The Crucible (The Ember War Saga Book 8)

by Richard Fox

  Pa’lon stared at the floor, his shoulders low.

  “What is this?” Stacey asked.

  Wexil gave the Dotok a rough shake.

  “They came to me,” Pa’lon said, “and offered to spare my people if I returned to Earth and helped secure the proccie tubes. I told them I’ve been to Earth. I’ve seen the homes humans built for the Dotok and how our militaries trained to fight as equals. I told them that Hawaii resembles lost Dotari. They promised me my own island, protection from the Xaros. I told them that I’ve been to Earth, learned human customs and courtesies. Then I told Wexil, as the humans would say,” he looked back to the Vishrakath, “shove that offer up your ass.”

  From the small of his back, Wexil took a sharpened bit of metal with a cloth-wrapped hilt and set the blade against Pa’lon’s neck.

  “I grow tired of this,” Wexil said to Stacey. “You will return to Earth and do as I demand, or I will kill him right here, right now.”

  “God damn you!” She started toward her old friend but stopped when the guards shook their spears.

  “Stacey,” Pa’lon said calmly, “you saved us. You and the Breitenfeld. There is a debt. Don’t trade my life and damn your future. Don’t do it.”

  Wexil twisted the blade, letting light glint off the edges. “Your decision. Lose this one and leave the fate of Earth to the Toth, or help make our inevitable taking of the procedural technology a bloodless affair.”

  Stacey thought of the countless billions her decision would doom to slavery and death—of Earth subjugated—and weighed that against the life of her friend and what little integrity she had left.

  “No,” she said. “I’ll never help you, Wexil.”

  “As you wish…” The Vishrakath drew the knife back then slashed it against the side of Pa’lon’s neck.

  “No!” Stacey reached for her old friend as he seized up.

  Wexil shoved Pa’lon to the ground.

  Stacey slapped a spear aside and swung a fist at a shocked guard. There was a flash and Stacey felt a thump against her chest. She looked down and saw Wexil’s knife embedded just below her collarbone. There was no pain…or blood.

  “What the…” Stacey touched the hilt to make sure it was really there.

  “Why isn’t she dying?” one of the guards asked.

  Crimson light filled the conduit room. The blare of an emergency claxon stung Stacey’s ears.

  Wexil looked up and said, “It can’t be.”

  “What? What is it? Yours is the only functioning AI. Tell me!” a guard demanded.

  Wexil flicked his fingers in the air and a holo-field appeared. Several wormholes had opened in the void high above Bastion. A tide of dark objects emerged from glowing portals, all converging on the station.

  “It’s the Xaros,” Stacey said. “They’re here.”

  “Impossible…” Wexil backed away, then ran from the room.

  The guards tossed their spears aside and followed. The door slid shut before Stacey could take two steps after them.

  The pulsating lights and claxon continued. She turned her attention to the knife in her chest, grabbed the hilt with both hands and pulled the blade free. Instead of a gut of blood, there was a glimmer of silver within the tear in her tunic. She probed the cut with her fingers and felt the sting of ice when she touched the wound.

  She jerked her hand back.

  “Pa’lon?”

  The Dotok had a knee bent beneath him, one hand over the side of his neck.

  “I should be dead,” he said.

  “Me too.” Stacey lifted his hand away. A slash of silver ran along his neck beneath split skin. “Dotok aren’t made of…this.”

  “Neither are humans.” Pa’lon scooped up a spear and bashed the butt against the door. The shaft broke after the third strike.

  Stacey grabbed the knife off the floor and poked the point against the meat of her palm. She pressed, but felt no pain as the tip pierced her flesh. Twisting the knife slowly, she saw a glint of silver beneath her skin. She yelped and tossed the weapon away.

  “What is this, Pa’lon? What did they do to us?”

  “Our energy is better spent trying to get out of here. Other questions can wait.” Pa’lon grabbed the knife and pressed the blade into the seam running around the door. He used both hands to try to wedge the blade home—with little success.

  A deep thrum filled the air. Stacey felt the floor vibrate in tune as the sound grew stronger. She’d felt this before, when a drone had chased her through the Crucible’s halls.

