Nothing but nothing could shake the S.O.B. He was fearless, poisonous, dirty, and smart. Smart enough to wonder if someone was screwing with him.
He went over it again as he raced his Battlenaut, guns blazing, toward his closest opponent. If the clocks are out, we don't know how long we've been fighting on Sangre. We're on the dark side of this God-forsaken moon, so we can't even count the days by sunrises and sunsets.
His opponent's Battlenaut stood its ground and sprayed defensive fire that splashed harmlessly off Raw's armor. At the last instant, the enemy leaped out of his path.
But why would someone want us to lose track of time? Why keep us in the field beyond the three-day limit?
Raw growled again, low in his throat. Because they want to see how far we can go. Because they want to push the redeye tech to the limit.
Even as he spun the Battlenaut around and threw a missile at the enemy's belly, Raw ran a little mental self-diagnostic to make sure he wasn't being paranoid.
Nope. Don't know the meaning of the word, folks.
He checked the chronometer again.
1805. 1805. 1805.
How long would the researchers leave the Redeyes on Sangre? What had to happen before they pulled the plug?
The answer came to him with a surprising lack of surprise, as if he'd always known it on some level.
The Redeyes had to die. Only then would Command pull the plug.
*****
Just as Grist was running his Battlenaut headlong toward a downed rebel, another blast of lightning flared nearby. A burst of static crackled from his comm.
It was followed by music.
The signal was weak, but Grist recognized the music immediately: "Tried and True," an old battle anthem from his homeworld, Tack. At the academy on Ryot, so far from home, he'd sung it to keep up his spirits. He'd sung it during many a night of drinking with fellow cadets who had also come from Tack and missed its jewel-capped mountains and fields of coppery glow-grain.
Cadets like his best friend, Mallet Cray.
Even as the rush of music and memories rocked him, Grist plowed his Battlenaut forward on pure momentum. He slammed it hard against the rebel, which seemed to be undergoing some kind of systems malfunction. As soon as he made contact, Grist wrenched back on the stick, keeping his Battlenaut on its feet while the rebel crashed to the ground.
When Grist had crippled the rebel Battlenaut and disabled its guns, he traced the music signal to a source outside the battle zone. He rotated his Battlenaut's upper body to give him a clear line of sight to the location blinking on his visor display.
Grist saw nothing until another surge of lightning washed over the landscape. In the split-second flare, he spotted exactly what he'd expected to see. What he'd dreaded.
It was at least three times the size of any Battlenaut he'd ever seen. Its gleaming black skin was festooned with weapons but not a single mark of identification. Writhing trails of electrical energy chased over it, as if the lightning had struck it and left a charge.
The Black Battlenaut. And it was playing his song.
Grist's best friend, Mallet Cray, had been singing that same song on the planet Yolanda a year ago, during an earlier battle in the civil war against Rightful forces. He'd always sung it in battle "for protection," and it had worked.
Until the Battle of Enoch on Yolanda, that is.
The song's magic hadn't done him much good when the friendly fire hit...the friendly fire from his best friend Grist. Grist's guns had hit a spot already softened up by rebel arms and had blown Cray's power plant. The explosion had caught Cray before he could eject and had not left enough of him behind to fill a shot glass.
All because Grist had lost his head and fired wild during an ambush.
Now, in the midst of another battle, Grist heard the same song his friend had been singing just before his death. Was it a coincidence that it seemed to be coming from the Black Battlenaut?
"It's your turn to die-yi-yi," said the gleaming silver fish wriggling past Grist's visor. "Cray's come b-b-back for the one who killed him-im."
Grist punched the comm button. The music stopped as he switched from "Receive" to "Send." "Freak? Raw? Either of you see the giant black Battlenaut?"
Freak's wild laughter rippled over the comm. "No way, man! Where is it?"
Grist's fingers fluttered over a keypad on the armrest. "I just fired you the coordinates."
"Nothing there," Raw said after a moment. "You have video of this thing?"
