by B. V. Larson
All around the compound the sands exploded. Tall, hulking shapes of gleaming metal rose to their feet and strode forward purposefully. Dozens of them clanked toward the skimmer.
Sixty-Two had envisioned an easy victory. His plan was simplicity itself: his mechs would grab the men, seize the skimmer and force them to fly it out of Sunside. He wasn’t sure where he wanted to go, perhaps a wild area of Twilight, but anywhere was better than here. Machinery operated better in cold than it did in heat and grit, so perhaps he’d force them to fly his little army to the dark depths of Nightside.
Unfortunately, things went wrong almost immediately. The commander, shocked and terrified, drew a sidearm and began blasting at the approaching mechs. The skimmer pilot, equally alarmed, revved the engines for an emergency liftoff.
Seeing one of his mechs sag down to a crawling position, one leg blown off and casting sparks over the sands, Sixty-Two shouted new orders: “Those that are nearest the ship, board her now! Stop it from lifting off by any means necessary. Stop the humans NOW!”
The mechs, following their new imperatives he’d programmed into them, sprang into action. The first one to reach the commander took his head off with a gripper around the neck. The skull popped loose, still in its light blue crash helmet. The decapitated body flopped down and sprayed the sands, turning them instantly into a dark crust. The helmet rolled away with the head still inside it, leaving a dribbling trail behind.
Most of the mechs rushed to board the skimmer. After having witnessed the fate of his commander, the pilot tried to lift off. Mechs clambered aboard, and more latched their grippers upon the skids and airfoils. A dozen of them were on it, then a dozen more. Still, the skimmer managed to lift itself into the air fifty feet or so, despite the weight.
Sixty-Two cursed wildly. None of his mechs responded. This was not how he’d expected matters to go. He hadn’t anticipated the crew’s terrified reaction. He hadn’t meant to kill anyone. Things had spun out of control.
Worse still, something was wrong with the skimmer. Had one of the mechs made it into the cockpit? Had the mechs unbalanced the craft, or burned out one of the lifters with their incredible weight? Sixty-Two didn’t know, but he was certain the skimmer was going down.
It slid sideways, and crashed down into the processing warehouse, the biggest building in the compound.
“Let go!” Sixty-Two shouted. “Jump off the skimmer!”
He watched as a number of mechs did as he ordered. Others were too tangled with the crashing ship and went down with it. A fireball plumed over the desert floor and the shockwave rocked his chassis.
Sixty-Two ran toward the burning wreckage. He had to salvage as many of his faithful mechs as he could. He knew now that his plan had been critically flawed from the beginning. The skimmer could not have carried his army, and the humans were not going to allow him his freedom willingly. The first thing they had done was open fire! If this had been a military vessel, his entire organization would have been wiped out.
After ascertaining that the pilot was indeed as dead as his commander, Sixty-Two found the replacement serf, still strapped into his jumpseat. He was as dead as the others.
Sixty-Two was left with a knot of worry in his mind. He had a headache, even though he knew that physical sensation should have been impossible. What was he going to do? He’d lost three mechs in the crash. He’d managed to quickly repair the rest, but he knew they could not stay here any longer. They must flee. The pilot had probably managed to get off a distress call, and even if he hadn’t, more airships were sure to come and investigate soon. After that, there would be military aircraft. He and his fellows would be annihilated.
Less than an hour after the crash, the surviving mechs abandoned the facility and followed their sworn leader into the trackless wastes on foot. Only Sixty-Two himself was armed. He carried the skimmer commander’s pistol in his gripper.
Sixty-Two knew they had to move quickly and decisively. He needed more mechs, more machinery and more weapons. He had located all the neighboring mines in the region on maps prior to executing his failed takeover of the skimmer. He’d done so originally as part of his plan to avoid the encampments. Now, however, his plans had changed. He would have to assault the camps and raid them for whatever he needed. He had his new mech programming stored on a data crystal, and he would upload it into every mech he could find.
He felt he was caught up in something bigger than he’d ever intended to make it, but he also felt he had no choice in the matter. When they found him now, the agents of the nobility would be merciless. He would be reduced to scrap.
