World Breaker Boxed Set (ESS Space Marines Omnibus Book 3) Page 22

  “All things considered, they’re doing well,” he said, referring to the fact that many of these squads and platoons had been somewhat rearranged from their original outlay. The entire corps had taken a lot of hits and a lot of losses, without enough recruitment and training to refill them fast enough. To form this force, many groups had been put together that hadn’t been together before—new commanders, new teammates, new organization.

  These things could take time to come together into a cohesive force, but apparently true need could accomplish much.

  “They are,” she agreed, “but is ‘doing well’ going to be ‘doing well enough’ to storm through the city and get to the palace?”

  “It will have to be,” he said. “But we have more time. We’ll work hard, and we’ll get better.”

  She wasn’t sure if he sounded quite as confident about that as she would have liked, but she would take what she could get. She had confidence in her Marines, but she knew that the odds were stacked against them.

  In the empty corridor, Anath put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed a little bit. She appreciated that he didn’t try to say anything else, however, because any words of reassurance beyond what had already been said would sound hollow. They both knew the reality of things.

  As they neared the mess hall, the ship-wide communications system opened up with an announcement from Admiral N’dar.

  “The advance fleet has encountered the first contacts with the Arkana. This is gonna be a hard journey, everyone.”

  17

  Twelve Days Later…

  It was almost time.

  They were almost there.

  Tension on the ship had grown so much that even a non-empath could feel it, and the empaths were dealing with nearly constant headaches. Everyone on board the Planet Breaker had been on ships heading into battles during this time of war, but this time it was different, and everyone knew it. Everyone felt it.

  Lieutenant Colonel Andrea Dolan stood at the podium of the small auditorium, getting ready to brief the platoon commanders of her company.

  Her company… Two weeks on, and she still hadn’t gotten used to that. Or the glimmering bird on her collar.

  Andy watched them all file in and find seats. She couldn’t say she had gotten to know them all “well” during the past two weeks, but she had gotten to know them enough that they didn’t give her a doubtful side-eye they thought she wouldn’t notice when they walked past her.

  “In approximately six hours,” she began once the last Marine had taken their seats, “we will be departing the Planet Breaker and heading to the surface of the Arkana home world.”

  Someone raised a hand, and she nodded at him. “This place really doesn’t have an actual name?”

  She arched a dark brow. “That’s not particularly important right now,” she drawled, “but no, apparently it doesn’t.” She paused, then continued. “The ride will start getting rough in approximately five hours, when we reach the first lines of their aerospace defense. Chances are slim that they don’t know we’re coming by now, so we may encounter trouble sooner than that, and once we do, it’s likely to be a pretty tough end of the journey.

  “You all know your jobs, and you all know your Marines now,” she went on. “This is it, people. It’s the fleet’s Hail Mary, as you put it, Henley.”

  The young human Marine smiled a little and nodded. “You got it, sir. It’s the one big throw that we hope upon hope gets us the win.”

  She nodded. “That’s it. A lot of it depends on us. We’ll have the fighter squadrons and the Army in support, but the Marines are taking lead here. We’ve been the ones most often with our boots on the ground, going toe-to-toe with the enemy. We know best and we know most how to fight them, how they fight, and what we’re likely to encounter.”

  For the next half-hour, she went over the plan again. They had been discussing it in various ways and through various training scenarios for the whole journey, but this was the last rehash before they would have to go down to the planet itself and put the plans into motion. There was really such a thing as reviewing too much.

  She wanted this to go as smoothly as possible. To be successful. To lose…well, as few lives as possible. Andy was a realist and knew she’d lose Marines—it was war, and that was inevitable—but she hoped it would not be many.

  After answering a few questions and offering whatever words of support she could, she stood back and watched them walk out.

  Several minutes later, the members of her own squad—those who’d become like family and friends in one—walked in for their own meeting. This briefing room was far too large for a squad-level gathering, but she didn’t really care. It didn’t seem like the time to worry about details like that.

  “So, we ready to go, boss?” Anath asked as he walked in. His expression attempted casual, but the look in his eyes ruined the effect.

  “As ready as we’ll ever be,” Andy replied, moving out from behind the podium and sitting on the table instead. “I have briefed as much as can be briefed, and I have planned as much as can be planned. Which means that—”

  “It’ll all go to hell the minute we come in contact with the enemy,” Roxanna supplied for her. “No plan survives first contact.”

  The colonel snorted by way of a laugh. “You got it. It’s nice to see you’ve been paying attention.”

  Dan dropped himself into a chair, his long legs stretching out in front of him. “Only occasionally. Don’t let her fool you,” he said with his trademark sardonic smile, although Andy noticed that smile hadn’t reached his eyes for months, except on rare occasions. Jade was usually involved in those moments, she had also noticed.

  “I pay attention more than he does, clearly, if he is able to know how often I’m paying attention,” Roxanna pointed out, ‘accidentally’ kicking his feet to one side as she passed him and sat in another chair.

