by Richard Fox
“I was a teen,” Aignar said. “I got roped into a labor battalion that got Phoenix livable. Having work to focus on helped deal with what happened to Earth, the ongoing war with the Xaros. You’d think with all the crap the Kesaht and the Ibarras are giving us, she’d—oh hi, Cha’ril!”
The Dotari brushed past Aignar and looked over Roland’s cannon arm.
“What are you doing? You skipped at least four steps from the manual.” Cha’ril snatched the power tool from Roland.
“We’ve got to get the belt replaced in the next two hours,” Roland said. “This is a four-hour task by the book, so we don’t do the—”
Cha’ril whacked the drill against the ammo belt and two gauss shells tumbled out and rolled across the deck.
“Oh,” Roland said, his face turning red.
“We’re getting the look again,” Aignar said. “Chief Henrique hasn’t come over yet, but I think we’re on borrowed time.”
“Move.” Cha’ril elbowed Roland out of the way and picked up a screwdriver from the toolbox. “Aignar, we need to do this like we’re back at Knox. Would you read from the manual?”
“We’re not that bad.” Roland dropped the two shells into a drawer in the workbench.
Cha’ril raised a finger in front of her face, her beak clicking rapidly.
“Step four,” Aignar said with a sigh, reading from his forearm screen.
It took another half hour to remove the ammo belt before Cha’ril called for a break. Roland ran his hands against a gash on the metal where the Kesaht armor had bitten through the ammo belt.
Cha’ril sat on the toolbox, humming a tune as she drank from a water bottle.
“Cha’ril,” Aignar’s brow furrowed, “what song is that? I think I know it.”
“I’ve been researching human music. I don’t know the name, but the artist is Michael Jackson,” she said. “He was a prominent singer last century, correct?”
“Who?” Roland asked.
“Philistine,” Aignar said. “How can you not know the King of Pop?”
“Because I’m not an old man like you?”
Aignar swiped at Roland, who ducked out of the way.
“I was unaware that human beings could undergo such a metamorphosis during their adult life,” Cha’ril said.
“We do what?” Roland asked.
“Your music royalty’s facial structure changed a great deal from childhood,” she said. “This seemed aberrant as I studied the careers of many other artists. Toward the end of his life, he resembled a Bukhasha clan lord. Can you explain this?”
Roland shrugged and looked at Aignar, who raised an eyebrow and said, “Michael Jackson…did not look like most humans, yes.”
“The Karigole are born neuter and develop their final gender during childhood. Did Emperor Jackson undergo a parallel change?” Cha’ril asked.
Roland’s forearm screen beeped with a text message.
“Jackson,” Aignar said, snapping a finger up next to his face. “He…he had money. Lots of money. And he spent it on doctors that…you know what? Humans can undergo a metamorphosis. But we have to ingest a special flower…from the triffid plant. It only blossoms once a century in…Sidonia. Yeah, that’s it. Right, Roland?” He nudged Roland on the shoulder.
Roland shot to his feet and looked over the workstation to a door across the bay guarded by two armsmen.
“Sorry, what?” Roland asked, glancing down at his screen, then back to the door.
“You have someplace else to be?” Cha’ril asked.
“Morrigan—the prisoner—wants to see me.” Roland tapped his screen.
“Let him go,” Aignar said. “He’ll be useless while he’s pining.”
Cha’ril’s beak clicked and she motioned him away with a wrench.
“Be right back.” Roland wiped his hands against a rag and hurried away.
“Aignar,” Cha’ril said, “explain ‘disco fever’ to me.”
Roland dodged a drone cart carrying gauss shells and stepped off the Scipio’s cargo bay. He recognized one armsman from pre-battle prayers—she was the ship’s junior navigator. The other had an engineer’s badge on his chest.
A ship the size of the Scipio didn’t warrant a proper brig or internal security element, but crew could be reassigned and a storage locker could be repurposed should the need arise. The navigator-turned-naval-police smiled and tapped her knuckles to her heart as Roland approached.
“Can I see the prisoner?” Roland asked.
