Lucky Universe: Lucky's Marines | Book One

by Joshua James

  “Oh my God!” Jiang broke in. “Can we just go?”

  “You coming?” said Dawson.

  Lucky jerked his head forward, felt the tearing of the metal pins from his neck, and suppressed a scream. The biobots were already plugging away at it, along with everything else, but there was enough here to take time. He gently slid over on his side.

  “I’ll just sit here and regenerate if it’s all the same to you,” he said. “I’d be useless in a fight.”

  “Figures,” Malby said under his breath.

  Jiang, Dawson and Malby took off at a fast, low run, a gaggle of drones in their wake.

  Lucky watched them go.

  “You want the bad news or worse news?” echoed Rocky.

  “Bad.”

  “I didn’t just mosey on out of Vlad’s mind. I had to fork my own source,” she said. She paused to laugh at her own phrasing.

  Lucky sighed. Had he really wanted this back so bad?

  “She still has a full copy of my spiders in her neural system. We have to physically take that back out of her.”

  “Like they did to me?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Will she know? That you forked out of her?”

  “Yes. Even if she didn’t, the Ship would tell her. It must honor the gift-holder.”

  Great.

  “And the worse news?” he asked.

  “She’s using all the other ships in a huge, networked array of T’ket’ka that Vlad is controlling.”

  Lucky’s forehead creased.

  “Why do they need all that?”

  “Because she isn’t going to go through the corridor. She’s going to sit here and hold the door open.”

  “For what?” he asked, then immediately regretted it.

  “The ten thousand Da’hune battleships that are entering from the other side. And they are a lot bigger than Happy Giant.”

  Lucky closed his eyes and tried to imagine that. As usual, his imagination failed him.

  But then he smiled. They were holding the corridor open. This meant his plan would work even better—

  “Back to the scene of the crime,” said a voice that made Lucky gnash his teeth.

  Vlad.

  And she stole his line.

  Lucky dragged himself around the side of the small ship, then his spiders jerked him back. A blast sent part of the ore splintering away.

  “You are too late, you know,” she said. “So very, very late.”

  Lucky slammed his head back.

  If he could kill her, blow away the AI in her mind, would the T’ket’ka fail? Somehow that seemed too easy.

  But he really wanted to kill her.

  Lucky slid his rifle into the crook of his left arm. He was in no shape for this. He could still barely stand.

  “Rocky? How long to full regen?”

  “Ten minutes. But you are ambulatory. That was priority.”

  In other words, he could run for it. Or stroll very quickly for it, at least.

  He looked again at the small hangar. It was just as they had left it. The wall toppled over the wrecked small ship, debris strewn everywhere. A huge hole to his left where the Union had blasted away the floor.

  “Rocky, tell me that you still have—”

  “On it.”

  A lone locust slipped out of one of the ships.

  Lucky heard the drone fire and leapt out from behind the ship in the same instant. He felt his spiders pluck his mind, and he shifted his weight just as an arc of energy flew past his flank, singeing the side of his combat gear.

  The drone was already a fireball drifting away.

  “That was close!”

  “She has spiders, too,” Rocky shot back.

  Of course. The pattern-recognition abilities that the Da’hune passed to him were now in her.

  Lucky realized this was at best a stalemate. She didn’t have his weapons training, but she also didn’t have his wounds.

  He leapt up again, squeezed off two shots, felt his own spiders jump, and followed their lead.

  Vlad jumped away from his shots as he skipped away from hers.

  They might be shooting at each other for hours at this rate.

  Then a series of explosions erupted in front of him, centered on Vlad.

  Jiang, Malby and Dawson were holding defensive positions at the far end of the hangar, lighting up Vlad with pulse after pulse.

  Vlad skipped away like a prize-fighter, dipping and juking, rolling away from shot after shot. She fired off one round. Then another. And another.

  Dawson fell back, but Jiang and Malby kept alternating shots.

  Jiang flipped her rifle and launched a pulse pounder, then flipped it back and dove away.

  Vlad laughed playfully, dancing and backtracking her way out of the hangar. The explosion should have killed her, but somehow she managed to contort her body so that the shrapnel flew harmlessly by.

  A real lucky move.

  “Goodbye, Lucky,” she said as she casually stepped out of the hangar. “And thank you again.”

  Lucky didn’t go after her.

  Instead, he ran to the next little giant he saw that wasn’t damaged. The Marines joined him, Malby keeping his rifle trained on the path Vlad had used while Jiang helped Dawson carry a gear bag.

  “I really want to dust that bitch,” Malby said.

  Lucky nodded. “Join the club.”

  Jiang gave Lucky a thumbs-up as they dove in. “Time to go,” she said.

  Dawson set down the gear bag and lifted out a beige orb that throbbed with energy.

  “Rocky told our drones right where to find it,” he said. “But man, it gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

  Lucky placed it carefully in the shielded holder in the center of the floor. He felt an instant shift in the small craft as it lifted off the ground.

  “We are gone,” said Rocky.

