Cherubim

by David Hallquist

  “This is the honor guard for the Jovian Diplomatic Mission,” I belt out with an amplified voice and on radio broadcast.

  Enemy fire is immediate. Laser beams crack and hiss across our cover and over the surfaces of our armor. Rail darts skid across the deck and our cover, and they hammer against exposed armor in glancing blows. A few SPGs rise out of the park foliage and arc in our direction.

  Well, I tried…

  Our return fire is immediate. Point defense lasers snap out, and incoming SPGs detonate in midair. Our lasers and railguns fire back with deadly precision at every location enemy fire emerged from. At this range, we can’t miss, and the Venusian foliage, park benches, and statuary they’re taking cover behind may as well be thin paper. Molded stone flies apart in chunks, and glittering shards of sculpture fly as they burst apart. If the Venusians aren’t in heavy armor, they’ll be in even worse shape themselves. Our SPGs fly out in low, flat paths, taking advantage of cover and terrain, and emitting jamming signals as they go. They detonate in the foliage in massive blue plasma blasts, then clusters of submunitions explode in fragmentation bursts, sending transonic darts and deadly floating feather shrapnel everywhere.

  Finally, we open up with the heavy plasma repeater. Blinding blue bolts of million-degree plasma hammer into the foliage in a methodical pattern of destruction. The plasma bolts burn through everything then detonate, creating thermal pulses that set everything nearby on fire.

  When we’re done, the entire park is a burning, blackened ruin, sending a column of thick, black smoke into the sky. There’s no further sign of the enemy, though it would be hard to tell in all that heat and flame. They’ve stopped shooting at us, and that’s good enough for me.

  That went easier than I expected. We probably weren’t facing professional Venusian troops, but auxiliaries, security personnel, or maybe amateur partisans. The real thing would have directed their fire more carefully, actually hidden behind useful cover for their ambush, and would probably have had some kind of protective armor and countermeasures. I’m sure they were a terror against unarmed civilians but against pros…well, it didn’t work out well for them.

  It looks like we’ll have to skirt the edge of the burning park, just under the arch of the support. Our systems can take the heat, and it might help mask us for a while.

  “Let’s go before something else shows up…” I begin.

  A low rumbling growl echoes though the skies.

  It’s a dragon…currently a small, winged silhouette coming over the close horizon.

  I zoom my optics in on the distant approaching figure, and the full, terrible spectacle of the creature becomes apparent.

  I’ve seen dragons before, but this one is a monster. It looks like it shouldn’t be able to fly at all, and if the Venusian atmosphere wasn’t as dense and oxygen rich as it is, it probably couldn’t. This thing is to the salamander what a lizard is to a dinosaur. Gleaming purple-red scales cover its body in genetically engineered, laser-resistant armor. Flashing diamond atom-edges tip its massive paws and the gaping jaws of a mouth big enough to eat me, probably without having to take a second bite. Slitted golden eyes, as fierce as an eagle’s but with an uncanny intelligence, scrutinize us, staring right back at me from all that distance, studying me. The monster is wearing armor, golden plates covered with intricate whirls of artistic designs, and shining, prismatic, anti-laser fractals cover the chest, belly, joints, much of its limbs, and spine, and they form a protective half-helmet with a transparent crystalline visor for the dragon.

  It’s got a rider on it, too. This guy looks like one of the noble guards and is decked out in their prismatic crystalline armor, complete with a spiked crown of flashing crystal. He’s got a massive crystal laser-lance held high, while a sword and pistol are sheathed on his belt. His flowing purple and gold cape has the rampant dragon of his House plainly visible for all to see, and the ensign is duplicated on the chestplate of the dragon he’s riding.

