by Richard Fox
“I know who Ken Hale is,” Martel snapped. “There have been rumors about her, but I never heard anything like this.”
“It’s true. I swear it.” He touched the Templar cross on his shoulder armor.
“It’s too risky, boy-o,” Morrigan said. “You lose it in there, neither of you may ever come out again. Let the colonel do it.”
“I do not know who Ken Hale is,” Trinia said, frowning and working her hands through the golden lattice.
“She was in love with him,” Roland said. “The feeling…wasn’t mutual.”
“Then the young one is right,” Trinia said. “I need a strong emotional response from Stacey’s mind to connect to, and right now, I see her mind degrading. Something is grinding away at her control. I need to establish the bridge soon before her mind fades away completely.”
“I know what it is to lose a loved one,” Morrigan said. “I could connect with her that way.”
“No,” Martel said, putting a hand on Roland’s shoulder. “You can do this?”
“I am Armor.” Roland glanced down at Gideon, who paced around the lower platform like a caged lion. “I will not fail. Send me.”
“Do it,” Martel said and backed away.
Trinia removed a segmented metal tube bristling with sensors from the crate and brought it behind Roland.
“No guarantees,” she said. “I had to design the Qa’resh-to-armor adapter during the flight down from the Midway. But fear not, I’ve had thousands of years to study the ancients’ technology and I invented most of what’s connected to your brain stem—plus, I had almost half an hour to troubleshoot this device.”
“Are you telling me this to make me more or less confident?” Roland asked.
“Eh,” Trinia said, shrugging before she lifted an access port beneath his back armor plates and plugged in the adapter.
“What do I need to do in there?” he asked as a tingle grew at the back of his mind.
“You’ll have a token. When you find her, activate it and a door will appear. She has to go through it of her own free will. If she fights, it will rip her psyche apart,” Trinia said. “There’s something else in there with Stacey. It’s not Qa’resh…shadows come and go. I don’t fully understand yet.”
“Fair enough. What happens next?”
Trinia went to the lattice and traced an arch in the light.
“Hold on.”
Fire shot through Roland’s body. He opened his mouth to scream, when his reality exploded into pure-white light.
****
Stacey sat in the corner of the small elevator, her face buried in her hands, a cold dread building in her chest.
“Stacey?” a voice asked, one she knew.
“Stacey, we have to get out of here. Come with me.” Ken Hale put a hand, one clad in power armor, on her knee.
She looked up, and he was just as she remembered: armor dirty with blown sand, hair shaved down to a classic Marine high and tight, face wide and eyes kind.
“We’ve got what your grandfather sent us for. Let’s get out of here before the Xaros find us, yeah?” he asked.
“Ken…you’re back? But you left me. You went someplace…”
“A mistake,” he said as he took her by the hands and helped her to her feet. “I should’ve stuck with you. I’ll stay with you now. I’ll be with you forever. It was wrong to leave.”
He smiled and her heart skipped a beat.
“Come with me?” His now bare hand touched the side of her face and a tear fell.
“Ken…” She embraced him and felt his warmth.
The elevator doors opened to the Qa’resh station, the final place she’d seen Malal and the last of humanity’s first alien ally. She looked to a view port and saw the twin rings of light around a massive black hole, a wall of stars off in the great distance.
“I remember this,” Hale said. “I was here with you when…something happened. What was it?”
“They brought us here.” Stacey took a step away from Hale, still holding his hand. “The Qa’resh needed Malal here after he’d fed…on the Toth…”
Malal appeared before a large portal. The disk resolved into crystal cities floating in endless clouds. The portal darkened, and a mouth formed to bite at one of the cities.
Stacey yanked her hand away.
“What happened here?” Ken asked. “I’ve…been gone so long, I can’t remember.”
“You should know,” Stacey said, feeling the walls closing in on her. “You were there. You can’t forget—you’re not real. You’re not Ken.”
Hale’s face darkened. His eyes went pure black and he advanced on her with a snarl. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her back.
