The Siege of Earth (The Ember War Saga Book 7) (20 page)

The lights overhead flickered.

“What is working?” Hale asked.

“Atmo scrubbers and tanks are functional, barely. Main drive is still online. Same with maneuver thrusters. And the automated galley is still up and running. Later tonight we can all have tacos,” Tagawa said.

“Egan, get us moving,” Hale said.

“I would, sir.” Egan tapped on a blank screen. “But—”

“Inertial navigation is down,” Tagawa said.

“Point us at the giant alien space station and hit the gas,” Hale said.

“Roger, sir.”

The ship shuddered. The view out the front view ports stabilized. Egan steered the ship to Abaddon and held her course steady.

There was a groan of metal and a snap that shook Hale’s chair.

“What was that?” he asked.

“Number four engine came loose,” Tagawa said. “It wasn’t functioning to begin with. We’re still good.”

“What am I looking for once we get to Abaddon?” Egan asked.

“Open portal on the surface,” Hale said. “According to Torni, the conduit should be in the very center. Tagawa, are there any explosives on this ship?”

“There were eight breach charges in the storage locker on deck four,” she said. “We fired off all our torpedoes during the assault on the Grinder…wait. The torpedo in tube three failed to launch.”

“Can we still fire it?” Hale asked.

“No, the exit port is slag.”

“Then can we cut through the ship and dig out the warhead?” Jacobs asked.

“That’s…possible,” Tagawa said. “Allen knows that part of the ship. I’ll get him on it. Egan, we’ll need you to fly steady.”

“No bouncing around while you do a cesarean section on our torpedo baby. Got it,” Egan said.

Abaddon loomed larger through the windows.

Elias held onto a heavy ring bolted to the side of the Destrier as it entered Earth’s upper atmosphere. Bodel stood next to him, Caas and Ar’ri behind. They rocked slightly through turbulence, the only passengers inside the heavy transport.

“I don’t understand why the colonel is spreading the armor across the planet,” Ar’ri said. “If that General is really after Elias, then why don’t we make him fight all of us at the same time?”

“He knows exactly where I am and he’ll come in full force,” Elias said. “The maniple that broke off from Mars is too strong for any one fortification. The armor will be fighting in every city. He either spreads out trying to find me or waits in the void, taking a beating from the orbitals.”

“We won’t bombard our own positions,” Bodel said. “The safest place for his drones is right on top of the city.”

“So we want to get into a close fight around the cities? Wouldn’t that put the civilians at risk?” Caas asked. “Every Dotok is inside a bunker cut into Mauna Loa right now. I’d rather beat the Xaros in orbit.”

“There are too many to beat in a fleet engagement,” Elias said. “We make them spread out over Earth. Divide and conquer. The cities are ready for a siege. They can hold until reinforcements come through the Crucible. Then we defeat them in detail.”

“One of the first things Colonel Carius taught us was to never depend on the enemy doing what you want him to do,” Caas said. “He referenced the human deity named Murphy, who confounds all plans.”

“He taught us to have a plan. Fight your plan. Adapt as soon as the plan doesn’t fit the situation,” Bodel said. “He never mentioned that to you?”

“This seems contradictory,” Ar’ri said. “Have a plan…but you don’t have to follow the plan.”

The Destrier rocked slightly.

Elias turned around and pointed a finger at Ar’ri. “There’s something you’ve got to learn, bean head. War is—”

A crimson beam burst through the floor and out the top of the transport ship. The beam swiped to the side, cutting through the hull. The Destrier ripped in two with a screech of metal and a howl of wind as freezing cold air blasted through the cargo bay. The forward section corkscrewed away, lost from view as the rear half of the ship with the armor tipped over and went into free fall.

Elias saw nothing but clouds through the half-severed opening behind him. His altimeter was dropping fast.

“This is the god Murphy at work,” Caas said.

“Jump. Use your packs to slow once you’re close to the ground.” Elias released his mag locks on the broken section of the transport and pulled against the handle to launch himself into the open air.

“We never trained for this!” Ar’ri said as he came out of the tail section.

