by Richard Fox
“Tight circle around the bomb,” Carius said. “We are the anvil upon which the enemy will break.”
The Iron Hearts took up the right side of the circle, blades ready. The Hussars to one side held their kopia spears low against their shields.
“Kallen would have wanted to be here,” Bodel said.
“She is here,” Elias said, “watching. Judging. We had best earn our place beside her.”
Caas scraped the edge of her sword along the edge of her shield. Her back foot thumped against the ground.
“After our parents died,” she said, “Ar’ri was all I have left. The Dotok aren’t in the habit of adopting orphans. That’s what everyone from Takeni had become, a people without a home, no one to care for us. But you, Earth, took us all in. You let us become armor. I still don’t understand why.”
“Any that shed their blood with us become our brothers. There is no more precious gift.” Elias tightened his grip on his sword as Xaros masters came out of the gloom.
“Thank you, Elias, Bodel,” Ar’ri said. “Our parents died to save us. We pass on their gift to all our people and to yours.”
The Xaros quickened their pace. They raised their weapons—scythes bearing white-hot blades—charging in silence.
“Be glorious, my armor,” Carius said. “Or we will not be remembered.”
Elias slammed the hilt of his sword against his shield twice, opened his suit’s speakers, lifted his sword high, and gave a war cry that shook the shards of crystal around his feet. Bodel matched his fury, then the rest of the armor joined in.
A Xaros leapt up, its scythe poised high to strike against Elias as it fell. Elias swept his Excalibur blade up and cut the attacker from armpit to neck. The distinct parts fell to Elias’ side. The armor snapped the blade out in a reverse swing and broke through the next Xaros’ scythe and slashed it across the throat. The master’s head flipped back, light spilling out of the near decapitation. Elias kicked it aside.
The Xaros embedded a pair of scythe tips into Bodel’s shield arm and pulled him off-balance. Elias slashed his blade down and severed the wrists of the two Xaros working against his brother, then fired his gauss cannons into the Xaros, knocking them both back and into the press of masters joining the fight.
He caught a glint out of the corner of his eye and ducked behind his shield as the shaft of a scythe whacked against it. The blade tip cut across Elias’ back. His back flared in pain, matching the damage to his armor. Elias rammed his blade into the Xaros’ chest and lifted it off the ground as the guard caught against the enemy’s armored skin.
The Xaros grabbed at the blade, glowing viscera pouring from the wound. Elias hurtled it headfirst into the ground then slammed a foot against its dented head and slid his weapon free. Crushing his heel down on the Xaros’ skull, he felt a satisfying crack through his armor.
An unarmed Xaros leapt at him and got both arms wrapped around Elias’ shield. It twisted around, dodging a chop from Elias, and wrested the shield arm aside, exposing Elias to a Xaros carrying an energy weapon.
A blast of energy as thick as Elias’ neck burst from the weapon.
Bodel lunged to the side and got his shield between his fellow Iron Heart and the red bolt. The impact slapped the shield against Elias’ helm and spun Bodel around. The shield broke into pieces and scattered across the ground in burning fragments.
The Xaros with the disintegration beam swung the weapon toward the gap in the phalanx. Right at the exposed bomb.
Bodel jumped up and took the Xaros’ next shot in the chest. The aegis plating on Bodel’s armor dampened most of the hit. Most. The disintegration beam broke through his breastplate and struck the man within. His armor stopped. The shoulders slumped forward and his Excalibur blade clattered to the ground.
Elias roared and hurled his sword at the Xaros that just killed his brother. The weapon pierced through the scythe and ripped through the alien, carrying it off its feet and into another Xaros.
Elias grabbed Bodel’s sword, refusing to look into the burning crater at the armor’s heart. The phalanx tightened as Adamczyk fell to a scythe that pierced through his womb, killing him instantly.
Rage coursed through Elias as he struck out at a Xaros in sky-blue armor. His weapon smashed through the Xaros’ block and embedded in its shoulder. Elias slid the blade free, leaving a deeper cut. The Xaros’ arm held on by a thread as it tried to retreat.
