The Ibarra Sanction (Terran Armor Corps Book 2)

by Richard Fox

  “If there was some breakthrough that would make you whole, would you take it? Even if it cost you your armor?” she asked.

  “There’s no such thing,” he snapped. “Wondering about some magic transformation is a waste of time. If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle. But since you asked, no I wouldn’t give up my armor for anything. You know what happened to Saint Kallen? She was diagnosed with Batten’s Disease, could’ve left the Iron Hearts behind, gone into treatment and survived. She chose to keep fighting, knowing the decision was a death sentence. How could I punch out from you and the others just to walk around like some sort of…normal person?”

  “The plugs in the base of our skulls mark us out as anything but normal,” she said. “We give up so much to be armor.”

  “But in return…” He held up his lower leg and the ankle servo jerked from side to side. “Always a lot more glamorous in the movies.”

  “Aignar, you have a child. How is being armor affecting you as a parent?”

  “Damn, Cha’ril. I should be on a shrink’s couch for that kind of a question.”

  “I don’t want you to become any smaller,” she said. “If the question bothers you, then—”

  “Ask me the real question. You’re beating around the bush.” He dug his tool into the ankle housing and scraped thorn branches out onto the ground. “And speaking of bushes…”

  “Human soldiers do not become pregnant while they’re on active duty. I am aware of the birth control measures your females go through. But what would happen if one does become pregnant?”

  “Shipped off the front lines, that’s for sure,” Aignar said. “Can’t have a baby that close to danger. And it’s not like a woman with a bun in the oven is that effective on the front lines. My ex, when she was about to pop Joshua, could barely pick up anything. Then it was, ‘Rub my feet’ this, ‘I’m so uncomfortable’ that…I was in the field for most of the pregnancy. Pretty sure that was a contributing factor to the divorce. Among other things.”

  “Such a conflict…I have trouble understanding it. Dotari lay a single egg after a brief gestation period. Traditionally, the grandparents will care for the egg until it hatches, then the mother will provide lactation. I’m surprised humans manage so well with only two nipples—”

  “Skip ahead before you start talking about your cloaca.”

  “A pregnant Dotari is not removed from combat,” she said. “All our ships carry crèches and eggs are transported back to our home world as soon as possible. The hatching can be delayed until the mother’s tour of duty is complete.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Did you feel any pressure to procreate after the Ember War? When there were so few humans left?”

  “I was a kid when that happened. My procreation urge came after too many beers and being on my honeymoon. No one ever told me I had to have kids, not like there weren’t proccie tubes churning out new people every nine days. If the Hale Treaty hadn’t shut down the proccies, we’d have more people in the Solar System than right before the Xaros showed up.”

  “In Dotari history, there was an accident aboard the Canticle of Reason, the colony fleet’s flag ship. Tens of thousands lost in a day. The Council of Firsts decided that every Dotari woman of laying age would have their birth control measures removed.”

  “They forced women to have babies?”

  “Hardly. Dotari females have a hormonal need for procreation—not as life-threatening as what the Karigole deal with—but the urge is so strong that it does not require alcohol and honey from Luna to consummate. The Council just lets nature take its course. It took two generations before the Canticle was fully crewed.”

  “I never heard that story before. So what’re you getting at, Cha’ril? I’m still waiting on that question.”

  “Aignar, am I pretty?”

  He fumbled with his tool, dropping his leg to the ground, and turned his helm to her in stunned silence.

  She picked his leg up and put it back on his lap.

  “If the answer is no and you are too polite to say so, I can—”

  “Wait. What? We’ve crossed into this whole weird area and I’m a lot more confused now than when we started talking.”

  “You have a child. Clearly this ex of yours considered you acceptable for matrimony and procreation. Was it a combination of relative attractiveness and earning potential? Family arrangements? Purely a by-product of intoxication? I remember Roland and Masako after our night out in Australia.”

  “Yeah, those two were stupid for each other.”

