Ashes Fall (The Ibarra Crusade Book 1) Read online

  Ashes Fall

  The Ibarra Crusade Book 1

  by

  Richard Fox

  Copyright © by Richard Fox

  All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.

  ASIN: B08WWPW9RK

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  From the Author

  Free Ember War Short Stories

  Ember War Universe Suggested Reading Order

  Read The Ember War for Free

  Learn more about what happened in Terra Nova

  Chapter 1

  A breach in space-time ripped through the void, blossoming into a white plane with frayed edges of immaterial smoke. The wormhole sputtered like a dying light before glaring brighter than distant Sol for a split second. The Crucible gateway writhed like it was in pain, the building-sized thorns roiling against each other as it fought to maintain the wormhole.

  And as quickly as the rupture formed…it snapped out of existence. At the center of the ring formed by the Crucible was a single life pod. It hung motionless for a few heartbeats, then began tumbling.

  Distress beacons activated, broadcasting a single name over and over again.

  Christophorous.

  ****

  “I know it’s a life pod.” Commander Terry of the Orbital Guard wiped the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead. He huddled over a workstation in the Crucible’s central control room as a pair of nervous techs stared into a holo screen with him at the pod in the center of the great crown of thorns over Ceres, Earth’s new moon.

  “I can see it’s a goddamn life pod.” Terry pointed an accusatory finger at the holo. “What I want to know is how the damn thing broke through all our security measures to get here. The boss is going to be asking these exact same questions with a hell of a lot less patience and more volume than I am, so get me some goddamn answers!”

  “There must’ve been some sort of a tripwire protocol buried deep in the mainframe,” one of the techs said, her lips still moving even when words weren’t coming out. “This whole thing is still Xaros tech, after all. We know how to use it, not how it all works. Sir, you don’t think we’ll be sanctioned for this, do you?” She put her hand over her mouth.

  A silence fell over the control room. Rows of workstations arrayed into stacked rings formed a coliseum around a slightly raised dais at the center of the room. The control center was built for the alien—and now extinct—Xaros. Humanity had bolted on their own comforts and systems, but the room still had a creepy quality that made Terry’s skin crawl even after years assigned to this shift. Techs and security guards eyed the exits.

  “Everyone,” Terry said, raising his arms. He pointed at the two guards flanking the main doorway and wagged his finger back and forth. The guards stepped shoulder to shoulder to block any egress. “Everyone just stay calm. It’s one unscheduled arrival. That’s all. Not like a rebel fleet’s snuck under our nose.”

  He leaned back over the holo.

  “What’s the next ’hole? Refugee transfer from Centauri in an hour? Delay it. If there’s so much as a stray graviton or a butterfly flutter in the quantum foam, you blow the charges on thorns alpha nine and epsilon four,” Terry said. “Nothing else comes through. Not even if it’s got gold clearance. Understand?”

  “Sir, we throw a wrench in the transfer schedule and it’ll jam up traffic for days,” a tech said. “And if we interfere with gold clearance—”

  “All our asses are on the line, I get it.” Terry stood and crossed his arms. “We need to prove to the Commissars that we’re acting out of an abundance of caution—”

  A long beep emanated from a nearby workstation.

  “Watch Commander,” said a blond woman raising her hand, “there’s a life sign coming from the pod. Just one, but the scans are coming back…there’s older Terran Union tech there and something alien not in the database.”

  “This shift’s just getting better and better, isn’t it?” Terry flopped his hands against his sides. “Any idea what it is, Masha?”

  He went to her station and ran a hand along her shoulders.

  “There are two very distinct anomalous readings,” she said. “One I’ve never seen before but—oh no!” Her hands snapped away from the controls as the screen went berserk with static and code lines written with jagged runes.

  “Shit. Shit! What did you do?” Terry looked over his shoulder to the exit.

  “I didn’t do anything. Passive scanners hit traffic without gold clearance. It’s standard operating procedure,” she said.

  The holo tank in the center of the room shifted into a man’s head and shoulders. The face was a chrome mask of flat features. He turned around slowly then focused on the watch officer.

  “Ceres Crucible…explain.” The voice was low and reverberated with malice.

  “Com—Commissar Nakir,” Terry said, swallowing hard through a dry throat. “We’ve had an anomaly. Nothing we can’t handle. I wasn’t even going to alert my security forces. Just a small…pod. Is all.”

  “From where?” The chrome face tilted to one side ever so slightly.

  “From…where?” Terry snapped his gaze to the two technicians. They both shook their heads quickly.

  “That’s part of the anomaly.” Terry smiled. “The other end of the wormhole wasn’t from the Mars Crucible. The rest of the network is still off-line, has been since the liberation. A gate-to-gate transfer shouldn’t be possible and our disruption field still extends—”

  “Secure the anomaly. It is of immediate interest to my master. We will arrive shortly to exam it. You will be there. Nakir out.”

  The holo field disassembled back into the local space over and around Ceres.

  “Have the tenders move the pod into bay 37 and then lock down the entire node,” Terry announced. “Move, people. We’ve got VIPs coming.”

