The God Mars Book Five: Onryo

by Michael Rizzo

Behind us, the sky cracks like a rifle shot, and then we get hit in the back by the shockwave of a massive explosion that shoves us on our way. Apparently five minutes has passed. I don’t look back.

  Chapter 7: Fates Worse Than Death

  From the After-Action Report of First Lieutenant Jacqueline Straker, regarding the events of 20 May 2118:

  I am composing this by the order of Colonel Ram, while overlooking the blasted landscape that was the scene of the battle, though little of it is recognizable now except the mountain itself. Mountains are hardy things. Or maybe it’s just that life is so fragile.

  That’s what I’m looking at now: Not death—the dead have either been removed or burned away—but the absence of life. I’m sitting in the middle of a circle of ash and rubble, a sterile wasteland nearly a kilometer across. My gauges say it isn’t hot. It should be, but it isn’t. I guess I should be grateful for that, for Yod’s small gift, but all I can feel is anger, because I know he could have kept all this from happening to begin with. He just had to want to.

  The god of this planet is a fuck.

  Strike that last.

  My anger is at myself. At the end of the day, I should have done better. As it was, I let a lot of innocents under my protection die. And I lost friends. My fault. My responsibility.

  Maybe that’s why Colonel Ram asked me to compile this formally. Maybe he thinks if I look at it again, run it through objectively, that I’ll realize I somehow did my best, that I’m not at fault. But the bottom line is: I failed.

  We lost good people. And the bastard is still out there. Probably fucking laughing at us.

  I’m not striking that part. It’s not opinion. It’s fact. I have absolutely no doubt of it. And it’s important that I say so.

  The beginning of the op progressed as-planned. My assignment was to lead approximately half the civilian population of Katar to safety through their northern escape tunnel, and take them to the relative safety of the Pax lands. Of course, we didn’t even get that far. We didn’t get far at all.

  With me was the daughter of the Katar military leader, Kah-Terina Sher Khan, recently…altered… by her conjoining with a piece of enhanced Companion technology, of the same type and series as my own Blade. (Only her transformation was much more profound: Where she had been incredibly tall, long-limbed and broad-chested like her people, she now was built little different than me, her body “reset” to an Earth-grav ideal physique, something her kind had long ago foresworn. I can only imagine the impact it had on her, and on her family and people.) Also, I had the company of a few squads’ worth of Katar warfighters for additional escort, led by Bannerman Negev. (I got the impression he was there to watch over Terina as much as the evacuees.) And Ambassador Murphy, still suffering from his hip wound and related infection, but trying his best not to let it slow him down.

  We waited inside the long tunnel until the signal was given, our oxygen enriched in that tight space by bleed from an underground Feedline at the tunnel midpoint. The Katar themselves only carried basic supplies—everything else was left behind to face the destructive power of Asmodeus’ railguns, along with the main force of their army, and a contingent of Melas Nomads—also my friends.

  The signal to move came in the form of a shockwave through the rock all around us, which I recognized from prior misfortune as the impact of a railgun strike, probably on the City we had just evacuated from. As dust shaken from the low ceiling rained over us and filled the long, narrow escape with choking haze, I ordered the civilians out through the far exit, and quickly down the slopes of the Spine toward the visual cover of the green in the North Blade valley.

  Behind us, we could hear the combined fire of our response, and also the lesser batteries of the Stormcloud. A thick column of smoke was billowing up over the crest above us, marking the unknown devastation of the Katar City, causing the refugees to pause and stare.

  As no further railgun strikes were heard, I could assume that the first objective had been met, and that Asmodeus’ main weapons had been disabled. (Unfortunately, we had all assumed that the railguns were his most deadly weapon.) But our mission was to get the refugees well clear of the target zone, preferably to the shelter of the Pax Keep, so we prodded the refugees on.

  As we moved, I attempted to contact my fellows for a sitrep, only to find my signal blocked or jammed. This was my first indication that something may have gone wrong. But by then, we were mostly exposed on the rocky slopes.

