by Richard Fox
The Cyrgal ship orbited over a large city on the moon’s surface, its hull the shape of a cone, the tip pointed toward the Warsaw. The surface was gunmetal gray and in uneven sections, as if the outer armor was made of wooden planks and bolted to the superstructure, while the cone tip was smooth and glowed with internal lights.
“Internal volume puts her at nearly eight times the Warsaw’s,” Andere said. “We’re on passive scans only, but there’s no visible weapon systems.”
“They slagged an entire Kroar raiding fleet,” Makarov said. “They didn’t talk them to death.” She pulled up an overlay and electromagnetic emissions readings came up over the moon and Ouranos.
“The habitable planet is almost nothing but dead air,” she said. “But the moon reads like there are millions of inhabitants. Why settle an airless rock when there’s a paradise right there?”
“That’s…” Andere frowned, “a tactical question I don’t have an answer to, ma’am.”
“That behemoth hasn’t moved on us since we arrived,” she said. “They must consider protecting the moon more important than sallying forth for a fight. Which works in our favor. As soon as the extraction can get to the surface and back to us…we’ll bid an Irish goodbye.”
“A what, ma’am?”
“We’ll leave. Just leave—before we mess something up and I have to send Guns down to the surface and he has to marry a chieftain’s daughter. Maybe Gnarfle the Garthok. Something.”
“Aye aye.” Andere nodded quickly.
“Graviton detection!” came from the sensor station, called the Bright sc
“From the Crucible?” Makarov lifted her helmet off her belt and slipped it over her head, locking it into place.
“Negative,” the lieutenant said. “A Lagrange point near the third moon.”
Makarov reoriented the holo tank…and stared at empty space.
“Brights?” Makarov asked, giving him a sidelong glance.
“I’m certain of it, Admiral,” the sensor officer said. “Readings are so large that there’s no way it was a fluke. Shall I do an active scan of the area?”
“No.” Makarov pressed her lips into a thin line. “Pinging the system is the first order in any long-range engagement. We can’t do anything that could be construed as hostile. But a wormhole opening into the system with no ship…”
“Radar pulse from the Cyrgal,” Andere said. “They saw it too.”
A hail from the aliens pulsed in the holo tank.
“And here we go…” Makarov opened the channel with a flick of her fingers. Only six of the Kul Rui Gassla kindred came up in the tank.
“Explain,” said the Cyrgal with the cyborg eye.
“We detected a wormhole formation,” she said, “but it had nothing to do with us. What did you find?”
Squeaks and clicks that sounded like angry squirrels went between the Cyrgal as the Warsaw’s translation computers flashed with errors.
“We detect nothing,” a hooded female said. “Wormholes do not open up by accident. This had to be an offset jump through a neighboring star’s Crucible gate.”
“I know as much as you do,” Makarov said.
“The Aeon is ours to protect,” a second female said. “The Tan Sar’s claim will be overturned in adjudication.”
“There is a single Aeon,” Makarov said. “She cannot take up that much space. Why haven’t you settled the planet? The risks and costs with a moon base are—”
“Ouranos is sacred ground,” a scarred Cyrgal said. “The continents hold the dead. We will not defile it with our presence. Do not attempt another landfall.”
“We’re not here to start a colony,” Makarov said. “Our business is with the Aeon.”
Dozens more kindred joined the channel and a raucous cross talk began. Makarov muted her voice feed and froze the video.
“What do you think, Admiral?” Andere asked.
“Why would a wormhole just open? To send a mass driver through and wreck the planet with a hypervelocity ball of rock? A Kesaht atmo scrambler? Such things aren’t hard to spot…no…it couldn’t be.”
She opened a channel to the ship’s engineering section and brought the bright screen lieutenant in on the call.
“Commander Montgomery,” Makarov said, “can you generate a lepton pulse?”
