The Battle of the Void (The Ember War Saga Book 6)

by Richard Fox

  Stacey reached into a pouch and took out a control crystal. With a flick of a finger, she could lessen the governor’s restraint on Malal. She didn’t have to free him to save him, but she could give him enough wiggle room to defend himself from Elias.

  The crystal floated between her fingertips. Elias had saved her on Earth. The soldier was the hero of numerous battles…but if she let Malal loose, there was no telling what he would do to Elias. The creature was not one for restraint or mercy.

  She cursed Elias for backing her into this decision. She waved her fingers over the crystal. It flared to life as Malal’s control protocols came to the fore.

  “No you don’t.” Hale grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms behind her back. Hale slapped the crystal away before she could do anything to help Malal.

  “Damn you, we need—” Hale covered her mouth, muzzling her protests.

  Torni pushed past Valdar as the captain ordered Elias to stand down. Kallen and Bodel ignored the captain’s commands to intervene.

  One of the governor’s hoops broke, popping through Malal’s surface like a compound fracture.

  “Destroy me and your species is doomed,” Malal said. “The Xaros are nearly infinite. Without me, you are nothing.”

  “Gott mit uns, not you,” Elias said. Another hoop snapped and steam rose from Malal’s body.

  Torni’s body morphed out of her human shape and into a Xaros drone. She heard the screams and panic from the crew as she rose into the air and stretched stalks from her body. A ruby point of light grew from a stalk. She slashed a disintegration beam through Elias’ arms, severing them at the elbow.

  Malal, still in the grip of Elias’ hands, fell to the deck.

  Bodel and Kallen charged at her, spikes ready to crack her shell like an egg.

  Torni scooped Malal into the air and shot through the force field, leaving the Iron Hearts and a chaotic flight deck behind.

  Torni worked stalk tips into Malal’s chest and began repairing the governor.

  +Not what I expected,+ Malal sent.

  +The Iron Hearts are pure. Better than the rest of us. They waited until the ship was safe to make their move.+ Torni bent the broken band back to its original shape and morphed the omnium back into its original shape, feeling for the resonance frequency Stacey gave her to ensure Malal’s containment held true.

  +A level of cunning I didn’t anticipate. Humans deserve some respect.+

  With the governor repaired, Torni touched a stalk to Malal’s body and shifted his malformed head and chest back to normal.

  +We will not return to the ship,+ he sent.

  +Neither of us are welcome now.+ Even as a drone, Torni could still feel. Sadness welled up inside her as she tried to make out her old team on the ever more distant ship. She’d waited years, anticipating the day she could speak with her old friends, trade jokes and learn what they’d done since Takeni. Now, the chance of that happening was slim to none.

  +I’m not surprised you intervened, but you could have done so sooner,+ Malal sent.

  +We need you, Malal. Need you to finish our Crucible, help us strike the Apex. That is why I saved you. I did it for Earth, the rest of the galaxy that’s fighting the Xaros. Don’t ever think that I care about you.+

  +You are growing. Moving away from your flesh-bound morality. There’s hope for you yet.+

  An Osprey flew over them. Torni felt targeting lasers sweep over her body as manned turrets swung to bear on her and Malal.

  “Torni, this is Stacey. Can you read me?” came over an IR frequency.

  “I hear you,” Torni sent back. “Where are you?”

  “The Breitenfeld, I just came through the conduit. The gunship will take you to our Crucible, and my grandfather will meet you. I’ll head over as soon as I’ve cleaned up the incredible mess you left for me. What did you do to Elias?”

  “We’ll see you there,” Torni said. The Osprey rotated its tail toward them and opened its cargo bay door.

  ****

  Hale released Stacey. She stumbled a step forward, then turned and swung a punch at Hale.

  The Marine swayed back, her fist missing his nose by inches.

  “You son of a bitch!” Stacey’s fists shook with anger, but she didn’t attack Hale again. “What the hell do you think you were doing?”

