Captive Embers (The Wardens' Game Book 1)

by Brian Mansur

  Unfortunately, the stairs to the next floor had been demolished. So, he turned away from the exit into what his HUD labeled an office building. He needed to get to higher ground for the best firing position.

  Sean had barely started down a worn-out hallway when an explosion lambasted him and the survivors from behind. The concussion threw him to his belly. His padded forehead smacked against his helmet and blackness surged toward the center of his vision.

  “Son-of-a—,” he began to say.

  Messages and alerts flashed before his eyes, but it took a moment to focus. After a few seconds, he registered someone’s voice.

  “—carriers got through! Bring up your heavies! They have mec—”

  The voice died in a burp of static.

  Shaken into full consciousness, Sean’s attention locked onto the situational map. Several big red icons for enemy transports gleamed at various distances from the brigade’s position. One of them was close to his location. From outside, he could hear its engines roaring above a discordant symphony of fifty caliber bursts and lighter arms fire. His insides coiled. Lilith’s counter-thrust had arrived.

  Picking himself up, Sean stumbled down the hall. He searched for more stairs, passing one closed door after another. With every step, shouts and gunshots increased in volume. He spared a moment to consider why the enemy had risked landing so near to a fortified building. It was a foolhardy maneuver unless….

  “Mechs moving in from the outside to your rear,” Claire said with alarm. “Caution, jamming sources detected and growing in strength. Loss of signal imminent.”

  At almost the same moment, two marines appeared from around a corner. Running past him, one said, “They’re coming in! Get to cover! Sean’s heart sank. If a killing machine stepped through the exit he’d left, those two didn’t stand a chance.

  He knew he had a single opportunity to knock out one of those metal beasts. He sped to the nearby corner. All he needed was a bit of concealment to get the rocket online. Ironically, he found the stairs he’d been looking for but ignored them.

  Sean unhitched the missile tube and set to activating its systems and linking its fire control to his HUD. An explosion some floors above made him duck in reflex, but he kept working.

  “Drone!” one of the marines down the hall shouted as their weapons opened up. It was standard for assault teams of any military to send flying scouts ahead. Some models even came with mini-rockets and guided bullets. The scream one marine unleashed told Sean they’d been unfortunate to encounter one of the latter.

  “Got it! Got it!” another voice called. That was all the second man had time to say. The next instant, a brief but familiar burr from a mini-gun filled the hall. In reflex, Sean’s head snapped up to find bits of red matter splattered across the floor in front of him.

  A mech had arrived.

  Sean knew then his window to attack had closed. With the machine’s weapons pointed his way, he couldn’t hope to even stick the missile around the corner, much less fire it. The mech would merely shoot him through the wall once it suspected his position. Worse yet, the icon for interrupted server connectivity blazed red. Claire could only provide him basic support through his suit computer.

  He looked behind him. That was when he noticed the stairs also led below to the sublevel. He snatched up the armed missile and bounded down, stopping at the first landing. The missile tube had a tripod mount, which Sean snapped into place. With his signal strength fading, he pulled at its retractable, thread-thin data cable and held it fast so he could still fire it remotely.

  A clomping above signaled the mech’s approach. He scampered further toward the sublevel, praying the cable didn’t drag the tube off position.

  “Claire, activate remote camera on the missile. Fire control to my wrist pad’s hard switch.”

  “Done,” the gimped A.I. replied.

  A picture box appeared showing the stairs and hallway above. Sean had scarcely reached the bottom of the next flight when a dark figure moved across the frame.

  “No,” he breathed. It was another drone. A tiny scout.

  An eyeblink later, a rocket grenade bounced into view and flew at the missile. Even as Sean registered what had happened, a thunderous explosion ruptured the stairwell from above, the concussion pushing him into the sublevel.

  He cursed. He’d failed to take out the mech. And from the red filling his HUD’s sit-map, the enemy was closing in on their position from both above and below the surface. Knowing he had only a few minutes at best, he ran off to find another missile.

