Crusade (Exile Book 3)

by Glynn Stewart

  A spear of superheated plasma pierced the machine and flung it backward into the wall. The second drone was caught in a crossfire of three other Marines—but the third fired first.

  As Siril-ki had suggested, it fired a single shot from one of its three lasers and then hit the floor an immobile powerless wreck…but that was enough.

  “Corporal Shu is hit,” Chen said calmly. “Medic to the HQ section. Perimeter squads, report!”

  Icons were flashing on the screen as the drones swarmed the Marines. For a few seconds, Octavio was actually worried…but Chen didn’t sound worried as she grunted acknowledgement of the reports.

  A few seconds later, he saw the reason for her calm. Her Marines were getting hit, but their armor was preventing more than minor injuries and the drones were collapsing as they fired. It only took a few minutes for the defenses to spend their power reserves, and then the space station was silent again.

  “Get the wounded moved back to meet the medic,” Chen ordered. “Watch your scanners for new power signatures, but that should be the end of it. Good news, Marines: if there was enough power left for security, there might actually be something here.”

  A moment later, she opened a direct link to Octavio.

  “Major Chen reporting, Commodore,” she said briskly. “The drones were spent before they even hit our formation. It looks like their power levels were so low, they couldn’t fully energize their beams, and they basically suicided to generate shots that only burnt through the armor half the time.

  “We have seventeen wounded but only one severe injury,” she continued. “Any idea from Siril-ki what this place is? I wasn’t expecting hunter-killer drones.”

  “It’s the replacement Validation Center, Major,” Octavio told her. “We think, anyway. There are tachyon communicators attached to the station. We want the data cores and we want the core transmission hardware for the tachyon coms.

  “There might be something left in those transmitters that will let us know what happened to the Sentinels, if nothing else.”

  “Understood,” Chen replied. “We’ll see what we can find. This place has already been an…interesting trip.”

  Less than twenty minutes later, Chen pinged Octavio directly. He was looking over the initial reports from the landing at the refinery Siril-ki had identified, which was about as depressing as he’d feared.

  “Yes, Major?” he asked.

  “Found something you want to take a look at,” she told him. “Helmet says you aren’t riding my shoulder right now, but you should bring it up.”

  That software was closed, but the system could handle restoring a program closed a few minutes earlier. A new image appeared next to the report, showing what looked like an office. The desk looked normal enough, even if the seats were shaped for a centaur-like creature the size of a pony.

  “What am I looking at, Major?”

  “This appears to have been the station head’s office,” she told him. “No local computer core—figured I’d check—but there is one thing I think we might find useful.”

  Chen had more control of the over-the-shoulder view than she normally used and was easily capable of zooming in the view on the map she’d found. It wasn’t much more than laminated paper, but the station didn’t have much in terms of living bacteria to eat it.

  “That’s a world map of Sina?” he asked.

  “A world map of Sina that dates to after the fall of Sia,” she confirmed. An armored gauntlet tapped part of the map. “The maps I saw from Siril-ki’s people showed this continent as being inhabited, where here it has no cities labeled on it at all. I’m not entirely up to date on the Assini language, but my computer says the text is warnings and memorials.”

  “Cities that were stripped of power and technology but still had survivors,” Octavio murmured. “Evacuated and abandoned.” He shook his head. “That part of the planet would have been salvageable, but the population was low enough that they could abandon it.”

  “That’s what I figured,” Chen agreed.

  The map was an odd projection, its image of the planet narrower at the top and bottom but still with an adjusting scale.

  “The thing I wanted you to see was this.” An armored finger stabbed at an icon of a green leaf with a gold box around its middle. “Unless I’m misremembering Assini iconography, this is their capital. And it’s not where the capital was on Siril-ki’s map.”

  “So, that’s where they were running everything from after the world ended,” Octavio murmured. “We don’t have anyone near there, I don’t think.”