Grist spun through recent vid logs from the onboard cameras, cursing as he came up empty. "Missed it," he said, "but I eyeballed it twice. Black armor, heavy ordnance, bigger than our three Battlenauts put together."
Freak stopped laughing. "Whoa! You saw the Black Battlenaut!"
"That thought did cross my mind." Grist threw his helmet's optics to maximum magnification and gave the area a hard scan. The only Battlenauts he saw were the four downed rebels and the other two Redeyes.
"Wait a minute," said Raw. "Do you have any telemetry on this thing at all?"
"No." Grist took advantage of a lightning flash to make another scan but still saw nothing.
"Then what if it wasn't there?" said Raw. "What if you're seeing things because of the sleep dep?"
"Not a chance," said the silver fish as it switched past Grist's helmet. Without being told, Grist knew the fish's name was Lacuna.
"But what if I'm not seeing things?" said Grist. "You know what the Black Battlenaut means, don't you?"
"The end of the universe!" Freak whooped so loud, the comm filters cut her signal for an instant. "Everyone and everything!"
"It's a legend." Raw's voice was calm. "A bedtime story for children."
"I know I saw something." An orange and black butterfly with the face of a grinning human baby landed on the back of Grist's hand. "Why not look into it?"
"Because we have a job to do," said Raw. "We have to push the Rightfuls off this moon."
Suddenly, the lush green jungle that had sprung up in the cockpit parted over one corner of Grist's forward viewport. In that one open corner, in a fresh burst of lightning, Grist saw the Black Battlenaut walking off in the distance over a rocky plain.
"There it is!" Grist gave one of the vines a tug, and his Battlenaut headed in the direction of the Black Battlenaut. "Hey!" said Raw. "Come back here!"
*****
At that moment, more than anything, Raw wanted to take off his boot and scratch the bottom of his foot. An itch had been growing there for some time, and it was becoming distracting.
Now that Grist had gone charging off, however, with Freak close behind, Raw couldn't stop to scratch the itch. He had to follow the members of his squad and try to keep them from hurtling off the deep end of sleep-deprived insanity.
Up ahead, Grist and Freak raced their Battlenauts across the rock-strewn plain between the wetlands and the foothills of the Prelate Mountains. Raw's instruments and visual inspection both agreed that there was no Black Battlenaut in the distance, that the Redeyes were chasing after nothing.
The itch on the bottom of Raw's foot flared. He ignored it with sheer force of will and punched the comm. "Grist? Freak?" Neither one answered his call.
Raw changed the frequency and called again. "Redeye One to Redeye Base. Over."
Redeye Base ignored him, just like the last dozen times he'd called.
He finished the message anyway. "Request immediate extraction of Redeye Squad. Repeat. Request immediate extraction."
Still, there was no answer.
The only way they'll come for us is when we're dead. All they want's our autopsies and telemetry.
"Redeye One out." Raw punched off the comm and checked the chronometer.
1805. 1805.
He puffed out his breath and shook his head at the obviously incorrect readout. The funny thing was--and it was more funny strange than funny ha-ha--that particular time meant something to Raw. It was the exact moment, in fact, five years ago, wh
en he had done the most important thing he'd ever done in his life.
It was the moment when Raw had murdered Braeburn Score.
*****
Freak was halfway across the dry plain when she smelled smoke. She recognized it immediately as the smoke from melting plastic and metal, the smell of a burning Battlenaut. In a panic, she checked the instruments...but her Battlenaut wasn't on fire.
As far as Freak could tell, the burning-Battlenaut smell was coming from the same place as the smells of baking bread and roses that had filled the cockpit earlier...in other words, from thin air.
The burning smell wasn't pleasant like the others had been, though. It turned over a rock and sent things scurrying in her mind.
For example, she thought of the day when Gwen Tuileries had died because of her.
Right after the missile had hit, Gwen's Battlenaut had had that same burning smell. The only difference was, Freak remembered the added smell of frying meat when Gwen had cooked inside the cockpit.
All through Freak's first tour of duty, Gwen had been her guardian angel. She had always been ready to haul Freak's rookie ass out of the fire, even if it meant disobeying orders or bunging up her own Battlenaut. Or losing her life.
