The Lost (The Maauro Chronicles Book 3)

by Edward McKeown

  He nods, as always trusting my judgment.

  “It will deploy almost immediately in your body proceeding to the same implant site as before,” I assure him.

  “What about the others?”

  I shake my head. “Dusko finds communicating with these painful, both physically and emotionally. As for Olivia, she is not Jaelle. While she serves with us, she is essentially networked to Candace, not us.”

  “You don’t trust her?”

  “I do, but only to a certain point.”

  He nods. I do not mention that I am reluctant to allow Olivia access to my mind in any event. I remember how much leaked across from Jaelle, how I experienced the sensuality and sexuality of her biological body along with her emotions. I am not sure that I wish to share this experience with Olivia.

  Beyond that I do not know how much will cross back. Jaelle did not mention it, and I suspect that she kept anything she learned of me to herself. I know that Wrik only felt what I sent to him. It is possible that, because I think of myself as female, the wavelength between me and other females is clearer. I only know that the mind link is difficult to predict.

  “I also have this for you,” I hand him a packet of clothes.

  “It looks like my normal ship clothes?” he says.

  “They are based on them. These are specially made to diffuse your heat signature and render you as opaque to sensory attention as is possible, essentially an electronic cloak. You should have the biological signature of a small animal with these.”

  “Good,” he replies. “I feel like a small animal, about mouse-sized.”

  We attend the briefing with the senior staff; this is only a form of ritual for me. All details of the plan are in my memory. Still the biologicals feel the need to rehearse and rehearse. General Romus goes over the details. Olivia will take us to the main bridge across the river where the Seddonese military is dug in, prepared, with the river before them, to make a stand. If Wrik and I are not successful, they’ll have to. Olivia and Dusko will use the Sinner II and the remaining crab-robots to try and bring down the Destroyer. He wishes us luck and the staff scatters to their various commands.

  Enso Pape stops Wrik to say goodbye. With him is his wife Corra, the small Seddonese female. He and Wrik have become friends since the valley battle. The fact that the other man is in a successful relationship with an alien obviously compels his attention.

  Olivia, I notice, spotted the three of them and decided to slip out the back of the trailer. I have noted that she avoids emotional displays if she can. Whatever passed earlier in the evening is compartmented away for now, with a battle looming. It strikes me as ironic that she and I share this characteristic.

  “Wrik,” a voice calls me out of my brooding thoughts. I turn to see Enso Pape and his wife Corra, no longer the hollow-eyed, exhausted refugee, but dressed in simple, clean clothes that flatter her slender figure. Unlike most, her eyes are not purple but golden with small black pupils.

  Enso smiles at me. “We didn’t have time for proper introductions before, but you remember my wife, Corra.”

  “Of course, I’m glad to see you again.”

  “As I am,” she says. “I did not have a chance to thank either of you for saving us in that valley.” A shadow slips over her attractive face at the memory.

  I smiled at her, figuring she was used to human smiles. “We were glad we could help.”

  “And today you will again risk your life for us,” she added. “We will be in your debt forever if you can stop the Destroyer.”

  A sense of another familiar presence came over me and I realized that the telepathic link with Maauro had become active. I sent her the message to come over. She walked up to us. “Here is the person who really saved you.”

  “Maauro,” I added. “You know Corra, Enso’s wife.”

  “Yes. I am pleased you survived,” Maauro said, offering her hand, an unusual gesture for her. Corra, to her credit, didn’t hesitate to take it.

  “I saw you,” Corra said, her voice awed. “Leaping through the trees, dodging the terrible beam and missiles, firing back, it was…I lack the words. You are no bigger than I, yet you fought the Destroyer and made it back away, something our combined military had not been able to do. It’s like you descended from Heaven to protect us.”

  Maauro gave a shy smile. “I cannot claim any connection with heaven. My Creators made me for war. It appears to be my chief talent.”

  “I want to thank you,” Corra said. “All of you, for all my people. We have had no hope until you arrived.”

  “We will do our best,” Maauro promised.

  Corra reached forward and hugged Maauro, then me. Enso looked a bit embarrassed. “I wish I was coming with you.”

  “And I wish I was going alone,” Maauro said, looking at me.

  I shook my head decisively. “I’m with you and that’s that.”

  “Looks like we both have stubborn ones,” Corra said to Maauro.

  Her comment landed right on the axis of several huge questions and stopped any argument in its tracks.

  Enso thumped me on the back. “See you for chow in the evening. The food will be crap.”

  I laughed. “Great. Something to live for.”

  He stuck a hand out to Maauro, who shook it.

  Behind us the mule, driven by Olivia, pulled up. She tapped her com.

  “Time to go,” Maauro said. We left the command trailer and hopped into the mule. Olivia pulled away without comment, her eyes on the road. It was only a few minute’s drive from the command post to the trenches around the last bridge.

  We pull up next to a brace of artillery pieces. The bridge before us was an immense structure dating from before the Great War. It had been maintained and rebuilt by the revitalized Seddonese, but they could not have put the structure up. The smaller bridges were of recent make and more easily replaced. This gargantuan structure would be impossible to replace, so the thin hope of victory and the possibility of more escapees coming up from the south had preserved it. But Engineers had wired enough explosive to drop a span of the causeway on this side, greater than the Destroyer could step across.

