Embers of War

by Gareth L. Powell

  His avatar’s bony face appeared to have been carved from ice. Starlight flared in the hollows of his eye sockets. “You cannot win,” he warned me. The way he said it made it seem like a simple statement of fact.

  I laughed. “I’m not trying to win,” I told him. “I’m trying to save lives.”

  “How commendable,” he said. His acerbity rankled me.

  “Better that than indiscriminate murder,” I snapped back.

  Unamused, he waved away the accusation. “Do you know what the trouble with war dogs has always been,” he asked, “throughout recorded history?”

  “I assume you’re about to enlighten me?”

  His wintry expression grew colder still. “When the fighting’s over,” he said, “we’re useless for anything else.”

  “I don’t agree.”

  “And yet here you come.”

  The growl of the Gallery’s star had grown a hundred times louder than it had been from the edge of the system. I had almost reached my destination, but there would be no gentle transition this time. If my calculations were correct, I would emerge only a few hundred thousand kilometres from the surface of the Brain—closer than the distance between the Earth and its moon—and still be travelling at interplanetary velocity.

  “Yes, here I come,” I said.

  As I spoke, I slammed the jump engines into full reverse and dropped back into the universe, stern-first. My fusion motors blazed like twin novae as I decelerated harder than ever before.

  “Ready or not!”

  FORTY-SIX

  SAL KONSTANZ

  The force of the deceleration pressed down on me, as if soft weights were being piled on my chest and stomach. I felt sharp protests from the muscles of my neck and lower back, and my vision went grey as the increased pressure stifled the blood flow in my optic nerve.

  On the main screen, I made out the convoluted surface of the Brain falling past us, only a couple of hundred kilometres off our port flank. The star-like brilliance of the Trouble Dog’s fusion exhaust threw the ridges and folds of its canyons—each deep enough to swallow us whole—into stark relief.

  “Hostile identified. Torpedoes inbound.” The ship’s voice relayed no emotion, simply a report of the facts.

  When I spoke, I couldn’t keep the discomfort or the fear from my voice. “Release the shuttle.”

  A shudder ran through the hull and a light appeared on my console to tell me the main bay doors were open to vacuum.

  “Shuttle away. Time until first torpedo impact, seven minutes and forty-two seconds.”

  “Turn over and activate the defence grid.”

  “Turning now.”

  The crushing deceleration ceased. Suddenly weightless, I lurched forward against my straps. My head came down and my mouth snapped shut. I felt a sharp pain and my mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood.

  The Trouble Dog pivoted through 180 degrees, until its bow faced the direction we were moving in, and then the engines kicked in again, accelerating us towards the incoming threat.

  “Cannons active.”

  The ship rang with a popcorn clatter as the point-defence batteries sprayed tracer rounds at the Fenrir’s torpedoes.

  Moving with effort under acceleration, I put my fingers to my mouth. The tips came away bright red. Hurled forwards, I had bitten myself hard, and sunk my front teeth almost completely through my lower lip. It stung like hell.

  I glanced across at Laura Petrushka, and saw agony written across her features. “Are you okay?”

  “It’s my leg.” She put a hand to the inflatable cast on her thigh. “The pressure. It hurts.” She spoke one word at a time, punctuating each with a sharp intake of breath. “I can feel the bone coming apart, again.”

  “I’m sorry,” I told her, “but there’s not much I can do right now.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  I swivelled my eyes back to the screen, my attention caught by a bright flash.

  “One torpedo down,” the Trouble Dog reported. “Two more still on course.”

  “How’s the shuttle doing?” Speaking hurt my battered jaw.

  “Five minutes from the surface.”

  “Anything targeting it?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  I gave the tactical display a squint. The Fenrir was a red dot ahead and slightly above us, coming in on a trajectory that would intersect our own in a matter of minutes. If she got past us, the shuttle would be defenceless.

  “Stand by to provide covering fire if necessary.”

