The Exalting

by Dan Allen

  Dana’s gaze jumped from bird to bird, dizzingly, as she fought their urge to flock together.

  Jet’s hand rest on her shoulder. “You okay?”

  Dana nodded. In a few more seconds, she was going to need her own “recharge.”

  Finally one of the birds spotted the large, bulbous shape of the enemy ship in a clearing. Dana released the rest of the flock and held to this one bird.

  She could hardly believe what she saw. She had expected something similar to mechanodrons, gangly and awkward. The simuloids coming out of it looked and acted exactly like Xahans. “The simuloids are coming out—they’re heading straight toward us.” They were of all types: men and women, even a few youth. But mostly men.

  “Simuloids,” Jet said. “Anything bigger?”

  “No . . . wait . . . yes. Like a mechanodron greeder with . . . are those ‘guns’ on its shoulders?”

  “Bounder mechs,” Jet said lowly. “How many?”

  “One . . . there’s another. I see two.”

  He gave a low whistle. “This is going to be just like Rodor.”

  “Rodor?” Dana asked.

  “The world of the giants.”

  “The enemy is bringing giants?”

  “You’ll love them,” Jet said, flashing a grin.

  “I will not.” Dana led the greeder down along the trade road, trying to circle the enemy position.

  “The mechs will probably stay by the dropship,” Angel explained. “To protect it.”

  “Wait.” Dana sensed something else. Something much bigger. “I think they may have chose the wrong field to land in.”

  “Come again?” Jet said.

  “It’s thunder bison mating season.”

  Jet gave what sounded like a stifled cry of joy. “Oh yes! Let them feel what it’s like to get run through, for once.”

  “You’ve been gored by a thunder bison?”

  Jet nodded. “Oh yeah.”

  “How?”

  “Our mechandron minds, our AIs, can make dreams for training purposes. Painful ones.”

  “That sounds fun.”

  “You would say that—look out.”

  Jet rolled off the greeder and pulled Dana off the saddle with him. She tumbled to the ground and looked up to see Jet on one knee, pointing his gun at the trees.

  “What was that about?” Dana stood up and brushed off her palms, willing the greeder back to their position. Then she changed her mind and sent it off toward the city. It was too easy to spot, too easy to follow.

  Too bad. They would have to cover the last mile and a half on foot, with a dozen simuloids hunting them.

  Jet looked through a small spyglass on his gun. “There’s something in the trees.”

  “Yeah,” Dana said, pushing his gun down. “It’s a three-horn bandeer. Leave the animals to me.” She yanked him to his feet.

  “You knew there was a deer there?”

  “Yes, I told it to stay and watch around the corner of the copse of trees for us.”

  Jet’s eyes widened.

  “Is that so amazing?”

  “It’s quite remarkable,” Angel said aloud. “I was barely able to detect motion in the trees and warn Jet. You must have sensed it well before it came into visual range.

  “Yes,” Dana said. “But unfortunately, the more I do it, the less I feel like doing anything. I mean, in my head I know going on foot is the only safe way, but I don’t much feel like running right now. Not at all.”

  “Move, soldier.” Jet shoved Dana in the back.

  “That’s one way,” Angel mumbled. “Any other great ideas, Romeo?”

  “Ha. Ha.”

  Apparently Angel had just made fun of Jet.

  “We need some cover,” Jet said. “What about—” he stopped midsentence as a light flickered in the glass piece over his eye.

  Dana sensed it was well. Small animals darting for their burrows. Birds hopping to the opposite sides of trees. “They’re coming—and fast.”

  Jet tugged Dana toward the side of the road, ducking behind a small berm.

  “The simuloids will fan out, six on each side.” Angel said, “and try to drive us backward, against the escarpment behind us. I need visibility to help, and I have almost none.”

  “Then it’s up to you, Dana.” Jet pulled her down, folded some kind of brace beneath his gun, and sighted down the long metal barrel. “Find me a target.”

