Steel Sworn

by Richard Fox

  The case floated down to the pallet jack, and he drew the Wield back into his body. He stomped on the brake release and pushed the jack out of the transfer station, whistling “Santa Agueda,” an old Basque song.

  It was late in the evening and few people were on the streets. Nakir shifted the carbine strap across his chest and tilted his cap back. He did everything to sell himself as a rear echelon soldier, and pushing around a loaded cargo jack this late checked all the boxes.

  Any Ibarran that saw him wouldn’t give him a second glance.

  Nakir kept his gaze forward as he passed the repair crew working around the shield tower and came to a tall fence, the links obscured by a holo field that absorbed light. A single sign with a building number on it was the only indication that he was in the right place.

  “Decent operations security…I can appreciate that,” he said quietly. He pushed the jack up to a sensor platform and waited. A segmented pole popped out of the ground and a camera mounted on a servo snapped from side to side.

  “It’s about time,” Sugimoto said through the camera. “I’ll buzz you through. Leave it in bay two.”

  “You going to sign for it?” Nakir asked.

  “I’ll send you my loggy code.”

  “This is a gold-priority manufacture. You know what that means? Means wet signatures in triplicate and a filed paper trail. Bunch of iffy prints lately and the Crusade’s getting anal about everything.” Nakir held up a clipboard.

  “For real? Just get my digital and cut me a break.”

  “Look, you sound real nice, but I’m already working past my second shift. I don’t get every ‘T’ crossed and ‘I’ dotted, it’s my ass. My boss is a dick. He’ll send me back here for your signature and dock my pay for the wasted transit.”

  Nakir looked over the fence, planning to cut his way in if his ruse didn’t work.

  “You’re getting paid?” Sugimoto asked.

  “No, but it’ll come out of my ration coupons.”

  There was a buzz and a door rolled to one side of the fence.

  “Stinker, get that capacitor realigned or no cookie! Delivery guy, you still there? Bring it to Cemetery Delta and find me. I’m the one that looks exhausted and sick of ankle-biter bullshit.”

  The pole sank back into the ground.

  “I’ll find you.” Nakir reached back and switched the safety on his carbine from SAFE to FIRE. For a behind-the-line soldier, that sort of error was almost expected, but shaving off a split second before it was time to kill could prove invaluable.

  He pushed the cargo jack through the fence and looked over his shoulder, snap-memorizing the location of every sensor and alarm wiring junction. He entered the armory and followed the sound of heavy machinery as he slowed his pace. Ely Hale should be here, and while Nakir knew his target’s face, Ely had no idea what Nakir looked like. The Commissar had worn his holy visage every time the two had been face-to-face.

  A female tech in oil-stained coveralls leaned into the hallway and waved Nakir over. He turned in to a cemetery bay and found his quarry. The antique suit of Armor was in a coffin bay, mechanical arms working around it.

  “Huh, that’s new.” Nakir handed his clipboard over to Sugimoto. “Where’d you get the little one?”

  “Pop the crate. You think I’m going to sign for something without seeing it and matching the serial number for myself?” She knocked on the container.

  “Right, sorry, long days.” Nakir put a hand on his carbine as he leaned forward to tap a code onto a keypad. The crate snapped open. “Where’s the plug head? I heard they liked working on their own gear.”

  “‘Plug head’? Boy, you must be from some artifact world. We don’t talk about Armor that way, not in this Crusade. And the pilot’s still inside.” She stuck a thumb over her shoulder at Ely’s suit. “He ain’t the fastest learner, but he’s figuring it out.”

  “Still inside…” Nakir dropped his hand from his weapon. Sugimoto had the thick case of a maintenance bay control box dangling from her belt.

  “Yup, and this is one old model rotary cannon lock cylinder as ordered. Appreciate you bringing this to me.” Sugimoto signed the receipt, then waved a sensor built into a wristband over a digital code box on the form. She handed over the clipboard.

  At the far end of the cemetery, Pulaski pushed through a doorway, tilted his head back, and sniffed at the air. The Karigole reached to the small of his back and unsheathed a wide-bladed short sword.

  “Huh, I wonder what’s got him spooked.” Sugimoto looked to Nakir, but he was gone. “Figures he’d piss off before I can ask him to help me move the part.”

