Steel Sworn

by Richard Fox

  The pain from the probe fragment in his skull subsided, and a cold ache replaced the numbness in his limbs. The top of the pod flew open and Sugimoto shined a flashlight at Ely as the fluid level lowered past his face.

  “You OK? Why did you trigger an emergency drain?” she asked.

  Ely coughed out amniosis and gave her a thumbs-up. “Didn’t…I didn’t.”

  She turned the light to the collar, then back to Ely. “Just dismount without any more trouble.” The light clicked off.

  ****

  Ely scrubbed a towel against his scalp, pausing to touch around the scar on the back of his head. He couldn’t feel the Qa’Resh fragment or any residual heat, but he was certain it was still there.

  He squeezed the towel in his hand, and dried amniosis crackled and floated away as a fine dust. Something in the towel reacted with the thick fluid, making cleanup after dismounting a much easier affair.

  A man with a shaved scalp and wearing a simple body glove handed him grease-stained overalls and a pair of sandals. His strong features would have been better suited to advertising goods or being on the cover of a romance novel rather than a military leader.

  “We’ll get you a standard-issue pallet soon as the printers are open,” he said, and Ely recognized Santos’ voice. “Don’t get used to this level of personal service in my lance or in my company. You’re a special case for now, Steel Sworn. Don’t expect any mercy until you can hold your own. Welcome to the Crusade. Now get changed and report to the company area.”

  He handed the clothes over to Ely and looked at Sugimoto, who had an augmented reality lens over the one eye she normally kept hidden behind her hair. White knots of scar tissue surrounded her eye and covered her temple.

  “Anything?” Santos asked.

  “Diagnostics are open to me, but not the underlying operating systems. I’ll put in a call to the Marshal’s wrench monkeys. They might know how to mess with it,” she said.

  “Get the suit battle ready. The rest isn’t as important.” Santos slipped his hand into a forearm mount and the screen on it snapped to life as dozens of e-mails and text messages scrolled down. “The adjutant never takes a break, does he?”

  He walked away, deleting messages.

  “Rail gun?” Sugimoto asked.

  Santos stopped. He pinched the bridge of his nose, then he tossed his hand. “Rail gun. God help us all.” He continued on his way.

  “I’m getting a rail gun? Sweet! Maybe I can help?” Ely asked Sugimoto as he got into the ill-fitting coveralls.

  “Sure hope your lance is going to teach you how to use it. One wrong move and you’ll rip your suit apart firing it. Won’t have to worry about me bitchin’ at you for that. You won’t have anything to worry about, matter of fact. Maybe you know why your ghost doesn’t want to talk to me?” She popped a stick of gum into her mouth. “’Cause he’s awful tight-lipped in there.”

  “He’s…I don’t know. I’m real new to this. You’d probably do better in there than me.”

  “No thank you, honey. Armor’s not for folks like me. Besides, putting them back together’s more fun than being out there getting them broken apart. Now you scoot before Santos gets through his backlog,” she said.

  “Fair enough. Why’d he call me ‘steel sworn’?”

  “That’s the name of your lance. Stinker! Get me the stencil and the paint.” Sugimoto snapped her fingers twice and Ely heard something land on the railing behind him.

  He turned and came face-to-face with a yellow-skinned reptile with wide-set eyes. Ely fell back in a panic, mumbling half words and flailing his arms. He hit the railing on the other side of the catwalk and froze, his eyes locked on the lizard.

  “Th-th-that’s a—” He picked up a long wrench from a toolbox and brandished it over his head.

  “Settle down. It’s just Stinker.” Sugimoto clicked her tongue in disappointment. “He’s one of my techs.”

  Stinker wore a smaller cut of the overalls that the rest of the techs had, with tools dangling from a belt of twisted cord. The alien might have come up to Ely’s chest if it stood upright instead of crouching on the railing with its four long toes gripping the top bar.

  “It’s a Toth!” Ely raised his weapon a bit higher.

