Earth Defiant (The Ember War Saga Book 4) Read online

  “Where is it?”

  Ibarra waved a hand through the air. A square of basalt-like material on the floor squeezed into a lumpy mass as tiny grains of sand swirled over the surface and the lump rearranged itself into a high-backed chair. A silver halo attached to a bar stuck up from the headrest.

  “Take a seat,” Ibarra said.

  “That looks…,” Stacey backed away from the chair, pointing to it with a trembling finger, “that looks like the thing in the chamber beneath Euskal Tower. Where I found your body. What’s it going to do to me?”

  “The Breitenfeld is dying,” Ibarra said.

  “I swear, if this thing kills me, I will haunt you forever.” Stacey sat in the chair and squeezed her eyes shut. The halo lowered around her forehead. She gasped and her body froze stiff.

  “Stacey?”

  “This isn’t…that bad.” She opened her eyes. They were transformed, now white fields churning with pale-blue haze.

  “Your body was engineered, Stacey. Synthetic DNA was woven into your makeup so you could transmit massive amounts of data to and from Bastion. A nice benefit is that you can tap into what makes you more than human, turn your mind into a supercomputer. So, gold stars all around. Now would you mind bringing the Breitenfeld home?” Ibarra asked.

  The control panels switched from red to green. The wormhole within the Crucible collapsed, sucked into the center point. The Breitenfeld hung motionless in space. Scorch trails marred its hull and debris floated from a gaping exit wound through its starboard engines.

  “Got it,” Stacey whispered. Her eyes returned to normal and she pushed the halo off her head.

  “I don’t,” her words slurred, “feel too hot.”

  Stacey’s chin fell against her chest and she lolled forward.

  Ibarra lunged toward her, his arms reaching out to stop her fall…but she fell right through his grasp. She thumped against the deck and rolled onto her back, her breathing quick and shallow.

  “My little girl.” Ibarra sank to his knees and tried to stroke her hair with his holographic hand, his fingers passing through Stacey’s dark curls. “You never asked for this…and look what I’ve done to you.”

  ****

  Lights flickered across the Breitenfeld’s bridge. Valdar saw the great crown of thorns that was the Crucible and slapped the emergency release on his restraints. He swung around his chair and went to the XO’s station.

  Commander Ericsson shook her head at a wire diagram of the ship, red damage reports staining the ship like it was bleeding.

  “We’ve still got a fire on decks three through six from the direct hit on the foundry,” she said to Valdar. “Damage control parties have it sealed off, but I can’t open the compartments to vacuum. Vents are fused or blown to hell.”

  “What about the engines?” Valdar asked.

  “Numbers two and seven are wrecked—the engine room’s trying to cut the batteries,” she said.

  “Bridge, this is Landis. We’ve got a feedback cascade building in the main capacitor banks,” the chief engineer’s voice came through the ship’s IR. “Recommend we slag the batteries before they discharge and fry the whole ship.”

  “So much for that idea,” Ericsson said as she updated the damage control display.

  “Landis, we slag the batteries and this ship becomes nothing but a still lump of metal in space dock,” Valdar said. “The fleet needs our ship on the line. Can you save the engines?”

  “I’ll have to send crewmen into the stacks with—”

  “Do it.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain,” the chief engineer said, his voice betraying his disagreement.

  “Sir, fleet command is hailing us,” Erdahl said.

  “Put them through,” Valdar said.

  “Breitenfeld, this is Admiral Makarov on the Midway. I’m sending ship tenders and the hospital ship Mercy to you right now. Looks like you had quite a scrap on Europa,” the admiral said with a slight Russian accent.

  “This is Breitenfeld actual,” Valdar said. “Who am I speaking with?”

  “Admiral Makarov, I don’t believe we’ve met in person. Transmit your damage reports. The repair bots can get me a better time estimate once they have it,” Makarov said.

  Valdar muted his line with the admiral and looked back at Ericsson.

