by Richard Fox
“What is this?” Roland asked.
“The calling,” she said. “Watch. You’ll understand soon. This is an exact recording from the day before the Ember War ended…well, there’s some embellishment later on.”
A hologram of a gray-haired soldier with a cane appeared next to the armor and walked out to the front of the stage. The holo paced along the edge, looking across the praying Templar.
“Old Colonel Carius,” Ibarra said. “I remember him when I was a little girl. Grandpa used to have him over to the mansion, always asking him about the armor program, needling him for more information to make the suits work better. Carius used to say I was always too skinny, should have spent more time outside than with my nose buried in books. One day he showed up with a limp and the cane that had Chinese writing on it. He never told me how he got it, which was kind of him. No reason to give a girl nightmares.”
“Armor, your world needs you,” the Carius hologram said with a German accent, the words projected through speakers. “The Xaros advance on Earth—more drones than scoured Earth clean the first time they arrived, many more than we faced in the second invasion. They will reach Mars in less than a week, and no matter how hard we fight, the outcome will never be in doubt.”
Carius knocked his cane tip against the floor.
“But we are not without hope,” he said. “There is a way to strike the dragon in its heart. A singular hope against this coming darkness. One ship will be the sword. One ship will carry humanity’s will to fight, to survive. And I will carry that weapon. But I cannot carry it alone.”
At the edge of the stage, another hologram appeared and Roland caught his breath. Saint Kallen. He recognized her long braided hair and gentle face. She wore a shimmering gown and walked—walked—on bare feet. Her holo was ethereal…and Roland realized what Ibarra meant about an embellishment. Kallen was a quadriplegic, all pictures or statues of her he’d ever seen were of her in armor or in a wheelchair.
Carius took no notice of Kallen as she walked up beside him.
“I have fought as armor for decades,” Carius said. “Many of you have stood shoulder to shoulder with me in Australia, Ceres, Mars…who will fight beside me now?”
“Take me,” came from the armor.
Carius looked over his shoulder at the suit playing Elias and rapped his cane against the stage twice, then beat a fist against his heart. Roland felt the blood run from his face. Carius accepted Elias the same way the armor began pre-battle rites.
Kallen walked off the stage and slowly made her way through the still-kneeling Templar.
“Take me!” One in the back rows stood. Roland looked at the man who spoke and noted that he lacked the skull plugs of an armor soldier. Another stood and made the same offer to Carius.
Kallen stopped next to a woman and knelt beside her. The ghostly hologram reached out and touched the Templar’s face. As she stood, Roland caught a glint of light off her plugs, and she shouted, “Take me!”
“I’ll have you,” Carius said to her.
She marched up the stairs, went to Elias, and touched the armor’s leg before she vanished behind a curtain.
Across the theater, more and more Templar stood and demanded to go on the mission, a mission from which none of the armor ever returned. Carius called forth only a few, all of them armor soldiers, and only after the Kallen apparition had touched them.
Soon, every Templar in the room was on their feet.
“That’s how it happened,” Ibarra said. “They all volunteered. Every last armor soldier demanded to go, knowing full well it was a suicide mission.”
“They’re not all armor down there,” Roland said.
“No, but everyone in the Nation’s military keeps to the Saint. Those who’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty are invited to take part in this ceremony. All the new armor go through this…and whatever the final rite is that happens on the other side of the curtain.”
“Do they choose to keep to the Saint, or do you program the faith into them?” Roland asked.
“If I had a heart, that would have stung,” Ibarra said. “Tell me, why do you care so much about Kallen? Why bother with her? You weren’t raised in the faith. No one was.”
“She is an ideal.” Roland watched as the hologram walked back up the stairs and went to Elias. She touched the massive sword, and the armor’s helm turned and looked at her. She brought her gaze up to meet his, and she smiled. The hologram slowly faded away.
