by Richard Fox
“Or we seize it and bargain a peace settlement,” Laran said.
“Hit it from orbit,” Gideon said. “Seize the advantage while we still can.”
“No good,” the Strike Marine said. “The dome’s shielded.”
Gideon looked at Trinia.
“I didn’t know that.” She frowned.
“We can’t seize the Crucible,” the Strike Marine said. “The assault force never even made it. Even if we could get off world, we can’t leave this system. Not while the Kesaht control the gate. And no chance of reinforcements from Earth either. There’s a disruption field emanating from the Crucible.”
“If the disruption field is active, the Risen can’t return to Hegemony City,” Trinia said. “Scrambles the signal. Their leaders will be hesitant.”
“The only thing that’s gone according to plan is this beachhead,” Laran said. “And if the Aeon is right, then we’ve got an opportunity. We need to strike hard. Strike fast. Because as soon as the Kesaht get their act together, we’re in for trouble.”
“An offensive?” the Ranger asked. “We barely know which units have even made it here.”
“We’ll manage,” Laran said. “Muster every combat-rated soldier and Marine to sector Blue 1. Backfill the ones on the perimeter with support personnel not offloading supplies or treating wounded. Eight lances of Armor will lead the assault.”
“And how will we breach the walls?” the Strike Marine asked.
Gideon touched the vanes of his rail gun.
“And destroying this cloning center?”
Gideon touched his rail gun again.
“Always nice to find the simple solution,” Trinia said.
“Get our troops moving,” Laran said to the two colonels. “I’ll have forward command. Gideon, with me.”
Trinia wagged fingers at the map, rattling off information to the Strike Marine. She didn’t give Gideon a second glance as he followed Laran.
Chapter 11
Admiral Makarov blinked hard as the aftereffects of a wormhole jump clawed at her body. White fractal patterns cleared from her vision as she keyed in demands by feel and memory for status reports from the Warsaw and the attending fleet.
“Scope reads clear,” her gunnery officer called out.
“Launch ready fighters and maneuver to fleet formation phalanx-four,” Makarov said. Ship icons on a screen attached to her command chair went from gray to green as more and more ships reported in from the wormhole jump.
Makarov looked out the front windows of her bridge. The band of a deep-purple nebula stretched across the void, while small pinpricks of stars glowed like distant lamps in a fog.
“Pulsar detection puts us in the Nekara system,” her astrogator announced. “Passive sensors identifying planetary bodies now.”
The admiral slapped the harness buckle on her chest and the straps over her shoulders and hips retracted into her seat. She swung out of the chair and found Lady Ibarra already at the holo table to the rear of the bridge. The growing picture of the Nekara system, the blue star and out system gas giants, reflected off her silver skin.
“We’re close,” Stacey said. Her mouth didn’t move with the words, but Makarov heard her through her helmet’s speakers. Stacey was the only one on the bridge not wearing a void suit or a helmet. The Warsaw made the last jump under combat conditions—atmosphere sucked out of the ship to mitigate the risk of fires and blast-wave damage from an enemy attack.
“Haven’t found the inhabited world yet,” Makarov said. “If there even is one. If the Ark is on a Kuiper Belt object or floating somewhere in the star’s gravity well, we could be searching for a very long time, my Lady.”
“This is Qa’resh,” Stacey said, tapping her fingertips to her metal chest. “The Ark is Qa’resh. There’s a certain…resonance…I feel when near that technology. It’s…calling to me.” She reached into the holo field and twisted her fingers around to hold an imaginary sphere.
“Sensors,” Makarov said, “turn scopes to sector nine-five. Declination two-zero-four off primary.”
“Aye aye,” the commander replied.
A moment later, a green and brown planet appeared in the holo field, a fraction off where Stacey had her fingers.
“Nitrogen, oxygen atmosphere,” Makarov said. “Surface pressure is a few percent off standard. Temperature and every other factor is within habitable parameters. An ideal world to support life and colonize.”
“But there’s no sign of any, is there?” Stacey asked. “No radio energy. No heat from massive cities. Nothing.”
