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

  “You’ve been to the Crucible before, right?” Yarrow asked. “I don’t know what’s waiting there for me. That probe thing going to decide to vivisect me? Ibarra decides he wants a new body and I’m the prime candidate?”

  “Hey, I’m the one that comes up with the crazy ideas around here,” Standish said. He grabbed Yarrow by the shoulders and turned him around. Standish attached Yarrow’s back plate, then his air and battery packs. “Don’t be so paranoid.”

  “I think I’ve got every right to be paranoid,” Yarrow said. “The last couple months—literally my entire life—has been nothing but weird…stuff.”

  “Told you this would happen if you kept running your mouth with your conspiracy bull dust,” Bailey said. She set a bag on a bench and laid out her sniper rifle.

  “Kid’s had a rough time,” Orozco said.

  “Life’s been shit for everyone since the invasion,” Bailey said. “Don’t hear me bellyaching about it. Course, I drink heavily.”

  “We’re not going to the Crucible, Yarrow.” Orozco slammed his fists against his chest and stomped his feet against the deck. Ritual complete, he rolled his shoulders back, then pulled his Gustav heavy cannon from a separate locker. “We’re going to Ceres. ‘Strategic reserve.’ Should be lots of sitting on our ass doing nothing. Let the navy finally win a battle.”

  “Is this knitting circle done jaw jacking?” Cortaro banged an armored fist against a locker next to the doorway. “The L-T is waiting for us on the flight deck and you know I hate it when the L-T has to wait on us for anything.”

  “Gunney, the warning order said we just need our standard kit,” Bailey said. “Any idea how long we’ll be away from the Breit?”

  “Command wants warm bodies on Ceres,” Cortaro said. “Anything else we need will be waiting for us.”

  “Anyone else suddenly think we’re not going to be sitting around on Ceres for very long?” Standish asked.

  “Shut up, Standish,” Cortaro said. “Everyone to the armory for ammo draw then double time it down to the flight deck.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Hale watched as Destrier transports passed through the force field at the stern of the ship’s enclosed flight deck. Tiny puffs of air vented around the high-hulled ships and into the void. Hale didn’t care to understand the engineering behind the force field, but it didn’t seem perfect to him.

  A nudge to his back got his attention. Durand, clad in her flight suit and carrying her helmet under the crook of her arm, nodded to him.

  “Marie,” Hale said, “there are two Eagles left on the flight deck. Where’s the squadron?”

  “Hawaii,” Durand said with a roll of her eyes. “Titan routed orders through. My whole squadron’s going to run intercept on the Dotok camp and the R&R center. I’ve got more Toth kills than any other fighter jockey and they want me flying holes in the sky over an empty hotel. Such connerie. You?”

  “All my Marines and the armor to Ceres. We’ll get more details when we arrive.” Hale watched as the cargo ramp on a Destrier lowered; a large metal box was tied down at the end of the cargo runners. “What’s with the heavies? The Breitenfeld’s a strike carrier, not a cargo ship.”

  “The captain didn’t say.” Durand shrugged. “He didn’t seem too upset the last time we spoke. Bit distracted. He OK?”

  “He’s been acting all kinds of weird since we got back from Takeni,” Hale said. “I don’t know if it’s stress or something else.”

  A crewman in a power-lifter suit lumbered over to the open Destrier.

  “Looks heavy,” Hale mused.

  “Time to go,” Durand said. “Kill some Toth for me.” She walked off without a second glance.

  “You…too,” Hale said as he watched her leave. She wasn’t the same woman he had known. What joy she’d once had inside her from before the war had calcified, leaving her with a heart of stone.

  ****

  Kren’s tank sat nestled in a mound of elaborately embroidered pillows, an affectation from his days when he still had his body. Useless, but a nice reminder of just how far he’d improved his own station in life.

  Menials worked around him in the armored vault that served as the Naga’s bridge, its bulkhead’s angles jutting outward like they were in the center of a gigantic gemstone.

  Kren felt an itch deep within; the urge to feed was growing. The spike beneath his tank scratched at the housing, begging to come out. He let the urge pass. Soon he’d gorge himself on the humans, and the hungrier he was, the better the high.

