by Richard Fox
The guard slammed his club against the bar and lightning flickered up and down the cell wall.
“Don’t push it, kid,” said the more genial guard. “You’ve been granted a small privilege. Keep the lip up and you can keep up your mushroom routine in your cell.”
“What privilege? Maybe I’d prefer you come check out just how slippery it is in here,” Roland said.
“You’re not in your armor,” said the guard with the club. His hand tightened around the handle.
“Prisoner gets marked up, you’ll explain it to the colonel,” the other guard said. He elbowed his fellow guard out of the way and rapped the handcuffs against the open window. “Exercise, kid. You’re getting it one way or another.”
Roland flexed his hands, feeling the blood flow through his arms. Any chance to leave the cell was an opportunity to devise an escape. He went to the door and let the guard cuff him. He accepted the muzzle and hood and let the friendlier guard lead him out of the cell.
“What’s wrong?” he heard the guard say.
Roland seized up as the club struck his lower back and sent an excruciating bolt of pain from his knees to his shoulders. One of the guards caught him before he could fall and he felt flesh press against his ear through the hood.
“Speak against Lady Ibarra again,” the angry guard said, his breath stinking of spicy food, “please.”
Muscles along Roland’s back and legs twitched, threatening to cramp up. A half-dozen retorts he’d been practicing stayed bottled up inside.
The guards hauled Roland to his feet and dragged him away.
****
The hood came off and Roland found himself in a wide room with wooden beams running across the ceiling, and the walls were paper screens held within a thin grid of wooden rods. Mats of woven fabric made up the floor.
The guard removed his muzzle and the handcuffs and stepped back from his prisoner as Roland rubbed his aching back.
“Why the gag?” Roland asked.
“There are worse things you can say than insulting the Lady,” the guard said. He looked over Roland’s shoulder and raised his chin slightly.
Behind him a set of full-body training padding and two longswords in scabbard belts hung from a wooden rack in the middle of the room. A few yards away along the wall, before a small shrine to Saint Kallen, a man in training gear knelt in prayer, a sword gripped in one hand. He looked well-built…and had plugs at the base of his skull.
Another armor soldier.
“…aliisque insidiantibus sit pavor, terror et formido,” the other man said.
Roland recognized the near end of a prayer for the blessing of a sword and drew one of the swords. It was dull, lightweight, but he could swing it with enough force to make it hurt.
The penitent man kissed his pommel and stood. He was dark of eyes and hair, his skin faintly olive. A hint of crow’s feet around the eyes and a weariness to his countenance hinted at a life of war.
“I’ll have your name,” Roland said, testing the weight of his weapon.
The armor soldier motioned to the pads.
Roland watched the gesture and narrowed his eyes. The way the man moved…Roland recognized the body language. He moved like the Ibarran armor that ripped Aignar apart and laid Roland low on Oricon.
This was Nicodemus. Rage born of his humiliating defeat and days in a cell rose in Roland’s heart and took over. He charged forward and swung his sword at the other man’s neck.
Nicodemus raised his sword arm, the blade held flat against his forearm. Roland’s strike careened off, sending a jarring shake up his arm. The Ibarran snapped out a kick that caught Roland on the thigh and caused a spasm in his quadriceps strong enough that Roland’s leg buckled.
Nicodemus’ sword struck Roland’s wrist and sent his weapon flying. Roland tripped over his own feet and fell to the mats. History seemed to repeat itself as Nicodemus planted a boot on Roland’s chest and raised his sword up, the tip pointed at Roland’s heart.
The Ibarran slammed the sword down and buried the tip into the mat next to Roland’s head.
“You have a hole in your swing,” Nicodemus said. “I see Gideon’s hand in your training. I know you have been trained better than this.” He ripped his sword from the mat and stepped back.
Roland shook pain out of his throbbing wrist and propped himself up on an elbow.
“What do you want with me?” Roland asked.
