The Battle of the Void (The Ember War Saga Book 6) (2 page)

Malal took a step back. “Once…I was a god. Worshipped on countless seed worlds. My effigy cut into the side of mountains. Entire mythologies based on the forms I inhabited on a whim. Now I’m bargaining with hairless apes, trusting them with my future.”

“And what will you get in return for our deal?” Stacey cocked her head to the side.

“Revenge,” Malal said. “Revenge that has been waiting for millions of years.”

“That’s right. So you can put up with me a bit longer,” she said. “Now put your face on. Time to get to work.”

****

Corpsman Yarrow sat on a bench and took a small notebook from a thigh pocket. The
Breitenfeld
had been under a
MALCODE
condition red, no electronic devices of any kind allowed on the ship since he and the rest of the team had returned from their R&R trip to Hawaii. He clicked a pen and wrote in the date on the top of a blank page.

“Then I said to the guy, ‘Hey, how do you know the Dotok aren’t into that?’” Standish said to Orozco as the two Marines sat down on Yarrow’s bench.

“And the military police found the guy bound and gagged outside the gate to the Dotok sanctuary the next morning?” Orozco asked.

“That’s the one! I haven’t laughed so hard since we had new guy looking for the cloaked Mule.” Standish reached over and gave a red-faced Yarrow a quick pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, kid. We haven’t forgotten about that.”

“You’re lucky the internet is still out,” Orozco said. “That video would have gone viral.”

“You said you deleted it,” Yarrow deadpanned.

“Oh, sure we did,” Standish nodded. “Didn’t we?”

“I might have a copy somewhere on my Ubi,” Orozco shrugged.

“Guys, come on, you promised—”

“Don’t sweat it, new guy,” Standish said. “We’ll keep it between us and maybe…” Standish’s fingers darted to Yarrow’s notebook and plucked a photo from between the pages, “your girlfriend.”

Standish raised the photo beyond Yarrow’s reach as the corpsman snatched at it. The small photo showed Yarrow and a bikini-clad woman with lavender-colored hair snuggling on a beach chair.

“How is Lilith doing these days? She have a sister? I keep asking but you never answer.” Standish handed the photo back to Yarrow, whose face had gone several shades redder.

“She’s fine.” Yarrow tucked the photo into a Velcro pocket on his uniform. “Ibarra’s got her and the rest of the ones we rescued from Nibiru working on Toth technology, helping salvage what they can from the
Naga
and all the other wrecks in system. And no, she doesn’t have a sister. If she did, there’s no way in hell I’d take the hit for introducing you.” Yarrow looked at Orozco, the well-built, blond-haired, blue-eyed Spaniard. “But some of her friends were asking about you, Oro.”

“What have I got to do?” Standish asked as Orozco’s laughter filled the briefing room.

“You tried being a little less creepy?” asked Bailey, the team’s sniper, as she and Egan sat on the bench behind the three Marines.

“I was the first human to meet the Karigole,” Standish said. “The first human to set foot on an alien planet. Then there’s the Dotok and Nibiru. I should have a-a set of commemorative stamps, at least! Maybe an action figure. What do I get? I catch every crap detail Gunney comes up with and get to go toe to toe with every face-eating alien we come across. You’re still welcome for that save, Bailey.”

“Haven’t you been busted down to private three different times?” Egan asked. “What was it for? Larceny? Destruction of property…disrespect to a commissioned officer?”

“That last one was alleged and I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Standish said. “Sergeant Torni was there for that and she…she’s not here anymore.” The Marine’s face darkened and he took a seat next to Yarrow.

More of the
Breitenfeld’s
crew filed into the briefing room. Yarrow recognized some of the bridge crew, Durand, and one of the Ma sisters from the fighter squadron. A man with a half-dead face pushed a wheelchair-bound woman into the room.

“Who’re they?” Egan asked.

