The Crucible (The Ember War Saga Book 8) Page 6

  “You’re telling us this now? After our little space walk got going?” Standish asked.

  “Oops,” Shannon said bluntly.

  “I’ve got enough propellant to maneuver a bit and slow us down,” Egan said. “We go any faster and we’ll skip right off the hull.”

  “Bloody Crucible,” Bailey said. “Hate this arsed-up alien hunk of…whatever it is. Should have blown it all to hell the moment we had the chance.”

  “If we’d done that,” Shannon said, “no proccies, no aegis armor, no allies. We wouldn’t have stood a chance when the Xaros returned.”

  “Now we’ve got our ‘allies’ ready to nuke our cities if we don’t fall in line. Great plan, but,” Standish said, “not like we could complain if we’re all dead. We’ve got that going for us.”

  “Standish, I know you were in the Crucible when Stacey Ibarra and the probe took it over,” Egan said. “Where were you, Bailey?”

  “That one.” She nodded to a dome farther along the ring of thorns from their destination. “Was with 2nd Raider battalion. Our landing was a complete goat screw. The colonel and most of his senior staff died right as we disembarked from the America. Lost half my team to drones in the first couple minutes. Then the lieutenant saw her husband’s ship explode and she dropped out of the fight. It was a long day.”

  “I remember sitting in a search-and-rescue shuttle on the Constantine,” Egan said. “Up here,” he said, tapping his helmet, “I saw the whole battle play out. Never got to be a part of it.”

  “Everyone remembers that battle,” Shannon said. “Boss incorporated it into the first batch of proccies, helped them integrate into the fleet after all the personnel shake-ups.”

  “Wait…that’s why I was reassigned from the Raiders?” Bailey asked. “So Ibarra could do some social experiment with his tube babies? Sorry, Egan. No offense.”

  “None taken,” Egan said.

  “You wouldn’t believe what the boss has done to get Earth to this moment—well, not the Ruhaald and Naroosha betraying us. The moment before that when our skies were free from the Xaros,” Shannon said.

  “Like?” Standish asked. “Was he the one that made NuMeat popular? That fake stuff really hurt my rancher family.”

  “Yeah, kid, Mark Ibarra and the probe from an alien alliance went to the effort to make sure fast-food joints sold vat meat instead of dead cows.” Shannon rolled her eyes.

  “He stopped the campaign for Darwin back in ’68, didn’t he?” Bailey asked. “The Chinese 9th Army was broken. Atlantic Union armor was outside Daly Waters when the stand-down order came through. The official explanation about ‘overextended supply lines’ never made sense. Have you seen armor in the field? They run off bloodshed and pure hate.”

  “Beijing was a day away from using nukes. The boss didn’t want World War IV to start right when the Saturn colonization fleet was being built. He made a few calls, ensured the right politicians had ‘accidents’ and made sure the armistice kept military tensions high enough that the AU was happy to lend war ships to the colony mission,” Shannon said.

  “He didn’t see the refugees coming out of Daly Waters. I was knee-high to a joey when me pa took me to the evac center outside Alice Springs. Those poor bastards were skin and bones. All women, children and oldies. Pa wouldn’t tell me where all the men were. At least the armor got video of the mass graves, got my answer years later. Did Ibarra know about the war crimes?”

  “He knew. There was only so much he could do. The only reason any civilians got out of Daly Waters was because he altered Chinese military transmissions to make that happen,” Shannon said. “Ibarra was a wreck for weeks after the armistice, kept watching the vids of armor digging up the graves. You may think he’s some kind of heartless monster. He’s not. He knew there were consequences behind every decision and when the innocent suffered, he suffered.”

  “And the not-so-innocent?” Standish asked.

  “He had me, and one other person, to deal with those,” Shannon said with a chuckle. “I always liked that part of my job.”

  “Almost there.” Egan let off a few quick bursts from his propellant gun and angled them toward a gap through the inner ring of thorns.

  “Mind the sharp, pointy bits,” Standish said.

