“She can’t communicate with us until we strike,” Ram confirms.
“And what then?” my father asks. “Will she fight with us, or will she keep up her subterfuge, whatever the cost?”
“It depends on what she knows,” Ram admits grimly. “If the game is bigger than this battle, then she’ll keep playing her role.”
“Then we’ll know we’re in trouble,” Lux accepts as lightly as she can.
“How do we know this isn’t just a big show to distract us from something else?” Erickson wonders.
“We don’t,” Ram allows. “But we have this…”
In our heads, we share video, culled from live satellite feed, zooming down on the Stormcloud. On the bow deck, where he’d have a view overlooking Katar, sits Asmodeus, slouched in a reclining seat.
“Is that a deck chair?” Bel identifies, like that means something. The frame of the long rectangular chair is white, while the seat looks like stretched fabric, colored with bold blue and white stripes. Next to it sits a small table, on which is a large beverage cup adorned with some kind of plant garnish.
As we watch him, he makes a gesture, and is joined on deck by Astarte, escorting by force a dark-haired female, who looks like she’s wearing only tattered and bloodied rags. I can see what could be Zodangan tattoos on her exposed skin. The girl is forced to kneel between Asmodeus’ legs, facing him. Someone thankfully cuts the feed as Asmodeus pulls her head forward, but our imaginations certainly play the worst for us anyway.
“No matter the cost,” Bly hisses.
“But we know he’s there,” Stilson distills. “Now.”
The problem is, we all want to go and punish him now, but can’t afford to until we move the Katar out of harm’s way. And formulate our attack plan.
“How do we even get to him?” I wonder out loud.
“We need to cripple his ship,” Bly reasons. “Pull its teeth and break its wings. Destroy his offensive capabilities before he can use them to repel us. Break his engines before he can fly it away and hide it again. Then board and take him before he can abandon ship.”
“We need more guns,” Azazel picks out the obvious flaw in the plan.
“Can we count on the Unmakers for any support?” my father asks Ram with clear reluctance. “Or will they just bomb and blast from orbit like cowards?”
Ram shakes his head. “We can’t use the UNMAC forces. Asmodeus can monitor them too easily. He’ll start the slaughter if he sees or hears them trying anything. If he can’t kill the Katar, he’ll aim for Pax, or White Station. Or orbit.”
“What about your people?” I ask Stilson and the Carters. They look beaten, frustrated.
“They’re helping to develop countermeasures, a ‘vaccine’ against Harvester infection,” Stilson reports miserably, “but the Council still refuses to engage in any kind of violence. Even if any of the former Guardians wanted to come to our aid, as long as their Tools are all network-disabled, they’re effectively unarmed. And they have no skill with small arms, even if you had any to spare.”
“Then we need to take him with what we have,” Bly decides. “But first we get all of you out of harm’s way.”
“Not all of us,” my father insists. “My people and I will stay. As you said, you need guns.”
In my head, someone is playing with a 3D graphic map of the City, playing views from orbit and from the vantage of the Stormcloud. I see moving models run, the City populated by blips all swarming orderly to the tunnel exits and out.
“What are you thinking?” Ram asks Dee, identifying who’s doing the modeling.
“Asmodeus is smart,” Dee warns us again needlessly, but then clarifies his concerns. “We can move everyone out without them being seen, but there’s the time it will take. A few immobile heaters won’t look convincing. He’ll vaporize the City as soon as he figures out he’s being played. All he’d have to do is fire a warning shot, and when those blips don’t react, he’ll know.”
“Then we will give him a convincing target,” Khan speaks up to insist. “We will leave a compliment of warriors to make a show of defense. We have also used techniques to convince enemies we have more than we do, so it will look like our entire force is standing to defy him.”
Ram nods his acceptance, but heavily. He doesn’t want to risk fragile lives. One shot from those railguns could wipe them all out in an instant, and we wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about it.