  He went back to Masha’s screen and jabbed at the keys. “What? What the hell are they so interested in?” he asked. “There’s got to be something…”

  “Sorry, they wiped my cache when they cut in,” Masha said, “but I caught a glimpse at the transponder signal. You remember the Christophorous?”

  “No. Wait…”

  “The big colony mission to Terra Nova. Back during the Ember War. We never heard from it or the follow-on mission,” Masha whispered.

  “This might save my ass. Our ass.”

  “Oh good, because I got what you were asking for.” She tapped a pocket and a small case within, then gave his thigh a quick pinch.

  “I’m definitely going to need it. You’re my girl.” He squeezed her shoulder and winked at her before he made for the exit.

  Masha waited for him to leave before she reached under the workstation and palmed a small square of plastic. The scraper went into a hard-to-spot slot on the emergency hood strapped to her thigh and she brushed fingertips over her temple to hide a drop of sweat. The scraper recorded all the data that passed through h
er station, but she’d have to tease out the last few seconds later to know exactly what triggered the Commissar’s attention.

  “Terra Nova,” she muttered. “Terra Nova…curious.”

  Chapter 2

  Terry wiped frost off the life pod’s view port and cupped his hands around his eyes to look inside. The pod was built for half a dozen, but seats had been stripped out to accommodate a long cylinder bolted and braced within. The cylinder glowed in places, shining a pale green through frost that rimed the surface.

  “Maybe it’s a Toth?” Terry looked over his shoulder at a hulking guard with a dark reflective visor over his head.

  The guard held a long gauss rifle that Terry was fairly certain a normal human couldn’t even lift without a pseudo-muscle layer or power armor. The guard’s muscles strained beneath the tight mesh armor over his skin, but he remained silent to the question.

  The dome-shaped bay was the same basalt-colored material as the rest of the Crucible, with a mirror-polished deck and a red line climbing up the bulkhead at the far side up to the apex. Air circulators and lighting had been bolted in, more after-market improvements to accommodate the human crew that the Xaros would never have needed.

  “Oh, not the talkative types,” the watch officer said. “That must be nice. They won’t kill you to keep you quiet. Or send you to prove your conviction to the cause. But since you can’t nark on me…”

  He stuffed a hand into a pocket and drew out a tiny injector barely bigger than a fingernail. He jabbed the point hard against his wrist and winced. There was a slight hiss and he sighed in relief.

  Red lights spun to life and the bay doors opened without a sound, crumbling back from the red line, revealing a small, inverted pyramid hanging just outside in the void.

  Terry yelped and dropped his injector. It skittered beneath the life pod and he fell to his hands and knees as he searched for it. Reaching deep under the pod, he felt the device with one side of his hand. He jammed his fingers in deeper…and couldn’t get them out.

  “Help. Little help here?”

  The guards did nothing.

  He swore to himself and pressed his shoulder against the pod, rocking it just enough against the anti-grav anchors to get the injector and shove it back into his pocket. Terry shuffled back around, still on his knees, and looked up as the pyramid craft—almost as big as a Mule transport—floated over without a sound. Terry leaned forward and pressed his forehead to the deck.

  There was the sound of boots and shoes against the deck, but Terry didn’t dare look up. His heart pounded and his ears rang as blood rushed into his head. When he felt a slight kick against his shoulder, he raised his face hesitantly, like a hand-shy dog getting yelled at.

  Two men stood over him. The broad-shouldered Commissar Nakir—covered head to toe in black, his chrome mask the only standout color—stood with his hands clasped behind his back. The other man wore a dark blue suit and a gold medallion around his neck. He was bald, with an ugly mass of scar tissue over his nose, brow, and one cheek in the shape of a hand.

  The third arrival wasn’t human at all. A slightly built alien with the avian features of a blunted beak and fleshy tendrils in place of hair. The Dotari had his arms crossed and scratched a nail against the red cloth wrapped around his arms. He wore a simple tunic and sandals that left his clawed toes to scratch against the deck.

  “Administrator Kutcher…I-I-I’m honored,” Terry said. “This pod was completely unexpected. I’ve looked through the logs and—”

  “An automatic gate-to-gate junction based on gravitic tides.” Nakir took a slow walk around the pod. “The origin gate isn’t in our network database…and not even in our galaxy. Fascinating, isn’t it?”

  “Theoretically impossible.” Terry raised a hand. “Which is why we weren’t on watch to prevent it. I had no idea there was a Crucible gate in the…Canis Major dwarf galaxy. There’s no record, and for a wormhole to form across more than five thousand light-years is—”

  “Theoretically impossible.” Nakir rapped knuckles against the pod. “And yet…”

  “I remember when the Christophorous left,” Kutcher said, scratching the ugly scars on his face. “Big deal, as it looked like the only way any humans were going to survive the Second Xaros Invasion. You remember that, Commissar?”

  “Before my time.”

  “But the Christophorous and the second mission launched with the Enduring Spirit weren’t.” Kutcher clicked his tongue. “Maybe, maybe, eh? Ibarra slagged most of the Union’s records, but he couldn’t erase memories.” He tapped the side of his head.

