The Crucible (The Ember War Saga Book 8)

by Richard Fox

  Bodel ripped the doorway free.

  “Can’t give them time to recover and coordinate,” he said. “Less talk, more killing.”

  ****

  A holo panel next to Ordona lit up with a surge in signal traffic between Ruhaald ships. So long as they did not interfere with his tasks, he did his best to ignore them. The spike in messages between the ships—and one ship in particular—drew his attention.

  Ordona lifted a tool arm and flicked a cutting blade over a holo panel.

  The face of a Ruhaald walker, not Jarilla, appeared in front of Ordona’s vision slit.

  “Explain,” Ordona said.

  “I render—”

  “Explain!”

  “We’ve been boarded! Not by humans, some manner of mechanized bipeds and-and a Xaros! The Septon is…indisposed. Can you send help?”

  “How did humans reach your vessel? They did not use this Crucible to travel there. I’m sure of that.”

  There was a crack of glass and a gout of water splashed behind the terrified Ruhaald.

  “We don’t know! The rest of our vessels are too far away to reach us by the time the humans reach the queen. You must do something!”

  “Hardly. Order your ships to release nuclear weapons on the following targets: Phoenix, Bern, Capetown. Tell the boarders you will destroy another city every two minutes until they surrender. I will send Naroosha ships to destroy the Breitenfeld and the rest of their surviving ships. Inform Septon Jarilla that I am most disappointed in him.”

  Ordona sent the command to assault the human fleet transiting behind the moon with as much passion as turning the lights on and returned his focus to the vexing probe. He lifted work arms up…then paused.

  How had the humans boarded the Forever Tide? A Xaros drone was impossible. He’d witnessed the kill command take place and seen every last drone in the system disintegrate. The Crucible had video files of a drone masquerading as a human working with Malal and a Karigole.

  The Karigole. The designs for their cloaking devices had spread through the Alliance when the species was first integrated to Bastion. The technology was discredited after a Karigole centurion using cloaks was nearly wiped out attempting to capture a Xaros drone. Disrupting the cloak with a wide-spectrum lepton pulse was pitifully easy.

  Ordona sent a command to a Naroosha cruiser.

  ****

  Gor’al walked behind the stations on the Vorpral’s bridge, glancing at screens and asking questions of his crew as he passed. Once, the room had been the chamber for the Council of the Firsts, the assemblage of Dotok leaders on Takeni. On that lost world, the ship had landed in the widest canyon on the planet and became the first “permanent” settlement. The Xaros arrival and some engineering solutions had brought the void ship back into the cold vacuum where she belonged.

  It had taken years of effort, but the Dotok finally had a warship to call their own.

  “Captain?” His communications technician rapped knuckles against the side of his chair to get Gor’al’s attention. “There’s a fluctuation in the neutron cage that human spirit ordered us to build.”

  “It’s time.” Gor’al leapt onto the raised circular platform where his command chair waited for him. “Announce the battle. Helm, ahead at best speed. You know the route. Radio, get me Valdar.”

  The clacking of wooden sticks filled his ears as the ancestral call to battle went through the ship’s IR. Warning lights blinked as the ship’s atmosphere was withdrawn into armored tanks. Gor’al looked over his bridge crew, making certain they had their helmets on before he donned his. The human insistence on fighting in full vacuum had some merit, a tactic Gor’al learned to appreciate after losing a ship to the Xaros early in the fight to save Takeni.

  “This is Breitenfeld,” Valdar’s voice came through Gor’al’s helmet. Some of the younger Dotok took to the infernal gauntlets with their screens and millions of distractions. Gor’al preferred the old ways of simple voice-to-voice conversation.

  “We have the signal. Ibarra is ready for the final gambit,” Gor’al said.

  “Cubes are in the void. The rest of the fleet is yours. The captains know their role and will follow your orders. Gott mit uns.”

  “Cod mittens to you too, Vorpral out.” Gor’al cut the channel and pulled a holo projector arm up from the side of his chair. Light wavered in front of him, then resolved into the dark side of the moon. Icons for all the human ships accelerated ahead of the massive Vorpral while the Breitenfeld fell back.