  They floated between two thorns as they slid against each other, closing the entrance seconds after the Marines made it through.

  Standish used his helmet’s optics to zoom in on the dome, still several hundred yards away. Angular plates of aegis armor covered the surface, gleaming like obsidian beneath the sun’s light. Several wrecked bunkers dotted the surface.

  “I don’t remember any of that,” Standish said. “Are those point defense turrets? Bet we could find weapons in there. We get in a fight and my cutting wit won’t do more than hurt feelings.”

  “We reinforced a couple key facilities before the Xaros arrived,” Shannon said. “Defenders didn’t last long. Aegis armor works against Xaros disintegration beams. Naroosha lasers? Not so much. Get us to the nearest bunker. That’s our way inside.”

  A ripple of light appeared beyond the dome as a squadron of Ruhaald fighters came around the far side.

  “Think we’ve got a problem,” Standish said.

  “Loosen up. Play dead.” Shannon hit the release on her lifeline and pushed away from Standish. The lights within her helmet switched off.

  “Open your air valves and cut power.” Egan put a boot against Bailey’s side and shoved her away.

  Standish’s ears popped as his helmet flooded with air pressure. Strike Marines’ evasion techniques did everything possible to limit their electromagnetic signature if an enemy was close. Active air-tank regulators and the power armor’s heating systems would generate a great deal of attention if the Ruhaald looked too closely. Unpowered, floating loose, they might be mistaken for Marines blown from warships during the battle…who died waiting for recovery.

  A chill pressed against Standish’s body as the void leached heat away. His teeth chattered as his exhalations frosted the inside of his visor. According to the suit’s specs, he could survive for nineteen minutes in an unpowered suit. As numbness crept up his fingertips, he had serious doubts about the manufacturer’s promises.

  The Ruhaald fighters flew a lazy orbit around the dome, then veered toward a dome on the opposite side of the Crucible. A single blocky transport ship trailed behind the fighters.

  Standish’s teeth chattered. He felt a nip of frost against his earlobes and cheeks, a familiar pain from enduring Canadian winters.

  There was a tug against his lifeline. He looked over and saw Bailey slapping at her forearm computer.

  Standish poked his control screen with dull fingers and felt a wave of relief as his suit came back online and the heaters kicked in.

  “—way too fast. Hold on!” Egan shouted.

  Standish looked up. The dome was close enough that he could make out the individual plates of aegis armor and noted just how quickly the unforgiving surface was coming right at him.

  “Get your hooks out.” Standish unspooled his secondary lifeline from his belt and spun the weighted magnetic tip like a bolo.

  The line attached to Bailey jerked as Egan used the propellant gun to slow his momentum. Standish felt his speed slow as the complexities of a four-body vector dynamics equation played out.

  “Really should have paid more attention to high school physics,” Standish said as they crossed over the edge of the dome.

  “I’m out.” Egan flung the gun away and removed the lifeline attached to Shannon from his belt. “I’ll drop her line and—damn it!”

  Egan clawed at Shannon’s lifeline as it slipped out of his grasp.

  “Drop hooks! Now!” Bailey yelled.

  Standish released his secondary line and bit his lip as it darted toward the dome. The magnetic anchor skided over the surface…but didn’t find purchase against the armor plating. His line went slack as the anchor bounced away. Standish’s panicked breathing
thundered in his ears as he slapped the lifeline housing on his hip and waited for the winch to reel his line back in. He might get a second chance, if his connection to Bailey held.

  Egan jerked to a halt as his anchors gripped tight. Bailey slammed to a stop as her line to Egan went taut.

  Standish gripped the line to Bailey in his hands and held on with all the strength his suit could muster. The graphene-reinforced cable lengthened until it was nearly straight. The force of his momentum hit like a truck as the line ran out. His head rattled like a pea in a can as his body jerked against the lifeline.

  He flailed around, grabbed the line and looked down at his belt…it was stretched, nearly torn open by the shearing force that brought him to a stop.

  “Oh no…” Standish gripped the line to Bailey in one hand and grabbed the line to Shannon in the other. He had only seconds to save Ibarra’s spy.

