Arkana (ESS Space Marines Book 4) Read online

  Arkana

  ESS Space Marines, Book 4

  James David Victor

  Fairfield Publishing

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Thank You

  Copyright © 2017 Fairfield Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author.

  This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  The alien’s head snapped back as Major Andrea ‘Andy’ Dolan swung the butt of her rifle up and caught him square on the chin. He staggered for a moment, his hold on his weapon swayed, and Andy held her rifle in both hands to bring it down on his wrists. There was a cracking sound, and the gun fell from his numb hands.

  She kicked it away and then drove into him. Her own rifle had jammed—traditional projectile weapons had proven to be most effective against the Arkana—but she had spent enough time practicing for just such an occasion that it remained a good weapon in her hands. Now its length was pressing against the Arkana’s throat, although he had regained some of his equilibrium. He was strong enough to keep her from crushing his windpipe, but not powerful enough to toss her aside.

  Reaching up, he wrapped his hands around Andy’s wrists and tried to squeeze, but her battle gear protected her from any damage, or pain.

  When the soldier realized this, he shifted tactics. Just like any schoolyard bully would, he kicked her in the shin. Her gear kept her from earning a bruised or broken bone, but the sheer force managed to push her foot back and unbalance her. It was a tiny bit of a window, but it was enough for the genetically engineered alien to take advantage. He got his hands on the rifle and pushed her back.

  He tried to tear it away from her like she had taken his, but Andy wasn’t going to let that happen. She was upset that the shin kick had dislodged her from her position of advantage, so she wasn’t about to let her body and her ego take a worse hit by letting him disarm her. She had her pride, after all. His grip wasn’t strong enough to fight her twisting, and he let go.

  Behind and to either side of her came the scattered grunts of her squad engaged in the same level of combat. Loud reports of gunfire could be heard in the distance. She couldn’t stop to check on any of them with the hulking, pasty white brute in front of her. The Arkana had rapidly improved their hand-to-hand combat skills and the Marines were forced to continue developing new tactics to maintain their edge.

  When would it all end?

  When we’re done, or when we’re dead.

  Andy let her rifle swing down to her side in its combat sling while she took one step back to put distance between the two of them, just long enough to pull a knife from one of the sheaths lining the front of her vest. She held it in a reverse grip, keeping the blade in line with her wrist, shifting from side to side on the balls of her feet for a moment before suddenly surging forward again.

  She sliced through the air toward the soldier, and he pulled his head back just in time to avoid it reaching his throat. On the backswing, she came in with a stabbing motion that he blocked and deflected—again, just in time. She didn’t give him a moment to breathe, bringing the knife up for a diagonal stabbing slash.

  Again, the block. This time, however, she pressed forward to hold the defending hand and wrist in place with the blade of her knife. She reached up and grabbed the end of the blade, effectively locking the Arkana’s wrist in place. His ice blue eyes looked at the lock and the white brows drew together, seemingly in shock and confusion. Apparently, he hadn’t been prepared for ancient Earth dagger training.

  Well, that was just too bad for him, wasn’t it?

  She stepped back and jerked her hands down, pulling him off balance and falling forward. Andy let go of the lock only because she brought her knee up, fast and hard. There was a crunch when the top of her knee connected with the bridge of his nose, and then her elbow came down on the back of his neck.

  The Arkana fell to the ground and didn’t get up again.

  Major Dolan straightened up and prepared to turn when there was something—or rather, someone—on her back. The flash of snow white skin told her that it was another Arkana, and the slender feel of the arm said it was a woman. Andy didn’t have time to wonder why she hadn’t shot her. She threw herself forward enough to pull the woman off her feet, gripping the arm at her throat with one hand while she twirled her knife to a forward grip.

  She lifted her blade hand and sliced the white flesh. There was a shriek, and then a splash of blood that was a startling shade of crimson against the pale flesh. The clinging arm loosened, and Andy was able to shift the weight and toss the woman over her shoulder.

  The Arkana soldier was hissing like a cornered cat, scrambling to her feet, although it was clear that her cut arm was now weakened. It didn’t appear that she had her weapon and Andy, for a split second, was proud of her squad’s disarming techniques.

  To her credit, the enemy soldier got her hands up in a defensive posture and was ready to come at Andy again. Andy kept her knife and brought her hands up.

  “Traitor scum,” the woman hissed, a clear tremor of righteous anger in her voice. “How could you turn on your own people?”

  “I am human,” she retorted easily, though that was only part of her heritage.

  “We are more than human,” the other woman said. She stepped forward and took a swing. Andy sidestepped and blocked, pushing the fist away with her open hand. “And we are pure! You align with these humans who are inferior in every way that matters!”

