Steel Sworn

by Richard Fox

  “He’s Armor. Got a ghost instead of the plugs,” Sugimoto said.

  The bruiser set Ely down gently, a sheepish look on his face. He looked at his feet and thumped a fist to his heart in salute. “My apologies to you, sir. I did not know.”

  “My apologies for mistaking you for a doughboy.” Ely leaned to one side, looking for a way out of the mess hall. “I didn’t know either. Pardon me?”

  The soldiers put their backs to the wall and beat a fist to their chest as Ely rushed out.

  ****

  A man in an open white shirt and dark pants sauntered up to a castle wall overlooking a roiling sea. He put one leg up on the parapet, the wind blowing through silky hair and rustling a salt-and-pepper beard that didn’t hide his solid jaw line.

  The man picked up a double-walled whiskey glass, complete with the amber potent potable from the castle, and took a sip. He looked directly into the camera.

  “If it’s not Standish Liquors, then it’s not for me. Best in the galaxy.” He held the drink up to the golden light of sunset and the logo for Standish Liquors flashed across the screen.

  Another video started, and this time, the same man was on horseback, galloping through growing hops plants that came up to his waist. He stopped, and the image narrowed on his eyes as he spied something in the distance. He drew a gauss rifle from a holster on the horse and—

  A knock on the door and Santos tapped the screen of his slate and set it to one side of his desk.

  “Enter.” Santos ran a hand through his thinning hair and Ely stepped up to his desk and saluted, wrist bent, fingers slightly open, his fingernails displayed to the captain.

  “Ee-luh…Elsis…Ely Hale reports as ordered.”

  Santos looked at him for a moment, jaw working from side to side.

  “First, that’s not how we salute in the Crusade. I’ve told you this.” Santos stood and beat a fist to his chest. “Second, that’s not even how we used to salute in the Union. You were never in the Junior Rangers?”

  Ely hit his left fist to his chest, then swapped it for his right. “No, sir, my brother Jerry was all about the hoah hoah stuff. Though I’m kind of wishing I’d done it with him,” Ely said. “I can’t say my given name. The Geist on Earth took offense to it and did some kind of mental block on me.”

  “Noted. Sit.” Santos motioned to a single metal folding chair and sat down in a beaten-up leather swivel chair. “Pulaski’s fine. The Karigole are tough and the heat flash through his amniosis was barely a warm bath by his standards. I may have overreacted a bit, but I’ve seen too many Armor go past the redline, so I’m more cautious than other commanders.”

  “Am I done?” Ely asked. “Because maybe I should be. I screwed up out there and almost got someone killed.”

  “Look at this.” Santos flipped over a larger slate and double-tapped the screen. A camera still of the badly damaged pyramid ship came up, along with four lines with ballistics calculations running along them. One speared through the broken tip. “Four shots on target. Only one connected. Can you tell me which of us got the hit?”

  “Not…not right away.” Ely took the slate and frowned at it.

  “Yours, Ely. Turns out that the atmospheric data we had in our targeting computers was fouled. I read through your suit’s logs and found the manual recalculation you did just before firing. Why did you do that?”

  “It was the clouds. See these?” Ely touched a patch of white that looked like tissue paper stretched out to almost nothing. “Noctilucents like these shouldn’t be visible at that time of day, but since Aachen is a low ocean world, these would only come from an arctic air mass that…I saw that the ballistics calculation didn’t compensate for the lower air pressure and redid the math.”

  “And why didn’t you share this key piece of information with the rest of your lance?” Santos crossed his arms.

  “Because there were those three nightmare robots coming right for me and I locked down on the math…guess I screwed that up too.”

  “Hardly. If you hadn’t acted on your own initiative, we wouldn’t have scored that hit. Mission failure. I would’ve kept us anchored for another volley and we would’ve been out there for even more Geist air to make an attack run. You didn’t act according to standard operating procedure, but you got the job done.” Santos knocked on his desktop.

  “Oh…” Ely frowned and raised his chin. “Wait…really?”

  “If this was a training exercise at Knox, you would’ve been a Go at the gunnery station, but a No Go on several other graded events. But this ain’t Knox. You held it together well enough out there…but you haven’t earned your spurs yet.” Santos rubbed the back of his wrist between his eyes.