  “I do not have a child. Having one while I am armor is not impossible. I was never one for dating, and now…” She touched the back of her helm, miming the plugs into her skull. “Naked augmentation is not attractive on a Dotari.”

  “I never…never thought of you that way,” Aignar said. “What makes one human attracted to another is very personal.”

  “I see,” she said, turning her attention back to his leg.

  “But if I was a Dotari guy, I’d ask you out,” he said. “I’ve seen you getting looks in the mess hall. Don’t kid yourself—I bet they all think you’re a ten.”

  “Ten what?”

  “Out of ten. Do Dotari date like human teenagers? Is there someone you want me to talk to? Wow…here’s a conversation I never thought I’d have in the Armor Corps.”

  “No. Never involve yourself in Dotari courtship. Not unless you want to provide both the dowry and witness to the consummation.”

  “Forget I asked.”

  “But thank you, Aignar. If I was a human female, I might try and get you drunk.”

  “No, that’s not…thank you. Also, never say that to any human guy. Ever,” Aignar said.

  “Is there some sort of—”

  “Oh look! Transports.” Aignar pointed over the mountain ridge to several Destrier aircraft in the distance. “I need to get dressed. Hurry up with my leg.”

  ****

  Roland drifted in and out of sleep as his Mule rumbled through turbulence. His armor was in “storage” configuration, folded into a trunk shape the size of a small cargo container and bolt-locked onto the floor of the transport. Even though the space within his womb hadn’t changed, he always felt cramped in the more compact configuration.

  Aignar was in the same Mule, along with almost two dozen somber colonists.

  “Roland, you asleep?” Aignar asked him over IR.

  “Yes.” Roland tensed his muscles, which strained against the first actual effort they’d done in days.

  “Good. Something’s been bugging me about what Gideon said. Most of 3rd Squadron defected—went with the Ibarras, right?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “I’ve been studying lance heraldry since I found out we were going to stay with Gideon and be Iron Dragoons. Historically, Dragoons were heavily armed infantry soldiers that rode into battle on horseback. Our heraldry comes from the American army unit that fought in the Iraq War in unarmored vehicles, oddly enough. So—”

  “You’re rambling. You only ramble when you’re scared.”

  “I am not scared. I fight inside humanity’s most perfect killing machine. I fear nothing…but I am concerned,” Aignar said.

  “You’re ‘concerned’ over heraldry?”

  “All the lances that went ‘missing’ with 3rd Squadron had their official files closed—pretty standard when there are battle losses, but not with MIAs. General Laran and the top brass must want them forgotten, which I can understand.”

  “Rambling.”

  “The Templar keep their own records, tracking who’s gone through the rites and stood vigil at Memorial Square. I was looking into 3rd Squadron’s Templars…and they were Templar.”

  “There are Templar in every squadron and most every lance that’s not Dotari,” Roland said.

  “No. They were all Templar. Every last one of them. It didn’t hit me until I saw the cross on that sword they gave you.”

  Roland’s jaw clenched
tight. “Why?” he asked. “Every Templar we know is dedicated to Earth. How could any—”

  “Not Earth, humanity,” Aignar said. “Saint Kallen is the iron heart that never wavers. We will take our oaths to ideals, not politics. Maybe this is why Gideon is borderline hostile to us joining the order.”

  “Almost a third of Mars’ armor is Templar,” Roland said. “Do you think High Command thinks they might…follow 3rd Squadron to the Ibarras?”

  “I always thought it was odd that Laran was promoted to general and Corps Commander over Colonel Martel. She’s not Templar. He is.”

  “Damn the Ibarras,” Roland said. “They caused this entire mess. Maybe we can end it all in this system before humanity splits into factions for good.”

  “You’re not wrong,” Aignar said, “but don’t you wonder why those Templar went with them? What would make you leave the Corps, leave Mars…leave it all behind?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to know. We’ve got enough real problems on Oricon. I don’t need to add hypotheticals to my list.” Roland shifted inside his womb. His armor rocked against the deck, startling a colonist sitting next to him.

