Blood of Heroes (The Ember War Saga Book 3) (24 page)

“My brother! Call my brother, name’s Robert. He’s on my cell,” Douglas said. A hand went into his pocket and tossed the device to Vinny, a cheap device that couldn’t do anything but text and call.

Vinny flipped it open and hit a few buttons. Long seconds ticked by as it rang.

“Yeah, hi,” Vinny said. “I found this Ubi down around 4
th
and Baseline. You know who it belongs to, recognize the number? Yeah. What’s he look like? Military guy with short hair? That’s most of the city. Tell me a little something only he’d know and I think I can get it back to him. Thanks bud.” Vinny closed the phone.

“What was the name of the dog you two got for Christmas?” Vinny asked, his hand on the shot gun.

“Gizmo! Little mutt my dad picked up off the side of the street,” Douglas said.

“Let him go, boys,” Vinny said.

Douglas faced off against the two men, both had sheepish expressions on their face.

“Sam, I apologize,” Vinny said, putting an arm across Douglas’ shoulders and shaking his hand. “Look, this whole alien invasion crap’s got me thrown off my game. Then Ibarra gets up and starts telling me there are a bunch of fakes walking around. I overreacted.”

Douglas looked back at the shotgun still on the table.

“Now I wasn’t going to…probably not,” Vinny said. “Look, you eat here for free from now on. No reservations, no donations. We good?”

Douglas nodded and went for the door again.

“Hey, bring your brother next time. He sounds legit,” Vinny said as Douglas left the restaurant.

His cell started ringing, a call from his commander. He put the phone to his ear and saw the orange glow of fires in the distance. Phoenix was burning.

The command deck of Titan Station was managed chaos. The crew, all on no more than five hour shifts, managed orbital traffic control for the entire planet, the docks rung around the station still working to repair last few ship’s damaged in the assault on the Crucible and the many cargo shuttles coming in and out of the station.

Overseeing the non-stop activity was Colonel Mitchell, one of the few Atlantic Union Aerospace officers in the fleet. He’d been brought on to manage Titan Station, thought he’d do the job over Saturn’s moon of the same name, not Earth.

He poured a cup of coffee from an archaic machine that still dripped hot water through grinds, and took in a deep breath of the aroma. Kona. The world’s finest coffee, in his opinion, had survived many decades without human cultivation. The beans grown in the Hawaiian island’s volcanic soil were re-discovered by some Ibarra Corporation workers during the construction of an R&R facility. It took only a few cultivation robots to set up a steady supply of the coffee, much to Mitchell’s delight.

The colonel brought the cup to his lips.

“Gate function!”

The shout sent hot coffee down the front of his uniform and over his hands, scalding him.

“Set analog condition amber, ready the kill switch” Mitchell said, shaking his hands dry. If the Xaros were coming through, they’d compromise every computer system on Earth and in orbit within seconds. The alien probe sitting in the Crucible’s command center swore the Xaros couldn’t access the gate, but it never hurt to be cautious.

“Show me,” Mitchell said. Camera feed popped up on monitors around his chair. A white field spread from the center of the Crucible, growing out of the center and almost touching the great spikes making up the crown of thorns that was the alien jump gate.

Mitchell flipped a plastic safety cover off the kill switch for the station’s automation and waited.

The prow of a strike carrier emerged from the field and the
Breitenfeld
flew into real space.

“She’s back!” came from the crew. Clapping and cheers broke out across the command center.

Mitchell closed the kill switch, then frowned as the wormhole remained open. The
Canticle of Reason
followed the
Breitenfeld
, emerging like a leviathan from the deep ocean.

“That’s…unexpected,” Mitchell said.

“Sir, do we launch the ready fighters?” a crewman asked.

“Message from the
Breitenfeld,
they’re telling us to relax. The big ship’s friendly,” the commo officer said.

Mitchell pointed a finger at the communications officer. “Get Admiral Garret on the line. Now.”

****

Valdar followed his escorts through the bunker, newly built beneath the Camelback Mountains, just northeast of Phoenix. Staff officers bustled around Valdar, an air of excitement and purpose that Valdar hadn’t seen in someplace so drab and soul sucking as a high-level command. The atmosphere in the bunker was almost like there was a war brewing.

A soldier in combat armor and almost seven feet tall stood outside Admiral Garret’s office. The sentry’s face was covered by visor, there was no name stenciled on his armor.

“What’ve they been feeding you?” Valdar asked the giant.

“Sir,” replied a gravelly voice.

“Isaac, get in here,” Admiral Garret yelled through his open door. The admiral’s office had the wide, solid oak desk Valdar remembered from Garret’s old office at the naval base in Norfolk, Virginia. Framed flags and guidons from Garret’s long career filled the walls, along with a diploma from the Academy in Maryland.

