by Richard Fox
“To burn their worlds is not enough,” Bale said. “Imagine what would happen if we found the Qa’Resh weapon. The rest of the galaxy would rally behind the Kesaht, and they would beg to join our unity.”
Tomenakai’s spirits lifted. To imagine scores more species joining the Kesaht, the perfect peace that could be had by all once they submitted to the mind vise…He looked at the laboratory behind Bale, curious just how much progress Bale had made in his experiments.
“We can incorporate less sophisticated species easily enough,” Bale said. “Unity with the other great powers must be built in increments. Thankfully, we are not the only ones that fear the humans,” Bale said. “A plan is in motion. One in which we have a part.”
“What can we do?” Tomenakai asked.
“You will return to the battle,” Bale said, “but with a slight modification.” Lights at the base of his tank blinked on and off.
Tomenakai felt the connection to his body fluctuate, then return with a rush that sent his teeth chattering.
“Your immortalis implants are disabled,” Bale said.
Tomenakai slapped a hand to his chest and his jaw fell open. The implants marked him as a first among equals, proof that his essence was worth more to the Kesaht unity than the enormous cost of the devices. Even worse, to have his immortalis rendered useless…
“Your next death will be your last.” The Toth ambled back to his laboratory. “Succeed in your next mission and I may reactivate the implants. Or not. Go to the armada and teach from the lessons of your failure. You die again and that should provide a nice incentive for the rest of the Kesaht to succeed. At least you’ll be useful, alive or dead. Now get out of my sight.”
Chapter 21
Roland drifted between waking and dreaming. He felt his amniosis slosh around him, but if it was real or just his body creating some manner of stimulus after so long locked away in the womb…he wasn’t sure.
He felt a tingle at the base of his skull. There was a whine as the neural spike from his umbilical lines withdrew from his plugs. There was a pop as the umbilicals detached.
A line of light appeared around the width of his womb. Amniosis flooded out of the armored shell and Roland fell out as someone opened the front hatch and dumped him onto a cold concrete floor.
Roland lay face down, coughing as his body expelled the hyper-oxygenated fluid from his lungs and stomach. His weak eyes made out a blur of two men dragging his womb away. He tried to crawl after them, but his muscles were too weak from disuse to do more than lift a hand. He gagged as he expelled the last of the amniosis and his lungs breathed actual air for the first time in what could have been days or weeks. Time passed oddly while in the dark of the womb.
He slapped a palm into the puddle and pushed his chest off the ground. Fluid dribbled down his face and dripped onto his reflection. He looked haggard and pale. Roland squeezed his temples with one hand, trying to avert the headache that came after every extended mission in armor.
Around him was a simple cot bolted to a waist high wall, toilet…and bars. He was in a cell with a brick back wall, bars running up from the half walls connected to the cell door. He pulled himself up onto the cot and rubbed his legs. Reengaging his body always came with pain, the feel of needle pricks after a limb fell asleep. A bottle of water and a tube of nutrient paste sat on a thin pillow.
Chill air sucked heat from the amniosis still clinging to Roland’s body. His ears, fingers, and toes ached like he’d been on a snowy mountain for too long.
“Hello,” a man said.
Roland sat up, startled. In the corner cell next to his was another man on a cot, this one cloaked in shadow.
“Are you real? You look real,” the man asked.
“If I wasn’t real, I doubt I’d feel this bad,” Roland tried to unscrew the nutrient paste, but his hands and forearms couldn’t manage the dexterity just yet.
“You must be armor, unless traveling around in those pods has become in vogue since I was last outside,” the man said.
“I’m Roland Shaw. Iron Dragoons. Who’re you and where the hell am I?”
“Iron Dragoons aren’t one of hers,” he said. “My my. Here I thought you might have just pissed her off. If a Terran like you is here, then she must be busy.”
“No offense, buddy,” Roland’s stomach rumbled, “but I’m really tired of cryptic garbage.” He tried to open the nutrient paste tube again, but his fingers were too stiff.
