by Richard Fox
“Fine, but if we step through to some planet where we’re worshiped as god emperors, I am not sharing my palace with you.” Aignar pushed his camera probes through the portal, then snapped them back as he stepped forward. “Looks boring.”
Roland followed him through. The inside of the dune was far larger than the exterior. Ivory-colored passageways, all lit from within, stretched into the distance. Oval-shaped gaps in the walls gave the place a membrane-like feeling, as if they were inside something organic.
The only sound was the dull whine of their armors’ actuators and the click of their gauss cannons.
“I’ll mark the interior.” Roland turned around and froze. Behind him was a rounded alcove…and no portal. “Problem. We have a problem.”
“That’s why the other lance hasn’t come out,” Aignar said. “Let’s keep moving. Staying here and feeling sorry for ourselves won’t change anything. Maybe we’ll find the others, have a good laugh about all this.”
One of Roland’s fingers unhinged at a knuckle. He swiped a tag down the wall and marched down the passageway. Through the oval gaps in the walls, none of which were the same size or orientation as the others, Roland saw other tunnels and the occasional empty room.
“You know anything about the Qa’Resh?” Aignar asked.
“I checked their file on the Scipio’s computers on the trip over. Ancient race that organized the alliance against the Xaros. Lived on a city floating in a gas giant…looked like giant crystal jellyfish,” Roland said.
“And they up and vanished after the war, just like the Toth,” Aignar said. “No reason given. Their whole file is pretty sparse reading. Is it me, or is there an information gap about the final days of the Ember War?”
“I’ve noticed that too.” Roland readied his gauss cannons as they passed by a gap in the wall large enough for them to step through. Beyond was an empty white room.
“Why keep it secret?” Aignar asked. “The war’s over. We won. Parades, holidays…no extinction events. What’s the point of hiding information about that victory?”
“Every government has secrets. Military and intelligence information is kept off the grid to keep enemies guessing. Then there are some unsavory reasons: corruption, illegal acts…something shameful or wrong that might shake the people’s trust in their leaders or upset allies.”
“I’d say we’re getting close to tinfoil-hat territory.” Aignar rapped his knuckles against his helm. “But mine is composite graphenium. Maybe we should go back to that room we just saw…that’s now full of portals.”
“What?” Roland turned around. Aignar was right; the white room had three dark portals on the walls.
Aignar tagged the gap between the room and the tunnel and stopped in the middle of the room.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” he said. The middle portal rippled and a hazy image of the structure’s surface appeared. To the left, the spinning sculpture.
Roland watched the right-most portal as shadows played across the surface.
“I’m tempted to go back up top,” Aignar said. “Regroup with Gideon and see if he’s got a better option than us fumbling around in the dark down here.”
“Here.” Roland said and motioned to the third portal. “I think I see someone. It’s weak, but you can pick up the outline.”
The portal showing the art chamber faded to black as the color on the image to the surface drained away.
“We should choose now,” Aignar said.
Roland jumped through the third portal. He fell a few feet and found himself in a roughly spherical chamber. The walls glittering with crystals like he was inside a giant geode. In the center of the room was a woman, her arms outstretched into a golden lattice that floated around her. Her feet floated just above the ground.
She wore a simple robe and had shoulder-length black hair that glistened in the light. She had her back to him, so he couldn’t make out her face. Aignar landed next to him.
“I tried to help,” she said, her voice echoing off the walls. “Tried to send you home…but armor only takes in the brave and the bold.”
Roland aimed his gauss cannons at her and sidestepped around the room. His HUD showed the atmosphere in the room was pure nitrogen…and cold, so cold he could almost feel a chill through his womb.
She spun around slowly, and Roland stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her face. She wore no life-support gear, in an environment that would have killed an unsuited human in minutes. Her skin had a silver sheen to it, and; her face was motionless, doll-like. Her eyes did not blink or move, but he sensed a soul behind her still gaze.
“What are you?” Roland asked. “Some sort of Qa’Resh caretaker?”
She laughed, mocking him, the sound coming through a mouth that didn’t move.
