Endurance: The Complete Series Read online

  Maureen had arrived at some point and sat beside him. She had a hand on his shoulder, her dancer’s muscles stabilizing both of them through the shaking of the ship. She said nothing, but he felt her concern radiating, as if its warmth could thaw the illness putting his body to sleep.

  “Good to go!” he shouted, and Ivanokoff ordered the thirteenth D Drive jump. Another Haxozin star lost power to a prong and began to spin. Another quartet of UELE vessels dove in to finish it off.

  The next target was a good distance away. Matthias okayed the computer’s jump calculator and the reactor’s output levels with almost a minute to spare. This gave him a chance to finally look at his sister. He forced his lungs to breathe in.

  “Hey. I’m okay.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Part of your face is turning grey.”

  Matthias pressed a chilled palm to his cheek, felt no responding warmth. “Huh.”

  “Mattie, you need to go lie down. Somebody else can do this.”

  “Not as well as I can.”

  “Please.”

  “Sis, either the disease will get me, or it won’t. Quitting won’t help. Besides, if I keep thinking, keep calculating, it might let my brain stay fully alive. That was the point of the zombie drug, wasn’t it? Keep the Thassians’ minds active even while their bodies died?”

  “They were shells of people, not really there.”

  “But I’m human. Maybe it’ll be different. My brain feels fine.”

  “How can you be so optimistic?”

  “How can you not be?” Matthias smiled. “We’re saving the world, sis. That’s kind of awesome.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand you.”

  “Few people do. But I’m happier than they are.”

  “I just worry—”

  “Worry won’t help me any more than quitting would. Let it roll off, Maureen. Besides, once the captain makes peace with these guys, I can go to the best hospital on the planet and receive a hero’s treatment. Right?”

  Finally Maureen managed a small smile. “I suppose.”

  The next star ship loomed large ahead. Soon Matthias would need to dive into his computer panel once more. Before turning back to his calculations, he said, “Hey, sis.”

  “What?”

  “What will they call the documents everybody signs to officially end this war?”

  She gave him a blank look.

  “Hax pacts.”

  Maureen let out a genuine giggle.

  * * *

  The lobby of the headquarters building was empty. Thomas and Vinlin rode the lift up to the fourth floor. Areva took the stairs. Or maybe she teleported herself there. Thomas wouldn’t be surprised.

  The hallways were dark, and their steps echoed off the tiled floors as they crept through shadows. Again Thomas was reminded of Thassis. Again he pushed the thought aside. Thermal scans had showed warm bodies. That meant they were alive.

  He stopped outside the offices belonging to Commissioner Wen’s division. Though Thomas suspected she hadn’t survived the attack, and that the Haxozin would have clustered on the higher floors with the other highest-ranked officers, he felt he owed it to his CO to check. To his surprise, raised voices came from inside the long room that housed the rows of desks and a few corner offices.

  A harsh, guttural voice spoke in the raspy tones of the Haxozin, the sound filtered through the metal of a crimson helmet. The computerized talky box translation followed. “I will use it!”

  Vinlin froze beside Thomas. The alien’s purple skin drained to lilac, and his eyes went wide. He pointed at the door. “The Sovereign,” he whispered. Thomas had his own talky box turned down, so the translation was barely audible.

  Well then.

  Never mind the higher floors. They’d found the party.

  Here we go, Thomas thought. He made a series of motions, hand signals used to communicate silently during stealth operations. He couldn’t see Areva, but he had no doubt she could see him.

  Target inside. Proceed with plan.

  Before he could communicate anything else, a female voice answered the Sovereign. “Then what? What does that gain you?”

  Thomas sucked in a startled breath. Commissioner Wen was alive. Not only alive, but fighting back, from the sharp knives lining her tone. He’d been on the receiving end of that tone once. It was an experience he never wanted to repeat.

  The Sovereign barked something that Thomas couldn’t make out. A moment later, Wen made a pained hissing sound.

