The Xaros Reckoning (The Ember War Saga Book 9)

by Richard Fox

  “No. Let them have this.” Hale sat on a bench and pressed his face to his palms.

  “Ken?” Valdar asked through Hale’s earpiece. “What happened down there?”

  “One wounded, on the way to medical. The armor, all of the armor…missing in action.”

  “Good job, son. That you brought back so many…proud of you. Don’t get too comfortable. Seems this isn’t over yet.”

  “What? The Apex is gone. What’s left? Who’s telling us there’s more to do?”

  “Little help here?” Ibarra, still in his harness, waved to Cortaro. The first sergeant undid the restraints and grabbed Ibarra by the arms. Cortaro jerked his hands back and cursed in Spanish.

  “Sorry, still getting used to the new me.” Ibarra fumbled out of the acceleration chair then went to the ragged edge of the Mule’s cargo space. He looked over the celebration then sighed.

  “Ibarra,” said Hale, dropping his hands to his knees and looking up at the man, “I thought you’d be…happy. We won, the Xaros are gone, Earth is safe. You’ve been working for this longer than anyone alive.”

  “There was a cost, son. I made almost every living human pay the ultimate price to get us here. Decades of lies, arranging conflicts, killing those who couldn’t be bribed or blackmailed to play my game. There may have been another way, a better way, but I did the best I could…and it isn’t over yet.”

  Stacey and Malal flew into the cargo bay. Their presence seemed to suck the joy away from the nearby crewmen. Stacey looked at her grandfather and nodded.

  “Call the captain down here,” Ibarra said. “I want the both of you to see what happens next.”

  Chapter 20

  Hale stood next to Valdar at the edge of the flight deck, watching the last of the Ruhaald ships enter the Crucible. Streaks of fire burnt across Sletari as the first fragments of the world’s obliterated moon succumbed to gravity.

  Stacey and Ibarra stood a few feet away, one on either side of Malal. Stacey’s worried face and Ibarra’s stoicism bothered Hale. The two were architects of the war effort…yet both looked like they’d suffered a great defeat. What was bothering them?

  “There’s no chance we can ever explore Sletari,” Hale said. “All that technology, all that history will be lost forever.”

  Stacey clasped her hands behind her back.

  “This isn’t the only world Malal’s people left behind,” she said. “There will be more for us to find. The Crucible already sent Admiral Garret and our fleet back to Earth. Ben will deposit the Ruhaald back to their home world, then we can be on our way.”

  “This Crucible has a few more hours before a hunk of rock the size of Mount Everest hits it,” Valdar said. “Garret said you’d share our next mission once the Ruhaald were away. I’m waiting.”

  The wormhole closed around the final alien ship and the Breitenfeld moved forward with a rumble of engines.

  “Garret didn’t tell you,” Ibarra huffed, “because he didn’t know how you’d react. I’ve brought us all this far. Trust me for a little bit longer.”

  “This is my ship, Ibarra.” Valdar’s face clenched in anger. He held his voice low to keep the flight-deck crew from overhearing him. “I’m responsible for my crew and if you think you’re going to just—”

  “Yes, the Breitenfeld is yours,” Ibarra said, waving a dismissive hand, “but her jump engines are mine.”

  A Qa’Resh probe flew into the flight deck and came to rest in Stacey’s palm. She closed a fist around it and cocked her head to the side.

  “We’re ready,” she said.

  A wormhole opened within the Crucible.

  “No, we are not your playthings,” Valdar said. He opened an IR channel to engineering. “Levin, shut down the jump engine.”

  “I…I can’t, sir. I’m locked out of the system.”

  “See if Torni can—” the IR channel cut with the snap of Ibarra’s fingers.

  “Oh, how I missed that,” Ibarra chuckled. “Like I said, the jump engines are mine, Valdar. I actually kind of like you, which is why I’m not giving you any say in what happens next. Plausible deniability. The ability to sleep at night. You’ll thank me years from now.”

  The ship entered the wormhole.

  ****

  Hale rubbed his eyes as the wormhole faded away. They were orbiting a planet with dense jungles and pale seas. Around the equator, a massive structure ringed the entire planet. Running lights from thousands on top of thousands of ships swarmed around the belt.