  “Makarov?” Valdar asked. Ericsson shrugged her shoulders. Utrecht did the same when Valdar looked to him. The Atlantic Union space navy numbered in the hundreds of void ships before the Xaros invasion, but there were only ever a few dozen admirals. Those that commanded a fleet or smaller strike force became known across the fleet for their command style and record quickly and easily.

  In all his years in the navy, Valdar had never heard of the woman offering to aid his ship.

  “Anyone heard of an Admiral Makarov?” he asked. No one answered.

  “Breitenfeld, respond,” Makarov said. Valdar reopened the line.

  “We’re transmitting data now.” Valdar pointed a finger at Ericsson. She threw her hands up in confusion before carrying out the captain’s order.

  “Sir,” Erdahl said with a sigh of relief, “Admiral Garret is hailing us.” Valdar nodded his head and she opened the channel.

  “Admiral Garret,” Valdar said, “the Toth have a dreadnought-sized vessel in orbit around Europa. They fired on us and tried to kill our ambassador as soon as it de-cloaked.”

  “They were playing us for time,” Garret said. “Of course, we were doing the same thing. Can’t trust anyone these days. The battleship is on its way straight to Earth, and it’s moving damn fast for something that big. Get your ship back online, more to follow.”

  “Sir.” Valdar felt a knot rise in his throat along with the urge to confess everything he’d done to sabotage the negotiations, his collusion with Fournier. All his plans had fallen apart the second the Toth treachery was revealed. There was no point in keeping things hidden any longer. “Sir, I must report that—”

  The ship listed to the side, throwing him against his command chair.

  “Engine six just malfunctioned!” Ericsson shouted.

  “Fire engine nine. Balance us out and get us clear of the Crucible.” Valdar pulled himself back into his chair and strapped in.

  “Engine nine’s not responding,” Geller said.

  “Valdar, you’ve got bigger problems than me right now, Garret out.”

  Valdar felt a vibration grow through his ship, rattling him against his restraints. It died away a moment later.

  “Captain,” Landis said, appearing on a screen inside Valdar’s helmet. The chief engineer held up a blackened mass of wires connected to a stack of corroded plates. “I overloaded engine nine. We’re going to need a couple more voltage sumps…and a new engine nine.”

  ****

  Valdar and Hale walked through a busy passageway, and crewmen moved aside or put their backs against the bulkhead when they glimpsed Valdar’s rank insignia. Naval ships had narrow corridors, and every sailor—enlisted or officer—learned early in their career to make way for anyone that outranked them, the assumption being that the higher the rank, the more important their purpose and destination. Those with lower rank would suffer the inconvenience.

  Hale followed in Valdar’s wake, eyeing the sailors they passed by. The crew of the Midway was the exact mix of younger and older men and women he’d come to know on the Breitenfeld and every other spaceship he’d set foot on. Their uniforms were all crisp and new, but their faces were worn with exhaustion and stress.

  Valdar led Hale into a wider passageway that ran along the spine of the carrier. Motorized carts carrying crates and sailors traveled up and down the center of the passage, separated from those on foot by a yellow and black railing.

  “Flag conference room is another four minutes that way.” Valdar pointed ahead. “Assuming they didn’t move it. I served on the ship’s electronic warfare division for almost a year back when I was lieutenant commander. Everything else seems to be in the same place.”r />
  “Sir,” Hale said—he reserved “Uncle Isaac” for when they were in private— “this ship was crashed into a mountain outside Phoenix a few months ago. How’d they get it back in service? And the crew…”

  Valdar spun around and held up a finger.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “They’re all proccies,” Hale said with a loud whisper. “They have to be. I thought it was just a few here and there, but this…” Hale shook his head.

  Valdar put his hand on Hale’s shoulder. “Admiral Garret ordered us to come to this meeting. He also ordered us not to breathe a word about them to anyone. So keep your theories to yourself and don’t mention any of the terms you were sent to negotiate with the Toth, even if Admiral Makarov asks you point-blank, understand?”

  Hale raised his hands in mock surrender.

  Two guards flanked the entrance to the conference room, both enormous soldiers covered from fingertip to toe tip in armor with enclosed helmets. Hale lagged behind Valdar. As the captain slipped into the conference room, Hale stopped in front of one of the soldiers. He couldn’t see the soldier’s skin beneath the armor and darkened helmet visor, but he had a suspicion these two were just like the one he’d encountered with his brother in Phoenix.

