Stigmata Invicta, page 2
“Yes, sir,” Pio says. He heads out the hatch into the passageway. The others finish their coffees and begin last-minute checks.
“Now, Brother Gonzaga.” Brigid says, approaching the new Knight as the others leave the room. Just the two of them, Brigid leans in and places his forehead near the young brother’s. With the kindness of a father consoling a child who has scraped a knee but with the firmness of a military officer speaking to someone who should know better, he says, “When God blinks, who vanishes?”
“No one, Commander. God does not blink.”
“God, with the universe on His shoulders, when He shrugs, what falls off?”
“Nothing, Commander. God does not shrug.”
“So, God has made us?”
“Yes.”
“And we respond to His graces by trying to live by love?”
“Yes.”
“And we are to love, in accordance with the second greatest commandment, as God loves?”
“Yes, Commander.”
“God loves the Thraw, despite their evils. He does not blink and let them vanish. He does not shrug and let them fall. And while He does not love their sin, He loves them. He loves us, but not our sin. I hope to avoid killing any of the Thraw, but if we must, it must be accordance with His justice. Glassing the entire planet is no way to show them the love of God. There are plenty of innocents there.”
“I know, Commander. I’m just— I’ve got a long way to go.”
“We all do, in our own ways. And you’ll get there. You’ll—”
Pio swings back into the room. “Confession. One minute each for whoever needs it. Strict. We’re getting ready to throw cloaks and move in.”
Pio ducks back out the doorway. Proudly etched into the arch over it is a passage from the Gospel according to John, chapter 15, verse 13: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Brigid slaps Gonzaga on the shoulder. “We are warriors,” he begins, “We defend those who cannot defend themselves. I will not hesitate to use force. But it must be acceptable to God, through His teachings.”
“Yes, Commander. I’m working on it.”
“I know,” Brigid says as he touches a double pendant around his neck. “All the time, I am too.”
He breaks away and withdraws his TechHaft. Ignites it. A large Merovingian battle axe blazes forth, crackling with the contained energy particles used to forge it on command. He examines it with a smile, rotating it about as thin streams of energy crawl up and down it; Gonzaga admires it as well. Brigid swings it once casually, just to feel it move, extinguishes it and the particles dissipate into nothingness, leaving only the haft. Gonzaga instinctively reaches down and grips his own TechHaft.
Brigid nods, says, “Now, if you have mortal sin, confess it, so you may better prepare for war.”
Throwing Cloaks
The Knights secure themselves inside the St. Joshua’s combat dropship seating, their backs to the port and starboard side walls, facing inward towards each other. Sliding doors are situated on either side for rapid deployment. This dropship is more spacious than others they’ve been inside, with enough room for ten Knights in their armor. RADAR-absorbent coating along the exterior to complement its fractal shape helps deflect sensory equipment. Wings with rotors built into them, pivoting with their turbojet engines next to the body. Aerodynamic nose cone. Weapons systems. A two-meter-tall print of Jesus and His Sacred Heart on the forward bulkhead. Nothing else.
The dropship itself is drone-piloted and the Knights are the only souls on board. Commander Brigid likes it that way; it’s better if he only has to worry about his Knights and not a pilot and crew if things go south.
The St. Joshua buzzes with its cloaking measures. The sound is unsettling on a subconscious level as the skin of the craft starts actively trying to defeat both visual and electronic detection measures. The resulting effect is like an aura or some bubble they’re ensconced inside. The effect is in the air. The Knights do one last check of their weaponry and tech, then without a need for prompting, they all take out their Rosaries.
“We won’t have time for a full one, but maybe a decade,” Commander Brigid says as he removes his. “What is today, local calendar?”
He looks up, trying to think. Brother Nonnatus sees him doing some kind of conversion math in his head and sighs. Responding with his flat, sandpapery tone, “Monday. Monday local time. The Joyful Mysteries, Commander.”
“Ah, yes. Joyful. Well, then. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit—” They get seven prayers in and the ready light starts flashing. Brigid completes the prayer and tells his Knights to secure.