“We’re not supposed to—” the engineer started.
“She gave her word,” the navigator snapped. “If we can’t trust the Black Knight, then who can we trust?”
Roland’s face flushed at the name. Video of his fight against the Kesaht on Balmaseda had leaked onto the nets and gone viral. While he could walk unrecognized out of his armor in the middle of a busy Phoenix street, the crew of the Scipio knew who he was.
“You’re not going to help her escape, are you?” the navigator asked with a smile.
“By my honor and my armor,” Roland said.
“Fine,” the engineer said, glancing from side to side. “Sir, can I get your autograph on something later on? For my son back on Earth.”
“Chief of the Boat will have you scrubbing the head for months if he finds out you asked for an autograph.” The navigator keyed in a code to the door. “I won’t mention that if you don’t mention this.”
The door cracked open and Roland slipped inside.
Morrigan sat behind an energy field, her ankles and wrists cuffed and chained to a ring in the middle of the floor normally used to secure cargo. She had her back to the wall, and her unkempt red hair dangled over her lowered head. An unopen field ration pack and bottle of water lay next to her.
“Morrigan?” Roland approached the force field.
Her face snapped up and she brushed hair away from her eyes. “By the Saint I thought my eyes tricked me when I saw you,” she said, her Irish accent thick with fatigue.
“I don’t know how long I can stay here.” He glanced back at the shut door. “Are you hurt? You almost redlined when we found you.”
“Groggy.” She stretched a leg out. “Your medics hit me with enough stims to burn through the sedatives my armor forced through my bloodstream. You’ve not asked about Nicodemus or Lady Ibarra. They must have escaped.”
“Wait—Nicodemus was with you?” Roland cast a nervous glance at the door. “He just left you behind?”
“Nicodemus is a lance commander and a fine soldier for the Saint,” she said. “You know that. The Kesaht were waiting for us with their bastardized versions of us. Hit us soon as we got the chamber open. I took the brunt of the attack, but Nicodemus got a fair bit of hurt to him as well…He was right to leave me behind.”
“Stacey Ibarra was there,” Roland said and Morrigan looked away. “I saw her footprints in the moon dust. Don’t feign ignorance.”
“Aye, Lady Ibarra was with us,” she said stiffly.
“She must have ordered Nicodemus to abandon you. He’d never—”
“We are armor, Roland.” Morrigan touched the Templar cross on her shoulder, the same one Roland wore. “We fight for a purpose. And Lady Ibarra is more important than any one of us. You and I, and Nicodemus, know that.”
“What was so valuable that she’d just leave you behind for the Kesaht to…do you know what they do to prisoners?”
“I do. I know damn well what would happen if they took a true-born human like me.” She tapped the plugs in the base of her skull. “They’d take me to see their Toth overlord. Thank the Saint your pit crew followed proper protocol to get me out of my womb. If they’d gone and cut it open like the Kesaht would’ve, my womb would’ve put me down for good.”
Roland took a step back.
“That’s…Ibarra would rather kill you than let you be taken prisoner.”
“Prisoner by the Kesaht,” she said. “They have ways of getting information that no training or iron can
stop. Better I died than they get everything in my mind. Being held prisoner by Earth…not as bad.”
She picked up the ration pack.
“Kesaht wouldn’t have given me chili mac, that’s for sure,” she said. “So I hear you’re famous. The Black Knight, heh. ‘None shall pass’ should’ve been my line back on the moon.”
“Honestly, I’m surprised they let me back into my armor,” Roland said. “Don’t think the Terran Armor Corps will ever give you the same chance to fight that Ibarra gave me.”
“Lady Ibarra’s wiser than President Garret or General Laran,” she said.
“What was Ibarra here for?” he asked. “And how did the Kesaht manage to ambush you?”
“Lady Ibarra does what she will. We’re sworn to serve and protect her,” Morrigan said.
Roland knew she was evading the first question but decided to let it pass. He’d found her in a Qa’Resh site. There was a short list of reasons for why the Ibarrans would search it.
