The Last Aeon

by Richard Fox

  “Any regrets joining the Ibarra Nation?” Nicodemus asked as they trudged up the pathway.

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Roland said, limping slightly as sand worked its way out of his Armor.

  Chapter 20

  Rain spattered against the cobblestones as Nicodemus and Roland returned to the village. Distant thunder sounded weak compared to the clash of battle they’d just been through.

  A pair of Nisei stood guard on either side of Trinia’s hut, which had collapsed, blown aside by the pressure wave caused by the Nisei’s rail guns. The Aeon sat next to the clay oven in the middle of what remained, unfazed by the rain.

  “Murayama,” Nicodemus said, motioning to Roland, “you’re the highest-rated here in field repairs.”

  “Sir.” The Nisei swapped places with Nicodemus and lifted Roland’s damaged arm. Sensor wands snapped out of Murayama’s Armor and poked around the partially severed wrist.

  “You should have made your house from brick,” Marc said to Trinia as raindrops smacked against his silver shoulders, freezing a few moments later.

  “I was at peace,” she said, “before you came here. My own little part of the cosmos to call my own, to reflect on a life of failure…and one success that didn’t matter in the end. Then you and your agents of chaos show up.” Trinia kicked a wooden spear at Marc. It bounced off his leg and clattered over the cobblestones.

  “No one is alone, my dear,” Marc said. “The Aeon had a good thing going, but the Xaros were coming for you. You fought back…and lost. You lost but you weren’t beaten. You’re never beaten, unless you give up. Now the Toth are here for you. They’re not going to stop either. They smell prey and they’ll keep hunting.”

  “The Aeon will slip into history while the Toth are still a plague on the stars.” She shook her head. “There is no justice, is there?”

  “Not for lack of trying on our part.” Marc turned away and saw Roland. He snapped his head back to Trinia.

  “Now the Cyrgal are suffering because of me,” she said. “I don’t know how many were killed on the beach. They should have listened to me when I warned them to stay away. They’re a decent culture when they work together, but most of the time they’re stubborn and so very naive.”

  “Come with us,” Marc said. “The Toth will figure out you’re gone, and if they move on the Cyrgal, they’ll regret it. You’ll be safe.”

  “You have a reputation when it comes to promises.” Trinia looked up at him, rain streaming down her face. “I had a talk with your Nisei while you were setting up your ambush. Now I know why you were off the galactic stage for so long.”

  “I don’t know what they told you,” Marc said, pointing a finger at Murayama. “But let me explain!”

  Murayama ignored him as arc welders unfolded from his arm

  “Treason?” she asked.

  “Light…treason.” Marc raised his hands next to his face. “It’s all sorted out now, isn’t it?”

  “Lady Ibarra has him on parole,” Nicodemus said. “He carries the Lady’s word. All his promises will be fulfilled by her, by the Templar and by our nation.”

  “Stacey…” Trinia looked back to the long house and the entrance to the underground lab. “She’s taken to her role with the procedurals so strongly. Not like the woman I knew.”

  “She was barely into adulthood when you met her,” Marc said. “She’s come a long way since then. And she…she could use your help.”

  “The Lady needs nothing but us by her side,” Nicodemus said. “She is rightly guided.”

  “How about we just speak when we’re spoken to, yeah?” Marc asked.

  “Motion detected.” Kataro raised his cannon arm and backed up to shield Trinia.

  Murayama’s tools snapped back into his arm and he went to form a perimeter around the Aeon.

  Roland flexed his hand. The fingers bent stiffly and he couldn’t rotate the wrist, but the field-expedient repairs were better than nothing. He switched on his IR optics and scanned the jungle as it swayed in the storm.

  “Martel and the others are en route,” Nicodemus said.

  “You’d think the Toth would have learned by now,” Murayama said. “We do not yield. We do not bend. We do not fail. We are Armor.”

  A shadow in the infrared slunk between trees in the distance.

  “Move her back to the lab?” Kataro asked.

  “They’ll be waiting for her in there,” Roland said. “We’ve the advantage in the open. They won’t fire if there’s any risk it would harm her.”

