Pain stabbed behind her eye, but she clung to consciousness.
She fired another shot.
The pain came again.
Another shot.
It was all that she could do.
The pressure was suddenly off her chest, but the world was still all made of shades of grey. There was an edge of unreality to everything, and she felt the sticky, wet warmth of her blood covering half her face from where her nose had been broken.
But she wasn’t fighting anymore, and there was a big shadow hovering over her. She forced her eyes open to see someone standing over her, but they weren’t trying to hurt her…
Anath.
How long could he hold out like that?
She had to get up. She had to…
She couldn’t.
Suddenly, there were other noises. There were shouts, and they sounded human. In fact, they sounded familiar.
“Faster!” Dan shouted.
The Marines all around him picked up the pace. They were no longer worried about stumbling onto an Arkana search party, because they had already found them. There was the much-damaged shuttle he had come to the planet on, and around it were several Arkana all fighting someone.
That obviously had to be his squad-mates, and they were very obviously in trouble.
He knew he had to get back to them in time. The other Marines ran to keep up with him, and Jade was right by his side. The fatigue seemed to drop away as the clear target opened up and he had to reach it.
The ESS Marines—the two from alpha and the remainder of Beta—swarmed over the group fighting around the shuttle. Some they shot at, and others were taking down by hand to hand. Their addition put the numbers closer to even than they had been, but the element of surprise did the rest.
A few more injuries were sustained, but they otherwise managed to make quick work of the enemy force.
Jade hurried through the now cleared force and found Anath kneeling beside his sister, although whether he was kneeling to check on her or because of his own visible injuries, she couldn’t be sure. The major’s eyes were opened, but she did not look in good shape at all.
“We’ve found Beta Squad, sir,” she reported.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Andy said weakly. “We’re going to need their help I think.”
25
It wasn’t over yet.
They still had to get off the moon.
With the Arkana no longer trying to kill them, Andy had a few moments to push herself up to sitting and then up to standing. It wasn’t easy, and she felt like she was going to fall down at any moment, but she knew she wasn’t going to just lay there and die. She had to stand up and move forward.
“Report,” she managed to say, although her throat felt ragged. She stood on unsteady feet.
One of the Beta Squad Marines limped up to Andy and saluted. “Our shuttle didn’t have the easiest landing, but it wasn’t as bad as this,” he reported. “Our communications are presently out, but we left one man behind who believed he could get the shuttle in the air again.”
Andy nodded slowly, careful to not make herself woozy again. “Did you take any casualties?”
“Our pilot took a bad injury to the leg, which is why she stayed behind. Another took a head injury, alive but unconscious.”
“Sergeant Roxanna is in the shuttle with a head injury as well, but I must warn you about something…” She explained the empathic situation as succinctly as she could, since talking hurt and she knew they didn’t have a lot of time. “It could make the flight home a little troublesome, once we’re able to leave this moon.”
She took stock of her people as she walked, carefully, back to the open shuttle door and looked in to make sure Roxanna was okay. At least as okay as she could be. They traded nods.
“Our priority is to get back to your shuttle, since ours is mostly a lost cause,” Andy said firmly. “We get back to yours and get communications back, try to reach the other shuttles and the Star Chaser.”
“And hope we can fly back and get off this forsaken rock,” Anath offered.
Andy smiled weakly. “Yes. For now, let’s pull what’s salvageable from the shuttle and get ready to move. I don’t want to sit here any longer than we have to.” She paused and sighed. “We will need to pull the pilot from the cockpit. We won’t leave her here.”
It was an exceedingly vulnerable group of Marines that made their way from the crashed shuttle of Alpha Squad.
Roxanna was able to walk, rather than be carried, but she still needed some support to keep from losing her equilibrium. With each step they took, everyone’s head began to hurt but they had to soldier on. Andy walked without aid, but she knew she had to move as cautiously as she could to escape her own imbalance.
Dan carried Wilkes, while Jade walked beside him to watch his back and Anallin kept the marksman role from rearguard with the rest of the second squad in a defensive formation alongside them. Not that any of them were in perfect shape, but they seemed slightly better off than alpha.
Andy was sure that an Arkana soldier would jump out of every shadow or from behind every tree, but she also kept wondering if her nerves were her own or coming from her sergeant. There was something surreal about knowing emotions you felt weren’t actually your own, and she had a lot more respect for Roxanna. Not that she felt a lack before, but she managed to find more now.
“You guys have been dealing with this all this time?” a younger Marine asked, wincing slightly.
“We have some resistance,” Andy said, “but only some. It’s okay. Just hang in there.”
It was a miracle, and quite unexpected by everyone’s pervasive anxiety, but they made it to Beta’s shuttle without meeting any more Arkana patrols.
They settled Roxanna into a seat and she slumped back, out of breath and squeezing her eyes shut.
