As Husher considered the meaning of what Winterton had told him, he caught himself drumming his fingers against his seat’s armrest, and stopped.
They left the asteroid belt at last, and Winterton spoke again: “A sizable battle group is moving out from Earth orbit on an intercept course. Seven destroyers and eleven carriers.”
Husher knew who would be in command of that battle group: he would. Or at least, a darker version of himself.
Still, it was himself. Yes, what the Progenitor Lisa Sato had told him about this Husher had made his stomach churn and cost him sleep. It had haunted him, refusing to leave him alone until he took a hard look, deep inside himself.
How could any version of Vin Husher do the things this Husher has done? What would cause me to act so ruthlessly?
He thought he knew the answer. And soon, he would have the opportunity to test his theory.
“Coms, get me Commander Ayam.”
Chapter 56
Warpath
“We’re getting a transmission request, sir,” Ensign Fry said. “It’s from the destroyer that appears to be serving as their flagship.”
“Accept, and put it on the viewscreen. I want a split-screen: the transmission on the left and a tactical display on the right, focused on the approaching ships.”
“Aye, sir.”
The fact that there were only eighteen defending ships meant Husher’s greatest hope had been realized: the Progenitors had sent almost everything they had to attack Home. In fact, he’d considered this the most likely scenario. After Fesky’s appearance here, they would have been motivated to stamp out the IU as quickly as possible, before a viable attack on this dimension could be marshaled.
And the Vesta was that attack—almost certainly the only attack the Milky Way would ever launch against the Progenitor system. Whether it was viable or not would be determined over the next handful of hours.
Husher’s own face appeared on the part of the viewscreen he’d designated for the transmission. Even though he’d tried to prepare himself for this moment as best could, he now realized that nothing could have prepared him.
An angry scar divided his face, running from temple to chin, and the corner of his mouth was misshapen as a result. Even more disturbing was the man’s gaze: colder and more hollow than Husher could have imagined possible, even during his most personal, most doubt-filled moments of staring into the mirror.
“I’m genuinely shocked,” the other Husher said.
“Are you?” Husher said, managing to moderate his tone so he sounded only mildly interested.
“I’m shocked you’d abandon your galaxy to come here, at the very moment it’s about to fall. I honestly didn’t expect it, and I am you. So congratulations on that. It’s obviously futile for you to come here, of course. Your lone ship can’t challenge our defenses. But you have surprised me, even if you did it by exhibiting incredible stupidity.”
“I’m betting it won’t be the first time you surprise yourself today.” He motioned to his Coms officer to cut the transmission. “All ahead, Helm.”
“Aye, sir.”
Given the Vesta’s present course, “all ahead” would take them straight at the enemy’s right flank. Some might have called that a dangerous maneuver, when faced with eighteen warships, seven of which wielded particle beams.
“Tremaine, open with our missile barrage.”
“Yes, sir.”
A great wave of Banshees, Gorgons, and the remaining Hydras left the Vesta, spreading out as they screamed across the void toward the flank the supercarrier was already barreling toward.
“Coms, tell Ayam to scramble Pythons.”
“Aye.”
The deadly starfighters leapt from their launch tubes, hard on the missiles’ heels, ready to engage whatever the missiles failed to clear away. Ayam’s subspace squadron disappeared from the tactical display, adding even more menace to the attack.
As the parade of missiles, fighters, and supercarrier reached the targeted flank, Progenitor ships began to vanish, transitioning out of this dimension to avoid getting hit. Then, at the Vesta’s top speed, Husher gave another order: “Coms, tell Major Gamble that he is clear to launch.”
“Aye.”
Seconds later, a host of shuttles surged from the Vesta, surrounded by dozens of mechs.
The last of the Progenitor ships was now transitioning out of the universe to remove themselves from the missiles’ and Pythons’ warpath. “Transmit the deactivation signal to our missiles,” Husher said, eyes on Ensign Fry.
“Doing so now, sir.”
The Air Group sailed past the enemy formation without attempting to engage them, and the shuttles’ and mechs’ greater speed soon allowed them to catch up with the Pythons. As for the missiles, they would sail on, their destructive power neutralized. Husher hadn’t wanted to risk the missiles hitting this version of Earth, even if the version of humanity it housed had allowed all this to happen. He also hadn’t wanted to destroy the great space station that orbited the planet. The station where he expected his marines would find his old friend.
“The enemy ships that didn’t transition out are overreacting, just as you predicted, Captain,” Winterton said. “I think they’ve realized we never planned to actually engage them.”
“What are they sending at us?”
“Particle beams, though they’re unlikely to be able to focus them properly, given our speed. They have however already launched nearly a thousand Ravagers, along an arc wide enough to intercept us, even if we accelerate. A few more Progenitor ships have transitioned out.”
Husher nodded. He’d expected that, too. They would likely try to intercept the shuttles carrying Vesta marines, which was why he’d sent his entire Air Group as escort.
“Let’s see how the Progenitors like being made to waste massive amounts of ordnance,” he said. “Noni, transition us out.”
Chapter 57
Merging
A destroyer and two carriers appeared directly in the marine shuttles’ path, in an attempt to stop them from reaching the huge station orbiting the Progenitor version of Earth.