“Two of the Iron Hearts, Kallen and Bodel,” Yarrow said. “We don’t see them out of their armor that often.”

Yarrow watched as Bodel pushed his right hand off the wheelchair’s handle. The soldier’s left arm hung slack at his side as he tucked a blanket around Kallen’s legs and adjusted a shawl over her frail shoulders.

“What happened to them?” Egan asked.

“Bodel got hit on Takeni,” Standish said, his voice low. “I think Kallen’s been in that chair her whole life.”

“Jesus, why are we putting them on the front lines?” Egan asked.

“You’ve never seen armor fight, have you? They might not be much outside their armor…but they’re terrifying on the battlefield,” Standish said.

Bailey frowned. “Standish, there was some story about you and them floating around when I first joined the squad. What did you do?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny any such wild tales.” Standish crossed his arms.

“Where’s Steuben? Lafayette? Aren’t they always early to these kinds of things?” Yarrow asked.

“Gunney said something about Steuben dealing with that new Karigole village out in Kenya,” Egan said. “The Karigole matriarchs aren’t entirely convinced that we humans really don’t want to eat them like the Toth. Steuben’s been trying to talk them down, get them to stop setting traps for the resupply ships. Lafayette’s been on the Crucible since we got back from Nibiru, special projects.”

“So they’re not coming with us?” Standish asked.

“Guess not. I wonder if we’re getting some other mission experts coming with us. Where ever we’re going,” Egan said.

A side door near the front of the room opened and everyone rose to their feet as Captain Valdar strode into the room. Stacey Ibarra and a civilian man in a plane jumpsuit followed behind him.

“Shit,” Standish said. “Not her again.”

Yarrow focused on the civilian man. His face was eerily stoic, eyes dead as a mannequin’s. The man stared straight ahead, uninterested, as the room settled down on Valdar’s order. The longer Yarrow watched, the more certain he became that the man wasn’t even breathing.

The man’s head snapped to stare straight at Yarrow. One side of the man’s mouth pulled up into a smile, like there was a line connected to the corner of his lips. Yarrow felt a stab of fear in his chest, then calm. He felt something trickle out of his nose and wiped the side of his hand across his face. A small smear of blood stained his fingers.

A hand touched his shoulder. Yarrow looked over and found Cortaro and Hale behind him.

“You alright, Yarrow?” Cortaro asked.

“Sure, Gunney. Just the damn dry air on board,” Yarrow said.

His lieutenant and head non-commissioned officer traded a glance.

“Let’s get to it,” Captain Valdar said. “Given the MALCODE order, we’re doing this the old-fashioned way. Slides.”

A crewman brought out an easel. Large sheathes of attached paper rustled as he set it next to the captain, the words
OPERATION INDIANA
in simple black and white on the top sheet.

“You’ve all seen the preparations in orbit with Eighth Fleet. Our mission stands apart from theirs. Slide.” The crewman flipped a sheet of paper over. A map of the galaxy was on the next sheet, a red dot in between two of the arms. “This is where we’re going.” Valdar pulled a pointer open and tapped the red dot. “It is, on a galactic scale, in the middle of nowhere. The target is dozens of light-years from the nearest star, nebula or anything else of interest. The only other place we’d find a more perfect void is intergalactic space. Slide.”

The paper flipped over, revealing a picture of a giant object in space. The structure brought back Yarrow’s memories of a jade puzzle ball, layers of intricately carved spheres within each other. His grandfather had one, a memento of a trip to Okinawa before the Chinese conquered the island.

Not a real memory
, Yarrow reminded himself. He was a procedurally generated human being, grown in a tube and implanted with a lifetime’s worth of skills and memories. He did his best to discount everything that he remembered prior to joining Hale’s team aboard the
Breitenfeld
, the first moment he knew that something truly happened and wasn’t a construct from Ibarra’s computers. Yet he couldn’t deny that everything he remembered from before he learned the truth of his existence had no bearing on the kind of person he’d become.

