by Richard Fox
“Wormhole forming,” Torni said as her countenance shifted, growing smoother and pale. “It’s from New Bastion.”
“Finally,” Garret said. “Have Hale dock immediately and debrief us in person.”
“I’ll put the system on alert,” Ibarra said. “The Vishrakath still hold Cygnus. They might try an offset jump to bring the ‘negotiations’ to Earth.”
“I’m the commander in chief, Ibarra.” Garret said, walking toward the metal man, feeling the cold grow more intense as he approached. “What our military does is my decision.”
“Of course.” Ibarra flipped his holo screen around with a flick of his wrist and a pulsating button flashed at the president.
Garret looked over the order attached to the alert and touched it with a grumble.
****
Ken Hale walked out of a corridor and onto a catwalk suspended over a deep depression inside one of the hollowed-out giant thorns that made up the Crucible. The walkway extended across a massive oval window that overlooked the center of the jump gate and to Earth. Despite a slew of bad memories aboard the Crucible—from the Battle of Ceres, the Ruhaald incursion, and receiving the remains of slain Pathfinder teams—he took the time to appreciate the view from the observation deck when he could. The view of the homeworld, Luna, and Ceres helped him keep perspective.
That another person was in the middle of the walkway wasn’t a surprise, but who was there filled Hale’s heart with conflicting emotions. He adjusted his dress uniform, complete with a sash carrying medals from several different alien races, and walked toward the other figure.
The patina of frost radiating on the metal catwalk around her hinted that she’d been waiting for him for some time. She wore a simple full-length coat over her metal body, and her hair was as dark as he remembered.
“Stacey,” Hale said as he stopped several feet away, not setting foot on the frosted metal.
“Ken, so good to see you again.” She turned her head toward him. Her doll-like face was still, but he could feel the soul behind her eyes.
“It’s been…years? Not since Pa’lon’s funeral on Dotari,” Hale said.
“Busy busy,” she said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make your promotion or your…wedding. Thank you for the invitation, at least. I hear you’ve a second child? A boy?”
“We named him Elias,” Hale said.
“Strong name,” she said. “No pressure on him.”
“It was to honor a good man,” Hale said. “Not to put fate on a child.”
“No, no, I understand. Elias was…Elias. He didn’t much care for me. Still, the depiction of him at Memorial Square is apt, I’ve heard.”
“Why don’t you go to Phoenix and see it for yourself?” Hale asked. “How long have you been cooped up on the Crucible? You should see Earth, how far we’ve come since the end of the war.”
“I have my work.” Stacey touched the railing and wiped icy rime away, then rubbed bits of frost against her fingertips with her thumb. If she were still flesh and bone, it might have melted from her body heat. Instead, the frost clung to her surface as it hardened in the cold.
“Any…progress?” Hale stepped closer, one hand half-reaching to her, then falling back to his side.
“Progress is impossible.” She rapped the railing with her knuckles. “My body is in stasis, seconds away from death. Even if there was some way to repair the bullet wound to my pulmonary artery and heart…” She tapped the side of her head with a ting of metal on metal. “…I’m still stuck in here. Takes a Qa’Resh probe to move consciousness from body to body and the galaxy is fresh out of those.”
“We’ve found Qa’Resh artifacts,” Hale said. “My Pathfinders are searching for any—”
“Trinkets!” Stacey snapped. “Not a single probe. All you’ve found is leftover garbage from a civilization that ascended millions of years ago.”
“We’ve barely explored the Qa’Resh worlds,” Hale said. “Barely even found any of them. Give it time.”
“There was time when we had full access to the entire Crucible network,” she said.
Hale felt a chill in his chest that wasn’t from the air.
“You know about the treaty.” Hale turned toward the enormous window and gripped the handrail. “Impressive, as I just debriefed the president and your grandfather.”
“Is my name Ibarra or not?” she asked.