  The Arkana woman was all but screaming at this point, likely making quite the sound show for anyone able to listen.

  She sent another wild swing flying at Andy, who caught the offending wrist and held it tight. With her other hand, she used the fist around her knife grip to hammer the woman in the face once, then twice. The Arkana woman spat and twisted her hand, breaking the grip on her wrist and scrambling away.

  “I know exactly who I am,” Andy said, not giving the enemy an inch of breathing room as she stalked forward. Stab. Block. Slash. Shallow hit. “And I know exactly who I’m with.” Her voice lowered to a growl. “And I know exactly who my enemy is!” She surged forward with a great step, closing the remaining distance between them and entering the other woman’s weakened guard.

  A definitive slash ended the argument, and the woman fell to the ground.

  This time, no one else jumped up to attack her. She was able to turn and look at the corridor outside the bridge of the ESS Star Chaser. Several enemy soldiers on the ground, dead or subdued. All four members of her squad were still on their feet, but not unscathed. This hadn’t been an easy fight.

  Without a word, she nodded at the door to the bridge. She pressed the panel to open it, since automatic door slides disengaged during an active intruder alert, and then entered the bridge. It was their primary defense point during a boarding engagement. Their objective was to prevent anyone from getting
onto the bridge, and she was happy to see that they had done their job successfully.

  The only people on the bridge of the Star Chaser were the ESS personnel meant to be there.

  “Report?” Andy asked.

  “Internal sensors report no new intruders,” the sensor officer reported.

  Andy smiled a little and pressed her communications earpiece. “All squads, report.”

  One by one, she heard from the leaders of Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon and Theta Squads. All intruders had been neutralized. Two Marines had been lost. Five others had been taken to sickbay, but were expected to recover.

  With a heavy sigh, Andy acknowledged the reports. To lose one was too many, but she knew it was unavoidable.

  It was the cost of war.

  Chapter 2

  It had been four months since ESS Command and the Allied Civilian Counsel had declared themselves to be at a state of interstellar war.

  The Arkana had been created by scientists centuries before on Earth, who wanted to be able to protect themselves during the early days of alien first contacts and relations. The species was genetically engineered to resist almost every natural ability of other alien races, and now these chickens were coming home to roost. After being in deep space all these years, long forgotten by everyone, they were determined to conquer every alien species between them and Earth.

  They were determined to take Earth for themselves, and for only those humans who agreed with their history.

  The ESS and its allies were not enthused by this idea.

  “There’s one more thing, Major,” Atad, the leader of Beta Squad, reported before they closed their channel.

  “What’s that, Sergeant?”

  “We have a prisoner, and he’s still alive.”

  Andy had to pause and blink. The Arkana race, since the start of the war, had never been kept alive after capture. They carried or secreted some substance that acted like a suicide pill that ESS personnel had not been able to locate. It killed quickly and prevented them from being studied—or interrogated—alive. Autopsies only went so far.

  She had assumed that all of the prisoners they had just taken were dead by now. They would never intentionally kill a prisoner of war, though. It went against moral code as well as ESS Marine regulations.

  “Well, we better make the most of it,” Andy said. They weren’t going to let any grass grow, as they would say on Earth. “I’ll be right there.” She closed the channel and then turned to the captain.

  Captain Wallace was standing in front of the center seat, his arms folded over his broad chest as he watched her. She knew he could tell that she’d gotten some interesting news, but he had not been able to hear both sides of the conversation. His left brow—which now bore a scar from an engagement two and a half months ago—rose as he waited.

  “Sergeant Atad reports that we have a prisoner who remains alive,” she said, then watched as he had the same reaction she had.

  “Let’s get down there.”

  Andy nodded once. “Yes, Sir.”

  She headed for the exit immediately, but stopped by her squad. “Roxanna, status of the prisoners?”

  The answer was as expected. “Being carted to the morgue,” she replied. The Selerid’s purple skin swirled with pearlescent shades, as it always did when she was agitated or feeling an adrenaline rush. Battle had not yet left her veins. “It just happens so damn fast.” Her purple brows knit while she blinked, slowing shaking her head. “Why is this guy still alive?”

  Andy shrugged. “Maybe it didn’t work,” she said. “Or maybe he just doesn’t want to die. I will find out. Sergeant, keep working on the cleanup here and check in with the other squads one more time. I’ll be in the brig.”

  “Come on, Major. I thought you were supposed to be a good role model for us and not get in trouble,” Lance Corporal Dan Thomas chimed in with his usual sense of humor.

  “Just get to work,” Andy said with a half-smile and shake of her head.