Brother Gonzaga looks around, says, “I don’t see any fire controls or anything. Are these dropships armed?”
Nonnatus says, “I’m pretty sure they have a couple of those telson rockets—they’re solid red and two meters long. Really thin. You can carry them around with your bare hands. Air-to-air guys.”
Brother Santa Cruz smiles. “If you ask the Commander, he’ll tell you about how he got into serious trouble in the Academy when he saddled one of those things, magboot-ed to it and rode it like a horse or something.”
“Did not,” Brigid says with a smirk. “Urban legend.”
“What’s a horse?” Gonzaga asks.
“It’s like a telson rocket, only with legs. They have manual controls on the outside of them,” Nonnatus says, winking at Santa Cruz. “Why would they do that if they didn’t want you to ride them?”
“Won’t it explode, though?” Gonzaga asks.
“At some point,” Santa Cruz says. “Just get off it before then, right Commander?” He winks. Brigid laughs and waves it away.
“So,” Brother Pio says. He smiles, excited. “Stigmata, huh? When I read that in the mission briefing— boy. You guys all must know my namesake Padre Pio was a well-known stigmatic. I can’t wait to ask—”
“Yeah, but you’re gonna wait,” Santa Cruz says. “Until we get all the way back up here.”
“I know, I know,” Pio says and makes a fake growling face. “If you’d let me finish, you’d have heard me say that.”
“Sure,” Santa Cruz says, putting a piece of gum into his mouth and flicking the wadded wrapper at Pio. Pio catches it and flicks it back, hitting Santa Cruz in the eye. The wrapper falls into his lap. “I let that happen.”
They all laugh quietly.
“T-minus twenty minutes to maneuvering into the outer atmosphere,” Captain Bernhard, the skipper of the St. Joshua comes across the comms system. “We’re cloaked up. We should be reaching atmospheric turbulence in those twenty minutes. We’ll clear the drop ship for launch directly afterwards. All hands, prepare to drop.”
“All right,” Brigid says. “You heard the captain.”
The Knights ready themselves as they feel the ship outside them begin to move.
“Saint Michael the Archangel—” Brigid says.
His Knights chime in, “—defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil, we humbly pray. And do thou, O prince of the Heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell, Satan, and all evil spirits who prowl about the world, seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.”
Pio continues, “Lord protect us from every evil, and bless our mission today, so that we may receive your blessing here in this dark hour and preserve the embers of the fire You have kindled here, yet another planet and another people who need Your love and Your graces. Bless us and even our enemies, dear Lord, that we may all yet come to know Your truth, holiness and love. May the Saints and our guardian angels intercede for us. In Jesus name we pray—”
“Amen.” They all finish.
Brigid says, “From here on out, maintain all audible discipline unless mission critical.”
The silence in the drop ship impregnates the small space. Every external mechanical click and groan, every last gasp of hissing air from the St. Joshua’s pneumatic systems filled their ears. The dropship shifts once as the final adjustments settle out and then a true blackout occurs. A single electronic light ticks on and off in the depths of it, the utter silence of it broken only by its beeping.
Almost ethereally, a subtle glow of red and blue emanates from the blood and water flowing from their Savior’s sacred heart on the wall. There is no light source, and each Knight might believe he is only imagining the minute radiance. But they all perceive it.
The Knights grip their straps. All peer forward on the dropship as that light turns on, turns off. They are fixated. Here it comes.
“All hands, begin mission.” Captain Bernhard orders, and the St. Joshua jolts violently under the sudden and extreme propulsion.
THE THRUSTERS ON THE ship dilate fully open and the blazing glow of the propellant grows to a blinding white. From behind the dark side of the moon the ship rockets forth. The distance between the moon and the planet is almost four hundred thousand kilometers. To cross that in the twenty minute minutes the captain spoke of, the ultra-high output of the thrusters is pegged in the slim space between near-divinely efficient and suicidal.
The ship, cloaked against satellite and land-based detection, soars towards the brilliant penumbra surrounding Arithraw.