  “Roger.” The tone still hadn’t changed. We could have been discussing the weather for all the expression she showed. “Four birds in their tubes and ready to fly on your mark.”

  I watched the Brain’s carved surface roll beneath us. Another of the Fenrir’s torpedoes died in a burst of white.

  “Shuttle entering the atmosphere.”

  “No sign it’s being targeted?”

  “No, why should there be?” For the first time, the Trouble Dog let an exasperated tinge bleed into her voice. “I’m the only danger here. She has to deal with me first. Once I’m gone, the shuttle’s stranded. Fenrir can pick it off at her leisure.”

  I felt a wave of helplessness. These duelling metal beasts could out-think and out-react me. No wonder the Dog sounded impatient.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “We can’t win in a stand-up fight.”

  “So?”

  “So we run for cover. Change the rules of engagement. Hide, and fight back as and when the opportunity presents itself.”

  “Guerrilla rules?”

  The Trouble Dog’s avatar smiled. “We are the underdogs.”

  I smiled back. I knew she was right. If we stayed out here, we’d be torn to shreds.

  “Okay.” I struggled against the acceleration that seemed to be unhinging my lower jaw. “I’m turning strategic command over to you. Do what you have to.”

  The Trouble Dog’s eyes glimmered. Her smile grew wider, displaying predatory teeth. “I’m off the leash?”

  “Until I say otherwise.”

  Delight filled her face. She clapped her hands. “Hot damn!”

  * * *

  The course changes were hard and violent, and almost too quick to follow. Given free rein, the Trouble Dog threw herself into the fight with such aggression that Laura and I found ourselves tossed around like rag dolls. I heard her moan in pain, but was too preoccupied with my own discomfort to inquire. Instead, I concentrated on the flickering chaos of the main screen: detonations flowered like lethal fireworks; strings of tracer hosed back and forth; the background stars jumped and whirled.

  I couldn’t see the other Carnivore, but I knew she was out there in the darkness, her position implied by the white corkscrew tails of incoming ordnance. My hands gripped the rests on either side of my couch, and I hoped that on board the Fenrir, Captain Parris was suffering at least as much as we were.

  “Come on, girl,” I urged, willing the Trouble Dog to survive this assault, to absorb the hellfire being thrown at her and, somehow, emerge triumphant.

  A status window to the lower left of the forward wall showed an animated representation of the shuttle’s progress. I watched the little craft fall towards the planet’s etched surface. All we had to do was survive long enough for Clay, Childe and Preston to retrieve the injured with automated stretchers and secure them in the shuttle’s cargo bay. Unfortunately, they’d need hours to complete their mission, and I knew we’d only last minutes against Fenrir—let alone Adalwolf when he arrived. But at least if we inflicted damage before we were destroyed, the follow-up ships we’d called for would stand a chance of getting through—and maybe the shuttle could stay hidden until they arrived.

  Three more torpedoes appeared, diving towards us, and the Trouble Dog rocked as she dispatched two of her own in reply.

  A voice came from the shuttle.

  “This is Clay. We’re seeing some activity on the surface, several kilometres fro
m the wreck. Could be survivors. We’re going down for a look-see.”

  “Roger that.”

  The little craft’s landing motors fired and her undercarriage deployed. I watched her drop through the thin atmosphere, ionisation flaring around her nose and the leading edges of her wings. And then, suddenly, she was gone, swallowed by one of the deep, narrow canyons. There was nothing more we could do for her, save keep the Trouble Dog’s siblings distracted for as long as possible and try to cause as much trouble as possible. If they were chasing us, they wouldn’t have time to interfere with the surface expedition. At least, I hoped they wouldn’t.

  A proximity alarm shrilled. One of the Fenrir’s projectiles had breached our defensive screen, its twisting course somehow avoiding the hail of bullets thrown its way.

  “Brace for impact.”

  I screwed my eyes tight, but the glare shone through the lids. It seemed to shine right through the hull. The blast wave followed a second later, hitting us head-on. The Trouble Dog bucked, and the lights flickered.

