Ashes Fall by Richard Fox

Author:Richard Fox [Fox, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798711570912
Google: UxQ9zgEACAAJ
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: 2021-02-20T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

The life pod floated into the Breitenfeld’s main hangar. The hull was cold and dark, the twisted remains of Eagle fighters and Condor bombers mashed to the walls. Bits of metal and broken tools floated about as the pod came down and docking clamps snapped to the deck.

The hatch opened and Hoffman, in his full power armor, scanned the hangar with his gauss rifle. He stepped out and continued forward in the zero gravity, then thrust his boots toward the deck. Magnetic pads activated to pull him down.

“Clear,” he said through the IR.

Ely emerged, wearing a too-large vac suit bunched up on his limbs and tied down. His feet slid across the deck until he locked down with the same kind of magnetic pads that Hoffman had.

“This suit stinks so bad,” Ely said. “Did the last guy to wear it never shower? Maybe he died in it.”

“Yeah, maybe he did.” Hoffman snapped on a flashlight and shined it deeper into the hangar. “Just be glad there was a spare suit on board.”

Ely looked up at long tears in the hull. Blackened and slagged patches from plasma weapon strikes were everywhere. A fighter pilot’s helmet drifted past him, the skull and crossbones unit symbol for Fighter Squadron 103 on one side. He grabbed it and turned it over.

“This was Mom’s old unit. How could this have happened to the Breitenfeld?”

“Destiny? This ship was in the middle of almost every single major engagement during the Ember War. Ibarrans captured her during the next big one. My Strike Marines and I got her back, then Valdar decided he’d never retire again or give her up to someone else. He made a lot of enemies fighting for a stronger Navy after the Kesaht War ended. That she’d hold the line before the Geist…destiny. At the end, she ran out of miracles.”

“But structural integrity seems decent.” Ely stomped a foot. “Most of the ship looked intact on the way in, but the turrets are gone.”

“The Geist took the rail guns. Made them into a monument out near Houston where they train conscripts.” Hoffman walked toward the rear of the hangar, shining the light back and forth until he ran it over a cut in the deck the length of a hand.

“You know where we are?” Hoffman went to one knee and reached for the cut, but pulled his hand back before he could touch it. “Do you know what this is?”

“This was the Final Prayer.” Ely stopped a foot behind him. “Where the Armor that died on the Apex were blessed. Colonel Carius was here and he…he asked Saint Kallen for victory. And the Iron Hearts were here too. Hussars. Templar.”

“Elias did this.” Hoffman touched the edge of the cut gently. “Made it with the blade that killed the Xaros king. This is holy ground.”

“If you say so.” Ely looked over Hoffman’s shoulder, then bunched his hands to his sides and slightly hunched his back. “I feel…something. Like there’s someone else here. I don’t like this place.

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