  “Oh no…”

  A dent appeared in the roof as something slammed against it. The dent grew larger as blows beat against the ceiling.

  Stacey picked up a spear, considered it for a moment, then tossed it aside.

  Pa’lon put an arm over her shoulders.

  “Humans and Dotok stood against the Xaros on Takeni, and won. We fought side by side on Earth, and won. This may be the end for you and me, but the alliance we formed will live on. I’m glad we were friends,” he said.

  “I always wanted to die in bed surrounded by fat grandchildren. With you here…almost as good.” Stacey took Pa’lon by the hand.

  The ceiling ripped open, the haze of the gas giant’s upper atmosphere blending against the star-speckled void. A pair of crystalline tendrils tipped with leaf-shaped pads reached into the conduit chamber and wrapped around the two ambassadors’ waists.

  Stacey didn’t have time to scream before being jerked out of the room. Her world went upside down several times before she landed in a narrow trough made of glimmering crystal. Pa’lon was with her, looking as confused as she felt.

  The tendril still around her waist tightened.

  +You are well.+ The Qa’Resh’s words pulsed through her mind.

  Stacey looked up and saw the raw void overhead. Bastion shrank slowly as the Qa’Resh flew away. The mass of Xaros spread across the sky like a great murmuration. Beams of coherent light struck out from the station, ripping swaths of destruction across the Xaros.

  The enemy coalesced into constructs the size of dreadnoughts. Red beams lashed out, silencing the defenses in seconds. Stacey had run through enough simulations of Earth’s defenses to know Bastion wouldn’t last long.

  “What is this?” Pa’lon touched the shelter made up of the Qa’Resh’s body.

  “This is one of our hosts. They’re normally quite shy,” Stacey said.

  +Extraordinary times. Extraordinary measures. We thought we could end the dispute with Wexil and his confederates. We failed.+

  “How are we…” Pa’lon began, raising a hand over the Qa’Resh’s side, “…we’re in vacuum right now. Where are we going?”

  +Maintaining biospheres for over a thousand not-us in a single station was logistically impossible. The Bastion solution allowed an ambassador’s consciousness to inhabit a simulacrum body with no biological or environmental needs. It was simple, elegant, and it worked—until now.+

  “Wait…I’m not here?” Stacy pressed her hands against her side. “But I’ve been eating, drinking…everything.”

  +All biological processes were simulated. The details would have been revealed once the lack of aging in your true body was undeniable. The other Ibarra-designate insisted on withholding the information. He said you would take the information poorly.+

  Stacey fell onto her rear end. Her fingers touched the knife wound in her chest.

  “Did you know?” she asked Pa’lon.

  “I knew I didn’t age while I was here. The AI told me our bodies aged incredibly slowly while on Bastion, an energy field that slowed cellular decay. The AI said Bastion preferred ambassadors that could serve for long periods of time, given the difficulty in creating ambassadors that could go through the conduits…but if these aren’t our real bodies…”

  A cloud of deep-orange gas enveloped the Qa’Resh.

  +Those ambassadors who could not accept the simulacrums were told a more acceptable explanation. The translation AI prevented
unauthorized disclosures.+

  “Another lie from my grandfather,” Stacey said. She pressed her face into her hands, not knowing what her skin actually touched.

  “You’re taking us to your city, Qa’Resh’Ta, aren’t you?” Pa’lon asked.

  +Correct. Ninety-three percent of those on Bastion have escaped through the other conduit chambers. You had no chance of survival, which we found unacceptable.+

  They passed through the cloud bank and into a canyon, the walls made of thick bands of gas the colors of sunset, the base a deep blue punctuated by lightning bolts. In the center floated a great city of crystal spires.

  Stacey lifted her head up. She felt a teardrop frozen against her cheek and wiped it away.

  “What now?” she asked.

  +This world is untenable. We must leave. Devise a new strategy.+

  “The Xaros came through wormholes—wormholes not bound to Crucible gates. Do you understand what that means? No place in the galaxy is safe,” Stacey said.

