The Gardens of Nibiru (The Ember War Saga Book 5) (7 page)

****

Torni landed on the surface of the Crucible and activated her magnetic linings, which failed to latch onto the gold-flecked basalt of the structure.

“Damnit.” She twisted around and dug her hands into the surface, slowing her to a stop.

“Whoa!” Stacey Ibarra flailed her arms wildly and bounced off the alien metal. Torni found purchase with the gravity generators in her feels and stomped across the surface to interdict Stacey’s messy landing before she continued off into the void.

“Spoiled brat princess,” she murmured and caught Stacey, the ensign’s back to her. Torni flipped her over and found the suit full of total darkness.

“Freeze,” Minder said. He came up behind Torni, wearing his robe while Torni was in her combat armor for the Battle of the Crucible.

Torni held Stacey’s suit, her hands trembling as the darkness within Stacey’s suit coalesced into the rough outline of a person.

“Who is this?” Minder asked.

“Stacey Ibarra. She had…” The shape in the suit grew more distinct. “We had to get her to the control room. We got separated later on.”

Stacey became a young woman with neck-length dark hair, wild and loose inside the helmet.

“You know her from elsewhere?” Minder asked.

“Phoenix. The lieutenant had to get her to the tower…something about the other Ibarra, her grandfather,” Torni said.

Stacey’s face became clear, fear on her frozen face.

Minder looked around, surveying the Crucible. They stood on the outer edge of the wreath, much of the rest blocked from view.

“A complete jump gate in human possession. A gift beyond price that we would have gladly given.” Minder flicked his wrist and Stacey vanished. “You know what this is? It’s the evolution of jump-engine technology. Perfect point-to-point travel with no risk of a rupture. All the gates are tied to each other, allowing information to travel the entire breadth of our network without delay. A message from one edge of the galaxy to the other in the blink of an eye. Sending ships or people is a bit more complicated, but not a challenge.”

“Why didn’t you use them in your home galaxy?” Torni asked. “Might have saved you some trouble.”

“Pride. Expense. Independence. All petty concerns. Come, let’s see if we’ve made any progress.” He clapped his hands and they were on the
Breitenfeld’s
deck. The sled carrying Stacey to the ship grew closer.

Minder and Torni watched the slide set down, then a holo-globe rose from it. Torni hissed and squeezed her eyes shut.

Yarrow was next to the gurney, speaking to Torni.

“Progress, some progress.” Minder tapped a finger against his chin. “I need to discuss an idea with someone else. Where should I send you? Stockholm? San Diego?”

“Coronado Island, summertime?”

“Done.” Torni vanished, sent into a memory loop to rest and recuperate.

Minder shifted back into his black-hole appearance and beckoned to his master.

A mote of light rose from nothing and wobbled in front of him.

An ephemeral? Have I fallen so far that only the least of our constructs will speak with me?

The mote didn’t respond. It would take his report to the Keeper then self-destruct, protecting the master from Minder’s corruption.

I’ve gained the human’s trust. She believes her race will be spared with her cooperation, a fabrication on my part, but the species clings to a concept it refers to as “hope.” Neural association making limited progress. Her simulated consciousness isn’t fully synched with the scan the General obtained. I will try fusing external data with the scan. The process will be traumatic, but has a chance of success.

The ephemeral vanished. Minder watched as Torni re-experienced a day on the beach with a male named MacDougall. It reached back into its own memory archives to the time it was a flesh-and-blood creature. It found the files for its life mate and associated progeny.

Something stirred within Minder, a sensation long forbidden that would result in immediate termination if the master detected the change.

What is the word? What would Torni call this? “Nostalgia”…no, “happiness.”
It considered shunting the feelings away, but it was doomed once this project was complete no matter if it violated the master’s laws.

Minder dug deeper, and found more emotions.

The command dome on the Crucible was unusually full. At a long conference table sat Admirals Garrett and Makarov, and several of their senior staff officers, along with civilians from Phoenix. More staff and hangers-on sat huddled around the overly large workstations surrounding the purpose-built table.

Marc Ibarra’s hologram sat at the head of the table, boredom writ across his face.

“This time table is ridiculous,” said Colonel Mitchell, the commander of Titan Station. “There’s no way the
Christophorus
will be space-worthy by then.”

A civilian in Ibarra Corp coveralls tapped at a data slate and a holo of a starship still in its construction framework popped up over the table. Claire Kilcullen, a top-notch shipwright Ibarra poached from Boeing decades ago, tapped her slate against the table for attention.

“We reprioritized the omnium foundry to create the colony ship’s more intricate components, which includes a state-of-the-art fabrication suite. There’s no way to get the ship replacement parts where it’s going,” she said. “We’ll have it ready to leave at least two days ahead of schedule—so long as I get the builder drones reassigned from the
Midway
, like I’ve said the last three times we had this meeting.”

