by Richard Fox
Her helm nodded ever so slightly.
There was a whine of servos as the Templars loaded gauss shells into their forearm cannons and ammo belts connected to their rotary guns.
“What’re they doing?” Santos put a hand to the hilt of his METL.
“—say again. Landing zone is hot,” said the pilot, cutting into the Union’s network. “Unknown hostiles in contact with ground forces. Prep for a combat drop.”
“Pilot, we have a crunchy—I mean, an untrained VIP with us,” Gideon said.
“Roger. Better get her schooled up pretty quick.”
“Goddamn it.” Gideon waved Trinia over as he loaded his weapons. The Aeon toddled over, uncomfortable in her new armor.
“This is not good news, is it?” Trinia asked.
“Button up and just hang on,” Gideon said.
Trinia almost put her helmet on backward, then flipped it around and fit it over her head. Loose strands of hair wafted out from under the seal.
“Ow…ow,” she said, wiggling her helmet.
Gideon grabbed her by the waist and hefted her off the deck.
“What is this?” She pushed against his forearms and her legs kicked back and forth.
Gideon transformed his legs into treads and pivoted toward the ramp as it cracked open. Wind whistled through the opening. Trinia’s feet planted onto the plate over the treads and she clutched to one arm.
“Hang on,” Gideon said.
“I am not going to like this. No. I already don’t like this. I have bones that can break and nice soft skin that doesn’t do well when dropped out of speeding planes like—oh!”
The ramp slammed down and Gideon lurched forward. Trinia broke into a high-pitched scream as Gideon dove off the end and went into a free fall for a full two seconds. He landed hard against the dirt and slid across the ground, kicking up a dark cloud around him as his treads spun to find purchase and keep him from flipping over. He finally slid to a halt, one side lifting a yard off the ground before it thumped back to the surface.
Trinia was still screaming, both arms wrapped around his helm.
“We’re here,” Gideon said.
Trinia inhaled deeply and let out a cry for a split second.
“Aaah—oh…that wasn’t so bad. It was kind of fun,” she said, her arms trembling.
“I can’t see.” Gideon nudged her with an elbow and she hopped off him.
The sound of gauss fire carried through the cloud of thick dust hanging in the air. A metallic rattle rose from the dust and Gideon paused, unsure if some new Ibarran weapon was making the noise.
A shadow coalesced in the tan fog, loping toward them like an animal. Gideon flung Trinia to the ground behind him and swung a punch as a saber leapt through the air. His fist connected with the Geist beast’s chin and deflected it to one side. Claws raked across his breastplate as it passed. The saber dug in its front claws and whipped its hindquarters around to bring it face-to-face with Gideon.
Gideon fired his gauss cannons, blowing out a crater on the shoulder and blossoming cubes into the air. The saber lurched back, the threat rattle growing faster.
The armor reloaded and fired again, but both shells deflected off an energy screen, catching Gideon flat-footed. The saber pounced, one claw reaching to rake down the front of his helm, though the dark-green nails missed Gideon by a foot. The saber landed on the ground and jerked backward.
Cha’ril, one hand on the saber’s tail, chopped the axe head of her METL into the saber’s flank. She wrenched the blade out, chiseling out a good hunk of the beast’s side, and pulled back on its tail, moving it even farther away from Gideon.
She swung the axe down like an executioner and severed the saber’s head. The Geist collapsed, its body dissolving into tiny cubes and black smoke.
“How’d you know that would work?” he asked.
“Didn’t. Seemed like the right thing to do. Shooting them until they stop moving wasn’t as effective,” she said.
“Trinia?” Gideon spun around and found the Aeon in the dirt, her arms covering her head. She looked up then wiped her visor clean.
“I don’t like this place. At all. Ouranos had voynir rats, but they just eat your vegetables and let off a scent when threatened.”
Gideon grabbed her by the belt and hauled her up to her feet.
“Sir!” Santos’s voice carried through the haze. It had settled to the point where Gideon could make out the Ark. The junior Armor, his suit caked in dust, arrived and pointed to the Ark.
