The Xaros Reckoning (The Ember War Saga Book 9)

by Richard Fox

  “The General acted separately from us. His mistakes are not ours,” the High King said. “There can be an accord.”

  “Liar!” Torni shouted. “One of your kind, Minder, showed me the truth. The Xaros are nothing but conquest, control. I’ve felt your gestalt, seen inside your soul. You will never let us live.” She picked the power coupling up off the ground and fed the tip into the hole she’d burned through the spike.

  The High King rose back to his full height. “The Xaros will soon possess the secret to immortality. We will share it…but you must leave. Now.”

  “Buddy,” Ibarra said, shaking his head, “I’ve traded too much of my soul for this.” He tapped the side of his metal head. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else.”

  “You have no idea what we’re offering…an escape from the inevitable darkness. Eternal life as gods! Accept my offer and you will ascend far higher than your race could ever imagine.”

  “You murdered my parents,” Hale said. “You murdered everyone we knew and loved on Earth. If we join you, then we betray them. All of them.”

  “How’s your poetry?,” Ibarra asked, backing up slightly, “‘Look upon my works, ye mighty,” Ibarra pointed his hand toward Torni, “and despair.’ Activate the bomb, if you please, my dear.”

  “You will die,” the High King said. “No matter what you do here, the Earth will burn. The galaxy will be an empty tomb until the last star burns away. You are nothing!”

  “But in their last moments,” said Ibarra as a smile spread across his face, “the Xaros looked down on a few mere men and women…and begged to live. If you ever expected mercy, you should have shown some.”

  Torni slapped a button on the bomb and the jump engine came to life with a hiss. Light crept up the power coupling and into the jump engine. A dull whine filled the air.

  The High King vanished in a wisp of smoke.

  “Mr. Ibarra,” Hale said, “I’m honestly surprised you didn’t try to cut a deal.”

  “There are worse things in the world than defeat, compromise with evil being one of them. Besides, you or Elias would have shot me in the back if I tried to weasel out of setting off the bomb.”

  “No.” Elias raised his shoulder-mounted Gatling cannon and got the barrels spinning. “I would have torn you limb from limb and hurled the pieces into that star. We’ve got movement in the distance.”

  “Shore party, this is Valdar. You’ve got wormhole activity near your location. How long until the device is ready? I don’t know how much longer our ticket through the Key Hole is going to last.”

  “It’s taking in power,” Torni said. She had a hand on the bomb, and it shimmered in tune with the device. “But slow. Maybe…fifteen minutes until the tear opens and this place gets erased.”

  An alert flashed on Hale’s visor. A short video loop taken from the Breitenfeld showed a dark mass moving along the spike toward their position.

  “Torni,” Hale said, “what’ll happen if the ship turns her big guns on the spike? Looks like we’re going to need some fire support.”

  “Don’t do it,” Torni said. “The omnium current runs the whole way through. If the ship blows it to hell, the bomb won’t amount to a wet firecracker.”

  “Movement.” Elias extended his left arm and unfolded the aegis shield mounted on his forearm. He braced himself between a pair of drop pods and let off controlled bursts from his twin gauss cannons.

  A screech rose from the fog.

  Hale took cover against a drop pod and saw a dark mass of writhing limbs appear out of the haze.

  “Open fire!” Hale zoomed in on the forward edge of the closing enemy, midnight-colored elongated creatures that looked like Xaros drones but were covered in dense fur and fleshy stalks tipped with fanged mouths. Hale shot one with a low-powered blast. The round burst it apart like a dropped egg and continued through two more of the creatures. Dark fluid oozed out of the dismembered sections, boiling away to nothing within seconds.

  Hundreds more poured out of the fog in a seemingly endless tide of gibbering mouths and pounding limbs.

  Ar’ri and Caas brought their shoulder-mounted Gatling guns up and unleashed a torrent of bullets that annihilated the forward edge of the horde. Orozco stepped between them and locked his rear leg to ground. The barrels on his own heavy gauss cannon spun up and he added to the weight of fire.

  Hale couldn’t hear Orozco shouting for joy, but he saw the Spaniard’s mouth open and his wide eyes.

