The Last Aeon

by Richard Fox

  Santos came back into himself, suddenly aware of the alerts flashing through his HUD. The crack of Aignar’s gauss cannons hit Santos’s receptors and he felt his heart pounding in his chest and skull.

  The gauss sounded again. Fainter.

  “I…I don’t know what happened,” he said.

  Aignar got off his back and swept his smoking barrels over the pile of Sanheel bodies.

  “Happens,” he said. “Your body dumps adrenaline and your suit feeds it back to you. Synergy loop.”

  Getting to his hands and knees, Santos looked over at the ugly pile of dead Sanheel as gauss report sounded through the trees. Aignar glanced at the cannons on his forearm, then back to the mountain.

  “Can’t be Gideon…” he said. “On your feet, kid. Fight ain’t over yet.”

  Santos picked up his Mauser and followed Aignar toward the sound of the guns. An errant bullet cracked into a tree just ahead of them, gouging out a hunk of wood that broke into splinters.

  They came over a rise and saw a single Armor battling against Sanheel in gold-colored armor and wielding massive pikes. The Armor had one arm hanging loose to one side and a pike blade embedded in a thigh.

  Aignar jumped onto the slope and opened fire. Santos followed, his HUD blinking as it tried to identify the other suit.

  The golden Sanheel swung its pike at the third Armor from behind, striking the helm and sending the suit pitching forward.

  “Get their attention,” Aignar said as he leaned back and fired his Mauser. The round struck beneath a Sanheel and sent up a spray of dirt.

  Santos tried to line up a shot, but the strain on his weapon systems of keeping his balance and computing a shot sent a spike of pain into his temples.

  He grimaced and slid onto level ground, stumbling like a drunk into a Sanheel, and the two went down in a tangle of limbs. The Sanheel shoved Santos away and got to its feet first. It reared up and struck two dents into Santos’s breastplate, then pulled up again, its spike-tipped hooves glinting in the moon light.

  Armor tackled it from the side. The third suit drove a punch spike beneath the alien’s jaw and into its brainpan.

  “The Risen!” A strangely accented voice came from his rescuer. “There!” The Armor pointed to a Sanheel in gold armor and double red sashes over its torso galloping away.

  Aignar put a Mauser round through its back and it pitched forward, sliding through the dirt to a stop.

  The new Armor lifted its still-functioning arm toward a dying Sanheel and shot it in the head.

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “Cha’ril. The kid. Kid. Cha’ril,” Aignar said.

  “He’s awful. How is he still alive?” Cha’ril wrenched the blade from her thigh, looked it over for a second, then tossed it away.

  “His sync’s all fouled up,” Aignar said as he reached behind Santos’s helm and connected a data line to a port. “Been a long day for him. You’re getting a quick dose of sedatives.”

  “No, the fight—” Santos tried to bat Aignar’s hand away, but a wave of euphoria turned his limbs to jelly. “Oh…wow.”

  “It’ll last a minute. Just enough to take you back into the green…bitch of a headache afterwards. You’re welcome,” Aignar said.

  Santos floated in a chemically induced bliss. He tried to speak, but only a baby-like coo came out.

  “That wasn’t the Risen,” Cha’ril said. “There was no electromagnetic shock of a death transmission. These are the honor guard…”

  “Kid said the Risen dismounted. Maybe the target is still in a tank?” Aignar asked.

  “Gideon and I destroyed them all with rail fire,” she said.

  “So that was you.” Aignar slapped a fresh magazine into his Mauser. “Wait…why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be on maternity leave?”

  “The egg is in a crèche. My duty is here,” she said.

  “What? Just like that? At least tell me if it’s a boy or girl,” Aignar said.

  “Now is not the time…and I don’t know. We’re keeping it a surprise,” she said.

  Pressure built in Santos’s skull, like his suit was slowly crushing it between its thumb and forefinger.

  “Like a hangover I didn’t earn,” he said and got to his feet.

  “Who’s with you?” Aignar asked.

  “No one. I came down inside a supply pod. The pod intelligence was certain I would land nearest to the Risen and you all,” she said.

