by Ste Sharp
‘Start log ,’ he spoke as he walked, not wanting to waste time. ‘ M y suit has degraded overnight with t hree sections r educed in size. I t could be a default m ode to conserve energy we weren’t briefed on.’
Lights flashed on his screen as various sensors picked up life in the forest outside his peripheral vision. The night settings were still on, so the move ment and sound detectors were set to maximum.
‘My biodata suggest I’m lacking minerals despite my daily pills and… odd to say, but I have the urge to eat soil. I can’t say wh – ’
A red circle appeared on Delta-Six’s screen and he turned to where his sensors showed a life presence nearby . Nothing was visible through the undergrowth, so he closed in, walking softly across the leafy ground. Sounds were coming through now – voices magnified by his sensors.
‘…the Night Watch would be doing . ’ A voice came through, interspersed with clicks which Delta-Six recognised as a sign of the translation processors working.
‘Sleeping?’ someone replied.
‘You wouldn’t get me travelling at night,’ someone else said and a name popped up on Delta-Six’s screen: John Greene.
Delta-Six stopped behind a stand of bracken , used his visual filters and magnifiers to focus in on the group of soldiers , h i s systems recognising various faces from three days earlier on the hill , flashing images on his screens where names were unk n own . Behind John, who had his gun and arm tied to his body in a sling, the Scythian archer was tend ing to an injured Maori.
‘Your wounds are healing well, ’ she said.
‘And this?’
The Maori point ed to his abdomen.
‘Green… but not an infection,’ she replied. ‘F rom the red root perhaps? How do you feel?’
‘I could use some sun but – ’
A shadow appeared to Delta-Six’s left , and he reacted swiftly: rolling back to a defensive position with his arm laser pointed at the shape. ‘Hold!’ he shouted as the word ‘Althorn’ appeared on one side of his view .
Althorn pulled his hood back and held out a hand . ‘ I didn’t mean to surprise you,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you join us?’
Delta-Six cursed his alarm system for not picking Althorn up and triggered a hormone jab to counteract his adrenaline spike .
‘You could be enemy agents,’ Delta-Six repli ed , holding his arm steady .
As he said the words , he didn’t feel any corresponding emotion . He couldn’t explain why , but it unsettled him.
Althorn shrugged and said, ‘ We are not your enemy. ’ He pointed at Delta-Six’s suit. ‘You are chang ing too, I see . ’
‘The laws seem different here , ’ Delta-Six replied, realising how desperate he was for human contact.
A lthorn nodded. ‘This is a str ange country.’ He looked to the group, then back . ‘ W hen you need us, you can join us.’
‘Yes,’ Delta-Six repli ed and lowered his arm . ‘But my training dictates…’
‘We could use your he lp,’ Althorn said. ‘To guide us.’
Delta-Six felt the urge to join them, to be part of a team again. But his survival instincts were overpowering his logic with reasons not to join them: it could be a trap; they could be Guevarians; he was better on his own; trust nobody.
‘Good luck,’ Delta-Six muttered and walked away.
***
Isao Yakamori dropped into a mellow state of meditation, internalising and clarifying his thoughts. His mind slipped back to some days earlier when he’d first arrived on the grassy hill, fresh from war. One minute he’d been slicing through a troop of enemy soldiers with his long, flawless sword, about to duel a fellow samurai fighting under his enemy’s banner, the next he was on a grassy hillside, surrounded by strange-looking soldiers. The men had walked towards a ringing bell, but Isao had seen a vivid streak of white, painted by an unseen hand in the green sky, and set off straight away, unaware of where he was headed. He’d raised an eyebrow when he heard distant explosions and a roar of voices, but by then he was well into the forest.
Now, Isao brought himself back to the present, climbed down from his sleeping place and straightened his undergarments. He attached his sword to his belt and set off once more, pondering his task. He travelled light and covered ground quickly, admiring the change in landscape as he progressed.
