The Siege of Earth (The Ember War Saga Book 7) (19 page)

The Destrier flew through the
Breitenfeld
’s
aft hangar entrance and set down once it had enough real estate to land on. The rest of the flight deck was full of armor soldiers. Eagles packed the sides of the flight line. Nearly a hundred suits filled the deck, grouped in packs of three to twelve. Most bore scars across their armor; others were missing arms, legs, and even a few lacked their helms.

The Destrier opened its forward ramp and Elias took a step down then froze in place. He hadn’t seen so many armor since the Second Battle of Brisbane where the combined armor of the entire Atlantic Union destroyed the Chinese People’s Army III Corps and saved the city from falling to the invaders.

Every last suit of armor was looking right at Elias.

Elias thumped his fist against his chest in salute. The armor returned the salute with a ripple of metal-on-metal bangs.

“Elias, ’bout time you got here.” Carius walked up the ramp in his deep gray armor with black bands around the shoulder plates. He lifted a thick chain bound to the General’s damaged faceplate and placed it over Elias’ helm. A cam bot flew up the ramp and panned over Elias.

“You’ve got an admirer, my boy. Not the kind that sends fan letters. This…General is on Mars and he’s been head-hunting armor,” Carius said. “Took out an entire squadron at Gradivus cannon.” The colonel’s helm shook from side to side. “We’re pretty sure he’s looking for you.”

“Then why am I not on Mars looking for him?” Elias asked.

“We’ve learned a little about the Xaros leadership from that Torni friend of yours. Seems the alien bigwigs aren’t above pride and vengeance. We’re going to use that to our advantage—get the General to come chase you to Earth, take some of the pressure off Mars,” Carius said.

“Send us back. I ripped his face off once. I can do it again,” Elias said.

“You’ll get your chance. Right now we need to set the trap and you’re the bait. Hope you don’t mind,” Carius said. “Now smile to the camera. We’re about to broadcast this across the solar system.”

Elias looked straight into the cam bot. He held up the General’s mask and leaned toward the camera.

“I want the rest of you.”

****

Ibarra paced back and forth across the Crucible’s command center. He’d returned to this old habit once the Xaros entered the outer solar system. His holographic feet couldn’t wear a rut in the deck, and they never grew sore or tired. There were a few advantages to having his consciousness live on inside the Alliance probe, but he had no fist to smash against anything when the desire arose.

“Jimmy, what’s our status?” he asked the probe in the center of the domed room.

The probe’s answer was a flat holo screen showing the Crucible, surrounded by nearly a hundred ships of the line. Point defense cannons sparred with swarms of drones trying to slip through the defenders.

A few drones had made it through, only to be destroyed by the doughboy and Marine defenders manning small bunkers atop the many control nodes and inside the long hallways running through the conjoined thorns making up the Crucible.

The probe didn’t answer with words. All but a sliver of its computing power worked to stymie the Xaros trying to regain control of their nearly complete jump gate. The hacking attempts started once the leading Xaros forces reached a few light-minutes from Earth. The Xaros managed to throw off the Crucible from sending more graviton bombs, but the probe could control the quantum field within the great crown of thorns to keep the door open for the
Breitenfeld
…or reinforcements from the Alliance.

Where are they, Stacey?

Ibarra zoomed out from the Crucible. An enormous mass of Xaros drones lay between Ceres and Earth. Constructs the size of strike cruisers and great murmurations of drones stood guard between the fleet protecting the Crucible and humanity’s home. Another, smaller force of Xaros waited in the void beyond Ceres’ orbit…waiting for the defenders to make a mistake.

If the fleet guarding the Crucible made for Earth, it would be mauled by the cruiser-sized constructs and the waiting Xaros would swoop in and take the Crucible. If the Xaros assaulted the Crucible, the defenses in the void around the jump gate and built into Earth’s second moon would defeat the attackers.

The standoff had held for hours, and Ibarra wasn’t sure how much longer the human defenders could maintain their patience.

