The Xaros Reckoning (The Ember War Saga Book 9)

by Richard Fox

  Hale’s own bloody knife flashed in the sunlight, but he couldn’t strike without giving Tuk all the chance he needed to kill Hale.

  Against the roar of blood through his ears, his lungs burning for oxygen, he heard his brother’s voice calling his name.

  Hale twisted his body aside and got the elbow of his knife hand braced against his other wrist. He had a few precious inches to work with and ripped his knife across Tuk’s wrist. The Ka-Bar severed the Ruhaald’s hand with a spurt of blood.

  Tuk reeled back, clutching his bleeding wrist against his chest.

  Hale got to his feet, his vision tunneling from lack of air. His left hand fell to his side, Tuk’s blade still embedded in his arm. Hale brought his knife high and slammed it into the base of Tuk’s neck. The alien fell back and Hale went down with him.

  Hale wrenched the blade free and plunged it into Tuk’s chest. He ripped it free as blood poured from the wound and slammed the weapon into Tuk’s chest again. Tuk pawed at Hale’s face weakly, a burbling cry in the air.

  Hale drove his knife into Tuk’s skull, stopping when the hilt hit bone.

  Hale let his knife go and took deep gulps of air that did nothing to help. He grabbed at the back of his neck, trying to find the air line as his vision swam. He doubled over, his body no longer answering his demands.

  A chill spread across his shoulders. Hale took a deep breath and the fire in his lungs subsided. He rolled onto his back and saw Stacey leaning over him, one hand holding his respirator to his nose and mouth.

  “Ken? Can you hear me? Are you OK?”

  Hale held up his left arm, the Ruhaald blade still in it with Tuk’s twitching hand attached. He gagged on his own blood and turned his head aside to let it spill out onto the sand.

  “The Mule with Yarrow’s coming. Just hold on,” Stacey said as she grabbed the hilt of the impaled blade.

  “No!” Hale made a feeble swat at her. “Leave it. Take it out…bleeding…worse.”

  Hale got to his feet. Tuk lay in the sand, just next to the water, his blood seeping into the surf and forming a dark cloud in the salt water. A tentacle swept through the dead warrior’s blood. The enormous head of a queen breached the gentle waves. Hale looked her in the eye then gestured at Tuk.

  “Is it over?”

  More queens came to the surface around the island.

  “It is,” Jarilla said as he knelt next to the dead Ruhaald. “I feel it in the air. The conflict between them is fading away.”

  “The probe…” Hale’s face contorted with pain as his adrenaline faded away and every last cut and bruise made itself known to him.

  “If we do this,” Jarilla said, “you will not leave us helpless before the Xaros?”

  “The sooner you bring us the probe and lend us your fleets, the sooner this war will end,” Stacey said.

  “And what then? What of our worlds?” Jarilla asked.

  “Let me tell you something,” Hale said. “Humans. Marines. In us, you will find no better friend and no worse enemy. This is…ugh…” Hale went to a knee.

  “This is your last chance to make that choice,” Stacey said. She tried to keep Hale upright but he shrugged off her touch.

  The whine of engines filled the air as a Mule descended to the far side of the island, sand whipping into the air as it set down. Three Marines jumped out of the cargo bay before the ramp finished descending and ran to Hale, who rolled onto his back again with a groan. The sandstorm abated as the Mule’s engines went to idle.

  Yarrow slid to a stop next to his captain. He pressed a canister against the cut on Hale’s chest and sprayed foam into the wound. Standish grabbed Hale’s impaled arm and raised it up to slow the bleeding.

  Orozco braced Hale’s head between his meaty forearms.

  “Damn, sir,” Standish said, “I’d ask what the other guy looks like but I can see for myself.”

  “Knife missed the ulnar artery,” Yarrow said as he snapped a tourniquet strap just below Hale’s elbow, “but the basilic vein wasn’t so lucky. Oro, Standish, pin him down.” Yarrow moved aside and braced Hale’s arm against his body. “You know, sir, if you ever set foot on a planet and manage not to bleed all over it, that would be fine by me. On three.”