“Sir, the Ibarrans have an entrance secured and—”
“Let’s go,” Gideon said and gave Trinia a gentle push toward the Ark as the three Iron Dragoons formed a loose perimeter around her.
Trinia tried to run, making a few awkward strides.
“The gravity is too light,” she said. “Hard to—”
“Keep. Moving.” Gideon made out the heavy crack of armor gauss cannons as they got closer to the Ark.
“New guy, did you foul your landing?” Cha’ril asked.
“Any landing you can walk away from, right?” Santos asked as he swept his cannons toward the temples behind them.
“He broke track.” Cha’ril shook her head.
“I did break track,” Santos said, raising his forearm cannons and firing once. “That wasn’t one of those panther-looking things. What have the Ibarrans gotten us into?”
“The sooner we get out of it, the better,” Gideon said, stepping into a thin sheen of cubes mixed into the dirt. The cubes became a blanket as they reached the perimeter wall manned by Ibarran legionnaires.
Gideon noted the claw marks on the wall and human blood staining the ramparts. A gate rolled open and the Dragoons made it inside.
“They didn’t panic and shoot us,” Santos said. “Maybe they aren’t so bad.”
Gideon and Cha’ril looked at him.
“For traitors. Maybe they aren’t so bad for traitors. They’re still traitors, I mean,” Santos said.
“And he can hear you,” Marshal Davoust said as he ran over. He pointed to the Ark’s entrance, where Roland and Nicodemus were waiting on the disk just over the threshold. “Two of you and the Aeon. Go!”
“Santos, hang back.” Gideon reached for Trinia, who slipped away from his grasp. “What’s wrong?”
“The markings…can’t you read them?” Trinia’s face had gone a pale green. “This is…this ship belongs to the reaver. The harvester of souls. Do you know what that means?”
“No.” Gideon paused, unsure what her concerns meant for the mission.
“He’s gone,” Trinia said, tucking her arms against her stomach and hunching forward slightly. “He has to be gone. The Qa’resh had him on Bastion. Stacey made the bargain with him. But if he was still here…he would have come for this ship.”
“I have no idea what she’s talking about,” Cha’ril said.
“I’ll go.” Trinia started forward, though she kept her gaze off the hull. “I’ll go for Maggie, and for all the rest of Earth’s children.”
Gideon and Cha’ril escorted her onto the dish. Trinia stuck to Gideon’s side as darkness swallowed them and the dish lifted toward the crystal sphere.
“By the great line of my people,” Cha’ril said, “what is this place?”
“Evil.” Trinia shuddered. “Pure evil. If Stacey had said this was what she was after…” She shook her head rapidly.
“Malal is gone,” Nicodemus said. “The Qa’resh destroyed him. This place is a tool…just that. A tool.”
“Wait,” Gideon said to Trinia. “Wait…how can the Ibarrans be after this place and not some Qa’resh artifact or database like before?”
“This Ark can move, my golem,” Trinia said. “It must still have its jump engines. You see the soul collectors out there? They’re fully charged. This ship is…it can be the ultimate weapon.”
Rage flashed through Gideon’s heart.
“You lied to us,” he said, pointing at Roland. “You never said anything about this.�
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“Our Lady is trapped here,” Nicodemus said. “We need her free. Not this ship.”
“Maybe she can’t…can’t control it,” Trinia said. “The Qa’resh were far more advanced than we are. Even I struggled to grasp the basics of how their minds worked. You put a child at the conn of a battleship, they won’t accomplish much.”
“We’re here for your metal queen,” Gideon said. “Once she’s free, we leave.”
“We will do what—” Roland took a step toward his old lance commander, but Nicodemus stopped him with a hand to his chest.
“Free her mind,” Nicodemus said to the Aeon, then he looked up as the light from the nearing crystal sphere grew stronger. “Brace yourself. This part is…odd.”
Chapter 27
Pallax hissed as an optic image from a dead scythe came through the milieu of hovering screens.
“That one is different,” he said, scratching at Trinia in the hologram.