  The rest of the armor destroyed entire swathes of the enemy, but the tide didn’t relent. The report of gauss weapons from every Marine and armor came through like the pounding of a hundred drummers. The forward edge crept closer, clambering over the blasted chunks of their dead.

  “Breitenfeld?” Hale said through the tenuous IR connection to the ship. “We need fire support. I can’t see where the enemy’s coming from. Hit danger close, toward the base of the spike from our position. How copy?”

  Elias’ Gatling cannon ceased firing, but the barrels kept spinning. Out of ammo. Elias released the mag lock on his Excalibur blade and drew it off his shoulder. He slammed the pommel against his shield twice.

  The enemy surged forward as the weight of fire from the armor faded away.

  “Breitenfeld? Damn it. Torni, whoever’s in the Mule, get comms with the ship and—” A wolf-sized creature landed next to Hale and struck at him with a pair of snapping mouths. He slapped a stalk aside then jammed his barrel against its body and blew a hole the size of his fist through the thing. He kicked it away and saw Elias stomp another one into paste. One of the Xaros wolves skittered up Elias’ back and tore at the base of his neck with clawed forelimbs.

  Hale blasted the wolf off Elias, who didn’t seem to notice as his sword cleaved through three more with a single stroke.

  A thunderclap broke through the sky. Two blazing streaks shot down and struck the spike beyond the fog. A tidal wave of overpressure swept toward Hale and knocked him off his feet. The Breitenfeld’s rail cannons were designed to wreck starships across the airless void. The destructive potential of just one shell used against a terrestrial target rivaled the power of nuclear weapons.

  Hale slid across the spike and came to a sudden and ungentle stop against an armor soldier’s leg. The snap of gauss weapons relented as the wolves retreated into the fog.

  “Captain,” Torni said, using a single hand to hoist Hale back onto his feet, “the bomb is a precision piece of equipment held together with duct tape and profanity. The blasts from the Breit’s guns are not helping.”

  “But it still works, right?”

  “The power drain just slowed to—”

  “Elias!” Bodel pointed his sword toward the fog.

  A spear-shaped throng of wolves burst out of the haze and bulldozed over Elias…and continued straight toward the bomb. Hale fired from the hip, striking several of the wolves but failing to stem the tide.

  A flash of red light stung Hale’s eyes, leaving a painful afterglow. He staggered against Bodel as shouts from his Marines filled his ears. His vision cleared moments later.

  A Xaros drone—Torni—floated a few feet in the air, stalks bent toward the prostrate Elias. A burnt carpet of wolves dissipated into the air. The smell of cut grass mixed with ammonia assaulted Hale’s senses.

  Ar’ri ran to Elias, his footsteps thundering against the floor. The Dotok reached into the scorched mass and lifted Elias up with the snap of caramelized flesh. Elias wiped blackened bits from his optics then recovered his Excalibur blade. He raised the guard to his face in a salute toward Torni.

  A tremor rumbled through the spike as the fog lifted. Glittering canyons marked where the Breitenfeld’s rail cannons hit home. A warning icon appeared on Hale’s visor.

  “We’re losing air pressure,” he said. “Everyone button up.”

  Hale locked his suit away from the thinning atmosphere and felt relief as the smell of antiseptic air replaced the odor of burnt Xaros wolves.

  Torn
i descended to the ground and reformed into her human shape, marred by cracks up and down her body.

  “You OK?” he asked.

  “Sort of. Nothing works right anymore.” Torni glanced over at the bomb, then ran to it. She pressed one hand into a mass of fiber-optic cables at one end as her fingers elongated and sank into the machine’s innards. Her head shook from side to side over and over again.

  “Torni? Something wrong?”

  “Captain!” Bailey called to him through the IR. “Got something on the scope.”

  A vid feed of the distant craters came onto his visor. Tall Xaros in the same armor as the General, but in a wide range of colors, crawled from the blasted holes onto the floor of the spike.

  “Breitenfeld fire control,” Hale said, “repeat last mission.”

  “No,” Torni said, the word rippling off her shell, “I can barely hold the bomb together now. Another quake and…I don’t know what will happen. We might lose the tear.”

  “Belay that order,” Hale sent to the ship. He looked up and didn’t see a flash from the ventral cannons. “Bailey, what’re they doing?”

