The Last Aeon

by Richard Fox

  “The rework to your nervous system is…competent. Not as perfect as the directions I sent over.” She gave Marc a look.

  “The surgery is different for every soldier,” Marc said. “The design you did on that baseline I sent you had to be adjusted for the individual. A long and expensive procedure.”

  “And there are still errors,” Roland said.

  “There is some variance to the template I worked off of,” Trinia said, “but your functionality is acceptable. How do you guard against overloading your neural system? There are a number of buffers missing.”

  “You mean redlining?” Roland asked. “We push ourselves as close to the edge as we can without going over. Armor is not for the timid. Too many buffers and our performance degrades. Might as well go back to tanks with three or four crew if we’re afraid to take that risk.”

  “Curious,” she said.

  “You think a will to win is curious?”

  “No, there’s a communication node in the suit-to-pod interface I’ve not seen before,” she said. “I think it’s some sort of quantum dot but I don’t recognize—”

  “New system evolution,” Marc said quickly. “A backup to the IR processors. I thought you wanted to examine flesh and blood, not hardware.”

  “Can you come out?” she asked. “I…would like to see you in person.”

  “This mission isn’t over,” Roland said. “The only way out is an emergency flush, and if I do that, I won’t be able to be this…” he tapped his chest, “until I make it back to a maintenance bay. Death before dismount.”

  “There’s that…are there children on Earth?” she asked.

  “I showed you—” Marc objected, but stopped when she pointed a finger at him.

  “There are,” Roland said. “And on Navarre. And Proxima. And hundreds of other worlds.”

  “Then it really did work.” She stripped the gauntlet off and tossed it into a dusty corner. “It could have worked for the Aeon.”

  “What happened wasn’t your fault,” Marc said.

  “Of course it was,” she snapped. “My design. My plan. My responsibility.”

  “Why are you the last?” Roland asked.

  “OK, you are a test subject,” Marc said. “Do me a favor and shut your trap. Or your speakers. Whatever.”

  “It is like you to keep secrets,” Trinia said. “The mind is the soul. The body it inhabits is secondary.”

  “Just ignore him, Trinia,” Marc said. “He doesn’t need to know.”

  “Oh, but he does.” Trinia wiped a tear away. “You know. Does anyone else? What good is a partial legacy for the Aeon? A legend must be part warning, part ideal. Does human history work like this?”

  “Stacey knows,” Marc said. “How many of the others on Old Bastion…I have no idea.”

  “Then let me show you.” A workstation flickered to life as she approached. A golden lattice appeared in the air over the station, Qa’Resh technology that Roland had seen Stacey using before.

  The sound of moving gears rumbled through the laboratory.

  “The plan to save humanity from the Xaros wasn’t the first time Bastion had tried that idea,” she said. “Marc recruited a fleet with a substantial military escort and sent it into a time skip just before the Xaros conquered your home world. That force was enough to retake the planet, then he used the procedural technology to rebuild your defenses and launch the final attack on the Xaros.”

  “If we weren’t the first,” Roland said, “then the other attempts must have failed.”

  “The Aeon had that honor.” She turned toward the wall and crossed her arms over her chest. “There is a finite supply of the quadrium used in the time-skip devices in any solar system. There was only so much, a limited volume that could be displaced long enough for the Xaros to pass through. We weren’t willing to accept that the vast majority of our people had to be sacrificed to the Xaros to save a few. We…loved ourselves too dearly.”

  “Don’t think the decision was easy for me,” Marc said. “I struggled with that part of the plan for decades.”

  “You knew how I failed,” she said. “Was that a factor in your final decision?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you were stronger than I and the rest of the Aeon,” she said. “We had our chance to test our plan fully, but then we wouldn’t have had enough quadrium to secure every last one of our people. To triage a million or more of us away…unthinkable.”

  “There were maybe a hundred thousand of us that escaped the Xaros invasion,” Roland said. “I was just a kid at the time…but how many Aeon were there if you thought you could save them all?”