In addition to his concerns for himself, his thoughts had expanded on the matter to include the lives of the mechs around him. They’d all been humans once, just as he had been. They all had families somewhere. He wasn’t entirely human anymore, and neither were they, but did they not still deserve to live?
Sixty-Two believed that they did.
#
Aareschlucht was a corvette-class ship named after a famous gorge in Old Switzerland, which had an even more impressive equivalent on Neu Schweitz. Both gorges cut through mountain valleys in-between craggy Alps on their respective worlds. Both were dangerous and beautiful places that moved a great deal of water downhill very quickly. Like its namesake, Aareschlucht was built for movement at great speed, and little else.
Aldo Moreno had signed onto Aareschlucht after Droad’s urging, and he’d never regretted a decision more intensely in his life. How Droad had talked him into this fool’s errand was beyond him. He stood in awe of the accomplishment. Aldo had never before thought of Droad as more than an unusually capable and dedicated politician, but now he stood corrected: the man was a sly devil with a silver tongue dipped in honey.
Aldo hated the ship. He hated the smell of stale, canned air. The monofilament filters and carbon dioxide scrubbers worked tirelessly, but they could never quite remove the odors of the other crewmen. There was no such thing as a fresh breeze, something he had enjoyed and come to take for granted after long years wandering the mountain cantons of Neu Schweitz. Even the water was fouled with a chemical taste. Everything was recycled, even the shitty paste the crew called food. He suspected it was their own waste processed by algae in the tanks that never stopped churning below decks. The taste of waste never quite left it, no matter how it was seasoned, baked or stewed.
So many details Droad had left out of his description of this ‘adventure’! Cryo-sleep would have been a blessing, but no, it was denied to them all. There were no pods aboard for the purpose. He and sixteen other crewmen were forced to spend the year-long voyage fully awake in a living space no larger than a city restaurant, and nowhere near as comfortably appointed.
Perhaps it was partly due to his discomfort, but Aldo found himself not getting along well with some of the Aareschlucht’s crewmen. The man he was ostensibly supposed to guard was an elderly fellow named Roland Garant. This at least turned out to be an easy job, as the man stayed in his quarters most of the time and only came to drink in the ship’s saloon at odd hours.
Ambassador Garant was far from the most irritating of the lot, however. The ship’s Captain was named Stanley Knox, and Aldo developed a desire to kill him after the first months in space. The man was pompous and intolerable. Perhaps Droad had fantasized that Aldo and he might get along—but that was not to be. Certainly, they had some interests in common: the Captain liked cards and carried a duelist’s sword, traditions Aldo himself adhered to. Knox also liked to brag and swagger, traits Aldo likewise enjoyed when the mood struck him.
The trouble began as a result of a disagreement concerning the females aboard the ship. There were enough of them to go around—Droad had apparently made certain of this. Of the seventeen people aboard, precisely eight were women. Aldo had to admit there was a certain wisdom in this calculation. At worst, only one man would be left out. But the imbalance became apparent in a second grim truth that hadn’t been properly weighed: only three of the w
omen were young and attractive. The most interesting of that select group was none other than Joelle Tolbert herself, the very girl Droad had had a dalliance with shortly after the aliens had been driven from the Kale system.
Joelle had light hair that shone in even the dimmest light. Her eyes were big, round and blue. At first, she had rejected Aldo’s advances. This met with the obvious approval of Captain Knox, who had been regularly losing at cards to Aldo, and who had begun to sneer at him in the passageways. Knox set about wooing Tolbert himself, and at first, Aldo had turned the other cheek. If the girl preferred this fop, it was her loss. He promptly set about bedding the other two attractive women aboard. For several long months, this had served to pass the time. The ladies were like a balm on an open wound. Unfortunately, every other male aboard the ship constantly pestered them with their crude advances. In time, everyone aboard discovered Aldo had been courting all the best women, and they became typically annoyed with him—most importantly, the ladies themselves scorned him. He soon found himself with only the plainer women left to choose from.