“You have the rest of your life to figure it out.” Bodel keyed his jet pack and put some distance between him and Elias.

Elias looked down. Desert stretched beneath his feet, and he made out the highways surrounding Phoenix. Elias swung his head down and fell toward Earth even faster.

“You’ll reach terminal velocity in seconds,” Elias said. “Lock and load. The drone that killed the transport is still around.”

“Contact!” Caas shouted. “Drones to the…the—” She said something in Dotok and fired her forearm cannons. Elias followed the rounds’ path and saw ten dark points against the sky.

“Take ’em out.” Elias swung upright and put a hand over the top of his cannons, pressing down as he fired. The recoil bucked him backwards and sent his feet tumbling past his head. He activated his jet pack and stabilized his fall.

The battery levels on his jet pack decreased far more than was comfortable. He needed most of the charge to keep him from splattering across the Arizona landscape. He could use the jet pack for maybe a few more seconds and still survive the landing.

Short bursts from the other armor streaked toward the approaching Xaros.

A Xaros beam snapped past Elias. He twisted to the side and felt the next beam singe his chest. He let off a burst and saw one of the drones explode into a cloud of fragments.

The drones sped up, stalks splayed out like the business end of a trident, heading right for the falling armor.

“Move!” Elias fired his jet pack and zoomed out of the way, nailing two drones as they tore through the air he’d just occupied.

There was a bright yellow light as Ar’ri burned his jet pack at full strength. His rotary cannon opened up and made quick work of the remaining drones.

“Got ’em!” Ar’ri said.

Elias twisted his body and tried to glide beneath the Dotok armor who was now many yards overhead, but Elias’ armor had the aerodynamic properties of a brick and barely moved.

“Ar’ri, how much charge do you have left?” Elias asked.

“Four…percent,” Ar’ri said. Elias could almost see the young man’s face as he realized that he had just saved his fellow armor but doomed himself to a landing he couldn’t survive. Ar’ri’s arms and legs flailed about as panic set in.

“Ar’ri, listen to me.” Elias glanced around and saw Caas close by, Bodel too far to matter. “Calm down and go flat. Your sister and I will be right there.” Elias pointed to Caas, saw her nod, then pointed to Ar’ri. Elias pointed his feet at the ground and fired his jet pack. He slowed his fall and got to Ar’ri. He grabbed Ar’ri by the waist and mag-locked his hands to the Dotok.

“Clamp on. Caas?” The other Dotok came toward them too quickly. Elias twisted himself and Ar’ri around, missing her as she sped past.

“Sorry!” Caas shouted.

“The ground is coming very fast,” Ar’ri said.

Elias didn’t bother to check the altimeter. His maneuver would save, or kill, them all.

He reached up and grabbed Caas’ hand. He pulled her in and she wrapped her arms over her brother’s shoulder.

“Caas, fire your pack—don’t let up—on my mark.” Elias glanced down and made out bushes and large rocks against the slope of a mountain directly beneath them.

Here goes nothing
.

“Mark!” Elias activated his pack and felt his true body thump against his womb as the fall of three armor soldiers slowed considerably. They came down over a saddle extending away from the mountain and the combined force of Elias’ and Caas’ jet packs brought them to a complete stop…thirty feet over the ground.

Caas’ jet pack ran dry and Elias cut his to stop them from spinning out.

Caas and Ar’ri screamed in fright as they went into free fall. Elias put a hand against Caas and shoved her away.

Elias tried to twist around to take the fall on his feet and hit on his back. He felt his jet pack crumple beneath the impact and went down the slope of the hill. He and Ar’ri rolled like an out-of-control barrel until a boulder brought them to a jarring halt.

Damage icons flashed against Elias’ vision, but none too severe.

He tried to get up, but Ar’ri had his helm buried against Elias’ chest and arms wrapped around him.

“Ar’ri. Let go.” Elias thumped a fist against Ar’ri’s back.

Ar’ri’s helm shot up. He crawled away and got to his feet.

“You saved me,” Ar’ri said.

“So did your sister.” Elias looked back and found Caas sliding down the side of the hill.

“All three of us could have died…because I was an idiot. Burned through my thrusters.”

