The Gardens of Nibiru (The Ember War Saga Book 5) (22 page)

Bailey lined up her carbine on a Toth warrior and watched as it grabbed a kadanu and snapped the man’s neck. The warrior tossed the corpse aside and swung claws at another human guard trying to scramble away. She and Rohen had dropped to the second-lowest roof and paused to watch Toth and Kroar reinforcements gathering around the pyramid.

“Looks like they think the kadanu are responsible for the attack,” she said.

“Can’t say I have a lot of sympathy for them,” Rohen said.

“This is Egan. Can someone tell me what in the hell is going on out there?”
came over the IR.
“All my flight locks just went green, and Lafayette’s got the same thing over in his bay. We can fly, but we’ve got nowhere to go so long as that blast shield is up and the cannons are ready to blow us out of the sky.”

A Toth warrior cry filled the air, and hundreds more warriors joined in the chorus.

“Balls, that doesn’t sound good,” Bailey said.

Golden-armored warriors appeared around a distant corner. A stream of warriors armed with energy rifles came behind them.

“Definitely not good,” she said. She felt a tug on her back. She tried to twist her head aside, but her armor had frozen in place.

“Bailey,” Rohen said as he de-cloaked and ran a power line from his armor into his assembled rail rifle, “you’re not going to understand this, but it’s for the best. I promise. I just gave you my last full power pack…and jacked your armor. You’ll stay frozen and cloaked for a couple more minutes.”

“What’re you doing, you wanker? Get your cloak back up before they see you!”

“A full-power shot will drain my batteries. Cloak’ll be useless.” Rohen’s hands shot out and grabbed Bailey’s armor, he pressed Garret’s coin between her fingers. When he looked her straight in the eye, all she saw in his face was determination.

“Sorry I couldn’t stay longer. Tell Hale I regret lying.” He gave her shoulder a pat.

Rohen got to his feet, raised his rail rifle, and fired.

A hypersonic rail gunshot announced itself with a slap of air as the munition shattered the sound barrier. The weapon, designed to cripple starships with a well-placed shot, hit the lead Toth warrior and nearly vaporized it. The round hit the street and sent hunks of road and Toth flying through the air.

Rohen tossed his rifle aside and snatched a gauss carbine off his back. He hopped down a level and fired from the hip. He dropped to the street and slowly sidestepped across the road in front of the mass of Toth trying to extricate themselves from the crater beneath their feet.

His carbine snapped off shots until energy blasts struck the ground around him.

Rohen hurled a grenade at the Toth and took off running away from the attackers and the pyramid, keeping up a steady stream of wild shots and alerting the Toth to his position.

“Bailey! What’s going on out there? We’re almost to the exit,”
Hale said.

“Wait, sir. Hostiles are moving away,” she said. She looked at Rohen’s abandoned rifle, tantamount to sacrilege, and back to the sniper just before he jumped through a glass window and disappeared into a building. “Rohen’s taking the heat off us.”

“He what? He promised me that he’d—”
The lieutenant was silent a moment, and when he came back, his tone was severe and curt.
“Bailey, can you see any of the anti-air turrets from where you are?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m sending Standish out to you. Get him to where he can see the turrets too.”

Standish stumbled out of the hole in the side of the pyramid. Bailey de-cloaked and held out a hand to the Marine. She hoisted him up onto the roof and he fell onto his hands and knees.

“I’m not doing that,” he mumbled. “Because they’ll see me and shoot me. That would be unpleasant for both of us.”

“Who’re you talking to?” Bailey asked.

“What do you mean ‘involuntary control’?” Standish popped to his feet like he had a rod of iron running from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. His head snapped from side to side, then an arm shot out toward a turret built into the inner rock wall. White light flashed from Standish’s eyes and the turret cannons rose into the air.

A bolt of energy tore through the air and slammed into the wall behind Standish, peppering him with rock and dust.

“Get down, you daft bastard!” Bailey saw the attacking Toth warrior across the street and put two rounds in its chest.

The turret fired, and sequential thunderclaps beat through the air. Red-hot bolts of energy hit one of the spires rising to the edge of the dome and blasted it into pieces. The turret swung toward the next spire, repeating the destruction. After the third and fourth spires went down, the energy shield melted away.

The turret jerked to the side and blew a hole through the blast shield. Giant slabs of metal rained down and crushed one of the glass corporate headquarters.

Standish rocked back and shook his head back and forth. He looked at Bailey like a lost puppy.

“I am having the
weirdest
day!”

“I couldn’t help but notice the fireworks,”
Egan said over the IR.
“Is that our cue?”

“Yes, pick us up at the pyramid. Tell Lafayette and Steuben to get to their people and rendezvous on the
Breit
,”
Hale said.

Standish sniffed the air. “What’s that?”

A Kroar vaulted over the edge of the wall and charged at the Marines, a crackling energy staff held high over its head. Bailey swung around and snapped off a round that hit the wolf-headed alien in the chest.

The Kroar rocked back, then continued its charge.

Baily aimed for the Kroar’s legs and fired. The bullet hit a knee and sent the attacker sprawling. The Kroar rolled forward with its momentum and Bailey got a glimpse of the energy staff as it arced toward her.