  A starship several times the size of the Breitenfeld undocked from a nearby space station, a ship the kind Hale had seen up close and personal. A Toth dreadnought set an intercept course for the Breitenfeld.

  “Toth’anon.” Stacey raised a hand to the world. “Home to hundreds of billions…hundreds of billions of sentient beings. It is enough?” she asked Malal.

  “More than enough. Let me slip. I have held my hunger for far too long.”

  Stacey closed her eyes a moment, then said, “Go.”

  The governor fell from Malal’s chest and clanged against the deck. A single, clear gem rattled inside the many hoops bound into a sphere.

  Malal stepped through the force field and streaked away, straight for the incoming Toth dreadnought.

  Hale could have sworn he heard laughing in the distance.

  “Ibarra, what are we doing?” Valdar asked.

  “Not you, my friend.” Ibarra put a hand on Stacey’s shoulder. “The two of us, the Qa’Resh, we made this bargain with Malal. The thing about dealing with the devil…he always comes to collect.”

  “Sir, we’re being hailed,” Ericson said. “A…Supreme Overlord Rannik demands to speak to you.”

  Ibarra and Stacey watched as the burning light that was Malal closed on the dreadnought.

  “Put her through.” Valdar lifted his arm and a holo screen appeared over his gauntlet. A nervous system suspended within a jar of bubbling fluid writhed before the captain.

  “Valdar…I can’t say I’m surprised. After you killed Mentiq and removed much of my competition, I decided to leave your meat species alone to grow fat and happy while I consolidated control on Toth’anon. What brings you here? Trade? There really is only one thing I want from you…”

  “Sir, Toth ship is powering weapons,” Ericson said through Valdar’s earpiece.

  “Your presence means the Ruhaald and Naroosha failed,” Rannik said. “An inherited business arrangement negotiated between the Vishrakath and Mentiq. Not the deal I would have made but contracts are contracts.”

  Malal sped toward the tip of the massive Toth ship…and passed right through it. He emerged from the far end seconds later, his light burning brighter as he continued on to the space station.

  “The cost overruns in dealing with your species have proved most taxing to my efforts to bring the final few corporations in line. Perhaps we can…what’s happening? Why isn’t my flagship responding to my commands?”

  Malal flew into an open cargo bay and light burst from the station’s windows. Malal, his form expanded to the size of a destroyer, made a beeline for Toth’anon.

  “No…no…what are we doing?” Hale asked. “We can’t do this to them!”

  “Valdar? What is that energy reading from your ship?” Rannik said, her tendrils constricted into knots. “What is the baelor talking about?”

  “Turn it off,” Ibarra said. “There’s nothing to say to them.”

  “Valdar! Valdar, we can work out a deal if you’ll—” The captain closed the channel.

  Valdar drew his pistol and pointed it at Ibarra’s temple. Ibarra kept his eyes locked on Malal as it drew closer to the Toth planet.

  “Call him back,” Valdar said. “The Toth may be our enemies but we do not do this. You understand me, Ibarra? There is no justification for this!”

  “The Toth are broken, Isaac,” Ibarra said. “Their leaders are addicts, cursed to live off the life essence of others. There’s no going back for them.”


  Stacey looked away, a hand over her mouth.

  “Their warriors, their menials, have no concept of rebellion,” Ibarra said. “There is no faction to make a separate peace with. The Toth will never stop until they get control of the procedural technology to feed their addiction. We had to choose between a protracted conflict with the Toth—look at their technology, we were lucky they sent such a small fleet the first time they attacked—or to leave it to Malal. This solves two problems. The Toth and Malal.”

  Steuben ran across the flight deck, short sword in hand. He slid to a stop next to Hale, his yellow eyes burning with hatred.

  “Why are we here?” Steuben demanded.

  “To end the Toth,” Stacey said, “and save the Earth from Xaros drones.”

  “Ibarra, call him back.” Valdar pressed the muzzle toward Ibarra’s head but the pistol turned away as it bumped against an invisible force field. Ibarra tapped a puck on his belt.