“It’s a win for the Terran Union.” Hale lifted a hand up. “We keep our colonies. The aliens can’t settle a Crucible system within thirty light-years of any settled world and that stops them from opening a wormhole and shooting a nuke or a high-velocity asteroid through and killing a planet. Settlement continues. Exploration continues. We get peace.”
“At what cost, Ken?”
“Cost? Don’t lecture me about cost. You know what we lost in the Ember War and the deaths since. We can’t win a war against the rest of the galaxy and that’s exactly what we would have on our hands right now if we hadn’t come to an agreement.”
“You signed away our best weapon. How’re we supposed to defend ourselves without the procedurals? Armadas crewed by perfectly trained sailors. Armies of soldiers. All of it in mere days once the next crèche expansion is complete. Everything we need to defend ourselves but armor…and that corps is growing.”
“And that is exactly why the rest of the galaxy was against us, Stacey. That we had so much power made them afraid of us.”
“We were the ones to beat the Xaros,” she said. “We were nearly wiped out by the drones, all to give those ingrates the chance to win the war, and this is how they repay us? By demanding we trust them to play nice before we can defend the solar system and colonies?”
“We have the macro cannons, the graviton mines beyond Pluto. Earth is safe.” Hale frowned.
“You’ve seen the same simulations I have,” she said. “We can fight off any one of the races at Bastion, but if they band together, we’ll lose. Even if we make them pay dearly for the victory.”
“Which is why we need this treaty now. If we show the rest of the galaxy goodwill, we’ll only gain more allies.”
“You sound like Garret,” Stacey said. “TV sound bites and quippy headlines might convince the civilians…but you? You fought against turning the procedurals over to the Toth. How could you betray them all like this?”
“The Toth were going to use the procedurals as cattle. It would’ve been systematic murder on an enormous scale. This isn’t the same thing. At all. We’re not killing our procedurals. Just abandoning the technology once the current batch are born.”
“A ploy,” she said. “A trick by the Vishrakath and the Naroosha while they ready an attack on us.”
“You sound like your grandfather—or at least you should,” Hale said. “He was uncharacteristically silent while I presented the terms of the treaty to him and the president.”
“That means he’s angrier than usual.” She shook her head.
“And if we’d have followed his lead, there would be no treaty. War without end as the galaxy united against us. To survive, we’d have to conquer other worlds, occupy them. Deaths of billions that would end with Earth as a galactic tyrant or with humanity at the mercy of those that gave us the chance at peace. The Ember War is over.” Hale rubbed his sleeves, feeling the cold working through the fabric. “Earth deserves peace. You deserve peace.”
“Your family deserves peace.” Stacey looked down. “I’m happy for you, Ken. I really am. You get to live the dream. Beautiful wife, a home of your own…babies. I’ll never have those things.”
“What happened to you wasn’t right,” he said. “If the technology exists to put you in that…shell, we’ll find a way to get you out.”
“Ever the optimist,” she said.
“What other option is there?” He nudged her with his elbow.
“You remember Phoenix, Ken? When we first went back and I was a real girl? I found my home…there was a drone inside, erasing everything away. That’s
what the galaxy will do to us. They’ll take it all away unless we’re strong enough to stop them.”
“We beat the Xaros because Marc Ibarra was smart enough to play the long game. That’s what we’re doing now, the long game. Have hope, Stacey.”
She held up her silver hands and turned them over, letting the light play against her shell.
“Look what hope’s got me.”
****
Marc Ibarra stepped into an air lock and waited as the door shut behind him and warning lights flashed on. Once, the thought of being inside a chamber as the air was sucked out would’ve filled him with terror. Now that he had no such need for something so pedestrian as oxygen or air pressure, the air lock’s warnings were more of an annoyance.
On the other side of the air lock was Stacey’s laboratory, which she kept in a vacuum for the sake of preserving ancient artifacts Pathfinder teams had recovered from across the galaxy. Preservation was an easy excuse for the conditions; that the lab was a deadly environment to a normal human was an added bonus, as it gave the Ibarras a good measure of privacy.
