by Richard Fox
Davoust took a step away from the holo table to address the crowd directly.
“Lady Ibarra has spent years searching the galaxy for a Qa’resh artifact.” Davoust tapped his baton against his leg and the holo changed to a picture carved in stone: a vessel with a conch-like shape floating over crude drawings of humanoid figures. The marshal kept tapping his baton, and the images snapped to different depictions of the same vessel: one, an elegant glass etching; another of the ship carved into a mountainside; yet another, a picture taken from orbit of the ship scraped into a continent of an alien world.
“We call it the Ark,” Davoust continued. “Now-extinct races recorded its appearance across the galaxy. The Qa’resh dominated the galaxy until they vanished several million years ago. But this ship, the Ark, was recorded in the outer edge of the Perseus arm several times since their disappearance…the last sighting was a few thousand years ago.
“Lady Ibarra, through study and decryption of Qa’resh artifacts obtained on many missions some of you were part of,” Davoust said, “has tracked the Ark to Nekara.”
Roland looked at Nicodemus. The other armor had ambushed Roland and Aignar in the depths of a Qa’resh artifact hidden in the upper layers of a gas giant. Nicodemus and Stacey had taken him prisoner, setting him on the path that eventually led to his defection to the Ibarra Nation.
Nicodemus shrugged.
“Lady Ibarra has asked me to add,” Davoust said, his demeanor changing slightly, a hint of apprehension in his posture, “that this world was known to the Qa’resh that led the old Alliance on Bastion. During the Xaros’s long advance across the galaxy, the Qa’resh sent probes to star systems where they might have recruited allies against the Xaros. One such probe made it to Nekara and a single message was sent back to Bastion. Upon receipt of that message, the Qa’resh cut off all further exploration of the Outer Arm. They destroyed all other probes en route to the area. Lady Ibarra has no knowledge as to why this happened.”
Trinia might know, Roland thought. The Aeon scientist was millennia old and had worked with Marc and Stacey Ibarra to create the procedural and armor technology. That Roland had failed in his mission to recruit Trinia to the Ibarran cause—and had even lost her to the vicious Toth—filled him with shame.
“Until only a few weeks ago,” Davoust continued, shaking the end of his baton toward Makarov, “we lacked the ability to reach Nekara. A one-way jump from the nearest Crucible would only get us halfway across the gulf between Crucible space and the unknown regions. But then we…liberated the Breitenfeld from the Terran Union. We brought the ship—and the Keystone jump-gate technology it carried—into our fold. Well done, Warsaw.”
Makarov gave him a nod.
“Instead of taking years to build a chain of Crucible gates to Nekara, gravity tides currently allow for a jump from the Gethsemane III gate to the target system. Once there, we will assemble the Keystone gate over Nekara and use it to return to the Crucible network and back home. We have our own portable Crucible technology, but what the Terran Union dogs had with the Keystone was a generation ahead of us. 3rd and 18th Fleets will hold the Gethsemane gate until our return. If we lose the gate on Gethsemane, the Warsaw and the rest of the forces we send to Nekara will be stranded for years.”
Roland wondered which part of the mission was more critical for his lance, finding the Ark or making sure it could return to Ibarran space.
“The Fleet under Admiral Makarov’s command will escort Lady Ibarra to the Ark and protect her while she takes control of it,” Davoust said. “Armor will protect the Lady. We don’t know what else we’ll find on Nekara, but if the Templar can’t handle it, then the mission is a failure.”
Roland had his answer.
“What can the Ark do?” Makarov asked.
“It is Qa’resh technology.” Davoust went to the table and tapped on a screen. “This video was recorded on Sletari, during the final days of the Ember War.”
The holo changed to a starship gunnery camera feed, overlooking a blue and white planet from orbit. In the distance, a murmuration of millions of Xaros drones poured out of a Crucible gate. Two bands of yellow light sprang around the planet’s equator and struck each other. An energy beam miles wide sprang out from the convergence and burned through the drones.