  “Not your decision, Captain.” Ibarra clasped his hands behind his back. “Question for you. The Xaros wiped out the Earth, pushed us to the very edge of extinction. In return, we destroyed them—the true Xaros, not their drones. We, humanity, committed xenocide for the sake of our own survival. You had no complaints. Now here we are with one of the last Karigole who suffered as we did, but at the hands of the Toth. Steuben, what should we do?”

  Light glinted from Steuben’s sword as he twisted it from side to side.

  “You will kill them? All of them?” Steuben asked.

  “Yes, we will,” Ibarra said dispassionately.

  “I remember the fields,” the Karigole said, “the endless fields of our dead. You don’t know what it’s like, to see everything taken away, to know that you are the very last of your people. My centurion, we all took the oath to make the Toth pay. Our lives could not end until the vendetta was paid with Toth blood.”

  “We killed Mentiq,” Hale said. “We saved that village on Nibiru. Isn’t that enough? Tell Ibarra that this isn’t what you want.”

  Malal struck the great belt around Toth’anon. A ripple of light spread across the planet like a stone dropped on a still pond.

  Steuben shook his head. “Let it happen. Let justice be done, no matter the cost.”

  “At least someone has sense,” Ibarra said.

  Valdar lowered his pistol.

  “You’re both fools,” Valdar said. “The only reason you ever had control over Malal was because he was weak. What happens after this? You think he’ll stop with the Toth? You destroyed one monster and unleashed another.”

  “We control Malal because we have what he wants,” Stacey said, “the only thing he wants. Letting him do this was the only way we could get him to work against the Xaros.” She looked down at the governor and tapped the crystal with a fingertip.

  “You think he’ll just put that leash back on once he comes back?” Valdar asked. “I’m not taking the chance. Engine room…engine room!” Valdar looked at Hale, who tried using his own IR system, then shook his head.

  “You really think we’d come this far then start hoping things would go well?” Ibarra asked. “I’m disappointed, Valdar. I thought we knew each other.”

  The wave of light came back over Toth’anon’s horizon, coalescing in the same spot it began. Malal emerged from the planet, blazing with light that cast new shadows behind those watching the planet. The entity’s light dimmed as it grew closer.

  “It is done,” Steuben said. “The Toth are no more.”

  “The second race humanity has destroyed in less than a day,” Stacey said. “Both acts for the sake of our own survival.”

  “Not just ours.” Ibarra nodded to Steuben. “The rest of the galaxy, all those other races that were part of Bastion, they owe us too. But somehow I doubt they’ll remember it that way. One era ends, another begins. At least Earth will have the upper hand, for once.”

  Malal landed next to Stacey, his body pulsating with a dim glow. Toth scales appeared beneath his surface, joined by the ghost of an overlord’s nervous system.

  “They were enough.” Malal’s gaze shifted to Hale, Valdar and Steuben. “But I have never drank from human souls…”

  Stacey smacked the governor against Malal’s chest. It sank a few inches, then caught as Malal issued a low growl.

  “You got what you need,” she hissed. “You get nothing else. You take this back or you’ll never find your door. The Qa’Resh and I swear it.” She pressed the governor…and it melded into Malal’s body.

  Steuben tossed his heirloom sword into the air and through the force field. It went end over end through the void.

  “I never thought this day would come,” Steuben said.

  “Is it worth it?” Hale asked him.

  “I have no room in my heart for the Toth. They earned their fate. My time as a warrior is over. I will return to my people, if you will let me.”

  Hale glanced at Malal. His body had become slightly wider, hands elongated…almost like Mentiq, the Toth overlord he’d seen on Nibiru.

  “Something tells me we’re not out of the woods yet, Steuben.”

  A wormhole opened in front of the Breitenfeld.

  Chapter 21

  Hale rubbed his eyes as the aftereffects of the wormhole passed.

  “I’m really getting sick of this,” Hale said. He blinked hard…and saw a gray expanse beyond the Breitenfeld. He’d seen one before, when the ship had gone to Bastion after first encountering Malal on Anthalas.

  “Where are we, Ibarra?” Valdar asked.

