The Robots of Andromeda (Imperium Chronicles Book 3)

by W. H. Mitchell

  “Thanks,” Maycare said.

  “Your ribs are the least of our worries,” Tagus growled. “The escape pod is destroyed, and we can’t activate the distress beacon without alerting those damn bugs. We’re stuck on this godforsaken planet until our suits give out and we die!”

  “I can see why your men found you so inspirational,” Maycare remarked.

  “How dare you!” Tagus shouted. “They would’ve followed me to hell and back!”

  “I doubt it,” Maycare replied.

  Tagus made a move toward the commander, but perhaps thought better of it. Any damage to the suits could be fatal.

  Ignoring him, Maycare left the pod and took a closer look at the forest of fungi surrounding them. Each stalk was a few feet in diameter, but instead of a hard bark, the skin was soft. He could push against the tree and feel it bowing slightly. With a little more exertion, Maycare thought he could bend the entire stalk.

  Tagus and Burke joined him outside the pod.

  “Perhaps we could lash a few of these together and make a raft,” Tagus said sardonically. “We could row our way back to the Fleet!”

  Maycare glared back at him.

  “Good idea,” he replied, “or we could just steal one of those...”

  He pointed through a gap in the fungus canopy at a tall pillar in the distance. At the top, small ships, like the kind that had attacked the Baron Lancaster, flew in and out of the structure.

  On Lord Maycare’s estate, down the hall from the family library, Jessica Doric had commandeered one of the rooms and turned it into her office. Unlike the cramped confines of the Abbot’s office, Doric’s had enough space for several people, even though Henry Riff and occasionally Benson were the only visitors on most days.

  Henry had brought a supply of TeeHee Tea from home as a remedy to the stress of current events. He and Doric sipped from their cups beside a table where the ancient Dahlvish relic sat prominently. They had started calling it the beacon.

  “I love this stuff,” Henry remarked, savoring the tea.

  Doric, focusing on the relic, remained silent.

  “I’d be freaking out right now if it wasn’t for this,” Henry went on.

  “What?” Doric replied absentmindedly.

  “The tea,” he said, raising his cup.

  “Uh huh.”

  “Are you alright?”

  Doric sighed. “I wish I understood how it worked.”

  “I think it’s medicated...”

  She looked at Henry, her eyes addressing him as if he had just entered the room. “I’m talking about the beacon!”

  “Oh!” he replied.

  “I mean,” she said, returning her gaze to the artifact, “the Abbot told us how it works but I don’t understand how it works. You know what I mean?”

  “Definitely,” Henry replied, definitely lying.

  “We need someone with psionic powers to test it.”

  “Do we know anyone with psionic powers?” Henry asked.

  “Well, the Abbot of course, but he didn’t seem interested. After what the Naiad said, the Abbot thought it was too dangerous.”

  “At least he let us keep it.”

  “Well, I don’t think he had a choice,” Doric replied. “It’s Lord Maycare’s now. The Dahl have no authority...”

  As if summoned, Lord Devlin Maycare appeared in the office doorway. Deep creases ran along his forehead.

  “Did you talk to your sister?” Doric asked.

  Maycare nodded.

  “Yes,” he replied. “She says there’s no word from my nephew, Robert. The Fleet says he’s missing and presumed dead.”

  “Why would they say that?” Henry asked.

  “They recovered all the other lifeboats,” Maycare said, “but there’s no sign of Bobby.”

  Doric set her cup beside the beacon. “Aren’t they going to send out a search party?”

  “They can’t,” Maycare replied. “The whole area’s swarming with those creatures. The Fleet had to retreat.”

  Henry, feeling his nerves rattled, took another sip of tea.

  “What about the beacon?” he suggested after a pause.

  “What about it?” Doric asked.

  “Maybe we could use it to contact your nephew?”

  Maycare gave the artifact a skeptical glance. “How?”

  Henry could only shrug.

  “We need to find someone with strong enough psi powers,” Doric said, “and someone actually willing to help.” She turned to Maycare. “Do you know anyone?”