“I’m here to train you.” Nicodemus planted the tip of his sword between his feet and rested his hands on the pommel.
“Train me? Why?”
“Your future hasn’t been decided. Perhaps you’ll be sent back to Earth. Then you’ll fight again as armor. Put the pads on. It’ll hurt less.”
Roland rubbed a knot out of his leg and got up, wincing.
“I’m going home?”
“You may. You may not. But while you are here, you will be trained.”
“If I go back to Earth, we may end up on the opposite side of a fight again. Why would you train me?”
Nicodemus tilted his head slightly to the side.
“You heard me pray. You’ve seen my armor.” He touched his left shoulder, where the Templar Cross would be. “You are a supplicant, aren’t you?”
Roland paused, his thoughts going to the primer he read that morning.
“‘For the Order is never complete,’” Roland quoted, “‘and the hands that bear the sword must forge the next.’ That’s why you’re here? You think you have a duty to train me?”
“There’s no question if I have that duty,” Nicodemus said.
“I don’t bel—I know the vows. The oaths. But you training me…”
“The Templar are the sword and shield of all humanity. The Kesaht are enemies to Earth and the Ibarra Nation. As are the Vishrakath. As are others. If you go back, you may fight them. I’ll not return a dull instrument.”
Roland considered his options and decided he had little to lose. He took the padded jacket off the rack and slipped it on.
“What happened to my lance mate? To Aignar?” The jacket tightened around his body as he ran his fingers down the seam to seal it.
“We gave your squadron enough time to find him. They left the station long before we sank it into the gas giant. Sobieski and Gideon would never have left so soon unless they’d found him.” Nicodemus lifted his sword off the ground and gave it a twirl.
Roland stepped into the pair of oversized pants and wiggled his foot into the loose mesh sock at the end. The bottom and top halves of the outfit attached around his waist, and Roland felt the suit adjust itself to his body.
The training gear was modeled off the pseudo-muscle layers of combat power armor. While this outfit wouldn’t augment his strength, it would dampen the force of any hit he took…and the control systems would insulate against the shock batons the guards carried.
“Don’t pretend that you know them.” Roland put on a pair of gloves and slapped on a full-face helmet. “They stayed loyal to Earth when you ran off with the Ibarras.”
Nicodemus lunged forward with a fencer’s strike and stabbed Roland in the solar plexus. Roland’s armor stiffened, spreading the force of the impact across his chest, but the blow still hit like a punch. Roland twisted to one side and pushed the blade tip away with his upper arm. He snapped an elbow at Nicodemus’ bare face.
The other fighter caught the elbow with his palm and dug fingers into the joint and then spun and pulled Roland off-balance. Roland tripped over Nicodemus’ leg and fell to the ground with the grace of a dropped sack of potatoes, his sword bouncing against the mats.
Nicodemus kicked Roland’s sword back to him.
“You know nothing, pledge. Get up, and I’ll teach you to handle a blade with some skill,” Nicodemus said.
****
Roland collapsed onto his cell floor. Bruises and welts pulsed on his arms and shoulders, but the cold concrete floor was oddly soothing to his battered body. He ran his tongue against the inside of
a swollen lip, tasting blood that oozed from a cut down the side of his nose.
“Dear God, they tortured you!” Mark Ibarra shouted. “Which was it? Tweedle fat ass or Tweedle no neck?”
“No,” Roland said as he scrubbed dried blood off his cheek and propped himself up. “It was Nicodemus, and I deserved every hit he landed.”
“And they brainwashed you!”
“We were sword sparring.” Roland worked his hands open and shut, feeling the pain of too many strikes against his training gear. “Even with pads…he’s damn strong. I managed a number of insults that no amount of pain meds can cover up.”
“Did what? You look like you got a good kicking from a football team.”
“Just him.” Roland turned to his bunk, where a covered tray sat next to his pillow. He lifted the lid, and steam from pork chops and peas mixed with carrots wafted out. He put the lid back on and became acutely aware of the ache in his jaw.