  “No idea! Which is the point of the pocket universe the Qa’Resh set up for this sort of thing.” Ibarra nudged Stacey with his elbow.

  “Right, sorry.” She held up a hand and the Qa’Resh probe lifted out of her palm.

  “Where is it?” Malal’s right foot grew into a clawed Toth foot and scraped the deck. “Where is my reward?”

  Hale felt the ship sway as the gray beyond shifted to the side. In the distance, a black hole swung into view. Bands of crystalline rings circled the singularity, spinning through each other with impossible grace. The edges of each ring were distinct fractal patterns that reminded Hale of a snowflake’s outer edge. The Qa’Resh city held steady near the construct, itself dwarfed by what danced around the black hole.

  “There…” Malal said. “My design. My idea. My work. They locked me away once they had the keys to immortality. Now the path I designed will take me straight to them…and her.”

  “The code,” Stacey said. “The code to defeat the drones. Give it to me now.”

  “No. I will give it to you at the threshold. Nowhere else.”

  Blue light reflected off the ceiling. A Qa’Resh rose up, its light filling the flight deck with a sense of peace. Its long crystalline tendrils reached down and formed into two saucer shapes, a small one for Malal, a larger space for the rest standing on the edge of the flight deck.

  “Well this is…different.” Ibarra tapped the Qa’Resh’s surface, then gingerly stepped into the cupped crystal.

  “It’s not so bad,” Stacey said. “Done it once before. They want you to come,” she said to Valdar, Hale and Steuben. None of them moved an inch.

  “I think it’s important for more than just my grandfather and I to see this. Earth, the rest, they’ll all want to know what happens here,” she said.

  The saucer with Malal pulled out of the hangar deck and joined the rest of the tentacles hanging beneath the alien’s body.

  “Where will it take us?” Hale asked.

  Stacey stepped over the lip and sat down. “To answers. To the truth.”

  Hale climbed in. Valdar and Steuben joined him after Valdar had a brief conversation with Ericson. The saucer moved once Valdar cleared the lip. They passed through the force field, but Hale felt no different. Air, temperature, even the smell of battery packs and hydraulics all stayed the same.

  The Qa’Resh pulled them into the mass of tentacles and the world around them went dark.

  An elderly man i
n a white robe appeared in the middle of the room.

  “Hale, it is good to see you again. We knew you’d be a part of this,” he said.

  “What are you…” Blocked memories flooded through Hale’s mind. Traveling through the clouds of a gas giant on a sled with Yarrow and Stacey. The same Qa’Resh removing Malal from the corpsman’s body. The kind smile of the old man with the same twinkle in his eye that Hale remembered from his grandfather.

  “You saw too much when we first met,” the Qa’Resh said. “As did Torni. We took steps to protect Bastion in case either of you were ever captured by the Toth…the Xaros’ methods of interrogation were more than we anticipated. Forgive us. There’s no need for it to happen again.”

  “I saw you on Sletari, Qa’Resh,” Hale said. “That’s Malal’s world. What is going on between you and that monster?”

  “The Qa’Resh are…guilt. Penance. Karma,” the old man said. “Before Malal found a path to true immortality, our creators were dying. Even their technology could not stave off entropy forever. Malal found a solution, immortal life at the expense of all other intelligent life in the galaxy. In their haste, in their fear, they chose Malal’s path. One, you would consider her Malal’s sister, stood in the ashes of civilizations and realized she was wrong. While she hated what her brother had done, she could not destroy him. She sabotaged his ascension and locked him away below Anthalas.”

  “The Qa’Resh are Malal’s…sister?” Valdar asked.

  “No, we are her creation. To atone for her race’s crimes, she split her existence between this plane and the next. She maintained a vigil against the rise of another power like Malal, sought to guide the emerging races to coexistence. Used us to carry out her will. Galactic powers do not arise quickly. We had millennia to evaluate a race as they developed intelligence and made their first steps through the void. We had time to handle problems correctly. When the Xaros drones first arrived, they spread faster than we could combat. We tried to form alliances to stem the tide, but we failed. We failed over and over again.”