Zenith (ESS Space Marines Book 1) Read online

  What was it about this place, about what had happened here, that had them like this? She knew she wasn’t feeling particularly comfortable, but they seemed beyond that.

  With the lights on now, however, it would be easier to search the rooms. Andy turned and took a quick visual survey of this one, finding that it was much larger than the previous one. The room extended around a corner into an apparent ‘L’ shape, which they would need to clear next.

  “Everyone,” she said in a low voice, nodding to the corner.

  “There’s nothing alive there,” Roxanna said in an equally low voice. “I...” She paused and her purple eyes were intense while her pale purple skin seemed to turn pearlescent and shimmer. “There may be bodies.”

  “Keep alert, folks,” Andy said, moving them forward. Corpses were never things that she wanted to find, but to find anything would be promising. She had found that you could learn a lot from a dead body and she desperately needed to know more.

  Andy moved along the visible wall, sliding around the corner with her gun up. But as she came around the wall, she didn’t see any obvious enemies. What she did see was a blockade of furniture. It looked just like it had in the other room, although this seemed larger and more fortified than the other one had been.

  Holding up her hand, she brought the group to a halt. Aside from their own breathing, there was no sound. Nothing moved, just the flickering of the artificial light. She motioned for them to move forward again and the group split around the wall of furniture.

  “Sergeant,” Roxanna said, coming around the right-hand side and stopping. “Bodies.”

  Andy’s trip around the left took longer because of the vague J-shape to the blockade, but then she saw them.

  “Anallin, scan them,” she said, lowering her weapon slightly to take a better visual inspection.

  There were three. They all appeared to be human and had clearly been dead longer than a couple of days. Sitting on the floor and leaning back against the wall, two of them had long rifles in hand. Andy didn’t see any burn marks on the blockade or walls which suggested that the weapons had not been discharged.

  The bodies seemed intact, with no sign of blood or injury, but they were sunken in and she couldn’t tell if it was an effect of how long they had been here or something else. Andy really needed more information.

  There was a bag open on the floor beside the body furthest from her. “Roxanna,” Andy said across the space between them, “would you see what’s in that bag?”

  The Selerid woman nodded and shouldered her rifle, kneeling next to the bag. She moved cautiously as she looked inside. After a moment of digging around, she said, “It’s a medical bag, Sergeant. Pretty basic, and not very organized. If I had to guess, I would say it was something thrown together rather than a standard medical complement.”

  Andy nodded, not feeling at all surprised by this theory. She was aware that it was all just hypothetical, but it was the best guess they could make based off the information at hand. She hoped that Anallin would have more as she turned toward the Hanaran.

  “One died of dehydration,” Anallin reported. “The other two died of an overdose of Atenolol. It's a medical compound normally administered to calm a rapid heart rate, but at overdose levels, it can kill you.” The Hanaran nodded at the device in the middle corpse’s hand. “I would presume that it was self-administered.”

  Andy thought that would’ve been obvious, since how else would it have happened with the bodies like this? The one that died of dehydration, though... How long had they been in here? If she had to guess, it looked like they had holed up here to protect themselves from something, but from what?

  Chapter 4

  While the rest of the team did a full visual and scanner investigation of the room, Andy moved away and pressed the button on the earpiece around and in her left ear. “Sergeant Dolan to alpha team lead,” she called. “Major Carson, come in.” She waited a few moments, but there was no response. Frowning, she gave it a few moments more before she repeated her hail.

  Finally, his voice filled her ear. “Yes. Sergeant. Report.”

  It was her turn to hesitate, wondering if there was something different about his tone.

  “Yes, sir,” she finally replied. “We have worked our way through two rooms. In the second room, we found three bodies.”

  “We, uh, yes. We found a couple of bodies too. It’s...it’s not pretty.” His voice almost seemed to shake at points, which was something she had never heard from him before. In fact, she almost didn’t recognize the uncertain voice, it was so foreign coming from her detachment commander. “I...I don’t really know what to make of it.”

  “What did alpha team find, sir?” Andy asked carefully, turning her back on her team so they couldn’t hear her or the worry creeping into her tone.

  “It’s, uh,” he stammered. She thought she heard some kind of shifting in the background, like someone was moving boxes or something. “I don’t really know if that’s something I want to talk about, Andy.” Her eyes widened at the use of not just her first name but her nickname, over a channel, while on a mission. “I, yeah, that’s not something anyone should talk about.”

  “The bodies we found here died of apparent dehydration and self-inflicted drug overdose,” she said, determining that she still needed to report on what she had found and hoping maybe to bring him back into focus.

  “These folks didn’t die of anything so peaceful.” It was the first thing he’d said without stammering, which made it all the more chilling. She didn’t say anything right away, waiting to see if anything more was forthcoming.

  Nothing was.

  “Do you want us to do anything special here?” she asked cautiously.

  “No... No, uh, just, you know, finish looking over the room and then mark it off for the forensic medical team to check out after we’ve cleared the station.” She could hear something clicking, like boot heels while a person is pacing.

