Echoes of the Fallen, page 1
Echoes of the Fallen
Book Twelve of The Last Marines
by
William S. Frisbee, Jr.
PUBLISHED BY: Theogony Books
Copyright © 2025 William S. Frisbee, Jr.
All Rights Reserved
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Get the free Four Horsemen prelude story “Shattered Crucible”
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License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events, or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
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Cover Design by J Caleb Design.
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Contents
Chapter 1: Shroggath
Chapter 2: Trespassers
Chapter 3: Bad News
Chapter 4: Reinforce
Chapter 5: The Cavalry
Chapter 6: Hunted
Chapter 7: Broken Node
Chapter 8: Counter Ambush
Chapter 9: Defensive Operations
Chapter 10: Trust and the Musta Toiminnot
Chapter 11: Froggers
Chapter 12: A Message
Chapter 13: Supplies
Chapter 14: Aliens
Chapter 15: Frog Legs
Chapter 16: Meeting the Fallen
Chapter 17: Pitstop
Chapter 18: The Voorga
Chapter 19: Vanir Survivors
Chapter 20: The Storm
Chapter 21: Vanir
Chapter 22: Spider to the Fly
Chapter 23: Pushing Through
Chapter 24: Escaping the Nightmare
Chapter 25: Victory in Valhöll
Chapter 26: Communications
Chapter 27: Planning a Hunt
Chapter 28: Find an Advantage
Chapter 29: The Voorga
Chapter 30: Haunted Halls
Chapter 31: Escape
Chapter 32: Fortress Valhöll
Chapter 33: The Voorga
Chapter 34: Marching Froggers
Chapter 35: Hurry Up and Wait
Chapter 36: Mjölnir Port
Chapter 37: The Echoes and the Fallen
Chapter 38: Skögul Attacked
Chapter 39: Intelligence Dump
Chapter 40: Attack on the Draugskepp
Chapter 41: Rebel Data
Chapter 42: Darkness
Chapter 43: Voorga Crypts
Chapter 44: Frogger Brawl
Chapter 45: Marines
Chapter 46: Stathis is Gone
Chapter 47: Shrek
Chapter 48: Cyborg Siege
Chapter 49: Planning Betrayal
Chapter 50: Trojan Horse
Chapter 51: Steel Trap
Chapter 52: He’s Alive
Chapter 53: Drone
Chapter 54: Into the Breach
Chapter 55: Trapped
Chapter 56: Shorr Space
Chapter 57: Attacking in Another Direction
Chapter 58: Finding the Lost
Chapter 59: Getting Worse
Chapter 60: Voorga Homeworld
Chapter 61: Knife to a Gun Fight
Chapter 62: Return to Valhöll
Chapter 63: Never Quit
Chapter 64: Med Lab
Chapter 65: Shrek
Chapter 66: Naataan
Chapter 67: Emergence
About William S. Frisbee, Jr.
Excerpt from Book One of Symbiote Wars:
Excerpt from Book One of The Prince of Britannia Saga:
Excerpt from Book One of the Lunar Free State:
Excerpt from Book One of the Abner Fortis, ISMC:
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Chapter 1: Shroggath
Major Zale Stathis, USMC
The voice coming through the speakers wasn’t human. Had never been human, and it sent a chill through Stathis as he listened. The Valhöll strategic command facility was a little cold, and the air seemed stale. Too many workstations and not enough people made it feel almost deserted, or haunted.
“Your fate is sealed; you have come here to die,” the voice said as Stathis considered putting on his helmet. Always a good move to wear a helmet in combat.
“Dude,” Stathis said, “could you be a little more original? I’m getting tired of people telling me that and blowing smoke up my ass. I’m still here, despite countless threats. Do you know what’s good at unsealing fate?”
“You mock me?”
“C4—or like I prefer to call it, angry playdough—but my boot also works in a pinch. Shooting cross-dimensional booger-eaters in the face is a fun hobby of mine, and I’m good at it. Angry playdough is another fun hobby, and it unseals constipation like you.”
Stathis looked toward Hakala. She looked concerned. Why?
“Do you think it is wise to antagonize it?” Hakala asked on a private link.
“Emotions make people stupid,” Stathis said back to her, waiting for Shroggath to reply. Stathis liked to imagine it was purple-faced and struggling to think of a coherent response.
“That is not a person,” Hakala said.
Stathis shrugged, his shoulder pauldron trauma plates flapping.
“I smell the fear in your soul,” Shroggath said.
“Oh, please,” Stathis said to Shroggath. “Last night was Taco Tuesday. That’s not fear you smell.”
“You are a fool,” Shroggath said.
“Blah, blah, blah,” Stathis said. “You bore me.”
“Shrek, close link,” Stathis said.
“Why?” Hakala asked.
“Nobody likes to be hung up on,” Stathis said. “Shroggath isn’t here for me to pee on, so I have to establish my dominance in other ways.”
The shadow of a smile came to Hakala’s lips.
