by Richard Fox
“When she decides to let you go,” Nicodemus said.
Roland raised his sword to throw it but stopped himself.
“You should not spend the feast by yourself,” Nicodemus said. “You can join me, if you choose.”
Roland did a double take at the older man.
“Eat something other than processed nutrient paste outside my cell? Let me think…yes.” Roland tapped his sword against the side of his leg. The Feast of Saint Kallen on Mars was a significant event. Every Templar in Mount Olympus attended. The only time Roland had gone, a bison had been harvested from the Dakota plains and served.
More important than the chance to eat real food, though, was the chance that Roland might glimpse the entire strength of the Ibarran armor force.
“I’ll need your word that you will act as a proper guest,” Nicodemus said. “Abuse this courtesy and every privilege we give you will vanish.”
Roland bowed slightly.
“I will be honored.”
****
Roland tugged at the collar of his fresh utility coveralls as he followed a step behind Nicodemus, who led him down a narrow hallway. That Roland could actually see where he was going, move his limbs without the weight of his restraints, almost made him skip with joy.
“How far is the Keep?” Roland asked as his stomach rumbled.
Nicodemus gave him a quick glance, then waved his palm over a sensor on a recessed door. The door slid open and a gust of cold, wet air passed into the hallway. Roland followed him into a small hangar, where an air car covered in a sheen of moisture waited. The gull-winged doors rose as the two men approached.
Roland cut to one side and looked to the front as he ducked inside. No driver, no auxiliary controls. He’d seen automated cars like this in Phoenix but had never been able to afford a ride in one. There was no chance of gaining control of the car if he had no way to fly it.
He sat on a seat that ran the length of the passenger compartment, catty-corner from Nicodemus. The doors closed and locked with a thunk of metal pistons, not a far cry from the vault door to his cell block.
The windows went opaque and Roland hid his disappointment. So much for getting the lay of the land.
“Air-car tech…fancy,” Roland said.
“Necessary.” The other man tapped on a control screen built into his door and the hum of anti-grav repulsors in the wheel wells thrummed through the car. Roland felt the car lift off, then accelerate forward. The patter of rain beat against the windows.
Roland started an internal count.
“What does Earth tell you about us?” Nicodemus asked. “That we’re traitors? Living like pirates on some forgotten world? Deviants creating some twisted society that worships the Ibarras?”
“Honestly? I didn’t even know the Ibarras had gone rogue until after I found gun-camera footage on the Cairo,” Roland said. “Before that, word was the Ibarras were off on some kind of science mission. Then her fleet showed up on Oricon and the details came out. The brass pinned Marc Ibarra and the Hiawatha as why he ran off. They never told us about Stacey’s…condition. Or about you and the other armor. I’m sure more’s come out since I became your guest.” Roland looked at the dark window as beads of moisture ran along the side, pushed by the air car’s flight.
“Not outright lies,” Nicodemus said. “Not yet. Let me show you what we’re building out here.” He touched his control panel and the windows cleared.
Roland jumped back as the air car swept past a building. The sky was the color of red wine, so deep that it was almost purple, like a storm cloud pregnant with rain. Drops of water patted against the windshield. Roland looked up and saw lines of air cars stacked atop each other, their bodies lost to the thick fog, but their running lights shining through the darkness.
Their car snapped past the building, and a long line of skyscrapers stretched down a wide boulevard. The buildings’ tops and bases were lost in the clouds, so Roland couldn’t tell how many blocks extended down the street in the shifting curtains of rain. Out the window on Nicodemus’ side of the car, the city continued.
“This is…how many people live here?” Roland tried to do a quick calculation, remembering how many residents the larger towers in Phoenix could hold. Without seeing the full extent of the city, it was entirely possible that tens of millions made their home here. If the Ibarras had a megalopolis to rival the prewar sprawl from San Diego to San Francisco or the old Beijing expanse…
“Who lives here is more important,” Nicodemus said.
The car turned sharply into a building and floated into a garage. It came to a stop in a cradle and jets of air blew water off the exterior as the garage carried it to a curved walkway with several elevator doors.
