The Siege of Earth (The Ember War Saga Book 7) (7 page)

“You bean heads have six hours to shit, shower and shave before the next training cycle,” Elias said. “Wait—why do you all still have your hair? Carius wouldn’t let tradition slip just because you’re not human.”

The two Dotok spoke to each other in their own language for a moment.

“We don’t have hair,” Caas said. She went to Bodel and turned her head to the side and let him get a closer look at the thick strands coming off her scalp. “Dotok do not…leak…through their skin to reduce body heat. Blood cycles through our dendrites to cool. If these were removed, we would overheat and die.”

“But we would most certainly bleed to death and die before we overheat,” Ar’ri said. He looked up at Elias.

“I’ll let it slide,” Elias said.

Klaxons wailed across the
Breitenfeld
’s bridge announcing combat conditions. Captain Valdar strapped himself into his command chair and took a helmet out from under the seat. He looked over his crew. His gaze went to Ensign Geller, the navigator, then he got out of his chair.

“All decks report ready for combat conditions,” Commander Ericcson said from beside the holo table. “Shall I set for zero atmo…Captain?”

Valdar leaned over Geller’s seat and put a heavy hand on the young officer’s shoulder.

Geller’s head snapped up to look at the ship’s master and commander, his eyes wide and face pale.

“Sir?”

Valdar lifted an air line off Geller’s chair and tapped the nozzle against the navigator’s faceplate. Geller’s hand went to the back of his helmet and felt the empty spot where the auxiliary air hose should have jacked into his suit.

“Your suit can keep your air going for three hours,” Valdar said. “Do you know how long this battle will last?”

Geller shook his head.

“Do you want to be in the middle of steering my ship and find that you’re out of air?”

Geller shook his head.

“That’s why you check your lines.” Valdar snapped the nozzle into the back of Geller’s helmet. His faceplate flexed slightly as air rushed in. Valdar gave the top of Geller’s head a double pat and went back to his command chair.

“XO, void the ship,” Valdar said as he donned his helmet and connected his auxiliary lines. His void suit flexed against falling air pressure as the bridge’s atmosphere was sucked into storage tanks. Fighting in a ship full of flammable oxygen—ready to explosively decompress when exposed to vacuum—was not a smart choice during void combat. Damage during a battle might rip a sailor’s suit and spill their air, but that risk was better than losing most of the ship and crew to one hull rupture.

He swung a data slate up from an armrest and ran his touch down the line of all the ships under his command, opening a channel to the captains.

“Task Force 37, this is
Breitenfeld
. Our mission is to destroy the Grinder, stop the Xaros from bringing in reinforcements, and get back to Earth and join the line. Update me with your combat readiness and the Crucible will open a wormhole on my mark.”

Ship icons went from red to green up and down the board…except for the
Centaur
, one of his two
Manticore-
class vessels armed with salvaged Toth energy cannons.

The face of Commander Davies, commander of the
Centaur
, came up on Valdar’s screen.

“Sir, my ventral energy cannons are having fits. Engineering has a work-around. We’ll be locked and loaded in…six minutes,” he said.

“We’re waiting on you,” Valdar said. He opened a different IR channel. “Gall, how are things on the hull?”

“Itching to get going,”
she said.
“I’ve had to explain to some of my newer pilots your habit of kicking us off the ship every time you get the chance. The two Dotok think you don’t like us anymore.”
She and the rest of the
Breitenfeld
’s complement of fighters and bombers were magnetically locked to the outside of the ship’s hull to make room for what high command deemed “mission critical equipment.” Durand had a lengthy rebuttal on just how critical her fighters were, which Valdar opted not to share with their higher headquarters for fear of the damage it would do to the French pilot’s future.

“Hale, drop pod status,” Valdar said.

“All systems go.”
Hale’s response was hurried. Valdar had kept his distance from Hale after their conversation in his ready room. Both had men and women to lead and a battle to plan. Valdar promised himself he’d make things right with his godson once Earth was safe. If they lost this battle, then Hale’s feelings toward Valdar wouldn’t matter.