  They hit us without warning, with withering fire from the growth-line of the valley floor, the same boundary we were hoping to make our own cover. It was all small-arms, or so I thought, until I saw a few of the Katar struck by what looked like some kind of large dart.

  Kah-Terina was on point, leading her people west-northwest, and ordered everyone down behind whatever cover they could find. I could see families trying to dig themselves holes on the spot, shielding their children with their own bodies. The warriors hunkered down and started returning fire surgically with their bows, but the enemy combatants I saw hit didn’t seem fazed by arrows, not even in clearly vital areas. These were definitely Harvester drones. If I listened, I could hear the buzzing chat of their combined signals.

  Terina moved herself between the vulnerable refugee line and the enemy, whirling her long weapon to draw fire, but she proved to be only a very narrow shield, and the enemy quickly ignored her. She apparently decided she could only be effective at close quarters, and ran into the enemy line.

  The Katar were taking casualties all along the line. Those hit with darts could still fight, of course, and either served to shield their fellows or charged into the enemy line with swords, pole-arms and the long “arresting” devices we had been using to immobilize the Harvesters. Several were cut down by conventional small arms as they crossed the field of fire, but not as many as would have if facing a conventional force of warfighters. The Harvesters continue to prove themselves poor shots, and worse at tracking a moving target, not able to move or react as fast as a living person. The battle quickly deteriorated into a melee.

  The enemy force strength still unknown (their low body temps defying scans through the green), I decided to abandon my post as rear cover for the line, and charged into the enemy to engage them close. Ambassador Murphy, though wounded, remained at the rear, propping himself in the slope rocks and using his own weapon to pick off visible Harvesters, surgically bursting their skulls and the modules inside.

  As I advanced, I took hits from both conventional ammunition and the darts, whose nature I was able to confirm as the Harvester seeds inside attempted to infect my armor, only to be rendered harmless and consumed by my own technology. That also confirmed that those who had been hit by darts, though still in the fight, were surely dead, and if they didn’t fall in battle there would need to be more mercy killings.

  This realization only stoked my rage, which I directed into the Harvester force, hacking my way through their ragged line, aiming to destroy modules through skulls. I was quickly covered in foul gore, the host bodies having already begun to decay. The battlefield stunk of corpse, choking and blinding.

  The Katar, for their part, were able to score disabling hits on the modules, but not consistently. Several of the drone bodies I chopped apart were already stuck with multiple arrows through the soft-armor of their filthy Chang-black uniforms.

  As the Katar ran short of arrows, they took Terina’s and my examples and charged the withering enemy lines. Their armor proved capable of deflecting seed darts, but some of the projectiles were still able to find flesh. Despite the certainty of their fate, not a single Katar faltered, not until they were shot dead or were too badly wounded to fight.

  It was during this bloody, brutal engagement that I saw that Bannerman Negev had been struck by several Harvester darts. He locked eyes with me for an instant, confirming that he understood his condition, and then continued his duty.

  I admit I didn’t do as much as I could, because I didn’t move from target
to target as fast as I could. I hesitated for a split-second with each skull I split, trying to recognize the face of a former comrade. Those split-seconds added up to slow my progress, and that extra time allowed the fire to continue longer than it needed to. I cannot calculate how many lives my morose sentimentality cost. And yes: I did recognize too many faces before I put my Blade through them.

  I estimate we disabled nearly one hundred Harvesters, though total numbers cannot be confirmed because of the blast. I had considered calling a retreat, getting the civilians back into the cover of the tunnel, but had no way of knowing how the battle over the City was progressing. The only thing I knew was that I’d heard no further railgun strikes in the distance, so Colonel Ram’s play with the Knights must have been successful.

  I was just turning back to signal the line to move forward, to push for the Pax Keep, when I saw the explosion, saw the mountain come down on the tunnel exit. We couldn’t go back that way now if we had to. But worse, our fight was further interrupted by a voice I’ve come to hate above all other sounds.

  “Well I didn’t do that.”