  “Gideon worked out the logistics—”

  “Which I told those secret squires,” Cha’ril said. “Those rear echelon mouse fluffers. But General Kendall would only approve my arrival if I came down and immediately linked up with you. When you weren’t there, I figured you were reading an ambush right where I thought you’d be.”

  “You could have told us,” Santos said. “Instead, we had to jump through our fourth point of contact to make the attack work.”

  “Gideon knew exactly what was happening the instant I opened fire,” she snapped. “His grasp of tactics exceeds my own, thank you very much.”

  “Go easy on him. He’s new.” Aignar nudged Santos’s elbow. “We need to track down the real Risen…maybe he stayed at the depot?”

  “I heard them talking,” Santos said. “He’s out here somewhere.”

  A whine rose in his receptors. He tapped the side of his helm, but the sound grew louder.

  “Cut your feeds! Cut them!” Aignar said, beating the heels of his hands against his head.

  Santos triggered the emergency disconnect to his suit, and the silence of the pod closed on him. He could still see, but the world beyond was muted. He got Aignar’s attention, then touched a phantom watch on his wrist and raised his hands.

  Aignar shrugged.

  Cha’ril poked him in the chest then touched her antennae. She wanted him to reconnect.

  Santos hesitated, then remembered that he was the junior lancer. He was the first to take optional risk, a military tradition from the time men carried bronze weapons into battle.

  He activated a single audio receptor and a ululating whine stung his ear but faded away seconds later. He turned his entire sensor suite back on and gave a double thumbs-up to his lance mates.

  “That was weird,” he said.

  “Send us a playback,” Cha’ril said. “Yes…that’s a Risen transmission.”

  “Iron Dragoons,” Gideon sent over IR as he appeared at the top of the rise, a Sanheel head gripped by the hair in one hand. “We are victorious.”

  “And there it is.” Aignar’s helm shook slightly.

  Gideon came down the slope quickly. He tossed the head to Aignar and looked over Cha’ril’s damage.

  “Cha’ril sent video when she made contact with the honor guard,” Gideon said. “Three broke away while the fight began.”

  “Honor guard wouldn’t abandon the Risen,” she said. “But they would fight long enough for him to get away.”

  “The remaining Sanheel have scattered.” Gideon took the Risen’s head back from Aignar and used its hair to tie it into a hydraulic in his neck. It hung from his chest like a barbarian’s trophy. “No air extraction. We head north. Link up with III Corps’ attack. Intelligence might be able to reverse engineer the Risen’s brain implants. Get us another way to track them.”

  “All the Kesaht the Risen left behind are still there,” Santos said.

  “That a problem?” Gideon asked.

  “No, sir…always ready.”

  Gideon’s legs hinged at the hips and treads came out of housings.

  Santos transformed into his travel configuration and the Iron Dragoons rolled out of the battlefield.

  Chapter 22

  Bullets stitched across the dirt as Ranger Mark Hoss sprinted through a blasted killing field. He panted beneath his skull-shaped visor, his eyes catching dead men and women lying amongst Rakka and the larger Sanheel.

  He slid forward and into a trench line, landing hard against a reinforced wall amidst shouts from Rangers
. One swung a gauss rifle toward him in confusion.

  Hoss slapped it away and added a string of expletives for good measure.

  “Lieutenant! Where’s the lieutenant?” he shouted.

  “Getting ready to launch the assault,” a sergeant said. “Why?”

  “Stop him! It’s called off.” Hoss got up and made his way through the trench. Rangers knelt against the forward edge as Kesaht fire snapped overhead. Rounds struck the lip of the trench, kicking up small geysers of dirt and whacking into the back wall.

  “Lieutenant!” Hoss stepped around a medic tending to a gut-shot soldier.

  The Rakka had dug these trenches out by hand, but Rangers had paid for them in blood.

  A hand reached out of a bunker and yanked Hoss inside. A single diamond on the Ranger’s forehead and shoulder sent a spike of fear into Hoss’ chest.

  “You trying to get our lieutenant killed?” The first sergeant gave Hoss a rough shake.

  “Sorry, Top,” Hoss said. “Command post says to cancel the assault.”