“Report,” Andy said to the young Marine on the floor of the shuttle, fiddling in one of the open panels toward the floor. Her leg was bandaged and out straight, and it didn’t look very mobile.
The woman saluted from the floor. “I’ve restored power to the engines. It’ll be just enough to get us off the ground, but it will be rough ride. I was just about to start working on the comms.”
“I’ll help,” Anath offered. “I was working on them on our shuttle.”
“Any help is appreciated.” The woman smiled slightly, but then Andy saw her grimace and press her temples. Andy knew that Roxanna’s abilities were at work again.
The major left them to it for the moment and looked around to the others, who were either resting or helping. What had been brought from their shuttle to this one was being loaded and secured, although it wasn’t much.
“Did you set the self-destruct protocol?” Andy asked Anallin. As the one who seemingly had escaped the majority of the injuries, she had tasked the Hanaran with that.
“Yes, Major,” Anallin replied with a single nod. “It should be, what do you humans say, toast even as we speak.”
His use of the human turn of phrase made her laugh a little. “Good,” she said.
The self-destruct protocol made sure that any craft or gear left behind would not still be useable when it fell into enemy hands.
Andy sat wearily beside Roxanna.
“Sir,” the Selerid began. “You have to sedate me.”
“What?” Andy frowned. “I thought you said that would be dangerous.”
The other woman sighed, her eyes still closed. “It will be, but it will be less dangerous than letting the pilot fly with a shattering headache.” Now she opened her eyes and looked at the major. “It could kill you all. If I’m unconscious, I’ll stop projecting. Please, Major, this is serious. It’s the only way.”
Andy was still frowning. She didn’t like this, didn’t like the risk, but she had to trust that Roxanna knew better about her own physiology than she did.
“Alright, Sergeant.” She paused. “Roxanna. You just better wake back up when we’re on the ship. That’s an o
rder.”
The Selerid smiled faintly. “Yes, Major.”
26
There were far more people than the shuttle was used to accommodating, but with shudders and shakes, it rose off the surface.
Anath had helped to get the communications going, and the Star Chaser said the space was clear for them to come home, but they had to hurry—more Arkana could show up at any time.
In the end, five shuttles had gone down. Three were going back. One other shuttle bore a greater weight as it rose to the sky. Two burnt-out wrecks remained behind, along with dead prisoners of war, and a hope for a new weapon. Not a single Marine body remained behind. They would be interred at space, properly and with honors, for dying in the line of duty, and during a time of war.
The ride was indeed rough, and that was an understatement. Everyone was strapped in, until there were no more restraints. Some just had to hang on. Andy was one of those, despite the protests of her brother and squad. She would not lead from behind, she had told them, and that was the end of it.
This time, they made it back to the ship. Weary and wounded, but relatively intact.
“I hate being trapped in bed.”
Roxanna laughed softly, turning her head to look across the space between the two beds where her and Andy were forbidden to leave for at least two days. “I agree,” the Selerid said. “It’s one thing to lounge in bed all day because you choose to, but quite another to have a doctor forbid you to leave.”
Andy smirked. “When was the last time any of us lounged in bed all day by choice?” she asked. “Hell, when was the last time any of us lounged…”
“Fair point, sir,” Roxanna said. “I’m feeling much better, at least.”
“I know.”
The Selerid suddenly looked alarmed. “What?”
That made Andy laugh quietly. “Not like that,” she hurried to say. “It feels like your empathy is back on track. I just meant I know you enough to recognize the signs. And I’m not feeling anything from you, so that tells me something too.”
Roxanna visibly relaxed. “Fair enough,” she said. “That’s good at least. I’ve heard about that happening to others, but I had never experienced it myself. It was terrible.”
“It wasn’t much of a picnic for any of us,” Andy agreed. “But you could hardly help it.”
“Maybe so, but I still feel bad about it,” Roxanna said.
There were several moments of silence while they both sighed and turned to look at the sanitized white ceiling. “I’m glad you woke up,” Andy said. “I’m not sure how I would have lived with myself if my sedating had killed you.”
Roxanna sighed again. “I appreciate that, Major, but it was for the best. You did what you had to do.”
“Yeah,” Andy said, not sure that made her feel any better. “What I had to do.”
Three days later…
The reports had been filed. The meetings had been held. The letters had been written.
Andy was out of sickbay, although others were still there and the ship was still in a state of repairs. They were at least solidly back in ESS space, so there wasn’t as much concern about getting new damage added to it. How many times could they patch up and paste over all the damage this poor ship was receiving?
Every ship, station, and colony was getting hit hard, but she couldn’t help but wonder if the Star Chaser wasn’t getting hit harder than the rest because of her, and now Anath as well.
An entire scheme had been put in motion to lure her to Lykos Colony, just so her father could put the vice on his wayward children. Had the POWs died because of her? No, they would have died anyways. The Arkana did not keep prisoners any more than they allowed prisoners to be kept.
