The Last Aeon

by Richard Fox

“Tomenekai, do you hear me? I surrender, you understand? I surrender!” she shouted.

  The Ixio’s face appeared on the armor, cracked to match the damaged surface.

  “No, Trinia! You can’t!” Marc darted around Araki’s grasp.

  “Wait…” Roland stepped toward the pair when his Armor froze. His HUD dissolved and the world faded into a white abyss, like he was going through a Crucible wormhole.

  +Let her go.+

  He’d felt this once before—what felt like a lifetime ago—during a battle with the Vishrakath.

  Saint Kallen.

  The beach returned and Roland stumbled forward, his every nerve humming. He looked over to the rest of the Armor; all were just as stunned as he was.

  “Let her go,” Martel said. “Let her go, Marc!” The colonel stomped forward and grasped the metal man by the shoulder and hauled him back.

  “I’ll go with you,” Trinia said to the Kesaht. “But you must let them live. Let the rest of the Cyrgal live. You understand?”

  Tomenakai turned his head from side to side, focusing his oversized eyes on her one at a time.

  “Agreed,” he said.

  “You see this?” She touched her broach. “Poison. You break our deal, I’ll be dead before I hit the ground. Then you’ll have nothing but a war with the Cyrgal for all your trouble. See how Bale rewards you then.”

  “An Ixio keeps his word,” Tomenakai said and the crystal screen fizzled away.

  “Are you all insane?” Marc asked. “She can’t—”

  Martel squeezed his shoulder.

  Trinia, her pallor light, almost ashen now, darted her gaze from Marc to the approaching Toth ship. She put one hand in the sand and then brushed them clean.

  “I’m sorry, Marc,” she said. “I did wish to see Stacey again. Remember me well. Remember the Aeon well.”

  She ran into the ocean and was up to her knees in surf when the Toth ship hovered overhead. A ramp lowered and a Toth warrior hauled her up and into the ship. He dragged her away, Marc’s cries lost in the engine noise.

  Morrigan kept her rail gun trained on the ship as it rose into the air.

  “Don’t,” Martel said.

  “I’d never. I heard Her,” Morrigan said. “Just for appearances.”

  “We all heard her?” Roland asked.

  The silence from the Armor was all the answer he needed.

  “‘Heard’?” Marc kicked Martel in the shin. “What is wrong with all of you?”

  “Saint Kallen,” Nicodemus said. “She…commanded us.”

  “She did?” Marc stopped, dumbfounded, then shrugged the shoulder in Martel’s grasp and was released. He went over to the dead Toth where Trinia had spoken to the Ixio and pawed through the sand, picking up Trinia’s necklace and giving it a quick shake.

  “Why leave that behind?” Roland asked.

  “Because it’s what we needed,” Marc said. “I started off as an inventor. A scientist. And I don’t care what species you are—a true master of knowledge keeps notes. These are data crystals. Thousands of years of work with Qa’Resh technology all right here.”

  “The Toth still have her,” Roland said. “What do we do now?”

  “Saint Kallen’s got us this far,” Marc said. “Keep the faith, son…and pray for Trinia.”

  Chapter 21

  While the Dragoons were stopped in a wade—a dried-out riverbed—at the base of a mountain, Santos scraped black soil out of the grooves of his anchor bit. The storms had passed, and the sky was full of the great swath of the Milky Way. Umbra was closer to the galactic center than Earth, and he’d never seen a night sky like the one above.

  Aignar sat with his back to the dirt wall, his gauss cannons between his feet as he repaired the chamber mechanism. Gideon was at the end of the wade, his head and shoulder in defilade against the side.

  “It always like this?” Santos asked as his anchor snapped back into his heel.

  “What exactly?” Aignar asked without looking up.

  “Confusion. Killing. Never-ending pressure.” Santos ran a diagnostic on his weapon systems and grew concerned at his low ammo reserves.

  “I’ve had it better and I’ve had it worse,” Aignar said. “Your old man saw the elephant. He never spoke to you about it?”