“It is time for you to know pain!” Elias jabbed the edge of his shield into another Xaros’ face and slashed it across the belly. “It is time for you to know fear!”
He parried a swing and rammed the tip of his blade into the attacker’s neck, popping its head into the air with a flick of his wrist.
A scythe bit into his sword arm and ripped down the armor. His body screamed in pain, but Elias kept his grip. A blow smashed into the side of his helm, shattering half his optics. A Xaros stomped on the flat of his blade, jerking it out of his hand and pinning it to the ground.
Elias looked up at a Xaros in ivory armor as it readied a killing blow, eyes blazing with hatred.
A kopia slammed through the Xaros’ chest and sent it staggering backward. Elias grabbed the Hussar’s spear by the shaft, ripped it free, and tossed it back to Ferenz, who directed the momentum into another enemy.
“Ar’ri!” Caas shouted.
Her brother, his armor pierced by four scythes, fell forward and into a scrum of Xaros who hacked at the Dotok as he lay on the ground.
Elias grabbed Caas and pulled her back before she could rush to help him.
“Hold the line!” Elias took a hit to his shield that pierced through the back of the aegis plate. He twisted aside and ripped the weapon out of the enemy’s hands then cut it from shoulder to shoulder with a reverse slash.
A sudden chill gripped Elias by the heart. His armor’s systems flickered and gave him impossible readings. He felt a pull against his armor taking him back…toward the bomb.
“It’s starting,” Caas said.
Armor plates rose from the trail of dead Xaros, coalescing into a hulking monster with a scaled cloak and a starry crown. The High King, one eye cracked and dark from Standish’s bullet, extended a palm toward the bomb. Elias and Caas joined their shields together and took the brunt of the blast that ripped through a score of Xaros masters before it hit them.
Elias braced his feet against the ground as his shield went white-hot. When the pressure relented, he swept his shield aside. Caas fell to the ground, the right half of her armor a blackened mass of fused metal, her blade seared and broken.
“Caas?”
A screech of defiance came from the High King.
Elias looked back and saw the bomb was still intact. The air wavered around the device as the fabric of reality began to unravel. Carius and three others fought back-to-back mere feet from it.
The High King’s other hand began to glow.
Elias sprinted forward. He dropped his damaged shield aside and gripped his blade with both hands. Sidestepping a grasping hand, he roared…loud enough to take the High King’s attention away from the bomb.
The Iron Heart leapt into the air and straight at the High King, burying his weapon in the High King’s neck. The blade caught against the star-filled cloak. Elias held on as the High King reared back with a screech.
“Look at me, monster!” Elias grabbed a handful of cloak and held on tight. He raised his anchor foot and stabbed the diamond-tipped spike through the High King’s chest.
“I’m not afraid of you!” Elias wrenched his blade until it shattered. He drew the broken blade back and stabbed it into one of the High King’s eyes. The Xaros lord opened his mouth to scream, but there was no sound. Color drained away from the world.
Elias looked to the bomb. A glut of absolute darkness fountained out of the bomb and fell over Carius and the rest of the fighters. The annihilation wave flowed free, erasing everything it touched.
Elias twisted the High King’s head toward th
eir shared doom.
“I know where I’m going,” Elias growled. “I know who waits for me. Can you say the same?”
****
Valdar stood still as a statue against the side of his holo tank, watching as the annihilation wave consumed the spike like a hungry cancer, leaving nothing but the abyss in its wake. Within the tank a single track moved at a snail’s pace toward the Breitenfeld—the Mule from the surface carrying Hale and his Marines.
The annihilation wave spread up and down the spike rapidly. It crept upwards slowly, but Valdar saw it accelerating.
“How long until the wave catches up with us?” Valdar asked.
“We don’t have any kind of readings in it,” Geller said. “Anything that touches it…doesn’t come back. No radar, laser range sounding, nothing.”
“Helm, set course for the wormhole portal. Engine room, can you still get us out of here?”
“Waiting for your word,” Levin answered.