Gasps came from the crowd.
“The Ark holds the secret to this technology,” Davoust said. “The power of a race that once controlled the entire galaxy. The Lady believes the Ark will shift the balance of power in the Ibarra Nation’s favor. Forever. We accomplish this mission, the wars will end. The Nation will be safe. Our enemies finished.”
Nicodemus smiled and rapped a knuckle against the back of the chair in front of him.
Roland’s mind went to Stacey Ibarra, to the near-lunatic display she’d just put on in front of him. If she really was going mad and she gained that much power…
“I will personally command the ground forces for this mission,” Davoust said. “The 13th Legion will provide security around the Ark while Lady Ibarra and the armor take control of the ship. Admiral Makarov will oversee the construction of the Keystone carried within the Breitenfeld and maintain void supremacy.
“I have no information on potential hostile forces on Nekara,” the marshal said. “Gethsemane III is in Haesh space, but they haven’t settled the system. If they don’t show up looking for a fight, we won’t give them one. The single message Bastion received was the last trace of data on Nekara…and we don’t know what was in that message. But it was faith that led us to Navarre. Faith that founded this great nation. Faith in Saint Kallen and Lady Ibarra that has brought us to this point…Faith is not how I prefer to plan operations, but it is all we have now. One final stroke to end the war and preserve the Ibarra Nation—and a future for humanity—once and for all.”
Davoust rapped his baton against the holo table and the screen vanished. “Are there any objections?” he asked.
Roland started to raise his hand, but he sent it back to his lap. Nicodemus didn’t seem to notice.
“Then to your stations.” Davoust raised his baton and the room snapped to their feet. “For the Lady!”
“For the Lady!” roared the auditorium—everyone but Roland.
****
Navarre’s cloud cover drifted across the planet. Alone on a wide catwalk, Roland peered through the observation window at his adopted world. Rain was a near constant on the planet, lashing against the archology towers and domes that made up the Ibarra Nation’s capital. From orbit, one wouldn’t know there was a thriving colony, one growing by leaps and bounds every nine days as new procedural humans came out of the tubes.
Small void craft flit between the Warsaw and the planet, running last-minute supplies and personnel up to the assembling fleets.
Roland, an armor soldier who fought battles within a fifteen-foot-tall killing machine, felt small as he took in the jewel of the Ibarra Nation. He touched the red Crusader cross sewn into his tabard, wondering just how duty and faith merged into this symbol.
At the far end of the catwalk, a door opened and a lone figure strode toward him.
He didn’t have to look to know who it was. She was the only one that ever came through this way and she had introduced him to this spot.
“Roland?” Admiral Makarov gave him a half frown and sidled up next to him, playfully bumping him with her hip. “Shouldn’t you be in armor? Sync rating and all that?”
“I have a little while before services. Every legionnaire and sailor will want to make their vows before this operation.” Roland flipped a hand off the rail and Makarov slid her palm against his.
“The risks for this…we’re almost going to Nekara blind,” Makarov said.
“The great Admiral Makarov getting butterflies in her tummy?”
“Oh? And you’re here because you think this’ll be some kind of a cakewalk? I jumped to Mars and got you—and the rest of our prisoners—off that planet because I had a plan, a plan worked out to
the second and one you all almost fouled up because the number of prisoners we brought home was almost double what we anticipated. For this mission…no plan. Just jump in and hope we don’t kick a hornet’s nest of…I don’t know, a billion Xaros drones that didn’t get the annihilation signal. A star on the verge of going nova. A radiation field that will poison us all before we can recover the Ark. Use your imagination.”
“We’re going in on faith,” Roland huffed.
“Hope,” Makarov said and winced as she pulled a pin out from the back of her hair. Raven locks spilled onto her shoulders and Roland’s heart skipped a beat. “Hope is not a planning method.”
“You shared this with the Lady?”
