Mandrake crawled back out of the second grave in as many minutes that he’d been shoved into and proceeded to do what he was intending to do all along before he was so rudely interrupted.
He whistled for one of his kangaroos.
The very specific whistle she’d been trained to respond to sent her hopping toward the foot of one of the Goliath-Bots in the enemy’s possession. She stuck some plastic explosives to the ankle of the giant robot and hopped away before the explosion could catch her up in it. The Goliath-Bot, down a leg now post the big bang, toppled. It was an easy matter for his opponent to mash the head under foot before the pilot in the control room inside the head could get any more funny ideas.
With a sound more akin to the cry of a seagull, Mandrake sent another kangaroo hopping up the tail and the spine of one of the enemy’s adult Nomads. The marsupial made it all the way up to the Nomad’s head where it stuck the explosives just beneath the base of its skull. But then when it turned to look at the ground below it, it decided it was afraid of heights and refused to move. Mandrake had to get closer and try to coax her to jump into his welcoming arms. But she barely recognized him inside his blue and silver bubble suit that had him looking like Robby the Robot from The Forbidden Planet. Admittedly another classic in alien-human warfare that was also well ahead of its time. But he digressed.
“Come to daddy, baby!” he kept saying over the mike. The kangaroo, still afraid to jump, finally decided daddy’s voice sounded like daddy if daddy’s arms didn’t look like they belonged to daddy, and jumped into them anyway. A split second later the explosive he planted went off, killing the Nomad whose head it had been attached to. Mandrake, who’d been informed of the creatures’ resiliency to conventional explosives, had tweaked his cocktail. Another advantage of letting engineers go to battle was that sometimes fights could only be won with better engineering, not better soldiering.
An engineer almost from the time he could walk, Mandrake had just seconds to calculate how to adjust his arms to buffet the fall so the kangaroo wouldn’t break every bone just being caught. He had to ensure his arms as well as his legs and the rest of his body had just enough play to function as shock absorbers.
Mission accomplished, he set the kangaroo down and returned his attention to the big picture of the larger skirmish underway.
The innermost perimeter, a band about a hundred acres deep about the compound, might well be breached if ALPHA TEAM couldn’t do a better job of keeping out the giant robots and the full grown nomads.
With that in mind—and mindful of the fact that he’d just killed one of nature’s creatures it was his sworn duty to protect, for which they were certainly now preparing a room in hell for him, outfitting it with his favorite LEGO dinosaurs—Mandrake redoubled his efforts.
He glanced over at Satellite and waited for his nod. Upon receiving it, Mandrake sent all of his kangaroos at once, with his latest whistle, climbing up the Nomad adults to the very top. There, he had them plant another kind of device. Reaching into the pouches they’d been born with and retrieving a magnet with glowing lights of its own, they attached the coupling devices to the headgear on the creatures driving them mad with pain and forcing them to do the bidding of the triple threat.
The kangaroos then scampered back down and repeated their mission on the remaining bad guy Goliath-Bots and bad guy Nomads. They wouldn’t stop until they’d emptied their stomach pouches.
Meanwhile, Satellite pushed up levers on his equalizer, until the signals from the magnetic couplers drowned out whatever signals the creatures were receiving from the triple threat.
The animals quickly shifted allegiance. Turning against their own kind and against the Goliath-Bots being piloted by the Ubuku.
The Ubuku Goliath-Bot pilots were in for still another surprise. As the kangaroos got more of the magnetic couplings onto the faceplates of the robo-suit cockpits, the voodoo-entranced tribesmen found their trances broken. That was because Satellite was playing with his equalizer some more, canceling out the brainwave patterns involved with sustaining their trance state. It was another tweak that Satellite had come up with himself, but he needed Mandrake’s marsupials to deliver these magnetic couplers the same way he needed Mandrake’s kangaroos to deliver the couplers to the giant Nomads.
Mandrake nodded, pleased. With several more of the Nomads and Ubuku Goliath-Bot pilots now under their control, the innermost perimeter about the compound was suddenly looking a lot more defensible.
He’d spoken too soon.