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “Dolan out.” She let go of the open-channel button.

  If she had been hoping for some kind of reassurance from him, that certainly hadn’t happened. She wondered if her unease was something she should follow up on, but what would she do? Major Carson was the next in her chain of command and if she was that worried, then she had to go over him to the ship’s ESS crew—to the first officer and captain. To do that was a quagmire and only for desperation measures...

  Was this enough? Carson certainly hadn’t sounded like himself, he had sounded distracted and concerned, but so was everyone, it seemed. The situation was unnerving and she had no reason to believe that there was anything more than that. She had no reason to suspect there was any dereliction of duty that deserved to be chased down.

  No. For now, she would keep her concerns to herself.

  “Sergeant,” Anallin said, appearing suddenly behind Andy, eyes clicking more frequently than usual. “I have completed full scans of the three bodies and recorded their DNA profiles, as well as taken samples of each and stored them for transport back to the Star Chaser. I would imagine that the science department can do a better job analyzing it than we can right now.”

  “Yes, I would imagine so,” Andy agreed with a slow nod.

  Hanarans were a notoriously difficult species to read, emotionally speaking. It wasn’t that they didn’t have emotions or particularly tried to keep them to themselves, but all the cues that humans used to recognize them were absent in the Hanaran species—vocal tone and expression being all but absent.

  Andy had been working with Anallin long enough now to be able to read some Hanaran-specific cues, however. and She searched its face and body language now to try to read it and understand what she could. The increased frequency of the clicking noises was one thing and easily noticed. That spoke to a heightened emotional state, as did the excess words and stating of the obvious.

  Anallin was just as unnerved as everyone else, if she had to guess. A part of Andy wanted to just pack up an
d get back to the ship, but she knew they had a mission and they had to carry it out. She wasn’t going to abandon it, even if that part of her brain was getting bigger and louder with each passing moment—not so much because she was feeling it, but because she saw what it was doing to everyone else.

  “Good work,” she said simply but sincerely. “It will be very important for us to know everything we can about these people.”

  The lance corporal nodded once, but the clicking sound decreased in frequency for a few moments before the Hanaran turned away and returned to the bodies. Andy moved back that way as well and saw Dan leaning against the wall, white knuckles around his rifle, while Jade was still looking around in quick glances. It looked like she was listening to something, but to what? Andy didn’t hear anything aside from them, but maybe it was the clicking.

  “Did we find anything else?” she asked as she rejoined them.

  “What did the major have to say?” Dan asked in an uncharacteristically flat voice, not answering her question as he asked his own.

  She looked at him for a long moment. “Did we find anything else, Thomas?” she repeated her question, speaking a little more slowly and enunciating each word a little more. Okay, so they were all disconcerted, but that was no reason to forget themselves entirely. She’d give them some slack, but they had a job to do.

  His brows drew together with a small frown in a way she wasn’t used to, but he didn’t say anything further. Instead, he straightened up slightly. “No, Sergeant,” he said soberly. “Anallin has continued to examine the bodies, while Roxanna has tried to see if her empathic abilities could pick up on anything around us. She hasn’t. The room was obviously built as a barricade against something, but there are no signs of an attack in this room. Nothing like what we found in the last room, although one...” He blinked, and the frowning expression turned more uncertain. “I mean, these folks were walling themselves up against someone or something, and it looked like whoever was in the other room did too—just not as well. I would guess that whatever they were scared of was what found the people in that first room and, literally, dragged them out.”

  Andy watched his shoulders hitch up suddenly. If she had to guess, he was suppressing a shudder, and she couldn’t blame him.

  “It’s all right, Thomas,” she said in a slightly less commanding tone than what she had used just a couple of minutes ago. “We’ll find out what happened here and keep our eyes open so nothing happens to us.”

  He stared at her for a long moment before nodding shakily. “Yes, Sergeant,” he said.

  In other circumstances, she may have been inclined to tell them about her conversation with the major, but she didn’t think it would serve any purpose to let them know they weren’t the only ones freaking out.

  “Alright, pack it up,” she ordered. “If you have something to finish, then finish it. We have to get back on the move so we can check out the rest of these rooms. Keep your eyes open. We don’t know what else we’ll find.”

  Chapter 5

  Anallin finished the last of the scans and then packed up the equipment. After that, they placed a marker that would lead the forensic team to the bodies. They didn’t have the equipment to put up a proper quarantine, so this would have to do. Once that was set, they gathered themselves together and then headed back into the corridor.

  Andy struggled to keep her mind on everything around them, thinking back to how unnerving that call with Carson had been. What had he found that had him so unsettled? What they had found had definitely been unsettling, but still, it was Carson. Their leader. He wasn’t supposed to give in to the sort of things that they did.

  He had to lead them, but how could he when he could barely keep himself together?