  Shit.

  Whatever they did, it didn’t subdue her, because her next words contained just as much steel as before. “We know you only have a handful of soldiers. You can’t hope to conquer us.”

  Thomas withdrew his pocket computer and unfolded it, then engaged the thermal sensors. Half a dozen patches of warm light glowed on the screen. The smallest one, the commissioner, was seated. The largest one, likely the Sovereign, stood before her. The others were scattered around the room, and Thomas couldn’t tell whether they were enemies or other captives.

  The shape that was the Sovereign drew an arm back and struck Wen. Her head jerked to one side, but snapped back to face him just as quickly. Thomas could imagine the venom in her stare.

  “Perhaps I should demonstrate what I’m capable of,” said the Sovereign. “We have dozens of your subordinates and colleagues held in this building. They can serve as a test case for what will happen to the rest of your species if you continue this refusal.”

  Shit. Come on, Areva, Thomas thought.

  “The emergency orders I broadcast sent everyone on the planet to hide in the most secure locations they can reach,” said Wen. “Even if you manage an orbital bombardment of the entire planet, which I doubt you can with your forces under attack—”

  Good, thought Thomas, they know about that.

  “—it’ll take hours to infect everyone, and that’s assuming this disease you claim to have actually works.”

  Oh. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  They had a biological weapon. One of them had discovered the human DNA analysis in the Thassian computers, and they’d used their other stolen technology to make a virus that could wipe out humanity.

  Thomas had to admire Commissioner Wen’s stoicism in the face of the end of the world.

  “Even if you eliminate Earth,” said Wen, “you’ll have to contend with our other colonies spread throughout the system, and most of them don’t even have exposed atmospheres. If you keep going with this invasion, we can hold out for a very long time. And as you can see from what’s going on in orbit, we like to fight back.”

  The Sovereign growled. Actually growled. “Tell me how to access the surface-based military installations.”

  “Those are off limits.”

  “Answer!”

  “You must be losing pretty badly to be this desperate.”

  The Haxozin struck her again and stormed across the room. Thomas heard the wall rattle as he smashed a fist against it.

  The next time the Sovereign spoke, it was in a calmer tone. “Get three of the prisoners. Preferably the younger ones.”

  A clamp closed on Thomas’s chest.

  One of the other warm bodies performed a bow, then marched straight toward the door behind which Thomas and Vinlin lurked. Thomas heard the pound of the soldier’s boots on the other side.

  Time was up. If Areva hadn’t gotten the room’s ventilation system to start pumping the carbon monoxide yet, it was too late.

  Thomas stood, tossed his pocket comp aside, and brought his p-gun to bear. He shifted his weight, bracing for the proper angle of attack. Then, with all the force mustered from his strength and pounding fear, he kicked down the door and charged in.

  * * *

  Halfway done. They’d been at this for almost an hour. Fifty Haxozin warships hung useless in space, their windows dark, their engines idle. Fifty more still rotated out of reach, using their five propulsion
points to jerk one way, then another, keeping out of Endurance’s path and firing on the other UELE vessels all the while. The Endurance had attempted the last dimensional jump three times before succeeding, and the one before that twice.

  The Haxozin were growing wise to the plan.

  Worse, the misses had used up crucial power reserves from the reactor. Already they were approaching maximum daily output. Matthias wracked his brain for another strategy, another method to use to pin down the star ships. But the enemies were just too big, the UELE forces too minimal.

  “Now!” Ivanokoff shouted.

  Another jump. Another miss.

  “Come about and repeat,” said Ivanokoff. “Dive toward the planet and come up beneath them.”

  A quick turn, a lurching movement, and the Endurance once more faced the star prong.

  “Now,” said Ivanokoff, without even waiting for Matthias’s confirmation. This time the jump worked. They passed through the gravity well, and the star’s limb went dark.

  Fifty-one.

  “We have three ... no, four ... no, eight of the remaining stars converging on us,” said the scanners operator.