“And we also will need to protect the evacuation,” Dee considers other vulnerabilities. “If he does discover the exodus, he won’t just take his frustrations out on your City. He’ll at least send Harvester drones to intercept and slaughter them. He may already have them in place, anticipating our play.”
“Or bots,” my father adds. “Discs.”
“Let me worry about those,” Dee tells him. “It’s the Harvesters I can’t crack. Their signals are too weak, and they’ll keep running on their hunting algorithms even if I cut their command signals.”
“So we need to keep you out of the firing line,” Ram insists.
“But I have to be close,” Dee counters.
“We’ll need to divide,” Erickson figures. “Some of us will have to escort the evacuees.”
“And miss the real fun,” Lux sulks.
“Let’s hope so,” Ram returns. He looks at Khan and the other Kings, and at my father. He’s clearly unhappy with the thought of putting them in front of Asmodeus’ guns, but he knows we have few choices and little time. And Khan and my father aren’t going to run and hide, not even from certain death, not when so many innocent lives are in the balance.
I see Ram spinning possibilities in his head, alternatives, but it doesn’t look like he has any better ideas. But then something does seem to strike him, and he lightens just a bit and tells us:
“I think I know where we can get a few more willing guns.”
While we make our preparations, Ram disappears from the City without explanation. We hear no signals from him, and if any of the others know where he’s gone, they don’t speak of it.
He doesn’t return until a few hours after nightfall, through the northern tunnel. He’s alone, and calls for the Katar to prepare to move their people out.
In the meanwhile, Asmodeus has not moved, except to continue his display of rape for the eyes in orbit, throwing the broken and mutilated bodies of two of his “slaves” over the side of his ship, to lay twisted and naked on the field beyond the Wall where we can all see.
If the Unmakers are making any preparations of their own, they’ve been sure not to do it on a networked channel, but shuttles have gone up and down between their Melas base, which I expect is an expensive use of their limited fuel.
It’s during all of this preparation that I finally get to see Ambassador Murphy, gathered with the evacuating civilians. He’s limited to walking with handmade crutches, and looks pale and drawn, but he’s still willing and eager to do his part to defend the evacuees from potential ambush.
He acknowledges me when he sees me, limps my way and thanks me for my part in rescuing him. I realize very quickly by the way he speaks that he doesn’t know who I am, that Straker may have kept my secret from all but those she’s technologically linked with, and so have the rest of the Modded. He’s probably just been told I’m Peter Nagasawa, the accidental immortal, another of Yod’s experiments or pawns.
I consider revealing myself to him, but don’t want to risk my father getting wind of it. Not yet. Perhaps after the battle is done, after Asmodeus is done, assuming what’s me manages to “survive”. If not, it’s better kept secret. Let them mourn me once, not twice.
As for my father, he continues to give me that suspicious, disdainful glare whenever he lays eyes on me. I see some of it in Rashid’s eyes as well, and in the eyes of some of my people, including my adoptive mother Sarai. I take Straker aside and ask her if she knows why they all seem to distrust and disdain me so, my father especially.
“The PK who had your arm
or… He insisted that your body was left where it fell, no matter how much he was tortured. So did others.”
“So he thinks I consumed the body and I’m lying about it,” I realize with a sinking in my heart. “I’ve robbed his son of a proper burial.”
“You need to tell him the truth,” she insists again. “He deserves to know. They all do. They’re your family.”
“I will,” I assure her, but don’t think I mean it. “But not now. After this fight.”
Assuming Asmodeus is watching over the City not only from his ship but also by hacking into the Unmaker satellites, Dee does a convincing job of altering the feed to prevent him from seeing the heat images of the evacuees filing into the tunnels, while we simultaneously set the heater “decoys” and the false warriors, which are comprised of spare armor and camouflage “bonnets” set on frames of bound sticks, each one given heat signatures by small home-brewed chemical heating packs.