  “Bunch of the big wankers just standing around with their thumbs up their…here they come. ’Bout thirty. Want me to introduce them to Bloke?”

  “No, your rifle might foul up the bomb.” Thirty Xaros just like the General. He’d barely managed to beat one on Earth with four armor and a well-laid trap. The odds did not look good.

  “Torni, how long?”

  “I can’t…seconds. Hours. Leave, sir. I will do this.”

  “Leave you behind? Again?” Hale shook his head.

  A scarlet beam struck the ground in front of the bomb and ripped a foot-deep furrow through the spike floor. Tiny needles of crystal flared up and bounced off Hale’s armor.

  “Phalanx! Form up around the bomb,” said Colonel Carius as he stepped in front of Hale and unfurled his aegis shield. A second blast came out of the fog and clipped the side of the shield, missing Torni by inches. Carius’ Templars stood shoulder to shoulder with the colonel, adding their shields to the wall.

  “Fall back! Everyone behind the shields,” Hale shouted. The Hussars joined Carius’ left flank, the Iron Hearts to his right, keeping a small gap between them as Marines filled in and took cover behind the thick aegis plates.

  A muted thunderclap broke through the thinning atmosphere when Bailey fired her rail rifle from the top of a drop pod.

  “Bailey!” Cortaro peered around Ar’ri’s shield.

  “Three of them were aiming right for me,” she said. “Didn’t hit the spike so no worries—”

  A red beam smashed through the drop pod and sent Bailey flying into the air. She landed hard, her rifle still grasped in one hand. She lurched to her feet and made for the phalanx.

  More Xaros attacks battered the shield wall, dissipating against the aegis shields with a hiss after each strike.

  Cortaro pushed Ar’ri’s shield wide and waved her over. She jinked to the side as she ran, ducking beneath a beam aiming for the shield gap.

  “Come on!” Cortaro yelled to her.

  A blood red beam clipped her shoulder and Bailey screamed then pitched forward.

  Cortaro ran from the protective wall. Leaping over a Xaros disintegration beam, he grabbed Bailey by a carry strap on her back.

  “Covering fire!” Hale wedged his muzzle between shields and shot a high-powered gauss round at the distant foe. Taking more careful aim, he hit one of the Xaros dead center. The round bounced off the armor with a shower of sparks and no other effect.

  Cortaro dragged Bailey into the phalanx. The armor on her left shoulder fused into a solid lump. Yarrow flipped her onto her un-wounded side and pressed an auto-injector against a port on her neck armor. Tufts of air spat from the damaged armor.

  “Pulse is weak. Suit’s losing integrity,” Yarrow said. “I need to get her to the Mule’s atmo chamber before she goes hypoxic.”

  Hale looked over at the Mule, which had attracted no attention from the Xaros.

  “They’re advancing,” Carius said. The colonel drew his Excalibur blade and held it close to his chest.

  “Not yet, Yarrow.” Hale grabbed Standish by the shoulder. The three specially made bullets on his chest glittered within their harness.

  “Lock and load.” Hale pointed to the Xaros-killer munitions.

  Standish slipped a round into his grenade launcher and ran an auxiliary power line from a pack on his belt to his rifle. A mosquito whine broke through the crash of beams against aegis shields.

  “Torni promised this wouldn’t blow my hands off.” Standish checked the power level then banged a fist against Elias’ side.

  “Move over, big boy. Guess who gets to save the day.” Standish leaned over and took aim through a slight gap, then a sunburst of golden light roared out of Standish’s muzzle. The Marine sidestepped away and reloaded.

  The round hit true, blasting through a Xaros master’s midsection and severing its legs. The upper torso flailed against the spike for a second as its essence steamed away. The other masters stopped and watched as their peer died.

  Standish’s next shot blew a master’s head clean off. He let off a high-pitched chuckle as he slammed his third and final round into the breach.

  The Xaros backed off, firing wildly as they retreated.

  “Let me tell you something,” Ibarra said to Hale. “I spent a lot of years dealing with rich and powerful bullies. It’s always something to see what happens the first time they get a punch to the face. The Xaros never fought someone that could hurt them before. War doesn’t seem as much when fun when you’re playing for keeps, does it, you bastards?”