“Another of their battle suits,” Noyan said. Her tendrils pecked at the holo sphere around her head, directing new attacks on the Ibarran perimeter. “No…her bio readins are so different. The Aeon? Makes little different to me. Their entire fleet has returned and now they have enough air support to devastating any attack I can muster with the dreck around the Ark.”
“Thralls are nothing,” Pallax said.
“Do you wish to join the battle?” Noyan asked with a sneer.
“We have thralls to spare. Speaking of…Aiza?”
Aiza’s chin snapped up from his chest. His head lolled to one side and a sibilant hiss came from his mouth. The theosar had infected most of his face, leaving his lower jaw untouched. His pure white eyes stared into the distance.
“Identify this.” Pallax poked a nail into the image of Trinia and flicked his finger at Aiza.
“Not ours…” Aiza’s voice was a death rattle. “Void suit is wrong…custom-made. Fresh from the foundry…can see the mold lines. Too tall for human. Too tall to be one of…them.”
“The theosar works quite well on your species. This bodes well for your future,” Pallax said. “Not everyone goes to Malal’s light willingly, but all will join him in perfection.”
“I recognize her,” Seru said from her makeshift seat. “The new arrival was in the prophet’s mind bleed. This…could be a problem.”
“Can you break her soul or not?” Pallax demanded. “If it is a matter of time, then we can overrun the defenders, kill them all, and leave the prophet in your grip until she leads us to Malal.”
“She is…resilient.” Seru squirmed.
“I will awaken the pilgrim ships,” Noyan said. “The galaxy is alive again. We must harvest them all. This is Malal’s will.”
“And what good are our deeds if we cannot reach the master?” Pallax asked. “Millennia dormant, waiting…we cannot let this chance slip away.”
A holo of the command dais appeared between the three Geist. They watched the Armor assemble Trinia’s equipment next to the throne.
“Kill them,” Noyan said. “Use the threads and kill them!”
“No…” One corner of Seru’s lips pulled into a smile. “No, I see their plan. They will bring her defenses down for me. I will strike soon and she will be mine.”
“A little more patience,” Pallax said. “Just a little more.”
Chapter 28
Stacey ducked through a low tunnel leading through a wall. The musty smell brought back memories of her childhood—excited forays after dark, time away from the scrutiny of bodyguards and an overbearing mother. The few moments she ever had to be normal.
A dead city waited for her at the other end. Phoenix had been the economic and technological heart of Earth once Marc Ibarra brought his inventions to the world. His graphenium batteries had revolutionized energy storage and transformed the world within a decade. Advances in robotics, computing, and material science all made the Ibarra Corporation the richest single entity in the history of mankind.
Phoenix had blossomed around Marc Ibarra, with skyscrapers linked by walkways, elevated mag-lev trains, and Ibarra Corp solar cells and roads built into everything. Twenty-five million people called the city home before a young Stacey Ibarra had reported for duty aboard the Breitenfeld.
Now…it was empty.
The once-constant buzz of delivery drones was gone, replaced with the whisper of wind through decaying apartments. Streets that ran with automated electric cars and buses were still as the grave. There were no people on the sidewalks, in the stores, or chatting on restaurant patios. It was all empty, as though the place had been forgotten.
“Mom?” Stacey hurried across a street to a block of homes surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. There was a gap in the metal, like God had taken an eraser to it. She ran through and glanced at a house where one of Marc Ibarra’s many secretaries once lived. The front façade was gone, leaving the interior exposed like an open dollhouse.
Her address was next. The paint was faded, its solar shingles cracked and loose.
A thrum grew in the air as she went to the door. Cracking it open with her shoulder, she peeked inside. A broken mirror lay on the floor, coated in dust. The door swung on rusty hinges, and Stacey froze.
A Xaros drone hovered in her living room, fractal shapes pulsating along its oval body. Stalk tips moved up and down a wall, disintegrating it with a wide, red beam. A glowing cube floating over its top grew slightly larger as the stalks continued their work.
