Unaware of what they were stepping into, the EDF peacekeepers paraded through the transportal to Pym. When they blundered into the giant bugs, Lanyan did not need to encourage his men to start blasting away.
The insect creatures chittered, whistled, and hummed—and attacked the EDF troops with an eerie synchronization. Some were more monstrous than others, with forelimbs as sharp as the Grim Reaper’s scythe. Standard projectiles blasted open their hard exoskeletons, showering out globs of slime and ooze. Nevertheless, the bugs swept forward with startling speed.
The colonists in their fenced-in prison near the alkaline pools were horrified when they saw the first human soldiers torn to pieces. At the fringe of the battlefield, like a symphonic accompaniment to the clash, geysers shot pillars of steam into the air along with a foul sulfurous smell.
The General bellowed over the din of the ensuing engagement. “Mission parameters have changed. We are the Earth Defense Forces—so start defending. Let’s rescue those colonists, then haul ass out of here.” Having anticipated little resistance from the colonists, Lanyan’s EDF peacekeepers carried primarily ceremonial weapons. Right now, he wished he’d brought along a full-bore jazer cannon or shaped-projectile launcher.
A gratifying blast from his own gun splattered the head-crest of a huge insect warrior that reared up in front of him. A second projectile blasted its thorax, and the armored head tumbled into the alkaline water. The body’s multiple limbs kept twitching.
Against Lanyan’s original orders—thank God!—someone had brought small fusion grenades. A soldier launched two grenades toward the alien monoliths in the middle of the gray lake. The resulting explosion broke the brittle structures into flying white chunks.
A third fusion grenade detonated on the far side of the prison fence, spraying tainted water in every direction. The high-energy blast opened a sinkhole beneath the alkaline crust, and the ground began to collapse as water gurgled down, sweeping many of the swarming creatures away in the flood.
Bitter white powder in the air stung Lanyan’s eyes and burned his throat. Coughing, he killed several bugs that had taken down five of his soldiers. Lanyan led a charge toward the chalky towers, seeing red as he splashed through shin-deep gray water. The big bugs were all around the pen for the haggard colonists, but the insects here seemed to be a different breed, not as aggressive. Lanyan and his men blasted six of the creatures without even pausing and ran toward the human survivors. “We’ll get you out of here!”
“It’s the Klikiss!” a woman yelled hoarsely from her prison. “The Klikiss have returned. They’ve been killing us.”
The General was so focused on the battle going on around him that he couldn’t ask the right questions or put all the pieces together. Klikiss? One of his soldiers planted a small demolitions charge, and the burst of fire knocked down the cementlike wall. The skeletal Pym settlers lurched through the break, stumbling forward to freedom, sobbing and screaming. They looked as if they hadn’t been fed in days.
Finally EDF troops stopped coming through from Rheindic Co, and now they could turn around and head back through the transportal. Lanyan bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Full retreat! Get these people out of here. Back to base.”
The soldiers did not need to be told twice. One man managed to reactivate the coordinate tile on the stone wall. “Transportal is open!”
As the colonists staggered forward, soldiers took them by the arms and hustled them to the gateway. Lanyan planted his feet squarely apart and formed a rear guard, shooting his sidearms until he had to reload. Both weapons were growing hot in his hands. “Through the damned gate! Get your asses moving.”
Grim-faced soldiers grabbed the bodies of their fallen comrades, both the injured and the dead. The Klikiss moved with the speed of gigantic cockroaches under a bright light, racing forward to attack. Colonists and soldiers escaped one group at a time back to Rheindic Co. Lanyan spotted four Klikiss warriors circling around to the side, trying to cut off access to the transportal. He bellowed orders, and a flurry of weapons fire took down the bugs. But more and more of the creatures were closing in.
By the time the surviving Pym settlers had been evacuated, the General had run out of ammunition. He dropped both of his weapons and looked around for any available sidearm. Slaughtered insects were piled all over the ground, yet more of them surged out of the still-intact alien towers.