“This is a laboratory of a long vanished, advanced alien race.” Valdar’s eyes flicked toward the still man sitting beside Stacey. “Lieutenant Hale encountered a remnant of this race on Anthalas. Their technology powers the omnium reactor that will make a difference in our next fight with the Xaros.”

“We’ve got the reactor, sir,” said Commander Utrecht, the ship’s gunnery officer, from the front row. “What more do we need? Wouldn’t it be more useful with Eighth Fleet than going on another snipe hunt?”

“What’s he complaneing about? Not like he’s the one that has to go boots on the ground to find this stuff,” Bailey muttered.

“Captain, may I?” Stacey stood up. Valdar motioned to the podium and stepped aside.

“After the encounter with Xaros leadership on Takeni,” Stacey nodded to the two Iron Hearts, “and some…additional research, we determined that the Xaros are more than just the drones. There is a leadership caste, one we can either negotiate with to end the war or eliminate.” Murmurs spread through those assembled. “I’m for the latter, if anyone cares. Reaching that leadership is difficult, unless we can complete the Crucible we have orbiting Ceres. Once our gate is fully operational and tied into the Xaros network, we can strike a fatal blow to the Xaros.

“We lack the technical know-how to complete our Crucible, and that’s where this star vault comes into play. The technology we need is here, and since the
Breitenfeld
is our only other ship with a jump engine…off we go.” Stacey stepped away from the podium.

“You called it a vault,” Kallen said. “How’re we going to get into this thing if it was built by someone more advanced than the Xaros?”

“We have a…technical expert,” Valdar turned his head to the still man, “on loan to us from the Qa’Resh.”

Anxiety squeezed Yarrow’s chest as the puzzle pieces fell into place. He reached for an absent sidearm and started to get up. A heavy hand pressed against his shoulder and Hale leaned over.

“It’s alright, Yarrow. We’re safe from it,” Hale whispered.

Yarrow’s memories of Anthalas were hazy, but he still had nightmares of the moment the sphere of omnium hidden deep beneath an ancient pyramid invaded his body and took it over.

“No! Sir, we can’t trust—” Yarrow struggled against Hale’s grasp until Cortaro grabbed Yarrow’s arm with a vice grip.

“Stand down,” Cortaro said, using the command tone all Marine leaders could call on when the time to follow orders without hesitation was required. Yarrow’s hands balled into fists, his breathing quick and shallow as the still man got to his feet.

“You may call me Malal.” The words came without his mouth moving. “This is
my
vault. I will be your guide. Some of you know me…” He looked to Hale and his Marines.

“I take back what I said about Stacey. Now we’re really good and fucked,” Bailey said.

“You have nothing to fear from me,” Malal said. “This one,” he pointed at Stacey, “has me on a short leash, as you say. Just follow my lead. Things will be fine.” His face pulled into a too wide smile, revealing pointed teeth.

“If you’ll excuse us,” Valdar said to Stacey. She and Malal left the room. Angry questions rose from the audience and Valdar raised his hands to ask for calm.

“I know,” Valdar said. “I’ve had to ask a lot of you since this war started. Transporting an ancient entity is not what I thought the next phase of the war would be, but here we are. Stacey and Marc Ibarra assure me that the entity calling itself Malal is contained and harmless. Don’t ask me to explane the tech, but it can’t manifest any of the abilities we observed on Anthalas. If it steps out of line, Ensign Ibarra has the means to destroy it.”

“That make you feel any better?” Standish asked Yarrow.

“No,” Yarrow said.

“Stow it, both of you,” Cortaro growled.

“This vault is far behind Xaros lines,” Durand said. “Wouldn’t the Xaros have found it and destroyed it by now?”

“The Xaros typically preserve any technology from extinct civilizations, but Malal and the Qa’Resh believe the Xaros haven’t discovered the vault. Malal claims it is well hidden and the chances that the Xaros stumbled upon it in deep space are very low,” Valdar said.

