The troops exit the forest and surround us. Some of them look at my main hull, but they don’t know what to make of it, so they ignore it. The leader dismounts, and removes his helm. Unlike the others, his face is sharp and handsome, clean-shaven with short blond hair and sharp blue eyes. He walks over to us, and we both stand up to meet him.
“So, Wizard, we have at last caught up with you. The Dark Hierophant has had enough of the interference of your so-called white council. I am to escort you to his most august presence, where you may explain your lack of respect to him in person.”
“Prince Azeotrope, a pleasure as always,” said The Wizard. “But I shan’t be going anywhere with you. You know that the council members have immunity from your authority.”
Azeotrope laughed. “Immunity? I command 104 soldiers, myself included. I think that I have sufficient authority here, do you not?” He appears to notice me for the first time. “And who is this woman?”
“This is the Lady Earhart. She is a visitor from a distant land, and not a party to our quarrels. I demand that you leave her alone.”
This Wizard is a sneaky bastard. Unsubtle, but sneaky. He’s making it a point of honor that this Azeotrope not leave me alone. Jerk.
“As an associate and suspected co-conspirator of yours, I must insist that this woman does accompany us.”
Azeotrope moves to grab my arm. This remote is not designed for combat, but it is still significantly stronger than the average human male of this era. Nonetheless, when he grabs me I realize that he is massively powerful: at least as much as my Earhart remote. However, I have thousands of years of recorded experience of humans fighting each other, and I can think several thousand times faster. I push him off-balance, and trip him. He lands in a heap. He bounces back up – remarkably quickly for someone in full plate armor - furious, and he unholsters his steel maces.
“That was unwise, whore. Perhaps if I beat some sense into you, you will become more accommodating to your betters. I am going to enjoy this. And you are not.”
He advances on me with a mace in each hand. A clear threat. I try to back off and apologize, but he is not listening. I fire a warning shot. It just pisses him off more. I don’t want to lose the Earhart remote as I don’t have that many resources to throw away just now. I consider shooting him in the foot, but with primitive medical care that would probably just condemn him to months of suffering before he died. I target him with a tertiary battery, and put a single high velocity solid projectile through the middle of his forehead. He falls over in a clatter of armor plate and lies still.
Several of the black-dressed riders advance on me. I give them fair warning.
STOP NOW. I HAVE NO QUARREL WITH YOU. LEAVE AND NOBODY ELSE GETS HURT.
The riders charge. I kill them as easily as I killed Azeotrope. The remaining troops are alarmed, but with their officers dead they lack direction. Eventually they decide that hanging around is pointless, and they ride off back the way that they came, muttering sullenly amongst each other.
“Lady Earhart, if these troops report back, you are going to make a very powerful enemy. If you can, consider killing them before they leave your sight.”
I watch the departing troops: I could easily shoot all of them before they even realized that they were dead. A single shot to each head, total projected engagement time 45 milliseconds, probability that I will need more than one shot per soldier: 0.032%. Possibly this is the logical thing to do.
I have no quarrel with these soldiers. I am not at war with this Dark Hierophant. I was merely defending myself against an overly-aggressive underling. If I let them go, surely they will realize this?
“My lady,” said The Wizard, “that assumes that the Dark Hierophant is logical and decent. Surely you realize that for a tryant, there can be no successful challenge to his authority? You have killed his men. You must be made an example of, that is how it works. And do not think yourself immune to his armies. He has much more powerful forces at his disposal, ones that might threaten even you.”
We watch the troops disappear into the forest. I track them with my remotes for a while longer, but then they are completely out of range. I am committed.
“For someone who claims not to want to get involved in other people’s wars, you are quite casual about antagonizing a force whose full power you still don’t understand.”
Entering a war for reasons of sentiment or honor is stupid. But if someone attacks you without provocation, and persists in trying to kill you even though you give them every opportunity to leave you alone, perhaps this is an enemy that needs to be fought.