  Yarrow got a firm grip on the hilt of the Ruhaald blade and said, “One…”

  The corpsman slid the blade out and Hale mumbled angrily.

  “That should have hurt less.” Yarrow sprayed foam into the wound then wrapped a bandage over the wound that tightened on its own. He looked up at Stacey.

  “Ma’am, I need to get him back to the ship sooner than later.”

  “Load him up. I’ll be right there.” Stacey squared off against Jarilla as the Marines carried Hale away. “The probe. Now. We need your ships for the attack on Sletari.”

  “You would leave us defenseless?”

  “The Breitenfeld’s jump engines can form a gate large enough for a fleet twice the size of what you brought to Earth. We’ll take all we can carry and send them back here once the Apex is destroyed.”

  “The Daeadalla will join you. The Fashalkan as well.” Jarilla picked up Tuk’s knife from the sand and pressed the hilt into the dead warrior’s remaining hand.

  “I’m sorry it came to this,” Stacey said.

  “This is what we are. This is what we do. No apologies needed or accepted. I hope this is the last time our people shed each other’s blood.”

  A sliver dash of light rose from the water and zipped to the island. Stacey looked over the probe, her eyes examining the imperfections of the probe’s form.

  “It’s OK. I know just the people who can fix you. Let’s call you…Ben.” She held a palm out to the probe. It shrank and pressed itself into her hand. She closed her fist and the probe’s light faded away.

  “Time to go, Jarilla. The longer we delay, the harder this will get.” She hurried over to the waiting Mule.

  ****

  Hale opened his eyes and saw a bland-colored ceiling and a curtain wall. He tried to sit up, but a dull pain in his chest and arm threatened to grow intensely more uncomfortable if he kept trying. He settled back into his hospital bed and looked at the pale pink scar on either side of his forearm.

  “About time,” came from his right.

  A man with white hair and a closely shaved beard sat in a chair next to him. The man set aside a paperback book next to a metal cane with Chinese characters running up and down its length. He wore a gunmetal gray jumpsuit with a black Templar’s cross embroidered on both shoulders.

  “I’m surprised they let you sleep for so long. If it was anyone else, I suspect they’d want you out of the way so stuff could actually get done. Given your wounds, I wager they wanted to give you a little break,” he said.

  Tapping his chest where Tuk’s blade had cut, Hale winced. He looked at his visitor, blinked hard and said, “Colonel…Carius?”

  “The Iron Hearts asked me to come check on you. Elias would have come himself, but…” Carius shrugged.

  “I’m still on the Breitenfeld. What’re you doing here?”

  “I remember you from armor selection. I’m surprised you don’t remember my speech from day one,” Carius said.

  “The cadre smoked us for ten hours straight before you showed up…you spoke about leadership, having the will to win. Sorry if the specifics escape me, sir.”

  “Leaders lead, son. This ship is Saint Michael’s spear and I will not send others to fight the dragon. Armor is the only thing that has ever killed a Xaros master. You think the Corps doesn’t have a piece of the fight? The armory inside Mount Olympus can handle things while I’m gone…and I’m worried for Elias.”

  “He’s been better. From what I’ve noticed.”

  “I remember the two of you. I had you as roommates. I hoped a bit of Elias might help get you through selection, but I didn’t think you’d make it through.”

  “Wait, what? Elias showed up to selection little more than skin and bones. He needed three different wai
vers just to get into basic training. He was supposed to help me?”

  “And you came to Ft. Knox fresh out of Quantico at the top of your class. You had the makings of a fine officer, but I could tell you were missing something to become armor.” Carius touched his chest twice.

  “But you saw it in Elias?”

  “Not at first. I stuck my head into the combatives trials that first week and saw the two of you on the mat. You beat the hell out of him…but what happened next?”

  “I told him to stay down.” Hale looked at the backs of his hands, remembering the feel of Elias’s blood on his knuckles. “I told him he was beaten and then that bastard punched me in the crotch. Cadre had to pull him off.”

  “I saw armor in Elias that day. I didn’t see it in you. Nothing to be ashamed of. Not everyone is meant for the plugs.”

