The Ruins of Anthalas (The Ember War Saga Book 2)

by Richard Fox

  “Kill the warrior,” Steuben said. “It’ll slow them down.”

  “I don’t know if we can make that shot, Steuben,” Hale said. A warrior finally joined the mass of menials and they swarmed toward the Marines.

  From behind Hale came the click of Bailey’s rail rifle fitting together. Bailey lay on the platform and slid a round into the breach.

  “Oh ye of little faith,” she said. She snuggled against the butt stock and exhaled.

  The rail rifle snapped. A line of burning air roiled briefly then disappeared. The warrior was nothing but a yellow smear in the dirt. The menials ceased their charge, the entire mass looking at what remained of their leader.

  Hale felt a thrum in the air, like the growl of a great cat. He hadn’t felt something like that since he’d been on the Crucible.

  “Xaros!” Standish raised his rifle straight into the air and fired a Q-shell at the lone drone plunging toward them, stalks out and burning with amber light from the tips. The Q-shell burst and coherent energy lashed the drone. The drone’s descent continued straight down. Steuben pulled Bailey from her sniper’s perch an instant before the disabled drone slammed into it, sending rock shrapnel bouncing off the Marine’s armor. The drone tumbled forward and down the long staircase, crushing stairs with each hit.

  Another Toth warrior emerged from a stepped pyramid, just in time to see the Xaros tumble away from the base of the pyramid and through the menials, killing dozens. The drone came to a stop, stalks twitching.

  “That’s his problem now.” Hale looked down the other side of the pyramid. Another stairway led into the jungle. Through the jungle, Hale spotted a distant clearing. “Let’s go.”

  Steuben and Torni lifted Cortaro off the ground and slung his arms over their shoulders. They were slow going down the pyramid, drops of blood dripped free with each step. Orozco lifted Yarrow over his shoulder and followed the rest of the Marines down the stairway.

  “Weren’t you supposed to be looking up?” Standish asked Steuben.

  “Yes, you did very well,” the Karigole said. “Now shut up.”

  ****

  Durand looked at the clock on her heads-up display and exhaled loudly. She and the rest of her ships had been attached to the hull of the cube for hours, waiting for the demolitions work to announce its completion with an impressive fireworks display.

  The hours-long wait when she and her squadron had ridden a luxury liner into the Battle of the Crucible had been longer, but at least she knew when that was scheduled to end.

  “So, Filly, how’s shipboard life treating you?” she asked her wingman.

  “Most of the crew is friendly. Some are still angry about the series of political disagreements between China and the rest of the world, even though none of them matter anymore,” Choi Ma said.

  “You mean the ‘political disagreements’ where China invaded most of East Asia and occupied half of Australia?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean the ‘political disagreements’ that led to me shooting you in the leg on the flight deck?”

  “I have forgiven you for that. If the situation had been reversed, my aim would have been better. Once we changed our uniforms to the Atlantic Union blue, the crew was much less overtly hostile. America had enough of an Asian population that no one seems surprised to see us. But then we open our mouths and suddenly we become ‘one of them’ again,” Ma said.

  “There are no more countries anymore, Ma. All we’ve got now is Phoenix.”

  “Yes, and the next jerk that asks me when I’m going to open an authentic restaurant will get dick punched,” Ma said.

  Durand laughed. “I think you’ll fit right in with the crew. Don’t worry about … that’s not right.” Durand leaned against her canopy and peered at the Crucible hanging below Anthalas. The thorns were moving.

  “Filly, look at that Crucible and tell me I’m not seeing things,” Durand said.

  “It is moving. Have you seen that before?” Ma asked.

  “The Crucible around Ceres moved around right before the Karigole jumped through, and … it was moving right before we jumped through to get here. Son of a bitch. Something is coming through,” Durand said.

  A white portal of light spread within the center of the Crucible. Strands of light pulled away from the portal like rain falling up from a pond.

  Durand moved a gun camera toward the Crucible and zoomed in. Dark dots emerged from the plane and flew into a growing swarm.

  “Xaros are here,” Durand said. There were already dozens, more than the Breitenfeld could handle if caught unaware.