  “No. He never even let me watch his first movie, that Last Stand on Takeni. Which is odd, as Mr. Standish let customers at his liquor store download his recut version of the film. Dad was a lot prouder of all those romantic comedy movies he made later. He didn’t even want to do commentary on the twentieth anniversary edition, but Standish threatened to cut off his under-the-table payments if he didn’t.”

  “That movie is a propaganda piece,” Aignar said. “Barely has Armor in it. They could’ve added more of the Smoking Snakes, but—wait…under-the-table payments?”

  “Thirty-some child-support payments,” Santos said. “Mr. Standish is a good guy…he knew all of us were being taken care of, but he also didn’t want his spokesman living in some studio apartment in some Tucson shithole. Bad for the image.”

  “I never met Standish,” Aignar said. “Now, Roland said he…never mind.”

  “Roland the Black Knight?” Santos asked. “The one that defected to the Ibarras?”

  “The traitor.” Aignar leveled a finger, then rubbed the jawline on his helm. “He’s gone. You’re here now. Don’t bring him up again.” He slapped the gauss cannon assembly onto his forearm and connected the ammo line running into the magazines beneath his back.

  “Sorry,” Santos said.

  “Drop incoming,” Gideon said.

  Santos’s HUD pinged as traces of orbital drops appeared. He got up, hearing his servos grind with dirt, projecting the landing zones.

  “We’re nowhere near any of these,” he said. “How many other lances are out here?”

  “Just us,” Gideon said. “But a few dozen extra pods, landing over an extended area…”

  “Is a bluff that we’re not alone,” Aignar said, “and it gives them too many options for our true resupply point. If they try and investigate them all, they’ll spread themselves thin looking for us. One pod landing on top of us is a nice big kick-me sign.”

  “Now the hard part,” Gideon said. “The Risen could have made it to one of two bolt holes.”

  A map came up in Santos’s HUD, and he saw two spots pinged along a highway leading to the wrecked spaceport.

  “The northernmost location was larger and closer to where we ambushed the column,” Gideon said. “Orbitals saw mechanized infantry moving in before the storms hit. Southern bolt hole was smaller, but tanks and artillery were detected in there.”

  “Which would the Risen go to?” Aignar said.

  “He ran off with his tail between his legs when we showed up,” Santos said. “If he thought we were on his heels, you think he’d want Rakka to protect him?”

  “Decent observation,” Gideon said.

  “Why even move?” Aignar asked. “Risen must have heard the supply depot was slagged. He burns fuel moving armor off the front lines and he risks getting caught out when the sun comes up…in a few Earth days. Shelter in place. Wait for logistics to come back on line.”

  “Never wait for the enemy to act,” Gideon said. “Force them into making a bad decision. That’s why General Kendall ordered an offensive down this movement corridor.”

  A blue arrow stabbed out from Union lines down toward the Risen’s valley.

  “Kesaht don’t have the bullets or fuel for an extended fight,” Gideon said. “They either die in place or they retreat.”

  “Both,” Aignar said. “Sanheel don’t give a damn if Rakka die. Risen are the highest echelon in their society. They’ll leave the infantry at the north end of the valley to hold off our attack, giving them time to escape south.”

  “Agreed,” Gideon said. Map tiles flashed as the captain sorted through the terrain.

  “What about an air evacuation?” Santos asked. “Send a shuttle out to get the
VIP out of danger.”

  “You don’t know Sanheel,” Aignar said. “Prideful. Arrogant. It’s one thing to ‘advance in the other direction’ out of a battle when it’s obvious they’ll lose. But waving to your troops as you skip town is admitting defeat. Hurts their standing within the hierarchy. When you’re functionally immortal, your reputation’s the only thing you’ve really got.”

  “MacArthur got a Medal of Honor for the failed defense of the Philippines,” Santos said. “He never forgave the general that surrendered to the Japanese. Funny how all that works.”

  “And Napoleon snuck back to France to control the narrative before word of his loss in Egypt could catch up,” Gideon said. “It’s normally a mistake to overlay our culture onto aliens, but hierarchies exist across nature. Kesaht are no exception. If this was an Ixio Risen, our plan would change.”

  “Bunch of cowards,” Aignar said.

  “Then where do we—” A screech in the air interrupted Santos. A drop pod came down on the other side of a hill and struck with a womph.

