by Richard Fox
“Must be some issue to cancel a live fire. There’s a whole squadron on field exercises in the next valley.” Aignar scanned the horizon for the dust cloud that would signal the Dragonfly’s approach. “Cha’ril’s going to end up missing one heck of a slideshow.”
“Pregnancy.” Gideon strode up a small hill, one foot on the crest. “Of all the things to take a soldier off the line. You fought to get back to this after your injury.”
“Cha’ril’s got a bit less of a recovery period to look forward to than what I went through.” Aignar flexed his armor’s hands. “One hopes. You have an idea what the recall’s about?”
“There’s a reckoning,” Gideon said. “We can’t put it off any longer and there’s no perfect solution. You know the Omega Provision.”
“Only what Roland mentioned. He got it from the Ibarras, so that makes it suspect. Bird on approach. 107 degrees.” He pointed to a shimmer in the atmosphere in the distance.
“Acquired. Good eye. Pickup positions.” Gideon stepped aside, turned away from the oncoming aircraft, and held his arms out perpendicular to his shoulder. Aignar matched his posture a few yards to one side.
“IR lock with bird confirmed,” Aignar said.
“What Roland knows of the provision is…correct,” Gideon said.
Inside his womb, Aignar’s stunted legs kicked out in surprise.
“I only know Colonel Hale from the stories,” Aignar said, “but agreeing to Omega doesn’t sound like something he would do.”
“It was added without Hale’s knowledge. Those who agreed to it obviously never thought we’d have to enforce it,” Gideon said. “And I believe that’s what this recall is for.”
“Now? We’re going to carry it out right now?” Aignar’s head locked back as the Dragonfly swooped over them and massive clamps locked against their armor, hoisting them into the air and tucking them beneath the aircraft’s forward fuselage.
“It’s possible,” Gideon said. “Will you do it?”
Aignar hesitated.
“It’s not an easy decision at first,” Gideon said. “Ibarras’ proccies should be just like ours, but they’re not. You saw Stacey Ibarra on Oricon. You read Roland’s report of when he saw her lose control on Navarre. What kind of person is she?”
“She’s insane,” Aignar said. “Clearly insane.”
“And what kind of an army would the insane create?” Gideon asked.
Aignar thought back to Balmaseda, where they encountered Ibarran civilians that had a near fanatical devotion to Stacey Ibarra.
“While we fought the Kesaht on Oricon,” Gideon said, “Ibarran sleeper agents took over our fleet’s artillery ships and fired on the Kesaht. Ibarra triggered them with a phrase planted deep in their psyche…every one of them died soon after the battle. Again, as Stacey Ibarra designed.”
“Even if all their proccies are tainted, do they have to be destroyed?” Aignar asked.
“They are fanatics. Loyal by design and not by choice. Stacey Ibarra would not risk free agency in her soldiers. They cannot be reasoned with.”
“I understand you, sir. It’s just the Ibarras seem interested in tending to their own garden. If we go all-in on the Omega Provision, we’re declaring total war on them. They’re no pushovers in a fight either.” Aignar received an alert from Chief Henrique, the lance’s maintenance chief, that he and Gideon were to separate from their armor as soon as they landed. He activated the shutdown sequences for his targeting computers.
“The rest of the galaxy won’t tolerate the Ibarras,” Gideon said. “No matter the Terran Union’s position. The aliens on New Bastion have little to no concept of separate factions within other members. They had hundreds—if not thousands—of years of unity before the Ember War ended, and most of them never trusted humanity, even after we killed off the Xaros for them. They’ll hold us to choosing between New Bastion and the Ibarras. It’ll be war with one side or the other.”
“Then there’s the Kesaht,” Aignar said. “My son’s eleven years old. I don’t want him to grow up in a world at war. I want him to worry about a mortgage. Soccer games, taxes—not if the Vishrakath will shell his foxhole…not fearing his own children will be taken by the Kesaht.”