The annihilation wave stretched upward, undulating.
“Wait for it,” Valdar said.
The Mule drew closer, its speed far too high for a safe landing.
“Deck, prep for emergency landing. Get the nets and catch lines ready.”
Valdar didn’t pay attention to the response as his ship drew within range to activate the jump engine and escape the nothingness coming to claim the Breitenfeld.
“Come on, Hale,” Valdar whispered. He brought up a video feed of the aft flight-deck doors. He saw the annihilation wave, pale light reflecting off the writhing mass of night, through the feed beneath his ship.
“Come on, son.”
“Captain!” Ericson screamed at him. “It’s accelerating!”
The Mule zoomed into the flight deck…and careened off the ceiling. Valdar felt the impact through the floor.
“Now! Engine room! Now!” Valdar shouted into the IR.
As everything went white, Valdar wasn’t sure if the jump engines had ignited or if he was about to meet his maker.
Chapter 19
Stacey held her arms at her sides, her knees bent as she floated near the inner edge of the Key Hole. She’d spent several seconds in an undignified panic when she realized she was in the void without a proper vac suit. Her body was a nigh-indestructible technological marvel, but the mind within still remembered the horror of exposure to total vacuum.
Malal floated next to her, his knees folded into a lotus position, the very picture of calm.
In the distance, between Sletari and the Key Hole, the battle between the combined human and Ruhaald fleets continued against the Xaros swarm.
+Hurry, Malal. People are dying,+ she said.
A golden lattice worked across his featureless face. His fingers twitched ever so slightly.
Stacey looked to the center of the Key Hole, unsure what effect the Breitenfeld’s return—if she returned—would have on her and her charge.
The lattice fizzled away.
+The Engineer’s essence was more complicated than I anticipated, but I have a solution. It lacks grace and is inefficient, but it meets your needs.+
+You can destroy the drones? How?+
Malal held a palm to Stacey. +Crystal.+
Stacey took a small, eight-sided, clear crystal, used by the Qa’Resh to store and transmit enormous amounts of data, and handed it over. Malal let it bounce within a loose cage made by his fingers. It touched his thumb and froze. Green light filled the crystal, twinkling like a star seen through a night sky. Malal nudged the crystal back to her.
+Send the commands to your toy in the Key Hole. The Xaros structure will do the rest.+
Stacey held the crystal between her fingertips. A slight tremor passed through her hand and into the rest of her body.
+Ben?+
+Standing by.+
+I have something for…what’s happening?+ Light exploded across her eyes as an electric jolt coursed through her body.
When she recovered, she found Malal gripping her wrist with one hand and holding the now-clear crystal in the other.
+You could have warned me.+ She pulled her hand back gently, not wanting to go tumbling through the void from the slightest bit of transferred momentum.
The basalt spikes making up the many rings of the Key Hole stopped moving…then pointed their tips toward the raging battle. The tips shivered for a moment, then folded back to their prior configuration.
+What did you do?+ Stacey asked.
+Watch.+
The explosions of void fighters and the flash of disintegration beams and quadrium munitions died away. A shadow passed over Sletari and stopped over the star. The shadow grew fainter and fainter.
+I could not access the self-destruct code Torni once held, but I found a fragment of source code used for their aggression response matrix.+
+Don’t be cute with me. What did you do?+
+The drones’ primary function was to annihilate all signs of active intelligent life. I changed it to attack strong sources of radiation. The Xaros were photonic-based lifeforms. The code for ‘life’ and the energy wavelength of ultraviolet radiation were very similar. The drones are resistant to malicious code from any source but the Crucibles.+
+You tricked the drones into attacking the sun?+
+Correct. This is not the complete solution, but it is proof I have what you want.+ Malal grasped the empty crystal until it glowed green. He pressed it to his chest and drew it into himself. +To destroy every last drone in the galaxy, you must connect to the Crucible network and upload what I put in the crystal. It will travel through every last gate and propagate at the speed of light in all directions. Every drone it touches will fly into the nearest star.+
+What are you waiting for? Give me the crystal now. There are drones heading for Earth. I can get back through the other Crucible and—+
+No. I can fulfill my end of the bargain. You will take me to my ascension and prove you can fulfill your promise. I see the anger building in your matrix. You must learn to control your atavistic urges. They don’t suit one so advanced as you. Destroy me with the governor and you will destroy the crystal too. Then your chances of surviving the Xaros, even if the Breitenfeld succeeds, are almost impossible. The drones threatening Earth are weeks away. Take me to my reward now and you will have the crystal and your planet will be saved.+
Stacey’s hands clenched in anger.
