The Crucible (The Ember War Saga Book 8)

by Richard Fox

  “Want to give your daddy a hug?” Lilith asked.

  Mary backed away, shaking her head.

  Cortaro’s lips pressed into a fine line as he saw Yarrow’s heart break a little bit.

  “Kids are kids,” he said, pulling the corpsman to his feet. “She’ll come around. Don’t force it. Now get moving, both of you.”

  He hustled them toward the doors. Lilith stopped and looked back at her daughter. She put a hand against the doorway, refusing to move another step.

  “What if something happens to us?” she asked. “Who’ll take care of her?”

  “Miss, you’re doing this for her. Take a look. Remember that she is what you’re fighting for—her future. I am about done being patient and understanding. Get moving before angry Cortaro comes back.”

  “He’s serious, Lil,” Yarrow said.

  Lilith turned away, crying.

  ****

  Torni stood off in the wings of the landing pad built into the side of Camelback Mountain. Marines loaded a pair of armor soldiers, both contorted into their compact configuration to fit into the cargo space, into Durand’s Mule. Two more suits of armor waited on either side of the void craft.

  A woman in power armor, her lavender hair in a tight bun, accompanied Yarrow through the landing pad. She walked stiffly, almost waddling. Torni let a smile spread over her face. She’d always found green Marines in power armor terribly funny.

  She concentrated on her left arm, smoothing over the warped sections of her shell. Irregularities in her appearance came without her noticing, and the more she tried to adopt a perfect human form, the more often they arose. Easing into the swirling fractal surface of her drone form would be easier, but doing so while surrounded by busy Marines and armor was a good way to get shot.

  Maybe Malal can fix this. If I ever see him again, she thought.

  Torni spotted Hale at the end of the Mule’s ramp, engaged in a one-way conversation with another Marine. Her body mimicked a deep breath and she walked over, the metal deck groaning beneath the enormous weight of her steps.

  “Sir, I see captain’s bars on you. They look good.”

  “Torni…” Hale backed up a half-step. “Haven’t seen you for a while. Been busy?”

  Torni debated telling Hale about producing the portal weapon, destroying most of the Xaros fleet and disfiguring the dark half of the moon, and nearly dying while injecting a kill command to the Xaros superweapon that formed after the General’s demise.

  “Same old, same old,” she said. “You?”

  “Just another day in the Corps.” Hale chuckled, then his face contorted with pain.

  “Sir?”

  “Fine…” Hale said, taking a shallow breath through his teeth, “just…what’s wrong with your face?”

  Torni touched her cheek and felt deep folds, like it was compacted by unseen forces. She ran a hand over her face, smoothing it out like a sculptor working in clay.

  “Things don’t work the way they used to. I can do my part in this mission though. No worries.”

  “Captain,” Steuben came down the ramp with long strides, “the armor is loaded and secure. We’re ready.” The Karigole looked at Torni and bared its needle-sharp teeth.

  “Your scent is…wrong. I mean no offense,” Steuben said.

  “That’s Lafayette’s hand,” Torni said, “his eye.”

  “Do you know where my brother is? I’ve not heard from him since the battle with the Xaros ended.”

  “You don’t…know. Lafayette took the Scipio. Jumped it to the surface of the sun and opened a portal to destroy the Xaros fleet with a flare. He’s not…he’s gone. He told me to say something to you. Shol mar cul.”

  Steuben recoiled, as if she’d punched him in the stomach.

  Torni reached out, her fingers extending into talons against her will.

  Steuben caught her by the wrist with his mechanical hand. He pulled back, then ran his flesh-and-blood hand from the metal over his skull and eye down his true face.

  “You will not speak those words again, abomination. Understand?” Steuben’s hand went to the sword hilt on his belt.

  Torni nodded.

  Steuben backed up the ramp and vanished into the Mule.

  “What did you say to him?” Hale asked.

  “I don’t know. Will he be alright?”

  “No idea. We all grieve differently,” Hale said as he took his helmet off his belt and locked it over his head with a click. “Good to have you with us again, Marine.”

