by Richard Fox
Their landing torpedoes just entered Oricon’s upper atmosphere and the heat bloom would render any and all IR communication impossible.
BREAKING. BREAKING. Flashed across his HUD.
A shudder passed through his womb as rocket nozzles rose along the length of the torpedo and fired. The sudden deceleration bumped the top of his head against his womb hard enough to send a bolt of pain down his back. The inner wall of his womb gripped tighter, almost swaddling him.
Found a design flaw, he thought. Maybe I’ll write a strongly worded letter to the engineers…assuming I manage to land with more grace than a raw egg thrown at a wall.
The rumble of deceleration ended and data returned to his HUD. The torpedo’s path arced just over a snowcapped mountain ridge, one approaching far faster than Roland felt comfortable with. The lower ring of his projected path clipped the jagged peaks.
He dialed up the emergency release and stopped. If he ejected now, he would hit the snow-covered slope and likely trigger an avalanche. If he waited, he ran the risk of plowing into the mountain at full—and fatal—speed.
Please don’t be designed by the lowest bidder. Please don’t be—
The torpedo cleared the mountain top with a few feet to spare, kicking up a vortex of snow and rock as he passed.
Very angry letter. So angry.
His HUD pulsed yellow and forward panels on the torpedo lifted up. The metal sides peeled away and fluttered through the air like petals caught in a gale and Roland could finally see with his armor’s own sensors. He pressed his arms out and threw off the last of the vehicle’s frame.
A quick scan highlighted a small arc of the hyperloop between ridgelines. No power sources. No composite metals. No transmissions.
The landscape’s trees looked like black moss as he fell to the surface. He cycled power into his jetpack and waited to pass into the landing buffer, which his HUD displayed as a red augmented-reality box fifty meters off the ground.
Roland waited until he’d nearly passed through the bottom of the box before activating his jetpack. The jerk from the rocket’s firing was almost a playground tag compared to the insertion torpedo’s breaking maneuver. He ejected the jetpack a few yards over the ground and slid to a stop through a dry stream bed.
His shoulder-mounted rotary gun sprang up and began spinning. He raised his arm with the twin gauss cannons and scanned around further…nothing.
Three heat blossoms appeared overhead and the rest of his lance came down just ahead of him. Roland took off running, his massive legs pounding against bare rocks and echoing through the valley. There was no mistaking the Iron Dragoons’ arrival; the time for subtlety was past.
Gideon landed at a run, making his entire descent look almost second nature to him.
Aignar would have tripped over a boulder had his armor not shattered it with a kick. Roland ran alongside his lance mate and kept his pace.
“Roland, did you intentionally alter your course to clip the mountain?” Cha’ril asked.
“The guidance computer didn’t compensate for snowpack,” Roland said. “And I almost got a concussion during the breaking maneuver. I can tell the designers didn’t participate in hands-on testing. Not sure how Mars can make that happen.”
Gideon had pulled ahead of Roland and Aignar. Cha’ril fell back, forming them into a diamond formation with the lieutenant leading the way.
“Same as having riggers jump the parachutes they packed themselves,” Gideon said. “Older reference, but the idea was put before the design committee.”
“I can imagine the engineers’ response,” Aignar said. “‘But did you die? No? Full production!’”
“Can it.” Gideon said, sending a travel route to the lance, a rally point at the base of a spur on the mountainside opposite Tonopah Valley. “We’ll do a quick recon from there.”
Roland acknowledged the route and kept scanning their right flank. The Oricon trees were tall and spindly, with dark bark and wide, thorny canopies. Running past the surrounding forests and the snow-covered mountainsides was like looking at a bar code from some antique price sticker.
Gideon slowed as he approached a drop-off next to the rally point. He skidded to a halt and aimed his weapons down the slope to an area Roland couldn’t see.
“Contact?” Aignar asked.
“I’m not sure what this is,” the lieutenant said. “Roland, down here with me. Rest of you on security.”
