Lykos Read online

  They slid around the open door and into a short corridor. At the end were two guards, looking surprised at the sudden entrance of the ESS Marines. This only lasted for a heartbeat before they were bringing up their guns, but they were that instant too late. The venom shots flew across the space between them, and the bodies dropped, flailing for a moment before going still.

  “Forward,” Andy ordered, and they moved down the short hallway to the next door. This one wasn’t locked, and they passed through.

  Two more guards inside were incapacitated before they could raise an alarm.

  The room they’d entered was large, a perfect square, with two doors in every wall—one being the door they’d come in through.

  “Pair off and search each door,” she ordered, and they split into the pairs they had been moving in. Andy and Dan. Jade and Anath. Roxanna and Anallin. Three groups to investigate seven doors. While the latter two pair went to other walls, Andy and Dan approached the door near the entrance.

  Every door was the same on the outside—a different shade of grey, and solid, no window of any sort.

  The first door wasn’t locked. Dan opened it, and Andy stepped inside in the “room clearing” maneuver, but on the other side of the door, all they found was what appeared to be a storage room. Large cylinders sat stacked on shelving that covered every wall from floor to ceiling. There didn’t appear—at first glance, at least—to be any symbols on them that warned of hazardous or explosive materials inside. Andy wondered what was in them, but they didn’t have time to find out.

  The second room they checked was also a storage room, but with various computer components. The technology was clearly different from what the ESS used, but not so different that she couldn’t figure out what they were. Meanwhile, the third room was full of boxes.

  In the end, the reports were all the same: every room was some sort of storage closet for a different type of material.

  Again, Andy thought briefly about the minds that built this place. Everything so ordered, divided, straight.

  They stood in the center of the room, the others covering the entrance/exit in case anyone came in after them, while Andy checked in with the other squads. Every group entered the compound, but no one else had any better luck with locating the prisoners.

  “Move out,” Andy said. “Let’s check the next location.”

  And hope for a bit of luck…

  The second target wasn’t far from the first. This area had been marked as a good target location because it was more interior, and theoretically harder to get to and better guarded.

  “Here,” Anallin announced, nodding to a door.

  This one—unlike many of the other doors they had passed and checked out along the way—had a window in it. Andy slid along the wall, creeping up to the edge of the window and peering inside while Anallin used the scanner.

  “Interference from this room,” the Hanaran said.

  “I see them,” Andy said.

  Although the clear material in the window was tinted and made details hard to distinguish, Andy could make out a line of people—primarily human, and all wearing ragged ESS uniforms—chained to the wall on the opposite side of the room. The one in the center of the line, she was almost certain, was the councilor’s son.

  She frowned. Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “Martin,” she said without looking back.

  Jade came up to the door and knelt in front of the panel. She had her toolkit out and started to work but stopped when Roxanna stepped closer to the door.

  “Wait,” the Selerid said.

  She put one hand against the door and tilted her head. Everyone watched her curiously for a moment until she shook her head.

  “Don’t bother,” she said sadly. “There’s no living creatures inside that room. They’re all dead.”

  Jade looked up at them as they all stood for a moment, then Andy sighed and spat a curse.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here, people,” she said. “Back to the shuttles.”

  They moved back into formation and began walking again, as Andy called the other squads with the update to their orders.

  Walking quickly but cautiously, they headed down the short corridor leading to this room and then turned a corner—

  —and ran almost face-first into a group of Arkana.

  Most of them were obvious soldiers, armored and armed, but the one in front… There was something different about him. He stood a little taller than the others, not holding his weapon up. An imperious expression. A knowing expression.

  Andy could practically feel Anath tense behind her.

  “Father,” he gasped in clear horror.

  10

  Father?

  The word ricocheted through Andy’s mind until she felt like it was full of holes and dents, and she might never recover. Time seemed to stand still, and everything froze, as she stared down the hall at the man who was apparently her father. The man she had never met, and never even been told about.

  The specter built into this war. The shadow in her dreams. The shadow in her life…

  What the hell was he doing here?

  The pit in her stomach opened wider, and she fell in.

  He smiled, and she instinctively searched his face for any sign of herself, but she couldn’t find anything. There was no resemblance, although she could see the similarities between him and Anath.

  “My wayward children,” he said in a deep, almost booming voice. “You have come to me at last.”

  “We didn’t come to you,” Anath spat from behind her.

  Their father’s icy eyes lifted to look behind her at her brother. “But you have,” he said, unfazed by his son’s anger. “You walked right into this building, and then right up to me here. You have come to me.”

  Andy suppressed a shiver. “It was a trap,” she whispered.

  Her mind lurched out of the ice, and raced ahead, trying to put it all together. How did he know that it would be the Star Chaser who would respond to this mission and attempt to rescue the prisoners? Or maybe he hadn’t known. What would he have done if it wasn’t them?

  The idea flashed through her head that he would have just killed ESS teams till he got who he wanted.

