by Richard Fox
“How does your almost-husband know about that?” Aignar asked.
“Mars flight command put the area off-limits to Dotari pilots,” she said. “Naturally, that made all the pilots in Man’fred Vo’s squadron curious and they ‘accidentally’ skirted that restricted space and got a few pictures. Lots of life-support equipment and a few air defense batteries. Has to be a prison. You humans are terrible at keeping secrets.”
“Maybe Dotari are nosy,” Aignar said.
“A prison on Mars makes sense,” Roland said. “The planet is a giant military base. And if you break out, where would you go? Without a suit, you’d die in a minute in Mars’ atmosphere. They build a prison in Siberia, an escapee could still get away…until the bears or tigers catch up with them.”
The Dragonfly banked to one side and Roland got a look at the crash site for himself. A cluster of Terran Mules and a field hospital were set up nearby. He zoomed in on a circle made up of several strands of barbed wire and saw Ibarran sailors inside.
“We have our next mission,” Gideon said on the lance’s channel. “Pathfinders had to wave off a rescue mission to the south. Enemy presence was too heavy. We’re to clear it out and keep the area safe for the extraction.”
“Who? Is it a downed pilot from the Ardennes?” Cha’ril asked.
Man’fred Vo flew a fighter off the ship and Roland felt the emotion in her voice as she realized her joined husband was possibly in danger.
“Not a pilot,” Gideon said. “Armor. Simon’s Lancers are off-line.”
Roland looked over at Gideon in the harness next to him.
Simon’s Lancers were all Templar and had joined with Roland at the pre-battle prayers aboard the Ardennes. For every Lancer to be off-line was highly unusual and a touch of dread appeared in Roland’s heart.
A satellite map of the surrounding area flashed across Roland’s HUD and a pulsing red icon appeared to the south. A blue arrow in place of their Dragonfly vectored toward the icon in time with the ship’s movement.
“What were they doing that far out from the battle lines?” Aignar asked.
“Ask when we catch up to them,” Gideon said. “The area’s hot with Kesaht presence. The pilot wants to do a fastball special.”
“What?” Aignar asked. “No. No, I have a bad feeling about this.”
“The gravity of Thesius is higher than any simulations we’ve done,” Cha’ril said. “The risk factors for that kind of an attack are significant.”
“Not like you to be so cautious, Cha’ril,” Roland said. “We’ve done insertions from ballistic torpedoes. What’s a little high-grav toss in comparison?”
“There are acceptable risks and then there are suicidal tendencies,” the Dotari said.
“Pilot has the ballistics loaded up,” Gideon said as the Dragonfly accelerated. “You all stick your landings or we’ll rehearse this maneuver until you sprout wings and learn to fly.”
“We have the aerodynamics of a brick.” Aignar cycled gauss rounds into his forearm cannons and put one hand on the Mauser on his back. “I’ll just point that out.”
Dunes blurred beneath the transport and a pair of Eagle fighters flew level with the Dragonfly.
“Oh good, an audience,” Aignar said.
The Eagles wagged their wings and raised their noses to the sky, then they shot away, afterburners blazing.
“Release in three…” Gideon said as the Dragonfly sped up, rattling as a gust of desert wind blew across the ship.
“That’s a good shaking, right?” Aignar asked.
“Two.” Gideon pulled his legs and arms toward his chest.
“Sancti spiritus adsit,” Roland intoned as a laser blast snapped past the ship.
The Dragonfly nosed up and the clamps around the armors’ waists released.
Roland went flying, carried through the air by the Dragonfly’s momentum at the moment it let them loose. A semi-opaque column of light on his HUD marked the target location, and he scanned the dune sea for Kesaht and any place he could land safely.
He lost altitude quickly in Thesius’ strong gravity and his ballistic projection ended against the middle of a sand wall.
Rakka laser blasts shot past his helm as he flew over a patrol. Ignoring a single hit to the back of an arm, he deployed the thrusters in his lower legs. The thrusters were meant for zero-gravity environments, but Roland needed just a little boost.