“What do we do now?” Hakala asked as Stathis wondered if Shroggath could call back. Hopefully not. Shrek would conceal his tracks through various radio relays. It was nice to know the vanhat weren’t all-powerful aboard Bifrost.
“Figure out where we are, what Frogbath is up to, pee in his Cheerios, and stomp his little froggies. Basically, what we’ve been doing.”
“I’m getting telemetry from external sensors,” Shrek said as the displays around them changed. “We are heading deeper into the galaxy?”
“Not closer to Sol?” Stathis asked.
“No,” Shrek said. “We appear to be headed toward the core.”
“Following the fleet?”
“That would be a good guess.”
“Are we following the fleet or targeting other innocent civilizations to destroy?” Stathis asked out loud.
“Unknown,” Shrek said, answering him privately.
“We are probably going to follow the Seraphim fleet and attack anyone else we encounter,” Hakala said, looking at the displays.
Stathis wasn’t going to think about his failure to save the aliens of the gas giant. He would learn from his failures, not let them destroy his soul and sanity.
“Then we need to work to regain control of Bifrost,” Stathis said. “Maybe we can find a way to disable the weapons or take control of the Shorr-space drives.”
“We are approaching what is called the Lagoon Nebula,” Hakala said, looking at the holograph.
Stathis recalled that there was a nebula between them and the galactic core. The Lagoon Nebula was more than just a nebula; it was also a significant waypoint because it was a noticeable galactic landmark. From Earth to the galactic core was about twenty-six thousand light years, and the Lagoon Nebula was only forty-one hundred light years into the journey. Reaching the nebula meant they’d covered 16 percent of the journey, and it was many light years beyond explored human space. Stathis remembered that, of all things, from one of the briefings Admiral Winters had given.
“Nobody has ever been this far,” Hakala continued.
“Admiral Winters probably has,” Stathis said. Was she ahead of him, or behind him? Did it matter? It wasn’t like the Bifrost would be able to ambush the fleet, with Stathis aboard—or more correctly, McCarthy, who could use his alien SCBI to talk to the fleet. Right now, his biggest worry was the Bifrost catching the fleet when they were vulnerable, though Stathis found it difficult to believe Winters would put the fleet in a vulnerable position. The Bifrost was a dangerous ship, and the escort ships would be a challenge for the Seraphim fleet.
Stathis looked over toward McCarthy, who was sitting in a chair, trying to make sense of all the displays and data. Shouldn’t his alien SCBI be helping him? Wouldn’t his SCBI have a better idea of where they were and where they were going?
“Any ideas on that, LT?” Stathis asked.
“No, sir,” McCarthy said. “Enigma isn’t sure where they are; they’re in Shorr space at the moment.”
“Where do you think Frogbath is?” Stathis asked everyone.
“What do you mean?” McCarthy asked.
“All the briefings and reports I’ve read indicate Jotun have some physical form or something,” Stathis said. “Something we can kill or shoot. Sergeant Levin said he stabbed Nasaraf in the face when he was on the Pankhurst, something about Nasaraf transferring to take control of the Tyr. He also said he’s blown up ships with Jotun on them. There’ve been other examples where we stomped the skull of the demon, and its lackeys lost their cohesion.”
“You think we can find Shroggath and kill him?”
“Kill the head, the body dies,” Stathis said. “Nuke the drummer, the band gets quiet. If he’s the only one.”
“Can you find out where Frogbath is?” Stathis asked Shrek.
“I will begin searching,” Shrek said.
“So that should be one goal,” Stathis said. “Another one is getting control of Bifrost’s defenses, or at least the option to turn them off, and the Shorr-space controls, then maybe we can start purging the cylinders.”
“What about survivors?” Hakala said.
“Well, yeah,” Stathis said. “That should be on the list, too.”
Were there any other survivors? Stathis wasn’t so sure, but there were a bunch of people who’d taken refuge in a hydroponics section, or alue, as the people here called them. Then there were some scientists hiding out in one of the cylinders under the watchful eye of vanhat spiders. Evacuating them could be something of a challenge, and they didn’t want to leave yet.
Stathis didn’t know why they were so interested in being spider bait, but he wouldn’t force anyone.
“Let the SCBIs scour the networks. The froggies seem to be trying to bring them up. Let’s allow that,” Stathis said. Hopefully, the SCBIs can stay a step ahead of Shroggath.
“And if they are using the networks to locate survivors? Or us?”
“We have to be faster,” Stathis said.
“Can they track us through the network?” Stathis asked Shrek, but he asked aloud, so Hakala could hear.
“Possible,” Shrek said. “However, we have not seen much sophistication from Shroggath. It is more likely that he wants rudimentary control of such things as trams and sensors. So far, we have been able to mislead his attempts. Shroggath is certainly nowhere near the Weermag level of capabilities. Only using the Aesir communication network makes this much easier, but we have to be very careful on the standard hardwired network.”
“What do you mean?” Stathis asked.
