, watching for any trouble as they brought the supplies to one of the trucks.
“It’s sad that our father didn’t take credit for me sooner so I could at least have the pleasure of legally disowning him,” Andy said without humor.
“We don’t even have the process for the Arkana,” Anath replied.
The orderlies came back through the doors that Andy stood before, the now-empty stretcher floating along with them.
“How’s it going in th
ere?” Andy asked, following them in and shutting the door behind them all.
“It’s going, Major,” one orderly said. “Doctor Kyt thinks we will be ready to relocate the patients to the vehicles in about twenty minutes, and that’s the last step before we can move out.” He waited for a nod from Andy before hurrying back off to keep on with the last of the tasks, and she gave it quickly because she didn’t want to hold him up any longer than necessary to get a better status report.
“At least we’ll be on the move soon,” Andy commented.
“Yes, so we can bring ourselves to them instead of waiting for them to come to us,” Anath said with a wry smile.
She smacked him on the arm.
14
“All doctors and nurses in the vehicles,” Andy called to everyone. “The Marines on the ground. Alpha Squad will be on point. Theta at the rear. Beta and gamma on left, with delta and epsilon on right. Keep your eyes and ears open and stay alert. We know that the Arkana are almost on this point, and we could all run into one another at any moment.”
Everyone moved into position and Andy did one last check of the line of the trucks, before holding up her arm and motioning for everyone to start moving.
The trucks had to go slow over the rough terrain, since they didn’t have a clear road to travel on. They also had to go slow so that the stalking, guarding Marines could keep up. They were capable of running alongside a faster moving vehicle, but it lowered the effectiveness of their defense.
If Andy had thought that moving along would ease her tension, she had been very mistaken. The noise that the trucks made as they crunched their way along the forest floor—covered by trees on one side and exposed by hilly plains on the other—just aggravated her nerves more.
For the first ten minutes of their trek, she had reports coming in from the shuttle pilots. They had found reasonably safe places to touch down and were using their sensors to keep a watch on the enemy’s movements as best they were able. Since the ships were spread out, they were able to get decent coverage, and they kept warning the major about the Arkana moving in on the hospital.
Earth Space Service Space Marines Boxed Set Page 59