“Unmaker satellites,” my father understands. “They’re out in the open. Big explosions would get attention from orbit.”
Their camera eyes could certainly recognize the shapes of Chang’s bots, if they had reason to look this way. And that would tell the Unmakers that Chang is nearby. (But didn’t the storm already tell them that? Or perhaps the tracks the Boxes leave could be followed back to base…)
Keeping my head low, I move around to where I can see Azazel and Lux, still pinned down in the bowl, either trying to heal or planning their next move. From the amount of blood staining Lux’s robes, he/she should be dead. Both look very tired, winded, weak, hurt. They embrace like an old couple.
I look upslope, try to pick out the bodies and parts of bodies in the blasted talus.
I turn in time to see Benim pop up to take a shot. His head disappears in a burst of Gatling fire, but his last effort damages one of the Boxes’ sensor heads.
And so we settle into a protracted siege, each side conserving, patient. (Do these machines have need of resources? Refueling? Or just reloading?)
A half-hour passes. One of the Boxes begins to roll for us, trying the make it up to our positions. I toss one of my last grenades in its path—it explodes under the rolling sections, jars loose one of the edge cubes, and causes a slide that makes the machine lose traction. (Can our explosions be seen from orbit? And would the Earth commanders send help, or just bombard the entire region from space?) Then I have to duck because the other Boxes are chewing at my cover. Their distraction allows some of my people to concentrate fire on the closer target, going for the remaining guns, the gaps in the cube sections, the retractable sensor heads. We manage to hurt it badly before it tumbles back down the way it came.
The other variously damaged but still-functional Boxes roll their line back, putting some more distance between us—they must have calculated that killing them requires them to be in grenade range or very accurate shot placement, so they make it more challenging for us. I wonder if they’re also able to calculate that we’re running out of ammo. Then I remember that the machines are networked back to their masters, who are probably enjoying this game. I’d wondered why they haven’t simply tried to take the long way around us—I expect it’s just their maker’s stubborn pride. Or sadism. Or all this bloodshed—like Lux and Azazel told us—is simply to keep the immortal heroes too busy to address the real threat. (Or worse: it’s to torture them by showing them they can’t save us, despite all their gifts.)
An hour passes. We manage to disable another Box as it tries to take a run through us. We manage to cripple it in a crossfire, but it costs us: Jibril and Kassim fall, drawn out from cover. The Box’s sacrifice was a distraction to expose us.
Azazel’s recovered enough to give us a crossfire down in the bowl, but he’s also conserving whatever ammo he has, and he doesn’t look very mobile, certainly in no shape to engage the machines with his blade. Lux looks even worse now than earlier, sprawled with his/her back to a rock, barely moving, maybe not even conscious. (I wonder if they feel pain like we do? Erickson said he did, when he got himself shot and stabbed. What is it like to be riddled with what should be lethal wounds and not be able to die? Is that another of Chang’s desires, to inflict physical as well as mental suffering on his kindred enemies?)
Half-buried in the rock and sand that the Boxes have been bringing down on us, I look at my father as he checks again what little we have left to fight with. When I can see them through his goggles, his eyes are still a glazed mix of anger, fatigue and sorrow (for bringing us to this end?).
I look across the slope, lock eyes with Murphy. He shakes his head, holding up his pistol and a finger to say he’s down to his last load. The Ghaddar has been conserving, but I expect she’s running low. Two more of us—Zayed and Ali—signal that they’re out, helpless in their makeshift holes.
Another Box takes a turn at making a run at us, this time using its rotating sections for traction, taking its time, as if it knows it will win by making it uphill or tempting us to shoot at it. I have one grenade. I don’t think…
A satchel charge bounces down the hill and blows under the oncoming machine, sending it back down the hill, damaged, maybe even disabled. I look up-slope in time to see Terina sliding down at us, laden with ammo and fresh canisters, as the Boxes try to shoot her. But she flies…
“I needed you to lead my people to your city!” my father curses her rescue as she drops into our poor fortification. The Boxes express their frustration by peppering our position.
“I gave Sarai a note for my father to give you safe haven,” she tells us. “I am not leaving you to hold this line against the butcher-machines.” Then she looks at me, and actually seems relieved that I’m here and intact. But then she frowns, her brow knitted like she’s having trouble finding words. “I am sorry about your mother,” she tells me heavily.
I feel a sinking in my gut and catch my father looking at me with fresh pain in his eyes. I want to ask him what she means, I want him to say the words or deny them, but we have more pressing necessities:
Terina has indeed brought us more ammo, grenades, even oxygen. But I expect the donation has left our main group with very little to defend themselves with. Now we can’t let the machines get past us.
I toss ammo and oxygen to Murphy. He sends some along to the Ghaddar, and to Hamad and Rashid. My father throws some to Zayed on our right flank. Zayed passes a pack to Ali, but falls short. I see Ali blown apart as he tries to reach it. A canister tumbles down the slope, sprayed with his blood.
We reload and wait for opportunity to avenge him.
We’ve been fighting for nearly two hours.
Four of the five Boxes remain intact enough to be deadly despite our best efforts.
Zayed has been hit. He’s slumped behind his boulder. He still moves, but can’t fight.
