by Richard Fox
“But what about the people wiping his tracks? That doesn’t strike me as someone who’s crazy.”
“Crazy doesn’t begin to cover it. Obviously, someone knew what the guy was going through and decided to exploit it. Maybe they even pushed him over the edge.”
Hale ground his teeth. “Why is it so hard for people to understand? We either do this or we die. There aren’t any other options out here. Everyone seems to think that someone’s going to show up at the last minute and save our asses. They’d rather put their faith on a wing and a prayer instead of doing what needs to be done to protect humanity. Someone’s got to make the tough…” He paused, looking from Martel to Marie, both of whom were staring at him with a mixture of skepticism and concern. “What?”
The two women exchanged a look, then Martel said, “For a minute there, you started to sound like…” She trailed off, looking back to Marie as if for confirmation.
Hale knew what his wife was going to say before she said it.
“Ibarra.”
Hale’s stomach turned as he realized what he’d been saying. Anger and frustration flooded through him, but not because they’d pointed out the comparison, and not because it was unwarranted. Because he knew it was true. Worse, he couldn’t convince himself that there was any other way.
You really are a bastard, Marc Ibarra, he thought, looking at the floor. We both made it our life’s mission to save our people and became outcasts for it.
Hale’s IR chimed, and he tapped his wrist unit without checking the incoming ID “What is it?”
“Sir, it’s Commander Edison. You better get back to operations, sir.”
“Why? What’s wrong? Another doughboy attack?”
“No, sir,” Edison said. “We’ve picked up a major disruption in space about eight hundred thousand kilometers out from Terra Nova. Looks like a fleet is warping into the system.”
Hale felt a mixture of hope and horror as he asked his next question.
Marie’s face lit up as she mouthed the word, “Carson.”
“Have you identified them? Is it the Valiant?”
“I don’t think so, sir.”
****
“Have they said anything?” Hale asked as he stormed into the operations center.
Commander Edison looked up from the central holo table where Terra Nova, represented by a floating blue sphere, flickered in the air. At the other end of the display, a half dozen red, triangular icons marked the new arrivals. Multiple message panels hovered around the fleet, displaying technical information gathered by the satellites seeded through the system.
“Some of the ships match the profiles of the fleet that appeared over Negev several weeks ago,” Commander Edison said. “All small hulls. Not the bigger vessels in the last slug fest.”
The Ultari, Hale thought.
Marie moved around the table, leaning close to inspect the enemy formation. “Such a small force compared to the last one…maybe scouts from another faction? But if they’re anything like the previous warships, they’re going to a have a lot of firepower.” She turned to Hale. “I need to be up there.”
Despite his overwhelming urge to keep her close to him, Hale nodded. “Go.”
“I’ve ordered all rail-gun batteries to warm up their weapons,” Edison said. “And the macro cannon is…the screw’s scrambling to get it up and running. They didn’t sound very confident.”
“Firing the macro cannon to take out those ships is like using a hand grenade to kill a fly.” Hale never took his eyes of the Ultari fleet. “What about our Stage Two units?”
Edison tapped a command into his terminal and another holo projection appeared above the Ultari ship. The cluster of Stage Two ships had been arranged haphazardly between the most likely approach vectors and the “fleet,” giving the impression that the units were simply dead ships. They’d even blown up several older vessels to create a debris field around the derelict fleet.
Trajectory lines appeared, leading away from the Ultari fleet, through the Stage Two ships, straight to Terra Nova.
At least that part of the plan is ready, Hale told himself.
“They’re not moving on us,” Edison said. “They’re just…waiting.”
“Still no communication?” Hale asked.
“No, sir,” Edison said.
“Try and raise them.”
As Commander Edison went to work on his terminal, Hale turned, absentmindedly looking for Handley. “Captain—” He paused, swallowing hard at his mistake. Lieutenant McMann stood there, Captain Handley’s replacement, his face masking any discomfort he might have felt at the slip. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. We need to get everyone to the bunkers now.”
McMann nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Hale jumped as the door to the operations center slammed open. Elizabeth Tanner rushed in, her face pale. “We’re under attack? The Triumvirate’s back?”
“Secure that door!” Hale shouted, pointing to one of the militia guards near the entrance. He moved his finger to Tanner. “You’re not supposed to be in here, Tanner. This is a military operation. The Council has no jurisdiction here.”