  A helmetless woman in the back of the bunker looked up from a holo display. Her eyes were tired from days without rest—every Ranger on Umbra shared the same look.

  “We go over the top in five minutes,” the lieutenant said. “Word couldn’t have come sooner?”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” Hoss said. “Comms are shot. Another runner came out ten minutes ago…guess he got tagged on the way. Send up a blue star cluster so battalion knows you got the word.”

  “The Kesaht have their backs to the wall.” She put on her helmet and slapped her visor down. Her skull face had a green hue for command. “If we don’t push now, they’ll recover. I do not want to fall back from this trench and take it a third time.”

  “Reinforcements are coming,” Hoss said. “That’s all they told me.”

  “Hooray friction,” the lieutenant deadpanned as she drew a cylinder with a blue band from her back.

  “If the rest of the line goes over the top without us, it’ll be a slaughter,” the first sergeant said.

  “My faith in the chain of command is frayed,” the lieutenant said before stepping out of the bunker and slapping the base of the cylinder. There was a pop and blue starbursts shot high into the air. “But it’s still there.”

  “Incoming!” echoed down the line.

  “On the wall.” The first sergeant pushed Hoss out and onto a firing stoop. Gauss fire snapped as Rangers opened fire. Hoss swung his rifle off the mag locks on his back and slid the barrel over the parapet, careful not to flag his position by waving his barrel in the air.

  Rakka ran through No Man’s Land between the trench lines. They came in ones and twos, not the mass of screaming bodies he’d fought through before. Rangers cut them down methodically. Not a single Rakka made it to their lines.

  A shadow rose out of the smoke, a target Hoss was sure was a Sanheel. He fired a shot and saw a spark from the hit.

  He felt tension on the carry handle across the top of his shoulder a split second before the first sergeant yanked him off his feet. Hoss landed hard, and every Ranger on the wall turned and looked at him.

  “Check your target.” The first sergeant leveled a knife hand at Hoss’ chest, and he felt a sense of dread worse than any charging Rakka.

  “What’d I do?” Hoss asked.

  Gauss fire ceased, and a strange silence fell across the trench.

  A giant appeared in the night sky. A Sanheel head swung from its chest.

  Rangers fell to one knee and crossed themselves.

  “Ferrum corde.” The lieutenant brushed the back of her knuckles across her skull’s lipless mouth and reached for Gideon’s foot.

  “Stop,” came from the Armor’s speakers. “Kallen isn’t…” The speakers cut off with a click.

  Hoss scrambled to his feet and swallowed hard.

  “I am not of the faith.” Gideon stepped over the trench and continued through the silent battlefield. Three more suits followed in silence.

  “I never…” Hoss flipped his visor up to see the Armor clearly. “I’ve never seen one so close.”

  “They real enough for you now?” the first sergeant asked.

  Hoss wiped a tear away. “Saint preserved us,” he said, daring a quick look to the now-silent enemy lines.

  Chapter 23

  Santos scrubbed a towel against his short hair. The taste of amniosis was still on his lips, a sensation he only ever noticed when he first came out of his suit. He pulled the towel down the front of his face and looked up at his Armor next to him on the catwalk. There were significantly more dents and gouges across the surface.

  He touched his side, matching where the Kesaht shell had hit him, and half expected to feel a bruise, but nothing felt amiss.

  “Hey, Mr. Santos,” a tech called from down below, next to his Armor’s feet.

  Santos leaned over the side. The tech tossed something up into the air and Santos caught it: a dirt-caked Bahia knot.

  “Parabens.” The tech gave him a quick salute and went back to the open panel on the Armor’s shin.

  “Huh,” Santos said and pocketed the knot. He’d nearly forgotten about the prayer for strength and passion the techs had made for him. Whether or not it had been truly answered was a matter of faith he wasn’t ready to answer.

  He was used to a degree of deference from non-Armor servicemen, which he always attributed to his warrant officer rank. But when he saw how the Rangers reacted to their arrival…he’d heard rumors about Armor being connected to Saint Kallen, but nothing like that.

  There was a tap on his shoulder and he turned, coming chin to beak with Cha’ril. Her head quills rustled.

  He backpedaled and bumped into the railing.