  Gor’al opened the command channel to his senior officers and asked, “Engines, can you stoke the fires a bit more?”

  “I have one generator at 110 percent of safe capacity and another operating on a steady feed of prayer and expletives. Do not ask for more,” his chief engineer said. The female was sufficiently “salty” as Chief MacDougall had once called her.

  “Your service is noted.” Gor’al felt the steady press of acceleration as their speed increased. The destroyers raced ahead, each trailed by a small icon, and crossed the threshold over the Earth-facing side of the moon. The distance between the different classes of ships would only grow wider as the moon’s gravity lent more velocity to the slingshot maneuver.

  “Vacaville has eyes on the Earth and Crucible,” the assistant captain said from his seat just below Gor’al’s right foot, “telemetry data coming through. The lead ships will enter weapons’ range of the Naroosha ships in…six minutes.”

  Plots for the Ruhaald ships over the Earth popped onto his holo; none had moved since the Vorpral’s last orbit around the moon. Gor’al tapped a fingertip against his armrest. The Ruhaald hadn’t taken the bait to interdict the ships on course to the Crucible.

  “No movement from the Ruhaald,” the gunnery officer said from the seat below Gor’al’s left foot. “Shall we send a small provocation?”

  “We miss and it’ll strike the mountains. Friendly fire is never appreciated, no matter the intention,” Gor’al said. “Ready the alert fighters. Remind Bar’en not to shoot the Crucible. Again.”

  “Transmission from the Crucible,” the communications officer said, “from the Naroosha.”

  “This will be interesting. Give it to me.” Gor’al waited a moment, then a small square with a flat red line running through the middle appeared in his holo.

  “Your violation is noted.” The red line warbled with the words. “Three cities are marked for immediate destruction. Any ship that does not return to lunar orbit immediately will be destroyed and another settlement will be bombarded at random every two minutes until all your ships are destroyed…starting with Hawaii. That is the only location housing Dotok, according to records. If it is not, we will get to the others in due course.”

  Gor’al thought of his children and grandchildren—the youngest born just weeks ago—living within Mauna Kea. He believed the Naroosha would carry out the threat, but he chose to trust that Valdar and Ibarra had found a way to save the many innocents at risk. If not, this offensive would be futile.

  “Naroosha commander,” Gor’al said, “this is your first, last, and only chance to surrender unconditionally. I have little preference to your decision, but I do look forward to mounting a burned fragment of your hull in the mess hall, and your skull in my quarters, if you choose to fight.”

  The channel closed.

  “A fight it is.” Gor’al shifted his holo view to Ceres and the Crucible as the Vorpral came around the moon. Engines flared, breaking the ship free from orbit and sending it straight toward the jump gate.

  The Naroosha ships crept out of the thorns and moved very slowly toward the approaching fleet, keeping the Crucible behind them. Gor’al’s beak clicked in annoyance. The Naroosha would make sure that any missed shots directed at their ships would strike the jump gate. If the plan devised among the Dotok, human and Ibarra were to work, the Crucible had to remain intact.

  The lead destroyers cut their engines and continued on at a steady velocity. Gor’al had never cared for hu
man tricks, preferring a stand-up fight with the Vorpral’s many energy cannons donated by the Toth. But if this one worked…

  “Vacaville executing the Tumbleweed Maneuver,” the assistant captain said. “I still don’t know what a ‘tumbleweed’ is.”

  “Some sort of plant near Phoenix, I’ve heard,” the gunnery officer said.

  Gor’al stomped a foot and startled the two chattering officers back to focusing on their jobs.

  The icons for the destroyers veered away from the Earth as their speed slowed. The icons just behind each ship continued…on a course straight through the center of the Crucible.

  “All ships report payload separation,” the assistant captain said.