He had left his mind blank and suppressed his questions so they would resurface answered in his dreams, but one thought kept returning: the flash of light. He knew it was important but, like a cup of water forever out of reach, he remained thirsty.
Then it came to him – Master Takahashi’s tales. The flash! A memory returned from his disciple days, sitting on the monastery floor. If he remembered correctly, there was an ancient tale where a great warrior had been taken from the battlefield by a lightning bolt. Isao had not given the stories the slightest credibility, but now…
A noise in the forest attracted him: a commotion forty paces away. The swish of feet dancing across the leaf litter was common enough, but a peculiar wild growling intrigued him, so Isao skirted round under the cover of scrub, to get a good view. As he neared he could hear the familiar, liquid sound of steel slicing through flesh and a deep-throated scream from the beast. The pounding feet of the large creature sounded frantic.
Isao edged forward, peeking through the undergrowth to see silhouettes circling a large striped beast. A piercing shriek, hauntingly cut off mid-note, sent a shiver through Isao’s body and signalled the end of the fight, followed by the heavy thud of the dead animal. Isao quietly bent a branch back to see the blood-soaked body of a tiger, flanked by two samurai warriors.
***
‘Start log,’ Delta-Six whispered as he crouched behind a bush, focusing on the t hree men his sensors had picked up.
Each spoke a different dialect of Japanese, which hissystems translated for him. One was armed with a bow and quiver of arrows, while a second carried a sword and a bow. The archer’s clothing was more suitable for riding horses than for infantry warfare. Accessing his database, Delta-Six matched the language and style of armour for each soldier: the earliest samurai was from the Kamakura period, the second from the northern island of Kyushu, from the time of the Mongol nautical attacks, and the third from the later Muromachi period.
They stood around the body of a tiger.
‘Where did this Western beast come from?’ asked the Kyushu samurai.
‘I do not know,’ the Kamakura swordsman answered,while the third shrugged.
They kept their distance from each other , Delta-Six thought.
‘You have come from battle?’ the eldest samurai asked.
‘Yes. You?’
‘We all have.’
‘What about those other soldiers? The foreign ones?’
The tallest samurai shook his head. ‘An invasion?’
‘No . ’ The Kyushu samurai looked stern.
‘Then what is to be done?’
‘We are deserters.’
‘Yes . ’ The eldest nodded. ‘We have abandoned our allies.’
‘Disgraced our daimyo.’
‘Broken our vows.’
‘The shame will be too much to bear.’
They chimed in unison. ‘Seppuku.’
What happened next shocked Delta-Six. He had witnessed the aftermath of some horrific events during his war but this shook him emotionally. His systems suggested the s amurai ’ s act was part of a ri t ualistic code of honour – bushido , or the way of the warrior – but he found it senseless.
He watched the playback on his vid-cam. The three samurai knelt and each drew a short dagger. Without a glance to his neighbour , each man plunged the blade in his belly, dragged it across in a sharp disembowelling movement, pulled it out and stabbed himself in the throat. Each man bled to death with low groans and gargled breaths.
There was little Delta-Six could have done even if he’d wanted to , but that wasn’t why he re-watched the video . S omething strange happened after their deaths. H
e focused the recording in as a faint mist gather ed around the bodies , moving like a serpent, nestling between limbs and in the folds of their cloaks before forming a distinct cloud over each body. The three patches then rose to form humanoid shapes, which circled onc e before wafting away together. All that was left behind were three piles of clothes and three evaporating trails .
***
‘Start log,’ Delta-Six spoke as he fixed a skinned rodent on a skewer over a fire of glowing coals. ‘Now I’m past the golden hills, this new forest must be a short distance from the expanse of water I saw during my brief flight.’
He adjusted the skewer , then unfolded a cup from his pack and mix ed powders and liquids.