  “Shannon, listen to me. My belt is compromised. You need to use your anti-grav linings in your boots to—”

  The line to Shannon went tight, then snapped loose as Standish’s belt ripped apart.

  Standish reached for the belt, the last connection he could make to Shannon, and missed it by inches.

  Shannon’s arms flailed as she tumbled end over end, away from Standish and into the black. She faded into the void within seconds.

  “—suit! Nothing’s working!” Shannon’s transmission was full of static.

  “Shannon? Shannon, answer me!” Standish called out. He caught a few bursts of static…then nothing.

  The line in his hand tugged at him. He looked down and saw Bailey and Egan reeling him in. He stumbled onto the dome and struggled to get a firm grasp with the magnetic soles of his boots.

  “Did she say anything to you? Can she get back here?” Bailey asked.

  “Her IR was weak.” Standish looked into the abyss, searching for Shannon. “Her suit might have malfunctioned when she brought it back online. Did she even know how to do that right? You try and bring up life support before the temperature regulators and the batteries might dump their charge.”

  “I thought she knew,” Egan said.

  “I didn’t ask her,” Bailey said, touching her fingertips to her visor.

  “Damn it, why the hell didn’t any of us make sure she knew how to use her armor right when we put it on her?” Egan asked.

  “She was in a hell of a rush to get away from the other…her. Remember? Excuse me for thinking Ibarra’s ninja-woman knew how to cold-start mark-nine armor,” Bailey said.

  “I’m going to get blamed for this.” Standish put his hands on his hips and shook his head.

  Egan slapped his forearm screen and his icon dropped off the IR net. The Marine balled his fists and screamed a single word into the void.

  He reopened his comms and let out a deep breath.

  “All right…we need to get out of the open.” Egan pointed to a ruined bunker a dozen yards away. “Shannon wanted us to go to one of those, must be a way inside.”

  “Wait…what about her?” Standish waved a hand over his head. “She’s gone Dutchman. We don’t know how long her suit will last or…even how to find her.”

  “Our suits have exactly jack and shit left for battery power and life support. We go looking for her and we’ll end up dead in the void…or back in that cell,” Egan said. “We still have a mission. Get Ibarra and Captain Valdar connected. Let the brass figure out the rest of this mess. Come on.”

  Egan kept his feet locked to the surface, skating across the metal on a loose magnetic grip like he was gliding over ice. The other Marines followed.

  The bunker’s roof was torn open like flesh assaulted by a jagged blade. Standish came to a stop next to a firing slit and took a quick glance inside. Blackened bodies fused to gauss cannons manned the firing positions.

  “God bless ’em,” Bailey said. “Hope it was quick.”

  “The rest will be just like this,” Egan said.

  “I’m not going to say ‘I told you so,’” Standish said as he climbed up the side of the bunker and dropped into the wrecked interior. “Mostly because I didn’t. Shannon frightened me. But I was thinking this was a bad idea.”

  He scraped his boot over the charred floor, sending black flakes floating into the void. His toe caught on a depression.

  “Hello, what’s this?” Standish ran his fingers over the dip, then grasped a handle. He pulled, using much of the augmented strength his armor provided before a hatch popped open.

  “Good job.” Bailey looked over Standish’s shoulder. “You’ve found a very small box.”

  Standish looked into the hole. There was a solid base of metal two feet down.

  “No doors on the outside. This is wide enough for us. How’d they get in here?” Standish asked.

  The metal base slid aside, revealing an inky darkness below.

  “You found it. You first.” Egan nudged Standish’s shoulder.

  “In all fairness, I think its Bailey’s turn to go face-first into the dark scary place.” Standish looked up at the other two and found no sympathy. “Fine. Where’s that damned new guy when I need him. Whole company of new guys and I’m still the one that—don’t push me!”

  Standish shrugged off Bailey’s hand and slid into the opening. He landed a moment later and switched on his IR filters. A narrow passageway barely taller than him extended away from the opening.

