Fallen the emberling boo.., p.1
Fallen (The Emberling Book 5), page 1
FALLEN
THE EMBERLING
BOOK 5
DANIEL YOUNG
CONTENTS
The Emberling Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Also by Daniel Young
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THE EMBERLING SERIES
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Exiled
Recoil
Surge
Valor
Fallen
Decoy
CHAPTER 1
“Stand by and hold tight!” Taggart ordered. “We got the whole Colonial Militia waiting for us out there!”
Merrel Weigt stuck his head into the Aechelus’ cockpit. “Tell us when you want us to deploy the Firelights.”
“No Firelights!” Taggart replied over his shoulder. “Keep everyone on board and don’t go anywhere.”
“You have to deploy them,” his brother Tate countered from the auxiliary station. “We’ll never break through on our own.”
“If any Firelights got separated in the confusion, we would never get them back. Keep everyone on board, Merrel. If you really want to help, you can get them manning the auxiliary guns down below.”
“You’re the boss.” Merrel left, and Taggart turned back to his controls.
He skimmed the outermost edge of Myrmidon Zagreus without actually entering the Sphyrna Ion cloud. He didn’t want the Militia fleet parked outside to see him until he was ready.
His rangefinders showed him more than he ever wanted to see of the situation in Siri Sector space beyond the cloud. The Aechelus wouldn’t be able to fight its way through that fleet even with all its Firelights deployed.
“Are you sure you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in Myrmidon Zagreus?” he asked over his shoulder.
“That’s sounding like a very nice way to spend my final days,” Tate replied. “We could build a nice house on Yugawa Itrolla 45, plant a garden, keep sheep, and live quietly into our old age…”
Both brothers glanced at each other for a second before they both burst out laughing and turned back to their work. Living the rest of his life in a little house on Yugawa Itrolla 45—that was a nice little pipe dream, one that Taggart had enjoyed many times since he first became a career bounty hunter.
That pipe dream was never going to happen, especially not with the Militia, the Sleepwalkers, and every other criminal organization in the sector after the Emberling.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Tate prompted.
Taggart didn’t think he’d ever be ready to throw his life away. He’d been doing almost nothing else for weeks now. He only had to scan the ion cloud to see that he was going to be doing a whole lot more of it for the foreseeable future.
Having the Siri Sector Militia Commander on board his ship didn’t boost his confidence, either. The Militia knew Tate was on the Aechelus, which meant that they didn’t care if they killed him to get the Emberling back.
“Taggart?” Tate asked. “Are we going?”
“No time like the present.”
Taggart punched the throttle and ripped the Aechelus into the ion cloud, but he didn’t skim down its length the way he had when he’d entered it. He wanted to surprise the Militia.
He plunged straight through the cloud and burst through the other side at full speed, but his surprise and speed still weren’t enough to get him through the Militia blockade. One ship didn’t stand a chance against so many.
The Aechelus rocketed out of the ion cloud, plunged into the blockade, and succeeded in penetrating the Militia line before the assembled Firelights, Comets, gunships, and destroyers realized what he was trying to do.
He made it halfway through before the enemy spun around, targeted the ship, and opened fire en masse. “Auxiliary guns—fire!” he ordered.
Tate and the rest of the crew unloaded on the Militia, but Taggart didn’t even look to see what effect they were having. He also made absolutely certain not to check how many Militia vessels were coming after him. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t need his nerves shattered any more than they already were.
He gunned the engines and blasted out behind the Militia line. He raced into Siri Sector space, putting as many parsecs as he could between the Aechelus and Myrmidon Zagreus. If he even thought about the place, he might be too tempted to go back there, where he knew he would be safe.
He checked the rangefinders one more time and spotted his destination. A dense layer of plasma surrounded Manganos’ planet and hid everything down there. Taggart couldn’t see the surface. None of his instruments could penetrate the plasma clouds.
Taggart didn’t head for Manganos’ planet, though. He set a course for Kreksa and put on speed, but he never made it there.
He hurtled past the Militia Headquarters Satellite when the Militia struck. Ten Comets skimmed past him from behind to cut off the Aechelus’ path. Taggart slammed hard to port to avoid them and flew into a hail of gunfire from them and another fifteen destroyers banking to his left.
Firelights overran the Aechelus and swarmed the ship. Plasma bombarded it all over, and the starboard engine exploded. “We’re losing navigation!” Tate hollered. “Time for Plan B!”
“There is no Plan B!” Taggart yelled back. “Are you shooting at them or what?”
“I am shooting at them! Don’t you see?”
Taggart didn’t. Who was shooting at whom didn’t concern him. He wrestled the ship into a zigzag course, trying to dodge every possible enemy converging from all sides.
The noise of blasts striking the hull deafened him and made it impossible to concentrate. His hands flew over the controls, trying everything possible to keep steering a ship with no helm.