  “We’ve got this station secure,” Chen told him. “It’s a computer tech job now. My shuttles are still almost fully fueled. I can break a platoon free and drop inside five.”

  “With yourself in command, I’m guessing?” he asked.

  “You sent me to check out ghost worlds, sir,” she replied. “Not going to leave it half-done.”

  “Fair enough. Make the plan, Major, but one question.”

  “Sir?”

  “Did you see Belmont’s report from the refinery?” he asked.

  “Only skimmed the summary,” she admitted.

  “We got a timeline, Major. Everything here? They only lasted twenty years after Sia. Radiology on the soil samples says there were at least two flares almost as powerful as the first one in between, but they must have thought the new hardening and such they put in place was enough to keep them safe.

  “Then they got hit with a flare hard enough to give three-quarters of the planetary surface a lethal radiation dose.”

  He could almost hear Chen grimace.

  “Dating the bodies we found here was on my medics’ to-do list,” she told him. “I imagine it’ll come out about the same. There was an emergency bunker at the heart of the station, but…it’s still sealed. Should I crack it before I go?”

  “Crack it, Major,” he ordered gently. “But don’t wait around yourself. Your subordinates can handle the station now.”

  “Understood. Captain Mac Niadh will take over here. He’s more tech-savvy than I am.”

  “Keep an eye on your people, Major,” Octavio ordered. “This isn’t an easy job.”

  “I know, sir,” she conceded. “And I’m watching them. Who the hell watches me?”

  “That’s my job, Major Chen Zhou,” he told her. “And your girlfriend’s, when she has time.”

  “My girlfriend is a battlecruiser XO,” the Major replied with a laugh. “She doesn’t have time.”

  “You’re a regimental commander. When was the last time you did?” Octavio asked.

  “Fair. Right now, I appear to have digging up the grave of a government on my to-do list. I’ll let you know what I find, Commodore!”

  19

  Despite what Amelie had hoped was some kind of urgency, it was over forty-eight hours before she finally heard anything else. If nothing else, she would have figured having multiple warships in orbit would have woken somebody on the surface up!

  “Minister, we’re receiving another call from the surface,” Holmwood finally told her, interrupting a riveting series of emails from Exilium that Amelie was basically ignoring.

  “All right. Let me get to the flag deck and look sufficiently intimidating,” Amelie said with a sigh. “Anything I should be aware of?”

  “I think it’s a different Siva than last time, but all I got was ‘imperious bureaucrat dismissing the servant,’ so I can’t be sure,” Holmwood replied. “I mean, if you wanted to go take a shower or something, turnabout is fair play.”

  Amelie chuckled.

  “Not today, I think,” she told the Captain. She was already on her way to the flag deck, after all. “WK?”

  “It is definitely not Dorost,” the AI told her. “It is another ban. I have not yet detected any standard or decoration in Sivar garments outside of the military. We may have moved up the chain, but I understand that the Intendant is male.”

  “So do I,” Amelie agreed as she slipped into the seat.
“Do we have our cloak of intimidation ready?”

  “We do. The display is online and we are ready when you are,” the AI replied.

  “Put them through.”

  If ban wasn’t sitting on the same throne Dorost had been, it was a very similar stone structure. This Siva appeared older, with fur closer to a dull gray than Dorost’s black, and wore a similar toga-like garment to the Keeper of the Keys of Peace. Ban’s had a solid leather-like section around the torso that acted as a base for the flimsy fabric that made up most of the garment, but the corset-like piece had clearly been molded to accentuate the wearer’s breasts.

  Some things, it seemed, were universal.

  “Greetings, I am Minister Amelie Lestroud,” she told the stranger. “I’m wondering if there was some delay in Keeper Dorost’s communications.”

  “Anathema Dorost has been executed for failing to properly advise ban’s Intendant,” the stranger told Amelie calmly. “The Keeper of the Keys of War gave the information the Commandants had provided to the Intendant, and he questioned why the Keys of Peace had not passed on the communication.