  “Two and a half billion,” Trinia said. “My plan—”

  “Your entire people agreed to it, along with the Qa’Resh,” Marc said.

  “My plan was for the Aeon to transfer their minds into the probe,” she said, giving the dead machine in the middle of the room a sidelong glance, “then into procedural computers. The minds would be transferred into new bodies once the Xaros drone armada was light-years away. But holding so much data ran the risk of degradation…corruption. So every storage bank would sidestep the wait.”

  “You…you did this to every Aeon?” Roland asked.

  “It had to be total. If the Xaros found a single one of us alive, they would have scoured the entire planet clean like they almost did to Earth. If they found a dead planet, they would preserve everything. The Dotari returned to their home world in such a state. They are blessed. So all the Aeon left their bodies and put their minds into my trust,” Trinia said. “My husband. My children. My parents. All of them.

  “The process was complete decades before the Xaros were to arrive. Then we activated the time-skip devices and I returned to Bastion to wait until the Xaros had moved on and the Crucible was nearly complete.”

  The gears stopped with a thump that resonated through the laboratory. The rock walls slid up, and rows upon rows of procedural tanks, large enough for an Aeon, stretched out into the darkness beyond.

  In each tank was a skeleton, lying in a heap of bones or leaning against the glass. Bits of stretched skin and tufts of hair were all that remained of flesh.

  “My god, Trinia…” Marc looked away.

  “The plan…failed.” The Aeon went to the window and put a hand to the glass. “The time jump caused a malfunction in the storage banks. Every mind was corrupted. Scrambled. When I brought the first back to life, they…didn’t survive long. A few were gibbering maniacs that couldn’t walk or eat or even realize who they were.

  “I tried to salvage a few,” she said. “But the corruption got worse and within a few days it was pointless. This isn’t the only rebirth facility. There are dozens more across the planet. The final tomb of the Aeon.”

  Roland looked across the endless rows of failed bodies, then to Marc Ibarra. Just what the man had gone through to avoid this same fate for humanity…he couldn’t help but admire the strength of will such acts took.

  “I was about to throw myself into the ocean when the probe convinced me to continue,” she said, “that there was still a way the Aeon might return. It was enough. I came up with the procedural mind-generation system. The probe had enough of our history and culture stored that it could manage a passable Aeon…but there was a problem.”

  “No genetic ingredients,” Marc said.

  Trinia touched her stomach.

  “We had half the equation,” she said. “Male Aeon reach maturation through conscious control over their bodies…none of them survived to provide that for me and all the embryos in the tanks were already fertilized. I never planned for failure. I was so sure of my own perfection.

  “So I returned to Bastion, reworked the gambit from the beginning, and we waited, searched for another species that could do what the Aeon couldn’t…and possibly help me.”

  “Et voila.” Marc tapped his chest. “The Ibarra Nation is here.”

  “Help? Help how?” Roland asked.

  “Wi
th the right gene editing we could create Aeon-human hybrids,” Marc said.

  “What?” Roland took a step toward Marc. “That’s…that’s—”

  “Impossible,” Trinia said. “The Qa’Resh and I worked toward that goal for years. The research was incomplete when the Xaros destroyed Bastion. All the work was lost.”

  “You agreed to this?” Roland asked Marc.

  “Don’t get all high and mighty on me,” Marc said. “Stacey Ibarra is the product of genetic engineering. It was the only way she could transfer her mind through the probes to and from Bastion and be our ambassador. I did this to my own daughters. I’m not proud of that but it was necessary. We’ll find volunteers to…help the Aeon.”

  “Don’t bother,” Trinia said. “It is a fool’s errand.”

  “Not if we find the Ark,” Marc said. “The work will begin again. The Aeon can return.”

  Trinia tapped a finger on the top of Marc’s head. “It won’t be you,” she said, then turned to Roland. “You’re flesh and blood within that Armor. Would you volunteer to do it? Father a race of hybrids?”