  “You told me as much when I was waiting for the shuttle back to Quantico. You did say you still saw great things in my future. Somehow I don’t think it was this,” Hale said, gesturing at the sick bay.

  Carius used his cane to help him to his feet. The colonel placed his hand against the top of Hale’s head.

  “Now…now there is armor in you. I hope we meet on the high ground.” Carius rapped his cane against the side of Hale’s bed twice and left.

  Chapter 12

  First Sergeant Cortaro touched his fingertips into a small cistern of holy water and crossed himself. He took his normal seat amongst the pews of the Breitenfeld’s cramped chapel and bent his head in prayer.

  The sound of heavy footsteps against the deck plating broke his concentration. It sounded like someone in full armor was coming toward him. He mumbled an “amen” and looked up to see Torni standing at the end of the pew. Light reflected off her shell like she was enclosed in a thin case of glass. Cracks ran along her body, but her face was almost pristine.

  “Hello, Gunney—I mean First Sergeant, sorry,” she said.

  “Torni, what’re you doing aboard?”

  “May I?” She looked at an empty space beside Cortaro.

  “Please.”

  She sat down, the wooden bench groaning beneath her weight.

  “I came aboard with the bomb that might win us the war. Malal and I built it. Quantum physics was never my strength, nor multidimensional math, but I can follow instructions well enough. Give me another jump engine and I can destroy the galaxy. Also brought the armor some specialist equipment. You know…the usual.”

  “Nothing you mentioned involves the chapel.”

  “I spent a lot of time here when the ship was stuck in deep space. Everyone but Malal was frozen in time, and Malal isn’t real friendly, in case you haven’t noticed. So I’d come here, asking what I was, what I should be doing.”

  “Did you get an answer?”

  “Not really. I can’t say I’m part of the church anymore. I don’t eat or drink so no communion. There are no religious authorities, no bishops, cardinals, popes or anything to make any kind of expert ruling on…” she tapped her knuckles against her metal thigh with a ring, “this.”

  “I used to take the church for granted. It was always there, a structure for life and spirit. Now I can’t even find a vela with la virgin de Guadalupe. Guess we have to figure things out on our own for a little while.”

  “Torni,” she said, “the flesh-and-blood Torni you knew, died on Takeni. A Xaros master made a copy of her psyche, perfect down to the last neuron, before she died. One copy got shoved into a drone and dumped through a wormhole…that’s me. I really don’t know if I’m Torni, if I’m her soul, maybe just some computer program that can get altered at someone’s whim. I had a real connection to the Xaros, but that’s broken.”

  “Sounds like you’re waiting for someone to tell you who you are. Programs don’t make decisions. People decide.”

  Torni looked down at her hands. “I didn’t think this would ever happen to me. Growing old and going to God was the plan, unless I died in action…which did happen. I’m just lost.”

  “You remember when the Chinese had us pinned down in that concrete shithole outside East Timor? We had to hold out until morning before the armor or air support could get to us. You were worried about a typhoon that was going to roll in two days later. Remember?”

  “You told me to focus on the fight we’re in because if we don’t win, the rest doesn’t matter.”

  “And then our chopper crashed near Darwin and we had to dodge Chinese patrols in the middle of that typhoon, and you were worried that we’d miss the submarine the Australians were sending to get us and I told you—”

  “I get it, I get it. We’re about to launch an offensive against the Apex. Why am I bothering with existential naval-gazing?”

  “Torni, you’ve got a situation I don’t know how to help or solve. But if we don’t get through this fight with the Xaros, nothing else will matter. It’s blunt, but I’m a Strike Marine First Sergeant. I don’t finesse anything.”

  “You’re right. I appreciate it. When this is all over there will be plenty of time to figure me out.”

  Cortaro ran his hand over his forearm screen and frowned.

  “Why is Standish in the arms room this early? And why is Orozco in the wrong berthing area? You think things would get easier when you’re a First Sergeant. No, you get three times as many problems. Three times the asses that need my boot and I’ve only got the same two feet.”

  “I have some more work to do on the Crucible, but I’ll see you on the flight deck,” Torni said.

  Cortaro gave her shoulder a squeeze and left the chapel. Torni stayed in the pew, her head down.