  The cubes full of IR-guided missiles streaked toward the Crucible, each trailed by the carbon-fiber cables that had once been fixed to the stern of each destroyer. The human crews had worked in brief stints to attach the weapons during their transit around the dark side of the moon where the Naroosha and Ruhaald weren’t able to observe their efforts. Transferring the cubes—smaller than the one used by the Breitenfeld against the Toth—from the cruisers to the destroyers had been nerve-wracking to watch, but the void sailors had accomplished the task, losing only one cube to the moon’s gravity. It had impacted against the glassed surface, shattering the base of a crater.

  Gor’al checked the Earth and noted a distinct lack of heat flares from exploding nuclear weapons.

  Torpedoes ejected from the cubes like wind-blown spores off a dandelion. The weapons continued unpowered for several seconds until crewmen aboard the slower frigates and cruisers established an IR connection and steered the torpedoes toward the Naroosha ships.

  “Come on…pick your target,” Gor’al said to himself.

  The Naroosha ships pulled away from the Crucible. The edges of their spiral-shaped ships glowed blue. The weapon’s edge of nine ships grew brighter than the others. Lances of coherent energy shot out and annihilated all nine of the torpedo cubes before they’d finished releasing their cargo.

  “Captain, the Vacaville—”

  “Yes, I saw.” Gor’al watched as the guided weapons accelerated toward the Naroosha ships. At the same time, the destroyer squadron maneuvered toward the Crucible on a perpendicular attack vector toward the enemy ships.

  Gor’al’s fingers gripped the armrests as the torpedoes angled toward the nearest spiral ships. The destroyers closed, seconds away from effective range on the rail cannons.

  Three of the Naroosha ships shot toward the torpedoes, their weapons’ edges pulsating with energy. Bolts of energy no bigger than the IR-guided weapons fired from the ships like sparks off a live wire. Torpedoes exploded in quick succession as the bolts hit home. The sailors controlling the weapons began slaloming the torpedoes, dodging the incoming fire…but slowing their pace toward their targets.

  Naroosha ships launched a flurry of shots at individual torpedoes, leaving the weapons no place to run. A handful of torpedoes survived, all cruising along without guidance past the enemy vessels.

  “So much for that,” the gunnery officer said.

  “Wait.” Gor’al leaned closer to the holo. One of the missiles came to life and looped around, screaming toward a Naroosha ship’s engines. It slipped between a pair of thrusters and exploded. Engine cowlings went tumbling through space in a muffled flash. The stricken ship lurched up, then shattered into a blossom of flame.

  A second Naroosha ship broke in half as a second torpedo came to life and struck the thin central axis.

  The third ship tilted forward onto its prow. The weapon edge unleased a thin wave of coherent light that disintegrated the last of the fallow torpedoes and the broken fragments of their fellows in an instant. The ship went tumbling forward, cracks growing up and down the silver hull until it came apart like a mirror breaking in slow motion.

  “Tricks,” Gor’al said, “everyone has tricks. The humans, the Naroosha. Everyone’s too good to get into a stand-up fight.” He opened a channel to the fighter leader waiting on the deck. “Bar’en, did you see that Naroosha ship overload?”

  “I did. The attack dissipated within range of our gauss. We’ll watch for that. You ready to let us loose?”

  “Patience, or you’ll end up like the torps,” Gor’al said and closed the channel.

  “Destroyers engaging,” the assistant captain said. “Manticore frigates on approach. Still several minutes before we join the battle.”

  Gor’al considered egging his engineer on but decided all he’d get was a tongue-lashing.

  The flash from rail cannons rippled off the destroyers. Ruhaald ships let off pinpoint bolts and annihilated each and every shot from the human ships.

  “Their point defense is better than we anticipated,” the gunnery officer said. “We’ll have to close to almost knife-fighting range to make a hit.”

  “Helm?” Gor’al asked.

  “As you like, Captain,” the young officer said from the conn. “I’ll get us so close even those low-list gunners couldn’t miss.”

  “Enemy descending…they’re taking cover within the thorns,” the gunnery officer said.

  The Vacaville led the rest of the destroyers lower. Gauss flak guns opened up on the Naroosha ships. Gor’al couldn’t tell if the weapons had any effect yet. A brief stab of blue energy shot across the Crucible’s thorns where the destroyers hunted the Naroosha.