But Captain Husher had anticipated it. Ayam’s subspace squadron dropped back into realspace to execute a drive-by alpha strike on the destroyer before transitioning out again. The missiles slammed into the ship’s hull, and then the rest of the Air Group began descending on all three ships, squadron by squadron, heedless of the Ravagers and point defense fire tearing them up.
Jake had rarely beheld such a willingness to die in battle, and it reaffirmed for him what he’d already realized: everyone who’d come with Husher to the Progenitor’s home system had known they were embarking on a suicide mission. Clearly, they’d embraced that fact. At least, these Python pilots had. They fell by the dozens, but they were getting the job done, one way or another.
Even from inside his alien mech, Jake felt a strange and uncomfortable kinship with the dying pilots. In some real sense, he was them, and as they died, so did parts of him.
This was something he’d been contending with since the Vesta had arrived in the Kaithian home system. He began to feel like humanity wasn’t just his species, but his soul. And after Husher’s speech to everyone who’d gathered together in that system, Jake had even begun to identify with the IU as a whole, despite their corruption and folly.
I guess this is exactly how you want to feel, when the chips are down. Each fighter wasn’t just part of the whole, they were the whole, and they fought hard for base survival.
When he drew near enough, Jake formed his arms into a single, massive energy cannon and began blasting away at the hull of the nearest carrier. Moments later, the rest of Oneiri Force added their fire.
At last, the destroyer exploded, flinging shrapnel in all directions. Then so did both carriers, all in quick succession. The ensuing shrapnel took out a few more Pythons, along with two shuttles and even a MIMAS.
But they were through.
Jake kept the energy cann
on intact, and several minutes later he drew close enough to the station to use it. He blasted away at the broad hull on approach, working to open an area large enough for the shuttles and the mechs to pour in.
But the station wasn’t taking this lying down. Dozens upon dozens of point defense turrets blazed all across its surface, and lasers flashed from myriad projectors. The remainder of the Vesta’s Air Group engaged them all, destroying as many as they could while providing cover for the massive boarding party. Husher had held three marine platoons back to guard against any Ravagers that penetrated his supercarrier’s hull. The rest were on shuttles about to enter this station.
Jake hit the station’s deck running. He was inside what looked to be a cavernous, multi-tiered storage bay, with elevators, escalators, and floor-crawlers hauling freight up and down and across the station’s various levels.
Gunfire followed that realization: turrets directing high-velocity rounds at his mech, and pressure-suited human and Ixan soldiers sending all manner of ordnance from positions on multiple levels. Assault rifle fire, sniper fire, rockets, grenades—Jake sprinted to the left to escape the heat, fearful of his mech getting compromised, despite its extreme durability.
MIMAS mechs started entering the station through the opening Jake had created, and right away three were neutralized by the concentrated enemy fire.
Jake dove behind a stack of sturdy-looking metal crates, turning to level his energy cannon at the interior bulkhead of the station’s hull. Several energy blasts later, he’d created a second point of ingress. That done, he got on a wide channel: “I want half of you to start coming through the breach I just made. The enemy’s giving us hell, and we need to start establishing a position.”
As he finished the transmission, he split the single energy cannon into two and sprang from hiding, aiming at two targets at once and opening fire. He swept the cannons across multiple hostiles.
Two more Oneiri mechs went down, but Jake’s covering fire allowed several more to reach the deck and run to safety behind crates, vehicles, terminals, and whatever other cover the huge facility had to offer.
Finally, the tide of battle began to turn. As Oneiri Force established a foothold, the marines began to arrive, their shuttles’ outer airlocks already open. Vesta marines in pressure suits leapt out, rushing to the combat shuttle’s fold-out barriers and increasing the pressure on the enemy.
At last, they neutralized enough enemy soldiers to gain some breathing room. “I’m sure they’ll send more at us,” Jake said to Major Gamble over a two-way channel. The major was positioned behind a barrier two shuttles over, peering through a sniper scope and scanning the station’s levels for more targets. “Can I make a suggestion, Major?”
“Please do.”
“We need to get out of this storage area. We’re way too vulnerable here. If you and your marines take a couple freight elevators, we can start using them to deploy to different levels and find a way deeper into the station.”
Gamble tilted his head to one side. “We’ll be even more vulnerable inside the elevators.”
“That’s where my mechs come in. We’ll rocket from level to level and cover you.”
“All right. I like it. We’d better start moving—I’m sure you’re right that more company is on the way.”
The prediction soon proved out: enemy fire picked up a few seconds after the first marines piled into an elevator, Gamble among them.
A rocket sailed toward the elevator from one of the upper levels, but Jake managed to pick it off well before it reached its target. He jumped on an Oneiri-wide channel: “We need to make sure no explosive ordnance makes it to those elevators while marines are inside. Make good use of the mech dream, people. Listen to it like I’ve been training you to listen. Do that, and you’ll be shooting grenades out of the air with ease.”
The remaining thirty-one MIMAS mechs performed admirably, though Jake, Ash, Rug, and Maura did most of the work. Even with all the drama they’d suffered through recently, they still operated as a seamless unit, with each pilot’s strengths compensating for the weaknesses of the next.