“If we side with New Bastion against the Ibarras, it will end quickly,” Gideon said. “Then the Kesaht will fall. All it will cost us is to put down rabid dogs.”
“They’re still people,” Aignar said.
“We kill a few hundred now or lose millions in a fight against the rest of the galaxy in wars that will never end. Every soldier prays for peace. Templar or not.”
“I miss fighting the Vishrakath on Cygnus. It was simple there. See an upright ant? Shoot an upright ant. Don’t get shot in the process. Though I did screw up that last part.”
The Dragonfly crested over a ridge and Mount Olympus came into view. Running lights from shuttles and cargo haulers danced around the dead volcano. Massive metal doors in the miles-high escarpments rang as the volcano slid open and the Dragonfly flew across the red plain.
****
Gideon stood in an armament bay as servo arms whirled around his armor, removing ammo packs and blowing out tufts of red dust from the grooves and bends in the plates.
“Iron Dragoon,” came from behind. He stepped out of the bay and stood face-to-face with armor two feet taller than his own, the helm bristling with antennae, the plates perfectly pristine and an oversized single-barreled gauss cannon on the arm. The Terran Armor Corps crest glinted with gold inlays across the breastplate.
“General Laran.” He beat a fist to his armor in salute.
“I need soldiers ready to kill Ibarrans,” she said. “Kill them…and their allies.”
“Traitors deserve only one fate.” Gideon felt his blood rush with excitement.
“I knew you were true. What of Aignar?”
“He…may hesitate,” Gideon said. “I’ve not trained him well enough. The Templar—”
“That’s enough. I’ve identified a number of other armor that know what loyalty means, and you’re to lead them,” she said. “Task Force Iconoclast.”
“When and where?”
“You’ll report to the Ardennes soon. I have another task for you in the meantime,” Laran said.
“The Ibarrans’ foot soldiers can die. They don’t concern me. What of their armor? What do you want of them?” Gideon asked.
“If they surrender, they surrender. If not, you’ll treat them as any enemy. Terminate them. And Stacey Ibarra…dead or alive. Makes no difference to me. Come…Captain Gideon.”
Chapter 14
Aignar worked his way past armed security posted outside Carius Auditorium. He flashed an ID card strapped flush to his left forearm to an MP waiting outside a tall wooden door.
“Biometric authorization.” The MP held a slate out to Aignar.
Aignar looked at the palm reader, then to the MP, and then let his metal hand flop against the slate.
“Oh…” The MP checked Aignar’s ID card, then opened the door. “Apologies, sir.”
“One of those days,” Aignar muttered as he entered the auditorium, self-conscious of the clumsy clomp of his boots as he made his way to the back row that had a few empty seats. He got a good view of the backs of the heads of the hundreds of soldiers present. All had armor plugs in their skull. All stood.
To one side of the seating area was a swath of white tunics, the Templar. They made up nearly a tenth of those present, with a few of the order spread out across the rest of the auditorium, adherents keeping close to their lance who were not fully Templar.
Carius Auditorium was cavernous. The stage at the front was dwarfed by a massive holo screen. Unit crests as tall as a man for active armor squadrons and regiments took up the left wall. Crests the size of shields for individual lances filled the right wall, and all were draped in black cloth for lances lost in battle.
The auditorium could hold up to five thousand, slightly more than every armor soldier in the
Corps. Deployments and operations kept much of the armor away from Mars, but Aignar estimated nearly three thousand were present—a significant percentage of the Terran Union’s Armor.
On the stage, General Laran stood behind a lectern.
“Armor,” she said, “I am honored to be amongst so many of you. The Union needs us. All of us. Earth and her colonies stand at a crossroads. The consequences of our choice have not been as dire since the day Colonel Carius called armor to the final battle against the Xaros.”
Aignar sidestepped down a row of seats to a gruff-looking man with short blond hair. His left shoulder bore a black Teutonic cross on a yellow field for his lance insignia.
The man turned slightly to Aignar and he saw captain’s bars. The captain looked like he was about to admonish Aignar for being tardy, but a glance at Aignar’s prosthetic hands seemed to calm him.
