“Oorah,” the marines said, their voices barely above a whisper.
Chapter 61
Tattered
Jake’s alien mech had the ability to rapidly self-heal—but not as fast as Roach was tearing it apart. As with their last duel on Eresos, the man-mech hybrid had the ability to absorb any pieces he managed to cut from Jake, adding to his already considerable mass.
During that fight, Roach had cut off Jake’s arm, and he’d struggled to regenerate it during combat. This time, his adversary seemed intent on decapitating him.
Jake wasn’t sure why Roach had suddenly become so fixated on that outcome, as thin blades as hard as diamond sliced toward his neck again and again. Who knew why Roach did anything? There was no doubt he was crazy. There also wasn’t any doubt that if it was Jake’s head he wanted, eventually, he would get it.
He stumbled backward, doing everything he could to fend off Roach’s frenetic attacks. A fountain graced the plaza’s center, which reminded him of one he’d seen in Plenitos, one of Eresos’ major cities. Roach was forcing him back toward it, probably hoping it would mess with Jake’s footing once he reached it. And it likely would, since Jake couldn’t afford to take his eyes off Roach’s swinging blades.
But as always, Roach had a surprise for him. Instead of slicing, he thrust at Jake’s chest with one of his blades, and instead of stabbing the blade became a long-barreled energy cannon that shot a concentrated blue-white ball into Jake’s chest. The force threw him back, and Roach leapt forward, never falling more than a few feet behind.
Jake’s back connected with the lip of the fountain, and for the second time today, Roach landed on top of him. Both his forearms had become ultra-thin blades again. Roach spread them wide, lining them up with Jake’s head as though about to prune a hedge.
Gunfire sounded, and Jake could hear it ricocheting against Roach’s back. The great mech whirled around without hesitation, head whipping back and forth as he sought its source.
Jake should have taken advantage of Roach’s diverted attention, but the shooting had taken him by surprise, too. Disgusted with himself, he pushed off of the fountain, getting to his feet. Even inside the mech dream, Jake was exhausted, and he staggered again as he regained his balance. That’s no excuse. Get it together. You command Oneiri—act like it.
Roach raised newly formed tubes in two directions, and where Jake expected energy to emerge, rockets did instead. Given enough time, the alien mechs had the capacity to fabricate missiles from collected material, but Jake normally tried to conserve them, since they took time to make.
The gunfire was nothing more than a distraction to Roach, the bullets pinging off his metal scales like pellets from a boy’s first gun. But it seemed to enrage him all the same, enough that he followed the first pair of rockets with two more.
Explosions blossomed, in an alley mouth and at an intersection where a street met the plaza. Jake rushed at his adversary, forearms becoming broadswords and feet becoming thrusters to propel him forward.
Both blades sunk into Roach’s back to the hilt, prompting him to whirl around again. His strength was immense, and without feet to find purchase against the plaza’s cobble, Jake traveled with the turn. He quickly addressed that lack, but too late—Roach’s wounds were sealing rapidly, pushing the broadswords out of his back as they did. Wow. Apparently Roach’s healing ability had received a lot of attention from the Progenitors as well.
Before his swords could be ejected completely, Jake withdrew them, turning them into rocket tubes of his own, which he fired point-blank at Roach as he turned around.
The explosions engulfed the larger mech, and Jake was close enough that intense heat washed over him too, enough to make him want to scream. He held it in, and when the smoke around Roach cleared, he was rewarded: the mech had been laid open, with circuitry gleaming darkly inside the cavity exposed.
“Price,” a voice echoed inside the dream.
“Gamble,” he said.
“I’m nearby, leading the squad that just fired on Roach. We’ve got a couple men down after those rockets, but we’re still in this, and I just put out the call for a couple gunships to come back you up. A platoon of marines with heavy artillery, too, though they’ll take longer to get here.”
Roach was striding toward Jake again, his chest knitting itself back up as he did. Damn. I should have let loose on that wound when I had the chance. But his exhaustion from the long duel had rendered his brain barely functional, and he’d let Gamble distract him from the fight, even though he should have been able to handle both.