He found this irritating. Normally, when faced with this situation, he would have picked up his few belongings, strapped his power-sword to his belt and exited the region, looking for fresh game. It was a procedure he’d followed a dozen times before. Now, however, he was trapped within the curved hull of this cursed ship. There was nowhere else for him to go.
His mood soured with each passing day. He spent time with the women who would have him, but the injustice burned in his mind. He was accustomed to enjoying the best of everything. It wasn’t the women themselves that bothered him—it was his pride and his competitive nature that caused his discomfort. The growing, inescapable stink inside the ship didn’t help matters, either. His mood grew ever darker, even as the others’ felt their spirits rising. As they finally reached a brief coasting period, a slice of time that was to last less than a month, matters came to a head.
Late one night in the ship’s saloon, he shared a table with several of the crewmen and played cards. Aldo was a skilled veteran at games of chance, and played extremely well both fairly and unfairly, but as a matter of choice he’d not yet dealt an uneven hand to his fellow crewmen. After all, they were as stuck on this mission as he was, presumably all equally taken in by Droad’s sweet words of heroism and sacrifice. Tonight however, compounding his already dismal mood, he found himself losing every game. Stanley Knox, who squatted in the corner seat, had experienced the opposite fortunes. He’d won nearly every hand and hooted with pleasure as he pawed his winnings.
Aldo decided to realign the Captain’s thinking. He dealt him a losing hand and leaned forward predatorily as he bet hard against the man. He made sure he swilled his own drink and became suddenly loud, appearing off-balance.
Knox eyed Aldo. He knew his cards were not the best, but they were not inconceivably bad. He pushed his luck, trusting to good fortune, as it had not let him down all night. He met Aldo’s bet and raised it. Several crewmen folded. They sat back, sensing tension as Aldo raised the bet to the house limit. The table fell silent as the Captain matched and called.
Aldo threw down his cards, keeping his face blank. He appeared interested only in what the Captain had in his fingers—despite the fact he already knew what every card face showed.
Seeing Aldo’s cards, the Captain’s expression fell. Aldo knew triumph, and his nose rose slightly higher as the Knox threw up his hands and tried to play the matter off as no great deal. Aldo felt a grim touch of satisfaction, but he also felt a tingle of regret. The man had not flashed with rage. He had not shouted and cursed. He’d simply taken his loss and gone on. It was admirable, and Aldo felt the rat for having cheated a good man.
The matter may have passed as an unfortunate wrinkle in time, but for the watchful eyes of the ship’s Lieutenant. As Aldo reached his hands out to scoop up his winnings, the Lieutenant’s hand latched onto his wrist.
Aldo looked at the man in shock. “Explain yourself, officer—and know that I’ve killed for less.”
The Lieutenant stared back. There was concern in his face, but not outright fear. “I saw something. I ask that you relinquish your winnings on this occasion.”
“Why should I?”
“Out of a sense of honor.”
Every eye was upon Aldo. Few of them liked him. He’d bedded every attractive girl on Aareschlucht and several less attractive ones as well, only to move on to the next. He could hear their thoughts: was he a cheater at cards, as well? The Lieutenant in particular had never liked him. He was an ill-favored man with a face that resembled a mask of twisted meat and hair that seemed oily and lank even immediately after a shower. Aldo knew the girls tended to dart away when he made his clumsy overtures.
“What was it that you saw, Lieutenant?” Captain Knox asked. He had a deep voice that rumbled when he spoke.
“I would rather not say.”
Aldo withdrew his hands from the pot of coins and threw them up into the air. “Very well!” he said. “I don’t want there to be hard feelings. I give back the credits. You may divvy up mine as well.”
“Well, there’s no need to—” began the Captain, suddenly embarrassed.
“No, no,” Aldo said. “I don’t want to sully this fine mission with misunderstandings. I’ll simply—”
“There has been no misunderstanding,” interrupted the Lieutenant.
“There most certainly has been,” Aldo said, “and I intend to repair matters.”
“You cheated,” blurted the Lieutenant. “You dealt the Captain’s hand from the bottom of the deck, while the rest of us received cards from the top.”