  “How was I supposed to synch my calculation to the rest of you?” Ely swiped across the screen.

  “You’ll never have it!” The voice and the snap of gauss shots came from the smaller slate. “Off my land!”

  “Whoops.” Santos flipped over the slate and muted the video app, where Javier Orozco blasted away at chitinous aliens. “Don’t suppose you saw him while you were on Earth?”

  “Is that…Standish Liquors? I’ve seen those commercials…no, never saw him.”

  “Some people have hours of home movies with their families.” Santos turned the slate off. “Me? I get to look through old ads to see my father.”

  “Guess I could always watch The Last Stand on Takeni, though my dad said it was a lot of propaganda,” Ely said.

  “My father said it was a load of chorradas. Same sentiment. Even the Standish cut was awful.” Santos chuckled, then his face fell. “My father was on Earth when the Geist came. I thought about him on the way up to orbit and the Ibarran ship that evacced us…there wasn’t anything I could do for him. We’d lost…”

  “I saw some of that.” Ely tapped his head. “Aignar showed me.”

  Santos’ brow furrowed. “That’s not something a ghost AI is capable of…strange.” Santos took the big slate from Ely and tapped on it. “Upgrade? No, he redlined years ago…let me ask around.”

  “Yes, sir…am I still in trouble?”

  “If you’d come out of Knox or the Ibarran squire system, you’d be packing your bags right now. As you’re still learning the ropes and I need the firepower, you remain in my lance. Lars will run you through more training.” Santos stood and shook Ely’s hand. “Give Pulaski some space for a bit. He’ll hold a grudge until you balance the scales in his eyes.”

  “Got it…I think.”

  “Move out. Draw fire.”

  Ely left the office and made his way back to the cemetery. He stopped at a framed picture of a statue of a silver woman, her arms reaching to the sky. A pair of Armor flanked the statue, each kneeling in prayer. The silhouette of a crowd with arms raised in defiance took up the lower part of the picture. The words in Basque across the bottom meant nothing to him.

  He leaned against the wall and a wave of sadness came over him.

  What am I doing? he thought. Who am I kidding out here? I’ve done nothing but get through these fights by the skin of my teeth over and over again. How desperate is the Crusade to keep me out there? Maybe I should go back and ask to be reassigned to the mechanics again. Can’t screw up that bad there, can I?

  He looked back at Santos’ office, then to the poster. Why silver? Was she that “Lady” the Ibarrans kept mentioning? He gritted his teeth and took a step toward the office, but something stopped him from going any farther.

  His mind went back to a dream he had on Earth, where a woman with Armor plugs invited him to pray with her. Ely moved back, his doubt and sorrow gone.

  He felt a warm spot on his head and touched the back of his skull, over where the Qa’Resh probe fragment was embedded in his brain, but his skin didn’t feel any different.

  “Weird…” Ely shook his head and walked to the cemetery.

  A tiny camera hidden in a ceiling crack tracked him.

  ****

  Pulaski ran a whetstone down the edge o
f his short sword. Turning the blade to catch the light, he saw his reflection. He angled it away so his dead eye wasn’t visible.

  “Figured you’d be here.” Lars beat a palm against the Karigole’s trophy locker, rattling bones. “How goes the brooding?”

  “I must take care of my equipment, or it will not take care of me,” Pulaski said. “This belief is shared between our warriors, and I must record my deeds for the ancestors.”

  Lars craned his neck to see a long bone, too thick to be human, lying on a patch of animal hide next to Pulaski. Runes and marks were etched into the bone.

  “Sometimes you take trophies; sometimes you don’t. Why is that?” Lars asked.

  “I could not reach orbit to obtain a piece of the destroyed ship,” Pulaski snorted. “Besides…while I missed, a successful hunt by the pack is a success for the hunter.”

  “Very teamwork-oriented of the Karigole. I like it.” Lars sat on a bench across from Pulaski.

  “You are not here to learn my ways.” Pulaski looked at him with his one good eye.

  Lars raised his hands to the sides. “Go easy on lillebror. He’s doing pretty good for as little training as he’s had,” he said.

