by Richard Fox
“Their message seems directed toward us both,” she said curtly.
“I agree.”
“I’m here for my people. Help me get them home and I’ll do the same for you,” she said.
“I’m not in the habit of making agreements with people who won’t give their name,” Lettow said.
“I am Fleet Admiral Ivana Makarov,” she said, nodding slightly.
A sneer tugged at Lettow’s lips. He knew the Ibarras were using procedural technology, but he never thought they’d stoop to necromancy. An Admiral Makarov commanded the Lost 8th Fleet during the Ember War after earning distinction against the Toth incursion. The day Earth learned of the fleet’s loss became a day of remembrance, with Admiral Makarov honored for her leadership and valor.
“Makarov?” Ericson asked.
“My mother gave her life to save humanity against the Xaros. I chose to follow in her footsteps. Perhaps you will bring us some of that Breitenfeld luck, Ericson? I can push five squadrons to you. I need the rest to keep the evacuation corridor open from the main city…”
TRUST? Appeared across Ericson’s screen.
“Admiral Makarov,” Lettow said, “I now consider this a joint operation in all respects. We’ve got…seventy minutes before the Kesaht fighters reach weapon range. We need to figure out how to keep their troops off the planet. Get your personnel off and beat their capital ships. I’ve got some experience with the Kesaht.”
“You’ve had more success against them than any Ibarran commander,” Makarov said. “Then again, this is the first time we’ve faced them with this much firepower. What would Captain Valdar say at a time like this, Ericson?”
“Admiral Valdar…would say, ‘Gott Mit Uns.’” Ericson said.
“Then let God be with us,” Makarov said. “There are a few more surprises in the system I wasn’t going to tell you about, but since we’re all friends now…”
Chapter 21
The white noise of a wormhole jump subsided and Roland’s stomach twisted into knots worse than the last three jumps the ship had made. He touched the inside of his womb and tried to activate his armor’s systems. A HUD appeared in his vision, fed through his plugs and cybernetics directly into his brain.
The HUD blinked on and off for a few seconds, then collapsed into an error message. Again.
He’d been in this womb for hours with no outside contact. It felt good to feel the totality of the amniosis fluid around his body and the closeness of the armored womb after so long, but being shut off from everything else was proving tedious.
I wonder what Marc Ibarra is doing. Maybe he’s lonely. This will be an interesting story once I get locked back in the cell next to him. Though he’ll probably get pissed I didn’t try and break him out soon as I donned my armor.
The interior of the womb lit up and Roland’s eyes ached. He felt a twinge through his plugs and a camera feed opened up. He saw through the helm optics of his armor, though he couldn’t move the armor at all.
He was in a launch bay. Ibarran armor techs worked around him, guiding a trolley full of gauss shells and calling out silent instructions to each other. The crews were focused, working with the same seamless efficiency that Roland knew from his maintenance team of Brazilians that tended to his armor on the Scipio. Sound came on a moment later and Roland heard the techs talking to each other in Basque, catching the occasional English word for armor systems and weapons.
Morrigan and Nicodemus walked into his field of view, both in their skin suits.
“You awake in there?” Nicodemus touched a screen attached to his forearm and more of Roland’s systems came online. He looked around and found he was inside a drop pod.
“Been ready since we left,” Roland said. He ran through a system check and found a new weapon mag locked to his back: an armor sized breech-loaded rifle with an underslung battery pack. Shells for the weapon were belted to his breastplate. He noted a sword hilt locked to a leg and was surprised Nicodemus had confidence in him to wield one in battle after Roland lost so many bouts in the dojo.
“Mauser recoilless rifle,” Morrigan said. “Designed to punch through Sanheel shields with a single bullet. Haven’t gone through field testing yet. It’ll work wonders or we go back to the old standby.” She tapped her forearm where their armor carried double barreled gauss cannons.
“We just had the final combat briefing,” Nicodemus said. “Tried to get you in, but while Morrigan and I may trust you, the Warsaw’s captain does not.”