  Maycare thought a moment but frowned. “No.”

  Trudging through the fungus forest, still wearing their heavy space suits, Robert Maycare and the others found the going slow and exhausting. The commander was unsure how far the alien tower had been, but they had spent days among the thick stalks. At least the occasional Klixian ship flying overhead indicated the humans were still traveling in the right direction.

  “This is pointless,” Tagus muttered, stopping to catch his breath.

  “Do you have a better idea?” Maycare asked.

  “We should be hiding, not seeking out our doom.”

  “You said yourself,” Maycare replied, “these suits won’t last forever. Once the power runs out, we’re dead.”

  Tagus moved in front of the commander, their face plates nearly touching.

  “We have no weapons!” Tagus said. “Forcing our way into that tower is suicide!”

  Burke, who had remained silent until that point, spoke up. “We might be able to sneak in...”

  “So, now you’re taking his side?” Tagus asked accusingly.

  “No,” Burke replied, “but we don’t know how well it’s defended. They might not be expecting anyone alive down here.”

  Maycare raised an eyebrow and gave a smug smile. “I guess we’ll just have to see when we get there.”

  Tagus, for his part, scowled before continuing the journey in silence.

  The three took turns taking the lead. Although each fungal tree was pliable and moved to one side when pressed against, the stems were spaced closely together. Maycare would have paid a month’s salary for a machete or even a plasma torch to burn their way through.

  From time to time, they also came upon the former inhabitants of Lone Haven, or whatever was left of them. Spores grew from the bodies and, in some cases, an entire tree rose from the chest of a colonist. It was horrifying.

  “All these people,” Burke remarked at one point. “What a terrible way to die.”

  “I suggest we focus more on ourselves,” Tagus said.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” the commander shot back. “When’s the last time you gave a damn about anybody else?”

  “Don’t be a child,” Tagus replied. “I have one life and I’m determined to preserve it. You can waste yours on someone else if you wish.”

  “You may have warned us about these creatures,” Maycare said, “but I’d still like to see you in front of a firing squad.”

  “How touching,” Tagus said. “Even so, I doubt you’ll get the chance. It’s far more likely we’re all going to die on this miserable planet, and I doubt anyone even knows we’re here.”

  “We still have a chance,” Burke suggested. “There’s always hope.”

  “Hope is the last gasp of fools,” Tagus replied. “Your eternal optimism won’t save anyone. If we have any chance at all, it’s because we clawed our way through the corpses of our enemies. Luck favors the bold.”

  “Well,” Maycare admitted, “all the more reason to keep heading toward that tower.”

  Tagus, pausing in search of a counterargument, found himself with no other alternative but to agree.

  “Indeed,” he said.

  His wings flapping rapidly, the swarm leader descended through the spore cloud, followed by a handful of other Klixians, to get a better look at the surface. The former inhabitants of the planet were now dead, but a few mechanical outlings still remained.

  Pheromones from
Mother still resonated in the leader’s antennae, driving him forward. He didn’t question her orders and even the concept of dissent was alien to him. How could you disagree with yourself? The brain orders the wings to move and so they fly. What else would they do? It was simple logic...

  He emerged from the cloud, forests of fungi appearing below, the tops of their stalks gently swaying in the breeze. They were like fingers pointing skyward, a show of hands sprouting from the fertile ground. They were all Mother, each part of a greater whole. No part was out of place and everything was good.

  Except for one thing.

  A hundred or more fungal trees lay flattened in a narrow band, ending in a blackened blemish of silvery metal. The swarm leader took a pass over the oddity. The object was too big to be one of the mechanical beings. It was a craft, fallen from the sky and perhaps beyond. Survivors from the space battle?

  The swarm leader and a handful of other Klixians landed. His subordinates chattered nervously, but the leader quieted them. He poked the side of the ship with his weapon, the rod-shaped staff making a tinny sound against the hull.

