The Battle of the Void (The Ember War Saga Book 6) (23 page)

“Do we have time for a flyby on my ship?” Valdar asked. “Let me check the damage?”

“Damage?” Garret huffed. He touched his gauntlet and blast windows descended from the shuttle’s side.

Stacey almost didn’t recognize the
Breitenfeld
. Slabs of D-beam resistant armor plates covered the entire hull, the rail gun vanes were longer, and more anti-void craft turrets dotted the hull in round blisters. Gold lines bordered each plate, glowing with energy. The words “
Gott
Mit Uns”
were
stenciled on the side of the hull.

“Bit much with the ship’s motto, but I’ll allow it,” Garret said.

Valdar banged a fist against the bulkhead.

“Torni did it because she cares, sir,” Stacey said. “She could have gone into stasis with the rest of the crew. Instead, she spent years upgrading the ship for the fight that’s coming.”

“One moment I’m about to give my crew the bad news, the next I don’t even recognize my ship…or my planet,” Valdar said.

“About half the space watch pissed themselves when you came through the Crucible with that new armor.” Garret’s face became stern. “They thought it was another Xaros trick. I had all the orbital defenses shut down just in case. There’s always that one guy that doesn’t get the memo.”

“‘Another trick’?” Valdar asked.

“Eighth Fleet was lost with all hands, Isaac. They ran smack into the Xaros maniple coming for Earth. They put up a good fight, slowed them down, but they never stood a chance. The Xaros sent the
Midway
back to us, disguised drones as her armor. That caught us with our pants down, wrecked Titan Station and the Luna construction yards, before the Dotok got into the fight.”

“New ship construction slowed to a halt,” Stacey said. “It took months before we could lay a keel on another vessel.”

“It would all be over but for the screaming if we’d lost the omnium reactor in the Crucible,” Garret said. “Stacey shuttled enough data from what you recovered in the vault to get us back in business. Still won’t be enough.” The admiral shook his head.

“Bastion will send help, this time,” Stacey said.

“Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice…” Garret said. “I’m not going to depend on Bastion after they left us dangling with the Toth.”

“How long until the Xaros arrive? How many ships do we have?” Valdar asked.

“A month, if we’re lucky. We’re getting graviton bursts from the mines we set well beyond bow shock distance. They’ll cross the heliopause soon. As for what we have to stop them…I’ve got almost four thousand ships off the line. One more, now that the
Breitenfeld
is back.”

“I’m sorry…did you say four
thousand
?” Valdar asked. “There weren’t more than two hundred void warships when the Xaros first invaded.”

“Ibarra can breed proccies so fast he’d put rabbits to shame. We’ve got whole crews just waiting for their ships to come off the assembly line. Still won’t be enough. Won’t be near enough,” Garret said.

“The projections—” Stacey said.

“The projections are bullshit.” Garret cut her off with a swipe of his hand. “What Eighth Fleet encountered will become billions of Xaros drones by the time it gets here. The chance of us lasting a week is slim to none.”

“But, if—”

“Don’t you ‘but, if’ me,” Garret said. Stacey rolled her eyes at the new interruption. “Hope is not a method, Stacey. We are in for one hell of a fight and I don’t have half the ships I need to tell Phoenix we’ve got this in the bag with a straight face.”

“Bastion isn’t sending help?” Valdar asked. “We’ve got the means to access the Xaros network. Why don’t they flood local space with their ships so we can end the war with one strike to the Xaros leadership on—what did Torni call it?—the Apex.”

Stacey sighed. “Now that we’ve got the information we need,” she said, tapping the case with the data crystal, “we can finish our Crucible…if we put our omnium reactor to work on nothing but the Crucible for the next eight months.”

“The Xaros will be here long before that,” Garret said, “and I need the reactor churning out D-beam proof armor. Our ships don’t stand a chance without it.”

“I noticed,” Valdar said. “Why didn’t we send this data earlier?”

“There are limits to what I can ferry back and forth. Malal’s data is…enormous, contiguous. It is impossible to separate anything from the whole. The probe can get everything back to the Qa’Resh, but even that will take time,” Stacey said.

“So we’ve got to survive this push for our chance to win the war…” Valdar said. “Even more reason for the rest of the Alliance to send their ships.”

“Heh,” Stacey said without humor, “I’ve been fighting for that for years. There are some in Bastion plotting to make a brand-new Crucible with the data we’ve got. Why risk helping us when they can take a century or three to craft their own perfect solution?”

“Why are we in this Alliance if throwing us to the wolves is always better than lifting a finger to help?” Valdar asked.