  “Trying to save us,” Hale said. “Malal’s price, whoever you promised to sacrifice to him, isn’t worth the cost. We’re better than that, Stacey. I won’t just stand by and let you—”

  “You have no idea. None. You don’t know what we’re up against. What’s coming for us.” Stacey’s head cocked to the side. The blood flushed through her face. “You’re lucky—damned lucky—Malal is alive and this ended well.”

  “We should destroy that thing while we have a chance,” Hale said.

  “You just don’t get it. Malal is our only chance.”

  ****

  Stacey had never seen Valdar so angry. The captain’s face had been flushed since he joined her on the flight deck. He snapped terse commands to the bridge crew through the gauntlet of his void suit in between scans of the void just outside the ship.

  Stacey fidgeted against the ill-fitting EVA suit she’d borrowed from a locker and touched the box with the data crystal mag-locked to her utility belt. Valdar had completely ignored her since their rendezvous on the flight deck. Stacey kept her mouth shut, not wanting to draw his ire.

  She turned her attention to the construction on Luna. Glowing rings radiated out of Lovell Crater. Running lights from orbital weapon platforms blinked against the void, forming a phalanx of energy cannons, rail guns and fighter bays around Earth’s original natural satellite.

  “How long?” Valdar asked her.

  “Admiral Garret wants to—”

  “How long!”

  “Four years. The Breitenfeld was in deep space for that long. You and the rest of the crew were in stasis the whole time,” she said.

  “Not you?”

  “I spent most of the time on Bastion. I came back to the ship when needed. Good thing, too. The defenses on the Crucible would have blown the ship to bits when it came through if I hadn’t warned them what to expect,” she said.

  “So you know what they did to my ship? Why didn’t you stop them? Tell me?”

  “Malal and Torni repaired the jump engines with fragments of the Crucible you destroyed. That kept them busy for two weeks. They had plenty of omnium and time on their hands to do something constructive and…here he comes.” Stacey pointed to an approaching shuttle and donned her helmet.

  The shuttle set down and lowered its ramp. A pair of black-armored Rangers jumped from the sides and scanned the flight deck. Each held a rifle with a glowing crystal built into the weapon just above the handgrip.

  “Clear, Admiral,” came from one of the Rangers.

  Admiral Garret descended down the ramp. He looked older than Stacey remembered. His hair was grayer and he had more lines on his face. The rank stenciled onto the shoulders of his void armor had the five stars of a fleet admiral.

  Garret looked at the burnt line where Torni’s disintegration beam cut into the bulkhead.

  “Looks like you had some trouble,” Garret said.

  “Disciplinary matter. I’ll handle it,” Valdar said.

  “Stacey,” Garret touched her on the shoulder, “nice to see you in person again. Going through Pa’lon to talk to Bastion hasn’t been easy. Not that I didn’t like your holo messages. Come on, your grandfather’s waiting.”

  They boarded the shuttle and were in the void moments later.

  The Ranger bodyguards kept their weapons in hand. Neither took their eyes off Valdar and Stacey as the shuttle accelerated.

  “Do we have time for a flyby on my ship?” Valdar asked. “Let me check the damage?”

  “Damage?” Garret huffed. He touched his gauntlet and blast windows descended from the shuttle’s side.

  Stacey almost didn’t recognize the Breitenfeld. Slabs of D-be
am resistant armor plates covered the entire hull, the rail gun vanes were longer, and more anti-void craft turrets dotted the hull in round blisters. Gold lines bordered each plate, glowing with energy. The words “Gott Mit Uns” were stenciled on the side of the hull.

  “Bit much with the ship’s motto, but I’ll allow it,” Garret said.

  Valdar banged a fist against the bulkhead.

  “Torni did it because she cares, sir,” Stacey said. “She could have gone into stasis with the rest of the crew. Instead, she spent years upgrading the ship for the fight that’s coming.”

  “One moment I’m about to give my crew the bad news, the next I don’t even recognize my ship…or my planet,” Valdar said.

  “About half the space watch pissed themselves when you came through the Crucible with that new armor.” Garret’s face became stern. “They thought it was another Xaros trick. I had all the orbital defenses shut down just in case. There’s always that one guy that doesn’t get the memo.”