  Such a peculiar noise, the leader thought. So different than anything the Klixians would produce.

  He leapt onto the roof, peering down into the torn, metal skin. He saw nothing of the usual outlings. No broken bodies or limbs strewn around the inside of the craft. However, something must have brought this ship to the surface. Where did they go?

  The leader took off again, circling the crash site. The scar of the landing, stretching off into the distance, was obvious, but there was something more. In a different direction, some of the trees were also disturbed, bent to one side like a beast had thrashed its body between the stalks. Returning to the ground, the leader recognized the impressions in the dirt. They were the tracks of three outlings, their bipedal footprints unmistakable.

  The swarm leader didn’t know how these creatures could have survived without succumbing to the spores, but no matter. They could only flee the inevitable for so long.

  Motioning quickly with his mandibles, the leader gave orders to his subordinates:

  << THE OUTLINGS MUST BE FOUND! >>

  << TAKE FLIGHT AND SEARCH FROM ABOVE >>

  << DISPATCH ONE OF THE WARRIORS >>

  << TO SEARCH ON THE GROUND... >>

  After another day, Harold Burke and the others finally cleared the fungal forest and found themselves nearly at the base of the Klixian tower. Burke was thankful, taking a sip from the straw within his space suit that had provided him liquid nutrients for nearly a week. However, even within his sealed helmet, he was keenly aware of the odor his own waste was exuding. The built-in adult diaper he was wearing was nearing its limit.

  An open space stretched between them and the tower. The three humans had not gone far across it before Commander Maycare’s voice boomed over the comm.

  “Behind us!” he shouted.

  Burke turned to see an enormous insectoid bursting from the forest, its giant mandibles snapping as it approached. Much larger than the flying swarmers, the Klixian warrior had no wings but instead a second pair of arms protruding from its carapace. In one pair of arms it held a long staff which fired beams of light toward the humans.

  Burke threw himself to the ground as the rays passed overhead and slammed into the side of the tower. To his right, Tagus lay beside him, but Maycare was already sprinting toward the Klixian, dodging from side to side.

  “Idiot,” Tagus said over his mic.

  Without thinking, Burke found himself getting back to his feet and running after the commander. Tagus’ voice came again through Burke’s earpiece. “Don’t be a fool!”

  Burke ignored his former captain, clumsily charging forward in his heavy boots. By the time he reached Maycare, Burke heaved each breath from his burning lungs.

  Maycare threw himself at the Klixian, grappling for the weapon. The insectoid’s mandibles clamped down on the commander’s helmet, tossing Maycare’s head from side to side, but failing to actually pierce the suit.

  Although exhausted, Burke reached the melee and lunged toward the Klixian’s legs, hoping to knock the creature down. Instead, the insect merely flicked him aside. Burke rolled and regained his footing, determined to try again. This time, he aimed the crown of his helmet at the creature’s leg joint which crumpled under the impact. Taking Maycare with it, the creature fell atop Burke, pinning him beneath the heavy exoskeleton.

  His face plate nearly buried in the dirt, Burke could see nothing.

  “What’s happening?” he shouted.

  In Burke’s ear, Tagus said, “I’m saving the day... as usual.”

  Still in darkness, Burke felt vibrations of a struggle above him. After a minute, the weight of the Klixian was lifted away and Burke again struggled upright.

  Both Maycare and Tagus stood beside the lifeless corpse of the insect, its head dented on one side and a large rock lying beside it. Maycare held the weapon, but Tagus was the one smiling, an arrogant grin Burke recognized immediately.

  “No need to thank me,” Tagus told Maycare, “although it was good of you to distract him for a while...”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Recovered from his battle with the Klixian warrior, Commander Robert Maycare examined the creature’s weapon. The long, rod-like device was stiff, but soft to the touch. Maycare concluded it was organic in nature instead of manufactured, although he could not make the weapon fire, no matter what he tried.

  “You realize,” Tagus said, “the moment we get inside that tower, those bugs will sense we don’t belong.”