  She reached for the cargo jack’s handle. Pulaski grabbed her by the wrist, then bumped her against a wall.

  “Ow! What the hell?” She shook a hurt hand.

  “Where did this come from?” Pulaski wafted air up from the crate to his nose.

  “Printer bank…nine-delta,” she read from the clipboard. “Why?”

  “It smells of Rakka,” Pulaski said, sniffing at the handle, “and Wield. Stale shipboard air…like the boy.”

  His tube-like tongue wrapped around the handle.

  “Pulaski! I’m not—I’m not touching that now. You move that jack to bay 3 then you get the bleach. Seriously…”

  “I have a scent.” Pulaski snorted at the clipboard, then stepped into the hallway.

  “Steel Sworn,” Santos chirped from Sugimoto’s and Pulaski’s forearm screens, “warning order follows: All personnel mount up and load rail guns. We have a fire mission.”

  Pulaski returned to the cemetery with a grumble and sheathed his sword. He slammed a hand on the jack handle and dragged it toward Ely’s Armor.

  “Stinker!” Sugimoto took the stairs up to the catwalk two at a time. “Stinker, break open the ammo bunker!”

  ****

  “What’s going on?” Ely asked from his pod. His HUD expanded with new data as his systems linked to Lars’s and Santos’ Armor. The battery charge, ammo reserves, and operational range for the newer models were much higher than his ratings, and he felt like a grade-schooler trying to practice with a high school varsity team.

  “Fire mission,” Santos said through the lance’s short-range infrared link. “Geist are shifting their fleet around the inner moon. Marshal Roland thinks we can catch them peeking. We don’t poke them in the eye, they’ll get bold and try another orbital bombardment.”

  A map surrounding the city came up, then expanded out for thousands of miles. Rail gun emplacements hidden in mountains, plains and seemingly random spots across the terrain appeared, some blinking.

  “The Crusade spent years fortifying this colony,” Lars said, “burying rail gun silos that pop up and greet the bastards with high-velocity shots that can crack their pyramid ships. Not as strong as a macro cannon, but they get the job done. Geist get to play whack-a-mole every time they get within line of sight of those emplacements, which is why they’re hiding in orbit on the far side of the planet or with a moon between them and every gun we might still have hidden. The silos normally manage to get a few shots off, but the problem with being ‘fixed’ is that return fire tends to be accurate and overwhelming.”

  “But the Crusade’s holed up in the city.” Ely looked over the map, noting still-active emplacements. “Why haven’t the Geist found all the silos?”

  “Because they’re scan shielded and the Geist don’t have the manpower to comb through every inch of the planet.” Santos dropped a waypoint in a dried lake, not too far from a destroyed rail gun position.

  “Going to the well one too many times, sir,” Lars said. “We raided a Vish nest not far from there two weeks ago.”

  “The engagement envelope is limited. This is where we can lay trails to fire.” Santos accessed Ely’s firing computer, and calculations appeared in Ely’s HUD. “We can slave your systems to ours…add your gun to the weight of fire.”

  “Sir, he’s not ready for this,” Lars said. “His synch rating—”r />
  +You tell furniture boy I can fire a rail cannon at a cap ship within an AU every day of the week and twice on Sundays,+ Aignar said.

  “Oh, there you are. I’m not telling him that,” Ely said.

  “Have something of value to add, Ely?” Santos asked.

  A wave of anger passed through Ely, an emotion he couldn’t control or explain. “Aignar says he can handle a rail gun shot,” Ely said. “Maybe I can do some good on this mission? Anything more useful than sitting around the mechanic shop?”

  “He could stop a bullet,” Pulaski joined in the chat.

  “You’re usually the first one online. The cool temperatures making you sluggish?” Lars asked.

  “For the twenty-second time, I am not cold-blooded. I caught a scent…instincts took over,” the Karigole said.

  “You get both eyes when you’re mounted, but no sense of smell. You ever ask Big Green about adding in some additional sensors for you?” Lars stepped back from his maintenance coffin and bullets rolled down the belt from his suit’s back to the gauss cannons on his arm.

  “I did…but she said I used up all my favors just to get my plugs,” Pulaski said.