  Overhead, the light panels flashed once, then twice. The lights stayed on after that, but now a strange buzzing followed, coming and going without any pattern or regularity. There was something about that which set already frayed nerves on edge, but she forced herself to drown it out and keep her grip secure on her pulse rifle as they rounded another corner.

  As they swung around, Andy heard a new strange noise. It took a moment for her to recognize what it was and when she did, she spun around to look behind her. The sound was the increasingly ragged breathing of Jade hyperventilating. The sergeant just stared at her for a moment. Andy seemed to be the only one keeping it together at the moment.

  Talking didn’t seem to be helping so Andy chose a sharper tactic.

  “Martin!” Andy snapped, her voice half-hissing. “You need to pull yourself together this instant, Private. We are on a mission and we have a job to do, Marine! Haul it in!” She kept her voice low and tight, but forceful. She needed her squad to keep themselves together and she did get Jade’s attention, but the woman’s eyes remained wide and her breathing didn’t seem to get that much more even, although it was a little quieter.

  Andy snorted with frustration. What was it going to take?

  The lights flickered again and Andy sighed.

  “Keep it moving,” she finally said, and the five of them started down the corridor again to the discordant cadence of the strange buzzing.

  The section of the corridor they were in didn’t have any other rooms, so they took another turn and headed deeper into the station. This one was long, and the light panels at the far end weren’t working, neither did their lights reach that far. Andy wondered what was down in the darkness, but she didn’t let it stop them and she kept her team moving forward.

  “Sergeant,” Roxanna said abruptly, her voice harsh against the silence. “I...”

  After a moment, Andy prompted, “What is it, Corporal?”

  Another long moment, and then Roxanna said, “I think I may sense people. Not a lot of them, but I can feel something.”

  “Something? Maybe?” Andy repeated tightly. She wasn’t used to the Selerid woman being so...unclear. Usually she was at least sure whether she was sensing people or not. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” the other admitted with a sigh. “It’s like there’s some kind of fog around my senses and I can’t feel anything clearly. I can’t recall a time I felt this way before, except perhaps when I had that case of Ferillin Virus. I know I don’t have it now, so I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  “You...you can’t tell?” Dan asked, his voice shaking audibly.

  Roxanna inhaled slowly. “No. No, I can’t. I can sense something, but I can’t tell as much as I usually can.”

  He laughed. The sound was thin and high. “Well, that’s just great! Great!” he exclaimed, his voice rising to a pitch that made Andy almost wince. It was made worse by the fact everything else was so quiet.

  “Thomas!” she snapped. “Bring it back in.”

  “No!” he replied shrilly.

  Andy opened her mouth to say something else, but she didn’t have the chance. Dan turned around and took off. For a moment, all she could do was stare after him. He had never done anything like that before, although she had never seen him so outright afraid before either. It was almost too hard to process; it was so out of the ordinary.

  What is wrong with my team?

  She looked at the other three. None of them looked like they were doing very well, but at least they weren’t shrieking or running away. She would have to take what small victories she could get while they were there.

  No one left behind...

  “We’ll find the ‘something’ later. For now, we have to go get his lunatic self and drag him back. I don’t know what’s going on, but we can’t abandon him in this station,” Andy said. “Anallin, locate his tracker.”

  Every uniform had an embedded tracking device that could be pulled up on their handheld scanners, although Andy didn’t think it was meant to be used when a marine ran away.

  She knew that Anallin would have to do it while on the run because she didn’t want to waste any more time. She nodded for the others to follow her and she started in the direction Dan had gone, although at a far m
ore cautious pace. As she moved, she touched the comm-piece in her ear. She had a sinking feeling that it wouldn’t do her much good, but she knew she had to call it in.

  “I have it,” she heard Anallin say just before she spoke.

  “Dolan to Carson,” Andy said, nodding for Anallin to take point beside her and lead the way.

  There was no reply.

  “Dolan to Carson,” she repeated, this time more emphatically, just in case the extra urgency in her voice would make a piece of equipment work better.

  Unsurprisingly, it didn’t. There was still no reply.

  That sinking pit in her stomach opened up again and she swallowed back a sigh and a couple of creative curses she hadn’t known existed until she’d enlisted.

  “Dolan to Carson, alpha squad lead, come in,” she said, even more urgently than the time before, trying to not let her feelings get the better of her while they moved back down the corridor in the direction they had come.

  “Sergeant?” Jade asked timidly.

  Andy grunted. “They’re not replying.”

  Chapter 6

  “He got a lot further than I would’ve expected in that amount of time,” Anallin commented, although it sounded more irritated than concerned. Andy recognized that as unusual, but didn’t have time to think it through.

  They were entering a part of the station they hadn’t explored yet. Andy pressed her comm-piece again, her dark brows knitting as she tried to split her attention between the call and the searching. “Dolan to Nalir’a, beta squad lead,” she called, hoping for better luck with this call than the last, although the concern from the first wasn’t gone at all.

  When she didn’t get a reply, she gritted her teeth and exhaled forcefully.