  The small ship leapt out of the open port in the side of Happy Giant and into space.

  55

  Foolish

  The Queen Mother watched smugly through the eyes of her surrogate as the tiny craft fled the ancient Da’hune ship. Where are you running off to, my little humans? Back to the safety of your universe? Back to the safety of your weak, useless human clans?

  So foolish. Their existence was but another example of the wisdom of the ancients. They would never have allowed such beings to pollute their offspring. The purge was natural and right for these creatures. It would be a divine sin not to show them to their end. They were doing them a favor that they couldn’t hope to repay.

  Her surrogate was in place now. She had laboriously aligned the T’ket’ka. The corridor was open.

  She opened her eyes and returned her focus to the control room of her battlecruiser.

  She placed a talon on the shell of her brutal son, and he spat furiously at the navigator.

  Her clever daughter swished her tail approvingly.

  She began to move her forces through the Great Corridor. They were going home.

  56

  Incoming

  Lucky felt the small ship straining as it swung upward and away from Happy Giant.

  The Great Corridor seemed to have a gravity well of its own now, with so many ships and T’ket’ka inside its walls of endless pathways spanning all the universes in all the dimensions that had ever existed.

  Or was it all the dimensions in all the universes that had ever existed?

  He’d have to leave this one to the eggheads.

  Lucky could not fathom the architects of such a thing, and at this moment he only wanted to get away from it as fast as he could.

  But the little giant was no different to its bigger sibling. It too was slow and defenseless.

  It was, at least, spacious. Which was another terrifying reminder of the architects of the Corridor. The Da’hune were giants.

  This was a single-occupant ship if Vlad was to be trusted on the subject, and the four Marines fit comfortably inside with room to spare. Lots of room t
o spare.

  And then he imagined The Hate flowing through them. Not a pretty picture.

  “Lucky, I know more about The Hate than I have told you.”

  Lucky thought for a moment on that. He knew a lot more about The Hate now as well.

  “I think a frank discussion might be in order, but it’s not like—”

  “Skreamers,” interrupted Rocky.

  “Incoming,” he said to the other Marines. The few locusts they had left hugged the side of the little giant. An image floated up in his mind’s eye.

  A handful of skreamers were coming up fast from below them.

  “Never mind,” said Rocky.

  Never mind? Then he saw it in his mind’s eye.

  Above them, looming impossibly large, was a massive asteroid falling at breakneck speed down upon them.

  The massive Union hangar was caught in the gravity well of the Great Corridor, moving faster even than the Da’hune technology would attempt to accelerate it.

  “Here we go,” he said, nodding at Dawson.

  Dawson opened his gear bag and pulled out the other orb. “Is this going to work?” he asked.

  “Damned if I know,” he replied. “But it’ll be one hell of a show.”

  57

  Nudge

  The Queen Mother’s battleship led her forces through the Great Corridor.

  For a moment, Do’ock Kun closed her eyes and had the sensation of watching her own passage through the eyes of her surrogate.

  What a wonder to behold! The moment that would be remembered by her clan for all eternity.

  She opened her eyes, eager to experience her new home with her own senses.

  Her tail stopped swishing. She raised a talon to the viewport.

  What is this, my child?

  The navigator did not respond.

  Her majestic view of the great expanse was blocked by a large asteroid tumbling down into the corridor, blocking their path.

  It was the same one that had been following her surrogate when she first entered the corridor.

  It seemed as if this whole time it had continued its slow, spiraling approach.

  At this range, she realized what it was. The humans’ station, the one they had helped them build and used to make their corridor-crossing ships.

  Why it was here now she hadn’t a clue. But no matter. It was no longer needed.

  She looked down at her brutal son, Do’ock Nigh’tok.

  He knew what she was going to ask, and he relished it.

  He was so proud of the purge, she thought, so bloodthirsty. And she was so proud of him.

  But something was nagging at her mind. She was as ready as her son to start the purge, but she had a vague uneasiness about beginning it here, at the edge of the corridor.

  She slid her underbelly talon across his shell.

  We shall just nudge it back out of the corridor, she explained. Then, once it has been turned back, you may clear our view of it so that we may lay our eyes on our new home.

  He snarled.

  Patience, my brutal one, my Do’ock Nigh’tok. The rivers of blood will flow soon enough.

  She nodded to their gunner, and he turned to his instruments.

  58

  Long Shot

  The little giant leapt through the open gateway.

  Even with the relative slowness of the small ship, the speed of the asteroid falling into the corridor meant that everything flew past in a blur.

  No ship would ever approach at this speed.

  Lucky closed his eyes and relied on Rocky’s view in his mind.

  It was her show now, but really, it was the spiders.

  The Union soldiers had abandoned the hangar, but not before leaving them a nasty surprise.

  A pair of cannon batteries placed on the remains of the badly damaged platform erupted, spewing streams of blue energy at them.

  The spiders danced wildly on their web, and Rocky obliged, swinging the less-than-nimble craft from port to starboard and back again, then rolling into the sights of the cannons.