She crashed into the back of the elevator and pain shot through her body. The doors closed behind Hale as he grabbed a fistful of her uniform, picking her up and slamming her against the wall as he brought up his right gauntlet.
A Ka-Bar blade snapped out and he pressed it against her bare neck.
“We are losing patience.” Ken’s words mingled with another, a female voice. “Your kind believes in a hell, a place of eternal suffering and pain. If you do not give in, we will take you to hell and torture your mind until nothing but clay remains—clay we will mold to our liking!”
The elevator rumbled, and Hale cocked his head to the ceiling, a moment of confusion on his face.
“Malal…Malal was a necessary evil,” Stacey said.
Ken looked back at her and morphed. His hair grew into long, oily strands and his face elongated into demonic proportions.
“One we used and threw away!” Stacey’s body snapped into silver and she threw a punch into the Malal standing before her. Her fist passed through his body like he was a ghost.
Malal pinned her to the wall and grabbed her by the chin. Light shone from his palm and cold crept through her face.
“Time for the theosar,” Malal said. “Time to die.”
A giant metal hand punched through the ceiling. Servos squealed as the fingers gripped the edge of the hole and peeled open the roof. A suit of armor towered over the opening, and the sight of the soldier standing there sent a pang of guilt through Stacey’s heart.
“Elias?”
“Get away from her!” the armor shouted and punched into the elevator.
Malal vanished and the fist beat a dent into the floor. The massive arm pulled back and the armor tore the elevator in half, leaving Stacey in the middle of a disheveled parking lot just outside a massive tower.
“My Lady, we need—no…” The armor’s paint shifted from the old slate-gray, Ember War–era colors to matte-black, Templar crosses on the chest and shoulders.
“Stacey?”
The armor shrank into an older Ken Hale, wearing a decent civilian suit and carrying a slight paunch to his stomach. He looked at the gold wedding band on his left hand, then hid it behind him.
“Stacey…it’s me. You remember—”
“No,” Stacey said, shaking her head. “No, don’t lie to me.”
“This is hard for me too. I need you to come with me,” Hale said.
+TRAITOR+
The word boomed from all around.
Hale morphed into Roland, wearing only his skin suit. The sky darkened and lightning lashed beneath sudden thunderheads.
“Trinia?” Roland asked the sky. “This is not…this is not working.”
“Liar!” a woman shouted behind them. Makarov stalked toward them, hair loose and flowing in the growing breeze. “Betrayer! You protect her when she has done nothing but trick you!”
“She’s not here,” Stacey said softly. “But are you?”
Makarov evaporated like a wisp of steam.
“Traitor,” Gideon said and stepped through a broken door, wearing his full dress uniform, his chest full of medals. He reached to his right shoulder, ripped away the Iron Dragoons patch, and tossed it at Roland’s feet.
Roland looked down, and a metal hand grabbed his ankle. Aignar, his p
rosthetic jaw swinging from one joint, looked up at his old friend.
“You abandoned me,” crackled from Aignar’s throat speaker.
“No!” Roland shuffled back, growing taller and transforming into his armor. “No! I saved you from the Kesaht. Saved all of you. You…Saint’s bones, I hate this place!”
“My Black Knight is here,” Stacey said. “You’re here to destroy me like I asked?”
“No, my Lady. I’m here to save you. The Nation…” He stopped as a thrum in the air grew louder. Pebbles and bits of glass shuddered against the ground.
A half dozen Xaros drones flew around the tower and collided together, turning into a jumble of stalks and fused bodies. The mass rolled across the ground and formed into something humanoid.
Seru looked up, her statuesque face at odds with the chaos of the rest of her body.
“You both know this,” the Geist said. “You both fear this.”
“No,” came from Stacey, but in the voice of a different woman. Roland looked down and saw a woman with braided blonde hair in a wheelchair where Stacey should have been. “We fear the lie. The lie we have become.”
“Saint Kallen?” Roland dropped his guard for a moment.