Valdar wondered how much was a recreation and what was original. His money was on the former, rank had its privileges.

An aide closed the door behind them.

“Sit, Isaac,” Garret said, waving at a leather chair. “I suppose I should chew your ass for taking a little detour on your way back from Anthalas. But you came back with much more than we’d hoped for, and I don’t mean the stray ship that followed you home.”

“Sir, I had to—”

“Stow it. What’s done is done and we’ve got bigger problems to worry about than you’re adherence to orders or lack thereof. Now, you said you have something for my eyes only? Something you left out of your official report?”

Valdar opened a brief case and took out the General’s face plate, five indentations against the edges from where Elias had warped the material. Valdar tossed it on the desk, it made no noise as is came to rest.

Garret touched it with a fingertip then picked up the face plate.

“This is from the entity your armor encountered, I assume. It doesn’t weigh an ounce,” Garret said. “This is the face of our enemy, why can’t I share this with everyone? Morale will go through the roof.”

“That’s a trophy. This is what I had to talk to you about in person,” Valdar set a folder on the table and pushed it to the admiral. Garret flipped through medical tests and personnel bio sheets.

“Some of my crew are…unnatural. Their bodies are fully grown, but immature, only a few months old. For all the digging my counter-intelligence officers have been able to do, none of them know what they are or even suspect they’re any different from you or I. I believe they’re sleeper agents or spies snuck on to my crew by Ibarra. He’s the only one with the resources and know how to get this done. I don’t know his purpose.”

Garret thumbed through the papers, then swept it all in to a waste bin.

“Yes, I know.”

“You—what?”

“We call them proccies. Procedurally generated consciousness installed on vat grown bodies. I found out about them after you left for Anthalas, I wouldn’t have let Ibarra conduct his field experiments during a mission as vital as yours. But that bastard doesn’t have the best track record with honestly. He’s getting better.

“Your ship’s been on a communication’s black out since you got back. I thought you might have figured something out with the proccies, I couldn’t let something beyond the official narrative slip out from you or your crew.”

“Sir, explain to me why these…abominations are on my ship. They’re soulless
things
masquerading as human beings.”

Garret held up a hand. “You aren’t the only one that has an issue with them. It comes down to survival, Isaac. When you left for Anthalas, the fleet we had, or could have built, wouldn’t even register as a speed bump to the Xaros when they return. We bought time when we took the Crucible, just not enough. Ibarra offered a solution. The only one that might see us to daylight.”

“At what cost? He’ll replace every one of us with these things and humanity will still be as extinct. We’ll be gone and have sold our souls for these fakes to inherit the Earth?”

“You make the same argument I’ve heard in this office from many, many other people. The decision comes down to what
might
happen in the future, and the threat we
will
face in the next decade. Everyone is struggling with this right now. True born and proccies, not that any of the proccies know what they truly are.”

“There are more than just the ones on my ship?”

“Many, many more Isaac. I don’t even know where to start with the dough boys. Look,” Garret took an Ubi slate from his desk and swiped across the surface. A picture of a human carrier battle group floating in space above the Moon came up. “That’s the
Midway
, big girl’s back in service. Also two strike carriers the same class as your ship, cruisers, frigates, destroyers, tenders…the whole nine yards. Almost every man and woman in that battle group is a proccie. Good thing we’ve got them, otherwise we’d all be dead.”

“I don’t follow. The Xaros are a long way off. We’ve got time to figure out another solution than this,” Valdar said.

“We don’t. The proccies could be our long term salvation, but they’re also the cause of our current crisis,” Garret brought out another Ubi slate, the casing painted with alternating red and white lines, one meant for classified material. “This is top secret. What you see doesn’t leave the room.”

Garret set the slate on his desk and rotated it to Valdar. On the screen, dozens of almond shaped ships the color of a polished sea shells floated above Neptune. Jagged weapons like broken icicles protruded from the ship’s hulls. Ships Valdar recognized.

“The Toth are here, Isaac. They are here, and they want to negotiate.”

EPILOGUE

Caas held Ar’ri hand as the Mule struggled through turbulence. Ar’ri whimpered, keeping his head buried against his older sister’s shoulder.

“We’re almost there. Look, you can see clouds outside the windows,” Caas said. Ar’ri shook his head. “You remember what the nice humans said. Big sky. Plenty of food. No
noorla
anywhere on their nice planet. We have a new home now.”

Ar’ri didn’t seem interested.

Caas watched as puffy white clouds streaked past the windows, leaving streaks of rain water on the glass. There were a few other Dotok on the Mule with her. Most kids her age, all of them orphans just like her. She figured out that her parents were dead once they’d left Takeni. Ar’ri didn’t seem to understand when she told him that their mother and father would never come home again.

