Daikon (ESS Space Marines Book 2)
Author: Victor, James David
Date: 2017-07-21
Rights: Copyright 2017 James David Victor. All rights reserved.

Daikon

ESS Space Marines, Book 1

James David Victor

Fairfield Publishing

Contents

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

Thank You

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Copyright © 2017 Fairfield Publishing

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author.

This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

Prologue

An obnoxiously loud buzz sounded and orange lights flashed.

Andy pursed her lips as the snap of electricity told her the energy field had been dropped. A moment later, the old-fashioned metal-bar door slid back. She apprehensively looked at the field of orange-uniformed humanoid bodies just ahead of her as the door slid into the wall.

“Proceed,” the stern voice from the protected box to her left said.

She looked at him through the window and nodded once, not wasting any time as she moved away from the foyer and into the hallway.

At twenty-six years old, Andrea “Andy” Dolan had been in buildings like this dozens of times since she was born, including the time she actually was born. This infirmary and the nursery attached to it filled her earliest memories, and she had no love for any of it.

Members of more species than she could count lined the cells on either side of the corridor, and she heard a wild combination of languages coming at her, all of which she ignored. At the end of this hall was the visiting room. She was in no hurry to get there.

But she was a marine, and a squad leader. She wasn’t going to shy away from this either.

Andy reached the door and waited again for the containment field to drop and the door to open. Once it was open, she stepped into a sterile room with mirrored windows, a table, and two chairs.

Harnari Penal Colony was a medium security facility that layered on its protections not because of the severity of the criminals inside, but simply because of the disparity of the races it housed. The only thing they had in common here was that they were humanoid—and criminals.

Andy’s mother, however, was human. That was it. She just was a very badly behaved human, and maybe a kind of stupid one. Andy loved her mother, but she also was entirely honest about the woman’s foibles. Among other things.

On the other side of the room, the door opened from the prison interior and she watched a guard escort her mother in.

The woman was older by about twenty years, but mother and daughter shared many physical similarities. They had the same light brown skin, the same dark eyes, and the same dark hair. They were of a similar height and body type, although where Andy had the toned, strong body of a soldier, Leta Dolan’s body was more wiry, slightly underweight. Andy thought that this latest stint in prison wasn’t doing her mother any favors.

Leta approached with an insolent swing to her body as she crossed the room and sat down. Everything about her demeanor said that she wasn’t happy to see her daughter, but that wasn’t shocking. She never was.

Andy sat down across from her mother, noting the guard remaining at the door. The energy field snapped back up, but the barred-door remained open, teasing the occupants with a glimpse of an unreachable escape.

“What do you want?” Leta asked without any preamble.

Her daughter sighed. “Hello, daughter. Why, it’s been a while. Have you been busy? I’m glad that you’re not dead. It’s nice to see you,” she mocked before she could stop the words from coming out of her mouth, then she pinched her eyes shut.

“So you want me to lie?” her mother asked.

“I don’t know why I ever expect you to be any different,” Andy said, opening her eyes and blowing out a breath. “I thought it might be a nice change of pace to have you act like you’re actually my mother, but I realize that’s asking too much.”

Leta didn’t reply. She pursed her lips and lifted one brow, waiting for Andy to go on. For a moment, the younger woman recognized an expression that she made and was caught off-guard, but she soldiered on.

“I came because I need you to tell me about my father,” Andy went on, since nothing else was going to come of this.

Her mother instantly shut down, shields slamming up, like they always did when Andy brought the topic up. It was obviously not the first time she had tried, and she was sure that it wouldn’t be the last. Maybe once she had considered letting it go, but she knew now—after what happened on Starbase Zenith—that she just couldn’t.

“No,” Leta replied.

“Mother,” Andy said, trying to keep exasperation out of her tone. “This isn’t just curiosity anymore. It’s important. I actually need to know about the other half of my genetic heritage.”

Dark brows drawing down, Leta stared at her for a long moment. There was something in the older woman’s dark eyes that Andy couldn’t remember seeing before, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Why?” Leta finally asked.

Andy blinked. She had expected more stonewalling, not a question. She couldn’t let herself be shocked for too long, however, because it wasn’t her training to be frozen in the middle of a battle. And this conversation was just that: a battle.

“Starbase Zenith,” Andy said. She went on to describe the events on that station, at least what was need-to-know for this conversation. The sergeant told her mother about the species that controlled people’s minds. Everyone on the star base was lost, yet she wasn’t; she was able to resist their power, even as she stared down the alien. She was the only one who could, so she knew there was something different about her.

She wanted to know what that was.

After she finished her story, her mother was quiet for a long time. Andy didn’t want to disturb her thoughts, because she hoped that the silence would end in some answers, at long last. The silence went on so long, however, that Andy began to worry she’d fallen asleep, or died, or something.

“I can’t,” Leta finally said quietly, shaking her head and looking at her hands where they were folded on the table. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”

After all that waiting, Andy felt frustration rise in her throat like bile. “Why not?” she demanded before she could check herself. “Do you realize that this could be a matter of life or death for me? I need to know what’s going on in my own DNA.” She realized just how strange it sounded that modern medicine couldn’t do that, but so far, no tests had given her an answer, so she had to go to other roots.

She needed the answers that only her mother could give.

“I’m sorry, Andy,” Leta said, taking her daughter by surprise again by using her nickname, which she never did. “I really wish that I could tell you, but I can’t. When I say I can’t, I mean it.”

The older woman didn’t bother giving Andy another chance. She stood up and walked right to the guard and the door. There, she paused and looked back over her shoulder, and Andy thought she saw true regret in those dark eyes for the first time...ever.

It was only a moment, though, before she was gone and Andy was left no better off than she had been when she arrived.

Chapter 1

Two weeks later...

“All right, people, sit down and shut up!”

Major Carson walked into the room like a storm cloud, ready to strike everyone down with bolts of lightning. It would have surprised and concerned Andy more if this wasn’t pretty much the way he always walked into the briefing room. He was firm and no-nonsense, ready to knock heads and get things moving.

The five other squad leaders for the 33rd sat up a little straighter and turned away from whatever casual conversations had been taking place. They all knew that the Star Chaser was en route to their next mission, and now they would find out what that mission was and what their part in it would be.

For the past two weeks, the marines of the Star Chaser had been training hard, both on the squad level and the detachment level. After the events at Starbase Zenith, time had been needed to heal mentally, but now training was just as needed to work back to unit cohesion. Everyone had unraveled a little during that time on the station, even as short as it was, but it was time to get back to business.

Meanwhile, Andy felt like it had taken those two weeks since coming back on board the ship to get her head back on straight after that...depressing visit to her mother. The rest of her team had known that something was going on with her, but after one initial foray and rebuff, no one asked again.

“We are presently heading to the Daikon Colony,” Carson was saying. He tapped a button on the remote in his hand and an image of a distant star system appeared. With the press of another button, the screen zoomed in on the Daikon Colony. It wasn’t an ESS colony, that much Andy knew right away.

“I presume it’s not for a further vacation,” the leader of beta squad—Atad—said with a small smirk. She was the new squad leader, promoted from within after the previous leader had been sent on medical leave following Zenith.

“No, no more of that crap,” Carson replied. Andy recognized her commander’s dry sense of humor, but he was serious as ever. She thought she saw a tightness around his eyes that suggested this mission wasn’t going to be a happy one, or easy. Then again, they rarely had missions that were either. Easy, happy situations rarely called for marines.

Before Carson continued, Marcus Krall, leader of delta squad, chimed in, “Isn’t daikon also a type of radish on Earth?”

The major looked at him and blinked, very clearly, three times. “How the hell would I know? I didn’t name the bloody place; I just know that we’re going there. Now shut your yap and listen, before I put you on latrine detail.”

No further comments were forthcoming.

“First, we are going to talk about the Kriori,” Carson went on, changing the image on the screen to a Kriori male.

He looked about the size of an average human male, with pale orange-red skin and several antennae rising out of the pale hair. The eyes were black with blue irises but no pupils.

“The Kriori are not part of the inter-species alliance with the ESS, which is why you don’t see any of them serving in the Earth Space Service,” Carson went on, gesturing at the picture. “They take issue with our stands against the enslavement of sentient beings. We know that they routinely send out ships to find new bodies to traffic and we do what we can, but typically they manage to avoid detection. We only see the aftermath. We try to find and shut down their trafficking hubs and processing centers, but usually with very little luck.

“Until now.”

What he had said up until those last two words was something everyone already knew. The Kriori were practically galactic bogeyman tales. Be good or the Kriori will get you. They knew that people, entire ships, had been taken, but they could never catch them in the act or find where they had gone. Those people were usually never heard from again. Even when they were, they couldn’t provide any useful information.

“In the past few months, ESS has tracked a drastic uptick in the number of raids.” Carson gestured for everyone to quiet their murmuring. “That is a big change from how they have operated for decades. We don’t know the reason for the increased activity, but it’s allowed us to gather more information than we ever have. They have even started targeting some of the more remote ESS stations and colonies.

