The Xaros Reckoning (The Ember War Saga Book 9)

by Richard Fox

  “Your people betrayed us,” Stacey said. “If circumstances were different, we may have come here with a lot more ships and a lot fewer friendly words, but we need the Ruhaald to drive a stake through the Xaros’ heart and win this war. I need you to help me convince the synod to help us.”

  “That the Breitenfeld accepted Jarilla’s surrender and spared his queen will help convince the others that humanity can be trusted. There is an issue…you are Hale?”

  The two humans exchanged a quick look.

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “You encountered one by the name of Tuk.”

  “We’ve met.” Hale’s hands squeezed into fists as anger boiled out of his heart.

  “Tuk had the chance to kill you. His decision to let you live has proven…difficult for us.”

  “That bastard murdered soldiers right in front of me for some vendetta I still don’t understand. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “The gestalt chose Tuk as the new scion, but his metamorphosis proved incomplete. You were responsible for the death of many Ruhaald, correct?”

  “It was a war. I did what I had to and only regret that I couldn’t save more men and women from the Ruhaald.”

  “I do not blame you,” Darcy said. She turned her head to the abyss surrounding the submarine. Her long feeder tentacles flicked toward a tiny point of light that emerged from the distance. “Our biology demands constant strife. The blood feud did not end on Earth as Tuk thought it would. Witnessing so many dead at your hand pushed him into a rage that has infected many of the Daeadalla. His queen can suppress it through her pheromones, but that aggression has spread to other pods and other queens.”

  “I knew we should have brought Elias down here,” Hale said.

  “So what does that mean?” Stacey asked.

  “I don’t know yet.” The Ruhaald ambassador directed the submarine toward the light. As the light grew stronger, Hale made out an elongated tear with jagged edges.

  “There’s your Qa’Resh probe,” Stacey said.

  “It is where we will find the synod,” Darcy said. The submarine settled against the seabed just beneath the probe, its pale light illuminating gray mud and swathes of rocky outcrops in a circle around the submarine.

  “So we just wait here for…oh my god.” Stacey backed into Hale as a Ruhaald queen came out of the darkness, dwarfing the submarine. Her tentacles, thicker than a millennia-old sequoia, undulated toward them.

  Stacey whimpered as the leathery tip caressed the invisible walls of the sub. Darcy pressed her hand against the wall and seawater bubbled out from her touch. A whiff of orange dust came off the queen’s tentacle as it passed over Darcy’s hand.

  “We have no words for ‘hello,’” the ambassador said. “We exchange pheromones that convey our mood, vitality and even our queen mother’s breeding cycle. That is the Daeadalla matriarch…and she is afraid.”

  “Any particular reason?” Stacey asked. “Maybe there are giant sharks down here. There could be sharks? Right, Ken? Maybe even a kraken or—”

  Hale put a hand on her shoulder to stop her nervous babbling.

  “Each queen has their own fleet.” Darcy took her hand from the wall and the trickle of water stopped. “Most of the fleets were spread across the system. Now that we know the Xaros could be here at the time of their choosing, all ships are returning to protect the home world. The fear…the hostility…there will be open warfare in the skies and beneath the seas.”

  The sound of whale song punctuated by clicks washed over the sub, sending a gentle vibration through the walls. Another queen appeared out of the darkness. Then another. And another.

  Light from the probe glinted off wide eyes all around the submarine.

  A Ruhaald with a powerful build and legs ending in flippers swam up to the submarine. Hale took in the alien’s effortless grace as it stopped just above the submarine and held a tentacled hand up to the probe.

  “That is Jarilla,” Darcy said. “He will begin the synod.”

  Jarilla drew an obsidian knife from his belt and ran the blade along his forearm. Blood welled up from the wound and lingered in the dark water. The septon raised his flippers and wafted the blood around and toward the assembled queens.

  “Do we have to do that too?” Stacey asked, giving Hale a sheepish look, “because then that’s all you.” She looked at her hand and wiggled her fingers. “I’m not exactly sure what’s even under here.”

  “You bring us humans,” a regal woman’s voice came from the probe, fluctuating with each syllable, “but they are not what we desired.”