  “Perhaps they finally noticed we are the head of the spear,” said Ivanokoff. Matthias could swear the man was enjoying himself. “Target the first and ...”

  Ivanokoff’s sentence disappeared in rumbling chaos as something enormous impacted the starboard wing. The ship pitched, and the deck tilted a full thirty degrees. Matthias’s back pressed against the aft bulkhead. Officers clung to their consoles to stay in place. Then artificial gravity compensated, and up and down returned to their proper positions.

  “What was that?” Ivanokoff barked.

  “They hit us,” said the helmswoman. “They rammed us with one of the prongs. The starboard wing is crunched, but still there.”

  All eyes looked toward the smoking end of the star ship that had effectively hobbled them.

  It appeared to be moving away.

  “Are they retreating?” asked Matthias.

  No one answered as everyone checked their consoles.

  “No,” said the pilot. “We’re falling. That attack shoved us out of orbit. Way out of orbit. We’re in an uncontrolled re-entry.”

  Ivanokoff stiffened in the captain’s chair. “Full engines.”

  “They struck one of our aft thrusters, sir, and all stabilizers are gone except one. If I engage engines, we’ll go into a spin. We can’t get out of this. We’re going down.”

  The star ship shrank rapidly in the viewport as Endurance fell. Bits of heat distortion began to creep over the glass.

  “We must aim the nose down and ride it out,” said Ivanokoff.

  Matthias cleared his throat. “If we engage the last stabilizing engine just a little, it could give enough rotation to turn us around. Air resistance should stop it from becoming a full spin.”

  “Do it,” Ivanokoff ordered.

  “Engaging engine,” said the helmswoman.

  A moment later the ship began to shudder under the forces of re-entry. The viewports still faced the stars.

  “More!” said Ivanokoff.

  The helmswoman wiped her brow, her other hand flying over the controls.

  Bulkheads screamed as Endurance swung about, the view panning from space to the green and blue of Earth’s surface.

  Which was growing bigger.

  A lot bigger.

  Matthias pushed himself to his feet. He couldn’t feel his legs, but he held the wall to keep his balance. “We’re going too fast. We’ll break apart.”

  “I’ve got all the flaps open, brake thrusters firing, and I’m holding the pitch as even as I can!” said the helmswoman. “It’s not enough.”

  “We need more drag.” Matthias’s thoughts raced, his gaze darting here and there, seeking inspiration. He stopped with his eyes on the starboard bulkhead, behind which he knew the mangled starboard wing protruded from the ship. “I’ve got an idea! Vent the air!”

  “What?”

  “The air cyclers in the wings always have a supply of air in them. We need to poke holes in the front of those systems so the air can vent through the front of the ship. It’s high pressure air; it might slow us down just enough!”

  “Poke holes with what?” demanded Ivanokoff.

  But Matthias’s brain was miles ahead. “If I deliberately overload the forward—”

  “No talk!” said Ivanokoff. “Just go!”

  “Sis, help me.” Matthias leaned on Maureen, and she shuffled him to an empty spot on the consoles lining the front of the bridge.

  Matthias settled in the chair and flexed his fingers to get them moving. Then he was off, hands flying, brain soaring, mouth muttering calculations. He disabled capacitors, short-circuited surge protectors, deleted security coding. “Everybody back away from your consoles,” he said. “This might blow a few things.”

  The planet filled the entire viewport now. Clouds rushed past. Matthias could make out rivers and mountain ranges in detail.

  “Here we go!”

  With one final button press, he attempted to turn the wing thrusters up to 2,000 percent capacity.

  An indecent amount of power surged through the circuitry lining the wings’ leading edges. As Matthias expected, the resistors spaced evenly along the wiring blew up. And with safety features disabled, those miniature explosions blasted holes through the forward plating and the air cyclers within the wings, creating an escape route for the compressed air.