“As for the Kesaht…I don’t know how they did it, but they were waiting for us in system,” she said. “Tracking our fleet through the Crucible network shouldn’t have been possible. We had a few ships with us, not enough to be detected. The distress call from the Narvik reached us right as the Kesaht armor attacked. Things got a bit rushed after that.”
“Maybe the crew of the Narvik knows more.” Roland shrugged.
“What? Some survived?” Morrigan went pale.
“She crashed on Thesius—bad—but our Pathfinders managed to rescue a couple dozen from the wreckage. Then we had to fight off the Kesaht who were in system waiting for—”
“You have Ibarran prisoners?” She got to her feet and began pacing across her cell. “Where are they now? Does New Bastion know about them?”
“I think they’re going to a POW camp on Mars. What does New Bastion have to do with this?”
“That the devil will break your Terran bones, you’ve no idea, do you? The crew of the Narvik are proccies. Fresh proccies,” she said.
“There are a lot of procedurals on Earth,” Roland said. “It’s almost impossible to tell them from true born.”
“The Omega Provision of the Hale Treaty, you blithering dunce,” Morrigan said. “Did they tell you nothing about that? Ibarran proccies were all born after Garret and Hale betrayed humanity to the rest of the galaxy. Our proccies are a violation of the treaty. Doesn’t matter if the Ibarra Nation’s part of it or not. By the treaty, and the Omega Provision, your Ibarran prisoners must be destroyed.”
Roland shook his head.
“No. That can’t be right.” He took a step back. “It’s a lie the Ibarras told you.”
“What you believe doesn’t change what’s true.” She ran her hands through her long red hair.
“Earth can’t just…kill them all,” Roland said. “They’re soldiers. We don’t punish anyone for fighting on the wrong side—that’s not who we are.”
“They’ll be killed for what they are. Nothing else,” Morrigan said. “And Earth will do it to keep New Bastion happy. I pray I’m wrong about this.”
Roland raised his palms toward her. “Is that what you wanted to see me for? To find out if the other Ibarrans are in danger?”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t ask to see you. I didn’t even know you—”
The cell door slammed open. Gideon stood in the entrance, Tagawa just behind him.
“Chief Shaw,” Gideon said to Roland, “you’re not authorized to be here.”
“Not anymore, is that it, sir?” Roland asked.
Gideon stepped to one side and held up a hand, signaling Roland to leave.
Morrigan touched her knuckles to her heart as Roland looked over his shoulder to her. He left with a nod as Gideon closed the door behind him.
“You look well, Isiah,” she said. “Still sport your old Toth scars, I see. The lieutenant bars suit you.”
Gideon stepped up to the force field. “Nicodemus is alive?” he asked.
“Far as I know. If the Kesaht had taken him, there would’ve been a trail of their dead behind him. Did you find one?”
“Then he lives.”
“You tricked young Roland into sneaking in here. Why? Think he’s going to admit he’s loyal to the Ibarras? The boy’s a Templar. His loyalty is to a higher purpose, not a badge or a chain of command. Why the cloak-and-dagger nonsense? That’s not like you, Gideon. You’re the kind that confronts his enemies head-on.”
“You’re right about me…you’re right now, and you were right when you shot me out of the Warsaw onto Ceres when you chose to turn traitor,” he said. “I would have never sided with the Ibarras or your religious nonsense.”
Morrigan stepped toward the field and was caught short by her chains.
“Saint Kallen is true,” she said. “You think we survived the Ember War through luck? It was Providence, Gideon. When the martyrs stood against the Xaros on their world ship, it was faith in—”
“Spare me,” Gideon said.
“Pearls before swine. It’s always been that way with you,” she said, taking a seat on a cargo container.
Gideon looked at her bare ring finger.
“I took it off after Bassani died,” she said. “It hurt too much to keep it around.”
“I helped him pick it out,” Gideon said. “Bassani could face down a battalion of Vishrakath tanks by himself, but proposing to you scared him to death.”