‘Systems are low on power,’ he continued, ‘with no direct sunlight to recharge , and m y upper back is bruised where the jetpack sits on my spine .’ He paused , wondering whether he should continue with his trail of thought. ‘This journey… I’ve never had so much time. Tim e to think. To think freely. I have to conclude some of the removed filters were a safety net restricting my thought processes . I t w ould explain the mental freedom I’ve experienced these past few days. But why would the generals control our thoughts? They may want us to fight like robots but until they get the glitches fixed in the new fighting units they’ll have to put up with us humans, warts and all. ’
Del ta-Six twist ed the skewer and stared up at the tree canopy. His thoughts drifted back to the Himalayan training camp after his final growth- boo st session in the Mariana labs where he and the other clones were briefed. Delta-Six’s Alpha, Beta and Charlie were grouped there . All sixes like him , so there was no pressure to be the first. They completed the physical tests and stress analysis soon enough, so m oved on to marksmanship, where they met Colonel Johnson.
‘Right you freaks, line up!’ The Colonel looked a pure military man. ‘Produce your weapons and give me five shots on each target .’ They assumed their positions and Delta-Six heard the Colonel mumble, ‘I don’t know why we bother with this.’
‘Sir?’ Delta-Six asked.
‘This whole thing’s a joke . ’ He shook his head and straightened up.
Was he depressed? Why hadn’t the emo tests picked that up? Maybe his posting was a punishment?
‘Delta-Six. Your score will be the same as your… brothers ’ . Identical,’ the Colonel said with a sneer.
There was hatred in his ey es. It wasn’t the first time Delta-Six had seen it – the regular soldiers despised him , but Earth’s manpower had been severely reduced since the exodus. Anyone who had fought in the colonies wouldn’t hack Earth’s gravity again even if they did want to come back.
‘You’re all t he same,’ the Colonel walked the line. ‘Alpha, you’ll get seventy-one percent, Beta sixty-eight percent, Charlie sixty-three percent and Delta fifty-eight percent . ’ He sighed again. ‘Just get on with it.’
Delta-Six pulled the skewer out of the ground and bit into the tough, charred rodent meat. Not tasty, but it would do, he thought.
He remembered the look on the Colonel’s face when his score came back: a mix of confusion and fear. Delta-Six had scored e ighty-three percent .
***
General Panzicosta strode out of the low, domed building, happy to have room to stretch his six broad legs.
‘If it’s not completed on my return I will feed you to a pack of Skrift.’
‘Yes, General!’ a shrill voice replied from inside the hut.
The collection of Brakari officers waiting in the mud stopped their chatter. Dawn was breathing light into the hazy sky and gave shape to the scattered buildings of their outpost.
‘Is my Lutamek prepared?’ Panzicosta demanded, opening the spiracle holes across his body to sniff the morning air.
‘Yes, General. Oiled and charged,’ replied a broad Brakari with barbed spines lining his shell.
‘And braces? Does it have braces?’ Panzicosta bristled. ‘Two days ago a Lutamek ran amok and killed three officers.’ His mouth-pieces twitched as he loomed over the officer. ‘We don’t need to lose any more, do we?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Good. We must find a more suitable restraint for these leviathans.’
A smaller officer stepped forward. ‘General, I triple-braced the mechanoid myself.’
The grey, long-tailed Brakari’s body was sleek as though designed for speed.
‘Good,’ Panzicosta replied and strode to the Lutamek: a five-metre-long metallic box that sparked and shook, revealing its true nature. He gave it a casual flick with a spiked claw and turned back to the officer. ‘What are your tasks here, Bitet?’
‘Sir, I am now known as Millok… after my transformation.’
Panzicosta’s scales flexed and Millok took a step back. Slowly the scales lowered.
‘Yes, Millok.’ Panzicosta wasn’t keen on female soldiers in his army – they only had one use as far as he was concerned. ‘Your tasks?’
Millok’s grey body swayed a little. ‘Guard duties, feeding, Lutamek-bracing…’
‘Are you bored here, Millok?’ Panzicosta asked.
Millok stretched to her full height, still only reaching two-thirds of Panzicosta’s frame. ‘I am a proud Brakari warrior, General. As you know, my clan defended the Gulm Islands for…’
‘Yes. I know Brakari history.’