“Eighth Fleet is at barely fifty percent capacity,” Makarov said. “How long do you think we’re going to last if the Toth come back tomorrow?”

“They won’t,” Ibarra said. “Let’s have some faith in the
Breitenfeld
. So long as they manage to put a scare into Mentiq it’ll buy us plenty of time. The Toth aren’t expecting the first news of their attack on us for another…” Ibarra looked at an imaginary watch on his wrist “two days. They won’t move on us again without Mentiq’s say so, and even then it will take them weeks to get here. We’ve got time to spare.” Ibarra looked at Admiral Garrett.

“We’ll move the robots to the
Christophorus
, effective immediately,” Garrett said.

Makarov said something in Russian that made Ibarra wince.

“That leaves the torch party, the first colonists to settle Terra Nova before the next wave,” said Glezos, a swarthy man with dark curly hair. Since the untimely death of Administrator Lawrence at the hands of the Toth, he’d became Phoenix’s de facto mayor. “The skill requirements for anyone to even apply for the lottery are pretty high. You’re looking to take our best and brightest from the city and send them to the far end of the galaxy.”

“Again,” Ibarra said, “the
Christophorus
needs the best and it needs redundancy. They lose the one surgeon or environmental engineer we send with them and the entire mission is in jeopardy.”

“Then send a proccie tube.” Glezos tossed his hands in the air. “They can recreate—”

“No. A single tube’s energy and computer needs are more than we can cram into the ship as it is,” Ibarra said. “Terra Nova is far. The Crucible can barely open a single gateway before the gravity tides make it impossible, and only a ship
that
size,” he said, pointing to the holo, “can make it. There’s no room for error or any additional space.” Ibarra leaned back.
And only true born will win the lottery, but none of them need to know that.

“Besides, I need every tube here on Earth and Mars building up our defenses for the Xaros return,” Ibarra said. “We can cram six thousand, nine hundred and twelve colonists into the
Christophorus
. That is exactly what we’re going to do before we launch the ship.

“Next order of business.” Ibarra tapped on a data slate, but his holographic finger sank through the device and the table. “Damn it. Someone bring up the second-phase expansion charts.”

Dozens of the solar system’s planets and named celestial bodies formed in the holo tank over the conference table. Data tables with population numbers, ship-building facilities and attendant infrastructure appeared next to the planets stretching from Mercury to distant Eris. Everything but Earth, Luna and Ceres had data tables full of glaring red indicators. Mars had a few blocks of flashing amber; construction drones had arrived on the planet a few days earlier.

“This is garbage, people,” Ibarra said. “Before you all start whining about the Toth attack and how that threw a monkey wrench in our works, let me remind you that excuses aren’t going to beat the Xaros. We need to establish a defense in depth, bleed the Xaros from the far edge of the solar system to Earth. We need the production facilities up and running at full speed within the next few months or the math gets very bad for us.”

“Show the Day Zero projections,” Admiral Garrett said. Data tables went green as the computer ran projections to the day the Xaros were expected to arrive roughly fourteen years in the future. Fleets of starships dotted the solar system.

Glezos looked at the population numbers and rubbed his eyes. “That can’t be right. Twelve billion people in the solar system?”

“There’s nothing more powerful in the universe than compound interest,” Ibarra said. “Procedural human tubes are in full production and we’re building as many as we can along with warships, fighters and power armor. The vast majority of the new units coming online are military personnel.”

“There won’t be enough true born around to matter,” someone said from the wings.

“There’s no survival without the proccies,” Ibarra said, “and I don’t think they need to prove which side of the fight they’re on, not after so many died in Eighth Fleet against the Toth to save Phoenix. This is how we win the next round. The ember that survived the Xaros invasion will grow into a bonfire, but even that can’t beat back the tide. We beat the Xaros maniple. The next wave will be exponentially larger.”

“This will turn into an arms race,” Makarov said. “Whoever brings more to the fight will win.”

“And the Xaros have most of the galaxy to draw from,” Garrett said. “We’ve got our solar system.”

“The rest of the Alliance will help, but they can’t get here until we finish this jump gate,” Ibarra said. “I’ve got my top people working on that issue. Now, let’s discuss why the Martian construction efforts are eighteen hours behind—”

A rumble shook the room. Lights flickered and the holo tank cut out. Low moans came through the walls as the station’s giant thorns shifted against each other.

“Jerry?” Ibarra called out to the Alliance probe within the Crucible.