“I don’t know how long I can hang in, here, Major,” Jake said, slightly ashamed at how hoarse his voice came out.
“You don’t have any other choice, son,” Gamble said. “And that’s an order. Who else is gonna take that thing down? The gunships are on their way. Gamble out.”
“You can’t defeat me,” Roach said as he drew closer. “You know that. But why embrace death out of stubbornness?”
“What are you talking about?”
Roach raised his arms, which ended in hands, now. “Forget your ties to this world. Let go of those who would limit and bind you. That’s meaningless content. Let it go.”
“And do what?”
“Merge with me. Become the most powerful being this universe has ever known—the most powerful the multiverse has known. We can rise. Together.”
“I’ll never join the Progenitors.”
“We can turn on the Progenitors. They will be our first target. And then we can rule. Wisely, and fairly. As long as lesser beings pay tribute.”
Roach had almost reached him. With a titanic effort of will, Jake straightened, drawing his shoulders back and raising his head.
Unbidden, a memory surfaced of the training program Roach had subjected all the mech pilot candidates to. Except, he hadn’t subjected them to it equally—certainly not on the day he’d knocked Jake to the ground in front of all the other recruits.
All because I questioned Darkstream.
Darkstream was gone, but Roach wasn’t, and now, Jake let him stand for everything Darkstream had ever done. Why not? He was always their obedient creature.
“You’ll always serve the Progenitors,” Jake said. “You need a master, and now that Darkstream’s gone, you’ll serve them for as long as they’re willing to use you.”
Roach didn’t answer…but his forearms were morphing, thinning out to become blades again. That was all the answer Jake needed. Roach marched forward, bringing the blades together as he did and scraping them against each other, generating a shower of orange sparks.
A whine sounded overhead, and Jake glanced past Roach’s shoulder—the gunships. His mech wasn’t capable of smiling, but Jake still felt a measure of satisfaction, and the mech dream played a harmonic chord for him, to mark the sentiment.
“You don’t scare me, Roach,” he shouted.
“That’s irrelevant,” Roach said, advancing.
“Yeah. Well, it was a lie, anyway. You freak me right the hell out.”
Jake widened his stance, lifting his broadsword-arms in readiness. His adversary charged, thin blades whistling through the air.
An overhead slash was met with Jake’s rising blade, and with his other he batted away a cut aimed at his side.
Then the gunships started in, hammering Roach from behind with their turrets, causing him to stagger forward on top of Jake, who used the break in the attack to plunge his blades into Roach’s stomach.
He flashed back to Eresos, back to thrusting his blades into Ingress’ city walls. His anger then had birthed a massive release of energy that had brought those walls down. Now, it was his determination to end Roach that did it—the sudden certainty that what Gamble had said was true. If Jake fell, so would everything else.
A tiny sun was born deep inside Roach, and it exploded outward, blowing out his entire left side and leaving him a twitching, mangled mess on the cobble.
But Jake knew that even
this would only put Roach down temporarily. Indeed, his tattered body was already curling in on itself, seeking itself. It had begun the process of piecing Roach back together.
Jake regrew hands and gathered Roach’s shredded form in his arms. Then, he rocketed upward. The plaza fell away, becoming a gray dot within seconds as Jake ascended rapidly through Thessaly’s atmosphere.
The color drained from the sky, soon replaced by the inky, star-studded blackness of space. Discordant chords produced by the mech dream told him of potential danger to his right, and when he accessed the visual sensors in that direction, he beheld the light show produced by Captain Husher and the Progenitors battling.
He didn’t move to join them. Instead, he veered left—toward the system’s center.
The journey took hours. Long enough for Roach to become something vaguely humanoid, though his torso would require a lot more work to stitch itself back together.
Even so, the half-formed alien mech began struggling weakly in Jake’s arms as he flew through space. Maybe it sensed what was coming.
