The Ruins of Anthalas (The Ember War Saga Book 2) Read online

  “Ten o’clock, on the horizon,” Choi said.

  There. Durand saw a glint of light, straight and uneven lines of a beige structure that extended beyond the curve of the moon. Straight lines, as a rule, had no place in nature. Whatever they could see had to be artificial.

  “It’s not on our course plot,” Mei said.

  “What the hell is it?” Zhi asked.

  As they flew closer, they could make out perfect cubes floating over the moon’s surface, thick, straight lines ran from one cube to the others without obvious rhyme or reason. Some of the cubes had dozens of lines running in and out of them; others had only one. There were hundreds of cubes arrayed in a flat plain. Starlight faded between the cubes, as if they were looking at a bright light through fog.

  “How big are they?” Durand asked, her words tinged with awe.

  “Given our distance …,” Zhi said and Durand heard the keys on a manual calculator clicking, “each cube must hold three times the volume of the Breitenfeld. That structure is larger than every void ship in service before the Xaros arrived.”

  “Is it a ship?” Durand asked.

  “I don’t see any engines,” Zhi said. “Do you think it’s Xaros?”

  “They’ve already got a Crucible and the displacement rings around the planet,” Durand said. “Why would they need a bunch of cubes?”

  “How about we not go find out? Just drop our buoys and get back to the Breit,” Choi said.

  “Open a channel to the ship. Captain Valdar will want to see this,” Durand said.

  CHAPTER 6

  Valdar and his senior officers clustered around the tactical plot, a printed-out screen capture of the cube ships tacked against Anthalas’ moon. Flight recordings of Durand’s flight past the cube ships ran on a loop on data slates left on desks around them. Hale, bulky in his void armor, stood next to Durand, still in her flight suit with her helmet under her arm. Lowenn, also in void armor, looked as natural as a dog in a tutu. Steuben, clad in armor that looked like overlapping scales, and Lafayette stood behind the humans.

  “Lafayette, Steuben, is this cube ship like anything you or the Alliance have seen before?” Valdar asked.

  “It doesn’t conform to any known race,” Lafayette said. “Strict adherence to such basic geometric shapes is typical in species with limited imaginations or love for aesthetics. The Shanishol were known to appreciate stone carvings and to imitate shapes seen in nature. This does not appear to come from them.”

  “Maybe some other species heard their invitation and decided to stop by,” Ericsson said.

  “But it’s not Xaros,” Valdar said to Lafayette.

  “No. Xaros will combine into larger structures to overwhelm an enemy, but they always revert back to single drones as soon as they can.”

  Valdar stood up straight and picked up a photo sheaf of Anthalas. “Let’s not lose focus. We came here for what’s on the planet, not what’s in orbit.” He flipped through pictures taken by Durand’s reconnaissance mission and laid out the photos on the table, creating a tableau image of the light side of the planet. Identified cities and structures were in blow-up boxes, yellow lines tracing from the city images to where they corresponded to the map.

  “Ms. Lowenn, you’re the expert. What are we looking at here?” Valdar asked her.

  “Well, there are still cities, so woo-hoo,” she raised her voice for the last two syllables and wasn’t met with similar enthusiasm. “Um … the cities are all equidistant from each other, which is odd as most civilizations build their cities along rivers or coastlines, places that make transportation easier. These Shanishol—and I’m assuming they’re Shanishol—settlements are in some lousy spots—the middle of jungles, one is in the center of a mountain range, all very isolated from each other—and there are no roads linking any of these places. The IR buoys will show us the other side of the planet once it rotates into view, but I think the pattern will hold.”

  “Is there some kind of capital? Some place we should go first to find Omnium?” Valdar asked her.

  “Well, given that this city,” she said, pointing to a circular settlement with wide avenues lined with stepped pyramids, all leading to a straight-sided pyramid at the center, “is the largest and the central structure definitely looks to have some sort of significance, I’d say we start there.”

  “Go to the biggest place? Did you have to go to college to learn that?” Commander Utrecht asked her.

  “Did you not learn about Occam’s Razor at Asshole University?” Lowenn fired back.