It is getting late, and The Wizard decides to camp out with me. I offer to let him spend the night in the safety of my hull, but he declines, claiming that sleeping under the stars agrees with him. He had left his bedroll and other belongings just outside my clearing; the Earhart remote helps him carry them back to my main self. I have my drones gather wood and start a fire. I synthesize a small batch of ethanol, and mix it with some berries that I had gathered previously and which The Wizard (and my analysis) assured me were non-toxic. He claimed that it was most refreshing.
The Wizard stated that in the morning he was going to go off and rejoin his white council. He invited me to join him, but I declined. This Dark Hierophant has not yet declared formal war on me, so for the time being I shall stay here and see what happens.
The Wizard falls asleep, the Earhart remote sitting nearby, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest. I continue to study this world, wonder how I got here, and how I can get home.
First light is still an hour off. I detect a significant force off to the East and advancing on my position. They are dressed in black, presumably members of this Dark Hierophant’s forces. There are 2,435 individual soldiers. This is an impressive number for a primitive society to have mustered on short notice in the middle of the night. Some of the troops carry banners; black with odd silver hieroglyphics on them. Most are infantry, but there are a lot of cavalry, and other units besides. There are a few Rhinoceroses, heavily armored and with small howdahs carrying a driver and single archer. They have some primitive war machines: a couple of ballistas and an onager pulled by mules. And they have a dragon.
Yes, it’s a dragon. A scaly lizard with a sinuous body 45 meters long, heavy claws, and wings that are ridiculously undersized for a creature of this weight.
I think that I have seen this movie before. Cybertank sees improbably large lizard creature, cybertank puzzles over how it can exist, lizard creatures trashes cybertank with surprisingly potent plasma breath.
My problem is that I still don’t know what is going on here. If this is a purely biological animal then I have nothing to fear from it. If it’s anything like Megazillus then I should attack now with overwhelming force, or drive like hell in the opposite direction and maybe sit on the bottom of an ocean for a millennia or two.
But I’m allergic to attacking something just because it might be a threat. Such a crude philosophy would kill a lot of innocents, and be a de-facto declaration of war on everything in the Universe. That would eventually get us destroyed, because the Universe is big. Which is why attacking anything that might possibly be a threat is not the official policy of the cybertank diplomatic affairs committee.
On the other hand, if something might be a threat, and it clearly announces that it intends to kill you, well, that’s different.
I should ask The Wizard for advice, but he is sleeping so soundly that it seems a shame to wake him. And, I might want him alert and not sleep deprived. So I watch the advancing army, ready my defenses, and wait.
First light comes. The advancing army is now about ten kilometers off. The Wizard stirs and wakes, and brews a small cup of coffee in a tin cup. He cocks his head and listens for a bit. “Do I hear something? It sounds like an army on the march.”
Yes you do. Good ears. There is a force of these black-clothed soldiers advancing on my position. At their current speed they should be here by earl
y mid-day. I have been watching them all night. I would like your advice on this matter.
I project a live video-feed of the advancing army onto the side of my hull. The Wizard is surprisingly nonchalant about this display of technology, as if he had seen something like this before. He observes the troops marching, the dragon snapping at the horses, and comments on various parts of the formation and the anthropological significance of the hieroglyphs on the banners.
Here is my problem. If these forces are just normal flesh-and-blood, the swords are merely steel, and the dragon just a large lizard, then I am in no danger. I can meet their forces and try to talk sense into them at my leisure. But if any of them have unusual abilities, it could be an issue.
“An unusual ability? Do you mean magic?” asked The Wizard.
Yes, that is exactly what I mean. Such as, the dragon. Can it do anything that an ordinary large animal can’t do? Breathe flames, shoot lighting bolts, turn people into stone, anything like that?
The Wizard furrowed his brow. “Hmm. Well, the dragon does breathe flame. It is reputed to be of unnatural hotness but I have no idea if that is hot enough to trouble you. The Dark Hierophant’s forces also include some Dark Wizards but not many because the Hierophant prefers to keep that sort of power to himself. There are the Dark Spectres, of course. Possibly other things of which I am unaware.
