The Last Aeon

by Richard Fox

  The legionnaire inched away as the XO left, but Makarov grabbed him by the belt and set him on her flank.

  “Our instructions to you remain,” a female said. “Leave this system immediately.”

  “By New Bastion decree nineteen,” Makarov said, “dated Third Standard Year four hundred and eighty-fifth hour. We are exercising our right to establish contact with the Aeon as laid out in—”

  “The Ibarra Nation is not signatory to the accords,” said a male with a scar running through his lips. “New Bastion agreements do not apply to you.”

  “When the Ibarra Nation was founded, we agreed to all treaties the Terran Union ratified. I will forward you the documents if you like.” Makarov smiled and the Cyrgal males bared their teeth at her. She wiped the smile away and the males seemed to calm down.

  “Consultation,” a female said and their pictures froze.

  “We did?” the legionnaire asked.

  “Of course not,” Makarov said. “But I have hundreds of pages of misleading and contradictory documents—in Basque—for them to paw through. We need to stall them while the Armor and Ibarra find the Aeon and convince her to help us.”

  The Cyrgal came back online.

  “Warsaw,” said the cyborg-eyed alien, “we are unable to verify your claim.”

  “Well, then I’ll transmit everything you’ll need.”

  “Our ambassadors on New Bastion are aware of sanctions against the Ibarra kindred. There is disagreement regarding whether you are in violation of the Hale Treaty. Are any aboard your ships… First Mother’s hand this is confusing…”

  A female with a deep-blue shawl continued. “Are any of your crew created after—”

  “None of your business,” Makarov said. “None of mine either. It is against our laws to pry into such matters. Now, I wish to make contact with the Aeon. And your ambassador.”

  “We must agree to a representative,” another female said.

  Another group of seven Cyrgal joined the channel and started talking all at once, their language melding into low growls and clicks. More groups filled the channel until the entire holo tank was full of Cyrgal chattering endlessly.

  The original group moved to the fore of the holo projection.

  “Consultation is required,” the cyborg alien said. “Do not threaten the Rui Gassla and you will not be destroyed.”

  “Acceptable,” Makarov said. “As for the Aeon—”

  “Ouranos is under the Ban Nala,” a female said and spit. The other Cyrgal spat a moment later. “Their business is their own.”

  “Then how do I—”

  The Cyrgal melded back into the giant mass of chattering aliens as Makarov leaned onto the handrails and tried to make sense of the chaos in her holo tank.

  “XO, set a slow course to Ouranos,” she said. “Ready condition bravo, no combat void patrol unless the Cyrgal decide they want to get close. Guns uncharged but loaded. We need to be ready to fight, or run for the Crucible, at a moment’s notice. And where the hell is the intelligence officer?”

  ****

  Roland watched his torpedo’s course on his HUD, the enclosure groaning and shaking as tiny grav thrusters adjusted the flight vector.

  “Are we there yet?” Marc asked.

  “I told you. When the torp shoots us out we’ll be there. The only thing you have to do is to not ruin my focus,” Roland said.

  “This event you’re describing seems indistinguishable from this suicide device being blown up,” Marc said. “You might get lucky and just die. I can survive in vacuum. You think I want to become a hunk of space junk forever hurtling through the void until I slip into a gravity well a few million years from now? If I get lucky, it’ll be a star and maybe—”

  Roland tightened his hold around Marc’s shoulders. The torpedo entered the atmosphere and shook with turbulence.

  “Is that a good rattling?” Marc asked. “Or a that’s-not-supposed-to-do-that rattling?”

  “The Lady should have left you in your cell,” Roland said.

  “You know, you’re not the first one to say that.”

  “Templar,” Martel said through the lance’s internal channel, “we’re coming up on our release point.” The HUD shifted to a pair of islands a dozen miles off a coastline, both a few dozen square miles and separated by a narrow channel of water. “Nisei have the northern target. We’re on the southern. Search and clear by pairs, call out grids as you move. Find the Aeon.”

  “Roger, sir,” Roland said.