Life was stark for the people of her father. Never was there a moment she regretted not joining them. It had been implied that other half-breed children had chosen to return to the fold, but she couldn’t understand that. She couldn’t understand why they would do that, when that’s what the Arkana was.
Then again, maybe they had all made the choices before the Arkana were waging war. Maybe that made a difference.
As she walked through the corridors, trying to avoid the engineering crews so she didn’t get in their way, she found one of the window viewports to look out at the stars as they rushed by. The ship was not moving fast, but it wasn’t slow either.
Andy stopped and looked out, losing herself in her own thoughts and feelings. She idly wondered if maybe talking to the counselor was actually a good idea after all, but she wasn’t quite ready to jump that hurdle willingly yet. She did imagine that it was only a matter of time, however, because things just kept getting worse. Kept getting harder.
“Anything interesting out there?”
She turned to see her brother walking up. He smiled at her, but there wasn’t a great deal of mirth in the expression.
“Stars that do not belong to the Arkana,” she said wearily. “That’s good enough for me.”
“It’s good enough for me too.” He put his hand on her shoulder.
They stared out the window together for a while, neither saying anything.
“I don’t understand any of this, Anath,” she said after a while, shaking her head. “I mean, I do, but I also don’t. I really don’t get what our father and the whole Arkana race has against us all. Why do they need to kill us to achieve their goals?”
“Can goodness every truly comprehend the madness that drives wicked ends?” Anath said philosophically.
“I suppose not,” she conceded. “But sometimes, I’d like to. I’d just like it all to make sense.”
He gently turned her to start on her walk again, putting his arm around her shoulders as they made their way forward at a slow pace. “You can never make sense of the senseless any better than the goodness and madness,” he said. “We can only try to make the madness stop.”
Andy nodded slowly. “What we’re doing isn’t working,” she said. “Not really.”
“Then we’ll have to figure out how to do better,” he said with a long sigh.
“Yeah.” She sighed but spoke with conviction. “We will do better, and we’ll figure out a way to end this war. End this madness.”
THANK YOU
Thank you so much for reading Lykos, the sixth book in the ESS Space Marines series. I am so excited you took the chance to read it and I really hope you liked it. If you could leave a review for me, that would be awesome because it helps me tell others about my books.
At the end of the book, I have included a preview of Mimic and the Space Engineer which is the first book in the Space Shifter Chronicles. After you read the preview, you can download the book on Amazon.
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Preview: Mimic and the Space Engineer
I stared at the little creature intently, noting its movements and habits. As soon as I had arrived in my room, it had scurried off my shoulder and under my standard-issue cot. And then into my shoes. And then out of my shoes and into my own personal scrap bin. I had never thought that I would have to alien-proof my quarters, but I was beginning to think it might be necessary.
“Higgens!” Dang it, I had still forgotten to turn my comm down. It was obnoxiously loud in my tiny space and my new gue
st let out a squeal of panic. “Gonzales has some expired blaster cores that need to be disposed of. We just found the case that was lost on the load up. Some idiot labeled it as stims! Can you believe that?”
“Have them meet me at the lift on their floor. I’ll make sure to have the proper containment unit.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll deliver the message. Be there in ten.”
At first, it had been strange to me that I only corresponded with the head of crew, Francis Giomatti. Now, I was grateful for it. The thought of having all twenty members of the crew bothering me with every little thing that went wrong—and probably wasn’t even in my job description—made my stomach twist.
“Alright, so, I gotta go, but I’ll be right back in less than half an ho—” I trailed off as I realized I couldn’t see my new alien friend anywhere. “Um, hello? Little fella?” I walked toward my worktable, looking everywhere for the obsidian guy.
Worry started to prick at me but that quickly disappeared when I realized something had changed on my desk.
“Since when do I have two water bottles?” I murmured to myself, reaching for one.
Only that same water bottle exploded into a dark goop in my hand, then it solidified into the alien.
I screamed again—I really needed to stop doing that before I blew a vocal cord—but this time, I managed not to throw my friend into a wall. “D-d-did you just…?”
The thing wiggled, sticking two of its spikes up like little waving arms and turning a gradient of grey and deep blue.
“Y-you can shapeshift?” I said breathlessly, my mind thoroughly rocked. “You’re like uh…uh, mimic!”
It trilled, then crawled up my hand once more to sit on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, lad, but you’ve got to stay here.”
I went to pick him up, but he scurried into my open collar and curled up along the neckline of my work tank underneath. “You know what, that’ll work. If you can hear me, just stay in there.”
It trilled again and I grabbed my power source containment case then headed out. I had to admit, my heart had never pounded so hard on my way to a simple energy-disposal pickup, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want my crewmates to know that I had picked up a bit of a straggler. I knew the regulations well enough, and that would mean the spacing of an unknown danger. I didn’t want my new sidekick to be hurtled out into the void of space when we were just getting to know each other.
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