  We stepped out of the mule. Olivia joined us in contemplation of the giant bridge. The sky was cloudy and the city unlit. The whole scene presented a ghostly aspect.

  “I’m not big on goodbyes,” Olivia said. “You call and I’ll be over the river as soon as Dusko can drop me in.”

  I nodded, unable to come up with anything to say.

  Olivia stepped up and kissed me on the lips. She turned to Maauro and stuck out a hand. “Good luck. If anyone can do this. It’s you.”

  Maauro shook Olivia’s hand. “I will do my best.”

  Olivia slipped behind the mule’s wheel and headed back to the command post.

  Chapter 25

  Maauro and I faced the vast bridge over the dark, racing water. I hoped the combat engineers were careful with their safeties. Beyond lay Palmat, as it had been called by the thousands of pioneers who’d moved into its vast towers and skyways, before the evacuation pulled them out. These buildings had not been touched in the original war and civilization had collapsed more slowly and less severely here.

  We started forward at a brisk walk, weapons ready for all that our enemy was nowhere near. Yet Seddon had held too many unpleasant surprises already. I had the feeling of being a child sneaking into somewhere we shouldn’t be. The wind rustled about us, the river waters rolled under us, stars blinked down from above. Our boots made little sound on the roadway surface. The original surface was smooth but cracks and patches marred its finish. Here and there a metal patch covered greater damage.

  The whole scene seemed surreal and I felt that sense of distance creep in, as if I was dreaming.

  Focus, I said to myself.

  “Are you all right, Wrik?” Maauro asked.
r />   “Yeah,” I said, licking my lips and suddenly thirsty.

  “That thought was so strong that you projected it at me across the link,” she said with an apologetic air.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Just feeling a little, I don’t know, disconnected from reality.” I hefted my weapon, its weight, the smell of lubricants and metal should have persuaded me of dire truth.

  “Does that ever happen to you?” I asked impulsively, my eyes scanning the far shore. We were coming up on the area where the causeway became a suspension bridge. Good, I’d feel less exposed.

  “I don’t think so, Wrik. I am not sure I really understand the question, but to the extent I do, probably not. Such a state would probably indicate extreme damage to something like me.”

  “Someone like you,” I corrected automatically.

  Maauro turned her head and gave me that smile she reserved for special moments between us.

  “Whatever happens,” I added. “I want you to take care of yourself. You owe me that.”

  “And whatever happens,” she returned, her face gone dead serious, “I want you to not expose yourself unless I call for you. You cannot help me if it comes to open battle with the Destroyer. If my cyber-attacks and physical attacks fail, do not intervene. Promise me this.”

  “I promise,” I said. On the side opposite her, I crossed my fingers in a childish gesture and hoped none of what I was thinking made it across the link to her.

  She nodded, then after a moment’s hesitation said. “I am glad that you had time with Olivia before this.”

  I was startled by the change in topic. “You took Dusko with you to leave us alone together?”

  “Yes. If this ends in failure, it seemed fitting that your last night should be with one of your own kind.”

  We walked on for a few more steps around a mound of rusted metal that might have been a car once.

  “Maauro.”

  “Yes?”

  “If this is my last night, then I am spending it as I want to, by your side.”

  It was her turn to walk on silently for a bit.

  “Thank you, Wrik,” came across the link.

  We walked side by side into the dead city, shoulders almost touching.

  Once across the bridge, we climbed steadily up the lower levels of the aerial roads until we were fifty meters off the ground. Though these were often filled with debris falling from the greater heights, they ran through the whole city and would keep us above the level of our enemy, yet not so far that it would be difficult to engage it.

  At points, Maauro had me hop on her back and she sped along the better-preserved highways so we could cover more ground than with me on foot. I felt slightly ridiculous riding on her, my leg wrapped around her tiny waist, but couldn’t argue with the speed she made even over debris-choked roads.

  After an hour the sun broke through the clouds, partially dispelling the gloom and rain of the last few days. The city heights had a washed clean look, but many of the streets below were a noisome mess of mud and standing ponds. I was glad we were well above that level and whatever animal life laired in the shadows of the ground level.

  Maauro pulled up and I slid off her back. Her armspac had been webbed to her chest and she quickly freed it from the webbing.

  I took the safety off my triple-auto-carbine. “What?” I whispered.

  “Vibration and noise,” she said, “from a heavy tread. Our enemy is ahead at least several kilometers.”

  I looked ahead. The elevated highway we stood on ran straight for several hundred meters, then curved out of sight between towering buildings. We were in a heavily built-up area of the city. Tall buildings surrounded us, multiple highways crisscrossed above and below us. Sunlight refracted off buildings, but the sun was still low and long shadows lay in the heart of the city. I licked my lips and flicked the safety off my weapon.

  “Wait or move in?” I asked.

  “Move in,” Maauro said. “I cannot predict its pattern.”

