The Crucible (The Ember War Saga Book 8) Read online

  Standish leaned next to a firing slit, keeping his distance from the charred bodies still manning their posts.

  Bailey ran a loving hand down her new rail rifle, scanning the dome through a handheld scope.

  “Hey, Bailey, why didn’t you let me say something to Ibarra about the tube Shannon?” Standish asked.

  “The look on her face.” Bailey snapped her gum and ran her scope across her firing slit. “She was terrified. If she’s the first—or third—one of her running around, she never knew about the others. Ibarra kept that from her. He keeps a secret like that from someone that does his dirty work…bet he doesn’t want anyone else to know about it either.”

  “What do you think she is? A clone? Everything in the news about the proccies says cloning is impossible…which means Ibarra’s been lying to everyone. Again.”

  “You think that bloke’s above killing people to keep things quiet? Shannon said she did just that kind of thing for him.”

  “Jesus.” Standish tapped a finger against his gauss rifle. “He could be making clones of us right now. We’ll get bumped off and replaced by compliant…pod people! Can you imagine, another me running around the galaxy?”

  “I’d rather not,” Bailey said. “You guys ever hear about that mess in Saigon couple months before this war started? Some Chinese People’s general whose head mysteriously exploded while he was enjoying a getaway with a mistress?” She gave Standish a look out of the corner of her eye.

  Standish shifted uncomfortably against the wall.

  “I saw a Marine team in High Orbit Low Opening gear get into a Mule on the Breitenfeld. I got curious and dug around. Turns out the flight wasn’t on the schedule and the personnel logs didn’t show any departures. Two days later Major Acera calls me into the office and rips me a new one for unauthorized data access and tells me to forget I saw anything and never mention it again. Which I just did. Oops.”

  “Just keep your mouth shut about what you saw,” Bailey said with a wink. “Leaks get plugged.”

  “Wait…how did you know about that?” Standish asked.

  “I’m in!” Egan said with a little laugh. “Bounced the transmission off the Ceres relay and into the fiber network running through Phoenix and every other fortified city. Ibarra’s got comms to the whole planet and to the Breitenfeld…so long as they’re on the right side of the moon. Thank the signal corps. You can talk about us, but you can’t talk without us.”

  “Is setting up the transmitter all you’re doing up there?” Standish tapped the roof. “Can we leave? I don’t want to be out here in case Standish Two comes along to dispose of the evidence.”

  “There’s a Ruhaald ship coming in,” Egan said. “It’s heading for the far side of the dome…and one of the thorns over there just broke off the side.”

  “It’s an attack,” Bailey said. “Let’s get back to the barricades and do something useful for once.”

  ****

  Ibarra, Gor’al, Utrecht and Ericcson stood around the Breitenfeld’s holo table, watching icons of Ruhaald shuttles trace between the alien ships over the Earth.

  “We had ships put camera and optics to every Ruhaald ship in view during our last two orbits,” Ericcson said. “The enemy keeps up regular cargo shipments between all ships at a pretty regular interval. From a frequency analysis, we can’t pinpoint any ship that’s more important than any other.”

  “Jarilla’s shuttle returned to the Ruhaald craft over Lima. He didn’t return to Knoxville,” Gor’al said. “They’re hiding their command ship quite effectively. But…”

  Gor’al touched the ship menacing Anchorage and zoomed in. He shifted through footage until he stopped at a Ruhaald shuttle leaving the ship’s hangar bay. The shuttle had a bulbous center, like a water tender that would service his ship at anchor.

  “Notice the flare off the engines?” the Dotok asked.

  “The ship’s carrying a decent amount of mass,” Valdar said. “What of it?”

  “This particular type of cargo shuttle goes between every single ship,” Ericcson said, “but the engines work that hard when—and only when—it leaves the Anchorage vessel.”

  “So there’s some sort of liquid on that ship that all the other ships are consuming…” Valdar stroked his beard. “Curious.”

  “It’s a single point of failure in their system,” Utrecht said. “Which would make it an ideal target.”

