by Richard Fox
The warrior ducked the blow and brought the mace down toward Roland’s head. Roland caught the Toth by the wrist and punched at it with his other hand. The Toth brought its foreleg up, grabbed the gauss cannon arm, and used all its strength to push Roland’s aim away…and straight toward the Toth still beating on Morrigan.
Roland fired and blew an arm off the Toth over his lance mate.
There was a flash of crystal and the Toth still grappling with Roland whipped its tail up and struck him in the helm. His faceplate cracked and his vision swam as his armor tried to compensate for the damage. He ducked his helm down as the next strike dented the black armor and broke antennae loose.
The Toth grabbed his wrist with another foot and stretched his arms out. Roland felt the strain on his servos as the alien tried to tear him apart.
“I’ll have you, meat!” the alien hissed. “I’ll feast on your—”
A sword point burst through its face from behind and it went limp. Roland shrugged the corpse off just as Morrigan set a boot against the Toth’s back and ripped her sword free. Nicodemus kicked at a pile of three dead warriors at his feet.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Same,” Roland responded as he reached for his sword hilt and missed, grabbing at air. “I can’t tell if it’s my servos or optics that are off.” He tried again, but his fingers refused to grasp.
Nicodemus picked up Roland’s sword, returned the blade to the hilt, and slapped it against the mag lock.
“It’s both,” he said. “Your armor will compensate for the damage. Give it a minute.”
“No more speculation,” Morrigan said. “The Toth are alive, and they’re behind the Kesaht.”
“Lady Ibarra will need proof to show Earth and the rest of the galaxy.” Nicodemus ripped a hand and forearm off a Toth warrior and shook out the yellow blood.
“The Toth…” Roland looked over one of the crystal-armored bodies, wondering just how they designed their exoskeletons to match his strength. “What does this mean?”
“There will be no peace between us and the Kesaht,” Nicodemus said. “Not now. Not ever. The Toth twisted them into their servants. Made them fanatics. And the only way to deal with the true believer is to kill them. No middle ground. No compromise.”
“I’m oddly comfortable with that,” Morrigan said.
The ground shook, a low rumble that reverberated through the church.
“That wasn’t an explosion,” Roland said.
The rumble returned and a shadow passed over the street outside. Roland went to the stained-glass image of the armor slaying the Xaros Master and saw, several blocks away, the top of a walker moving between buildings. The design was more delicate than anything he’d seen from the Kesaht before: a cone-shaped head and spindly vanes extending up from the shoulders. It stopped in an intersection, and Roland saw it had large crystals mounted to the side of its egg-shaped torso instead of arms. Thick legs extended down from hip actuators beneath the torso. The opal-blue surface gleamed in the sunlight.
“I’ve not seen one of those before,” Roland said. “Is it new? It looks new.”
Shields flared around the walker as gauss bullets struck home. Panels in the top of the torso opened and missiles fired, arcing up and away. It swung to one side and the crystals lit up. Roland dimmed his optics as the crystals let off a torrent of energy that obliterated a residential building. It continued on, heading for the spaceport.
“It’s new.” Nicodemus lifted his chin. “Command says the Mausers aren’t getting through. Every time we shoot at it, it responds with missiles and it slags another building. Air support can’t get near it.”
“Then we hit it with rail cannons,” Roland said.
“Shields are too strong,” Nicodemus said. “Look at this.”
He sent video of the walker under fire. Ley lines of energy appeared along the shields as they flared.
“The emitters must be there,” Morrigan said, highlighting spots on the walker’s torso.
“They have to drop the shields to get the missiles through,” Roland said. “You saw the way they arced. We’d have to come in from the top.”
“Here.” Nicodemus brought up a map of the city and tagged several buildings along the most direct route from the walker’s location to the spaceport. “Another lance can poke the bear for us. It’s up to us to take it down. Let’s move.”
****
Roland ran down an alley, his boots crushing fallen masonry. Emerging out the other side, he saw the high walls around the spaceport. Turrets let off ripples of fire, punctuated by tracers as they pushed back against any Kesaht fighter that got too close.
He slid under a highway overpass and ran beneath it toward the target buildings, three tall residential structures along a highway.
Nicodemus’ location pinged on his HUD, just ahead of Roland.
“The governor’s got a little more than half the population to safety,” Nicodemus said. “They can’t risk another big hauler so long as this walker’s out here.”
“Getting off this rock is one thing,” Roland said. “How’ll you get back to Navarre? Smashing the Crucible is pretty standard practice for any planetary assault. Could be days before it self-repairs.”
“How about you worry about the walker and let the squids worry about the wormholes?” Morrigan asked.
Light flared over the overpass like a lightning strike. Roland caught a glimpse of the Kesaht walker between buildings and heard the rumble of a collapsing structure in the distance.
“You two up tower A,” Nicodemus said. “I’ll go B. I’ll signal the other lances once we’re in place.”
The stomp of the walker’s advance echoed around them as Roland ran through a chain-link fence and a playground. Toys and small carts littered the area, testament to a sudden evacuation and parents leaving with upset children. Looking at a doll and stuffed bear left in a puddle, he hoped whoever left them behind was already safely away in orbit.