+I hate you. I know what you’ve done. Seen firsthand the murders that propelled you and your kind to immortality. Despite everything you’ve done…you have been true to our agreement. You, the vile, selfish…demon. Yet who betrayed humanity? Stabbed us in the back when we needed them the most? Our own flesh-and-blood kind, the ones facing the same threat of extinction in the Xaros. The Toth turned on Bastion then tried to trick us during negotiations. The Vishrakath destroyed the Alliance because their influence was waning. The Ruhaald and Naroosha betrayed us on Earth, and for what? The chance to live a little longer against the Xaros using human slave soldiers?+
+You hate me for what I am and for what my loyalty says about your kind. If it means anything to you, I don’t care.+
Malal grabbed her by the hand and propelled them both over the inner edge of the Key Hole.
The Breitenfeld emerged seconds later. The tips of her ventral cannons were mere stubs, and the long magnetic acceleration vanes ended in gleaming points like they’d been cut by an impossibly large scalpel.
+They succeeded…and survived. Much to my surprise.+ Malal dragged her toward the open flight deck. +Come. I’ve waited a long time for this. Only one thing remains between me and apotheosis…and revenge.+
****
Hale held his head back, braced against the Mule’s restraints. He heard the tink tink tink of heat-warped metal and opened his eyes. The Mule’s ramp was gone, ripped away in the rough landing and lying on the Breitenfeld’s flight deck. The top gauss turret pressed through the split metal remnants of the ceiling. His Marines sat in acceleration chairs along the walls, all looki
ng groggy from their sudden stop within the ship.
“Give me an up.” Hale slapped the emergency release and took a wobbly step on the deck.
“Sick bay’s got a crash cart on the way.” Yarrow tapped the side of his helmet then rushed to the atmo chamber against the fore of the cargo bay. A coffin-sized hatch slid up and Yarrow slid Bailey and her litter out. Orozco grabbed one end and carried her out of the Mule. They met a team of corpsmen on the flight deck who rushed Bailey away as Yarrow followed.
“Think she’ll be OK?” Standish asked.
“Her vitals stabilized,” said Cortaro as he removed his helmet and took a deep breath. “Besides, she’s Australian. Nothing kills them.”
Hale took his helmet off and went to the broken edge of the Mule. The Key Hole spun in the distance. He waited, unsure if that nightmare wave was going to follow them through the gate. A thought came to him as he waited, a truth he didn’t think he’d ever really confront.
He felt Steuben’s heavy steps approach.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” Hale asked.
Steuben put his hand on Hale’s shoulder. “Well done, Captain Hale. Well done.”
“Elias…”
“They fought the final battle and won. Few warriors earn that. Do not spoil their victory with grief,” the Karigole said.
Hale shrugged the hand away.
The inner ring of the Key Hole cracked into halves. The crack jumped to the next ring and the next. Broken lines splintered off the cracks and individual thorns fell away like needles from a dead pine. Hale, his Marines and the sailors on the flight deck watched in stunned awe as the Key Hole burned away like a destroyed drone.
“The war’s over?” Standish stepped onto the deck and gazed at the void where the Key Hole had been. “Hey! The war’s over!” He raised his arms in triumph and let out a cheer.
“Permission to strangle him,” Cortaro said.
A cheer spread across the flight deck. Sailors hugged and cried tears of joy. Orozco wrapped an arm around a female deckhand’s waist and said words lost to the celebration. She grabbed him by the neck and kissed him.
