The Crucible (The Ember War Saga Book 8)

by Richard Fox

“That was catch-as-catch-can for a while,” Valdar said.

  “We return to the Breitenfeld with more—more insight, more information—than when we left. Every step forward is a step in the right direction…unless you’re walking toward a cliff.”

  “Are Dotok always this cheerful and despondent at the same time?”

  “You sound like several of my ex-wives. Let’s get back to your ship. I have some ideas.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The thump of armored boots echoed through the tunnel. Hale’s pace was a bit faster than a jog, his power armor assisting his stride and reducing some of his effort, but after several miles of running, his breathing was labored and sweat ran down his face.

  If this war ever lets up, I’m going back to the gym, he thought.

  The tunnel ran beneath old Highway 87, wide enough for a cargo truck and almost twenty feet high. Unmanned supply shipments had run along the tracks recessed into the ground. Mile markers and arrows in luminescent paint told the distance to the next stop. Even with the ambient lighting, Hale felt a nagging sense of panic in the back of his mind.

  It had been days—possibly, keeping track of time while jumping from one crisis to the next was problematic—since he’d led his company of Strike Marines into the Xaros mines beneath Pluto and destroyed the factory providing raw omnium for a Crucible gate. Every few minutes he thought he heard the distant scream of a Wight, the thrum of a Xaros drone coming for him. His IR radio hissed in his ears, which did nothing to calm him down.

  He ran past a cutout along one side of the tunnel, a divot big enough to accommodate a freight car and with a ramp leading to quadrium-clad locked shutters.

  The Marine ahead of him slowed to a stop near a bend in the tunnel and raised a fist. He went down to a knee and waved Hale over.

  “Armor up front needs you, sir. Said something about a blockage. The IR’s shot to hell down here,” said Weiss, a new addition to his company and a Marine that had distinguished himself during the battle on Pluto.

  Hale muttered thanks and slowed to a walk. He tried and failed to open a channel to the Hussars at the leading edge of his force in the tunnel. He found Steuben waiting for him around the bend.

  “The tunnel’s quadrium plating and a significant amount of humidity are interfering with our communications,” Steuben said.

  “It’s monsoon season, shouldn’t be surprised.” Hale’s face pulled into a grimace. He should have anticipated the interference. As the company commander, everything that his Marines did, or failed to do, was his responsibility. Leading them underground and relying on shouting or the crack of gauss weapons to communicate a problem was not a winning strategy.

  Hale and Steuben walked together, passing more Marines kneeling along the tunnel walls every few tens of yards.

  “You believe your brother is at Firebase X-Ray?” Steuben asked.

  “It…can’t be him,” Hale said. “Jared left on the Terra Nova mission years ago but I never had the chance to say good-bye because we got stuck in the void for years after we pulled Malal’s codex out of his lab. But that Bolin guy, he has my brother’s voice…his face. Jared and I are twins. I don’t know how it is with Karigole, but human twins share a strong bond that begins in the womb.”

  “Those of my Centurion are my brothers. Karigole families are not bound to lineage like humans. Tell me, if this Bolin did not resemble your brother, would you have volunteered for this mission?” Steuben held up his new metal hand and tried to squeeze the fingers into a fist. The artificial joints twitched, then closed slowly.

  “Strike Marines don’t do well sitting behind fortifications. We’re meant to be beyond the front lines gathering intelligence, carrying out sabotage missions or targeted killings. Figuring out what’s going on with the Ruhaald and the firebase is what we were made for.”

  “You did not answer my question.”

  “Yes, XO, we’d still be on this mission. Bolin being the spitting image of my brother just made the decision easier for me.” Hale rolled his shoulders back and adjusted the grip on his rifle.

  “Have you heard from Lafayette?” Hale asked.

  “Nothing. Last time we spoke was on the Scipio after we returned from Pluto.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” Hale said. They came around a bend and found the three Hussars, all pressed against one side of the tunnel. Ahead of them, the tunnel’s walls had partially caved in. Cortaro, halfway up the pile of shattered rock, peered through a gap at the top of the tunnel. Hale smelled a thick aroma of ammonia and copper in the air.

  A Hussar pointed a finger to a severed cord along the wall.