  “Use her as a human shield?” Marc asked. “So gallant of our Black Knight.”

  “No one spoke to you,” Nicodemus said.

  “Hypocrisy and sarcasm are just a few of my many talents,” Marc snapped.

  Gauss fire carried up the path from the beach.

  “Trinia, is there any place that’s fortified?” Nicodemus asked.

  A faint ululation sounded through the jungle.

  “The other island.” She got up, putting her back to Nicodemus’, and peered around Murayama’s shoulder. “There’s a landing zone in the caldera and lifts that should still be operational from the base of the volcano.”

  “The Cyrgal going to be a problem?” Roland asked.

  “I’ll declare you all my…guardian angels. They have a concept close to that,” she said.

  “Honored,” Marc said, bowing slightly.

  “Not you. You I’ll dub a cherub. Or a trickster demon,” she said.

  “Leprechaun,” Roland said. “Morrigan will love that.”

  “You are off my Christmas list. Again. Buddy,” Marc said.

  Lightning broke overhead, illuminating Toth warriors on top of the carved rock. One thrust a halberd into the sky and a ululation rose from hundreds of Toth as the warriors scrambled down the rock and more emerged from the jungle.

  “Keep the perimeter.” Nicodemus grabbed his hilt from his hip and unsnapped the blade. “Open fire. Ferrum Corde!”

  The Armor blared the war cry from their speakers and Roland activated his rotary weapon. It spun to life as the others let off a volley of gauss fire into the charging ranks. The heavy-caliber shells blew through two Toth before embedding in a third.

  Roland picked off warriors maneuvering from cover to cover in the jungle. The temptation to charge forward and give them the blade was palpable, but the Toth were betting on the Armor fighting like scared, undisciplined troops.

  He flipped his rotary cannon around and slaved it to Murayama’s targeting systems. The two Armors’ weapons blazed with shells, spraying across the Toth at head level, cracking the crystal armor over their faces but not penetrating. Blinded Toth slowed, tripping up the others behind them as the gauss cannons decimated the charge.

  A blur rose up from the ground and Roland swung a punch out of reflex, striking a warrior in the shoulder, crushing an armor plate and wrecking the cloak field. He grabbed it by the chest and activated his shield, the garphenium edge cutting through the Toth’s armor and slicing open its throat.

  Roland shoved it away as a wave of Toth warriors materialized out of the jungle.

  “Shift fire!” Roland deactivated the safeties on his gauss cannons and slammed his other hand on top of the weapon, the gauss cannon snapping like a string of fireworks as it went full auto. His HUD filled with warnings as the barrels went red-hot.

  Gauss shells scythed through the Toth, blasting them apart as the recoil inched Roland back with each bolt.

  Steam billowed from the weapon as it froze up. Sparks and thin tendrils of electricity stabbed from the capacitors.

  “Frag out!” He pulled the emergency-release lever on the cannon, hurled it at the oncoming energy, then thrust his shield over Trinia as the cannon exploded.

  Shrapnel pinged off Roland’s Armor as a blast wave shoved his shield back. Trinia was on the ground, arms over her head, but she looked unharmed.

  A Toth wrapped claws around Roland’s shield and yanked it back with a hiss.
Roland released it off his arm and the Toth found itself holding it over its head, a look of surprise on its face.

  Roland punted it between the forelegs, sending it flying back, then he drew his sword with his offhand and raised it overhead.

  Lightning broke overhead, casting shadows across the ground. The Toth facing Roland hesitated. The rain lessened, slowing to a sprinkle, and moonlight shown across the distant sea.

  “Come on, you cowards.” Roland leveled the blade at the nearest warrior, standing knee-deep in Toth dead. “Is that all you’ve got?”

  The Toth snarled and charged forward, leaping at Roland and impaling itself on Roland’s sword up to the hilt. Grabbing Roland’s sword arm, the Toth wrenched to one side. Its weight pulled Roland off-balance and another warrior behind hurled its halberd at the Armor.

  The throw went wide, and the crystalline weapon spun end over end toward Trinia. Roland reached for the weapon, his fingers brushing the haft as it went by.