  “Resupply,” Gideon said as he waved an arm forward and ran over the hill.

  The pod was a rough-cut sphere with twenty sides with a diameter slightly taller than their suits. Metal pinged and smoked in the slight crater it generated on landing. Gideon ran a hand along a pod face and a small panel popped open. Data lines snaked out of his wrist and into ports.

  “Gather round,” Gideon said. “Self-destruct countdown paused, but we can’t tarry.”

  “How long’s the timer?” Santos backed up to the pod and the flat sides fell open. Servo arms extended from inside and began repairing the dents and hole in his Armor.

  “Eight minutes,” Gideon said. “Then this crater gets a lot bigger.”

  Fresh ammo magazines went into his weapon housings, and Santos’s mood perked up as the round counters rose and went green. His amniosis swirled as fresh fluid injected into his pod.

  “These things figure out some way to rub my shoulders, I’ll marry it,” Aignar said.

  His lance mates turned their helms to him.

  “Don’t judge me,” Aignar said.

  “Intel dump came with the pod,” Gideon said. “Damn it…intelligence put a ‘low probability’ that the Risen moved during the storm and made it to the Kesaht base in IV Corps’ sector. Air assets are being redirected there.”

  “Those weenies have no idea what it’s like out here,” Aignar said. “They think they know a storm when they’ve been in the same bunker sucking down coffee and hot food since they got on world?”

  “What does that mean for us, sir?” Santos asked.

  “Kesaht fighters,” Gideon said. “If we pick up an air threat, cavalry’s not coming anytime quick…and the attack that’s going to run smack into the Rakka infantry will be hurting for air support.”

  “They’ll figure it out when all the Kesaht fighters are over this valley protecting the Risen, right?” Santos asked.

  “Time slows down when you’re waiting for air support,” Aignar said. “Doesn’t seem to for the enemy.”

  “There’s a forest on the Risen’s route of march,” Gideon said, sending a waypoint to their HUDs. “We’ll have some top cover there.”

  “Well,” Aignar said, raising his gauss cannon arm and stepping away from the drop pod, “when we’re up to our eyeballs in crescent fighters, we’ll know we’ve found the Risen.”

  “Let’s move,” Gideon said.

  ****

  Being buried alive was oddly comforting for Santos. His suit lay facedown in a shallow depression, his back covered by dirt and loose branches thrown on by Aignar before the other Iron Dragoon moved off to his own position elsewhere in the small forest.

  He’d gone through the Long Dark of the sensory-deprivation pods during training, days on end of nothing but the abyss and his own thoughts. The training was meant to steel him against his suit being disabled and left on the battlefield until rescue and recovery…whenever that might happen.

  A story had circulated while he was a trainee at Knox about a pod recovered by a Pathfinder on some ice ball during one of the skirmishes with the Naroosha. The lone Pathfinder—the rest of his team killed in action—dragged a pod for almost twenty-five miles through hostile territory, not knowing if the soldier inside was alive or dead.

  None of the cadre ever confirmed or denied the tale, and the cadets had speculated whether the ambiguity was meant to heighten anxiety during the Long Dark (they all faced the same question: just how long could they wait before going insane or asphyxiating in their pod when the amniosis ran out of oxygen) or if the rumors of the story’s connection to the Templar and Saint Kallen had something to do with it.

  With his suit powered down and his only external feed coming from a small optic periscope and his IR connection to his lance, Santos was as well-hidden as a fifteen-foot metal killing machine could be in the forest. No need to move or breathe. He could remain in this position for weeks on end…though he was certain they’d find the Risen before that.

  The forest hugged one side of the valley, clinging to a deep stream running down from the mountain. The next ridge over was a few miles away, its terrain consisting of windswept rocks offering little in the way of cover but shallow dips.

  “New guy,” Aignar sent over the IR, “whatever you do, don’t think about all the worms in the soil. I saw them when I was covering you. They’re huge. Like damn pythons. Sharp pointy teeth and slimy...so slimy.”

  “I know I’m the new guy,” Santos said, “and I know when you’re just messing with me.”

  “I’m serious,” Aignar said.

  Santos was certain he heard a giggle.