  “You’ve put me through a lot of trouble just to try to bring you back into the fold,” their father began. Andy realized then that she had never even asked Anath what the man’s name was. Even with a half-brother, “Father” had always seemed more concept than actual person. “I didn’t want to come this far out, but with you t—”

  If he was going to say anything more, he was interrupted quite soundly.

  From over Andy’s shoulder, Anath fired the venom-bullet prototype.

  The Arkana in front of them must have seen the gun, because he twisted. It was too late to avoid the bullet, but it kept it from hitting him center mass.

  Violently bright red blood spurting out from an unarmored shoulder.

  But Andy knew that the substance inside the bullet would enter the bloodstream, and do its work…

  He didn’t fall.

  The Arkana stood there for a moment, then turned and looked at the wound. He put his hand over it, and then smiled at them.

  “You really need better security on your ESS database,” he said. “The Ullura, right?”

  “But…” Anath stammered.

  “No, no genetic modification. Obviously, there was no time for that,” their father said, grimacing briefly at the wound. “But an inoculation. Now that we are deeper into your space, it’s easier to find things.”

  The Marines stood staring for a moment at the Arkana. The Arkana stared back.

  If they are immune, why did the ones outside fall?

  Did he purposely not inoculate them, as part of the trap?

  The callousness of the man who had donated genetic material to her heritage was so stark, and it just drove her hatred further home. It reaffirmed her decision to not go along with the race
of her father, but to stay with the people who were her family in the ESS.

  Her mind snapped back into place.

  The new weapons weren’t going to work on these Arkana, which meant they needed to swap back to their backups. However, this was not the best situation to change weapons, since they would be seen and likely fired upon in an instant.

  However, ‘Dad’ didn’t seem eager to kill them. They would have to use that.

  “Alright, so we’re here,” she said, taking control of the moment. She took a breath and glanced back, briefly, at her people. ‘Backup,’ she mouthed to them before turning back. “What do you want?”

  “You don’t belong here,” he said simply. Looking at his shoulder, he pulled his hand away. The bleeding had already slowed. “That is, you don’t belong with these people. Either of you. You are my children. You belong with me.”

  “My mother was human,” Andy said, trying to keep his attention and give her people cover.

  He scoffed. “Your mother was nothing. You belong to me.”

  There was so much wrong in that one statement. Andy felt her fury flare, but she stuffed it down. Despite everything that her mother had, or hadn’t, done for her, or how much her mother hadn’t cared about her, she wouldn’t hear this bastard speak against the woman who had birthed her.

  She inhaled slowly, getting control of herself. Her mind jumped to her options, and she slowly lowered her now useless new weapon. She held it in her off-hand, letting her main hand hang seemingly useless at her side.

  The gesture was not missed on him, and she watched his eyes follow the weapon with a look mostly wary and maybe a little victorious. Oh, the ego… She was glad that she hadn’t inherited that part.

  “I’m not sure what to say, Father…” she said flatly.

  “You could say you’ve finally come to your senses and come home,” he said. “I will not brook my children being in the hands of the enemy. Either you come home, or you will be ended. I would prefer the former.”

  From behind her, she heard Anath’s low voice, “Andy.”

  She knew that he wasn’t warning her. He was letting her know.

  “Well…” she said, drawing the word out. “I guess the smart thing to say would be…” She took a breath, and hoped for swiftness. Her main hand went from useless to active in a second, grabbing her sidearm and bringing it up.

  “Go to Hell.” She pulled the trigger.

  11

  The hallway erupted.

  Why that hadn’t happened with the first shot, Andy would never know, but it hadn’t. Now, it had. Perhaps it was because this time, he actually did fall to the floor. He seemed to have been expecting Anath’s shot, but he had not been expecting hers.

  Once he was down, his soldiers all opened fire. The Marines had gotten their backup sidearms free, and returned fire while throwing themselves back against the corridor walls and sliding back in a tactical retreat. Andy and Dan were out front, so they were in danger of taking the most heat. Andy felt that heat as it lanced past her head, just narrowly avoiding her although she thought there’d be burn scars on her helmet.

  Dan cursed loudly, and she risked a glance. He was still on his feet and still moving, so she focused on keeping them all as alive and intact as possible.

  A section of wall just above her head exploded with a heavy blast of energy weapons fire and she ducked instinctively as pieces rained down. The debris hit her helmet and shoulders, and she could feel the heat of the pieces as they nearly melted her armor, but she gritted her teeth, ignored it, and kept firing.

  The short distance to back into the other corridor took forever, but they reached it.

  “Roxanna,” Andy called, swapping places with her sergeant. The Selerid took what was now rearguard to cover their retreat while the major opened a channel to her squad leaders.

  “Dolan to all squads. Speed up your retreat. Change to backup weapons. It was a trap. The enemy has defense against new weaponry. Repeat. Change to backup weapons. Get out of the building ASAP and meet at the rendezvous point. Move!”

  The Arkana were already following them into the hall. Energy weapons and bullets flew hard and fast in both directions, colliding with the walls, ceiling, and floor, and occasionally the soldiers but both sides were rapidly moving targets. Andy kept her focus on leading them out, making sure no new groups came at them from that direction and boxed them in.