“If this is the worst thing that happens to us today we’re damned lucky.” Elias turned and saw Phoenix in the distance. “You can feel bad later.”

He detached his jet pack and let it fall to the ground without ceremony.

Bodel landed nearby, his feet hitting the ground so smoothly it was almost as if he was coming down a flight of stairs.

“I watched your landing,” Bodel said, “smooth.”

“We Dotok have a saying.” Caas came to a stop on a cloud of dirt and loose rocks. “‘Any landing you can talk about, you can brag about.’”

“So that’s Phoenix?” Ar’ri asked. “I thought it would be bigger.”

“One day I will ask Ibarra why he chose this sweltering hell hole as his headquarters,” Bodel said, “and not some beautiful place like Berlin or Munich.”

Elias unlimbered his treads and drove off, the rest following close behind.

The
Scipio
flew to an open portal the size of a battlecruiser and slowed to a stop. Nothing but darkness greeted the human ship.

On the bridge, Hale tried and failed to navigate the data filter options on his command screen.

“Egan, Tagawa, what’s in there?” he asked.

“Nothing on sensors,” Tagawa said. “Want me to risk a radar pulse?”

“Not yet,” Hale said.

“Setting screens to IR,” Jacobs said. The image through the windows changed to a heat scale. Just beyond the opening, a rocky column more than twice the width of the
Scipio
extended from the inner surface and into the center of the sphere.

“Looks like we’ve got a path,” Egan said.

“Go. Keep us close to it,” Hale said. He opened up a ship-wide channel. “Point defense teams, you are cleared to engage any Xaros you encounter. Stay alert.”

As the ship crossed into Abaddon, a slight shudder went through it. Egan put the pillar to the starboard side and increased the ship’s speed.

“‘And I beheld a straight and narrow path, which came along by the rod of iron,’” Jacobs said.

“What?” Hale asked.

“Sorry, sir. Something from scripture,” she said.

“I can see maybe ten seconds ahead with the infrared,” Egan said. “After that, there’s just nothing.”

“Makarov had some idea about this,” Jacobs said. “From the notes recovered off the
Midway
, she thought the Xaros had carved up a dwarf planet or Kuiper belt object from the outer orbit of Barnard’s Star. The enemy would convert the mass to drones on the way over. Looks like they did just that.”

“I saw the estimates on the force moving to Mars,” Hale said. “If they converted this whole thing to drones…where are the rest?”

“Eighth Fleet wrecked Abaddon’s propulsion rings. The drones had to burn themselves out to get this thing to our solar system. The graviton mines her fleet set up made them work that much harder,” Jacobs said.

“Makarov gave Earth a fighting chance. I’m glad I got to meet her,” Hale said.

“Slowing down,” Egan said. “We should be at the center soon, and I don’t know if this ship can take a sudden stop.”

“You really think the Xaros would leave this place unguarded, sir?” Jacobs asked.

“The Xaros attack in mass,” Steuben said. “Overwhelming force always has a lower casualty rate and chance of success for an attacker. Leaving a force to protect a spent asset does not fit their behavior.”

“Then why is there something worth blowing up in here?” she asked.

“The only other invasion where that General has shown up was Takeni, right?” Hale looked at Steuben, who nodded. “He must think we don’t know about the conduit. He must not know about Torni.”

“Torni’s alive?” Jacobs and Tagawa asked at the same time.

“Captain Hale,” Steuben said, shaking his head, “I am glad you are commissioned in the infantry. You would have made a poor military intelligence officer.”

“Got something,”
Standish said from a point defense turret.
“Big and long something—heh heh—at our ten o’clock, mark two.”

An image of a section of another rocky column popped up on Hale’s visor, angled downward. Hale mentally traced its course.

“It’ll intersect with the pillar we’re following,” Hale said. “We must be close.”

“Slowing,” Egan said.

A minute later, the column ran into a basalt-colored orb the size of a stadium. Thick columns of rock spoked off the surface in many directions.

“This is the place.” Hale unbuckled from the command chair and got to his feet. “I don’t see an entrance, but it looks like the same material the Crucible is made out of. We can cut through that.”

