by Richard Fox
“Those must be the Rakka,” Aignar said. “Armor looks like the mess we found earlier. They don’t look like they’re invertebrate goo creatures…some sort of biological reaction on death?”
“Not a trait we’ve seen in any sentient species,” Cha’ril said. “A failsafe? Xaros drones disintegrated upon destruction. Kept anyone from ever reverse-engineering their technology.”
“Then there’s this.” Aignar sent another screen capture: a taller, straight-backed figure behind the charging Rakka, partially obscured by tree trunks.
“Doesn’t look like the same species,” Roland said. “Maybe an evolved leadership caste? The Toth overlords were vastly different from their warriors and menials.”
“Being a brain in a jar makes you vastly different than most anything,” Aignar said.
“Could these be separate xeno-types working in concert?” Cha’ril asked. “That would be unusual. Only humans have ever integrated other species into their military units with my people and the Karigole.”
“Interesting observations aside,” Roland said, “why is there no record of them? They’re using the Crucible jump gates. Every race that can do that was part of the old Alliance. We had to co-opt Xaros technology to use the network and build new gates. These Kesaht just show up out of thin air? Something doesn’t add up.”
“They either possess Xaros-level technology,” Cha’ril said, “or someone in the old Alliance gave them the technology.”
“I don’t see a sky dark with killer drones, so let’s assume the former,” Aignar said.
“Listen up,” Gideon said, breaking away from the foreman, “the locals said the Ibarras destroyed any Kesaht transports they found in the air during the initial fight. Given the terrain and that they haven’t seen anything else go for orbit, there are two likely places we can find the missing colonists.”
Two shaded circles appeared on Roland’s map overlay, both in opposite directions from the work camp.
“If we find the missing, we’ll likely find the Ibarras and the Kesaht,” Gideon said.
“What’s the priority?” Roland asked.
Gideon was silent for a few moments, an uncharacteristic hesitation from the lieutenant.
“The civilians,” he said. “The Ibarrans fought and died to protect them. I won’t let a pack of traitors do our job for us. Secure the prisoners and bring them home. Detaining the Ibarrans is secondary. You’re authorized to use lethal force if they resist.”
“And the Kesaht?” Cha’ril asked.
“Unless it interferes with our other missions, kill them on sight.” Gideon racked gauss shells into his forearm-mounted cannons. “The camp will send up an IR relay balloon. I want hourly updates through pigeons if you’re out of IR line of sight, contact reports as soon as you can send them. Roland, Cha’ril, search the eastern area. Aignar and I will go west. Good hunting.”
****
Admiral Lettow reached into his holo tank and slowly turned the image of the damaged Crucible gate around. The cracks in the great construct’s thorns were still visible. Work crews in vac suits flit around the damage like flies on the wounds of a felled animal.
“Commander Rusk, status report,” Lettow sent to the chief engineer on the Crucible.
“Omnium stores around the gate are intact.” A woman in a vac helmet came up in the holo tank. “We’re feeding that into the damaged thorns, kind of like calking over a leak. Should accelerate the self-repair sequence by several days. But we’re finding secondary devices all over the place. Explosives ordnance disposal teams are defusing them as soon as we find them.”
“And the nature of these devices? Human or alien?” Lettow asked.
“Both, sir, which is the damnedest thing. Some are textbook sabotage devices out of Strike Marine training. Easy to deal with. Alien ones are limpet-type devices, cling right onto the spikes. They’ve some anti-tamper systems, but the engineers found a bypass easy enough. Not the most complex devices we’ve ever seen.”
A picture of a crab-like device at the end of a spike tip popped up.
“Any danger of a remote detonation?” Lettow asked.
“We’ve got scramblers up. EOD isn’t worried, but if they start running, I’m going with them.”
“I want that gate repaired and safe to use as soon as possible,” Lettow said.
“Should have the surface and interior swept in another few hours,” Rusk said. “The control nodes were badly damaged. Not a lot we can do about those but wait.”