“It takes little to no time to bring in the allied fleets,” Stacey said. “The motion is tabled until the data has been analyzed and they know whether or not they can fabricate a Crucible that will connect to the Xaros network.”

“Or they wait until we’ve been bled white and show up to save the day…and take over our defenses,” Garret said.

“You’re being paranoid,” Stacey said. “Plausible, but paranoid.”

“No one’s coming to help?” Valdar asked.

“We’ve got the Dotok. Look.” Garret pointed to a gleaming white ship studded with Toth energy cannons.

“Is that the
Canticle of Reason
?” Valdar asked. He’d helped get the ship, and the last of the Dotok population, off Takeni during the Xaros invasion of the distant planet.

“They rechristened her the
Vorpal
.” Garret shook his head. “Claim they did it to honor us. Damn silly name but I had more important things to worry about. She’s the deadliest thing we’ve got in space and the crew is top-notch. Had an easy time integrating the
Naga
’s weapons into her too.”

Garret pointed back to Earth.

“I’ve got fortresses built into mountain ranges from Phoenix to the Himalayas. Mars, Luna, Iapetus around Saturn, all armed and ready for a fight. There are more fighting men and women under my command than Earth had before the invasion.” Garret took a flask from his belt and took a long swig. “Won’t matter.”

Valdar and Stacey traded glances, concern hidden behind practiced poker faces.

****

The armor bay, known across the ship as the cemetery, was as silent as its namesake.  Elias’ armor bore factory-fresh arms, pristine compared to the rest of his battle-worn armor. A door swung open and Bodel pushed Kallen and her wheelchair up the ramped walkway that came waist high to the three suits of armor.

Bodel boasted a new exoskeleton attached to the interface plate on his upper spine, resembling a toned-down version of the Marine’s pseudo-muscle layer instead of the rods and actuators of older exoskeletons. Bodel moved naturally, the only evidence of the stroke he suffered on Takeni showing in his half-slack face.

“New frame?” Elias asked.

“Brand new. Doesn’t put strain on my plugs or synch rating like the old ones. Modified haptic feedback system or something. I only care that it works,” Bodel said.

“How’s the world?”

“Different,” Kallen said softly. “We were at the medical complex in Phoenix. The city is enormous, must be millions of people there now…” She turned her head to Bodel. He locked her wheelchair in place and left the cemetery. 

There was nothing but the hum of air circulators as Kallen struggled to speak.

“I’m dying, Elias. Batten’s Disease, and there’s nothing the docs can do about it. I thought…we’d been gone so long that there might be a treatment.”

“I know.”

“What?” Kallen gave a nasty look to the door Bodel left from.

“He can’t keep a secret to save his life. You know that. He cares about you. Doesn’t want you to burn away so soon.”

“You know wearing the armor will kill me faster. Why haven’t you begged me, like Bodel, to stop?”

Elias touched his chest armor and the breastplate flipped up. Elias willed the blast plate on his armored womb to descend, revealing his emaciated body inside the cocoon.

“We are armor, Desi. We are nothing but our armor. If you stop, you’ll waste away in some medical ward while the rest of us fight. I know you,” Elias said.

“I would rather die beside you, Elias.” A tear ran down her face. Elias reached out to her very slowly and wiped the tear away with his metal hand. Kallen pressed her cheek into his palm.

“I wish you could come out,” she said. “I miss you—the real you, not the armor.”

“This is all I am.” Elias picked Kallen up and cradled her like a newborn, pulling her close to his cocoon. His true eyes flicked open. A weak smile crossed his face as he looked into Kallen’s eyes.

“We are such a mess,” Kallen chuckled. She tilted her head to rest against the cocoon. Elias’ true hand twitched, but couldn’t move any further.

“Until the end,” he said.

“Until the end.”

****

Bodel leaned against the bulkhead outside the cemetery and took a data slate from his pocket. He shook his head and scrolled through years’ worth of e-mails, newsletter updates and military errata. No sports scores.

He straightened up as the sound of boots against the deck closed in on him.

Captain Valdar came around the corner, his face as stoic as ever.

“Sir,” he said as he shimmied over to block the door to the cemetery, “what brings you to our neck of the woods?”

“Where are the other two?”

“They’re…a bit…um…”

Valdar looked through a view port into the cemetery then stepped back from the door.

“Why did the three of you try to kill Malal?” Valdar asked. “Don’t tell me that Elias came up with that attack on his own and you two were just as shocked as the rest of us.”

“It’s a monster.” Bodel’s shoulders fell and he wished he were back in his armor. “Evil. The Jinn showed us what it’s capable of, what it’s planning. We weren’t going to let it do the same to us.”