The rockets flared and his projection went fuzzy. He unsnapped the Mauser off his back just as his thrusters overheated and cut out. His projection reformed, showing he’d land slightly higher against the sand wall.
Roland kicked his feet forward and came down a sold four feet short of the dune crest, bursting through in an explosion of sand and rolling down the opposite slope. He came to an ugly stop as his feet slid across bare rock.
His helm snapped up next to his rifle pointed at the sky. A suit of armor lay a dozen yards away, the breastplate perforated with smoking laser strikes and an arm ripped away. Ixio clustered around the armor. The lithe aliens with wide, almond-shaped black eyes held power tools and were frozen in shock at Roland’s sudden appearance.
Roland thrust his gauss cannon arm at the aliens and opened fire. The hypervelocity shells didn’t kill the Ixio so much as the impacts made them pop like balloons. Rage blossomed in his heart as he strode toward the downed armor and saw two other suits lying in the sand. Ixio scavengers raced toward a Kesaht transport.
“Sanheel and foot soldiers coming from the east,” Gideon radioed, his voice laced with static.
“Also the south,” Cha’ril said, the thump of gauss cannons carrying with her transmission.
Roland stood over the fallen Lancer and brought his rotary cannon up onto his shoulder. He cut down the fleeing Ixio with short bursts and the transport lurched off the ground before a half dozen of the aliens could reach safety.
There, just beyond where the transport had lifted off, was the fourth Lancer. The armor’s breastplate had been cut away and the womb removed.
“They’ve got a prisoner.” Roland reloaded his gauss cannons and took aim on the transport. “I’m taking the shot.”
“He won’t survive the crash!” Cha’ril shouted.
“Take the shot,” Gideon said.
Roland led his target as the shuttle accelerated and fired one round.
The Kesaht ship wobbled, smoke pouring from the port engines, and banked hard. It corkscrewed to the ground and careened off a dune top before crashing. It spun around and tilted up on the undamaged wing, which crumbled, and the transport flipped onto its back. Flames exploded out of the cargo bay.
“Not like this,” Roland said and ran to the crash, his massive feet thumping against the ground. He charged into the smoke and flames as a section of the transport’s hull went flying through the air. Aignar was there, tearing through the wreckage.
Ignoring the heat warning from his HUD, Roland gripped the metal with both hands and ripped the hull open. He found a black oval with a red Templar cross in the wreck and clamped his hands against the sides. He wrenched the womb out, carried it away from the crash, and set it down. A small probe extended from his forearm housing and into ports on the womb.
“Come on, talk to me,” Roland said.
Readings splashed across his HUD and an EKG showed an active heartbeat.
“—my lance!” rang in Roland’s ears from the other armor. “Leave me and save my lance!”
“This is Roland of the Iron Dragoons. We have the area secure.” He looked over at the first suit he’d seen. Gideon was there, one arm on the fallen armor’s shoulder. The lieutenant shook his head.
At the second suit, Cha’ril touched armor wet with spilled amniosis. She sent readings to Roland: the fluid was thick with blood—too much to believe the soldier within had survived.
Roland looked over the scorched womb.
“Chief Tarkos?” Roland asked. “Give me a check.”
“My lance! We were ambushed and—�
�
“You are an inch away from redlining,” Roland said. “Too much strain from battle damage and whatever the Ixio did to remove you from your suit. Focus small. Pull back.”
“Is Simon online?” Tarkos asked.
“Say a prayer with me,” Roland said as he found Aignar at the last suit. The breastplate was mangled and a pool of amniosis bled into the parched earth.
“Which?” Tarkos’ voice sounded far away and Roland realized he was losing the soldier.
“Saint Kallen, come to their aid,” Roland said.
“No. No, not that one…please.”
“You know the rites. You must be the one to give it to them.” Roland went to one knee and drew his sword. Releasing the blade, he drove the point into the ground.
“Come to meet them, angel of our Lord,” Tarkos said, his voice stronger.
“Receive their souls and present them to God,” Roland said.
“May Kallen, who called, take them to her side. Give them eternal rest, O Lord, may their light shine through us the living forever…which, Roland? Which are gone?”
