Marathon: The Complete Series (Books 1-9) (Complete Series Box Sets), page 101
part #1 of Marathon Series
The view on the tactical grid looked different from his vision, but the similarities in his perspective snapped him back into the vision as if he was hanging in space with no ship surrounding him.
The Colossuses flanked the Stormbreakers in exactly the same positions as his vision. Nothing moved over there, but he measured every inch of the battlefield—or what would be the battlefield.
Dallas hovered right next to the Marathon. How fitting that he, Eckhart, and Bing should go into battle together, probably for the last time.
Dallas eyed the Stormbreakers with the same flinty determination. Eckhart understood now why he hadn’t given in when Eckhart asked him not to come.
Of course Dallas had to come. Eckhart was just a speed bump for Dallas, too. Eckhart understood that well enough, now that he’d finally gotten over his feelings for Dallas.
Well, he didn’t get over them. They just didn’t stop him anymore. Eckhart knew exactly what he had to do. He had to get onto that Stormbreaker, and he could only do that by firing the Triorium blast that destroyed Dallas.
A subtle blue light floated out of the Vrali destroyers farther down the line, and at that signal, Dallas charged. Datrium flared from his feet, and his jet thrusters propelled him headlong toward the Stormbreakers.
The whole fleet launched at the same instant. The Ihi streaked hot on Dallas’ trail, and Eckhart punched the throttle to the wall.
He opened fire with his Destrine pulses first and fell in with the Jackal Clan. He had to stick close to them so he’d be ready when the time came to fire his Triorium ejections.
The Ihi flooded the battlefield as the whole fleet attacked in force. The Chosen and the Immortals cut wide to starboard and started carving into the Regiment line on the far end. The Jackal Clan took the port side, with the Vrali rushing everywhere at once. Eckhart’s fleet got lost in the mayhem, and clouds of Destrine enveloped every Colossus.
Eckhart swooped in on one huge battleship and added his shots to the Jackal Clan’s assault. He circled the giant ship, pounding the hull with Destrine. He rocketed out the other side in time to see the Stormbreakers fire their lasers.
All seven beams joined into a massive laser that fired into space. It smashed into Dallas and he skidded to a halt thousands of parsecs from the battle, but his maneuver worked. He concentrated the Stormbreakers’ power on himself. The Regiment couldn’t use that weapon against the alien horde.
Eckhart lost sight of his friend in another Destrine barrage. Vrali destroyers blocked Eckhart’s path, and Colossuses erupted in flames all over the place. Eckhart had his hands full just dodging every other ship on the field.
Glowing blue orbs dotted the area. They didn’t even look like people anymore, and Eckhart couldn’t make out the Ihi inside each one. Their plasma streamed outward from each orb and flooded the field with a soft blue light, but other than that, Eckhart didn’t see the Ihi doing anything. If he ever missed his aim and flew through one of them, they disintegrated, and he passed through without damaging them.
He burst through another exploding Colossus and almost collided with one of the Stormbreakers. Datrium blasted from its guns, hammering the Vrali destroyers crawling all around it, but the Stormbreaker couldn’t penetrate the Destrine shields.
More Vrali assembled from both sides and added their fire to the assault. So many Colossuses blew apart at the other perimeter that the Ihi started to converge on the Stormbreakers. The alien horde was winning.
Deep, husky Vrali voices crackled through Eckhart’s controls. “Get clear of the Stormbreaker! It’s starting to collapse!”
The destroyers somersaulted away to surround the next nearest Stormbreaker, but the Ihi remained in thicker and thicker clusters around the stricken warship. They unleashed their plasma on the Stormbreaker and the hull imploded even further.
The sight electrified Eckhart, and he fired every ounce of his Destrine at the thing. This moment brought the work of months to fruition. His whole being craved the destruction of these wretched criminals.
He spiraled around the Stormbreaker, targeting its weakest hull plates. Explosions flashed inside the fuselage. He cartwheeled sideways and came in for another pass.
“Get clear now!” Bing hollered from navigation. “The Datrium cistern is going up!”