“The Warsaw is a Europa-class starship. I know the crew complement and her capabilities,” Roland said. “Not sure what else there is to learn.”
Morrigan smirked.
“We need to suit up.” Nicodemus touched his forearm screen again, then tapped his plugs. “But we can still talk,” he said without his lips moving.
“That’s new,” Roland said as the two armor soldiers split apart and walked around the drop pod to their waiting armor.
A holo of a red-green planet dotted with a few lakes and small oceans appeared on Roland’s HUD. A swarm of blue icons for the Ibarra fleet populated over the northern pole. Three spinning squares came up across the northern hemisphere.
“This is Balmaseda,” Nicodemus said. “The marshal’s made tight IR-beam contact with the governor and…god damn it.”
The holo of the planet shrank slightly and a host of red icons appeared around the edge of the planet’s innermost moon. Some of the icons formed into Kesaht claw-shaped destroyers and their capital ships shaped like blades made up of overlapping and irregularly shaped tiles. The initial reports were right; the Kesaht attack fleet was a good deal larger than what he’d encountered on Oricon.
But the Kesaht weren’t what gave Nicodemus pause. Along the planet’s equator, green circles appeared, then flipped over to red, then back to green, like the Warsaw’s computers were unsure if the new contacts were hostile or neutral.
One circle switched to a wire diagram of a human battleship, the Ardennes.
“The Terrans are here,” Morrigan said.
“Intelligence failed us.” Nicodemus’ armor came online in Roland’s HUD as the lance leader plugged into his armor. “How the hell did they miss Earth moving a fleet that size to…Roland. I can’t bring you with us.”
In the drop bay, one of the technicians put a hand to his ear, then shook his head emphatically. Red warning lights spun up.
“This is a mark IV drop pod, right?” Roland asked. “I’m already bolted in. Crew standard for removing armor is nine minutes, then you’ve got to recalibrate the drop ballistics to compensate for the mass displacement. Something tells me we’re going to drop before all that can happen.”
“I can expect you to fight Kesaht,” Nicodemus said, “not to fight Earth.”
“The last time it came down to shooting another human or fighting bloodthirsty aliens, we all made the right choice,” Roland said. “You expect me to believe the Ardennes is here helping the Kesaht?”
“The trait—Terrans are already on the ground,” Morrigan said. “The data lines are a mess, but there has been some bloodshed.”
Ice touched Roland’s heart. This was not the way it was supposed to be.
“Any fighting since the Kesaht showed up? My—I mean, their—fleet is in a better orbital position. They must have arrived first,” Roland said.
Warning sirens blared through the drop bay and the tech crews scrambled off the deck and onto raised walkways. They drew safety lines off their belts and clamped them onto red and yellow railings.
Roland felt the drop pod shake as a cage lowered from the ceiling and clamped down on the pod. A metal hatch lowered over Roland, locking his armor into the pod.
“So looks like I’m coming with you,” he said.
“Son, know that I have a kill switch for your armor,” Nicodemus said. “We get into a fight with the Terrans—no matter who’s the aggressor—I’ll shut you down. You understand? Our mission here is to get the civilians off world and to safety, not fig
ht your people.”
Your people, Roland thought. This fight would not end well for him; he was certain of that.
“I came to serve, to save the civilians,” Roland said. “I’ll fight as long as I’m able.”
“Who are you?” Morrigan asked.
“I am armor,” Roland said.
“I am fury,” Nicodemus added.
“And we will not fail,” Morrigan intoned.
The deck beneath the drop pods opened and wind howled through the bay as the Warsaw dipped into Balmaseda’s upper atmosphere. The cage opened and the pod fell free.
Chapter 22
Gideon stood just outside the glacier station as a dry wind whipped lines of sand around him and antennae rose higher out of his helm. The array shifted position, reading through frequencies.
Behind him, Cha’ril and Aignar guarded the prisoners where they sat at a communal outdoor mess. Tarps flapped in the wind and the Ibarrans huddled against each other, covering their food trays as dust came in.