  The nobleman salutes us with his lance, then addresses us with amplified voice and radio broadcast, “Lo! Scoundrels and rogues who give to foul wrath and fury, behold now in terror your doom! For it is I, Vanderian dar Meliancroix an Durail-Escotes, prince of Ishtar and of the House of the proud, noble, and terrible Dragon. Prepare to face judgment! Whereas you have violated the sanctity of the noble courtly accord with treacherous violence; whereas you carry brother-bloodstained blades of crimson in our peaceful city; whereas you have laid slaughter and discord amongst our people; whereas you have desecrated and defiled the great and sacred artistry of our noble and fair city…”

  We don’t have time for this. Even his dragon seems to be rolling its eyes at the speech.

  “Let us pass,” I broadcast back up, interrupting the prince’s monologue. “We’re a Jovian diplomatic envoy. We just want to get to our flight off-world. Don’t interfere with us, and we don’t have to fight.”

  “How dare you!” he shouts. “How dare you so address a Prince of the Blood! Now you shall all pay for your many insults and inequities! Now you shall—”

  “Take him out,” I tell our sniper.

  The prince’s head disappears in an explosion of red mist and shattered crystal. The massive dragon roars in outrage and pain as our lasers and rail darts hammer into it. The scales and armor are tough, but it can’t protect everywhere, and its scale bio-armor will eventually degrade under our fire. Already the dragon is bleeding from several wounds. It folds its wings to dive on us.

  No, we are not going to let that happen.

  “Missiles!” I shout.

  There’s a flash from our portable missile launcher, and a single continuous streak of blue light out to the dragon. It disappears in the blazing blue light of the plasma detonation, then tumbles, one-winged and trailing smoke out of the fireball. It cries out in an anguished howl. Somehow, it’s still alive. Much of its armor is melted, and it’s blackened by the blast, but it’s still moving and writhing as it drops out of sight. We hear the crash as it hits the deck, and I think I only imagined the ground shaking. From the distance, another angry growl echoes though the air.

  “Let’s go,” I say. “That thing is still alive, and I don’t want to be here when it comes back.”

  We pack up the heavy weapons and move out, skirting the blaze in the park. In the oxygen-rich, high-pressure atmosphere of Venus, once you start a fire, it’s hard to put out.

  “What just happened?” the ambassador asks. The bubble was opaque, so he heard, but didn’t see what happened.

  I figure I’d best get to the point quickly. “Uh, I think we just killed a foreign head of state, sir.” Yeah, we’re probably going to have some trouble over this one.

  “What? Are you sure?” he moans.

  “Oh, yeah, I’m sure. That was a beaut of a shot! Good shooting, Corporal!”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I mean, are you sure he was a head of state? Maybe he wasn’t a noble, or worse, a royal?”

  I check my augmentation database. Hmm… Vanderian dar Meliancroix an Durail-Escotes…oh, hey, this guy was a major big-shot! “Looks like he was third in line for the throne of House Dragon, sir.”

  “Oh, no…”

  “Sir, they fired on you and our diplomatic mission. I’m sorry, but it’s war.”

  There are soft sounds coming from the bubble. It could be because of all of the things he’s had to witness today, but I don’t think that’s what’s really gotten to him. It’s the awareness that his diplomatic mission has finally and totally failed that grieves him.

  Now we need to get the ambassador out of this battlefield, then continue diplomacy by other means.

  * * *

  We’re coming up to the hangar at last. We saw a few other aircraft and creatures flying about, and had a close call or two, but didn’t have to come into contact with anyone or anything. Now here we are, at the very edge of the city.

  End of the road.

  Industrial boxes, columns, ridges, and other str
uctures pop up here and there out of the city roof. After that, there’s a broad, empty expanse to the very edge of the city. The upper surface of the city curves gently on an ever-increasing slope until it’s nearly vertical at the very edge. After that, there’s nothing but the long, long drop into the ocean below.

  We creep forward carefully, taking advantage of what cover there is as we approach. I can hear engines but can’t see anything. Maybe it’s something over the edge.

  A sharp cry comes from one of our men behind us.

  The Venusian dragon looms, impossibly huge up close. It’s got those monstrous jaws entirely around one of our Marines, shaking him around while he flails and stabs at the snout with his knife. The dragon swings its neck around and hurls the Marine, his armor skidding and sparking as he bounces across the roof until he hits and dents a maintenance box. He’s still alive, cursing, as he struggles to sit up in his damaged armor.