  “My seneschal would have my spurs for a failure like his. Don’t tell me the Ibarran Armor Corps has higher standards than your traditions.” Pulaski laid his sword across his lap. “Would you be so forgiving of him if I had taken a few more hits and died? What if it was Santos? Or you? Would I expect your spirit to make excuses for the whelp?”

  “But that’s not what happened, ’Ski. At least we know he can function under pressure. You’d be surprised how many Armor fail once they see the elephant,” Lars said.

  “There was no elephant when I finished my squire trials,” Pulaski said, his nostrils flaring. “Was this a human-only test?”

  “I mean he’s been in combat and didn’t freeze up or collapse into a sobbing mess begging for his mother. We can work with him, train him up to our standards…besides, didn’t his father rescue you off Nibiru?” Lars asked.

  Pulaski gripped the handle of his sword tightly. “I was barely into my first change, but I remember…I remember humans in power armor with Steuben when he returned to our village with the broken one, Lafayette. The whelp does not bear his father’s scent. Karigole do not carry generational debts, Lars. The blood hunt is the blood hunt, do you understand? Either one returns victorious…or better off not at all.” the Karigole flipped sections of hide over the bone.

  “Well, we humans believe that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Most of the time, anyway.” Lars shrugged.

  “Your parents were hydro-engineers. The captain’s father enticed economic activity toward mood dissociative liquids and was a notorious fornicator. Neither of you are adequate apples. Having one named Hale on the battlefield has not proven to be useful. Do you believe the Geist will line up to be shot by the whelp so they can brag in hell about who killed them?”

  “You need to scrimshaw ‘killjoy’ on that bone of yours, pal. Just hear me out: we are Ely’s lance mates, ja? The better we train him and support him, the better off the lance will be. Agreed?”

  “I have studied the wolf packs of Earth. When an adult is weak, the other males in the pack will attack it to elicit a hormonal response for it to become stronger. Can we do this with the Hale boy?”

  “We’re Armor, Pulaski. We’re not Union Rangers that would throw a blanket party for someone that’s a screwup.” Lars froze, his eyes locked on Pulaski.

  “Tell me more of this ‘blanket party.’ Do we make them ourselves? Music accompaniment?”

  “Shouldn’t have said that. I should not have said that. Pretend I never mentioned it because it’s not going to happen. How about some old-fashioned good cop, bad cop?” Lars asked.

  “I will not debase myself with role play. Karigole do not engage in fictitious acting.”

  “I’m guessing stand-up humor isn’t real big with you all either.”

  “It is not. Who told you?” Pulaski asked.

  Lars took a deep breath. “Marshal Roland assigned him to our lance. I am his battle buddy. If you have any criticism about Ely’s performance, bite my face off first. Deal?”

  Pulaski opened his trophy locker and put the wrapped bone into a case. “You mean that metaphorically,” the alien said.

  “Is face-eating an actual thing with the Karigole?” Lars went slightly pale.

  There was an uncomfortable pause.

  “Maybe.” Pulaski flashed fangs at Lars.

  “You mess with the kid and then you’re messing with me. I’ll remind you of that again when we’re mounted up and not when you’re next to your locker of murder stuff. Understood?” Lars got to his feet.

  “I will save my in-garrison criticism for you. He screws up during a battle, I will tell him right then and there how he is failing his lance, his ancestors, and all of humanity in general,” Pulaski said.

  “Deal!” Lars held out a hand to shake. Pulaski hesitated, then held out his own hand…which was missing two fingers. Lars gripped it and jogged them up and down.

  “Where is the whelp? Perhaps we can train unarmed combat before our next mission.”

  “He’s in the cemetery.”

  “Why? Has Sugimoto drawn out a hormonal response from him? Less mature humans have that reaction around her. I believe the unusual bulk of her mammary glands is a factor.”

  “Ha ha…yeah. Ely’s there working on your suit,” Lars said.

  “He’s what?” Pulaski snatched up his short sword and took off out of the locker room.

  “This is not what we agreed on!” Lars shouted as he ran after him. “Wait!”

  Chapter 12

  Ely opened a plastic case and held up a tool.