“Grip the outer frame.” Morrigan sent Roland a blueprint overlay for the building.
“Got it.” Roland jumped up, punched into the building’s façade, and found the metal skeleton. He braced his feet against the wall and began climbing, punching through the concrete and lifting himself higher.
Morrigan laughed, a sound that froze Roland in his tracks.
“What was that?” He looked where she was climbing a dozen yards away.
“Just remembered an old TV show my grandfather used to watch. It was ridiculous,” she said. “Keep moving. If the walker gets past us, we’ll be silhouetted against the skyline so well, we deserve to get shot.”
“Right.” Roland tested a foot against a windowsill and broke a segment of the wall away. It tumbled down and shattered against the parking lot.
The walker stopped. Through the glass on the other side of the building, Roland saw the walker’s helm turn toward them.
Roland pressed himself against the metal bar just beneath the concrete outer wall. Rays of light shot through the cracked glass windows…and the walker began moving again.
“I would slap the back of your head for getting that thing’s attention,” Morrigan said, resuming her climb. “But the frame must’ve masked us and now it won’t suspect an attack from here. Quick thinking.”
“I’m making this up as I go along,” Roland said, pulling himself over the edge of the roof and lying facedown next to Morrigan. Both had their palms pressed against the roof as the snap of heavy gauss weapons echoed in the distance.
“Get ready,” Nicodemus called out from the top of the next building over.
Like a sudden dawn, light grew from the walker’s crystal cannons.
“What about the missiles?” Roland asked.
The walker’s cannons fired, sending off a wave of heat that sent steam and smoke roiling off the roof.
Nicodemus’ building rocked from side to side, then collapsed in on itself with a cloud of pulverized concrete dust. Roland watched in horror as
it fell, floor by floor.
“Nicodemus?” Morrigan lifted her head up.
Kesaht missiles shot up and roared directly overhead.
“Now! Now’s our chance!” Roland popped up and sprinted toward the edge. Morrigan followed a step behind.
He leapt off the roof and fell through the smoke of a passing missile. The walker’s head and shoulders were a few stories below. Roland wished he’d kept his jet pack as he hurtled toward the walker, knowing that just a little push would send him to a decent landing.
Instead, his heels clipped the edge of the walker’s shields and pitched him forward. He belly-flopped against the walker’s hull and started sliding down. He slammed a hand against the blue surface, but the metal didn’t yield to his armor’s strength. Roland slid toward the edge faster and faster.
He flailed against the hull, then two fingers gripped an open missile port that whirred as it brought up a new munition and launched it with a rocket flare. Ignoring the damage as the heat threatened to fuse his knuckles solid, Roland swung a foot up and hooked it on to the port’s edge and hauled himself up. He grabbed the edge with his other hand as another missile launched, scorching his armor and sending static through his HUD.
Part of him felt embarrassed, taking this abuse, but it was better than falling.
“Roland! Take my hand.” Morrigan reached down from the shoulder and pulled Roland up.
Roland steadied himself as the walker began moving. He looked back at Nicodemus’ wrecked building, then to Morrigan.
“Now what?” he asked.
“We’re not here for the view,” Morrigan said, going to the walker’s head. The glass panes of its “face” were turned toward the spaceport. She punched the back of its head, leaving a divot in the blue metal. She struck again and again, whaling on it like it was a punching bag.
The walker stopped and the head spun around. An Ixio sat in the cockpit, mouth agape as Morrigan hammered a fist against the glass.
“Roland! The emitter!” she shouted.
Roland pulled his Mauser off his back and went prone on the walker’s shoulder. He looked over the edge…and saw nothing but the torso’s smooth surface.
“I can’t see it!” he shouted.
Across the highway, gauss fire opened up, peppering the walker’s shields. Motes of energy flowed off the hull…and Roland spied a focal point. He fired his Mauser and blew off a fragment the size of the car hood.
The walker swung around, turning its back to the direction of gauss fire.
“Get the other emitter!” Morrigan kept one hand gripped against the glass edge of the cockpit while she pounded the other against a crack in the glass. The Ixio inside shouted and waved its spindly arms about.
“They have to shoot—” Missile fire from the opposite shoulder cut him off. He spun around and crawled toward the other side, nearly slipping off as the walker lumbered forward.
A line of light formed a square between him and Morrigan on the hull. A hatch popped up and an Ixio stood there, holding a rifle that pulsed with blue light. The alien hefted the weapon out of the hatch and aimed it at Morrigan.
Roland slapped a hand around the Ixio’s skinny neck and flung it away from the walker. It struck the inner shield wall and vanished in a snap of electricity. Roland jammed a foot against the hatch before it could close and stood over the opening.
A pair of Ixio looked up at him from a compartment inside the walker. Roland loaded a round into the Mauser and calmly pointed it into the opening.
“Soft hearts,” Roland said, firing the high-powered shell into the walker, which tore through the deck plating. The explosion sent a gout of flame through the hatch, and cracks and smoke broke along the upper side of the walker’s shell, like a creature within was trying to break out.