  27

  Location: Segment 5, Lakshmi Colony_

  The enemy’s sublevel counter-attack punched through earlier than expected. It caught Sarah as she emerged from their landing pod on a last-minute run for more medical supplies. First, explosions tore through two nearby doorways. An instant later, the fire suppression system showered the deck with water and foam. Then a spray of bullets and grenade drones poured into the cavernous room.

  All about Sarah, others who’d been out in the open poured gunfire into the gap. They instantly started falling over from return bullet strikes. To Sarah’s horror, she saw several drones fly among them, exploding against those who’d found concealment.

  Too frightened to scream, Sarah dropped to all fours and scampered from the onslaught. Claire said into Sarah’s ear, “This way to nearest cover, ma’am.” A fat, green arrow pulsed in the HUD. Sarah rose to a crouch, adjusted her course and charged off. As she hunkered away, she slipped and skidded on the newly slicked metal deck.

  She crossed ten meters before something struck her pack and sent her twirling to the ground. An instant later, a slug hit next to her hand. She yelped. She fought off her urge to panic and scanned about for a way to escape. By chance, she’d fallen near what her HUD said was a dead marine. Letting out a whimper, she clawed up to the body and flattened out.

  Claire said, “Enemy’s on your right! Pivot left for better cover.” Another green arrow told her which direction to move. Sarah did as the A.I. suggested, narrowly escaping a smattering of bullets.

  For a few seconds, she lay panting and shaking. When she finally looked up, she realized what little concealment the corpse gave her. She knew she couldn’t stay there, but the dingy surroundings did not appear to offer anything better nearby.

  As smoke filled the compartment, blue icons manifested to mark the scattered Mykonians. Through the streaming beads of water on her helmet, Sarah watched as two marines beside a crate jerked from the impact of machine gun fire. The fresh corpses collapsed, and the white glow of death suffused their forms in her HUD.

  Eyes popping further, Sarah cried, “Claire! Which way should I go?”

  The A.I. didn’t answer.

  “Claire!”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” the machine finally replied, “but the connection to my server has been interrupted. Last report indicated mechs were fighting Bravo Company units in the next compartment. The mechs seem to be a signal interference source.”

  Following those words, the information tags above her compatriots dimmed to indicate the information might be out of date. The few friendly drones she could see settled to the ground. Sarah felt ice locking her limbs into place. They were being jammed like on the Feni.

  The corner of her eye caught sight of a marine crawling from another landing pod’s opening. Something flew into him and exploded. The blast cleaved the body at the waist, flinging bits up to smash against the cluster of pipes on the ceiling. Pieces crashed back onto the black metal deck far from their owner. Mouth agape, Sarah stared at the victim’s limp torso.

  That’s going to be me if I don’t get out of here!

  But she didn’t know where to go. She lay in the middle of a mostly barren utility space the size of a sports field. The tension lines holding up a slippery floor offered no cover. Dying fires at the treatment area’s cluster of pallets lit the gloom. She thought she saw a few bodies lying about the suffocating flames. She noted th
e exit signs beyond them but wondered how she would get to any of them without being killed.

  Looking forward again, she made out several darkened hatches set in a wall. Flickering light from a firefight in the next compartment silhouetted figures crouched in or about the openings. The suitless enemy soldiers exchanged staccato streams of death with the few living marines laying prone around Sarah.

  I’ll get through this! she told herself once again. Then, as she blinked away welling tears, three of the hostiles advanced to a pair of squat boxes less than fifty meters from her. The nurse began to hyperventilate as they shot in her direction. A round hit the body she lay behind. This finally prompted Sarah to pull her sidearm, thumb off its safety and return fire.

  By luck, she caught one of the nearby men in the chest. He fell to his back, screaming. His companions zeroed in on Sarah as a more urgent threat than the marines behind her. She ducked as bullets hailed about. One pinged off her helmet, denting the anti-ballistic shell.

  Sarah screamed, her voice rending the air with its abject desperation. Something about her frightened shriek short-circuited their killing instinct, and they stopped shooting.

