Blood of Heroes (The Ember War Saga Book 3) (10 page)

****

Hale and Un’qu walked on to the
Canticle’s
bridge. The command center of the former void ship had been transformed into a nexus for the planet’s defense. Maps with hastily written notes taped to them and a billboard with a long list of Dotok alphabet words were surrounded by squabbling groups of Dotok.

“What’s all this?” Hale asked Un’qu.

“We’re trying to decide which outpost to evacuate next. The Chosen from several villages think their lists rate higher than the others. There was an order of merit list with the First, but it was lost when the rail station was destroyed,” Un’qu said. “Along with the First.”

“Lists?” Hale asked.

“A hold over from our time in space,” Pa’lon said from behind Hale. The elderly Dotok, flanked by a pair of nurses, walked towards them with aide of a cane. “Was a time that any ship could have failed, and their crew and passengers lost. There’s only so much room on a fleet, if a ship was going to be evacuated, the ship master, the ‘chosen’ would get his most valuable people off first. Keep those with special skill sets alive over those who’d do nothing else but waste oxygen. The First might decide to move a hundred survivors off a failing ship elsewhere in the fleet, and the other chosen would make room for them.”

“By getting rid of those on the bottom of your lists?” Hale asked.

“That’s correct. It became a caste system,” Pa’lon said. “Skilled workers, talented artists, they stayed at the top of the lists. Those without useful knowledge or undesirables, criminals and such, fell to the bottom. Mobility was possible, but families settled into a rating band and stayed there. It kept going after we made landfall, even when we didn’t need it. Some traditions were too hard to break. Now we’re suffering for it.”

Pa’lon sank to a low crouch, a palsy shaking his left hand.

“You all right?” Hale asked.

“I’m old and sick, doesn’t that happen to humans too?” Pa’lon asked.

“The Ancient has been ill for some time,” Un’qu said. “Let him rest before the council meeting.” The Dotok officer led Hale away to the billboard.

“Your communication device translates what is spoken, but not the written word,” Un’qu said. “Allow me to explain. The top of the list has the cities with the highest known population, those with lines through them are confirmed to be lost to the
noorla
.” The Dotok’s eyes drifted down to entry toward the lower third of the list.

“What’s there?” Hale asked.

“My wife and child,” Un’qu said. “Usonvi is a place where low-listers choose to settle. I met my wife during a field training exercise there almost a year ago. My parents are still furious that I married someone so low. Moving them to New Abhaile proved difficult.”

“You’re pretty high up there?”

“Oh yes, anyone descended from the Ancient Pa’lon is expected to do great things, the opportunities present themselves. Nepotism. All against the Ancient’s wishes and guidance. If he was around more it might change, but his illness makes that difficult.”

Hale shook his head. “Let’s stay focused. I’ll have the
Breitenfeld
send down an air traffic control team and organize evac from whatever air assets we can spare.”

“But how will they know which places to evacuate first? The council might appoint a new First soon, shouldn’t we wait?”

“Let me tell you about Marines. We will do something constructive right away instead of waiting to figure out the perfect answer ten minutes too late.”

“But the council—”

“Our help doesn’t come limited by your conditions and we’re not going to wait around for you to get your act together.”

A robed Dotok stepped onto the bridge and rang a bell three times.

“The meeting begins,” Un’qu said.

****

The Dotok equivalent of a conference room was nothing but an empty space with black curtains adorning the walls, obfuscating the lights in the ceiling. Three Dotok, covered head to toe in robes and wearing the same blank masks as Un’qu, stood in a semicircle, each facing a holo-projector on the deck.

Un’qu showed Hale and Steuben in, then stepped back into the passageway. The door slid shut behind the non-Dotok with a hiss. The black curtains along the walls were sheer, and Hale saw the outline of a Dotok behind each one.

“You come to us with your face bare,” one of the masked Dotok said, an elderly woman by the sound of her voice.

“You would presume to know us so quickly,” the largest of the three said, the voice a rich baritone.

“I…should put my helmet back on?” Hale asked. He unsnapped it from where it was attached to his lower back.

“How many times do I have to tell you all? Humans consider masks a sign of someone not to be trusted.” The final Dotok removed his mask, and Hale recognized Pa’lon from the recording of Valdar volunteering his ship and crew for this rescue mission. It certainly was Pa’lon, but in the flesh the Dotok looked to be on the far side of middle age, much older than the recordings.

“Do it.” Pa’lon tossed his mask behind him. “They’re here to help us. Be polite.”

“We will not abandon our ways just because some
ilgish
embraces the barbarian’s path,” the elderly Dotok said.

“Forgive them, Lieutenant and Steuben, they don’t have the cultural exposure that I do,” Pa’lon said. “Stacey speaks very highly of you,” he said to Hale. “The stories of your exploits rescuing the probe from Earth and seizing the star gate made quite the stir on Bastion. Then when you stood up to one of the Qa’Resh and demanded an explanation as to what they planned to do to your fallen comrade…the species of the alliance that favor heroism were most impressed by you. Stacey Ibarra said you have ‘brass ones,’ which I didn’t entirely understand.”

Steuben cleared his throat.

“Yes, no time to waste,” Pa’lon said. “Captain Valdar?”

A hologram of the
Breitenfeld
’s master and commander emerged from the emitter. The captain, who must have been standing by the tactical plot on the ship’s bridge, looked up and across the faces of the Dotok.

“We ready?” Valdar asked.

Pa’lon motioned for Hale and Steuben to stand next to him. His hand shook with a noticeable palsy, and Pa’lon jammed it deep into his robes and shivered slightly.

“Hale, Steuben, glad you made it to New Abhaile,” Valdar said.

“So are we, sir,” Hale said.

“Captain Valdar, what is the situation in orbit?” Pa’lon asked.