“Why do you think we are his next target?”

“Doesn’t matter if it’s us or some other race. Malal would kill them all. Innocents. Criminals. Young. Old. How can we sacrifice so many and still think we’re on the right side? Don’t know about you, Captain, but I believe in a final judgment. I can’t hold my head high in front of my creator if I let Malal win.”

“And if we go extinct without Malal’s help?”

Bodel shrugged. “
Gott mit uns.”

The side of Valdar’s mouth twitched. He took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Bodel.

“The three of you, you’re off my ship.” Valdar turned and walked away.

Bodel opened the envelope. Inside were reassignment orders for the Iron Hearts.

Mars.

Standish hauled himself onto his top bunk and reached into his pocket. He took out the gold and silver Marine Corps emblem and turned it over several times. There was no inscription, nor identifying marks. He was damn sure it wasn’t in his pocket when he went out for Captain Valdar’s address, he hadn’t noticed the new weight in his pocket until after Cortaro had finished his daily harangue against him.

“Standish?” Yarrow asked from the bunk below.

Standish stashed the emblem under his pillow.

“Yes?”

“You really think that’s Torni in that drone?” the corpsman asked.

“Buddy, you were possessed by a demon.”

“He’s not a demon. He—”

“I single handedly rescued Marc Ibarra from beneath Euskal Tower while Hale and Ibarra’s hottie granddaughter were playing googly eyes with each other. Nobody says ghost Marc Ibarra isn’t the real Marc Ibarra.”

“I thought Elias pulled them—”

“We now live in a world where a tube grown human being is possessed by demons and most every major decision affecting our species goes through a ghost in a machine. You think that can’t be Torni inside that drone?”

Standish took another sip while he waited for Yarrow to answer.

“I guess…” Yarrow said.

“Nothing we can do about it, so don’t worry about it,” Standish said. “You hear from your girl? Lilith?”

“I haven’t even opened my Ubi. Figure she moved on after we were declared overdue. I don’t want to read that ‘Dear John’ letter just yet,” Yarrow said.

He slid off the bunk and slipped the emblem back into his pocket. A dark shadow filled the room.

“Steuben!” Yarrow opened his arms and went to give the Karigole warrior a hug. Steuben stiff-armed the corpsman.

“No. None of that,” Steuben said.

“Steuben, man did you miss some fun,” Standish said, “By fun I mean pants-wetting terror. We fought a giant damned centipede, and Torni’s back. It’s weird.”

“My bowels remained under control during our time apart,” Steuben said. “I have been training the new Ranger companies in anti-Xaros tactics. They are better learners than you, Standish.”

“But nowhere near as good looking,” Standish said with a nod.

“Where is Hale? I have something you all need to see,” Steuben said.

****

Hale rubbed his eyes and struggled out of his bunk. Sleep was impossible during missions. The hours of shut-eye he could grab between briefings and training cycles were few and far between. The Strike Marines had many priorities—sleep wasn’t one of them.

His Ubi had three missed calls, all from old acquaintances from the Saturn Colonial Fleet. Word of the ship’s return must have spread across the system. There was one name missing from the calls—his brother, Jared.

Hale swiped across the Ubi and called his brother. The slate told him “No Account Found.”

An icy splash of worry hit his chest. He opened the universal search app and put in his brother’s name. Had there been an accident? Was he on some crazy deep-space mission like Hale had been on the past years?

A video message from his brother came up. Jared looked into the camera, his face drawn.

“Hey brother,” Jared said, “word is the
Breitenfeld
’s on an indefinite delay. You’ll be back. It’ll just take you a lot longer than planned. Too bad, I wanted to spend some time with you and Uncle Isaac before the
Christophorous
leaves for Terra Nova. Yeah, they offered me a slot in the colony. I’m going to take it.

“It’s not that I’m afraid of the Xaros coming down the pipe from Barnard’s Star. I want be part of something greater than myself. Contribute to a new world. Earth…is gone. The world we grew up on will never come back. After Mom and Dad’s place was demolished, my connection to everything was gone, except you and Uncle Isaac. Look, you’ll beat the Xaros. I know you will. There’s another jump window in another couple years. The briefers said that’ll be the last one for centuries. Come join me on Terra Nova the next time there’s a chance. I’ll do all the hard work getting the planet nice and livable. You can show up and take all the credit.

“Sound like a plan? Catch up with me on Terra Nova. I’ll see you then. Love you, Ken.”