“You’re on Navarre,” the man said. “Capital of the shiny new Ibarra Nation. I take it the promotional material hasn’t made it to Earth yet. The marketers should be fired. You want some help with that? I can hear your tummy from here.”
“Fine motor control takes a while to come back,” Roland pressed the tube against his chest and took a wobbly step off the cot. He leaned against the half wall his cell shared with the other man’s, breathing hard from the exertion.
The man stood up and stepped out of the shadows. At first glance, he had a patrician look of one on the tail edge of middle age. As he came closer, his face was eerily still and his eyes were as unblinking as a doll’s.
Roland dropped the tube into the other cell and scrambled back, slipping in the puddle of amniosis and landing hard on his side with a plop.
“What’s wrong?” the man asked.
“You’re like her! Like Stacey Ibarra,” Roland said.
The man unscrewed the cap from the tube and tossed it onto Roland’s cot.
“No, my boy. The problem is that Stacey is far too much like me,” he said. “Name’s Marc Ibarra. Nice to meet you.”
THE END
THE TRUE MEASURE
TERRAN ARMOR CORPS BOOK 3
By
Richard Fox
Copyright © by Richard Fox
All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.
ASIN: B0773V1D2C
Prologue
Howling winds whipped snow across the mountain range as a single Mule transport descended from orbit. The gale swayed the ship from side to side as it sank beneath the side of a mountain range, the white caps of blown snow stretching like grasping hands toward the Mule.
It set down in a valley, running lights on and idling engines melting the snow pack.
In the cargo compartment, a woman unbuckled herself from an acceleration seat and shrugged off a coat. She pulled her long blonde hair into a ponytail and touched a bulge in a thigh pocket.
“This is the place.” A burly man unsnapped a gauss carbine from the side of his chair and slapped in a magazine.
“Put that away, Medvedev. You’ll make them nervous,” she said.
“They want to meet on some no-name world in a no-name system for the exchange. They’re already nervous. Having this means we don’t trust, because you should never trust nervous people. You taught me that, Masha,” he said.
“I can’t wait for you to go back to the legions, you know that?” She walked down the empty cargo bay. She leaned close to the closed ramp, listening to the wind outside.
“Don’t get captured by Haesh gangsters. The agency won’t assign you a bodyguard.” Medvedev rolled his shoulders forward and tapped the carbine against a meaty palm.
“I hardly need—”
Three knocks sounded at the ramp.
“Punctual,” she said. “They are nervous.”
Medvedev raised the carbine to his shoulder as the ramp lowered. Snow broke against the weak force field separating the wintry world beyond and the cargo bay. A Vishrakath marched up the ramp; the ant-like alien walked upright on four limbs and wore nothing to protect its bare flesh from the elements. Two more Vishrakath came behind it, carrying a large metal case.
“The item.” The lead alien extended a hand toward Masha.
“That’s not how this works,” she said. “I verify what you’ve brought, make sure you didn’t kill it in the cold, then yo
u can examine what I’ve got.”
“We have what you want. Make the trade and conclude our business,” the alien said.
“Take off your coat, stay awhile.” Masha took a hand scanner off her belt and shook it at the two Vishrakath between her and the case.
Medvedev took two steps forward before the aliens got out of the way.
Masha ran the scanner over the lock and the lid popped open. Inside were several bags of green fluid in a chiller. She gave one bag a squeeze, then touched the scanner to it.
“Grade A green blood cells.” She touched the scanner to another bag. “Just what the doctor ordered to combat infectious diseases the galaxy over. Where did you guys get this?”
“The security apparatus on New Bastion is less than efficient,” the lead Vishrakath said. “We intercepted it in customs en route to your embassy.”
“Not our embassy.” She took a small box out of her thigh pocket and tossed it to the alien.
The Vishrakath removed a small plate from its utility belt and set the box on top. A hologram of a spacecraft modeled after a conch shell appeared over the box. Reams of data flashed up and down the sides of the holo.