  “‘Another trick’?” Valdar asked.

  “Eighth Fleet was lost with all hands, Isaac. They ran smack into the Xaros maniple coming for Earth. They put up a good fight, slowed them down, but they never stood a chance. The Xaros sent the Midway back to us, disguised drones as her armor. That caught us with our pants down, wrecked Titan Station and the Luna construction yards, before the Dotok got into the fight.”

  “New ship construction slowed to a halt,” Stacey said. “It took months before we could lay a keel on another vessel.”

  “It would all be over but for the screaming if we’d lost the omnium reactor in the Crucible,” Garret said. “Stacey shuttled enough data from what you recovered in the vault to get us back in business. Still won’t be enough.” The admiral shook his head.

  “Bastion will send help, this time,” Stacey said.

  “Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice…” Garret said. “I’m not going to depend on Bastion after they left us dangling with the Toth.”

  “How long until the Xaros arrive? How many ships do we have?” Valdar asked.

  “A month, if we’re lucky. We’re getting graviton bursts from the mines we set well beyond bow shock distance. They’ll cross the heliopause soon. As for what we have to stop them…I’ve got almost four thousand ships off the line. One more, now that the Breitenfeld is back.”

  “I’m sorry…did you say four thousand?” Valdar asked. “There weren’t more than two hundred void warships when the Xaros first invaded.”

  “Ibarra can breed proccies so fast he’d put rabbits to shame. We’ve got whole crews just waiting for their ships to come off the assembly line. Still won’t be enough. Won’t be near enough,” Garret said.

  “The projections—” Stacey said.

  “The projections are bullshit.” Garret cut her off with a swipe of his hand. “What Eighth Fleet encountered will become billions of Xaros drones by the time it gets here. The chance of us lasting a week is slim to none.”

  “But, if—”

  “Don’t you ‘but, if’ me,” Garret said. Stacey rolled her eyes at the new interruption. “Hope is not a method, Stacey. We are in for one hell of a fight and I don’t have half the ships I need to tell Phoenix we’ve got this in the bag with a straight face.”

  “Bastion isn’t sending help?” Valdar asked. “We’ve got the means to access the Xaros network. Why don’t they flood local space with their ships so we can end the war with one strike to the Xaros leadership on—what did Torni call it?—the Apex.”

  Stacey sighed. “Now that we’ve got the information we need,” she said, tapping the case with the data crystal, “we can finish our Crucible…if we put our omnium reactor to work on nothing but the Crucible for the next eight months.”

  “The Xaros will be here long before that,” Garret said, “and I need the reactor churning out D-beam proof armor. Our ships don’t stand a chance without it.”

  “I noticed,” Valdar said. “Why didn’t we send this data earlier?”

  “There are limits to what I can ferry back and forth. Malal’s data is…enormous, contiguous. It is impossible to separate anything from the whole. The probe can get everything back to the Qa’Resh, but even that will take time,” Stacey said.

  “So we’ve got to survive this push for our chance to win the war…” Valdar said. “Even more reason for the rest of the Alliance to send their ships.”

  “Heh,” Stacey said without humor, “I’ve been fighting for that for years. There are some in Bastion plotting to make a brand-new Crucible with the data we’ve got. Why risk helping us when they can take a century or three to craft their own perfect solution?”

  “Why are we in this Alliance if throwing us to the wolves is always better than lifting a finger to help?” Valdar asked.

  “It takes little to no time to bring in the allied fleets,” Stacey said. “The motion is tabled until the data has been analyzed and they know whether or not they can fabricate a Crucible that will connect to the Xaros network.”

  “Or they wait until we’ve been bled white and show up to save the day…and take over our defenses,” Garret said.

  “You’re being paranoid,” Stacey said. “Plausible, but paranoid.”

  “No one’s coming to help?” Valdar asked.

  “We’ve got the Dotok. Look.” Garret pointed to a gleaming white ship studded with Toth energy cannons.

  “Is that the Canticle of Reason?” Valdar asked. He’d helped get the ship, and the last of the Dotok population, off Takeni during the Xaros invasion of the distant planet.