  Any humor she felt, however thin, vanished when she left the bridge with the captain and they walked past the line of bodies where recently alive prisoners had been. Even though the Arkana were the enemy, it bothered her that they took prisoners who then refused to stay alive. They would not be mistreated in custody, but they never gave themselves a chance to find out.

  Of course, her feelings were clouded further by the fact that her father had been Arkana. She hadn’t known this until six months ago, having spent all of her life assuming she was fully human while wondering who her father was. When she began to show shocking resistance to alien abilities and had some “strange DNA” pop up in her body, it was clear that she was something other than human.

  Then the Arkana showed up on her ship, forcing her to choose a side.

  Neither she nor Captain Wallace spoke much as they headed for the security deck and entered the foyer of the brig. In the very first cell sat their prisoner, who was still alive. Andy had almost expected him to kill himself before she could get to the brig, but that hadn’t happened.

  “It’s you,” he drawled as he lifted his head and looked at her. Those icy blue eyes were penetrating no matter which Arkana’s face they stared out of. She didn’t let it show, of course, and just folded her arms across her chest as she returned the look. He stared at her without blinking from a face well-bruised on one side.

  “Yes, it’s me,” she drawled right back.

  “I knew you were on this ship. Everyone knows you’re on this ship. No one in the history of the Arkana has ever refused to join us when they found out they were one of us,” he said with an almost maniacal smile. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to our leadership?”

  Andy tilted her head slightly. “I imagine they were not pleased.”

  He laughed, maybe. It was a high-pitched barking sound that may have resembled a laugh, although she wouldn’t swear to it. “Yes. Yes, that’s one way to put it. No, they were not and are not pleased. More than that, every Arkana alive is obsessed with you. And they all want your blood. Your mixed, muddy, half-human blood.”

  “Not you,” Andy said on a guess.

  He shrugged. “I don’t care so much.”

  Captain Wallace stepped in, apparently with a question that had been on his mind a great deal; it was something on everyone’s mind. “If humanity created the Arkana, why are you so hell bent on killing us now?”

  The Arkana turned his head slowly. “We were created to conquer; to kill those who stand in the way. It matters not if you are human. Humans are our creators, our parents, and is it not symbolic, and sometimes literal, that the parents must die for the children to take their rightful position in the universe?”

  “Why aren’t you dead?” Andy asked bluntly.

  “I have my reasons,” he replied enigmatically. “Similar reasons for why I don’t hate you as much as the rest. Maybe I admire you.” He smiled cynically.

  She knit her brows as she stared at him. “Admire me?”

  He stared at her for several long moments without reply. It was long enough to unnerve her further, but she kept her Marine face on.

  “Don’t let the Arkana take a planet,” he finally said, not answering her question at all and instead confusing her. “If they get a planet, they will start to gain a foothold you will not be able to overcome. They have their eyes set on one. Only one city need be taken to possess it, and then the real trouble starts.”

  “What planet?” Andy asked skeptically. Why was he telling them this?

  “Don’t let them take a planet,” he repeated, and then turned his face forward again. They asked more questions, but he would say no more.

  Could they afford to trust him?

  Could they afford not to?

  Chapter 3

  “It could be a trap,” Andy said for the fifth time.

  “Yes, it could be,” Wallace agreed patiently. “It doesn’t walk us into it, however, to look at a freaking map.” Okay, maybe he wasn’t so patient.

 
; Andy realized that she should hold her tongue at that point.

  Captain Wallace and his first officer, Commander Shailain, stood around a broad table, where the entire interactive tabletop screen was showing a star map of ESS and Allied space. It had little light dots to show where there had been Arkana attacks and raids, as well as battles and skirmishes. So far, as the prisoner had pointed out, the Arkana had not taken any planets. They had managed to capture and maintain control of several ESS and Allied stations, as well as moon and asteroid outposts, but no planets.

  “They are moving,” Andy said with a tactical eye. “They seem to have a direction, much like a swarm of bees. A few outliers, but a general cluster that suggests they are moving in one direction. Problem is, the swarm is pretty freaking wide.”

  Shailain pointed at a few different colored dots. “Satellites and long-range sensors have picked up on Kriori Armed Forces engaging them in this area, but the Kriori still won’t talk to us and after that last battle when they shot us as much as the Arkana... Well.”

  Andy sighed, knowing all too well the situation. The ESS were not the only ones fighting the Arkana, as it turned out. Non-Allied races were as well. Some of them were willing to at least communicate and form some cooperation with the ESS, even if not an alliance, and then others—like the slave-trading Kriori—didn’t even want to talk. It made for some messy situations, to say the very least.

  “What planets are in their range along this line?” Wallace asked, tracing a curve on the map that seemed to be the forward edge of the Arkana front.