  “Just a menial. I found him on Maui a couple months before the Line and he’s nothing like the warriors or the overlords. These ones are harmless unless there’s a bigger Toth around to give them orders. Heck, he can’t even feed himself unless he’s alone. Some weird sort of dependency the Toth bred into them. Stinker knows his way around the suits, valued member of my team.”

  “Stinker?” Ely relaxed a little.

  “I should’ve led with that.” Sugimoto stopped what she was doing and pointed a finger at Ely’s chest. “Never give him dairy. No cheese. No milk. Nothing with ingredients that end in ‘tose.’ You hear? Dead serious.”

  “No dairy?”

  “Ice cream?” Stinker perked up, his eyes darting this way and that independent of each other. His words were sibilant and high-pitched.

  “No, Stinker. No ice cream.” Sugimoto rolled her eyes. “Remember what Pulaski said he’d do if there was another…incident? He’ll eat you, Stinker. I believe him and I also believe I couldn’t stop him if he’s a man of his word. No. Ice. Cream.”

  The menial hunched over like a scolded dog.

  Ely slowly put the wrench back in the toolbox and inched away from Stinker. The alien licked one of its eyes and Ely took off running.

  Stinker and Sugimoto looked at each other and shrugged at the same time.

  ****

  Music pounded through the walls of a poorly lit storage room where Ely leaned against a weapons cage full of gauss rifles. His stomach twisted as he wondered just how long it had been since he’d eaten solid food.

  The music cut in and out with squeals of reverb.

  “Ugh, what’s up with this place?” Ely touched his still rumbling torso.

  He shuffled by a chain-link cage and did a double take at the contents. Bits of metal accented with golden strips were assembled into the general shape of the Armor-sized Geist he’d encountered after he’d crash-landed on Aachen. Crude blades of Rakka shamans, some stained red with blood, lay at the feet of the statue. Sanheel tusks in mesh bags hung against the back of the cage. A helmet face with twisted tentacles at the mouth and a crack across the forehead took up another corner. Bone fragments with strange glyphs were strung across the top.

  “Why is there a messed-up trophy rack in here?” Ely frowned and sniffed. There was a slight hint of burnt incense in the air.

  He went toward the din and pushed open a door.

  “My love for you is like a truck!” a shirtless man screamed into a microphone. He was deathly pale, with a Nordic tattoo of a hammer on one shoulder and a giant, intricately done tree across his back. He faced away from Ely, and the metal ring of his skull plug caught the light. The implant was at the tail end of a wide and short Mohawk strip of hair.

  The sight of the other singer froze Ely in place.

  The alien was squat, with green and brown scales. It looked male and was as shirtless as the Armor soldier, with knots of muscles that belied a different physiology than the human. Lines of scar tissue traced from the back of one shoulder to the opposite hip, the remnants of a horrific injury.

  But it was the alien’s skull plugs that Ely struggled to process.

  “Ber-ser-ker!” the Karigole growled into his microphone.

  A long-haired technician with an electric guitar played an off-tempo chord and a whine rose from an amplifier. The human Armor banged his head then punched a fist up into the air.

  “Would you like some making—”

  The Karigole slammed a hand over his mic and snapped his head to one side, extending much farther than a human could turn, and fixed one good eye on Ely as the alien’s nostrils flared. The other eye was dead and blind, bisected by a scar that ran from the alien’s forehead to his jawline.

&n
bsp; The guitar player stopped playing and a wobble of dying sound continued.

  “What gives? That’s the most badass part of the entire song and—oh…” The other Armor leaned back and saw Ely. He was blue-eyed and had a pale-blond beard that melded into the color of his face. “You lost, kid?”

  “He smells of amniosis,” the Karigole said, sniffing hard, “and off world.”

  “And what does ‘off world’ smell like, Pulaski?” The human clicked off his mic and stretched an arm across his body.

  “Rainwater and old field rations,” the Karigole said, walking up to Ely, the alien’s good eye looking him over, “and coffee. Real coffee, not the ersatz lies from the Ibarran foundries.”

  “He one of yours, Marco?” the human asked the tech. “Sugimoto taking in strays now?”

  “No way, man.” Marco swiped long hair up from his face and set it back over his scalp. “Never seen him before.”