Tanner reached the table and stared over all the projections. “We are under attack!”
“We don’t know what’s happening,” Hale said, trying and failing to keep his frustration out of his voice.
“What are we going to do? They’re going to kill us! You have to protect us. You have to stop them!”
“Sergeant!” Lieutenant McMann shouted, stepping around the table and pointing at Tanner. “Get her out of here.”
Two militia soldiers stepped up on either side of the councilwoman, each taking an arm.
Tanner screamed and pulled away. “Don’t touch me! I have a right to be here!”
The soldiers struggled to get a grip on the woman, finally managing to latch on and drag her away from the table. She pulled against them, bringing her feet up, kicking. One foot caught the edge of the holo table. The images flickered and the display around it flashed.
“Lock her up!” Hale shouted, putting a hand on table to stabilize it.
“I’m getting a signal, sir,” Edison said.
“Put it through.”
The planet and ships vanished from the plot, replaced briefly by static, then an image that made Hale’s blood run cold.
No, Hale thought, stepping away from the table.
“Attention, human inhabitants of Terra Nova,” Jared Hale said. “The Triumvirate has returned. Submit to the awesome power of Emperor Kyrios or be destroyed.”
From the Authors
Hello Dear and Gentle Reader,
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Read THE EMBER WAR for FREE
The Earth is doomed. Humanity has a chance. Read where the saga began!
In the near future, an alien probe arrives on Earth with a pivotal mission—determine if humanity has what it takes to survive the impending invasion by a merciless armada.
The probe discovers Marc Ibarra, a young inventor, who holds the key to a daring gambit that could save a fraction of Earth's population. Humanity's only chance lies with Ibarra's ability to keep a terrible secret and engineer the planet down the narrow path to survival.
Earth will need a fleet. One with a hidden purpose. One strong enough to fight a battle against annihilation.
The Ember War is the first installment in an epic military sci-fi series. If you like A Hymn Before Battle by John Ringo and The Last Starship by Vaughn Heppner, then you'll love this explosive adventure with constant thrills and high stakes from cover to cover.
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Here’s a sample for you:
CHAPTER 1
THE NEAR FUTURE
Humanity’s only hope of survival entered the solar system at nearly the speed of light. The probe slowed as the sun’s heliosphere disrupted the graviton wave it rode in on from the abyss of deep space. Awakened by the sudden deceleration, the probe absorbed the electromagnetic spectrum utilized by its target species and assessed the technological sophistication of the sole sentient species on Earth.
The probe adjusted its course to take it into the system’s star. If the humans couldn’t survive—with its help—what was to come, then the probe would annihilate itself. There would be no trace of it for the enemy, and no chance of humanity’s existence beyond the time it had until the enemy arrived. The probe analyzed filed patents, military expenditures, birth rates, mathematical advancement and space exploration.
The first assessment fell within the margin of error of survival and extinction for humanity. The probe’s programming allowed for limited autonomous decision making (choice being a rare luxury for the probe’s class of artificial intelligence). The probe found itself in a position to choose between ending its mission in the sun’s fire and a mathematically improbable defense of humanity—and the potential compromise of its much larger mission.
Given the rare opportunity to make its own decision, the probe opted to dither. In the week it took to pass into Jupiter’s orbit, the probe took in more data. It scoured the Internet for factors to add to the assessment, but the assessment remained the same: unlikely, but possible. By the time it shot past Mars, the probe still hadn’t made a decision.
As the time to adjust course for Earth or continue into the sun approached, the probe conducted a final scan of cloud storage servers for any new information…and found something interesting.
While the new information made only a negligible impact on the assessment, the probe adjusted course to Earth. It hadn’t traveled all this way for nothing.
In the desert south of Phoenix, Arizona, it landed with no more fanfare than a slight thump and a few startled cows. Then it broke into the local cell network and made a call.
****
Marc Ibarra awoke to his phone ringing at max volume, playing a pop ditty that he hated with vehemence. He rolled off the mattress that lay on the floor and crawled on his hands and knees to where his cell was recharging. His roommate, who paid the majority of their rent and got to sleep on an actual bed, grumbled and let off a slew of slurred insults.