  “It’s good to be back. Whatever way I am…here.”

  “See you on the high ground.” Hale went off the ramp.

  Torni looked at the top of the Mule and willed an antigravity field into being around her feet. She floated over the Mule and landed next to the upper gauss defense turret. The Chinese woman in the ball was halfway through a cup of ramen noodles. She froze when she saw Torni land, her fork half in her mouth.

  Torni kept her form but let her shell revert to its natural color, a swirling mass of black fractals over a gunmetal-gray exterior. She gave the gunner a friendly wave.

  The gunner looked at her noodles in terror, then set the steaming cup aside.

  CHAPTER 15

  Keeper surveyed what remained of the Congress. Hundreds of drone boreholes peppered the massive dome like a star field, letting in light from the binary heart of the system. Several of the ambassador pods floated aimlessly around the dais, trailing smoke and rolling slowly.

  It flexed the deep-black armor surrounding its photonic body. Assuming a corporeal form was a risk, but the threat from this Bastion was too great to leave to the drones. Even then…being in the presence of a species other than the Xaros filled Keeper with an atavistic sense of revulsion.

  +I feel defiled,+ Keeper said to the Engineer, who’d chosen to encase his photonic form inside thick plates of armor orbiting around a star, mimicking the initial construction of the Apex.

  The Engineer held a humanoid body in front of it as quantum scan lines performed a subatomic vivisection of the inert form.

  +You are a purist,+ the Engineer said. +That is why you cannot learn.+

  +The others may never know of this, but you willingly pollute yourself to learn these mongrels’ technological cantrips. We were pure and perfect before we left our home. There is nothing more to learn.+

  The Engineer boiled the body into a fine mist, then annihilated it with a flash.

  +We still do not have the answer to the ultimate question. The escape from inevitability. The cold nothing at the end of all things,+ Engineer said. +That is why the others agreed to preserve remains of dead civilizations. Some may have stumbled across the answer during our travels, and that decision has proven fortuitous.+

  +What do you mean?+

  The Engineer’s body vanished in a flash and reappeared over the center of the dais. A wide beam swept over the ground and a time echo of Wexil and Malal appeared. Malal’s image was nearly whole, showing where it had stood for so long. Wexil’s apparition swirled around Malal, marking where the Vishrakath had moved through time and space.

  +The one in the center is Malal. Its omnium body links to several artifact sites across occupied space. There is evidence of an ascension. Its species found an answer to the question. They defeated oblivion. They found a way to transcend death itself,+ Avarice tinted the Engineer’s words.

  +The drones found no trace of Malal,+ Keeper said.

  +In this instance, what is missing is more telling than what is here. There are quarters for three thousand nine hundred twenty-seven ambassadors. Taking into consideration those that escaped through the conduits or were cleansed by the drones, there are three species unaccounted for. Our attack was too bold, rushed. The General would not have made this mistake,+ the Engineer said.

  +Spare me your excuses.+

  +Then there is the matter of the missing Qa’Resh city. The drones are searching through the gas giant now, but I would wager we will not find it. Malal could not
use their conduit to flee. The Qa’Resh escaped, and they took Malal and the missing ambassadors with them.+

  +We will find him. He will share the secret to the ascension or he will be in agony until the last star fades to ice,+ Keeper said.

  +But where would they hide?+

  +Far from us. Do we know which ambassadors the Qa’Resh escaped with?+

  +No. The data cores ejected into the gas world. That knowledge is lost. Pity. But the memories remain.+ The Engineer sifted through the time echo, expanding the aperture until the pod Wexil used came into view.

  +Markings on this primitive vessel assign its use to the…Vishrakath. If this one spoke to Malal, it must be important. The important members of a group are always the first to survive, if they abide by our standards. The ambassador’s quarters speak of a unique physiology. I can find the home world. Once I do, we will go there in force and learn of Malal’s whereabouts.+

  +You will parley with the unclean and soil your being? The others will cast you out, no matter what you discover.+

  +Once we have what we need, there is no reason to suffer the Vishrakath’s continued existence. All of this remains our little secret. Doesn’t it, Keeper?+

  CHAPTER 16

  Torni kept a hand magnetically locked to the top of the Mule as it rose through the atmosphere. The Karigole cloak cast the world beyond a small bubble in gray scale. To her, the Earth looked lifeless without the vibrant blue of the distant Pacific Ocean and the tan hues of the desert stretching beyond Phoenix.

