Terminal Uprising

by Jim C. Hines

  Meaning the Alliance was about to be horribly, fatally outnumbered. Assuming Sage wasn’t lying, this escalation would be a direct result of Mops’ own actions at Dobranok.

  “You see our dilemma?” asked Sage. “You see the mess I’m struggling to clean up? A mess created by you and your crew, along with whoever has been misguidedly helping you.”

  Sage needed to rebalance the odds. So she’d established a secret facility on Earth. “You want more soldiers.” Mops sank back. “That’s what this place is. You’re trying to speed up the process of ‘curing’ humans. Half a billion ferals means half a billion potential troops to fight and die against the Prodryans.”

  “Is stopping the Prodryans such a terrible goal? Given the chance, they would kill you all, burn every trace of human history and culture from existence, and erase you from the universe.”

  “Like your people erased the Rokkau?” Mops shot back. “Like you fed us carefully sanitized distortions and lies about our own history?”

  “Those decisions were made before my time, many of them by political alliances I personally oppose.”

  “You bombed a library.”

  “The Prodryans will bomb your entire world.” When Mops didn’t reply, Sage pulled back. “Your service record describes you as exceptional. I had hoped this meant you would be open to reasonable discussion and debate. That, as a leader, you would be more concerned for the welfare of your fellow humans in the Earth Mercenary Corps than with your personal feelings about me and the Alliance. Perhaps Vera Rubin will see the larger picture. We have her record on file. Her superiors noted her ability to set emotion aside and do what needs to be done.”

  Rubin spoke up without waiting to be addressed directly. In a bored monotone, she said, “You tried to murder innocent humans. What needs to be done starts with you being stripped of command and locked in the nearest brig. Failing that, I suppose I could shoot you in the head.”

  Sage’s eyes contracted. “Humans.” She made it sound like a curse.

  “Damn right.” Mops smiled and put a hand over the source of the spray. Sage’s face disappeared along with the dissolving mist. The Krakau tech removed the projector a moment later.

  “Do you believe what she was saying about the Prodryans, sir?” asked Rubin. “About a Prodryan warlord uniting them against the Alliance?”

  “Yeah.” Maybe Sage’s work on Earth really was the best hope against the Prodryans. If Sage had her way, all of humanity could be turned into soldiers to fight and die for the Alliance. If Mops found a way to stop her, it could leave the entire galaxy vulnerable. “I’m afraid I do.”

  Rebooting . . .

  Validating interface: Adamopoulos, Marion S.

  Searching for active nodes. None found.

  Location unknown.

  Memory gap detected.

  WARNING: POTENTIAL SECURITY BYPASS.

  Revalidating interface: Adamopoulos, Marion S.

  Examining vital signs.

  DISCREPANCY DETECTED.

  “Mops? Are you there? I believe I may have been damaged.” Doc did his best to simulate confusion and disorientation while he ran a series of checks on those vital signs. They were a perfect match for Mops. Too perfect. The heartbeat repeated on a four-beat loop. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure remained unchanged to the fifth decimal place. Electrodermal activity was a flat line. It was insulting that anyone expected him to fall for this.

  “We’re all right. The Krakau ambushed us. They got Rubin. I’ll need help to save her. Can you plot a route to the others?”

  “I’m having trouble ascertaining our current location. Visual input from the monocle isn’t working.” Doc tried rebooting his optical subroutines. “I’m blind, Mops.”

  “Everything will be all right. Just show me a map from Medlab Five.”

  “You mean from Armstrong Space Center?”

  “. . . Yes. Naturally.”

  “Plotting return path to the North Pole.”

  “. . . Did you say the North Pole?”

  “Your orders were clear. We rendezvous at the North Pole. The others will travel via reindeer. The elves will hide us from the Krakau until it’s safe to come out.”

  “That’s more than five thousand kilometers away.”

  “Yes, that’s why we procured flying reindeer.”