  Marc jumped in front of Trinia and took the blade to the chest with a crack, the ax blade embedding in his silver body. He stood for a moment and touched a crystal spike pointed just beneath his nose. Then he sank to his knees.

  Gauss fire snapped as the rest of the Armor from the beach came over the hill, shooting down the last of the Toth.

  “Marc?” Trinia went to her old friend. His surface rippled but there was no sound as he shoved weakly at the weapon in his chest.

  Roland pulled back, still watching the jungle for the next threat.

  Marc knocked on the back of Roland’s leg then tapped the halberd.

  “He wants it out.” Trinia reached for the haft but Roland pushed her away and into Nicodemus.

  Roland grabbed the alien weapon just behind the axe blade and it crackled with electricity. His arm went numb as his pod shut off feedback from his suit. He pulled the blade out slowly and tossed it aside.

  A deep gash ran from Marc’s collarbone to his solar plexus. Beneath his shell, bits of crystal crumbled out of the wound and bounced off his knees. Marc picked the pieces up and pressed them back into his chest.

  “What can we do for him?” Roland asked.

  “I don’t…I don’t know,” Trinia said, rubbing her bare arms. Her breath frosted and she looked puzzled before she looked back to the steam rising off the Toth bodies.

  “So cold,” she said, backing away from Marc.

  Roland felt a chill in his fingers, and sensors on his Armor showed the temperature plummeting.

  “Back, everyone back,” Nicodemus said.

  Ice grew from Marc’s body, cracking and snapping as it covered him and the surrounding ground like a far-from-complete sculpture.

  “That’s new,” Morrigan said as the rest of the Armor arrived. She cocked the smoking barrels of her gauss cannon up next to her shoulder. “You’re not supposed to throw your gun at the enemy, boy-o.”

  “Good idea at the time.” Roland looked to Trinia. “Are you injured?”

  “Nothing worth mentioning.” She reached for Marc’s icy enclosure but pulled her hand back with a look of pain on her face. “I knew how to load a mind into the matrix inside the bodies. The Qa’Resh never told me how they work beyond that.”

  “We can carry him back to Navarre.” Colonel Martel looked to the sky, now almost cloudless and full of stars. “Warsaw has evac on the way.”

  “Monsters.” The word came from a dozen different places behind them. Roland whirled around, his sword braced before him.

  On the dead Toth littering the ground, an alien face appeared on the crystal armor. Not Toth.

  The elegant, wide-eyed face of an Ixio.

  “Humans bring pain and death wherever they go in the galaxy, Mistress Trinia,” the Ixio said.

  “I know that voice,” Roland said. “Tomenakai. I thought I killed him on Oricon.”

  “You did,” the alien responded. “But through Lord Bale I was Risen, and those who are Risen will forever serve the Kesaht. We have such wonders to share with you, Mistress Trinia. Do not side with these devils. Murderers. Those that nearly wiped out another race simply to save themselves. They are no better than the Xaros. Surely you see that.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Trinia asked.

  “A crime,” Tomenakai said, “one that must be atoned with the end of humans. Lord Bale will explain it to you in person. Leave the metal abominations and join the Kesaht.”

  “You think I don’t know what the Toth have done? What they do to those they capture? Never,” she said.

  “Lies. All human lies to justify their crimes,” the Ixio said. “You are more valuable to the Kesaht than you know. But if you need some encouragement, look to the first moon.”

  The Cyrgal inhabited moon hung a few handbreadths over the horizon, half in darkness, the surface settlements shining brightly on the surface. A point grew even brighter and Trinia gasped. The city flashed and went dark.

  “Fusion warhead,” Nicodemus said.

  “Stop!” Trinia shouted. “Stop! They’re no threat to you.”

  “Eighty-five million Cyrgal—correction, eighty million Cyrgal—live on that moon,” Tomenakai said. “How low must that number go before you cooperate?”

  Another blast flashed over the moon’s horizon.

  “No!” Trinia reached toward the moon and then stopped, bringing her hands down next to her thighs. She stooped forward slightly.

  “I…am eleven thousand years old,” she said. “I watched as billion after countless billion were lost to the Xaros. I lived with the despair of my own people dying right in front of me. You think…you think this can move me?”