When the majority of the population—except for those volunteering to stay behind—have made it into the tunnels, we meet one last time in the War Room. The Kings look dour, unwilling to abandon their marvelous home to likely destruction, but Khan speaks:
“What we have built can be rebuilt. Katar is its people.” Then he turns to his daughter, and orders her like nothing has changed between them. “You will lead the northern evacuation. If the City is lost, you will take them to Pax, or to the Steel Lands, and invoke the old treaties.”
She bristles at that, and looks about to protest being left out of the main fight, but he pre-empts her.
“Your duty is to your people. And your new power is best suited to their protection.”
“While you stay here, to die for show?” she argues, holding back tears as if already mourning him.
“I do my duty. As must you.” He’s firm and cold.
“I’ll go with you,” Straker offers her own sacrifice for duty. Ram nods his approval, but Terina is no more pleased for her company.
Elias and Stilson agree to accompany Cousteau in leading the southern evacuation. If they can’t reach the Pax Lands, they will try to go south and shelter at Eureka. I provide them a recorded message to smooth their arrival with the Civvies.
That leaves the rest of us to deal with Asmodeus.
“How do we contain him?” my father wants to know. “Or his Toymaker?”
“Go for the head,” Bel tells us. “Destroy their fucking brains. They’ll be helpless until it regenerates, reduced to basic survival algorithms, like insects. Then we need to quickly collect and secure all the bits—only the Modded can handle them, to prevent contact infection or resource scavenging. The rest of you need to stay well clear at that point. Then we’ll contain them somewhere that deprives them of resources.”
“Like I was,” I speak as Peter.
“More so,” Bel assures. “And more secure.”
“One of us will always have to be assigned to watch over the remains,” Azazel plans further, “to make sure they stay put, stay weak.”
He smiles weakly at Lux, who doesn’t look too happy with the possibility of taking a shift at such a dreary and potentially endless duty, but I would think ensuring the eternal suffering of such monsters would have its rewards.
“First we have to disable them,” Ram reminds us, sounding like he’s looking forward to the various possibilities.
“First we have to get to them,” Dee brings us back a step.
The Kings say their hopefully very temporary farewells to Khan. Khan then exchanges a few quiet words with his daughter, but makes no physical contact with her. From what I can pick up without prying into her head, she feels like she’s hurting from the coolness of his treatment of her since she returned in her Modded state, though I have no idea how much affection he’d shown to her previously to compare. Perhaps he’s always been a distant parent, but given the circumstance, it’s become more painful. He almost lost her to her quest for the Companion, and now she may lose him and not be around to do anything about it.
As she turns to leave, Terina catches my eyes on her, forces a grin and a smile, and goes off to do her assigned duty with her Companion at the ready. I think she’s realized that her father’s treatment of her is actually his attempt to accept her state, that he’s at least pretending that nothing has changed.
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Straker assures me discreetly. “She’ll be fine.”
I thank her, and she heads with Terina toward the northern tunnel door.
“Are you ready for this, lad?” Azazel asks me aside as the rest of us begin to file up out of the War Room.
“I let him go once,” I admit. “Asmodeus. He actually almost convinced me he was reasonable. Kindred.”
“Then you’re in good company,” Ram admits to me, overhearing. “I let him walk away from me once myself.”
“Once,” Dee emphasizes, as if absolving.
Still in the cold of night, my father positions our people at various key sniper points, to be best able to cover the colony from a ground invasion and still be able to hit back at the underside of the Stormcloud without too much exposure. Our layered cloaks will mask us from heat detection, as they were designed to.
The Ghaddar joins them in this with her Unmaker bullpup rifle. I’m sure she’d rather fight up-close, which may still happen if Asmodeus unleashes his Harvesters on the City (though the higher risk is that her blades may need to be used for mercy on our own). Until then, the ship and its guns are her only targets, distant and impersonal.
The Katar, unfortunately, have nothing that can strike the big ship, and they know it. They’re exposing themselves to fire, ready to respond to ground attack, otherwise helpless. I see Khan join their lines on the Wall. Their stone cover may shield them against battery guns, but they are nothing against a railgun.