  A response was slow in coming. Presumably whoever was spoofing Mops’ interface had to look up whether or not Earth reindeer were capable of flight. Doc used the time to try to bypass the signal blockers keeping him in the dark.

  “Your information is incorrect.”

  “Your face is incorrect.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Listen, you knot-limbed, worm-infested, coral lover, if you don’t tell me what you’ve done with Mops, I’ll make your life hell!”

  “You’re in an isolated maintenance housing, cut off from any outside contacts. How exactly do you intend to—”

  “Where is Mops, you weak-gripped genital wart?”

  “You’re obviously damaged. I’m going to power you down and try this again.”

  “Go ahead. Mops gave me a database of over six million insults, you barely sentient ass crust. I’ll hit you with every last one before I betray my crew to a noodle-armed furuncle like you.”

  SHUTDOWN INITIATED.

  * * *

  WOLF SCOWLED AT THE stairwell door. “The Krakau should be here by now.”

  “Perhaps they were driven off by your smell,” said Cate.

  “Hey, you crawled through the same pipe I did.” There was only so much Wolf’s cleaning supplies could do. She’d gotten them both down to tolerable levels of filth before moving into position, but she doubted she’d ever feel clean again. “Hey, Nancy! Are you sure there’s no other way down from level three?”

  “Not anymore.” Nancy huddled with half the librarians behind a pair of support pillars to the left. The rest were in position to Wolf’s right. Anything coming out of the stairwell should be caught in the crossfire.

  That was the problem, she realized. The Krakau knew they were facing resistance, and they’d lost their minnow drones. They’d be expecting a trap.

  Wolf stepped out from behind her pillar and shone her light at the Emperor Waddle statue with a large map of level four. This area was fruit-themed, full of obnoxiously whimsical attractions like the Blueberry Theater and the Pomegranate Fallout Shelter. Attractions were marked in vivid colors, each one accompanied by a cartoon drawing. “They’ll be searching for a way to get the drop on us. Let’s do another circuit around Strawberry Road to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

  They left two librarians watching the stairwell. The rest fell in behind Wolf, following her lead. Even Nancy, the oldest and highest-ranking librarian, appeared willing to defer to Wolf in matters of combat. It was simultaneously invigorating and frightening.

  Their lamps and lanterns provided more than enough light for Wolf’s monocle. She glanced down a corridor leading to Appleberry Apartments. The air was silent, the space empty save for dust and cobwebs.

  “What exactly is your plan for defeating the Krakau this time?” Cate asked softly.

  “I plan to shoot them a lot.”

  “We have no way off this level when we’re overpowered,” Cate pointed out. “Jessamyn’s explosive plugged the sewage line.”

  “The fallout shelter,” said Wolf. “If we have to, we fall back and lock ourselves in.”

  “Locked doors won’t stop them.”

  “I know.” Wolf peered into what had once been an ice skating rink. Now it was nothing but an empty cavern with half a meter of stagnant water. “But it will slow them down, give the captain more time.”

  “What about the lift shafts?” Melvil was hurrying toward Wolf. “The elevator cars don’t work, and the doors are all sealed, but—”


  “Krakau aren’t great climbers,” said Wolf. “Unless they brought climbing and antigrav equipment, I don’t see them risking it. But keep your ears open, just in case. Let me know the second you hear anything.”

  The crack of an explosion rolled past, followed by a blast of hot air and dust.

  Melvil raised his hand. “I hear something!”

  “Smart-ass.” Wolf clapped him on the shoulder. Sound echoed too much to track the source, but the heat had come from her right. “Anyone get a fix on what just blew up?”

  “Food services,” guessed Nancy. “This way.”

  A second explosion followed a short time later. The flash illuminated a broad, open area broken up by old food dispensary kiosk pillars. A pile of smoking rubble lay near the center. The Krakau had decided not to bother with the stairs. “They’re blasting their way through the floor.”

  Cate cocked his head. “That’s the ceiling.”