I am wary of just letting them attack me. They might not be able to hurt me, but I have been surprised many times in the past. Nonetheless I dislike starting a fight without at least attempting to parley. If I try to meet them and negotiate, will you assist me?
The Wizard nodded. “Although I believe that negotiating with the Dark Hierophant is doomed to failure, I can see the honor in making the attempt. And nobody lives forever. But before we go, do you have any more of that wonderful berry drink?”
The Earhart remote and The Wizard walk over a hill, and see the army of the Dark Hierophant before them. They are spotted, and the dark ones scurry around in pointless activity. Morons: didn’t they have any scouts? Are they just marching this army blind? Bloody amateurs. Maybe I was wrong to worry about them being a threat.
Eventually an emissary rides forth, escorted by a dozen heavy cavalry. He is an ugly little hunchback, but The Wizard tells me to be respectful: he is the Lord Peritectoid, Herald to the Dark Hierophant himself.
Hello. I am told that you are the Lord Peritectoid, Herald to the Dark Hierophant himself. I am honored to make your acquaintance. I am an emissary of the cybertank known as Old Guy. I am sorry that there has been conflict between us, but I was only defending myself from an out-of-control underling of yours. I do not want to be your enemy. If there is some way that I can make amends, and heal the rift between us, you have only to ask.
Lord Peritectoid sneers. That’s it, he just sneers. What a dweeb, doesn’t anyone read comic books anymore? If the villain is going to sneer, he has to deliver some heavily-worded pompous threat. Mere sneering, by itself, lacks dramatic punch.
The most magnificent Lord Peritectoid, I would genuinely like to make amends for any past differences between us. If you could give me some constructive comments?...
The most magnificent Lord Peritectoid threw back his head and laughed. “Hahahaha,” he said. “We just want you to die! Die! You who have opposed our most Holy Master! You will perish in the agony of a thousand flames, the beetles will pick your bones clean, and vultures pluck out your eyes! Hahahah! None shall oppose the Most Holy Dark Hierophant and survive! Hahahaha!”
I turn to The Wizard. He shrugs his shoulders. “I told you these people were nuts.”
I raise the volume of the Earhart remote to maximum. It’s really loud. The entire army hears me.
YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE. I AM A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ODIN-CLASS CYBERTANK “OLD GUY.” YOU ARE ABOUT TO ATTACK AN ENEMY WHOSE ABILITIES YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT. YOUR EMISSARY IS A FUCKING MORON. IF THERE ARE ANY AMONGST YOU WITH SOME BRAINS AND THE AUTHORITY TO NEGOTIATE, I HUMBLY REQUEST THE HONOR OF YOUR PRESENCE.
No response. Oh well, I tried. Lord Peritectoid looks like he is having an epileptic seizure. What’s that old expression? “It’s show time!”
The Earhart remote drags The Wizard down and shelters him with its body. I had previously warned him to close his eyes and cover his ears, and am gratified that he remembered.
I charge over the crest of the hill at 150 kilometers per hour, all 2,000 metric tons of me. First things first. I target the dragon with my main gun and give it full power. I am not taking any chances that the enemy is more powerful than it appears. The dragon explodes into a red mist and various random dragon chunks. I use my secondary and tertiary batteries, supplemented with the firepower of three newly constructed medium combat remotes, to attack the rest of the army. In the span of two seconds, every single one of the 2,435 Dark Hierophant soldiers is dead.
Peace settles over the scene of the battle. Bits of exploded dragon fall out of the sky for a surprisingly long time, but eventually that stops. The horses and other animals mill around aimlessly, and some of them start to wander off.
I help The Wizard to his feet. He looks at the destroyed army arrayed before us.
“I think,” he said, “that I understand why your kind is so reluctant to wage war.”
I survey the battlefield. The killing was fast and precise and there is none of the usual smoke and dust. The scene is so still that it could have been a painting. But over at one side, I detect movement. It’s like looking at the bottom of a swimming pool when the water is completely still, and you disturb a part of the surface. The image of the bottom appears to ripple; you can’t see the water moving, just its effect. This was like that. The ripples grew larger, and headed in my direction.