Eckhart shifted his hand on the regulators and activated the Destrine shields just in time. A withering boom reported out of the Stormbreaker, and then a towering column of combusting plasma erupted from the breached hull. It enveloped the Marathon, but the Destrine protected the ship against everything. Eckhart whooped in glee and raced off to the next Stormbreaker, where the Vrali were already carving holes in the warship’s hull.
“Four more Colossuses to go!” Innyria called from the other end of the line. “Alien fleet—converge on the Stormbreakers! Jackal Clan—do your work!”
“Converging!” Namol replied. “Jackal Clan—Triorium drive!”
Those words set Eckhart’s hair on end. This was it. He could think about it and dream about it all he liked. Now he actually had to do it.
He whizzed between three more Stormbreakers. The Jackal Clan overran the Vrali, and in no time, very little space remained around the Stormbreakers.
Eckhart gunned the engines out the other side of the battle to take a look around. The Immortals engaged in a raging gun war against two stubborn Colossuses that just wouldn’t die. The Ihi went after the last two that held their position well away from the Stormbreakers, but all the remaining Colossuses were going down fast.
Dallas hovered at the end of the laser, far from the battle. Another Stormbreaker went down, and the beam stuttered. He shot forward, only to get stopped again a moment later.
Two more Stormbreakers exploded, and a giant supernova of fire billowed through the battlefield. The shockwave went straight through the Ihi and flowed past the Vrali’s Destrine shields. Nothing touched them.
The wave swept the Marathon’s shields, and when it passed, Eckhart got a clear view of the battle.
The giant central Stormbreaker cut its laser into three. One beam held Dallas in place while the other two sliced into the alien fleet.
The twin beams slashed this way and that, targeting anything and everything. They glanced off Destrine shields and vaporized through Ihi, but they hit their mark on more than one of the gang ships.
“Immortals and Chosen—fall back!” Eckhart ordered. “Jackal Clan—withdraw!”
“No damn way!” Namol snarled. “We came here to finish this. We don’t give a damn what they throw at us.”
Eckhart started to say something, but at that moment, another flash of his vision hit him dead between the eyes. The Immortals and the Chosen withdrew to leave the Jackal Clan a clear run for the Stormbreakers. Triorium ejections bombarded the Stormbreakers on all sides. This was it. They were targeting the laser.
Eckhart smashed the throttle down and plunged into the battle, streaking for the laser. He plowed between Jackal Clan ships and Vrali destroyers swarming as thick as flies around the Stormbreakers.
The Ihi rushed their targets, too. Destrine flew thick and fast, but Eckhart didn’t see any of that. He rotated around the Stormbreaker and fired into the beam. Triorium jetted from his guns and struck the beam just as Namol and ten other Jackal Clan attackers hit it from the opposite side.
They were all flying so fast they had to break off their fire to avoid colliding with each other. Namol peeled one way and his comrades tumbled the other while the Marathon rocketed between them, but the damage was done.
A catastrophic concussion smashed the Marathon from behind. Eckhart barely had time to check the regulators before the shockwave hit him. He struggled to right the ship before the shockwave overtook him, toppled the Marathon end over end, and boomed out to the farthest reaches of the solar system.
Eckhart strained to sit up and pulled the ship back into an upright position. The bottom dropped out of his world all over again when he spotted Dallas plummeting inside the laser beam.
He didn’t explode the way he had in Eckhart’s vision. Dallas didn’t get thrown clear of the blast, either. The explosion didn’t damage the laser at all.
It remained locked on Dallas, and he rolled head over heel down the beam on a headlong plunge for the one surviving Stormbreaker.
The ship loomed as huge and deadly as ever. The alien assault didn’t damage it or even touch it.
Dallas flipped again and again, dozens of times. He twisted inside the beam, but he couldn’t break out of it. The beam got shorter and shorter, drawing him nearer and nearer until he fell straight through the hull. He vanished inside the ship, and the laser blinked out to nothing.
Every ship on the field held still, watching Dallas disappear inside the Stormbreaker. Eckhart’s hands went numb on the regulators. Bing stared into the tactical grid, but there was nothing left to see there. Dallas was gone, but not gone. He was inside the Stormbreaker.