  “The humans defeated the Daeadalla,” a second voice said. “They offered their own throat to save their queen and now they dare return. Where is our jump engine, humans? It was our only hope to survive if the Xaros take our water.”

  “We took the jump engine in exchange for your fleet’s release,” Stacey said loudly. “You destroyed our ships. Killed our sailors. Threatened our cities. The concept of blood money is something both our species can understand.”

  “Then our only hope is the jump engine within your ship.” A queen with red speckles over her pitch-black skin floated toward them. Her forward tentacles rose, revealing a curved beak that looked like it could bite through Hale in an instant. “We can flee to another star. Stay a few years ahead of the Xaros.”

  “And what will you do when you run out of stars? The Xaros will swallow this entire galaxy. You might buy some time by running, but they will find out where you are and destroy you at the time of their choosing. The Xaros are already moving to Earth again. But there’s another way.” Stacey sidestepped and looked the queen in one of her bulbous eyes. “One that will end the Xaros threat for good. No need for fleets—human or Ruhaald. That will only stem the tide for a time.”

  “You have our attention,” the voice came through the probe with a clarion call.

  “We can destroy the Xaros, strike them at their home, the Apex.” Stacey pointed at the Ruhaald ambassador. “She helped me find it in the void beyond the galactic rim. It exists and we can reach it, but to do that we need your probe…and your fleet.”

  A cacophony of voices came through the probe. Its surface went wild with color as bubbles and tentacles erupted from the surrounding queens.

  “I may have asked too much,” Stacey said to Hale.

  Darcy’s eyes flit back and forth, each moving independently of the others.

  “There is much fear,” the ambassador said. “They believe the probe is the only thing keeping the Xaros away for now…they think the Naroosha might send ships to help, or the other races aligned with the Vishrakath.”

  “The Naroosha will not save you!” Stacey shouted. The din died down as queens pressed toward the sub slowly. “The Qa’Resh gave one—and only one—jump engine to a few of races. The Naroosha ship that jumped to Bastion was destroyed. I saw it with my own eyes. The Vishrakath are hundreds of light-years from here. No one is coming to save you but us!”

  “You cannot be trusted.” A queen with yellow and black mottled skin floated near. “You, the one in the shell, you were granted a kitithrak to end a blood feud. You did not accept. You laid a trap that led to the death of many warriors.” The queen spread her tentacles, revealing a Ruhaald warrior with limbs meant for walking on solid ground. His skin bore stretch marks, as if his broad shoulders and trunk-like legs had grown in overnight.

  Tuk.

  “Hale, remain calm,” Darcy said.

  “You think I gave a rat’s ass about your ways?” Hale advanced toward Tuk, stopping at the edge of the sub’s floor. “He was murdering prisoners. He led an attack that killed dozens of people after the cease-fire. I acted to save lives. If he didn’t want to die, he should have stayed in whatever moist hole you call a home.”

  “Not calm, Ken.” Stacey shook her head. “Not calm at all.”

  “Many of my brood are still buried beneath a mountain,” Tuk said, stepping forward slowly through the w
ater. “Their bodies will rot in the soil. Their flesh is lost to the brood!” Yellow flecks of dust came off Tuk’s gills.

  Hale snarled at the Ruhaald warrior. “A leader’s pride is never worth a soldier’s death. You’re lucky you surrendered, or I would have come back to Earth and finished what I started when I ripped your guts out at the firebase!”

  Tuk slammed a fist against the sub’s wall. Hale didn’t flinch.

  “I saw my brother die because of you,” Hale said slowly and evenly.

  Tentacles surrounded Tuk and drew him away.

  The many-voiced argument resumed through the probe.

  “Some are for us,” Darcy said, “more against. Tuk released an anger pheromone that’s affecting the queens.”

  Hale went back to Stacey and opened the IR channel to her earpiece. “Do it. Do it now. They’re distracted and confused.”

  “What do you think they’ll do to us? To your Marines on the surface?”

  “If we die down here but save the Earth, it’ll be worth it.”

  “It might not work. The probe’s been hacked.”

  “A chance is better than none.”

  A pair of thumps sounded through the sub. Jarilla stood on top of the ceiling, his knife clutched in one hand.

