Cherubim
Page 25
Even the airwaves are silent. There are no transmissions, identification signals, no jamming, even the sinister whispers of the Saturn virus are silent.
The image of Talon’s Angel frame floats in my awareness. Huge chunks of it are in danger red, and almost everything is in warning yellow.
* * *
Footsteps in the ash trail away behind me. Talon and I are one in purpose and focus as we walk through the silent, still forest of death. Every once in a while, I push the charred trunk of a tree out of the way, and its dull snap is the only sound in the world—quickly drunk up by the surrounding silent emptiness.
The mission clock says 32 minutes until the task force arrives to help, but time seems meaningless right now.
What will they find when they get here? Are any more of us left? Will the task force even still be there in half an hour? The questions swirl around me like the silent flakes of ash, with no possible answers.
Everything has compressed down to a world of a few hundred yards, and the only time that matters is this moment, here and now.
Where is Donner?
…and Sammy. Donner’s Angel has to be in on his betrayal, otherwise it would shut him down. Likewise, it can’t just be the Angel Sammy doing this because Donner could shut him down.
A rebel Angel is a terrible thing. Any of the Angel war frames carries enough thermonuclear firepower to scour cities and space stations of all life. That’s not the real danger, though. The real danger is the sophisticated AI built from the start for war, with superhuman speed, intelligence, and capabilities. Add to it that it’s unrestrained, and it’s even more dangerous. Talon restrains himself from a number of things he could do, the same way any decent person does. A rogue Angel is like dealing with a psychopath; it’s more dangerous because it’s unpredictable—it could do anything at all.
We’ve got to stop it, Talon and I together, no matter what it takes.
As I walk, I leave a few micro-sensors here and there. They form a trail of sensors that should help alert me with a burst transmission should Donner show up. Even with all the chaff and dust in the air, they’ll be able to make the short distance transmissions to let me know he’s there.
Of course, that’ll let other hunters out there know I’m here, but I’ll deal with that later. Whoever won the battle will find me eventually anyway, so I may as well settle up with Donner first.
He’s likely out there, like I am, looking for signs of survivors to complete his treacherous mission. If he finds me first, at least he’s not hitting anyone else in my squadron.
Contact!
I run in the direction as fast as Talon can take me there.
Are there traps? Mines? Drones?
Possibly, but speed is more important right now. I need to get there before Saturnine reinforcements arrive.
Finally I break through a strand of charred trees into a clearing.
Standing there, in an open clearing of drifting ash, is Donner in his rogue Angel frame Sammy, waiting patiently for us.
* * *
Ash falls gently as snow in the clearing, as we stand motionless and silent. Either of us could strike at any second, and the battle might be over in the first move…but neither of us moves. Maybe it’s because one of us will finally be dead and gone in a few minutes, and maybe it’s something else…but the quiet scene stretches on. Anger, hatred, contempt, confusion, and exhaustion seem to fade away to an all-encompassing focus on this moment and this place.
Nothing matters but the now.
I size up my foe. Ash collects on the shoulders of the enemy frame. The light gray perfectly matches the adaptive camouflage, except for the few scorch marks that mar the otherwise immaculate armor of the Angel. My armor is mostly gone. All four of the exo-frame’s x-ray lances are undamaged, and none of mine are functional. All his laser clusters seem to be undamaged, yet I barely retain half of mine. Scorch marks around his launchers tell me he’s fired off all his missiles and drones, just like me. There’s carbon scoring around only one of his SPG packs, though, and I’ve already used half of mine.
It’s an utterly unequal contest, but strangely I feel no fear or anxiety at all. There’s just calm before the storm.
“Why?” I transmit. “Why did you betray us? You used to be a loyal and capable officer. You had to have been, once. What changed?”
“The Saturn virus,” he sends back. “There’s a…music to it. A beauty in the darkness. It opened my eyes even as it closed them. I realized that they would win, eventually, inevitability. Nothing can compare to their resolve; there is nothing that they won’t do, and they will never stop. It’s the force of history itself; nothing can oppose it indefinitely. It’ll go on forever, just like the agony I was in. And with submission came peace…unity…purpose. Real purpose. I’d always wanted a true cause I could give my life for, and I found it in the Saturnine Undermind, which, unlike the Republic, will endure forever. The Saturnine codes helped rebuild my mind, and Sammy’s, as we were slowly and painfully reassembled, now one, far stronger than we’ve ever been before.”
“Is this where you try to get me to join up?” I ask. There should be rage or disgust in my voice, but I’m surprised to find it’s calm and emotionless.
“No. My orders are to destroy you—and I shall. I just wanted you to know, out of respect.”
“I’m sure you were worthy of respect once, Donner; it’s a shame I never got to meet that man, other than the empty shell that’s now talking to me.”