Firelights buzzed in front of him, and he throttled straight into them. He collided with five, and they exploded across the Aechelus’ bow. Taggart dove through the explosions, searching for any way out.
The Comets didn’t have to try too hard to keep up with the stricken gunship. They dawdled, flanking the Aechelus’ wings and popped off shots whenever they felt like it. They left the heavy lifting to their Firelights and a few other Militia gunships.
Plasma spat from the auxiliary guns, and Tate kept crashing back and forth, cursing under his breath. He said a lot of insulting things about his former Militia comrades, and Taggart made up his mind then and there not to ever mention this to anyone, especially not to Tate himself.
Taggart couldn’t break through the dense flock of Firelights getting in his face. He pulled the same trick a second time and collided with them. They changed their approach after that and kept moving too fast for him to hit anybody.
Another withering bang struck the Aechelus on the port side and jostled the ship hard. It skidded into the Comets’ line of fire, and they unloaded. The starboard wing ripped off, and then the tail.
“We’re foundering!” Taggart yelled. “All auxiliary guns—hold your fire!”
“Are you insane?” Tate roared. “They’ll destroy us!”
“Just do it! Cut your fire now!” A few more shots escaped from the lower guns. “I said hold your fire!”
They finally cut out, but Taggart couldn’t fly anywhere now. The Militia sensed the Aechelus going down, and the Firelights pulled back.
The Aechelus limped a few more parsecs, but Taggart couldn’t reach Kreksa with the ship in this state. Too many Militia ships stood in the way, and the Aechelus’ engines no longer responded to his controls. Every burst from the port engine sent the ship spinning in circles.
“How close are we?” Tate asked.
“Not close enough.” Taggart checked the rangefinders again. “Give me one shot forty-five degrees ascendant and eight-three degrees starboard latitude.”
“That will send us in the opposite direction.”
“Do you want to get out of this alive or not? Just stash the attitude and do it.”
Tate groaned. “You sound like a Militia officer now.”
Taggart ignored the crack and kept a firm grip on the throttle. He counted down the seconds until Tate did as he said.
A single jet of plasma ejected from Tate’s auxiliary guns and struck a nearby Comet. Taggart held his breath for the return shot, and when it came, it struck with deadly accuracy.
The Comet unloaded on the Aechelus, and Taggart fired the port engine one last time before the Comet’s assault destroyed that engine, too.
The wing cleaved off, and the bombardment, combined with the Aechelus’ burst, sent the gunship teetering out of control. The ship tumbled head over heel in no particular direction—except that it somersaulted directly for Manganos’ planet.
“You’re a genius, Taggart,” Tate murmured under his breath.
“I’ll be a genius in my grave! We’re entering a disintegrating orbit! All hands—brace for impact! I said brace for impact, Tate! Get the hell out of here!”
Tate still didn’t leave his station. Taggart had to turn around and physically haul his brother away from the controls.
Taggart shoved him toward the exit, and Tate finally walked away. He limped on his prosthetic leg, but at least he wasn’t in the cockp it anymore.
Taggart gulped at the readings on his rangefinders. His idea had worked, and that last burst of gunfire and engine power sent the Aechelus spinning into the plasma cloud, but the ship no longer had any way to slow its entry.
The ship careened downward in a confused muddle of changing directions, but even fully operational engines wouldn’t have helped the Aechelus. Every gust of plasma knocked the ship back and forth and here and there.
The ship sailed parallel to the surface for a while, and then another plasma sheet caught it and sent it careening somewhere else. All the interference stopped Taggart from seeing anything that would tell him where he was, or if he was anywhere near where he needed to go.
He couldn’t stick around to find out, either. Staring at these useless controls wouldn’t save him from the impending crash.
He tore himself away and staggered against bulkheads on his way out of the cockpit. He had to pause several times on the way downstairs as more explosions rocked the ship. It sounded like gunfire, but it was more dangerous than that.
He made it all the way to the bottom of the stairs and had turned toward the auxiliary gun placements when the power shut off. Pitch darkness swallowed him as the whole ship plunged through the deadly atmosphere. How long would life support last? Would the plasma cloud crush the ship and kill everyone on board?
He supported himself against the wall and groped his way to a doorway under the stairs. He took hold of the handle when a devastating blow smashed the ship from above. It smacked him to his knees, and the intense G force wouldn’t let him rise.
He huddled there, thinking fast. He had to get into a protected spot before the ship crashed. If he stayed here, he’d be flying all over the ship when it finally hit the surface.
He crawled to the door and depressed the latch. Even then, it took all his strength to drag it open.
He dove inside and rolled against another bulkhead before he reached the downstairs containment hatch. He patted the floor, trying to find the locking mechanism, and his hand plunged into an empty void with no bottom.
He almost fell over when powerful hands grabbed him and pulled him down into the darkness. He fell against bodies, and more hands patted him all over. “Are you okay, Taggart?” Merrel asked.
“Yeah!” Taggart panted. “I didn’t think I’d make it.”