“They have now taken not just members of ESS alliance races but ESS ships and stations as well. This is going to be their downfall.”

Andy had been listening intently and now spoke up for the first time. “One of the ESS members they took had a tracer, didn’t they?”

Carson smiled and inclined his head toward her. “Very good, Sergeant,” he said. “You are correct about that. I’m sure the ESS wishes they could say that it was part of some skillfully executed plan, but...it was little more than dumb luck. That’s where we come in.

“Thanks to our ability to not only trace but gain some basic information from the device, we know that they are on Daikon Colony. This colony is in neutral territory and is run by a corporation of alien business magnates. We have known it for a hub of business, but now we know there is something else going on. Further reconnaissance has discovered an entire underground segment to the compound there, which is where the Kriori are trafficking slaves. We’re going to shut them down and rescue our people. “

Atad spoke up then. “Do we expect any issues from the corporations? Do they maintain any security, or anything else we’ll need to be aware of?”

Carson shook his head. “While it’s not an ESS locale, they do trade with us and I’m sure the threat of sanctions should keep them from giving us too much trouble.”

Every head in the room nodded thoughtfully, absorbing the task at hand. “So what’s the plan, sir?” Andy asked after a moment.

Carson clicked again and a general map of the compound and surrounding terrain popped up on the screen. “The first thing you need to know is about the Kriori themselves. I am sure you noticed the antenna in the picture of that handsome fella from before. Well, those are part of the species’ ability to use their bodies... Well, long story short, they shoot lightning from their hands.”

There was some intrigued murmuring, although Andy just listened.

“They prefer to use their bio-electric abilities before weapons, but don’t let that fool you, they do have and use weapons.” He gestured at the map. “We’re going in hard and fast. We’ll take out any resistance before they know what hit them. Here’s what each squad will be doing...”

Chapter 2

Andy and the rest of gamma squad were taking a turn in the Star Chaser’s gym. Their own briefing about the upcoming mission had been notably more informal than the other, but it didn’t really need to be anything else.

“Are we going to get capes? I feel like we should get capes,” Dan said as lie on the weight bench, Anallin spotting him to make sure the fairly old-fashioned device didn’t drop and squash him. “We’re gonna charge in and save the day for some poor enslaved souls, rescuing them from the evil grips of villains that actually shoot lightning from their hands. I mean, come on, this is legit superhero stuff. I think we should get a cape.”

“One cape for everyone, Dan?” Roxanna quipped from the leg-press machine, her skin swirling with her concentration. “I know we get along pretty well, but I think that’s too much even for us.”

Jade laughed from where she sat on the edge of a bench, drinking water and watching the rest of the squad. She was young, and seemed to not just absorb everything from those around her but actively tried to do so.

“You know what I mean, smart-ass,” he returned without rancor, before grunting and bench pressing a weight that far exceeded Andy’s entire bodyweight. The image of her laying straight and him just lifting and lowering her amused her for a moment.

“Thomas, this is just our job,” she pointed out, although without admonishment. “I’m fairly certain we will not get any special uniforms with capes for the occasion.”

“Aha!” Dan said, putting the weight-bar back on its cradle and pointing at her like she had just made his argument for him. “You’re only fairly certain. So we might!”

Andy chuckled and shook her head, lying on the bench beside him. He sat up and Anallin moved to spot her. Andy wouldn’t stop Dan when his humor was running away from them. It wasn’t something she’d been inclined to do before, because it was integral to who he was, but after what had happened to him, and them, on Zenith... Well, it had taken a long time for his humor to return. Now she was glad to hear it.

They had all been effected, in some way, but her fellow humans—Dan and Jade—seemed to have taken it the hardest in the aftermath. Jade wouldn’t have left her quarters if she had been given a choice, but the Star Chaser’s counselor was very proactive.

Andy was just glad she hadn’t lost any of her squad. Others weren’t so lucky.

“Sergeant,” Jade chimed in, “do you think we’ll meet a lot of...resistance?”

There was a hesitation in her voice that hadn’t been there a couple of months ago. Andy couldn’t help but notice it, but she didn’t call the girl out on it. She was going to give them all the time they needed. As much as possible, anyway.

“I can’t answer that for sure, Martin,” she said, gripping the metal bar above her head. “I imagine we’ll run into some trouble, yes. We know there are guarded checkpoints and I’m certain that there will be guards once we’re inside. However, the Kriori don’t have any telepathic or empathic abilities that have ever been recorded. It’s just, you know, lightning coming out of their hands.”

“Oh, is that all,” Roxanna chimed in again.

“Are you just here for comic relief?” Andy teased with a grunt as she lifted the bar, bringing it down and up again slowly.

The Selerid woman laughed. “That’s Dan’s job, you know that.”

For the first time, Anallin decided to join the conversation with a verbal presence as well as a physical one. “You seem to be competing for the title, Roxanna.”

Corporal Roxanna turned to look at the Hanaran and grinned. “Another country heard from,” she teased.

“I am not a country,” Anallin said, eyebrows shifting downward and iris-less eyes clicking a couple times in confusion before settling back to normal. The Hanaran had either figured it out or decided to not care. Anallin didn’t always follow what the others said, but only actually cared about half the time. Roxanna had picked up on far more human mannerisms and idioms, adapting them into her own speech patterns. It likely had something to do with the empathic nature of her race.

“Perhaps the good corporal just doesn’t want Dan to have to carry the comedic burden all on his own?” Jade supplied with a glint in her green eyes. Andy wondered if her name had come from that at all. As good as it was to see Dan joking and Jade out of her room, it was even better to see Jade interacting with Dan after they had nearly killed each other on Zenith.

“Yes, that’s it exactly,” Roxanna laughed. She swung her legs over the side of the leg-press and set them on the floor. Her purple skin, which began to swirl in a disconcerting show of iridescence when she was under emotional or physical stress, was calming down as her body eased off the workout high. “I’m just trying to help out. You know, I’m a very helpful woman.”

“Are you sure about that?” Dan returned after a swig of water. He wiped sweat away from his forehead and neck, but was grinning across the small expanse between him and his squad-mate. “You might just be trying to steal my title.”

Anallin’s eyes clicked. “Title?”

Dan shook his head and waved at the Hanaran. “I’ll explain it later.”

Everyone laughed, except Anallin, who gazed at the others in the squad, eyes clicking in confusion again. Although the Hanaran race was notoriously hard to read, Andy felt pretty confident in recognizing what was what. This time, the clicks lasted a little bit longer before quieting down into understanding or apathy.

From there, the room quieted down as each person moved to a different machine or a different state of taking a break.

Watching Anallin’s eyes hovering nearby just in case, Andy brought the bar up and down a few more times before setting it back on the cradle. “Regardless of who is cracking the jokes, the job is the same,” she said. “And I have all confidence that we will do it to the utmost of our abilities and achieve our objective.”

“Oorah,” Jade said quietly.

That made Andy grin.

Chapter 3

It was just before 0500 when the call came down.

“We are on approach to the Daikon Colony. All squads are to be geared up and in the shuttles in thirty minutes. Repeat. We are on approach to Daikon. All squads, thirty minutes. Any marine who is late gets put out of the airlock.”

Andy swung her feet over the edge of the bed and set them on the floor. She chuckled and shook her head. “Love you too, Major,” she quipped in the privacy of her small, but personal, quarters. Her rank and position gave her a room of her own, and she wasn’t ever unhappy about that.

Within five minutes, she was on her way to the locker room. It was a large section of ship allotted to the 33rd with an attached armory; every squad had its own area. She was beat to the section by only Anallin, which wasn’t a surprise since Hanarans didn’t work on the same sleep cycles that humans did.

“Nice to see you up and about so early, Anallin,” Andy said with amusement.

The Hanaran looked at her with some surprise, seeming to recognize there was an emotional tone to the sergeant’s words but not recognizing what it was. Andy simply waved and the lance corporal nodded back, understanding that no explanation was forthcoming.

Roxanna arrived a few moments later, with Dan and Jade not too far behind. No one wanted to face the Major’s wrath, even if getting pushed out of the airlock was just an idle threat…probably.

The group all greeted one another, but they were quiet and focused while getting themselves geared up and ready to go. Daikon was on a Class M planet, which meant no need for atmospheric suits. It was standard protective gear for this mission. That started with lightweight clothing, which was kindly designed of a material that was breathable but still with high fire resistance and some puncture resistance.

Straps and armor plates added to the protective layers; still relatively lightweight but beginning to be a little more restrictive. None of them were going to complain about the extra protection, though, but Andy did have to wonder how any of it would hold up against lightning.

Helmets. Boots. Gloves. Then they were off to the armory.

Each was assigned a pulse rifle with a spare energy pack as well as a conventional sidearm with extra magazines of ammunition. There had been painful lessons learned by ESS marines about the necessity of not relying entirely on energy weapons.