Marc reached his cell and slapped at it until the offending music ended. He blinked sleep from his eyes and tried to focus on the caller’s name on the screen. The only people who’d call at this ungodly hour were his family in Basque country…or maybe Jessica in his applied robotics course wanted a late-night study break.
The name on the screen was “ANSWER ME”.
He closed an eye and reread the name. It was way too early—or too late, depending on one’s point of view—for this nonsense. He turned the ringer off and went back to bed. Sleep was about to claim him when the phone rang again, just as loudly as last time but now with a disco anthem.
“Seriously?” his roommate slurred.
Marc declined the call and powered the phone off. He flopped back on his bed and curled into his blanket. To hell with my first class, he thought. Arizona State University had a lax attendance policy, one which he’d abuse for nights like this.
The cell erupted with big-band music. Marc took his head out from beneath the covers and looked at his phone like it was a thing possessed. The phone vibrated so hard that it practically danced a jig on the floor and the screen flashed “ANSWER ME” over and over again as music blared.
“Dude?” said his roommate, now sitting up in his bed.
Marc swiped the phone off the charging cord and the music stopped. The caller’s name undulated with a rainbow of colors and an arrow appeared on the screen pointing to the button he had to press to answer the call. When did I get this app? he thought.
Marc sighed and left the bedroom, meandering into the hallway bathroom with the grace of a zombie. The battered mattress he slept on played hell with his back and left him stiff every morning. Dropping his boxers, he took a seat on the toilet and answered the call, determined to return this caller’s civility with some interesting background noise.
“What?” he murmured.
“Marc Ibarra. I need to see you.” The voice was mechanical, asexual in its monotone.
“Do you have any frigging idea what time it is? Wait, who the hell is this?”
“You must come to me immediately. We must discuss the mathematical proof you have stored in document title ‘thiscantberight.doc.’”
Marc shot to his feet. The boxers around his ankles tripped him up and he stumbled out of the bathroom and fell against the wall. His elbow punched a hole in the drywall and the cell clattered to the floor.
He scooped the phone back up and struggled to breathe as a sudden asthma attack came over him.
“How…how…?” He couldn’t finish his question until he found his inhaler in the kitchen, mere steps away in the tiny apartment. He took a deep breath from the inhaler and felt the tightness leave his lungs.
That someone knew of his proof was impossible. He’d finished it earlier that night and had encrypted it several times before loading it into a cloud file that shouldn’t have been linked to him in any way.
“How do you know about that?” he asked.
“You must come to me immediately. There is little time. Look at your screen,” the robotic voice said. His screen changed to a map program, displaying a pin in an open field just off the highway connecting Phoenix to the suburb of Maricopa.
“Come. Now.”
Marc grabbed his keys.
****
An hour later, his jeans ripped from scaling a barbed-wire fence, Marc was surrounded by desert scrub. The blue of the morning rose behind him, where his beat-up Honda waited on the side of the highway.
With his cell to his ear, Marc stopped and looked around before deciding how to continue. Spiked ocotillo plants looked
a lot like benign mesquite trees in the darkness. A Native American casino in the distance served as his North Star, helping him keep his bearings.
“You’re not out here, are you? I’m being punked, aren’t I?” he asked the mysterious caller.
“You are nine point two six meters to my east south east. Punk: decayed wood, used as tinder. Are you on fire?” the caller said.
Marc rolled his eyes. This wasn’t the first time the caller had used the nonstandard meanings of words during what passed as conversation between the two. Marc had tried to get the caller to explain how he knew about his theorem and why they had to meet in the middle of the desert. The caller had refused to say anything. He would only reiterate that Marc had to come quickly to see him, chiding him every time Marc deviated from the provided driving directions.
“If you’re so close, why can’t I see you?” he asked. He took a few steps in what he thought was a northwesterly direction and squished into a cow patty.
“Continue,” the caller said.
Marc shook his foot loose and tried to kick the cow leavings from his sneakers.
“You know what this is? This is exactly what’s all over my shoes, you monotone bastard. Forget it!” Marc shoved his phone into his back pocket and limped back toward his car, his right foot squishing with each step.
The route back to his car was comparatively easy; he just had to walk toward his headlights. That was the plan, anyway, until the lights on his car shut off.
“Marc, this is important.” The muffled words came from his pocketed cell.
“How are you doing this?” Marc shouted into the night.
“Turn around, please.”