Steel Sworn

by Richard Fox

  “Ha ha,” Standish deadpanned. “I like your fancy words, magic man. We’re in last-ditch, back-against-the-wall territory here. I pulled your dad’s rear out of the fire plenty of times, so if you could buck that trend, everyone on the planet will appreciate it. Particularly me.”

  “One second…did you all renew the pan-endermic stater coefficient? Because that would explain why you can’t even cycle power through the fuel cell,” Ely said.

  “The…stater? Yes, of course.” Standish turned his head to yell over one shoulder, “The stater!”

  “And why is your gram-meter so far from the marzelvanes? Do you want sinusoidal de-pleneration when you hit a gravity well with an epsilon or greater coefficient?” Ely put a hand to his face.

  “D-do…we?” Standish asked.

  “Only if you want to smear your atoms across the next light-year!” Ely shook his head.

  “We’ll fix it.” Standish ran across the Scipio, waving at General Halk. “Hey! The gram-meter is in the wrong spot! Just like I said!”

  +You know what you’re doing?+

  “Sure looks like it. I need to check the phase detractors. I bet they switched the sperving bearing orientation…see, now this is a bit easier than gunfights and stabbing Geist, right?”

  +Not if you ask me.+

  ****

  Marshal Roland ducked under a scythe wielded by a Geist and slashed his sword across the back of its legs. The Geist crumpled forward, breaking its fall with its arms outstretched. Roland spun and brought his sword down like a guillotine, slicing the Geist’s head neatly from its shoulders.

  He snapped his gauss cannon arm up and blew two Vishrakath from the sky.

  “Roland…time for the show,” Admiral Makarov said through a radio link.

  “You’ve got the cavalry coming in?” He sent a pulse through the IR that sent an order to all the Armor fighting around him. Fifty suits pulled back from the battle and coalesced toward Roland.

  “We’re swapping one cavalry for another. Get ready to call cleared hot,” Makarov said.

  Roland accessed the city’s defense grid and shut down the shield dome. He looked up at the sky and spotted fiery contrails of hundreds of Harpy-class bombers screaming toward him. IFF pings came in, identifying them from the Warsaw and her two strike carrier escorts.

  “Leave it to the Navy to swoop in and claim all the glory.” Roland transmitted his troops’ frontline trace. Geist forces had penetrated deep into the city and were massing outside the walls to send reinforcements into any break in the lines.

  “I heard that and you’re welcome,” Makarov said. “Need you to link up or we’ll be stuck here waiting for the Geist to finish us off. That’s our best worst-case scenario.”

  “Let me handle the moving pieces down here.” Roland looked up as the first bomber roared overhead. “Cleared hot!”

  The lead squadrons released bombs that tumbled end over end through the air. They burst into cluster munitions that spread across city blocks. Tiny guidance computers identified Geist troops and sent warheads into enemy troop concentrations.

  A wall of explosions chopped into the Geist front lines. The bombardment marched farther and farther away, systematically obliterating the Geist inside and outside the city.

  “We have to destroy the city to save it.” Roland shook his head. “Scipio…how copy?”

  “Ha ha, I love the Air Force!” Standish shouted over the radio. “What? What do you mean the channel’s open? To who?”

  “Scipio, we need pickup.” Roland shook his head.

  “Roger that,” Standish said sheepishly. “I’m bringing her straight to you. We got off the ground without all this nerd stuff exploding. That’s half the battle right there if you ask me.”

  “No one’s asking!” General Halk said in the background.

  “Halk? Why are you aboard?” Roland collapsed his sword into the hilt and locked it to his thigh.

  “Sir, just making sure Colonel Standish doesn’t decide to take his ship out on a stroll all by his lonesome,” she said.

  “What? And miss my chance to be the hero of the day? Last Stand on Takeni is due a sequel is all I’m saying.”

  Shrike fighters followed in the Harpies’ wake, flying stacked circles overhead.

  The Scipio came in low and slow. The corvette hovered over Roland and dozens of Armor around him. A portal opened in the bottom of the ship and Roland felt the grip of a tractor beam on his suit.