  “Dorost is now anathema, ban’s former ranks and achievements to be forgotten for ban’s crime,” the Siva continued. “I am Istila, ban’s replacement as Keeper of the Keys of Peace. I have reviewed the data you provided.”

  Ban did not, Amelie noted, explain how the Intendant had gone from “why have you not told me what the alien said” to “you are executed for treason.” That was potentially not something that the Intendant had to explain.

  “As I told your predecessor,” Amelie said slowly, “I am here to meet with your Intendant…or whoever else can commit the Governance to an alliance against the Rogue Matrices.”

  “We are aware of the Builders,” Istila told her. “The Intendant knows more than mere Keepers. That is his place. Your data matches the fears of the Governance, and the Intendant has informed me that you and I will meet in person. Once I have met you, I will judge if you are to be conveyed before His Greatness.

  “You will take an unarmed vessel to a space station whose coordinates will be communicated to you,” the Keeper continued. “You may bring one guard. I will meet with you there and we will learn if what you believe and what the Intendant knows match closely enough for you to be permitted a meeting.”

  “Very well,” Amelie said grimly. “I will return to my ship from that station, however, and we can discuss my visiting the Intendant afterwards. That, Keeper Istila, is a different discussion.”

  She’d take one Marine onto a space station while Watchtower loomed in the background. She sure as hell would not go down onto the surface of an unknown world with a single bodyguard.

  For now, though, she’d let them set the terms. She needed them to talk to her.

  “Of course,” Istila told her, with a bow of ban’s armored head. “The turnings will bring us to faces, Minister Amelie Lestroud.”

  That was apparently a farewell, as the communication shut off. Amelie exhaled a long sigh.

  This was going to be…interesting.

  Amelie finished laying out the Sivar proposal and looked around her team.

  Captain Holmwood commanded her battlecruiser and the spaceborne component of her expedition. Major Köhl, a dark-haired woman hailing from India on Earth, commanded the Marines across her three warships. They sat together at the far end of the conference room, the two military officers attempting to present a unified front.

  Faulkner sat at Amelie’s right hand, facing the Vistan diplomat Shivers-Under-Mountains. The broad-shouldered frog-like alien was the head of the small group of non-human diplomats aboard Watchtower.

  Like her fellows, Shivers-Under-Mountains was willing to let the humans make initial contact. Once the basic alliance had been agreed to, they would have input on the details, but they were really there to become their peoples’ ambassadors to the Sivar.

  Assuming that anybody ended up wanting to talk to the Sivar.

  “One Marine,” Köhl said pointedly. “They want us to send the President Emeritus, the Old Man’s wife, the bleeding Foreign Minister…onto their space station with one Marine. I’m not sure my commission would survive allowing that, ma’am.”

  “It’s not your call, Major Köhl,” Amelie pointed out dryly. She appreciated that the Marine at least put her being Isaac’s wife after her having been Exilium’s first president. Not all of the military officers she’d met had handled the priorities the same way.

  “It’s my call,” she continued. “And I’m going. We need to make a real connection with these people to establish an alliance, and we’ve all looked outside at those battleships.”

  She shook her head.

  “They’re flawed ships built with tech we’d call obsolete, but remember that they made it here over a week before we did,” she continued. “They have things to offer us and we have things to offer them.

  “We’ve seen six battleships, each of them a third again the mass of an Alliance battlecruiser,” Amelie pointed out. “Those six ships alone would be a significant reinforcement against the Matrices, even if they’d need refitting.

  “Evidence suggests that’s only a portion of their fleet, too—which means they have the ability to build those ships on a recurring basis. We can augment those shipyards with the industrial nodes we brought with us and halve their construction time.

  “The Sivar Governance could be a powerful ally,” she concluded.