“Ibarra, why do they keep putting a muzzle on me?”
“Because of me,” the metal man said. “I controlled the procedural crèches on Earth and when we first arrived here. You control the crèches, you can edit the consciousness that goes into the body. Stacey must be afraid that I snuck in voice commands that you could activate with a choice phrase.”
“Did you?”
“What? I’m shocked. Shocked that you would even accuse me of such a thing.” Ibarra raised his chin.
“So you did.” Roland went to the sink and washed his face.
“Not just me, mind you. Stacey and I made a few adjustments to crèches in the home system before we took our leave of Earth—only to those still in the tubes. The code erased itself after that batch. Something of an insurance policy. I was against it after the last debacle,” Ibarra said.
“When did you play mind games with other people? Or was that something you did since the first proccie walked out of the farms?”
“There was always one that…she doesn’t matter anymore, but she’s half the reason we’re in this mess. What were you doing while the Ruhaald and the Naroosha occupied the Crucible? You were a kid, probably sitting in a bunker wondering why the Xaros hadn’t killed you yet. What you missed was a rather daring jail break led by yours truly while under great duress. We kicked the aliens off the jump gate and sent them home with their tails between their legs, but in the few days they had control, they modified the proccies coming out of the tubes on the Crucible. One was a woman I’ve known for many years—a fixer, assassin, all around evil yet eminently useful woman named Shannon.”
“The Naroosha made their own proccies?” Roland wiped a cloth across his face.
“They injected some rather ingenious behavior protocols, which turned a few hundred proccies into sleeper agents. I was so confident in my system that I never thought anyone else could hack codes…and I was so very wrong. Shannon’s the one that hurt Stacey so badly. After that, I found what the Naroosha had done and decided to eliminate the rest of their assets.”
“The Hiawatha,” Roland said as he sat down and poked at his dinner, nibbling on a few peas at a time. “The ship they accused you of blowing up. All the evil proccies were aboard, weren’t they?”
“Evil is a choice, Mr. Shaw. They were created to be weapons against humanity. I destroyed them to keep Earth safe. After what they did to Stacey, I wasn’t willing to take risks with letting them stay active.”
“Why not bring them in for treatment? Do something other than kill them?”
“And how would that have played out if I got on the vids and said, ‘No need to panic! The following proccies, please report to your nearest security team. You may be subject to alien mind control at any time. Purely routine.’ It would make everyone suspicious of every proccie in the system. All this was happening while a Xaros drone armada was advancing on the system, mind you.”
“So you murdered them all.”
“I didn’t have time for a perfect solution. Not the first innocents to die because of me. Not the last.”
“And what happened to the software the aliens used? Did you erase that along with the people on the Hiawatha?” Roland dropped his fork onto the plate, his appetite gone.
“Tools are tools.”
“Do you think Stacey’s using that ‘tool’ to keep her people under total control? Did she work in a fail-safe we could find? Use it to stop whatever she’s planning?”
Ibarra walked up to the bars between their cells and looked hard at Roland.
“Son, if you could snap your fingers and kill every proccie in the Ibarra Nation, would you?” His head turned from side to side slowly, waiting for an answer.
“I…I don’t know. They’re not any different from the people on the Hiawatha, are they? Victims of circumstance. None of them chose to be what they are or where they are.”
“I’ve had a long time to get used to making decisions like the Hiawatha. I hope you never find yourself in the places I’ve been. They leave black marks on your soul that grow with time…until the good man you once were is a memory.”
He walked back to his bunk and sat down, hands linked behind his head, legs crossed.
“Eat your peas, Roland. A clear conscience isn’t the only thing I envy about you.”
****
The crèche was normally rather quiet. Rows upon rows of tanks filled with light green fluid and shadows of the people growing within generated little noise beyond the hum of generators and the very rare thump of an appendage against the glass as a procedural’s body twitched as some memory was etched into its brain.