The doors opened with a pleasant ding.
Nicodemus stepped out and motioned for Roland to follow. The light above an elevator lit up.
“Hurry,” Nicodemus said as he stretched out his pace and walked to the doors. “This whole garage is closed off while you’re in the open. People have schedules.”
“What does Ibarra tell everyone about Earth? That the place has gone to hell and we’ve been burning worlds to force you all out of hiding?” Roland asked as he jogged up to Nicodemus.
“Maybe I should have kept the muzzle on you.” Nicodemus walked into the elevator, which opened without him having to adjust his stride. The control panel read CP, then blinked off as it began moving.
Can’t even tell how many floors this place has, Roland thought.
“The people you’re about to meet,” Nicodemus smoothed his hair out, “they are…unwitting. You understand?”
“Not exactly.” Roland frowned.
“You are my guest. Act as such.” Nicodemus faced the door, went to one knee, and opened his arms.
The doors opened and a voice squealed, “Daddy!”
A boy almost flew into the elevator and hugged Nicodemus. His hair was a shade lighter, but he had the same dark eyes and chin as his father.
“Ugh, Jonathan, you’re getting so big.” Nicodemus stood up, and the boy clung to his father’s shoulders. “I’ll need my armor to carry you soon.”
“Silly,” the boy said before he dropped down and ran off. “Mom! Mom! Dad brought a friend!”
Roland gave Nicodemus a sideways glance. The day had been full of surprises, but not to the point where he could ever consider the Ibarran armor a friend.
“Unwitting,” Nicodemus repeated, leading Roland into the apartment. The doorway led into a living room with a beat-up couch and a floor littered with toys. The smell of cooking food came over a low wall separating the living room from a kitchen. He saw the silhouette of a woman in the steam as the bang of pots and pans echoed through the apartment.
“No! Jonathan, I told you not to touch that,” the woman said. A baby started squalling down the hall from a room next to the kitchen.
“I’m needed.” Nicodemus pointed down a short hallway to a dining room. “If you don’t mind.”
“No problem.” Roland backed down the hallway and kicked a wooden truck with his heel. He turned around to pick the toy up from where it had stopped against a wall, and found it next to a recessed chamber in the wall covered in glass. Inside was a humanoid robot standing on a charging mat. The robot had a matronly build to it, a standard Rosie-22 model from Ibarra Robotics used across Earth for menial tasks.
Given the detritus of toys and pajamas in the hallways and a half-complete bit of crayon art on a wall, Roland wondered if the robot was broken.
He carried the truck into the dining room, where there was a table with a fall print cloth, six chairs, and a small shrine to Saint Kallen in a corner. A plaque with a picture of four armor soldiers in their dress uniforms caught his eye. Three men and a woman stood beside a small pennant with the Iron Dragoons lance patch sewn onto it. He wasn’t surprised to see a younger-looking Morrigan and Nicodemus in the photo, but he did a double take when he recognized Gideon. The third man looked to be just out of
his teens and was the only one smiling in the photo.
A brass plate bore the inscription: Iron Dragoons 1/17/12 G. Nicodemus, B. Bassani, H. Gideon. B. Morrigan. TOUJOURS PRET! ALWAYS READY!
They were in the same lance together, Roland thought. Nicodemus and Morrigan were Dragoon like me…once.
On the walls were two paintings in rosewood frames, one of George Washington kneeling in prayer next to a horse in a snowy wood, the other—and the painting Roland chose to study further—was of the Battle of Firebase X-Ray.
Armor faced off against the Ruhaald scorpion tanks and infantry besieging the outpost, a rail cannon battery near Phoenix. The focal point was of a single suit of armor leaping through the air toward one of the massive tanks, a spear held high and ready to strike. Phantom J-hooked wings of eagle feathers rose from the spear wielder’s back, meant to be there in spirit.
Roland frowned, remembering his visit to Saint Kallen’s tomb where the memento mori of the armor lost in the final battle with the Xaros were interred. The same wings from the painting were in three of the empty sepulchers.