From the mortar launcher on Gideon’s back, a pigeon drone shot out and flew straight up. The connection between his comms array and the drone faded out before it had gone more than a hundred yards.
“Negative contact with the fleet or Colonel Martel,” Gideon said through his lance’s IR net. “I’m not reading anything at all.”
“Coming in weak and broken.” Aignar’s reply was laced with heavy static.
As Gideon walked back, prisoners shied away from the stomp of his sabatons. They’d insisted on eating together soon after the wounded Loordes was stabilized in their small infirmary, but they’d barely touched their food.
“—nic interference.” Cha’ril’s transmission came in as he neared. “Just like we encountered on Oricon.”
“I’m not one for coincidences,” Aignar said. “If the Kesaht showed up…”
“Martel anticipated the Ibarras could send reinforcements,” Gideon said. “He left standing orders that any prisoners remain under effective control and we hand them off to military police for processing when we rejoin the main force.”
“There’s an acute lack of MPs here,” Aignar said. “It’ll take us four hours to make it to the city,” he said, pointing into the hazy distance.
“Should be ninety minutes but someone broke track. Again,” Cha’ril said.
“Oh, did you stick your landing after the ballistic missile spat you out?” Aignar asked.
“Enough,” Gideon said. “The disruption may be some Ibarra stratagem. Some Balmaseda atmospheric issue. We don’t have enough to go on right now.”
“We could ask the locals,” Aignar said. “They’ve been talking to each other in Basque since they sat down to eat. Do they really think we wouldn’t have that language translator loaded up for this mission?”
“You let on we can understand them?” Gideon asked.
“No. I’ve been waiting to see if anyone’s planning to be a hero or idiot. Mostly they’ve cursed out Cha’ril and are worried about family back in the city,” Aignar said.
“What is a coño?” Cha’ril asked.
“If we let on there’s an issue, they might get bold,” Gideon said.
“Hey!” Etor stood up from his table, waved at the armor, and tried to block sand from getting into his eye. “We need to go inside!”
“Denied,” Gideon said through his speakers. “I expect roughnecks like you can handle a little wind.”
“This can get a lot worse before you know it. I can check out the data from our weather stations, see if there’s a tornado coming,” the Ibarran said.
“And send a message stating how many armor are here,” Gideon said. “No. I can monitor the weather just fine.” He tapped the side of his helm.
Cha’ril looked up toward the glacier wall.
“I’m picking something up on audio. It sounds like…what do you call the black and yellow insects that pollinate Earth flora?”
Gideon turned up the gain on his audio receptors and heard a growing buzz emanating over the icy wall embedded in the mountain range. The prisoners looked up one by one as well, and all seemed just as confused as the armor.
A Kesaht crescent fighter roared over the edge and continued toward Balmaseda City. A loose dozen followed, then squadrons in neat four-by-three formations. Assault landers the size of Destrier transports separated the fighter squadrons like a checkerboard.
“Now we know why long-range comms are out,” Aignar said, bringing his rotary cannon up onto his shoulder.
Gideon ignored the panicked shouts from the prisoners as he weighed his options. As the wave tapered off to a few straggling crescent-shaped craft, he realized the wave of fighters and landers must have numbered in the thousands.
“Hold your fire,” he said. “We’re not going to put a dent in them with gauss or grinders.”
“A rail cannon shot will—”
“The overpressure will pulp the internal organs of the unprotected civilians, Cha’ril,” Gideon said.
“They’re not our humans,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter. They’re our responsibility and—contact. Four breaking off.” Gideon raised his gauss cannons as Kesaht fighters broke away from the trail edge of the formation and banked toward the outpost.
“Don’t move!” Gideon thundered through his speakers. “Lance: tower shield wall.”
As he brought his left arm across his body, a panel on his forearm popped open and a segmented shield opened. The ultra-dense metal unfurled into a rectangular shield that covered Gideon from his armor’s shins to the shoulders.
He braced his arm with the gauss cannons mounted to it against the upper edge of the shield and backed toward the prisoners.