  “So is our good Karigole master hunter correct?” The man stopped next to the Karigole and sniffed at the air, then raised an arm and sniffed himself. “Because you just look lost in the sauce to me.”

  “Um…I’ve been on this planet for maybe eighteen hours,” Ely said, “and I did eat some old nutrient paste and drink from streams somewhere in Canada.”

  Pulaski lifted his mic to shoulder height and dropped it.

  The other Armor let out a yelp and caught the mic before it could hit the ground. “These are antiques!” He brandished it at the Karigole’s face. “You don’t just drop them.”

  “But that is the practice when one is proven correct after being doubted,” Pulaski said.

  “Technically correct, but be careful with the gear. Wait, why do you smell of amnio? Even I get that off you,” he said to Ely.

  “I have a suit.” Ely jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “It’s…getting fixed. Are you two Steel Sworn? Captain Santos said that’s my new lance.”

  The other man’s face fell and one side of Pulaski’s mouth pulled into a sneer, displaying rows of needly teeth.

  “The captain is shitting us,” Pulaski said.

  “No no no,” the man said, shaking his head. “You’re not Armor. You don’t even have plugs.”

  “There’s this collar in the pod,” Ely said, miming the device around his neck, “and a ghost in the machine. My name’s Ely Hale. From Terra Nova. Maybe that will clear some of this up. Or at least explain some of the crazier aspects, if you think about it.”

  “Hale…” Pulaski narrowed his eye. “What’s your Table VIII score?”

  “My what?” Ely smiled nervously.

  “He is shitting us.” Pulaski turned and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  “Pulaski has his quirks. I’m Lars.” He shook Ely’s hand. “Does your mother know you’re here?” He ran his thumb and forefinger down his beard and narrowed his eyes at Ely’s hairless face.

  “She does, assuming—”

  “Wait. Hale? As in Hale Hale?” Lars put his hands on his hips. “How about that. Do you…know how to fight as a lance? What’s your rail gun rating?”

  “It’s been kind of learn as I go.” Ely looked down.

  “And you’re in my section.” Lars pinched the bridge of his nose. “Maybe you can play bass? Drums?”

  “Sorry,” Ely sighed.

  “If we’re starting from almost zero, then we can only go up from here.” Lars looked over his shoulder. “Terry! Load up the gunnery sims to new guy’s suit. Let’s see what he can do.”

  “Come on, man.” Terry took the guitar off his shoulder. “This is the first rehearsal we’ve had in weeks.”

  “Yes. And?”

  “Man…” Terry put the guitar in a case.

  “Ely!” Santos leaned out of the office. “Get over here. Lars, prep him for gunnery.”

  “Already on it, sir.” Lars slapped Ely on the shoulder. “Get to your suit after he’s done with you. Welcome to the Steel Sworn.”

  “Thanks,” Ely said. “I’m fitting right in, I can tell.”

  Santos’ office was little more than a cheap desk with a recharge/projection plate built into the top. A cot with a duffle bag stuffed underneath it and a pair of stools filled up much of the rest of the small room.

  “Take a seat.” Santos held up a small slate as Ely tried to get comfortable on one of the stools. “Adjutant is screaming for your details. Saint forbid that your paperwork be incomplete before you go back out into the fray.”

  Santos tossed the slate to one side of the desk.

  “But the adj can kiss my ass. Geist don’t care if all your nit-noids are in order. I thought the Ibarrans wouldn’t be as anal about this stuff as the old Terran Armor Corps, but maybe it’s something about being human that makes us waste all this time on something so unimportant.”

  “My dad used to say that the Adjutant General Corps did their jobs so well that soldiers had to do the job of keeping track of all their pay and awards for themselves…sir,” Ely said.

  “Our fathers served together. Through most of the Ember War at that.” Santos sat down and leaned back.

  Ely glanced from the captain’s name tape to his face.

  “You know Orozco? The Strike Marine heavy gunner?” Santos asked.

  “Him? But your name—”

  “Javier Orozco’s my father, but he never married my mother. I’m not the only one in this situation. He…got around.” Santos chuckled. “But our dads got along, from what I heard.”