“A bit late,” Aignar said quietly. “Had to put my face on.”
“You’ve not missed much,” the captain said. “Gershwin. Eisenritter lance.”
“Aignar with the Iron Dragoons.”
The other three members of Captain Gershwin’s lance leaned forward to get a look at Aignar.
“You must know the Black Knight,” Gershwin said. “Is he here?”
“What? You haven’t heard?”
A shush came from a few rows away and Gershwin turned his attention back to the general.
“…why these orders are so important.” She touched a button on the lectern and a wall of text appeared on the holo screen above her.
“General Order 99,” she read, “as signed by President Garret of the Terran Union, hereby declares that all procedural entities created after the ratification of the Hale Treaty are not protected by the laws of the Terran Union and possess none of the rights enshrined in our Constitution.”
A murmur spread through the assembled armor and Aignar felt a cold pit forming in his stomach.
“As such,” Laran added an edge to her tone, “any such entities in violation will be destroyed by Terran Union forces on contact.” She whacked a data slate against the lectern to quiet the room.
“There are a number of sub clauses that you can review on your own time,” Laran said. “We are soldiers of the Terran Union, and we will obey this order—”
“We will not!” Colonel Martel stepped up onto the stage, his Templar tabard and his sword’s brass scabbard gleaming in the lights. “This order is a violation of the Union’s Constitution and is illegal. We serve to protect humanity, not cull those the rest of the galaxy fears.”
The auditorium was deathly silent as the Corps commander and the Templar leader squared off.
Gershwin raised the flap on a breast pocket and light glinted off a lens.
“Stand down, Colonel,” Laran said. “You have your orders.”
“I will fight the Ibarrans on the battlefield,” Martel said. “I will slay any that raises a hand against the Terran Union, but I will not murder anyone for how, or when, they were born.”
“Then it’s a mutiny?” General Laran spat. “Who else is with him? Who else will refuse to follow the orders of your commander?”
Martel grabbed the hilt of his sword. Almost as one, every Templar in the room drew their blades with the hiss of metal on metal. Martel flipped his sword tip down and drove it into the stage.
“I’m with him!” someone shouted from the non-Templar crowd.
“As am I!”
Laran touched her forearm screen and the back wall opened with a groan of hydraulics. Three suits of armor stood in a chamber, and Aignar’s heart fell as he recognized Gideon on the left.
The center armor’s rotary cannon swung up and locked against its shoulder, but the barrels didn’t spin.
“Then you are all under arrest,” Laran said.
MPs rushed out from behind the stage, shock batons in hand. Aignar’s heart ached as the first rushed toward Colonel Martel. Aignar was certain the man would fight…but the Templar raised his hands in surrender, leaving his sword embedded in the stage.
“She planned this,” Gershwin muttered. “All of it.”
The MPs slapped cuffs on Martel and frog-marched him behind the stage. Tongea and other senior members of the order were arrested. None of the Templar resisted.
Aignar’s breathing quickened as anger flooded his mind.
“This isn’t right.” He stepped away from Gershwin, but the captain grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back.
“Stop,” Gershwin said. “What will you accomplish if you join them?”
Aignar lowered his head to his chest and looked at his metal hands. “If I’m not armor…then I’m nothing,” Aignar said.
Gershwin closed the flap on his pocket and covered up the camera lens.
“Martel is honor-bound, stubborn as an old mule,” Gershwin said. “But he’s no fool. And you don’t have to wear Templar white to agree with him.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Not every battle’s won with gauss cannons and fury,” the Eisenritter said. “Stay quiet. Wait…and keep your mouth shut, eh?” He gave his hidden camera a pat.
“No choice there,” Aignar said and he tapped a finger against his throat speaker. He watched as the rest of the Templar were led away in chains.
****
Chief Henrique held a vault door open for Aignar as he walked as fast as he could manage on his prosthetic feet.