  “Did you need a digital or a rotary self-setting torque wrench?” he asked Sugimoto, who hung from one side of Pulaski’s Armor like she was climbing a mountainside.

  “Can you recalibrate a unilateral phase detractor with a digital?” She puffed loose strands of hair out of her face.

  “You can if it’s a Rockwell gram-meter.” Ely turned the tool over in his hand.

  “Crusade tech doesn’t use Rockwells. Rotary!” She held out a hand and opened and closed it quickly.

  Ely reached deep into the toolbox and brought out what she demanded. He tossed it up and she caught it. The screen on his forearm vibrated with an incoming call. He tried to pick up but got an error message with every attempt.

  “Can’t take calls in here,” Sugimoto grunted as she moved the wrench up and down. “Too much sinusoidal interference while I’ve got the gram-meters exposed. Go outside.”

  “Thanks.” Ely didn’t recognize the caller, but the title field had “Crusade HQ” in it.

  He shouldered a door open and stepped out into the night. The air was still and muggy, the glow of halogen lights casting pools of yellow light around the parking lot/supply yard. The call connected and a blank silhouette appeared on the screen.

  “Hello? Ely Hale here.” Ely tapped the screen. Person-to-person calls usually came with a profile picture of who was calling, as looking up someone’s nose from the usual camera angle from the forearm wasn’t popular.

  “You’re coming in weak and broken,” answered a static-laden voice. “Get clear.”

  “And I thought tech would be better in the future,” Ely muttered, walking toward a pile of bound pipes. His screen showed full bars and he couldn’t understand why the caller was having so much trouble.

  “Can you hear me now?” Ely flicked the side of his screen.

  “Yes.” Nakir stepped out from behind the pipes. Although his face was hidden in shadow, the pistol in his hand extended into the overhead light.

  “Whoa whoa,” Ely said, raising his hands. “What’s going on?”

  Nakir extended an arm and his Wield formed into a scythe. “I don’t need you alive. I just need your head.” Nakir raised his blade.

  Metal flashed between them and t
here was a clang as the strap holding the pipes together was severed. The pipes spilled out, knocking Ely off his feet and burying him as they clanged against each other.

  Nakir jumped out of the way as a shadow flitted over him. He swung his Wield up and the energy morphed into a shield. Pulaski dropped in front of Nakir and stabbed his short sword into the energy shield. When the tip sank into the shield, pale-white tendrils writhed across the shield.

  Pulaski snarled at Nakir, twisting the blade closer and closer to the Commissar’s arm.

  “Are you one of the Crusade’s pets?” Nakir smiled. “Or are they so desperate that they let trash like you fight for them?”

  “You reek of death.” Pulaski reached back with one hand and slammed claws into the shield. The Wield popped, flinging the sword away, but the Karigole kept his grip. He swung his claws at the Commissar and missed as Nakir ducked, bringing the blade down flat against his arm as the pistol fired.

  The bullet ricocheted off the sword and struck across Pulaski’s thigh, drawing green blood and nothing else from the Armor soldier. Pulaski jabbed at Nakir’s face and missed, baiting the Commissar into raising an arm to block, which obscured his vision. Pulaski stabbed his sword down at Nakir’s stomach. The Wield flashed and deflected the blade to one side.

  The Karigole followed his momentum, twisting in the air to slam his sword against the energy shield again.

  Nakir braced his arm against himself and lunged forward, bashing into Pulaski and knocking him back. Nakir twisted his shield to one side and opened fire with his pistol. Pulaski darted to one side as bullets struck just behind his feet. The alien rolled onto the balls of his feet next to Nakir with the shield between the two of them.

  Pulaski hit the flat of his blade against the shield, then scraped the edge downwards lightning quick. The blade cut into the toe of Nakir’s boot and the Commissar yelped in pain. Nakir retracted the Wield up his arm and thrust his pistol at Pulaski.

  Pulaski slapped the gun hand aside and the shot hit the pile of pipes. Nakir tried to hit Pulaski again. The Karigole ducked and dodged, moving far faster than any human had any right to anticipate. Pulaski waited for the pistol to click empty, then stabbed his sword over the Wield guarding Nakir’s shoulder.