Hammer and Crucible by Cameron Cooper (easy books to read txt) 📗

on my staff. They explained it to me. Sign the papers, all is forgiven, then I could be a good officer. So I signed and that was it, only was it a year later I think it was a year later I heard about what he did, about the name, I don’t know if it was him, I never met him, but I heard what he did and then I really knew something was wrong and they said I should take this job here even though it was a demotion but the pay was better and I understood so I said yes please don’t kill me, please, please, please—”

Dalton slapped his hand over Moroder’s mouth. “He doesn’t know anything!” he hissed.

Moroder had stopped talking. His eyes were very big and glassy and filled with fear. “He’s not afraid of us at all,” I said. “He’s afraid of them. Let go of his mouth a moment.”

Dalton stepped back.

“Who told you to sign the transfer orders, Moroder?”

His mouth worked. “Don’t re-re-remember.” He squeezed his lips together, stopping himself this time.

“He does remember, he’s just too afraid to say,” Dalton said. “He doesn’t understand that we’re the ones he needs to be scared of.”

“You don’t know them, you don’t understand what you’re facing, you’re fools if you think anything would make me talk to you, I like my life too much, I won’t tell you anything—”

“Even if we kill you for it?” I interrupted, speaking over the top of his babble.

“They’ll kill me anyway, they will, they will, you don’t know, oh you don’t know, you can’t conceive—”

“That the Emperor is behind this?” I asked. “I know.”

Moroder shut up. All the color drained out of his face.

“Fuck…” Dalton breathed, sounding disgusted and distressed at once.

Confirmation.

I felt as gray as Moroder’s face.

Lyth’s voice came from the pilot’s consoles. “Danny, two ships just emerged, seconds between them. Combat class Dreadnought, and Imperial Shield Frigate. I’m coming to get you. Get out of there. Now.”

“Rangers and Shield?” Dalton said. “Now, that’s interesting.”

Moroder was staring at me. His fingers twitched. “You. You’re Danny. Andela. Imperial Hammer. I know you. You’re…you…here…no.”

“Congratulations,” I told him, reaching for the third and final injector. “You’ve finally seen past the makeup.” I injected the restorative. “In a few seconds you’ll get feeling back and be able to move. Don’t try anything stupid, or we won’t let you go.”

The threat and the implied promise of release should contain him until we got out of there. Dalton was already behind the controls. The drop ship engines fired up.

Moroder slumped as the rigor left his muscles, but he didn’t look relieved. He rubbed his hands together as if they were cold, studying me. “You’ve killed us all by coming here,” he said. His words were measured now he had control.

“I was dead anyway,” I told him. “So were you. We just haven’t got around to disincorporating for them yet.”

“Danny!” Dalton yelled in warning.

I hauled Moroder to his feet and moved him over to the door and slapped it open. “I suggest you run to the bunker.”

“You’ll break the seal while I’m still in the tunnel,” Moroder said. The sweat was rolling down his face now.

“I’ll certainly break the seal if you don’t move your ass. You’re wasting my time, Moroder. Move it.”

I pushed at his shoulder, forcing him to take the step down. Three metal steps, then into the tunnel. He was still breathing and started to run. I shut the door, as the engines dropped into the load-bearing revolutions, the deep vibrations you felt in your bones. “Do not lift off until he’s inside!” I shouted at Dalton.

“You’re too soft. He will warn them we’re coming if you let him live,” Dalton shouted back. His hand hung over the hover controls.

“That is an order, Dalton!” I slapped the screen beside the door, to watch Moroder running for the bunker door. “I will tell you the second he’s out of the tunnel.”

Moroder slowed in the middle section, for the pseudo gravity of the bunker didn’t reach quite that far, and neither did the gravity field from the drop ship. There was just enough to move through the area if you moved slowly, but Moroder had been running. He hit the lighter gravity area and overbalanced and fell to the ground, his arms cycling wildly. It was a slow-motion fall, but there was some natural gravity on this rock—enough to pull him downward, instead of letting him float in the direction he had been moving.

One hand hit the metal footpath first, and the impact flipped him in a slow roll over onto his back. He flailed again, his feet kicking, as his back settled on the path.

He looked up and screamed.

The little green lights on the tunnel ribs had switched to red.

I spun away from the view of Moroder dying of exposure, fury gripping my throat. “Dalton, you asshole!”

Dalton had screens in front of him. He’d watched it. He shook his head and slapped at the controls. “It wasn’t me!” he shouted, as the drop ship lifted up at a velocity that broke every ball-bound flight regulation in the known worlds. The backwash would have blown in windows, only the base had none.

I gripped the handrails and made my way to the copilot chair as Dalton pushed the dropship forward, sliding over the top of the bunkers with centimeters to spare. He was grimacing as he directed the ship up in a near vertical climb, clawing for clear space.

“Take the controls,” he said breathlessly. “If I pass out…”

I rested my hands lightly on the panel, feeling the mirror controls moving under my fingers. “Show the gates on screen one,” I told the AI. “And the Lythion on screen two.”

The views changed, showing the gates and the Lythion. In front of the gates, growing larger with every second, were the two black Imperial ships. From this angle, they were foreshortened black hulks, for they were heading directly for us.

The Lythion was also moving fast, also foreshortened, so