  Then the reptilian titan glares at us and roars. It’s the same one from earlier, missing one wing, covered with wounds, burns, and partly damaged armor. Emitting a loud hiss, the dragon gapes, and the fangs glow red as the monster prepares to breathe on us.

  We open fire first, of course.

  Railgun fire hammers at the armored, screeching snout, tearing into the helmet, and opening bleeding wounds in its maw and exposed flesh. SPGs fly out to detonate along its body, further distracting the enraged behemoth, and it flails, trying uselessly to claw the incoming smart munitions from the air.

  Finally, we launch another missile. Somehow the dragon senses the danger and jumps into the air, quick as a cat, just before launch. It’s not enough. The missile detonates directly under the dragon in a massive blinding flash of blue light and thunder that hammers us to the ground.

  Once we can see again, it’s clear that the blast destroyed the dragon’s other wing and lifted the leviathan even further up into the air, and it tumbles in a screeching, writhing, smoking arc to hit the deck with a crash that shakes the ground.

  Near the edge now, the dragon scrambles at the deck with its claws, which screech into the metal as it tries to gain purchase to keep from sliding down the sloping roof toward the edge.

  We keep pouring it on. As the dragon tries to scramble to its feet, we hit it with rail fire and SPGs, hammering away at the dragon’s legs, claws, and even the very deck surface supporting it. Finally it loses its grip altogether, rolling and sliding toward the edge. We keep firing until the colossal reptile finally slides over the edge and out of sight, giving a final roar of frustration that trails off.

  The silence after seems total in comparison.

  The silence is finally broken by our tight-beam laser contact among the men.

  “Think it’s really gone?”

  “I dunno…”

  “Want to check?”

  “Nope.”

  “Me neither.”

  They help the injured Marine to his feet, and we launch another small remote over the edge to see if there’s any trouble down there.

  There’s trouble, all right.

  A flight of Venusian Harpy fighters is on the way, no doubt alerted by our firefight and the smoking, writhing dragon falling past them. It would have been kind of hard to miss all of that—

  And now, here they come.

  * * *

  We scramble for cover behind the boxes and protrusions on the roof as the shriek of the Harpies grows louder. The scream of their engines rises to the limits of normal hearing in a sound that goes right through the body and lights up the spine with primordial fire.

  The corporal readies the missile launcher, but there’s not much more we can do. Sure, we’ve faced assassins, noble guard, heavy infantry, and even a dragon, but this is different. These are Harpy aerospace bio-fighters, grown to take on full Angel exo-frames, and we don’t stand a chance.

  The chitinous Harpies rise over the edge of the city with arrogant grace, their membranous, crystalline wings keeping them steady on a plume of dazzling white flames. Like all Venusian constructs, they have great beauty, but it’s the beauty of a wasp or hornet about to strike. The black carapaces flash with prismatic light as the sun catches the laser-refractive coating. Sensory compound eye clusters on the things gleam and flash like faceted jewels in the sun. Each has a heavy rail cannon as a deadly stinger and numerous laser clusters scattered across those gleaming, armored carapaces. They hover with effortless grace, agility, and menace.

  There are nine of them.

  Still, maybe they won’t open fire. Maybe we can get out of this. They might be House Unicorn or Phoenix, or concerned with another task in their alien, insectile minds and might ignore us. Maybe…

  They target us with radar, and those rail cannon swing our way.

  The flash of our launcher makes a line of blazing light that connects to a brilliant blue, dazzling blast of plasma fire. The smoking, charred, and maimed Harpy tumbles out of control. One down.

  We won’t get another chance.

  We hit the deck as their heavy cannon open up. It’s like being next to a continuous thunderbolt. Even with audio-canceling, the raging thunder of pure power hammers away at my bones, and normal hearing fades away in a haze of increasing pain and confusion. Glowing streaks roar through the air above us as the hyper-velocity darts leave a thermal bloom of ionized air. Metal fragments fly about in smoking trails from our disintegrating cover and glancing fire across the deck.

