by Richard Fox
Hale looked at Cortaro. “Get an IR relay set up. We’re heading down as soon as it’s set up.”
A flash of light broke across the sky. One of the frigates slumped out of the formation around the Breitenfeld, its engines sputtering. It nosed down and corkscrewed toward the planet’s surface. The ship crashed into a distant mountain face, the sound of a muted explosion echoing through the wisp-thin atmosphere.
“They’re breaking through! Look!” Jacobs pointed to the Breitenfeld as the ship unloaded a broadside on a Xaros cruiser and blew it into burning fragments. The strike carrier and her escorts sprang through the gap in the Xaros lines.
The Breitenfeld’s guns slewed around and fired. Quadrium shells burst to life, tendrils of electricity leapfrogging through the Xaros ships. The stricken enemy vessels went off-line.
Hale thought Captain Valdar would have kept his guns on the Xaros as they slowly succumbed to Pluto’s gravity. Instead, the Breitenfeld and her surviving escorts sped away on burning engines. They vanished over the horizon within seconds.
“Where are they going?” Jacobs asked.
“I don’t know, but Valdar must have a plan,” Hale said. He looked at Egan and said, “Can we still contact them?”
“Not unless they left buoys, sir.” Egan took a sheet of optic camouflage from the case and unfurled it over a small satellite dish propped up on the lip of the tunnel. He poked the antenna through a small hole. “But when they’re back in line of sight, we’ll have comms.”
“Maybe he’s scrubbed the mission,” Jacobs said. “Should we wait here?”
“The Breitenfeld doesn’t give up, lieutenant. This fight is far from over. Get your Marines up and ready.” Hale turned and looked down the mineshaft that extended deep into the abyss. “We’re going in.”
****
Hale marched through the tunnel, relying on his visor’s IR filters to see anything. The tunnel entrance was a faint dot behind them. The two teams of Marines moved in stacked wedges, Crimson squad in the lead.
There’d been no word from the teams with Steuben from landing zone bravo. Steuben and the Marines with him knew the mission; they’d follow him through the tunnel once they found it. If they were still alive. The longer Hale went without any contact from them, the more certain he became that they were lost.
Should have ordered the drop pod release sooner, he thought. No, I should have gone with the low-orbit, low-opening jump instead of the pods. Would have been safe in the Breit until Durand cleared out the drones. Some company commander I’m turning out to be.
Cortaro raised a fist, bringing the teams to a halt. He knelt down next to a sparkling lump of material jutting from the wavy ground.
“Sir,” Cortaro said, “look at this.”
Hale motioned for Crimson squad to continue on while his team stayed put. Taking long steps in the weak gravity, he got to Cortaro’s side.
“What is it?”
“This…” Cortaro cocked his fist to the side twice and a Ka-Bar blade sprang out of its forearm housing. He poked the tip into the twinkling material and knocked a bit free. He scraped up the material with the edge of his blade and brought it up to his visor. “This is quadrium ore. My cousin Emmanuel worked for Ibarra Mining, was going to get me a job there when I hit my twenty years of service and retired. He told me about a drone survey of Pluto from years and years ago. Said the ice out here has a hell of a lot more quadrium than Earth’s oceans or Europa.”
“If this is so valuable, why didn’t Ibarra mine it out before the Xaros ever arrived?” Hale asked.
“Look around, sir. We’re pretty damn deep. Quadrium wasn’t worth much before the war, and it would cost a fortune to get this far under the surface. Plus, the Chinese had a research station out here. They weren’t real open to non-Chinese mining interests on anything they’d planted their flag on.”
“We brought back that omnium reactor from Anthalas,” Yarrow said. “That made all the q-shells we’d ever need. Why would Ibarra muck around in the ass end of the solar system?”
“Better question is why are the Xaros digging for quadrium, if that’s even why they’re down here,” Hale said.
“Sir…” Jacobs bounded over. “We found something weird a little farther ahead.”