Kallen fell out of her chair and her hair shortened and darkened. Stacey looked up at the armor.
“I need you, my Black Knight…I can’t do this anymore.” Stacey’s arms went silver, then began to fade away.
“No! You’re mine!” Seru shouted and charged forward, the massive feet of her Xaros construct cracking the pavement.
Roland snapped his hilt off his leg and ducked slightly as he closed on his foe.
Seru lifted an arm to the side and massive claws grew from her hand. She swiped at Roland just as he thrust one knee forward and dodged under the strike.
The metal on his back leg sparked against the ground as he slid, extending the blade from his hilt as he drew it across his body. The blade cut through Seru’s chest, sending a spray of tiny cubes into the air. Seru stumbled forward, one arm locked against the deep cut through her chest.
“No,” she said. “We can work together. Yes? Share paradise.”
Roland marched up to the Geist and flipped the blade point down. He raised the hilt up to his helm.
“You are an abomination!” Roland drove the sword through the base of her neck and impaled her to the ground. Seru slid down the blade, her body disintegrating into cubes that floated into the air and shrank away to nothing.
“My Lady?” Roland went to Stacey, who lay in a pool of blood, both hands over a bullet wound to her chest.
“Stacey, can you hear me?” Roland asked as his armor shrank to normal human size. He touched her shoulder and she looked up at him, blood trickling from her mouth.
“Makarov will do well,” Stacey said. “Help her. Help me, Ken…Ken, just come back…”
“No, I’m not going to lose you like this. I—” Roland tucked the chin of his helm to his chest and willed himself back into Ken Hale’s form, from the time he met the war hero face-to-face at a restaurant in Phoenix.
“Stay with me,” Roland/Hale said and Stacey’s eyes went wide.
“I always loved you,” she said, “but I know you never did.”
“But I—I—” Stacey’s face changed to Makarov’s and Roland’s heart swelled. His body changed back to his own, and Stacey looked away from his face to the scar on his hand, the kiss-shaped scar she’d given him.
Running her fingertips over the abused flesh, she asked, “Roland?”
“My Lady?”
“You came for me?” Her body grew more coherent.
“Of course. You are our Nation. You love us all. We would never abandon you.”
“Ken left me…but you came back.” Stacey got to her feet and she went silver. “I am needed. Take me home, Roland. I grow tired of this lie.”
Roland stood and looked around. “We need Trinia to make a—oh, there’s one.” He pointed to a simple wooden door in a frame a few feet away. He opened it, and warm light shone through.
She took him by the hand, her normal chill gone.
“Faith,” she said. “My faith in you was rewarded. Saint Kallen is real, no matter what we know between us.”
They stepped into the light together.
****
Seru screamed and thrashed against the metal vines holding her up. The seat retracted into the wall and she fell to one side, hands clawing at her face as her wails faded into a weak groan.
“What’s happening to her?” Pallax reached for Seru but pulled back when cracks broke out across her naked body.
“I’m losing access to the Ark!” Noyan shouted.
As Seru stretched a hand toward Pallax, her fingers crumbled and fell to the ground like ashes.
“My love,” Seru said as half her face shattered and sloughed off. “My love, helllllllll—”
Her head twisted to one side and fell, separating cleanly from her neck. Her body froze into a statue and all color drained away.
“Seru?” Pallax nudged her head with his foot. “You have failed Malal. Such a pity.”
“I never liked her,” Noyan said. “My connection to the Ark is fading. The prophet is waking up and if we don’t—”
“Awaken the pilgrims,” Pallax snapped. “All of them. This is a sign from the Perfect One. We must cleanse the galaxy of life, just as he did. Then we will be found worthy. A final test before paradise.”
“Shunting power.” Noyan’s Medusa-like hair went into overdrive, tapping out commands and blurring around her face. “What of the humans?”
“Kill them. Kill them all.”
****
Cold, thick fluid enveloped Roland. He was in total darkness and his first reaction was to panic. He opened his mouth to gulp in air, but his mouth and lungs were already full of liquid. He lashed out, bumping hands and feet against the inside of his womb.