  “Stop,” Valdar said. “I’ve got six recon teams on this ship, and I’m not going to send them all to one spot, not when we’ve got a limited time frame. Hale, Ms. Lowenn will accompany you to this capital city. Bring another team with you. Cut your search time in half. If you come up empty, I’ll spread the other teams around until we do find something.”

  “I’ll take the Rangers. They’ve got the most experience,” Hale said.

  “Fine, get prepped for your jump. Avoid contact with the Xaros at all cost, but don’t be afraid to call in the cavalry when you need to,” Valdar said.

  Hale saluted, and Valdar nodded in return. The navy did not salute or return salutes while aboard ship like the Marines, and Valdar suspected the Marines kept that incongruous standard just to annoy naval officers.

  “Oh, look at this!” Lowenn pointed to a trench running around the capital. “Can I see a close-up shot of this?” Hale grabbed Lowenn by the carry handle on the back of her armor and pulled her away from the table.

  “No?” Lowenn stumbled back and was gently but firmly led off the bridge by Hale. Steuben went with them.

  “Still leaves us with what to do about these cubes,” Valdar said. He tugged at his mustache, deep in thought.

  “If I may,” Lafayette said “Omnium has an energy signature, one we could detect if we were close enough to it. If we could get a passive sensor, something that won’t alert the Xaros, into the cubes, we might find which ones are carrying Omnium.”

  “It might be none,” Valdar said.

  “There is that risk.” Lafayette said.

  “Sir,” Ericsson said, “we have no idea if there’s any kind of atmosphere in those cubes. Any engineering team we send over will be in hard suits for a hell of a long time.”

  “Not an issue for me,” Lafayette said. “I can operate in vacuum indefinitely. I just need air.” The alien tapped his metal fingers together.

  “You’re the only one on this ship with that … advantage,” Ericsson said.

  “No.” Valdar squeezed the bridge of his nose. “There are others.”

  ****

  Valdar and Lafayette found the Iron Hearts in the cemetery, all three suited up and waiting in their coffins.

  “You want us to what?” Elias asked.

  “Go with Lafayette to the cubes, find any Omnium technology, and bring it back,” Valdar said.

  “Sir … we’re killing machines, not engineers,” Kallen said from within her armor.

  “Your armor is void hardened. Lafayette will handle the tech side of things. You’re along the ride for security and to help him out however you can,” Valdar said.

  “What about the ground teams? What if they get in trouble and we’re busy dicking around in some alien latrine?” Bodel asked.

  “Another team is going through med prep to suit up, the Smoking Snakes, Brazilians,” Valdar said.

  Elias looked to the armor on either side of him.

  “They aren’t bad,” Elias said.

  “But they aren’t us,” Kallen added. “We’ll need our exo-packs for this.”

  “MacDougall is waiting for you on the flight deck. He’ll get you kitted out. Get down there as soon as you can.” Valdar turned and walked for the door. “Lafayette will fill you in on the details.”

  Lafayette tried to smile and flashed shiny canine teeth.

  “I am looking forward to this mission,” the alien said. “I’ve been meaning to come see y
ou all and—” Elias scooped Lafayette up by the waist and brought him close to the armor’s breastplate.

  A vision slit snapped to the side and Elias’s true face pressed close to the synthetic diamond window. Elias’ milky eyes looked over Lafayette’s cyborg body.

  “Is this some human greeting I’m unaware of? What should I do to remain polite?”

  “What happened to you?” Elias asked.

  “I was hit by a Xaros disintegration beam. My armor mitigated some of the effects, but the damage to my body was severe. I required augmentation and replacements to survive,” Lafayette said.

  Elias tapped a finger gently against Lafayette’s chest, the two metal surfaces clinking against each other.

  “You have a heart of iron,” Elias said.

  “Technically it’s a … oh, I see what you mean. I suppose I do.”

  Elias set the Karigole back on the catwalk. The three suits beat their chests as one, the noise ringing through the cemetery like a church bell. Lafayette repeated the gesture.

  “Let’s go,” Elias said. “We have work to do.”