Hale watched the video again then set the Ubi aside. He drummed his fingertips on his lap, his mind racing with the fact that his brother was gone. He was safe from the Xaros, but Hale might never see him again.

Someone knocked on his door.

“Enter,” Hale said.

“Sir,” Cortaro stuck his head into Hale’s quarters, “Steuben is here. You need to see this.”

Hale stepped into a pair of flip-flops and followed Cortaro into the squad’s small ready room. His Marines were there, sitting in old and worn furniture around Steuben.

“Steuben, good to—”

The Karigole held up a four-fingered hand and then touched the screen on a data slate.

A holo projection filled the center of the room, deep space with a backdrop of stars.

“This came from the graviton mines just beyond the solar system,” Steuben said. “The data is a few hours old. Garret hasn’t released it to the public.” Steuben tapped the screen and the holo zoomed in on a grainy asteroid, the picture coming into focus slowly.

“Eighth Fleet was destroyed in combat with a Xaros structure,” Steuben said. “Abaddon.” The picture resolved. Giant bay doors opened across the smooth surface as the pictures advanced one frame at a time. Drones swarmed out of it.

“How many?” Hale asked.

“The Qa’Resh probe estimates at least five billion,” Steuben said, “spreading across the solar system as we speak. The Xaros are here. The siege of Earth begins.”

****

Another slab of aegis armor slid out of the omnium foundry, wide as a Destrier transport and inches thick. Robot crews transferred the slab to a laser cutter where it would spend the next few hours being tailored into the shape needed to protect the intended vessel. Automated lifters fed blocks of glowing omnium into the side of the foundry.

The Xaros had scoured the solar system clean of almost every trace of human existence and converted that mass into raw omnium, which they stockpiled across Earth or used to build the Crucible. Ibarra found a certain sense of irony in turning Xaros plowshares into human swords.

Ibarra called up a screen from his office overlooking the foundry. The
Monte Cassino
’s
armor plates would be ready for transport to the fitting yards soon. Another ship for the line, another brick in the wall.

Malal, sharing the office with Ibarra, Stacey and Torni, watched the process with little interest. Lafayette stood against the far bulkhead, his hands clasped over his waist.

“Your process is efficient,” Malal said. “I cannot aide your efforts. Return me to the Qa’Resh. Their cell is better than this solar system.”

“You’re not going back,” Ibarra said, “not right now.”

“The Xaros are on your doorstep. Remaining here is an unnecessary risk to the plan. Return me to the
Breitenfeld
and the ship will take me to Bastion.” Malal turned his head with measured menace.

“We take you back…and there’s no reason for Bastion to send reinforcements,” Stacey said. “The
Breitenfeld
’s jump engines have been malfunctioning. We send it to Bastion and it might not come back in time to hold the line.”

“I personally fixed the jump engines during the long dark. They are…ah, I see. A falsehood,” Malal said. “You’re forcing Bastion’s hand. They must save Earth to save me. Save the war.”

“Politics is a dirty game. That’s why I stuck to business,” Ibarra said.

“I am your hostage?” Malal asked.

“You’re in this fight with us,” Ibarra said. “I saw what you did to the
Breitenfeld
with your idle hands. The two of you have a purpose. Lafayette?”

The cyborg held up an arm to the group. His hand flipped to the side and a holo emitter in his arm threw a schematic into the air.

“The design works, in theory,” Lafayette said. “The prototypes exploded in a most spectacular fashion. Interesting to watch but not the desired function. If we can build one, it could turn the tide in the coming battle.”

“I have no idea what I’m looking at,” Torni said.

“An abomination of technology from the fever dreams of the desperate.” Malal reached into the hologram and began rearranging components.

“You can make it work?” Lafayette asked.

“I can, but it falls on her to build it.” Malal pointed at Torni.

Ibarra passed his hand through Stacey’s arm. She stepped away and glared at him.

+You know I hate that,+ she sent to Ibarra.

+Excuse me for being a ghost. I thought they taught you sensitivity on that Bastion of yours.+

+Speaking of which, I leave within the hour. Nice to get back to my body, eat home cooking for once. They’ll see right through our little ploy with keeping Malal here. I don’t play dumb very well, in case you haven’t noticed.+

+Always too smart for your own good. Get Bastion to send their fleets. I’d rather have them here than hope Dr. Frankenstein and his monster can save the day.+

+Her name is Torni, and she’s a good Marine,+ Stacey sent.

+Go. Get out of here and bring back the fleet. The sooner I get these two freaks off the Crucible, the happier I’ll be.+

THE END

The war continues as Earth faces the might of the Xaros in
The Siege of Earth
. Coming July 2016!