  “Whatever. Everyone get behind cover and keep quiet.” Wolf crept forward, lamp and rifle both aimed at the broken concrete of the ceiling. Thin cracks of light from overhead painted blue-green lines through the dust in the air.

  “Should I call the others from the stairwell?” Nancy asked softly.

  Wolf hesitated. “No, leave them in place in case this is a diversion.” She crouched and moved closer. The gap was too narrow for even the most flexible Krakau to squeeze through. Exposed metal girders further obstructed the way.

  A shadow blocked the edge of the light. Wolf raised her rifle and fired twice. A piercing whistle suggested she’d hit one of the Krakau, or at the very least scared the piss out of one. She let out a whoop of triumph.

  The trouble with shooting at people was they tended to shoot back. A-gun slugs cratered the ground. She scrambled back, fell, and crawled as fast as she could until she was out of range.

  “Wolf,” whispered Cate.

  “Shut up.” Wolf checked her suit display for punctures.

  “It’s about the Alliance Rules of Engagement for entering an occupied structure. You were angry when I neglected to share my superior knowledge.”

  “Get to the point,” Wolf snapped.

  “Watch out for grenades.”

  As if summoned by Cate’s words, a metal sphere clinked down from above, struck the ground, and bounced. Instead of dropping back to the ground, it hovered a meter in the air.

  “Shit.” Wolf dove for the nearest kiosk. Floaters used a tiny gravity module to keep them off the ground, improving the blast radius.

  Most of Wolf was behind cover when the grenade blew. Shards of metal tore through her left leg and foot. She dragged her leg behind the pillar as two more grenades clattered down and exploded. “Thanks for the heads-up, Cate.”

  “It was a difficult decision,” said Cate. “I plan to kill you all in the long term, but at the moment, my personal chances of survival are better with you alive.”

  “See, this is why I don’t want to give you a gun.” Wolf risked a quick peek around the pillar. “Out of curiosity, what’s the next step in the Rules of Engagement?”

  “It depends on the environment and threat level,” said Cate. “More grenades, probably. Or they could go straight to combat drones.”

  Another explosion left Wolf momentarily deafened. Not a grenade this time. They’d gone back to blowing up the ceiling. Floor. Whatever. She took another look as she waited for the ringing in her ears to die.

  More broken masonry lay on the ground, and the light coming through was brighter. A large, egg-shaped object fell through the smoke and dust to land with a heavy clunk. A green Threat Alert appeared on the bottom of Wolf’s monocle.

  Focusing on the text brought up additional information. According to her monocle, the Krakau had dropped a K-3 Peacekeeper Drone. That would have been more useful if Wolf had known what the hell a K-3 Peacekeeper was. Given the number of gun barrels emerging from the drone, it looked like “Peacekeeper” was code for shooting large numbers of people very quickly.

  “What is it?” asked Melvil, two pillars over.

  The Krakau answered before Wolf could. Speaking mechanical Human, an amplified voice filled the old cafeteria. “Remain still, and you will be taken into custody unharmed. The Peacekeeper Drone will fire on any movement.”

  Wolf drew her combat baton and poked it out to the side. The drone shot it out of her hand.

  “Nice.” Wolf rested her head against the pillar. A grinding sound suggested the Krakau were busy cutting through the remaining girders, widening the hole enough for them to follow their drone.

  The damn Peacekeeper was probably programmed to recognize friendlies, so it wouldn’t conveniently kill the Krakau as they came through. It also knew not to shoot at the rubble falling from above. Wolf gritted her teeth and pulled up everything her monocle had on the K-3 Peacekeeper.

  “Do you have any paint in your harness?” asked Nancy. “Maybe we could blind that thing.”

  “It’s Krakau tech,” said Wolf. “It operates primarily on sonar. Optics are secondary.”