Geared up with weapons in hand, Andy and her squad headed to the shuttle bay. They joined other marines who were already clustering in the shuttle bay, each moving toward their shuttles. Each squad had its own, along with a pilot to take them where they needed to go. By the half-hour mark, every little ship loaded and Carson was in for disappointment if he had really been looking to send someone into space by way of his boot.

“More detailed sensor information will come while the shuttles’ approach. It will be twenty minutes until we’re on the ground. Use your time well,” Carson said over the inter-ship communication systems. “Shuttle one, prepare for departure.”

Andy strapped into the chair beside the pilot, while the rest of her squad took their seats behind them. Everyone was locked in by the time the shuttle lifted off the deck plates and they joined the other ships in the dark swath of space. The planet came into view moments later and the six shuttles made their way toward it.

“Does Daikon have a beach?” Dan asked after a moment. “I hope they have a beach. Who wouldn’t like a little time to relax on a beach after a hard mission?”

“Did you not get to spend any time on the beach during your downtime?” Jade asked from where she sat across from him.

Andy glanced back in time to see Dan smile a little sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, I... No. I didn’t. I had a bunch of other stuff to do.” The sergeant knew that some of that was post-Zenith counseling, but if he didn’t want to say it, she wasn’t going to.

Jade seemed to sense that she shouldn’t push the issue either, so she bit off her retort.

“I doubt we’ll have time for the beach, Thomas,” Andy said from the front, breaking any potential for awkward silences. “If they even have one, which I honestly doubt. No part of our mission involves looking for vacation spots.”

“See, boss, you need to expand your thinking,” he said, picking right back up with his usual sarcasm. “I mean, you never know when there might be some kind of vacation emergency, and what are you going to do if you don’t know where the nearest beach is? Aren’t we supposed to be prepared for anything, any time?”

“So far, I’ve done okay,” she replied, sharing a smirk with the pilot, who generally said little but always seemed amused. Sometimes Andy wondered if they were ESS marines or a traveling band of entertainers.

When the pilot did chime in, it was all business. “Beginning atmospheric descent,” she announced.

Space to surface travel had come a long way since its early years, but there was simply no getting away from the fact that the atmosphere was the atmosphere. The shuttle’s system compensated for the heat, but the craft still shook violently. Everyone was quiet, holding tight and waiting it out as they descended.

Andy took a deep breath, knowing that it was about to be go-time. She had to focus on the mission at hand, but warring with her readiness was a sudden...fear. She remembered what happened on Zenith, watching what happened to her team, and she was suddenly worried about just what they would face here. What surprises waited for them in the tunnels under the surface of the planet?

That emotion had its place. She was not so foolish as to believe that a person could live without fear, but she knew she couldn’t let it rule her.

Staring through the front viewport as the planet surface got closer, she pushed the fear aside with her focus on the mission. She knew what their assignment was and that was the name of the game. They had to execute their orders, and contribute to the freeing of everyone who was enslaved in the lower levels of that compound.

Oh, and try not to get hit by lightning.

Chapter 4

By the time the shuttle touched down, Andy had examined the sensor reports on the terrain surrounding the compound where they were going to be making their assault. They were landing in a clearing that gave them some tree cover as they approached. She’d take every advantage she could get.

The pilot landed and the hatch hissed open once the marines were unbuckled and had their weapons ready. The shuttle’s sensors didn’t detect anyone around them, but they were still going to be prepared. Once the door was open, they shifted out like they were clearing a room, swinging in a circle around the clearing to see that there wasn’t anyone—at least no one they could see—in the area.

Once they were clear of the hatch, it hissed a second time and shut. The pilot would remain with the shuttle, keeping it on lockdown until their return. She’d take off if it seemed like she was about to be swarmed.

Once the immediate area was clear, they began moving forward through the trees, toward the compound. The trees were sparse but did provide some cover as they moved. As they approached the tree line, Andy knew there would be a broad swath of open space between them and the compound. Once they were seen, the element of surprise would be lost so they had to act quickly.

“There are two guards at the door,” Roxanna reported, picking up on them with her empathic senses. “Neither of them are very alert, or suspicious.”

“They’re going to regret that,” Andy commented blandly.

Reaching the tree line, Andy held up her hand to stop the group so they could get a visual on the situation ahead.

The side of the compound they were approaching had a smooth curve with a single point of entry in an old-fashioned stone-faced building. They could see the two guards across the stretch, and neither of them looked to be Kriori. That was something. Andy didn’t see anything else to use as cover, but indeed, those guards were not paying much attention. This was clearly a little used entrance—or exit—so they were there just as a formality. Or so they presumed.

“It looks like we are just going to have to take the direct approach,” Andy declared. “Fire as soon as you have a solid lock on the target.”

Anallin, as the company’s best shot, and Andy led the way at a controlled run. Neither guard saw them until Anallin sighted the first guard and took him out with a single well-placed shot. The other guard was suddenly very awake and wildly looking around for where the shot had come from. Before he could get his weapon up to fire, Andy took him out.

They sped up to reach the door, while never losing focus on the surrounding area. When they reached the door, Roxanna took out her handheld scanner.

“Biometric lock,” she declared about the small blue panel beside the door. “That could be a problem.”

“It has to be locked to one or both of the guards,” Jade said. “Since they have to be able to get in and out.”

“One presumes, although you never know,” Andy countered. “Can you tell what body part we’re talking about here?”

Roxanna kept scanning and then said, “Judging by the oil marks on the pad, I’d say it’s a hand-lock.”

“Thomas, Anallin,” Andy said, nodding at one of the fallen guards. “Before he’s cold.”

“On it,” Dan said as he and Anallin slung back their rifles. Anallin, shorter but very stout and strong, picked up the body while Dan took the left hand. He looked at Roxanna, who looked at the scanner and shook her head. He dropped it and took up the right, pressing it as best he could against the panel without letting his own hand get in the way.

There was a long, nervous moment before a strange chime sounded and the door slid open. Anallin dropped the guard right where he was and they both quickly re-armed.

The space beyond the open door was dark, after coming in from the sunlight, but they didn’t turn on their gun-lights just in case someone on the other side spotted it before they had a chance to prepare for them.

Not wanting to waste any time, they moved into the building and took a quick look to either side.

They were in a long, curving corridor. There were dim lights overhead that they hadn’t been able to see from the outside. They moved to the left, hoping to follow the corridor until they reached the stairs that would lead them down to the bottom level of the compound.

As they walked, Andy glanced back to check behind them and noticed Roxanna shifting her shoulders uncomfortably. For a moment, Andy flashed back to Zenith but she stuffed it down.

“What’s wrong, Corporal?” she asked in a low voice.

“I can feel all the people being kept here,” the Selerid said tightly. Her gaze remained focused and forward. “That’s...a lot of noise, you might say, on one’s senses. They are very emotional, and those emotions are very raw.”

Andy could only imagine, although she didn’t really want to. “Do your best to block it out, Corporal. We’ll get them freed soon. In the meantime, we have a directive to achieve to help make that happen.”

The purple-skinned woman nodded. “Yes, Sergeant.”

Gamma squad had been tasked with disabling the communication systems of the lower level of the compound. They lost all hope of an easy mission if the lower fortress were put on alert so it was vital they carried out their mission quickly.

After a few tense, watchful minutes, they reached the door that would take them to that lower level. Roxanna narrowed her eyes slightly at the door and then shook her head slowly. “I don’t sense any guards,” she said, but didn’t sound very certain. “But, I’m sorry, Sergeant, it’s hard to be sure. It’s like trying to isolate signals in static, and I just can’t swear to it.”

“We’ll just have to do our best,” Andy said, nodding at the door. It didn’t have a lock on it, so they were able to just make their way down.

Chapter 5

Despite the “static,” Roxanna’s senses had been correct. Gamma squad didn’t meet any resistance on their way down the single flight of stairs. The stairs themselves were dark, but there was just enough light from the occasional overhead to show them the way without killing themselves or meeting any surprises.

When they reached the bottom, Andy led them down a corridor straight ahead. They didn’t have a blueprint on the basement level precisely, but did have a general idea of where things were; at least what they were looking for. Some of it was guesswork, but she made the best educated guesses she could and then moved that way.

“We’re approaching some captives,” Roxanna announced quietly as they walked.

Andy looked back at the corporal and saw her skin swirling in that pearlescent pattern that it did when she was agitated.

“As discussed, folks, we can’t focus on releasing anyone right now,” she reminded them as they moved along cautiously. “We’ll tag the room and come back once the compound is secure, so we can get them safely to the Star Chaser.”

She knew that no one liked the plan, herself included, but they all acknowledged the practicality of it. If they just released captives, the newly freed would be entirely on their own to find their way out of the compound to a shuttle. They would have no weapons or defenses of any kind. It was counterproductive to let them go only to have them killed or captured again.

Even so, there was enough tension in the air as they got closer that even Andy could sense it. Or maybe it was just that she was feeling it. They were there to free people, and it felt wrong to not do so.