Roland jogged over, his feet crushing the smooth rocks of a dry stream bed into powder. Gideon stood at the edge of a spread of what looked like large red eggshells, all cracked apart and nestled into a bed of lime-green ooze.
“Some sort of local…plant?” Roland asked.
Gideon picked up a piece of the red eggshell. Goo ran through his fingers and dripped slowly to the ground. He squeezed, deforming it with a squeal of tortured metal.
“Tensile strength is high. My sensors can’t get a composition read on it, but the sludge is organic,” Gideon said.
Roland spied another piece jutting out of the green substance. A discoloration just beneath the surface caught the setting sun’s light. He activated his olfactory sensors and cringed inside his armor. The scent brought him back to one of his first days working as a busboy, when he’d been ordered to clean up soft-drink syrup that had leaked in a storeroom. The stench of rotting syrup permeated that room and never seemed to go away, no matter how many times he cleaned it.
He picked up the metal…and twisted it around to show Gideon a pair of bullet holes.
“15-millimeter,” Roland said. “My sensors show a tungsten and cobalt residue on the inside of the holes. This was done with gauss weapons.”
“Our cannons are 30-millimeter. Ammo for gauss rifles and carbines is half the size of what we’re looking at,” Gideon said. “Whoever did this wasn’t using Terran standard equipment.”
“It was a massacre.” Roland tossed the metal back into the field. He activated the pilot light for his flamethrower and burned green residue off his armor’s fingers. “These must be soldiers from that unidentified alien fleet.”
“Fair assessment, but don’t cling to it,” Gideon said. “Get eyes on the settlement.”
“Sir.” Roland walked up the spur and ran a sensor arm up from his helm. Smoke rose from a few buildings in Tonopah. The tops of prefab buildings stuck out over the hasty barricades of hyperloop parts and wrecked vehicles. Incomplete rail lines mounted atop columns dotted the surrounding valley, all pointing to a nexus point in the middle of the town.
“Don’t see much activity,” Roland said. “No transmissions eith—”
The slope next to Roland exploded in a rain of loose dirt and rock fragments, and Roland slid back down, his armor covered in dust.
“That was a rail rifle,” Cha’ril said.
“I noticed.” Roland tapped the side of his helm twice to knock dirt from his optics.
“They seem a bit twitchy,” Aignar said.
“We’re in an enemy position,” Gideon said. “They must not know what happened out here—or that help’s arrived.”
“Some welcome,” Roland said.
“If we wish to avoid another rail shot,” Cha’ril motioned to a nearby stand of trees, “perhaps we should signal our intentions.”
Aignar planted a foot against a tree trunk and snapped it apart with a quick tug. He broke another and held the two trees like batons.
“My semaphore is weak,” he said. “Anyone remember how to send ‘Don’t shoot me’?”
“Wave the tree tops over the slope,” Gideon said. “They should get the message.”
****
On a holo map of Oricon, a dashed circle pulsed over Auburn.
“Scopes saw the armor disembark from their insertion torps,” Strickland said. “That high G of a maneuver didn’t look pleasant, but if anyone can shrug off that level of abuse, it’s the armor.”
“But no contact from that first lance?” Lettow asked.
“
Negative. I’d say it’s from whatever’s scrambling commo in the atmosphere, not any issue with the landing,” Strickland said.
“Launch the rest of the armor to Auburn City,” Lettow swiped the picture aside and brought up a high altitude image from a probe. All their initial surveillance drones had failed to report back after entering the atmosphere. The next batch swung around the moon and sent back decent images. The colony’s main city looked largely intact, with some damaged buildings still smoking. The drones had picked up several work crews moving around the city. The colonists were still there, but they weren’t able to talk to his fleet.
“Aye aye,” Strickland said.
Lettow zoomed the holo tank out and looked over the system. His fleet hadn’t progressed far from the Crucible gate. The Ibarra ships and the unknown aliens were still moving apart, though the aliens seemed to be in less of a hurry than the other humans.