“Crucible, this is Captain Gor’al on the
Vorpal
.” The Dotok’s face came up on the holoscreen. “Earth command reports that we just lost the orbital over Guam. Ground stations across the Pacific Rim are sending me…I don’t know what this is.”

A camera feed from Okinawa came up. A great dark swell of drones poured through the atmosphere, skirting the fire from the remaining orbital batteries in low orbit.

“Not again…” Ibarra shook his head.

“What ‘not again,’ Ibarra?” Gor’al asked.

“They’re forming an extinction arch,” Ibarra said. “The Alliance has seen it on many worlds, and I saw it up close and personal when Earth fell. Watch.”

The drones pressed together, melding into a slight curve that grew to over a hundred miles in length within minutes. The arch in the storm clouds rolled over Okinawa. Sharp points grew out of the bottom like a predator’s teeth. Red energy grew from each tip. The camera feed cut out in a wave of light and static.

“The Xaros will move the arch over populated areas. They’ll carve mountains apart to get at us,” Ibarra said. He switched to feeds from the surviving platforms and watched as the arch drifted north. “It moves slowly, but we’ll lose all of Japan in hours.”

Drones broke away from the Xaros blocking fleet and flew toward the extinction arch.

“The orbitals might put a dent in that thing,” Gor’al said as his eyes widened with a realization. “Earth’s mobile defense is gone…if we don’t break station from the Crucible, it’ll hit the Himalayas, the Ural line, the Alps. Everything. Everyone on Earth will die if we don’t stop it.”

“Hold your station, Captain. We get taunted off the Crucible and
everyone
will die when the Xaros come pouring through from a wormhole that’s got billions more drones just waiting to join the fight,” Ibarra said. He ran through a least-time projection on the annihilation arch’s path across Earth’s fortresses…eighty-two hours. Much less if the Xaros made another massive breach in the orbital defenses and created another such construct.

“Your people are dying, Ibarra! We’re sitting on our nests watching it happen.” Gor’al’s face pressed closer to his camera. “There are hundreds of thousands of drones loose on Earth’s surface in addition to this arch of theirs. You didn’t go through all the trouble to rebuild humanity and rescue the Dotok to bring them here and just let it get washed away now.”

Ibarra resisted the urge to lash out. Earth was teetering under the current assault, and the next wave of drones—a wave nearly twice the size of the force laying siege to Earth—was due to reach the planet in mere hours. He could handle that problem, but only if Lafayette and his team completed their project…and if Gor’al didn’t throw away the strategic situation Ibarra needed to make his plan work.

I made everything work when I could lie and obfuscate. Telling the truth is an enormous pain in the ass
, he thought.

“Help is on the way, Captain. Either the Alliance will send reinforcements or—” The Crucible shifted around as the probe readied a wormhole.

“There, see? Just had to be patient.” Ibarra closed the channel and swiped his hand over the screen to see a white field blossoming within the Crucible.

“What’ve we got, Jimmy?” he asked the probe. “Alliance to turn this fight around or the
Breitenfeld
to spit in the wind?”

The strike carrier ripped through the wormhole and streaked away like a bat out of hell. Ibarra instinctually ducked behind a workstation and watched as Captain Valdar’s ship raced toward the fleet blocking her path to Earth.

“What in the hell is he doing?” Ibarra turned his face away as the Xaros battleships struck at the
Breitenfeld
, carving fissures across her hull as she bore down on the aliens. The
Breitenfeld’s
rail cannon batteries flashed as she zipped past, striking Xaros ships on either side with quadrium munitions.

Lightning chained from one ship to the others, burning hundreds of drones out of existence.

The
Breitenfeld
continued toward Earth, engines flaring to guide her into high orbit.

Frigates leapt out of the wormhole, each with the same insane velocity as the
Breitenfeld
. The Toth energy cannons fired and pummeled the disabled Xaros battleships. The
Manticore frigates
pounded the Xaros, cracking their hulls and blasting them to pieces. A battleship cracked in half, burning from within. The rest of the Xaros fleet was nothing but expanding ash within minutes.

