The Battle of the Void (The Ember War Saga Book 6) (9 page)

Brannock manually set his receiver and said, “Yeah?”

“Shit’s going down,” the crewman said. “Xaros coming in hot and heavy. You better get back in your hole, Marine.”

“Why am I always the last to know things like this?” Brannock grabbed the doughboys and pointed them to the bunker. Zorro had already left.

“Bottom of the totem pole, buddy. Good luck.” The crewman closed the channel.

Rail cannons flashed to life across the fleet. Fighters lifted off from the
Midway’s
hull and zoomed out of the flight deck. He glanced at Abaddon and saw a dark mass made up of thousands and thousands of drones advancing on the fleet.

The rail gun battery behind the bunker crackled with energy then shot out a round with a white flash of light so bright it burned an afterimage into Brannock’s eye.

“Shit!” Brannock repeated the word over and over again until he got back to the bunker and hustled the doughboys back inside.

“What’s going on out there?” Derringer asked.

“Drones, coming right for us.” Brannock slid aside a view port on the roof, letting him and the rest of the bunker see Abaddon and the battle unfolding around them.

“All hull security elements, prepare for contact,”
came through the ship’s defense network.

“Now they tell us.” Brannock checked the charge on his gauss rifle and chambered a round. “Lock and load.”

The doughboys slapped magazines into their oversized gauss rifles. The two Marines manning the Gustav said a quick prayer over the weapon.

“They tell you what’s happening?” Derringer asked.

“Nope. We stick to our assignment, shoot any drones that make it to the hull.”

“Fight!” Indigo slammed a fist against his chest then drew the pneumatic hammer off his back.

****

Holos shivered as the rail batteries did their work. Makarov watched as hundreds of projectiles traced from her fleet to the encroaching Xaros. The swarm was nearly ten times what the
Gallipoli
had faced, all single drones packed together.

Makarov closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the hum of the deck plates beneath her feet, the tremors of firing rail guns. Calm came over her. A warship was one of the few places she ever felt truly at home.

The leading shells detonated just short of the drones, shredding hundreds into oblivion with razor-sharp flechettes. The swarm contracted as fire from Eighth Fleet peppered the mass of drones. The drones took more casualties as their close order left little room to maneuver away from the shotgun blasts from the shells.

“What’re they doing?” Makarov asked.

“They must have thought we’d lead with the q-shells,” Kidson said, “to try to mitigate that by spreading the effects through many separate drones.”

“Commander Laskaris requesting permission to open fire with the energy cannons,” Calum said.

“Not yet,” Makarov said. The swarm tightened then flew apart to reveal a spiral construct ship. Four gleaming darts floated near the back end, each the size of a destroyer.

“Guns, concentrate lance fire on that launcher. All ships, engage maneuver pattern delta. Stay out of each other’s line of fire,” Makarov said. She slammed her palms against the table and mag-locked her feet and hands. The
Midway
lurched as the carrier activated its auxiliary thrusters to carry out the sudden maneuver.

In the holo, her fleet broke to a side. The weight of fire slowed to nothing as ship realigned.

The Xaros launcher shot out a lance, moving fast enough to reach her lines within a few tens of seconds. The lance’s projected course jumped all over the place, then settled. It was heading for the cruiser
Warsaw.

“
Warsaw
, all ahead full, now!” Makarov shouted.

The
Warsaw
surged forward and the lance’s plot fell behind the ship.

“Guns, plot a—” Makarov stopped as the lance veered to the side. The weapon changed its course, heading straight into the
Warsaw
’s flank. Point defense batteries on the
Warsaw
battered the lance, to no effect. The lance slowed, but still hit the
Warsaw
with enough force to break through the aegis plates like they were paper and impaled the ship through the engines. The lance caught in the wreckage, its silver tip jutting between the number four and six thrusters.

The
Warsaw
listed to the side like a speared fish.

“Another launch!” Calum called out. The plot on the next lance resolved…it was coming for the
Midway
.

“Randall, emergency thrusters. Guns, hit that thing with q-shells and lance shells before it can maneuv—” A sudden downward acceleration sent blood rushing into her skull. Her hands snapped off the holo table and flew over her head. She felt the grip of her boots slipping off the hull.

Blood pounded against her temples and her vision darkened. She pressed her toes against the sole of her boots and the gravity linings in her boots tightened their grip on the floor. The acceleration quit and Makarov stumbled against the holo table and fell to the deck.

She pulled herself back to her feet. The incoming lance flew through clouds of q-shell electricity from exploded munitions as the rest of the fleet fought to save the flagship. The lance’s projected path would take it into deep space. The disabled lance didn’t correct its course and missed the
Midway
by an uncomfortable few hundred yards.

“Captain Randall,” Makarov said to him on a private channel, “install another acceleration chair for me next to the holo table once the battle is over. I do not want my career to end with a smear on the ceiling.”

“Aye-aye, Admiral,” Randall said.

“New contacts…coming from the
Warsaw
,” Calum said.

Drones poured out of the dead ship. Lumps of glistening metal sloughed off the lance embedded in the ship and formed into new drones.

“Launch! Another lance…on an intercept course with the
Tarawa
,” XO said.

Whoever’s leading the Xaros…he’s damn good
, Makarov thought.

****

Brannock scanned through his firing port, adrenaline coursing through his veins as he waited for the Xaros to arrive.

“Drone touchdown in sector thirty-seven! At least twenty all coming from the—”
The IR transmission broke into static.

“Should we go help?” Derringer asked.

“Thirty-seven is on the exact opposite side of the ship,” Brannock snapped. “This is our sector. Our job is to keep drones off that rail battery until someone tells us we have a new job.”