  +We know.+

  The Qa’Resh’Ta looked like the inside of a geode. Towers of sparkling crystal soared around them as they flew toward the city center. Other Qa’Resh flit between the spires, all heading the same direction.

  They swooped into a wide park dotted with the same blue-white trees that had graced Bastion. Their rescuer set them down on a wide hill covered with spindly blades of ivory grass.

  “This is…” Pa’lon said, turning around, his mouth agape as he took in the city, “something extraordinary.”

  “It’s all over,” Stacey said. “The Alliance. Bastion. Every world stands alone. The Xaros will find us down here. It’s only a matter of time.”

  A Qa’Resh flew toward them, its tentacles bound together behind its glittering bubble of a body, and came to a stop a few feet away without so much as a rustle of air. The tentacles drooped to the hilltop and deposited a swirling mass of omnium metal shaped like a man. The Qa’Resh flew straight up without a sound.

  Stacey backed away as Malal’s form solidified, its face a featureless mask. As it ran fingers over the thin blades of grass, shoots of white traveled up his arm.

  “Ah…home,” Malal intoned.

  “Who is that?” Pa’lon asked.

  “Not a friend.” Stacey looked for any kind of cover, the presence of a Qa’Resh for protection, but the three were alone in the center of the alien city.

  “That’s…him, isn’t it?” Pa’lon stepped between Stacey and Malal.

  “Cold souls, so dim next to flames.” Malal’s face twisted up at an angle that would have snapped a person’s neck.

  High above, Qa’Resh congregated in the air, forming ever-wider circles with their bodies.

  “What’re they doing?” Stacey asked.

  “The bargain remains. My aid in exchange for my price. I will not have it here, so we are leaving.” Malal’s head snapped toward her.

  “How are…oh…” Stacey gripped Pa’lon’s arm as a blazing point of light formed in the center of the Qa’Resh formation and spread out into a white plain. Stacey closed her eyes as the wormhole engulfed them all.

  CHAPTER 14

  Yarrow double-checked his gauntlet to the number stenciled on the concrete wall of a civilian bunker. The corpsman, still in his power armor with a rifle slung over his shoulder, wiped grime off his face then looked himself over. He scraped a bloodstain off his boot then twisted his head around to look down his back.

  “You look like a warrior. Accept it,” Cortaro said.

  “They’re going to see me like this. This isn’t how I thought my homecoming would go. Or that there’d ever be a homecoming like this…I don’t even know what to say to them.” Yarrow checked his reflection against a window.

  “Son, I did my hellos and good-byes with my wife and kids too many times when I was growing up in the Corps. My youngest didn’t recognize me after I came back from Borneo, hid behind a chair every time I came in the room. Took her a month before she called me ‘daddy’ again.” Cortaro’s mouth tugged aside.

  “Good old days had family support groups and chaplains to smooth out all the reintegration bumps. We don’t have time for the perfect solution. You understand what we need in there?” Cortaro asked.

  “This isn’t…” Yarrow looked at his hands, then shook his head.

  “I know.” Cortaro put a hand on Yarrow’s shoulder and gently pushed him toward the door. “We’ll make this right when it’s all over. You have my word.”

  Yarrow hit a button on the doorframe and the entrance slid open.

  The civilian bunker held nearly a hundred people, all grouped into tiny family knots near cots piled high with backpacks and suitcases. Most clustered around screens mounted on walls and support pylons, watching news reports of the occupation force in the skies over their heads. Every civilian turned to the open door and stared at Yarrow and Cortaro as they entered.

  Yarrow searched the room, looking for a lavender-haired woman and her—their—little girl. He found Lilith on a cot near a pylon, staring down at a data slate. Next to Lilith, curled beneath a blanket, lay a tiny figure.

  A very un-Marine-like sense of panic filled Yarrow, making each step closer feel like he was walking through clay. The sound of his heavy boots caught Lilith’s attention. She did a double take between him and the data slate, then set it aside carefully.

  Yarrow tried to speak, but only unintelligible sounds fell from his mouth.

  “You’re back?” Lilith stood up, wringing her hands over her stomach.

  “No. I mean yes. I’m here, but…”

  The blankets stirred and a little girl sat up. She looked up at Yarrow with sleep-filled eyes, her hair a mess.