  “Ferrum corde,” Nicodemus added, which the lance repeated after him. Roland’s arm around Marc shifted as he tried to beat a fist against his breastplate in salute.

  The HUD changed back to the torpedo’s course just as it crossed over the ocean on final approach to the islands.

  “Contact,” Morrigan said and a pair of threat icons appeared behind them, seemingly from out of nowhere.

  “What are they?” Roland asked in channel.

  “Sensors can’t get a good reading through the torp’s wake,” Nicodemus said. “Aircraft. Big. Almost the size of a Mule transport.”

  The threats accelerated after the torpedoes, closing the gap slowly.

  “There might be a problem,” Roland said to Marc.

  “How much of a problem? Am I about to burn up in orbit?”

  “Mad dog!” Morrigan shouted and air-to-air missiles shot out of the pursuers and chased the Armor.

  “Big problem,” Roland said.

  Data from the torpedo flashed across Roland’s HUD as it released chaff and heat-flare countermeasures. The missiles continued, undeterred.

  “Ready for emergency release,” Martel said.

  “We’re not over the island,” Nicodemus added.

  “We’re not going to make it. Stand by in three…”

  “Can you float?” Roland asked Marc.

  “Why would you even ask—”

  The compartment opened to a blue sky with tall thunderclouds in the distance. A pair of red dots wavered over the horizon…the incoming missiles.

  “Wait! I’m not ready for this!” Ibarra shouted.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Roland said as the torpedo convulsed, ejecting one of the Templar lance over the ocean. Ibarra squirmed as the moisture in the air froze his body against Roland’s Armor.

  Roland had a split-second warning before the torpedo spat him into the air. He locked his hand around Marc’s upper arm and wondered just how strong the Qa’Resh material was. He shot out of the compartment and the jet stream hit him with a slap. He was vaguely aware of Marc screaming as he kicked his feet out and arced toward the roiling ocean below.

  There was a flash and a thunderclap as the missiles annihilated the torpedo, sending flaming debris through the air toward the islands. Roland shot an azimuth toward the original landing zone and clutched his limbs and Marc to his chest right before he cannonballed into the ocean.

  Water enveloped him and he shot his legs and arms out, yanking Marc like a rag doll. They descended almost a hundred yards before Roland’s feet crunched against a coral reef and tiny blue fish swarmed him. He looked at his hand, and found Marc’s arm still in his grasp and the rest of Marc attached to it. The silver man thrashed in the water.

  Roland gave him a quick shake and Marc snapped his face to Roland. The silver man calmed down as his surface quivered and ice formed across his shell. Roland set him down on a patch of sand and a panel on Roland’s forearm opened up. Marc took a wristband out and snapped it on.

  “Can you hear me?” Marc asked, his words coming through the IR net faintly.

  “Yes, stay close. It won’t have much range under water.” Roland looked up at the silhouette of shark-like bodies between him and the surface.

  “This is why I did all my fighting from the boardroom,” Marc said. “Through intermediaries that liked all this adventure and terror. I’m not a boots-on-the-ground kind of guy.”

  “You are now,” Roland said. What looked like a rock the size of a s
mall car scurried away from Roland’s feet.

  “‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain’ was my mantra.” Marc took a tentative step forward and flakes of ice swirled around his joints. “This is not working. I’ll freeze solid if I stay still.”

  Roland set his internal navigation system and got a magnetic bearing to the islands. He hoped there wasn’t anything in the ocean floor that would throw off his readings, or they’d be underwater for a very long time.

  “Come on.” Roland grabbed Marc by the arm and swung him over his back. The man clung to the suit’s neck servos.

  “This is undignified,” Marc said.

  Roland walked forward, moving slowly as he sloshed through the water. Armor was anything but buoyant.

  “You’re keeping your composure so well,” Marc said. “Maybe it’s just because I can’t see you. Are you freaking out a bit? Say yes. It’ll make me feel better.”

  “No.” Roland went around a coral structure that looked like the branches of a willow tree, the insides alive with hundreds of fish. “I did underwater operations on Nimbus, searching for the Cairo. A ship your—our—navy destroyed.”