“Calm yourself,” Trinia said.
Roland stopped, his limbs braced against the inside of his pod.
“Your mind is present again,” Trinia said, “though you’re dangerously close to redlining. Relax or I will pump you full of tranquilizers.”
“Stacey? My Lady?”
“She’s free,” Trinia said. “Though I’m not sure how much damage was done to her in there. Optics back online.”
The command platform snapped up around him, and he looked from side to side. Metal vines lay on the side of the throne, white and steaming. Stacey was there, unmoved from the last time he saw her. Roland tried to move, but his armor wouldn’t obey his commands.
A tremor rattled through the bridge and Morrigan unsnapped the blade of her sword, raised her gauss barrels, and looked around.
“What’s going on up there?” Gideon shouted from the bottom of the stairs.
The small Qa’resh probe emerged from Stacey’s chest, hovered for a moment, then began to move away. Stacey’s hand snapped out and closed over the probe, red light pulsing from between her fingers.
“Now where do you think you’re going?” Stacey asked.
“Are you here?” Trinia asked her. “Completely here?”
“Trinia?” Stacey leaned back against the throne. “I didn’t think you’d be so tall…and so green.”
Motes of light flashed within the lattice, sending out ripples like rain across the surface of a pond.
“The quake have anything to do with your interface going malky?” Morrigan asked.
Trinia frowned at the display. “It’s coming too fast for me to read,” the Aeon said.
“The Geist are draining the Ark.” Stacey’s eyes shone with light as she spoke. “They…my God, the power they have. I can slow it down, but then…”
“My Lady, if we possess the ability to leave, may I suggest we use it?” Morrigan asked.
Stacey cocked her head to one side. “What have I done?” she asked. “What have I awoken?” The Ark shook and the upper platform dipped up and down.
“My Lady?” Mo
rrigan braced Roland before the disturbance could topple him over.
“It’s too late,” Stacey said. “Far too late…time to go.”
Chapter 29
Santos spun up his rotary gun and sprayed rounds in an arc across the oncoming thralls. Bullets chewed through the Geist foot soldiers, blasting into sand as they died.
He picked up an increase in gauss rifle fire to his left and swung his higher-caliber cannons toward the shooting. A scythe emerged from the dirt as rifle fire chewed up the earth and gouged out hunks of the scythe’s body.
Santos put a double shot into the beast’s head, and it collapsed back into the hole. A legionnaire tossed a grenade into the hole, blowing apart thralls as they climbed over the scythe’s remains.
“You’re useful, for a Union dog,” Marshal Davoust said from his spot on the parapet as he slammed home a fresh magazine into his pistol and landed three head shots with as many pulls of the trigger.
“You’re not so bad yourself for someone so…bald,” Santos said, ejecting his rotary’s magazine and commanding his auto-loaders to attach another. An error message flashed across his HUD. “Running out of bullets. Good thing I can swing an axe and never get tired. Your boys can say the same?”
“If my legionnaires draw breath, they can kill,” Davoust said, peering over the parapet at a black tide forming in the distance.
Beams of light blasted out of temple domes, forming pylons of white light with crackles of blue lightning between them. Santos followed the beams up and saw them fracture into rays high in the atmosphere.
“Ah!” Davoust ripped his helmet off and leaned against the bulwark, digging a knuckle against his right ear. “My quantum-dot comms just went berserk.”
The pylons sputtered out and the domes faded back to normal.
“We going with sky beams bad or sky beams good?” Santos asked. “Because the only thing up there is your fleet, which would make sky beams bad if all those ships just got hit, and those pyramid things…which probably means sky beams bad. Bad. Let’s stick with bad.”
“Does all Union Armor talk so damn much?” Davoust put the edge of his helmet to his nose then sniffed the inside. He pulled out a small charred box, then tossed both items aside. A legionnaire nudged his shoulder then pointed out over the defenses.