  “Smelling something is really fantastic news,” Santos deadpanned. “Get spun up, Pulaski. We need to be rolling down tunnel gold-nine in the next eighteen minutes to hit our engagement window.”

  Ely’s HUD blinked green and he stepped out of the coffin bay. He reached up to his shoulder where his rotary cannon should have been, but it was still in pieces on the shop floor.

  Dark-brown Armor with alien glyphs stenciled on the limbs blocked Ely’s path. Pulaski poked a fist into Ely’s breastplate. “Where do you think you’re going, whelp?” the Karigole asked.

  “The…mission?” Ely raised his hands.

  “You’re not ready. You are far…far from ready.” Pulaski’s helm shook from side to side.

  “At ease.” Santos put a hand on Pulaski’s shoulder and pulled him back a step. “The kid’s coming with us. This is a raid, not a frontline assault. He’ll manage.”

  “Misfiring a rail gun in atmo can—”

  “He’ll manage. Now roll out to tunnel gold-nine—or do we have to kal-if-fee for company command?” Santos turned Pulaski to face him.

  Pulaski beat a fist to his chest in salute. “Karigole do not challenge for command. My protest is heard. There is no further discussion.” His legs folded down to treads and he rolled away.

  “You set?” Lars bumped Ely’s side. A suit-to-suit IR link opened between them.

  Ely accessed his suit’s firing systems and the double vanes of the rail cannon sheathed down his Armor’s back blinked green. He touched a metal case holding six long, silver-colored slugs on his flank.

  “Roger that…but I don’t feel entirely welcome,” Ely said.

  “Transform and roll out. Slave to Santos’ beacon and let your system handle the ride.” Lars’s legs hinged forward and his treads hit the ground.

  “Right. I’ll just…how…”

  +I’ve got it,+ Aignar said and Ely found himself rolling forward, a waypoint on Santos’ back.

  As the lance rolled into a white-walled tunnel just big enough for one suit at a time, a map showing their route popped onto Ely’s HUD. Layers of straight routes extended from the city like spokes on a wheel. They had a good half hour before their exit point on a line that ran far from the city.

  “I’m surprised all these tunnels are still intact,” Ely said to Lars. “Isn’t there a risk the Geist will use them? Maybe drop a bomb on a cart and send it to us?”

  “All tunnels are monitored by the Oath. Any compromised line gets collapsed. The Geist have lost enough soldiers to infiltration attempts that they don’t even bother anymore, but they’ll drop some Rakka into any tunnel they find. That prompts the explosives and then we can’t use the tunnel either.”

  “Do Rakka volunteer for that or are they volun-told?” Ely asked.

  “Heh. Volun-told. Sounds like you did pick up some soldiering from your dad. Rakka are cannon fodder to the Geist, same way they were to the Kesaht. But the Geist don’t bother putting the soul harness on the Rakka. They aren’t sentient enough for them to harvest.”

  The lance turned down a new tunnel, the walls bare rock and unfinished.

  “The Oath, those are the nice Dotari?” Ely asked. “I met a couple that weren’t too friendly back on Earth.”

  “You have missed out, haven’t you? I think it was around when you and the Enduring Spirit left for Terra Nova. The Dotari that resettled their homeworld were dying. Too many thousands of years away from their natural biome left them vulnerable to disease and autoimmune disorders. Some beaky found one of their Golden Fleets—a colony mission sent off before the Xaros showed up—in deep space and figured that all the Dotari in suspended animation would have all the immunities and happy blood stuff to fix the sick Dotari.”

  “A Golden Fleet…like the one the Xaros found and turned into their soldiers when they attacked Takeni? I saw that movie. Dad hated it,” Ely said.

  “Yeah. So the Breitenfeld jumped into deep space with a Keyhole gate and found the fleet, but a Xaros drone beat them to it. The drone didn’t have the time to turn the whole fleet into banshees, and a Strike Marine team managed to kill the drone and save the day. Old timey Dotari got back to their homeworld and everything was right as rain. For a bit.”

  “The Breitenfeld rescued the Dotari off Takeni then saved the Dotari again?” Ely asked.