  “Clear.” Standish took a few tentative steps away from the hatch. He lifted a hand and let it fall naturally to his side as Egan and Bailey joined him. “We’ve got gravity…but no atmo.”

  “Are we inside the dome?” Bailey asked.

  Standish rapped his knuckles on the wall.

  “That’s armor plating,” he said. “We’re in the aegis shell over the dome.”

  “Move,” Egan said, “our air tanks aren’t getting any fuller.”

  Standish swallowed hard, then started running.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Forever Tide was not a perfect vessel for the many Ruhaald subspecies. Septon Jarilla was reminded of this each time he walked through the passageways with his helmet removed. The high methane-nitrogen mix of atmosphere suited some of the crew that walked upon the many islands of their home world, but not a locus like Jarilla. His body demanded frequent returns to the many pools of seawater where the truest strains of Ruhaald lived and worked.

  His queen demanded his company and counsel, and that could not be given while he tottered around on two legs and his lungs demanded gas to function. Undergoing the metamorphosis back to his oceanic form took time and was quite painful when rushed.

  The larger Ruhaald vessels catered to the seaborne castes, fully aquatic and compartmentalized to survive void combat. Assault vessels had nothing but the land walkers and a few pools to rejuvenate the crews. Most of Ruhaald civilization existed beneath the waves of their home world, and even those specially bred to expand beyond the surface still needed the embrace of the sea.

  Jarilla’s long-toed feet sloshed through the passageway; the feel of sea grass beneath his bare feet was comforting, at least. The Forever Tide had to carry the loci, the leadership caste like him that transcended the stratified Ruhaald society to guide the species, and that meant air and sea segments within the ship.

  He turned around a clear tank, one set directly on his path to the bridge, forcing a detour that would take him several minutes to circumvent. He swore a water dweller designed the ship just to confound the land walkers. The aquatic crew often complained to him that a land walker had designed the layout, and either failed to consult the swimmers or made sure the ship was as inconvenient as possible for them.

  Jarilla thought there was truth to both opinions.

  He entered the walker’s bridge where the crew handled the external concerns of the ship: navigation, combat, communication. The swimmers controlled internal duties: life support, the hatchery, propulsion and power systems. The swimmer command center formed the back wall, a clear wall where the two aspects
of the Ruhaald coordinated with each other.

  Jarilla flicked his tentacles at the swimmer officer in charge across the glass and went to a communication screen. He scooped water from the floor into his helmet and placed it on his head. The moisture against his skin was therapeutic, and he would need some comfort to steel himself against this next conversation.

  Jarilla opened a channel to Ordona on the Crucible.

  The Naroosha’s bucket helm appeared on the screen.

  “Report,” Ordona said curtly.

  “I am your ally, not your servant,” Jarilla said.

  “The Bastion translation software conveys our meaning to each other. That is sufficient for our needs. Expending mental energy to appease your cultural expectation is wasted mental energy. Report.”

  Jarilla wondered if the Bastion technology could fully convey the Ruhaald’s opinion that Ordona was a ruptured cloaca. He decided not to test that question in the interest of diplomacy.

  “I wish to open negotiations with the human authorities.”

  “Irrelevant to our timetable. If you have nothing to add, I will close the channel.”

  “Wait,” Jarilla’s toes writhed in annoyance, splashing in the shallow water. “My queen requests that we reconsider the terms of success.”

  Jarilla looked to the side where a pool of black water sat separate from the swimmers’ bridge. She dwelled within her own tank, perfectly suited to her physiology and linked to the hatchery where her offspring were cared for. He longed to join her in the tank, feel the meld of her consciousness with his, but his duty kept him away.

  “Your queen, all proper obsequious notions rendered, agreed to this with the Vishrakath representative. As did my leadership committee. I am not authorized to deviate from our objectives unless there are unforeseen and very extenuating circumstances. Explain yourself.”

  Jarilla gave thanks that he was not on the Crucible at this moment; otherwise he would have ripped Ordona’s suit open and found out if he had a neck to strangle.