“Why would you part with such knowledge?” the alien asked. “This artifact is far more priceless than a few liters of green blood cells.”
“Well, no one’s found it yet.” Masha brushed the scanner along the inside of the case. “And we have a colony full of people dying because their immune system encountered a virus we didn’t find when we scouted the planet. Do Vishrakath understand that a bird in hand is worth more than two in the bush?”
“We do not.” The alien slipped the box into a pouch.
“Horiek hiltzeko bigarren batean,” she said to Medvedev.
“What?” The skin around the Vishrakath’s eyes darkened.
“Another old saying. The trade was green blood cells for our data on the Qa’Resh Ark that’s hidden somewhere in the galaxy. Not for green blood cells in a case with a tracking device. I was going to kill you and feel bad about it. Now I’m just going to kill you out of principle.” She aimed her thumb and forefinger at the Vishrakath.
“Earth humor is not appreciated. The case—” The alien’s head exploded with one shot from Medvedev’s carbine. He cut down the other two a heartbeat later.
“Amateurs!” Masha lifted up a seat and pulled out a cooler with biohazard labels on it. She transferred the blood pouches as Medvedev removed the data box from the dead alien, then kicked the alien corpses down the ramp.
Masha let her bodyguard get rid of the case with the tracking device as she tapped in a command on her forearm computer.
“Warsaw, we’ve got the jackpot. Send the fighter strike to destroy their lander and take out whatever rock they came in. Send word back to Lady Ibarra that Balmaseda will have their green blood cells soon. We’ll take the rest back to Navarre for processing as soon as we can.”
Medvedev raised the ramp.
“See,” she said, “I didn’t even need you.”
“I don’t find you funny. I would be angrier, but I got to kill aliens. Today is a good day.”
“Oh, by the Saint, how long do I have to deal with you?” she said, almost pouting.
****
Soon after the exchange ended on the unnamed and unclaimed ice planet, the Warsaw passed through the system’s Crucible jump gate. Inside a bag of green blood cells, inert nanites were roused to life by the graviton disturbance. They melded into a small machine and sent a single transmission through the Crucible network.
Then, once the graviton field faded away as the Warsaw transited through the wormhole, the nano-machine broke apart and returned to slumber.
Chapter 1
Frost grew around the bars of Roland’s cell. His breath fogged with each exhalation and his soaked body glove stiffened against him as the amniosis fluid from his armor’s womb thickened in the frigid air.
In the next cell over, a metal man cocked his head to one side and stepped closer to the bars between them. His head was a perfect sculpture of middle-aged man of European heritage, but the skin and widow’s peaked hair were silver, his every feature marked out by slight lines in the metal. Covering his body was a simple jumpsuit of the same silver color, like he was an incomplete drawing of a man, the lines inked but the rest uncolored.
“Like I said, I’m Marc Ibarra,” the man said. His mouth didn’t move when he spoke, but a slight ripple emanated across his face. “You have heard of me, haven’t you? It’s not like I was gone from Earth that long.”
The chill air stung the edges of Roland’s ears and his fingers ached. He stepped back, his heel cracking a thin sheen of ice on the floor of his cell.
“What the hell are you?” Roland asked, nearly slipping as he retreated to a bunk bolted to the wall.
“Inventor, entrepreneur, bold explorer…savior.” Ibarra leaned his forearms against the bars as hoarfrost crept away from where his metal limbs met the bars. “I’ve been called much worse too. Now I’m a prisoner, one so unique—or utterly irrelevant—I don’t even rate a number. Maybe now that you’re down here, the guards will have to do something to tell us apart, though I doubt they’ll ever confuse us.”
He pulled back, and his arms caught against the bars, frozen in place.
“What the—?” His brow furrowed and he pulled his forearms free with a snap. “Ah…that’s right, keep forgetting. They keep my cell’s temperature and humidity regulated to stop this sort of thing. That I was throwing snowballs at the Tweedles after I was thrown in here probably had something to do with that…and why they took my sink and crapper away. Not that I needed them.”