  “Or a terrifying enemy,” Shivers-Under-Mountains said, the warbling multi-toned sound of her voice rippling under her translated speech. “They feel…like the ink of darkwater monsters, creatures of the blackest depths.”

  “The first person I spoke to here has apparently been executed for mildly displeasing the Intendant,” Amelie conceded. “Shivers is right. These may not be people we want to ally with—in which case it is even more critical that we know them better.

  “I will meet with this Keeper Istila. If I can, I will meet with the Intendant. I have no intention of committing to anything without more information,” she said firmly.

  “We’re using passive sensors to sweep the ships and the planet as best as we can,” Holmwood told her. “Even a single low-altitude pass by one of our shuttles could augment our data dramatically.”

  “The more we know about the Sivar, the better off we are,” Faulkner agreed, Amelie’s right-hand man speaking for the first time. “We need to have this meeting. What I think is the better question, Amelie, is whether you need to go to it.”

  She started to dismiss that idea out of hand, then paused.

  “That would make me a lot more comfortable,” Köhl admitted. “If we sent Mr. Faulkner over with a Marine escort, for example.”

  “I hate to emphasize my expendability, Amelie,” Faulkner told her, “but I am more expendable. You don’t need to be in every meeting and every encounter. If we’re sending somebody into the lion’s den, then…maybe it should be somebody we don’t have to start a war if they get chewed on a bit.”

  “You overestimate my willingness to write off anyone,” Amelie told him grimly. “You make a good point, Roger, but…if we were going to do that, we needed to make that plan before I spoke to Keeper Istila.

  “I was expecting our next step to be meeting with the Intendant in person, so I didn’t consider sending, well, a subordinate to meet a subordinate,” she admitted. “As things stand, I have said that I will be there, with one escort.

  “We can’t do anything else or we risk becoming untrustworthy to a potential ally that already thinks our ships are slow,” Amelie told them. “We need to demonstrate, first and foremost, that we keep our promises.

  “That way, when we promise aid with one hand and devastation with the other, they know to take us seriously.”

  She smiled coldly.

  “I will meet with Keeper Istila,” she repeated. “Pick your best trooper, Major Köhl. You’re sending them fully kitted out. They said bring one, not that anyone had to come
unarmed.”

  Amelie waited for anyone else to object, then nodded firmly.

  “Let’s get going, people,” she told them. “This is our first chance at a real look inside the Sivar.”

  20

  Amelie shifted uncomfortably in her clothes as the shuttle dipped toward the indicated Sivar station. She’d never realized, as an actress, just how uncomfortable concealed body armor actually was. In movies, after all, if the plot called for her to be wearing concealed armor, it showed up only after she’d been shot.

  As both a rebel leader and a President, she’d adjusted to low-profile armor, but that was only designed to stop light kinetic weapons. Exilium had had occasional issues, but they’d been surprisingly minimal for a colony built out of a bunch of outcasts and troublemakers.

  The diplomat that Exilium sent to strange races, though? That diplomat had to wear recorders and cameras…and body armor rated to stop handheld pulse weaponry. Power armor was tougher and her face was uncovered, but the heavy vest under her suit would stop plasma fire.

  Once.

  Once was enough for her bodyguards to get her out of the way, in theory. No one had ever shot at her on a consular mission, but she wasn’t quite so sure this particular mission was going to go quite so smoothly.

  “We’ve made contact,” her escort told her. Sergeant Choi was currently a two hundred and two centimeter–tall, vaguely human-shaped mountain of metal. Amelie’s body armor could stop a single plasma bolt from a man-portable pulse rifle.

  Choi’s armor could tank standard bolts from the same weapon for several minutes with luck. She wouldn’t do quite so well against her own weapon. The power armor–scale pulse rifle powered by the suit’s miniature fusion core was capable of punching through small tanks.

  “You go first, Sergeant,” Amelie said.

  “Wasn’t going to happen any other way, boss,” Choi told her with a chuckle.