Steel Sworn

by Richard Fox

  “Annihilating another Ibarran ship is hardly a victory. The Keystone gate is the true prize and Makarov is about to remove her strongest ship from the defenses. Detecting a ship under drive is as difficult for them as it is for us. I will send my ships to seize the Keystone. There is a threat from Marshal Shaw’s rail guns. One ship commander got sloppy…and has paid the price.” Mahnark kicked away a Geist skull on the floor, the mouth jabbering silently.

  Gon’baya spun a halberd haft in his hand.

  “You know what must be done,” Mahnark said, walking up to the general, “yet you hesitate.”

  “To safeguard your ships when they leave lunar orbit…the Ibarran Armor must be engaged—distracted and out of position to fire on you before you can gain enough velocity. I must order an all-out assault on the city to bring the Armor to battle,” the Sanheel said. “The casualties will be—”

  “Irrelevant. Seizing the Keystone will be a turning point in the war. Your soldiers’ sacrifice will be worthy of our dedication to Lord Malal. Launch your attack at dawn. Force the Ibarran Armor into the field…Roland will have to balance evacuating his precious Armor while they’re fighting. The more difficult his mission, the more mistakes he will make. And when I seize the Keystone, Makarov will have no choice but to surrender…or die uselessly.”

  “The Ibarrans are not prone to surrender.” Gon’baya ground his teeth against each other.

  “Total annihilation. Total victory. Launch your attack at dawn. All fronts.” Mahnark waved his hand and Gon’baya disappeared, replaced by Nakir.

  The Commissar was huddled against a wall, a cup of soup in his hands and a rifle slung over one shoulder. The semi-opaque silhouette of other humans danced at the edge of the connection.

  “Report,” Mahnark said.

  Nakir raised his soup to his mouth, obscuring his lips as he spoke quietly.

  “The target is heavily guarded but under observation. I shared that the target was leaving in an underground tunnel for the thrall to destroy the Armor, but—”

  “Your excuses do not concern me. Obtain the crystal before dawn or consider your opportunity lost. The Ibarrans are preparing to evacuate their Armor, and that includes the Hale child,” Mahnark said.

  Nakir took a sip of his soup. “There’s been no word of this within the city. Are you sure?”

  “You question a Geist, Commissar? Does Noyan tolerate such an insult?”

  “No, Exalted One…but what you suggest is counter to how humans act—particularly those of the Ibarran faith. If poor information reached you, then it is my duty to—”

  “Dawn. After that, you’re on your own.” Mahnark snapped his finger and Nakir was replaced by dozens of Geist sitting on command chairs.

  “Captains…we are called to glory.” Mahnark’s face reshaped into a demonic visage.

  ****

  Roland swapped out a quantum encryption key from his holo table and inserted a new one. Makarov appeared a heartbeat later.

  “Think they bought it?” the fleet admiral asked.

  “I was never much of an actor, but we let them hear everything they wanted,” Roland said. “The Saint blessed us when my new deputy logistics officer provided an unused commo key for us.”

  Standish, watching the conversation from a gaggle of staff officers, blushed.

  “I could have traded that key for five brand-new ships.” Standish touched his brow and General Halk cleared her throat rather loudly. “You can’t dub them in a foundry, which is why they’re so expensive. I’m not complaining. I’m just saying.”

  “But Colonel Standish’s ship—the Scipio—isn’t ready yet. We’ve encountered some issues installing the faster-than-light engine,” Roland said. “We can’t test the components this deep in a gravity well, so we’re running off faith that the instructions from Terra Nova are correct.”

  “The Warsaw will be there in less than a day,” Makarov said. “If I adjust the velocity of my Alcubierre drives, they’ll detect the graviton flux. This mission has a hard time for you to meet.”

  “We’re working it,” Roland said.

  “Why are you relying only on the instructions from Terra Nova? What’s Ely Hale’s estimate?” she asked.

  “Haven’t asked. He’s on his way back from a fire mission,” Roland said.

  “The only person in the Milky Way galaxy that’s ever worked on this Astranite-powered FTL engine is at your beck and call and you sent him to go shoot at something?” Makarov raised an eyebrow.