  If we move out of cover for even an instant, those heavy cannon will tear us apart, armor or no armor.

  We have to do something, though; our cover won’t last long.

  We fire off countermeasures dust, SPGs, and another missile up and over.

  No good. The crack of Venusian laser clusters takes out everything we’ve got to throw. We must have gotten lucky with that first missile, firing at point-blank range before they expected it.

  The angle of the incoming rain of fire bends lower, and the scream of the Harpies rises in pitch and volume. Here they come. They’re going to rise over our cover, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Maybe we can get a few desperate shots off, but we’ll never get them all before they get us.

  We were so close!

  I close my eyes against the flash of light and roaring thunder that shakes the whole world.

  I’m still alive…

  The hail of screaming darts is gone, along with the thunderous roar of their wake. Now there’s just a drifting cloud of smoke in the air, and a low, steady, rumbling purr that’s somehow comforting. Wait…I know that sound!

  I send up one of my last remotes to get a look.

  Hovering over the burning wreckage of the Harpy fighters is our flight of Cherubim Angel-frames.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” Talon transmits. “May I be of assistance?”

  * * *

  “Talon? What—where—why—?” I stutter.

  “I apologize for the delay, sir, we have encountered considerable opposition,” he replies calmly.

  “You’ve had…” I bite off the criticism before it forms. We’re all sore, tired, and scared, but that’s no excuse to chew him out; there’s no telling what he’s been through. “Report.”

  “We were engaged by enemy forces who attacked our perimeter at the hangar, a company of Venusian heavy infantry backed by Harpy air support. Then we attempted to join up with you at the ambassadorial quarters from the outside, but you had already left, and we had to engage the forces there. Then we had to engage House Dragon air assets in action around Ishtar before we could join up with you.”

  Right. Everybody’s had it hard. Each of the Cherubim look like they’ve been through hell—there are scorch marks, dart holes, and other battle damage all over their heavily ablated armor. The status update transmission makes it clear they’ve had a rough time; all their missiles have been expended, most of the SPGs, and their laser emitters are still cooling down. It looks like they took out the Harpies with x-ray lances at point-blank range.

  “The shuttle
?”

  “The Marine assault shuttle is still operational, sir. We kept it out of sight.”

  “Get it up here, it’s time for us to leave.”

  “Sir.”

  The Marine assault shuttle comes roaring up over the edge of the city, passes overhead in a blast of jet-wash, then hovers briefly before landing with its engines still rumbling and ready to go.

  “Everyone in!” I shout. No one needs me to say it again; everyone bolts into the shuttle as soon as the ramp comes down and the hatch opens.

  I’m tempted to strap into my frame, but getting into an exo-frame takes time…precious time when my frame can’t fight and defend the people in the shuttle who are my main responsibility. So I charge in last after everyone is in, though I’d much rather be flying my Angel.

  Everybody racks in. Articulated support frames come down, then smart cords help wrap us in place. We help the injured and the ambassador into racks first, then the rest of us strap in for the rough ride to come.

  I keep the wall displays blank so most of us don’t have to watch the chaos outside, but I link in with my sensorium to see. Even if I can’t affect the outcome, I want to know what’s happening.

  The shuttle takes off as soon as the ramp is up. We’re hammered into our restraints as the shuttle tips vertical and races for the sky.

  Flashes of laser fire hit our shuttle, and the loud crack-snap of volatilizing armor echoes through the shuttle. Counter laser fire immediately lances out from the shuttle and Angels, striking back at targets hidden to the eye, but obvious to targeting systems. Plumes of countermeasures dust stream out behind us, filled with the flashing, glowing stars of ECM and decoy pods.

  Missile tracks race up after us, then detonate in bright flashes as our network of defensive laser clusters intercept them.

  I hate just sitting here. I want to be out there, helping in the fight, but I have to sit and watch…and pray.