  ****

  Hale took a deep breath, sucking stale air from the drop ship’s airline. He felt lightheaded as the super-oxygenated air hit his system. It never hurt to have a bit more fuel in his bloodstream, especially when the air reserves he carried within his armor had a small margin of error for this jump.

  Like it or not, portions of his armor were manufactured by the lowest bidder and trusting the factory specs for any gear wasn’t something Marines did easily.

  “Hale,” the ship’s pilot said through his helmet comms, “almost there. I’d get you closer but there’s too much risk of a heat-plume detection. Xaros come for us, and I’ll have a hell of a time picking you up on the way down.”

  “Roger, do what you can.”

  “The Ranger chalk adjusted their landing zone. Their LT didn’t like the weather patterns.”

  Hale cursed under his breath. Changing a LOLO jump wasn’t something done on the fly. He’d have a talk with Bartlett soon as he found him. A private channel icon flashed on his visor. Lowenn.

  “Yes,” he said to her.

  “You’ve … done this before, right?” she asked, her voice weak and jumpy.

  “Jumped from orbit down to an alien planet full of killer robots? This will be a first.”

  “But you’ve done a LOLO jump into enemy territory at least, right?”

  “No, and that’s why I’m going first.” Hale switched to his squad frequency. “All right, Marines, brace for gravity.”

  Red lights pulsed twice, stayed lit, then pulsed again, warning of gravity’s impending return. Floating at the top of the drop ship’s cargo bay when the gravity plating came online would be unpleasant.

  Weight retuned to Hale’s body and his stomach lurched as a standard gravity pulled him against his seat. The drop ship’s rear hatch opened, revealing the sunset hues of Anthalas. Hale unsnapped his restraints and stood up. He locked his rifle against his back and watched as his team made ready for landfall.

  “Remember,” Hale said, “the IR buoys will guide you to the landing zone. Follow the waypoints and let gravity do all the hard work for you.”

  He crouched slightly, then sprinted for the opening.

  “Gott mit uns!” Hale launched himself from the drop ship and dove headfirst into Anthalas’ atmosphere. At almost a hundred miles above the planet, his freefall felt no different than if he’d been floating motionless in the void. He twisted slightly to look back at the drop ship and saw starlight glint off the armor of his team as they followed his lead. The drop ship’s pilot sent him an all clear, which meant Cortaro hadn’t had to throw Lowenn out of the ship like the gunnery sergeant and Hale had planned in case their technical advisor developed second thoughts about the mission. Hale didn’t want her on this mission, but he needed her.

  He straightened out and looked to the planet. The IR buoys around the moon triangulated his position and the landing beacon appeared on his visor, a silver pillar of light at the edge of a green gnarl of vegetation.

  The anti-grav linings on his boots flared to life and shot Hale toward the beacon. The press of acceleration through his body made him feel like he was leaving orbit, not falling deeper into a gravity well. He maneuvered over the beacon and cut the acceleration once he felt the first tugs of atmosphere against his armor.

  The atmosphere on Anthalas would slow him to terminal velocity soon enough, no point in wasting his armor’s batteries when there was no chance of getting a resupply on this mission.

  A Marine streaked overhead and zoomed past Hale. The Marine cut his anti-grav lining and rolled over to give Hale a quick salute. He reignited his boots and shot toward the planet, evidently in a real hurry.

  Standish.

  Hale shook his head and spread his arms and legs slightly as wind from the atmosphere’s troposphere layer buffeted him off course. The curve of the planet’s surface moved beyond the periphery of his vision as he fell closer. He tried twisting his arms and legs to guide him back toward the beacon, to little effect.

  A timer on his visor counted down the distance until the surface, the distance shrank alarmingly fast, seconds until impact.

  A gale of wind sent toppled him through the sky, the planet and space tumbling end over end through his visor as he fought to right himself. The black of space faded into a reddish gold as the atmosphere grew thicker.

  Hale grit his teeth and activated his boots. He opened his legs and managed to stop the end-over-end tumble. Then he fell into a cloud. His world turned into a yellow haze like he’d jumped into the methane atmosphere on Saturn’s moon Titan.