The Ihi hovered in space for a moment, and then they all migrated over to the Vrali destroyers. The thousands of blue dots vaporized inside and left the battlefield dark, cold, silent, and deserted. The entire Regiment force had been wiped out…except for that one Stormbreaker—Eckhart’s Stormbreaker.
He was alone with it on the battlefield. It lingered there only for him. Nothing remained but him and it. The way to his destiny lay clear, with no more speed bumps to slow him down.
The Vrali destroyers started to drift away. The three gangs fell in line, and last of all, the Atera led Eckhart’s fleet back to the Keilara system’s outer rim, where they’d started.
Eckhart shivered and took hold of the regulators. He turned back and steered into the Atera’s landing platform.
17
Bing followed Eckhart onto the Atera’s landing platform. Eckhart went straight to the weapons locker and started taking down sidearms, pounders—anything he could carry.
He loaded them all and stashed the sidearms in his boots, in his belt, in his pockets—everywhere. He took out ammunition, Halfanite blocks, and primers when Bing stuck his arm into the locker and took down another pounder.
“What are you doing?” Eckhart asked.
“I’m arming myself. What are you doing?”
“I’m going after Dallas, but you aren’t going.”
Bing only smiled at him. Eckhart started to get annoyed when someone bumped his other side.
Thagmor held out one of the Vrali guns Eckhart had first used on Gruna. “You might want to take a few of these.”
Eckhart took it, and then frowned when Thagmor started loading three more of the same kind of gun—one for each of his sets of arms. Ingai stood at his side.
The landing platform boomed behind them as Innyria, Namol, and Chemorix landed next to the Marathon. The three gang leaders came over, and Innyria nodded at the weapons in Eckhart’s hands. “So you’re going after Dallas, are you? Good. We’re coming.”
“No, you aren’t. You’ve done enough. I need you to stay here and—”
“Don’t even bother arguing with us, Eckhart,” Bing interrupted. “You aren’t going over there alone.”
“Dallas means as much to us as he does to you,” Innyria added. “He’s part of our crew. We’re going to get him.”
“Are you taking that ship?” Thagmor nodded toward the Marathon. “I’m glad we fitted it with Destrine drive.”
“We won’t need it. We’re landing on the Stormbreaker. It won’t attack as long as we don’t attack first.” Ingai turned around and grinned at Eckhart. “You might have to go, but no one ever said you had to go alone.”
Eckhart looked around at his friends. He counted every one of these men his friends, but this sealed it for all time. They’d stood with him through war and death and defeat. How fitting that they should stay with him all the way until the end.
The elevator opened, and Rixby came out with Squids, Clifton, and DeWalt. Clifton and DeWalt elbowed into the group and started helping themselves to the weapons locker. Bing moved out of their way to give them space.
“I brought schematics from Regiment Stormbreakers,” Clifton told Eckhart, “but they probably won’t do us much good. I’m sure these jackasses have modified that ship. It’s probably unrecognizable inside.”
Eckhart started to tell them to stay behind, but Rixby interrupted him. “Our scans can’t penetrate the Stormbreaker’s hull, so we won’t be able to monitor you from outside.” She shoved something into Eckhart’s hand. “This is a remote control hooked up to the Marathon’s regulators. You’ll be able to call the ship to you when you’re ready to leave. You’ll just need to make sure the ship can reach you without crashing into the hull or whatever might be in its way.”
Eckhart felt his throat clenching. “Thank you.”
She stepped back to take her place next to Squids. “Come back, Eckhart. We need you.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me not to go? Aren’t you going to tell me how misguided and dangerous this is?”
“Nope,” she chirped. “Just come back safely and bring Dallas back. You have to go. I understand that.”
Eckhart looked around at the rest of the group. They all understood.
“Dallas is alive over there,” Ingai added. “He’s undamaged.”
“How do you know? He said you couldn’t connect with him because he isn’t organic.”
“It isn’t him I’m connecting with. It’s the Regiment. The Earthlings over there are holding Dallas. They captured him to bring you to them.”