The chief engineer, his face hidden behind the visor of his helmet, cocked his head to one side. “Short answer, no,” Montgomery said. “Long answer, if I dissemble the fusion cores and we find a supply of uranium-232 to make a muon stripper then—”
“Heard,” Makarov said, swiping the holo tank over to a single blue icon slowly approaching Ouranos.
“We can advance our timetable a few hours,” Andere said. “But if we do that—”
“The Cyrgal will come gunning for us,” Makarov said. “We need to walk on the edge of a knife to get the Armor and the Aeon off world safely.”
“Shall we use the quantum dot to pass on the warning to Colonel Martel?” Andere asked.
“No…the Armor will be on high alert as it is. Marc Ibarra asked we hold back on anything that might jeopardize ‘the pitch,’ as he called it. The Lady agreed, and she knows that traitor better than anyone. This isn’t an emergency…yet.”
“What are we dealing with?” Eneko asked from the other side of the tank. “Shall we change our ready posture? Launch combat void patrol fighters?”
“Poker face, gentlemen. Got to keep our poker faces on,” Makarov said. “Brights, how well do you know Karigole technology?”
Chapter 10
A current swept over Roland, carrying grains of sand across his feet and knees. He marched onward, noting the lack of sea life.
“You couldn’t have gone back for them?” Roland asked.
“There was no going back.” Marc bent an arm and a shard of ice broke off and was swept away. “We had one Mule to get Hale and company back to the Breitenfeld. Maybe one or two of the Armor could’ve made it out, but they were in the thick of it with the Xaros. You didn’t see Elias and Carius, even in their Armor I could tell they wouldn’t budge. They knew how that had to end. We barely got Torni out when we—”
Roland stepped on something metal. He lifted it up with the side of his foot—a blackened hunk of the insertion torpedo.
“You think the rest got out in time?” Marc asked.
“Yes.” Roland let the debris flop back into the sand where it kicked up a cloud that was carried away and vanished into the ocean. “To die in such a way would be an embarrassment. The Templar lance’s legacy will not trace from the last battle of the Ember War to an undersea accident.”
“Can’t all go like Elias. I saw him charge a Master, a giant black beast of an alien, and stab that monster in the third eye with—”
“Stop,” Roland said. “My compass just went crazy. Must be the debris reacting to something in the water.”
“So we…get out of the affected zone and figure out which way to go?”
“No use. The area will be enormous with the current spreading junk all over the place.” Roland looked up at the surface. “I have an idea.”
He plucked Marc off his back and grabbed him by the waist and shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Marc asked. “Wait. No. No. You are not going to—hey!”
Roland threw Marc Ibarra straight up like a spear. Marc shot through the surface and fell back through a few yards away. He sank like an anvil and hit the ocean floor in a cloud of dust.
Roland went over to him. “Which way?”
“I hate you.” Marc struggled against the current to get to his feet. “Hate you so very much.”
“Which way, or do I need to throw you again?”
Marc pointed into the depths. “Good news is we’re close,” he said. “Still hate you. Hope this seawater rusts your joints.”
Roland swung Marc over his shoulder and continued on.
****
Light grew stronger as the water grew shallow as Roland marched throu
gh the ocean. He felt waves buttress against his Armor and saw surf breaking overhead.
“I think I can make it the rest of the way,” Marc said and let go of Roland’s neck servos.
“Stay here,” Roland said. “I need to make sure the beach is clear.”
“You know what Trinia looks like?” Marc asked. “There’s only one of her. It’d be a real shame if—”
“I know what Cyrgal look like. They’re the threat…I don’t know how the Aeon will react if she sees me.”
“She knows all about Armor. Probably even saw that awful Last Stand on Takeni movie that had Armor in it…though I’m not sure how she’ll take you standing on her beach.” Marc widened his stance as the surf threatened to knock him off his feet.
“You think she’ll be happy to see you?”
“Of course! We’re old friends. Just haven’t caught up in a while is all.”
“Stay here.” Roland walked in the direction of the waves. He ached to power up his gauss cannons or his rotary weapon, but the batteries of the gauss system wouldn’t react well to water and firing through barrels filled with water would likely wreck his other weapon.