  Besides, all the menials on the bridge were highly trained and difficult to replace.

  “Lord Olux grovels for your attention,” a menial said, not daring to look directly at Kren.

  “Does he? Make him wait,” Kren said. He was the one in control of the Naga. He was the one who’d found this new resource. He was the one who was going to become richer than any Toth, second only to Mentiq’s glory. Olux must be reminded of his low station compared to Kren.

  “Olux…” the menial slunk away from Kren, “dares threaten to remotely disable your life-support functions if he is not addressed very quickly.”

  “Put him through,” Kren said.

  A perfect hologram of Olux appeared on the bridge.

  “Kren, you will slow your ship and wait for the rest of the fleet to reach you,” Olux said, his nerves twisting with anger. “The humans will surrender when they face our full might.”

  “But then you’d earn a larger share of the profits,” Kren said. “The Naga has already beaten the humans. They know they can’t win. I see no reason to diminish my return on investment for your sake. Don’t you agree, Stix?”

  A second hologram appeared—Stix, his tank adorned with gold and platinum armor plates. “I drank from the human captain. The humans are weak. I will not split my share for your concerns.”

  “Your obstinacy is noted and will be reported to Dr. Mentiq!” Olux shouted.

  “I’m sure the good doctor won’t care, not when he has a never-ending supply of human meat.” Kren tapped a claw arm against the deck twice and the menial cut Olux’s transmission.

  “It is unwise to anger him,” Stix said. “He is one of Mentiq’s favorites.”

  “Mentiq values those who make him richer, not those that polish his claws,” Kren said. “How much of a lead do we have on that leech?”

  “Substantial. We can decimate their fleet and have the humans begging for mercy before Olux arrives. I’ve no contact through the Alliance probe. They must have discovered the implant and shut it down.”

  “The virus was still worth the price we paid. The star gate will play no part in this fight.” Kren tucked pillows against his side, an old habit. “Let’s agitate the humans a bit more. I do love meat that’s been stressed for days. It adds a subtle texture.”

  A claw tapped in the direction of the communication’s menial.

  “Open a frequency, audio and visual, all known human channels,” Kren said. The menial slapped its tail against the deck once the order was obeyed.

  “Meat,” Kren said the word slowly, “you will surrender the procedurally generated humans and their methods of creation. Your pathetic military will surrender and you will submit to us. Any resistance will be met with overwhelming force. Accept this mercy now. You will not get a second chance.”

  Kren tapped a claw and the menial closed the channel.

  “Put that on repeat,” Kren said.

  “I thought the plan was for a complete harvest of the planet,” Stix said.

  “It is, but if they give up the procedurals, it’ll save us trouble, less worry about breaking anything valuable,” Kren said. “Will you join me in the bridge?”

  “No. This ship’s warriors are competent, but little more. I will fight the ship from the weapons deck. That is why chairman Ranik sent me on this expedition. I will earn my share.”

  “Do be careful, corporate brother. It would be a shame if you were to perish and I inherit your share.”


  “The same to you,” Stix’s hologram vanished.

  ****

  Hale tromped down the long ramp of the Destrier transport. They’d landed inside an enormous cavern of smoothed-out gray regolith. When Hale’d learned that he and his Marines were going to Ceres, he’d assumed the Crucible—not inside Earth’s newest moon.

  Two soldiers waited for him at the bottom of the ramp in gray-scale armor, a captain with close-cropped blond hair and a first sergeant with a perpetual scowl across his face. Hale saluted the captain.

  “Lieutenant Hale, Breitenfeld Strike Marine detachment,” he said. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Steuben who’d followed behind him. “Steuben, with the Karigole, if you couldn’t tell.”

  Gunney Cortaro led the Marines away with the first sergeant.

  “Captain Hunter, Alpha Company 95th Ranger Regiment,” the soldier said. “Rochambeau was with us for a couple weeks. I didn’t think there was much more about shipboard operations we could learn, but he taught us a few new tricks. Glad to have you here with us.”