“There is a new fleet of compromised transports on course to the planet, six vessels equivalent in size and displacement to a human cruiser,” Valdar said. “Sub-Commander Ty’ken said they’re
Laanti
class colony ships, meant to carry heavy equipment for a colony fleet. They’ve slowed their approach, which isn’t consistent with the last two waves of ground troops the Xaros have deployed.”

“Sir, are these ships armed?” Hale asked.

“None of the ships in the Golden Fleet were armed,” the old woman said. “We were assured the path to New Dotari was bare, peaceful.” She stared at Pa’lon.

“Before my time. Don’t blame me,” Pa’lon said.

“The last two waves came in fast and hard, overwhelming the orbital defenses with drones and kamikaze ships to cover for the ground troops’ insertion,” Valdar said. “My ship can dish out a lot more firepower than the
Burning Blade
, so we should be able to neutralize the threat before they get into orbit.”

“That would buy us time,” Pa’lon said.

“You said it’s slowing,” Steuben said. “How long until they arrive?”

“Ten hours.” The hologram of Valdar warbled as the captain pointed his camera to a graph on his tactical board with handwritten equations around it.

“We observed several hundred escape pods during our arrival, but only encountered a few banshees at Galogesvi,” the Karigole said. “Where did the rest of those pods go?”

“Probably to the other outlying settlements,” the taller Dotok said. “They are easier targets.”

“Xaros don’t care for easy targets,” Hale said. “They go for the throat, the kill. When they conquered Earth, they didn’t go for the defenseless cities first. They wrecked our commutations system, destroyed our fleet. Then the power, then what remained of our military …then the slaughter.”

“If you destroyed the gravity tunnels early on, the Xaros should know that by now,” Steuben said. “I suspect that’s what the force on Galogesvi was for—scouts for another way to this city. This canyon, it is extensive?”

“It continues for several hundred miles,” Pa’lon said. “We had three other cities along its length. All have been evacuated.”

“Did you leave any scouts behind, any sensors?” Steuben asked.

“No, why?” asked the elderly woman. “The defense of our walls is much more important.”

Steuben sucked air through his pointed teeth, and Hale knew the Karigole was angry, bordering on furious.

“Show me a map of this valley,” Steuben said. The hologram jumped around and the valley, a wavy starfish shape set deep against Takeni, hung before those assembled. Steuben poked a claw tip in the center. “We are here.” His hand moved to a canyon to the north, not connected to the larger valley. “Galogesvi is here. The rest of the banshee pods landed—” his claw moved to the right, to a spur within the valley, “—here. The next wave of ships arrives in ten hours. That is when the ground troops will attack this city.”

“They’re trying to draw us off,” Valdar said. “If the
Breitenfeld
stays in orbit to support the city, they can land unopposed somewhere else. If I go hunting for a ship-to-ship fight, I won’t be around to provide artillery from the high ground.”

“Never assume your enemy is an idiot,” Steuben said.

“Ten hours,” the old woman said. “We can evacuate some of the merit list by then. How long until your jump engines are ready, Captain Valdar?”

“According to my chief engineer, and my Karigole advisor who seems to understand the engines a lot better than she does, we can form a wormhole big enough for the
Breitenfeld
and the
Burning Blade
within twelve hours.”

“Then we evacuate what we can and leave this system in twelve hours,” Wen’la said.

“No,” Valdar said. The captain straightened up, his eyes set like steel.

“Captain Valdar,” Wen’la spoke without pity or remorse, “the Dotok have faced this sort of situation before, and each time we had to preserve the best elements of our people so that our entire species might not perish. We must survive.”

“I can save every last Dotok in New Abhaile. I will be damned if I don’t succeed,” Valdar said.

“It is mathematically impossible. If we did nothing but shuttle those on the ordered lists up to your ship and the
Burning Blade
for the next ten hours, only a few thousand might make it off world,” Taal said.

“The ordered lists,” Pa’lon said, “it is a necessary evil for us, Valdar. During our long journey to Takeni, three ships failed. Each time we went by the merit list of the affected vessels against the entire fleet to determine who would survive, and who would be left to die. It ensures the best and brightest continue on without the influence of fate or emotion.”

“The
Canticle of Reason
, you use it to shelter from the sandstorms, from the sun’s corona ejections, all that radiation. You can seal the ship to vacuum—you still have the reactor core inside it to power life support. Correct?” Valdar asked.

The Dotok looked at each other like Valdar had lost his mind.

“Captain, the ship has no engines. They were removed centuries ago and installed on the
Precipice of Faith
, which the Xaros destroyed weeks ago,” Pa’lon said.

“How many people can you get into the
Canticle
?” Hale asked. As a junior officer, he knew better than to jump into an “adult conversation,” but if Valdar had a plan that was at odds with what the Dotok leadership would accept, he’d need to show the Dotok which side of the argument the meanest, most bloodied and heavily armed infantry force on the planet would take.

“Everyone in the city. With room to spare,” Pa’lon said.

“And she’ll hold up to the void?” Hale asked.

“With some minor modifications,” Wen’la said. “This discussion is pointless. There is no way to get the
Canticle
back into orbit.”

“Lady and gentlemen,” Valdar said, “this is Lafayette, and he is either a genius or a mad man.”

Lafayette stepped into the hologram. He pressed his hands together, which Hale noticed had one more finger than usual, and bowed slightly.

“Greetings, gentle beings. How familiar are you with anti-gravity plating?”

****

Orozco clenched the carry bars on an olive-drab case.

“Ready? Lift,” he said to Standish, and the two men grunted as they struggled to lift the case. Even with the augmentations in their armor, moving the case down the Mule’s ramp was slow and difficult. They set it next to a line of identical boxes, all awaiting pick up from the shore party’s logistics crew.