“The Saint fought to earn her plugs, kept fighting beside her lance after learning she had a disease that would only worsen if she stayed in her armor. She cared more for her lance, for humanity, for her armor, than she cared for herself. She was everything armor should be…I can only hope to follow in her shadow,” Roland said.
“We left Earth so we could save it,” Ibarra said. “Save us all. The Nation’s purpose isn’t far off from the ideal you describe. Don’t be surprised that my soldiers keep to her too.”
“But do you? Why don’t you become Templar?”
She shook her head slowly.
“I’ve seen too much,” she said. “Dealt with things that would scar your mind…I am not one for faith. I knew Kallen in passing. She was as kind and brave as you think she is. I saw the bond between the Iron Hearts…I leave such things for you.”
She touched his arm, and he felt the ice of her being through her gloves.
“I am not one for love…or compassion,” she said.
“My lady,” Marshal Davoust intruded, his face flush and covered in a sheen of sweat. He passed her a data slate.
Roland felt a none-too-gentle tug on his arm and he stepped away from Ibarra and the marshal.
Morrigan drew Roland across the room while the rest of the armor clustered around the two leaders.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“A Kesaht fleet is moving through the Crucible network,” she said. Her demeanor was off. Her green eye looked on the verge of tearing up, and Roland wasn’t sure if it was the ceremony or the news that had chipped away at her resolve.
“The fleet is enormous, at least four times what we saw at Oricon, and it stopped at a system a few light-years from one of our colonies,” she said.
“You have colonies?”
“Then the Kesaht used the Crucible to do a point-to-point jump to Balmaseda and the colony’s gone off-line. The colony’s been in place for a few months, two hundred thousand people…and they don’t stand a chance against a fleet that size.”
Roland watched as Stacey listened to Davoust and the bearded Templar. The two men shook their heads at each other and pointed at the data slate the marshal carried.
“What will you do?” Roland asked.
“It’s up to our lady,” Morrigan said. “But all those civilians…”
Ibarra held up a hand and the discussion around her ceased.
“We cannot risk the enemy tracing us back to Navarre,” Ibarra said. “Marshal Davoust will take the ready fleet and the Warsaw to evacuate as many colonists as he can.”
“The Warsaw can bring only so many ships, my lady,” Davoust said. “We’ll be outnumbered and outgunned.”
“Then bring our best soldiers.” The throng of armor parted as she walked to the door.
A ball of ice formed in Roland’s stomach as he remembered the Kesaht ship where he encountered one of their Ixio officers, as he remembered the captured humans floating in the aliens’ tanks, cybernetics sunk into their skulls, their mouths open in silent screams.
“I’ll go!” Roland called out. He made for Ibarra and shrugged off Morrigan as she grasped at him.
“Let me fight, Ibarra.” Roland kept at her, even as one of her silver-armored guards stepped between them and put a meaty palm against his chest.
She stopped and half-turned to look at Roland as she pulled her hood back up. Her doll-like face regarded him for a moment, then she glanced over Roland’s shoulder to the bearded Templar.
“General Hurson?
” She left the room and the guard with his hand to Roland’s chest gave him a shove that sent Roland back a step.
Roland turned around and faced Hurson and Morrigan. The man shook his head.
“Armor fights as a lance, as a company, as a squadron, as a regiment,” the general said. “There is no place for a single suit.”
“I’ve fought the Kesaht,” Roland said. “I know their tactics, their—”
“No,” Hurson said.
“My lance will take him.” Morrigan raised her chin slightly. “We’re understrength as it is. He will fight as one of us. You have my word, by my honor, and my armor.”
“Nicodemus is the lance commander, not you,” Hurson said.
“He has the same faith in Roland as I do,” she said.
Hurson’s jaw worked from side to side. “By your honor and your armor.”
Morrigan beat a fist against her heart twice.
Hurson shouldered past Roland and left the room with Davoust.
“Was that a yes?” Roland asked Morrigan.