  “Yeah, sorry. I’ll let you go back to sleep,” Aignar said.

  Roland shut off the IR link…but sleep never came.

  Chapter 12

  “From what little telemetry data we picked up,” Strickland tapped his control screens and crescent-shaped Kesaht fighters maneuvered in the middle of the holo tank, “their void superiority craft are not as maneuverable as our Eagles, but they are a hair faster. While we don’t know how many they lost fighting the Ibarrans, at the worst case, we’re looking at no more than a thousand by the configuration of their capital ships.”

  Holograms of the fleet’s strike carrier captains and their wing commanders stood around Lettow’s tank. The admiral crossed his arms and looked at the Falkland’s captain, Hormond.

  “We can get ninety birds in the void,” Hormond said. “One on one, our pilots are the best out there, except for the Dotari. From what little we saw at the tail end of the Ibarra fight with them, the Kesaht fighter tactics are almost…amateur. We can handle any mission you give us, but we get swarmed with bogies and the situation will be in doubt.”

  “Understatements are not helpful,” Lettow said. “What if they sent every fighter they have at once?”

  “The crews know the old Xaros drills,” Strickland said. “Each ship has spike shells and a volley of flechettes off the rail cannons would be effective. Haven’t seen a fleet do a full on thresher since we taught the Naroosha a lesson.”

  “Have all ships run anti-fighter drills,” Lettow said. “I’m concerned about the missiles we saw them using, their tracking software and warheads.”

  “The Ibarras know,” Hormond said. “Something tells me they won’t share if we ask nicely.”

  “It’s in the Ibarras interest for us to bleed against the Kesaht,” Lettow said. “We take a beating and we might not have the combat power to bring their fleet to heel.”

  “And I thought they might be redeemable,” Strickland said.

  In the holo tank, alert icons pulsed over every ship in the Javelin squadron. Lettow frowned and tapped the Scimitar, the squadron’s lead ship. The ship’s bridge had gone offline, but the rest of the systems were still functioning. The same failure was happening to all the artillery ships.

  “Damn peculiar,” Lettow said. He pulled down a menu on the Scimitar and opened a channel to the captain.

  A vid link of Lieutenant Commander Wibben came up; the vid bobbed up and down as the man ran.

  “Wibben. What’s going on?” Lettow asked.

  Wibben’s eyes widened, startled as the admiral appeared inside his visor. “Complete power failure on the bridge, sir. Airlocks engaged just before most of my bridge crew could evacuate. Moving to secondary stations near engineering. We’re working on a solution now, and trying to get Ensign Talson out of there.”

  “Sir,” Strickland’s eyes were wide, “just got updates from the rest of the artillery squadron. “They’re all reporting the same failure…and that one crew member is locked inside the bridge. All of them.”

  “What the hell…” Lettow zoomed in on the afflicted ships. Then, the error codes vanished. Strickland looked at the admiral and shrugged.

  The artillery squadron flashed amber as their weapons systems came online and the long vanes sticking out of their prow charged with energy.

  “They’re targeting one of the Kesaht battleships,” Strickland said. Lines traced from the squadron to the massive Kesaht ship at the center of their fleet. The lines also passed through the cruisers Zurich and Beijing. Count down timers appeared next to the artillery ships.

  “Order the cruisers to get out of the line of fire,” Lettow said to Strickland. “Comms, raise the Kesaht and tell them there’s some sort of malfunction.”

  “I…I can’t, sir!” the lieutenant said. “The system just locked me out of the long range array.”

  “Wibben! Shut down your rail gun,” Lettow said.

  “Controls reverted back to the bridge,” Wibben said. “Talson’s the one doing this and he won’t answer me.”

  “Get back onto your bridge and you shut him down,” Lettow said through a clenched jaw.

  “Cruisers are out of the line of fire,” Strickland said.

  “Comms?” Lettow asked.

  “No joy, sir!”

  He considered ordering the Ardennes to open fire on his own ships, but the command would barely be out of his mouth once the timer fell to zero.