“Hold on, we’re about to land!” a human called out. Ar’ri dug his fingers into Caas’ arm as the engines grew louder. The Mule settled against a landing pad and the engines wound down.

“Ok everyone,” a Marine stood up at the end of the cargo bay. “Remember what I told you. Follow Sergeant Bailey and walk in a line straight to the big round building.”

“Mr. Standy,” a Dotok girl waved to him, “how long will we stay here?”

“For as long as you want. Maybe you’ll all decide to live someplace else. Plenty of room on the planet.”

“Mr. Standy, what kind of food will there be?” the same girl asked.

“Look, sweetie, I just work here. I’m sure the chow is better than all those ration packs you’ve been eating. We all ready to see your new home?” the children looked at him with wide eyes.

“Not the enthusiasm I was hoping for.” He banged a fist twist against the ramp and it descended with a pneumatic whine.

Light flooded in to the cargo bay. Caas saw a pale yellow sun rising over the horizon. Tall trees with wide palms swayed in a breeze that blew the freshest air she’d ever smelled into the Mule.

“Come on,” Caas tugged at her brother, who refused to move or even look up. The rest of the children left the Mule, squeals of wonder and delight from them as they walked out into the sunlight.

“Ar’ri, they’ll make us go
back
,” Caas said.

Standish knelt in front of the Dotok children. “Hey, I remember you two. Want to come with me? This place is really nice, I promise.”

Ar’ri looked up at the familiar voice. “I want Elias. Elias carry me.”

“Elias isn’t here, little guy. I’m not as big and strong as he is, but can I carry you?” Standish held his arms out. Ar’ri peeled away from his sister and latched on to Standish. The Marine took Caas by the hand.

“What’s the name of this place?” she asked.

They walked down the ramp, Ar’ri’s arms clutched around Standish’s neck.

“We’re in Hawaii, the island of Oahu,” Standish said.

“What’s that?” Caas pointed to the beach just beyond a line of palm trees.

“The beach? You’ve never—no of course not. Want to go see it?” Standish asked them.

“Will we get in trouble?”

“No. Bailey won’t yell at me too much, I’m her only source of quality whiskey,” Standish changed direction and walked toward the ocean.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

They got to the edge of the beach and Standish set Ar’ri down on the sand. The boy reached down and pressed his fingers into the sand.

“Is that…water?” Caas asked.

“Sure is. The Pacific Ocean. Let’s go look,” Standish hiked Ar’ri up on his hip and brought them to the edge of the water logged sand where waves lapped up the shoreline. A wave came ashore with a whoosh, Caas ran back up the bridge with a squeak of fright.

Standish put his hand in the water’s path. The weakening edge of the wave splashed up to his wrist.

“It’s OK. Promise,” Standish said.

Caas kicked off her shoes and took a few tentative steps past Standish and toward the ocean. A wave came in, carrying sea foam and loose sand around her ankles. Caas looked up at Standish, and smiled.  

****

Windblown sand slithered across New Abhaile’s roadways. Landed starships creaked in their cradles as the remnants of another dust storm moaned through the metal pylons propping them up from the swamps below.

Dead banshees and the remains of the city’s defenders lay where they fell, blown sand accumulated against the windward side of the bodies like dunes in a deep desert. A bell clanged, its tempo driven by irregular gusts.

The General descended onto the city from the newly whole Crucible orbiting the planet. He floated above the path of corpses leading to the nexus, the last stand of the Smoking Snakes. The black bodies of dead banshees were strewn over the fallen suits. Cruz’ fist stuck from between the dead, as if in a final act of defiance.

With a wave of the General’s hand, dead banshees scattered into the air like leaves caught in a sudden breeze.

Cruz’ armor hinged at the waist, its upper torso tore free of its waist and floated toward the General.

Not this one
, the General sent Cruz’ body hurtling down the roadway to where the
Crucible of Reason
had once stood.
Not the other one.

A suit of human armor, the one called Elias, had hurt him. Damaged his corporeal shell and sent him retreating into the nexus lay lines. Never, in his long conquest across the galaxy, had an enemy managed to even touch him.

The humans had proven to be more than an anomaly, they were a threat. To an army accustomed to total victory at every battle, that the humans managed to slip away from defeat was infuriating. The General would accelerate the time table for his forces’ return to Earth. The longer they survived, the more of a threat they became to his, and the Master’s, plans for this galaxy.

The General looked up at the swarm of Drones circling over his head.

Cleanse this world.
The General converted into a bolt of light and shot back to his Crucible. The Drones descended on New Abhaile, stalks tips alive with burning tips to eradicate every last trace of the Dotok.