Amber light lit up around the inner wall of the holo tank. The holo shifted to the Crucible, where tiny flashes of light sparkled between the great black thorns making up the gate.
“What the hell?” Lettow magnified the gate and saw cracks running along the thorns.
“Explosives,” Strickland said. “Are they trying to destroy it? That’s insane. We could be trapped here forever.”
The flashes died away and Lettow felt a ball of ice in his stomach. He opened a channel to his captains.
“All ships, come about and return to the Crucible,” Lettow said. He watched as cracks grew through the thorns…then slowed to a halt. The gaps began closing of their own accord, but far slower than the speed at which the damage was done.
“The control nodes are wrecked,” Strickland said. “We couldn’t go back through if we tried. The Xaros built them to self-repair, but I don’t know how long that will take.”
“And no one’s getting in or out until that happens.” Lettow shook his head. The game had just changed.
He opened a channel to Commander Rusk, his chief engineer.
“Commander, get survey teams onto the Crucible as soon as possible. I need an estimate on when it’ll be operational again,” he said.
“And Oricon? The enemy?” Strickland asked.
“We lose the Crucible and we’ll have worse problems than whatever they’re up to,” the admiral said. “I need to know more by the time we have the gate up and running. Either the armor will get it to us or someone will decide to start talking.”
****
The Iron Dragoons waited outside the barricades as a truck pulled a gate open. A length of metal pitted with scorch marks and bullet strikes fell free and clattered against the ground, and a man and a woman in heavy jackets and holding standard-issue gauss rifles stood in the middle of the road just within the hasty barricades.
Villagers crowded around side streets, struggling to catch a glimpse of the armored warriors.
Gideon led his lance inside. He knelt to one knee in front of the pair, bringing his helm almost eye level with them.
“Did you find them?” asked a heavyset man with a thick beard. “The others said you were out there looking, but we haven’t heard anything for hours.”
“This day just gets weirder and weirder,” Aignar said on the lance’s private IR channel.
“I am First Lieutenant Gideon, Iron Dragoons, 2nd Regiment of the Terran Armored Corps,” Gideon said. “We made Crucible gate transit nine hours ago and planetfall not long ago. I do not know who, or what, you’re talking about.”
“Earth is here,” the woman said. “About God damn time. If it wasn’t for the Legion, the Kesaht would have taken all of us, not just the children.”
“I need you to start at the beginning,” Gideon said.
“I’m Tim Dinkins, project head and foreman out here,” the bearded man said. “This is my wife, Sally. Auburn City put out a general alert a few days ago when the Kesaht fleet arrived. They started landing troops and all our commo with the city went down. Then we lost contact with work crews and the primary-school field trip out at Lorraine Falls. The Legion is out there looking for them…they. They didn’t say anything to you? Our two boys are still out there. Forty-seven children in all. They didn’t say anything to you?”
“What happened after you lost contact?” Gideon asked.
“The Legion showed up. I thought they were doughboys the first time I saw them, but they’re just that damn big,” Dinkins said. “They helped us get organized and fought off the Kesaht for days. Then they all left a few hours ago, said reinforcements were on the way and they’d find our missing children and work crews.”
“How is this news to you?” Sally asked. “I did my stint in uniform. I know how crazy things get in a fight, but I don’t understand how armor—armor—can drop into a war zone blind.”
“A moment…” Gideon stood up and switched to the lance’s IR channel.
“They don’t know the Ibarras went renegade,” Roland said.
“Isn’t exactly common knowledge,” Aignar said. “Doubt these Legion-types showed up and gave them a primer on their politics.”
“If they’re renegades, why would they fight to protect these other humans?” Cha’ril asked. “I am a novice at human history, but your internecine splits are rarely peaceful.”
“The Kesaht and Ibarrans show up at the same place and at the same time,” Gideon said. “Not a coincidence.”
“What about the missing children?” Roland asked.
“That’s our best chance of figuring this out,” Gideon said. “If we find the lost, they’ll be with the Ibarrans or these Kesaht. Either way, we’ll get answers.”
