by Tim C Taylor
Aboard Holy Retribution, cameras showed the great lake partially draining to the east. The reality on the ground was a little more brutal. A mega flood erupted like a deafening scourge of divine punishment. It obliterated Hardit and human constructs with equal contempt, sweeping everything before it on its path to the Indian Ocean and beyond.
As reports streamed in, Indiya made herself watch the path of destruction on the planet below.
The wavefront was about to hit the island called Madagascar when her attention was pulled away to consider fresh news. Tawfiq’s own counter-attack was itself flooding into Earth orbit in an ironically timed parallel, an unstoppable flow of corrosive material eating through everything in its path. Orbital platforms, spacecraft, satellites: nothing was resistant.
She began to shake, the horror finally proving too much. Despite the evacuations, Indiya knew she had ordered the destruction of countless civilian lives as well as millions of combatants, but all she had achieved was to drain the lake.
Tawfiq was isolating the Earth from the rest of the galaxy forever.
And when the New Order leader had finished, Aelingir, Arun, and the three million surviving soldiers of the invasion force would be cut off.
Just where Tawfiq wanted them.
— Chapter 53 —
“We are like a human family,” said Tawfiq, enjoying enormously her full release of dominance scent, even though it was wasted on the other two occupants in her command bunker, who watched with her as the events played out on the holo-tank but lacked the ability to appreciate the scent sub-channels.
Was that a tickle in her mind? Amusement?
She twisted around, to glare at the Hummer who stood silent as ever in its life support tank at the back of her command bunker.
There was no doubting it; the stream of bubbles running through the creature’s biomass had grown larger and faster.
Tawfiq pushed the Hummer from her mind. It had been unsure of itself recently, that was all. First it had talked of being blocked, and now came the inexplicable complaint that it couldn’t see the future because the Hummers were being dragged into the deep past.
This worried her, but it was tomorrow’s problem. Today she would slake her need for victory; for what was the point of crushing your enemies if you could not savor your triumph? Thinking of which…
She gave a sharp kick to the kidneys, her preferred way of communicating with the third occupant of the bunker.
The big human looked up at her with a frown, almost a glimmer of rebellion. But his demeanor lifted when she gestured with her empty flask.
He took it and shuffled with hobbled feet over to the kitchen annex to refill the vessel with tarngrip tea.
The beauty of his servitude was that the Blood Virus report on her datapad had confirmed that Romulus was pleased by this menial duty, because it was the only time he was permitted within the bunker to rise to his feet.
The most delicious aspect was that he knew she could read his pathetic happiness at being permitted to stand. She had tortured many of her enemies physically, extending their deaths across months of agony, but with Romulus she had experimented with new and exquisite forms of torture.
What pleasure could she mine from Arun McEwan if he were caught alive? There was so much she had learned from humiliating Romulus that she longed to apply to McEwan. Even better if he were captured along with one of his mates. Not Xin Lee, unfortunately. The only human whose cunning compared to Tawfiq’s own had long disappeared, the Blood Virus infections amongst her entire faction shutting down simultaneously. Was that by Xin Lee’s design, or had the fleet been wiped out in a single moment? The question occasionally troubled Tawfiq.
But not today. Today was a victory day, she reminded herself.
Romulus returned, proffering her refilled flask with outstretched arms and his head bowed.
She made him wait in position while she concluded her line of reasoning. McEwan had been observed speaking intimately with a female aide, a primitive with colored scales called Lissa. Standing orders had been issued that all efforts must be made to capture Lissa alive with McEwan.
“Did your heart ache when you saw your Legion’s callous draining of the lake?” Tawfiq asked of Romulus when she deigned to relieve him of the flask. “You’ve just seen the images. You don’t need to hear the reports of my commanders to know that millions of Faithful died in your Legion’s destructive attack. And civilians died too. How many bystanders did the mega flood smear away before it reached the ocean? Ten thousand? Twenty? And now the wave of destruction passes over islands and threatens other coasts. How does that make you feel? Answer me!”
“I do not care about the Faithful. They were never truly allowed to live. The civilians of course are always regrettable. And the wildlife too, but I can hardly blame the Legion commanders when whatever misery they caused is a fraction of what you have already inflicted and will continue to inflict if you aren’t ousted.”
Ousted. She flinched. An unfortunate choice of words because she’d unearthed dark rumors of her comrades plotting to oust her. It was yet another battle for another day, but one that would come very soon. Her loyal army was growing fast now, beneath the White House in galleries sunk deep into this planet. Over two million waited for her, waiting for the day they would be full grown, and their food, clothing, weapons and other supplies would be in place. The imprinting was only a few weeks away now. Then she would be unassailable, her assent to goddesshood assured.
Romulus – her little pet – cowered in terror, misinterpreting her musings as a sign of displeasure, when he had, in fact, spoken only truthfully and without reticence, as she had ordered him to do at all times.
With her tail, she indicated the patch of straw on the floor. “Sit down, my friend,” she invited the human. “There is more to see. Watch! Enjoy! Learn!”
