Nebula (ESS Space Marines Book 4) Read online

  Andy took aim again and the ship must have been hit from directly behind. (If the Star Chaser was running, it made sense that they were being pursued.) Andy cursed inwardly as she was pitched forward. Despite all their training, they couldn’t control themselves against the outright bucking of the ship.

  She curved her body to avoid hitting the deck in a way that would be especially detrimental to her, and her shoulder collided with the leg of an Arkana soldier. They both went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Andy’s head hit the shield. Her helmet took most of the impact, but she still felt a few stars spiraling around her.

  “Damn,” she hissed as she worked to untangle herself while the Arkana did the same thing. Neither one could get an arm free to effectively attack, so it was a matter of who could stand up first. It reminded Andy of boxing while she was in training. Who could get to their feet first?

  Who would win?

  She was almost upright when the ship took another hit. A panel over their heads suddenly broke loose, sparks flying as it fell to the ground. She heard it just in time and threw herself into a roll. It got her out of the way just in time, but took half of the Arkana soldier with her. The panel hit the Arkana on the back, and he cried out in surprise and pain.

  Andy wasn’t about to waste any time on pity for him.

  With the weight of the Arkana man and the panel on top of her now, she grunted and realized that there wasn’t a lot of air. The ship’s movements definitely weren’t helping anything.

  Another evasive maneuver and the ship rolled. It spent her rolling again as well, all but flipping the pair of them over. Now she was half over him and the panel was under him. He cried out a second time and arched his back as Andy scrambled to get herself disengaged and off of him, back onto her own feet.

  The Arkana lifted his head and saw that she was up. He took advantage of the fact that she couldn’t find her center of balance as fast as she would have liked and he kicked out.

  His boot hit her shin and she bit down on a shout of pain. The impact shoved her leg back before she was even steady on it, and she fell forward again. She caught herself on her hands before she collided with him, holding herself partially suspended above the ground. Taking advantage of this moment before he could, she swung her knee upward.

  The top of her thigh slammed into the edge of the Arkana’s shield, but his grip on it was loose. The shield hit him in the face at the same time her knee hit him between the legs. The high-pitched scream that came from the Arkana was impressive and almost broke her eardrums. She scrambled back to her feet without any further resistance from him. All he did was roll onto his side with a bloody lip.

  Once Andy was standing again, she looked around quickly.

  She saw Anallin pinned beneath an Arkana man who somehow had the upper hand and was hitting her Marine in the head.

  Not knowing how long she would have before the ship threw them into the walls again, she quickly grabbed her rifle and took aim. She got a shot off and it drove through the head of the enemy attacking her squad-mate. The Arkana stiffened for a moment, arm frozen overhead as he prepared for another swing, before collapsing forward on top of the Hanaran.

  Andy saw that Anallin wasn’t pushing the slender enemy off, which she knew it was perfectly strong enough to do, so she rushed over and pulled the body off.

  The Hanaran was on the ground, eyes clicking sluggishly, splattered in blue and red blood, but still breathing.

  “Anallin,” she said, kneeling next to it and looking it in the eyes. “Are you with me?”

  The eye-clicks began to pick up speed as the Hanaran focused on the major’s face and then nodded twice. “I am with you, sir,” Anallin said, accepting Andy’s hand up.

  Jade was standing over one Arkana soldier while another was coming at her. The Arkana’s weapon was gone, but she was using her shield like a bludgeon. Jade couldn’t get her rifle up fast enough to get off a shot while the shield was being swung at her and pushed forward. It forced her into a retreat, where she just barely managed to avoid tripping over the body at her feet.

  Anallin took aim to take care of the problem for her, but the ship shook again and the lights flickered. They went out for several seconds and then came back on. By the time the illumination returned, Jade had gotten back several steps and had her rifle up. She got off her shot and caught the Arkana in the shoulder. It spun the Arkana around but did not bring her down automatically.

  Everyone got tossed into the wall again, and Jade cried out. The Arkana fell to the floor with the second massive shudder, sparks raining down on all of them from the hole in the ceiling where the panel had fallen out.

  Andy and the others clung to the wall, waiting for the next strike.

  Chapter 10

  Just as they were bracing for the ship to try to knock them down again, everything went unnaturally still and silent.

  Andy looked at Anallin and then Jade, who looked back at her. Both of them looked pretty rough, but Andy imagined she didn’t look much better. The way the lights played around them from the intermittent sparks gave everything an eerie air, and reminded her of one of their more disconcerting missions on Starbase Zenith. Those were memories that she shook off, however, since she knew they wouldn’t at all help here.

  Since the ship wasn’t tossing about for the moment, Andy nodded at the bodies on the floor. “Check for survivors and bind those still alive,” she ordered, not wanting to give any of them the chance to rise up and get them from behind.

  Between the three of them, it only took a few moments to check them all over. There were two survivors, although one certainly looked like that wasn’t going to be the case for too much longer. The remaining one, Andy was pretty sure would join him soon since there had only been one Arkana taken prisoner that didn’t commit suicide and he was in their brig, and related to her. That made it a rather special case.