Despite their situation, they all stand bravely, “reinforced” by empty suits of armor held up by stick-frames. Somehow the effect reminds me of how I found Peter: a skeleton propping up his own armor.
Bel, Azazel, Lux and Bly go off quickly to prepare their own parts. Dee is nowhere to be seen, probably gone to find his own position. That leaves Ram, Erickson and I to make our direct play. We move into the narrow gap of the Gate Wall, and wait for sunrise.
By now, the rest of the population will have filed into the oxygenated tunnels, to hold position until the battle starts, so that Asmodeus will be distracted when they exit. I would check their status—or at least the positions of their Modded escorts—but I’m afraid calling up a map might also reveal the plan to Asmodeus, and I don’t dare try to link with them. So I have to trust, and focus on my own job.
“GOOD MORNING CO-PRAY-T… Aw, fuck it.”
This is how Asmodeus’ booming voice greets the dawn as the sun breaks across Katar. But then we hear the thrum and hum from his bow, feel the spike in EMR even from cover. Within twenty seconds, there’s an explosion from the sky—from the Stormcloud—that shakes the entire canyon. One “tine” of his forked bow erupts in plasma flame as something screams over our heads so fast we can feel shock wave of it through the air like a slap in the face and the chest. We barely have time to turn our heads back west to see the Oculus explode like it was made of dust.
The Katar duck for cover as a secondary wave of billowing dust slams them in the back after washing over their City. Then the sky rains grit. I can see them bristle and rage, helpless.
“Now where are my virgins?!” Asmodeus demands with theatrical rudeness, ranting like a spoiled child.
Ram gives us a quick but authoritative nod, and we step through the Gate gap and onto the field beneath the Stormcloud’s still-flaming bow.
The first thing I see are the bodies of the slaves, sprawled as they fell, but turned paler by death and the cold of night, blood dried dark. I know he’s put them there to stoke our anger, just like his callous act of destruction. He’s trying to goad us into doing something stupid. Aziz used this tactic. So did the Zodanga. Bait in a trap, to throw us
off balance, make us rush in impulsively. But knowing that makes it no easier to ignore.
Erickson looks the most sickened by the display, his hand gripping the hilt of his still-sheathed Blade like he’s trying to crush it. He has the least battle experience of the three of us, I remember. Not that long ago, his world was his secure Station, a relative paradise of plenty and comfort and everlasting youth and health. Now he watches women raped and tortured to death, innocents massacred, civilizations destroyed, all by a monster who was once a man. And worse: he knows there’s an even more powerful being out there somewhere, probably all around us right now, that could stop it on a whim. But that same being made this happen, let this happen. All of it.
The other bow “tine” tilts downward, aims at us, and I hear the weapon begin to charge.
“You’re not my type,” Asmodeus grumbles from the safety of his flying fortress.
“And using that gun to vaporize me would ruin your fun,” Ram challenges him casually. “You said this was all for my benefit, after all.”
“I could vaporize you and remake the planet in my image while you get yourself back together,” Asmodeus counters. “That could be fun, too. Like planning a surprise party. Imagine what you might wake up to.”
“Those guns are awfully big targets,” Ram idly changes the subject.
Before Asmodeus can react, the crests of both the north and south canyon ridges erupt with rocket fire. The first volley—two dozen warheads—concentrate on the railguns, bursting into them and tearing them apart. Twisted, smoldering wreckage tumbles down onto the field just in front of us, close enough to feel it slam the ground, feel the wind of it, but Ram doesn’t back away. He just watches it defiantly. I watch as it gives the murdered slaves a burial of sorts, and take a modicum of solace along with my satisfaction.
A second volley of rockets flies before Asmodeus can begin firing back with his battery guns, raking the crests, hammering the rocks as his deck and broadsides get chunks blown out of them, raining more junk, including severed cannons. I can hear his ship creak and groan.
The God Mars Book Five: Onryo Page 29