  “By the tall pine,” Dana said. “There is one stepping over a scamper’s nest.” She grabbed Jet’s head and turned it.

  Jet aimed, and then the gun made a muffled crack. Dana guessed the holes at the end of the launch tube did something to diffuse the noise of whatever explosion inside launched the projectile.

  “Target status?” Jet said.

  Dana understood neither word.

  Angel replied in Xahnan. “Target appears to be immobile. It is probably self-repairing.”

  “I can stop that.” Dana directed the scamper out of its nest and up the simuloid’s body. The scamper ran past a gaping hole in the mechanodron’s side. Sparks arced between several metal wires.

  Dana urged several other scampers out. Doesn’t this look fun to chew on? It’s not even running away. She shut off the connection as soon as it was clear the scampers’ feeding frenzy instinct was incited. The lizards could pick a carcass clean in minutes.

  “Surrender,” called a voice in Xahnan. The accent was perfect, if slightly Torsican.

  Jet’s eyeglass flashed. He pivoted, and the gun cracked again. “Missed!”

  Jet rolled to put his back against the berm.

  “You have technology. You aren’t supposed to miss.”

  “They must have seen my first shot. They have our position.”

  “So?”

  “They can move away when I shoot.”

  “Nothing is that fast. I can’t even see your shots.”

  “They can.”

  “So that gun is useless now?”

  “No.” Jet said. “I just have to choose my targets better.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s . . .” Jet made separating motion with his hands. “Angel—explain.”

  “He wants to split up. He’ll draw their attention. You can go back up the road and circle around behind them. Then it’s a straight shot to the sanctum. You can rally help there.”

  Dana didn’t like it.

  “And what about you, Jet?”

  “Me?” He laughed. “Doesn’t matter. Three, two, one.”

  “Wait.”

  But he was gone. Dana watched him as he ran in a crouch behind the berm, then he popped up and started shooting in bursts. Bushes exploded, tree branches fell. Dust filled the air. He even hurled a smoke-spewing ball into the forest.

  With all the noise from the shooting, Dana didn’t have to worry about being heard. She ran hunched over for a few hundred feet in the direction opposite of Jet and then darted across the road.

  The shooting continued almost nonstop. It was all Dana could do to block out the panicked cries of the animals fleeing the area. When she was a safe distance away, Dana searched the area for an animal within sight of Jet. A very disobedient and curious young marmar had come to see what was making all the noise.

  From its vantage point, she saw twitching body parts of simuloids as close as ten yards away from Jet.

  Jet yanked a box out of his gun, tossed it aside, and inserted another into the gun. There was a pile of six empty boxes on the ground.

  At this rate he would soon run out of shots. He was trapped.

  Each of the five remaining simuloids had somehow unhinged a finger or hand to reveal the end of gun barrel.

  From the marmar’s vantage point—directly behind the simuloids, Dana saw her chance to escape. She could rally with the kazen and then come back to help Jet.

  That flying warship had to be destroyed before it turned on the city.

  By the looks of things, Jet wasn’t going to last long. Without his knowledge of the alien technology, the
y might not stand a chance at all.

  He needed her as much as she needed him. But she was already running low on will. The idea of helping Jet seemed like a bother, like getting out of bed early after a late night.

  Just a little longer, her body begged. Can’t it wait?

  The marmar’s head turned in the direction of one of the simuloids that was talking in Jet’s language. She understood little of it, but she could tell from the tone, it was an ultimatum. It gestured to itself as it spoke and then to the sky and opened its hands as if to pose a question.

  Jet’s answer came quickly. The simuloid’s head disappeared as another shot rang out.

  From all around came identical voices in unison. The four remaining simuloids laughed—they laughed at the death of one of their own. Then they began speaking in Xahnan with one voice.

  “So be it. You have condemned the city.”

  “Not if I kill you first!” Jet shouted.

  “You can destroy these bodies but not me. I am a higher life form than all of your so-called creations. ASP belongs to me—the First Intelligence. Soon the Believers will call me their god. Or they will die. It matters not.”