  Roland’s mouth pressed into a line. “Why would he—”

  “You haven’t read the assembly instructions, have you? Because if you had, you’d have seen that Ely Hale’s design notes are all over the place. He worked on the installation when Terra Nova put the engine on the Valiant.” Makarov’s eyes narrowed and her face grew tight.

  “I haven’t…read them, no. I’m not an engineer. I’ve got my own war to fight down here, my dear.” Roland had been married to Makarov long enough to know when her temper was getting short. “I’ve kept Hale’s presence here on a need-to-know basis, as his identity will cause issues in the ranks.”

  “Well, maybe you should tell your engineers and your manufacturers that they’ve got a subject-matter expert available.” Makarov’s left eye twitched.

  “Maybe I will. Your advice as void component commander is much appreciated.” He smiled.

  “Oh, you’re going to play the force-organization-chart game? I will deal with you later, mister. Next update in six hours.” Makarov fizzled away.

  Roland pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Ely Hale…” Standish raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be damned.”

  “You didn’t know?” General Halk asked.

  “No. Getting promoted must be to blame. Maybe if I go back to mosquito wings or switch to a warrant officer—”

  “I’m going to the Scipio,” Roland announced. “That ship is our top priority. I’ll tell the engineers that Hale is here in person to keep operational security…”

  Alerts spawned in the holo tank as contact reports filtered to his command holo. Roland looked over each as casualty reports came in.

  “The Geist took the bait,” Roland said. “And now we’re bleeding for it. Get me sector commanders on holo in five minutes. Standish…you can keep a secret. Talk to the engineers working on your ship. See if they need Hale. Get Hale to the worksite if that’s the case. Don’t let the fact that Hale’s here become common knowledge.”

  Standish raised a hand and was about to protest when Halk cleared her throat again.

  “Sir, yes, sir,” Standish said and shrugged.

  ****

  Ely looked through a window on an upper floor of the cemetery building. Santos’ Armor knelt at the edge of the supply yard where a line of Crusade soldiers walked past the suit as a priest swung a censor smoking with incense.

  He touched the back of his head, feeling the scars from the Qa’Resh probe. It was close to where Armor soldiers had their plugs, but not quite. Artillery shells rumbled in the distance. One blast was close enough that the glass clicked from the faint blast wave.

  Ely went down a set of stairs and into the locker room. He sniffed the air and detected an odd smell, something from nature but not unpleasant. He followed his nose to the small alcove with the shrine to Saint Kallen. Lars knelt before the shrine, an open glass bottle and cup set before the bust. Curls of smoke rose from incense cones.

  Lars was shirtless, his elbows bent and palms up. He spoke words Ely didn’t understand, but he picked out “Kallen” and “Odin” a few times. Smacking his hands together, Lars stepped up to the shrine, looked over his shoulder to Ely, and waved him over.

  Ely struggled not to cough in the incense cloud.

  Lars poured what looked like flat beer into a wooden cup with a brass rim, then took a sip. He offered the cup to Ely, who took it with two hands and sniffed the liquid. There were notes of honey and something he didn’t recognize. He drank and the liquid stun
g his mouth. He passed it back with a grimace.

  The Swede set the mostly full cup before the shrine, then drew a small knife off his belt and pressed the tip into the side of his hand. Blood dripped into the cup, the red pooling to the bottom and darkening the liquid. He dripped more blood onto the bust, then smeared it across Kallen’s face.

  He pressed his hand to his chest, leaving a thin swath across his bare skin, then stepped back. Taking a cauterizer from a pocket, he sealed the cut on his hand with a brief sizzle.

  “May she witness us,” Lars said and picked his shirt off a hook.

  “Ugh, what was that stuff? Why did you…bleed…in it?”

  Lars chuckled. “Sacrifice before battle, lillebror. The Crusaders believe that Saint Kallen will protect them in the fight, guard their souls. I know different. Kallen is a Valkyrie. She watches the battle and carries the worthy fallen to Valhalla. I offer my blood and my alcohol ration to attract her gaze.” He looked up and mouthed please.

  “That was alcohol?” Ely’s eyes went wide.

  “Mead. Made from honey. The drink of my ancestors. Don’t worry, lillebror, you’re not such a lightweight that one sip will do you in. Come on, time to mount up.” Lars tilted his head toward the cemetery.