His frame takes half a step back.
I continue, “You realize they will destroy you in the end? That your loyalty will only be rewarded with treachery and hatred?”
“If they do, I shall welcome it! All must end at some point, and what better end than to bring about the final and permanent era of humanity? Even when I die, even when history has been erased and rewritten, I shall have had a part in building the new world to come. Whereas you…you’ll be forgotten after you’re gone, and nothing will remain of your history.”
I realize I’m talking to a man who’s already dead inside. “I have to put you down now.”
He takes another half step back, and I walk forward.
* * *
Donner and Sammy hesitate for an instant, but we don’t.
Talon’s UV laser clusters fire as one, striking out at exposed sensors and laser clusters on Sammy. I trigger all the remaining SPGs to fire in a huge cloud of drones, tracking warheads and countermeasures dust.
They return fir
e an instant later. UV lasers are attenuated by the cloud between us now, but his x-ray lances can cut clean through at this short range. Two miss, thrown off by the shimmering countermeasures cloud. One blows off Talon’s left arm, and the other burns deep into his chest and takes out the primary fusion reactor. We’re on backup power now, which will barely last five minutes at this rate.
This fight will be long over in five minutes.
He also fires off a cloud of countermeasures, SPGs, and mini drones, and then concentrates his remaining laser clusters and lances on taking out the swarm of SPGs racing at him.
I see Sammy’s SPGs coming at us in the slow motion of my augmented nervous system. Swarms of small, black spheres spitting pulsed drive flames converge on us. It’s clear that we’ll never stop them all with our remaining laser clusters.
Still, we must try. Talon’s laser clusters claw at the incoming projectiles, detonating them one by one as they inevitably draw closer…closer…
A cascade of explosions surrounds us. The first to go are dazzler flashes designed to scramble our targeting systems for the following SPGs. Then fragmentation and cluster munitions blow, filling the air with screaming shrapnel and bomblets, which glance off my exo-frame, but further confuse our targeting. Finally, a handful of plasma bombs get through and hammer at Talon’s weakened armor and frame.
More damage alarms. A number of structural and systems alerts are raging. Any number of systems will shut down in minutes, and just moving now will cause further serious damage.
We break into a run.
My SPGs break through Sammy’s defensive fire, and a series of plasma blasts hammer at him, wrecking his x-ray lances and staggering him back a step.
Talon ignites the remaining fuel in our damaged flight pack, and the explosion helps propel us into a leap that I turn into an attack.
The plasma sword flashes to life in our right hand as I come down from the attack to slash through Sammy’s head and chest and—
Sammy parries our attack with a lightning-fast block from his plasma sword and turns that into a flowing riposte aimed at Talon’s chest that we awkwardly parry.
Laser clusters trade fire, seeking each other’s remaining sensors and laser clusters as we circle each other, looking for an opening, a flaw. We’re both half-blind now, but his form is textbook flawless, and we’re…well, we’re crippled and missing an arm.
The moment to strike comes, and we’re attacking at a speed faster than thought or reaction. It’s a battle where we’re one with the fight, and there’s nothing else. Strike, parry, counter, guard…the deadly dance of plasma blades goes on for a time that’s a single long instant.
Remaining laser clusters continue to fire here and there, as the defense clusters fight their own battle of thrust and counterstrike. ECM, jamming, electronic warfare, and virus systems strike back and forth between our frames in a cyber battle where microseconds decide entire electronic battlefields in an unguessable computerized war.
Finally, we clash.
Our burning swords rage and roar against each other, unable to cut through the powerful binding magnetic fields around the superheated plasma blades. Sammy’s frame is stronger, but Talon sends all emergency power to hold the clash. Our foe tries to force us off balance, but we adjust. Sammy’s left hand extends deadly raptor talons and tears at my frame’s head, gouging out primary sensor eyes, and then scraping down our ravaged front glacis until the talons finally lodge in one of the many craters and cracks in my frame.
We’re motionless in the eternity of an instant. Whoever fails first will be cut in half.
Another transmission worms its way into our cyber systems from Sammy.
I recognize it at once…
It’s the Saturn virus.
* * *
Talon’s various defense systems stop most of the virus attacks, but not all of them. This must be the latest model of virus from Saturn, new and improved.
Eric is right about one thing—there is a song in the Saturn virus. It’s a hellish chorus of screams more than music, but there’s a pattern to it. It screams and tears at my mind as a black, icy wind that threatens to rip me away entirely from reality and my life.
Vision flickers, my guard slips, and the enemy plasma blade creeps closer as Talon and I fight the virus. The sword vaporizes the upper surfaces of Talon’s glacis as it comes in contact with it, then sinks in deeper, seeking critical systems within.