And he’d underestimated the backlash from the triple threat.
***
The Umbrage from the outermost perimeter, along with nearly half of the adult Nomads, suddenly forsook the duties of protecting their band and rushed the inner perimeter—which, up till now, had proven unassailable. The sentient serpents had a single goal in mind, putting Mandrake’s kangaroos out of commission.
Mandrake shrieked when he realized what was going on. The panic so extreme he felt dizzy and at risk of collapsing. He recalled his kangaroos with his come-to-papa call. But it was too late.
The Umbrage were geniuses with weapons. Hurling rocks from slings whirling in their hands that no one had bothered to use since David and Goliath days. They took out the kangaroos perched on high up on the Goliath-Bots and on the Nomads they were tagging. The Umbrage were every bit as good with bows and arrows, spears, and Frisbees with knife-edges. Their primitive weapons took out the last of Mandrake’s kangaroos from their high roosts in quick order.
The marsupials still on the ground could not avoid the increase in giant robot and giant lizard feet on the ground, being stomped to death without the kind of protection that Mandrake had afforded himself.
The first half of their mission accomplished, the Umbrage began scaling the giant robots and the giant lizards to retrieve the magnetic couplers that had turned their troops. Mandrake had precious little time with which to react and precious few resources to do anything with. With that in mind, he played the ace up his sleeve he was rue to play. He emitted a howl that was suspiciously like a baby’s cry to an untrained ear.
The trained falcons dropped out of the air like dive-bombers, tagging the Umbrage determined to take his recent recruits out of commission before rising into the sky again, moving too fast and still too small of a target to be brought down in great numbers. The last of the enemy’s Umbrage invading from the outer perimeter had been turned before a single one of them could reclaim their lost recruits and were now fighting on the side of the good guys. Their headgear neutralized by Satellite’s coupling devices. Those devices had been flown in on the falcons’ feet, their release snapping the line that held the falcons’ legs together. Even the recent in-charging Nomads and natives wearing the Goliath-Bot robosuits had been turned.
And then the icing on the cake…
***
“Finally!” Satellite shouted. He wasn’t usually given to such emotional outbursts but, damn, cracking that frequency was hard.
“You took control of the serpent rays?” Marty said, his eyes on the sky. It didn’t take an answer coming from Satellite to confirm what he already knew. But it was such a sight to see. The serpent rays were no longer dive-bombing the good guys’ troops. They had returned to eliminating bad guys with their falcon-like dive-bombing techniques. Turning their own bodies into reusable missiles. “Those guys are like the most effective killers we have. Who’d a thunk?”
“I surmise that Jacko character locked on to their brainwave patterns somehow. And I mean, it’s like a sliver on the bandwidth of potential radio signals out there so minute, honestly, I could have found UFOs for you in outer space in less time. I don’t know how the hell he did it. Too bad he’s not working for us.”
Marty did a back bend, keeping his fists on his waist, and arching back, and bending his knees, just enough to miss the serpent ray buzzing him in an attempt to regain altitude. “Please tell me we can take some of these guys with us. I mean, sure, leave some t
o protect the rainforest and all, but damn…”
“Now that I have a lock on their frequencies, I might have something to say about that.”
***
There was now enough of a surplus of good guy fighters recruited from the opposite team for Mandrake to feel good about resupplying the outer perimeter. He sent many of the new recruits back to fight there as part of mop up operations. For some reason he could get the Umbrage and Nomads and serpent rays to respond to him better than to most anybody, except perhaps for Laney. With just some basic whistles and gestures. Maybe they sensed that in his world, all creatures were equal.
SIXTY-SEVEN
THE OUTER PERIMETER
The purple-eyed Umbrage surveyed the outer perimeter. It was a whole new world, in more ways than one. He’d been freed from pain. His new master was less despotic than the other. But he still wasn’t entirely free. Instead of Mudra’s voice in his head it was Mandrake’s. Still, it was a happy pilgrimage from the inner perimeter he’d taken to get here to reinforce the ranks of his new master. If they could win this war, then more of his people would soon be pain free. Without pain their minds would be clear, moreover, to enact the visions each of their heads were filled with of a grand destiny.
