by Richard Fox
Is this where they’re holding me? This trip was longer than the flight to Nicodemus’ place and with fewer turns…where is this? Roland slipped the primer into a thigh pocket as his car swooped into the hangar only a bit wider than the vehicle.
The car slowed to a stop and Roland stuck his head out, looking for the two habitual guards but found the hangar otherwise empty. A blast door slid down and locked in place with a thump that echoed through the chamber.
A doorframe lit up and Roland got out and looked around.
“Okay, then.” The door slid open to a wide hallway as he approached. His boots echoed off the dark rock walls, constructed of a different material than his prison. He passed closed doors, each with foreign words carved onto the surface in neat English letters.
Roland stopped before a double door arched with blocks, the keystone bearing a red Templar cross. The door opened down the middle and a gust of air tinted with incense wafted over him. Shadows moved in the candlelit chamber beyond. Dim light glinted off metal rings on the shadows at head height, all vanishing as those inside turned to look at Roland.
Morrigan, wearing dark chain mail, a sword belt, and a sash with a Templar cross, emerged from the darkness and grabbed him by the wrist.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed.
A chill crept across his skin and Morrigan shuddered. A hooded figure walked up and light played across Stacey Ibarra’s surface. A tall man with a full beard in the same dress as Morrigan followed close behind.
“He’s my guest,” Ibarra said. “You all don’t mind if I see this part, not a problem if he joins me, is it?”
“Our invitation is to you…and to whom you choose,” the man said. “He will be respectful,” he put a hand on his sword hilt, “I’m sure.”
“Come, Mr. Shaw.” Ibarra motioned to him. “This part always fascinates me.”
Roland swallowed hard and stepped into the room.
Templar, at least two dozen of them, stepped aside for Stacey and Roland as she brought him up to a ring of candles along the floor. A privacy screen hummed a few inches past the line of candles, and the barrier changed as they drew closer, opening the view into what was beyond.
He gazed down into an amphitheater where rows and rows of kneeling men and women—all in the same Templar garb, their hands gripped on their swords planted point first into the floor—faced a raised stage. The chants of prayer, prayers Roland had memorized from the primer, rose from the faithful.
Stacey tossed back her hood and the slight chill of her presence grew stronger, but was not as bone-chilling and painful as the last time he was in her presence. She gripped her sleeve with a gloved hand and wires in the coat glowed. Roland felt a bit warmer.
“They pray for hours, I’m told.” Ibarra gently tilted her head from side to side, the candles’ reflection twisting on her metal face. “Is it the same still on Earth for the Vigil?”
“I’ve not stood the Vigil yet,” Roland said.
She gave him a look; even without expression, Roland felt she was perturbed.
“Those who take the final Templar rites will go to Memorial Square in Phoenix, kneel with their armor, and recite the litanies from dusk until dawn,” he said. “There’s more that comes afterwards, but that’s revealed at the end of the Vigil.”
“I love tradition,” she said. “It’s what makes us who we are. It’s such a shame that I could never send my armor back to Earth for the rite, things being as they are. But they’ve made do.”
“You mean this is…your Vigil?” Roland asked.
“The public part.” She brought her fingers up to the side of her head and twirled them around. “This isn’t the only place to watch.”
A spotlight appeared on stage and widened, bathing the wooden slats in gentle light. Toward the back, a single suit of armor knelt with a sword made of glass run through with golden lines. The armor was of an older model, one phased out not long after the Ember War ended.
“Ah…Elias,” she said. “I remember him, a man singular in purpose. A true warrior, one that never wavered from what he considered to be right. His code of honor almost ruined everything…if he’d survived that last battle, he would have destroyed me the first chance he had. Still, I wish he was with us. It was his iron heart that won the war against the Xaros Masters on their world, and I bargained away my soul to win us the galaxy from the Xaros drones. But he’s the one we all remember, the one with the monuments. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“What is this?” Roland asked.
