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  The enemy caught on to their presence after a moment, but their shots didn’t land.

  Somehow, the distance between the two ships hadn’t seemed far at all when they were getting shot at, but now that she stared at the shuttle as it raced over, it seemed like there were galaxies between them.

  The shuttle finally slammed into the end of the Arkana ship. It smashed itself to pieces in the process, but the enemy ship began the spin they needed. A cheer went out from the rest of the bridge crew as they watched physics at work.

  Jade’s voice jumped into her ear. “Major, the drones are ready to launch at any time.”

  “Can they hook onto the ship in the middle of that spin?” Andy asked uncertainly, cursing herself for not double-checking that part of the plan.

  “Yes, sir,” Jade replied. “Not easily, but they can, and they will.”

  “Then let them loose, Private,” Andy said quickly.

  “Launching drones!”

  Turning back to the view screen, Andy watched for the sight of the drones like she had watched for the shuttle, but they were not as easily spotted as the shuttle had been. She wasn’t even sure they had launched until Jade called in that they had made contact with the out of control Arkana vessel.

  They had a certain amount of time to wait to be sure. It had been worked out between Anath and the ship’s doctor.

  “Initiating slow down now,” Jade said.

  Everyone on the bridge watched the ship as it suddenly slowed and eventually stopped.

  Then they waited.

  Had they been successful? Was the crew of that Arkana ship now unconscious so they could move in and take it over without them blowing the ship up? Once they were captured, she knew there was little chance of them staying alive, but she had priorities here, and getting that ship was the first.

  “Can we scan the interior of the ship?” Wallace asked.

  “Whatever Anath did, it seems to have affected more dampening systems than just the inertia mitigation,” the sensor officer said. “I can see inside and it looks like everyone is knocked out. I’m seeing eight faint life signs.”

  Andy blew out a breath of relief. “What about damage caused by the shuttle?”

  There was a few moments of pause. “It did significant damage to that portion of the ship and it broke through the hull, but it looks like they have forcefields in place to keep everything from depressurizing. I don’t believe the main computer system took any damage.”

  “Good,” Andy said with a single nod.

  Her stupid plan had not backfired entirely. There was relief in that. “Dolan to Alpha Squad. Get ready to board the enemy ship and take it over.”

  25

  There was a preternatural silence to the Arkana ship when the team of Marines boarded it.

  The weapons fire was all quiet, and any alarms that had been going off inside this ship were now quiet as well. No crew was running at them, or shooting at them. There was just…nothing. Their sensors said the ship had regained its atmosphere after the sudden collision with their shuttle, but they stayed in their atmospheric suits anyways for the moment.

  Andy and her squad swept through the ship, and they found eight crew members, all unconscious and looking worse for wear.

  “First things first, we need to get them secured,” Andy said, pointing at the bodies in their immediate vicinity. “I don’t want any of them possibly waking up and coming after us while we’re at work.” She knew that the directive to take prisoners had been rescinded, but none of them were going to shoot unconscious people.

  “No, that wouldn’t be a good thing,” Dan agreed in his usually flippant way. Another leader might have thought him being inappropriate, but she knew him. She knew that it was a stress reaction.

  They carried the unconscious forms from their duty stations throughout the ship and into the ship’s brig. Anath was able to locate it, and then he and Jade adjusted the controls so that they couldn’t break themselves free in the event they did wake up. Andy wasn’t sure that would ever happen, but then again, what did it matter?

  All of them would kill themselves the moment they awoke in captivity and could not escape. It was inevitable. She knew that now, but it would be their choice, not hers.

  Once the crew was secured, they had the ship to themselves. She could hardly believe it.

  “Major Dolan to the Star Chaser,” she said into her helmet’s communicator.

  “Star Chaser here. Go ahead, Major.”

  “We have secured the Arkana vessel and placed the crew in the brig. We will now begin the operation.”

  “Proceed, Major. We will remain as long as we can, but you may be on your own if we have to move out. Good luck, and get that ship back to safe space soon. Star Chaser out.”

  Now that they were on board, the operation was remarkably simple and remarkably complex all at the same time. They had to fix the ship to return it to space worthiness and then get it back to deeper ESS territory so they could analyze it.

  In the meantime, they would also begin trying to crack the computer.

  “Anath, Jade, start on repairs immediately to get us moving again,” Andy ordered. “Take any of us that you need that will be helpful. Meanwhile, the rest of us will hang out up here and try to avoid doing anything stupid.”

  “I think we’ve filled our quota for that for one day,” Anath said as he and Jade left the bridge. “Anallin, come give us a hand.”

  Once the three of them were gone, Dan looked at Andy and Roxanna. “What, we weren’t pretty enough?”

  Andy laughed quietly and shook her head. “Corporal, you’re something else.”

  “This was poorly planned.”

  Only Andy was allowed to open a conversation with that, although it then gave permission for the others to agree if they wanted.

  The three of them were sitting on the bridge. They wanted to investigate the systems and controls, but they were painfully aware of their lack of understanding of both. One wrong move could end up doing something really terrible, thus sending the entire operation into the metaphorical dirt.