“The perfect tunnel dug through the surface isn’t weird enough?” Standish asked.
Hale pointed a finger at Standish and the Marine stopped talking.
“Show me,” Hale said.
He followed Jacobs down the tunnel another hundred yards until it ended against a marble-smooth wall of rock. Silicate crystals glinted beneath the polished surface. Quadrium ore dust hung around them, swirling in thick eddies as the Marine officers approached the wall.
“Not this,” Jacobs said, pointing to the edge of the tunnel. An arched hole in the tunnel twice the size of a Marine opened to a tunnel with rough rock walls. Jacobs went to the hole and picked up a pebble in each hand. She reached over the threshold to the tunnel and dropped both pebbles. The rock inside the passageway fell significantly faster than the rock released in the tunnel.
A Marine ran around a corner and stopped at the edge of the doorway. His visor was up, face exposed. His mouth moved, but Hale heard nothing.
Jacobs tapped her helmet.
The Marine lowered his visor.
“Sorry, ma’am, forgot you’re in vacuum. Atmo in here is at sea-level pressure, Earth standard gravity mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide in the air. Temp’s good too,” he said.
“Just like the Crucible,” Standish said. “Void one side of a wall, atmo on the other.”
“Got eyes on enemy troops,” came through the IR from one of the Crimson Marines.
“How many drones?” Hale stepped over the threshold and felt weight return to his body. He stumbled against the rough-hewn wall, scraping his pauldrons against the rock.
“This way, sir,” the Marines said. “We set up an observation post.”
“Not drones, Captain. Humanoid. Working on some kind of a truck.”
“Moving.” Hale looked back and saw Egan setting up an IR receiver at the passage entrance. The more times they changed direction in the mines, the harder it would be to keep comms with the Breitenfeld.
The passage wound its way through several yards of broken rock before Hale noticed light spilling across tan stone. The Marine ahead of him went onto his hands and knees and crawled forward, and Hale followed suit.
The hallway opened up to a cavern. Glowing orbs floated through the air, casting a uniform light across everything. Quadrium ore glinted across the cavern’s walls and ceiling. A waist-high wall of rock led from the opening to a stairway cut into raw stone that zigzagged down to the base of the cavern.
Crimson’s sniper waved Hale over. The Marine raised the detached optics from his rail rifle over the lip of the wall. Video feed came up on Hale’s visor.
Two figures in dark armor made up of sharp angles lifted glowing cubes of omnium from a pile in the center of the cavern onto a hover sled.
“What do you think, sir?” Jacobs asked.
“That’s omnium…last time we saw this was in Phoenix. Xaros normally have their drones converting mass,” Hale said. There was something familiar about the armored figures, both of whom had their backs to Hale.
A chill went down Hale’s spine.
“Jacobs,” Hale said, grabbing her arm, “ambush. No q-shells. Aim for center mass. Knock ’em down. We’re not going to get much intell if you blow them into mush.”
“Yes, sir.” Jacobs gave a few curt commands. She counted down from five with her fingers then she and her team stood up and aimed their plasma rifles. Two rifles fired almost simultaneously.
“Targets down,” Jacobs said.
“With me.” Hale took to the stairs, his weapon trained on the two bodies lying next to the sled, smoking holes in their backs. Jacobs followed close behind.
She pointed to a semicircle tunnel branching away from the cavern and ord
ered her Marines down to cover the approach.
Hale got to the first body and gave it a swift kick in the lower back. The strike of armor on armor sounded like clashing metal. No reaction. Same result with the second body. Hale put his foot against a corpse and pushed it onto its back.
The thing had once been human. A man’s face was visible beneath a see-through crystal half-helm, his mouth and chin slack, eyes staring into oblivion. The irregular armor covered the back of his head and the rest of his body.
“What are they? What happened to them?” Jacobs asked.
“Banshees, human banshees,” Hale said. “The Xaros found a Dotok colony fleet in the void, turned them into slave soldiers and set them loose on Takeni. I spent a lot of time debriefing that fight with the intell squirrels. They think the Xaros did it because they didn’t have enough drones on hand. They convert mass to drones, hard to find much in interstellar space.”
