by Richard Fox
“How do I stay focused on standing around and waiting?” Derringer asked.
Brannock rolled his eyes. “Catch up on maintenance. When did you eat last?”
Derringer slipped a small tube from his belt and bit the end off.
“Mmm…scrambled eggs,” the young Marine said, “just like Mom used to make.”
A team of medics crowded next to the edge of the flight deck a dozen yards away from the two Marines.
“Here we go,” Brannock said. “Corpsmen won’t have their time wasted standing around like us.”
A Mule flew into the flight deck, retro-thrusters blowing hot air over Brannock as it set down close to the corpsmen. Derringer tried to get past Brannock as the Mule’s ramp descended, but a hand to the chest stopped him.
“Not yet, give the docs some space,” Brannock, said.
They waited as the medical crew opened the Mule’s atmo chamber and pulled out a vac-suited sailor, a long gash across his thigh. They lifted him onto a gurney and rushed the unresponsive sailor away. Another corpsman helped two more walking wounded off the shuttle.
Inside, a pair of doughboys sat against the bulkhead. One leaned against the other, as if sleeping.
Brannock ran up the ramp and went to the doughboys.
“Indigo? That you?” Brannock asked.
Indigo looked up, then removed his helmet.
“Space…quiet,” Indigo said.
“You were Dutchman for a long time, buddy. I’m glad search and rescue found you.” Brannock held a hand out to Indigo, who didn’t take it. “What’s going on? Let’s get you and Cobalt back to the barracks and get you cleaned up.”
“Cobalt quiet.” Indigo nudged the doughboy leaning against his shoulder.
“Cobalt?” Brannock knelt in front of him and lifted up his head. The doughboy’s face had a blue tinge, his eyes half-open and staring into nothing. Dead.
“We found them together,” Zorro said from behind. The pilot took off his gloves and rubbed his face. “Your guy, Cobalt, lost suit integrity, dumped his air. Probably expired soon as he went Dutchman. I’m not supposed to bring the dead back, slows down the search for the living. But...Indigo wouldn’t let him go.”
“They’re not supposed to care about the dead or injured,” Brannock said. “They’re not built that way.”
“Maybe they’re more human than we give them credit for.” Zorro glanced at his forearm screen. “Turn and burn. I’m wheel’s up again after I top off my batteries. If you could…” Zorro nodded at Cobalt’s body.
“Yeah, he’s ours,” Brannock said. He reached for the dead soldier. As he did, Indigo let out a lupine growl.
“Indigo, what’s the matter?” The Marine stood up and backed away.
“I take.” Indigo threw Cobalt over his shoulder. “I take.”
****
Makarov stared at the red cross on the door to the Midway’s sick bay. She swallowed hard and turned around to the pair of doughboys and master-at-arms that served as her bodyguard.
“Stay here,” she said.
The sick bay was a mass of chaos as doctors, corpsmen and nurses shouted over the cries of wounded and dying sailors. The smell of burnt flesh and the copper tang of spilt blood assaulted her senses.
She went to a room packed with sailors, all nursing broken limbs or covered in pressure bandages. These were the walking wounded, too hurt to perform their duties, but in need of care once the doctors could afford to see them.
Makarov touched each sailor and Marine, whispering her thanks as she made her way through the room. One sailor pointed a bandaged-covered stump of a hand to a draped-off section of the sick bay.
“Ma’am, my buddy’s in a bad way over there. He’s…a big fan of yours. His name’s Nelson,” she said.
Makarov saw only one set of feet moving around the draped area.
Not too busy, she thought. She knew the effect her arrival had on any part of the ship. The last thing she wanted was for the medical teams to be thinking about anything but caring for her wounded.
Makarov lifted the curtain aside and slipped into the room. A dozen gurneys lined the walls. Sailors and Marines, all missing limbs or burned over much of their body, lay quietly, hooked to air and drip lines. Two of the gurneys bore sheet-covered bodies.