“The calling,” she said. “Watch. You’ll understand soon. This is an exact recording from the day before the Ember War ended…well, there’s some embellishment later on.”
A hologram of a gray-haired soldier with a cane appeared next to the armor and walked out to the front of the stage. The holo paced along the edge, looking across the praying Templar.
“Old Colonel Carius,” Ibarra said. “I remember him when I was a little girl. Grandpa used to have him over to the mansion, always asking him about the armor program, needling him for more information to make the suits work better. Carius used to say I was always too skinny, should have spent more time outside than with my nose buried in books. One day he showed up with a limp and the cane that had Chinese writing on it. He never told me how he got it, which was kind of him. No reason to give a girl nightmares.”
“Armor, your world needs you,” the Carius hologram said with a German accent, the words projected through speakers. “The Xaros advance on Earth—more drones than scoured Earth clean the first time they arrived, many more than we faced in the second invasion. They will reach Mars in less than a week, and no matter how hard we fight, the outcome will never be in doubt.”
Carius knocked his cane tip against the floor.
“But we are not without hope,” he said. “There is a way to strike the dragon in its heart. A singular hope against this coming darkness. One ship will be the sword. One ship will carry humanity’s will to fight, to survive. And I will carry that weapon. But I cannot carry it alone.”
At the edge of the stage, another hologram appeared and Roland caught his breath. Saint Kallen. He recognized her long braided hair and gentle face. She wore a shimmering gown and walked—walked—on bare feet. Her holo was ethereal…and Roland realized what Ibarra meant about an embellishment. Kallen was a quadriplegic, all pictures or statues of her he’d ever seen were of her in armor or in a wheelchair.
Carius took no notice of Kallen as she walked up beside him.
“I have fought as armor for decades,” Carius said. “Many of you have stood shoulder to shoulder with me in Australia, Ceres, Mars…who will fight beside me now?”
“Take me,” came from the armor.
Carius looked over his shoulder at the suit playing Elias and rapped his cane against the stage twice, then beat a fist against his heart. Roland felt the blood run from his face. Carius accepted Elias the same way the armor began pre-battle rites.
Kallen walked off the stage and slowly made her way through the still-kneeling Templar.
“Take me!” One in the back rows stood. Roland looked at the man who spoke and noted that he lacked the skull plugs of an armor soldier. Another stood and made the same offer to Carius.
Kallen stopped next to a woman and knelt beside her. The ghostly hologram reached out and touched the Templar’s face. As she stood, Roland caught a glint of light off her plugs, and she shouted, “Take me!”
“I’ll have you,” Carius said to her.
She marched up the stairs, went to Elias, and touched the armor’s leg before she vanished behind a curtain.
Across the theater, more and more Templar stood and demanded to go on the mission, a mission from which none of the armor ever returned. Carius called forth only a few, all of them armor soldiers, and only after the Kallen apparition had touched them.
Soon, every Templar in the room was on their feet.
“That’s how it happened,” Ibar
ra said. “They all volunteered. Every last armor soldier demanded to go, knowing full well it was a suicide mission.”
“They’re not all armor down there,” Roland said.
“No, but everyone in the Nation’s military keeps to the Saint. Those who’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty are invited to take part in this ceremony. All the new armor go through this…and whatever the final rite is that happens on the other side of the curtain.”
“Do they choose to keep to the Saint, or do you program the faith into them?” Roland asked.
“If I had a heart, that would have stung,” Ibarra said. “Tell me, why do you care so much about Kallen? Why bother with her? You weren’t raised in the faith. No one was.”
“She is an ideal.” Roland watched as the hologram walked back up the stairs and went to Elias. She touched the massive sword, and the armor’s helm turned and looked at her. She brought her gaze up to meet his, and she smiled. The hologram slowly faded away.
“The Saint fought to earn her plugs, kept fighting beside her lance after learning she had a disease that would only worsen if she stayed in her armor. She cared more for her lance, for humanity, for her armor, than she cared for herself. She was everything armor should be…I can only hope to follow in her shadow,” Roland said.