  The Vacaville’s icon went deep red—destroyed. More flashes of light—like the path of fireflies in the night sky—and the entire squadron was gone.

  Enemy ships on the other side of the Crucible maneuvered into a cluster of four. Their weapons’ edges grew brighter and each ship fired a beam that combined at the head of a pyramid. A blue column of power wreathed by lightning lanced through the void and struck the Barcelona amidships. The beam bore into the aegis armor with enough force to knock the ship off course. The armor plating failed and the beam cored the ship, exploding out the opposite flank. The cruiser lolled onto its side, engines dead.

  Another group of Naroosha ships fired, severing the Copenhagen’s prow clean off. Crew and shattered decks fell out of the ship and into the void.

  “Conn! Fire all starboard maneuver thrusters the next time the beams combine.” Gor’al flicked a pair of switches on his armrest to open a channel to his ships’ captains. “This is Gor’al. There’s a delay before the beam forms. Use it to—”

  Gor’al slammed to the right as the Vorpral’s thrusters overloaded. A blast of blue light washed through the view ports around the bridge.

  “It missed!” the gunnery officer shouted.

  Gor’al felt the ship decelerate.

  “Hope you’re happy! Generator two just melted!” came from the engine room.

  “Guns, target a single ship in the next group preparing to fire,” Gor’al said.

  “But, sir,” said the gunnery officer, twisting around to look up at his captain, “one miss and we’ll hit the Crucible.”

  “Then aim true. We’re a giant, slow-moving target right now. Fire at will. Bar’en, launch all fighters immediately.”

  “As you like. We might die on the way to the Crucible, but if we sit here waiting around, I like our chances even less,” Bar’en said.

  “Why are the good ones always so difficult?” Gor’al muttered as he reopened the fleet-wide channel. “All ships, get close and kick those bastards in the teeth. The Vorpral will get to the fight eventually. I challenge you not to leave anything left for us to mop up.”

  Lights dimmed and Gor’al felt a shiver through his seat as the Toth energy cannons opened fire.

  Valdar…we really need you right now, he thought.

  ****

  Lieutenant Mathias limped through the main gates of the Camelback Mountain fortress and slowly made his way to a group of soldiers and Marines gawking up at the sky. The compression splint on his wounded leg made his gait awkward and each tug on the pink scars beneath the webbing made him nervous that he’d reopen the wound, but the med
ics were adamant that he was fine to walk around.

  “What is all this?” he asked the group.

  “Look, sir…” A soldier pointed up toward Ceres where the flash of void combat raged around the Crucible.

  Mathias watched in awe for a few moments, comparing his small part of the conflict as an officer leading Marines to the titanic forces battling away.

  No wonder the navy officers don’t seem impressed when I brag about my Marines, he thought. His gaze went to the Ruhaald ship overhead, half-hidden by high clouds.

  “Everyone inside. Now!” Mathias used his command tone, reserved for combat and when his instructions were not to be questioned. His technique wasn’t as good as First Sergeant Cortaro’s, but it got people moving. “Those squids aren’t going to be happy about whatever the hell’s happening around the Crucible.”

  Mathias had managed to limp back to the doors when he heard a whistling sound overhead. A dark streak hit the side of the mountain, knocking flakes of rock and dust into the air. A metal oval the size of a Xaros drone bounced down the mountain…and straight toward Mathias.

  He shuffled to the left, but the object took a crazy bounce off a boulder and kept its collision course. The Marine went right, but the thing seemed dead set on smashing into him. Mathias threw himself to the ground and threw his arms over his head.

  There was a rumble of crushing rocks and a billow of dust over Matthias. He looked up and found the oval, its light-green surface battered and covered in the same script he’d seen on Ruhaald armor.

  A soldier in power armor grabbed Mathias beneath his arms and hauled him to his feet.

  “Keep moving, sir. My sensors are going nuts with radiologic warnings. Thing’s full of plutonium, but my Geiger counter isn’t redlining,” the soldier said.

  “If that’s a nuke, then why didn’t it go off?” Mathias limped faster.

  “You want to be out here when it does?”

  “Must. Go. Faster.”