“But where’d they find them?” Jacobs asked.
“Pluto was unmanned…Eighth Fleet. The Xaros must have taken prisoners, turned them,” Hale said.
“We can still save them. Can’t we?”
Hale shook his head. “Banshees were hardwired to the Xaros network. Dr. Accorso tried to free one, killed it in the process. Treat these as hostile.”
“But, sir…these are human beings. We can’t just…kill them,” Jacobs said.
Hale tapped his screen and opened a private IR channel to Jacobs. She stiffened and raised her chin.
“Listen to me, Lieutenant. I was there on Takeni. Fought the Dotok the Xaros changed into monsters. There was no mercy from the banshees. They killed every man, woman and child they got their claws on. There is no coming back from this. We have hours, a day if we’re lucky, before the Xaros finish their gate and Earth is lost,” Hale said. “The mission is all that matters right now. You get me?”
“Got you, sir. Just…” she hesitated, pointing her muzzle at one of the bodies, “first time I’ve killed a…person.”
“Captain,” Cortaro said aloud, his visor open, “I’ve got an idea.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“That quadrium survey my cousin told me about, the one that mapped out all the deposits in this mountain range, it should still be on file somewhere. Might give us a map of where the Xaros are digging,” Cortaro said.
“But the Breit’s still out of contact,” Hale said.
“It’ll take seven minutes to get a message back to Earth,” Egan said from the top of the stairs. He held up the end of a line snaking back to the tunnel. “I’m bouncing off the relay sat way up over Uranus.”
“Who on Earth would even have that data?” Hale asked.
“Marc Ibarra,” Cortaro said. “We’ve got the freq to the Crucible. Let’s ask him.”
CHAPTER 10
A small red needle appeared in the holo tank, another graviton bomb delivered through the Crucible into the invading armada of Xaros drones as they crossed through Saturn’s orbit.
“Augustus cannon firing,” Dorral said from across the table.
Garret acknowledged with a tap of his finger. The hypervelocity round tracked away from Mars and sped toward the approaching foe.
It would be another hour before the telemetry data from the latest graviton mine reached Mars and General Krupp and his team could refine their targeting data. Garret would have delayed Augustus’ launch, but Mars’ rotation would have turned the cannon away if he’d waited another ten minutes.
But as soon as Mars’ rotation took Augustus off the firing line, it brought Nerio to the fore. Mars had enough cannons scattered over the surface to always have six guns that could engage targets in the distant solar system. As the enemy drew closer, the number of effective weapons would fall as the angles of attack shrank.
Since the Crucible sent the first graviton bomb through a wormhole, their picture of the Xaros armada had improved with each attack as the probe processed data off each explosion. The initial attacks were like lunging for an enemy in pitch blackness—they had a good idea where to strike, but hit nothing at first. As soon as a mine connected with a substantial number of drones, the defenders gained a handhold on their foe.
The probability of inflicting damage rose with each new attack. The Xaros were fast, nimble, and had begun to spread out as the graviton mines destroyed more and more of them. Mars’ cannons took their toll, but Garret wouldn’t know how much of the Xaros force had been whittled away until they were almost on top of Mars.
The red smear of the approaching Xaros blinked as new data came in. The Xaros mass forked apart like a snake’s tongue. There was a rustle of unease from the officers around Garret.
“Give me course projections.”
Dashed lines ticked away from the two tips and traveled toward the center of the solar system. One track led to Mars, the other to Earth.
“That’s…unusual.” Dorral tugged at her bottom lip. “Xaros attack methodology always uses their numbers to overwhelm a target. They’ve never split up like this before, even in the face of a defense in the depth like we’re putting up.”
“Something made a command decision. It’s here.” Garret tapped his fist against the table’s railing. “The leadership entity Breitenfeld encountered on Takeni, the same one that Makarov faced in the void.”