  “Our stealth Mule can reach Anchorage,” Valdar said, “but that’s a big ship. All I can send as boarders are armsmen. Gor’al, you have a contingent of Marines on the Vorpral?”

  “Space is limited on your Mule. This is not a time to hold back. I suggest sending soldiers with more firepower,” the Dotok said.

  “Armor…but they’re all on the surface. How many suits could it—”

  “Sir, priority communication for you,” the comms officer said through his earpiece, “from the Crucible!”

  “Put it on the tank,” Valdar said.

  Marc Ibarra’s static image came up next to Ceres within the holo-field. Ibarra brought the transmission to the fore with a hook motion toward the new moon.

  “Valdar? Sure hope it’s still you over there. All I’ve got is audio and about ten minutes before you orbit out of my line-of-sight transmission,” Ibarra’s tinny voice said.

  Valdar tapped Ericcson on the shoulder then tapped their status report screen. She nodded and sent the data through the open line while Valdar spoke.

  “I’m here. Got Gor’al from the Vorpral with me. More data’s coming to you. We had a conversation with the Ruhaald admiral that—”

  “Yes yes yes. I’m monitoring everything within the Crucible. There just isn’t much that I can do about it. It won’t be long before the Naroosha have complete control over the gate, and then there’s no chance of us winning this thing,” Ibarra said.

  “If you’ve got a plan to retake the Crucible, save our cities from the nukes and have us hold on to everything long enough for Mars fleet to get here and beat those bastards into dust, we’re all ears,” Valdar said.

  “We can pull it off, but several things have to happen all at once. The hardest part will be getting rough men and women ready to commit violence into the Crucible’s control room,” Ibarra said.

  “I think we’ve got that covered.” Valdar brought Ibarra up to speed on the cloaked Mule. “The nukes are the sticking point for us. Doesn’t do us much good to retake the Crucible just to watch the home world go up in nuclear fire.”

  “Nukes are easy,” Ibarra said and rapidly laid out a plan.

  “It could work,” Gor’al said. “If everything goes perfectly. Fail one part and every human, Dotok and Karigole on Earth is doomed.”

  “There is a demon named Murphy,” Valdar said, “and we will not let him win this day.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Streaks of fire ran across the sky. The broken remains of fighters, orbital emplacements and ships ranging from corvettes to Midway-class supercarriers made their final descent to Earth as brief red-hot comets. Those near Perth saw the re-christened Gallipoli fall into the atmosphere and begin shedding its hull to a conflagration that stretched all the way to Hawaii where the bus-sized remains of the carrier splashed into the sea.

  The shower of burning wreckage would continue for days as dead ships and their abused remains slowly succumbed to Earth’s gravity.

  Over the American West, a darkened lump of metal the size of a fist passed into the lower atmosphere, slowing precipitously in the thicker air. It reached terminal velocity within seconds and began the long parabolic arc to the ground. By the time it hit the lower extent of the Rocky Mountains, it was little bigger than the palm of a child’s hand.

  The lump bounced off a boulder and settled into a pile of loose rock. Embers burned across the warped metal, flaring as a gust of wind swept over the surface. The metal lay dormant for nearly an hour…then its shell shifted color into a deep gray. Tiny black squares appeared on the surface, swirling into lar
ger fractal shapes.

  The metal sank into the surface, growing larger as it devoured rocks and soil into it. The metal stretched out into four spindly limbs. It grew larger, fuller, as it fed on the earth around it, morphing into a humanoid shape.

  A head spilled from the body, hanging by thin stands until those merged into a neck. A too-wide mouth bit into a boulder, chewing off a fragment and swallowing it whole.

  Torni’s naked form collapsed to the ground. She fought to recreate open eyes from her shell and managed to look around. Mountains to the north, rising sun behind her and the remains of a city to the front. Many of the skyscrapers were splayed open, half-demolished by Xaros drones during their scouring of the planet’s surface. One building’s upper floors were blown apart and blackened by fire.

  “I…know this.” Torni stood up, remembering the training exercise with her team in the city and their failure to defeat the faux-drones Steuben used to ambush them. She’d landed near Tucson.