  We moved forward. I consciously switched to the telepathic channel between us. Who knew how good the sensors were in the Destroyer?

  “Our friend doesn’t seem to know much about armor tactics,” I sent mentally. “Why is he wandering about a built up area like this?”

  “Difficult to say,” Maauro returned. “It may be that because Maximillian is not professional military. Or, it may be that its imperative to seek out Seddonese life and destroy it, causes it to hunt through the city. Remember that my own tactical sense was sometimes compromised by my original imperative to seek out and destroy Infestors.”

  “Yeah, I remember,” I returned with a rueful note. When Maauro had been ruled by her M-7 combat programs, she’d pitch into direct combat with anything touched by the Infestors regardless of the odds.

  We stalked forward, not taking to cover yet, as the enemy machine must still be far ahead. I was looking forward so intently, dreading the sight of the crested head of the Destroyer that I damn near went sprawling over some debris in the road. Maauro gave me a reproachful look. But she did not take the chance to urge me to remain behind in cover while she attacked alone. I resolved not to give her any further excuse to bring it up.

  We paused at a branch in the road. One level went wide to the left. The other dropped to the rooftop level of an apartment complex that had a pool filled with rainwater and verandas all about a central tower that stretched skyward.

  “Luxury apartments,” I sent, “lots of open space and connections to other rooftops.”

  “Yes,” Maauro sent back. “Let’s transfer to the building rooftops.” She motioned me over and I again climbed onto her back. Maauro ran forward and leapt the three meter gap from road to the rooftop. We separated quickly. The landing had made a significant amount of noise, but no beams or rockets slashed down at us and we resumed our stalk, Maauro in the lead. All I could hear was wind and occasionally running water, but she seemed to have no doubt of where she was going.

  “It occurs,” she sent to me, either picking up my thought or divining it, “that there is a major street running north and south in the center of the city. Such would appeal to our adversary, allowing him to traverse the island in search of prey and yet be in a relatively open area. His appreciation for armor tactics may be more sophisticated than we thought.”

  “We will enter a building south of its approach,” she added. “There we will spring our ambush. I will attack from inside a building. You will observe from a higher position with a good avenue of retreat and you will remember your promise to me. If we become separated, I have marked two rally points on your hand comp. Proceed to the one I designate.”

  “Understood,” I returned, doing my best not to think about crossed fingers.

  Chapter 26

  We reach the southern end of the broad street running down from the north. I survey the area. There is a park in front of us. But from here, the streets south to the bridge are much narrower, favoring my attack. The broad way forks at the park, but a tower has fallen in the adjacent street, taking down a skyway and that road is effectively blocked. Unless my enemy retraces his steps to go down a road thousands of meters away, he must come this way. In the narrow streets, the advantage is mine.

  “Wrik,” I send. “I want you to remain in this triangular building. It allows for a good path of retreat south to the bridge through the skyways. I will cross and attack out of that building.” I point at a glassed building where much of the glass is intact, at least above the first and second stories.

  Wrik nods, his face pale. He cradles his weapon. He leans forward and kisses me on the mouth. “Good luck to us both. Remember, we will save Maximillian if we can. But I will not trade you for him. Understood?”

  I nod. Leaving him atop the building, I quickly make my way down, having to drop the last story as the staircase at that level has collapsed. I walk across the st
reet, keeping in cover, more intent on not making noise than on speed. I know where my enemy is by the vibration of his enormous steps. He cannot see me. He cannot detect me by sensors, so only sound can give me away. The wind gusts unevenly, lifting my long, black hair. I have removed my yellow hair ribbon and secured it within my body.

  My sensors tell me the Destroyer is around the corner about eight hundred meters north, coming slowly toward the park. Despite the use of alloys and ceramics, it is extremely heavy and must gauge each step carefully.

  I enter the building opposite the triangular structure where I left Wrik and climb the stairwell to a floor well above street level. How I wish I could have persuaded Wrik not to come, or to turn back. I had seriously considered stunning him and leaving him somewhere, but the city is full of wildlife dangers and I cannot leave him unconscious in it.

  Beyond that, the thought of using a weapon, even a non-lethal one on him, brings back memories of my previous existence as M-7, when we were on the Infestor Artifact. I came within a hair’s breadth of killing him before I could break free of my programmed compulsions. The memory is my bitterest one and it would have made it impossible for me to carry out my threat even with a stunner.

  But enough of emotional distractions, I am now five stories up in what was once a department store. Wrik is one-hundred-forty meters away and above on the rooftop where I left him. My own scanners are set to penetrate the electronic cloak I built into his clothes. I frown. I had asked him to retreat further and he had nodded, his way of indicating an apparent agreement that he had no intention of carrying out.

  I lay down my armspac; the HEAT rounds and AP have proven ineffective and are not likely to do better even at close range. I must depend on my plasma torch, my physical strength and my ability to penetrate its cybernetic defenses if I can disrupt it physically.

  I remain still. The glass six meters in front of me blocks any infra-red signature off me. Deep radar would not tell me from any other metal in this built area. So long as I make no noise my enemy should not be able to detect me.