His helm crested the water and tiny blue fish wiggled out from the creases. Waves surged past him, obscuring his view of the beach. His optics were nearly useless as saltwater covered his sensors and flowed away again. He got a few glimpses of a white beach and a thick band of trees.
Roland cleared his head and shoulders out of the water and got a decent look around. To the left was nothing but a stretch of sand, no sign of civilization. To the right was a group of eight Cyrgal in blue robes clustered around a communication array bristling with antennae and dishes.
One of the Cyrgal held an oversized rifle across his waist with a pair of robotic arms that attached to a frame on his back. His true arms worked inside the array. The alien did a double take at Roland and shouted.
“Wait!” The word crackled out of his speakers as Roland advanced out of the water, waves splashing against the back of his knees.
The Cyrgal shouted as one, and all but one ran for a stack of rifles, stocks down in the sand.
Roland engaged his translation protocols. “I’m not here to fight,” he said, his speakers whining, the Cyrgal language sputtering out.
The one Cyrgal with a rifle cocked his head to one side, then used his mechanical arms to heft up a rifle almost as tall as him.
“Blast it.” Roland kicked the sand and sent a spray toward the aliens, like an artillery shell had just landed on the beach. A plasma bolt shot through the sand wave and struck behind Roland. Searing bits of molten sand stung against his Armor.
Shaking seawater from his gauss cannons, Roland charged forward and came up on the Cyrgal, the plasma rifle’s barrel glowing red-hot. Roland swiped a hand across his body and struck the weapon, intending to knock it out of the alien’s grasp.
He did send it free of the Cyrgal’s true hands, but the mechanical arms held firm. The alien went sailing through the air and slammed against an incoming wave. The other Cyrgal let off a keening noise and swung their plasma rifles off the pile toward Roland.
Roland drew his gauss cannons on the Cyrgal, but they didn’t relent. He fired a single shell that pierced through two Cyrgal and struck the communication array. The device exploded into flames, sending shrapnel through the survivors and peppering Roland’s Armor with fragments.
The aliens lay dead, blood seeping into the surf and streaming back into the ocean with the pull of the water.
“Templar?” came over the IR.
“Templar four,” Roland said. He tried to triangulate the transmission and looked down the beach to the other island, where a thin band of water separated the two.
The IR crackled and his direction finders sent indicators from several directions as a thrum rose in the air. He turned around and saw the tall, bare-rock flank of a volcano at the center of the island. An aircraft raced around the volcano, wide wings swept forward slightly from the side.
Roland zoomed in. It was large, almost ungainly for something with so many weapons on it. A large turret on the top slewed toward him.
Roland engaged his targeting systems and fired a single round from his gauss cannons. The round struck at the base of the turret and sent the plane wobbling. It dove toward Roland, plasma bolts streaking out of the wings.
Roland ran to the side as the bolts slammed into the beach, sending up clouds of smoke and molten sand. He reloaded the gauss cannons and fired again, hitting just to one side of the cockpit.
The Cyrgal gunship rolled over and arced toward the other island. The craft pulled back hard in a maneuver that a human pilot could never have managed without all their blood rushing into their feet, causing them to pass out. The smoking fighter flew back toward the volcano and crashed at the base, sliding up the flank and coming to a stop almost vertically against the rock.
“Maniac!” Marc Ibarra crawled onto the beach. “You could have called me. Throwing a Cyrgal at me isn’t…good lord.” He looked at the carnage in the sand.
“On your feet,” Roland said as he sent an IR ping through the air.
A plasma bolt ripped through the tree line, igniting wide fronds as it passed, and struck the ocean in a cloud of steam.
Roland brought his rotary gun up, locking it against his shoulder, as he ran to Marc and sprayed the tree line. His bullets chopped through the foliage like a scythe.
“Templar four, head south!” came over the IR. “Get across to the other island!”