The troops protecting the outer perimeter were of a different order entirely. Their new master had robo-vehicles, self-piloting, that were forever on the move, harassing the enemy. They tunneled out of the earth like moles. Fired a missile, then burrowed back into the earth or disappeared into the forest under camouflage before the other side could get out a return shot. The ATVs, as the master referred to them, were cloaked, moreover, behind an exoskeleton that was biomorphic. They registered as insects or mammals, depending on the biomorphic skin, nearly a foot thick, to scanners, and so were ignored by heat-seeking missiles coming from the giant robots, guided by AI to more valuable targets. The moles were equally ignored by the Nomads’ infrared vision. The Umbrage alone seemed not to be fooled. But the ones still fighting for the triple threat had no weapons that worked against the “moles”. And so the ATVs continued their harassing work against the enemy, pestering the adult Nomads and the giant robots alike, either taking them out of commission entirely, or mortally wounding them, which was just as debilitating from a fighting perspective.
There were no humans piloting the robo-suits in the outer perimeter working for Purple Eyes’ master; there were too few of the human pilots and they were relegated hence to the smaller inner perimeter band about the compound. Out here, the self-piloting robo-suits fought off the bad guys for OMEGA FORCE and ALPHA UNIT. They were far better fighters. But Mandrake, an impressive strategist to Purple Eyes’ thinking, didn’t trust the self-piloting Goliath-Bots not to get hacked. So in the outer perimeter they remained. Apparently, in the new pecking order of which Purple Eyes was a part, Mandrake answered only to Patent of ALPHA UNIT who answered only to Leon of OMEGA FORCE.
Apparently Purple Eyes and his kind had arrived in time to forestall Mandrake’s worst fears. The enemy’s Umbrage were crawling all over the self-piloted Goliath-Bots like mission critical repair crews at a pit stop at NASCAR. The analogy supplied to Purple Eyes by way of Mandrake who was seeing what he was seeing through Satellite’s coupling device on his head. The Umbrage were new to the kind of technology that the self-piloting Goliath-Bots represented. It took their linked psychic hive mind to make much headway with it at all. But headway they were making.
Mandrake issued new orders to the Nomads under his master’s control. They head-butted the Goliath-Bots until the enemy’s Umbrage crawling over them attempting to reprogram them were knocked clear. Whereupon they were encircled by the Umbrage Mandrake had freed. Once within range of Satellite’s magnetic couplers, the Umbrage working for the enemy were quieted enough, the pain from the triple threat subdued enough, for Purple Eyes and his people to rip off their headgear. The screams coming from the enemy’s Umbrage could be heard for miles but they were the cries of the born again and so the reason for much joy, not sorrow.
Mandrake was ordering his Umbrage to repeat the process, to move in sync with the Nomads, and to continue to migrate from giant self-piloted robot to giant self-piloted robot until the last of them had been freed from enemy Umbrage infestation.
But new orders were coming in, superseding his. Apparently they were being transmitted by way of the now psychically interlinked Umbrage without any headgear at all. The truly free, not just the pain free. Their orders in turn appeared to be coming from one of their own. A Rainbow Eyed Umbrage.
Sage Solo.
His mind was very powerful, the rest of the uni-color-eyed Umbrage could feel it. Though not all could react properly to his summons. For now, only the freed could react, and those who the psy field of their interlinked minds was strong enough to influence. And for now that was just the Umbrage with Satellite’s couplers.
“Purple Eyes,” he heard Rainbow Eyes say in his head. “I need you to pull off Mandrake’s pain-neutralizing coupler. I need you to feel the pain again. And then I need you to detach from the pain all on your own. Refuse to let it control you. Refuse to let it own you. Only then, do I want you to remove the headgear all on your own.”
“Why? You ask the impossible.”
“You can do it. I’ve seen it. You were born with the ability. You are the natural spiritual leader of my people. But you must earn your place among them, as I have. To free me to embrace my destiny among the stars, you must first free yourself to embrace your destiny here on Earth. And you can only do that one way.”