  She looked down at her naked shell and gave off a startled yelp. She scooped up a handful of dirt and rubbed it over her arms, transforming the mass into a plain jumpsuit. She grabbed a rock and squeezed it between her hands, absorbing it into her body, which changed her color to mimic a pale, blond-haired woman in dark blue coveralls.

  Fireballs streaked through the upper atmosphere.

  She remembered the General’s call, sending her to merge with the rest of the Xaros drones forming a planet-killer weapon over India. She remembered releasing the dormant kill command she’d carried for years. After that…

  Torni tried to tap into the electromagnetic spectrum to pick up anything from the defenders, but her shell collected nothing but mangled static. She willed an antigravity field into being to take to the air. Rocks exploded away from her as the rogue gravitons emitted off her body.

  “Not everything works,” she said. She looked at her hands and saw waves undulating over her surface. They calmed as she concentrated on holding her form, but the control she’d once had over her Xaros body was gone.

  She dropped her hands to the side, thankful there wasn’t a mirror nearby to reflect her face.

  The remnants of old I-10 extended from the city to the northwest…toward Phoenix.

  Torni made her way down the mountain.

  ****

  Hale, hitching a ride atop the armored skirt over Elias’ treads, held onto the soldier’s arm as they rolled through the low tunnel. The armor leaned forward, ducking beneath the unfinished ceiling, the treads kicking up a cloud off the dirt floor.

  The unfinished tunnel felt too much like the caverns beneath Pluto to Hale, the nagging press of claustrophobia stirring in the back of his mind. Years before, Hale had volunteered for armor selection at Ft. Knox. He’d done well during the first few months, scoring top marks in neuro synthesis with the suit systems and combat ability. His dreams of wearing armor came to a screeching halt during isolation testing.

  Prospective armor soldiers were required to withstand the psychological stress of being trapped within the suit’s womb until rescued. Tests inside the pitch-black tanks filled with salt water could last from hours to days. During his second stint in the tanks, Hale snapped. The instructors found him weeping and hysterical when they opened the tank. There were no second chances for cadets that washed out of the isolation tests.

  Claustrophobia hadn’t been a problem for Hale before his time at Knox. Since then, the press of tight spaces brought an air of anxiety—not because he was truly afraid, but because of the memory of abject failure.

  Elias came to a stop next to a group of Marines huddled near the ramp leading to the emergency access and Caas.

  Lieutenant Mathias and Cortaro stood up when Hale jumped off the tread.

  “We’ve got an IR relay to our Marines and the Hussars on the ridge,” Mathias said. “They know the target area and will lift and shift fire soon as we open the hatch.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Hale said, then raised his voice. “Mission is to grab a Ruhaald leader and get back to the tunnel and move with urgency to the tunnel network leading back to Phoenix. The confusion of our ambush and the casualties we’ll inflict should give us enough time to withdraw. We will hit them like a thunderbolt and fade away like ghosts. These squid-looking bastards have never fought Strike Marines, and now it’s time to teach them a lesson for setting foot on Earth. Any questions?”

  “What’re we waiting for?” Elias asked. The rotary cannon on his shoulder began to spin slowly. Metal clinked as his mechanical hands opened and closed.

  “Mathias, tell your team sniper to knock on the door,” Hale said.

  The lieutenant nodded and touched a control pad on the back of his hand.

  “Thibodaux, take ’em.”

  The tunnel shook as a rail-rifle shot smashed through Thibodaux’s target and into the earth a few tens of yards away. The muted sound of gauss fire and the pitter-pat of bullet impacts drummed through the tunnel.

  “Ambush team will shift fire after the second rail shot,” Mathias said.

  Elias rolled to the base of the ramp, grabbing either side of the walls and holding himself back as his treads ground against the loose sand. His helm twisted to look at Hale.

  “Cry havoc.”

  The tunnel shook with the impact of another rail slug and Elias roared up the ramp. He lowered a shoulder and smashed through the hidden exit. Light flooded down the tunnel and the sound of Elias’ gauss cannons echoed off the walls.

  Caas rolled up the ramp and Hale followed. He would never let his Marines charge ahead of him, but using the armor as a shield made perfect tactical sense.