  “Someone tried to blow the tunnels. Looks like a bit of shrapnel cut the wire to the explosives down the line,” Vladislav said.

  Hale climbed up the rubble and stopped next to Cortaro.

  “The door to the bunker is blown open,” Cortaro said. “We can squeeze through one at a time. Armor can’t.”

  A breeze blew through the uneven tunnel to a mangled door a few dozen yards away. Hale rapped his knuckles against the ceiling.

  “You think the rest of the mountain will come down on us?” Hale asked.

  “I grew up crawling around abandoned mines. No dust coming off the roof, no sound. The mountain sleeps again, sir,” Cortaro said.

  Hale twisted around and said, “Vladislav, you and the rest of the armor head back to that last emergency exit. We’ll scout ahead and get a look at the next tunnel.”

  “Fair enough.” The armor’s treads turned the soldier around and the Hussar rolled away.

  “Wait for me to get through, then send the rest.” Hale drew his pistol and crawled into the void between the rocks and pulled himself forward one handhold at a time. The bunker remained quiet as Hale approached, but he stopped every few feet to listen and watch. If the Ruhaald were in the bunker, they’d find him an easy target.

  The rocks quivered. Hale felt the vibration through his armor and his heart skipped a beat as dust filled the air like a thin fog. Abandoning the stealth approach, Hale scrambled forward. The tremor eased seconds later, but Hale kept moving fast.

  The rifle slung against his back bumped against a rock just as he reached the end of the tunnel. He pushed himself back and tried to cross the last few feet again, but his rifle thwarted his progress with a loud crack as it butted up against a low-hanging rock.

  Hale winced at the sound. He flattened his belly against the broken floor and tried to inch his way forward. He reached over the edge of the tunnel and grabbed a rock bigger than his chest, then scooted forward another half-arm’s length.

  The rock broke loose from the pile and carried Hale down the steep slope. He tried to roll forward, bouncing against every sharp edge in a small avalanche. His feet hit the ground and he lurched into the bunker, his pistol up and ready.

  The bunker was empty. Dark sunbursts of energy weapon strikes scarred the walls and the firing slits along the walls. Bright sunlight cut into the circular room, reflecting off pools of drying blood. A ramp on the other side of the bunker led to the shut doors of the next tunnel segment.

  “Clear,” Hale said through the IR. When there was no response, he went back to the cave-in and flashed a thumbs-up to Cortaro. The first sergeant returned the gesture.

  Hale took the gauss rifle off his back and returned to the bunker. He ran a finger through a smear of blood on the wall. The reddish-black bloodstain spread with his touch, and he flicked his thumb against it.

  “Still wet…where are the bodies?” Hale mumbled.

  The sound of a wet thump came with a gust of wind.

  Hale activated his cloak and crept up to the destroyed bunker doors. Across the packed desert earth and scorched shrubs, a Ruhaald shuttle sat on skids extended from its belly. A half-dozen alien soldiers clustered near the blunt nose of the aircraft. Hale watched, half-hidden behind the bunker. The Karigole cloaking technology wasn’t foolproof, and he didn’t want to learn the hard way how good the aliens’ scanners were if th
ey could detect him easily.

  One of the Ruhaald pulled away from the group, dragging something behind it. Hale zoomed in with his visor optics. The alien had a doughboy by the scruff of the neck. Silver wire ran from bonds around the doughboy’s hands and feet to his neck, his face contorted in agony.

  The Ruhaald threw the doughboy into the dirt and then raised its arms up as a wet trill filled the air. It hauled the doughboy onto his knees. The Ruhaald clapped its hands twice over its head, then drew a knife from a scabbard on its chest and raised it to the sky. Sunlight glinted off the blade.

  “No…” Hale looked back to the cave-in, but no other Marines had made it through.

  The Ruhaald twirled the blade around and slammed it into the doughboy’s skull. The knife sank down to the hilt and smacked against bone with a dull crack. The other Ruhaald trilled and beat fists against each other’s armor.

  The doughboy wavered for a moment, then collapsed to a side. The executioner wiped its fingers through the blood gushing from the dead soldier’s head, then slathered the vitae over its helmet. It yanked the blade from the body, then proffered the pommel to the other Ruhaald.