  Asmodeus stepped out of the green, coming from the valley to the west, the look on his face both amused and perhaps honestly confused by the blast. But if he was here, then he couldn’t be…

  “Stunt double,” he answered my unspoken question with far too little care in his voice for the situation. “You probably don’t know what that is. Sooo many things you people have missed out on.” He said “people” like we disgust him.

  “Chocolate. There’s no goddamn chocolate on this planet! How do you live without chocolate?”

  He’s insane. There’s no better explanation.

  “Some of us unfortunately don’t seem to have a choice about living,” I answered him back, “not even after they’ve died.”

  Some of the Katar fired on him. Their arrows just pinged off his armor. He looked vaguely annoyed, and I could hear him send out a signal.

  There was a rustling in the thick growth, and more Harvesters came marching out of it with their distinctive shuffling. I could easily count another hundred of them. But this time among the black uniforms were Pax green. And walking casually in the midst of them: Fohat, impossible to miss in his bright white and gold. I could hear the signal-song of his crown, coordinating the modules, keeping them in formation, guiding their attack.

  The drones opened fire on the Katar down in the valley. The Katar tried to charge them, engage them with their pole-swords, but didn’t get ten meters. Volume of fire combined with lack of cover made up for their poor accuracy; and my Blade—and Terina’s—could only draw what was aimed close to us, not a widespread barrage. I saw Negev go down with his fellows, taking half a dozen shots before he finally fell. I’m sure this was a far better death than what had infected them would do, but Asmodeus took even that from me.

  “Doesn’t matter if they’re dead. The Harvesters will still make use of them, re-animate them. They won’t last as long, of course. But you’ll be hemmed in. Once they cut through your little refugee exodus, they’ll climb the slopes and catch those silly Knights from behind. And then I’ll have so many more bodies to…”

  A single crack cut him off. I felt the shell pass over my head. But it didn’t hit Asmodeus. It hit Fohat, square in the forehead, shattering through his crown with a metallic clank. And as he looked at us all dumbly, his head exploded.

  “Huh,” Asmodeus praised easily, like we were just having a friendly competition. “Nice shot.”

  I looked back and saw Murphy, up in the rocks nearly a hundred meters away, taking aim with his revolver propped on a boulder.

  The Harvesters began to sputter and hesitate, having lost coordinated command. This gave us opportunity, and I shouted to Terina to attack the drone force first, to ignore Asmodeus for now. Then I advanced to continue hacking my way through skulls as fast as I could go.

  I suppose it didn’t surprise me that Terina failed to listen, that she chose to direct her rage at the engineer of this horror. Asmodeus received her with a grin, and they began a dance of thrusting spear against whirling pole-sword.

  “Oooh…” I could hear Asmodeus taunting as he received her attacks. “I like this one… You are just dead-sexy, aren’t you? Fucking Ninja Pocahontas… No offense, Red… I do like a little fire bush from time-to-time, but you are a bit butch… But this one… She’s yummy… Maybe we could have a threesome…”

  His sick flirting only intensified Terina’s attacks, but that just seemed to please the monster more. Unfortunately, I was being kept much too busy to watch the fight, much less assist her.

  The Harvesters, even without Fohat’s control, were smart enough to try to get around me, to move out of my reach and head for the Katar positions. I could only destroy so many so fast, and my armor had been battered by their gunfire, the blunt-force beating slowing me too much. At least my Blade had a feast of resources to drain with every cut and hack, but my nanites weren’t keeping up with my wounds, and I was wearing down.

  Murphy continued to lend his weapon impressively to the effort, popping the skulls of the Harvesters as they climbed the rocks, but the accuracy required made his rate of fire frustratingly slow. And he soon began to tire, wasting precious ammo with uncharacteristically sloppy shots.