“How quick they forget. All I’ve done for you and Earth and this is my reward. Anonymity.”
“I know that face,” Aignar said.
Roland studied her again, and the chill in his womb found its way to his heart.
Stacey Ibarra.
“By order of the Terran Union,” Roland said, “you are hereby under arrest for treason.”
“Treason? I am the only one trying to save us all, and they have the gall—the audacity—to say I am the traitor?” Stacey asked. “Do you know where we are? What I’m on the cusp of discovering?”
“I don’t care.” Roland took a step toward her.
“Stop,” Ibarra said. The word carried a tone of command so strong that Roland actually obeyed her. He felt his cheeks flush. He, armor, caught short by the word of an unarmed woman.
“They didn’t tell you why I’m here, did they?” she asked. “Tell you what I’m after, why it’s so important. Of course, God forbid you have the chance to make your own decisions. They just let you loose.”
“Why don’t you enlighten us?” Aignar said.
“This is the map room,” she said. “A cartography center of an ancient and powerful race…one that didn’t quite clean up after itself when they decided to move on. I can find one of those toys if you two would just…let…me…finish!”
“What happened to you?” Roland let his gauss cannons angle toward the floor.
She giggled, then, the laugh growing into a cackle that came from a place not rooted in sanity. That she laughed without her chest moving bothered Roland more than anything.
“Our salvation was our destruction,” she said, “and they are our salvation again. How’s that coin flip going to end up? I don’t know, but we’re going to find out. You. Me. Earth. The whole galaxy.”
“Ms. Ibarra, you don’t sound well,” Roland said. “Come with me. Have your fleet surrender and no one else has to get hurt.”
“Is that…a threat?” She cocked her head to one side. “You think I’m afraid of you?”
“I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” Roland said. “I want this situation between you, your people, and Earth to end.”
“Oh, this situation is about to end.” She raised her chin slightly, then said in a singsong voice, “Nicodemus…time to shine.”
A dark figure jumped through the portal behind Aignar and landed in a crouch. Armor, its surface painted black, looked up at Roland and Aignar. Nicodemus’ helm had a pair of golden wings on the sides, and the. The front was a blank faceplate with red optics glowing in the eye slits.
Aignar swung his gauss cannons away from Stacey toward the new arrival. Nicodemus darted forward and chopped a hand across Aignar’s gun arm. The gauss cannon fired, missing the Ibarran armor and tearing up the floor.
Nicodemus rammed his fingers into Aignar’s helm, crushing the optics and knocking the entire helm back on the neck servos.
Roland tried to get a clear shot with his cannons, but the attacker kept Aignar in the line of fire. Roland yelled in frustration and charged toward his friend.
There was a snap of metal on metal, and a sword slashed through Aignar’s waist, just below the chamber containing his womb. Aignar’s armo
r fell into two halves. Nicodemus, wielding a Templar sword, chopped off both Aignar’s arms before he even hit the ground and then raised the sword over his head.
“No!” Roland lunged forward as the Ibarran swung down.
Nicodemus stepped forward and delivered his strike to Roland’s gauss cannons. Damage icons flashed across his HUD as the front half of his weapon fell to the ground, neatly severed. Roland ducked to one side to avoid a stab to the helm, and the blade caught his rotary cannons. Nicodemus twisted his sword and the cut barrels fell loose down Roland’s back.
Roland pulled his right hand back into the forearm housing and punched at the other armor’s chest with the spike built into his arm.
Nicodemus twisted aside and the spike managed to scrape the black paint and nothing more. He kneed Roland square in the chest, and the blow ringing through Roland’s womb like the toll of a bell. The impact sent him stumbling back. The Ibarran swung his blade up and leaped at Roland.
Roland unfurled his shield and the strike bit through the shield, stopping inches over his helm. He swapped his spike for his hand and grabbed the hilt on his leg. He activated the sword and stopped around the edge of his shield as it snapped into shape. The tip struck the upper edge of Nicodemus’ breastplate and tore up the front of his helm, destroying one of the optics slits and scarring the metal.