  When I reopened my eyes, we were still in one piece, but all the radiation sensors were flashing red and I could smell something burning—the acrid tang of fused electronics and melting plastic.

  “Both our torpedoes destroyed,” the Trouble Dog intoned. Her voice was flat. The battle was taking all her concentration. “Two birds remaining in their tubes. Three still inbound.”

  I felt a pang of dismay. We’d already used half our stock of missiles to no effect.

  “The shuttle’s down,” I told her, although she would already have known. “They’re on their own now. Do what you have to.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  The chatter of the anti-missile batteries subsided. The planet wheeled aside, wiped from the screen by a sudden change of heading. Acceleration alarms filled the cabins and corridors, and I groaned inwardly. I had seen many ship engagements during the war. They tended to be nasty, brutish and short—like speed chess played with live ammunition. The next few minutes were liable to be uncomfortable and terrifying in equal measure—and would most probably culminate in our violent deaths.

  If I’d had a god that would have been the moment I would have tried to make peace with them. But I didn’t. Instead, I thought of Sedge, lying in dreamless sleep on that Hopper ship as it relentlessly drilled its way into the unknown, pulling further away from me with every passing instant. Would he ever know what had happened here, and would he even care? By the time they revived him, all this would be centuries in his past, and an unimaginable distance behind him. At the very least, I hoped he might remember me from time to time—the thought brought a sliver of consolation. I might die today, but at least I’d left a small mark on the universe. If the old saying was true, and we were never truly dead until everyone who remembered us had also died, then some small part of me might conceivably endure for millennia, until Sedge himself passed away.

  The main engines kicked in and I felt myself squashed into my couch. Ahead, I could see the system’s star—a large reddish-yellow sun at the centre of an absurd orrery. From here, it looked around the size of a coin held at arm’s length.

  Why were we heading for the sun? It was seven light minutes distant. Even if we had some reason to go to it, there was no way we could outrun the torpedoes on our trail; they were lighter and faster, and could tolerate higher accelerations because they didn’t have to accommodate human crews. And even if, by some miracle, we managed to outmanoeuvre and destroy them, the Fenrir would still be right behind us, her tubes filled with replacements, and the Adalwolf would be here before we’d closed even half the distance to the sun.

  The proximity alarm rang again. The fusillade of three torpedoes the Fenrir had fired earlier was now drawing close to our stern. We may have survived the first nuclear explosion, but I wasn’t confident we’d prevail against three more—especially if one or more of those torpedoes was packing an antimatter warhead. We couldn’t hope to withstand a combined blast of that magnitude.

  I looked to Laura, feeling like I should apologise, but she seemed to have lapsed into unconsciousness. Her head lolled against her restraints, but that was probably just as well. The torpedoes would be in range within seconds. If we were about to be vaporised, it would be kinder to let her sleep through the ordeal.

  Seemingly oblivious to the futility of running, the Trouble Dog continued to accelerate. Finally, I realised she wasn’t trying to outstrip them. Instead, she was building momentum for a jump.

  Despite the crushing acceleration, I felt my heart skip. We were going to live!

  But my elation didn’t last long.

  The Trouble Dog reared back and I realised there was no time for the ship to ease itself into the higher dimensions. If we were to escape the coming detonation, it would have to slam its way through the membrane and hope for the best. Pinned in place, all I could do was clench my jaw. As a kid, I’d seen little insects skate across the surface tension of a pond. They didn’t have the weight to break through. Jump engines gave us the clout to break the “surface” of the universe, but the transition had to be handled carefully. A miscalculation could cause a ship to “rebound” into the physical world, or disintegrate entirely. And what the Trouble Dog was about to do was the equivalent of a mosquito diving at the water from a hundred feet up, accelerating all the way.

  I thought of Sedge again.

  This was going to be brutal.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  ASHTON CHILDE

  Alva Clay lit the shuttle’s spotlights as we sank into the shadows between the slab-like sides of the canyon.