“We left Earth so we could save it,” Ibarra said. “Save us all. The Nation’s purpose isn’t far off from the ideal you describe. Don’t be surprised that my soldiers keep to her too.”
“But do you? Why don’t you become Templar?”
She shook her head slowly.
“I’ve seen too much,” she said. “Dealt with things that would scar your mind…I am not one for faith. I knew Kallen in passing. She was as kind and brave as you think she is. I saw the bond between the Iron Hearts…I leave such things for you.”
She touched his arm, and he felt the ice of her being through her gloves.
“I am not one for love…or compassion,” she said.
“My lady,” Marshal Davoust intruded, his face flush and covered in a sheen of sweat. He passed her a data slate.
Roland felt a none-too-gentle tug on his arm and he stepped away from Ibarra and the marshal.
Morrigan drew Roland across the room while the rest of the armor clustered around the two leaders.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“A Kesaht fleet is moving through the Crucible network,” she said. Her demeanor was off. Her green eye looked on the verge of tearing up, and Roland wasn’t sure if it was the ceremony or the news that had chipped away at her resolve.
“The fleet is enormous, at least four times what we saw at Oricon, and it stopped at a system a few light-years from one of our colonies,” she said.
“You have colonies?”
“Then the Kesaht used the Crucible to do a point-to-point jump to Balmaseda and the colony’s gone off-line. The colony’s been in place for a few months, two hundred thousand people…and they don’t stand a chance against a fleet that size.”
Roland watched as Stacey listened to Davoust and the bearded Templar. The two men shook their heads at each other and pointed at the data slate the marshal carried.
“What will you do?” Roland asked.
“It’s up to our lady,” Morrigan said. “But all those civilians…”
Ibarra held up a hand and the discussion around her ceased.
“We cannot risk the enemy tracing us back to Navarre,” Ibarra said. “Marshal Davoust will take the ready fleet and the Warsaw to evacuate as many colonists as he can.”
“The Warsaw can bring only so many ships, my lady,” Davoust said. “We’ll be outnumbered and outgunned.”
“Then bring our best soldiers.” The throng of armor parted as she walked to the door.
A ball of ice formed in Roland’s stomach as he remembered the Kesaht ship where he encountered one of their Ixio officers, as he remembered the captured humans floating in the aliens’ tanks, cybernetics sunk into their skulls, their mouths open in silent screams.
“I’ll go!” Roland called out. He made for Ibarra and shrugged off Morrigan as she grasped at him.
“Let me fight, Ibarra.” Roland kept at her, even as one of her silver-armored guards stepped between them and put a meaty palm against his chest.
She stopped and half-turned to look at Roland as she pulled her hood back up. Her doll-like face regarded him for a moment, then she glanced over Roland’s shoulder to the bearded Templar.
“General Hurson?” She left the room and the guard with his hand to Roland’s chest gave him a shove that sent Roland back a step.
Roland turned around and faced Hurson and Morrigan. The man shook his head.
“Armor fights as a lance, as a company, as a squadron, as a regiment,” the general said. “There is no place for a single suit.”
“I’ve fought the Kesaht,” Roland said. “I know their tactics, their—”
“No,” Hurson said.
“My lance will take him.” Morrigan raised her chin slightly. “We’re understrength as it is. He will fight as one of us. You have my word, by my honor, and my armor.”
“Nicodemus is the lance commander, not you,” Hurson said.
“He has the same faith in Roland as I do,” she said.
Hurson’s jaw worked from side to side. “By your honor and your armor.”
Morrigan beat a fist against her heart twice.
Hurson shouldered past Roland and left the room with Davoust.
“Was that a yes?” Roland asked Morrigan.
“It was. If you step out of line, the general will take my armor…and Nicodemus’. You understand what this means? You’re fighting for the Ibarra Nation. Earth may never forgive you.”