  However, this left them terribly bored while they waited on the others.

  “I should have brought some playing cards,” Dan said, staring off into the nothingness of the white floor.

  “I can’t get over how monochrome they are,” Roxanna added, leaning back in her seat so she could stare at the ceiling. It was true. Except for their eyes, their hair and skin were the same color, and so were all of their substances and décor. The whole ship was white, from the ceiling to the covering on the deck plates. It felt like they were stuck on a really snowy plain, but without the cold, or snow.

  It was all very shiny, too. Andy couldn’t help but think of videos from long ago and what they thought space vessels would or should look like. Although considering the timing and the origins, that made sense.

  Still, it was just barely this side of blinding.

  “If nothing else, their bad sense of taste would be enough to declare war over,” Dan deadpanned, blowing out a breath.

  A bored Marine was a terrible thing. They were likely to start shooting random objects, which would definitely send things awry.

  “All of your boredom is making me boreder,” Roxanna said with a half-smile.

  “Is that an actual word?” Dan asked, lifting his head to look at the Selerid.

  “It is in my language,” she said. “But you wouldn’t have a chance of replicating the word if I told you.”

  Dan grunted softly. “Yeah, I’ve heard you when you get agitated and start going too fast for the translation,” he said. “I can’t even imagine thinking about how to do that, but I’ve also seen you stick your tongue out at us in some of your less sergeant-like moments, so I have no idea why your tongue can make those sounds and mine can’t.”

  Andy watched the exchange with an amused, yet weary, smile.

  “I guess I’m just magic, Corporal,” Roxanna said teasingly.

  Dan look
ed like he was debating the wisdom of replying to that when the ship’s communications systems made a weird chirp-like noise. “We got her going again. We’re coming back to the bridge. Get ready to take off.”

  26

  The three of them hurried onto the bridge. “Martin, we’ll need you at the sensors station. The one right there.” He pointed. “I’m going to take helm.”

  “You can fly?” Andy asked with surprise.

  “Navigation is considered a secondary specialty for our soldiers, but every soldier is required to have one or two and this is one of mine,” he answered as he sat at the center console. Unlike the bridge of an ESS ship, it was the pilot’s seat that took the center stage. Andy really wasn’t sure what the rest of the spaces were for, until she saw Jade sit where she’d been pointed.

  “Useful,” Andy said. She’d thought that Jade was going to be the one to figure out the pilot controls, but frankly, she didn’t care who did the driving so long as the ship got sent forward. She pressed her communicator. “Dolan to the Star Chaser,” she said. “We’ve got the ship functional again and we’re ready to return to safer space.”

  “Glad to hear it, Major,” Wallace replied. “Sync your course.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Anath and Jade coordinated with the officers on the Star Chaser, and the two ships took off at best speed.

  Bekonna had been toward the edge of one section of ESS space. It bordered on territories known to be frequented by the Kriori. While the Kriori were not allies of the Arkana, they would not ally themselves with the ESS either, and tended to fight both sides as necessary. Well, what they thought was necessary.

  The Kriori were known slavers, so they often deemed it necessary. Andy imagined they had tried to capture the Arkana as well, only to learn of their suicidal habits.

  “Martin, do we see anything on the sensors?” Andy asked, her level of tension jumping back up to high as she started thinking about the Kriori. Before the war broke out, dealing with them and their slaving ways had been one of the primary functions of the Marines.

  “So far so good, Major,” Jade replied, looking strangely at home behind that alien console, operating its controls. “We’ve managed to form a direct link to the Star Chaser and they are feeding their sensor information in. They have a better range than this ship, and they aren’t seeing anything either.”

  Andy nodded. “Good, good.”

  She started pacing the bridge, mainly for a lack of anything better to do and any other way to channel the tension. There was of course no way to be sure they were in “safe space” away from the Arkana, less so with every day, but they could at least be far enough away from Kriori territory.

  “Andy, you’re going to wear a hole in the floor if you keep doing that,” Anath said without looking up from the pilot’s console, “and we don’t want to break the shiny new ship that we just stole.”

  “The other options aren’t any better,” she returned. “Get this ship back to somewhere we can dock it and study it, and then I’ll stop pacing.”

  “So demanding,” he said, his voice taut but still teasing.

  He was the only one allowed to speak to her so casually during an operation, given that he wasn’t technically a Marine, and she appreciated the break in the moment. It helped ease her tension a little. Not enough to stop the pacing, but enough.

  “What do we think the chances are that we actually get the ship and get back to a safe dock without any trouble?” Dan asked from where he sat in the same spot, still not touching anything to keep from messing it up .

  “I would say not very good, what with our record lately,” Roxanna said. “But on the other hand, I would say that we’re due for some better luck…wouldn’t you?”

  “I would,” he agreed, “but that doesn’t mean we’re going to get it.”

  No one could argue with that point.

  Nearly ten more minutes passed, and Andy did eventually force herself to have a seat. If for no other reason than to not stress out the rest of her squad.

  “Sir,” Jade suddenly said, her voice tense. “I’m picking up something on the outer edge of our sensor array.”