Aldo froze, as did everyone else around the table. The Lieutenant was stone-faced. An open accusation of cheating raised the matter to the level of public honor.
The Captain leaned forward and touched the Lieutenant’s arm, who flinched at the contact. “Jacob, there is no need. Let the subject rest.”
“I will not.”
The saloon was deadly silent now. Several people had taken a shuffling step back from the table. Every further step along the path of honor made the situation ever more difficult to defuse among the gentlemen of Neu Schweitz. The scene could become violent very quickly, and all there knew it.
“How then, shall we resolve this?” Aldo asked quietly.
“You have dishonored this ship, my Captain and yourself,” the Lieutenant said. “Honor must be satisfied.”
“And so it must,” Aldo murmured.
“Aldo,” Joelle whispered, having appeared at the rogue’s side. She placed a hand that tightened like claw on his shoulder and hissed into his ear. “Don’t you kill that boy.”
Aldo patted her hand and pushed it gently away. “No one lives forever, my dear.”
Joelle retreated, clearly unhappy. The group, now solemn, moved to the single large open area of the ship, which was the mess hall. At a touch of a button, the tables folded themselves and receded until the walls swallowed them. By this time, news of the imminent duel had reached every ear on the ship. People came rushing from below and even down from the bridge. Captain Knox looked worried, but Aldo saw he could not think of a way out of the situation. Aldo himself felt some regret for having caused a crisis, but he also felt the Lieutenant was indulging himself. Aldo had as much as admitted his guilt by handing out the pot to the players. Was he to also be publicly humiliated? Was he to be shamed into refusing to duel, like a craven coward? No. The matter had been pushed, and pressed, and forced, until there was nothing left to do but allow it to be decided with blades.
Aldo knew the Lieutenant could fight. He was a capable man with sword and pistol, they all were, or they would not have been placed aboard this godforsaken vessel on a fool’s mission. Perhaps the close quarters and the continual rejection of the females everyone else seemed to enjoy had combined with Aldo’s naturally abrasive manner to finally drive the Lieutenant to this point. It did not matter. All that mattered now was the speed and accuracy of e
ach man’s sword.
Aldo cleared his mind of extraneous chatter. He did not see the eyes that stared at him. He did not worry about the Captain, or the aliens they pursued through space, or the ship around them. Those things would have to wait. Worrying about such details lost fights. And Aldo Moreno had almost never lost a swordfight.
The Captain himself stood between the two men. “As the commander of this vessel, I will preside over the event. The blades are to be set to their third notch.”
Both men adjusted the studs on the pommels of their weapons. The swords blazed with colorful plasma. Each seemed to come to life in its owner’s hand. Setting three was low, but still the heat of the blade would cauterize a wound once it was made. At settings one or two, the blades were best used with covers over their points and edges to prevent injury. The shock received from touching them would sting mightily, but would not disable the muscles or burn the flesh. At higher settings, seven or more, unconsciousness or even death was likely from a mere slap of the flat of the blade due to the shock suffered by the victim.
Aldo raised his sword and briefly rasped it down the length of his opponent’s blade. It was a ceremonial motion, a customary salute before dueling with plasma-rapiers. Lavender sparks sprayed the room.
“Step back gentlemen, if you please,” said the Captain.
Both men did as they were told, but their eyes never left the other’s sword tip.
“Honor shall be served by first touch, or the agreement of both parties.”
There was a murmur at this. Normally, duels were fought until death, incapacitation, or the agreement of both parties. The Lieutenant flicked his eyes toward the Captain, casting him a frown which the older man ignored. He opened his mouth as if to protest, but seemed to think the better of it and closed it again. Aldo, for his part, never took his eyes from his opponent.
The customary silver flute warbled. Both men raised their guards, saluted one another and advanced. Aldo attacked first, lunging for the chest. If he could put some proper fear into his reckless opponent, he would fight poorly and the first touch would come sooner. The Lieutenant parried late, beating at Aldo’s blade, but then managed a stop-thrust which halted Aldo’s advance. Aldo parried and retreated a step.