This was growing tiresome. Panzicosta considered killing the officers around him and taking the female to one of his torture rooms but he remembered his orders. ‘Are you bored here?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then it is decided,’ Panzicosta leapt onto the back of the Lutamek. ‘Doctor Cynigar wishes to further his experiments when we reach Abzicrutia.’
‘Again, General?’ Millok asked.
‘Yes. You will accompany me.’ He moved his rump to a depression and looked down at the officer. ‘And if you cease questioning me, you may make it to Abzicrutia alive.’
Millok made a twisting movement with her head then leapt onto the front of the large machine, whose grey and black sections were punctured with crude service panels. Tank tracks had been bolted to each side, transforming the fighting machine into a transporter.
‘You can drive, Millok, and be assured, if it misbehaves I will be picking the remains of your guts from my mandibles with your tail.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Millok tapped a panel in the Lutamek to reveal a set of buttons. ‘Are you ready, General?’
‘Of course I’m ready,’ he snarled. ‘I have been waiting an eternity for this moment. It’s time to prepare for war!’
***
‘Come on short-ass – wake up!’
John stretched a leg and wrinkled his nose.
Crossley was standing over him.
‘Ten days and counting, Limey – we need to get a move on!’
‘Right,’ John said and raised his good hand.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Images of a dream came back to him… no, it was a memory. He’d been nine, and his parents and grandfather had taken him to Margate for the day: a stick of rock; a donkey ride; Punch and Judy; a race along the sand. John had been in the lead but slipped a few steps from the tape.
‘Stupid boy!’ his grandfather had shouted. ‘Why did you fall over? Stupid boy!’
John breathed deeply and stared at the cave walls of their temporary haven. The sound of water crashing some hundred feet below was dulled by the curtain of water that hid the cave. He strapped his gun-arm across his chest and stood up. ‘I need a wash.’
‘Sure,’ Crossley said and returned to his conversation with a Russian soldier. ‘So the Germans never learnt, seriously, we just walked up and…’
‘We’ll leave as soon as Althorn returns,’ Lavalle called out as John passed.
A Thracian spearman played a game of stones with a Polish swordsman near the mouth of the cave.
‘And I win again! Shall we play another?’
‘I think you may be too good for this game. How about a new game? Let’s play for money,�
� the Polish man said.
‘Money? What use is money here? How about that gold ring of yours?’
John stepped onto a ledge that zigzagged down the cliff face. Randeep was further down, practising with his long, curved sword, sending sprays of water across the rocks. Further down, John caught a glimpse of Mata, who had been complaining about the dark cave and stood now in ankle-deep water, basking in the hazy rays of light. His wounds had healed, leaving three parallel scars to accompany his tattoos.
Eventually, John found a secluded shallow pool set into the rock wall and started the laborious process of getting undressed. He let his gun-arm hang loose by his side and slipped his left arm out of his jacket but it snagged when he pulled the right sleeve off, tearing on the metal of his gun.
‘Damn it!’ John cursed and crouched down.
He closed his eyes to summon more energy. He’d have to rip his shirt sleeve too and somehow wash without getting this hand wet – the last time he did that it sunk further into the metal.
After some puffing and panting, John got the rest of his clothes off and slid naked into the cool water with a sharp intake of breath. He held his gun-arm high and studied it: the barrel had shrunk to half its original length, his hand had been completely absorbed into the stock of the gun and a black sheen on his wrist suggested metal was seeping up his arm.
With a sigh, John closed his eyes and allowed the journey of the past few days to wash over him. Two days crossing the golden hills had been eventful. Four soldiers had been injured after a run-in with the poisonous lizard Euryleia had called a basilisk, and there had been skirmishes with a troop of violent baboons and a huge ground python.
John let his mind clear. Too much thinking led to a muddled mind, his father used to say, so he focused on the sounds around him. A distant voice could be heard: a Scottish warrior singing a lament, whose melody soothed John’s thoughts, but the water was too cold to rest in, so he made his wash quick.