Roland released his shield off his forearm as Nicodemus tried to pull him off-balance. The shield banged across the ground right past Stacey Ibarra, who seemed to have no interest in the battle raging right in front of her.
Nicodemus brought his sword to high guard, the hilt next to his helm. Roland kept his sword pointed at the foe, high and level with his shoulder.
The Ibarran looked hard at the sword in Roland’s grip, then snapped his gaze back to Roland. Roland felt anger emanating off the black knight.
Nicodemus raised his sword just over his head and stuck toward Roland’s shoulder. Roland swung his lead foot back and twisted to block. The two blades clashed, and the impact slapping Roland’s blade flush against his body. The Ibarran’s strength was far greater than he’d anticipated.
Nicodemus reversed the grip on his sword and thrust it down, cutting through Roland’s left thigh, demolishing the hydraulics and nicking his knee servo. Damage reports flashed on his HUD and Roland faltered.
The Ibarran kicked the ankle on Roland’s failing leg, knocking it out from under him. Roland fell face-first against the ground, rolled over and swung up a desperate strike. There was a flash of steel and pain burned through his wrist. His armor’s right arm ended just below the elbow.
Nicodemus stomped onto Roland’s shoulder, pinning him to the ground. The Ibarran flipped the sword tip toward the ground, gripped his hilt with both hands, and lifted the pommel just over his helm.
Roland swung his left arm to deflect the blow, but he knew it was useless against the full might of another armor soldier. There, with the instrument of his certain death plunging toward him, he did not feel fear, but calm.
The sword pierced through Roland’s breastplate near the shoulder, emerged out the back, and bit into the floor. The strike missed his womb, and Roland knew that was no accident. Nicodemus wrenched his sword in a circle, destroying machine works in Roland’s back and shoulder.
Psychosomatic pain flared through his body. Pulsating warnings that he was dangerously close to redlining sounded in his ears and around his womb. Roland tripped his fail-safes and all input from his armor ceased. He could still see Nicodemus looming over him, still hear the wrench of failing metal.
Roland touched his shoulder, half-expecting to feel a gaping wound from all the pain he’d felt. He looked at the inside of his womb, wondering if he’d see the Ibarran’s blade when it broke through to end his life.
Nicodemus stepped away, his sword pinning Roland to the ground.
“Aignar? Can you hear me?” Roland sent over the IR.
Intermittent static came over the IR, but no answer.
The Ibarran returned a moment later, holding Roland’s severed arm and the sword. He tossed the hand aside, then grabbed Roland by the back of the helm and shoved the pommel into his face.
“Where did you get this?” Nicodemus asked, barely contained fury in his words. “Did you kill her for it?”
Roland kept trying to raise Aignar.
“Answer me!” Nicodemus punched Roland in the torso, rattling him within the womb.
“They gave it to me,” Roland said, his words barely coming through his damaged speakers. He swallowed a mouthful of amniosis. The naked hatred from the black knight, the damage to his armor, Aignar…all made him feel utterly helpless. “Legionnaires on Oricon…a Major Aiza. He said Morrigan wanted me to have it.”
“She lives?”
“I never saw her. Never spoke to her.”
“No…” Nicodemus shook his head, the one remaining optic eye swaying across Roland like a pendulum. “You stole it. Took it as some war trophy, to prove yourself to the rest of the traitors. I will carve her name into your womb and send you back to them in pieces!”
“Now, now.” Stacey Ibarra leaned over Roland’s helm. Up close, she looked even more alien to Roland. Her frozen features and still eyes fell into the uncanny valley, giving her an eerie quality that sent a chill down his spine.
“Aiza is one of ours,” she said. “The way he fought you,” she said, tapping on Nicodemus’ armor, “I have a little doubt that he could kill one such as Morrigan. Do you think Mars has fallen so far from grace that they’ve taken to scavenging for trophies?”
She pressed a palm against his armor and heat sapped out of his womb. Frost formed against the metal where she touched him.
“Can the other one hear me?” she asked Nicodemus.
The black knight nodded.