“I will lead the assault team,” Steuben said. “We will bring the warhead inside the structure and set it for remote detonation. The explosive should suffice.”

“No, I will—”

“You are the commander of this vessel, Hale. I am XO. I am to do all duties you do not wish to do or have time to do and you do not have time to heal your arm.” Steuben gave Hale a curt nod and walked off the bridge.

“Sir,” Jacobs said as she unsnapped her restraints, “permission to—”

“Go.” Hale sat back in the command chair, looked at his injured arm, and hated himself for sending others into danger he wasn’t able to share.

****

Cortaro landed on the basalt surface. His boots scraped against the rock, gouging out bits of rock as he slowed to a stop. He tested his footing. The command center felt spongy, almost soft beneath his feet.

“That’s different,” he said.

“Coming in.” Jacobs touched down a yard away, her feet slipping and shooting out from under her. Cortaro snapped his hand out and caught the lieutenant before she could go flying into the abyss.

“Careful, ma’am,” he said.

The sky was lightless. Rock pillars extended from the command center and vanished in the inky dark. A sense of absolute stillness fell over Cortaro. He heard only the sound of his breathing, and felt a growing sense of dread.

“I’ll admit it,” Jacobs said. “I’m not a fan of this place.”

“Let’s blow it and get the hell out of here.”

Orozco, Yarrow and two Marines from Crimson team landed near them. Yarrow took a breach charge off his belt and strung it across the surface.

“Warhead team,” Cortaro said, “get ready. This stuff self-repairs pretty quick. Start moving soon as you see the charge go off.”

There was a double click on the IR as the other team acknowledged the order.

Orozco swept his plasma cannon across the sky.

“There’s nothing out here,” he said. “It’s like we’re in Satan’s belly.”

“Fire in the hole.” Yarrow unsnapped a detonator switch from the line, stepped away from the charge and clicked the switch three times. Light flared from the breaching charge and a ring of burning gas shot away from the command center as the line burned through the outer layer.

Cortaro felt a slight tremor as the charge cut through the inner hull. The ring of gas died away.

“Partial, damn,” Yarrow said from the edge of the burnt hull. “Didn’t cut enough to knock our new door free. I need a pick to haul out the section we cut loose.”

“No time. I’m doing a body breach.” Cortaro jumped up and pulled his knees to his chest to somersault away from the command center. He straightened his body, pointed the soles of his boots at the center of the glowing circle and overcharged the gravity plates. His boots pulled him to the command center far faster than he would have ever fallen on Earth. Cortaro hit the breach, the momentum pushing the severed section into the orb like a champagne cork going the wrong way.

Cortaro released his grip just as he entered the command center. He fell twenty feet and managed to land with his feet and knees together, rolling with his momentum. He swung his plasma rifle off his back and across his new surroundings.

The hull section bounced against a black floor so polished Cortaro could have used it as a mirror. Rows of chest-high workstations like he’d seen on the Crucible radiated away from a plinth in the center of the room. There, in a sparkling column of light, was a set of red armor plates that would have fit a giant.

Something heavy landed behind Cortaro. He swung his rifle around and found Steuben behind him.

“What you did to gain our entry was unusual,” the Karigole said. “Teach me.”

“Later. Later.” Cortaro pointed his rifle to the General’s armor. “What about that?”

“That would appear to be the entity the Iron Hearts and Lafayette encountered,” Steuben said. “I do not believe the entity is here, as we are not fighting for our lives.”

“…some activity…hurry…”
came over the IR.

“Figures.” Cortaro looked up at the hole and waved to the Marines looking through. “Get that bomb in here!”

Weiss pulled a torpedo warhead nearly half his size through the hole. The two floated down on an anti-grav harness wrapped around the device. Weiss landed gracefully and kept control of the warhead like it was a child’s balloon.

“First Sergeant! Steuben!” Yarrow yelled from the opening, which was shrinking slowly. Flashes of plasma shot over his head. “We got drones! Get the hell out of there!”

Cortaro grabbed the warhead and pulled it toward the ground. He ripped the harness off and it fell with a metal clang.