“Valdar?” Ibarra blinked hard, unsure what he’d just seen.

“Ibarra, what the hell is that over Japan?” the
Breitenfeld
’s captain asked.

“Your next problem. There are two million fighting beneath those mountains. They’ve got less than an hour before the extinction arch that wiped out Okinawa reaches them,” Ibarra said.

“Are you aware of the next wave of Xaros coming toward Luna?” Valdar asked.

“I’ll worry about that. You worry about Japan.” Ibarra glanced at the ceiling. “Wait, do you have Elias with you?”

The sled rose through a reddish-brown haze. Dust and flakes of rock spewed out of the Xaros tunnel and hit Hale’s visor with a
tink
. He shifted his feet against the soles of his boots, testing that the mag lock to the sled still held.

His Marines knelt against the bed, each maintaining several points of mag-locked contact with the sled.

The
Scipio
lay ahead, the automated distress call from one of its drop pods pulsing through his comms. The Morse SOS signal came and went every few minutes, never broadcasting too long.

Hale zoomed in on the corvette. She bore scorch marks over her hull and two of her maneuver engines were mangled. The ship’s shuttle bay door was open, but Hale couldn’t make out anything inside.

“Cutting the anti-grav,” Egan said. “We’ll coast the rest of the way.”

“Not to be needy, but I’ve got eighteen minutes before I suffocate,” Drebin said.

“We’ll be there in five. If I try to rush, we’ll overshoot, then this canoe is way up shit creek and I don’t see any paddles,” Egan said.

“Sir,” Jacobs spoke to Hale, Steuben and Mathias on a private channel, “do you…do any of your Marines know how to work a corvette?”

“We all have basic damage control training. You?” Hale asked.

“Nothing,” Jacobs said.

“Same,” Mathias said.

“Adapt and overcome, Marines. Adapt and overcome,” Hale said. He looked at Steuben, waiting for an answer.

“I am a warrior, not an engineer,” the Karigole said. “If Lafayette were here, I would have no concerns with your plan.”

“Wait, you have concerns?” Hale asked.

“The ship is unpowered and in a degrading orbit. It will crash within a few hours.”

“Why didn’t you mention this observation before we loaded up and broke atmo?” Hale asked.

“You still would have taken this chance. My observation would have made no difference.”

“Steuben. My XO. The next time you see the chance for catastrophic failure, speak up,” Hale said.

“As you wish,” Steuben shrugged.

“Almost there.” Egan touched the controls and the sled jerked beneath Hale. “What do you think, sir? Shuttle bay or the Xaros-made entrance across the rail gun battery?”

“Shuttle bay. Can you get us inside or do we need to float in?”

“I can land it.” Egan maneuvered the sled to outside the shuttle bay.

Inside, a wrecked Mule lay crumpled against the inner bulkhead. The shuttle bay was tiny, with barely enough room for a single Mule, compared to the stem-to-stern flight deck of the
Breitenfeld
. Blackened streaks scarred the inner walls.

“Looks like there was one hell of a fight,” Orozco said.

“Shh!” Egan edged the sled over to line up with the shuttle bay deck and inched the sled inside. Once the rear of the sled had cleared the threshold, Egan set it down with a thump heavy enough to jar Hale’s teeth.

“And the Canadian judge takes off a point for the landing,” Standish said.

“You can walk away from it, can’t you?” Egan stepped away from the controls.

A pair of Marines jumped off and went to the sealed double doors leading to the rest of the ship. When the control panel failed to function, they unsnapped the manual locks in the door frame and twisted the circular handles, the dogs, and slowly opened the doors.

“Mathias,” Hale said, pointing at the lieutenant, “see if the atmo chamber in the Mule is still functional. Stuff Drebin in there until we’ve got the rest of the ship up and running, then get the blast doors secure. Jacobs, find the source of that distress call. I’m going to the bridge.”