“Bet they can tell us more about this Legion,” Aignar said. “Probably best to keep that we’re here to rein in the Ibarras close to the chest. Let’s not guess which side this outpost would take if they had to choose.”
“Fair enough.” Gideon went back to the Dinkinses.
A young man with a rail sniper rifle strapped to his back pushed his way through the crowd. He went pale and tried to elbow his way back when he saw Roland’s helm fixated on him.
“You,” Roland boomed from his speakers as he pointed at the sniper.
The sniper froze and the crowd backed away from him.
“I’m sorry!” the sniper squeaked and he lowered his head like a dog about to be struck. “Your optic popped up at the last place we saw the Rakka massing and I thought…that…”
“Do your sights have combat footage?” Roland asked.
“My what?” The sniper looked up sheepishly.
“Vortex mark 9 sights. They keep a recording of thirty seconds before and after every shot for evaluation.” Roland bent down and brought his helm close to the sniper.
“I admit it was me, okay? Just don’t crush my skull. I missed!”
“I want to see the enemy.” Roland reached for the rifle on the man’s back.
“Don’t touch that!” the sniper shouted. “Don’t you ever touch my Fanny without asking!”
The crowd, which had been watching intently before, fell silent.
“You named your rifle…Fanny?” Roland asked.
The sniper’s head bobbed up and down. “I did. Yes. It seemed like a great idea up until this exact instant.”
Data wires popped out of the base of Roland’s wrist.
“Connect me to your optics,” Roland said. The sniper slung the bolt half off his back and plugged the wires into the boxy sites.
“What’s your name?” Roland asked.
“John Johansson. But everyone calls me Jo. And I’m really sorry I almost shot you.”
“I’m Roland. There’s a fog in war. One we do our best to see through. I’m just glad that you missed. Shoot straighter next time you see a …Rakka or a Kesaht.”
“The grunts are the Rakka. The whole bunch of alien shitheads are the Kesaht,” Jo said.
Roland’s computers downloaded the last of the sniper’s footage and shared it with the rest of his lance. He drew the wires back into his armor and sto
od up.
“If there’s someone else with footage from the battle, please bring it over,” Roland said.
Jo gave him a thumbs-up and ran back into the city.
Roland watched the most recent video and was surprised that the sniper managed to spot the optic as it peeked around rocks along the ridgeline. He went to the next file.
The clip began with the rifle pointed down at the inner wall of the barricade. The snap of gauss weapons and a hissing slash of energy weapons sounded through the background.
“Controller in this sector!” a deep voice boomed. “Take it out, Jo!”
The rifle swung up and across a soldier in black armor. Roland paused the feed and went back frame by frame until he found a decent image of the soldier. The power armor looked little different from the combat suits worn by the Rangers—thick armor plates over a pseudo-muscle layer that boosted the wearer’s strength and made wearing the heavy armor possible. The soldier carried an oversized gauss rifle, not of any design Roland had ever seen before. His face was hidden beneath a matte-black visor; the only marking on his armor was of an eagle within a laurel on his left shoulder.
So this is a legionnaire, he thought.
Roland’s computers measured the legionnaire from the camera angle and gave the man’s height at over six and a half feet tall. Unarmored weight at two hundred twenty pounds—by his build, none of it fat.
“They’ve got some big boys,” Aignar said. He sent an image capture from another video. Eight of the legionnaires, all similarly large and imposing, firing through the barricade. Roland magnified a section in the background. A legionnaire lay dead in a pool of blood, chest armor mangled.
“Sir.” Roland said and sent the picture to Gideon.
“Did they leave any wounded behind?” Gideon asked the foreman.
“No,” Dinkins said. “Any that were hurt managed to walk out of here. They flash-burned their dead and took the ashes with them. Not sure when the army started doing that.”
“Look at this.” Cha’ril sent a picture to the lance: a mob of red-armored aliens with wide, hunched shoulders charging toward the town, all wielding rifles connected to their arms and torsos with glowing cables.