  Bodel and Ar’ri hung from mag locks on either side of the dorsal turret. Torni had spent many flights as a gunner, but never with a pair of armor riding along like remora eels. Despite the unexpected passengers, the gunner kept her eyes glued to Torni holding on close to the rear edge.

  The sight of an unsuited Marine holding on by her fingertips while the Mule passed into near vacuum must have looked like something out of an old horror show. That the engines weren’t firing on full blast must have added to the strangeness.

  “This is taking forever. Why are we riding anti-grav shunts and not blazing toward the target?” Ar’ri asked.

  “Cloak can’t hide extreme temperatures,” Bodel said. “It can mask anti-gravitons. If we hit the afterburners, the Ruhaald might come looking to find out why there’s a heat flare coming out of a whole lot of nothing.”

  “I knew that.” Ar’ri shifted against the hull, causing a slight wobble.

  “Sit. Still.” Durand’s stern command came over the IR.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ar’ri said.

  “Coming up on your target. Stand by.”

  Torni sat up and peered around the turret. The Ruhaald ship, miles long and shaped like a fat arrowhead, hung in low orbit. The Toth shielding formed a cradle beneath the ship, warping light in and out. Lines of fighters orbited the central axis, a gap several stories high and full of weapon emplacements and fighter bays. She looked for a command bridge, but no possible targets stood out.

  “Where we going to tell her to drop us?” Ar’ri asked.

  “Pilot picks the spot. Try dictating things to the ones behind the stick and you’ll find yourself looking at a very long walk home,” Bodel said as he cycled rounds into his forearm cannons.

  The Mule flew over the upper half and slowed to a relative stop next to a slight ridge dotted with semiopaque hemisphere.

  “Assault element, disembark,” Durand said. “Good hunting and Godspeed.”

  Torni cut the magnetic field generated through her fingers and slipped off the Mule. She fell gracefully and touched down on the Forever Tide. The hull felt thick and dense through her feet. The two armor soldiers landed with noticeable thumps.

  “The goal is not to be noticed the second we arrive,” Torni said.

  “We are fifteen-foot-tall suits of armor. We are not subtle,” Bodel said.

  “Look up,” Cortaro said through the IR. Torni did so and saw no trace of the Mule except for a slight distortion in the star field. A package appeared out of nowhere, heading straight to Torni. She caught it with ease and gave a quick salute to whoever could see her through the Mule’s cloak.

  “Keep your eye on the Crucible for the signal,” Hale said.

  “We’ll be set in a few minutes,” Torni said. “Tell Standish and Bailey I can’t wait to see them.”

  The channel crackled with static. The Mule had already moved beyond IR range. She slid her rifle onto her back and molded her shell around it into a holster. Control over her drone body had improved, but she still had to concentrate to maintain her human visage and she had no confidence in her ability to revert to full drone form and fly.

  Torni opened the pack and removed a spool of burn wire and an adhesive tube. She glued down the tip of the wire and stretched out several more feet. Setting a breach hole for an armored Marine didn’t take long. Setting a hole for armor would take significantly longer.

  “You were on the Naga?” Ar’ri asked.

  “I was. Hull is different. Interior will be different. Elias says the Ruhaald fight more like us than the Toth,” Bodel said.

  “We’re supposed to find this Jarilla. All we’ve got are pics from the meeting he had with Valdar. The only way I can tell them apart is from armor markings.”

  “So?” Bodel asked.

  “What if he’s in there and he’s not wearing armor?”

  “You just think of this?” Bodel asked.

  “It’s been bugging me since Hale briefed the mission.”

  “Why didn’t you say something sooner? We could have pinged the Breit for more information.”

  “And question Hale in front of everyone? I can’t insult him like that.”