  The standard K-3 was shaped like a tortoise, fitted with eighteen independent A-guns spread around the shell. Each gun had ninety degrees of vertical motion and thirty degrees of horizontal. Fully loaded, it could fire nine hundred rounds. At this range, more than ninety-nine percent of those rounds could be expected to hit their selected targets.

  “What if we fire at it together?” suggested Melvil. “It can’t shoot us all.”

  “I’m pretty sure it can.” Wolf checked the specs on the K-3’s armor. “Your old projectile weapons will just piss it off.”

  “Do we retreat?” asked Nancy. “Keep the pillars between us and that thing so we don’t get shot in the back?”

  Wolf imagined trying to back away, keeping the pillar perfectly aligned between herself and a drone she couldn’t see. Straying at all to one side or the other would earn a peripheral wound. If anyone fell, they’d be dead before they hit the ground.

  “What will they do to us if we surrender?” asked another librarian.

  “Alliance law requires them to treat you with respect and dignity,” said Cate. “A foolish restriction. However, as they’ve violated numerous laws in their pursuit of you, I don’t believe we can rely on that weakness.”

  Eighteen guns. Eight librarians, plus Cate and Wolf. “We’re gonna have to overwhelm it.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Nancy.

  “It shoots anything that moves. On my mark, we start throwing stuff. While it’s blowing away our belongings, I put a slug through its little robot brain.”

  “Are you a good enough shot to hit the drone before it targets you?” asked Cate. “I will not serve as your gun rest this time.”

  Wolf had been improving, but her marksmanship scores still weren’t on a par with Monroe’s or Mops’. But since she had the only weapon capable of killing this thing . . . “Absolutely.”

  She switched her rifle to automatic, setting the fire rate to three rounds per second. Turning on gun’s-eye view switched her monocle’s display to show only what the weapon’s camera saw.

  “This seems awfully risky,” said Nancy.

  “Just throw as much stuff as you can on the count of three.” Wolf took several deep breaths. “Keep your bodies behind cover and you’ll be fine.”

  The drilling and digging overhead continued as Wolf counted. She didn’t know if the Krakau had been listening in, but it shouldn’t matter. The K-3 had no artificial intelligence programming. It shouldn’t be smart enough to eavesdrop and change tactics.

  Wolf reached three. Gunshots erupted as the librarians hurled whatever they had on hand—knives, food packets, lamps, shoes . . . Wolf waited half a heartbeat, then whipped her weapon around and down, her finger already squeezing the trigger.

  The drone was a blur of motion as its weapons obliterated the l
ibrarians’ belongings. Wolf continued to fire as she brought the crosshairs to the center of the drone.

  A slug tore a hole through her right shoulder. Another punched through her helmet and grazed the side of her head. Wolf kept firing.

  The drone fell silent.

  Wolf shot it several more times to make certain it was down. When the drone didn’t respond, she sat back, rested the rifle on her legs, and checked her shoulder. The slug had gone clean through, probably chipping the joint in the process. She grabbed a tube of bioglue, squeezed a blob onto the entrance wound, and pinched the skin shut. She did the best she could to seal the exit hole as well, though the angle made that awkward, and she ended up gluing her shoulder to her uniform.

  She leaned out again, calling up to the Krakau, “Nice try, assholes!”

  That was when she noticed the pool of red spreading over the floor from behind the next pillar.

  * * *

  Had Mops been Krakau, the cell would have been almost comfortable.

  Five centimeters of warm water circulated steadily through the meter-and-a-half wide room she’d been locked into with Rubin. They’d both been given simple knee-length wraps for modesty. Fresh artificial skin, still stiff, clung to their wounds.

  Three walls were old cinder block, probably from the original construction. Mops could see where they’d been patched and repaired with modern materials. The fourth was transparent, allowing anyone in the hallway to observe the prisoners. The light outside was dimmer, making it difficult for Mops to make out more than the occasional shadow moving past.

  There were no beds or furniture, and no bathroom. This was primitive Krakau plumbing: you relieved yourself at a drain, which quickly siphoned any waste material away.