Tearing Down The Statues

by Brian Bennudriti

  Tubs looked up, still sweating and scared, “Why?”

  “Because my butt cheeks could do a better job than you!! He shouted loud enough for Tubs to shrink down in his seat, involuntarily pulling from the noise.

  “I’m close. I’m really close. Okay? I’ve got a hundred and fifty viruses working on this; and they’re all morphic and sentient. One of them is going to jam the command injection, then-”

  “Stop talking geek to me!” Jamming his finger into Tubs’s forehead, it drew a white halo and red ring around the fingertip like a small pimple.

  “Hey, you’ve got to see this!” Cobweb tapped something on his console and then pointed up to the big screen. “What do you think of that?”

  Cyprian Talgo was standing on the battlefield, roaring twisters in the background and his own vehicle smoking and in ruins, staring down four Red Witch in Tanith colors, their troop tower bearing Tanith markings. Turncoats were attacking the Marshal’s son; and Fantine was nowhere to be seen. Thessany was irritated.

  “What the-?” He watched momentarily as Cyprian blew off the arms of the first of his attackers and held him close in a mock embrace. “Whoa! Where’s this coming from? Cobweb, validate this. Get coordinates. I don’t believe it.”

  “Confirmed. Happened just now, actually. He’s still out at the same spot.”

  He pointed feebly, confused and interrupted by what he was seeing, “Well who are those guys? Why are they wearing our colors?”

  “They’re ours. Part of…” Tapping, scanning down a list of codes, “…Ghost Dogs. We backfilled The Ghost Dogs with Red Witch. And that’s them.”

  Cyprian was mesmerizing; and everyone in Thessany’s flag staff just then was transfixed at his unnatural speed and ferocity, what he did to the two Red Witch to make them burn together.

  “Did he switch sides?” Bubbles asked from his console, staring intently. It drew Thessany’s attention to the fact that all of them were distracted, staring as Bubbles was.

  “Hey! Will you get back to fighting my war please?!” He smacked one of those closest to him on the back of the head. His face suddenly bore concern as he watched the young faces around him that perhaps that was happening outside as well. Thessany glanced back to the image of Cyprian, pointing with his knife and speaking with the Red Witch.

  He leaned again toward Cobweb’s ear, “Find out what’s going on there. What do you know about these Ghost Dog witchers…and get me Fantine. She’s dropping the ball pretty bad here.”

  Thessany pointed at one of his sensors officers, “Block that crap! I don’t want it transmitted anymore. You hear me?! Jam the air with noise; and make it go away!”

  “Fantine isn’t anwering. Her code is off the grid. No sign of her.”

  The Warmaster frowned and mumbled to himself, “Fantine’s made of rock. He couldn’t kill her.” His tone dropped again, with uncertainty and rising confusion, “Why would he?”

  “Whoa!!” Bubbles interjected again; and several joined him in surprise as they saw Cyprian tear into the Red Witch man’s guts and unspool them before him. This was another image that survived the battle for years thereafter; and many there watching it live could have said that would be so.

  Thessany grimaced, also transfixed. “Bubbles, I need a cofferdam around that boy now. Drop in uhh…drop in a troop tower or something and cordon him off. Take him out of play. He’s a wild card; and I can’t tell what’s going on.”

  “Neither can anyone else.” Cobweb noted. It caused Thessany to understand the whispers around him on the bridge, his battle coordinators suspecting a Talgo has turned on them…the most frightening and unpredictable Talgo. “Didn’t they put him on a Black Fire cannon? You might want to take that thing out.”

  “Yeah.” Thessany nodded, deciding something of consequence. “Do that. Him too, now that you mention it. Take him out too.”

  Bubbles was horrified and showed so on his freckled face, “Cyprian? You want me to fire on Cyprian Talgo?!”

  Thessany shouted, “You freaking shoot him! I want him dead; and I want that cannon of his out of commission. I want that video jammed! And I want my worthless paperweight freaking tornado back too! I swear to you, if I don’t start getting some professionalism here, I’m gonna start cutting hands off! Get me some satisfaction!”

  Cobweb tapped Thessany’s arm to gain his attention, “You’re about to split your fleet right down the middle. This is what she wanted. Pull the wings back.”

  Jamming his finger harshly on Cobweb’s console, “The only thing I want you to do right now is tell me which of theirs are headed toward my arsenal ship. Find me the one in front that knows what it’s doing; and blow it up with the nastiest gun you can aim at it. That’s what you should be worried about right now.”

  “Warmaster, the compromised twister is rising. It’s going out of play.”

  His eyes suddenly bright and cheered, Thessany snapped his fingers. “That’s a safety. They may have triggered the safety. Have we got it back, Tubs?”

  “Negative, sir. It’s just rising. Looks like no one has control of it.”

  Thessany laughed nervously, “Steer ours out of there. Get it to the war engines with Slade Watch! Now!”

  Cobweb hummed something, then waved his hand rapidly to gain Thessany’s attention. His voice sounded young, “Got her.”