Purple Eyes didn’t know what Rainbow Eyes meant about a “destiny among the stars” but he knew Rainbow Eyes spoke the truth. He didn’t want to hear it, but he could feel the truth of his words. It was part of that ability he had been born with. No one could lie to him, not even himself.
Purple Eyes pulled off Mandrake’s coupler, and was instantly pulled back down into a world of pain. Excruciating, nerve-overheating pain that put every cell in his body under a hot needle. He screamed as he doubled over. The circle of sentient serpents about him gasped and collectively stepped back as if not wanting any of Purple Eyes’ fate to rub off on them.
The pain had intensified above its normal threshold; his price for betraying the triple threat. And all he needed to do to get it to diminish was to come back to the fold. Switch allegiances.
He allowed his anger at being manipulated to rise in intensity until it distracted him from the pain. But he knew he couldn’t rely long on anger as a shield. Because that would tether him to the triple threat’s world of negative emotions nearly as well as fear.
So he found another shield against the pain. No longer resisting it but melting into it. Loving it. Embracing it. Feeling the sensuality of it. Sponging up even more pain and increasing its intensity further even as he found other ways to interact with it. Throwing up random feelings now in response to the pain. Cold indifference. Curiosity. Humor. Just dwelling in the pain with no reaction at all, except for consciousness of it. The “no reaction at all” response was curiously like allowing himself to feel all emotions at once.
And then he realized the pain was not real at all. Just a conditioned response in his mind. Purple Eyes didn’t like to be controlled by baser genetics and instincts any more than he liked to be controlled by the triple threat and forces from outside him. So he let go of his basic instincts. Observed them with the same detachment and curiosity until they ceased to hold sway over him.
When he rose from the ground he was laughing.
Those in the circle gasped and stepped back further.
Purple Eyes removed the triple threat’s torture device, without pain, without crying out. Dropped it to the ground. He instantly relayed the teachings to the others about him in the circle. And used the psychic amplification of the interlinked minds about him to transmit the message further to the rest of his people.
He did not let go of the meditative state he’d accessed. Kept a lock on the brainwave pattern, otherwi
se his people would not be able to follow him down this path. As it was, not all would. But with the mindfield up and locked in, the triple threat was about to find it a lot harder to find loyal converts.
Those in his ranks allowed themselves to experience the same birthing sensation into the higher consciousness.
Mandrake’s voice could no longer be heard in their ears. Only the voice of Rainbow Eyes.
His mission was not too unlike Mandrake’s. In fact his initial orders were entirely the same. Work with the Nomads to shake loose the Umbrage still wearing headgear and still working for the enemy to decommission the self-piloted Goliath-Bots. And so they did.
As their numbers swelled, the psychic field of the freed Umbrage magnified. Soon they did not have to encircle the enemy Umbrage holding fast to one or another of the Goliath-Bots. They could reach them anywhere in the outer perimeter. Get them to pull off their headgear and join the groundswell of psychic energy freeing the Umbrage in ever greater numbers.
Almost all were free now. The precious few who remained were the ones most closely allied to Panno, Mudra, and Jacko.
And so the showdowns began.
***
Purple Eyes and his people surrounded Mudra first. Saddled to her still juvenile Nomad, whose head rose a mere twenty-four feet into the air. Her mount’s size may have been dwarfed by Mudra’s psychically amplified effects on her genetics by way of the headgear, but her Nomad’s hiss was no less intimidating. Mudra defied them to use their mindfield to turn her Nomad.
They still weren’t strong enough.
The woman had the will of a titan. And through her headgear, transmitted that defiance to her Nomad.
Mudra broke free of the circle, charging headlong towards the inner perimeter. Purple Eyes read her mind as she brushed by him, doing her best to trample him. She was headed for the compound. Determined to end this standoff once and for all. She was going for the chief enabler of the resistance. After the most powerful piece, the queen on the chessboard. After Cassandra.
Mind of a Child: Sentient Serpents (OMEGA FORCE and ALPHA UNIT Book 1) Page 55