  “What’s your name?” Hale asked.

  “Sir, Cobalt 928, sir,” the soldier rumbled.

  “How old are you?”

  The doughboy cocked its head to the side. “Sir, I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t know the day you were born?” The doughboy didn’t answer. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Protect the principal. Protect Garret from not humans,” Cobalt 928 said.

  “Hale!” Valdar snapped at the lieutenant. Hale hurried over to the open door and followed Valdar inside.

  The conference room was packed with officers who far outranked Hale. He had a sudden desire to find a corner to stand in, as he had little to offer any of the many captains—most of whom had wreathed ship-command stars pinned to their chests.

  Valdar grabbed Hale by the arm and pointed to a small paper placard with Hale’s name on it set on a long wooden table in front of an empty chair.

  “Stand behind that chair and don’t say a word to anyone,” Valdar whispered to Hale. Hale did as instructed and glanced over the rest of the name placards, all for commanders and captains. Two large chairs were at the far end of the table.

  “Room! Attention!” came from a senior master chief petty officer at a small side door. The room went silent as those assembled clicked their heels together and looked straight ahead.

  “Be seated,” Admiral Garret said as he walked into the room. A stout woman with deep-brown hair and an admiral’s stars on her shoulder followed behind him.

  That must be the Makarov everyone’s talking about, Hale thought.

  Hale took his seat and reached down to touch his right knee. The robot doctor aboard the Breitenfeld had reconstructed his knee in less than a half hour and cleared away the contusions. It itched, which was a marked improvement from the searing agony he’d felt until a nurse had pumped him full of a synthetic opiate before his surgery.

  “We have an update on the Toth battleship analogue, which we’re designating as the Naga,” Garret said. A hologram appeared on the middle of the table, the chaotic structure of the coral and crystal Toth ship rotating slowly. A mockup of the Midway, the largest ship ever constructed by the Atlantic Union, appeared next to the battleship, barely a third the size of the Toth vessel.

  “She’s big,” Garret said. “She’s ugly, and she’s fast.” The hologram switched to a model of the solar system, and the battleship shrank into an icon between Jupiter’s orbit and the asteroid belt. “Our working hypothesis is that it came in with the rest of the Toth fleet, cloaked, and started moving toward Earth immediately. Now that it doesn’t have to hide from us, she’s accelerating. Computer models put it in Earth orbit in seventy-two hours.”

  Ship captains grumbled and shook their heads.

  “The rest of the Toth fleet,” on Garret’s cue the solar system hologram expanded, a swarm of enemy icons within the orbit of Uranus, “is also on their way here. Math puts them at ninety-one hours away.”

  “Where are we going to engage?” a captain asked.

  “We aren’t, not right away,” Garret said. “We have graviton bombs hidden through the asteroid belt that will disrupt the battleship’s drives, force it to slow down. We’ve got a surprise waiting for it. If Task Force Odin can destroy or damage the battleship, we stand a better chance against the rest of the Toth in a fleet-to-fleet engagement.”

  “There’s been only one communication from the Toth since the Breitenfeld’s return,” Makarov said. “They demand we surrender immediately and unconditionally. I responded and told them to go fuck their own mothers, if they have any.”

  “Lieutenant Hale,” said Admiral Garret as he leaned back and cast his Argus gaze at the Marine, “you were the tip of the spear for the negotiations. Do you think the Toth can be reasoned with before this gets any uglier?”

  Hale stood up to address the admiral. “Sir, they want…” His eyes darted over the dozens of proccies looking at him. “They want us all. Every last man woman and child is a prize to their whole, twisted way of life. I say kill them all.”

  Rumbles of agreement spread through the room. Makarov cracked a smile and nodded at Hale.

  “Young buck stole my thunder,” Garret said. “I was just getting to that part.”

  “Will there be any reinforcements from the Alliance?” a captain asked.