  “I served aboard this ship, Standish,” Roland said as he floated up. “I kind of miss it.”

  “Hey hey hey…you’ve got the Warsaw. You want to trade?”

  “You drive a hard bargain. Pass.”

  More Armor followed Roland up and into the Scipio.

  Chapter 21

  Ely knelt on the upper hull of the Scipio. Several more data lines were plugged into his suit and his HUD was full of projections and system information from the ship.

  The corvette rose out of the atmosphere. The engines rumbled to life and the ship accelerated into the void to rendezvous with the Warsaw. The two strike cruisers were in orbit over the city, standing sentinel against the few ships that the Geist left behind.

  Ely shuddered inside his pod and shunted more power into his mag locks.

  Roland and Santos walked over to him, taking slow, deliberate steps to ensure they had a good lock and wouldn’t lose their hold on the ship and fly off into the void while the ship accelerated.

  “Update,” Roland said.

  “I found three critical flaws in the FTL drive installation,” Ely said. “Fixed them easy enough. Seems there were some translation errors from Ultari to English to Basque, sir.”

  “So this will work?” Roland asked.

  “We did a few test runs on the Valiant before we went gallivanting across the Canis dwarf galaxy,” Ely said. “But everything checks out.”

  “If it doesn’t check out, it’s not like we’ll know,” Santos said. “I imagine dying when a faster-than-light engine cooks off won’t be slow and painful.”

  “Probably not, and we probably won’t find out.” Ely put a hand to the hull as the ship neared the Warsaw and slowed to match velocity. The Ibarran carrier was miles long, with open bays to the fore and along her flanks. Rail gun turrets were flush against the hull. Smaller point defense emplacements were crewed by sailors in armored vac suits.

  The ship passed the armored forecastle where the Warsaw’s bridge had its blast shields down. Ely zoomed in and saw Admiral Makarov at the window. She looked happy and put an open hand to her chest.

  “Armor. Prepare to disembark and anchor down on the Warsaw,” Roland said through the IR network. “Don’t worry about Makarov. She has to go through me to get to you if you scratch the paint.”

  Santos put a hand on Ely’s shoulder to keep him in place. “Your lance will be with you. Don’t move,” Santos said.

  “Ferrum Corde.” Roland thumped his fist to his chest and pushed off from the hull. He floated across to the Warsaw and landed close to the prow. More Armor made the jump from the Scipio to the carrier.

  “This is crazy. I love it!” Lars climbed up from the side of the ship, carrying two jet packs.

  A moment behind him was Pulaski, also with jet packs.

  Lars locked one next to Ely, then tossed his up gently in the zero gravity. He turned, and magnets attached the jet pack to his suit and bolts snapped, locking it in place.

  “I will miss out on a battleship kill,” Pulaski said. “Are we sure the Scipio lacks the structural integrity?”

  “Mr. Standish is quite adamant about it.” Santos donned his jet pack. “You want to believe him or risk going Dutchman at a significant velocity into deep space?”

  “Honored Steuben spoke much of this Standish.” Pulaski swung his pack over his shoulders. “His reputation for deceit and larceny precedes him.”

  “My father worked for him for many years.” Santos unsnapped a long rifle from his back and handed it to Ely. “
Always paid royalties on time and never did him wrong. Course my father knew where to find Standish and had chased off creditors more than once. Standish knows better than to shit where he eats.”

  “Do humans have that problem?” Pulaski froze. “The food from the re-combiners in the mess hall lacks flavor. Is that a good sign or not?”

  Ely looked over the new weapon, which was so large, a normal human couldn’t have hoped to wield it. Even the power-armored legionnaires would struggle to lift it.

  +Too bad the Ibarrans refused to admit that the Union had the superior design with the Mauser heavy rifle,+ Aignar said as he linked targeting systems from the suit to the weapon.

  Ely turned it over and touched the large magazine loaded beneath it.

  “Think about it this way,” Lars said, racking the charging handle on his Gustav. “We’ll be first to the knife fight.”

  “That is…acceptable,” Pulaski said.