  Too bad for them, the marines behind Sarah didn’t.

  Both opponents dropped at the same time, convulsing with repeated hits. Then Sarah glimpsed something as it passed overhead from behind and sailed into one of the doorways in the distance. An incandescent detonation blinded her while a roar assaulted her plugged ears. The next beat, two other doorways blossomed with fire, curtailing the Lakshmian counter-attack.

  Sarah had only begun to recover from the shock of the explosions when she felt someone lifting her by the strap of her medical pack.

  “Come on!” she heard Sean’s tense voice say.

  The young woman uttered a small cry of joy, relief, and fear as she pushed herself up. Hand in hand, they skittered away on the wet ground. All around them, marines flowed the other direction to secure the perimeter.

  Sarah asked, “Where are we going?” She had no intention of getting lost if they separated.

  “Stairs are ahead. Let me just get my…” he broke stride only long enough to pick up a missile he’d dropped to the ground. His attention to the mission brought Sarah’s mind back to her role in it.

  “I should check for wounded,” Sarah said as more explosions rang from behind.

  “Not until we have some security down here,” Sean said. “Mechs ripped through Bravo Company after we landed. Those Lakshmians down here walked through the gap.”

  “A lot of mechs?” she asked. The last word came out in a huff as her shoulder slammed into the wall next to a stairwell. She took note of a marine kneeling at the bottom, his weapon ready.

  “Enough. Hurry!” Sean urged, pushing Sarah up the first flight ahead of him.

  A successive trio of bangs above stopped them both cold. The patter of a chunky rain echoed through the stairwell.

  Sarah took a step back. “That sounded like—”

  “Mortar shells,” Sean finished. A louder bang shook the metal railings. The couple started back down.

  Sean said, “There’s another way up!”

  No sooner had he spoken than a final blast broke the ceiling above them. Cubic meters of soil cascaded down. The dirt spilled into and around the staircase, burying all three people nearby.

  Sarah howled as she rode out the flood. When it finished, she found herself encumbered by a mess of earth that the burst sewage pipes and sprinkler system were rapidly turning into mud. Somewhere past the curtain of dust, rain, and smoke, she heard the battle raging.

  “Sean!” she yelled. She checked her HUD’s displays. No vital systems had been lost, but she still couldn’t connect to Claire’s servers.

  She looked about. A black figure stirred from the rubble below. Sarah’s heart pounded faster, hoping it was Sean. She exhaled as the marine who’d been guarding the stairwell emerged.

  “I’ll catch you, ma’am,” he said, reaching up. Sarah took his hand and slid to the deck.

  “Where’s the lieutenant?” she demanded as the marine helped her get steadied. The man opened his mouth to answer when his forehead exploded onto the inside of his face shield. He toppled onto Sarah, flattening her against the base of the dirt hill. She froze in horror at the gore that dribbled centimeters from her nose. She opened her mouth, but if she screamed, she couldn’t hear it. Her whole body felt numb, as if her spinal cord had been pinched by fear.

  She listened as marines yelled, “mech” and “fall back.” Immediately after, Gatlings growled like juice blenders sawing into soft fruit. People screeched and died.

  Over the symphony of slaughter, a clomp, clomp, clomp drummed. Sarah’s heart pounded with such violence that she felt sure the machine would hear it. Fear marred her face as the mech stepped into view beyond the dead marine’s helmet.

  The machine stopped and swiveled its upper half with unexpected speed. Sarah gulped as it fired at someone out of sight.

  Please, God, she prayed while watching the menacing techno-monster. Don’t let it see me. Don’t let me die like Horvath did.

  The mech fired again. Sarah chomped down on her lip in a vain effort to stop herself from shaking. Just stop! she thought at the machine. She had little doubt that each cannon blast meant another person had been hurt or killed.

  Half a dozen more times, the monster belched death. When it finished, a squad of Lakshmian soldiers ran up behind it, moving out of sight.

  As seconds ticked by, Sarah noticed the background chatter of small-caliber gunfire growing distant. She realized they must be fighting in the next compartment.