  ****

  Steuben walked across the Breitenfeld’s flight deck, each footfall of his armored boots hitting with a ring. He stopped at the open bay doors and felt a hum through his armor from the force field separating the pressurized deck from the void beyond.

  Captain Hale had his helmet tucked beneath an arm. He gazed out at the armada of Ruhaald and human ships, as well as the Dotok Vorpral, massing within the Crucible.

  “First Sergeant Cortaro will complete his inspection soon,” Steuben said. “Your Marines are ready for you.”

  Hale cocked his ear up and heard Cortaro ripping into someone.

  “Give him a little longer.” Hale looked over Ceres to Earth. “Are there any Karigole sayings about final battles?”

  “War never ends,” Steuben said. “It will wax and wane of its own cycle, but it will never leave us.”

  “I’m starting to realize that you all aren’t real big on motivational speeches.”

  “You are just now accepting this?”

  “Say we do beat the Xaros. What’ll happen to you and your village?”

  Steuben scratched a clawed fingertip over his scaly chin.

  “We cannot return home. What the Toth did to my people stained the world’s spirit. The gethaars would never carry another child if we went back there. Africa is a bit tame for our needs but the village thrives. There is a school. We make our own weapons. Hunt and grow our own food. It will take…a long time to return to our old strength. A very long time. Will Earth let us stay?”

  “If it were up to me, I’d let you all stay as long as you needed or wanted. Once the war ends, people will want to move out of the mountain cities. We all remember homes in America, Europe, a few other places. All the culture we had through the rest of the world is essentially gone. There’s room for the Karigole.”

  “There was an orchard near my clan’s home,” Steuben said, looking to his cupped hand, “thashatok fruit trees. Spiked rinds, deep purple flesh that tasted just like your marshmallows if picked just after sunset. My father taught me that. I would like to go home, take cuttings and see if they will grow in your soil.”

  “Can I go with you?”

  “I would like that. Cortaro has stopped berating Bailey for masticating gum. Shall we inspect your Marines?”

  “Our Marines, XO.” Hale snapped his helmet to his thigh and walked to the three ranks of p
ower-armor-clad men and women waiting near a dozen drop pods. Hale returned Cortaro’s salute and went to Egan in the front rank.

  Egan snapped to attention and presented his weapon to Hale. Hale took it, checked the charge, ran his fingers through the magazine well, and ran an IR diagnostic on the pilot and communications specialist’s suit. A double beep in Hale’s earpiece told him Egan’s suit was fully functional.

  Hale glanced at the uplink kit strapped to Egan’s side.

  “Tip-top and ready to rock, sir,” Egan said.

  Hale handed the gauss weapon back and sidestepped to Standish. Hale found Standish’s weapon impeccably clean, the grenades for his rifle’s underslung launcher factory-fresh, and his three Excalibur rounds fastened to his chest harness with an extra set of ties. Hale checked the Marine’s armor-to-pseudo-muscle connections and found no fault. Standish’s armor even had an almost pleasant scent to it.

  A wry smile crossed Standish’s lips and he wiggled his eyebrows at Hale.

  “Behave yourself for the next two weeks and you might get your corporal stripes,” Hale said.

  “Is that a threat or a promise, sir?”

  “Three weeks.” Hale stepped over to Orozco.

  “Staff Sergeant Orozco had two pairs of…female undergarments fastened to his weapon,” Cortaro said. “They were removed. Flame hazard.”

  “Not mine, sir,” Orozco said. “They’re gifts. For luck.”

  “Are there more?” Hale asked.

  “In my sea bag, wall locker…foot locker and I think—”

  “Any more on your person?”

  “No, sir!” Orozco’s eyes shifted from side to side. “No.”

  Hale heard the double beep in his ear. He slapped Orozco on the shoulder and stepped over to Yarrow.

  “I endorsed your power of attorney signing over your benefits to your daughter and Lilith,” he said to the corpsman has he inspected Yarrow’s rifle. “I don’t know why the Corps wanted me to sign a waiver allowing a Marine in a combat theater to get married, but I signed that too. Bureaucracy managed to survive the end of the world.”