  “You call this a knife?” Ely tested his grip on the rifle.

  “Knife fight so far as naval engagements go.” Lars shrugged.

  The Scipio shuddered as it locked to the ventral hull of the Warsaw, right in front of the forecastle. Across the carrier’s hull, Armor dropped anchor into the metal plates and raised their rail gun vanes.

  “Ely Hale, this is Fleet Admiral Makarov.”

  Ely looked over his shoulder to the bridge and spotted her as she donned an armored helmet. He gave her a little wave.

  “All systems are reading nominal,” Ely said. “But this is going to burn off about eighty percent of the Astranite fuel. Inner-system jumps are not especially efficient.”

  “We can always make more with the foundries,” Makarov said. “I’m sending you the coordinates for the jump.”

  Ely loaded the data file to the FTL controls, and fields in his HUD turned green.

  “That’s an aye aye, ma’am,” Ely said. On the Warsaw bridge, crew turned away from their workstations as one to stare at him. “Do you need to say ‘engage’ or something?”

  Makarov leaned close to the window. “Will it help?” she asked.

  “It won’t hurt,” Ely said, raising a palm.

  Makarov looked away, then back to him. “Engage.”

  Ely tried to remember the proper Latin prayer to Saint Kallen, then activated the FTL drive. The space around the Warsaw and the Scipio smeared into a milky white streaked through with black.

  “Hey hey! Whoa!” Lars held his hands out to his sides. “What happened?”

  “We’re travelling at about nine hundred and fifty percent of the speed of light.” Ely unplugged the data lines from his suit. “In about fifteen minutes, the engines are programmed to shut off. Can’t eyeball it and the gravity gradient sensors aren’t useable while we’re traveling away from the system primary.”

  “I don’t like this.” Pulaski drew his short sword and traced out a symbol with the tip. “It is too much like the spirit realm.”

  “Do we need to be locked in when we come out of FTL?” Santos asked.

  “No…the warp bubble negates momentum when—”

  “‘No.’ That’s all you had to say,” Santos crossed himself and looked at the swirls around them. “I don’t like this either. Feels…off. Like we’re being watched.”

  “The weird aliens that give you this tech ever mention anything about ghosts or spirits in the warp?” Lars asked. “I didn’t ward my Armor against the undead.”

  “Really, guys?” Ely shook his helm. “Big tough Armor go faster than light for the first time and your worry is demons or something? Let’s worry about the modial coupling losing polarity. That happens, we’ll come out of FTL unevenly and we’ll either paint the Geist ships with our atoms or dissolve into a mist of quarks that’ll—”

  “Let’s go back to being worried about demons!” Lars shouted. “You know how that Gustav works, new guy? Front toward the enemy, yeah?”

  “Now that you mention it, why does the ammo have ‘variable time’ settings and proximity fuses?” Ely asked just before his ears fluttered as a channel opened.

  A woman began to sing.

  “Now my life has gained its meaning since those sinful eyes behold. Sacred land with meadows greening whose renown was often told…”

  Santos went to one knee and crossed himself.

  “This was granted me from God, to see the land and the holy sod, which in human form He trod.”

  “What is this?” Ely asked.

  “‘Palastinalied’…old Crusader song. Very old,” Lars said. “Original is in German. Ibarrans sing it before a battle they think will end a campaign. I’ve heard it a few times…always makes me think of Earth.”

  “Splendid lands of wealth and power, I’ve seen many near and far.”

  “It’s beautiful. Who’s singing?” Ely asked.

  “Her name’s Adalyn. She fights in the Marquis lance. Huh…she’s barely older than you look.” Lars chuckled. “Back to teaching you how to use your rifle minutes before we get into a fight. You having fun yet?”

  Ely looked over the hull of the Warsaw as Armor joined in the song with dozens more voices.

  “Yet of all are you the flower, what a wonder happened there…”

  ****

  Nakir walked past burnt and broken bodies of Geist soldiers. His own armor was singed along the arms and legs, a charred crust on his boots. The dead reflected off his chrome mask.

