Beacon of War (The Augment War Book 2), page 1
BEACON OF WAR
©2023 BEN HALE
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CONTENTS
ALSO IN SERIES
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Epilogue
Thank you for reading Beacon of War
ABOUT BEN HALE
ALSO IN SERIES
Books by Ben Hale in the Timeline of The Augmented
Listed in relative chronological order
—The Augmented—
Empire of Ashes
Rise of Renegades
Galaxy of Titans
—The Augment War—
Alliance of Outlaws
Beacon of War
Haven of Glass
—The Age of Oracles—
The Rogue Mage
The Lost Mage
The Battle Mage
—The Shattered Soul—
The Fragment of Water
The Fragment of Shadow
The Fragment of Light
The Fragment of Fire
The Fragment of Mind
The Fragment of Power
—The Master Thief—
Jack of Thieves
Thief in the Myst
The God Thief
—The Second Draeken War—
Elseerian
The Gathering
Seven Days
The List Unseen
—The Warsworn—
The Flesh of War
The Age of War
The Heart of War
—The White Mage Saga—
Assassin's Blade (Short story prequel)
The Last Oracle
The Sword of Elseerian
Descent Unto Dark
Impact of the Fallen
The Forge of Light
To my family and friends,
Who believed
And to my wife,
Who is perfect
CHAPTER ONE
The planet grew large through the window. Two primary continents, with a trio of smaller ones. Towering mountains and vast forests. The southern sea had a hurricane brewing, the giant storm headed for a collection of islands off a coastline. After getting trapped on a derelict ship for over a decade, Siena had forgotten the raw beauty of a planet.
“Is that it?” Mora was at her side, her face so close, her horns brushed against the seracrete plating above the window.
“That’s home,” Ero called from where he was lounging in a nearby chair.
“You left years ago,” Reklin said, but his voice was amused. “I don’t think it qualifies as your home.”
Siena relished the banter. During her twelve years trapped on the Kildor, she’d missed Reklin’s unwavering valor and Ero’s blatant inability to take anything seriously. Mortal threats, deadly enemies, a cataclysm that could destroy all life in the cosmos? It wouldn’t matter. Reklin would fight and Ero would treat it like a game.
“I’m coming back now, aren’t I?” Ero plucked a knobby fruit from a bowl and began removing the rind. “I’m sure not much has changed.”
Reklin’s jaw tightened and he looked away, the grief washing across his features. A reminder that for all the joy of their reunion, there had been losses. And none felt them more keenly than Reklin.
At ten feet tall, the soldier was massive, his bone exoskeleton graying with age. Scars littered his armor, and the broken stubs on his head marked him as hornless, the lowest status for a dakorian. And yet, as long as Siena had known him, he’d seemed indomitable, a force of reckoning against anyone who dared to think him inferior. He’d bested elite soldiers, ship captains, and even Bloodwalls. But the death of his sister made him look old. Siena understood the sentiment. So much had happened in her absence.
Inary and Kensen, killed at the Grand Hunt.
The Eternals, hiding out on a planet at the edge of the galaxy.
Ero forming an alliance of outlaws.
And Siena’s defiance of the Emperor.
The vid of Siena overpowering an army and threatening the Emperor had spread from cortex to cortex and planet to planet. His embarrassment was public and widespread, and Siena knew the Emperor wanted her head. But he wasn’t alone. The vid also showed her as an augmented human. A slave with power. The krey were afraid and angry, dakorians were stunned, and human slaves secretly saw her as a beacon of hope. Across the Empire, one name was on everyone’s lips.
The Red Angel.
Tensions were already rising, with rumors of humans painting her likeness on the side of buildings and spreading holos even though the vid had been deemed illegal. The Empire condemned her as a criminal and claimed the vid to be fake. But their response didn’t match the lie. Half the military had been dispatched to hunt her and the Eternals. After twelve years of isolation, she’d stepped into a maelstrom.
As the ship descended toward the surface of New Haven, Siena recalled the first time she’d been on a starship, back before she’d been augmented, before she’d learned to fight, before her name was both vilified and praised across the Empire. Did they know she’d just been terrified and desperate? That most of what she’d done had been to save her friends?