  “What?! What do you see?” Thessany almost jumped at what he’d heard just then.

  “There’s a mog stuck to the belly of a datastream support ship. One of ours. I think I’m seeing a second on another ship. It’s mogs, Warmaster. They’re riding in on mogs!”

  Peri

  “Bogle, you’re veering too far out. Change out to another ship.” Peri twisted herself backward in the swivelseat to gain what vantage she could of those joining her assault. She’d only just transferred to the ship she rode now and was considering a quicktank veering in already. It was only clear much later in other times to analysts and historians endlessly reviewing the datastream and interrogating the War Recorders what disarray the battlefield was dissolving into already;but she was herself only surprised at how far she’d gotten unnoticed. The arsenal tank loomed massive and overshadowing just ahead of her; and it was bathed in close-in fire and attacking ramships. Waterjets were blasting off any Black Fire streams that could make it to the hull; and the sheet diamond was undamaged and clean.

  “Push! Just push. Almost there.” She couldn’t tell by this point how many of the eighteen with which she’d launched were going to arrive with her.

  “Commander, we’ve been spotted! Apel and Moo are gone. We need to pull back!”

  Disgusted, “Negative! I’ll shoot you myself. There’s nothing they can do but peel out when they see one of us. We’re too small for what’s out here. All mog hands, listen to me!”

  Leaning just a little out to gauge the arsenal ship’s monster height and incline, “I don’t know what you think you’d go home to! Anybody you’re thinking about back there, they have you to protect them; and that’s all. You’re it. So act like it. On my mark, we’re gonna scramble. Drop from your ships and climb that tank to its top. And if we manage to board her, bring your payload. Kill everyone you can.”

  “Commander, they’ve seen us. This is a dead mission.”

  Peri frowned, perhaps agreeing but shouting nevertheless, “Scramble!!”

  From vessels all around the gargantuan arsenal ship, mogs dropped and drove up the steep sides in a wide mass. Cannons swiveled toward them; and close-in railguns were whirling; but nothing was able to fire at an angle to strike them. White waterjets pummeled them, driving two of Peri’s mogs from the walls and screaming to the ground where they were quickly set on fire. She quickly counted thirteen mogs arriving with her at the vents and smiled thinly, surveying the battlescene all around them. From here, it was even larger and more vicious than she’d considered before in the command engine; and Thessany had directed seven gunships to encircle her. She was looking into their barrels when one
of her pilots blew the vents open. Then they all dropped inside. The ducting she and the others had entered was big enough for them to drive through, so they remained in their vessels and pushed in deeper.

  “Commander, what’s the matter with them? How come we’ve gotten this far?”

  The large ducting they’d entered ran ahead into a manifold that split into smaller ducts, too small to continue. The mog in front of her burned through the ducting wall and led the way through, after which she and the others followed. It was unclear now how deep inside they were; but they had dropped into a pedestrian corridor with graphite hatches on either side and which led further down to more hatches. Then quite suddenly, they were fired upon.

  “Repel all boarders!” The shouts were from all sides, men armed with railguns, ricocheting shots plinking and popping all around.

  Her pilots served with credit and returned fire bravely; but in the hailstorm and insanity she watched six of her men fall before she gave the order, “We’re too restricted. Abandon your vehicles and bring your payloads.” Then she selected someone to die. “Alekos, hold them off!”

  Alekos looked at her grimly, understanding what was happening, and nodded before kneeling in place to fire until he was dead. Peri and the remnant of her assault team ran ahead, concentrating their fire to break out of the entanglement. The hatches wouldn’t burn with ball lightning, so they would turn to fire behind themselves while one of their number would work the hatch each time. It was slow and dangerous; and she lost two more men in doing so, one of which gripped her ankle and tried to say something which only came out as babbling. The corridor opened up ahead of them to a series of office compartments and auxiliary machinery rooms which looked deserted at first, before a grenade blew apart one of the men beside her and gunfire returned. And this was as far as she got. Though the archives from the day may say otherwise, Peri and her team never got farther than this. In the end it was her alone.

  She slid the payload to her front and hugged it like a babydoll. Her attackers came from their shielding places with guns aimed, shouting for her to kneel and set it aside. She saw young faces with panicked eyes and unsteady hands, as she’d seen before many times. When one of them, a leader of some kind, stepped closer to her with his unarmed hand outstretched, she admired the deep blue of his eyes with a growing serenity.

  “Peri, just put that down and step away. We’ll take you into custody. Nobody else has to die.”

  The Lady Commander scanned the corridor and her fallen men, perhaps seeing that was always the way it was with Talgos. It always ended something like this. Then he said something to her that frightened her more than anything she’d seen that last day. The blue-eyed man with his gun outstretched got close enough to Peri to whisper, still holding palm upward as if beckoning for her surrender. He came to her, glancing quickly behind himself as if he didn’t want the others to hear.

  “I’ll fight for Cyprian. If he’s joined you, tell me. We can get out of here together.”