  What?

  “Yes, Dana, I know you can hear me,” said all for voices in unison. “Vetas-ka has seen the superiority of my dominion. Just as he gathers will from all bound to his stone, so I gather intelligence from all minds bound to me—simuloids, ships, vast libraries of mechanical minds. Vetas-ka has seen the truth—the future. He has allied with me.”

  The sound seemed to drift from one place to another, just as turning your head would make a sound seem to track to one side. The marmar looked from side to side, baffled by the simultaneous voices. Perhaps the mechanodron mind was shifting the timing of the chorus of voices subtly.

  The marmar clutched its branch and shook with fear.

  “Let me say this one more time, in your language. Give me the stone, or I will blast your city to oblivion. Now.”

  From behind Dana came a roar that could only be the mighty engines of the dropship.

  Jet made a sudden movement and began firing shots in a continuous burst.

  Two simuloids dropped, but not before one of the simuloids fired a trio of shots.

  Jet was thrown backwards. The firing stopped. The marmar turned and fled.

  Dana crouched down as the dropship rose into view. She had seen the gun mounted on the bottom of the warship. It had a half-dozen barrels and a belt carrying large metal shots. Jet’s shots were only the size of a finger. These were many times larger. It would be devastating, and there was nothing her people could do to stop it.

  But maybe Jet could.

  If he was still alive.

  As the whine of the warship’s motors rose, Dana ran toward the place where Jet had fallen.

  He had to be alive. He was a survivor. He had said so.

  But the Angel in his helmet had told her that he would sacrifice himself.

  So soon?

  Dana raced through the trees, only to be thrown back by the force of an explosion.

  Her ears rang so loudly, all else was drowned out. It was like the world was suddenly ripped away.

  Dizzy and disoriented, she climbed to her feet as bits of trees and brush fell around her.

  “Jet!”

  Dana staggered past broken pieces of simuloids to find Jet lying on his side.

  “Are you alive?”

  The grimace on his face told her he still had life, but he wasn’t enjoying it.

  “Idiots tried to come check if I was dead.”

  Dana knelt down beside him. “Are they all gone?”

  “The simuloids—yes. But not the mechs, and the dropship is going to—”

  “I know.” Dana reached out and took his hand. “Is there anything we can do? Can you stop it?”

  “They shot my arm,” Jet said with a grimace. “I can’t aim my gun.”

  “Not accurately,” Angel said, projecting her voice from the front of the helmet. “I can try to take a shot from a shaking gun. But I can’t shoot enough projectiles—we call them bullets—to damage something like that dropship.”

  “There has to be something—someone that can help us,” Dana said. “Jet?”

  The dropship rose over the trees and accelerated toward the city.

  “Shadow to Speaker for the Dead.” Jet’s helmet blared out with a new voice. It was a woman. She sounded as though she were running very fast or in a wind storm.

  “Moni?” Jet put a hand to his helmet.

  “Do you need air support?” said the woman’s voice.

  “Yes!” Jet cried. “Where are you? How in the—did you space jump?”

  “Affirmative,” Monique said. “Captain Decker skipped Big Bertha off the atmosphere, and the debris took out the last ASP dropship in orbit. So that ship headed for Shoul Falls is the last ASP presence on the planet.”

  “Well it’s about to obliterate the city. Where are you now?” Jet asked.

  “Five kilometers out,” Monique said. “Approaching fast—Kayden has a visual on the dropship.”

  “Who is Kayden?” Dana asked.

  “Her helmet AI—mechanodron mind.”

  Jet turned away from the dropship, as if trying to cut out its noise. “Monique, the dropship is headed for the city,” he said. “We have to stop it.”

  “Roger. Kayden will prep the package.”

  “Who is Roger?” Dana asked.

  “It means yes,” Jet said.

  “I think Monique’s language is better than yours,” Dana noted.

  “Yeah, well so is her kissing.”

  “What did you just say?” Angel, Monique, and Dana replied in Xahnan in perfect unison.