“This…this isn’t my home anymore.” Stacey backed up, but the door had somehow shut behind her. She jiggled the knob, but it wouldn’t move.
The drone’s body spun in place, then the stalks snapped toward her.
“No. No, this isn’t real. I’m not here.” Stacey held out a hand, one made from flesh and bone.
The drone moved toward her, the fractals on its surface coalescing into Seru’s face.
“I left this place!”
Silver grew from her fingertips and ran up her arm.
The ruby-tipped drone stalks struck at Stacey and as she threw up her arms, her home vanished.
Lowering her forearm, she found herself in a cylindrical room with a low ceiling. A skeleton wearing a decayed suit lay sprawled out next to a small dais. A Qa’resh probe, just a shining tear of light, bobbed slowly in the air over the dais.
“It had to be me,” she said as she looked at the skeleton, the mortal remains of Marc Ibarra. “But he never gave me a choice.”
She reached for the probe but stopped short. Thoughts of a beach and Trinia came to her, floating just behind memories of a long, terrible day.
“You want me here,” Stacey said. “You want this from me.” She dropped her hand and went to the elevator door on the far side of the room.
“But this is still my mind. All mine, you hear me?” Stacey looked up. “All. Mine!”
The doors opened and she got inside. She hit the only button and an old emotion came to her, one she’d tried to banish for years.
“He’s not here with me this time.” She buried her face in her hands. “Stay away. Please stay away. Stay away, stay away, stay away, stay…”
****
Morrigan stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at Gideon and Cha’ril as they spoke with Martel and Nicodemus, the point of her sword stuck into the thin crystal carpet. She twisted the pommel against her palm, the blade flashing as it reflected the light.
“You just had to bring him, didn’t you?” she asked Roland.
From the equipment case, Roland lifted a metal frame run through with fiber-optic cables and set it down next to Trinia. The Aeon worked within a golden lattice, connecting points and muttering to herself.
“We were in a rush,” he said. “Needed a working solution right away, not the perfect answer ten minutes too late.”
“Has she said anything since she entered the taaranjin?” Trinia asked.
Morrigan looked at her.
“The sub-reality simulation based off her quantum pathwa
ys.” Trinia tried to snap her fingers at Morrigan, but the metal of her gloves fouled the noise. “You don’t have an adequate word for it.”
“Nothing,” Morrigan said.
“Can you free her or not?” Martel asked as he joined them around Stacey.
“I cannot,” Trinia said.
“Wait…then we brought you here for nothing?” Roland asked. “Why would—would Saint Kallen have sent us to—”
“I cannot,” Trinia said. “Stacey’s body is of Qa’resh design. It is meant to interface with this abomination of a vessel. We need a bridge, from her mind to this control station.”
“Did you…bring one?” Martel asked.
“We already have it,” Trinia said, tapping Morrigan on her breastplate.
“What’s she talking about?” the Irish Armor asked.
“Our quantum-dot communicators,” Roland said and stepped between Morrigan and Trinia. “You can link us to our Lady through them?” Roland flipped the view port on his chest down and brought his eyes up to a window within his womb to lock his gaze with Trinia’s.
Catch on, he thought. You’re thousands of years old. Take the hint. Their faith is strong. If the others realize they’ve been tricked, they might abandon Stacey.
The Aeon brushed red-gold hair from her face, and her mouth worked from side to side. “Yes…the dots,” she said.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Martel asked.
“It’s not so simple,” Trinia said. “She’s trapped within a reality of her own creation. If you go in there…it is difficult to explain. Your mental projection will skew, distort in ways you can’t imagine. You run a significant chance of redlining, of wiping out your entire neural system.”
“I’ll go,” Roland said.
“You’ve just earned your spurs,” Martel said. “I’ve been Armor for decades. I know my limits. This is my duty.”
“Sir…wait…” Roland snapped the view port shut and turned to his commander. “Lady Ibarra has these…episodes. Moments where her mind slips. When that happens, she mistakes me for Ken Hale, the Strike Marine from the Ember War that was with her when—”