“I just don’t want to spend this whole fight on my ass,” Derringer said.

“Careful what you wish for, boot,” one of the Gustav gunners said. “I was on the Crucible, saw a drone tear five Marines to pieces.”

“Enemies…soon?” Cobalt asked.

“Maybe soon. Watch your sector, big guy,” Brannock said. He tapped a fingertip against his rifle. The anticipation was proving worse than the thought of facing the Xaros.

A point defense battery down the hull opened up and rapid flashes issued forth from gauss cannons.

He caught sight of a drone off the port bow and his heart skipped a beat as it veered straight toward the ship. A flurry of bullets smashed the drone to bits. An Osprey zoomed over the bunker and banked away.

“Why are we out here, again?” Derringer asked.

“Drones! Drones coming in twelve o’clock high!”
The transmission was from bunker four, on the opposite side of the rail cannon.

“Up! Up!” Brannock grabbed the handle on a roof firing slit and yanked it aside. He pointed his rifle into space. Derringer opened another firing slit, then screamed in fear. He slammed the slit shut just as a drone landed on the roof.

Stalks waved in the void over Brannock, but he didn’t have a clear shot at the drone’s body.

A patch of red grew on the roof.

“Bunker four, can you get a shot on this thing?” Brannock asked. No answer.

A disintegration beam the width of a pencil stabbed through the roof and swept toward the Gustav. It traced a line across one of the gunner’s chests as he screamed in pain.

Brannock unbolted the door and swung it open. He charged out and twisted around. A drone clung to the top of his bunker, bloodred light from the beam projecting out of stalks splashed against its shifting surface. He fired his gauss rifle and hit the drone in the flank. A spiderweb of cracks broke across the surface.

The drone dragged its disintegration beam away from the hole in the bunker and twisted the stalks toward Brannock. He leaped to the side. The beam cut across his shins and pain exploded from his legs like he’d been branded.

With no gravity to pull him back to the hull, Brannock floated several feet above it. His flailing limbs found no purchase.

He fired his rifle from the hip and severed a stalk off the drone. The momentum from the shot slammed him into the hull and the mag lock in one boot stopped him from bouncing off into the void.

The drone scuttled off the roof toward Brannock. The stalks rose over the drone and Brannock stared into the burning tips.

A massive hand grabbed the stalks and ripped one aside. Indigo swung his pneumatic hammer into the drone and a diamond-tipped spike inside the hammer drove into the drone’s shell. Cobalt and the other doughboys joined the melee, pounding the drone with their hammers.

The drone cracked into hunks and disintegrated.

Indigo looked at his hammer and shook his head.

“Need better!”

“Need more better.” Cobalt nodded his head.

Brannock got both feet secure against the hull. A drone landed on bunker three. He took careful aim and hit the drone across the forward end. Two more shots knocked it clear off the bunker. A third shot shattered it into burning fragments.

“Gun better,” Indigo said, the muzzle of his gauss rifle red-hot.

“Back inside, all of you,” Brannock said.

The rail cannon fired, stinging his eyes again. He stumbled into the bunker and fell against the side. The pain in his shins returned with a vengeance as adrenaline wore away.

“Son of a bitch.” Brannock looked at his legs. The armor bore a thin line of melted armor, bubbles and cracks radiating away from where the beam touched him.

“Your suit good?” Derringer asked.

“Yeah, didn’t spill my air. Just hurts like a mother,” Brannock said. 

The doughboys lifted their rifles and fired. Brannock jumped up and shot down a drone before it could reach the rail cannon.

“Two o’clock.” Derringer pointed to a trio of drones coming in fast.

Brannock tripped over something before he could reach the other side of the bunker. Both the Marines who’d manned the Gustav lay next to the access hatch. One, a line seared across his armor, stared vacantly at the ceiling. The other bore a smoldering hole on the shoulder; the armor was flat, empty.

“Joiners! Group forming above bunker two!”

Brannock opened the roof port. A mass of five or six drones twisted together, more joining by the second.

Brannock hit the mass with three shots and swapped out his spent battery. The drones continued to meld together, unaffected.

“Gauss rifles are damn spitballs,” he said into the IR. “Can you get an Osprey or an Eagle over here?”

“Every asset is tied up. Do something, five!”

Brannock snapped his head to the Gustav, but it was gone. The bunker door was open. Indigo charged out carrying the heavy weapon, the other two doughboys right behind him.

“No! Indigo, wait!” Brannock ran after them.

Indigo spread his legs wide and raised the Gustav barrel to the combining drones. Cobalt wrapped his arms around Indigo’s waist and braced himself against the hull. Garnet wrapped his arms around Indigo’s chest.

Indigo fired the Gustav, the massive recoil of each shot sliding the doughboys several inches with each shot. The dead gunners had integrated support and anchor systems built into their armor to keep them stable while firing the cannon. The doughboys had nothing but their mag linings and muscle power.

The third shot from the Gustav sent the combing drone mass spinning out of control.

Brannock drove his shoulder into Indigo’s back and overloaded his mag linings. The burst from the Gustav drove Brannock’s heels into the aegis armor.

“Aim! Aim, damn you!”

Indigo paused, then hit the drone mass dead center and blew it apart. A twisted lump of drones bounced off the armor just in front of them. One broke free, leaving the rest to disintegrate. The surviving drone lashed out, ripping a beam across Garnet’s face and neck. He fell back from his hold on Indigo.

Brannock fumbled for his rifle. A second beam hit Cobalt in the arm. The doughboy twisted away with a grunt of pain over the IR.