Ibarra stepped into the lab, a large room filled with silent computer banks and anti-grav sample vessels holding small bits of Qa’Resh technology in suspension fields. He stopped next to a sphere with an outer shell carved from what looked like ivory with openings that crept along the surface. Another sphere spun low inside it, and inside was another and another.
Stacey stood in the center of the room, a data crystal floating in front of her face.
Ibarra picked up an IR transmitter and pressed it to his neck.
“You were right,” Stacey said.
“I’m always right,” Ibarra said. “I just wish I didn’t have such a stellar track record in knowing when people are going to be such fools.”
“I thought Hale was smarter than this. He went against his instructions once before. I hoped he’d do it again.”
“He was a kid back then.” Ibarra went to another sample container and peered at a crystalline knife. “He’s got more to lose now.”
“We have no choice, do we?” she asked.
“You want to stay here and say ‘I told you so’ when Earth is destroyed? We have to move. Now. But there’s no coming back from this, savvy?”
“I understand that.”
“I held the 13th Fleet close to the Crucible for this very reason. You’ve laid the groundwork with the armor?”
Stacey grasped the floating data crystal and pressed it to the palm of her hand.
“I think so. I don’t know if it even worked. It could have driven them all insane. Using it actually hurts me, Grandpa. You should’ve been the one to do it. This is your game.”
“It had to be you, darling. Here,” he said as his surface rippled and a pair of earbuds emerged from his forearm. “I got these from the omnium reactor a few weeks ago. Quantum dot communicators. The techs on Mercury haven’t figured out how to make them work yet, mostly because I keep sabotaging their tests.”
“You got everything from Mercury?” She took an earbud and pressed it to the side of her head.
“Everything. There’s a colony fleet in orbit around Ceres with a foundry and omnium reactor.”
“Torni hasn’t noticed all this is on her doorstep?”
“I spent sixty years playing world leaders like fiddles. The best plans work in plain sight over long periods of time and we set this in motion soon as the first alien suggested a summit about the procedurals. You need to prep our exit.”
“When?” Stacey asked.
“You’ll know. There’s one thing we can’t make once we step off, so there’s a matter I have to attend to first.”
****
Ibarra stood for examination by men and women more iron than him. The cemetery where the Warsaw stored its armor was full of tall suits, all tucked into recessed maintenance bays like bodies in coffins, was silent as at least three soldiers discussed his proposal.
He knew Lieutenant Colonel Hurson and two others were in the suits as they’d spoken directly to him. How many others had soldiers plugged into the wombs inside the armor was anyone’s guess. The Armor Corps had a number of strange practices. Sleeping inside the wombs was one that Ibarra could never grasp.
He twisted one foot to the side, cracking the frost caked to the join between his body and the deck.
“Ibarra,” Hurson’s voice sounded from speakers mounted on his armor, “what you’re suggesting…why should we trust you?”
Ibarra let his surface ripple, using it as a signal that he wasn’t human anymore—especially not human in way the armor would remember him.
“You think I lack the drive for this?” Ibarra asked. “I’m not armor, but I’m not one to quit when things get tough.”
“You’re a liar,” Major Lannes said from the suit to Hurson’s left. “A manipulator. You conned the Saturn Expedition into volunteering for your cat’s paw against the Xaros. Now you’re doing the same thing to us.”
“It was the only way the plan would work.” Ibarra shook his head. “If there was a hint in any record that the Xaros could find that the fleet would return, that we were after the Crucible—”
“It worked,” said Major Orsi from Hurson’s right. “It was providence.”
There we go, Ibarra thought.
“You think I can trick any of you?” Ibarra asked. “I’m here—in person—asking you to join me in another shoestring tackle to save humanity. Garret and his bunch of sycophants want to give up our best hope for the future, trust the same aliens that tried to screw us over again and again during the war. Carry the torch with me. Light the fire that will keep our light alive.”
“What did you say?” Orsi asked. “A torch?”
