The Gardens of Nibiru (The Ember War Saga Book 5) by Richard Fox

Author:Richard Fox [Fox, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Triplane Press
Published: 2016-04-07T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Egan twisted the IR dish toward the stars and tapped at his gauntlet. Only a few bright stars burned through the red blanket of the distant nebula while Hale and the Marines stood in a small glade. Clicks from alien insects filled the air.

“Should be just a second, sir,” Egan said. “There, got our handshake. You’re secure with the bridge.”

A projection of Captain Valdar came to life in front of Hale, cast from the Egan’s antenna.

“Hale, good to see you. What’s your status?” Valdar asked.

Hale recounted events up until when his Marines went to the welcoming ceremony. Valdar didn’t act overly surprised when Hale told him about the village full of long-lost human beings.

“I’ve got the two elderly villagers in our relocated hide site, sedated. Idadu will keep them under until our mission is complete. My plan is to ambush the kadanu when they arrive at daybreak and use their shuttle to get into Mentiq’s city. From there, we’ll find some way to neutralize the target or get the shields down so you can do it the loud and messy way,” Hale said.

“Decent, but I can’t think of anything better from orbit. How many civilians are there?”

“Three hundred ninety-two at this location, but there’s a catch. Seems there’s a population of Karigole on a nearby island. We don’t know the numbers but I’m sending Steuben and Lafayette and Sergeant Orozco to investigate. They’ll use our cloaked Mule to get to the island.”

“Karigole? That’s…incredible. Something tells me you didn’t have a lot of choice with sending Steuben and the tin man to check it out.” Valdar looked to the side and spoke to someone on the bridge.

“No, they were pretty insistent. I put Orozco on their team to keep me informed with what’s really happening on that island. The Karigole are hard to predict when it comes to Toth. That there’s more of them out here…all bets are off on how rational they’re going to be.”

A crack of thunder broke from behind Hale and Valdar’s projection flickered.

“Crap, that figures. You’ve got a few minutes left until the weather breaks the connection,” Egan said.

“Sir, can we even evac all these civilians? I flew through that mess at the anchorage. There are a lot of hostiles in orbit,” Hale said.

“I’ll worry about the evac. You worry about killing Mentiq. Understand? Need you to get moving faster. Our batteries…” Valdar went fuzzy. “…work around but…hours.” The projection cut out.

Hale looked at Egan, who shook his head.

“Nothing is ever easy, is it?” Hale asked.

“Nope. I can’t help but notice that you left out my battle with the krayt. It isn’t every day that happens to me,” Egan said.

“Marine, if that’s the worst thing that happens to you on this planet, consider yourself lucky,” Hale said.

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