Makarov swiped two fingers down the axis of the planet and pulled up sensor data. Stacey was right. The planet was dormant.
“This may not be the place.” Makarov bit back a frown. “You said the Qa’resh sent a probe here and sent a message back to old Bastion, correct? This is the most likely place it would have found life…Wait.”
The image of the planet resolved further. A wide band of an earth-colored ring formed around the planet, canted across the equator.
“That’s…odd,” Makarov said. “Rings always form level to the—”
A second ring appeared, perpendicular to and intersecting with the first, a massive X over the planet.
“They’re not rings,” Stacey said. She pinched the nexus between the two bands and a small icon flashed between her fingers as one of the Warsaw’s powerful telescopes focused on the point. Stacey opened her fingers and the icon grew larger.
A window opened, and inverted pyramids floated in the space. The bases of the structures were flat and long, and irregular spikes hung from the triangle faces. A central spire twisted out from the apex, pointing to the planet below. Dozens more of the structures stretched out through the image.
“The rings are…the rings are those pyramids,” Makarov said, and a tendril of fear slunk around her heart. “There must be thousands of them.”
“Millions.” Stacey drew her hand back to her lips. “They’re miles high. Bigger than even the Cyrgal ships or Toth dreadnoughts.”
“If they’re hostile…I don’t know if we could defeat a single one of them,” Makarov said.
Stacey’s doll face turned to the admiral.
“It’s not cowardice, my Lady. It is the truth. To build a ship like that is beyond us. If that is Qa’resh technology, then—”
“That is not the Ark,” Stacey said. “Not even Qa’resh technology. Look at them, Makarov. No energy signature. No power. They’re off-line…or abandoned.” She tapped out commands on a keypad and bands of the planet popped off the holo as the fleet scanned the planet below.
“What are they?” Makarov pulled a pyramid out of the holo and examined it further. “It’s even larger than the star fort over Navarre. The engineering to build so many is—”
“Irrelevant. We’re here for the Ark, nothing else.” Ibarra touched a strip of telescope feed taken off Nekara and swiped through it slowly.
“Shall we send a pioneer team to examine one of the pyramids?” Makarov asked.
“No. Have the Breitenfeld unload the Keystone gate and begin construction. Maintain strict radio silence…dormant ships aren’t a threat to why I’m here.” Stacey swiped the other direction on the feed strip and held a fingertip to the holo. The image changed to an infrared image and concentric circles appeared within a jungle. At the center was an ivory building with discordant protrusions.
“There you are,” Stacey half-whispered. “At last.”
Makarov thought she would feel a sense of relief knowing that the Ark had been found, but her apprehension only grew.
“Breitenfeld acknowledges the order,” Makarov said. “Void construction teams estimate eighty hours before the Keystone will be ready to get us back to into the Crucible network and back home.”
“Good.” Stacey stepped back from the holo table. “Inform Marshal Davoust that I am on my way to the Ark. His legionnaires will establish an outer cordon while the armor and I go inside to take control.”
“And if the pyramids activate? Become hostile?” Makarov asked as Stacey went to the elevator doors.
Stacey Ibarra said nothing, but she tapped her fist to her chest over where her heart would have been if she still had one. She gave Makarov a nod and got into the elevator.
“I tell Roland to have faith in the face of doubt and now look at me,” the admiral muttered to herself. “I’m not going to tell him he might have had a point. I’m just not.”
Her executive officer, Andere, and other staff officers approached the holo table and Makarov focused her attention on her fleet and on constructing the Keystone jump gate that would get them all home.
She had a feeling the next hours would pass slowly…all too slowly.
****
A pyramid ship hung in Roland’s vision. He was in armor, his suit folded onto itself in a long rectangle, bolted to the deck of a Destrier transport along with the rest of his unit and the Nisei and Uhlan lances.
Details of the pyramid ship’s dimensions appeared as he zoomed in on the structure.
“That…is really big,” Roland said.
“Amazing observation,” Morrigan said through the lance’s internal IR channel. “I can tell you’re an experienced soldier.”