Etor shouted out a warning for his people to duck and cover.
Gideon fired a double shot, missing the Kesaht fighter to the far right but forcing it to do a barrel roll and break off its attack run.
Yellow energy bolts snapped out of the enemy fighters’ forward cannons. The armor linked shields, forming a wall between the Kesaht and the prisoners. Gauss bullets sizzled through the air, crisscrossing with the energy bolts.
A blast hit just in front of the armor, showering them with dirt and rocks. Another bolt clipped Aignar’s shield and deflected into a supply shed. Pipes exploded out and went bouncing across the sand like barrels accidentally released from a winery.
A Kesaht fighter exploded as a gauss round hit home. Another lost a wing and went twisting into the ground. The remaining two fired again and Gideon’s shield took a solid hit that sent off a shower of sparks and pushed him back several yards.
As the two fighters jinked from side to side, he did a quick calculation with his ballistic computer, twisted his gauss cannon arm over, and fired a shot. Letting the recoil pull his aim to the right, he fired the second barrel. A fighter veered to one side, reacting to the flash of his first shot, and took a hit to the engines from his second bullet.
The fighter dipped down, struggled to regain altitude, then slammed into the ground belly-first…a few hundred yards ahead of Gideon. It slid forward and bounced off a boulder, ripping off a wing tip and sending it spinning forward like a giant scythe.
Gideon spun up his rotary cannon and fired at the oncoming danger. Rounds battered the wreck, but its momentum was more than enough to carry it through the armor soldier and the civilians behind him.
“Worthless scrap,” Gideon said as he pulled his shield arm back and swung it into a hook as a wing sliced toward him. He connected and beat the wreck aside where it smashed against the glacier wall.
When the cockpit skittered forward, Gideon snapped around and crushed it with a stomp.
The last Kesaht fighter flew overhead, smoke trailing from its engines as it pulled up into a vertical climb. It almost cleared the cliff. Almost.
The fighter crashed against an icy outcrop and exploded into a ball of fire. Hunks of the wall broke free, several on a path to crush the civilians in the mess tent.
�
�Cover them!” Gideon raised his shield over the civilians as shards of ice the size of soccer balls rained down. He ignored the hits to his arms and shoulders. The sound of the ice cracking against his body was far worse than any damage it did.
An ice boulder landed a dozen yards away and broke apart with a roar of thunder.
Gideon waited for the dust to settle.
“Etor, are your people injured?” Gideon folded his shield and returned it to its housing.
Peeking over the edge of the table, the foreman raised a tentative thumbs-up.
“They’ll be back.” Cha’ril dumped an empty ammo canister off her back and loaded another.
“Etor, if we go overland to the city, you won’t make it,” Gideon said. “Give me options.”
Etor stood up and gave orders to his team as the rest emerged from under the tables.
“The pipes,” he said, pointing to the man-made gap in the mountains where a shattered pipe leaked water. “The gap, I mean. We mined out enough room for expansion. Would’ve had another dozen stations feeding through there. It leads to a tunnel that goes to the city’s utility hub.”
“Room enough for us?” Gideon motioned to his lance.
“Plenty.” Etor leaned to one side and pointed at a truck, the bed loaded down with equipment and pipe segments. “I can get everyone in there, but it’ll take time to empty it out.”
“No, it won’t,” Gideon said. “Get your wounded and prep to move. Leave everything else behind. Aignar.”
Aignar reached into the truck bed, slammed a hand onto a pump, and pinched the metal. He tossed it behind him, then grabbed a length of pipe the size of a small car and tossed it overhead like a toddler tearing through a toy box.
Etor hurried his people toward the truck, then looked back at his wrecked pumping station.
“This was ours,” he said to Gideon. “Balmaseda isn’t pretty, but we were going to turn it into a garden. Forests, cattle, sheep. We could have made something beautiful here.”
A snap of a sonic boom echoed off the mountains. To the east, the trace of a rail cannon shell from a battery nestled in the distant peaks shot toward the sky.