Hale got off the sled and locked his boots to the deck. He felt the ship creak beneath him. Pluto twisted slowly outside the shuttle bay as the ship rolled over.

I’ve got thirteen Marines counting on me,
Hale thought.
This had better work.

****

Jacobs grabbed a broken crossbar and shoved it out of her way. The deck was a mess of wrecked framework and broken bulkheads. Sparking electrical wires and fractured pipes floated in the weightless passageway. Lumps of ice bounced off her armor as she stepped over a rent in the flooring caused by a Xaros beam.

“We’re going to have to seal off this whole section if we want to walk around in the ship’s atmo,” Weiss said.

“You volunteering for that detail?” Niles asked.

“Heck yeah, you think I want to stay buttoned up in my armor for the next three weeks until the fleet can get something out here? I’m getting a rash just thinking about it,” Weiss said.

Jacobs pushed aside a large piece of broken hull and found an oval-shaped hatch to an escape pod. A metal spar was impaled against the door frame. She leaned over and knocked on the door’s glass porthole. She looked inside and saw another human face staring at her.

The woman inside opened her mouth and raised her arms, cheering. Jacobs saw high fives exchanged with other occupants in the escape pod.  

“Ship must have taken a direct hit when they were getting ready to punch out.” Weiss pushed away a floating hull plate and stuck his head into a compartment open to the void. “Pod got jammed in the shoot.”

Niles flicked his finger against the spar embedded in the frame.

“Well, there’s your problem.” The Marine took a cutting torch off his belt and activated a white-hot plasma cutter.

****

The
Scipio
’s bridge was silent. Restraint buckles floated in vacuum, tugging against acceleration seats. Stars rolled over through the forward view ports that wrapped across three-quarters of the bridge.

The hatch at the rear of the bridge swung open. Standish and Egan stepped inside, weapons up and ready.

“Clear,” Standish said. He tapped on the control panel of a circular holo table. “No power up here either.”

Hale followed them in and went to the helmsman’s station. He grabbed the control sticks and whipped them back and forth. The corvette continued its slow, dying ballet around Pluto.

“Damn it,” Hale said.

“Captain Hale?”
Jacobs said through the IR.
“We found the source of the distress call. Escape pod never made it off the ship. We got the crewmen out, at least.”

“Does the senior sailor have comms?” Hale asked.

“Petty Officer Tagawa here, sir,”
a woman said.
“Myself and two other sailors really appreciate you getting us out of that death locker.”

“Tagawa, what’s your job on this ship?”

“Supply, sir.”

Hale slapped the palm of his hand against his visor.

“Can any of you get the
Scipio
back online?” Hale asked.

“Engineers Mate Allen and Yeoman Morris will need a look at the battery stacks. We’ll do all we can, sir. One more thing…are you
the
Hale? From the movie?”

“Yes. Now get to work, Tagawa.”

“That’s never going to happen to me,” Standish said. “It’ll always be, ‘Oh, how’d you end up with Hale? Can you get his autograph for me?’ not ‘My son has your action figure. Lunch is on me.’”

“Dude, let it go,” Egan said.

“I was erased from the historical record, fly boy. I don’t have to be happy about it. A man has his pride,” Standish said.

Cortaro reached through the hatch and grabbed Standish by the arm.

“A man better get his flapping gums to engineering and help get this ship back online before I take his air tanks away for the good of the team.” Cortaro pulled Standish through the door.

****

Hale stood next to the captain’s chair, thrumming his fingers against the armrest as Tagawa spoke. The petty officer held a slate with a wire diagram of the
Scipio
, red marks across much of the hull.

“Deck three is sealed off,” she said. “I’ve got the atmo tanks patched to the living quarters and we can move the air scrubbers as soon as we clear a path through gauss cannon B.”

“Air and power,” Hale said.

“Right…” She tapped her gauntlet. “Allen, what’s your status.”