When Lanyan saw that most of his soldiers were successfully evacuated, he raced to the transportal wall. “Hurry up, dammit!” His last few men plunged with him through the shimmering trapezoidal window.
Suddenly, Lanyan found himself back in the crowded caves on Rheindic Co on the other side of the transportal. He was dripping with alkaline water, perspiration, blood, and Klikiss ichor.
A cold shiver ran up his back as he realized they were not safe, after all. Not by a long shot. Now that they had riled up the bugs, the Klikiss could simply flood through after them.
50 SIRIX
The return of the Klikiss changed all of Sirix’s plans. After fleeing Wollamor, it was time for him to gather his remaining robots and the war vessels they had constructed at the new complex on Maratha. They would become the destructive force that he had imagined for millennia.
Sirix and his robots must eradicate the hated creators. Again. The subhive swarming through the Wollamor transportal could not be an isolated event. If the Klikiss were returning to their old worlds, they would reappear everywhere—intent on revenge. There would be many breedexes.
He needed to expand his military force greatly.
Sirix guided his battle group to Maratha in Ildiran space, where the largest enclave of robots had built their ambitious base. Ages ago, Sirix had used the half-hot, half-cold world to stage a great battle against the Klikiss. Recently, he had been appalled to learn that the Ildirans had made the place into a resort for themselves.
Had they distorted their own history so much that they had forgotten? The black robots had taken back the planet without much trouble. The Ildirans would not dare return there. By now, Sirix’s fellows should have turned Maratha into an impregnable stronghold.
But he found only wreckage.
Both of the Ildiran-built cities, Prime and Secda, had been sliced and deconstructed, cratered by explosions. The machine battleships had been destroyed on the ground, along with hundreds of his vital comrades.
Sirix reeled, unable to calculate the extent of the loss. Nearly a third of his robots had gathered here! He recalibrated the Juggernaut’s sensors, searching for an error, or at least an explanation. There should be many robots digging tunnels, reconstructing and reinforcing the ancient base. And there were none!
QT moved closer to the bridge’s viewscreen. “It appears that a full-blown battle took place here.”
Sirix’s ships scanned the blasted landscape, trying to determine what could have caused so much destruction. “Our robots should have been able to defend themselves. They had enough time to prepare, to erect bastions against any attackers.”
“Did they know what they were preparing against?” PD asked. He stepped up next to his fellow compy, and both peered with great interest at the images of devastation.
Ilkot swiveled from his station and announced, “I detect characteristic signatures from Solar Navy armaments. Ildiran weaponry caused this.”
Sirix had already decided to add the Ildirans to his list of intended victims, but now an intense reaction burned through his circuits, distorting logical thought. “The Ildirans were warned to stay away from Maratha millennia ago. Now they have provoked us.”
Ilkot continued scanning. “There are also unidentifiable weapons and debris—similar to those we encountered on Wollamor.”
“On Wollamor?”
“I postulate that the Klikiss are also to blame.”
QT drew the obvious conclusion. “Are the Klikiss allied with the Ildirans?”
“How would the Klikiss get here?” Sirix said. “Maratha has no transportal.”
&n
bsp; “That is one of many questions,” PD said. “How have the Klikiss survived at all? They were extinct, according to data you provided.”
“Blanket the ground with our signals. I want to know if any robots remain functional. Every one of them is precious to us.” Sirix transmitted his own image, searching for a response. He could not believe that all of their ships and gathered weapons had been so woefully insufficient.
“We could also send scavenging teams to the site,” Ilkot suggested. “Some of the memory cores could be intact. We could extract those cores to determine what occurred here—and salvage their memories. Otherwise our ancient and unique comrades are entirely lost.”
Suddenly, the hull of the Juggernaut rang with a loud reverberation. The deck and walls shuddered. Moving like a pack of predators, six Solar Navy warliners skimmed the edge of Maratha’s atmosphere, racing over the curve of the planet toward Sirix’s battle group. Their solar sails were extended, weapons powered in an intimidating posture.