His friends hugged him in tighter, and their bodies swallowed him. Something scraped, and then the containment cover locked into place to seal them in. The noise outside vibrated even louder through the hull.
Qiao Neslex’s huge body cushioned him from the floor, and Taggart finally allowed himself to relax. Erqi and Odo flanked Taggart on his left, with Claire, Yannik Xawei, and Tate on Taggart’s right. They surrounded him in a cocoon of protection—if there was any protection from this.
He barely got into position when a high-pitched screech ripped through the ship. Agonized shudders tore at the hull, and the noise spiked off the charts. Taggart huddled under his arms as that screech escalated to a roar, and then a crushing blow struck the ship from all directions.
A bone-shattering strike smacked Taggart hard against his brother. Tate’s arms strapped around Taggart’s body, and then an even more brutal crash smacked the ship downward before everything went quiet.
CHAPTER 2
“Is everyone still alive?” Tate asked.
“Unfortunately,” Yannik quipped.
Taggart tried to sit up, and Tate pushed him off. The friends untangled themselves from each other, and Taggart heard scraping sounds as someone started to remove the containment cover.
A flash of blue-green light exploded in the darkness when Tate activated an emergency torch, and the friends looked around at each other. “The plasma will have deactivated all the ship’s systems,” Tate began. “We need to get out there and check how much life support we have left.”
“What do you know about the planet’s atmosphere?” Claire asked.
“Only that if we had a hull breach, we’d already be dead. We’re only having this conversation because the Aechelus still has enough oxygen for us to breathe.” Tate turned back to the containment cover. “This is stuck. Help me, Taggart.”
Taggart shifted over to the cover, but he had to kick the latch to break it free. He and Tate lifted it aside and crawled out of the hatch, followed by the others.
“You people go through the ship and see if you can locate any hull breaches,” Tate ordered. “You’ll have to do it manually, since we don’t have any instruments. Come to the cockpit with me, Taggart. You better come, too, Merrel.”
The three men headed off together. Claire and Yannik stopped by an emergency supply cabinet by the stairs and got themselves a few more torches before they vanished into the bowels of the ship.
Tate, Taggart, and Merrel went to the cockpit. Everything was dead. “What do you want to do here?” Taggart asked. “This ship is finished.”
“Yeah, I know, but we still need a way off this planet.”
“So what’s Plan B?” Taggart asked.
Tate snorted. “Funny, Taggart. There is no Plan B.”
At that moment, a flicker of bluish light darted across the dark controls. A curtain of sparks shimmered from one side of the cockpit to the other, and some of the controls blinked.
“What the hell is that?” Merrel breathed.
“It’s Manganos,” Tate replied. “He’s using his plasma to communicate with us.”
“How?” Taggart asked.
He barely said the word before the controls blinked again and the communications system switched on. It fizzed once, and then cleared to reveal a human man’s face.
It looked disturbingly similar to Jimmy Oakes, but it wasn’t. The features morphed and twisted into a few different other human faces before the image stabilized as a composite of them all.
“Good morning, Commander Lowell,” a scratchy voice husked. “I am scanning your vessel, and I do not read James Oakes on board.”
“I’m sorry, Manganos,” Tate told the image. “He didn’t make it.”
“You are carrying the Emberling.”
“We’re trying to find a way to destroy it. Jimmy gave it to me right before he died and asked me to find a way to get rid of it. Can you help us? Can you find a way to destroy it?”
“I do not know of any way to destroy it, but you cannot stay on that ship. You have a hull breach that will disintegrate in approximately fourteen minutes. I will bring you to my fortress instead.”
“Thank you, Manganos,” Tate replied, but the image was already switching off.
“How is he doing all this?” Merrel asked.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” Tate replied. “Jimmy lived with Manganos for twenty years, and never understood half of what Manganos did or how he did it.”
“So how do we get off the ship?” Taggart asked.
As soon as he said that, a swirl of bluish light appeared in the cockpit and surrounded the three men, getting brighter and rotating faster.
It enveloped Taggart and flashed in his face. It died immediately, and he found himself in the vast dim hall of Manganos’ hidden fortress. The giant chamber towered out of sight above Taggart’s head, and he couldn’t see any walls in the darkness.
Giant stacks of electronic equipment filled the cavern, and mysterious lights flickered over the components’ many surfaces. The lights raced back and forth in eerie patterns.
Taggart looked around and spotted Merrel, Qiao, Yannik, Erqi, Odo, and Claire off to one side. Tate and Taggart stood together at a distance from the others.
“He wants to see us,” Tate announced. “Just the two of us.”
“Why us?” Taggart asked.
“Because I’m Jimmy’s best friend and you’re my brother. Come on.”
Tate started walking down the aisles between the racks of equipment. Taggart didn’t see anything at first, except that the electronic lights kept pace with him and Tate. The lights whizzed around the brothers and followed them through Manganos’ fortress.