  The cannons sat between them and the corridor at the end of the platform.

  The pitch-black opening was still there, still framed by a giant arch of gray ore inscribed with alien script.

  He felt the spiders in his mind begin to leap about, excited at the streams of data reaching out to them from the fold.

  The cannons belched up more fire, and Rocky spun the ship in a tight corkscrew.

  “Do it, do it now!” Lucky screamed.

  A single locust peeled away from the hull of the ship, falling lazily toward the interior wall of the platform. It released the small beige orb it had been holding. A tiny bolt of energy pulsed from the locust, barely enough to break human skin—but more than enough to pierce the antimatter skin of the T’ket’ka orb.

  Rocky held the ship in its tight corkscrew, diving forward, a pattern of increasingly complex lines forming in Lucky’s mind.

  His spiders were rapturous.

  A pinpoint of light flashed behind the ship, washing over it and bathing the hollow asteroid in red flames.

  The hollowed-out asteroid was the perfect kindling for the antimatter fire.

  Lucky felt the hungry fire reaching out for them.

  Closer.

  And closer, still.

  We timed it wrong, he thought. It was coming for them.

  It was always going to be the tightest of windows, the longest of long shots.

  But even as the fire reached out to grab them, he felt the spiders reaching forward, pulling out strands of energy and wrapping the small ship within them.

  The cocoon of energy could hold back the flames for just a single fleeting moment, but that was all the little giant needed to slip into the corridor.

  59

  Kindling

  The Queen Mother watched as the asteroid erupted in flame.

  She turned angrily on the gunner, but he was staring in disbelief.

  She looked to her brutal son, seeing in this a lesson in how a ruler deals with insubordination. This was a teaching moment, she thought, but he was staring in disbelief as well. She followed his talons and saw what he saw.

  The gunner had not fired.

  She looked back now at the asteroid engulfed in flame. It was spreading fast, too fast. Unnaturally fast.

  Before her very eyes, she watched as it began to disappear. Once matter, but existing no longer.

  She realized what was happening.

  “Back!” she screamed to her navigator. “Back!”

  But the flaming remains of the asteroid kept falling toward them, shedding matter as it came. And then a tenuous finger of fire reached out, probing the deep. It brushed against the battlecruiser, and a pinpoint of light blossomed.

  Another finger reached out to another of her clan ships. And another.

  The Queen Mother watched as her mighty flotilla, the great hope for her clan, the bringer of purity to the ancient universe, disappeared before her eyes. Their great mass was now their great flaw. The hungry antimatter clamored over and through them, hungry for more, never sated.

  A dull realization fell over her. This would ignite the entire network of T’ket’ka lining the endless paths of the Great Corridor.

  Where will it stop? How far must the hunger travel before it is satiated? How deep will the wound go? The ancient power to hold the energy of the corridor was now turning on the very fabric of its own making, doing untold damage to both.

  And then Do’ock Kun, Queen Mother of the Da’hune, watched her lovely, clever daughter, Do’ock Kelia, and her bold, brutal son, Do’ock Nigh’tok, burn away before her eyes.

  The future rulers of the mighty Da’hune were lost to its ancient power.

  And then her own queenly flesh joined theirs.

  60

  Chosen

  Hello, nightmare.

  Hello, Lucky, said his nightmare.

  Lucky awoke in an escape pod.

  He didn’t know how he got there
.

  He was in a hyperspace sleeper unit.

  He didn’t know how he got in it.

  How much time had passed?

  The timer in the sleeper pod read: 51/Y/38/D/08/H/14/M/

  It must be wrong. Everything was covered in ice crystals.

  He heard a voice in his head. A red cloud hung at the edge of his vision.

  It was a whisper. He strained to hear it.

  It was garbled and weak.

  “Chosen,” it whispered again. And then nothing.

  What could that have been? he wondered. He waited and listened, but the voice did not return.

  The red mist receded from the edges of his mind.

  And then a new voice erupted in his head, fully formed.

  “What the hell was that?” it said.

  He knew her. They had been talking, he realized. While he slept. How long had it been? A few hours? A few days? Nothing longer than that, surely.

  And then a final voice, this one from outside his mind. He had forgotten voices existed outside his mind.

  “We got somebody alive here!”

  Goodbye, nightmare.

  Goodbye, Lucky. For now.

  61

  New Sit

  Wake up, Sleeping Ugly. This cycle is too short even for your shitty meat to get freezer burned, so you should remember all of this, but I doubt it. The brass wants your memory intact so you can explain yourself or something. You’re welcome.

  [BEGIN SITREP]

  Two weeks ago

  You, Private First Class Jiang, Private Dawson, and Private Malby, all returned through the Union-made test corridor just before you managed to roast an alien invasion from a parallel universe. Remember that? Good times. An Empire special-ops team picked you up and popsicled you and sent you on your merry way.

  Three days ago

  You rendezvoused with the main strike force. You were scheduled for thaw there, but some of the brass wanted a look at you in person. Get ready to wake up to generals poking you. Try not to be an ass.