One night on Gallop, when their unit was pounding a Rightful garrison, Freak's Battlenaut had been crippled by a land mine. Just as enemy artillery had pumped out a missile to finish her off, Gwen's Battlenaut had leaped in to take the hit and save Freak's life.
Maybe Freak wouldn't have felt so bad about it except for one thing: she'd been working for the other side all along. Even as she'd betrayed the Commonwealth, she'd always planned to save Gwen...and hadn't counted on her own allies being willing to kill her in the bargain.
Freak had worked for the Commonwealth ever since.
As she followed Grist forward, the stench of melting Battlenaut and burning flesh in the cockpit intensified. Finally, it got to the point where it made her gag.
It was then that it occurred to Freak that maybe she'd come across a sign of the Black Battlenaut...and maybe, she had more of a personal interest in the Black Battlenaut than she'd expected.
After all, it couldn't be a coincidence that just as she was searching for the Black Battlenaut, the smell of her dead, betrayed friend rose up to greet her.
Could it?
*****
Grist brushed a blob of pink foam from the controls of the spellcaster and programmed it to grant his Battlenaut added speed and virility. He would need every edge the magic beans could give him when he took on the destructive might of the Black Battlenaut.
Pink foam from the cockpit ceiling splattered over his visor, and he wiped it clean. He was glad the foam wasn't quite smart enough to hurt him, but it was definitely more aggressive than the green swirly-gas that had filled the cockpit a moment ago.
When the hot go-juice spurted into his arm again, everything wavered and turned red...then straightened out and became a more soothing pale blue. The ring of circadian lights flickered around the front viewport, only they weren't lights anymore but darks.
His co-pilot, Broom Thornapple, who lived in Grist's armpit, nudged him and whistled. "Wow," said Broom. "Nice welcoming committee."
Grist looked in the direction where Broom was poking. Through the viewport, he saw a line of Battlenauts lit up by the beam of his searchlight.
The six Battlenauts stood across the mouth of a pass in the foothills, shoulder to shoulder, blocking the way. Each of them was painted red and festooned with bones and skins.
"Best hope your magic hoops have the power to fry those demons," said Broom. "You know what they say about the Black Battlenaut's minions."
"Monsters. Abominations." Grist licked his lips and swallowed hard.
Just then, the line of Battlenauts began to move. Grist lurched to a stop and brought all magic wands and wish-guns to bear on the line.
All at once, the six Battlenauts raised their right knees, then dropped them. Next, in unison, they kicked their right legs in the air, swinging them to chest level.
And dropped them.
They repeated the moves. This time, they hopped a little as they lifted their knees and kicked their legs.
The ground shook whenever they touched it. Wild music skirled over the comm, its punchy rhythm matching the movements of the Battlenaut chorus line.
*****
Freak swore she could feel the hot breath of the Flesh Battlenaut gusting against her own Battlenaut's back.
She quick-checked her visor display and saw the horrible thing still gaining on her. She was running hard, maxing the specs, and she was still going to lose the race.
Just moments ago, she and Grist had been chasing the monstrous Black Battlenaut. Now, she was the prey of something equally monstrous.
"Freak? Come in, Freak." The voice on the comm sounded like Raw's, but Freak wasn't fooled. She recognized the disguised voice of the thing that was hunting her.
All she saw on the video feed from her rear-facing cameras was Raw's Battlenaut racing after her...but she knew that, too, was an illusion. The thing that was back there, reaching for her, could not be caught on video, though the naked eye could see its true form.
Her naked eye had seen it, and she would never forget it.
The thing had started out as a single Battlenaut that had stepped into her path. Freak had jammed her Battlenaut to a stop while Grist had continued running onward without her.
The strange Battlenaut had stood motionless for a moment, its gold armor glinting in the beams of Freak's forward running lights. Then, it had raised one arm from its side. It had turned its hand over and opened it, revealing something pink and wet in its golden palm.