Aignar stepped over the threshold into a cemetery where a dozen suits of armor stood in maintenance bays, all shaped like coffins around the armor. A team of technicians huddled around a single suit. Aignar took the stairs to the catwalk that ran parallel to all the armors’ chests.
“Saiam de la! Movam suas bundas antes que elas esmaguem seus cranios!” Henrique called out from the doorway. The techs set their tools down and scurried out the open door.
Aignar stopped in front of Gideon. “Why?”
“Loyalty,” came from Gideon’s speakers. “Roland turned on us because he was Templar. Nicodemus. Morrigan. Bassani. All betrayed Earth for their worthless beliefs. Now that cancer is removed from the Corps.”
“Sir…they’re not traitors! They fight for Earth, for humanity. Just because they follow Saint Kallen—”
“Is exactly why they had to be cut out!” Gideon shouted so loud it made Aignar wince. “There is no place for divided loyalty in the Corps. We fight for the Union or we are traitors.”
Aignar snapped his hand into a fist and banged it against the railing. “How do we beat the Kesaht without the Templar?” he asked. “Are General Laran and President Garret really going to keep them out of the war?”
“Yes,” Gideon said. “And they’ll know about every battle they chose to sit out. The Templar will be known as cowards too afraid to fight by the time it all ends. If they choose to enforce the Omega Provision…then maybe they’ll be let loose.”
“They kill Ibarran proccies and violate their oaths or they sit back while others fight the battles…which is against everything the Templar stand for.” Aignar shook his head. “They can’t really win, can they?”
“It doesn’t matter to me,” Gideon said. “You’ve made your choice. Or do you want to join them?”
“I am armor,” Aignar said.
“Good…but you’re going to their prison anyway.”
“Wait. What?”
“As a courier, not an inmate. General Laran needs armor she can trust. I volunteered you for an assignment while I’m on a separate mission,” Gideon said. “You’ll get your instructions soon.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll tell you once I return. Send the techs back in here. Laran needs me for a briefing.”
“Always ready, sir,” Aignar said and went down the catwalk to the stairs.
“Always ready, Iron Dragoon.”
Chapter 15
Keeper swiped a data feed around her holo tank, dropping it on the tank wall directly behind her. She opened a photoreceptor in the back
of her head and read off the data as her normal “eyes” took in more information from a half-dozen screens floating before her.
Her true form was that of a Xaros drone, the last drone in existence, she assumed. She carried that moniker around for years after the Ember War, but the Breitenfeld and a team of Strike Marines had come across a drone controlling a Dotari colony fleet in deep space. That drone had been destroyed and now Keeper hoped she truly was the last drone. The galaxy had suffered enough.
The mind of a human woman named Torni ruled the drone body now. In her drone form she could fly, manipulate electromagnetic waves, process raw omnium from matter, and form disintegration beams through her stalk arms. Keeping her human form was somewhat limiting, and like it or not, the mind inside the drone was used to operating through two arms and two eyes. Pulling data through other locations affected her hold on her shell.
Besides, shifting into a drone in front of the Ceres Crucible’s unwitting bridge crew would spark a riot and be a burden to explain to everyone. President Garret and a few other key personnel knew what she really was, and that was enough.
A priority data packet slipped through the noise and came to her attention—an interception from the Vishrakath listening post.
“Hello? What’s this?” She opened the packet and skimmed through Kesaht lithographs—a blend of intricate calligraphy on the inside of a circle, mirrored by more crude marks that echoed cuneiform on the other side of the circle. She picked out a Crucible gate designation and tossed it into the tank.
A star near the galactic core pulsed.
“Nunavik? There’s nothing there…doesn’t matter.” The data packet pulsed with a question: DELETE?//FORWARD?
Keeper deleted the message. The Terran Union would deal with Stacey Ibarra and teach the galaxy a human lesson: if it must be done, a man shoots his own dog himself.
****
Admiral Lettow paced across a line of a dozen armor soldiers on the Ardennes flight deck. Commanders Paxton and Kutcher kept pace, each holding a small stack of data slates.
