by Richard Fox
“I was just following orders!”
“I know. Oh, how I know that. That’s why I won’t kill you. Your commanders need a reminder that Ibarran blood is Union blood. We can’t fight each other anymore…but actions must have consequences. I’ll give you more of a chance than you gave Tyrel. Keep your brand—your mark as a murderer—and you will keep your life.”
“Mark? Brand?” Kutcher’s eyes darted from side to side.
Stacey put her bare hand on Kutcher’s face, spreading her fingers across his brow but leaving a gap so she could look into his eyes.
Kutcher stifled a scream for a moment then howled in agony as her freezing touch bit into his skin. Stacey pulled her hand back, leaving an ugly print of blackened flesh across Kutcher’s face.
“Keep the brand. Keep your life,” Stacey said, flicking her fingers up. The boot moved off Kutcher’s chest.
The intelligence officer scrambled back into the Mule, steam trailing from his face.
Stacey folded her hands over her knees and asked, “Masha, you were well treated?”
“They learned nothing from me, my Lady,” the spy said as she rubbed her wrists. “Forgive me for failing you. For being captured.”
“I have need of your talents,” Stacey said as she rocked back onto the balls of her feet and stood. “Escort Admiral Valdar to internment on Zelara. See if you can sway him to our cause.”
“He’s not to be punished for stealing our fleet?”
“I have a knife in the Union’s gut,” Stacey said. “I wish to twist it—Valdar and the Breitenfeld, both in the Nation’s service. Get it done.”
“Yes, my Lady,” Masha said.
“Medvedev will join you on Zelara,” Stacey said and left, followed by her honor guard.
Masha grit her teeth and mumbled under her breath.
****
Pathfinder Tomas bounded over a small crater edge on Ceres. The low gravity made for easy travel across Earth’s second moon, but hopping across the dusty landscape was still a tax on his muscles, even with the slight assist of his lighter power armor.
“This is nuts,” his partner, Pathfinder Gerns, said through her suit link. “No way anyone survived without a suit. We’d pick up their emergency beacon.”
“Today’s had all sorts of crazy.” Tomas looked up at the Ark, stationary in space near the Crucible. “Pilot saw a Dutchman. We go find a Dutchman. That’s what Pathfinders do, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember that part of training,” she said. “This Dutch better be alive to appreciate that we’re on pod duty. I’m tired of busting my ass just to pick up remains.”
“Bad attitude.” Tomas vaulted over a crater lip and slid across the basin. A sprawl of dust and rocks spread from an impact point a few yards away. “There?”
“No weather on this rock.” Gerns took a scanner off her belt. “Could be a meteor hit from eight million years ago. Nothing on the scope. I’ll get the body bag out.”
Tomas shuffled toward the impact and made out a humanoid shape just beneath the dust. He went to the neck and brushed the dark brown dirt away. Silver flashed in the sunlight.
“The hell?” Tomas reached for the chest, when a hand snapped out of the ground and gripped him by the wrist. He shrieked in a manner not befitting a Pathfinder as a dirt-encrusted hand clamped down on his visor.
“Settle down.” The words came through without tone or inflection, vibrating through the fingers and against the glass of his visor.
“Holy—”
Tomas heard his partner panting as she fumbled for a gauss carbine locked to her back.
“Hold on!” Tomas raised a hand.
The figure sat up and dirt fell away from his silver face.
“Pathfinders. Good. I need you to contact anyone with stars for rank in Camelback Mountain,” came through the touch on Tomas’s visor. “Tell them Marc Ibarra needs a favor. We don’t have much time to rescue Admiral Valdar.”
Chapter 33
Santos scrubbed a towel against his scalp. His face tingled, a sensation normal after being so long in the pod. He wiped amniosis off his brow and looked up at his dirty, battered, and damaged Armor within a coffin-shaped maintenance bay. He leaned against the catwalk running chest height across all the bays.
“The Breitenfeld cemetery.” He whistled and looked around. Cha’ril, one bay over and wearing a skin suit, stepped into an unmarked jumpsuit. “Maybe the Ibarrans will give us the ship back.”