  “They rechristened her the Vorpal.” Garret shook his head. “Claim they did it to honor us. Damn silly name but I had more important things to worry about. She’s the deadliest thing we’ve got in space and the crew is top-notch. Had an easy time integrating the Naga’s weapons into her too.”

  Garret pointed back to Earth.

  “I’ve got fortresses built into mountain ranges from Phoenix to the Himalayas. Mars, Luna, Iapetus around Saturn, all armed and ready for a fight. There are more fighting men and women under my command than Earth had before the invasion.” Garret took a flask from his belt and took a long swig. “Won’t matter.”

  Valdar and Stacey traded glances, concern hidden behind practiced poker faces.

  ****

  The armor bay, known across the ship as the cemetery, was as silent as its namesake. Elias’ armor bore factory-fresh arms, pristine compared to the rest of his battle-worn armor. A door swung open and Bodel pushed Kallen and her wheelchair up the ramped walkway that came waist high to the three suits of armor.

  Bodel boasted a new exoskeleton attached to the interface plate on his upper spine, resembling a toned-down version of the Marine’s pseudo-muscle layer instead of the rods and actuators of older exoskeletons. Bodel moved naturally, the only evidence of the stroke he suffered on Takeni showing in his half-slack face.

  “New frame?” Elias asked.

  “Brand new. Doesn’t put strain on my plugs or synch rating like the old ones. Modified haptic feedback system or something. I only care that it works,” Bodel said.

  “How’s the world?”

  “Different,” Kallen said softly. “We were at the medical complex in Phoenix. The city is enormous, must be millions of people there now…” She turned her head to Bodel. He locked her wheelchair in place and left the cemetery.

  There was nothing but the hum of air circulators as Kallen struggled to speak.

  “I’m dying, Elias. Batten’s Disease, and there’s nothing the docs can do about it. I thought…we’d been gone so long that there might be a treatment.”

  “I know.”

  “What?” Kallen gave a nasty look to the door Bodel left from.

  “He can’t keep a secret to save his life. You know that. He cares about you. Doesn’t want you to burn away so soon.”

  “You know wearing the armor will kill me faster. Why haven’t you begged me, like Bodel, to stop?”

  Elias
touched his chest armor and the breastplate flipped up. Elias willed the blast plate on his armored womb to descend, revealing his emaciated body inside the cocoon.

  “We are armor, Desi. We are nothing but our armor. If you stop, you’ll waste away in some medical ward while the rest of us fight. I know you,” Elias said.

  “I would rather die beside you, Elias.” A tear ran down her face. Elias reached out to her very slowly and wiped the tear away with his metal hand. Kallen pressed her cheek into his palm.

  “I wish you could come out,” she said. “I miss you—the real you, not the armor.”

  “This is all I am.” Elias picked Kallen up and cradled her like a newborn, pulling her close to his cocoon. His true eyes flicked open. A weak smile crossed his face as he looked into Kallen’s eyes.

  “We are such a mess,” Kallen chuckled. She tilted her head to rest against the cocoon. Elias’ true hand twitched, but couldn’t move any further.

  “Until the end,” he said.

  “Until the end.”

  ****

  Bodel leaned against the bulkhead outside the cemetery and took a data slate from his pocket. He shook his head and scrolled through years’ worth of e-mails, newsletter updates and military errata. No sports scores.

  He straightened up as the sound of boots against the deck closed in on him.

  Captain Valdar came around the corner, his face as stoic as ever.

  “Sir,” he said as he shimmied over to block the door to the cemetery, “what brings you to our neck of the woods?”

  “Where are the other two?”

  “They’re…a bit…um…”

  Valdar looked through a view port into the cemetery then stepped back from the door.

  “Why did the three of you try to kill Malal?” Valdar asked. “Don’t tell me that Elias came up with that attack on his own and you two were just as shocked as the rest of us.”

  “It’s a monster.” Bodel’s shoulders fell and he wished he were back in his armor. “Evil. The Jinn showed us what it’s capable of, what it’s planning. We weren’t going to let it do the same to us.”