  “It’s not easy, is it? One day you’re all Terran Armor hoah hoah break stuff, now you’re Ibarran—” Marc squealed and squeezed Roland’s servos tighter as an eel slithered past them.

  “I am Templar. Always Templar. That calling never changed.” Roland adjusted his bearing and made his way slowly through the water.

  “Can we stay away from anything with teeth? You’re a walking tank but I bet I look like a fishing lure to everything down here.”

  “What did you call me?”

  “Armor! I called you Armor.” He tapped his arm with the wristband against Roland’s shoulder. “Damn thing. You know, I never anticipated the ‘Templar’ being a factor after the Ember War. Of course, all I wanted to do was win that damn thing and stop all of us from going extinct.”

  “You were there, on the Xaros world ship when the martyrs held back the darkness.”

  “I was. Came face-to-face with a Xaros Master too.”

  “Tell me about it,” Roland said. “We’ve a ways to go.”

  “Since I’m totally dependent on you, I guess I’ll oblige. There I was, no kidding…”

  Chapter 6

  High Overlord Bale looked out over the Kesaht shipyards built into a great belt around a moon of the conglomerate’s main planet. His perch within the massive space station, Indominus, was part of his larger, private facilities on the station. Being in orbit was preferable to the irradiated deserts and domed cities scattered across the nearby planet serving as the spiritual heart of the Kesaht system. That rock wasn’t much to look at, by Bale’s reckoning. It was nothing compared to the lush jungles and soaring crystal peaks of the Toth home world.

  A now dead and empty home world.

  The shipyard ring around the moon was progressing far too slowly for Bale’s liking, though the daily casualty reports from the crews assembling it told him the Kesaht were indeed motivated to finish. The Toth had built a megastructure around their home, ripping apart nearby moons and working for hundreds of years to build that triumph. The slaves and robotic workers in that edifice would have assured Toth domination of the galaxy once the Xaros were defeated.

  But it was all taken away at the end. The memory of seeing the wave of light ripple around the planet once filled him with fear, a fear that sent him fleeing the planet and into uncharted space to get away from the threat. That the humans unleashed a beast of ancient nightmares on his people…he didn’t think the humans had it in them. That the weapon, a Qa’Resh named Malal, had devoured every last living Toth on the world in a span of minutes had proven an amazing story to turn the Kesaht against the xenocidal humans.

  Bale rubbed a nerve ending along the interior of his holding tank. The new filigree of Vishrakath gold decorating his exterior changed hues ever so slightly, even if the light was constant. Toth overlords had decorated their tanks to the point of ostentation. When one was but a nervous system suspended in a tank, it was hard to keep up appearances.

  The Kesaht indulged him with works of exquisite (by their standards) art that tried to bridge the gap between Sanheel scrimshaw and Ixio paintings. While the two species held that they could blend their cultures together, it was always apparent which species an artist belonged to.

  As for the Rakka…creating totems and fetishes out of the bodies of dead enemies rather appealed to Bale, particularly when that creation was from a human. Two such pieces hung on the wall behind his observatory; both were Rangers captured from a transport ship, and the Rakka had carved their crude language into their skin as a prayer to Bale. While he knew the smell bothered his attendants, Bale had no such problems inside his tank.

  He felt only pleasure and hunger…and the inverse to those neurologic states of being.

  One of the four claw-tipped legs that maneuvered his tank scratched at the deck. It had been almost a day since he’d last fed. His laboratory held a number of specimens taken from Kesaht raids. While his work was, on the surface, to integrate aliens into the Kesaht Hegemony through the universal-truth brain implants he’d perfected from legacy Kesaht technology, test subjects had a very high spoilage rate.

  Feeding on humans was too dangerous. He saw what happened to Doctor Mentiq on Nibiru. Terran Strike Marines had put out bait, a seemingly normal one of their wretched species, but when Mentiq had fed on the Marine…Bale’s nerves shivered at the memory of Mentiq’s head exploding. A bomb. The humans had engineered one of their own into a bomb that would overload the mind of the Toth that fed off it. Any of the procedurally generated humans could be another such trap. So even though he himself could not enjoy dining on a human, watching the Rakka work over human captives was enjoyable in its own right.