Aignar banged his cane against the bars of the catwalk.
“Stop gold-bricking,” Aignar said. “Captain wants us on the flight deck. Not sightseeing.”
Cha’ril zipped up her jumpsuit and joined her lance mates. She cast a quick glance at Ibarran legionnaires guarding the doorway.
“Why did the captain order us to dismount?” she asked. “If there’s an issue, then—”
“I don’t think we’re prisoners,” Aignar said. “But we’re not their guests either. The captain worked out a deal. We’re in orbit over Earth. They should let us go soon.”
“Aignar, did you see that giant shell–-looking thing?” Santos asked. “You see what it did? That Stacey lady could crown herself the Queen of Earth right now if she wanted. What the hell are we going to do about it?”
“The Ibarrans just pulled our asses out of the fire,” Aignar said. “Broke the siege on Earth. I don’t like them,” he nudged his prosthetic jaw, “but let’s accept the obvious: they’re on our side…at least now they are.”
“And Captain Gideon’s been so…reasonable,” Cha’ril said.
“Not like him with the Ibarrans.” Aignar shook his head. “Now that we’re all safe back in Union space, we…wait, where’s the captain? His Armor’s not here.”
“Flight deck. Trinia’s coming back from whatever she was doing with their Lady,” Santos said.
Cha’ril’s quills flared and she looked at Aignar.
“He wouldn’t,” Aignar said.
“This would be his last chance.” She looked back at her suit and trilled with frustration.
“What’re you two going on about?” Santos put on a pair of fresh boots.
“We need to get to the flight deck.” Aignar hobbled away. “We need to get there now.”
Chapter 34
Roland stood guard on one side of the Ark’s command throne, Morrigan on the other. Stacey was in the seat, palms turned up, fingers twitching. The Qa’resh probe floated a foot in front of her chest, its light white and faint.
Earth hung in the portal above their heads.
“Never thought I’d see it again,” Morrigan said through their suit link. “So many new cities…you can see their lights on the night side.”
“I…have some concerns,” Roland said.
“About Earth? The Vishrakath fleet is destroyed. Kesaht too. No more mass drivers coming to pummel the planet. All the out-system macro cannons are silent for once. What’s there to worry about?” she asked.
“Our Lady dealt with Bale. Now she comes for the Union,” he said.
“Ach, Bale was a war criminal. A monster. President Garret isn’t in the same league.”
“He signed the Omega Provision. Ibarrans are dead because of him,” Roland said.
“She’s…she wouldn’t,” Morrigan said, looking at him. “You still doubt her?”
“Toth are not humans. Templar don’t take oaths to defend them.”
“She’s not going to fry our home world, Roland. Do you need some time out of your suit?”
“My synch rating is amber. Pulling Stacey out of that…purgatory…left me a bit fuzzy,” he said. “I could use a checkup.”
Stacey’s head snapped back and the reflection off her face rippled.
“Trinia?” The word was high-pitched, the syllables almost a song. “Oh, Trinia…you won’t believe what I’ve found!”
The Aeon came up the steps but stopped well short of the upper level.
“This place is tainted, Stacey,” Trinia said. “Des
troy it for good before Malal’s legacy can bring more suffering to the stars.”
“The Qa’resh had toys!” Stacey lifted a hand next to her face. “Toys and gizmos and gadgets we never imagined. It begs the question why they never shared any of it with us on Bastion. It could have made the fight against the Xaros so much easier. Look…”
She swiped through the air and a lattice appeared before Trinia. The Aeon looked it over, her face impassive.
“I see why,” she said. “Look at the power source for all of them. They all draw from the reservoirs. They’re all powered by soul energy. Death fueled them. The death of sentients. That’s why the Qa’resh hid it from us, because we would have had to sacrifice ourselves to use them.”
“The Ark still has some power left in it,” Stacey said, “enough to set things right.”
“You can’t use it,” Trinia said. “Malal drained the life from entire worlds to—”
“The dead are still dead!” Stacey rose from the throne. “I cannot siphon the power back into corpses. The reservoirs and this ship are simply tools to my will, and tools are neither good nor evil.”