The holo-tank had already shown the spread of her corrosion shield. The purple-haired human leading the enemy navy had somehow learned of what was coming and withdrawn her fleet, spoiling the progress of destruction Tawfiq had hoped for. She had settled for watching the fatal corruption of the captured orbital defense stations and of many, though minor, orbiting objects – some of them providing feeds ultimately employed by the holo-tank’s display of Earth and its orbit. The image flickered and grew darker patches as real-time data from the dying orbital objects was replaced by machine interpolation.
“You see this, Romulus? This is the fruit of the human labor battalions, toiling loyally in the asteroid belt for so many years and despite so many hazards. It is the greatest creation of Hardit science combined with your people’s brute work and willingness to suffer and die for their betters. It is a shell around the entire planet, a protective barrier. I was inspired by the shield the White Knights erected around their moon. But we are Hardits. This is not a mere moon we shield, but an entire planet.”
Tawfiq glanced at her Blood Virus report, but the human was fighting to avoid showing a reaction. “The shell is permanent,” she continued. “Impenetrable. No missile, ship, nor Marine can penetrate the corrosion shell. We are completely secure. And while it is a shame that so many of your naval forces escaped destruction, their respite will not last long. Reinforcements are on their way. But for your Legion forces trapped underneath the shell… their deaths will be far swifter.”
It was Tawfiq’s turn to hide her reaction because the human remained calm. Did his heart still harbor hope in defiance of all logic? Even now?
She ground her jaws noisily. Impossible! The human was simply too stunned to absorb the enormity of Tawfiq’s victory, his mind too empty. At the imprinting ceremony for her new army, she decided she would execute him, a decision that spurred her on to wring the last drops of amusement from the pitiful wretch.
“Speak!” she ordered. “Explain your thoughts.”
“You have created an impenetrable defensive shell,” drawled the human. “The Legion cannot enter from without and cannot escape from within. Am I co
rrect?”
“You are.”
“You do not act as if you yourself are trapped. A lack of foresight is not one of your weaknesses, Supreme Commander. Therefore you must possess a means of passing through or around the barrier.”
She discovered her tail was flicking in agitation and stilled the offending organ. If this wreck of a human came to that realization instantly, so would the Legion. And although her victory appeared total, there had been occasions when the Legion had proved inventive…
“Supreme Commander,” came General Dine-Alegg’s voice over the command channel, “permission to proceed?”
“Granted.”
“You are amusingly perceptive,” Tawfiq told the human. “Watch.”
The first indication of her fight to reclaim orbital control was subtly revealed in the holo-tank. Dark areas of the display lightened, and the movement of the spinning globe smoothed from jerky assumptions back to real-time data as the sensor network fired into orbit from her de-cloaking reserves established itself.
“See what a clever man you are?” Tawfiq taunted. “My forces are immune to the effects of the corrosion. Is it a hull coating or a new alloy? Perhaps we broadcast a secret signal?” She growled. “It is nothing so simple. It is a secret your Legion techs will never discover.”
The new orbital network’s primary intent was the identification and prioritization of ground targets, specifically surface-to-space defenses, including powerful hellspewers the Legion scum had captured from her own Janissaries. The Legion’s ground-based missiles and projectiles were now worthless against space targets – their projectiles as vulnerable to the corrosion barrier as everything else – but the hellspewers remained deadly.
Already, lances of lilac-tinged energy reached up from Legion strongholds to swipe away the new orbital platforms before many of them were fully operational. But some did strike back, hurling missiles and beam weapons at the enemy’s hellspewers.
The New Order’s platforms were nearly all wiped out.
No matter.
The second wave was already launching for orbit.
By the time the third wave of platforms was coming online, the return fire from the surviving Legion forces on the ground had fallen silent.
Romulus too was quiet. In his past, he had experienced the tides of war turn one way and then the next. He still believed the tide could turn in the Legion’s favor. Tawfiq let out pleasure scent that was lost on the human, so she blew along her lips in a way he would interpret as amusement.
Now she sensed him doubt.
“The Rift Valley defenses were a lure, of course,” she explained to her human pet. “Designed to occupy their attention so they wouldn’t disrupt my orbital counterstrike hidden within my fake Trojans. But I also wanted your forces concentrated so I could do this…”
The latest wave of fast-launch platforms was more specialized; they were low-orbit nuclear bombers.
Moment by moment as the bombs rained down upon the regions of this world most stained by the presence of McEwan’s Legionaries, Romulus twisted further into himself.
And when the orbital cameras showed the first flashes bloom along the Mediterranean coasts, Romulus flinched.
“Do not trouble yourself, Governor. I am merciful in my destruction. It’s a sharp shock of radiation, mostly gamma radiation from which our deep underground tunnels are particularly well shielded. Gamma blasts also minimize the radiation fallout. We wouldn’t want the rainwater draining down to underground reservoirs to bring radioactive hazards. No, I have implemented a sharp flash scouring of the surface.”
The bombs rained down for ten minutes. And when they had completed their deadly work, nothing was left alive on the surface. Around the Mediterranean and down the east coast of Africa: nothing.