“I want regular updates. Lettow out.”
“Why would the Ibarras and these new aliens both rig the Crucible?” Commander Strickland, Lettow’s operations officer, asked.
“Keeps reinforcements out,” Lettow said. “We came through and tossed a monkey wrench into their plans. I’d bet the aliens thought we were their backup, same as the Ibarras. Now we’re all stuck here together.”
“And whoever damaged the Crucible cut off our cavalry,” Strickland said.
“I’d wager some very frustrated ship drivers on the other end of different Crucibles are trying to get in here,” Lettow said.
“Admiral,” the ensign at the communications station stood up and waved, “we’re being hailed by the Matterhorn, the Ibarran ship. Audio only.”
“About time,” Lettow said. “Put it through.” He swiped the Crucible to the side and pulled up the system map. The Ibarra fleet was still orbiting Satsunan, well out of firing distance from the alien fleet. The aliens were on a slow vector passed Oricon and toward the Crucible. At their current velocity, Lettow and the 14th wouldn’t have to deal with them for days.
A blank silhouette of a person’s head and shoulders appeared in the holo tank.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice asked. “Who’s there?”
“This is Admiral Lettow of the Terran Union Navy. Identify yourself.”
“I am Admiral Faben.”
Lettow’s brow furrowed. He wagged a finger at Strickland, who began tapping furiously on his control screens.
“Faben…” Lettow said. “I’ve been in the navy for several decades. I don’t recall ever hearing about an Admiral Faben.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of you either. So we’re even,” Faben snapped back.
Strickland tossed a screen capture into the holo tank. A list of every admiral in the old Atlantic Union and the new Terran Union appeared. There was no Faben on the roster. Lettow signaled to him to keep searching.
“I think we’re done with pleasantries,” Lettow said. “Faben, your fleet is on open mutiny. You have attacked naval ships and murdered their crews. You’ve engaged in unauthorized hostilities with an alien power. You will surrender immediately and prepare to receive my security teams to take command of your ships. There is no need for violence, but any disobedience will be met with appropriate force.”
“I—and my fleet—are quite happy with our current situation,” she said. “You stay in your yard, I’ll stay in mine, and we’ll both be just fine.”
“Is that why you damaged the Crucible as soon as we came through?” the admiral asked. “Keep all our yards separated?”
“What?” Faben said in a sing song voice. “I would never do that. Must’ve been our rude house guests.”
“Do not toy with me. This is the last time I’ll say this,” Lettow gripped the edge of his holo tank. “You will surrender—”
“I don’t answer to you!” Faben shouted.
Lettow’s head rocked back slightly in surprise. This Faben did not speak or act like any admiral he’d ever met.
“We stand apart from the Union. Now and forever more. Just because we used to be on the same team doesn’t mean we gave up the right to self-defense. You want to put your money where your mouth is and you’ll learn the same lesson we taught the other ships you sent after us. Leave. Us. Alone.”
Lettow ran course projections through his holo tank. If he raised anchor and made for the Ibarran fleet, he’d leave Oricon wide open for the alien fleet
. If he moved to protect the planet, the Ibarrans would have a straight shot at the Crucible gate and escape.
“Are you really so bloodthirsty that you don’t care about the colonists?” Faben asked. “The Atlantic Union Navy I served in put the lives of civilians above all else.”
Anger flared in Lettow’s heart. He knew Faben was trying to goad him, but he also knew she was right.
“What happened to the colony?” Lettow asked. “Why can’t we reach them?”
“The Kesaht arrived with far less caution and manners than you did,” Faben said. “They hit the atmosphere with one of their ionization scramblers and landed troops soon as they arrived. My fleet managed to pull them away before they could bomb the capital into slag.”
“You called them the Kesaht. You’ve dealt with them before? Do you know some way to contact the colony?” Lettow asked.
“You threaten me and my fleet if we don’t bare our throats at your command and now you want to be best friends? Don’t insult me. We saved the colony. You’re welcome. Good luck finishing the job.”