“This changes things,” Dorral said. “Even with the Xaros just within the orbit of Saturn, they’re faster than us. They’ll reach Earth before our fleets here can.”
Garret looked at the fragmentary data in the holo tank and made quick calculations.
“The Xaros are sending enough drones to overwhelm Earth’s defenses…and enough to keep us tied down on Mars. We’re being played.” Garret reached into the holo field and touched his thumb and middle finger together. The holo zoomed out to show the entire solar system.
“Send a priority message to the Breitenfeld,” Garret said. “Have her jump to Mars once the Grinder is destroyed. No delay. We’ll use her jump drives to shuttle ships of the line back to Earth. That could make all the difference.”
“Aye, sir.” Dorral turned away and went to a commo station.
Garret opened a frequency and Krupp’s holo appeared next to him.
“Sir?” the general asked.
“We need to end the battle over Mars faster than we’d anticipated. Here’s what I want you to do.”
As Garret laid out his plan, blood drained from Krupp’s face.
****
Red warning lights flashed as the Charlemagne withdrew air from the bridge. Garret felt his helmet flex as vacuum tugged at his faceplate.
His fleets formed a slight concave shield between Mars and the approaching Xaros fleet. Tens of millions of drones crept toward the red planet, slowing as they entered the outer fringe of the planet’s gravity well.
Garret waved his hand across the combined fleet. Twenty Midway-class supercarriers, hundreds of battle cruisers armed with rail cannon batteries, fifty Manticore-class frigates boasting salvaged Toth energy cannons, and over a thousand more ships of the line made up the rest of his grand fleet. Then the fighters, tens of thousands of fighters filled the space between the warships like dust in the air around a stampede.
It was too much for one man to manage, he knew that. Each fleet admiral had autonomy to carry out his orders however he or she saw fit. The memory of designing the temperament and skill of each admiral before they came out of the proccie tubes churned his stomach, but if each could fight as well as Makarov, this day might end in victory.
“Enemy front-line trace will cross engagement line black in…five minutes,” Dorral said.
“How long until Phobos rises?”
“Thirty-five minutes,” Dorral said with a wince.
“We’ll make do.” He dragged the holo around to focus on the Xaros. The miles-thick line of drone icons spread out like blood over an invisible globe, all just beyond the effective engagement of his fleet’s weapons.
They’ve learned, he thought. Good thi
ng we still have a few surprises waiting.
The Xaros swarm was a mass of single drones, difficult targets for the rail guns on most of his ships. The enemy meant to flood his ships with a deluge of drones. A single Xaros could cut through a ship’s aegis armor and wreak havoc. He’d seen the damage firsthand when walking through the Midway’s dead halls.
Garret opened a channel to General Krupp. “Ground command, I doubt we can stop them all. Prep your local security forces. They’ll come for the cannons.”
“Of course,” Krupp said, “not like there’s anything else down here for them to visit. I’ve got three cannons ready and able to support you. Rest are either out of the engagement envelope or firing on the force heading to Earth.”
Garret closed the channel and brought his trembling fingers to a pulsating red button. He swallowed hard and pressed it to open IR-beam communication to every ship protecting Mars.
“Combined fleet, this is Garret. Mars is our fortress. Our enemy will break against our iron will and die beneath our guns. Let’s give these Xaros bastards a proper welcome. All fleets, begin attack pattern theta. Garret out.”
He felt a slight vibration through the deck as the Charlemagne’s few rail guns fired.
The trace of rail gun shells zipped away from the fleet and struck out at the outer edge of the Xaros swarm. Quadrium rounds exploded into jagged bolts of deep blue lightning that coursed through the drones, knocking them off-line and rendering them into little more than a lump of metal traveling on a simple vector. Flechette rounds fired from rail cannons tore through the drones like a close-range blast from a shotgun.
Revetments carved from mountains surrounding the macro cannons slid aside and rail cannons rose from their hiding places to join the assault on the Xaros.
