The Siege of Earth (The Ember War Saga Book 7) (3 page)

“Movie?”

“
The Last Stand on Takeni
. You haven’t seen it?”

Elias turned his helm to Aguilar.

“They made some puff piece about the Dotok rescue. You and the rest are in it. Even my
Cobras Fumantes
. That fight with the walker wasn’t anything like how it really went down but the rest is sort of accurate.” Aguilar tapped the drive against the slate and the movie uploaded to Elias’ system.

“You want me to tell the range your re-fit is going to take longer?” Aguilar asked.

Elias stepped out of the cage and stalked toward the door.

“Sweat saves blood. I’m going to the range now.”

A hologram of Pluto and Abaddon floated over the tank in the
Breitenfeld
’s command center. The ship’s senior officers watched as drones billowed out of Abaddon and abandoned the vessel used to bring them from one star to another.

“There’s something not right,” said Ensign Geller, the ship’s navigator. “Abaddon is almost as big as Luna, heck of a lot bigger than Pluto. Its gravity should have slapped Pluto’s moons out of orbit. Heck, Pluto and Abaddon should be forming into a new planetary system right now.”

“Then what does that tell us, Ensign?” Executive Officer Ericcson asked.

“It’s doesn’t have any significant gravity…because it’s hollow?” The ensign tapped a finger against his chin.

“Which is in line with the assessment from Ibarra and his probe.” Captain Valdar reached into the tank and zoomed in to the surface of Pluto. “This thing had propulsion rings, same as Ceres and other planets occupied by the Xaros. Admiral Makarov and her fleet managed to destroy them, which is why the drone mass heading for Earth is so small.”

“Small?” Commander Utrecht’s eyebrows popped up. “There must be tens of millions of drones coming for us.”

“If the Xaros had converted the entire mass of that planetoid to drones, we would face drones in the hundreds of millions,” Valdar said. “Eighth Fleet managed to drop graviton mines on Abaddon’s path, forcing them to burn mass that could have been transmuted into drones. The minelayers sent back telemetry data for six months before the last of the crew…ceased broadcasting.

“While we were sitting in the void waiting for our jump engines to come back online, Earth prepared for this invasion. We should have had a few more years to prep. Ibarra’s plan was for the Xaros we defeated at the Crucible to broadcast that only a few of our ships survived the battle, and they’d return with a force large enough to crush the survivors. The Xaros don’t know about the proccies, didn’t know about the armada we’d build in the time it took them to travel here from Barnard’s Star.”

“But they’re here early, aren’t they?” Lieutenant Hale asked.

“There’s the rub,” Valdar said. “We don’t know if it was when the Xaros saw our ship at Anthalas, Takeni, or when they took Torni prisoner, but they figured out we were still around and decided to step off from their jump gate on Barnard’s Star before the message from the drones we destroyed made it back to them. No more connecting the dots. This is where we are and, we’re moving on. Explaining time dilation gives me nose bleeds.”

“I can do it, sir.” Geller held up his index fingers. “You see, when the Xaros sent a message from Earth, it had to travel—”

Valdar slapped a palm against the side of the tank and Geller shut up.

“Even with the losses inflicted by Eighth Fleet and the burn rate across the void, the Xaros are here in overwhelming force,” Valdar said. “Admiral Garret has the majority of our fleet in orbit around Mars. He thinks he can stop them there, save Earth and the civilians from collateral damage.”

“So when do we leave for Mars?” Durand asked. “No ship has more experience fighting the Xaros than us.”

“We don’t,” Valdar said, pointing to Pluto, “watch.” He touched the holo and it swung around, revealing the dark side of Pluto and Charon. Red lines washed over Pluto as the image switched to infrared. A perfectly circular hole lay at the base of Pluto’s ice mountains. Drones and tinkling specs shuttled from the hole to an artificial satellite high above Pluto’s surface. The satellite looked like a frayed ring.

“They’re building a new Crucible,” Ericcson said.