  Shivering violently, Sarah leaned her head left and right to ensure no one had stayed behind. She couldn’t make out any people through the gloom. She detected no moans or sounds of movement from survivors.

  She took two more shuddering breaths then slowly pushed the dead marine off of her. He rolled to the ground, leaving her gasping. She looked about the body-strewn compartment and realized everyone else must have either died or fled. She didn’t dare move into the open to be sure.

  Looking back to the rubble pile, she whispered, “Sean?” Since he wore his suit, she knew he was probably still alive. A knot of resolve formed within. She would rescue someone today.

  Twisting around, Sarah began pushing mud and dirt aside. Over a minute of furious work, she etched a groove where she thought Sean might be buried. All the while, gunshots and a mech’s footfall continued to stalk her senses.

  She paused to scan the compartment through her mud-streaked helmet, but still saw no one. When she turned back, she paled at how little progress she’d made. At what point should she give up and find a way back to the others?

  Her voice squeaked. “Where are you, Sean?” Another rivulet of dirt fell into place, triggering a small sob from the forlorn lieutenant. She pounded her fists into the mound. One of them struck something hard. It turned out to be a length of pipe, which she attacked with resentful fury.

  To Sarah’s surprise, a few blows dislodged the other end from the dirt. Along with a tangled length of rifle strap. And the wriggling fingers that gripped it.

  “Sean!” she cried, clasping his hand to establish a fiber-optic connection. As his medical data transmitted to her HUD, she said, “I’m here! Suit and vitals are okay. You’re going to be fine.”

  He bent up at the waist, shedding muck and debris. He looked shaken, Sarah decided, but not in pain.

  “How long was I out?” he asked.

  At that, she heard a grenade popping somewhere out of sight. She set to scraping the rest of the dirt from his legs. The gunfire drew steadily closer.

  “Never mind that,” Sarah said, “we gotta move.”

  Sean nodded. They grasped each other’s wrists, and Sarah planted her feet. Leveraging all of her body weight, she tugged.

  He didn’t budge. Sarah’s eyes widened, and her breathing went shallow. She repositioned herself and tugged again. Still nothing.


  A slow clomping signaled the proximity of a mech in the next maintenance partition.

  “Sarah,” Sean said quietly.

  “Let me try again,” she whispered. She could see a large pipe poking through the dirt around where his legs must be.

  “Sarah,” he breathed as she strained.

  “Just one more try.” The growl of the mech’s cannon spilled into their chamber. Sarah found herself on the verge of weeping.

  “Sarah!” Sean said, rasping. “I’m pinned! You have to get out of here!”

  “No!” she protested, raking clumps of soil out of the way.

  “Listen to me,” Sean ordered. “I have a plan. I dropped my missile just over there. Hand it to me, and I’ll cover you.”

  “I’ve almost got you out,” she insisted.

  “Go to the far end of this wall and up the other stairwell there,” Sean told her.

  “I’m not going to leave you here to die.”

  “Sarah Riley,” he said. He bent forward to cover her frantic hands with his. She stopped and looked up at him with a tear-streaked face. For a few seconds, they stared into each other’s eyes.

  “Sarah, you have a job to do. Go.”

  The clomping resumed.

  She dove for the missile beside the rubble pile and gave it to him.

  The sound of stomping rose, fell and rose again. Sarah realized that the mech must be passing by the doors to their room. The irregular wall wouldn’t hide them for long if and when the mech came through. They had no time left.

  Sarah wanted to rail at the world for it. She cared for him! Possibly more than she’d cared for any man before him. But she also understood the pleading in his face: his need for her to survive to help the others. In their final moments, her living was the one gift she could give him. She turned and fled.

  Her footfalls echoed as she raced to the compartment’s far end. As she reached the stairs, she saw the mech round a corner. It swiveled its turret her way, but too late. A massive explosion from Sean’s missile consumed the machine. She had a split-second glimpse of him jerking back as something struck his helmet.