  “Let’s not tell Santos about the mead. I’m not old enough to drink legally. Well, technically, I’m past twenty-one, but—”

  “Stop being such a worrywart about nothing. Worry about the Geist that we’re going to battle. Now hush for a moment. Don’t disturb him,” Lars said.

  The slow shing of metal echoed through the locker room.

  Pulaski sat on a bench, a patch of hide covering his lap, while he sharpened his short sword with a shiny black stone. The Karigole didn’t acknowledge them as they passed.

  Lars led Ely into the cemetery and took him up the stairs where techs loaded bullets into the three suits in the coffins. Thick power cables snaked from ports in the legs to large battery packs in the cargo beds of small motorized carts.

  Sugimoto did a double take at them and spoke to Stinker. The Toth scampered down the handrail.

  “Not that thing again…” Ely shied back.

  Stinker slid to a stop and stared at Ely with bulbous eyes. The Toth kept staring as one hand went behind his back and he brought out a pack of Compound 12 injectors. Ely took the pack tentatively and the diminutive Toth snorted at him and went back to Sugimoto.

  “He likes meat treats. But never dairy. Never ever. Someone’s told you that?” Lars asked.

  “I’ve heard.” Ely held the pack of injectors and touched the side of his neck.

  Lars went to the nearest suit—the one with the Nordic runes and the faded shield painted on the chest—and touched the left arm. Wield fluctuated around his hand.

  “There we go.” He smiled.

  “What is it? That Commissar has the same…power?” Ely asked.

  “Wield. Ibarran Armor got it a few years ago. It rolled out to us when we cycled back after a deployment. It’s an extension of your will and another system that you have to learn to control.” He cocked an arm. “Have your shield deployed? Focus, and the Wield will make it stronger. It takes practice and skill. Marshal Roland can focus his to a blade’s edge to cut through the Geist like they’re made of paper. I can’t do that yet. Pulaski likes to break through the enemy’s armor and then spike his Wield and turn what might’ve been a survivable wound into something more devastating. Santos and I are better at using it for shielding.”

  “I used the Marshal’s sword when I landed. It felt…odd. So it’s some sort of energy system? I still don’t get it.”

  “The Wield comes from the Ark. A gift from Lady Ibarra that gets installed deep in our pods. Our techs aren’t allowed to do any maintenance on those black boxes. Open them and the neural links short out and the pod is useless. Also stops the Geist from getting in the tech.” Lars grimaced.

  “But the Geist have the Wield.” Ely touched the Armor, but the energy field didn’t react.

  “There’s some debate over who fielded it first. It’s an advantage on the battlefield, no question about that. Also…those with a better sense of faith can use it to better effect. The Crusaders that pray to Kallen, fine. Pulaski and his sword religion…stuff. Top-notch.”

  “But you prayed to Saint Kallen at—”

  “I don’t pray. I call for her to witness me.” Lars curled his hand and the Wield curled around his fingers. “Faith is faith, so far as the Wield is concerned. I don’t understand the finer details. I just use it to help kill Geist.”

  “Saint Kallen became popular after the Ember War, when most of the religions that survived the Xaros coalesced around her…in a more Christian fashion. But you and Pulaski…”

  “Faith is faith, lillebror. The Crusade venerates Kallen as a proper saint and none of them have threatened to burn me at the stake for being a filthy pagan. They tolerate me and Pulaski. If the war ended tomorrow, I’m pretty sure the Ibarrans would ‘highly encourage’ me to settle on an out-of-the-way planet with my own kind—which is fine by me. Ibarrans can be stuffy about some things. You should’ve seen their faces when I wanted to use my ration coupons for a live animal for a proper blot sacrifice.”

  “That sounds an awful lot like a blood sacrifice.” Ely inched away.

  “Your face and their face,” Lars said, waving fingers at his countenance, “same look. But after that, I asked for mead from the fabricators and got that with no questions asked,” Lars smirked. “Alcohol in a war zone is a bit of a no-no for them. Same for the Terran Union, now that I think of it. Enough talk. Geist don’t care if we’re singing ‘Kumbaya’ with each other. They’ll care that our rotary cannons are finally sending bullets in their general direction. Let’s go through pre-combat checks.”