  “We…we’ve just met,” Roland said.

  “We have crèches all across Navarre with everything we’d ever need.” Marc shot Roland a look, his eyes alive with anger. “You have my word, Trinia.”

  “Your word is one thing,” the Aeon said, “but the rest of the galaxy would have a vote. Your procedurals are marked for death. If I bring forth more of my own people in the same way…”

  “We will win the war,” Marc said. “With the Ark it will—”

  A series of thumps echoed through the laboratory.

  “What the hell is that?” Marc asked.

  “Morse code from thumpers.” Roland raised his helm. “R-T-B. Return to base.”

  “What’s wrong?” Trinia asked.

  “It’s just those three letters,” Roland said. “Let’s move.”

  The Aeon went to the central dais and a compartment opened. She took out a necklace made of crystal flakes and wrapped it around her hand.

  “You want big boy to carry you up the stairs?” Marc asked Trinia. “He’s a pro at hauling people around.”

  “I wish you’d never have come here,” she said.

  Chapter 16

  Rain lashed against Santos’s Armor as he walked through the storm. He was at the front of the loose formation, with Gideon and Aignar both a few dozen yards behind him and to either side. The IR systems could barely maintain coherency in the storm and Gideon had forbade any other radio transmissions for fear the Kesaht might detect them.

  Even though he knew his lance mates were in the same storm, marching through the rain—which almost flew sideways with the wind gusts—was a solitary experience. His suit’s inertial navigation system kept him on track to an occupied spaceport on the other side of a mountain range. While he could barely see more than a few yards with his standard optics, he likened the travel to driving down a road at night. Even with only headlights, one could get to where they needed to go so long as they stayed on the road.

  “Santos,” Gideon said to him on a private channel, the transmission laced with static from moisture interference.

  “On point, nothing significant to report,” Santos said.

  “Heard. Where were you during the recent…incident on Mars?” the captain asked.

  Santos looked over a shoulder to where Aignar’s shadow lumbered through the rain. The other Armor wasn’t part of this conversation and couldn’t step in to keep him from stepping on his own tongue.

  “Gunnery drills on Titan, sir,” he replied. “There was a system-wide lockdown while the Ibarran incursion was underway.”

  “What did your cadre tell you about the Ibarrans?”

  “That there was a jailbreak. Illegal Ibarran procedurals rescued—I mean, escaped—from some secret prison on Mars. Something about spies. Most of our maintenance crew had to go through naissance inspections. Blood tests to make sure they weren’t Ibarran spies. They were not happy about that. The Naissance Act is pretty explicit about birth circumstances not being used against anyone.”

  “Such is the nature of the war we’re in,” Gideon said. “The Ibarras poisoned the minds of a number of Union citizens before they turned traitor. Used them as sleeper agents and then killed them once they weren’t of any use. Disposable tools—that’s all human beings are to the Ibarras.”

  “No argument there,” Santos said. “Then…then there was the Templar in the same prison.” He winced, readying for a sharp retort from his commander.

  “And what of the Templar?” Gideon asked, a dangerous edge to his words.

  “Traitors,” Santos said quickly. “All of them. They refused to carry out the Omega Provision as ordered and defected to the Ibarras. One of my sister training lances had a Templar as a cadre, but she was recalled to Mars shortly before the incident.”

  “You understand that they’re our enemies now. No matter what they did for the Union or who they used to be,” Gideon said.

  “Understood, sir,” Santos said, though in his heart, he was less than convinced. Just how so many Armor could abandon the Union so quickly…there must have been more to the story than what he’d heard through official channels, but poking around for details did not strike him as a smart move.

  “Good…good. Your father sent me a message,” Gideon said.

  “Oh no…” Santos half turned around to look at Gideon, but a knife-hand gesture from the captain put his focus back on the path in front of him. “I don’t want any special treatment. I don’t care what he said or what he promised. He’s not—”

  “Diego Orozco is a hero of the Ember War,” Gideon said. “I fought beside him, briefly, against the Toth.”