  Her eyes widened at the loyalty even here, the sick fascination no matter its lunacy. There in his smooth face she could see this man would turn on his fellows because a celebrity was interesting to him, held intrigue and mystery that made him feel more. It was an absurdity she could no longer stomach; and she knew it. When she twisted the actuator, the canister in her arms blew apart into a swelling clot of Black Fire that stuck fast to the both of them and swarmed over the corridors and hatches with blinding speed. Muffled screams died down almost immediately as they were swallowed whole.

  Thessany

  Thessany’s neck tightened with clenched teeth when he saw night-black tendrils flicking out widening rust-holes in his arsenal ship and puffs of gray and black smoke clinging to men streaming from it like ants from a kicked hill. He looked at Tubs fiercely, as if the entire day thus far could be laid in the fellow’s hands.

  Cobweb’s voice was still calm and professional, well practiced at dealing with commanders and bad news, “Warmaster, Cyprian is gone. He’s disappeared; and the fleet is in disarray. Just pull back and regroup in the flats. We’ve got to find all these mogs or we’ll just be moving around her mines for her. Pull back.”

  Thessany’s jaw was tight, his face cherry with anger. He at last turned from the icy stare at Tubs and looked at his command team as a sentencing judge.

  “Jamnia, Evergreen, Systelion…who knows how many hilljack lovers…all on their way to kill you and yours. This was our chance to keep the world from getting chewed. When your grandkids are holstering their standard issue to try and finish what you started, let ‘em know where you sat…gossiping and…” He scowled at Tubs, “Typing.”

  Cobweb was more urgent now, “Warmaster, give the order. We don’t have control of the fleet right now. Let’s go.”

  Disappointed and furious, Thessany stepped closer to the screen like it was his gallows, “We’re smarter than this, Cobweb. I don’t like it…there’s something more than generals out here with us. I said no puppet strings; but I feel ‘em. What’s gotten in everybody’s heads?”

  Formations were in disarray; and the wings were smearing out like melting ice cream. The hijacked twister was lengthening to the ground again, its distracting ruse complete. He looked again at his panicked command crew, mostly shiny faced and probably frightened more of him now like chided kids, than what was to come over maybe years of bloody and swelling war. Maybe for a wink just then, Meridian Thessany at the battle of Spenecia considered shoving everything he had at the battlefield, letting whatever was out there clouding and whispering deal with his full fury. In the end, he did what he had to do though; and none came to question it.

  “Pull back, Cobweb.” He frowned and turned to walk away from the screen. “Just pull everything back; and let’s clean house. I need to know what we’re really dealing with.”

  The Brigadier

  The Brigadier in his dusty white uniform squatted atop a grain silo surveying the Spenecia battlefield. The arsenal ship was by now a misshapen black and silver goo; and the fleets were spreading out, thinning.

  “Hope you got what you wanted.” Fantine’s voice came from the rusty ladder, as she lifted herself over and joined him there, remaining standing. He glanced at her, then back to the east where supply vessels were retreating.

  “Who wants any of this.”

  Fantine nodded, “You got real lucky today.”

  “Maybe”

  She smacked his shoulder and spat in a mocking voice, “Maybe! I put half a lifetime into making that hammer down there. You’re hitting too early!”

  Without looking at her, his sun-leathered skin dark and chapped, “You’ll have to manage Grebel when he comes back. Does he suspect anything?”

  She shook her head no without answering; and he understood her answer without looking, “You’ve done well with him for a very long time, don’t let up here at the end. The boy will be a myth throughout the provinces by this time next month.”

  “If we all live a month.”

  The Brigadier rubbed the back of his stubbled head, past an old white scar, “Have you noticed how much easier this is getting?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To lead them. It used to be complicated: impossible assassinations, faking ancient books, I bankrupted a town in the western desert once – took two years and lost a man doing it, almost lost my hands too. I think I could change the world with just a pretty face now. They’re more easily led; and that means we’re running out of time.”

  “Maybe; but you’re a little too plucky for somebody with this many variables.”

  The Brigadier stood and dusted off his backside. He towered over her and was intimidating in his demeanor and bearing. Even now, he likely had snipers watching him for signs to bring down calamity upon those to whom he directed.

  “That won’t be a problem soon. Stendahl and Cassian are headed to the Augur.”

  Surprised, “You think slaughtering the Talgos at the start of a war likely going glob
al is how we’ll level everything out? You’ve forgotten how bad things were.”

  “No. I’m remembering.”

  Fantine hacked up phlegm and spit on the earth, swirling it into a spiral with the toe of her boot. “Laoka wouldn’t approve of any of this.”

  His eyes were bloodshot, tired, “I didn’t ask him.”

  “He’ll be headed to the Augur soon, with that Recorder. What are you going to do if he’s there when you want to take the shot?”

  A flash of fury that set her back, “Stop calling that punk, ‘Laoka’. I don’t know what he is.”

  “There’s a lot of people who think he’s the Salt Mystic coming back…why’s he doing that? Maybe he’s somebody else’s hammer…”

  “Doesn’t matter either way. Time’s up.”