“Do you think that took out the emitter?” Morrigan asked.
“I’ll just keep shooting it until—”
Three rail cannon shells tore across the city and struck the walker dead center, the impact and lines of ignited air preceding the booms by several seconds. The hypervelocity shells punched clear through the walker and ripped into the tower behind it. The walker tipped back and broke in half.
Roland and Morrigan went into free fall, their arc taking them toward the blasted-out tower. Roland snapped his anchor spike from his heel and struggled to keep his head and shoulders high as he fell.
He slammed one hand home against a metal spur and stabbed his anchor into the concrete. He slid down the side of the building, ripping loose masonry as he went. Turning around, he reached for Morrigan, whose fall was a few feet short of ever reaching the wall.
Roland snatched her by the forearm and she swung like a pendulum into the building. Roland felt the wall quiver as he fought to hold the weight of two suits of armor.
The walker collapsed against the base of the building, fire spreading through the broken hull, the weapon crystals shattering into small hills of glass.
“Roland, you got me?” Morrigan asked.
“Nope.”
The wall broke free and they fell a hundred feet to a slope of debris. Roland landed hard, the impact sending static across his HUD and straining his hip and knee actuators. He skidded down the slope, knocking loose an avalanche of concrete fragments and dust. Morrigan beat him down, making her descent look like child’s play as Roland stumbled into the street beside her.
“Well,” he said, “that could’ve—”
Morrigan grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him forward just before a multi-ton section of the fallen façade rumbled through where he’d been standing.
Roland tapped the side of his helm.
“I think my audio receptors were damaged,” he said.
“You think?” Morrigan looked to the second building where Nicodemus had been. “I’ve got his emergency beacon. Come on!”
Roland followed her into the wreckage, a tangled mass of metal beams and the remnants of the lives the colonists had inside. Morrigan began tearing through a pile of beams mixed with the couches and beds of a family apartment. Roland pushed aside an elevator, his servos squealing with effort.
“Nico!” she shouted through her speakers. “You’re not dying like this! You hear me! This isn’t how she said you’d go!”
Roland tore open a metal casing for the elevator shaft.
“There’s a void in here,” he said. “This where his beacon is?”
“No,” Morrigan said, shaking her helm. “Back there.” She pointed to a field of rubble. “No, it’s bumping around in the mess.” She turned around. “I’m not…I can’t leave him. But there are so many civilians left.”
“The Saint never wept for him,” Roland said. “That’s what you meant a second ago, right? She never wept, so he’s not going to die in his armor.”
Morrigan touched the Templar cross on her armor.
“Then have faith, Morrigan. If he’s—”
A fist punched through the rubble next to a metal beam. Roland lifted it aside and found Nicodemus’ dust-covered armor. His helm was cracked, a deep dent in the forehead.
“Nico! Are you okay?” Morrigan helped him to his feet.
“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” Nicodemus’ helm twisted to one side and snapped against the servos. He slapped the palm of one hand against his helm and it popped back into place. The lance commander looked over the remains of the walker.
“Good…you two did good,” Nicodemus said as he pulled his feet out of the rubble.
“Was that a compliment?” Roland asked. “How much of that building fell on you?”
Nicodemus gave Roland a short punch to the shoulder.
“The last transport is almost ready,” Nicodemus said as a light on the side of his quantum communicator pulsed on and off. “Full evacuation coming…not enough birds to get the crunchies out…Kesaht are pushing on the spaceport. They need us.”
Nicodemus made for the highway leading to the walled spaceport, dust sloughing off him with each footfal
l.
“Bean head,” the lance commander said, “you’re doing better than I thought you would. Morrigan?”
“He’s iron,” she said.
“Sorry, what?” Roland asked.
“We’ll fight beside you any day, Roland.” Nicodemus beat a fist against his chest.
Roland slowed down as something stirred in his heart, a feeling he hadn’t felt in a long time. Pride.
****
Gideon’s rail cannons snapped with electricity, the forward tips glowing red-hot from the shot. The Kesaht walker lay broken against a building, fires fluttering around it.
Aignar brought his rail vanes up and slid them down his back where they locked into their housing. His anchor came loose from the road, taking a chunk of asphalt with it, so he stomped his heel down and knocked it clear.
“You think the Ibarra armor survived?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” Gideon said as he unlimbered from his firing position and pulled his anchor from the ground.
“Their tactics were unorthodox,” Cha’ril said. “One of them stopped their fall against the building and caught the other. Do you think they planned their escape that way? Too many things could have gone wrong. The angle of the walker’s fall. If it exploded instead of—”
“If it’s stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid,” Aignar said. “That thing was about to fire on the spaceport and they opened a chink in the armor for us.”
Gideon looked down the highway and saw a lance of Ibarra armor running toward the spaceport.
That you, Nicodemus? Gideon wondered. Are you even here?
“Sir,” Cha’ril said, pointing down the highway, opposite the direction the Ibarra armor were going. A red-armored Uhlan raised a spear over his head, traced a circle in the air with the tip, then pointed to the east.
“Regroup,” Gideon growled. “More Kesaht to deal with before the traitors.”
Chapter 29