At last, they located two entrances that appeared to lead deeper into the station, separated by several levels from each other.
“We’ll split up,” Gamble said. “Cut down on our chances of going the wrong way. We’re not long on time.”
“Sounds good, Major.”
“I want you to take half the battalion with you, under your direct command. I’ll take the other.”
“Acknowledged, Major. God speed.”
“And you.”
The station’s corridors were broad and tall, larger than any Jake had seen inside a space-based structure. It gave his forces lots of room to spread out, but it also gave the station defenders plenty of attack angles. Each intersection was a potential battle, and as they fought through the station, most of the time that potential was realized.
Jake charged in with his mechs first, engaging the defenders with as much shock and awe as they could bring to bear. Then the marines would charge in, to plug the gaps.
The approach worked well. For a time.
As he charged into yet another intersection, the world went black, as though every one of the station’s lights had blown out at once.
He felt himself crash to his knees, felt the gunfire that peppered his mech’s skin. Ash’s voice came through the dream: “Jake, what’s going on?”
Then even her voice was gone, along with the sensation of the metal deck beneath him. The din of battle faded to nothing.
You will yield to me, came the whispers. Here, in my homeland, you will yield. You have refused to merge willingly, and so you will be enslaved.
“No,” Jake said, but with a creeping horror, he realized that the process had already begun. He felt his mind and nervous system being probed, scanned. It took only a few seconds, and when it finished, he began to dissolve.
“No!” he screamed, even as his fingertips were eaten away by whatever acidic solution the mech had deployed.
With a titanic effort of will, he made reality slam back into place, and he forced the mech to surge to his feet. All around him, marines and mechs were cleaning up the defending force that had attempted to outflank them using the intersection.
“Let’s go!” Jake yelled over a wide channel. “We have to go now!”
Both his arms became broadswords, and relying on only his instincts and internal compass, he began charging through the station. Someone stumbled out of a hatch a couple meters ahead of him, and Jake cleaved him in two without thinking to check whether he was armed or not.
Desperation drove him. Nothing could impede him before he reached his goal.
Before he reached Lisa.
At the next intersection, the defenders attempted the same pincering tactic, just with more firepower. Jake threw himself into a roll, though he wasn’t able to avoid all the gunfire, and it bit into his shifting metal flesh. Then he was through the intersection, barreling through the ranks trying to hold this corridor. Broadswords flashed in the overhead halogens, and blood sprayed. He cut a swath through the defenders and continued on, their bullets eating into his back. The pain was immense, but when a bullet dug deep enough to enter his human body’s back, he barely felt it at all.
Relinquish your human form, the mech commanded. It is done.
And so it was. Jake’s hands had dissolved past the wrists, now, leaving only the nerve endings. His feet and ankles were gone, too. The merging process showed no sign of stopping.
His mad charge brought him to what had to be the center of the station, based on the data the mech had compiled on his trajectory since entering it.
A hatch bigger than any he’d seen greeted him at the end of the corridor, and he blasted it open with energy cannons.
Inside, he found a cavernous chamber whose ceiling wasn’t visible through the dimness overhead. Only the floor was lit, though Jake couldn’t see any lights. Such a chamber seemed odd aboard an
orbital station, especially since its only purpose was apparently to house the single chair in its very center.
Strapped to that chair was a Winger, though barely recognizable as one. Blood stained the wings, which looked tattered and flayed open in parts. As Jake drew closer, he saw that the Winger’s beak was cracked, and that several of its talons had been sheared off.
“Commander Fesky,” he said, standing over her. She was trembling.
Her eyes locked onto his mech’s face, with a fervor that took him aback. “I said nothing,” she said, her voice a faint rasp. “I said nothing.”
“I’ll take you out,” he replied, converting his energy cannons into thin blades. She winced away as he lowered them to flick apart the straps binding her. He wanted to tell her that his mech was consuming him. He wanted to tell someone. But he barely dared to speak to Fesky at all, in her current condition. She looked as though an errant breeze would break her.
According to what she’d just said, though, she hadn’t broken.
Jake carried Fesky out into the corridor, with her nestled in one arm while he used the other in energy-cannon form, blasting apart hatches one by one.
At last, he found the one he was looking for. It led to a single chamber, which was divided in half by metal bars. On the other side of the bars, dozens of prisoners were being held. Most species were represented—humans, Kaithe, Wingers, and even a Quatro that looked just like the Eldest. The chamber’s temperature was that of a sauna, and it took a moment for him to grasp the purpose: to prevent the Quatro from using its superconducting ability to bend the bars.
Then, Jake’s gaze fell on her. Lisa Sato sat with her back against the wall, eyes wide and unfocused.
“Lisa,” he called. She didn’t respond.
Anger flooded him, and adrenaline, and he set Fesky down to grip a pair of metal bars, wrenching them apart. They buckled outward, and he stepped back to allow the prisoners to start climbing out.
“Take her with you,” he commanded, pointing at Lisa. A Winger bent to scoop her into its arms.
Ixan Legacy Box Set Page 70