  “The Daeadalla declare this synod contaminated,” Jarilla said. “My queen’s spawn has polluted your spirit. She demands an end to this bickering, a return to harmony so we can address the true issue, the Xaros threat.”

  “Blood must follow blood,” the yellow and black queen said. “End the feud. End the vendetta.” The synod repeated the queen’s words several times.

  “Hale…what have you done?” Stacey asked.

  Jarilla swam down next to Hale and said, “Blood must follow blood, but if you fight Tuk to the death, there will be closure…restore the queens to a peaceful state.”

  Stacey came to the wall.

  “I think everything just got a little heated,” she said. “Let’s take a little break before we discuss ritual killings, OK?”

  “I win and you’ll cooperate with us?” Hale asked Darcy.

  “The logic is there to assist you, but they are too scared and angry to act rationally,” she said.

  “I’ll do it,” Hale told Jarilla. “We have no more time to waste. Bring Tuk in here.”

  “Not here,” Jarilla said, looking up at the surface. “There is a place for this. We will leave now.”

  Jarilla twisted around and thumped his fists against his chest, letting out a cry that sounded like a bull sea lion’s call through the sub’s walls. Then he swam off into the abyss.

  “There.” Hale shrugged his shoulders. “Progress.”

  Chapter 11

  Hale paced back and forth across a sand bar ten yards wide and four times as long. The island sat alone, surrounded by nothing but the shimmering sea and bright bands of coral as far as his eye could see. Hale wore only a skintight body glove, his armor and pseudo-muscle layer stacked neatly next to Stacey, who kept her gaze on the horizon.

  Hale tightened the respirator over his nose and mouth, then fumbled with the air line running to air tanks on his lower back.

  “Damn it,” Hale said as he tried to swing the loose line to a grasping hand and failed.

  “Here, let me.” Stacey took the air line and pressed it against a Velcro catch on the back of Hale’s shoulder.

  “Open the back of my suit and stuff it in there.”

  “Won’t that pinch the line? Thought you’d want to breathe during a fight.” She yanked the suit open, brushing her fingers against Hale’s bare flesh as she stuffed the line inside.

  “Ah! Son of a bitch!” Hale recoiled from her touch, which had left a small patch of gray frostbite next to his spine.

  “Sorry!” Stacey gingerly resealed Hale’s suit.

  “Right where I can’t scratch it too.” Hale rolled his shoulders back and forth then went back to pacing. “Why are you like…that?”

  “Everyone on Bastion had a body like this. It really was the only way to have so many different species able to interact in a meaningful way. What? You don’t like it?”

  Hale stopped. “Through all this mess, ever since the engines went haywire before we were supposed to go to Saturn and up until now, I thought you were one of us. Just another leaf in the storm your grandfather created. Now, you’re too much like Marc Ibarra.”

  “I’ll go back if I—as soon as possible. Hey, you know that old joke about who you’d want to be trapped on a desert island with?” She spread her arms to the simple strip of sand. “Was I ever on your list?”

  “Something’s coming.” Hale’s hand went to his armor. He drew his Ka-Bar knife and flipped it into a reverse grip, the flat of the blade pressed against his forearm.

  A Ruhaald walked out of the ocean. Seawater ran down his body as he held up a hand to Hale, who’d dropped into a fighting stance.

  “That’s Jarilla,” Stacey said.

  Hale relaxed, but only slightly.

  Jarilla spoke, his voice a series of guttural barks until a box on his shoulder translated his words: “For the blood debt to end, there must be no outside interference. Weapons no longer than half an arm.”

  “What else?” Hale asked. “What if he gives up?”

  Jarilla’s head cocked to the side. “Blood will follow blood.”

  “First one to die loses. Simple enough.” Hale turned back to Stacey and brought his mouth close to her ear and whispered, “If I lose, you trigger the probe. Understand?”

  “I’m not worried because you’re going to win. Right?”

  “Really wish we’d brought Elias down here.” Hale turned around and saw Tuk at the other end of the island. The Ruhaald was bare-chested, his lower body covered by thin leather leggings embroidered in a language Hale had no idea how to read. A serrated blade in Tuk’s hand looked like it was made up of shark teeth melded together.