“It was. If you step out of line, the general will take my armor…and Nicodemus’. You understand what this means? You’re fighting for the Ibarra Nation. Earth may never forgive you.”
“I’m not doing this for Ibarra.” Roland glanced at the Templar cross on Morrigan’s sash. “I’m doing it for those that need me. I can’t step away.”
Morrigan cupped the side of Roland’s face.
“There’s iron in your heart. Come, you need armor.”
Chapter 19
Gideon pulled his knees even with his waist, felt the gentle switch of the womb’s amniosis, and reached through his plugs to feel his armor—the weight of full ammunition packs beneath his back armor plates, the gentle hum of his rail cannon. He tensed his shoulder and hip actuators like he was flexing muscles.
It felt good to be back inside his armor.
“Lance, send ready status, call three,” Gideon said and grit his teeth. Roland was gone. “Correction, call two.”
“Aignar. Green across the board. Synch optimal, trending to gold.” His suit came up on Gideon’s HUD, ready for the fight.
“Cha’ril. Amber synch…suit is optimal. No issues,” the Dotari said.
Gideon opened her armor’s feed and concentrated on a text box next to the wire diagram of her inside the armor.
“Cha’ril, there’s a medical alert on you, but it’s written in Dotari. Translate.”
“It’s nothing, sir. Minor glandular response, so low priority that the software engineers never bothered to translate it into English. Frequent among Dotari pilots who’ve been out of the womb for more than a few weeks,” she said.
“Did this happen when we were on the way down to New Bastion? I didn’t have my feed open for you two then,” Gideon said.
“Negative…but I was armored up for less than an hour. The synch bump must be what’s causing the reaction. Nothing of concern.”
As lance commander, he saw a private channel open between Aignar and Cha’ril. Speech data passed between them. Cha’ril’s responses were short, never more than one or two words.
“Any impact on the mission?” Gideon asked.
“No, sir. Let’s find the Ibarrans and ask where they’ve got Roland,” she said.
“Iron Dragoons…to war.” Gideon sent a signal to Chief Henrique and the bolts securing him inside his coffin released with a snap. He walked out and went to the reinforced lift waiting for his lance.
When the lift began moving to take them to the flight deck, Gideon opened a private channel to Aignar.
Gideon let the open static of the line pose the question.
“Nothing to add, sir,” Aignar said.
“She’s not acting like herself.”
“She did just get sort of married. I didn’t press too hard as I’ve had about all their culture that I can take for a while. With all the fuss they made to get Admiral Lettow involved…if there was something else we needed to know, I think they’d tell us. We may be going through trouble with the Ibarras…they’re dealing with near extinction.”
“You didn’t go to the Templar pre-battle ceremony.”
Aignar’s armor shifted weight from side to side.
“There are enough full Templar aboard to perform the rite. They didn’t need me there.”
“Fair enough.” Gideon closed the channel. The lance continued to the flight deck in silence.
****
Three tactical insertion torpedoes ripped through the skies over Balmaseda’s grand mesa. As one, the torpedoes deployed retro-rockets, flaring like comets as they lost forward velocity and dipped toward the surface.
The Iron Dragoons ejected at a hundred meters above ground level and shifted their legs into treads just before they slammed into the dirt. Their torpedoes broke apart, filling the sky with chaff designed to mask their landing zone from sensors.
Aignar revved his treads in reverse, trying to slow down as he slalomed across a dry lake bed. His right side hit a rock and pitched him onto one side. Like a surfer navigating a wave barrel, he punched a fist against the ground and braced himself against flipping over, then he shoved off the ground and leveled out.
His left treads froze, then broke, leaving a trail of metal segments behind as he spun out and finally ground to a halt. He reformed back into his walker configuration and looked back at the messy path behind him.
“This was not better than the last time! In fact, I think it was worse.” He banged a fist against his left leg and started running to catch up with Cha’ril and Gideon ahead of him.