  The levity of the moment rose and fell quickly, and everyone was suddenly somber again.

  It was the question lingering in the forefronts of all their minds: would they see each other again after this was over?

  Who would be dead before the day was over?

  Andy thought about it, and then tried not to think about it, and then thought about it specifically because she was trying so hard not to.

  “We are well trained,” Anallin offered in that flat-yet-sincere tone the Hanaran had managed to create over the months and more they had been together now. “We will do well, because we must.”

  “Yes, we must,” Andy agreed with a small smile.

  She wondered if it could really be that easy. Would it really come down to whoever wanted it the most, or felt the most drive to win?

  “Is the new ammunition ready?” Andy asked Anath. She hadn’t been down to that deck yet today. She’d planned to go after the briefing, but she had the feeling that her half-brother had already been there.

  She was right.

  “It is,” Anath replied, leaning against the table beside where she sat. “As much as they could in the time we have. We’ll have a bunch of other stuff too, just to make sure we—what was the phrase she used—cover all bases?”

  Andy chuckled wryly. “Yes, that,” she said.

  They all just had to hope it would still be enough.

  18

  Six Hours Later…

  The ship jerked again, sending armored Marines back into walls and doorways to grip whatever they could to stay upright.

  It had been just over an hour and a half since the Planet Breaker first encountered Arkana defenses, but it was powering its way through them. Every fighter craft not slated to guard the troop ships to the surface was out there in space, fighting alongside the rest of the ESS craft that swarmed on every side of the massive ship of war.

  “No dawdling!” Andy shouted as she hurried down the corridor toward the flight deck.

  They had been in full armor the moment the ship detected enemy craft incoming, but then it had been a waiting game u
ntil they would head to the surface.

  Now, the word had gone out.

  Marines poured in a barely contained line of chaos into a barely contained mass of chaos, which were all the pilots getting to their planes and getting ready to launch. As Andy waved everyone to double-time it to their assigned dropships, she caught sight of Commander Godfrey moving across the deck, shouting orders to his pilots.

  “Colonel,” he called, catching her attention.

  “Get to the ship,” Andy told her squad, who ran on ahead while she stopped next to the wing commander. “Commander.”

  “Your people ready for a hell ride?” he asked with a grim smile as the ship shuddered underneath them and they instinctively grabbed each other to stay standing. “It’s gonna be rough.”

  Straightening up and letting go, she nodded once. “We’re ready. Are you? You get us on the ground. We’ll do the rest.”

  He returned the nod. “Spoken like a true Marine,” he said. “Get to your ship, Colonel, and I’ll get you down there.”

  The two parted ways quickly, because they each had a ship to get into. When Andy reached hers, she found all the Marines that were supposed to be there, already fastened into their seats. Most of them had that blank expression she had come to associate with “scared but damn well not going to show it,” which was something they taught you in basic training.

  “Hang on tight, boys and girls,” Andy shouted over the noise of the ship firing up as she walked in and found her seat. “I hear it’s going to be a bumpy one!”

  “Because our ride so far has been so smooth, sir?” Dan—of course, Dan—called out from a few seats away.

  “Shut up, Marine.” But she smirked.

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  In record time, Andy had her butt in the seat and every safety restraint fastened, knowing that the ship was going to take off with perhaps one or two less safety standards than usual to launch them out into the middle of a battle and try to not die on the way down.

  The dropship shuddered beneath them as they felt it lift from the deckplates.

  “Bay doors opening now,” their pilot announced from the cockpit, which they could hear through the open door. “Fighters are leaving the ship. We follow in three…two…one…”

  A split-second later, the ship lurched forward and flew out of the Planet Breaker faster than was usually permitted. They only had a few seconds of quiet flight before they were moving hard. There was only the bare minimum of systems to keep them from feeling the effects of the flight while the pilot tried to keep them from getting shot, or from colliding with another ship.

  “Remember, keep bandits away from the dropships,” came a voice not in the dropship. It took Andy a moment to realize that it was coming over the comms. There must have been a channel open between the fighters and the dropships.

  She recognized the voice of Commander Godfrey.

  “I’ve got contact,” another voice called, indicating the pilot had picked up something on her sensors. Seconds later, the female pilot clarified, “Bandits inbound! Angle off seventy-five, range twenty clicks.”

  “How many?” Godfrey asked, voice taut. There was silence for several long seconds before he repeated the question, “How many? Someone get me a count!”

  Another voice chimed in. “I’m reading. . .at least twenty. Sensors are having a hard time resolving the number of contacts, sir.”

  “Monitor them closely. Let the other squadrons do their jobs. We’re here to counter any that get through the first line of defense. Our job is the safety of the dropship.”

  “There’s more than twenty, and I’m picking up more bandits angle off two-eighty. Range, thirty clicks. The first group Ashes saw has been picked up by Phoenix Squadron, ten clicks out,” called another voice.

  “Four have broken away from Phoenix and are inbound. Angle off sixty-five, eight clicks… Seven,” the voice Andy now identified as “Ashes” said urgently.