It wasn’t long before they spotted the doors ahead. They were less proper “doors” and more just gaps in the walls. Seeing them, the group slowed what was an already slow pace, but they didn’t know what they were going to encounter in those rooms. Would there be guards, or would the groups be secured enough to not need them? The latter would obviously be more fortuitous for her and her marines, but she wasn’t going to count on luck. Luck and hope were bad plans to bank on.

The gaps in the wall were to either side, so the squad split up—three to one wall and two to the other. They moved slowly with their backs to the walls, the ones in the lead peering carefully around the edge and into the room. Each side was a mirror image of the other.

It was a cavernous room with slave-filled cages lining the walls. Where there weren’t cages, men and women of countless races were collared and chained to them. No one was moving much, but they all appeared to be alive still. Andy ground her teeth together, but she stayed to her orders. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a small tracer and attached it to the wall to make sure they would return here. Not that it was much of a hiding place for the captives, but she wasn’t going to leave it unmarked.

It was the only thing she could do at that time.

What they didn’t see in either room were guards. Andy raised her hand and signaled for the group to keep moving. They couldn’t linger there and wallow in their own morality.

None of the captives seemed to notice—or care about—the passing marines, which was sad and a relief all at the same time. Moving further down the corridor, they didn’t pass any other sorts of doors. They eventually did reach a T-junction. Andy brought them to a halt and double-checked the information in her scanner, then she sent them to the right.

As they turned into another corridor, a pair of guards appeared at the other end, revealing themselves just a handful of heartbeats too late for the marines to retreat without being seen.

Andy swore internally, but lifted her rifle and got off the first shot. The energy pulse launched between them and took out one guard. The other guard brought her weapon up and returned fire, sending the marines scrambling for cover. The woman fired at them with one hand, reaching up for something at her shoulder with the other.

Something told Andy that she was about to sound an alarm.

“Fast!” was all the sergeant said and Jade got off a successful shot just a second ahead of Anallin. Two energy beams slammed into the guard before she was able to complete her call of alarm.

Andy blew out a breath and regrouped her marines.

“That was too close. If one of the guards sound the alarm, we’ll have a firefight on our hands,” Andy said. “Shoot to kill. No hesitations.” It wasn’t the most necessary of orders, considering they would be quick no matter what, but it still seemed like a good idea to say it. It never hurt to be too prepared. “Hide the bodies as best you can.”

Anallin and Jade moved forward with a nod, slinging back their rifles over their shoulders to kneel down and pull the communication devices free of the enemy guards’ uniforms. Jade managed to do it with a bit more finesse than Anallin’s simply tearing it off, but both had the same results: the devices were no longer attached to the bodies. Both marines put them in pockets on the chest piece of their gear, then propped the bodies up in a corner, as much out of sight as possible.

“We’ll ditch those at a better spot,” Andy ordered, “just in case they have some fail-safe that’ll bite us in the ass. For the moment, though, keep moving.”

Moving out, they paid special attention to semi-hidden corridors that branched into their corridor, lest they get caught by surprise again.

As they moved, steadily and surely, Andy reflected on the fact that they were finding themselves in a lot of corridors lately. What she wouldn’t have given right then for a nice open field, or even crawling around in some mud as long as it was outside and in the open. All these curves and corners and turns and windowless hallways were getting obnoxious.

It was one more turn and one more corridor, along with one more pair of disabled guards, before they arrived at the communications room that had been their destination.

Now, they had a specific job to do and not much time to get it done so Andy led the squad into the communications hub. Still no windows, but at least they were out of the corridor.

Chapter 6

“Martin, can you get into it?”

Jade had slung back her rifle and pulled off her gloves, taking a seat at the computer console after they had rendered the previous occupant...redundant. Dan and Anallin had moved that body out of the way so Martin could take the seat.

“I think so, yes,” Jade said, biting her bottom lip as she looked at the screen and began to hit buttons. “This isn’t the most complex setup I’ve seen. I think my little brother’s gaming system is more difficult.” She wasn’t boasting, simply speaking conversationally. Computers and technology were her specialty, and she was tasked with breaking into the communications system and shutting it down.

Of course, they all knew what plan B was: they simply destroyed it. However, their orders were to preserve it if possible so that when the compound was secured, they could delve into its data more deeply and try to trace it to other locations and players in the game.

The communications room looked like what Andy might have assumed was some sort of guard station, had she not known otherwise. It had a window behind the console with open doors to either side. How the person originally at the controls hadn’t seen them coming, she would never know.

Andy and Anallin took one door, while Roxanna and Dan covered the other. The room was small so there was little to no chance of surprise entrances, meaning they just had to cover the outer corridor. Although they’d had to subdue some guards on their way in, there hadn’t been very many of them. At least, there had been fewer than Andy would have expected there to be, which suggested to her that they expected little trouble here.

With rooms full of chained slaves, the over-confidence was perhaps to be expected. They would think the corporations had them covered above and no one even knew about their trafficking hub down in the basement. Why bother with the expense and providing for of extra guards?

Then even the ones they had would start getting complacent. Which, to Andy, was exactly what had happened. It made their jobs a lot easier, but she wasn’t going to let her marines get just as complacent because of it.

The sound of Jade’s fingers hitting the keys filled the small room, along with her quiet stream of subconscious murmuring. Although it was so low that you couldn’t pick up on all of the words, it was audible enough to suggest she was basically narrating everything that she was doing to herself, along with the occasional argument with her hands or eyes or the system itself.

“There is some encryption,” Jade suddenly explained loud enough for everyone to hear. “That’s what’s taking so long. I think it’s the basic log-in system for whoever uses this console whenever they need it to go active again, but since I don’t know the information that will unlock it their way—and I don’t see any other biometric locks—I have to find a backdoor.”

“Can you?” Andy asked, looking over her shoulder at the younger woman.

“Oh yeah,” Jade replied. “It just takes time. But I’m not seeing any of the telltale signs that would suggest a trap or a fail-safe. Which, frankly, is pretty dumb on their part, but it does work in our favor.”

Andy didn’t have much to say to that other than to agree, so she just let the girl get back to her work.

She just hoped that it wouldn’t take too long. The longer they stood there, the more likely it was that trouble was going to find them. So far this mission had been going pretty well, and she was hoping to keep it that way.

“Got it!” Jade declared, tapping one final button with triumph. She grinned up at Andy, and the sergeant had a moment where she couldn’t get past how young Jade looked. Andy herself was hardly old, but still, she felt worlds and eons apart at that moment.

“Good job, Martin,” Andy said, giving her the praise she deserved. “Now, get things shut down and leave it for the rest of the tech-heads to sort out what’s what. We can regroup with the rest of the marines and then get to doing what we really came down here to do.” Those two rooms filled with all those hopeless souls was not an image that had gone far from her mind.

“I’m on it, Sergeant,” Jade declared, diving into the computer again while Andy turned her attention back to the corridor.

They hadn’t seen anyone since entering the communications hub, and now she was beginning to wonder what the meaning of that actually was, if there was any meaning at all other than lax security they had already noticed. It still seemed strange that there hadn’t been any patrols, though.

That thought brought with it a sense of foreboding, of being “due” for trouble. Andy shook that off fast so she could focus on the job.

“It’s done, Sergeant. The system is shut down and now no one down here, aside from ESS marines, can communicate with anyone else.”

“Good work,” Andy said again. “Now, let’s get out of here and return to the meeting point.”

Jade stood up and slipped her gloves back on, bringing her rifle back around. She moved toward Andy and Anallin, as Andy gestured for the group to exit into the hallway via the door they had been standing at. Roxanna and Dan would check the one way, then cover the back as they made their way out.

The foreboding feeling ended up being prescient.

It happened very fast. Later, Andy would only be able to guess that the shutting down of communications triggered a silent alarm and there was a quicker response than they could have anticipated. Guards came from both directions of the hall when Andy, Anallin, and Jade were already out of the room. She couldn’t see what happened to Roxanna and Dan in detail, but she knew they managed to blockade themselves in the room while the larger enemy force came from the front.

All of the guards she hadn’t seen before were there now. She fired her pulse rifle and didn’t miss, but they had nowhere to go as the group from behind managed to push ahead, either past or over Roxanna and Dan. Andy couldn’t know at that point.

All she knew was that they were overwhelmed when suddenly, darkness took her.

Chapter 7

Nothing was real.

As she stood in the core of Starbase Zenith, completely alone, she knew that she wasn’t actually there. This was just a dream or a hallucination of some sort. That knowledge did not, however, afford her a chance to figure out what to do about it or how to get out of it.

The only way out was through. That was a phrase she had heard or read somewhere before, and that was what stood out now.

When she had been in this room last time, there had been a Colirnoid there. Just one, but that one had been the “head of the snake.” The focal point to a web of Colirnoid working in telepathic conjunction to turn the people on the starbase into monsters so that the Colirnoid could feed off the chaos and violence.

Her squad had almost killed each other. Only Andy had resisted...