  “Breitenfeld, this is Gall. We’ve got Xaros arriving in force through the Crucible,” Durand sent through the buoy network. There was no answer.

  “Breitenfeld?” Still nothing.

  She was the squadron commander and the only one who could make a command decision. The success or failure of the entire mission to Anthalas could depend on what she chose to do next.

  “All ships, detach!” she ordered. Her Eagle floated from the cube face with the flip of a switch and she charged up her anti-grav thrusters. “Filly, Mule One and Two, you’re with me. We’re going to the surface and we’re going to find the ground teams. Mule Three, you deploy your recovery net and get prepped to recover whatever the armor is going to bring out. Then get them and you back to the Breitenfeld as soon as you can. You know Xaros speeds. Don’t stay so long that you can’t get back to warn the ship. Let’s go.”

  Her four-ship formation rocketed toward the surface.

  “Everyone, switch from anti-grav to your burners. The Xaros know something’s up, doesn’t make much sense to try to get in on the sly anymore. De l’uadace, encore de l’audace et toujours de l’audace,” Durand said, quoting her favorite French revolutionary.

  “Loud ass?” Ma asked.

  “No—just shut up and fly!”

  They cut into the upper atmosphere, on course to the pyramid city where the Marines and Rangers were supposed to be. Durand pulled a lever on the side of her seat and held her breath as her fighter shifted from void to atmosphere flight mode. Wings swept out from the sides of the fighter and twin rudders unfolded along the tail. Void flying required thrusters to maneuver. Surrounded by Anthalas’ air and wind, older methods of flight were required. She wasn’t as nimble in atmosphere, but feeling her wings groan against the air felt better to Durand.

  “Filly, your variables deploy correctly?” Durand asked.

  “I’m not corkscrewing toward the dirt like a dead bird, so yes they came out just fine,” Ma said. If any part of the transition failed, a rudder stuck halfway or a wing sweep out, the aerodynamics of the fighters would become impossible and Ma’s metaphor would prove apt.

  “Good, keep your eyes peeled for …,” a glint of silver shown on the horizon, “bogies. Eleven o’clock and closing.” A blocky craft with down-swept wings rose in the air, up and away from Durand and her formation. Flanking it were two blade-like escorts, two sets of stubby razor-blade wings along its edge.

  “They don’t seem interested in us,” Ma said.

  “What the hell are they? Can’t be Xaros,” Durand said, her neck craning to watch the unknown craft fly higher into the air. Durand shook her head. She had other things to worry about.

  “I sure hope they’re listening,” Durand said. She keyed open the radio transmitter and started broadcasting.

  CHAPTER 11

  Carrying wounded through the jungle kept the Marines at a pace that felt glacial to Hale. He stopped and looked back at the great pyramid. Flashes from Toth weapons sparred with red energy beams from Xaros reinforcements. He’d counted only a handful of new drones, which proved to be enough to keep the Toth off the Marines’ heels.

  The old saying about mutual enemies aside, Hale hoped the Toth and Xaros kept right on killing each other.

  Steuben tromped past Hale, Yarrow slung over his shoulder like a felled deer. The medic had been unresponsive but for a few moans and intermittent
babbling as they made their way through the swamp. Bailey and Orozco did their best to keep up while carrying Cortaro.

  Torni, carrying a handheld satellite dish, stopped and held the dish to the sky. Wherever she could find a line-of-sight shot to Anthalas’ moon, she tried to raise the Breitenfeld. No luck thus far.

  “Anything?” Hale asked Torni.

  “I can’t even pick up the buoys. I don’t know if it’s the atmosphere … or if the whole network is gone,” she said. If the latter were true, Hale and his Marines would be on Anthalas for a very long time. “Should we risk radio?”

  “The Xaros would pick it up and swarm us. So would the Toth. Keep trying the IR until we get to the clearing,” Hale said. He looked up at the thick thorn vines and spiked branches. Even if a Mule could get to them here there was no way it could land.

  Steuben stopped, sniffed twice, then set Yarrow against a tree.

  “Toth,” the alien said.

  Hale and the Marines looked around, and up, but saw nothing in the fog.