  Caas’ treads lifted her torso away from the ground and the actuators whined as the treads transformed into legs. She lifted her forearm cannons and opened fire, double claps of gauss shells slapping the air. Her rotary cannon twisted the opposite direction from her gauss cannons and let off a storm of bullets.

  Hale ran up the ramp and veered to the right. A Ruhaald artillery emplacement burned in front of him, the barrel blown open like a used firework and smoldering in the sand. Dead aliens lay around the emplacement, lime-green fluid seeping into the dirt around their corpses.

  The mountains behind the camp flashed with gauss fire from the Hussars and his Marines. Thibodaux’s rail rifle split the air and a distant tent exploded into a ball of fire.

  A high-pitched gurgling sound filled the air, emanating from scattered tents and Ruhaald vehicles. A few of the aliens attempted to return fire: short lightning bolts snapped up the mountain side and were answered with aimed fire from several Marines.

  The Marine ran toward the gun, jumping over the wrecked tube. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the rest of his Marines following close behind. He cleared the emplacement and saw a circular tent with garlands of shells over the fabric and several antennae poles in a loose circle around what he and Steuben assumed was a headquarters area.

  Chest-high blocks of gray stone formed a berm around the tent with a wide opening to the rear. A pair of Ruhaald ran out of the corral, both carrying the lightning guns their infantry seemed to prefer.

  Hale shot one in the head. It fell in front of the other and tripped it to the ground. Hale put two rounds into the survivor as he passed and ran into the berm. He swept his rifle around the corner and found an alien soldier struggling to load a glowing pill into a rifle stock. The alien glanced up and froze when it saw the Marine.

  Hale’s armored heel kicked out and crushed the alien’s head, splattering deep-purple ichor against the wall.

  “Assault team ready!” Matthias shouted. The lieutenant and four Marines were just outside the tent flaps. The rest of the Marines that followed Hale into the camp were crouched against the blocks.

  “Go!” Hale stood up and fired at a group of soldiers fleeing Elias and Caas.

  Heavy gauss cannons blew the soldiers into bloody fragments.

  Elias, the cannons on his arm glowing red hot, jammed an arm into a tent and p
ulled a Ruhaald out by the leg. Elias leaned back and hurled the alien through the air. The enemy soldier tumbled end over end, arcing over Hale’s head and slamming into the shield wall.

  A twenty-foot-wide segment of the energy shield flickered as the alien burned to a crisp like meat forgotten on a hot skillet.

  Elias let off an ear-splitting roar and smashed a black berm aside with the back of his hand. He hoisted another Ruhaald over his head with both hands…then ripped the alien in half. Elias dropped the bleeding hunks to the ground.

  “Sir! Got one.” Matthias came out of the tent, limping badly, a blackened circle marring his right thigh. A pair of Marines dragged a Ruhaald with thin arms and a lower body shaped like a tadpole’s tail.

  “It had bodyguards,” one of the Marines said. “Guess this one’s important, right?”

  A horn blast hit Hale hard enough that he reflexively ducked behind the berm. Caas thundered past, her cannons blazing.

  A Ruhaald vehicle built like a scorpion broke through the wall of one of the large buildings. Its oversized forelimbs, a pair of flattened stalagmites made of dark metal almost fifteen feet high, pawed at the ground like a bull readying to charge. Gauss bullets ricocheted off the dark metal in a starburst of sparks. A ball of sensors and thick cables hung just behind the shield-limbs, bobbing up and down as it scanned for threats.

  Gauss shells bounced off the armored fore limbs without leaving a dent.

  “Anchoring!” Caas yelled. She raised her right leg and a drill bit popped out of the heel. Her aegis shield unfolded from her forearm in segments.

  The scorpion tank’s tail snapped up, a wide-barreled energy cannon on the tip.

  Caas slammed her anchor into the ground just as the Ruhaald tank fired. A thin, jagged line connected the alien weapon to Caas’ shield, then a bolt of lightning so bright it left an afterimage against Hale’s eyes, burst through the air. The Dotok armor slammed to the ground and slid back like she’d fallen on an icy lake.