  “He’s right,” Burke replied. “Insectoids usually communicate by scent. They’re going to know we’re not them.”

  Maycare knelt beside the body and began tearing off the arms and legs, smearing the goo that emerged over his suit.

  “Disgusting,” Tagus remarked.

  “Just do it,” Maycare replied. “Whatever this stuff is, it’ll mask our scent.”

  Doused in bodily fluids, the three approached the base of the tower. Any question about how they would get in was immediately answered by the holes conveniently burned into the side of the structure. When the Klixian warrior had fired his weapon, his missed shots had created an entrance into the tower. With Maycare leading, they crawled inside where they found darkness and a warm, humid passage leading in either direction.

  Tagus extended his hand, pressing it against one of the walls.

  “What nightmare is this?” he asked. “It feels like flesh.”

  “It’s probably fungus,” Burke replied. “Everything these creatures create appears to be organic-based.”

  Tagus pulled his hand away. “Disgusting!”

  “Come on,” Maycare said. “We need to find a way up to where those ships are launching. Once we get there, we’ll try to fly one out of here.”

  Maycare and the others soon lost themselves in a maze of corridors, each curve like the insides of an intestine. The thought of slowly being digested passed through Maycare’s mind, but he shook it off. He worried more about the life support indicators projected onto the inside of his helmet. They were low; dangerously low. Without the protection of their space suits, they would be vulnerable to the pervasive spores floating everywhere, even inside the tower. That meant death, and Maycare was in no mood to die.

  When they first encountered a Klixian, Maycare raised a closed fist, causing Tagus and Burke to freeze. About the same size as a human, the worker insect also stopped, its antennae probing Maycare’s suit from top to bottom. Apparently satisfied, the Klixian ignored the other two and went back about its business, disappearing down the passage.

  Maycare reminded himself to breathe.

  “My diaper is full now,” Burke muttered to himself.

  “Keep that to yourself,” Tagus replied. “This experience is trying enough without contemplating your bowel movements!”

  In their heavy suits, the three humans stopped several times as they slowly ascended the hallways winding
their way up the structure. Maycare did his best to take short breaths and stay calm, but neither came easily and all the while, the life support systems bled valuable energy from the suits’ power packs.

  The closer the three humans got to the top of the tower, the more Klixians they saw. In each case, the insectoids passed by without taking notice, as if Maycare and the others were invisible.

  “How long is this goo going to protect us?” Burke asked over the comm.

  “I don’t know,” Maycare replied. “Hopefully long enough for us to get out of here...”

  An audible scoff came over the commander’s earpiece, which he could only assume came from Tagus.

  In her living room, Silandra Oakhollow had just served tea to Mel Freck and Sir Golan when she sensed something coming. All Sylvan females possessed a form of psionics in tune with nature, but whatever was about to knock on the door exuded a foulness like gasses from a swamp.

  Silandra opened the entrance and saw a Gordian in the doorway. From behind her, Mel shouted, “Fugg!”

  “Is that you, Mel?” Orkney Fugg replied, ignoring Silandra completely. Silandra noticed a robot standing behind him.

  “Hello,” Silandra said.

  “My name’s Gen,” the robot replied.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Fugg said, pushing his way into the house. He eyed Sir Golan and Squire before turning his attention squarely on Mel. “So, you need us to save your ass again?”

  Mel bristled at the thought. “Well, I knew you were the only ones dumb enough to try!”

  “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!” Fugg shouted.

  “You’re more like a pig!” Mel shouted back.

  “Excuse me,” Squire asked. “Are the two of you friends or enemies?”

  In unison, Fugg and Mel replied, “Both!”

  Silandra, after showing Gen inside, closed the front door.

  “Can I offer you some tea, Mr. Fugg?” she asked.

  “Do you have any fungus beer?” he replied.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Never mind then.”

  “Where’s Captain Ramus?” Mel asked.

  “He stayed with the Wanderer,” Gen said. “We landed in a clearing not far from here.”