The single nurse in the ward saw her, nodded, and turned his attention back to a woman with faux-skin covering most of her face and her missing jaw.
Makarov walked past the gurneys until she found Nelson by the chart hanging from the foot of his bed. Both his legs were missing from the knee down. His chart listed a host of injuries to his internal organs. The word “expectant” was scrawled across the bottom, flecks of blood around the word.
Nelson’s wounds would prove fatal. He might live if the doctors went to great effort to save him, but the time and resources Nelson needed would mean the death of more sailors who needed to be saved. This was battlefield math. She would not choose to preserve one life at the loss of many more, and neither would her surgeons.
This was the expectant ward, where those too damaged to live spent their last hours.
“Ma’am,” Nelson said weakly.
Makarov went to his side and took his fire-blackened hand. She felt blood seep onto her palm, but still held on.
“Hello, dragon slayer, you’re with ordnance. That right?” she asked.
Nelson’s chin moved up and down ever so slightly.
“Great job today. We beat the hell out of the Xaros and I’ve got brave sailors like you to thank for it,” she said.
“Are you like me…a proccie?” Nelson asked.
“I am.”
“Does it matter when we die? I don’t think we even have…souls.”
“It matters to me, Nelson. I care. Everyone in my fleet matters…Now I want you to rest, get patched up. Good sailors like you are hard to find.”
Nelson’s hand squeezed hard. His head lolled to the side and his eyelids fluttered. His breathing was short, labored.
“He’s not in any pain,” a doctor said from the foot of the bed. The man wore surgical gear with bloodstains up to his elbows. “There’s only so much I can do—”
“I do not need your explanations, doctor. The rest need your care. Now get back to it.” She pointed to the surgery ward.
The doctor hustled off.
Nelson drifted off to sleep and his hand fell to the bed. She took an alcohol-soaked cloth from the nurse and wiped her hand clean.
Her forearm screen buzzed. Calum needed her attention. The thought of going back to Nelson’s friend and telling the truth about his condition gave her pause.
“We have a back way out,” the nurse said, “if you’re in a hurry.”
“Show me.”
****
Makarov stood tall before her remaining captains. The men and women in the holos had gaunt faces, tired eyes. Many had sealant tape over damaged areas of their vac suits. More than one holo came in intermittently, damaged systems playing havoc with their comms.
“It was a scrap,” Makarov said. “Five ships lost. We still don’t have a total on casualties, but the butcher’s bill will be significant. Still, we are not done. Mass readings from Abaddon tell us that thing is making more drones as we speak. The longer we wait, the more difficult our task becomes.
“There’s something I want you all to understand. We, Eighth Fleet, just beat the Xaros in a pitched battle. It wasn’t a near miracle like the Battle of the Crucible. We went toe to toe and they fell back. Now…we’re going on the offensive.”
She reached into the holo and touched Abaddon. It grew and filled the holo as red dots appeared on the rings.
“We don’t have the missile pods that the Breitenfeld used to such great effect against the Toth, but we’ve got something that will work just as well. Colonel Delacroix?”
The bespectacled officer appeared across from her.
“The modifications to the final graviton mine will be complete in less than an hour.
Lafayette’s design is overly complicated, in my opinion, but we’re following it to the letter. I would like to conduct a field test but that would tip our hand to the Xaros.”
“We’ve got transports going from ship to ship distributing the mines,” Calum said, “and delivering supplies, casualties…it’s chaos. The Xaros won’t know what we’re up to.”
“I asked for volunteers from my task force to make the long march back to Earth,” Delacroix said. “Every sailor volunteered for phase two. I’m rather proud of them.”
“Admiral,” said the captain of the Rome, “would you please inform the rest of us what we’re doing for phase one?”
Makarov touched Abaddon and it shrank. Course plots from the fleet reached over and around the planetoid.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Operation David’s Sling.”
CHAPTER 17
The swarm of Xaros drones coiled around the bridge, hundreds of yards away from Hale and the others at the base of the soul forge. A growing sense of dread filled Hale’s heart. He had his back to the wall, and there were more Xaros than he and his Marines had bullets for.