“I do not fear power,” Trinia said. “I fear those who wield it.”
“And I am to be…no…” Stacey looked down at her hand. Her wrist quivered and the motion traveled through her fingers. She clutched the palsied limb to her chest. “You were promised Earth—your freedom—if you helped me. But…could you stay with me just a little bit longer? This probe was corrupted, but with a little work, it could—”
“No.” Trinia shook her head. “No. I’ve done enough. I helped you save the galaxy against the Xaros. I will not be part of what you do next.”
“I…I understand,” Stacey said as she put a hand on the throne and crouched slightly.
“My Lady?” Morrigan moved toward her.
“Fine! I’m fine!” Stacey straightened up. “I have a fair amount of control over one of the new toys. Let me flip a mental coin…Roland wins.”
“My Lady,” Morrigan said, putting a hand to Roland’s shoulder. “He needs a bit of time to—”
Stacey snapped her fingers.
Colors melted together then reformed into a different place. An Ibarran transport was beside Roland, the ramp open, and Terran Union soldiers were staring at him, their jaws slack. He looked over a flight deck devoid of any other fighters or utility ships. A group of three Union Armor and a handful of Strike Marines were on the far side of the flight deck.
He was on the Breitenfeld.
Stacey looked at the fingers she snapped, then flexed her hand open. “Now there’s a trick,” she said.
Stacey’s honor guard swarmed out of the shuttle and formed a circle around her and a bewildered Trinia.
“My Lady,” one of the guards said, “you’re on time…we thought you’d be late as—”
“—as I hadn’t left the Ark.” Stacey put two fingers to a temple. “Indeed. I can get back the same way…in a few minutes. Tell the Union to send Gideon over. We’ll meet him halfway.”
Roland tried to take a step forward, but his armor wouldn’t respond.
Stacey got a few steps ahead of him, then paused. “Is there a problem?” she asked.
“My plugs are…a moment, my Lady,” he said.
“Let me.” Trinia went to his back and attached a data wire from an oversized, bespoke gauntlet on her left arm.
Gideon, on the other side of the flight deck, went to one knee and looked to a Strike Marine as he touched his arm, a normal devotion done to honor Saint Kallen.
“He’s picked up religion?” Roland asked.
“Your neural stasis is fluctuating,” Trinia said. “Stay back and do a full reboot cycle. Then unplug soon as you can. Make a note of how…teleporting affects neural systems. I’m a bit foggy myself. Your Lady doesn’t have this problem—no flesh to bother.”
Gideon stood and his ammo canisters fell from his armor to the deck. He flicked off the ammo belt connected to the gauss cannons mounted to his forearm.
“No time,” Roland said, ejecting his own ammunition and taking a wobbly step forward.
“Trinia,” Stacey said, “a moment. Ysir meg nass’harr.”
The Aeon responded with words and sounds he didn’t think human vocal cords could reproduce just as a message request came up on his HUD. A short text message read “1836.”
The year the Dragoon regiment was first constituted on Earth, Roland thought. He opened the channel, already knowing who was on the other side.
“Roland,” Gideon said over the tight-beam IR, “you know what that Ark can do.”
Stacey and Trinia started forward, still speaking in Aeon. Roland followed, though his armor’s legs felt like rubber through his plugs.
“And?” Roland asked. His left hand flexed and the empty gauss cannon barrels felt heavy on his arm. Leaving his bullets suddenly felt foolish, but he wasn’t unarmed.
“And only Ibarra can use it. It’s too dangerous, Roland. We’ve heard she’s borderline insane. Is it true?”
Roland almost reached out to pull Stacey back but hesitated. Gideon had seen reason before. He’d fought beside the Ibarra Nation when the need arose. If he could sway Gideon to peace…
“She…she’s got us this far. Ended the war with the Kesaht. Saved Earth. She’s no threat to those who will leave us alone,” Roland said.
“She is Saint Kallen, you fool,” Gideon said. “It’s all a fraud. There’s a component in your Armor—”
“I know.”
“You what?” Gideon stopped dead in his tracks. Then moved forward again before Stacey and Trinia could react.