  “No sign the Kesaht have any idea what’s happening,” Strickland said.

  The artillery ships jerked back in sequence as their massive rail cannons fired shells the size of a small car down the twin vanes aimed at the heart of the alien ship. Even with the blistering speed of the shells, it took nearly thirty seconds for the rounds to close the distance.

  Lettow forced himself to keep his eyes open, knowing that he was the commanding officer of the fleet that declared war on a new alien species, whether he gave the order or not.

  A rail cannon shell lanced through a destroyer-sized vessel just before it struck the Kesaht battleship, a shield flared across the massive ship’s prow. The shell careened off and struck the stern of an escort, sending it spinning out of formation.

  “They have shields?” Lettow asked no one.

  The next two hits delivered a one-two punch that sent a wave of static crackling along the port side. The last two hit simultaneously, stabbing through and ripping down the battleship’s keel. It split in half like an axe through a log of firewood.

  Debris bounced off the remaining Kesaht battleship, sending ripples down the ship’s forward shields. To the battleship’s stern, a spinning cannon tube hit the irregular hull plates and chiseled one away.

  “But their shields are directional…” Lettow processed this new bit of information as he resigned himself to a fight he hadn’t provoked, but the Kesaht would likely insist on fighting.

  In the holo tank, the Scimitar went offline with a total power failure.

  “Admiral,” Wibben came up, his breathing coming quick and shallow, “my chief engineer tripped the emergency shut down sequence. I’ll be back on my bridge soon as we get the doors open. Have to use the manual gears and it’s taking time.”

  Lettow nodded and closed the channel. The other artillery ships kept pace with the rest of the fleet. None of their rail guns had recharged for a second volley.

  “Kesaht fleet accelerating to attack speed,” Strickland said.

  “Comms?” Lettow asked.

  “Systems are back on line but…they’re not answering our hails,” the lieutenant said.

  “Orders, sir?” Strickland asked.

  The Kesaht fleet reformed, their claw ships and battlecruisers settling in front of the remaining battleship.

  “Ten minutes until we enter weapons range,” Lettow said. “Ten minutes to stop this from getting worse. Kee
p our current readiness level. Do not launch fighters. No aggressive moves.”

  “They come swinging while our guard’s down and—”

  “We have time.”

  The holo tank pulsed red as sensor reports flooded Lettow’s screens. He skimmed over the raw data and frowned.

  “A lepton pulse from the Kesaht? Why would they…” Blood drained out of Lettow’s face as the pieces clicked together.

  New target icons appeared in the holo tank. Around the outer edge of the Crucible, Kesaht battlecruisers emerged out of stealth. The ships accelerated forward, closing on the 14th fleet like a giant maw.

  Then and there, Lettow knew more bloodshed was inevitable.

  “They were there the whole time,” Strickland said.

  “It was a trap,” Lettow said. “At least we moved out before they could trigger it.” The 14th was outnumbered almost three to one, but the enemy was split into two parts. The new ships started flat footed and would take time to overtake his ships. When they joined the battle with the Kesaht ships hurtling straight for them, the scales would tip far out of Lettow’s favor. He opened a channel to his captains.

  “Hear this,” Lettow said. “We have a fight on our hands. All ships will advance in formation at best speed. We’ve got the chance to defeat this enemy in detail and we will take it. Give them fire and fury. Any that survive will speak of this day with fear for the rest of their lives.”

  Alerts came through from the rest of the artillery ships; they’d secured their bridges after the lone sailor locked inside had opened the doors. That it happened on so many ships at the same time told Lettow the event was no coincidence.

  “Strickland, we’ve got traitors on our ships,” Lettow said. “We’re going to root them out once this fight is over. Then we’re going after the Ibarras to make them pay for this.”

  ****

  “Torp launch,” Strickland said.

  Icons emerged from the Kesaht fleet guarding the battleship and streaked toward Lettow’s ships. He watched them trace down their projected courses; this first launch sent two torpedoes toward each of his forward cruisers.