“Set the timer. Five minutes,” he said to Weiss.

“Is that going to be—” Cortaro slapped Weiss on the side of the head before he could finish. “Yes, First Sergeant!” He opened a panel on the side of the warhead and pecked at keys.

Steuben drew his sword and set his feet in a wide fighting stance.

The light at the center of the room grew slowly. The armor plates shifted against each other.

“Go. I will hold him off,” Steuben said.

“You’re tough, but you’re no Elias.” Cortaro aimed his rifle at the base of the dais and let off three shots. The dais fractured, sending hunks of stone bouncing off the workstations. The armor plates clattered to the ground.

Steuben looked at Cortaro and grumbled.

“Weiss?” Cortaro asked.

“Timer set. Can we leave now?” Weiss asked.

“Look.” Steuben pointed to the dais, which was slowly reforming. The armor plates leapt off the floor and found their place in the light. Steuben and Cortaro pounded the dais with their rifles, blasting it down to a heap of rubble and scattered armor.

“Let’s go.” Cortaro backed away, watching as the armor slowly returned to the dais. The first sergeant touched the control panel on the warhead and took a minute off the timer.

Weiss jumped into the air and pushed himself to the shrinking exit with a burst from his anti-grav linings.

Cortaro crouched and keyed his boots to do the same. An error message popped up across his visor telling him his anti-grav linings had just shorted out.

“Ah, damn it.” Cortaro looked at the diminishing timer on the warhead.

“Don’t worry,” Steuben said, grabbing Cortaro by his belt and shoulder, “we’ve done this before.”

“No! No, Steuben wa—” Steuben yanked Cortaro off his feet and tossed him to the exit like he was a piece of luggage. Cortaro bounced off the side of the hole and went flying into the abyss. A hand grabbed his ankle and slammed him back to the surface.

Cortaro mag-locked a hand to the sphere as plasma bolts flashed overhead.

“What were you doing in there?” Orozco aimed his cannon at a lump rearing up from the surface and hit it twice. Pyrite broke out of the lump and scattered through the void.

A stalk shot up next to Cortaro’s face. He pressed his rifle against the base and severed the stalk with a single shot.

“They’re coming out of the floor,” Cortaro said.

“Welcome to two minutes ago.” Orozco ripped shots across another mound that formed like a wave.

Steuben came through the hole and landed. He swung his sword and cut through another stalk growing from the surface.

“We should leave,” Steuben said. The Karigole grabbed Cortaro by the waist and jumped toward the
Scipio.
The point defense turrets blasted away at the surface, leaving a narrow corridor for the Marines to return to the ship.

“Captain, bomb is set,” Cortaro said. “Had to rush the time table. We’ve got maybe two minutes before this neighborhood gets even worse.”

“Get on board. We’re not leaving you out there,”
Hale said.

Cortaro looked to the command sphere, then to the open shuttle bay on the
Scipio
.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it,” he said.

****

Hale locked the command chair restraints across his chest and slammed his helmet on.

“Egan, get us the hell out of here soon as we’ve got everyone back on board,” Hale said.

“This is turret three,”
Standish said over the IR.
“I’m down to fifty rounds and I swear every inch of that sphere is about to become a drone.”

Hale looked over the crowded command screen and slammed a fist against the armrest. “Tagawa, how much longer until—”

A flash of white light seared through the windows. The
Scipio
bucked like it had been kicked. A fragment of the sphere the size of an armor suit hit the bridge at an angle, shattering the starboard window and denting the ceiling.

Air rushed out of the bridge, leaving a sheen of frozen water vapor across Hale’s armor. Hale slammed from one side of his restraints to the other. A rocky column twisted over and over through the front window.

“Egan! We’re hit!” Hale shouted.

“I’m trying!” Egan’s hand struggled to reach a control panel over his head as the ship’s roll tugged his hand back and forth. He finally got his fingertips against the panel and tapped a button with his thumb several times. The spin abated as maneuver thrusters across the starboard hull flared to life. The ship came to a halt and Egan cut the thrusters. He fell back against his chair, his arms loose at his sides.