  The hologram shifted to Ibarra’s head and shoulders.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of Eighth Fleet, Marc Ibarra here.” Ibarra rotated slowly. He looked right at Hale and winked. “We’ve a slight situation with the Crucible. The Toth slipped a Trojan horse into our friendly probe and we’re keeping it offline until we can reboot it safely. The probe, and only the probe, knows the quantum gate signature to allied systems that could send reinforcements. We’re on our own for a week…or three.”

  “Can we still use the Crucible?” Makarov asked.

  “It’s possible,” Ibarra said.

  Garret leaned over to Makarov and the two shared a quick side-bar conversation.

  “Eighth Fleet,” Garret said, “will hold high anchor over Luna. The rest of the fleet, everything that can still fight after we took the Crucible from the Xaros, will form a shield over Phoenix. I’m not going to recall the rest of Strike Force Odin until they’ve had a chance to nail the Naga.”

  Hale leaned over to Valdar and whispered, “What about the Crucible?”

  Valdar raised a hand slightly and shook his head.

  “As for the Breitenfeld,” Garret said, “I know she’s earned some new scars, but I’m assigning her to Eighth Fleet.”

  Valdar’s face went white.

  “We’ll have our next strategy session after the Naga hits the asteroid belt.” Garret stood up. Every serviceman and woman in the conference room rose to attention and remained silent as Garret left the room, a small coterie of aides and normal human bodyguards followed him.

  “Mighty Eighth,” Makarov said, “if the Naga makes it to Earth, it falls on us to stop it. We don’t know what it’s capable of yet, but the Toth don’t seem to have any qualms with sending it right for us.”

  “We’ve trained to take down larger Xaros constructs,” a captain said. A streak of albino white hair hung loose over the left side of her face while the rest of her blond hair was held back in a regulation bun.

  “We’re not going to fight the Toth like they’re Xaros,” Makarov said. “I want all of you back to your ships ASAP. We’ll run simulated fleet actions based off what the Breitenfeld brought back.”

  Makarov stood. “Captain Valdar, my ready room.” The admiral left the room, without the same fanfare as Garret.

  ****

  Valdar stood next to the door of Makarov’s ready room, his eyes glancing between the few furnishings
and decorations as he waited for the admiral to finish a one-sided conversation with her fleet’s quartermaster. The walls held a single framed diploma from the Atlantic Union’s naval academy in Rota, Spain. The highly textured paper and raised seals attesting to Makarov’s graduation were pristine, a recreation of something Makarov thought she’d actually earned.

  A small shelf held a large steel urn shaped like a bulb with ornate handles, intricate designs in the metal brought Valdar’s mind to the shifting surface of a Xaros drone. A spout stuck out from the bottom of the urn, a tea pot rested on top of the device’s flat top. Steam seeped up around the kettle from beneath the device. Two tea cups resting in saucers shared the shelf with the urn.

  Admiral Garret’s instructions to him had been blisteringly clear: don’t let the Eighth Fleet suspect their true origins. How a large group of proccies, particularly those in uniform and with access to weapons, would react to the truth wasn’t something Garret wanted to discover while the Toth were still a threat. The fleet was on a commo blackout to Earth and the rest of the navy. They were ignorant, and Garret meant to keep it that way.

  Being on a ship full of proccies kept Valdar on edge. Fear scratched at the edge of his consciousness, a deep-seated suspicion that they were nothing but slaves to Ibarra’s plans, ready to turn on the true born as soon as that hologram and his probe sent the word.

  The inherent wrongness of their being made him sick to his stomach. Valdar had served around the globe, mingled with many different cultures and nations, never judging a person by anything but the quality of their character and their actions. The proccies…they evoked an almost atavistic fear of the Other from him.

  Makarov gave the quartermaster a slap on the shoulder and he left the room.

  “Sorry, Captain,” Makarov motioned to a seat across from her.

  Valdar sat down stiffly, his muscles tense.

  “The lead engineer on the Eisen, the tender working over your ship, says he can have you back on the line in three days. I gave him twenty hours and two more dry-dock robots from Titan Station. He should make his new deadline,” Makarov said.