Eckhart stiffened. “Then I’d better go get him.”
He shut the weapons locker. Bing, Clifton, DeWalt, Innyria, Chemorix, Namol, Thagmor, and Ingai turned with him on their way back to the Marathon.
Eckhart put the remote control in his pocket and faced Rixby and Squids one more time. “Keep this place for me. I need to know you’ll still be here when I come back.”
“We will be,” Squids replied. “You don’t have to worry about us.”
Eckhart gripped Squid’s shoulder and then hugged Rixby. “Thank you. I’ll see you soon.”
His journey led through the Stormbreaker, but it didn’t end there. The Stormbreaker was just another speed bump on the way to something beyond it. He had to get past the Stormbreaker to find out what that was.
He set off for the Marathon and put the Atera, the fleet, and the whole campaign out of his mind. He didn’t worry about them anymore. They’d all be here when he came back…and he would come back.
He knew that now.
ENVOY
1
The massive Stormbreaker towered over the Marathon and blocked out the stars. The Marathon inched closer, and a tense silence fell over the bridge. Adam Eckhart steered along the giant warship’s hulking sides.
“There has to be a way in,” Arick Bing murmured from the navigation station. “I don’t see anything, though.”
“Did you see anything in your visions?” Thagmor asked from Eckhart’s elbow.
“I didn’t use an entrance then,” Eckhart replied. “I just flew straight through the sides.”
“Don’t do that now,” Bing told him.
Eckhart laughed. “I wasn’t planning to, pal, but thanks for the suggestion.”
“I found something!” Coleman DeWalt called from the workstation at Eckhart’s right. “There’s a hangar bay about five stories up from here.”
Eckhart fired the Marathon’s engines and floated up to the coordinates DeWalt sent to the regulators. Sure enough, the Marathon drifted into an enormous cavern jutting into the Stormbreaker’s side. The impenetrable walls cut inward, and left a huge open deck lined with much smaller ships.
“It’s completely deserted,” DeWalt reported. “There are no Earthling life signs here.”
“There’s an EM field pressurizing the deck,” Bing added. “We should be able to get out here.”
“That’s good enough for me.” Eckhart pulled the helm into the hangar. A sizzle of sparks ran along the Marathon’s hull when the ship passed through the field.
“We’re in,” DeWalt told Eckhart. “And we’re surrounded by an oxygen atmosphere.”
Thagmor turned away. “Let’s go.”
Eckhart set the Marathon down, and the crew assembled in the lower cargo hold. Thagmor loaded three different guns with his six arms, while Innyria, Chemorix, and Namol prepared and checked their pounders.
DeWalt and Blake Clifton joined them, and Bing started loading his own guns. Only one person didn’t touch a weapon. Ingai, the Ihi leader that had accompanied Eckhart, Dallas, and Thagmor from Gruna, stood apart and smiled at everyone.
Eckhart opened the rear hatch, and the friends gazed out at the Stormbreaker’s interior.
A prickle went up Eckhart’s scalp now that he was finally here. He’d been having nightmares about this place for weeks. Now that he was actually aboard this ship, it turned out to be the biggest anticlimax of his life.
He and his friends advanced onto the deck. Nothing happened. No one came out to attack them. The whole place was deserted.
“Are you sure about this?” he murmured to DeWalt.
“I scanned the Stormbreaker right before we left the bridge. There are at least five hundred people on this ship.”
“So where are they?” Clifton asked. “They must realize we’re hostile to them.”
“I’m picking up their thoughts,” Ingai added. “Most of them don’t even know we exist.”
“And the ones that do?” Thagmor asked. “Are they arming against us?”
“No, they aren’t.” Ingai frowned to himself, and then his expression cleared. “They’re just waiting for us.”
“Where?” Eckhart asked. “Where are they?”
“I’m not sure.” Ingai scowled again and then shrugged. “They’re using some kind of shielding that blocks me from reading their thoughts.”
“That shouldn’t be possible,” Eckhart argued. “You picked them up just fine when we were on the Atera. You told me they were keeping Dallas alive to lure me here.”
