The Battle of the Void (The Ember War Saga Book 6) by Richard Fox Read Free Book Online Page B

side of the turret and pulled. His seat came loose and he dropped down onto the Mule’s deck. Two of the Iron Hearts were still bolted to the deck in their compact travel forms; four of his Marines dragged the third down the ramp and onto the tunnel floor. Hale ran down the ramp and found Stacey and Malal near the Mule’s nose.
    “Malal, what is with this place?” Hale asked. “How far does this thing go?” The end of the tunnel seemed to fade away into the distant light. Malal stood still, eyes closed.
    “He’s…thinking,” Stacey said. “Trying to communicate with the vault.”
    “Is this in line with what he told you we’d find here?” Hale asked.
    “We certainly didn’t expect a Xaros Crucible. Or slightly less than Earth standard gravity and a breathable atmosphere waiting for us,” she said.
    Hale tapped his forearm screen. The air was thin, equivalent to almost eight thousand feet above sea level on Earth, with a higher percentage of oxygen.
    “Yarrow?” Hale asked.
    “Should be good to breathe, sir. Might take us a bit to acclimatize, but it’ll take the strain off our life support for sure,” Yarrow said.
    Elias rose to his full height behind the Mule. His new armor had a more ascetic character than the old blocky armor he’d worn at the beginning of the war. The cut of optics into the helm, shoulder pauldrons and molded breastplate almost made it look like Elias had come from a medieval battlefield, if the knights of old carried twin-barreled gauss cannons and a rail gun that could destroy a starship with a single hit.
    How far we’ve come since the day I got Ibarra out of Euskal Tower, he thought.
    “Stay on internal air until we’ve got a better read on the rest of this vault,” Hale said. “Stacey…” The lieutenant turned around and found Stacey with her helmet off and tucked into the crook of her arm.
    “Was I supposed to wait?” she asked. “Yes, I see that vein on your forehead twitching. Should have waited.”
    Malal’s head jerked up. “I have found what we seek. Follow me.”
    “Why did you have to look?” Hale asked. “Isn’t everything just where you left it?”
    Malal walked down the hallway, his bare feet slapping against the lit squares.
    “Echelon formation,” Hale said. “Two armor lead, one rear.”
    Elias and Bodel stomped ahead of Malal, the hum of their gauss cannons heavy in the air as they passed. Cortaro, Bailey and Standish fell in a few steps behind the armor, weapons ready.
    “This is foolish,” Malal said. “You think we’re at risk in here? In my vault?”
    “Why don’t you worry about getting us to the codex and I’ll handle security,” Hale said. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the hallway meld together beyond the Mule. The twisting bulkheads snapped apart, and the opening they’d come from was gone, replaced by a hallway that extended to a distant point of light.
    “Ugh, sir?” Egan asked.
    “I saw. Malal…how’re we supposed to—”
    “You don’t understand, human. Your mind cannot even grasp how this vault functions. Tell your walking machines to stop. They passed the door,” Malal said.
    “What door?” Nothing but an endless hallway stretched ahead of them.
    Malal stopped and turned to his right. He snapped his fingers, and a sealed doorway twice the height of the armor appeared without a sound, embedded against the bulkhead.
    “You use pocket dimensions,” Stacey said. “The Qa’Resh have the same technology.”
    “They have a feeble imitation of my technology. Cribbed from the decayed remnants of my civilization. Did they ever tell you where they came across the ruins? One of my brethren must have been sloppy before the ascension.” Malal touched the door and it slid aside, revealing a pitch-black wall.
    “Who wants to go first?” Malal asked.
    “Into what? There’s nothing there,” Hale said.
    “What do you mean?” Stacey asked. “You don’t see the garden?”
    Malal tilted his head to Stacey. The