Reklin tapped her arm. “I know the last few days have been overwhelming.”
She scratched the raised bump on her arm where something had pricked her during the fight. Maybe it was infected? But why wasn’t her healing augment fixing it?
“It’s just a lot to take in,” she said. Then, to forestall more questions she couldn’t answer, she pointed out the forward window. “Tell me about the planet, would you?”
He acquiesced with a nod. “New Haven is located on the fringe of the galaxy. It has an oxygen-rich atmosphere. The system has several other planets, mostly gas giants, all circling a yellow star. Much like the system of Lumineia, in fact.”
“What sort of animals does it have?” Mora managed to unglue her eyes from the window to look at her brother. “Kevent said something about hunting?”
A ghost of a smile twisted Reklin’s lips. “Lampa. They’re hard to catch, and faster than a hoverbike, but they have the most succulent meat I’ve ever tasted.”
There was a derisive grunt from Blackhorn. The former Bone Crucible champion sat at the back of the room, nursing another bottle of drey. His eyes were bloodshot and the pile of empties clinked at his feet.
“Did you have to drink all my drey?” Ero demanded.
Blackhorn shrugged and took a long pull, draining it in a single swallow. Ero glared at him, and some of the other Eternals cast uncertain looks at Siena. She didn’t answer the unspoken question. The powerful dakorian was the only one on the ship that didn’t belong to the group. A former gladiator and champion in the Bone Crucible, his past was well known—but not how or why he was traveling with Siena. Not that Sien
“He’s spent more time unconscious than awake,” Ero grumbled. “Why did you even bring him?”
Without taking her eyes from the window, Mora jerked a thumb at Siena. “She made a deal with him.”
Ero and Reklin looked to Siena to explain but again, she stayed silent, and after a few moments, Mora went back to bombarding Reklin with questions, her insatiable excitement wearing away at Reklin’s despair. Even grief-stricken, he could not stand against the pureness of her delight. Siena couldn’t resist a small smile. When she and Mora had been trapped, Mora had been just five years old. Overnight, Siena had become her big sister, a tall order for a tiny human.
As they talked about the approaching planet, a warm excitement suffused Siena’s body. She felt like she’d been cold for a long time, and arriving at New Haven with Reklin, Ero, and Mora seemed to burn the chill from her very bones.
“Dropping into the atmosphere now,” Kevent, Reklin’s younger brother, called from the cockpit of the Crescent.
Siena drew close to the window as clouds burned across the hull in fiery hues. Then they passed into the open, revealing the landscape. Green forests. Sprawling valleys. Towering mountains, their rocky crags layered in snow. Rivers crashing down canyons to the distant ocean.
“It’s as beautiful as Lumineia,” Siena said.
Reklin motioned to the ruins of a city. “The former inhabitants lived there. We’ve repurposed some of the structures for our own use.”
Kevent banked them to the side and circled the ancient city, providing a view to the new arrivals. The ruins were large enough for a city of millions, and they sprawled across a plateau to a plunging cliff. The north end rose to a hill where several landing pads had been constructed.
“Don’t get comfortable,” Ero said. “Our alliance with the outlaw clans is still tenuous. We can’t stay long.”
Mora’s smile was pure anticipation. “Out of exile and into a war.”
Siena sighed, wishing the young woman would not be so eager. They had indeed escaped their prison only to be thrust into a sprawling conflict. It didn’t help that their only allies were the galaxy’s outlaws.
Luna, the young augment Ero had rescued, spun her fingers through the air, a frown creasing her features. “It’s so quiet. I thought there would be more signals.”
“Kensen liked it that way,” Ero said. “Not that anyone but a coding augment would notice.”
The girl nodded, her expression strangely closed. Was she worried about coming to New Haven? Their eyes briefly met and Luna abruptly hopped down from her perch on a beam and slipped away. Her rigid frame suggested an inner turmoil and Siena was tempted to peek into her thoughts. She gave a tiny shake of her head and turned back to the planet. When it was just Siena and Mora, thoughts had flowed between them without restraint, but Siena was back with others, and it didn’t feel right forcing her augmentation into the privacy of their minds. Even if something felt off about Luna.