“With Davoust. The Lady is…occupied with another matter. He noted my concerns and promptly dismissed them. The marshal has total confidence in her.” Makarov glanced at a flashing message on the screen built into her sleeve and sighed. “Though he did accept my recommendation that we bring quadrium munitions in the off chance we encounter Xaros drones. Now my gunnery officer is on the verge of a conniption. Hasn’t had time to calibrate the rail cannons.”
“Quadrium?”
“Special munition. Disrupts Xaros systems. A Terran Union Strike Marine team encountered a drone in deep space not too long ago. Destroyed it, but better to have a tool and not need it than need it and not have it.”
Roland gave her hand a quick squeeze and asked, “Do you think all this faith is…justified?”
“What?” Makarov pulled her hand away and glanced at the scars on the back of Roland’s hand. “By the Saint, what happened to you?” She took him by the wrist and held his hand up for inspection.
“Lady Ibarra is…heaven help me, Ivana, I don’t know what I can say. Lady Ibarra told me that you’re different, that just because you—”
“That I’m a proccie? That I’m some sort of revenant of a woman that died during the Ember War? I know I’m different.” She pushed his hand away. “You think that matters? That you being true born gives you some sort of insight into the Lady?”
“Lady Ibarra is…sick.” Roland glanced at the ceiling, wondering if hidden cameras had captured what he just said. “Her mind is slipping away. Have you ever seen her lose control?”
Makarov looked away from Roland to distant Navarre.
“You have, haven’t you?” Roland asked.
“There are times that her behavior has…come across as a little off.”
“‘A little off…’” Roland ran a finger across the scar on his hand. “She gave me this. She thought I was Ken Hale, who she hasn’t seen in years. She wrecked some of the pews in the chapel in the process. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen her lose control.”
“Lady Ibarra’s mind is trapped in that metal body,” Makarov said stiffly. “Perhaps our minds aren’t meant to survive that way.”
“And if she’s unraveling? Then what do we do?”
“Careful, Roland.” Makarov turned to face him and took a step back. “What you’re implying is—”
“I know.” Roland tossed his hands up. “Treason? Me. The soldier that’s fought for the Terran Union, the Nation, then the Terran Union, then the Nation again. What the hell kind of position am I in to suggest anything? I should just keep my trap shut, appreciate that the Ibarra Nation took me in. That you pulled me off Mars. That I have a life here. Even a future.”
Makarov’s forearm screen buzzed with a call and she slapped her hand against the screen to mute the alert.
“You have a reason to be concerned, I’ll grant you that,” she said. “But there wouldn’t be a Nation without Lady Ibarra. Look around you,” she said, motioning to the planet. “She could have executed the Union prisoners we captured off the Breitenfeld in retaliation for them murdering our own simply because they were procedurals in violation of a treaty we didn’t sign. We could be at war with the rest of the galaxy right now, but she’s kept us out of Earth’s fight with the Kesaht as much as possible. Now we’re poised to find a weapon that can end the wars once and for all. Where has she ever gone wrong? Tell me.”
“You’re right.” Roland leaned against the handrail, his head low. “You’re right. Lady Ibarra’s results speak for themselves. Who am I to question it?”
Makarov put her hand on the Templar cross on his chest, then slid her fingers to the side and beneath it. She touched a pocket on Roland’s chest, where he kept her favor: a cloth rank insignia that belonged to her mother.
Roland’s chest tightened as he feared she was about to take it from him.
Makarov gave the favor a pat, then reached up and touched his face. She turned him to look into her eyes, dark as the void.
“We must always have faith, my champion,” she said. “Saint Kallen is with us. We have the Breitenfeld. Gott Mit Uns, yeah?”
Roland’s lips quivered at the mention of Saint Kallen. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Makarov what he learned about the Saint and Stacey Ibarra.
“Without faith…we’d be lost,” Roland said.