  A weak shell of Wield around him did little to staunch the smell, which was something Nakir would never forget.

  General Gon’baya lay on a medical slab, a raised metal bed, as robot arms tended to injuries to the Sanheel’s forelegs. Much of his skin had been flash-burnt and was covered in pale-blue compresses. The robot arms picked at the left side of his face, which had been scorched and still leaked blood.

  Nakir held a palm over the Sanheel’s face and small tendrils of Wield stroked his face.

  “Come to gloat, Commissar?” Gon’baya asked.

  “No, I’m here to salvage what little we can from this disaster. You’re in contact with the battleships that Mahnark left behind at the moon?”

  “They’re moving to attack the heretics’ strike cruisers. Once those ships are gone, we will destroy the city from orbit. The souls here are no longer worth the price to harvest them,” Gon’baya snorted.

  “No.” Nakir shook his head. “The Warsaw vanished off our battleship’s sensors several minutes ago. The only explanation is that the Ibarrans built the FTL drive that Ely Hale brought from Terra Nova. We must warn the Geist. The Synod must know of this.”

  “Then we start with Exalted Mahnark!” Gon’baya tried to get up, but Nakir pushed him down with his Wield.

  “Any transmission to Mahnark will travel at the speed of light. It will take hours to reach him in the outer system. It is useless to even try. Order the battleships to evacuate us off world and get us back to Earth. This…development is not in our favor, but better to bring back the news than to die here for nothing.”

  “The Crucible is still damaged. We can get one Geist ship through if we’re lucky.” Gon’baya winced and knocked the robo-surgery arms away. He shifted off the slab and stood on all fours, towering over Nakir. “The Geist may send us to the soul racks for failing here. You in particular.”

  “I serve the Geist to my last breath. If they demand my spirit to atone…they will have it.”

  “Then let us hope they are feeling merciful when we return.” Gon’baya looked over his dead soldiers. “I’ll take their judgment over fighting the Ibarrans another day on this planet.”

  Chapter 22

  Mahnark circled the holo in the center of his chamber like a predator around fallen prey. The Ibarran fleet was arrayed around the Keystone gate, accelerating toward his pyramid ships. His foe had sacrificed speed waiting for him to come out of sub-light drive.

  He would crush the outnumbered Ibarrans in minutes…and then the Keystone would be his to bring back to the Synod in triumph. The name Mahnark woul
d be one of the first whispered to Malal once their lord was found.

  All of this would be guaranteed with one crushing blow to the Ibarrans…who had yet to open fire with their long-range artillery ships.

  “Curious…” He double-checked the range on the artillery ships arrayed behind the forward cruisers and destroyers. His lead pyramid battleships should have taken a few hits from the giant rail guns by now. His ships had their shield energy forward toward their enemy. They were vulnerable from behind, but there was no threat from that angle to fear.

  Lahnu’ta’s projection rose from the floor. “Shall we loose our fighters upon them?” she asked. “Better to clog the heretics’ targeting systems with our thrall pilots than shield expendable assets within our hulls.”

  “Eh? Yes, yes. Launch them.” Mahnark waved a dismissive hand at her. He stepped into the holo and looked back to Memel, where the Warsaw and her escorts were still near the planet.

  “All ships,” he said, and faces of his captains appeared around him, “I want that gate captured intact. Prepare boarding parties and—”

  Several of his captains vanished, their transmissions cut off in static and flame.

  “What?” Mahnark raised a hand and the holo shifted to his fleet. There was a new ship there, as if it had appeared by magic.

  Traces from rail gun shells exploded off the Ibarran carrier, far more than the few turrets it had. A dozen of his ships had already been hit and five were completely destroyed.

  “This can’t be…”

  Alerts sprang up through the holo as the ships guarding the Keystone opened fire. His chamber went red as rail gun shells from the Warsaw converged on his battleship. His force was under heavy fire from two directions, and Mahnark hesitated to make a decision, unsure if the attack from the Warsaw was some sort of Ibarran sensor trick.

  When the rail gun shells from the Warsaw ripped through his ship, he had a few seconds to comprehend just how real the attack was.