  Tuk expelled a gout of water from beneath his feeder tentacles, then the warrior pointed one of his many fingers at Hale and grunted out a few words.

  Jarilla backed toward Tuk’s side of the island.

  “He said—”

  “I don’t care.” Hale took off running.

  Tuk braced, surprised at Hale’s aggressive move, then charged at Hale. Tuk grunted like a bull and raised his knife high.

  Hale slowed down as Tuk picked up speed. The Marine bent down and scooped up a handful of sand and flung it into Tuk’s face as Hale sidestepped a lunging strike. Tuk roared and slashed his blade blindly as his other hand brushed grit away from his mouth and eyes.

  Hale swung his blade up and slashed Tuk across the knife arm. Blood arced into the air, leaving deep red drops across the sand. Hale lunged at Tuk’s midsection but Tuk parried aside his blade. Hale caught a fist just below his eyes that rocked him back.

  Blood trickled down from a small cut.

  Hale switched his blade to a reverse grip and circled around Tuk, who didn’t seem bothered by the bleeding gash along his arm. The Ruhaald backed up then jabbed at Hale with his knife. Hale estimated the blow would fall more than a foot short, but he brought his knife hand up as a precaution. His eyes widened in surprised as Tuk’s finger-tentacles elongated, covering the empty space in the blink of an eye. Tuk’s blade bounced off Hale’s, ripping a small tear on Hale’s forearm.

  The Marine ducked and rushed forward, trying to get into the alien’s guard before he could recover from his strike. Hale’s shoulder thumped into Tuk’s midsection and sent him reeling backward. Hale brought his blade up and felt it bite as it passed Tuk’s face. The tips of two feeder tentacles landed at Hale’s feet.

  Tuk’s other arm swept out and landed a glancing blow against the top of Hale’s head, then he caught Hale by the wrist of his knife hand and yanked Hale off-balance. Hale rolled with his newfound momentum and twisted out of Tuk’s grip. A kick slammed into Hale’s back and sent him sprawling into the sand.

  Hale rolled to the side, missing a strike fro
m Tuk’s knife that would have pinned him to the sand, and lashed out, jamming the tip of his blade into Tuk’s shoulder. The Ruhaald backhanded Hale’s arm and knocked the blade loose. Hale sprang to his feet, blade leveled at the alien warrior.

  Blood trickled down Tuk’s face from the severed feeder tentacles. Tuk inhaled deeply and bellowed a war cry.

  Hale motioned to Tuk with his free hand.

  “Come on, you ugly fuck, I ain’t here to play.”

  Tuk leapt at Hale and the Marine ducked to the side, stabbing as his opponent went past in a blur, but he hit nothing.

  Tuk landed poorly, his back to Hale, and Hale charged, his knife at his hip, ready to strike. Hale bent at the waist, dodging a wild blow from Tuk, then rammed his blade into Tuk’s midsection, right where a human’s heart would be. Tuk let out a yelp.

  The alien grabbed Hale’s knife arm as Hale savagely twisted his weapon. Tuk tried to stab at Hale, but the Marine blocked the blow with his forearm and clamped down on Tuk’s thin wrist.

  Hale and Tuk struggled for a moment, their eyes locked in hate, then Tuk reared his head back and slammed his forehead against Hale’s mouth. The blow split Hale’s lips against his teeth and dislodged his respirator.

  Hale ripped his blade away and backpedaled. As he fumbled with his only source of air, he saw the glint of a blade. Tuk’s knife ripped across his arm and slashed deep into his chest. A muffled scream came through Hale’s clenched jaw.

  A kick slammed into Hale’s thigh and knocked him to a knee. Tuk’s fist broke Hale’s nose with an audible snap and sent the Marine onto his back.

  Hale struggled to get a breath of useless air through the blood pouring down his face and throat. Tuk stepped over Hale, his serrated knife held high. Tuk fell to his knees and pinned Hale beneath his bulk as he plunged the blade toward Hal’s chest.

  Hale got an arm up to block. Tuk’s blade sank into Hale’s forearm and pierced through the other side. The tip of Tuk’s blade, red with Hale’s blood, stopped just inches from Hale’s face. Hale braced his knife arm against his impaled limb to stop Tuk’s blade.