“That’s right,” Valdar said. “They’re mining through Pluto’s crust for materials. There are several shafts around this main dig site, and it is days away from completion. It’s not as big as the Crucible over Ceres, but if the Xaros can open a gate to one of their garrison worlds…billions more drones could come through and then we don’t stand a chance.” 

“What are we waiting for?” Hale asked. “There’s a fleet over the North Pole. Send it through our Crucible and blow the hell out of what they’re building.”

“We do that and Earth is vulnerable,” Valdar said. “What we send through won’t make it back to Earth before the Xaros. The drones can outrun us from Mars to Earth, too. Garret is confident he can stop them on Mars, but he’s not the ‘all eggs in one basket’ kind of strategic thinker. Enough drones get to Earth to overwhelm the orbitals and there’s no fleet to stop them? They will slaughter every last man, woman, and child on Earth. They complete the new Crucible? Millions more drones come through and the fight is unwinnable. Same outcome.”

“We have a lot of ways to lose this fight,” Utrecht said.

“The plan is for the
Breitenfeld
and a small task force to jump through our Crucible and destroy what the Xaros are building, then return to Earth using our jump engines. We fail and the reserve fleet does the job, leaving Earth vulnerable,” Valdar said.

“It’s not enough to wreck their construction site,” Hale said. “They’ve got to have something massive digging that hole and converting omnium. We don’t take that out and they’ll just build another Crucible.”

“Correct. We’re taking on more strike Marines to augment you and your team,” Valdar said. “Which reminds me…XO?”

“Attention to orders!” Ericcson shouted, snapping everyone but Valdar to attention.

The captain took a small knife from his belt and flicked it open. He cut into Hale’s lieutenant rank patch and ripped away a corner.

Ericcson cleared her throat. “The Atlantic Union emergency council, acting upon the recommendation of Fleet Admiral Garret, has placed special trust and confidence in the patriotism and integrity of Lieutenant Kenneth A. Hale.”

Valdar ripped Hale’s rank off and flung it aside.

“In view of these special qualities, and his demonstrated potential to serve in the higher grade, Lieutenant Hale is hereby promoted to the rank of captain, Atlantic Union Marine Corps, effective immediately,” Ericcson said.

Valdar took out a pair of silver bars rank insignia and pressed the metal pins into the uniform where Hale’s old rank used to be. Valdar put his palm against the rank and raised an eyebrow.

Hale stared back at him, impassive.

Valdar lifted his hand and slammed it against the rank, driving the pins into Hale’s chest. Hale didn’t even blink.

“Well done, son.” Valdar shook the new captain’s hand. The rest of the bridge broke into applause. Valdar stepped back so the rest of the crew could file through to congratulate Hale. No one else tried to beat Hale’s rank into his chest.

A rare smile crossed Valdar’s face. Promoting his godson was one of the few happy moments he’d experienced since the Xaros invasion. Valdar’s wife and their children were dead. His connection with Hale was the only familial tie he had left in the world.

Despite the honor and attention from the crew, Hale didn’t look happy. He kept his gaze away from the ship’s captain.

Something’s wrong
,
Valdar thought.

****

Valdar held the door to his ready room open for Hale as the two entered the captain’s only place of sanctity on the entire ship. Hale noted that the room was clean, the bedsheets tight enough that they looked fused to the mattress and there was no smell of neglected food trays.

Hale stopped next to a wall where Valdar had a collage of family photos tacked to the bulkhead. One picture had both the Valdar and Hale families taken during a lake trip when Hale was just a boy. Everyone in that photo but Hale, his brother Jared, and Valdar was dead. Jared…he’d probably never see him again.

“Shame we missed seeing him off,” Valdar said. “Jared will do well on Terra Nova. His passion was always for construction, plenty of chance at that on the new colony.”

“At least he’s safe, sir,” Hale said, adding an honorific he rarely used when in private with Valdar.

Valdar’s mustache twitched and he flopped down in a cracked leather chair.

“What’s eating you, son?” Valdar asked.