“Hey, we’re in for a cakewalk,” Egan whispered.

Orozco reached over and punched Egan in the thigh.

Admiral Makarov stood on the open ramp of a Mule transport, her boots clamped to the deck and one hand mag-locked to a strut. Readouts flashed against her helm’s visor as she looked through the void of space to the cruiser passing a few dozen yards beneath her feet. As commander of the Eighth Fleet, there was never enough time. Not enough time to address every maintenance issue, correct mistakes to operation orders, lead simulation exercises and a whole litany of problems that came up as the head of a military organization of tens of thousands of sailors and dozens of ships.

Her solution to the time crunch was to combine events whenever possible, which was why her senior staff officers were crammed into the Mule while she inspected the refit on the
Macta
.

Calum, her harried and overworked executive officer, stood just behind her, an Ubi slate in one hand.

“The next batch of shipboard security augmentees will arrive in…eight hours, ma’am,” Calum said. “The adjutant has them prioritized for the
Gallipoli
and
Tarawa
, which will bring the
Tarawa
back to full strength after the accident.”

“The investigation was supposed to be complete last night. What of it?” Makarov asked. She leaned forward slightly and focused on a work party on the cruiser’s hull. Bright motes of light flared from plasma torches as the workers attached a black slab of armor to the ship.

“The inspector general determined that a doughboy mishandled a breach charge. Most of the casualties resulted in the doughboys’ inability to react in time to vacuum exposure. They were fresh constructs, ma’am. None had been through the shipboard training programs we’ve put into place since the incident,” Calum said.

A sailor with petty officer rank adorned with two stars pushed his way through the mass of staff officers and stopped next to Makarov. Command Master Chief Holck, the top enlisted sailor for the entire fleet, grabbed the strut opposite his commander, the magnetic plates in his glove holding him firmly in place as the Mule banked around.

“The doughboys aren’t that bright, Admiral,” Holck said. “My chief’s mess is complaneing that getting them up to speed is taking time away from their other duties.”

“And are they telling you that the doughboys aren’t worth the effort? That they’re mass-produced and are expendable?” Makarov asked.

“Some say that,” Holck said.

“No life goes to waste in my fleet.” Makarov twisted around to address her staff. “Doughboy, proccie, true born, doesn’t matter. We’re all in the same fight.” She pointed at her adjutant. “Get copies of our training programs to Ibarra and tell him to make the next batch of doughboys smarter. Save us some time.”

“We’ll get pushback from the effect on the production schedule,” the adjutant said. Makarov turned around very slowly and stared at the man. “And I’ll tell him we don’t care,” he said quickly. “I’ll get it done soon as we’re back on the
Midway
.”

Makarov reached toward the cruiser and touched her thumb and middle finger together. She flicked the fingers apart and her visor zoomed in on the half-dozen sailors working along a seam of an armor plate that covered most of the ship’s prow.

“Where are we on the armor retrofit?” she asked.

Lafayette, the cyborg Karigole, stepped between two staff officers. He wore no space suit, merely a helmet and attached air tanks, his artificial body proof against the void.

“Across all hulls…total ablative armor installation is at sixty-five percent, ma’am,” Lafayette said.

“We were supposed to be at eighty percent yesterday,” Makarov said.

“The omnium reactor is the only thing in system that can produce the armor resistant to Xaros disintegration beams.” Lafayette put his hands behind his back. He walked to the edge of the ramp, his feet clapping against the deck with each magnetized step. “The reactor is producing nothing else and consuming a good deal of our pure omnium reserves in the process.”

“Is that a complanet, Mr. Karigole?” Makarov asked.

“A dispassionate observation. To fully equip your fleet in time for the launch window,” Lafayette touched his fingertips together to make a circle, “the reactor would need to produce this amount of omnium, but it can manage only this.” His hands closed into a circle half the size.