“I know what she’s done. Ibarra has iron in her soul, Gideon. I’ve seen it. She only wants what’s best for all of us. I could have taken Trinia by force, left you all back on—”
“You expect me to believe that?” Gideon rumbled. “I know you. I don’t believe you’d let a psychopath control a doomsday weapon. The Ibarrans have corrupted you with their damn cult of Kallen. You know the truth but refuse to see how blind you really are.”
But he just let a Strike Marine use him as an icon…why would he talk of Kallen like that if he knows what Stacey’s done?
He looked at Gideon’s gauss cannons and a realization hit him. “Gideon. Don’t. We want peace with Earth. Our Lady is—”
“I’m not one of yours.” A whine went up as Gideon powered up the magnetic accelerators in his forearm cannons. Gideon’s speakers clicked on.
“And I do this for me, traitor!”
Roland dove in front of Stacey as Gideon cocked his cannons and fired both barrels.
One shell hammered into his breastplate, cracking the armor and punching a dent into his womb. The other ricocheted off his shoulder, wrecking the servos within. Roland’s mind went white-hot as pain lanced through his spike and his body felt the damage his suit had just taken.
Shouting a war cry, Gideon charged forward, pulling a METL hilt off his back and snapping the blade out in the shape of a gladius.
Stacey grabbed Trinia by the belt and yanked her back. The Aeon went sliding across the deck and away from the oncoming armor. Stacey raised her chin slightly and opened her hands to her side, offering a clean target.
“All your fault!” Gideon pulled the gladius up to his shoulder and leapt at the Ibarran leader.
Stacey didn’t move.
Roland shoulder-tackled Gideon, turning his body sideways. The two armor crashed into Stacey and sent her careening into the bulkhead.
Gideon got off Roland and swiped his gladius at his optics. Roland flinched and the blade sliced off his antenna. Roland unsnapped his hilt and drove the extending blade at Gideon’s chest. The gladius parried the strike on one side and Gideon reversed his momentum to send the tip of his weapon skidding up Roland’s arm and off a shoulder plate.
Ducking before the gladius could chop off his helm, Roland swung his longsword up and felt it connect against Gideon’s thigh. The sword chopped into armor plate
, and Roland twisted, cutting deeper as he drew the blade across the damage. There was a squeal of failing hydraulics and Gideon stumbled away.
Roland looked to Stacey, who was on all fours against the wall. The deck and bulkhead were coated in frost as her body worked to repair the damage. He got to his feet and backed toward her, his HUD alive with warnings, his left arm twitching against his side as his suit struggled to regain control of the damaged shoulder joint.
Gideon twisted his METL’s hilt and the gladius snapped into a spear longer than Roland’s sword. He stabbed at the damaged area of Roland’s suit, where his gauss shell had found its mark, and the tip ripped across the shell of Roland’s womb, spilling amniosis fluid out like a bleeding wound.
Roland got his left arm up and grabbed the spear haft. Gideon put his suit’s strength into the weapon, and it pierced deeper into Roland’s womb.
Roland swung his sword up to strike the haft, but it went wide, snapping back into the METL’s hilt. He bounced against the wall, shielding Stacey with his body.
Gideon shifted his weapon into an axe and chopped off Roland’s sword hand. Roland’s HUD fizzled and his vision went red. He collapsed to one knee and raised his arms just in time to deflect another blow from the axe. Gideon punched Roland in the helm, badly denting the face and crushing half his optics.
The Union Armor transformed his weapon into a long spike and stabbed—not at Roland, but at Stacey braced against the wall just behind him.
With his remaining hand, Roland deflected the strike up and the spike punched through the bulkhead. He grabbed Gideon by the arm and pulled his other arm out to one side.
His punch spike emerged from the hole where his hand should have been, and he rammed the diamond-tipped point into Gideon’s chest. The spike pierced the outer layer of armor, but not the inner womb.
Gideon tried to pull back his arm holding his weapon, but Roland’s grip was too strong. The two suits struggled against each other, servos grinding.
“You hate me,” Stacey said. “And you’re right to hate me.”