  Andy was immediately back on her feet, moving to join Jade at the sensor console even though she wasn’t able to read most of the information that was coming across the screen.

  “Are you still getting the feed from the Star Chaser?” Andy asked, putting her hand on the back of Jade’s glossy white seat.

  “There’s some interference,” the young woman replied with a frown, “but it’s still coming through.”

  When she took too long to reply, Andy asked, “Well? Arkana? Kriori? A new enemy that we’ve never heard of but that has some bizarre ties to us that we never could have imagined?” She gripped the back of the seat to keep from banging against it.

  Jade pressed her lips together in such a thin line that Andy worried they were about to vanish. “It’s coming through more clearly now,” she finally said, just as Andy was about to yank the back of the chair right off. “Oh, thank the stars,” she said with a gushing exhale of relief. “It’s an ESS ship. It’s the Star Catcher, Major.”

  Andy started laughing. Then so did everyone else.

  All of the nerves and panic over a ship that turned out to be friendly. Well, it was better than the alternative. Rather buildup and not need it then not have it just before being clobbered.

  “Looks like you’ve got another escort, Major Dolan,” Captain Wallace’s voice came over her communicator. “Although it was a near miss that the Catcher nearly set its sights on you.” There was tense amusement in his voice, that edge that brought itself near to hysteria, just like it had been for Alpha Squad. “But they listened to me, and you’re safe, so the Star Catcher will help fly us deeper into ESS space.”

  “We’re glad for the company, Captain,” Andy said sincerely. “We’ve got the darn ship, now we need to find a good place to stash it so we can get what we need.”

  “Yes, indeed, Major.”

  The channel closed.

  “Maybe our luck is changing,” Dan commented, although he didn’t sound particularly convinced.

  Andy certainly wasn’t, but she was glad for a win, and the first big step on the path to the end of this war.

  It was just a matter of time.

  Planet Breaker

  ESS Space Marines, Book 9

  1

  Starbase Eclipse, Guest Quarters

  Major Andrea ‘Andy’ Dolan, Commander of the 33rd Platoon, Second Company, First Battalion of the ESS Marines, lined up her shot.

  She squeezed one eye closed, then opened it. She squinted with the other eye, and then opened it. The target was stupidly close, but she still wasn’t sure she was going to make it. Andy couldn’t be bloody sure of anything these days, could she?

  After a few more moments of indecision, she tossed the bottle.

  The synthetic material struck the inside of the bin and piled on top of all the other empty bottles therein. She squinted for a moment, making sure that it was actually in the bin, since her vision was a little blurry, before reaching for the full bottle to her left and dragging it closer.

  She twisted the top off and took a long drink.

  The world got just a tad blurrier, but it couldn’t make the thoughts in her head blur away enough. No matter how hard she’d tried…

  And oh, how hard she had tried.

  Andy was halfway through the bottle when the door to her guest quarters chimed. She thought about ignoring it. In fact, she did ignore it, but there was a second chime, to the same result. A minute later, the door opened. She had a pretty good idea of who it was, because first of all, the number of people who could actually open her door without her permission was pretty slim. Secondly, even in her state, she could guess who would actually do it.

  She folded her arms across her desk and buried her face.

  “Get out of here, Anath,” she called, her voice somewhere between a grumble and a growl.


  “Like that’s going to happen,” he retorted. He kicked the leg of her chair so hard that it turned, yanking her hands and head off her desk and nearly sending her face-first to the floor.

  “What the—” she snapped as she caught herself—barely—from falling.

  “Be grateful that’s all I did,” he growled.

  She was going to have strong words with the person who thought giving next-of-kin passcodes to enter each other’s rooms in case of emergency was a good idea.

  Her half-brother stalked across her small living space and reached the bin with all the bottles. Since he apparently had developed an addiction to kicking things, he kicked this over as well. All of the bottles tossed out and went scattering and clattering along the floor.

  Andy frowned. “I don’t see how that was called for.”

  “I don’t see how that was called for!” he shouted, pointing at the scattered bottles, but then his entire expression changed. Sighing, he rubbed his hands over his face. “Okay, alright, I get it. I do get it. After what happened, with the—”

  “Don’t say it,” she interrupted tersely.

  Anath sighed again, walking over and kneeling in front of her chair. He put his snow-white hands on her dark-covered knees. “You can’t do this to yourself anymore,” he said seriously. “I’m not going to cover for you anymore. Your Marines need to know what’s going on. With you, with them, with everything. You can’t hole up in here any longer.”

  “You clearly underestimate me,” she muttered like a sullen adolescent.

  That was pretty much what he thought too, given the look on his face as he met her gaze dryly.

  Her brother’s face was sobering.

  “Anath, it’s just too hard,” she said quietly. “How can I look any of them in the eyes and say things are okay?”

  “You don’t have to say that,” he told her. “You know why? Because it’s not okay, and we all know that. There is still a war raging on outside these station walls, and nothing about that is alright. No one expects you to go outside and say that things are okay. They just want to know that you’re okay.”