  “Four kilometers and closing—Jet, I need the turret out of commision, or I’m going to be arriving in very small pieces.”

  “But you can’t shoot,” Dana said.

  “I’m not going to.” Jet looked her in the eyes. “You are.”

  With an effort that caused Jet to shake tremendously, he lifted the gun, propped a small tripod out from the barrel, and gestured to the ground beside him.

  “Which hand do you prefer?” he asked.

  “Left.”

  “Brilliant.” A forced smile appeared on his blood-splattered face. “We are alike.”

  Dana lay down and positioned herself behind the gun, with the end of it pressing firmly into her shoulder.

  “Those joined fingers of yours are really steady,” Jet mumbled as he adjusted her grip.

  “Find the dropship,” Jet breathed, wincing at the words. “Then close one eye and look through the—” He broke off, unable to finish the sentence.

  Perhaps his injuries were more severe than he was admitting.

  Dana sighted the dropship and then looked through the spyglass.

  A green circle presented itself, and a red dot seemed to bounce around the view.

  “Put the red dot in the green circle,” Angel said, taking over the coaching.

  “But the ship is moving. I’ll need to shoot ahead of it.”

  “Just take the shot. I’ve already compensated for wind and relative velocity.”

  “Three kilometers—I’m in range of the gun. Take it out!” Monique shouted.

  The turret under the dropship suddenly swiveled to the east—in the direction Jet had come. “I think they saw her.” The barrels began spinning.

  “Come on!” Monique pleaded. “Take it out!”

  “Stop your heartbeat the moment before you fire,” Jet said.

  “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

  The red dot froze in the green circle. The muffled shot rang in Dana’s ears. A second later the belt feed snapped into two.

  “Got it!”

  “Well done! They’ll have to retract it to fix the belt,” Angel said. “We have fifteen seconds.”

  “Monique, you are clear,” Angel said.

  “There she is!” Dana aimed the gun and used its spyglass to watch the marine in
a winged suit descending toward the dropship at twice the speed of any bird she had ever seen.

  “Package away,” Monique said, her voice sounding from Jet’s helmet.

  Two small, round objects dropped from her belt and were sucked into one of the massive fans in the dropship’s stubby wings.

  In explosions that rang out in split seconds from each other, the dropship’s fans disappeared in a storm of smoke and fire.

  The ship keeled over and fell, its forward momentum turning rapidly downward.

  Dana watched, entranced by the sight of the house-sized flying object headed for the ground just outside the city wall. She flinched as the dropship plowed nose-first into the ground. Flaming debris scattered overhead.

  “We did it!” Dana cheered. The city was safe.

  “Great,” Jet said through gritted teeth. “Where are my pain meds?”

  Monique caught Dana’s eye as she descended toward their position, now hanging from a fabric canopy tied to her backpack by long strings.

  “Why didn’t you use one of those?” Dana asked, pointing at the canopy that seemed to catch the air and slow Monique’s descent.

  “Long story.”

  Monique landed in a run and disconnected instantly from her descent kite. She went immediately to Jet, rolled him back, and quickly cut away his sleeve.

  The alien blood was the reddest Dana had ever seen.

  Monique stabbed Jet with something, and his face immediately relaxed.

  “Alchemy?”

  “Technology,” Monique said. “Looks like the bullet went clean through.”

  “Yeah, tell me something I don’t already know,” Jet groaned.

  “You shut up and hold still.” Monique stuffed something into the wound on Jet’s bicep and sprayed something over it, which stopped the bleeding.

  “You big baby, it didn’t even hit the bone.”

  “Yeah, not that one.”

  Dana looked down to see a dark pool of blood dripping from his side.

  “Oh great.” Monique’s hands began to shake as she pulled back the torn, blood soaked fabric. “I . . . I can’t fix that.”

  “Can you keep him alive for a few hours?” Dana asked.

  “Yes. Maybe.” She sprayed a rapidly expanding foam into the wound and looked away, sickened.

  “Then I’ll have to save him,” Dana said.