Roland scooped a cowering Marc into his arms and went running down the beach as plasma bolts stabbed out of the jungle. Roland reached his gauss cannon arm across his body and fired blind. Twin explosions followed by the groan of falling trees lessened the incoming fire.
His rotary gun swung around and sent a torrent of fire back and forth.
A plasma bolt sliced across his left leg and a jolt of psychosomatic pain went through Roland’s body. He widened his stride and tore across the dozen yards of water flowing between the two islands. As soon as he crossed over to the other beach, the Cyrgal fire stopped.
Roland tossed Marc into a tall bush, flushing out a flock of multicolored birds, then he spun around and loaded a new magazine into his rotary gun.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” yelled a Nisei, emerging from the jungle.
“There are a dozen hostiles—”
“They won’t fire on us here,” Umezu said. “They won’t do anything that might endanger the Aeon. Deescalate.”
Roland looked down at the line of melted Armor on his shin. Heat signatures in the jungle on the other island pulled back and he snapped the rotary gun off his shoulder.
“Marc?” he said, turning back to the bush.
“Help!” Silver limbs glinted in the sunlight as they waved in the air. Marc was on his back, broken eggs and bits of nest sticking to his body.
Roland pulled him out and set him on his feet. Marc looked down at his filthy personage, then back to Roland.
“You’re welcome,” Roland said.
“I take back every nice thing I ever said about you.” Marc scraped bits of nest and frozen yolk off himself. “Which is nothing. But if I ever do accidentally say something nice, know that I—”
“Where’s the rest of my lance?” Roland asked.
“No sign of them yet,” the Nisei said. “You were the first one to exchange fire with the locals so they must not have reached that island yet. We’re forty minutes from a thumper ping.”
“Ran into magnetic interference in the drink,” Roland said. “We should do the thumper now.”
“Not standard operations.” Umezu shook his helm. “They shouldn’t drop anchor until two hours after the mission clock starts.”
“Right…forgot,” Roland said.
“Maybe they’ll befriend a dolphin or something,” Marc said. “Get it to do a peek-a-boo like I did.”
“You find the Aeon?” Roland asked the Nisei.
“No
t yet.” Umezu sent an overlay to Roland’s HUD. “Araki’s holding his position farther inland. Our other pair is on the far coast.”
“I’ll take the VIP to the ruins in the center of the island, start a spiral out,” Roland said.
“Thumper on the clock,” Umezu said, then beat a fist to his chest and ran back into the jungle.
“Let’s get off the beach,” Roland said to Marc. “Don’t want to be here if the Cyrgal decide this isn’t neutral territory anymore.”
Marc looked at the water and brushed his hands against his body. “Ugh, do you have a shower attachment somewhere in there?”
“Get moving.”
Chapter 11
Roland pushed through a strand of fronds and onto a cobblestone road leading past domed-shaped buildings topped with points. The entrances were bereft of doors, the windows without glass or frames. The buildings were large—Roland could have stepped inside them if he ducked on the way through.
“Advanced civilization?” Roland asked Marc as he came out of the jungle, kicking mud from his feet.
“Once,” Marc said, looking around. “So quiet. Can you use all that hardware of yours? Better than doing an Avon-calling impression.”
Roland switched to his infrared sensors and found a heat plume at a small hut in a clearing just off the brick roads.
“There.” Roland pointed to the spot.
“A thatch house?” Marc pulled his shoulders back and made his way over. Roland followed a few steps behind, gauss cannon arm cocked to one side and loaded.
They went past planted rows of bushes with stalks heavy with grain. Smoke drifted up through the top of the hut. A muddy slit trench ran around the hut and led out to the jungle pressing around the ruins.
Roland saw a shadow cut across a window. “Someone’s in there,” he said.
“Trinia!” Marc waved a hand in the air and stopped on the edge of a beaten dirt path leading to the hut’s wooden door. “Trinia, it’s Marc Ibarra…from Earth. Remember?”
“I thought you said she was your friend,” Roland said.
“You be quiet,” Marc hissed. “Those explosions were not our fault,” he said louder.