“XO, what’s happening on my flight deck?” the captain asked.

“Missile pods one through four are on rails and ready to deploy. Chief MacDougall promises they’ll be clear and ready for flight ops within ten minutes of pushing the last pod out the door. Missileers are at their stations below decks, ready to go,” she said.

During the Toth incursion, the
Breitenfeld
had used her jump engines to deploy guided missile pods and devastate the Toth armada. Given his ship’s unique capabilities, Valdar wasn’t surprised he’d been tasked to replicate the maneuver. He hadn’t anticipated the target being in orbit around Pluto or commanding an assault fleet at the same time, but war was full of surprises.

The
Centaur
’s icon flashed green.

“Main power to rail cannons and point defense turrets,” Valdar said.

“Aye, Captain,” said Commander Utrecht, the ship’s gunnery officer.

“Crucible, this is Valdar. We’re ready to go.”

“Forming your wormhole now,”
Marc Ibarra said,
“good hunting.”

Valdar opened a channel to every sailor and Marine in his task force.

“This is Captain Valdar. My ship has a custom before battle, one connected to the proud lineage of her name. I will remind you that as we go into battle, God is with us.
Gott mit uns.
”

A white disc spread from the center of the Crucible and engulfed Valdar’s task force.

Valdar’s hands gripped his armrests as the blinding light pounded his skull.

“Sir!” Geller called out. “There are some fluctuations in the wormhole. Our exit point is off by…about three thousand kilometers.”

Valdar’s teeth clenched. Once, just once, he wanted the damn jump drive to work perfectly.

“Where are we—”

The
Breitenfeld
broke through the wormhole and into real space. They were over Pluto. The dwarf planet’s wide swath of glaciers looked ruddy, almost smoke-stained. Valdar picked out the Grinder in the distance and just above the horizon.

Off to port, a ripple of light appeared out of nothing and danced across a cylindrical object the size of a frigate. Valdar’s heart sank as more ripples appeared ahead of his ship, each revealing a Xaros warship.

“It’s an ambush!” Valdar shouted as he opened a channel to his ships’ captains with one hand and pointed to Utrecht with the other. The gunnery officer needed no further instructions. The
Breitenfeld’s
rail cannon batteries slewed toward the nearest Xaros ship.

A crimson beam lashed out and hit the
Breitenfeld
amidships, disintegrating an Eagle before it could release from the hull.

“All ships! Charge through the ambush, weapons free!” Valdar shouted.

His bridge crew were in action before he finished his sentence. Geller pressed the ship forward with engines blazing. Ericcson overrode the Eagles’ mag locks and cut the squadrons free from their grip on the
Breitenfeld
.

Rail guns flashed bright enough to leave an afterimage against Valdar’s eyes as they fired. The nearest Xaros ship cracked in half from the impact and tumbled toward Pluto, burning all the way down.

There were at least a dozen Xaros construct ships, none larger than a frigate, but all were pounding his ships with the cannons running through the center of each alien vessel.

A flash of jaundiced light broke over the starboard side of his ship.

“
Tyre
just went critical,” Ericcson said. “
Hutchinson
and
Erebus
both reporting heavy damage.”

“Two enemy vessels just fractured,” Utrecht said, “broke into drones…they’re going for the drop ships.”

Part of Valdar wanted to scream and find out why Hale and his Marines had been let go into the middle of the battle, but the answer to that question wouldn’t do anything to help them survive the descent.

“Gall, break off and cover the pods. We’ll make do with point defense,” Valdar said.

“—good shooting, Manfred…Roger, Captain. We’re breaking off but that will leave my bombers unprotected,”
Durand said.

Valdar found a trio of Condors on his screen making a hasty attack on a Xaros ship dead ahead of the
Breitenfeld
. They were tens of seconds away from torpedo range…and taking fire from Xaros drones.