  “Sorry! Sorry, Ms. Cha’ril. Ma’am. Chief?” He half smiled.

  “Does your sister know you’re here?” she asked with a click.

  “Mother!” Aignar called out from his Armor, where he was snapping his legs into their cybernetics.

  “That makes more sense,” she said. “Maternal instincts would cause distress when a hatchling is in harm’s way.”

  “Mom knows I’m Armor,” Santos said, rolling his eyes.

  “You were in your pod for what, three days?” She ran a blunt claw tip down her beak. “A few more weeks and you might have to depilate.”

  “Shave! Come on!” Aignar shouted.

  “Did he put you up to this?” Santos asked.

  “I understand we save our feces for you,” she said. “Human military customs are very strange.”

  “Give him shit,” Aignar said, stomping over as he clicked a mechanical hand and forearm onto an elbow. “Figuratively, my girl. Figuratively.”

  “What about carbonated beverages all over his personage?” she asked.

  “Not in a war zone.” Aignar adjusted his fake jaw, stretching the plastic skin from side to side.

  “Happy to be here,” Santos huffed.

  Boots steps approached from behind. A stern-eyed man with three scars down the side of his face stopped next to them and put his hands on his hips.

  “Nine hours,” Gideon said. “Nine hours until the weather clears and we’re back in the fight. Sleep. Maintenance. Cha’ril, you’re medically checked out for more time in the pod?”

  “My body has recovered fully,” she said. “I do not suffer as a female mammal would. So inefficient.”

  “Where we heading, sir?” Aignar asked.

  “Wherever the fighting is hardest,” Gideon answered. “The Kesaht broke on three different fronts. We run them down, then we can move to another theater. The general called me up. Cha’ril, see to it we’re ready to step off on time.”

  Gideon locked eyes with Santos. The young Armor stiffened up as the captain seemed to be examining him down to his soul. Finally, Gideon gave him a slight nod and turned away.

  “You want to go back on maternity leave?” Aignar asked.

  “Why? Look how much trouble you all got into without me,” she said. “Ai
gnar, what happened on Mars? What happened with Roland?”

  Santos felt a sudden chill.

  “Kid…” Aignar’s thumb snapped up and he jerked it toward the cemetery door. “You earned a trip to the chow hall for a tray of something hot. Beat it.”

  “Roger.” Santos hurried away, leaving his lance mates to speak privately.

  ****

  “Roland left Gideon alive?” Cha’ril shook her head, her quills swaying.

  “Disabled his suit. I can’t say I’m surprised.” Aignar tapped the back of a metal hand against the railing. “Roland’s not a fanatic. He never struck me as one. I don’t think he’s completely sold on the Ibarras, but we—the Union—forced his hand. Put him on trial for a bogus treason charge? Everyone on Balmaseda was fighting beside the Ibarras. Throw all the Templar in the same jail with him…it’s not hard to understand why he turned traitor.”

  “You agree with Roland?”

  “No. No, he’s still wrong. Justice delayed is never justice denied. The issue with the Ibarras might…might have been resolved. Prisoner exchange. Who knows? Then the government got serious about the Omega Provision…God. That.”

  “The Council of Firsts has forbidden any Dotari from participating in such…activities. We are also not to prevent the Union from carrying out orders,” she said.

  “And what’re your feelings?”

  “My feelings don’t matter. I have my orders.”

  “Smart answer.” Aignar’s brows furrowed.

  “You think you’ll have to put down any illegal Ibarrans? Such a thing would be difficult for me.”

  “I think we’ve got enough Kesaht to kill first. Then Vishrakath. Then Naroosha. Then any other alien scum that needs to learn a lesson from the barrel of a gun,” Aignar said. “If we’re fighting Ibarrans before all of that’s resolved, we’re wrong.”

  “Gideon feels that way as well?”

  “Nope.” Aignar shook his head. “The captain’s not in the right mind about this. You understand? There a word in Dotari for ‘vendetta’?”

  Cha’ril’s head canted from side to side and she tapped at the screen on her forearm.

  “There are old tales from before my people left our home world,” she said. “Such things fell out of our culture during the long journey to Takeni. Small ships are no place for a grudge.”