“Get Orozco up to the platform,” Hale said to Yarrow. The medic got Orozco to his feet and helped him up the wide stairwell.
“Sir, what are you thinking?” Cortaro asked.
“The situation…is in doubt,” Hale said. He backed up the stairs, his eyes on the distant swarm.
“What are they waiting for?” Yarrow asked. He looked at the distant swarm through the optics on his rifle, fingertip tapping the trigger. “They should have come for us by now.”
The gauzy orb around Malal shrank to a thick, waist-high band. Energy coursed from his fingers into the band, pulsating like a heartbeat.
“The drones do not decide anything for themselves,” Malal said. “They follow their programming. There is a reason they haven’t attacked.”
“It’s you, isn’t it?” Stacey asked.
“I am a variable,” Malal said. “For the most part, the Xaros only built Crucible gates around habitable worlds. If they put a gate here, then they must have a particular interest in my technology.”
“And here you are,” Hale said, “with the keys to the castle.”
“They want Malal,” Stacey said.
“Anyone else think the Xaros will let the rest of us go if we hand him over?” Cortaro asked. He waited a few quiet seconds before saying, “Yeah, me neither.”
“Bright one.” Malal brought his hands together and wove a ball of coherent light in front of his chest.
Stacey produced a data pyramid from her belt and pressed a tip into the ball. The ball shrank to nothing.
The swarm contracted. Drones fused together, their shells hissing and smoking as they formed into a multi-legged walker topped with a wide dome. Hale’d seen a construct like this before, on the battlements of New Abhaile. It took six armor soldiers and orbital artillery from the Breitenfeld to win that day. Hale had three gauss rifles and a few grenades.
The Xaros walker came toward them, the last few drones melding into the rear of the dome. The two-story-tall legs sent tremors through the bridge with each footfall.
“Malal…you don’t want to be taken prisoner, do you?” Hale asked.
“I am a prisoner.” Malal stood beside Hale, the governor in his chest glowing through the alien’s skin. “My dilemma is this: Who offers me what I want? Who will deliver?”
Red points of light lit up around the walker as stalks grew out of the surface. The more stalks converged into a single point, the brighter the light. The walker stepped over the remains of the wyrm’s front half.
“The Xaros are an unknown quantity,” Malal said. “You humans, the Qa’Resh, I have your measure. I may be able to save us.” He turned his head to Stacey. “Release me.”
Stacey shook her head. “No. That’s not the deal. If I let you go here, there’s no telling what you’ll do to us—to the rest of the galaxy.”
Malal leaned toward her. “You know what I want, and it is not here.” He cocked his head to the side. “Interesting. We have seconds before our fate is decided. Release me.”
“Stacey, don’t you dare,” Hale said. “We can’t trust that thing—”
“Portal’s back!” Cortaro shouted.
Hale looked away from Stacey and Malal. The great black portal that the wyrm had come through high over the bridge opened slowly.
“The Jinn?” Hale asked.
The sound of metal banging against the floor came from behind him. The governor lay on the ground.
Malal was free.
He rose into the air then morphed into the omnium sphere Hale first encountered on Anthalas. The sphere dashed overhead and shot straight toward the walker. It dipped below the construct’s legs and hit the wyrm’s corpse.
The wyrm shuddered back to life. It coiled back and launched onto the walker, hitting with a squeal of glass legs ripping into the Xaros armor. The walker jerked from side to side, trying to shake off the wyrm that held on like a moray eel. The maw clamped down on the lip of the walker’s dome, lava-red cracks running from the bite.
“What’re we supposed to do?” Yarrow asked.
Disintegration beams slashed into the wyrm’s body, cutting away dozens of legs.
Hale aimed his gauss rifle and tried to line up a clear shot. The wyrm scuttled over the walker, tearing away at the Xaros’ surface. Hale grit his teeth and shook his head.
“If you’ve got a clean shot on the walker, take it,” he said.