  “I didn’t even know this,” Hale said, looking around the cavern as transport craft and cargo loaders moved about in a hangar larger than the Breitenfeld’s, “was here.”

  “Xaros made this cavern and the others,” Hunter said. “They converted Ceres’ mass into the Crucible, hollowed out some pretty impressive voids in the process. Don’t know why they didn’t just take it off the surface. Maybe aesthetics? History aside, did Command tell you what you’re here for?”

  “‘Strategic reserve,’” Hale said.

  “Ha. That’s one way to put it,” Hunter said. “Follow me.” He pointed to a set of blast doors on the far side of the hangar and started walking.

  Hale fell in to Hunter’s left.

  “Lieutenant Bartlett, he was one of mine,” Hunter said. The young officer had led a team of Rangers on Anthalas; all were captured and killed by the Toth. “Shame to lose him and the rest of his team on Anthalas. Good soldiers, all of them.”

  “How…long was he with you?” Hale asked.

  “Almost a year. Picked him up right out of Ranger School,” Hunter said.

  Hale nodded slightly. Hunter must be a proccie, he thought.

  The joined metal plates on the blast door slid aside as they approached. Hale came to a stop, his jaw slack at what lay beyond the doors.

  A massive cavern held four Breitenfeld­-class strike carriers side by side, each resting in a massive scaffolding. Construction bots and workers moved over the hulls, installing hull plates and engines to the ships. The far end was nearly grayed out by a mist of wispy clouds.

  “Woah,” Hale managed.

  “Yeah, it’s a sight,” Hunter said. “They’ve got a supercarrier almost done in cavern epsilon. Crews are coming in daily from the R&R facility on Hawaii. Damn squids get a nice break while their shiny new ships are getting built. My soldiers have been stuck in here for months running sims, but there’s no better welfare for soldiers than first-class training. Come on.”

  Hunter walked toward a set of stairs inside a metal scaffold running up the cavern wall.

  “How’re they going to get these ships out?” Hale asked.

  “They built the doors first.” Hunter glanced up at metal hinges dug into the rock across from the ships. “Amazing what Ibarra’s construction bots can manage since the invasion. Him and that probe were sitting on tech improvements that put us forward another fifty years. Makes you wonder what could’ve been if he opened up the floodgates the day that probe got here.”

  Hale followed the captain up the stairs two at a time to keep pace.

  “You saw the video of the Xaros attack,” Hale said. “There were billions of drones. You think it would have ended any different with better tech?”

  “Several species with larger populations and superior technology have fallen to the Xaros,” Steuben said. “Yours was one of the few successes the Alliance has ever had against the enemy.”

  “No arguments there, but playing Monday-morning quarterback takes my mind off the fact that my hometown and everyone I ever knew were erased off the planet,” Hunter said. He stopped three flights up, next to a hover sled. The craft had a flat top and a small booth for the pilot. A dozen armed Marines could stand on it with ease.

  “Ceres has a couple hundred of these,” Hunter said. “Standard cargo lifters for the shipyards. Fabricators are putting armor plates and rocket-assist pods on units in cavern delta right now.”

  “For what, exactly?” Hale asked.

  “The Toth ship, the Naga, our fleet can’t touch her with rail weapons,” Hunter said. “Ibarra thinks he can get the shields down long enough to land boarders—my Rangers and your Marines. We get in there…disable the ship anyway we can. You and Steuben have been on a Toth ship. I need you to help me figure out where to go once we’re inside.”

  “We were on a Toth cruiser, not the same thing as the Naga,” Hale said.

  “The Toth follow a singular design—protect the elite,” Steuben said. “The ship’s master will be well protected deep within the ship. We kill the elite and the entire ship will falter.”

  “Hard imagining my company and a couple Strike Marines able to take on the whole ship if they’re that dedicated to keeping one Toth alive,” Hunter said.

  “Then we feint,” Hale said. “Put pressure on the elite and draw off defenders from the engines, computer core.”

  “And who’s going to draw that fire?” Hunter asked.