“All of them, brother, but not you. You will avenge them, you understand?” Roland asked.
“It was an ambush.” Tarkos’ heart slowed down.
“I’m going to put you under.” Roland keyed emergency protocols and the womb flooded Tarkos with tranquilizers. His life signs stabilized as the drugs sent him into a near-coma.
“Look alive!” Gideon shouted.
A target alert flashed on Roland’s HUD. He looked to the sky and saw a burning comet bearing down on them.
“Last Kesaht battleship went kamikaze,” Gideon said. “On course to the Ibarra ship.”
“Bastards know how to die hard,” Aignar said.
“Drop anchor and ready rails,” Gideon said.
Roland hurried a few feet away from Tarkos’ womb and raised a foot. A diamond-tipped drill bit emerged from his heel and he slammed his foot into the rock. The anchor bore into the ground, sending vibrations through his armor and jiggling him in his womb.
“That’s a Daeva-class ship,” Cha’ril said. “Our rails don’t have the mass to—”
“Better to do something useful right away than figure out the perfect solution two minutes too late,” Gideon said.
Roland’s anchor bit firm. He raised twin rail gun vanes off his back and lowered them toward the oncoming ship. The Kesaht vessel was alight with fire and trailing a long line of smoke. Electricity crackled along the metal vanes as a magnetic field formed. He snapped a long cobalt-encased tungsten dart and set it in the rail gun chamber.
“Simultaneous strike or sequential?” Aignar asked.
Roland waited for Gideon’s answer, but the lieutenant hesitated. Roland turned his helm to look at the other armor.
“Daeva ships have a single flight deck,” Roland said. “A mass strike will send a blast wave that will—”
“Cha’ril?” Gideon asked.
“I concur. Assuming they fought with their hull pressurized.”
“We’ve been in their ships,” Gideon said.
A targeting reticule appeared on the battleship amidships. When a timer appeared on Roland’s HUD, he shunted power to the rail gun.
In the sky, Eagle fighters appeared and launched missiles toward the battleship.
“Idiots,” Aignar said. “Like a sparrow fart in a hurricane.”
“Abort strike?” Roland asked. “The blast wave from—”
“Fire on the mark,” Gideon said. “Too many lives at stake on the ground. Even if they’re Ibarran.”
Roland’s hands clenched into fists as the timer ran to zero.
Four rail cannons fired, splitting the air with sonic booms as the shells shot out, leaving burning contrails in their wake. The shells closed so fast one could have blinked and missed the sprint. The rounds hit the Kesaht battleship and the vessel’s belly exploded outward. The ship bucked like it had been kicked and then lolled to one side, angling down and diving toward the planet. Roland watched as it slammed into the sand and sent out a shockwave that blew a sudden storm of sand and superhot air over the Iron Dragoons.
“Status,” Gideon sent.
“Green across the board.” Roland pulled his anchor up and went back to Tarkos’ womb. He reconnected to it and found Tarkos awake and alert.
“What the hell was that?” Tarkos asked. “My womb almost dumped me out. Some sort of massive system disruption.”
“Rail fire…and a Kesaht battleship crashing nearby.”
“Must have been bad for you to fire rails in atmo…”
“That ship might have smashed the crash site and killed thousands,” Roland said. “You’re still in one piece.”
“The Saint was with us,” Tarkos said.
Roland set a hand on the cross carved into the womb and looked back at the three dead armor soldiers.
“She was,” Roland said, “and what a price we paid.”
“Extraction en route,” Gideon said. “Fleet figured out where the Narvik went before it crashed. We need to break orbit.”
A map of Thesius’ third moon appeared on Roland’s HUD.
Chapter 2
The Scipio zoomed across the barren and crater-pitted surface of Thesius-gamma. Roland stared down from the corvette’s hell hole—an open iris in the bottom of the ship’s cargo bay—as the moon passed by.
“Landing zone coming up in thirty seconds,” Lieutenant Commander Tagawa, the ship’s captain, sent over the IR.
“Set for insertion.” Roland loaded gauss rounds into his forearm cannons.