  “Ship of miracles, kid. Ship of miracles. She needed one more at the Line…Anyway, the Dotari on the Golden Fleet were old school and not as excited to side with the old Terran Union during the Kesaht War. Beakies take caste seriously, and the Dotari that made it to Takeni were the lowest of the low prior to the diaspora. The ones on the Golden Fleet were the hoity-toity types.”

  “They didn’t appreciate not being turned into banshees?” Ely asked.

  “Beakies. Maybe they have short memories, maybe it was a case of ‘what have you done for me lately?’ But when the Geist blitzed through the Crucible network, they hit the Dotari homeworld hard and they hit it early in the war. The Dotari from the Golden Fleet took over their government and surrendered. Dotari from Takeni and those that could appreciate what humans did for them—twice!—fled into the Crucible and joined the Crusade. All of them swore a blood oath before Lady Ibarra to fight until Earth is free. Dotari are expert tunnelers and she put them to work fortifying Nation planets.”

  “That’s all they’re doing? Tunnels?”

  “They have a few ships, a battalion of Armor…not that many escaped the Geist.”

  A vision of a Dotari female in a Terran uniform leading a boy by the hand flashed through Ely’s mind. The child had a humanlike face, but his hair was the thin, loose quills of the Dotari. The alien child reached up to Ely and shook a prosthetic hand.

  +Cha’ril.+

  “Huh? Stop it!” Ely shook his head and his Armor wobbled on the tracks.

  “You OK?” Lars asked as Ely slowed a bit. Ely accelerated hard to catch up to Pulaski ahead of him.

  “My ghost…Aignar…sometimes I’ll get these…memories?”

  “That’s unusual,” Lars mumbled. “Ghost protocols are supposed to be benign AIs. Rumor is that Marshal Roland’s ghost hasn’t even shared his or her real name.”

  +I do what I want.+

  “Can you not? Sorry, Lars. I’ve got a lot of competition for my head space these days. What’s with Pulaski? I’ve never heard of Karigole Armor before.”

  “Because he’s the only one. Far as I know. You know Steuben? The Karigole Strike Marine?” Lars asked.

  “I’ve met him. He was intense.”

  “Steuben got recruited into the Kesaht War by Admiral Valdar. War ends and an Ibarran ship took him home. Ship comes back and there’s a stowaway on board.”

  “Pulaski?”

  “How’d you guess? That’s not his real name; he took a nom de guerre of some sort of freedom
fighter from the American Revolution. Like Steuben and the original four Karigole that came to help Earth at the beginning of the Ember War. Pulaski was something of a pariah back home. Karigole have to prove their worth to the tribe by completing an honor hunt. They bring back a big-game trophy and they can marry, have kids, be treated as an adult. The usual. Pulaski was on his big hunt and it didn’t go as planned. He got injured, lost an eye, scars, broken bones. Dragged himself back to the village empty-handed.”

  “Could he try again after he healed?” Ely asked.

  “No. Karigole have some sort of matriarch, and if a Karigole is maimed, they won’t let them into the breeding pool. They believe injuries get passed on to children through some kind of genetic memory.”

  “Is that true? Wait…Steuben lost a hand and he still got married when the Karigole started their colony.”

  “Steuben was a mighty hunter. He helped kill a Xaros overlord and was at the final battle of the Ember War. Seems if a Karigole can bring home a big enough trophy after their injury, they can be accepted by the tribe.”

  “That locker full of Geist weapons and body parts must have been Pulaski’s,” Ely said.

  “Yeah, but it’s not enough. Karigole have some high standards to prove themselves after a failed honor hunt. Kill a mythical beast or don’t bother coming home. It hasn’t happened too many times in Karigole history, and they’ve got a looooong history. It’s all sort of moot, since the Karigole system was broken off from the Crucible network when the Ibarrans took it down. The Geist probably didn’t make it to their planet before that happened. Probably.”

  “Pulaski joined the Crusade to kill big game?”

  “He was in the Legion for a spell, but no one could keep up with him, not even the bruisers they’ve been pumping out of the tubes the past few years. Marshal Davoust got sick of Pulaski showing up his commanders, so he ‘promoted’ him to the Nation’s Armor.”

  +I still don’t like him.+

  “Lance, stand by,” Santos said over the lance net. “Passive sensors picking up some enemy activity at the firing point.”