Zooming her optics to maximum mag, Freak had gotten a good look at what was in that hand. Just before the mystery Battlenaut had opened its mouth and dumped in what it was holding, Freak had recognized it.
The mangled, naked body of a human being.
As Freak watched, the Battlenaut had chewed up the human remains. It had chewed them with its mouth open, the lower jaw swinging wide to give her a good look at the gruesome mess.
After a long moment, the gold Battlenaut had finished chewing. It had opened its mouth wide once more, showing that the mashed remains were gone, and then its mouth had closed.
Suddenly, streams of pink flesh had boiled up from the seams and joints and vents in the gold Battlenaut's armor. Rolling and twisting and meshing, the flesh had stretched over the metal like a suit of skin, one throbbing layer weaving over another.
It was then that Freak had turned around and started running.
*****
As the squad of Rightful Battlenauts opened fire on Freak, Raw leaped into action. It was either that or let them pound Freak into bits, since she wasn't fighting back.
Based on her recent behavior, Raw thought the odds were good that she didn't even know the enemy was there.
Lasers blazing, Raw charged the nearest rebel and did some damage to its guns. As slugs fired by another Rightful blasted his armor, Raw brought everything he had to bear on the first Battlenaut's midsection...lasers, sonics, missiles. The instant he let it all fly, he swung his Battlenaut hard about and bounded after the other rebel.
As Raw scorched the second rebel Battlenaut with laser fire, he checked his visor display to make sure Freak was okay, which she was: still running, barely staying ahead of the third Rightful Battlenaut. The Rightful was lighting her up with laser fire, but Freak was shrugging it off.
Unlike Raw's Battlenaut, which took a hard shot to the chest from one of his opponent's missiles. Raw's Battlenaut shook and teetered from the explosive impact and started to fall over backward.
Quickly, Raw spun the Battlenaut's upper body around and fired slugs at the ground. The recoil kept the Battlenaut on its feet and ready to continue the fight.
Raw just wished he could deal with the killer itch on the bottom of his foot so easily.
*****
Grist marched in t
he Battlenaut Day parade, waving at the throngs of Battlenauts of all shapes and sizes cheering from the stands. The whole time, he searched his surroundings for the Black Battlenaut, who had run off in this direction after Grist's last sighting.
The six dancing Battlenauts at the mouth of the pass, it had turned out, had all been parts of the Black Battlenaut. Right after their big dance number, they had crashed together, cranking and twisting and snapping into one giant Battlenaut with black armor and weapons galore. Then, instead of attacking, the Black Battlenaut had raced off, leaving Grist to try in vain to keep up.
"He's out there somewhere," said High Five, who looked like an oil spill with a mouthful of yellow tongues. His voice sounded like continuous belching. He floated in midair and was Grist's new best friend. "I can feel it, buddy-Joe."
High Five was never wrong, except about women. "I hear ya," said Grist, carefully scanning the crowd. He thought he saw the top of the Black Battlenaut's head peaking out from behind the stands, but the image faded when the hypo cuff poured more go-juice into his arm.
A droning electronic anthem played from speakers along the parade route, and all the spectators hummed along with it. Vendors sold candy-coated humans stuck on sticks, which Battlenaut children licked and crunched.
"You seen one Battlenaut Day, you've seen 'em all, right?" said High Five.
Grist laughed. "You can say that again."
A second later, Grist noticed in an absent-minded way that the cockpit was full of fizzy water, and High Five had been replaced by a word, "GOOD," in bold black letters a foot high.
"What do you say, Word?" Grist slapped in annoyance at his hypo cuff, which had just shot him with more hot go-juice.
Word reshaped itself from "GOOD" to "LOOK," pointing at one of the video screens with the tail of the "K."
Without thinking, Grist looked at the screen Word had indicated. The words "BLACK BATTLENAUT" filled the screen from top to bottom and edge to edge, rapidly flashing bright and dim.
Grist tried for a better view through the forward viewport, and he got it. Just like on the screen, the words "BLACK BATTLENAUT" floated up ahead, blinking on and off.
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