Once he was near enough, Jake used his rockets to begin spinning. The frictionless arena of space allowed him to quickly begin rotating at high velocities, and the centripetal force taxed even the alien mech’s grip.
At last, he released Roach, and his aim was true. The larger mech sailed toward the sun. Jake turned his arms into energy cannons, sending Roach off with massive energy blasts that caught up with him and ensured he couldn’t repair himself in time to alter his course.
That done, Jake instructed the mech to telescope in, tracking Roach’s progress until he became a small, dark chip against the sun’s sea of fire.
When that chip disappeared, Jake knew it was over.
That was for Marco, he thought as he turned to rocket back toward Thessaly.
Chapter 62
Principled Stand
The massive barrage of specialized missiles that Husher had ordered succeeded in taking out two of the seven approaching ships. That was something, but it wasn’t enough.
“Captain Norberg has lost another destroyer, sir,” Winterton said.
“Acknowledged, Ensign,” Husher said, his voice coming out almost robotic. He wasn’t taking the fact of his defeat gracefully.
Think of Captain Keyes’s sacrifice, he told himself. Your sacrifice has to be just as meaningful, just as effective.
But that was impossible. When Keyes had gone down, he’d taken an entire Ixan fleet with him, and he’d ended the war. Husher had no means of doing anything comparable. His death would be just one of many—and a precursor to the inferno that would soon consume the galaxy.
He just had to hope Fesky managed to make it to the Progenitors’ home and report back with intel the IGF could use.
The enemy ships were circling the Vesta, angling to hit her forward port side, where the capacitor’s explosion had taken out the point defense turrets. Husher had ordered the Helm to rotate the supercarrier, keeping it away from her attackers, but the Progenitors had simply split their ships.
Now, three ships were coming around the other way. Once they aligned themselves with the damaged area, they began to pour Ravagers toward the wound.
“Take us back, Helm,” Husher said, feeling exhausted. “Full reverse thrust.”
What remained of the three Python Air Groups descended on the incoming Ravagers.
“Use Banshees to try to staunch the bleeding, Tactical,” Husher said. “Take some of the pressure off our pilots.”
“Aye, Captain.”
It was a temporary measure, Husher knew.
“Captain Norberg is down to five ships, sir,” Winterton said. “She lost a corvette.”
“Acknowledged.”
“They just managed to take down a Progenitor carrier in kind. It seems as though—” Winterton broke off mid-sentence, his forehead creased as he stared at whatever his console showed him. “Sir, a wormhole just opened behind the Progenitor ships facing Norberg, and warships are pouring through.”
Husher narrowed his eyes. “Who do they belong to?” As soon as he finished asking the question, he already knew the answer. IGF ships were no longer built with the capability to generate wormholes.
“They appear to be the Darkstream ships that fled Hellebore—that is, the old UHF ships, and the single Quatro vessel. They’re ripping into the Progenitors, sir. A destroyer just went down…and a carrier…and another destroyer!”
Husher watched in disbelief as the nine warships took the Progenitor force completely by surprise. They started in on another destroyer, pounding her hull with missiles—
—and without further ceremony, every Progenitor ship vanished from Larkspur.
Husher’s eyes were glued to the tactical display, body rigid, as he waited for them to return. Around him, all his officers seemed to be holding their breath.
The Progenitors didn’t return. It was over. Husher realized he’d been holding his breath as well, and he released it in a rush.
There was no celebrating inside the CIC. The cost of victory had been far too great. But they were alive.
“Coms,” he said, “send a transmission request to that battle group’s flagship. “I believe some thanks are owed.”
Soon, a middle-aged woman appeared on-screen. Her face had a gauntness to it, topped by short-cropped blond hair. But she was smiling.
“Captain Vanessa Harding, at your service,” she said. “I already know who you are, Captain Husher, so no introduction is required.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “But a thank you is in order, I believe, Captain.”
Harding’s smile broadened.