Yet she didn’t see the Colirnoid there now. It wasn’t standing in the middle of the room running its terrible abilities, nor was it lying on the ground, where it had fallen after she killed it, sending the others running.

She started walking around the core itself. It was a long cylinder that rose several stories through the center of the station, surrounded by a fence and an energy field as two layers of protection against anyone who might fall or do something stupid. This entire section of Zenith’s engineering was created around this piece, the heart of the station.

On the other side, she startled when she saw a...figure.

She didn’t have a weapon, but she shifted immediately into a defensive posture with her hands up in front of her. It was then that she realized she wasn’t wearing any of her protective gear either. Well, that was just perfect...but then, this wasn’t real, right?

The figure was just that, however. It was a figure without any apparent form aside from a vaguely humanoid shape, but there was no way for her to tell if it was facing her or facing away from her.

There were no words, and no movement. Yet somehow, the longer she looked at the figure, the more she had the feeling of it...somehow being male. There was absolutely no evidence to support that, but she just had a feeling.

“Hello?” she ventured to ask.

The figure didn’t move, and there was no sound in return.

Anxiety started rising in her chest, and she didn’t understand why. Well, she understood why, but there was an edge to it that made her chest hurt and she felt like she was on the verge of tears and that was what she didn’t understand. It wasn’t like her. What was it about this shadowy apparition that bothered her so much?

“Who are you?” She felt better when she felt like she was actually doing something, and even if it wasn’t an effective something, talking helped.

Father.

The word just blossomed in her mind. She didn’t know where that had come from any better than the idea that it was a man, but the one likely came from the other. An amorphous male figure lingering in her subconscious, it was perhaps the obvious connection. Still, there was nothing to this.

It was just a dream...right?

Finally, Andy put her hands down and began to approach the figure. The lights flickered and she startled, lowering herself slightly and snapping her gaze around to try to spot an enemy, until she realized that it was in fact just the lights flickering. She straightened up and shook her head.

“Who are you?” she repeated, sounding a little more direct. She resumed her track forward.

As she got closer, she lifted her hand. She didn’t know why she did that, but she did, and she almost fled back when the shadowy figure mirrored the motion. Staring at where the “head” seemingly was, she almost thought she saw a face taking shape. Gritting her back teeth together, she forced herself to keep moving forward.

Their hands drew closer, and they were almost touching...

Light flooded into Andy’s eyes and she gasped. The sound was so sharp that it hurt her throat and she went to lift her hand so she could shield her eyes from the light, but she realized she couldn’t seem to move one hand without the other.

What was going on?

Her hands were tied up. Her hands hadn’t been tied up. She could remember lifting her hand just a few moments ago, trying to touch that shadowy figure’s hand, so when did that change? How did she get tied up? She could feel the bonds tight against her skin, locking her hands together in front of her.

It took just a few moments more for her to realize what was really going on, the dream or whatever it had been fleeing from her mind in the light of reality.

She had been in the lower level of the compound at the Daikon Colony. They had been exiting the communications room, ready to regroup with the rest of the 33rd and then start freeing some people, when they had been swarmed out of nowhere. She remembered shooting her rifle, and then fighting hand to hand. It hadn’t been enough, however, and she had ended up being taken.

Someone had knocked her out. She had been unconscious and moved...somewhere, presumably deeper in the compound’s lower level, but where?

Andy forced her eyes open and saw Anallin and Jade sitting beside her. They were also bound, but they were already conscious and were staring at her. Anallin’s eyes were clicking rapidly in agitation, and Jade’s eyes were so wide they were ready to stretch right off her face. She knit her brow, but tried to give them a weak smile to at least let them know that she was alive.

That was a good first step, but what was the next step, the one that would lead to them getting out of there?

Chapter 8

Andy gave herself a few minutes to finish waking up before she attempted too much of a tactical determination. Once she was awake, she pushed herself up into a better sitting position and looked around.

The room wasn’t as big as the other slave room, but it was bigger than the communications room. It was the same style as the first in that it was simply one large open space with a high ceiling and one wall lined with cells. The other had shackles and collars attached to it. Andy and her people were set in one corner, next to the shackles. There didn’t seem to be a cell or a collar that didn’t have an occupant.

They all had that same look of simply...having given up. It was a struggle to not feel paralyzing pity, but she knew that allowing herself to feel that wouldn’t help anyone.

This room was guarded, however, unlike the other one. She could see two guards at each door and one in the room with them, staring at the marines. This one didn’t have the air of a lackey; he seemed like someone in charge. She instantly knew that if she needed to go for anyone, that was the one it had to be. How, precisely, she was going to achieve that, she had no idea...but it was good to know.

The guard watching them was Kriori, and it looked like at least three of the other guards were as well. That was a little more concerning. They didn’t have any defenses against that electricity other than avoiding it all together.

“Are you two okay? Have they hurt you?” Andy asked in a low voice, turning her head so they could see her talking as little as possible.

“I’m not sure I’d say we’re okay,” Jade replied in kind. “But they haven’t hurt us.”

The word ‘yet’ seemed to hover between them all.

When Andy looked up again, she saw that their Kriori guard was still looking at them. She suppressed a small chill at the intensity of that look, wondering what the alien was thinking when he stared at them that way. She didn’t want to think about it too much, though.

Unlike the version of her that had been in her subconscious, this version wasn’t going to say anything to any of the guards. Aside from being ESS policy, it was generally just a better call; you didn’t want to give them anything.

That plan worked for a few minutes.

The one who had been staring at them finally rose to his feet, towering over them since they were on their knees. He stalked closer, still staring and not blinking. Andy thought she could see gathered electricity sparking between the antennas on his head. He came to stand in front of them. She said nothing, but didn’t turn away from his eyes.

“Which one of you is the leader?” he asked in ESS Standard, the English-based language that was used throughout the ESS and all the civilian alliances. His tone was flat, but sounded like someone who was used to being obeyed. None of them answered and his gaze swung between the three of them. “I would say this one,” he continued, pointing at Anallin, “but who would put a Hanaran dog in charge?”

The clicking from Anallin’s eyes increased with his agitation. The Kriori seemed to recognize the sign and smirked darkly.

“However, the two of you are females,” he went on, looking between Jade and Andy. She could feel the younger marine tense even more beside her, but Jade didn’t say anything. “However, if you do not tell me, I will work through each of you to find out. Starting with...” He swung a pointed finger between them until he landed on Jade. “Her.”

Andy wasn’t really surprised. Being smaller and younger, Jade being seen as the “weak link” was not a surprise. However, it put Andy into the position of deciding whether she should let it play out and hope for the best or break her own edict about speaking out.

The decision didn’t take long.

“I am,” she said, keeping her face blank even though anger played behind it. She knew that the tracer in their uniforms would lead their fellow marines to them, but they still had to hold on until that point.

“I didn’t realize that humans let their females lead,” the Kriori said, turning to her. If she had to guess, she would’ve said he had suspected her answer before she gave it.

The temptation was strong, but she didn’t rise to the bait. Maybe it wasn’t intended as bait and he really was surprised. Either way, she knew that it wouldn’t do any good to argue with him about inter-species sexism.

“You’re not going to be very interesting, are you,” the Kriori said with a sigh. “What is your name?”

“Sergeant Andrea Dolan. ESS Marines,” she replied flatly.

He waited.

She stayed silent.

“Maybe I should talk to one of your compatriots here,” he went on. “Perhaps they will have more to tell me.”

“I’m the sergeant. Talk to me,” she said.

He waved a hand dismissively. When he did, she saw the spine-like protrusions along the inside of his palm. It was a reminder of what those protrusions were for and just what his ability was. She wasn’t in any rush to learn firsthand, and hoped she wouldn’t.

“You aren’t very entertaining to talk to, nor particularly informative,” he said. “Your little team invaded our compound and shut down our communication system. While that isn’t overly troublesome, I assume there is more to your plan. And you will tell me what that is or you will find yourself on the next ship full of slaves heading for the Kriori Empire. One way or another, you will tell me what I want to know.

“You can be assured of that, Sergeant Andrea Dolan.”

Chapter 9

0755 Hours

Andy tried to figure out how long it was that the three of them had been the not-so-honored guests of this Kriori. She guessed it couldn’t have been more than a half-hour, but she wasn’t able to be sure. All she had was a sense of time passing and her ability to estimate, which wasn’t very scientific but she was usually pretty good at figuring these things out.

At the moment, her lead captor wasn’t trying to lure more conversation out of her and he wasn’t moving into full-on interrogation techniques. She wondered how long it would be before they reached that point.

She watched him across the room while he dealt with a prisoner who actually tried to cause the guards trouble. The woman, of a race that Andy didn’t recognize, had started screaming incoherently. Admittedly, Andy didn’t know if it was on purpose or just a byproduct of it all, but it had been effective to draw them over.

Of course, keeping herself still when they exercised their means of quieting her down wasn’t particularly easy. She didn’t silence after the first hit, but the second seemed to do it. It went against everything in Andy to stay put, but she knew that she was in no position to fight them right then.