  They took the welcome moments of respite to move the bodies along with the others and stash the live ones in another area along the wall.

  “Everything being so still almost makes me more worried than being thrown around did,” Jade commented as she rubbed the back of her head. She pulled down her hand and there was a faint trace of blood, which she frowned at. “I guess I hit my head.”

  “You hit the wall pretty hard,” Andy agreed, moving behind her Marine to do a quick check. “It doesn’t look too bad, but let us know if you start to feel worse. We need to know if you have any signs of a concussion.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jade agreed solemnly.

  Andy rubbed her shoulder. One had slammed into the wall and the other was burnt, and neither was happy. “I’m going to check in with the bridge. Maintain the watch.” There were no more intruder alerts, however, so unless a few came up from other decks or sections, they should be in the clear.

  Nodding at her other Marines, she turned and headed onto the bridge.

  She found a console that looked like it had all but exploded, though only the slightly charred remains told the tale after the fire suppression system had flooded the room. The first officer was kneeling in front of the navigation officer, holding a compression cloth against his head. Andy could see the blood trails from a wound to the temple even from where she stood.

  Clearly, maneuvers hadn’t been any kinder to the bridge staff than those in the corridors.

  “Captain,” Andy said, walking over to where Wallace sat in the command chair, holding his arm against his chest. “Sir?”

  “I think my wrist is broken, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said tightly. “We lost the backup engineering console and Feri,” He waved at the navigator with his good arm, “tried to crack the console open with his skull. I think the console won.”

  “Thanks, Captain,” Feri muttered from down in front.

  Wallace managed a weak, though generally mirthless smile. “We’re all but dead in the water. We managed to evade the Arkana just enough to get into the C19 Nebula. We’re lucky we were so close to it, a
s it’s one of the few of its kind. It can obscure us from the Arkana sensors and they aren’t likely to try to follow us.”

  Andy looked at the view screen, which was flickering in and out on its picture of the nebula gases they had hidden themselves in. She tried to remember her science. “Doesn’t the same thing that will hide us also make it hard for us to get out of it again?”

  “Sadly, yes,” Wallace agreed with a heavy sigh, “but we got a distress call out and hopefully, there was someone close enough to hear it. If so, they’ll come and tow us out.”

  “We can always get out and start pushing,” Andy commented drolly.

  Wallace looked up at her like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to be amused or annoyed by her flippancy. It didn’t really seem like either won, and he turned away from her again. Keeping his left arm pinned against his chest, he pushed the fingers of the other through his short salt-and-pepper hair.

  “Let’s not start worrying about that just yet,” he finally said. “Right now, our focus has to be on making sure the ship is secure and doesn’t shut down entirely. It won’t matter if we can move out of the nebula if we all die first.”

  “Very optimistic, Captain,” the first officer said, putting sealant on the cut on Feri’s head. “I am sure that there will be other options once we know what the full status of the ship is.”

  “Not good, Commander,” Wallace returned immediately. “We can see that from here.”

  While the two of them spoke, Andy stepped aside and checked in with her other squads. Delta still wasn’t responding, and now neither was Beta. The remaining three checked in that they had either subdued their intruders or were in pursuit in other areas. Dan and Roxanna had their side of the bridge locked down.

  Andy returned to the captain. “Sir,” she began, “I’m still not getting anything from Delta, but the armory has been secured. Intruders in that area have been neutralized. Theta is in pursuit of intruders outside the normal lock-down areas.”

  “What is Theta normally supposed to be guarding?” Wallace asked with a frown. “I don’t want them chasing marauders and leaving sensitive areas of the ship vulnerable.”

  “Theta is normally a squad in motion,” she replied tightly, trying to not be offended at the suggestion that her Marines would do such a thing. They had been a well-trained machine before she inherited the detachment, and she had only worked to make it even better, ready for war. “They are pursuing their normal targets.”

  The captain nodded. If he noticed her affront or her efforts to restrain it, he didn’t say anything, and he shouldn’t. He was the captain, after all.

  It worried her that she still couldn’t raise Delta, and now had another squad she couldn’t get a hold of. Battles with the Arkana usually were intense but short, with one side or the other coming out on top pretty quickly in small group engagements.

  “Sir,” the sensor officer interrupted, “the ship’s systems are shutting down.”

  Chapter 11

  The lights flickered.

  Andy looked up at the glowing spots of recessed lighting along the bridge, the pale white of the “normal” lights mixing in with the flashing red ligths. Her dark eyes focused on the ceiling, trying to will it all to stay powered up, even though she knew it was unlikely. If the ship was damaged that badly, it was all going to start coming apart.

  How long would it take for their distress call to be received, and how long would it take for someone to get to them with enough force to get rid of the Arkana? If the enemy was even still going to linger outside. They might just assume the Star Chaser was dead in the water and leave them to their death inside the nebula. Which, judging from the way the lights were still flickering, wasn’t a tactically unsound plan. The chance that they would fail while waiting on rescue was not insignificant.

  Finally, the main lights went out.

  Emergency lighting came on, giving everything a dim orange glow. The alert lights were gone too and everything was half-shadowed.