“And the winged hussars arrived,” Jonathan said from behind Roland. “They turned the tide at the battle and that’s why Carius chose them for marty-dumb. Their names were Vladislav, Ferenz, and Adamczyk. We have to learn that at training.”
“Training? Already?” Roland asked. “How old are you?”
“I’m five, but I score higher than most ten-year-olds in the VR. Can I have my truck back? Mommy said I can’t eat until I clean up my mess like I was supposed to.” The boy held out a hand and Roland handed him the toy. Jonathan hurried back into the hallway, the pounding of his feet stopping every few seconds as he picked something else off the floor.
Nicodemus carried in plates and silverware. Roland grabbed half and started setting his end of the table.
“My apologies,” Nicodemus said. “I didn’t have the chance to send a message ahead; otherwise, the bot would have had everything spic-and-span before we arrived.”
“My orphanage was never clean,” Roland said. “We never had a bot either. Ms. Gottfried said they were too expensive.”
“We don’t use ours when I’m off deployment cycle,” Nicodemus said. “When I’m home, I’m home. But every family with children is issued a Rosie. Helps the parents focus on the children.”
“Hello.” A very pregnant woman came around the corner, carrying a baby girl on her hip that looked to be a year old. “I’m Suzzana and Alec here,” she put a hand on her husband’s shoulder, “didn’t tell me we were having guests tonight. Forgive the mess.”
“Mess? What mess?” Roland looked around, feigning confusion.
“Aren’t you sweet?” Her grip on Nicodemus’ shoulder turned into a pat. “Honey, get Gisele’s high chair, won’t you?”
Nicodemus set a fork and knife to one side of a plate and left the dining room.
Suzzana looked at the bare right shoulder of Roland’s utilities—where Nicodemus bore his Templar Cross—and frowned.
“I thought everyone from the regiment would be at the feast and the vigil, unless they had family, of course,” she said.
“He’s still a bean head.” Nicodemus brought a plastic chair and tray into the room and locked it onto one of the wooden seats. “Not ready to give the vows or bare witness just yet.”
“Oh, that explains it,” she said. A beeping came from the kitchen. “I sure hope that means it’s done and not that it’s burning.” She handed the little girl off and hurried back to the kitchen, one hand on the small of her back as she went.
Roland’s face flushed. He suddenly felt like an intruder, as he was not of the Ibarra Nation or a true friend to his host.
Nicodemus set the little girl into her high chair and turned around to find his son holding a small sack. He emptied the sack onto the girl’s tray and she squealed as wooden blocks tumbled out.
“If you think this is complex, you should see bedtime,” Nicodemus said.
“I’m not sure I should be here,” Roland said.
“I invited you, didn’t I? The Feast of Saint Kallen is a time for togetherness, family. The Templar traditions are new, but if we don’t keep to them, they will never endure. You will join the Order someday,” he said.
“Daddy, is this Bassani?” Jonathan asked.
Nicodemus’ face fell. “No, son, this is Roland Shaw. He is armor, like Bassani was.”
Suzzana called for the boy and he ran off.
Roland wanted to ask about Bassani, but Nicodemus had said “was.” Past tense. Broaching the subject at the dinner table felt wrong.
“How did you and her meet?” Roland asked.
“I went to the proccie tubes and typed in what I wanted. Nine days later and bam.” Nicodemus watched as Roland’s jaw dropped. “Really? You think that’s how it works here? I saw her on the flight deck of the Warsaw when we first arrived in system. She was one of the few quartermasters that came with us. I never thought a woman in a power loader would catch my eye, but she and I pulled a twenty-hour shift to get the first wave of builders and utility crates dirtside. It was easier for me while in armor; she showed her iron. Once things calmed down and I could get out of the suit, I went and found her. Whirlwind courtship after that.”
“Are all the towers like this? Families?” Roland asked.
Jonathan carried over a tin of steaming bread and held it high for Nicodemus as his father set it onto a small beaded mat on the table. The smell of corn and butter made Roland’s mouth water. The boy ran back to the kitchen, panting.