  The ship bucked again at the sudden resistance. The pilot scrambled back to her console and fought to maintain a steady trajectory. “It’s working!” she called. “We’re slowing.”

  Matthias grinned.

  Then his console exploded, and all he could think about was pain.

  * * *

  The door struck the Haxozin officer in the face, knocking him back before Thomas’s charge. Thomas ignored him, instead targeting the large armored body he now knew to be the Sovereign. The gold and silver stripes on his crimson helmet gave it away.

  Commissioner Wen sat in a metal UELE desk chair, looking a bit worse for wear. Her wrists were handcuffed to the chair arms, and her face showed several bruises from the Sovereign’s blows. Her dark hair was free of its bun and hanging around her shoulders, and one sleeve of her uniform was torn. But there was nothing beaten about the vindictive smile she flashed at the Sovereign when Thomas came bursting in.

  “I told you,” she said. “We fight back.”

  “Keep your distance,” Thomas told the handful of Haxozin soldiers lingering around the room, “or I’ll blow a hole in your leader’s face. Vinlin, free the commissioner.”

  The purple alien moved to the chair and snapped the chains on the handcuffs with his bare hands.

  “Vinlin, what did they do to you?” the Sovereign demanded. His deep voice threw each word like an attack.

  Vinlin didn’t look up. He helped Commissioner Wen out of the chair, and she gave him a nod before crossing to the closest desk and retrieving a key to remove the dangling ends of the broken cuffs.

  “I asked you a question, soldier!” The Sovereign started to step toward Vinlin, but backed off when Thomas gestured with the gun.

  With a heavy sigh, Vinlin finally looked up. “I’m sorry, Sovereign. But you must hear what they have to say.”

  “They can say nothing of use. They are conquered, just like we have conquered so many other—”

  “They know about the real Haxozin, Sovereign.”

  That shut the big guy up.

  “You told them?” cried another armored body across the room.

  “No. They figured it out. And there is more.” Vinlin waved a hand at Thomas. “Tell them.”

  Thomas didn’t take his eyes off the Sovereign. “Yeah, here’s the thing. If you shower our planet with that genetic disease you made for us, you’re all dead, too.”

  There was silence. Wen was the first to understand. “Oh,” she murmured. “Oh, you’ve got to be joking.”


  “Sorry, ma’am. I’m not. These guys, purple as they are beneath that armor, are partially human.”

  “Impossible!” shouted the Sovereign. “We are from a lost world. Our ancestors were taken from it many—”

  “Not so lost, it turns out. It’s this one. You thought you were invading, but you were actually coming home. Think about it.” Thomas slid his feet forward, closing the distance on the Sovereign in case he needed to make a point blank shot. “We share a lot of instincts. You go around collecting technology from other species. We do, too. We don’t steal it, but the idea is similar. We feel the need to explore the galaxy and spread out through our solar system. You spread out to rule the Haxozin empire. We both fight for freedom and survival. Your expansionist tendencies are just like ours, only they’ve been twisted by what your people have been through.”

  “You know nothing about us,” the Sovereign growled. He did not retreat from Thomas’s advance. “We are superior in every way.”

  “Your stuff is better, sure. But there are only what, a few hundred of you? So let’s say you kill all of humanity off. You don’t have a viable population. Sooner or later, some other species is going to figure out that you can’t handle the empire you’ve inherited, and they’ll wipe you out. Then all of humanity disappears.”

  “We are not dirt people.”

  “There’s enough dirt in you to make you one of us. So here’s what I propose. You call off your invasion. We call off our attack. We all sit down and figure out a way for you to settle somewhere peacefully, where you can live real lives instead of frantically trying to run something that’s too big for you.” For the first time, Thomas glanced around the room, making eye contact with each of the other Haxozin’s helmets. “Vinlin’s decided he’s sick of nothing but work and fear. What about the rest of you?”

  “Hold your positions!” ordered the Sovereign. “This is a lie. A trick.”