The ship slowed and dropped lower. They were close enough to see the thriving settlement inside the ruins. Hundreds of homes were repaired, their roofs built of wooden planks cut from the forest that surrounded the city.
Kevent extended the landing gear and they settled onto the seracrete pad at the top of the hill. Mora was first at the airlock and out the door before it even whisked all the way open. Siena followed with Reklin and Ero, the trio descending the plank. She breathed deep of the warm afternoon air, pleased by the scent of moisture. Some puddles remained in the shadows, suggesting it had recently rained.
A trio of ships followed them to land nearby. The Eye of Vengeance, an old Enex class vessel now owned by Reklin. The Fallen, a Gavithon class military transport given to Reklin after they’d won the Grand Hunt. And the Renegade, Siena’s ship she’d purchased with scrap from the Kildor. Onyx class, her ship was the smallest of the group, but it was sleek and fast.
The ship they’d arrived on was the Crescent, owned by Ero. Its forward-swept wings and powerful dual ion drives made it dangerous, but its hull was of an experimental composite of seracrete called feracrete, allowing it to absorb energy and funnel it into the drives and weapons system. Siena ran her hand along the surface as they exited, marveling that Kensen had gotten it working. Then she saw the waiting crowd.
Every single Eternal had gathered around the landing pad, and they shouted and rushed forward, engulfing Siena. Dakorians from Reklin’s family. Slaves she’d rescued. And augments she’d led. The air was exuberant and excited, with shouts and embraces between relatives of Mora, who soaked it in with a brilliant smile. Her spiraling horns seemed longer than usual and soon she was lost in the crowd. It shouldn’t have, but the distance made Siena nervous.
“Siena! You’ve grown up!”
“So have you!” Siena exclaimed.
“We have a child now.” A pair showed their infant dakorian, their smiles matched by the babe, who gnawed happily on a strip of dried meat.
More and more, former soldiers and slaves, rushing to show their life, to tell stories of the last twelve years in a dizzying and joyful cacophony. Several feet away, Mora jumped between groups as she greeted family she hadn’t seen since she was five years old.
“Siena!” Eldeza shouldered her way through a gap. She picked Siena up and hugged her so fiercely that Siena’s back cracked. “Sorry,” she said hastily and put her down.
“I’ll recover.” Siena laughed as she rubbed her back.
Her eyes were drawn to the large scar below Eldeza’s neck, where Siena had healed a wound that would have been fatal. It had been a turning point for Reklin’s family, when they’d decided to follow Siena and Reklin away from their clan homeworld and into the unknown. Siena was overwhelmed with the sense of family and hardly noticed the prick of pain in her wrist.
Kevent wound his hand into Eldeza’s, his eyes bright as he examined her profile. “She’s grown up to be beautiful, don’t you think?”
“She always was,” Siena said. She wiped at her forehead, surprised at the sweat. After so long trapped on a temperature-controlled derelict, she’d forgotten what it was like to be hot.
Bodies pressed around her, the bone-armored dakorians casting her in shade, the humans mixing among them, seemingly unperturbed by the proximity. Lyn, her grey hair pulling in the breeze, nudged a scarred soldier with her elbow and made a comment, the two smiling like they had not been mortal enemies twelve years ago.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Ero appeared at her side, his smile smug.
“My whole life, humans feared a dakorian’s wrath.” She motioned to the camaraderie. “It’s shocking to see them so at ease with each other.”
“You did this,” Reklin shouldered a pack. “You showed us how to coexist.”
Ero surveyed the gathering like a father bursting with pride. “Since you were gone, I took most of the credit.”
“He did,” Lyn said with a laugh, and then motioned to the new Eternals exiting the other three starships and looking about in fear. “I think it’s only fitting you take care of them.”
Ero made a sour expression. “Since when did I become the official orientation guide?”
“Since you called this place home.”
Lyn patted him on the back, and he reluctantly headed to the group. They huddled together as if afraid of the jovial mob. They probably were. The motley collection of humans and krey had been the prey in the Grand Hunt, where teams had hunted their heads in a grisly game. At tremendous risk, Reklin had protected them from the other teams. They had nowhere else to go, and most had expressed an interest in joining the Eternals.