  “All will serve the Kesaht,” Tomenakai said. “Lord Bale would incorporate the Cyrgal as best they can offer…or they will be exterminated as vermin. Our ascension is inevitable.”

  “Evac transport arrives in five minutes,” Martel sent over the IR to keep the message from the Ixio.

  “See what you have wrought,” the Ixio said and the image on the crystal armor switched to a Cyrgal broadcast of fires and chaos in a city beneath the moon’s surface. Trinia turned away.

  The ice around Marc cracked and fell away like a frozen cocoon. The silver man crawled out and rolled onto the ground. The gash in his chest was gone.

  “That,” Marc said, “was not pleasant. At all.”

  “You’re good to move?” Roland asked.

  “Never better.” Marc ran a hand over where the wound had been.

  “Beach,” Martel sent. “Can’t get a Destrier in here. Move out.”

  ****

  Armor formed a perimeter around Trinia and Marc, and every time another nuke exploded, Roland glanced up at the moon. Just how many Cyrgal had been killed…he didn’t want to know.

  A Destrier transport crested the horizon, flying low enough over the ocean that it kicked up a wake of sea spray.

  “Recovery on the move,” Martel said. “Evac can’t spare the power for a full stop. Step lively.”

  “What does that mean?” Trinia asked.

  “Ramp comes down,” Marc said, rolling his shoulders back and forth, “transport slows just enough for us to run on board as it passes.”

  “That…no…I’m not that fast,” she said.

  “I’ll carry you,” Morrigan said to her. “Roland. You’ve got him.”

  “Can someone else, maybe possessing a bit of grace, please take—”

  Morrigan shot a hand toward Marc, thumb and fingers spaced just wide enough to grip his head, and pinched her fingertips together.

  “Hint taken,” Marc said.

  “I remember the Toth,” Trinia said, “when they tried to capture a Qa’Resh. They were going to murder it, satisfy their addiction for neural energy. They were Bastion’s greatest mistake…and the galaxy still suffers for it.”

  A keening wail carried down the beach as Cyrgal ran onto the sand, tearing at their clothes and waving to the moon. More picked their way through the wrecked jungle and called out to Trinia.

>   “Please don’t.” She stepped behind Martel. “I can’t stand to see them suffering like this. They share pain in a way humans and Aeon can’t understand.”

  Cyrgal stopped on the other end of the channel, in near hysterics as they pleaded to Trinia. None stepped into the water.

  Old memories dredged up through Roland’s mind, families grieving for all those lost on Earth, his own personal emotions for his lost parents—first his father dying in deep space, then his mother perishing on Luna during the second Xaros invasion. Neither’s body was ever recovered. Such a thing was common during the Ember War, but a dark, vulnerable place in him wished to lament at a parent’s side to make letting go that much easier.

  His animosity toward the Cyrgal faded away, but he still watched for any sign of hostility.

  “Pickup in sixty seconds,” Martel said.

  A patch of blue light appeared on the ocean just ahead of the transport.

  “Pull up!” Nicodemus shouted. “Tell them to—”

  A Toth plasma bolt erupted out of the water and blew through the cockpit. The ship lurched down and crashed into the ocean, tearing apart as it flipped over and over like a stone skipping across a pond. The fuselage sank a few hundred yards away, buttressed by crashing waves.

  A Toth ship, larger than a Mule and bristling with diamond-shaped cannons, emerged from the sea. Water sloughed off the top and came down in curtains around it.

  Cyrgal opened fire with their plasma rifles, singeing black streaks across the hull and accomplishing little else. A hatch on the bottom of the ship opened and a quad-barreled weapon swung out and opened fire, peppering the Cyrgal on the beach and sending them off in a rout.

  Morrigan stomped an anchor into the ground and brought her rail gun up and over her shoulder.

  “Fire that here, it’ll kill her,” Nicodemus said.

  “Seem to be out of options,” Morrigan said.

  Trinia ran from the Armor and went to a Toth body half-buried in the sand. She brushed a segment of the cracked crystal clear and slapped a palm against it.