  “Our faith and patience are rewarded.” Nakir slipped a small rod from his belt and plugged it into an access port.

  There was a creak within the pod and the access hatch popped open, nearly crushing Terry’s hand.

  “Out of the way.” Kutcher waved a hand at Terry and the other man got to his feet.

  The cylinder within slid out like a slab from a morgue. Melting ice sloughed off and splattered against the deck. Terry could make out a person within, but nothing more than shadows.

  “I don’t recognize this tech,” Kutcher said to Nakir. “You?”

  “No.” The Commissar waved a hand over the cylinder and lines of text ran over his chrome mask. “But what’s inside is human…and there’s what we came for. Dr. Hal’ten?”

  The Dotari clicked his beak and raised a hand, a small sensor rod clutched in his palm. He flicked his wrist and prongs snapped out of the rod. He held it over the head within the tube and tendrils of electricity danced against the surface.

  Hal’ten glanced at a screen on the back of his other hand. “You may be right,” he squawked at Nakir, then flicked a switch on the rod.

  A hologram projected out from the escape pod.

  Ken Hale materialized beside the cylinder. He wore simple work coveralls with the Terra Nova colony mission badge sewn over his chest. His hair had more gray than not, and pain was etched in his face.

  “This is Ken Hale, Governor of the Terra Nova colony. This message is for Stacey Ibarra.”

  Hal’ten hissed and pulled back, raising the rod to strike. Kutcher’s body went stiff, and one hand went to the scars around his eye. Terry shrank back, almost into a fetal position. Nakir’s hands clenched hard.

  “When I left,” Ken continued, “you weren’t on best terms with the Union, nor they with you. It’s been…quite some time since then, and I hope that the relationship’s improved. No matter what…I know you, Stacey. You’re not cruel. I know you’ve been dealt a bad hand, but I hope—pray—that you’re still the same woman I knew.

  “My son,” Ken said, holding out a hand to rest on the cylinder. “Elias; you remember him?”

  Nakir growled low in his throat.

  “You met him when he was just a baby. We ran into each other at Armor Square. You remember that, Stacey?” Ken asked. “He’s still just a boy…and he’s been hurt.” The hologram’s voice quavered. “There’s nothing we can do for him here in Terra Nova, and we’ve looked everywhere we can for some way to help him. Years, Stacey. We’ve worked for years and the stasis technology is failing. If you can’t help him soon…he’s going to die. My son will die, Stacey.

  “He was injured when a Qa’Resh probe broke and merged with his brain stem. No one knows that technology better than you, Stacey Ibarra. You are his only hope. When we last saw each other…we parted on bad terms. But he is my son—he isn’t me. Have mercy on him, please. Save him. I’m begging you as a father.

  “For anyone in the Terran Union that hears this message, I am Colonel Hale of the Pathfinder Corps, Terran Strike Marine, Governor of Terra Nova. If my name means anything to you, get my plea to Stacey Ibarra. My son can tell you more once he’s been treated.

  “Hale. Out.”

  The hologram vanished.

  “Kill that one,” the Dotari said, pointing at Terry. “He knows too much.”

  “What?” Terry’s eyes went wide. “No! I didn’t hear an
ything.”

  “Watch Officer Terry’s record is thoroughly adequate,” Nakir said. “We can’t just waste his life force.”

  The Commissar reached down and grabbed Terry by the back of his neck. Terry went stiff and his vision tunneled. His eardrums fluttered and all he could hear was a loud whine as Kutcher and the Dotari argued with each other.

  Nakir let him go and Terry fell to the deck, his limbs quivering and his tongue wagging out of his mouth.

  “What did you do?” Kutcher asked.

  “Sent a synapse burn through his implant. It’ll erase his short-term memory and shouldn’t have any long-term effects,” the Commissar said.

  “You’re getting soft,” Kutcher chuckled.

  “Our lords want us to show more mercy as the war turns in our favor.”

  “Spare me,” Hal’ten snapped. “The rebel was telling the truth. There is Qa’Resh technology melded to the other human’s nervous system, but the probe is in fragments. I may be able to remove it without triggering its self-destruct protocols.”

  “Can you do it without killing the patient?” Kutcher peered into the tube at the sleeping youth. Elias Hale was in his late teens. His skin had an unhealthy pallor and a swatch of scar tissue ran from one side of his neck to the base of his skull.

  “What does it matter if he survives?” Hal’ten clicked his beak.

  “He knows more about Terra Nova, and about Ken Hale,” Kutcher says. “Our lords want Ken Hale. He is a…witness. You wouldn’t risk angering our lords, would you, my Dotty friend?”

  “Perhaps our lords would consider assisting with the extraction,” Hal’ten said. “They do know the Qa’Resh technology better than…most anyone.”

  Shuddering, Kutcher asked Nakir, “May I petition them in person?”

  “I’ll bring you to the most blessed one in her craft over the North Pole,” the Commissar said. “Victory on the battlefield brought this boon to us. May we all rejoice in the coming salvation.”

  “Rejoice we shall.” Kutcher nudged the still-twitching Terry. “He going to be all right?”