  The door to his observatory opened and his Toth warrior bodyguards emerged from their cloak fields, hissing a challenge at the Ixio that stepped into the room. The bodyguards were seven-feet-tall, muscular reptilians with four legs, all ending in dexterous feet suited for climbing the towering trees of the Toth home world.

  “High Lord Bale,” said the Ixio, going to his knees and kowtowing, “may this humble servant approach?”

  One of the guards lifted a crystalline halberd over its head. Bale activated the guard’s pain collar and its jaws snapped at air.

  “Approach, Tomenakai,” Bale said.

  The Ixio kept his gaze to the floor and spread his thin arms to the side as he shuffled toward the glass wall.

  “Please forgive me for intruding,” the Ixio said. “Your instructions were not to be disturbed—”

  “Unless you had news vital to the war against the humans,” Bale said. “I know you’re not an imbecile, Tomenakai, else I would not have Risen you to immortality to the Kesaht’s service.”

  “A blessing that has persisted through my death,” the Ixio said. “Our monitoring stations intercepted word of a Terran incursion into Cyrgal space.”

  “The Cyrgal…imbeciles. The only way to get more than one of their yammering kindred to work together is to light them on fire or blow a hole in their ship. Have the vile Terrans done something so spectacularly stupid as to attack a neutral world—particularly a world of that species?”

  “The incursion has not turned violent to such a degree that the Cyrgal have declared a vendetta against the humans,” Tomenakai said. “What is of more interest is which planet they trespassed upon. Ouranos. The protectorate of a species near extinction called the Aeon.”

  “The Aeon…” Bale’s nerves twitched. Before he fled the destruction of the Toth home world, he’d been a trader in exotic foodstuffs for other overlords. The price for an Aeon was unlisted, a sale reserved only for Doctor Mentiq.

  Bale activated the database within his tank and called up the old files. The Aeon didn’t even have a flavor profile, which was highly unusual for Toth records. The only entry that meant anything to him read: Possess extensive Qa’Resh knowl
edge. Live delivery only!

  The tendrils extending down from Bale’s brain wrapped around his spinal column.

  “A Qa’Resh expert? I didn’t know such a thing existed,” Bale said. “Why would—the Ibarras!”

  “My lord?”

  “The Ibarras have chased down Qa’Resh artifacts since they—and the rest of the humans—committed genocide and began their reign of terror,” Bale said, remembering to keep to his script. “If they’re risking a move into Cyrgal space, they must have found something truly remarkable.”

  “Shall we prepare an emissary fleet?” Tomenakai asked. “One to carry the light of the Kesaht to the Cyrgal and destroy the Ibarrans out of course?”

  “Not a Kesaht fleet,” Bale said. “The Cyrgal are…difficult to manage unless prodded correctly. An emissary fleet might turn their entire species against the Kesaht—a risk we don’t need while we continue the war against the murderers of Earth. No, we will send another fleet, one that has no direct attribution to the Kesaht.”

  “High Lord Bale,” the Ixio said, “you can’t risk—”

  “Who said anything about me? I have-I have much to do here! Yes. Much too much to accomplish with the Kesaht…you, on the other hand…” Bale poked Tomenakai in the chest with a metal claw, nearly knocking him over.

  “I arrived here many years ago with the last of the Toth,” Bale said. “Spawning pools have replaced some of our numbers, but my warriors are a shadow of their former selves.”

  He sent commands from his suit on an encoded frequency he’d never shared with the Kesaht and a massive shadow cut over the moon. A Toth dreadnought, its hull resembling a coral reef dotted with energy cannons, came into view.

  “You will take the Last Light to Ouranos,” Bale said. “I want the Aeon alive, you understand? Alive. Raid Leader Charadon, my finest warrior, will assist you. And if you fail—”

  “Never! Never, my lord.” Tomenakai went to his knees to grovel.