  “Raptor One and Two flights, stay with the dropship. Raptor Three and Four flights, intercept our inbound bandits.” This was from Godfrey.

  Although the colonel had only met him once, and the rest not at all, she could still hear the edges to their voices. They were anxious, but they were steady. Professional. They sounded like her Marines, only they were flying jets in space while she was about to set her feet down on an entire planet that was hostile toward her and hers.

  “Roger,” came the call.

  A second later, however, the open channel became a cacophony of sound. The noise of battle seemed to be the same whether you were on the ground or in the air, and Andy could avidly picture that outside the Planet Breaker was a mess.

  “Twitch, you got one on your six!”

  “Well aware. A little help, Dusty?”

  “Working on it. Break left on my mark.”

  “Roger,” the voice of Twitch replied. A split-second later, Twitch called out, “They’re locked on me! Be quick!”

  “Break!”

  Several seconds went by. Even Andy felt her inner tension rising as she waited to her some sort of reply. “That was too close for comfort, Dusty.”

  “What can I say? I like to keep it exc—”

  There was static, followed by a panicked call from Twitch: “DUSTY!”

  “Twitch, Dusty’s gone. We got more incoming. Raptor One...Phoenix, we need backup.”

  “Focus, Red. We’re it right now.”

  “Twitch, we can scissor the trailing bandit. Bank right!”

  “On it.”

  Someone else broke through. “Four more have broken through! Ten clicks out.”

  “Dropship One, you might want to get a move on. We’re taking a pounding here.”

  Andy all but held her breath until she heard, “Dropship One, on the move. Let’s get through this as quick as we can.”

  Andy may even have held her breath after that, too.

  19

  By the time the battered dropship hit the ground, everyone looked a little green—except those who already were—but none hesitated. They unfastened themselves from their seats and took up their weapons, standing at the ready. A moment later, the hatch dropped open and they filed out like they had been trained to do.

  There were no hostiles in the immediate area, and soon the clearing was full of armed and armored Marines alongside a small number of ESS tanks.

  Andy and her squad, along with a second squad, took positions around one of the tanks while Anallin positioned itself atop with its specialized sniper rifle. Looking around, the colonel didn’t have to speak a word. They all knew their jobs and had already taken up their positions, either within or around the tanks.

  The ESS Marines began their slow march toward the city.

  The Hanaran perched atop the slow-rolling tank felt its eyes clicking with its agitation, the inner set of clear eyelids snapping open and shut in a quick staccato rhythm to the rising emotions inside its head.

  It was a common misconception that its species was without emotions, simply because they did not display them in the same way as the majority of other races, but that was far from the truth. The Hanarans felt things quite strongly, but they did not display them outwardly nearly as much.

  Right now, Anallin could feel its anxiety rising high. They were deeper into enemy territory than they ever had been, and there was no easy way out. They were the boots on the ground to get from where they were, all the way into the heart of an opposing force that they were only “pretty sure” of the numbers of.

  It could be far worse than they realized to fight their way through it, or it could be far easier. While Anallin didn’t dwell on things like that as much as its human comrades did, it was still a concern that could not be ignored. The Hanaran was tasked with having to see everything and to remove threats as soon as possible, ideally before they became serious threats.

  They all knew that plan would only go so far, however, and depended on what they couldn’t be sure they would find…or not.

&nbs
p; The tank moved slowly enough for Andy’s squad to walk around it. Everyone’s eyes were wide as they looked for any sign of the enemy. After their first five minutes of advance, Andy climbed on top of the tank and crouched near Anallin, so she could have her own birds-eye view as they advanced.

  All was quiet as they continued forward. Knowing things wouldn’t stay so quiet, Andy gave Anallin a faint smile before she climbed down and moved up to walk with Roxanna, who was on point. Anticipation was building, and with it, anxiety. It was the calm before the storm.

  And this storm would be a hurricane, a tornado, and an earthquake all in one.

  “I would make a comment about it being too quiet, but that seems to always jinx things,” Roxanna commented. Her voice was deceptively calm, but the opalescent swirling of her skin gave away her emotions.

  Andy returned a wry half-smile. “Please don’t jinx us. We have enough stacked against us without you helping it.” She paused and sighed. “We both know this won’t last, and I’m not sure we want to think about how rough it’s going to get.” She’d already thought about all the ways this mission could go wrong. It didn’t help to dwell on such things, but it was almost impossible to avoid thinking about them.

  Any other thought Andy had dissipated when the path in front of her erupted in a cloud of dust, followed by the loud crack of the fired shot.

  Roxanna called out, “Sniper!”

  She, Andy, and the rest of the squad moved to take cover behind the tank.

  There was a metallic thonk as another shot ricocheted off the tank. Two more shots rang out. More than one sniper, Andy figured. There were at least two of them out there, and likely more than that. Andy peered around the tank. She could see the city walls and a couple of watchtowers. She’d bet money the snipers were in the watchtowers. “Anallin, can you see them?”