“Your employer and I have not always, uh, seen eye to eye,” he went on. “I’m surprised you came to help me. Not to mention the fact that you used a means of travel that’s wildly illegal.”
Nodding, Harding said, “We don’t consider ourselves part of Darkstream any longer, Captain. We’ve gathered that their star has fallen, and probably rightly so. Many of us disagree with the things they did back in the Steele System, but there, they were the only game in town. For many, the choice was to work for them or starve.”
“And the wormhole?”
Harding shrugged. “We heard that you were facing down a Progenitor fleet here and decided to come to your aid. We actually did poke our heads in through the darkgate—that was just before our arrival through the wormhole, and sensor data showed us you weren’t likely to survive long enough for us to cross the system under conventional means. So we broke the law. It’s up to you how you want to handle that, Captain, but I understand that you’ve had your own woes with the IU, recently. It’s still unclear how they’re going to handle you.”
“Is that why you decided to help?”
“Well, we recognize your importance to the war effort, Captain Husher. Yours, your ship’s, and your crew’s. We recognize the value of keeping galactic society from being wiped out. But most of all, we know that you refused to hand over the Quatro on your ship to the Assembly of Elders. Our Quatro friends have told us about the horrors the Elders have committed. We were impressed by your principled stand, and we’ve decided to cast our lot with you.”
“I appreciate that. And I hope you won’t come to regret it.”
“Personally, I won’t. No matter what happens. And I believe the same goes for most of the beings in our tiny fleet.”
“There were dozens of civilian ships with you, weren’t there? Are they safe?”
Harding nodded. “They are. We’ll reveal their location once we’ve received assurances they’ll be taken care of.”
“Very good.” Price and Sato will be glad to know their families are well.
Chapter 63
Sidearm
“There are certain things I’ll stand for,” Husher said, looking around at those gathered inside the Cybele’s City Council chamber, “and certain things I won’t.”
Many groups were represented inside the chamber. Looking around, his eyes fell on Ja
ke Price, Lisa Sato, and the rest of Oneiri Team. Captain Vanessa Harding was here, and Ek. President Chiba had sent high-ranking Union officials representing all four member species to meet with them—though notably, the president hadn’t come himself. The city council was here as well. And Maeve.
Husher had also invited Penelope Snyder and Toby Yung, who’d seated themselves on opposite ends of the council chamber.
“If we’re going to have a hope of surviving the onslaught that’s coming, we can’t have any more fighting between us. That’s what the Progenitors want—indeed, I believe they’ve tried to actively encourage it. We’ve allowed the fires of ideology to be stoked so high they nearly consumed us, and if we don’t get our act together, they still might.”
His eyes fell on Yung, then on Snyder. “Our society has fragmented into two polarized camps—the far left and the far right. Each side sees themselves as the righteous saviors of the galaxy, but you’re both wrong. You’re its executioners.”
Husher let that sink in before continuing. “The fact is, we need each other. All of us. Liberals need conservatives, and vice versa. For a balanced society, we need both. If we didn’t, the various species never would have evolved to have both. Liberals are for finding worthy new things to adopt, and conservatives are for deciding what about our society is worth keeping, and defending. We need each other—we all need each other. Humans need Quatro. Quatro need Kaithe. Kaithe need Wingers, and Wingers need Tumbra. If we allow ourselves to fragment and fight each other, then we’re lost. To lose sight of that is to play right into the enemy’s hands, and the enemy will happily consume us for it.”
His eyes fell on the officials sent by the president. “The IU doesn’t get to slide into tyranny. You don’t get to violate the principles of a democratic society just to impose your own misguided vision on the world. The people will rise up and tear you down for that. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. But we don’t have time for it.” Husher shook his head. “You can have the alliance with the Assembly of Elders, because we need it. But that doesn’t mean imitating them, and it doesn’t mean letting them influence how we govern ourselves. We live in a free society, where everyone has the opportunity to make something of themselves—and yes, where we help each other out. But we don’t tear one group down to help another.
Ixan Legacy Box Set Page 48