Bring it home, Marc, Ibarra told himself.
“We called it the Ember War because only a whisper of humanity survived the Xaros,” Ibarra said. “Our fire rises, but it takes more than trust to protect hearth and home. Come with me. I was there at the final battle on the Xaros world ship. I saw the Iron Hearts and Carius stand against the darkness. The armor I know would never—”
Hurson’s hand shot out and grabbed Ibarra by the neck. He hoisted him into the air and brought him eye to eye with the helm. Ibarra felt the press of the pneumatic fingers against his neck, and he wondered just how much harder the armor would have to squeeze before his head popped off like a cork.
“Don’t,” Hurson grumbled. “Don’t think you know us.”
“It’s my vision,” Orsi said. “This is what Saint Kallen meant for us.”
“Our vision,” Lannes added.
Hurson set Ibarra back on the catwalk. Ibarra brushed his hands down the faux-jumpsuit of his shell out of habit.
“If we walk with you, Ibarra,” Hurson said, “know that our loyalties are not to you, but to what you’re promising.”
“Humanity must survive,” Ibarra said. “No matter the cost.”
Hurson beat a fist against his chest, the ring of metal on metal sounding through the cemetery.
“Not all of us will see it this way,” Orsi said.
“Captain Swirski will help you,” Ibarra said.
“He’s with us?” Hurson asked.
“Not yet, but that’s just a formality at this point.” Ibarra turned and walked toward the exit.
“Crunchy.” Hurson held up a hand, the thumb and forefinger spaced just wide enough to fit Ibarra’s head. “You betray us…” He snapped his hand into a fist.
“I expect no less.” Ibarra gave a mock bow and continued to the exit, though with a bit more energy in his steps. He got through the heavy door and almost bumped into a naval officer bearing captain’s stripes and a sunburst command pin on his chest.
“Mr. Ibarra.” Captain Swirski looked from the metal man to the cemetery door. “I didn’t know you were aboard.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Ibarra said. “I’ve been erasing all records of my movements for days. Let me guess—one of your sailors saw me and reported it up. Can
’t beat the speed of scuttlebutt, eh?”
“If you’re here to tour the battle damage, I can lead you through all the—”
“Hush, son. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Fomite. Bacchus. Unagi.”
Swirski’s gaze drifted to the side and his eyes unfocused.
“Operation Telemark is in effect,” Ibarra said. “Send the challenge to every sailor in the fleet on my signal. Hurson will give you names for priority action.” He snapped his fingers and Swirski’s head jerked back.
“—repairs going through the lower decks…sir. Yes, sir. Message received and understood.” Swirski looked from side to side, as if he was surprised at where he was.
“I knew I could count on you,” Ibarra said. “Mind if I borrow your personal shuttle? Got to pick up a few things on Ceres.”
****
Stacey walked through the ranks of the unborn. Rows of tanks bearing growing procedurals bore a thin sheen of frost, a necessary by-product of the cooling systems integrated into the computer cores hosting the minds of the sailors, soldiers, engineers, and pilots that would join the Earth’s military in a few more days.
The last batch, Stacey thought. Such a shame.
The bone-chilling cold was almost a comfort to her as she stopped at a computer bank. The crèche was one of the few places she felt at home anymore. She could be around normal humans, who had to bundle up to work the tanks, and not feel self-conscious that she was the only reason people were freezing to death around her.
But it was better that she was alone for this.
Popping an access panel off the computer bank, she plugged in a small data chip. Two holo screens came up, and she began typing different commands into the screens with either hand.
Behind her, an empty tube a fair bit larger than the rest of the procedural gestation units lit up. Mechanical arms ending with needle-thin spinnerets reached into the empty tube. Fluid flowed through the arms and they began weaving together a skeleton.
Blunt instruments, she thought. No time for finesse.
She swiped away one of the screens and a small bulb on the data chip lit up. Stacey waited a moment as the chip loaded up a hacking program and the procedural computers opened up the root command menu.