While the guards were distracted, she examined her restraints and tried to shift her wrists. The lock was unlike anything she had seen before and they didn’t budge with just the pressure she applied to it. There wasn’t actually any obvious locking mechanism, but it was also obviously not something like a tied rope.

“Sergeant,” Anallin said in a low voice that she interpreted as urgency.

She looked up in time to see the lead guard approaching and she stopped messing with her bonds. If he noticed what she had been doing, he didn’t let on. In fact, he didn’t come back to them at all. He paced close to them, but was talking with one of the other guards, a non-Kriori humanoid.

At first, it surprised her that they were talking within her earshot, but maybe they were just used to slaves who had stopped caring, or maybe they themselves didn’t care because they assumed that she couldn’t do anything with whatever she heard.

“I think the latest lack of discernment in the raids has given us a worthless crop,” the humanoid guard was saying. “I would toss them all out and find new ones, find better ones.”

“How good does a slave have to be to be thrown onto a front line?” the lead guard, the one who had been talking to her before, replied snidely. “Think it through, you fool. We need them to serve only one purpose, and it doesn’t matter what state they are in when they serve that purpose, so long as they draw breath.”

Andy forced herself to keep her head down, appearing defeated. She didn’t want them to know that she was listening, but she was intent on their words. The Kriori were, what, building an army? Did they not already have their military forces? Slaving was practically a way of life for the species, so they would be building an army for their race and not just themselves as slavers...but why?

“We cannot withstand the storm without more forces,” the lead guard said, his voice practically a hiss of anger. “You know that. So why bring this to me?”

The other was silent for a moment and sounded chastised when he replied, “I suppose I am just frustrated with the ones that we have here.” There was another pause. “Most of them are nothing more than lumps of flesh while others are—”

As if to make his point for him, one of the slaves in shackles began to shout. The words were garbled, but they seemed to be somewhere along the lines of, “I will not fight in your damned army, Kriori filth!” He raged against his own chains, pulling at them as if he could pull them from the walls and get his hands on the guards.

One of the guards began to approach him with his hand raised, but the man didn’t even need it. He just collapsed to a pile. The guard looked disappointed and kicked the body on the way past.

“I don’t exactly find this much more tolerable than that man did,” Jade murmured.

Andy glanced around quickly to try to spot their captors. They weren’t looking back in their direction yet, still engaged in their own conversation, so she turned to Jade. The younger woman was staring at the slave who had fallen.

“It’s not tolerable,” Andy agreed. “It shouldn’t be. If you bow to the shackles put upon you, then all of you is lost even if your body remains. We will get out of here, we will not be lost. Take in everything around you and be ready when our opportunity comes.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Jade said tightly, nodding a little.

Andy’s dark eyes kept flicking up to keep a location on the guards in between her attempts to analyze her hands and what kept them bound. Their feet had not been bound, so when the time came, they would be able to move. She tried to determine if there was any way to learn where in the building they were so if they managed an escape, they would know where they were heading.

It wouldn’t do to get free only to get lost.

“You’re never going to get free,” a voice who had not been part of the conversation before chimed in.

Andy blinked and looked up, spotting the slave nearest to where they were being kept. It was a woman and she looked to be human. She was in shackles and a collar, sitting on the cold stone floor with her head back against the wall. She glanced at them from time to time in between staring at the ceiling.

“You have that look of a new slave,” she said. “You know, one who still has hope that they will get out, but it won’t happen. I’ve been sold again and again, usually get sent back for my rebelliousness, but despite all my efforts and all of my attempts... Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“Maybe today is the day that’ll change,” Andy said quietly.

The woman laughed. It was a high-pitched, thin sound that almost hurt Andy’s ears. It was a bitter sound like what she often heard from her mother, on those rare occasions their conversations went on for longer than five minutes. It grated on her right down to her soul, but she pressed her lips together.

“We’ll never escape,” the woman said, her vacant eyes keeping up its in-depth examination of the cold ceiling.

“We’re going to get out of here,” Andy said to Jade and Anallin. “Oorah.”

“Oorah,” they both echoed, very quietly.

Chapter 10

Everything had settled down after a few minutes.

Andy was beginning to wonder where the rest of her squad was, not to mention the rest of the marine deployment. It couldn’t be that difficult to track them, could it? The compound was a single building, so they had to be able to find them soon. She wasn’t sure about their chances of escape, or at least didn’t have a plan yet, and she wasn’t keen to find out how things were going to go if they remained too long.

The guards left the other slaves alone now, since they were no longer acting up. Andy felt sure that their attention would turn to them soon enough, even though they were still distracted with each other.

Andy kept at it with her bindings, thinking that she might have identified the locking mechanism. Of course, she hadn’t yet figured out how to break it, but knowing was half the battle. It was slow-going because she had to keep checking the location and attention spans of the guards, to make sure she wasn’t found out.

“What are you doing there?!”

The voice was loud, angry, and demanding. Andy’s heart skipped a couple of beats when she realized that she hadn’t been as covert as she thought. She had been found out. Lifting her head, she saw the lead guard staring in her direction, but...not at her. He was staring at Jade, who looked guilty. Had she been working on her restraints as well?

“I already know that you are useless,” he said casually, seemingly no longer angry. He lifted his hand, and Andy just knew what was coming.

Andy didn’t stop and think. The direct and deadly threat to her squad-mate, who she was tasked to protect as much as to lead, was just too much. Instinct kicked in. She made the most of her unbound feet and propelled herself up and over, throwing herself quite literally in front of her teammate just as Jade gasped.

To her credit and Andy’s pride, the younger woman did not scream. Whatever was going to happen, she was going to take it with stoicism and bravery.

That was only a moment of recognition amid a rapid-fire succession of events. As Andy was pushing herself in front of Jade, the Kriori fired a lightning bolt. It wasn’t like the mythological bolts thrown by the god Zeus, it simply fired from the Kriori’s palm. She could see the orange glow of the bolt as it arced across the distance between them. Everything seemed to slow down in that moment.

The split-second she had as the bolt shot at them gave her the time to think about the fact that she was going to die. This lightning was going to hit her, center mass, and electrocute her. She was a tough woman, but she couldn’t imagine a way for her to survive that. It seemed fairly clear that she was about to die.

She wasn’t afraid. Andy knew that any of her squad would lay down their lives for her and she had no regrets in doing so for them. Her only regret was leaving her people without her to face their captivity, but hopefully, the 33rd would be showing up soon...

The electricity struck her directly on the chest.

She felt the crackling as it raced over her skin, and her heart skipped a beat. Everything felt very hot all of a sudden and time sped up again, dropping her to the floor with a heavy thud as she waited for darkness to take over her again. This time, for good.

It never came.

All she did was hit the ground. Everything was still hot, and she thought she could hear the crackling sound, but everything else came to a halt. It didn’t even seem like anyone was breathing, including her.

What just happened?

She was still alive, and she didn’t even feel injured. She felt a little strange, but perfectly healthy and intact.

Pushing herself to her feet, she looked around and saw the Kriori who fired the bolt just standing there, bewildered. She felt everyone staring at her, and she didn’t blame them.

“That...” the guard began, before gesturing again.

For the second time, she watched as that lightning bolt streaked from his open palm. The antenna on the top of his head sparked and waved, and the spines in his hand seemed to pulse with the red-orange light that leapt forward. Just like it had before, it crested the space between them.

She didn’t even try to move out of the way. Was it shock? Or was it some new found confidence?

In fact, the moment she saw it leave his hand, she didn’t even watch it like she had the first time. She looked at the guard, who seemed...disconcerted by her reaction. He expected her to jump or scream or something. She almost expected herself to do it. But she didn’t. She just held his gaze as his lightning hit her straight on for the second time.

Like before, she didn’t die. She wasn’t electrocuted. The force of it pushed her back, but she kept her feet.

Heat. She felt a lot of heat now, but it wasn’t burning her. There was that charged feeling to the air around her, but it didn’t hurt. She glanced down at herself and thought she could even see the tiny dancing bits of electricity playing on her skin, yet there was no pain.

Still, there was that sense of everything standing still. There was no breathing. Her heartbeat was quiet. There was just the sound of the lingering lightning and all of the questions floating in her head. How had this happened?

How was she not dead?

Andy flexed her fingers, even though they were still bound before her, and looked up to see the Kriori guard now well past dumbfounded into outright shock. His small mouth was open with an as of yet silent question and those intense eyes pierced her. She just stared right back at him. Although she hadn’t been willing to show any fear toward him before, now she felt even less of any fear she might have had before.

“What are you?” he asked, shaking his head slowly. “You cannot possibly be human.”

“You know, I’m hearing that a lot,” Andy replied with a faint smile.

Of course, now she knew that she had just painted a target on herself.

She was a threat.

Chapter 11

Fortune favors the bold.

Andy knew that she couldn’t be either smart or cautious now. She was, somehow, immune to their primary power and their primary source of threat. It had also been made obvious that she wasn’t afraid of them and was willing to get in their way. Every tactical brain cell that she had knew this meant they would want her taken out fast.