“Something’s coming out of the portal,” Cortaro said.
****
Standish grabbed the stalk wrapped around his waist and tried to pull it tighter. Egan and Bailey, both similarly bound in Torni’s grasp, did not look confident about the next step of their hasty plan.
The Iron Hearts formed a chain, their elbows intertwined and with Elias holding onto a bundle of Torni’s stalks.
“You sure you can hold us all?” Elias asked.
“Not entirely. You three are a lot heavier than the last time I saw you,” Torni said to Standish through the tip against his visor.
“Hundred percent sure,” Standish said to the team.
“That’s not what I—”
“Lieutenant Hale needs us,” Standish said, “and he ain’t going to save himself. Let’s go.”
“We are going to die,” Bailey said. “It will be messy and embarrassing.”
“Hey, that portal thing from Ceres to the Naga worked. Kind of,” Standish said. “Hey, Torni, did I tell you how I singlehandedly took down the largest sh—”
Torni flew into the portal.
The world snapped to a spot high over the bridge. The walker and remains of the wyrm wrestled against each other.
A loud thrum came from Torni, her stalks shaking like a live wire.
“Hey,” Egan looked around, “it’s working. She really can—”
Torni’s antigravity gave out and she, the Marines and three Iron Hearts plummeted toward the bridge.
“Boots! Boots!” Standish pressed his feet toward the bridge and activated the gravity linings built into his sabatons. He tripped the breakers and overloaded the linings with a burst of power. He slammed into Torni’s underside and the bridge closed on them a little slower. Standish had the sudden realization that he was smack between a very heavy Xaros drone and an unforgiving bridge. He had a few seconds before cushioning Torni’s landing.
“Torni!” Standish screamed.
Torni’s gravity engines came back to life and slowed their descent. The stalk holding Standish snapped out as his downward momentum flung him away from the drone. The stalks holding the Iron Hearts stretched, and then broke away completely.
Torni let Standish go into a freefall. He pulled his arms close to his body and pressed his feet and knees together, readying for a parachute landing fall that would, in theory, minimize the chance of injury when he met the rapidly approaching bridge.
He should have hit the bridg
e feetfirst, then rolled with his momentum and spread the impact across his body from his calves up to his shoulders. Instead, his landing went feet-ass-head. His tumbled onto his stomach and skid several feet before coming to a stop precariously close to the edge of the bridge.
“Standish!” Egan called out.
“Go get ’em, Tex!” Standish’s vision swam as he got onto his hands and knees and crawled away from the edge.
The Iron Hearts had landed with more success. They pounded the walker’s legs with concentrated fire, severing one completely at a joint.
Bailey removed the two halves of her rail rifle off her back and snapped them together.
“Where do I shoot it?” she asked.
“Anywhere!” Standish rolled onto his back, a stab of pain coming with every breath.
Bailey slid a cobalt-coated tungsten dart the length of her hand between the twin vanes of her rifle. She hefted the weapon against her shoulder.
“Here goes nothing,” she said, and fired.
The bullet shattered the sound barrier and pierced the wyrm’s back. The round continued into the walker and embedded deep within the dome, knocking it off-balance against its severed leg.
The walker fell to the side and went tumbling over the bridge. The wyrm went with it.
Standish went back to the edge and watched as the walker disintegrated. The wyrm’s fall continued, stiff and lifeless.
Torni thrashed against the bridge, flipping end over end, her stalks stabbing out wildly.
“Sarge? What’s wrong?” Standish got as close as he dared to the out-of-control drone. Torni’s face appeared in the swirling patterns on the drone’s shell, mouth open in a silent scream.
“What happened to her?” Egan asked.
“The drones disintegrated then just went nuts.” Standish reached for Torni and got rapped across the knuckles by a stalk.
A white light rose over the side of the bridge. Malal, his body burning white hot, floated toward Torni.
Egan swung his muzzle toward Malal. The barrel snapped in half from an invisible force then went flying through the air.