Bailey dove to the side. The staff stuck the edge of the roof and knocked out a chunk of masonry as the staff discharged. A bolt of electricity connected with her armor and the display on her visor went mad with static. She tried to roll over, but her armor was sluggish.

The Kroar slammed massive paws against her shoulders and lifted her into the air. Razor-sharp teeth glinted in the alien’s snout.

She kicked and hit nothing but air.

The Kroar opened its maw and stuffed Bailey’s head between its jaws.

Her visor cracked and squealed as the teeth clenched down. A purple tongue pressed close to her eyes.

“Standish!”

“Forget about me?” Standish asked. The Marine jabbed Bailey’s carbine beneath the Kroar’s chin.

There was the snap of gauss fire and Bailey fell to the ground. The Kroar, most of its head lying in a steaming pile at its feet, stumbled backwards and fell off the building.

“Bloody thing was going to eat me,” Bailey said.

“Your face! It was trying to eat your face!” Standish wiped black blood off his face. “Not only do I have an alien ghost in me, but I’m on a planet full of face-eating aliens! What? No
you
shut up. Nobody asked your—what’s on the local defense net?”

“Are you OK, mate?” Bailey snatched her carbine out of Standish’s hands.

A Toth shuttle banked around the pyramid and hovered a few feet above the road. The rear hatch opened and its wings waggled.

“That’s our ride!” Hale called out to Bailey and Standish as he and the rest of the Marines ran from the pyramid to the waiting shuttle.

Bailey grabbed Rohen’s sniper rifle and jumped off the roof.

****

Elias lay against the hull, his back and heels magnetically locked. He pressed his right heel against the hull and felt the stiff resistance of the frame beneath the outer hull. His cloak held steady, just a few percentage points above zero as the batteries held steady from energy pulled off the solar panels integrated into his armor.

One of the dreadnoughts passed between the cruiser and Nibiru’s sun, a black wedge cutting through the pale-white disk.

An alert icon popped onto his visor.

“The nuke inhibitor field is down,” Elias said. “Drop cloaks. Lock and load.”

He got to his feet and the rail cannon mounted on his back extended up and over his shoulder. He took the black and yellow case off his thigh and popped the end off. Elias slid a long metal dart from the case and held it as gently as his giant fingers could manage. Arrows on the dart near its center pointed up on one half, down on the other. He twisted the two halves of the dart until he felt something click.

Radiation warnings popped onto his UI.

“We’ve got a live munition,” Elias said. He set the nuke between the vanes of his rail cannon and watched as the magnetic field guided it to the base of the cannon.

“Got eyes on the other dreadnought,” Bodel said. “We going to wait for word from the
Breit
?”

“No time. Drop your stakes.” Elias raised his right foot and the tip of a drill bit extended from his heel. He felt the vibration go through his body as the bit whirled to life. He slammed his boot against the hull and felt the drill bite into the ship. Puffs of gas escaped around the drill as it bored into the frame.

“We’ve got our rails on the other dread,” Kallen said. “Big boy will trace the attack back to these poor, unsuspecting bastards that I have little to no sympathy for. Anchored.”

“Anchored,” Bodel said.

A green icon flashed on Elias’ UI.

“I’ve never fired a nuke before.
Gott mit uns
,” Elias said. He lined a targeting reticule onto the dreadnought and fired his rail gun. His armor rocked against the stake holding him fast as the cannon accelerated the warhead to several hundred miles per hour before it cleared the tips of the twin vanes.

Elias fell to one knee, hunkered down and wrapped his arms over his helm. His sensors went mad with radiation and heat warnings as the nuclear weapon ignited. Terrestrial nukes came with blast waves and a whole host of nasty second- and third-order effects, problems the Iron Hearts didn’t have to account for after the initial blast.

Elias looked up and saw a blackened crater gouged out of the dreadnought’s hull. Trails of debris and floated through space like blood in ocean.

“Hit,” Elias said.

“We tagged the other one,” Bodel said. “Got it right in the forward energy coupling. Good luck firing your cannons, lizards.”

The dreadnought Elias hit rolled on its axis, and the glowing weapon emplacement slewed toward the Toth ship beneath the Iron Hearts’ feet.

“Time to go.” Elias twisted his right foot and broke off the stake. He crouched slightly, then pushed off into space. His jump pack blasted at full power to build up velocity, rattling him within his tank for several seconds before he cut the jets.

“We’re clear,” Kallen said.

“Cloak, run off your weapon batteries if you have to,” Elias said. “Let’s hope they were too pissed off to notice our little exit.” His UI washed with static as his cloak activated.

A volley of energy blasts the size of a cargo shuttle sprang from the dreadnought. Searing bolts of energy lanced through the void. Elias kept his eyes open as the bolts neared, ready to face his end. The bolts neared…and missed him and his fellows by a few hundred yards.

Elias twisted around. The first blasts from the dreadnought slammed into the Toth cruiser, blasting wide holes out of the pearl and ivory hull. The hits sent the cruiser rolling over, and it collided with another cruiser. The hulls bent and cracked. Licks of flame erupted from the fissures.

The second dreadnought opened up on the anchorage, and a trio of cannons toward the aft end of the ship rained indiscriminate retaliation on the mass of ships.