  “There,” she said, pointing between her booted feet. Through the shuttle’s transparent nose, I caught movement on the canyon floor.

  “Looks like a couple of flyers, maybe a dozen people.” I was standing behind the main seats in the cockpit. The exoskeleton made it impossible to wedge myself into a chair, so I had to settle for locking the legs in place and holding on as best I could.

  “Rescue party?” Preston asked.

  Clay shook her head. “See those things there, like millipedes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re crawlers. Combat recon drones. And those people down there look to be armed, and—whoah!” She threw the little craft into reverse. Hail rattled against the hull.

  Preston’s eyes went wide. “Are they shooting at us?”

  “They’re not blowing kisses.”

  I grabbed hold of the back of Clay’s couch as she whirled the shuttle around in its own length and powered away. We heard a few more pings, and then we were up and over the lip of the canyon. We arced upwards, and then fell back into a second canyon running parallel with the first, separated from the gunmen by impregnable white crystal walls two kilometres high.

  As we lowered into the gloom of this new fissure, Clay ran diagnostics on the shuttle’s systems and swore under her breath.

  “Problem?” I asked.

  “Depends.” She punched a few controls and her scowl deepened.

  “Depends on what?”

  “On whether you’re particularly partial to breathing.” She flipped a couple of switches and brought us in to land on the canyon floor. The wheels touched stone and the engines whined into silence.

  “What’s the damage?”

  “A couple of high-velocity rounds through the main oxygen tank.”

  “Can it be fixed?”

  Clay shrugged. “Sure, but there wouldn’t be any point. All the air will have already leaked out.”

  “Don’t you have any emergency patches?”

  She looked ready to punch me. “We would have if this were a military shuttle.”

  “It’s not?”

  “Does it look armoured to you?” She hit the dashboard with the heel of her hand. “I don’t even know where this piece of shit came from, but it’s strictly civilian, and probably twenty years past its use-by date.” She unclipped her harness and stood. “But that’s one of the simple joys of working for the Recla
mation. Everything’s second-hand and nothing works quite the way it should.”

  I smiled, remembering the obsolete planes, equipment and personnel I’d had to put up with on Cichol.

  “Even the people?”

  She glared down at the young medic still strapped into the co-pilot’s seat. “Especially the people.”

  “So,” I unlocked my legs and flexed them against the Brain’s comparatively mild gravity. “What do we do?”

  “Well,” Clay put her hands on her hips, “we can’t take off without air. A shuttle this size ain’t big enough for a recycler, and we don’t even have enough pressure suits for all of us.” She waved a finger at my carbon-fibre bones. “And even if we did, we couldn’t get you into one wearing that, now could we?”

  I looked down at myself. “I guess not.”

  “And besides, without stripping down half the systems back there, I can’t tell how much more damage there might be. And I wouldn’t be happy taking her up without knowing what might fail.” She brushed her hands together with finality. “Bottom line is, we’re stuck here until the Dog comes back for us.”

  “Stuck?” Preston’s voice had grown squeaky with alarm.

  Clay put a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Yeah, well. At least we can breathe on the surface. That’s something.”

  The kid swivelled around in his chair. “We’re going out there? What about the guys with guns?”

  “They’re on the other side of that wall.” Clay jerked her thumb at the cliff.

  “They had aircraft.”

  “Yeah?” She reached into an overhead locker and pulled down her Archipelago pistol. “Well, I’ve got this.” She brandished the gun in his face. I had never used one myself, but knew its rocket-assisted slugs would be powerful enough to punch holes through a lightly armoured flyer.

  “The main wreck’s about a dozen klicks back down the canyon,” she said. “I say we stick to our original mission, and hike back there and look for survivors.”

  Her glare dared us to disagree.

  “Do I get a gun?” I asked.

  She gave me a look. “I’m not sure I trust you with that suit, let alone a weapon. If I’d had my way, for what you did to the captain, you’d have been eating vacuum in the hypervoid.”