“I’m not doing this for Ibarra.” Roland glanced at the Templar cross on Morrigan’s sash. “I’m doing it for those that need me. I can’t step away.”
Morrigan cupped the side of Roland’s face.
“There’s iron in your heart. Come, you need armor.”
Chapter 19
Gideon pulled his knees even with his waist, felt the gentle switch of the womb’s amniosis, and reached through his plugs to feel his armor—the weight of full ammunition packs beneath his back armor plates, the gentle hum of his rail cannon. He tensed his shoulder and hip actuators like he was flexing muscles.
It felt good to be back inside his armor.
“Lance, send ready status, call three,” Gideon said and grit his teeth. Roland was gone. “Correction, call two.”
“Aignar. Green across the board. Synch optimal, trending to gold.” His suit came up on Gideon’s HUD, ready for the fight.
“Cha’ril. Amber synch…suit is optimal. No issues,” the Dotari said.
Gideon opened her armor’s feed and concentrated on a text box next to the wire diagram of her inside the armor.
“Cha’ril, there’s a medical alert on you, but it’s written in Dotari. Translate.”
“It’s nothing, sir. Minor glandular response, so low priority that the software engineers never bothered to translate it into English. Frequent among Dotari pilots who’ve been out of the womb for more than a few weeks,” she said.
“Did this happen when we were on the way down to New Bastion? I didn’t have my feed open for you two then,” Gideon said.
“Negative…but I was armored up for less than an hour. The synch bump must be what’s causing the reaction. Nothing of concern.”
As lance commander, he saw a private channel open between Aignar and Cha’ril. Speech data passed between them. Cha’ril’s responses were short, never more than one or two words.
“Any impact on the mission?” Gideon asked.
“No, sir. Let’s find the Ibarrans and ask where they’ve got Roland,” she said.
“Iron Dragoons…to war.” Gideon sent a signal to Chief Henrique and the bolts securing him inside his coffin released with a snap. He walked out and went to the reinforced lift waiting for his lance.
When the l
ift began moving to take them to the flight deck, Gideon opened a private channel to Aignar.
Gideon let the open static of the line pose the question.
“Nothing to add, sir,” Aignar said.
“She’s not acting like herself.”
“She did just get sort of married. I didn’t press too hard as I’ve had about all their culture that I can take for a while. With all the fuss they made to get Admiral Lettow involved…if there was something else we needed to know, I think they’d tell us. We may be going through trouble with the Ibarras…they’re dealing with near extinction.”
“You didn’t go to the Templar pre-battle ceremony.”
Aignar’s armor shifted weight from side to side.
“There are enough full Templar aboard to perform the rite. They didn’t need me there.”
“Fair enough.” Gideon closed the channel. The lance continued to the flight deck in silence.
****
Three tactical insertion torpedoes ripped through the skies over Balmaseda’s grand mesa. As one, the torpedoes deployed retro-rockets, flaring like comets as they lost forward velocity and dipped toward the surface.
The Iron Dragoons ejected at a hundred meters above ground level and shifted their legs into treads just before they slammed into the dirt. Their torpedoes broke apart, filling the sky with chaff designed to mask their landing zone from sensors.
Aignar revved his treads in reverse, trying to slow down as he slalomed across a dry lake bed. His right side hit a rock and pitched him onto one side. Like a surfer navigating a wave barrel, he punched a fist against the ground and braced himself against flipping over, then he shoved off the ground and leveled out.
His left treads froze, then broke, leaving a trail of metal segments behind as he spun out and finally ground to a halt. He reformed back into his walker configuration and looked back at the messy path behind him.
“This was not better than the last time! In fact, I think it was worse.” He banged a fist against his left leg and started running to catch up with Cha’ril and Gideon ahead of him.
“I noted at least six differences in the insertion procedure since our landing on Oricon,” Cha’ril said. “The engineers must have incorporated our feedback.”