“Recall the bombers soon as their missiles are loose,” Valdar said. Regret squeezed at his chest as he said the words. He’d just signed death warrants for those three Condors, but Hale’s mission on the surface was mission critical, the Condors surviving their attack run…less so.

The ship lurched to the side, swinging Valdar against his restraints as the
Breitenfel
d
made a high-energy turn. A Xaros ship flew beneath the ship’s keel. There was a flash from the ventral rail cannon and Valdar felt a bone-rattling kick through his seat.

“Target destroyed!” Utrecht announced. A grimace went across his face. “Ventral battery is off-line. The buffers weren’t designed for a perpendicular shot off the hull.”

Charon swung into view and the ship rocketed toward the moon. Smaller ships from the task force raced ahead of the strike cruiser.

Arrowheads of white energy shot over the
Breitenfeld
’s bow.

“
Centaur
is firing,” Ericcson said, “but she’s falling behind.”

“Helm. Slow and take us to starboard enough for the ventral cannons to cover the
Centaur
,” Valdar said.

The ship’s prow shifted to the right and the two rail cannon batteries twisted so far Valdar could almost see down their barrels.

“Enemy ships are breaking off—” the flash of rail cannons forced Ericcson to turn her face away as she continued “—retreating back to the Grinder.”

“No, we’re the ones retreating,” Valdar said. “They don’t have to destroy us all, just keep us off the jump gate until it’s complete.”

He looked at his data pad. Two of his ships were gone, the rest damaged. Only his ship was relatively unscathed despite the pounding she’d taken.

Must thank Torni for the upgrades
, he thought.

“Breitenfeld
,
”
Durand said, her transmission laced with static,
“drop pods…attack…least one.”

Valdar released his restraints and went to the holo table where a larger picture of the battle raging over Pluto’s surface came to life. The drop pods streaked toward Pluto, none on course to land where they were supposed to. Dozens of drones fought with half as many Eagles around the pods.

“Shall I send the corvettes back?” Ericcson asked. “The
Scipio
and the
Barca
could reach them soon.”

“No.” Valdar shook his head as another drop pod flashed amber. A red X appeared over the icon a moment later, destroyed. “They can’t make a difference now. Get the task force to Charon and keep the moon between us and the Grinder.”

Valdar touched the Xaros jump gate in the holo tank and dragged it closer to him. Three-quarters of the linked spike circumference was complete. Drones swarmed over the unfinished edges, transmuting omnium into the basalt-like material that made up the spikes, bringing the two ends closer and closer together.

Construction was nearly complete, and Valdar didn’t have long to stop them.

****

The drop pod bucked beneath Hale hard enough to slam the back of his helmet against his seat. His visor display and gauntlet screen erupted with warning icons and dozens of panicked voices talking over each other through the IR.

“Bridge, this is Roughneck 6, status report?” Hale asked.

“—are clear. They’re going for the drop pods. Release! Release!”
Durand’s shout carried through his helmet.
“They are sitting ducks!”

“Egan! Why are we still attached to the
Breit
?”

“Not sure, sir.” Egan sat near the apex of the drop pod in a pilot’s chair, the only one with access to a window. Egan did a double take and leaned against the view port. “Bandits coming right for us!”

“Bridge! Why are—” The dorsal rail cannon battery thundered, shaking Hale and his team against their restraints like peas in a can. Hale tried to get his senses back and felt his body weight shift against different parts of his restraints.

“Egan?”

“We’re released,” Egan said, struggling with the controls as red flashes of light came through the windows, “but the engines are off-line.”

“Egan! I am too young and beautiful to die!” Standish yelled.

“Shut up!” Egan roared back. The drop pod lurched to the side and Hale felt a strong vibration through his acceleration seat as the engines came online.

“All teams, this is Roughneck 6. We are on the way to the drop zone. Report status in sequence,” Hale said through the IR.