  “You were on Hawaii?”

  “I’ll show you a memento when we dismount,” Gideon said. “Would you like to see the message?”

  Santos felt emotions roiling in his chest. He knew every second he hesitated before answering was an admission that his father’s message did matter to him, and such emotions were weakness for Armor.

  “Sir. I don’t think that—contact!” Santos braced his feet against the ground and aimed his rotary gun and gauss cannons as a form stumbled through the storm.

  “Hold fire,” Gideon said.

  Santos tracked the humanoid shape as it stumbled through the rain, barely tall enough to reach the top of his Armor’s thigh, its head and shoulders covered by a dark cloth against the rain.

  Gideon approached, his boots splashing in puddles. The sound traveled through the storm and the figure’s head perked up.

  A brutish Rakka stared down Santos’s gun barrels. The alien took a step back, mouth puffing, rain flying off its lips like spittle.

  “Kill it,” Gideon said.

  Santos took a step forward and swiped a hand down, snatching the Rakka by the leg and lifting it into the air. The alien snarled like an angry dog and swung at the Armor’s wrist.

  “Scans clean of any tech,” Santos said. “Maybe it knows where the Risen is hiding.”

  “How’d it even end up out here?” Aignar asked. He traced a quick circle in the air and trotted away, then ran a perimeter around Santos and Gideon, spiraling outwards.

  Santos lifted the Rakka higher, bringing its beady eyes level to his optics. The alien swiped a clawed hand covered in waterlogged hair at his helm and missed by almost a foot.

  “It looks like a caveman and a bear mated,” Santos said. “It’s intelligent enough to speak, isn’t it?”

  “You’re wasting time. Kill it,” Gideon said as he turned around slowly, scanning their surroundings.

  The Rakka reached into its cloak and pulled out a serrated knife with a bone handle. Santos almost chuckled; the crude weapon couldn’t hurt him.

  “Rakka vil aror!” The alien gripped the blade with both hands and swung it over its head.

  Santos reached out and caught it by the wrists before it could plunge the blade into its own chest. He twisted the knife
out of the alien’s hands and let it fall to the ground.

  “Sir…it’s a prisoner, correct?” Santos asked.

  “Kesaht are never taken prisoner,” the captain said. “When their ships are disabled, they purge their air and die. Rakka commit suicide when cut off from their Sanheel officers. You saw what that one just tried to do.”

  “This could be progress,” Santos said. “A live specimen to interrogate. Study.”

  The Rakka began hooting and beating its fists against its head.

  “Stop,” Santos broadcast through his speakers and wrapped his hands around its arms, pinning them to its side. He turned the alien right side up.

  The hooting grew louder and longer. His audio receptors picked up an infrasonic, low-frequency noise that could travel several kilometers through the ground.

  “It’s giving away our position,” Gideon said evenly.

  Santos squeezed slightly, compressing the Rakka enough to stop its diaphragm and lungs from functioning.

  “Silence,” Santos said, pulling up translation software, but none of the Kesaht languages were listed. “Some of you speak English. Can you understand me?”

  He shifted his grip on the alien and its coat fell open. A necklace made of twisted leather swung against his thumb. Totems of carved bone rattled on the line. Two matted clumps of hair—one long and black, the other blond curls—flopped against each other. As one twisted around, Santos saw skin stained pink with blood.

  Scalps. Human scalps.

  Santos’s grip tightened and the Rakka squirmed. He stopped, loosening his hold enough for it to breathe. The alien’s chest heaved and its head snapped from one Armor to the other.

  “If you let it go, it will give us away to the enemy,” Gideon said. “We’re behind their lines. They’ll hunt us down and the Risen will survive. You know what’s at stake here. Kill. It.”

  Santos zoomed in on the scalps and wondered what chance those two soldiers had when the Rakka came upon them.

  He grabbed the alien by the ankles and bashed its skull against the rocks. Magenta blood seeped into the inches of water over the ground.