  There was no sign of the beacon and no connection with the buoys, his IR connection lost in the cloud. The altitude meter on his visor went blank then flashed an error message. The air around him darkened as he fell deeper into the thick cloud and rain snapped against his visor.

  Panic clawed at Hale’s mind as he tried to remember just how far above the surface he was supposed to deploy his parachute.

  A bolt of red lightning cracked through the air, leaving a burning line across his vision. Thunder boomed around him and tiny bits of ice and sleet fell against him in waves, driven by wind from the thunderhead around him.

  If he opened his parachute now, the risers would turn him into a giant lightning rod. If he didn’t open his parachute, gravity’s embrace would turn him into a curious smudge for whatever life was on the surface to investigate.

  The cloud broke and Hale found himself in a rain storm. He slapped his hand against the release on his chest and his parachute billowed into life. The parachute jerked him out of his rapid descent like he was a sparrow caught in a hawk’s claws.

  He looked up to check his canopy and saw a bolt of lightning claw along the underside of the deep blue thunderclouds. He looked down and saw a forest, a forest as far as he could see and mere seconds from away.

  Hale let loose a string of curses that would have made a sailor’s mother blush and pulled his arms across his chest and his feet and knees together. The forest just below him was thick with pointed branches and thorny vines. Anthalas welcomed him like a shark’s mouth welcomed a fish.

  Branches gouged at Hale’s armor and snapped like bullets in a firefight as he crashed into the trees. A branch as thick as a telephone pole reared up in front of him and Hale crunched into a fetal position. He hit the thick branch and shattered it, dry rot saving him from serious injury.

  Hale jerked to a stop, his feet dangling in the air. Twigs and sap clung to his armor. He did his best to pat himself down, seeking any injury masked by adrenaline and shock. His parachute was ripped and torn, tangled in an abattoir of branches. He would have looked a lot like his parachute had it not been for his battle armor.

  Around him was thick fog, cloaking the ground and sky. He was lost in a sea of gray, thorny branches holding him aloft, and he wasn’t even sure how high off the ground he was.

  �
�OK … remember your training,” Hale said. He checked the display on the back of his forearm. The atmosphere was a little less than sea level on Earth; the mix of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide skewed toward oxygen, but it was breathable. Hale pushed a button behind his ear and his visor slid aside.

  Hot, humid air flooded over his face. The sound of chittering insects surrounded him. The smell of rot and sawdust permeated every breath. This planet reminded him of the Florida wetlands, but only more miserable.

  He looked down again, into the gray abyss beneath his feet. He could be ten feet in the air, or a hundred. Hale took a battery pack off his belt and let it go, counting until he heard it splash into water. Two seconds, which meant he was about sixty-five feet in the air. Airborne training taught him how to minimize injury from hitting the ground from fifteen feet in the air. Falling four times that far onto terrain he couldn’t see was going to hurt.

  He pushed his visor back down, grateful for the cool, filtered air his suit provided. The trunk of the tree holding him aloft was thick as a Pacific Northwest old-growth redwood tree, surrounded by thorny vines that writhed against each other. The idea of swinging toward the trunk didn’t fill him with confidence.

  “Well … let’s think,” Hale said.

  His parachute slipped from a branch and dropped him five feet. The riders connecting him to the canopy groaned as the fabric stretched and tore like cooked flesh beneath a knife and fork.

  “Shit.”

  His risers broke loose and he fell free. Hale pulled his feet and knees together and braced himself.

  He hit water and his boots sank into wet silt, embedding him up to his knees in mud. Hale fell back and muddy water covered his face. He flailed, trying to find any kind of purchase as his hands and arms splashed over the surface of the water. One arm slapped into mud behind his back and the other grasped through air.

  Hale stopped, still drawing breath from his armor, then sat up. Water the color of milk chocolate sloshed off him. He wiped a hand over his visor then looked around. He’d been lying in two feet of water, held fast by his boots. There was nothing around him but fog and tree trunks, melding into the gray distance.