She did the first thing that came to mind, which was a direct charge.

Even though her hands were bound, they were bound in front of her allowing her to use them, and her feet were free. Since he couldn’t use his lightning on her, she just ran straight for him in the hopes that he wouldn’t be able to do much else.

The space between them hadn’t been very great and she crossed it quickly. As soon as she was in reach, she planted her feet and laced her fingers together, swinging her clasped hands like a warhammer for the Kriori’s head. He recovered from his shock only just in time to jump back and avoid her strike.

He swung wide and she ducked under his fist, not coming back up immediately. Instead, she drove forward and put her shoulder into his midsection. They went down together, but she was on top and she pinned him. Using her club-like hands, she swung hard and caught him in the side of the head before he could do anything to stop her.

The first hit stunned him, while the second and third rendered him unconscious—or dead. There wasn’t time to check.

Another guard came for her, shooting more lightning. It hit her like a fist, but it didn’t knock her over. She threw herself to her feet and off the Kriori beneath her, spinning to find the offender. There were now four guards and all of them were coming for her, but Andy was no longer alone. Jade and Anallin were also on their feet.

Part of her wanted to tell them not to, because she knew they wouldn’t be immune to lightning, but she was also aware of the fact that she wasn’t likely to do well in a four against one fight, especially when she didn’t have full use of her hands. Of course, she wasn’t going to let that slow her down. Not now.

Anallin charged the closest Kriori guard, fists swinging wildly, catching the guard in the head. It happened so fast, the guard couldn’t even raise a defense and the power behind the Hanaran’s swing brought that guard down instantly.

As Andy swung at the non-Kriori, she was peripherally aware of Jade getting her arms around the next guard’s neck, using her own bound hands like a rope and pulling against his throat until he fell forward with her on his back. She used that leverage to pull harder until she was sure he was down.

Andy’s first strike was blocked, but she quickly shifted her weight onto her back leg and used the forward foot to snap out and catch the other in a leg joint. She heard the cracking of the bone and knew another guard was out of the fight.

One guard left.

Andy felt like her heart was about to beat right out of her chest from the adrenaline coursing through her, made stronger by the lingering static she could still feel. She had to face down the last Kriori before Anallin or Jade took a lightning bolt that would do far more damage to them then they had to her. Ignoring the downed guards, she spun to seek out the last guard.

And she found him already engaging Anallin. This guard did a better job of blocking the strikes, but the Hanaran did a good job of keeping the Kriori from being able to bring his lightning power fully to bear. Andy didn’t know how long that would last, though.

While Anallin kept the guard busy from the front, Andy hurried around behind. By now, the rest of the captives were noisy. They shouted encouragement for the marines and abuse for the guards. Andy had to drown out any attempt to understand the words, but she appreciated the noise itself because it kept the guard from knowing she was coming.

Lifting her hands, she brought her fist down on the back of his neck. Given he was considerably taller than her, this was the best angle of attack. Once that had stupefied him somewhat and his upper half lowered, she caught him again on the back of the head and drove him to the ground.

Andy looked at his prone form and then to Anallin and Jade. She saw Jade staggering slightly, but on her feet and not showing any obvious sign of injury. The sergeant checked over Anallin as well, just to make sure there were no signs of injury. As the adrenaline started to fade, Andy marveled at the fact they had taken down four armed guards—while bound.

Oorah!

“I’ll be damned,” she said with a soft laugh and a shake of her head, although her words were drowned out in the noise of the captives all around them. She finally tuned into what they were saying a little better and realized she could pick out a couple of words, although there was no harmony to any of it.

“Behind—”

“—you.”

She blinked and turned just in time to see a weapon in the hand of the guard whose knee she had broken. She cursed inwardly and tried to move out of the way, but this time, she just couldn’t. If the lightning had made her feel invincible; given her a false sense of security.

The guard managed to get a shot off and the projectile caught her in a gap in the armor plating. The durable material of her fatigues made it stab resistant, but it couldn’t stand up to a high-speed projectile. It tore through her suit and embedded itself into the flesh of her side.

Grunting with pain, she clutched her hand to her side as Anallin and Jade rushed to take the remaining enemy out. As she collapsed to the ground, she could see Roxanna and Dan leading the way for a contingent of marines. They swarmed in with their guns at the ready, but there were no more enemies to defeat. The only ones remaining were the marines, and the captives waiting for the freedom that the 33rd had come there to grant them.

“You’re late,” Andy said with a smirk as Roxanna rushed over to her, shouting for a medic. The adrenaline faded from her system in a rush, and she finally got the darkness she had been waiting for...

Epilogue

Andy woke up with a groan.

It took her a moment to realize that she was in the Star Chaser’s sickbay...again. She had gone on another mission and ended up in this place, although this time it wasn’t precautionary. She had been shot, which was just plain obnoxious. The lights were too bright, but she preferred it to the dimness of that bloody compound’s basement.

“How are we feeling, Sergeant?” Doctor Martin asked as he walked up to her, his purple skin placid as he smiled. Like Roxanna, the Selerid went with a Standard approximation of his native name that no one else could pronounce. He joked at times that even Roxanna wouldn’t be able to say it, since they spoke different dialects of the Selerid language.

“I imagine that you’re feeling alright,” she said with a small half-smile, “but I feel like I’ve been shot. Since I’m awake, I assume that there wasn’t any major damage.” Of course, the Star Chaser did have top of the line medical facilities, so there could’ve been noteworthy damage that had been fixed. She didn’t really want to think about that, though.

Doctor Martin chuckled. “It was more than a flesh wound, but it could have been a lot worse. They were able to do a little battlefield medicine, as your people would call it, to stop the damage long enough to get you up here for surgery. From there, it was my top notch medical skill that put you back together in one piece so you can continue...doing whatever it is you marines do that end you up in my care so often.”

Andy chuckled again, then inhaled deeply to check his work. It was tender and a little sore, but it didn’t hurt too much. Top notch, indeed.

After a moment, she realized that he wasn’t going anywhere. He had stopped by, asked how she was, and then delivered his pithy way of announcing what had happened...so why was he still hanging around? She let her dark gaze settle on him and lifted her brows by way of asking him to continue.

“There is something else,” he said. He didn’t need those empathic senses to tell that. “I am seeing something...different about your biology since the last time you were here.” Pausing, he pulled a chair closer and sat beside her. She was tense and didn’t like where this was going. “I’m not sure exactly what it is that I’m seeing, though. It’s unlike anything that we’ve ever seen before, and the only thing I can think of is that what happened to you down there somehow triggered it.”

“Triggered it?” she replied, feeling kind of dumb.

He nodded slowly. “It isn’t unheard of for there to be a sort of sleeper code in the genetic structure of some races, which an event can trigger, or awaken. It hides until that point, almost like a virus and you’re the host. In your case, we are still reading plenty of human DNA, accounting for your human mother, but there is something else there now that I can only assume came from your father.”

Andy stifled a sigh. “The father that I know nothing about,” she said. “Is it... I mean, is it dangerous? Will this hurt me?”

Martin shook his head. “As far as I can tell, no. However, I’ve never seen anything like it myself so I can’t say for sure. All I can tell you is that I am not seeing any damage being done to you—for now.” He paused. “They told me what happened while you were being held, about resisting the bio-electric shock from the Kriori. First of all, I think it’s a theme. You were able to resist the innate ability of the Colirnoid, and now you’ve been able to resist the ability of the Kriori. I think something about this time, though, awakened that biological coding.”

“What happens now?” she asked warily.

“We will have to do some more tests and try to figure it out. I’m afraid this will mean going to a specialized facility, and seeing doctors who have more experience than even I do,” he told her sympathetically.

She leaned back and stared up at the ceiling. “Thanks, Mom.”

* * *

By that evening, Andy was released to her quarters. She was restricted from duty or training for a week, but they didn’t require her presence in sick bay. She was definitely okay with being in her room instead of the sick bay.

She was chewing over everything that had happened and everything she had been told as she lay on her bunk, partially curled on her side as she stared blankly at the wall across from her.

“Sergeant Dolan,” a voice chimed into her room, “there is an incoming message for you.”

“Transfer it to my quarters, please,” she replied simply. The computer panel above her head chirped and she looked up. The message was text only and she squinted against the brightness of the screen in the darkness of her room. Once she had read the small number of terribly impersonal words, she felt a strange feeling settle in her chest. She couldn’t figure out what it was, at first.

Sorrow, guilt, aggravation...

The short missive informed her that her mother had died during a fight in the prison yard, and that was it.

She didn’t know how to feel about that, but there was at least one detail she could be sure of: there went her best chance of finding out anything about her father.

* * *

THANK YOU

Thank you so much for reading Daikon, the second book in the ESS Space Marines series. I am so excited you took the chance to read it and I really hope you liked it. If you could leave a review for me, that would be awesome because it helps me tell others about my books.