The transmission cut out.
Lettow grumbled and punched the side of his holo tank.
“The personnel database has one record for a Faben,” Strickland said. “Most of the file’s been redacted. All that’s available is an Ensign Faben on a manifest from the Breitenfeld. No first name or picture. Everything was redacted, date on that was just after the Battle of Ceres.”
“Right at the start of the Ember War,” Lettow said. “Her identity isn’t as important as gaining control of this situation.”
“What are your orders, sir?”
“We need the Crucible operational and cleared of any explosives. Then we’ll have some room to maneuver. Faben said her fleet arrived before the Kesaht, but she didn’t mention why she was here in the first place, and she doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave,” Lettow said. “Whatever she’s after…she hasn’t found it yet.”
“What good does that do us?” Strickland asked.
“Know your enemy. Know yourself. Hard to secure victory if either of those is in the wind. We need to talk to Oricon, see what they can tell us.”
Chapter 8
Roland churned along an access road, his legs transformed into treads. The armor’s travel form could cover ground faster than the legged combat configuration and saved battery life in the process. The vibration in his womb was almost soothing, but the rumble from even his sound-dampened treads kept him on edge.
“Still nothing on sector scan,” Cha’ril said from just behind him.
They rolled along an access road of hardened photovalic cells running parallel to a raised hyperloop line. The double tubes were incomplete, with stacks of paneling piled high every few hundred yards, waiting for robots to come and complete the job.
“Got nothing but static on radio,” he said. “If the Ibarras are still out here, they’re not using any Terran standard comms.”
“Roland, should we be fighting the Ibarras?” she asked.
“Not like you to question orders.”
“‘Friends do as friends will’…an old Dotari saying. The Ibarras defended the camp and are searching for missing children. These are not the actions of an enemy,” she said.
“I wish it was as cut and dried as it is with the Kesaht or Vishrakath. See them? Shoot them. Simple. The Ibarras…you want to know what scares me about them? The ones that were back at the camp were called legionnaires. That’s an old human rank for the Roman Empire—‘empire’ being the important word. The Ibarras might not see themselves as another part of the Terran Union, but as something new and different.”
“You would rather all of humanity be under one rule?”
“It sure beats the alternative of potential enemies. Humanity is good at killing each other. We’ve been at it since Cain decided he didn’t like living in his brother Abel’s shadow. We go to the VR range and we train to shoot Vishrakath, Haesh, Naroosha…not other men and women. You’ve seen that tacky Last Stand at Takeni movie, right? Dotari were fighting those banshee things—how’d you feel about that?”
“The banshees were no longer Dotari,” she said. “That they were unwillingly transformed into the Xaros’ foot soldiers would not stay my hand. They would have killed my mother and I had not one of the Breitenfeld’s Strike Marines saved us…which reminds me. I need to go back to Bailey’s bar once we’re on leave.”
“Why aren’t you going back to Dotari?”
“Stop distracting me,” she snapped. “Focus on your assigned sector before your small talk gets us killed.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Roland switched to IR sensors and swept the area ahead of them. A blur of cool air cut through the edge of the forest that made up the bulk of their search area. “Got a temperature inversion. Might be a ravine we can use to get closer without being detected.”
“Then switch to combat config and lead on,” she said.
Roland leaned forward and widened the distance between his treads. He planted both hands against the road and rolled forward, snapping his treads back into their leg housings as they lifted off the ground. He kicked his legs forward, landed at a run and hurried to a slight decline leading into the forest and into a ravine where black, twisted roots poked from the dirt walls.
“We’re out of line of sight from the camp’s IR mast,” Cha’ril said. “Pigeon up.”
A cylinder popped straight up off her back. A clear balloon inflated and carried the cylinder aloft, where it would send a data packet back to the camp and to Gideon, once it caught sight of the camp’s communication tower, and relay any waiting messages back to her. The pigeon would disintegrate soon after and vanish like dust in the wind.