  “I believe that,” Ely said.

  “That’s not the elephant in the room I want to talk to you about.” Santos touched his forearm screen and flicked a finger, and a single text message flickered over the desk. “Marshal Shaw told me who’s in there with you. Aignar. He and I have a history…I had no idea it was him until I dismounted.”

  “Aignar showed me the Battle of the Line, or part of it. It felt like I was really there…who was Cha’ril?”

  Santos’ eyes stared into the distance.

  “She is—was—Dotari Armor and served with me for years. We lost contact with her during the Line when…I don’t know if she’s alive or not. I’m inclined to believe she’s still out there. She was that tough. It’s Aignar that we need to talk about. He wanted to stay on Earth after the Ibarrans put out the evac order,” Santos said, his jaw tightening.

  “But his suit was damaged? I saw that…then some big green woman,” Ely said.

  “Trinia the Aeon.” Santos nodded. “She helped design the Armor and she’s been working for the Ibarrans since the end of the Kesaht War. She created the ghost systems, a way to get those without the plugs into Armor. When a pilot redlines, most of their mind is gone. If Trinia can get to them before they sink too far into the dark, she can bring them back…to a degree, but not all the way back.”

  “What happened to Aignar’s body?” Ely asked.

  “From what I’ve heard…it was disposed of after the transition.”

  “Oh…” Ely retched. “I think I’m going to be sick. It’s a real ghost in there?”

  “Welcome to a world with alien tech from hyper-advanced civilizations. The Qa’Resh could do things we still don’t understand, and Trinia was one of their scientists for hundreds of years. But that’s Aignar in there. I don’t know if his soul went to rest with Saint Kallen or if you’ve got some sort of crafted AI in there with you, but it’s Aignar, and I doubt he’s happy with me.”

  “He’s not. Definitely not. He was against leaving Earth,” Ely said.

  “We all left people behind. Dying in place wasn’t going to do anyone any good. Living to fight with the Crusade and eventually be part of the battle to liberate Earth was a better option. Aignar’s in that fight now. Him dying there after the Geist missile strike would have been useless, which is why I dragged his pod off world after he redlined.”

  “So what do you want me to do?” Ely asked.

  “You’re in there with him. You deserve to know what happened at the Line…my father…any
sign of him?”

  “They didn’t let me out much, and there sure weren’t any Standish Liquors ads that your dad used to be in. I remember those. I take it he’s back on Earth?”

  Santos nodded, saying, “The Line was years ago. Lots could have happened since then.” He scratched his face. “Our fight’s on Aachen right this minute. We’re doing our best to hold the Geist beyond the walls until another Crusade fleet can break the siege, at least that’s the plan. My company was pulled back for refit, but we’ll cycle back into combat in another day or so. Sooner if the tactical situation demands.”

  “Is that enough time to figure out what a ‘table eight’ is?” Ely smiled for a moment, but Santos’ blank expression defeated Ely’s attempt at enthusiasm.

  “Do you know why Marshal Roland assigned you to me?” Santos picked up a data slate and turned it on with a press of a thumbprint.

  “Our…dads?”

  “No, that’s actually more trouble than it’s worth. Soldiers might suspect that you’ll get preferential treatment—which you won’t. My Armor company is made up of Terran Armor Corps survivors and…miscreants. Most of the Armor in the Crusade and on world are hard-core Ibarrans. Your last name is problematic because of the Hale Treaty your father negotiated. That stopped the Union from creating procedural humans, which is what prompted the Ibarra Nation to break off from the Union in the first place. The rest is history. Bloody history.”

  “Marshal Roland treats us all well enough? Being under his command—”

  “Roland has a foot in two fields. Some of us old Union hands remember when he was Union, but he earned Lady Ibarra’s favor. Roland was at the Line and he was on the last transport off world and he’s been stuck in against the Geist ever since. I trust him with my life…no matter what else he’s done.” Santos stood and stretched his arms overhead. “All right, that’s enough leisure for one day. Back to your suit for gunnery.”

  “Sir.” Ely stood and saluted, the tips of his right hand to his temple.