If you want to be the first to hear about new releases and special offers, be sure to sign up our Science Fiction Newsletter. We have several fun things planned that will only be available to newsletter subscribers and can’t wait to share those with you too. To start with, you will get a free short story from the Niakrim War series. It tells the story of Cyrus Jones, one of the main characters in the series, and how he came to be part cyborg. All the information is on the next page.

I have also included a preview of Discovery which is the first book in the Niakrim War series. After you read the preview, you can download the book on Amazon.

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Preview: Discovery

Space is so boring!

This was certainly not what Violet had expected space travel to be like. She had dreamed of this since the first time she looked up at the stars in the sky, but none of those dreams had included endless days of nothingness. The only excitement she had experienced during the first days of the journey was when an occasional piece of space debris penetrated the warp field forcing the pilot to take evasive action. Even those potentially deadly encounters were brushed aside, as if they were no more bothersome than a fly buzzing around the room, by the Krim Sprinter's legendary pilot, Cyrus Jones, who was as much machine as man.

The captain had assured her that the Krim Sprinter was the fastest ship in the fleet, which made it the fastest ship in the known universe, when he reluctantly brought her on board the week before. The problem with space travel was the incomprehensible distances between planets. Even at three hundred times the speed of light, the travel time to Proxima was listed as seven days. The captain had assured her that they would be there in five. When she asked what they would do on the Proxima outpost for two days while they waited for the rest of the crew to arrive, Captain Mitch Cooper had just smiled and walked away.

After four days of watching countless specks of light stream past in a blur, Violet wished her childhood dream had involved something less monotonous...like being an accountant. She was wondering if it was possible to actually die of boredom when the ship violently lurched, throwing her from her chair. She froze in the air momentarily as the warp drive was forcibly shut down, dropping the ship back into real time, before being slammed into the navigation console. Everything went black.

When she came to, the ship’s bridge was in total chaos. Warning sirens were going off. Red lights were flashing. Captain Cooper was rushing from station to station, assessing damage and muttering to himself. She had a pretty good idea of what he was saying.

"What the hell just happened, Cyrus?"

"We were hit by a photon torpedo, Captain," he answered calmly as he stared at the seemingly empty space in front of the ship.

"That's impossible!"

"Yet here we are."

Captain Cooper looked ready to explode. Instead, he took a calming breath as he ran both hands through his grey hair. "Did you drop us out of warp before we tore the ship apart?"

"Of course," Cyrus replied without taking his eyes off the still empty space in front of the ship. "Belzaire's not gonna be happy, though. There's no telling how much of the warp system we tore up shutting it down that quickly."

Violet had pulled herself to her feet and was using the navigation console to steady herself. "So what just happened?"

"Somehow, we were hit by a photon torpedo while traveling at warp three," the captain muttered.

"How is that possible?"

"It's not."

The captain raised his hand to head off further questions. "We'll talk later. Can you find your way to engineering?"

"I think so."

"Get down there and help Belzaire. There's bound to be damage of some sort."

She was leaving the bridge when Cyrus quietly said, "There's something out there, Captain."

"Where?"

"Right in front of us."

"What is it?"

"I don't know," Cyrus answered. "I can't see it."

"If you can't see anything, how the hell do know something's there?"

Cyrus just shrugged.

The captain pointed at Violet. "Get to engineering. Tell Belzaire to get that warp drive back online."

"I'll do what I can."

The last thing Violet heard as she headed to engineering with a renewed sense of urgency was Captain Cooper telling Cyrus to put everything they had into the shields. All their lives might depend on it.

* * *

As Violet rushed into the warp room, she was confronted with a scene straight out of her nightmares. Glowing green warp fluid squirted everywhere. Steam leaks sprouted like geysers. Blinking red and yellow beacons were the only discernible source of light. When a huge man with deep red skin and jet black hair rounded the corner screaming curses, she thought, just for a moment, that she had been transported to Hell and was facing the devil himself.

"What are you doing here?" the large, angry man growled through gritted teeth.

"I...I...I'm here to help," she managed. "Captain said to help you get the warp system back online."

"Oh," he said with a sudden smile. "Glad to have you. I'm Belzaire. Come with me. We've got a lot of work to do."

Belzaire turned and walked straight into the chaos, not even bothering to avoid the steam blasts or leaking warp fluid. Violet followed tentatively, doing her best to avoid both. When she caught up to him, he was in the process of sliding a very heavy looking cabinet to the side, revealing a trapdoor in the floor.

"What's in there?"

"Warp fluid," he replied nonchalantly.

Before Violet could ask why the warp fluid was stored behind a hidden trapdoor, Belzaire pulled the door open to reveal a deep chamber with hundreds of clear cylinders full of glowing green fluid. There was easily ten times the legal limit of warp fluid in there.

Belzaire answered her unasked question with a mischievous smile and started pulling out cylinders. "We lost almost two hundred liters before I got the system shut down," he said. "I'll fix the leaks while you refill the system."

"Two hundred liters is more than a ship this size needs for the entire system," Violet sputtered, finally coming to terms with what she was seeing. "Not to mention twice the legal limit of reserves allowed on a ship like this."

"I've made some modifications," was all he said while he continued to pull out more cylinders of the precious liquid.

When he had retrieved twenty-five cylinders, Belzaire stood up and looked at Violet, who was staring at him with wide eyes, trying to comprehend what was going on. "Now, look," he said firmly. "If the captain sent you down here to help, something is seriously wrong. We need to get this ship back up and running. You deserve an explanation, but now is not the time."

Sensing the gravity of the situation, if not the cause, Violet nodded slowly. "What do you need me to do?"

Belzaire smiled reassuringly and pointed across the warp room to the half-empty tank of warp fluid. "We need to refill the reservoir. Can you do that while I fix the leaks?"

"I think so."

"Good. Just put a cylinder on the fill pad and hit the green button."

Those were the only instructions he gave before turning away and heading to a pipe leaking warp fluid on the far wall. Violet looked around the room briefly, wondering what she had gotten herself into, then started transporting the cylinders to the reservoir.

It took far longer than she had anticipated because she was constantly stepping over debris and around puddles of warp fluid, which she learned the hard way were very slippery. By the time the last cylinder had been sucked into the tank, Belzaire had finished repairing the leaks and was gathering the empty cylinders and putting them back in the hidden compartment. When she attempted to ask about them, Belzaire simply said, "Later," and closed the trap door and slid the cabinet back into place.

With the compartment of warp fluid again hidden, Belzaire turned to Violet and smiled warmly. "Thank you for your help," he said. "You should head back to the bridge. If something goes wrong, that's the best place to be."

She wanted so say something, ask questions, or try to figure out what exactly was going on. Instead, Violet simply said, "Okay," and headed out of the warp room, back to the bridge.

As soon as she turned to leave, Belzaire hurried to the control console and pushed the intercom button for the bridge. "Captain, we've got the system ready to power back up. We should be ready for warp travel in about five minutes, but we won't have full capacity until I can do a more thorough repair."

"Got it," came the captain’s disembodied reply. "Call me when you're ready."

* * *

Back on the bridge, Violet sat in the chair she had previously been thrown from, looking out into space. She was trying to piece together everything she had seen. Did the captain know there was enough illegal warp fluid hidden on his ship to get everyone on the ship executed? She thought it was likely that he did. And what did Belzaire mean by modifications? Nobody knew how warp travel really worked, it just did. Making modifications to something you didn't understand, and could kill you, was crazy. But then again, much of what she had seen and heard since coming aboard the Krim Sprinter was a bit bizarre.

The captain's voice brought her back to the apparently tense situation. "Is it still there, whatever it is?"

"Yes, it is, Captain."

"And you still don't know what it is?"

"Nope."

Violet expected the captain to be angry, but he simply nodded, seeming to accept that there was something invisible, and possibly dangerous, just outside. Yep, things were definitely a bit crazy aboard the Krim Sprinter.

"Captain, the warp system is online and ready to go," the intercom suddenly blared. "Tell Cyrus to keep it to warp one, one point five max. But preferably warp one."

"You heard him, Cyrus. Warp speed one point eight."

Cyrus looked at him with a disapproving glare, but simply asked, "Where to, Captain?"

"Anywhere but here."

A moment later, Cyrus reported, "We're ready when you are, Captain."

"Drop the shields and engage the warp field as fast as your robotic arm possibly can," the captain said as he leaned forward in his chair, staring intently at the still empty space in front of the ship. "Three, two, one, go."

Everything happened so fast; Violet could barely comprehend what she was seeing. She could hear the click of the shields dropping and feel time freeze momentarily as the warp field formed and the ship jumped into warp speed. And in the same instant, she saw three photon blasts appear out of nowhere, heading straight for them. She squeezed her eyes shut and grabbed the chair, bracing for an impact that never came. When she managed to pry her eyes open, all she could see was the emptiness of space streaking past.

Maybe space wasn't going to be so boring after all.

* * *

Read the rest of the story here:

amazon.com/dp/B071NJBNH4