  Clicks and pops of Ruhaald language echoed from the knife-wielder.

  Another alien stepped away from the pack, dragging a bound doughboy.

  “Damn it.” Hale ran toward the Ruhaald transport. The Karigole cloak flickered as a gust of wind peppered him with sand. The alien with the still-living doughboy accepted the blade.

  Hale’s thumb flicked between the gauss rifle’s HIGH and LOW power settings. He didn’t know how strong the Ruhaald armor was. A high-powered shot could crack the shell of a Xaros drone, but the recharge between shots would leave him vulnerable and in a slightly worse position than if a low-powered shot did nothing but tickle their armor.

  One of the aliens looked at Hale, then pointed a pair of overly long fingers in his direction.

  The knife-wielding alien raised the blade over the prostrate doughboy.

  Hale brought his rifle up and snapped off a low-powered shot. The magnetically driven slug hit the executioner in the chest and sent it staggering back. A second shot pierced the damaged armor and shot out the back in a spray of green fluid. The wounded alien collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

  Hale kept running and swung his weapon toward the Ruhaald that noticed him. The aliens began to spread out, speaking to each other with high-tempo clicks. Hale fired and hit the alien in the forehead. Its helmet burst like a balloon.

  The cloak died with a loud pop and a whiff of ozone.

  Hale was barely twenty yards from the rest of the aliens. He put three shots into a Ruhaald struggling to pull an energy weapon slung over its back and knocked it into the dirt. Hale let out a war cry and lowered his shoulder as he rammed into the next alien, knocking it onto the companion Hale had just shot.

  The Marine dodged a clumsy punch and jammed his muzzle into the thin armor covering the Ruhaald’s neck. He fired and the bullet pierced the thin armor then bounced off the interior armor and ricocheted around, shaking the alien like a rat caught in a terrier’s jaws before the bullet exited through a hip joint.

  Thick arms grabbed Hale from behind and lifted him off the ground. Hale slammed his helmet back and felt a solid contact as the sound of glass shattering filled his ears. The alien let Hale go.

  He whirled around and faced a panicked Ruhaald slapping at its broken helmet as fluid poured from the cracks and evaporated into mist almost instantly. Behind the alien, the last standing Ruhaald had a weapon in hand and aimed at its fellow’s back.

  Hale grabbed the alien with the broken helmet and pulled it close, making it impossible for the armed alien to fire without hitting them both. He stuck his gauss rifle beneath the Ruhaald’s armpit and fired as fast as he could pull the trigger.

  A bullet hit the Ruhaald in the knee and blew the limb away. The alien dropped its weapon and squealed as it clawed at the bleeding stump. Hale shoved his impromptu shield away and shot the other alien in the head. He swung the rifle toward the one with the broken helmet and found it lying flat on its back, the feeder tentacles making up the lower part of its face trembling in the open air, its limbs jerking feebly.

  Hale’s finger tightened on the trigger, then hesitated.

  A high-pitched whine filled the air from the transport. A double-barreled energy cannon rose from the top and swung toward Hale. He ran toward the alien craft and leapt into the air. The cannons lowered to track his flight and stopped short as he hit the ground within the weapon’s defilade, close enough that the guns couldn’t fire without hitting the ship.

  The guns fired anyway, twin bursts of energy hitting the ground with a thunderclap. Searing heat flashed against Hale’s armor and the blast wave sent him tumbling like a log. He slammed into the shuttled landing skids, right next to the lowered cargo ramp.

  The blast sent Hale’s balance reeling, but he struggled to his feet and grabbed a grenade off his belt. He clicked the activation switch twice, tossed it into the shuttle as the transport doors began to close. He lurched away and fell to the ground, covering his head with his arms. In the split second before the grenade went off, Hale wondered if the aliens carried any high explosives in their shuttles.

  The grenade blew out the front windows. The Ruhaald spat out and smacked against a boulder with a sickening crunch.

  Hale rolled over and got to his feet. Smoke poured from the shuttle, now canted on its side from a broken landing skid. The cannons on the roof burned treetops in a blaze. He swept his weapon over the aliens lying in the dirt and found one, the first he’d shot, reaching to the sky with one arm.