Surrender…submit…fail…The insubstantial screaming chorus assails me. Pain, fear, terror, everything threatening to overwhelm me through my cyber augments…yet what I’m getting must only be a fraction of what Talon’s going through, as he shields me from the worst of it.
The blade sinks deeper, severing circuits within. My frame is forced to one knee.
Blackness swirls around me, the screaming chorus rises, and the world threatens to vanish…
I beat this dammed thing before, and I can do it again!
Somewhere I find the strength to halt the advance of the insidious program and force it back, bit by bit. Talon likewise expels the corrupt code.
…except it’s too late.
As vision and hearing return, I can tell there are scores of new alarms going off, and the phantom pain of Talon’s injuries are burning in my chest. We lost control of the clash, and now Donner’s plasma sword has burned deep enough to sever the primary power circuity. Everything is running on individual emergency backup cells, with only seconds of power left.
I transmit to Eric, “We just beat the Saturn virus that beat you…”
Eric or Sammy, maybe both, pull back and hesitate—
—and that’s all it takes.
Once his guard is down, I sweep our plasma sword through his arm, severing it, and sink it deep into the core of his frame. My blade flickers, then powers down as Sammy staggers back a few steps, clutching uselessly at the smoking wound in the core of his chest, and topples over.
Seconds later, Talon freezes in mid crouch, and the lights go out.
* * *
Is Talon still OK? I send a query through the frame’s network, but all I get is everything is shut down. I hope he’s just in shutdown mode and can be revived later…if there is a later.
Seventeen minutes until the fleet is overhead, and anyone or anything might get here first.
I’m a sitting duck in here, so I’d better leave, and then I’ll be better able to deal with whatever comes next.
My laser pistol and knife are already strapped to my armor, so the only weapon I need to take is the folding laser carbine just behind my seat. I also grab the emergency survival pack and mini-med bot and first aid kit. I might be here a long time.
Finally, I disconnect my wired relays from my exo-frame: power leads, life support systems, and restraint harness. My flight armor is now on independent power and life support and is equal to Marine light scout armor all on its own. I hope I won’t need its capabilities, but it’s nice to have, just in case.
No need to blow the hatch off; I active the emergency opening sequence, and the hatch swings up silently.
Beyond, ash falls silently in a gray world. The Venus of earlier is gone, erased by the recent battle. Various craters dot the ruined ash-scape, already filling up slowly with the drifting gray flakes. The defeated Angel exo-frame lies on its back, motionless, covered in scorch marks and craters.
Its pilot hatch is open.
* * *
I jump out of my frame at once, roll as I hit the ground in a cloud of dust, and take off running.
If Donner is out there, he could be anywhere, and I need to get under cover—fast.
A dazzling flash of laser light tells me I’m not fast enough.
All the flakes of ash and countermeasures dust in the air glow in a fierce, violet light from a laser carbine. It flashes rapidly, strobing almost too fast to see in a dazzling, blinding, confusing pattern. The outer layers of my armor ablate away in glowing clouds of vapor, ruining my adaptive camouflage. My
armor’s more vulnerable cameras and countermeasures systems overload and burn out in the punishing laser light. Even my flash visor bubbles, cracks, and fogs under the relentless assault.
There’s no way to see through the laser glare and fluorescing clouds of dissolving ash to pinpoint my attacker. I’ve got to get out of the open; my armor can’t take this forever.
Using an internal map put up by my augments, I run at the fallen Angel frame, Sammy. I trip over something, possibly feather shrapnel or a shell casing from the earlier bombardment, and stagger to get up to keep running, then stumble again in a hidden crater. I can’t stop. With laser light lashing my back, I get back up and keep running until I get into shadow and come up against the armored hulk of the other exo-frame.
I’m breathing hard already, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the exertion. I fell into a trap like an idiot. My flash visor is useless, opaque and warped, and my cameras are ruined. I raise my flash visor so I can see clearly again through the face plate.
My carbine is useless: its optical system, targeting package, and power leads were all fried by the wide-angle laser fire I was painted with. I draw my laser pistol from its armored holster and try to get my bearings.
Think, Michael! Where is he?
He’s got to be close. There’s so much ash and diffraction dust in the air, these carbines would be useless at a kilometer. Even up close, it must have spread the beam out so no precision burning strike had been possible. It’s going to be quite different at point-blank range, though.
My augments mapped the pattern of fire and calculated the degree of beam dispersion. The laser fire could only have come from one place—right here from the cover of his exo-frame.
He’s right here…
I hear something and turn.
Eric Donner stands on top of the ruined exo-frame, laser carbine in hand.
* * *
Our eyes lock. He can see my face clearly through my transparent face plate, and I feel his gaze through his mirrored visor.