The planet rapidly approaches on a collision course. Cuts its thrusters. Begins reverse propulsion to counter their momentum. As the blanket of exosphere begins to caress the St. Joshua, it banks in a long arc. As it matches the curvature of the planet the ship levels out and the portside hatch opens. The dropship ratchets forward on its two receiving bollards until its beak leans out into the world. The St. Joshua maintains a steady distance from the surface of the planet, banked slightly to the north.
“Dropship in launch position in T-minus one minute,” Captain Bernhard says. “God bless you, gentlemen. And God bless our mission.”
Brother Gonzaga rolls his head on his neck, alert. Brother Cleopas is still with his Rosary in his hand, prays silently to himself. Brothers Pio and Nonnatus wait patiently as all the gears of the mission begin turning, involving them and their part to play. Brother Santa Cruz watches the status ready light blink steadily on his rail gun.
“Drop ship in position in T-minus thirty seconds.” The thirty seconds pass, ticking one after another off into oblivion.
“In position. On my mark.”
The men steady themselves and pray to their patron saints. All time for complaints, for adjustments, for refusals, all that time has passed in the blink of an eye.
“Now is the time to do, for God. Be men who use their strength for the benefit of others, my brothers,” Commander Brigid whispers.
Captain Bernhard says, “Mark.”
The dropship ejects. Within seconds of being shed from the St. Joshua, the atmosphere’s deafening roar passing by screams all around. The turbulence of freefall sends every man’s gut into a jiggling mess of nausea. Shattered equilibrium.
Each Knight’s Visuals begin a ticker counting down the distance between them and the surface. From tens of thousands of feet, so quickly dissolving to thousands. The eternal sunlight flowing through the stratosphere begins to wane as they descend into the troposphere, sinking into the murky dark of the planet. Night descends.
“Positions,” Brigid says with eager intensity. “It’s here.”
The Knights hit a single buckle on their chest, a quick release for their straps. All stand, taking one large stride to the ready rail running down the center of the ship. Each grabbing an overhead loop dangling from it. All six hands grip and pull, notifying the automated safety system they’re in place and ready, and the sliding doors unlatch with snaps like gunshots and draw backwards.
The rush of the cold atmosphere floods into the belly of the dropship. Winds whipping, the roar of the air screaming. The Knights endure as the thin clouds whoosh along inside with them, the night swirling and sapping all their heat.
“Ten seconds to jump,” Brigid says. “Ready the tech.”
In response, Nonnatus reaches to a small square controller he has mounted on his left shoulder. His thumb flips a switch and behind them in the cargo area numerous blue lights blink to life and auto adjust their brilliance down to avoid glare in the ambient darkness.
“Engage active camo.”
Each man in his stealth suit; a form-fitting outfit designed for mobility and small-caliber engagements. Printed from Ceramatex, a polymer/ceramic/carbon fiber development that provided the protection of old Earth ceramic plating but allows the ease of movement unheard of for the durability it provided. It’s almost impervious to conventional small arms and bladed weaponry.
Woven through the skin are nanotech emitter/receiver that observe what is directly opposite them and display a low-res image of it on the opposite. Using the surface of the suit itself as a screen, it displays in front of the Knight what is directly behind them, and vice versa in a 360-degree manner. Not true invisibility, but something approaching it.
Brigid says, “Coordinates are in your Visuals. All degrees are relative based off the dropship’s nose. I’ll be at zero-zero-zero. Nonnatus, you’re at one-eight-zero. Cleopas, zero-four-five. Gonzaga, one-three-five. Santa Cruz, two-two-five and Pio, you’re at two-seven-zero. When you touch, mark that lat and long as the exfil, then secure a spot fifty meters out and wait for the all-clear. Then we head east. Five seconds to jump.”
The Knights bend at the knees, then rise to the balls of their feet. One hand on his overhead loop, the other drawn in close. The electronic hum of the vertical landing and take-off system cuts and whines in reverse for a split second. Everything goes quiet.
“Jump,” And Brigid steps out the door into the nothing just beyond it.