Another dull impact struck them. “We are in EDF ships. They should believe we are the Earth military.” He turned to the vacant communications console as Ilkot scuttled toward the controls. “Transmit one of our recorded images of Admiral Wu-Lin to deceive them.”
PD asked, “Are the Ildirans at war with the humans now?”
In a maddeningly cheerful voice, QT said, “Sirix, you already transmitted your own image to search for surviving robots. The Ildirans know who we are.”
The warliners raced forward, commencing a barrage with their most powerful weapons. Sirix’s Juggernaut reeled; sparks flew from control panels. Warning indicators signaled fourteen hull breaches and explosive loss of atmosphere.
“Return fire.” EDF weapons lanced out, grazing the Ildiran vessels, ripping apart one of the mostly decorative solar sails.
“It is understandable that the Ildirans are upset with Klikiss robots,” QT pointed out. “The robots did not ask permission to establish a base here on a sovereign Ildiran world, and they caused great damage.”
“But Ildirans should not be here at all,” Sirix replied, amplifying his voice.
“Perhaps they believe the robots should not have been here.”
“This is completely different.”
The Soldier compies on the accompanying Mantas continued to shoot, damaging two of the patrol warliners, while enduring powerful blows in return. In the frantic battle, Sirix watched the inventory of projectiles and jazer batteries and realized that he was wasting firepower that he had intended to use against humans—and the Klikiss. He had not intended to fight the Ildiran Empire as well, especially not with this small battle group, without the reinforcements he had expected to find on Maratha.
The Ildiran warliners continued to bombard them. Sirix swiftly calculated whether or not to continue the engagement. Comparing the weapons capabilities aboard the Solar Navy warliners to his own defenses, he determined that while his EDF ships might be victorious, it would cost him much of his battle group. Those were losses he could not afford.
“Withdraw. Do not continue firing.” Sirix altered the transmission burst, directing it toward the Ildirans. “We will remove ourselves from this system. There is no need for you to persist in your attack.”
The Solar Navy apparently disagreed. They continued to pursue Sirix and his battle group, still firing, even as the robots accelerated away from Maratha. Already, he knew that the repairs would take a great deal of time.
Sirix revised his plans. Again. This was not how events had been meant to unfold! He had imagined a magnificent victory over the humans, conquering all their worlds, recapturing the prize of every abandoned Klikiss planet.
Unless he could reunite with the few other robot enclaves already on Klikiss worlds—a fraction of what he had expected to rally on Maratha—then these ships were all he had. His deadly metal swarm was reduced to no more than a cloud of gnats!
He was angry and disconcerted, and he needed a target. A new set of tactics suggested itself to him. The returning Klikiss were the primary threat. The most despised enemy. And he could destroy them.
He knew their old worlds, knew where they would go. Sirix decided to take these ships from planet to planet and destroy each transportal. That would effectively cut them off, strand the Klikiss on the far side of the Galaxy, or wherever they had been hiding for all these millennia. Then he would exterminate whatever remnants he found.
These EDF ships could easily accomplish that goal. One world at a time.
51 ANTON COLICOS
Now that they were back from Maratha, Anton had another story to tell. Even Rememberer Vao’sh was barely able to contain his eagerness to write down his experiences with the Solar Navy, the black robots, and the returned Klikiss. He would document everything and submit it to the Hall of Rememberers. Vao’sh had never expected to be so much of an actual participant in the events of the Saga.
“Sometimes when I read over the things I’ve done since coming here, I can hardly believe my own experiences,” Anton said. “I have to remind myself that it was actually me and not some square-jawed hero!” He chuckled over the pages of notes in his personal datapad.