  She imagined it was only a matter of time, but perhaps if they moved fast enough, they could get out of the building first…

  Or not.

  As they reached another turn, half a dozen Arkana came around the next corner. Andy opened fire immediately, and called for the Marines to keep moving forward and shorten the space they could use the energy weapons. Hand to hand was a risk, but it could also put them on even footing.

  Closing in on the enemy, who seemed surprised by the forward rush, Andy smacked one of them across the face with her gun. A bright red gash opened up across the pale skin, snapping his head to the side. Just as he recovered, she jabbed hard and fast into his face and the gash vanished in the torrent from his broken nose and the cut around his eye.

  He stumbled back, holding one eye.

  The soldier beside him fell to a bullet fired from behind Andy, and she moved against the next one while she heard Roxanna and Anallin busy covering their rear.

  Now, this was closer to what she had thought was going to happen on this mission.

  “Thomas!” she shouted, catching sight of an Arkana aiming for him while his back was turned. He dropped down as she leveled her gun, and she fired over his head, dropping the enemy soldier before they could kill her Marine.

  Dan came back up. “Major!”

  She jumped back, and he returned the favor.

  Looking behind her to the Arkana knocked back against the wall, she smiled slightly at Dan and then nodded. The way ahead was clear again. She took a quick check behind her and saw that there were a few more injuries but her people were all still on their feet and their pursuers had thinned.

  And there was no sight of her father.

  “Move,” she ordered, and they started their rush out of the compound once again.

  More corners, more corridors, more soldiers trying to kill them. It was just another day in the life of the 33rd, just another headlong rush for their lives out of an enemy-infested area.

  They reached the door they had come in through, by some miracle, but found it locked. Jade immediately went to work, while the team surrounded her and fired on Arkana coming from either direction. Andy had to reload, but Anallin’s sharpshooter skills easily covered her for the moments that it took.

  “Martin?” she shouted over the noise.

  “Working on it, sir!” Jade shouted back.

  From there being almost no guards in the building, it was suddenly full as ants swarming through their hill. The pale bodies came from every direction, but they had to come around the corner and through a somewhat narrow hall. It gave the stationary Marines a chance to hopefully hold them off for a few critical moments.

  Andy knew that it wouldn’t last for long that way, however.

  This time, Jade wasn’t trying any delicate wiring maneuvers. She knelt down long enough to rip the panel off, then stood up and shot it to hell. Sparks flew out, but the door unsealed, and she was able to wedge her rifle into the space and leverage it open enough to slide her body in, pushing it the rest of the way before bursting outside.

  “Go!” Andy ordered, covering the retreat of each of her Marines until they were all outside and she followed.

  As soon as she was outside, she turned to look at the door in the moments she had before they would follow. There was no obvious way to shut the door, so on impulse, she shot the panel on the outside. It sparked and a second security door shut, which she hadn’t seen there before.

  It hadn’t been shut before. One more reminder of the trap that this had become.

  She joined her squad and they took off
through the trees, looking for any groups that might be after them or patrols they might stumble into. Their destination was a point between the shuttles and the compound chosen as the emergency muster point if they had to do precisely what they were doing.

  When they reached the area, they found almost everyone else already there, since they hadn’t been delayed by suddenly-appearing relatives. She did a quick roll call, checking for casualties, and…

  “Shit,” Andy said. “We’re missing one.”

  12

  “Dolan to Epsilon Squad Leader. Forrest, come in!”

  There was a long silence. Andy paced the small clearing, holding her hand over her earpiece to try to pick up on any sound. The rest of the Marines stood in a defensive formation around her.

  “Forrest, come in! Report!”

  After three more tense moments, the channel chirped and opened. “Major, we—” it began, but cut off amidst a cacophony that almost made Andy’s head hurt. After a few moments, she could hear the voices of her Marines and knew they—at least some of them—were still alive, but they were clearly in distress, and they’d had the shortest route into the building. They should’ve been there first.

  Curses flew from her brain and smacked against the insides of her teeth, but she kept her teeth grit and mouth clamped shut.

  “We’re not leaving any Marines behind,” she said tightly. “Alpha Squad, we’re going to get them out. The rest of you, hold position here unless you hear otherwise from me. If we’re not back in ten minutes, get back to your shuttles and back to the Star Chaser. If we don’t come back, it’s a hopeless cause to go in.” She nodded at them, and the other three squad leaders acknowledged their orders.

  She turned to her own squad, standing there and looking very much worse for wear. Andy looked each on in the eyes. Anallin had a large dark blue discoloration—the Hanaran version of a bruise—and Dan had dried blood down part of his face. Anath was favoring one side, and Jade’s lip was nearly split in half. Andy knew she looked just as rough.

  And that was just what she could see.

  “Oorah,” she said in a low voice.

  Alpha Squad stood a little straighter and echoed, “Oorah,” even Anath.