  As his was the only actual firearm on our side of the fight, he began drawing more and more of the attention of the advancing Harvester force. Their standing algorithms were probably programmed to either seek gunfire or the most-pressing threats, though they were still actively avoiding me in favor of much softer targets. Perhaps they could identify the signals of the Modded, and use the same strategy Asmodeus had used with his endless bot-raids against Pax these last months: to keep us running after them to protect the vulnerable so we could never get around to dealing with the real threat.

  With the drones getting closer to the Katar refugees, to Murphy, I found myself wishing that Terina had listened to me. But she was now completely oblivious to anything but her duel with the demon. The energy arcing between their weapons when they clashed was blinding. Terina was screaming her rage, but Asmodeus still looked calm, bemused, like he was just having fun. And he kept throwing rudely sexual comments at her. The combination only made Terina madder.

  The only thing that managed to interrupt their fight, if only for a second or two, was the sharp echoing “crack” in the sky from somewhere far to the east, almost instantly followed by a rumbling explosion. The last time I heard those sounds, they were much, much louder and right on top of me. Orbital railgun strike. Either Ram coordinated a plan with UNMAC, or they took their own initiative. If it’s the latter, I’m hoping they waited until the Stormcloud was far enough away from the City. I also hope, but doubt, they waited for Ram and the others to get clear. They’re ungrateful fucks like that. Strike that last.

  Asmodeus only chuckled at the report that his ship was very likely scrap, just like his base as the Grave. He didn’t look in the least concerned with the loss of such a major asset. Just like he didn’t seem to care that his Toymaker got his brains blown out. But then he was quickly busy again with Terina, as she was giving him no quarter, going after him for all she was worth. And that seemed to please him immensely, as he intensified his gleeful taunting.

  At this point, I needed to move back toward the Katar line myself, to get between the Harvesters and their targets. I called out and hand-signaled to Murphy to pull back, to get the refugees away from the advancing drones. He reluctantly agreed, waving back and pushing himself to his feet just as the animated corpses had reached his position. He emptied his revolver to cover his retreat, but then when he finally turned to try to run, I saw him stop.

  I should have been paying attention to what was behind him, not just what was advancing on him.

  I saw the black robes, the scarred shaved head, and then the Staff. Heard the Staff.

  Harris.

  The former Wizard of Eureka jabbed the tip of his Companion into Murphy’
s chest. Murphy grabbed at it, tried to get it off of him, even struck Harris across the forehead with his empty revolver. It was a symbolic resistance at best.

  Too far away, all I could do was watch as Murphy… He didn’t scream.

  I should have killed him. I should have killed Harris back at Eureka. I should have chased him down with Drake and finished him. I should have killed him at the Grave, but instead I focused on Asmodeus, the greater evil, even though I was no match…

  I knew what kind of monster Harris was. He kept me in a cage for almost four days, stabbing and beating at me just to watch my healing get slower the longer he kept me from my Blade. He made me watch while he tortured Murphy and the wounded Katar warfighter. He enjoyed it. He enjoyed inflicting suffering, studying it.

  What was left of Murphy hit the rocks and broke apart like dry clay. All I could do was watch, too slow and too far away… I hesitated. But then I got my shit together and ran, ran up the slope. Hacked my way through any Harvesters in reach.

  The Wizard was smart enough to back up, to get his guard up, but he didn’t have his stolen and hacked ETE Tools anymore. It was just my Companion against his. And he was no fighter. He’d relied too much on the power of his Staff, and then his other toys.

  I admit I’d forgotten the rest of the fight, the bigger picture. All I saw was Harris, target lock. I laid into him like a berserker, hammering him back across the slope. I hacked at his guard until the arc-charges made both our weapons white-hot, and I took the best he could hit back with.

  He did have one advantage, Staff over Blade: gripped in both hands, he could batter me alternately with both ends while he kept me blocked with the middle. I quickly learned the trick was not to get in between both ends, but I still took a lot more than I managed to give. My advantage was my Blade could do more damage if I could find a place for it to bite.

  I got him off balance, made him fall back on his ass, and then stayed on him. When I still couldn’t get through to vitals, I hacked into his left foot, then took some fingers from his left hand, and managed to slash his face.