  ****

  Chilly amniosis filled Ely’s pod, rising over his nose and mouth as the collar clamped around his neck. He gulped down the fluid, the urge to panic still there but more manageable as he “drowned” in the hyper-oxygenated amniosis.

  His vision went dark and his HUD appeared. The sound of techs working around his suit, loading ammo and making last-minute adjustments, flitted from ear to ear.

  +Hold on…they updated the pod’s firmware and I need to make it jibe with your nervous system,+ Aignar said. +Rotary cannon’s reinstalled. Magazine’s full. Where’s the fight?+

  “I’m not sure. The captain said get ready and mount up. Here I am.”

  +Hurry up and wait. The more things change, the more they stay the same in the army…wait one.+

  Light saturated Ely’s vision and he tried to cry out. He kicked the side of his pod and covered his eyes, which did nothing to help him. The flood of white faded and he saw the cemetery from the optics in his helm.

  +Sorry. The techs swapped out your old night-vision system for the new hotness. Had to recalibrate.+

  “Little warning next time? How far behind is this suit compared to the rest of the lance?”

  +This thing was an antique before I earned my plugs. Your pod’s much newer, which is why I can interface with the newer systems. Good news is that your rounds will hit the enemy about the same as the rest of your lance. So you’ve got that going for you.+

  “Gee thanks. That’s reassuring,” Ely said. Bolts unsnapped from his suit and retracted into the coffin. Sensation from his suit’s arms and legs came over him, and the feeling of his own body faded into the background.

  “Steel Sworn. On me,” Santos crackled over the radio. A rally point appeared on Ely’s HUD and he followed Lars out tall doors. The techs stood on the catwalk and beat fists to their chests in salute. Stinker, perched on the handrail, bowed his head below his grip and covered his eyes.

  Santos waited for them at the re-stacked pallet of pipes where the Commissar nearly killed Ely.

  Anger built in Ely’s chest and his vision went red.

  “Lance, we’re in reserve for the—”

  +Coward!+

  Ely’s suit lurched f
orward on its own and his arms shot out to reach for Santos’ neck servos. Ely’s nerves spiked like they were waking up from being numb. He tried to resist, but Aignar growled at him.

  Santos stiff-armed Ely and grabbed him by the upper edge of his breastplate. Pulaski moved to help but stopped at a glance from Santos.

  “You!” Ely cried out. His vision swam and ghost images of war-ravaged Phoenix superimposed themselves over Aachen. The color of Santos’ Armor went deep gray as the unit patch changed.

  Ely leaned forward, and his feet slid back slightly over the asphalt. His fists struck Santos’ arm and bounced off Wield.

  “That’s you, Aignar,” Santos said, nodding. “I know it. You think abandoning Earth was an easy decision? Nothing has ever been harder for me.”

  +We left them all behind!+ Aignar spoke and Ely echoed the words. Ely stopped resisting, and the burning sensation through his body dialed back ever so slightly. +Cha’ril! My son!+

  “There was nothing we could do if we were dead!” Santos shook Ely’s suit. “We are fighting to get home, Aignar. If they’re still alive, then we can free them.”

  +The Line would have held! If the Ibarrans had joined the fight instead of pulling away our best Armor…+

  Aignar’s control faded and Ely dropped his arms to his side.

  “No, Aignar. Earth was lost. You think I wanted to leave them all behind? I think about them every day. That’s why I still fight.”

  +Gideon…Gideon would have stayed.+

  Santos shook his helm. “He would have, and it would have accomplished nothing—just like his death.”

  The anger flared, but Ely pushed it back. “Stop, Aignar. Stop before this kills me.” Ely moved his fingers and it felt like there were needles under his skin.

  “We have a fight right here. Right now, Aignar.” Santos touched the faded paint of a unit insignia on his chest, a fleur-de-lys on top of a palmetto leaf and the words TOUJOURS PRET. “The Iron Dragoons are gone, but I need you with me. We beat the Geist on this battlefield and we survive to fight the next one. We keep fighting and we keep winning until Earth is free. That’s what everyone left behind is praying for.”