“I’m not even convinced the armor will work,” Makarov said. “If the omnium reactor had been repurposed to hull construction, I would have twice as many ships.”

“Your fleet’s new armor plating is based on materials we recovered from the banshee troops on Takeni. The armor can withstand a blast from a Xaros disintegration beam. I witnessed it firsthand,” Lafayette said.

“The encounter with the Xaros leader?” Makarov asked.

“The same. The armor is thick enough to withstand a single direct hit from a drone construct up to destroyer size, similar to what Admiral Garret encountered during the Battle of the Crucible. I encourage you to avoid getting hit by anything larger,” Lafayette said.

“‘Don’t get shot,’ good advice,” Makarov said. “Of course, the purpose of this mission isn’t to get in a fight. XO, where are we on the minelayers and the new
Manticore
-class frigates?”

“
Abdiel
squadron will take on the last of the graviton mines with the next delivery from Luna,” said Calum, the XO. “The breakers on the
Naga
found another intact heat sink that should bring the
Griffin
—”

A flash of light came from the cruiser. Makarov reflexively brought her free hand over her eyes, blinking hard to clear the afterimage.

“What the hell?” Makarov found the work party on the hull and counted five sailors. One was missing.

“A plasma arc,” Lafayette said. “The armor is made up of Xaros material. It can react unpredictably when exposed to high temperatures.”

Makarov saw a shadow pass over the star field. She thrust her hand into a boxy propellant gun from a bulkhead, ripped it out of its holster and leapt into the void.

“Pilot, bring the Mule about and prep the atmo chamber!” Makarov pointed the gun toward the shadow and fired. Streams of particles spat out of tiny nozzles, pulling her away from the Mule.

She caught sight of a sailor tumbling end over end through space, the arms of his vac suit singed black. The IR broadcasters in her suit tried to link with the stricken man, but an amber fail icon came up on Makarov’s visor.

“Sailor? Can you hear me?” Makarov slowed down as she got closer. The burns to the vac suit looked worse up close, the outer layers blackened and cracked, but she didn’t see any blood or air venting into space.

She reached out and tried to grab his foot as it swung toward her. Her hand clamped down on his ankle for just a moment until his momentum pulled him away.

Makarov cursed and let off another spray to close in on him again. She got an arm around his waist and pulled him close. Her inner ear protested as she took on his spin. She grabbed the sailor by the shoulder and spun him around. The young man inside the helmet had his mouth open, screaming.

Makarov pressed her visor plate against his, and the anguished sound came through.

“Sailor! Look at me!” Makarov ordered.

The sailor’s eyes opened wide. He looked at Makarov and then let out another pained cry.

“What’s your suit integrity?” When he didn’t answer, Makarov slapped her free hand against the sailor’s head. “Suit. Integrity.”

“S-stable. Oh God, my hands. Are they still there? Please tell me they’re still there,” the sailor said.

“Your hands are right where they’re supposed to be. The pain is a good sign. It means the nerves are still intact. What’s your name?” Makarov asked.

“Yeoman Warren.” He grit his teeth and tried to pull away from her.

“No, you don’t, Warren. Stay right here. You know who I am?” Makarov opened the control panel on Warren’s chest. The fried screen explaneed why his suit hadn’t flooded Warren with painkillers.

“You’re…oh, I’m really in deep shit now, aren’t I?” Warren asked.

“You’re going to be fine. I see my Mule coming for us now. They’ll get you back to a sick bay and you’ll be back on duty in no time, understand?” Makarov watched as Warren nodded.

The Mule swooped in a few moments later. Makarov pushed Warren into the open cargo bay and waited until he was secure in the emergency atmosphere compartment.

“Button up and get him to the
Midway
,” Makarov said. She swung her body toward the cruiser and accelerated, the propellant box pulling hard against her shoulder.

“Ma’am? Where are you going?” Calum called after her.