“LZ clear on the scope…calling ice. Green ring in five. Good hunting…”
Roland bent his knee servos slightly. Green light lit up around the hell hole and Roland hopped out of the ship. With no atmosphere, his descent to the surface was smooth. He pinged the area with his sensors and an area of disturbed soil came up on his HUD.
His feet skidded across the surface as he landed, kicking up a torrent of dust in his wake. He waited until a cloud of the gray-brown dust billowed around him, then leaped toward the area his sensors picked up. Thermal imaging cut through the dust as he bounded out of the cloud. Low-gravity moons weren’t meant for walking or running, so he jumped low and long, using thrusters on his shoulders to keep him close to the surface and not provide an easy target for whoever else might be on Thesius-gamma.
The rest of his lance landed in the distance, forming a loose semicircle around the
center of a crater as wide as Phoenix.
“Why can’t every landing be like that?” Aignar sent over the lance network.
“You prefer an easy glide from a corvette over being spat out of a high-velocity torpedo?” Cha’ril asked.
“The only fun thing about Tactical Insertion Torpedoes is the acronym,” Aignar said.
“Focus,” Gideon growled.
Roland landed next to a wide patch of bare rock and sent a picture to his lance.
“Looks like a grav engine liftoff,” Roland said. “Residual heat indicates it was recent, maybe hours old.”
“Fleet sent us snipe hunting,” Aignar said. “How nice of them.”
“Ibarrans use the same grav engines we do,” Cha’ril said. “Why set down here? This place is empty.”
“Tracks,” Gideon said as an image of treads in the dust snapped up to one side of Roland’s HUD. Parallel to the tracks were footprints—not prints of overshoes or a vac suit, but simple impressions in the dust, like normal footwear.
“Someone forgot their boots?” Aignar asked. “I doubt those armor treads and prints were laid down when this place had atmosphere. Which was likely never.”
“Or someone who doesn’t need a vac suit,” Roland said. “Someone like Stacey Ibarra.”
The leader of the Ibarra Nation was…Roland wasn’t exactly sure how to describe her. Her mind resided inside a metal body, transferred there after her flesh and blood received a mortal injury.
“Ibarra was here?” Aigna
r asked. “The Rangers didn’t find her on their strike carrier that crashed on the surface.”
Roland skidded to a stop next to a circular mound that came level with his chest and leaned over, leading with his gauss cannons. A swath of metal had a light coating of dust and a jagged hole cut through it, a hole wide enough for armor to fit through. Inside was darkness.
“Sir?” Roland asked Gideon. “I’m guessing your tracks lead here.”
“Correct,” the lieutenant said, stopping at the opposite side of the mound.
“This is strange,” Cha’ril said. “There’s no wind on this planet. For dust to accumulate over this structure…it must have taken millions of years.”
“Artifacts,” Gideon said. “Fits the Ibarrans’ M.O. Isn’t that right, Roland?”
“It never came up,” Roland said, ignoring the barb.
“Qa’Resh artifacts?” Cha’ril asked with some hesitation. The last time she’d encountered the ancient and extinct civilization’s remnants, the architecture and strange environment had proven almost too much for her Dotari mind to process. She’d nearly redlined.
“You stay here and maintain a comms relay to the Scipio,” Gideon said to her. “Rest, follow me.”
Gideon strode through the dust and dropped into the hole. Roland went next, falling slowly in the weak gravity to a wide hallway with bare, slightly curved walls. The walls were pristine, showing no sign of wear and tear, even though they were possibly older than the entire human race. Roland activated his lamps, flooding the area with light. Gravity normalized to almost Earth standard, though Roland couldn’t detect the source of the field.
He followed behind Gideon, orienting his weapons to the right, opposite the direction Gideon covered. They passed by a circular arch that led to a small room with no discernable way out.
“Portals,” Aignar said. “Why did it have to be portals?”
“They’re off-line.” Roland brushed fingertips through the arch with no effect.
“Good. Better than having Ibarran armor jump out and cut my armor in half. Again,” Aignar said as he spun around and walked backwards, covering their rear.