“We have access to both the wireless and wired networks,” Shrek explained. “We have limited bandwidth through the wireless network, but because of the nature, our location cannot be identified. We can use a node almost anywhere in Bifrost, and our traffic originates from there. However, if the enemy controls that node, they can view that traffic and may extrapolate our location based on our interests. If we use the wired network, we become much more vulnerable to detection and location identification. They can use radio signal detectors, as well, to isolate the Aesir node we are transmitting from, but not where we are linking from on the Aesir network.”
Stathis would trust Shrek to hide them on the networks, then.
“So we have to be super careful on the wired networks, but the wireless networks are better?”
“Correct. That works both ways, though. It should be noted that by searching for Shroggath, we are revealing our source, be it hardwired or wireless.”
“So, we must be super careful,” Stathis said, looking at Hakala.
“Zen,” Hakala said.
Looking back at the displays, Stathis wondered where they were and what Shroggath was up to as he counted the other ships transitioning in and moving into formation with the Bifrost for the next transition.
It would be easy to see that he was quickly losing control of the situation, but Stathis pushed those fears away. They were going deeper and deeper into unknown space, but he was a Marine, and that just meant more challenges. Nothing was impossible, only difficult.
He hoped he was up to the task, but was that a stupid private’s optimism, or a stupid major’s?
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Chapter 2: Trespassers
Admiral Diamond Winters, USMC
The command staff looked at Diamond Winters as she stood at the head of the table. The walls of the briefing room showed plains with the sun setting on the distant mountains. The sun hadn’t moved in over two hours, and Winters was getting tired. She missed the real sun, which did move, unlike this fancy view screen, which didn’t.
“Self-defense only,” Winters said. “I’d rather take a shot or two than start a new war.”
“How much damage must we take before we return fire, then?” Sakamoto asked.
“Some,” Winters said. How could you quantify that?
Sakamoto looked at her with those unreadable eyes and made Winters feel small. She was sounding like the amateur she was. She should act more like an admiral. What would a good admiral say?
“What do you suggest?” Winters asked. Probably a better response. Taking damage would also mean taking casualties, and who knew what kind of weapons the aliens had? Sif had told them about her psychic contact with the aliens. They’d all talked about what to do if they encountered aliens on their way to the galactic core, but Winters hadn’t expected to encounter them so soon, or to find out they were territorial and psychic.
Asking a question was also the best way to figure out what he was thinking and maybe learn something.
“We know nothing about them,” Sakamoto said. “We know nothing about their sensor technology, their weaponry, their military capabilities, or their numbers.”
“They know of the vanhat, and call them the devourers,” Sif said. “That means either recent knowledge or ancient knowledge. I think ancient knowledge, which means their technology is ahead of ours.”
“How do they know that word?” Winters asked. She’d heard the term used before, by the aliens who’d created Bonnie and McCarthy’s SCBI analog, by a SOG scientist who’d bonded with a broken one. To humanity, they were monsters. To aliens, they were seen as devourers.
“Why does it matter?” Sakamoto asked.
“We have encountered at least one other race that called them devourers,” Sif said, and Winters wondered if Sakamoto had read all the briefings. “They are the aliens who implanted a ghost in Lieutenants McCarthy and Bonnie. That is their name for the vanhat. Also, these aliens did not use that specific word. Our communication did not use language; it was emotions, impressions, and beliefs. More information can be conveyed in such a way, and it is much more difficult to lie.”
Sakamoto’s eyes landed on Sif.
Winters hoped he wasn’t so impenetrable to Sif.
“Are you able to determine the limits of their empire so we may go around?” Sakamoto asked, and Winters noticed that Nakano was unnaturally still, as if afraid to draw attention by moving.
“I’m sorry, no,” Sif said.
“But you are sure you spoke with them, and—” Sakamoto began, but wasn’t sure how to finish other than calling her a liar. It was an open secret, not publicly acknowledged, that Sif had psychic abilities. Nobody on the crew, including Winters, knew the full extent of her capabilities, and Winters suspected Sif preferred it that way.
“Yes,” Sif said. “I am very sure I spoke with aliens.”
“What does that mean for us?” Sakamoto asked. “This makes things more difficult. If they are psychic, we may not be able to sneak past them, and we might be vulnerable to some psychic weapon.”
“Or we may be invulnerable to it,” Sif said, but Winters doubted anyone believed that.
“We need information,” Sakamoto said.
“What do you suggest?” Winters asked.
“We must be very cautious about making new enemies. First the vanhat, then the Collective, and now these aliens? Please forgive me, but things are becoming much more difficult, and I think our chance of success is becoming less.”
“You want to turn around?” Winters asked.
“No!” Sakamoto said. “No, Admiral. That is not what I propose. We must fight smarter, not harder. We cannot afford to return, and we cannot afford to fail. Perhaps we should send forth scouts to discover more, or even to contact them and negotiate safe passage.”
“They are unlikely to allow it if we are hunted by others,” Sif said. “I do not think the vanhat or Collective will request safe passage and may be content to just shoot their way through to get to us. Furthermore, time is not on our side.”
“As that may be,” Sakamoto said. “I suggest we send the scouts. We cannot get an answer unless we ask. It is the right thing to do.”