  “Form a perimeter around Yarrow and Cortaro, hurry,” Hale said.

  He grabbed Lowenn by the shoulder and tried to push her toward where Yarrow and Cortaro were propped against each other, back to back, inside the protective circle formed by the rest of the team. She shrugged him off and joined the circle. She raised her gauss rifle level with her face and switched the weapon off SAFE.

  “I know how to use this,” she said.

  Hale felt a rumble through his boots, the once-still ponds around them shivering as something large ran through the jungle.

  “Shoot the big ones first,” Hale said.

  Orozco slammed his rear foot into the ground, the pneumatics struggling to secure a foothold in the loose muck beneath him.

  Steuben unsheathed his blade and twirled it, the razor-sharp edge hissing in the air.

  “Shoot, Steuben, shoot,” Hale said.

  Steuben broke from the circle as the rumble grew stronger. He set a foot on a fallen log, then jumped against a thick tree. He pushed off and flipped over, just as a warrior broke through the fog, its red eyes glinting with malice as it bore down on the Marines. Steuben’s blade flashed and cut through the warrior’s spine just below the base of its skull.

  The Toth went limp and crumpled against the ground. Its hindquarters reared over its front shoulders and almost bent the alien in half, then it fell on its side, motionless.

  Steuben sheathed his sword with one hand, flipped his rifle off his back with the other and backed into the circle. The sound of clattering claws and hissed commands echoed through the fog.

  “Standish. Now would be a good time to pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster,” Steuben said.

  “Yeah, about that …,” Standish said, “I’m not sure if anyone briefed you on the concept of human irony but—”

  “Incoming!” Hale shouted as he glimpsed a menial charging through the fog. He fired a burst of magnetically accelerated rounds into the fog, the bullets leaving converging whirls of fog in their wake.

  The rest of the Marines let loose, the snap of their gauss rifles mingling with squeals of dying menials. Orozco’s Gustav spoke like thunder, the heavy-caliber bullets cutting through trees and blowing menials into pulp as he swept his cannon through its arc of fire. The grav and anti-grav rings around the barrel glowed as they fought to tamp down the recoil.

  A half-dozen menials charged straight at Hale. He switched his weapon to shotgun mode and blasted the menials. Two went down as a third tumbled end over end and splashed into a puddle. The fourth took a full blast to the shoulder, the rounds blowing away an arm and leg. The last two leaped at Hale. He ducked down and shot one as it sailed overhead. The last menial hit Hale like a linebacker, knocking his rifle out of his hand.

  Hale smashed his fist against the menial’s head, but the creature’s hold pinning his other arm between them didn’t give.

  A shotgun blast turned the menial’s head into yellow mist. Lowenn, her muzzle smoking, kicked the dead menial off Hale. She swung the butt of her rifle into a menial, knocking it off balance, then finished it off with a close-range blast.

  Hale saw his weapon in a puddle. He grabbed it by the handle and shook it to clear away mud and water. Looking up, he saw a warrior at the edge of the fog, its weapon aimed right at him. Time seemed to slow down as Hale raised his weapon, certain that he couldn’t get a shot off before the Toth blew him apart.

  The warrior backed away, then vanished into the fog. Firing around Hale slowed.

  He glanced over his shoulder. All the Marines but Yarrow were still on their feet, their rifles smoking hot.

  “Everyone OK?” Hale asked.

  Nods and curt replies came back.

  Dead Toth littered the ground around them, their yellow blood seeping into the mud, adding a neon tinge to the swamp water. The smell of cut grass and bile bled through Hale’s rebreather.

  “Ugh, that smell won’t be easy to get out, will it?” Standish asked.

  “Steuben,” Hale’s combat high rang in his ears as he kept searching for the warrior that was still out there. “Steuben, one of the warriors had me. Could have pulled the trigger but didn’t, why?”

  “We have something they want,” Steuben said. “It doesn’t do much good to fire lasers at something you need whole.”

  “They just charged us with all those little ones because they don’t want to shoot us?” Bailey asked.

  “Correct. The Toth have no regard for the lives of their menials. The warriors will sacrifice themselves for the overlords without hesitation,” Steuben said.