“Good, because I only need one to answer my questions. Has Earth changed that much since I’ve been gone?” She cocked her head to one side. “Because out here in the void…things have changed.” She lifted her other hand up. In her palm was a small golden lattice of light. She flexed her fingers slightly, fingertips prodding the lattice until it squeezed into a bright point, then transformed into a crystal that fell into her palm.
Roland shivered inside his womb as the cold grew stronger.
“And they’re going to keep changing,” she said. “They’ll change until we all get what we want. Power. Control. Immortality—though that last one’s tricky. Seems like an incredible thing until it happens to you. Do you know the other immortal?”
She lifted her hand away.
“Could you give her a message for me? Would you do that?” She looked Roland in the eye and gave the side of his helm a pat. “Tell her we immortals should not play games with each other.”
She spun around and looked up at Nicodemus.
“What was that? A prisoner?” she asked. “Why…now there’s an idea. Only need one to deliver the message back to the Keeper. Which one? Which one? Which one? It’s like picking a kitten. I know…” She turned her head back to Roland.
Roland tried to roll over in his womb, forgetting that he was nothing but an observer while his armor was off-line.
“We take this one,” she said, jumping.” She jumped onto his chest and sinking into a deep squat as she looked him over. “Because if he did kill Morrigan…I’ll give him to you and the others once I’m done with him.”
She clapped her hands twice and looked at Nicodemus.
“I’ll get the others. You rip him out.”
The black knight slapped his hands against Roland’s helm and crushed it into scrap.
****
Gideon watched as a shadow moved through the storm over the artifact dome. Cha’ril’s armor was supine against the metal. A data line connected the two suits.
“That was fast,” Cha’ril said. “The Scipio acknowledged your transmission a few minutes ago.”
“I told you to rest,” Gideon said.
A corvette came through the storm wall and fl
ew farther away. Gideon zoomed in on the hull and saw the ship’s name stenciled on the side: EBAKI.
“That wasn’t one of the ships that came with us…” Cha’ril said.
Gideon looked down the ship’s flight path and saw black armor emerge from a portal not hundreds of yards away. They formed a cordon around an unsuited human. One of the armor dragged a womb from its carry handle.
Metal recovery lines rolled out of the corvette’s hellhole once it came to a stop over the new arrivals.
“It’s the Ibarrans.” Gideon’s anchor popped from his heel. He pressed the diamond-tipped bit against the azure metal and activated the drill. It twisted away, failing to gain purchase. He tried again, but his anchor would not sink.
One of the Ibarran armor pointed its forearm cannons at Gideon, but another slapped the hand down. One of the Ibarrans picked up the woman, then grabbed a recovery line and held tight as it pulled him up and into the ship.
“Is that you, Gideon?” Nicodemus asked over an open channel. He walked a few steps toward the lance commander.
“Traitor!” Gideon cycled shells into his gauss cannon.
“Still an Iron Dragoon, are you? We have one of yours,” Nicodemus said. “The other’s alive. Ibarra, in her grace, will leave the portal open so you can get the other. Stand down or we’ll end you. And your charge still in the artifact will spend weeks in his dead armor waiting for a rescue that will never…ever…find him.”
Gideon half-bent his cannon arm, but didn’t aim it.
“You have the fury, Gideon. See that it doesn’t cost you another lance,” Nicodemus said.
“Leave him!”
As the armor ascended to the corvette slowly. Roland’s womb dangled from its grasp like a weight on a fishing line.
“Earth is weak. We will do what we must,” Nicodemus said.
“I’ll find you, you coward. You Judas! I will find you and make you pay for this.” Gideon pointed across the expanse at the Ibarran armor.
Nicodemus grabbed the last line.
“I look forward to it. Don’t think she will be so merciful the next time we cross paths.”
Gideon charged forward, energy coursing through his rail cannon vanes. He could make an unanchored shot—and die when the recoil crushed his armor or knocked him over the edge and into Oricon Prime’s depths. But destroying that ship would kill Roland, doom Aignar…and Cha’ril was still on the verge of redlining.