“Is…is everyone here like you?” Roland wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, and frost in his body glove cracked as he huddled against his mattress for warmth. “S-S-Stacey Ibarra…” He spat the name out as his teeth chattered. “She was—”
Marc Ibarra looked up at the ceiling and shouted, “Help the kid out! He’s turning blue and I don’t want a popsicle in my cell block.” He stepped back from the bars. Roland didn’t feel any warmer, but at least the air around him seemed to stabilize.
A vent behind thin crisscrossing bars blew hot, wet air that turned to mist in Roland’s cell. After a few minutes, Roland flung his blanket aside and squeezed the last of the amniosis from his body glove.
“The guards are listening to us…and watching us too would be a fair guess,” Roland said, glancing around the cell. The jail was comprised of only two cells and a narrow hallway that ended at a vault door.
“That they answered me just means they assume you’re not an idiot. Don’t underestimate Stacey, kiddo,” Marc Ibarra said. “I made that mistake and you can see where it landed me. All those decades of scheming and manipulating…I taught her too well. Most grandfathers I know would want their future generations to surpass them, but with Stacey…I would have been happy for her to live a normal, humdrum life. You know, a career, a pudgy husband with a decent office job, two kids and change. Not in the cards for her. Or anyone on Earth.”
“You said we’re in Navarre, capital of the Ibarra Nation. Where exactly is that? How do I get back to Earth?” Roland asked.
“Ooh, you’re an optimistic one. Well, to get home, all you need to do is break out of this cell, get past the many, many humorless guards in this building, commandeer a spacecraft, get to the Crucible gate, and enter in the code for Ceres or some other Earth solar system—all the while being chased by Stacey’s forces. And I’ve got news for you, kid,” Ibarra said, tapping the back of his head where Roland’s plugs were, “you’re not going to blend in.”
“Guess I won’t. Not if everyone’s as…solid as you are.”
“What? This old thing?” Ibarra slapped his palms against his chest and thighs, each hit ringing like a bell through their cells. “I’m afraid Stacey and I are the only ones sporting a Qa’Resh ambassador body. Everyone else is just as fleshy as you are. Though your hardware is something special. How long
have you been armor? Dr. Eeks still kicking around Mars?”
Roland bit his lip and looked up, wondering where all the monitoring equipment was hidden throughout the cell block.
“Come on now.” Ibarra pointed to a data slate on the end of his bunk. “I’ve been down here with nothing but a bricked e-reader for months. Getting caught up on my reading is nice and all, but it gets dull after a while. Been months since I’ve spoken to anyone. The Tweedles aren’t that talkative.”
“Maybe your granddaughter threw me in here to get me to reveal military secrets during idle conversation. I have a duty to resist any interrogation. How about we just keep quiet?”
Ibarra shook his head.
“You’re how old? Twenty? I bet you were armor no more than a year or so before Stacey snagged you off a battlefield. I was a major power behind Earth’s government for the last eighty years…though I’ve had something of a setback these past few months. If you knew something particularly useful, my protégé would have put you someplace far less comfortable than our little slice of paradise.”
“So you’re not that big of a deal anymore?” Roland picked up a tube of nutrient paste from the floor and squeezed the grainy, tomato-flavored meal into his mouth. Stacey Ibarra and her bodyguard—an armor soldier named Nicodemus—had captured him on Oricon days ago, ripped him out of his armor, and carted him away still sealed in his suit’s womb. Time was difficult to gauge while in the abyss of an unpowered metal pod. The amniosis had kept him alive, but it had been so long since he’d eaten real food, the paste tasted like the ambrosia of legend.
“Walked right into that one, didn’t I?” Ibarra shrugged. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I bet President Garret and his cronies in the senate would be just tickled pink to know where I’m at—though they should have some clue I’m in trouble as I’ve not been around to feed them information for quite a while.”