“We’re all thinking the same thing,” Nicodemus said. “I’m not even sure if the massed rail cannons of every armor on this mission would make a dent in that thing.”
“A dozen of us can slag a Kesaht battleship,” Morrigan said. “We can do more than scratch their paint…whoever ‘they’ are.”
“No activity since we jumped in,” Roland said. “Maybe we got lucky and they’ll stay asleep, or they’re all dead. When did old Bastion last have contact with this place?”
“Mission brief says several thousand years,” said Martel, the lance commander. “But for two rings of that many structures to orbit through each other and stay in the sky for that long…there’s something or someone tending to them. Marshal Davoust has us making landfall under anti-grav engines. Slow atmo entry to reduce thermal signatures.”
“Long and slow,” Morrigan said, a sigh to her words. “Good thing we’re all cozy in transport config.”
Roland felt footfalls through the Destrier’s deck. A launch alert icon appeared on his HUD and he dismissed it with a flick of his eyes. He felt hydraulics activate in the large transport and activated cameras on the outside of his armor.
Lady Ibarra’s honor guard passed by him, heading to the crew compartment in the fore of the ship. Roland pulled his arms and legs close to his torso, feeling the slight current of amniosis against his bare feet and hands.
Stacey stopped next to Roland and waved her guards onward.
Roland’s mood darkened as Stacey looked over the rows of armor, all folded into transport configuration. She sat cross-legged against Roland’s armor and he felt the ship rise off the Warsaw’s deck; a hum through his womb told him the ship was moving under the anti-grav engines.
“Roland,” Martel sent to him. “Why is the Lady—”
The channel cut off, replaced by a slight hiss of static.
“Hello, my Black Knight,” Stacey said, referencing the dark matte color of his armor and a nickname he picked up fighting Kesaht on a bridge.
“My Lady,” Roland said.
“You’ve been…quiet?” She reached to one side and ran her fingers over the red Templar cross painted onto his shoulder actuator.
“I spoke with Admiral Makarov about…my hand. Little else.”
“You’re not lying to me. Should I be honored or offended?”
“Templar do not lie to our leaders.”
“There are lies of commission, Mr. Roland, and there are lies of omission. A fine line if ever there was one. Does not telling the whole truth constitute a lie? Should we tell everyone everything we know at all times? That would be a bit bothersome, no?” Stacey held out a hand and the cargo bay lights reflected off her shell.
“I will stay true to my vows, my Lady. This mission is vital to the Nation.”
“Why can’t you just…do you know how annoying it is to speak to you? Straitlaced. Duty, duty, duty. Why can’t you just talk to me like a real person?”
“You are…Lady Ibarra.”
“And I’m not a real person. Not real like you. Or anyone else in the Nation but my bastard of a grandfather. Of all the people in the galaxy to keep a Qa’resh ambassador shell, it had to be him. Couldn’t have been Pa’lon of the Dotari. He wanted to die surrounded by fat grandkids on his home world. I can’t tell who’s the more selfish, him or Marc Ibarra.”
“I’m sorry, my Lady. I don’t understand.”
“Roland, we are here for the Ark. But what if…there was something else? What if I found something that could put me back into my old body? Would I still be your ‘Lady’ then?” She tilted her head back slightly to touch his armor.
A slight chill flowed through the amniosis.
“It would not matter to me,” he said. “But…I believe you were injured? Which is why you—”
“Trapped. Yes. But to feel my old self again…even if it was for a moment before it all ended. The bullet clipped my heart. There wasn’t much time left for me. Grandpa and Jimmy had one chance to keep me alive and they took it. Even though I don’t know if this is living.”
She tapped the tips of her fingers against her thumb.
“Do you ever feel like you’re not alive when you’re plugged in?” she asked Roland. “There’s no pain for you. No fatigue. Is it like being in a dream?”
“I ‘feel’ my armor. It is an extension of myself. I am Armor.”