“I have faith in you.” Makarov smiled at him. “In the Lady. In our Nation. Stay the course, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now I have to put out a dozen different fires before this ship and my fleet are ready for war.” Makarov kissed him on the lips and let her hand slide down to his Templar cross. She pushed him back and winked as she hurried down the catwalk, redoing her hair into a tight bun.
“I’ll see you after the mission,” she said over her shoulder, a particular lilt in her voice.
“After…yes, after!” Roland leaned against the railing and watched her go, then he looked back to Navarre and the cold pit in his stomach returned.
“What’s going to come after?” he asked himself.
Chapter 8
Lettow shook off the effects of the jump gate and unbuckled his restraints. He moved quickly but controlled back to the Ardennes’s holo table as his staff and the ship burst into action.
“You all know the drill,” he said to those assembled around the table, all in full void armor and with helmets on. The Ardennes always fought with the ship’s atmosphere reduced to vacuum. Fighting in flammable oxygen and a medium to carry blast waves from explosions was ill-advised in any void combat.
“Fleet combat status. Deployed fighter numbers and—”
The deck bucked under his feet. He gripped the holo table edge, and a look of worry broke through his mask of command for a split second.
The holo came to life, the Crucible still active as the last of his fleet emerged from the wormhole. Blue icons spread out, forming a disperse wall with the Ardennes as the center point.
“Taking hits from—” The ship shuddered before his XO could finish and Lettow felt a strut beneath the bridge sheer loose, sending a new and constant vibration through his feet.
Red blinking icons filled in around his fleet. He zoomed in on one, a large crystal embedded in a dark gray block, the tip pointed at his fleet.
“Those are Toth weapons,” Lettow said. “They seeded space with cannons to—” A bolt hit the ship’s hull just outside of the forward windows, flashing the bridge. “Guns! Priority target all the weapon emplacements. I want fighters in the void now before the carriers take too much damage.”
His fleet responded quickly, knocking out the cannons in short order, but for everyone they destroyed, two more fired from farther and farther away.
“Lost the Jackson and Baron Richthofen,” his XO announced. “Severe damage reported from a dozen other ships.”
“Keep moving and keep to the plan,” Lettow said. “Status on the Crucible assault force?”
“They report heavy resistance,” his Strike Marine liaison said.
“Sir, if the enemy—”
“Don’t, XO. We knew there’d be resistance. We’re still in this fight,” Lettow said. Fire from the crystal cannons petered out and he breathed a sigh of relief.
Lettow hailed the Midway and Admiral Ericson’s head and should
ers came up in the holo.
“Ardennes, we didn’t plan on a thorn bush right in the doorway,” she said.
“We’re through the worst of it,” he said. “Break off and begin your ground assault. My task force will begin reducing their orbital struc…tures.”
In the holo, a shipyard appeared around the moon. A belt around the entire satellite, an engineering effort that even Earth hadn’t bothered to attempt. Kesaht ships—hundreds—emerged, pulled out of their moorings.
“Artillery ships, commence fire on the enemy. They’re big and slow coming out of the docks, easy targets,” Lettow said.
Massive rail-fired shells leapt from the artillery vessels, each built to be little more three-hundred-yard-long vanes connected to a power plant and minimal life support for the crews. Hits against the belt came quick, destroying dozens of Kesaht ships before they could join the fight.
In the holo, the Midway’s task force broke away and made for the Kesaht’ka.
“Sir,” his sensor officer waved for his attention, “the planet’s reading very high levels of radiation. There’s no surface water and the ozone layer is…missing.”
“Then how do the Kesaht manage to…what is that?” Lettow leaned over the edge of the tank as something massive orbited around the moon. His face fell as he realized it was a star fort, one many times the size of the Toth dreadnought that was the largest target he’d planned to engage.
Lettow straightened his back, his mind blank as he struggled to take in what he was seeing. The Kesaht hadn’t overextended their reach, he realized; their home system was a fortress.