She landed on the
Warsaw
a minute later next to a charred hunk of armor and five surprised sailors.

“Everyone alright?” Makarov asked.

“No injuries, ma’am,” said a petty officer with the name “Tibbins” stenciled to her suit.

Makarov looked over the damaged armor and found a melted lump of metal that had once been a plasma torch.

“You were running the torches at their highest setting, weren’t you?” Makarov asked.

Tibbins locked her heels together as best she could and stood up straight. “Yes, ma’am. I ordered Warren and Liu to violate the safety regs. We were behind schedule and the faster we could—” Tibbins stopped as Makarov raised a hand.

“Where are your safety lines? Three points of fixed contact are required for all EVA work details,” Makarov said. “And where is the alert team on Dutchman duty?”

“We weren’t…issued any, ma’am,” Tibbins said. “We haven’t had a Dutchman team on deck since last night. Personnel shortage, I heard.”

Makarov felt bile rise in her throat.

“Tibbins, get your crew to sick bay and have them looked over.” Makarov touched the screen on her forearm and opened a channel to the soon-to-be former captain of the
Warsaw.
“Captain LaRoche. This is Admiral Makarov. I will see you, your chief of the ship and your XO in the ship’s wardroom in ten minutes.”

****

Corporal Brannock kept his back to a bulkhead as more Mules and Destrier transports landed on the
Midway’s
cavernous flight deck. The shuttles leapfrogged over each other with the coordination of a ballet, and Brannock kept his fingers crossed that the automated landing systems kept up the good work.

He’d helped clean up the wreckage from an ALS malfunction on the
Warsaw
after the Battle of the Crucible. A shiver went down his spine as the memory came back to him.

“They say who we’re picking up?” said Lance Corporal Derringer, the other Marine who’d been shanghaied into this task with Brannock. 

Brannock shrugged. “‘Personnel augmentees’ is all I got from First Sergeant. Pick up, get them to berthing and report back for the next ‘hey you’ detail.”

“I thought this was some babysitting mission. Why the hell do we need so many warm bodies on the ship? Showers are a hassle. Can’t even eat in the mess hall because we can’t find a seat. Now we need
more
bubbas? I thought the company was already at full strength,” Derringer said.

“You think too much for a lance corporal, you know that?” Brannock checked the time on his forearm screen and sighed. “Hurry up and wait. Hurry up and wait.”

Derringer scooted closer to Brannock and did his best to whisper over the constant roar of engines.

“I heard from my buddy on the
Dallas
that we’re going through the Crucible. That could take us…anywhere. You hear about all the crazy stuff the
Breitenfeld
does when they go through?” Derringer asked.

“No, and neither have you,” Brannock said. “The
Breitenfeld’s
always on black ops missions. I heard the crew is nothing but proccie cyborgs, like that one Karigole that Admiral Garret is always walking around with.”

“I heard they were all true born, handpicked by Ibarra before the war to be some kind of elite crew,” Derringer said.

Brannock’s forearm screen beeped.

“Here we go…pad ninety-four.” Brannock pointed to their left and made his way down the line of shuttles, dodging around cargo sleds and packs of loaded-down Marines coming off the flight line.

Brannock saluted a tired-looking Marine lieutenant as he descended from the Mule parked on pad ninety-four. Brannock glanced at the name stenciled on the lieutenant’s void suit: Hale.

“You’re with Alpha Company, 19th Regiment?” Jared Hale asked.

“Roger, sir. You’re assigned to us?” Brannock asked. His company had plenty of new second lieutenants and more than its usual allotment of first lieutenants. He dreaded the answer, sure that his company was about to have more chefs in the kitchen than it really needed. But this lieutenant…he had that faraway stare of someone who’d been in more than one battle. Having him around might help the less experienced officers.

“Not me, my boys,” Jared said, turning his head to the open cargo bay. “Indigo! Fall out.”