“Yes, that’s the way it has to work for you…hmm…” She traced a line from the tip of a thumb to her wrist, then up and down each finger. “I feel this. It’s like I’m in my old self…but I see the silver and I know it’s a lie. My soul is here, but my heart is not.”
“Are we really here for the Ark, my Lady?”
“Yes,” Stacey said firmly. “That is all that matters. Make no mistake of that, you understand. If we find something else…who knows? In this form, I will be Lady Ibarra forever. If I could return to my body for a few seconds before I died…that would be the height of selfishness, wouldn’t it? I’d abandon you all just for…nothing, really. To surrender to death. Suicide is simple cowardice.”
“You are my Lady,” Roland said. “No matter what. I don’t agree with what you’ve done…but I can understand why you did it.”
“I don’t deserve you.” She shook her head. “Any of you. Armor was always better than me, or Grandfather. I knew that when Elias tried to destroy Malal. He knew what a monster Malal was…but I saved that monster. Because we needed Malal. Didn’t matter if we destroyed the Xaros Masters, their drones would still have killed us all.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Elias was the hero. He was stronger than I was. All the Iron Hearts were. They saw annihilation coming and fought to the end. I saw the same fate and made a deal with the devil to keep myself—and everyone else in the galaxy—alive. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Did you know that I—what’s this?”
She drifted off for a moment, then a faint glow formed behind her eyes.
“Lady Ibarra? Are you all right?” Roland asked. When there was no answer, he tried to open another channel but was locked out.
Roland wondered if this was another of her episodes and began to unlock the safety protocols keeping him in transport configuration.
Stacey’s chin dropped to her chest, then reared back and struck Roland’s armor.
“Fools!” she shouted, so loud Roland’s ears rang.
“My Lady?”
“Our old friends in the Terran Union have attacked the Kesaht in their home system. My link to their armor, the component you were looking at with your techs, sends data through the Crucible gates from time to time. I can connect to individual Armor when needed. Alerts will come in when there are casualties.”
“Casualties? The Iron
Dragoons, are they all right?”
“You care?” Stacey put the base of a palm against her temple and her eyes glowed faintly.
“They…no, my Lady.”
“So much to sift through…they’re losing. But they have a foothold on the Kesaht’s planet. They left Earth nearly undefended. Stupid, stupid move, Garret. Should’ve waited for me. Should have waited. I have nothing from your Dragoons. Not that I’d mind seeing Gideon die; he’s cost us dearly.”
“When we’re finished here, will we help them?”
“When we have the Ark, nothing else will matter.” She stood up. “The Kesaht won’t be the first to see what the Ark can do. We have scales to balance, Roland. Blood debts to pay.” Pressing a finger to her lips, she said, “Hush hush” and walked away.
Roland’s communication systems came back online.
“Roland?” Nicodemus asked. “What was that all about?”
“She…she asked me not to say.” Roland’s heart felt heavy as he replied, unsure if he was telling a lie by omission or commission.
“Such is her privilege,” Martel said. “Run targeting diagnostics. We’ve got a good eleven hours until we make landfall. Use them wisely.”
“Yes, sir.” Roland wrapped his arms around his body within his womb, the chill of Stacey’s presence still with him.
****
The drop ship shuddered as it entered Nekara’s atmosphere. Ochre clouds filled the view ports as Roland watched the first licks of flames against the craft’s heat shield. The deck bucked hard enough for him to feel a slight disturbance within his armor’s womb. His lance stood at the four corners of the cargo bay to distribute their weight equally.
Making the descent in walker configuration bothered Roland; standard operating procedure was to go down strapped to the deck in their boxed-up travel config. But if their VIP was in jeopardy, there was no time to unlimber.
He turned his helm to Lady Ibarra and her entourage in the middle of the cargo bay. Holo screens floated around Stacey, the rapid-fire switch of information from the holos reflecting off her silver face. She wore a standard set of matte-black legionnaire power armor, leaving only the metal of her face and hands exposed as she swiped through the incoming feeds. A half dozen of her honor guard formed a circle around her, their boots mag-locked to the deck, ceremonial halberds braced to keep their balance during the descent.