  Torni pressed another segment of burn wire into a dollop of adhesive, then shook her head.

  “Ar’ri, is this some sort of Dotok culture thing?”

  “Junior ranks don’t question orders in the Home Guard. Colonel Carius gave us training briefings on Mars, and it seemed like a bad idea to ever question him,” Ar’ri said.

  “Everyone that’s earned their plugs knows that,” Bodel said.

  “If I’m supposed to…what does a Ruhaald look like outside their armor?” Ar’ri asked.

  “Really, Ar’ri? We get away from Hale and suddenly it’s time to play twenty questions?” Bodel said.

  “I ask because I think one’s looking at us.” Ar’ri pointed to one of the small hemispheres rising from the hull. Within, a Ruhaald swimmer with large red eyes and a tapered head stared at the trio. The alien’s feeder tentacles moved very slowly.

  “Torni…” Bodel slowly twisted his forearm cannons toward the observer.

  “Three more segments,” Torni said, stretching out another length of cord.

  “What do we do, shoot it?” Ar’ri asked.

  Bubbles erupted from the Ruhaald’s mouth.

  “There is no denying a bullet to the face,” Bodel said. “That thing starts yelling that there’s a bare-skinned human and a pair of giants on the hull and the others might not believe it right away.” The armor raised a gigantic hand off the hull and waved to the Ruhaald.

  “Breach line is set.” Torni clamped a small remote detonator to the wire and crawled away, gripping the hull with magnetic fields she projected through her hands and knees. “Bang is ready, then we clear.”

  The Ruhaald ducked down, reappearing a moment later. The eyes went wide and a torrent of bubbles came through the feeder tentacles.

  “I think that’s a different one,” Ar’ri said. “We’re in trouble.”

  “Fire in the hole!” Torni flattened against the hull and clicked the detonator.

  She felt the hull’s temperature rise as the white-hot cord burned through the outer layer and sank into the Forever Tide. Against a human ship, it should have taken less than a second for the cord to breach the hull and ignite the air within, blasting the sliced hull segment out like a cork from a bottle of champagne. Torni counted to five, then glanced over at the breach site.

&nbs
p; Did I screw up? she wondered.

  The hull rumbled. Bubbles rose into the observation blisters all around her.

  “Uh oh.” Torni gripped the hull tighter.

  The hull plug popped out of the breach and went hurtling toward Earth. A geyser of water burst through, freezing to snow and hunks of ice almost instantly. Ruhaald came out with the flood. Torni watched their arms and wide tails flailing about as the flood carried them into the void.

  The hull split away from the breach as the explosion of water ripped out a larger hole. The tear made straight for Torni. She tried to roll back, but a hand remained stuck against the hull. She yanked hard and ripped up a section of armor plating.

  The rip surged forward as a new glut of water poured forth.

  The hull beneath Torni lifted up and went tumbling away, propelled by an escaping fluid. Torni felt something grab her ankle. She looked down and found Bodel with a death grip on her leg.

  “Let it go!” he shouted.

  Torni felt her body shell stretching between her anchor and the raging water battering the hull plating she gripped in her hand. Torni squeezed her eyes shut and thought of a sun-drenched meadow in Sweden.

  The magnetic lock cut away and Bodel slammed her against the hull.

  “Sorry,” he grunted.

  “That was…” she said as she sat up and shook her distended right arm until it took on its natural shape, “fine. This is fine.”

  The geyser slowed to a trickle, then to a flurry of ice particles.

  Ar’ri jumped into the hole and Torni followed.

  The tank had become an ice-rimmed cavern. Ruhaald swimmers lay bunched against the deck, frozen and dead.

  “What the hell kind of ship is this?” Ar’ri asked.

  Bodel spied a long yellow strip beneath the sheen of ice. He stomped down, breaking open a door to an air lock.

  “The kind full of hostiles,” Bodel said. “We need to find Jarilla or this queen of theirs.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be a map anywhere,” Ar’ri said.

  “They’re not going to put a high-value target in the outer edge of a ship. One good hit and you see what could happen. They’ll be in the center and probably well protected,” Torni said.