Roland continued through the ravine, his rotary cannons angled up and scanning back and forth for any threats that might appear along the edges.
“This is not a mission for us,” Cha’ril said. “We are armor. We are not designed for subtlety or stealth. This is a job for Path Finders or Strike Marines.”
“I didn’t see either of those teams back at the camp,” Roland said.
Cha’ril squawked something in Dotari and Roland decided against asking for a translation. He slowed as the ravine began to level off.
“There’s a clearing just ahead,” Cha’ril said. “Behind a mountain spur. Would be an ideal spot for a landing zone and resupply point as a decent pilot could fly the valley and stay hidden.”
“Can’t ever fault your ability to read terrain,” he said. Roland swung his rotary cannon around to check the canyon edge behind them and caught a glimpse of movement. A black cube arced into the air and fell toward the ravine floor.
“Contact.” Roland reached a fist back and rammed it into the dirt wall, swinging the power of his hip and shoulder actuators into the blow. The wall crumbled and a black-clad figure came tumbling down in the avalanche. Roland caught the man by the neck, lifting him out of the dirt and into the air. The legionnaire struggled, kicking at Roland’s arm like a fish on a line.
He felt a thump against his torso.
“Don’t.” The word came from the top of the ravine. Roland swung his rotary cannons around but couldn’t find the speaker.
“Roland…” Cha’ril sent him an image capture of a cone attached to his armor, angled straight at his womb. “I’ve got two on me.”
“You kill him and it’ll end badly for you,” echoed through the ravine. “You try and remove those spikes, it’ll end bad too. How about we talk and no one dies?”
“We walked right into an ambush,” Cha’ril said. “I’m not aware of any viable options. You?”
Roland lowered the legionnaire so his feet touched the ground but kept his grip around the man’s neck. He switched on his speakers.
“We can talk,” Roland said. “Just know my finger servos are a bit twitchy. This one won’t like what happens if my system goes down.”
Another legionnaire walked out to the end of the ravine, a rifle and a thick cylinder wrapped in
leather slung over his back, hands up with a detonator in his grip. He came down the slope, skidding across loose pebbles as he approached to within a few yards of Roland.
“I’m Major Aiza,” he said. “That’s Sergeant Jaso you’ve got there. I’m willing to drop those spikes if you’ll let him go.”
“You’ve got more men around us. Who have more spikes,” Roland said.
“And you’ve got enough firepower to turn this forest into matchsticks,” Aiza said. “Let’s treat each other with a bit of professional courtesy, eh?” Aiza opened his grip on the detonator and the spikes on the Dragoons’ armor detached with a pop.
Roland mashed a heel against the device, crushing it into scrap, then released his hold on Jaso. The legionnaire went to the fan of loose dirt that was once part of the ravine wall and dug out his gauss rifle. Aiza cocked his head to one side and Jaso jogged back up the slope and ducked around a tree trunk.
“I am Third Lieutenant Cha’ril. By order of the Terran Union, you and your men are to be detained for desertion.” Her rotary cannon slowly swept across the top of the ravine.
“I’ve never sworn an oath to the Union. Never served in your armies. Can’t see how you’re in any place to give me orders. The other one a Dotari too?” Aiza asked.
“My name is Roland. I don’t know your history, but there is blood between the Union and the Ibarras and you’re wearing my enemy’s colors.”
Aiza grabbed his helmet and lifted it off. He looked to be in his late thirties, with dark eyes that hadn’t seen sleep in days and a fair stubble across a heavyset jaw. He had a tattoo beneath his left eye that read AB NEG.
“Don’t mean to be your enemy. Not my mission to scrap with the Union today. Maybe tomorrow. But if you came looking for a fight, we’ll give you one. Something tells me that’s not why you’re out here.”
“The Kesaht have prisoners,” Roland said. “Have you found them?”
“We have,” Aiza said. “It’s a gift from the Saint that you arrived when you did. Come, I’ll show you.”