+Something is trying to activate the gate.+

Ibarra pulled up a holo screen in front of his face and brought up the station’s emergency overrides that were partitioned off from the probe’s control. The Qa’Resh had given Stacey the keys to subvert the probe’s systems to allow some of humanity to escape the Toth attack. Ibarra hadn’t let the probe lock the back-door access that Ibarra kept for emergencies just like this.

“Is it the
Breitenfeld
?” Ibarra asked. He ignored the shouts and confusion from the rest of the conference room as Makarov and Garrett fought to keep everyone under control as the Crucible rearranged itself.

+No. I can’t detect where the signal is coming from. I find this most aggravating.+

“Do I need to shut you down?”

+I am constantly readjusting the thorns to upset the quantum field state within the wreath. Would you like to make those calculations
and
move the thorns?+

The rumbles stopped. Ibarra pulled up a camera feed of the center of the wreath and saw nothing but empty space.

“You did it?”

+Difficult to say. Whoever coopted the Crucible had complete control for a third of a second before I was able to intervene. They could have opened a jump gate.+

“From where?”

+Unknown. Curious, had they opened the gate, there would have been a .002 percent chance of a quantum rupture. Perhaps they didn’t want to take the risk. I will forward the data to Bastion once Stacey returns.+

“I thought the Crucibles were perfect technology, no quantum ruptures.”

+They are, but our Crucible is ninety-one percent complete. I lack the ability and knowledge to complete the structure, which just proved fortuitous. I’d kept the Crucible in its default setting, which may have made it easier for whoever just knocked on our door. I will reset the quantum field for the
Breitenfeld
’s
return, then keep things in flux to dissuade future attempts.+

Ibarra closed the emergency shut-down protocols and pulled up a stellar map with Earth and Barnard’s Star, the closest known Xaros-occupied territory.

“They know. They know Earth survived and they’re coming for us right now.”

+We’ve observed coordination between distant Xaros forces before. The speed of light has proved to be the only reliable planning factor. There is no way a distress signal from their defeat here has reached any other Xaros.+

“Then they figured out something from us survived from the encounter on Anthalas, or Takeni when we met up with that red armored bastard,” Ibarra said. “If that thing got the ball rolling out of Barnard’s Star that much sooner…”

+The Xaros will arrive in nine years, not fourteen. This puts our force projections significantly lower. Our chance of surviving the next wave is now exceedingly low, in the single digits.+

“Damn.” Ibarra took his attention away from the probe and found Admirals Garrett and Makarov standing in front of him, neither waiting patiently.

“What is it?” Makarov asked.

“We need to break out our contingency plans,” Ibarra said. “I hate to tell you this, Makarov, but the name of your flagship, the
Midway
, just became very relevant.”

****

The Iron Hearts’ armor stood in their lidless coffins. Cables ran from ports arrayed over the suits into a diagnostic station on wheels. The third suit’s chest piece was open, exposing the armored womb within. Kallen’s face floated behind the view pane, her eyes closed. A pair of armor techs in gray coveralls crowded around the diagnostic station. An empty wheelchair waited at the end of a walkway.

Bodel, wearing nothing but a dark skinsuit, rubbed a towel through his thin hair. He glanced over the techs’ shoulders, then moved one aside.

“She has to come out—now,” Bodel said. He punched commands into the station and fluid drained slowly out of Kallen’s womb.

“She’s fine. Let her sleep and keep her synch rate high,” Elias said, his voice booming through his suit’s speakers.

“Do you see her blood oxygenation rate, Elias?” Bodel pointed an accusing finger at his fellow Iron Heart. “She’s already in second-stage whither. A few more hours like this and she’ll go into shock.”

“Then give her an adrenaline spike.” Elias’ armor shifted in its coffin. “She’s had her armor on for longer than this.”

“This isn’t a contest, Elias!” Bodel shouted. His head snapped toward the two techs, who took the hint and hustled out of the cemetery.

“Why are you coddling her? She knows her plugs better than anyone in the fleet or on Earth,” Elias said.

Kallen’s womb lowered from the housing inside the armor. Bodel unsnapped the latches on a seam running over the long axis and grabbed a handle on the front.

“She doesn’t want me to tell you. Said you have enough to worry about with your condition—”

“Hans…” Elias’ fingers snapped against his palm as they formed into fists.

“She’s dying. Batten’s Disease…we all knew it was a risk when we got our plugs. She had a seizure just before we left Earth. Doctor Eeks says she’s beyond the point for treatment. We would have picked it up earlier but she’s quadriplegic. Early symptoms never manifested. Her nervous system is degrading.” Bodel reached a hand up and touched the glass over Kallen’s face. “The longer she wears her armor…the faster she’ll fall apart.”

“You asked her to quit?”

“I begged. But she won’t. She’s like you. The armor is all she has.” Bodel bent his forehead to the glass.

“Then why are you still putting her in the armor?”