  Hale kept his rifle on the alien as he walked over. The Ruhaald lay in a growing puddle of lime-colored fluid as more burbled out of a bullet hole in its chest. Black eyes the size of Hale’s palms darted from side to side until fixing on the Marine.

  “I render appropriate greetings,” came from a voice box mounted on its shoulder. The feeder tentacle writhed as tiny bubbles poured from the mouth area. “You have killed me. Why? Why is your caste in conflict with us?”

  “You were about to murder a prisoner. We don’t stand for that. Why are you attacking the firebase and nowhere else? Why did you kill that soldier?”

  The fluid leaking from the Ruhaald’s chest slowed to a trickle.

  “I die beneath a yellow star. My prophecy lies,” it said.

  “Hey,” Hale said, nudging the alien with his foot, “answer me. At least tell me how I can stop you from bleeding out.”

  The Ruhaald lifted its other hand, the blood-encrusted, thin-bladed knife still in its grasp. It tossed the blade at Hale’s feet.

  “Vendetta. Blood between us and your slaves. Our scion will have justice.” The alien reached to the sun…and its arm fell to the side. Hale removed the voice box and slipped it into a pouch on his belt.

  “Sir!” Cortaro called out from behind Hale.

  The Marine and Yarrow knelt next to the doughboy. The bio-construct bled from a dozen tiny cuts up and down his body, his face twitching in pain.

  Hale jogged over.

  “Nice of you two to show up,” Hale said.

  “I had rifles trained on each and every hostile,” Cortaro said, “then someone dropped his cloak and got into a knife fight, ruining our shots.”

  “Sir,” Yarrow said, pressing his fingertips against the doughboy and giving him a gentle push, “he’s got strong vitals. I think the wiring is doing something to his nervous system.”

  Hale looked to the sky, which had gone beige with wind-blown dust. “The longer we’re out here the more likely we’ll be spotted. Figure something out.”

  “Right.” Yarrow put his hands on his hips, thought for a moment, then reached down to grab the silver cord running from the doughboy’s neck to his wrists. When the medic grabbed the cord, electricity arced from the cord and jabbed Yarrow’s fingertips.

  Yarrow jumped up, shaking his hands furiously.

  “Cot
ton picking son of a—” Yarrow groaned and squeezed his hands into fists.

  “Yarrow, if you’re going to curse you need to do it like a Marine.” Cortaro unsnapped his Ka-Bar blade from the forearm housing and touched it to the silver cord. Tendrils of electricity danced along the blade as the gunnery sergeant sawed through it.

  “I’ll be sure to tell everyone those things are electrified,” Yarrow said, “and remind them that our Ka-Bars have rubber stoppers between the blade and our armor.”

  “Knowing is half the battle,” Cortaro said as he tapped the back of his hand against the severed cord, then unwound it from the doughboy’s neck and hands.

  The doughboy let out a grunt and ripped the rest of the cord away. He threw it on the ground and stomped it into the dirt.

  “Hurt me. Bad.” The doughboy ground a heel against the wire.

  “You got a name, big guy?” Cortaro asked.

  The doughboy’s head snapped toward the Marine, then to Hale. The construct snapped to attention with his heels together, chest puffed out and hands balled against the sides of his thighs.

  “Sir! Nickel Three-Seven. Enemies took my sir, killed other Nickels.”

  “Sir, you met this one before?” Cortaro asked Hale.

  “No, last doughboy I spoke to was on Hawaii during the Toth attack,” Hale said. “Maybe he saw that damn movie everyone’s talking about.”

  “Nickel lost weapon. Nickel sorry. Sir Bolin punish Nickel?”

  “What did you call me?” Hale asked.

  “Sir is gone.” The doughboy pointed a meaty finger at Hale. “Bolin bigger sir. More sir.”

  “Isn’t there a Lieutenant Bolin at Firebase X-Ray?” Yarrow asked.

  “There is, but I’m not him,” Hale said. He felt a vibration through the ground and looked over to see a pair of armor rolling toward him on their treads.

  “We took a look in the other segment,” Cortaro said, “blown. If we want to get to X-Ray, it’ll be overland. Next bunker is three kilometers away. That one connects directly to the firebase. Could still be our way in.”