  “Daddy?” she squeaked.

  Yarrow knelt down in front of her. He raised his right hand and offered it clumsily to the girl. She looked at his hand like it was an alien thing.

  “Your name is Mary, right?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m Jason Yarrow, your father.”

  “Mommy said you were away fighting the monsters. That’s why you couldn’t be with us.”

  “That’s right. I wanted to be here, but the jump engines needed years to recharge and this thing named Malal put us all—”

  Cortaro cleared his throat.

  “But I’m back now. For a little while, at least.”

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

  “That’s one of the reasons we’re here, ma’am,” Cortaro said. “You can hack a Bastion probe. We saw you do it on Nibiru. We need your help. We need you to come with us. Right now.”

  “Wait just a second.” Lilith raised her palms to Cortaro and glanced at her daughter. “I can’t just leave her. There are other Akkadians who know the coding better than me. Nabua over on Okinawa. Even Digan in Hawaii.”

  “Okinawa was wiped out by the Xaros, nothing left but a smoking hole,” said Cortaro. “We don’t have time to reach Hawaii. You’re our best hope, ma’am.”

  “You just waltz in here and expect me to leave our daughter behind and go-go-go where?” she asked Yarrow.

  “Lil, honey, this isn’t what I planned. This situation is…not good for us,” Yarrow said.

  “Mommy has to leave too?” Mary asked.

  “No.” Lilith crossed her arms over her chest.

  Cortaro stepped closer to Lilith and touched her arms.

  “Ma’am, you look over at those screens and you’ll see a couple Naroosha and Ruhaald ships in orbit. A few hours from now, the Crucible will open up and hundreds more ships will arrive. They will take what they want from us and then they will destroy everything left behind.” Cortaro looked at Mary, then back to Lilith. “We have a shot at stopping this from happening. For it to work, we need you to come with us. Help get the Crucible back under our control so we can win this fight and free the skies. We’ll protect you and we’ll bring you back to her as soon as possible. So I need you to find someone to look after your little one—right now—and grab whateve
r you need to hack into a probe. You understand?”

  Lilith wiped a tear away. “I have my brother in here. He’ll watch her.”

  “Go get him.” Cortaro let her go and turned to Mary, who was touching her father’s face.

  “Hey, little Mary?” Cortaro asked.

  “You’re Cor-ta-ro,” she said. “You were mean to Daddy in the movie.”

  “I still haven’t seen it,” Yarrow shrugged.

  Cortaro tapped his rank stenciled onto his chest. “This means I don’t have to be nice to Marines, but I’m always nice to smart little girls like you. Mary, do you know what a hero is?”

  “They do brave things, like save the Dotok from monsters.”

  “That’s right. Your mother and father have to come with me. I need them to be heroes. I need you to do a brave thing and let them come with me,” Cortaro said.

  Mary’s lip quivered. “But Torni was a hero. She didn’t come back.”

  “Both your mother and father will come back. I swear it,” Cortaro said.

  Mary’s eyes widened. Her bottom lip pouted on the verge of an out-and-out bawl.

  Cortaro jabbed Yarrow with an elbow.

  “We’ll come right back,” Yarrow said. “We just have to go up to the Crucible and fix a computer.”

  “Mommy fixes computers all the time,” the little girl said, composing herself slightly.

  “It’ll be just like that. In fact, she’s fixed another computer the exact same way before. Except there were the Toth—” Yarrow caught another elbow from Cortaro “—so much easier this time. We won’t be gone long.”

  “Little one,” Lilith said, returning with a middle-aged man in tow, “you’re going to stay with Uncle Yeshua until we come back.”

  “Can we go home after that? I don’t like it in here,” Mary said.

  “Yes, darling, and your daddy will come live with us too.” She turned her head to Yarrow. “Right? All of us. Together.”

  “Of course! I’ve been meaning to talk to you about all that.”

  “Grab your stuff.” Cortaro clapped his hands twice. “Need to get her to the armory.”

  Lilith picked up a small cloth bag beneath her cot and gave Mary a tight hug.