“I noted at least six differences in the insertion procedure since our landing on Oricon,” Cha’ril said. “The engineers must have incorporated our feedback.”
“They must have missed my memo about the acronym,” Aignar said. “Or the one where I said I’d rather crash land in a Mule than—”
“Target sighted,” Gideon said. An outline of several buildings nestled against a massive glacier and a mountain range appeared on Aignar’s HUD.
“No weapon emplacements,” Cha’ril said. “All I’m picking up are utility vehicles.”
Aignar tagged movement amongst the buildings and shared it with the others.
“They know we’re coming. Granted, there was nothing subtle about our arrival,” he said.
“Remember the rules of engagement,” Gideon said. “Lethal force authorized only if we’re threatened or attacked with lethal force.”
“Will they fight us?” Cha’ril asked.
“God, I hope not,” Aignar said. “Miners against armor? It wouldn’t be a fight—it’d be a massacre. I don’t mind crushing Vish or Kesaht all day…but people?”
“Stay alert and stay aggressive,” Gideon said. “We’re here as an overwhelming force so there is no fighting. Ten Rangers drop in on them…they might think they’ve a chance in a fight. Loose V formation at two hundred meters. Weapons free.”
Aignar brought his rotary cannon up onto his shoulder but didn’t activate the spin. He had rounds chambered in his forearm gauss cannon, which would be overkill against an unarmored human. As they drew closer, he scanned the buildings, wary of any Ibarra armor that might be lurking within. He wouldn’t get caught flat-footed again.
As they crossed into the shadow of the mountains and the tall ice cliffs of the glacier, he angled to the right of the small settlement, a half-dozen prefabricated buildings and water pumps connected to massive pipes boring into the deep-blue glacier. The pipes led around the slope of a mountain and disappeared into the shadows.
The pathways between the buildings were deserted, but Aignar saw movement around window edges.
“Come out!” Gideon bellowed through his speakers. “We are Terran Armor Corps. You will not be harmed. Come out!”
Aignar’s rotary cannon mimed the movement of his helm as he scanned the buildings. He looked over at a hauler vehicle, the metal surrounding the cab proving too thick to detect what was inside. He marked it as a dang
er zone and sent the warning to Cha’ril, who was much closer to the truck.
“There are eight individuals in the building directly in front of me,” Gideon said. “If you do not come out with your hands up, I will rip the roof off and take you out. You have ten seconds to comply. Ten…nine…”
The door to the prefab building opened and a tall man in worker’s overalls came out with his hands up, his blond hair and beard marred with dirt. Across his back was a worn-looking rifle, an underpowered civilian version of what Aignar carried back during his Ranger days.
Seven more men and women followed.
“Three in the shower unit,” Aignar said, loudly enough for the colonists to know they couldn’t hide.
“Everyone out!” the blond man said. “It’s no use.”
Another dozen adults filed out from the rest of the work site, all looking like they’d worked long days with few breaks for months. They formed a loose gaggle behind the foreman.
“Name?” Gideon lowered his gauss cannons to one side.
“Etor. I’m the foreman on Pump 4. What the hell are you traitors doing here?” He lowered his hands to his side.
“Removing you,” Gideon said. “How many at this station? You’ll be taken to a transport ship in orbit.”
“This is our home,” Etor said. “What right do you have to come here and take us away?” The rabble behind him echoed his sentiment.
“I’m not here to explain anything. Again, how many people at this station?”
“Putaseme! What happens after we board your transports? You send us back to Navarre?” a woman shouted from the crowd.
Gideon hesitated and Aignar snapped his helm at his lance commander. Aignar would have bet a month’s pay that all these Ibarrans were new proccies. What would happen to them if the Omega Provision was enforced?
“My orders are to remove every person and destroy this pumping station.” Gideon motioned toward the pipes dug into the glacier. “If you’ve got someone hiding in the mountains, they won’t survive once you leave. Don’t kill them out of spite.”