“Main conduit yoke got barbequed. Chief Franks could have got it back up in a heartbeat, but his body’s down here with me. I got the auxiliary installed. Everything should work once I flip the breakers,”
Allen said.
“Give me a minute to clear the room. I double-checked everything, but Skippy took a hell of a beating. If there’s more damage I haven’t found, then I’d rather not be in here at go time.”

“Allen, this is Hale. We’ve got maybe another hour until our orbit decays past the point of no return. We don’t have time to make things perfect. Flip the switch.”

“Aye-aye, sir. Stand by and cross your fingers,”
Allen said.

Hale opened a wide IR channel. “All units, we’re about to jump-start the ship. Make ready.”

Lights and workstations came to life. Screens filled with static.

“Hey, there we go,” Mathias said.

The power snapped off.

“Son of a bitch.” Mathias banged a fist against the bulkhead.

The bridge came to life again. Power held steady for several seconds. Hale held a finger up to Mathias before he could speak again.

“Allen, how we looking?” Hale asked.

“Minor fire. Very minor. Got it taken care of. Should have power back to the engines in a few more minutes. We can re-pressurize parts of the ship, if you want.”

“Drebin is still in the Mule’s atmo-box,” Mathias said.

“Engines are the priority,” Hale said to Cortaro and Tagawa. “Life support after.”

“We’re on it,” Cortaro said.

“Egan, can you get us a link with Earth?” Hale asked.

Egan leaned over the comm station and examined the displays. “Antennae showing green across the board. Give me a few minutes.”

“Great, after we’ve got positive comms, I need you to fly this thing.” Hale pointed to the helmsman’s station.

“This is a bit bigger than a Mule, sir,” Egan said.

“Orozco is our other trained pilot,” Hale deadpanned.

“Can be done! Absolutely can do, sir.” Egan ran a wire from the comm array to his gauntlet. “Lot of traffic coming through the Mars repeater…Jesus, the Xaros are already there.”

“What about Earth?” Hale asked.

Egan tapped on a keyboard. “Civil defense net is lit up like a Christmas tree. Hard to tell. Hold on, we’re getting a data packet…that’s taking over my work station.”

“
Scipio
, this is the Crucible. Stand by for instructions,” Ibarra’s voice came through every IR channel on the ship. Screens across the bridge switch to show the same image; Abaddon.

“To the senior ranking officer of whoever’s mucking around the
Scipio
. You are hereby ordered to destroy Abaddon immediately,”

“Is he crazy?” Tagawa asked. “She’s barely holding together with duct tape and hope and he wants us to
destroy
a moon?”

The screens zoomed toward Abaddon and passed through the outer shell. A dome appeared. Several red arrows popped up on the screen, all pointing to the dome within Abaddon.

“There is a Xaros conduit, a connection to the rest of their network, somewhere inside that thing,” Ibarra said. “Shoot it. Blow it up. Slice it into ribbons. I don’t care how you do it. Take it off line permanently it will trap the Xaros general in our solar system. Do that, and we’ve got a chance to kill him once and for all.”

Hale suddenly wished Elias had come on this mission.

“Don’t wait twelve hours for your questions to be answered,” Ibarra said, “get moving right now.”

The screens went black.

“Message repeats after that,” Egan said. “They must have been broadcasting on a loop.”

“Sir? What’re we going to do?” Mathias asked.

“No rest for the weary. Sitting around waiting to be rescued isn’t what strike Marines were made for, especially not when we can do something useful. We’re going in,” Hale said.

****

Hale removed his helmet and took a deep breath of ozone-tinted air. He set the helmet on a hook on the side of the captain’s chair and flipped up a control screen. He looked over the dazzling array of data points coming through to him and frowned.

“How do the squids keep all this straight?” he asked.

“Sir?” Tagawa asked from a forward workstation.

“Nothing. What are you looking at over there?”

“System status,” she said. “We’re leaking air from several compartments…sending locations to Cortaro now. Two point defense turrets are manned and online. Main gun is down, obviously. Both forward torpedo bays are offline, same with the starboard tube. Port tube was destroyed.”