TWO HUNDRED FEET BENEATH the dropship, the tall field grasses outside of an oppressed farm town wave in the midnight breeze. The delicate droning of the Arithraw insects carry on all around. A chirp here and there of something looking for dinner in the night.
Two feet hit the ground in a muffled slam. The Ceramatex suit clinks as its Kinetic Effect Reception Systems rolls that energy up conductors sewn into the legs and into a battery/capacitor combo on the Knight’s back, storing it. Might come in handy later.
Two more feet hit, then four. Then another two. As they land, they drop a digital marker in their Visuals to save that latitude and longitude as the rendezvous point for extraction. The Knights fan out in a 360-degree pattern, each one covering all space between the shoulders of his brother to either side. Brother Nonnatus uses eye flickers in his helmet to send commands to the drones. All four of them exit the cloaked, hovering dropship. Their dim blue lights are like bioluminescent sparks in the night. The drones, small enough to fit into two cupped hands, soar out in the four cardinal directions.
The Knights meet their fifty-meter perimeter and take up positions. Their active camo settles out and to the naked eye at such low light conditions, the Knights smear into the shadows. The bland nighttime color palette only aids them further. So little contrast to blend into.
The quiescence of night lays down heavily against them. In stark contrast to the noise, rush and cavalcade of the St. Joshua and the drop, now the silence is so piercing it raises their hackles.
The drones fire up their scanning arrays. Tour the small town and the surrounding area, nitpicking the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Each drone is equipped with specific arrays, so a few minutes pass as every drone makes a full sweep. Nonnatus takes in all the raw data in his Visuals. The onboard software in his system overlays the scans to add layer upon layer of detail. He reduces the informational noise and clutter, sharpens the images and pushes them out to his brothers.
“Nothing useful in the radio waves, microwaves, gamma and ultraviolet. I do have contacts with infrared, visible and X-rays. They’re all marked in the Visuals,” Nonnatus says.
“What are the contacts?” Commander Brigid asks.
“Just Thraw life over in the town. Inside the buildings, houses, whatever. Usual stuff, looks like. Everybody settling down for the night. Nothing looks like it’s alerted to us.”
“Okay. Indications of military watchtowers, overflights, potential hostiles? Anything remote?”
“Looks like a patrol on the far side. At least a kilometer away and moseying along. Closer to us, I see two ground vehicles parked with their engines running. On heading two-eight-one. Might be another patrol, but if it is, the soldiers are inside a building. They’re not with the vehicles. Nothing tall enough to be a legitimate manned watchtower. I don’t detect a radio or comms tower, either. First impression is they’re relying on goons to patrol.”
“Roger. Anything else worth mentioning?”
“No other signs of electronic detection, no laser trip wire kind of stuff. Not even cameras.”
“That’s the nice thing about tyrannical regimes,” Brother Santa Cruz says. “Oppression doesn’t do much for advancement. We’re fighting low-tech brutes here.”
“We’re not fighting at all,” Brigid says. “We’re slipping in and out. Nonnatus, do you see our contact?”
Nonnatus checks his watch, says, “Supposed to start up in about twenty-six seconds, on the hour.” He sweeps the drones’ arrays towards the town.
On the outskirts is nothing more than a few trees. Sparse foliage, thin trunks and branches, short. Hefty stones scattered amongst the semi-barren ground. Nature has been pruned back to allow for a flattened, earthy plain on which the Thraw built their settlements. The town’s plot is circular, a few kilometers in diameter. Clusters of small buildings have been thrown up and are now wearing the dilapidation of a century.
Brother Gonzaga stands in the combat ready stance they drilled into him in post-academy schools. Knees bent, up on the balls of his feet. Arms at weapons ready; established grip and finger indexed along the trigger guard. Just swing up on point and let fly. Head on a swivel.
A small insect flutters up on two pirs of wings, lands on his transparent forearm. Tucks its wings behind two long elytron like throwing daggers. Four spindly legs. Four segments to its body with ungainly, bulbous eyes. It scampers along on his forearm, a single moniliform antennae rotating like a RADAR dish on its head. He gives his arm a quick jerk and the thing flutters away into the Arithraw night.