  “The fog is getting thinner,” Torni said. “How about we keep moving?”

  “I am pleased,” Yarrow said. His head rose from his chest and he breathed in deeply, as if relishing the smell of death around them. His voice was several octaves lower than usual.

  “Yarrow? Can you hear me?” Hale knelt in front of the medic and put his hands on his shoulders.

  “Bring me ….” Yarrow’s eyes opened, the whites of his eyes now gold. “More. Bring me more.” Yarrow blinked, his eyes returned to normal, and he fell against Hale’s arms, unconscious.

  “Ohhh … kay,” Bailey said, backing away from Yarrow.

  “Standish, pick him up. Your turn to carry him,” Hale said.

  “Sir, maybe we should—”

  “Now, Marine!” Torni shouted. As the highest-ranking Marine after Cortaro, she’d stepped into his role without having to be asked.

  Standish got Yarrow over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, his face ashen behind his visor.

  “I can smell your soul, Standish,” Yarrow said.

  “Sir! New guy is seriously weirding me out right now,” Standish said, his voice reedy with panic. “No? Nothing? Fine, I’ll just carry the evil alien thing. It breaks loose and eats our faces you know who’s going to laugh and say I told you so? No one, because we won’t have lips anymore.”

  “Shut up, Standish!” more than one Marine said.

  Steuben and Torni got Cortaro back up and the Marines moved on. Hale stepped around Toth bodies, their flesh blackening and pulling away from their skeletons. Hale didn’t know if that was a peculiar feature of their anatomy, or if something on this planet had accelerated their decomposition. Steuben might know, but Hale found bliss in his ignorance.

  Whatever was inside Yarrow scared Hale worse than the Xaros, but he wouldn’t leave the Marine behind. What happened after he got Yarrow back to the Breitenfeld, and Earth, was a problem beyond his station.

  “—der six. I repeat, Raider six, please respond,” the voice came through Hale’s helmet, an icon showing a live radio transmission. He recognized the voice immediately but hesitated to open a radio channel.

  If she was calling him, the situation must have gone straight to hell. He pressed and held a button on his forearm display to reply.

  “Gall? This is Raider six,” Hale said.

  “Thank God, do you know how long we’ve been looking for y
ou?” Durand asked. “Something kicked the Xaros hornets’ nest and this whole mission is about to shit the bed. Where are you?”

  “I’ve got wounded and precious cargo with me. Can you extract us at …?” Hale swiped a map over, trying to find the coordinates for the clearing, which wasn’t on the map. “We’re heading for a clearing, maybe five miles north of the big pyramid. We’ll send up a flare when we get there.”

  “I see it,” Durand said.

  A Toth ululation broke through the fog.

  “Looks like they’re not done with us,” Torni said.

  “Move out, hurry,” Hale said to the Marines. They picked up their pace to run as fast as they could through the swamp. “Gall, hostiles are closing in on us. Can you provide some close air support?”

  “You mean whatever’s flying those silver fighters?” Durand asked.

  “Did you see a giant six-foot lizard at the controls?”

  “A giant lizard? Ken, what the hell is going on down there?”

  “I don’t know where to start. Just shoot anything that’s not human, OK?”

  Steuben’s head snapped around, his face contorted in what was either the Karigole equivalent of betrayal or anger.

  “Not you, Steuben,” Hale said.

  They came to the edge of the clearing. Fog had burned away to a slight haze, diffusing sunlight over dark green grass. Hale pulled a signal flare off his belt and slapped his hand into the bottom of it. Red star clusters arced into the sky.

  “Gall, did you see that?”

  “Roger, I’ve got two Mules with me. They’ll set down on the opposite side. What the …? Raider, you’ve got movement to your south. Lots of it,” Durand said.

  Hale heard the whine of approaching aircraft in the air.

  “I wasn’t kidding about that air support,” Hale said.

  “Get to the far end of the clearing. You’re danger close for my guns,” Durand said.

  “Run! Run!” Hale waved his Marines onward. He remained behind the slowest Marines, short-legged Bailey and the overburdened Standish. A Toth war cry from multiple warriors came from the jungle behind them.