  “Sir! I’ve got to move her,” Yarrow said. He had Bailey on a litter. Her skin had a blue sheen to it and her eyes fluttered.

  “First Sergeant, get her to the Mule. Standish, hold your last shot.” Hale peeked around a shield.

  A dark curtain rose out of the craters. A talon of solid smoke snatched one of the retreating Xaros and lifted it into the air. The talon crushed the master as glowing slime spilled from the claws. The rest of the Xaros stopped in their tracks.

  More masters emerged from the craters, each carrying scythes as tall as they were.

  The three-eyed face of the High King appeared in the dark wall, and a claw tip stabbed toward the phalanx.

  “Shoot the big one?” Standish asked.

  “Don’t miss,” Hale said.

  Standish unleashed his final Excalibur round. It hit the High King in his left eye, slapping his face to the side. A roar that sent shivers through Hale’s body echoed from the distance, then the High King vanished into nothing.

  The Xaros ran for the phalanx.

  “Think I got it?” Standish’s rifle began to gyrate in his hands. “Bad. Bad!” He chucked the weapon through the gap…only to see it go about two feet before it caught on the end of the power line and bounced back at him.

  Elias covered the weapon with his shield and absorbed the blast. Sparking hunks of what remained of Standish’s rifle scattered across the ground. Elias got his shield up just as a trio of disintegration beams reached the chink in the phalanx’s armor.

  “Thanks, big guy,” Standish said. “We’re even for that save in the hospital.”

  “No.” Elias shook his helm. “We will never be even.”

  “You think they know we’re out of silver bullets?” Ibarra asked.

  “No, I think they don’t care. The High King made it obvious what’ll happen if they don’t stop the bomb. Looks like fighting us is more appealing than certain death,” Hale said.

  Torni gasped as she withdrew her hand from the bomb and shook it back into shape.

  “It started.” She backed away, fear writ across her cracked face. “The tear, the annihilation wave, it will be here soon. Oh, God, what have we done?”

  The Mule rose off the ground and flew toward them.

  “Torni, can the Xaros still stop the bomb from going off?” Hale
asked.

  “Yes. If they rip it apart before it ignites, this will all be for nothing. We’ve got twenty minutes, maybe less.”

  Hale looked up at the Breitenfeld, then to all the armor and his Marines around him. There was no way the ship could send another transport down for all of them and still have time to escape.

  “Get her back to the ship,” Carius said. “Prep the Breitenfeld to go up if we can’t hold down here.”

  “Wait…there has to be a way.” Hale held up a hand as his mind raced. “We can…we all go home or nobody goes home!”

  “Ken.” Elias grabbed him by the arm. “Torni is the mission now. We’ll buy you the time. You take the chance. Now get out of here.”

  “That’s an order, Captain,” Colonel Carius said.

  The Mule swung around. Cortaro stood on the ramp, beckoning to the Marines.

  “Go! Get out of here!” Hale grabbed Standish and pushed him toward the Mule. Standish caught himself midway and held his ground.

  “Sir, all or nothing,” Standish said.

  Elias leaned toward Hale. A panel flipped open on the armor’s chest and Elias’ face emerged from a milky white gloom. Honey-colored eyes misty with cataracts stared at Hale.

  “Go,” Elias said. “Live well. You do not need to die here. We will pay the price. We are armor.”

  Hale knew what he had to do next, even if it broke his heart.

  “Captain,” Steuben growled, “I will carry you if necessary.”

  “Get on the boat,” Hale said to the Karigole. “It was an honor, Elias.”

  The panel snapped shut and Elias slapped the flat of his blade against his knee, knocking flecks of Xaros-wolf away.

  Hale ran for the Mule. Torni, Ibarra and the rest of his Marines were already aboard. He jumped onto the ramp as the ship lifted into the sky.

  Chapter 18

  Elias watched as the Xaros masters advanced toward the phalanx. Two flanks emerged from the main thrust of the approaching mass, now several hundred strong, and moved to encircle the bomb. The enemy had stopped firing once it was obvious the aegis shields made a mockery of the disintegration beams.