Hale touched the captain’s rank on his chest.

“I don’t deserve this. Captain Acera, God rest his soul, he commanded a team for three full years before pinning on captain. Went to advanced recon school, forward air controller training…couldn’t Ibarra create a more qualified officer in one of his proccie tubes and send him here instead?”

“You heard Ericcson, ‘demonstrated potential.’ You’ve got that in spades. Hell, you’ve got a slew of Purple Hearts and other awards in the pipeline. Bureaucracy is slow at best—during wartime it’s molasses moving uphill in winter. You weren’t this hesitant when you took over the defenses of an entire Dotok city. What’s really eating you?”

Hale chewed on his bottom lip. “When I was with Stacey on that vault…she said something to me. Something that didn’t make sense.”

Valdar leaned forward and rested his arms atop the desk.

“It was about the Toth, when I was on Europa negotiating with one of their damned overlords.” Hale’s lips pulled into a sneer. “Stacey said we were never going to hand over the proccies. I was just a delaying tactic until she could bring help or Ibarra could get another fleet crewed.”

Valdar turned his head aside.

“But…” continued Hale as he walked up to Valdar’s desk, “you told me to sign the treaty that would have done just that—given up every proccie on Earth, handed over all the tech used to make them. All my instructions from Earth came through
you
, Uncle Isaac. I can’t make this work in my head. Either Stacey was lying to me…or you were.”

“Ken…I thought they were abominations.”

“No!” Hale slammed a hand against Valdar’s desk. “The proccies are just as human as you and me. Yarrow dragged my bleeding body off the battlefield and stitched me back together. Rohen led the Toth away from the rest of my team so we could get off of Nibiru. Every last sailor that died in Eighth Fleet to give Earth a fighting chance was a proccie.”

“I know that!” Valdar snapped to his feet. “I stood next to Makarov on my flight deck, picking through dead bodies, and that’s when I realized I couldn’t tell the difference between the proccies and the true born. I was wrong. Wrong to see them differently. Wrong to try to get rid of them.”

“Do you know what the Toth would have done with them?” Hale asked. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes, seen them feeding off us. I saw the blocks on Nibiru where they auction off living beings like cattle! That’s what you wanted for them.” The Marine turned away.

“What you did was treason. Why didn’t you turn yourself in after the Toth were defeated?” Hale asked. “Was it because all the True Born terrorists were dead? You thought you could get away with it?”

“Ibarra knew,” Valdar said. “He knew I was involved with the True Born before we even went to Europa. Ibarra played me like a damned fiddle. I think that’s how he got the bomb onto the
Naga
and gave us a fighting chance against that thing. After that, he forced me to keep quiet, gave him some leverage over me.”

“So you went from making a deal with one devil to another,” Hale said.

“He gave me a shot at redemption. So long as our mission to kill Mentiq was a success, he’d keep what I’d done away from Garret. It all worked out, son. All’s well that ends—”

“You used me.” Hale jabbed a finger at Valdar. “You lied to me. I trusted you and you twisted that bond to make me do your dirty work.” Hale’s hand fell to his side. “You’re my godfather, supposed to be my father if anything ever happened to Dad. I know it’s not the same when I’m grown…but why would you do that to me?”

“Ken, the whole world’s been turned inside out. Our families are gone. The world we knew is over. Then Ibarra comes up with this plot to replace everyone and I…I couldn’t accept that.”

“Jared’s gone, and I don’t think I’ll ever see him again.” Hale’s shoulders slumped. “You were all I had left, and you threw it away.”

“Ken, don’t talk like that. I should never have done that to you—I know it. The way I saw things…I didn’t know what—”

Hale turned around and stood at attention. “My new Marines are waiting for me. Will there be anything else, sir?”

“Ken, hear me out.”

“Will there be anything else, sir?”

Valdar dropped his knuckles onto his desk. “Dismissed.”

Hale saluted and left the room.

Valdar stood at his desk for a minute then sank into his chair. He pressed his hands to his face and fought back tears.