“Some,” Nicodemus said. “That surprise you—that we have the procedural technology, but we still have families? That in the Ibarra Nation, men and women fight and work and that mothers focus on raising children—which is more work than you can imagine—when the tubes could create any kind of civilization we desired?”
“This is…shockingly normal,” Roland said as Jonathan brought over a dish of multicolored cooked grain and hurried back to the kitchen. The little girl lunged for the new dish, but Nicodemus stopped her before she could stick a hand into the hot food.
“Human culture developed to be this.” Nicodemus set a few blocks atop each other and the girl knocked them over with a giggle. “The Ibarras saw no need to try and improve on a system that works. We have children not because we need true born to be armor pilots—and I’ve seen enough battles that I don’t want Jonathan to follow my footsteps, but it’s what he wants—but because children are the reason for everything.”
“It’s hard for me to relate.” Roland scratched the side of his face. “My parents died in the war. The state raised me. I don’t think any of the armor on Ma—you know—are married. That normal? Like, Morrigan? She seeing anyone?”
“She was engaged,” Nicodemus said. “I am something of an outlier. I’m lucky I found a strong woman that can deal with the deployments and who was willing to even look twice at me.”
“You’re not that hard to look at,” Suzzana said as she slapped Nicodemus on the rear end and set a tray of scalloped potatoes on the table. She sat down and rubbed her pregnant belly. “And I’m spent. Get the roast, honey?”
“Are you in Daddy’s lance?” Jonathan asked.
“No, I’m still in training,” Roland said.
“Do you want to be in his lance? With Aunt Morry?”
“I don’t think your father needs any more help. He’s one of the best soldiers I’ve ever seen.” Roland smiled nervously. The statement was true enough, but adding that Nicodemus had dismantled Roland in suited combat could remain unstated.
“Here we go.” Nicodemus brought in a tray of lamb chops. “Paidakia just like Yaya used to make.”
“The tower’s food combiner is on the fritz again,” Suzzana said. “I had to drop your name to get all this in time. Otherwise, it would have been leftovers.”
“I’ll speak to the super.” Nicodemus helped Jonathan into his seat and motioned for Roland to sit next to the head of the table.
“And mention the VR chambers are locked to old Las Vegas Strip. I can’t take the kids for a walk down that street.” Suzzana looked at Roland. “Sorry, these buildings were built for speed, not quality. I don’t complain this much normally.”
“I can be intimidating if I need to be,” Nicodemus said.
Roland chuckled and sat down.
“Will the guest say grace?” Jonathan asked.
“I…don’t think it’s my place,” Roland said.
“It’s my duty to say it, son,” Nicodemus said. He folded his hands against the table and his family followed suit. Roland bowed his head.
“Heavenly Father…”
Chapter 17
The Ardennes burst through the Crucible gate and her fleet followed.
“Limpets away,” Commander Paxton announced from her spot opposite Lettow around the tactical holo. The 14th’s ships filled the holo tank as they emerged through the wormhole, many of which were new, replacements for ships lost during the battle with the Kesaht over Oricon. A moon materialized, the edge growing as the ship’s scanners reached out.
“Dispatch Strike Marine teams to the command nodes. Lethal force authorized if lethal force encountered,” Lettow said.
“Assault ships in the void…six of eight limpets in place. Lock down on track. All ships reporting in, Admiral Ericson and the Normandy coming through now,” Paxton said. She’d proven capable enough since Strickland was reassigned. Losing his old operations officer was a blow, but he couldn’t remain in a key position, not when he was at risk of being compromised by the Ibarras with a single message.
The moon came into focus, and Lettow frowned at the unusual surface dotted by huge craters, all of identical diameter and depth spaced neatly from each other. Moving that amount of mass was an engineering feat humanity had yet to master.
“The Pathfinders call them Z-holes,” Paxton said. “Xaros scooped out what they needed to make the Crucible gates. You only see them on this end of the galaxy. Farther in, they started mining out the interior and leaving the surface pristine. No one’s sure why.”