  “Watch your sector,” Gideon sent. The lance commander was farther back in the forest, well away from their vantage points.

  A seismic sensor in his suit registered a detection.

  “Got something,” Santos said. “Low and steady. Consistent with Kesaht tanks.”

  “Dust on the horizon,” Gideon said. “Column on approach.”

  Santos nibbled on his lower lip, an old trick he’d used to keep his mind alive in the sensory-deprivation tanks that developed into a nervous habit. They’d had the drop on the first Kesaht force they ambushed: Nova shells, close quarters—a fight Armor was designed to dominate and win.

  Fighting on open terrain against Kesaht tanks was not how his lance would survive. Gideon wanted a precision strike on the Risen and then a quick exit up the valley…but if the Kesaht detected them somehow, the scales would quickly fall out of their favor.

  “Company plus of heavy tanks.” Aignar sent images of the lead elements of the Kesaht column: over a dozen of the double-turreted vehicles, moving at a decent speed for something so massive. Another image of Sanheel warriors—hundreds at a gallop just behind the tanks—followed.

  “Good thing we ammo’d up,” Aignar said. “Might not have had enough bullets for them all. Tanks are slowing…Sanheel coming around the flank and heading for the forest. Scouting force is my guess.”

  “Maintain cover,” Gideon said. “We need to identify and kill the Risen. We’re in a better position if we kill him with our first shot.”

  “Thinking quiet thoughts,” Aignar said. “If you hear Sanheel getting murdered, you know they found me.”

  “Orders understood,” Santos said. The quality of his hasty camouflage suddenly became very important to him. Armor weren’t subtle in their employment or actions. Hiding in the bushes was for Pathfinders.

  The lead tanks came into view, travelling in groups of five arrayed in a wedge formation. Santos zoomed in on the dust-caked vehicles, looking for anything distinctive that would mark out the Risen’s vehicle.

  “Should be three times as many tanks,” Aignar said, “based on what was spotted during our crunchies’ last fight.”

  “As if this tactical problem wasn’t enough? You want more tanks?” Santos asked.

  “Fuel,” Gideon said. “They’re moving as fast as they can wor
k the engines. Inefficient. Burns more fuel than a slower pace. Risen chose speed over more tanks to escort him.”

  “Scouts entering the forest,” Aignar said.

  Santos held his optic line steady. It was thin as a straw and a subdued gray, and he had worked it through a bush with tiny needles for concealment. He wasn’t certain how sharp Sanheel eyesight was, but a human would have to practically trip on it before they realized something was amiss in the foliage.

  His instructors’ reminders about assumptions being the root cause of all failures played in the back of his mind. He considered withdrawing the scope, but then he would be deaf and blind while buried in a shallow grave. The lance needed him to find the Risen, not cower in a hole.

  The clomp of hooves rumbled through the forest as a pair of Sanheel brushed past his location, both carrying long rifles with bayonets beneath an arm. He felt a slight vibration through his pod as another pair slowed to a stop near him.

  An alien wandered right in front of his optic line. The Sanheel was large, a little over nine feet tall, with a single tusk protruding from the left side of its dust-caked face. When it snorted and shook its head like a wet dog, dust flew off and formed a brief cloud around its shoulders. It wiped the back of a hand across a meaty face and rested its flank against a tree trunk. Loose strands of thick hair partially covered the skull implant over one ear. Wires connected an earpiece to equipment built into the shoulder armor.

  “Kal ora min darra,” it rumbled and set the butt of its rifle against the ground.

  Santos activated his suit’s translation software. The Terran Union had picked up enough Sanheel and Ixio transmissions to piece together their language, something they hadn’t managed with the Rakka yet.

  “We rest and we invite the storm,” another Sanheel said from off to one side. Santos didn’t move the optic line for fear the movement might catch their eyes.

  “This isn’t home,” the first said, drawing a line off a shoulder and putting it in its mouth. It spat out muddy water and then took a long draught. “All of us made the run across the Plain of Blood for the trials. Done in a single sun’s pass. This ball of manure is nothing but a pain in my hooves in all directions, save for ugly mountains. We can run until we drop dead before this place’s suns rise again.”