“He was such a spaz about it.” Morrigan’s fingertips brushed over her left hand. “He took me to Deco’s—that trendy place in Phoenix—spent a month’s pay on wine he didn’t drink and Lord knows how much on food he was too nervous to eat. But when he finally worked up the courage…it was easy to say yes.”
“How’d he die?”
Morrigan’s face darkened.
“Not well. His suit took damage when we fought the Naroosha for…something Lady Ibarra needed. He redlined and passed a few days later,” she said.
“He went with you because he loved you,” Gideon said. “Not for your saint.”
“All that mattered to me was that we stayed together. He’s buried on Navarre with our heroes. Maybe someday you can go see him.” She looked up at him, her face an emotionless mask. “Pay your respects.”
“I have no respect for traitors.” He turned and knocked on the cell door.
“You did well training Roland,” she said. “He fights with your fury.”
The armsmen opened the door and Gideon stepped through. With a last look at his former lance mate, he slammed it shut.
****
Gideon stood just outside the cell, his shoulders heaving with each breath.
“I think we got it,” Tagawa said. “The cameras got Roland’s entire conversation with her. Should be all the evidence the brass needs.”
“How much longer do I have to share a ship with this traitor,” he asked, pointing at the cell door, then to the cargo bay where Roland worked on his armor, “and that traitor?”
“Once we’re to Mars. Admiral Lettow said he’ll pull the trigger then,” she said.
“Roland’s not to see or speak with her again,” Gideon said. “Understood?”
“Are you telling me how to run my ship?”
Gideon stared her down.
“Admiral Lettow wants enough evidence for a charge. Once we get that, I’m to keep the prisoner quarantined, so don’t think you need to get into a dick-measuring contest with me.” She put her hands on her hips.
“It’s your ship, Skipper,” Gideon said. “How long until Mars?”
“We’ll make the jump in a few hours. Just keep playing your part.”
Chapter 4
President Garret strode through the bunker beneath Camelback Mountain, his shoulders slightly hunched forward and a scowl across his face. He’d been an admiral during the Ember War and his management style as a flag officer was well-known to the Terran Union’s military.
As with any senior leader in human history, the boss
’s mood had a major impact on how aides approached that leader. And right now, Camelback Mountain knew that Garrett was not to be bothered with anything other than the sudden appearance of a Xaros armada.
Bodyguards and aides struggled to keep up with Garret as he marched down the low hallways.
Officers and NCOs that caught a glimpse of Garret shouted, “Make a hole!” to keep the president’s path clear.
Garret stormed into a conference room where flag officers from across the Terran Union’s armed forces waited, already on their feet and at attention.
“Sit.” Garret plopped down in a leather chair on a raised platform set up in a horseshoe around a massive holo table and felt a small pill container rattle in his coat pocket. He touched a hand to his chest and then to the pocket, ensuring that his medication was still there.
His body ached for his next dose, and he could feel tremors working their way through his limbs. But Garret wouldn’t find relief in front of his admirals and generals, not when faith in his leadership was so crucial right now.
“All right.” Garret situated himself in his chair and motioned to General Emery, his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Let’s hear it.”
“Sir,” Emery said as he clicked a button on a small remote in his hand and the lights dimmed. A holo field of the galaxy appeared, then zoomed in on a small swath of green.
We’ve colonies on almost two thousand worlds and it’s barely anything in the grand scheme of the galaxy, Garret thought.
“The Kesaht assault on Koensuu was defeated by a joint Dotari-Terran task force,” Emery said. “Kesaht losses were total. Our casualties were minimal, but the colony sustained significant damage to outlying infrastructure.”
“How did our joint task force get from Yalta Prime to Koensuu?” Garret asked. “I thought the jump-gate network was broken to Koensuu.”
“The Breitenfeld.” Emery clicked his remote and the holo shifted to the infamous strike carrier surrounded by Dotari ships near a Crucible jump gate. “She returned from deep space with the last of the Dotari Golden Fleet and Admiral Valdar…requested the Dotari loan him a battlegroup to relieve Koensuu. Valdar used his Keystone gate to make an offset jump into the system and caught the Kesaht with their pants down.”