“My military victory on this world is almost complete,” she announced. “Now it is the turn of the civilians.”
“Why?” the human wailed. “They are no threat to you.”
This was more like it. This was why she had summoned him to witness these events with her.
“Why? Dear, Romulus. Because I can.”
The first salvo of missiles stuck cities that had been evacuated by New Order personnel for this purpose. But not by their civilians. Rome burned in fire. Moments later, so too did Jerusalem and Jakarta.
Hardened spy bots showed the destruction, the cities leveled and their inhabitants turned to ash, before the bots succumbed to the fire themselves. But Tawfiq wasn’t really paying attention. She was watching Romulus.
The next wave of attacks was more tightly focused. Stonehenge was turned into a smoking crater. The Taj Mahal was shattered into a heap of rubble. Similar strikes destroyed Machu Picchu, the Forbidden City, the Statue of Liberty, Notre Dame Cathedral, and other sources of pride for humanity across this wretched planet that now bored Tawfiq.
“All those people,” Romulus whispered. “All that…”
He couldn’t speak the words, but the Blood Virus guessed his line of thought.
“All that history?” she suggested, and she could tell she was on the right lines. “My friend, Romulus, that’s the point. That’s why I made that last strike. Your species has little left to it but history – the many memories of the time when you humans dared to dream a bright future. I shall exterminate you all soon – but first I shall take away your past.”
I’ll kill you! The Blood Virus system interpreted the thoughts in Romulus’s head. He was silently daring to form unflattering descriptions of herself and her species too.
She knew his defiance was important to keep him sane for the brief time remaining to him, but his thoughts of rebellion were nonetheless unacceptable in her moment of triumph.
“Leave me!”
“Yes, Blessed One.” Romulus bowed deeply and shuffled away.
She watched his retreat with her tail down. He had been enormously entertaining, even useful at times. But her mind was made up; it was almost time for Romulus to die.
—— PART V ——
ESCAPE VELOCITY
— Chapter 54 —
“Reducing airspeed for fly past,” announced the pilot. “You two vermin don’t so much as breathe unless I order you, and you sure as hell are not weapons free.”
“We understand,” said Auxiliary Mar from her position at the starboard gun blister. Before the accursed humans invaded, she had been proud to call herself Gunner Wokmar, of the hellspewers. Now she’d had half her name stripped away for the shame of surviving the enemy’s invasion of Africa. No task was too pointless, dirty, or dangerous to give to the squadron’s two new auxiliaries.
“Standing by,” added Sho from the other gun blister.
As Mar rubbed at the lesions on her jaw – the result of radiation these sores; not beatings – and tried not to look down at the river they were following along its snaking path through the ruined human city, she marveled at her friend’s stoicism and tried to draw inspiration from it. The pilot was a deranged imbecile flying them into a pointless encounter with death, but auxiliaries were not supposed to notice such things. Aircraft crews were all rabidly insane, driven to ever more extreme fantasies of invincibility by the drugs that allowed Hardits to fly through vacuum and air when every instinct screamed at them to bury themselves beneath the ground in stone-shrouded tunnels as nature intended.
Mar tried to merge herself into Sho’s scent, which touched her gently from the other side of the Drakhnix-Lho reconnaissance craft. Sho never complained – never allowed her superiors to smell her resentment. But Mar could. Was that because she’d grown more perceptive, or because after her collapse in status she allowed herself to see Sho as she truly was?
The Drakhnix-Lho had descended into the atmosphere from Scourge 37, one of the many new fast-build orbital platforms hovering high above the ever-shrinking European pocket into which the surviving Legion forces had been chased. The enemy cowered, sensibly, underground, forced to confront the New Order in their natural fighting environment
of tunnels and dank underground galleries. But as the New Order had learned during their long years on this dismal planet, the humans were too stupid to know when they were beaten; occasionally they made furious bursts of activity up on the surface, and someone had to keep an eye on them. Since the searing radiation glow of the blasted continent rendered orbital observation impossible, that meant sending craft such as the Drakhnix-Lho down to eyeball what the enemy was up to – aircraft whose half dozen or so crew members were either too addled by long-term exposure to anti-agoraphobia drugs to entrust to combat missions or were auxiliaries of no worth.
Basically, they were a suicide crew.
However, there was a difference, thought Mar, between accepting risks and deliberately hunting them out. The pilot (who would not allow her name to be sullied by revealing it to a mere auxiliary) was following the course of the river that meandered like a coiled spring. Despite the tight turns that threw Mar against her harness, the pilot’s deeply ingrained instincts would be drawing a subtle comfort from following such a clearly defined channel through this featureless sea of radioactive rubble. Only a few weeks ago, this had been an ancient city called London.
But Mar had trained and once fought as an aerial defense gunner, and her instincts were very different. Aircraft that followed a predictable pattern were a gift from the gods to a hellspewer gunner.
“You two cowards passed out from fear yet?” asked the co-pilot.
“No, superior one,” answered both Sho and Mar.