Today, the sound of footfalls and muffled conversation echoed between the tanks.
Stacey Ibarra walked down the narrow maintenance pathway bisecting the crèche. She wore a long quilted overcoat, not because her metal body needed the warmth, but to keep from upsetting the delicate balance within the tanks.
Keeping pace beside her was a bald man with a drooping mustache and a lab coat.
“What do you need, Dr. Cummings?” she asked. “Production is down ten percent across Navarre’s crèches. We’re building ships faster than we can crew them. This is unacceptable.”
“My lady, I warned you…side projects would impact our operations. Nine days is the standard for a trained adult in all manner of military specialties. The Legionnaires take two more days as their physical attributes are a bit more difficult to bring forth while they’re in the tanks. Getting the growth hormones just right is difficult and there will be long term health repercussions.”
“It’s not like I’m demanding officers derived from Caesar, Attila, Napoleon and Alexander the Great,” she said.
“My Lady, genetic stock is largely irrelevant given the amount of gene editing that goes into each unit and the procedural consciousness that—”
“I am aware of the process, doctor,” she snapped. “Why has production slowed?”
“I told—forgive me. It’s the special orders. Changing the procedural generation code so drastically takes time and a fair bit of trial and error. Making a change like this would have been easier during the war when Mr. Ibarra—” he shrank back slightly as she glared at him “—had the Qa’Resh drone to do all the heavy lifting. Of course, I doubt the drone would have made these changes.”
“The project continues,” Stacey said. “What do you need to make your quota, doctor?”
“More tubes, more computing power.” Cummings shrugged. “We can’t shorten the gestation period. You’re aware of what happens if we do.”
She removed a data slate and tapped at it, her fingers moving far faster than Cummings had ever seen before.
“There.” She pressed the slate to his chest. “Fifty thousand new tubes and associated equipment will go into the south ranges. Once the project moves into phase two, you will supervise the transfer of those mainframes and a thousand tubes to the test planet. Understand?”
“Of course, my lady,” Cummings raised an eyebrow at the order on the data slate. “This is my life’s wor
k. Anything for you.”
“Meet the quota, Cummings. There will be casualties soon.” She continued down the pathway and left the doctor alone in the crèche.
Chapter 9
The Destrier-class transports were the larger, hardier cousin to the ubiquitous Mules used for most personnel and cargo transports within the fleet. The cargo bay could carry up to a hundred combat-loaded Rangers for an orbital insertion and nearly a dozen armor soldiers.
That this cargo bay held only Cha’ril, Aignar, and the armor-less Gideon lent it an almost eerie emptiness. The two armored soldiers stood with their feet locked in deck clamps. Gideon was between them, lights glinting off his medals and the silver bars on his rank epaulets. He had his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes were squeezed shut.
“Then, Mr. Aignar, you volunteered to be Cha’ril’s…ushulra?”
“No, sir.” Aignar’s helm shook quickly. “There was a lot of yelling in Dotari that I didn’t understand and then Cha’ril was there and she started singing—”
Gideon held up a hand and cut him off. He looked up to his Dotari soldier.
“Cha’ril, is there any way to get Aignar out of this?” he asked.
“Yes. A male blood relative of mine can take his place. All of whom are on Dotari Prime and under quarantine. The role is one of great honor in my community. He should be proud.”
“Helps to know what the hell I’m supposed to do before I can put on airs,” Aignar said.
“Having one of my lancers play matchmaker for another is not a complication I anticipated for this mission,” Gideon said, his voice full of frustration. “Aignar will choose who you marry? Is that it?”
“There are varying degrees of Dotari marriage,” she said.
Gideon pressed a palm to his face.
“Sir, are you well?” Cha’ril asked. “I can see your body temperature and blood pressure rising on my IR.”
Gideon slammed a fist against his thigh and looked away from her.
“A joining under these circumstances is temporary. There are many conditions under which the joining may be annulled. A full marriage with clan transfers, inheritance rights—”