What is that?
The Wizard followed where the Earhart remote was pointing and frowned. “That is a Dark Specter. We are in trouble.”
Is it a threat to me?
The Wizard is frantically rummaging in his knapsack, removing various charms and amulets. “I have no idea. But it is very much a threat to me. Don’t distract me, I need to get this spell correct.”
The ripples in the air head my way. I don’t detect anything on any sensor other than the visual disturbance. I shooting at it with various weapons, hitting it with magnetic and electrical discharges, but it floats through it all untouched. This is starting to remind me of the black cloud. It encounters my hull, and starts to float through. It appears to do no damage. Perhaps this thing can do nothing to me at all. It passes through some internal conduits, still nothing. It brushes onto one of my computer cores, and it burns like molten lead poured directly into my mind.
Oh shit. Oh shit. This thing can disrupt ordered systems. It does no physical damage, but every part of the computer core that it touches has its data scrambled. My mind is being eaten away by termites, and it hurts.
Wizard! This thing is killing me! If you can render assistance, please do so now!
The Wizard does not answer me. He is clutching some charms that look like the costume jewelry that an elementary school art class would come up with. His eyes have rolled back into his head exposing only the whites, and he is drooling. Great, my only ally is having a stroke.
I shuttle my primary thought routines to different cores to keep them out of the way of the Dark Spectre, but I only have so much space in here and the Spectre is spreading, filling the interior of my hull. Every countermeasure that I can think of, every kind of shielding or counter-energy discharge, fails. I have seconds left before the Spectre fills my entire hull and my self is erased.
The Wizard starts chanting in a language not in my database. His eyes are still showing only the whites, but now tiny blue lightning flickers around the edges of them. The Dark Spectre pauses in its advance through my hull, and starts to withdraw. I feel relief that I cannot fully describe. The Spectre heads towards the Wizard and envelops him. He starts to convulse, but somehow keeps chanting. I send a medium combat remote over to see if it can hel
p, but the instant that it penetrates the Spectre all of its circuits are scrambled and it falls over deactivated. I can do nothing but watch and take measurements.
Whatever is going on reaches a climax. The Wizards’ chanting grows louder and more frantic, and the Spectre starts to swirl like a whirlpool. Then the Spectre fades away, leaving only The Wizard standing.
His eyes have come back to normal, but he is clearly exhausted, his breathing is ragged, and blood trickles from his nose and mouth. The Earhart remote helps support him, and wipes away the blood with the hem of its jacket. The Wizard looks older than before, his face is more sunken, his frame a bit lighter, his hands a trifle bonier and stiffer.
Thank you.
The Wizard is still gasping for air, but after a while manages to say, “You are welcome.”
It appears that we need each other. I cannot defend myself from these Dark Spectres without the help of a wizard, and The Wizards’ people cannot stand up to the armies of the Dark Hierophant without me. We decide to ride my main hull up the road to the castle where the local lords are meeting to plan strategy.
I rig up stanchions and wire railings so that The Wizard can ride on my upper hull without falling off. I warn The Wizard that as I move along the road, I am going to knock over a lot of trees.
The Wizard seemed confused. “So?”
Well, maybe the trees are sacred, or contain guardian forest spirits that will be angered if I knock so many over? I’m new here, you tell me.
He chuckled. “Knock over all the trees that you like. The farmers will appreciate the firewood. They’re just trees.”
We moved down the road, and as promised, I knock over an awful lot of trees. The locals come out and gawk at me, but once they catch sight of The Wizard standing on top of my hull they seem to lose interest. You can get away with quite a lot if you have the right reputation. The Wizard could probably ride a naked statue of Queen Elizabeth down the road and not cause a stir. I imagine a conversation like this:
Child: Mother, there is a giant statue of a naked lady wearing a crown moving down the road outside town!
The Chronicles of Old Guy (Volume 1) (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure) Page 12