In the rememberer’s bright office in the Prism Palace, Anton was at last getting back to the work that had initially brought him to Ildira, translating parts of the seminal alien epic so that he could bring it home to Earth. He tried to imagine what would happen when he returned to his old university position—would he still have a job there after so long? He supposed it didn’t matter. With his experiences and his unique knowledge, Anton could find a high-paying tenured position at the university of his choice. He could go on the lecture circuit. Instead of publishing papers in obscure journals, he could draw on the most exciting portions of the Saga to write bestsellers, even write his autobiography. He would receive considerable attention. If only his parents could have seen it . . .
Out in the hallway, servant kithmen scurried around, sweeping and polishing. Anton glanced up at the commotion and saw Yazra’h stride through the door with her three Isix cats stalking after her. “My father has come to see you.”
Looking both impressed and embarrassed, Vao’sh stood. “The Mage-Imperator had only to summon us. We would have come to the skysphere.”
Jora’h entered and approached the rememberers. “I wished to see the two of you in person and watch you at work.” His long hair was neatly braided behind his head; his colorful robes were adorned with reflective strips and spangled with gem chips. “And I would prefer that no one overhear the request I am about to make.” He smiled wryly. “It will be interesting to see how well Ildirans deal with major change.”
The Mage-Imperator surveyed their tables strewn with diamondfilm records covered with dense text that comprised only a small percentage of the Saga. Jora’h picked up a sheet, but didn’t seem interested in the words etched there. “A long time ago, I visited two green priests in this very chamber, Nira and old Ambassador Otema. They came here to read the Saga aloud for the worldforest.” Jora’h paused, lost in a reverie, then straightened. “Ten thousand years ago in our history, Ildira faced a crossroads similar to our current one. At that time, the Mage-Imperator began a . . . horrendous cover-up.”
“Ah, the Lost Times,” Vao’sh said, his voice heavy. “All rememberers were killed in order to conceal the actual events of the first hydrogue war.”
The Mage-Imperator lowered his eyes. “At that time our Saga of Seven Suns was rewritten and censored so that no one would know the truth. But I am Mage-Imperator now, and I will not permit such corruption. The story of this war must be told honestly in every detail. We will record only the truth in our sacred Saga, and let our descendants judge us by it.” He looked intently at Anton and Vao’sh. “I ask you to accept a great responsibility: Tell the truth. Work together to remove the stain of lies from our history. And write the next portion of our great epic.”
Anton couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “But, Your Majesty, I’m just a scholar
, not even an Ildiran—”
“Your perspective is necessary. You are both rememberers in your own way, and you will have my full support. Revise the Saga to include the shameful revelations of the Dobro breeding program and our involvement with the hydrogues. Reveal the schemes that my father and his predecessors—and yes, even I—participated in. It is only the first of many wrongs that I must atone for. I have spoken at great length with Nira about it. Do you accept this noble task I entrust to you?”
Vao’sh was confused. This simply was not done! “Liege, does that mean you wish for us to include the apocrypha—all the unofficial documents that we recently studied?”
“Yes. Others tried before you, but they were unsuccessful. You may recall a rememberer named Dio’sh.”
The old rememberer nodded. “He was a friend of mine. He survived Crenna’s blindness plague and came back here years ago. I heard that he died.”
“He did not simply die. He was killed. My father murdered him.”
Vao’sh gasped. “The Mage-Imperator? He cannot—would not—do such a thing.” But Jora’h explained how Dio’sh discovered the truth about the Lost Times and went to Mage-Imperator Cyroc’h with his findings, whereupon the corpulent leader strangled the poor man with his long, living braid.
“You will include that story when you rewrite the Saga as well.” The Mage-Imperator’s words were sharp, as if he had to force himself to say them.
Vao’sh would never defy the command of his Mage-Imperator, but he was greatly unsettled. “Liege, you are asking us to alter the unalterable. The Saga of Seven Suns is revered as a perfect record.”
“Yet you know that is not true. You have known it for some time.”
The rememberer’s voice grew smaller. “But it is . . . tradition.”
“Is it a worthy tradition that serves only to perpetuate lies? You will tell the truth. That is my command. The Ildiran people must learn to accept change. That in itself is an important change I will bring about.”
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