  “Me. I’m baelor. The Toth have a vendetta against me,” Hale said. “If Steuben is on the headhunter mission—”

  “I will kill every overlord I see,” Steuben said with certainty.

  “The Toth know he means business,” Hale said. “It could work. How’re we going to get onto the Naga with these things?”

  “Yeah,” Hunter said, “that’s where things get a little weird.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Shannon elbowed away the woman pressed against her side. The Mule was designed to hold no more than a dozen armed Marines, not the thirty true born crammed into its cargo bay. She would’ve had space to stretch her arms, but the tarp-covered case tied down in the center of the bay was more important to the mission than any of the commando’s comfort.

  “We’ve got enough air for this, right?” someone mumbled.

  “Only if you keep your damn mouth shut,” Shannon hissed. Amateurs. There were enough former military and more than one deserter in the group to keep discipline at an acceptable level, but a couple overly excited pure civilians with more élan than training were in the group.

  She understood why Fournier brought them along; they were expendable.

  “We’ve got docking clearance,” Fournier said over the intercom. “Our woman on the inside has a red undershirt. Don’t hurt her.”

  A volunteer, the same fool that insisted on speaking, fumbled with a magazine on his chest harness. Shannon snaked a hand between bodies and grabbed the man’s wrist. She shook her head from side to side. He was more likely to accidentally shoot a true born before they ever got to the Lehi.

  The whine of gauss carbines came from the stern of the cargo bay. Four former Marines in full armor, wearing the true-born patch of the Earth held by a pair of hands painted over the globe and the anchor Marine Corps emblem, readied themselves.

  “Secure the bridge and lock down the rest of the ship. Remember, everyone on this ship is either a proccie or one of Ibarra’s collaborators,” Fournier said. “No mercy.”

  Shannon chewed on her bottom lip. She’d told Ibarra about Fournier’s plans and asked him for permission to liquidate the true-born leader and his lieutenants before they carried out the boldest move in the group’s history. Instead, Ibarra instructed her to make sure the assault went off without a hitch, and to build them the device in the center of the cargo bay.

  She’d worked for Ibarra for almost half a century, always trusting that he meant to build a bigger, better world than the governments she�
�d abandoned. He’d always given her an out from any assignment, and the codes in her pocket to override the Lehi’s lifeboats were the sole comfort she had on this mission.

  But something about this gnawed at her. Why did Ibarra want the true born on the Lehi? There were easier ways to get rid of them, and without risk to the priceless procedural tanks on the ship.

  The Mule landed hard, and the press of bodies swayed against each other.

  The ramp lowered quickly and the four Marines squirmed over the edge as soon as they could. She heard shouts and more than one shot from a gauss carbine. The mass of the true born rushed off the Mule, shouting at the top of their lungs and brandishing their weapons in the air.

  Shannon had no choice but to move ahead with the scrum.

  The Lehi’s cargo bay was barely big enough for two Mules. A dead woman in a dark gray jumpsuit lay on the deck, her bloody arms wrapped around her stomach, an empty pistol holster on her thigh.

  Shannon knelt beside her and brushed deep red strands of hair away from the dead woman’s face, as her pale blue eyes stared into nothing. She recognized the woman from somewhere, but she couldn’t place it.

  “Sir, what do we do with them?” someone called out.

  Shannon looked up and saw three rows of doughboys standing at parade ground attention near the far bulkhead. All wore armor, their faces covered by dark enclosed helmets. Each held a bulky rifle that looked too heavy for Shannon to even lift. None showed the slightest awareness of what was going on around them.

  “Leave them alone,” Fournier said from behind Shannon. “They’ll make a nice gift.” He stomped down the ramp, a giant smile on his face.

  “Don’t bother with the traitors, my dear,” he said to Shannon. “I need you to move our insurance policy to the center of this hell pit.”

  A true born led a hand-bound and gagged Lawrence from inside the Mule to the top of the ramp and slammed the butt of a gauss carbine into his kidneys. Lawrence groaned through the rag tied through his mouth and fell to his knees. The guard put a boot against his shoulder and kicked him down the ramp.