  “The ship is now operating on emergency power,” the sensor officer said, although Andy could have already guessed that. It didn’t take an engineer to figure out just how deep in the weeds they were. “Communications are down and life support is reverting to baseline. It’s going to start getting a little thin.”

  “The Callian crewmembers will be happy,” Andy commented. Their planet had a lower oxygen content. It wasn’t enough to keep them from serving on the same ship as humans and other similar races, but it made them a little “high” when they were initially serving on the ships until their bodies adapted. Andy, however, wasn’t looking forward to it. Her Marines had trained in similar situations, decks and bays being environmentally adjusted to do so, but it wasn’t her favorite condition.

  Damn. Communications were down. That announcement now wound its way through her brain, and she realized that she’d have no way to talk to her squads.

  “Before communications went down, I still hadn’t heard from the squad in engineering, Captain,” Andy said solemnly. “And if there is anyone on this ship we need working right now, it’s our engineers.”

  “You can say that again,” Wallace said.

  She didn’t. “Permission to take Alpha Squad from the bridge and go down to engineering and find out what’s going on there,” she said instead.

  Wallace thought about it for a moment and then nodded. “Go ahead, Major. Good luck.”

  Andy nodded once in acknowledgement, then crossed to the back side of the bridge to get her other two Marines.

  She knew she’d be leaving the bridge without a Marine contingent, but the bridge wouldn’t mean anything if engineering had fallen to the Arkana. She had to keep her priorities in order, after all, and she couldn’t call on another squad to check. That left it up to her and Alpha Squad.

  Andy reached the door and realized that it wasn’t going to open by the panel. This was going to be fun.

  Reaching into one of the many utility pockets on her uniform, she pulled out a micro jack which worked wonders in situations like. She fastened it to the door and let it engage, then used brute force to pull the door open. By the time it was open enough for a person to fit through, she had Dan and Roxanna looking at her.

  “Power go down?” Dan quipped wryly.

  “How could you tell?” Andy replied in kind. “Come on, folks, we got a new job. We can’t raise Delta down in engineering and we need to be sure that things are secure down there.”

  Roxanna nodded. “Did we lose the comms too?”

  Andy snorted something like a laugh. “Of course we did,” she said. “Why make our jobs too easy?”

  Andy stepped back and let the other two follow her onto the bridge. She pulled the micro jack from the door, but kept it in hand. She didn’t close the door, so the bridge crew could see what was out there and get out more easily if they needed to.

  As they passed by the captain’s chair, they all nodded and said “sir” with respect, but didn’t slow down. They were Marines on a mission.

  On the other side, she put the micro jack on the door and then, this time with Dan’s help, forced that door open as well. They left it as it was and Andy returned the device to her pocket. She knew she’d need it again soon, but until she did, she wanted to keep her hands free for her weapon.

  “Everything going to hell, sir?” Jade asked wryly.

  Andy chuckled. Yes, this girl was spending too much time around Dan. “All we need is the hand basket.” She looked around to each of them, trying to take visual stock. Dan and Roxanna didn’t look like their side had been hit too hard. Anallin seemed sound. Jade seemed a little rough, but all right. “Here’s the situation. We are presently in the C19 Nebula, because it’s letting us hide from the Arkana. Three ships were a little too much for us.”

  “What’s the status of our communications, inside and outside the ship?” Roxanna asked.

  “Not good,” she replied honestly. “Both are down, as is much of our power and we’re on low-level
life support. We did get a distress call out, so we have hope for the cavalry, but no way of knowing if or when it’s coming. In the meantime, I haven’t been able to reach Delta Squad. I don’t know the status of engineering, so we are going to have to go down there and see what’s going on.”

  “Do we have any idea of where Arkana may be?” Dan asked.

  Andy shook her head. “Not really. The last reports were when the last wave came through and they’ve had time to move, or be taken out by the other squads. We can’t get anything from sensors with the ship on emergency power, so we’re just going to have to start moving and figure it out as we go. Lifts aren’t going to be working, so we’re going to have to go through the tunnels and hope the Arkana haven’t figured that out.”

  Everyone nodded. “Sounds like fun,” Dan said with a mirthless smile.

  Andy gestured for everyone to take up their weapons and move out in formation. Andy took point with Dan, then Jade with Roxanna and Anallin behind them. The bodies of the Arkana lined the walls as they passed, but they didn’t have the time to stop and check on any of them. She doubted any of them would still be alive by now anyway, either from their injuries or suicide.

  “Just another day in the life of the ESS Marines,” Andy commented quietly.

  Chapter 12

  The more time passed, the more Andy began to feel the effects of the ship’s current situation. Her eyes felt dry from the strain of trying to see things in the dim light and she began to feel like it was more difficult to pull in full lungs of air.

  It made her head begin to feel...just a little off. She wasn’t dizzy or truly lightheaded, but she could sense that difference at the very edge of her awareness. The tension didn’t help things either, but she had trained herself to ignore most of her emotional reactions to things. In her job, one couldn’t afford to let that kind of stuff impact the task at hand. At least not too much. Because she might be able to suppress it, but she couldn’t get rid of it.