Despite Terina’s other skills—including having an exceptional throw—she has no experience with firearms, and the Boxes haven’t…
In my periphery, I see Murphy gesturing for us to look. He’s pointing high, across the bowl. I risk a careful look. Up on the opposite crest are three figures, looking down into the bowl. One is wearing an Unmaker uniform, but is carrying a broadsword instead of a gun. The other two are wearing partial plate over what may be red Jinn sealsuits—one has long dark hair, the other long white—and also carry swords. They stand out in the open as if they don’t understand the threat of the Boxes, or don’t care. More immortals? And are they heroes, or do these belong to Chang?
I’m expecting the latter is the case as the black-hair comes running at us across the slopes of the slide, as if flanking us. But then two of the Boxes devote a gun each to trying to shoot him. He proves too fast to hit. His two companions then charge directly into the bowl at the Boxes.
The two get more than halfway to their targets before the Boxes spin guns on them and open fire…
…and I don’t believe what I see: They raise their swords in front of them, and the gunfire blazes straight into the blades as if drawn by a magnet. It slows the runners down, like a man running into a severe storm, but the bullets all burst and dissolve in a bright arcing as they strike the blades—it looks like some kind of welder’s arc.
I look to our flank, up-slope. The dark-hair isn’t running toward us, he’s headed above us, and I realize he’s intercepting… Chang. Chang is coming down the mountain at us, crawling and oozing down the rocks in his liquid form… I point him out to my fellows, but our attention is divided…
Down in the bowl, the Boxes have either overheated or run dry trying to sustain fire against their new attackers. They hesitate…
The Unmaker and the White Hair close and begin hacking and stabbing. One swipe of their blades cleaves guns like plastic tubing. One thrust goes deep between sections, producing more arc-flare. The Boxes jerk and go dead, smoking. The two swordsmen move on to their next targets.
Up the mountain, the black-hair has chased down C
hang, and is hacking as tentacles lash out to meet him. Each cut seems to whittle at the mass of blackness, the severed bits crumbling to what looks like black sand.
I finally realize that the black-haired swordsman is Erickson. But his hair has grown long, his armor is different, and that certainly isn’t the same sword he’d been carrying.
Chang flips bodily into him, slamming him down the slope, and pursuing.
The other swordsmen have finished off the Boxes.
Erickson finds his footing, and hacks at the oncoming Chang, taking him apart piece-by-piece. Erickson is moving faster than I’ve ever seen him—as fast as an immortal—and with far more skill than he’s shown before. And Chang isn’t reforming. Erickson is hurting him, perhaps killing him.
Their fight brings the talus down, sliding out from under them. They manage to ride it halfway down into the bowl, then resume their slashing dance.
The other two go to help, but almost casually, like they’re in no hurry.
All we can do is watch, digging ourselves out of our holes, as the three swordsmen surround the black mass and begin butchering it, hacking and stabbing like each blow is pure pleasure. I hear a deep resonant screaming that I think is Chang, but from the way the tones flux with every swing, I realize it’s coming from the swords. Soon the three are standing around what looks like crumbling black sand.
Is Chang dead?
Azazel has come up from behind his rock, and stands staring at the trio. Lux is still in no shape to move.
“ERICKSON!!” I shout across the slope. He turns to us. He seems dazed. So do the others. He starts to hike over to us, sword still drawn, hung low at his side. His armor has changed, as if remade. His sealsuit also looks new. And he’s wearing strange new boots. And his hair…
“Are you all right?” he yells to us, looking over our remaining numbers. I’m not sure how to answer, so my father does:
“We’ve lost many, but we can fight.” And he sounds like he’s spoiling for another fight. Angry. Bitter. Hard.
“You may need to,” Azazel calls up to us, urgent. “More machines are on the way!”
The three sword-wielders turn to the west as one. They look like they can see something far away, well beyond the ridge.
“The rest of you need to go!” Erickson insists. “We can hold them here!”
“No, we can’t,” Azazel insists. “The machines will ignore us, avoid us, go for the vulnerable flesh. We won’t be able to stop them all. That’s how this game works. Chang’s not going to engage us directly. He’s going to keep drawing us away from him. That’s how it’s been for months: He keeps us running, keeps us fighting, doesn’t give us time to recover. The one opening we thought we had turned out to be a trap. And we walked right into it because we were so tired, so desperate.”
“It’s not Chang,” Erickson tells him. “It’s the other one. Asmodeus. And Fohat. Chang never came back from the bomb.”
“Then what was that?” I blurt out, pointing to the disintegrated black mass.
“Boogie,” Erickson names it. “Another machine.”
“Nano-swarm,” Azazel knows. “Same tech that made up Thom Bly’s old ride. It can be any shape it’s programmed for. Or in this case, none. Just something to stab and smash and slash. Impervious to conventional weapons.” Then to Erickson: “I’d ask you where you got those swords, but we’re out of chat time.”
I can hear the grinding of Box treads, coming from the west. My father falls back behind cover, ready to fire whatever we have left.
“We can’t hold here,” I try for reason. “They’ll run through us. Chase down our people.”
He doesn’t acknowledge me, eyes glued to the far crest. He doesn’t want to run.
“You can’t fall back, either,” Azazel warns. “They’ll just follow you back to your main group.”
“Then we draw them away,” my father decides, rising to his feet.
“They’ll slaughter you on the run,” Lux protests weakly.
“Not if you slaughter them first.”
“I’m out,” Lux groans. “I need to heal. I can’t move.”
“And I can’t run,” Azazel admits heavily. “We need resources.”
“Then we’ll do it,” the Unmaker—a redheaded woman—insists.
“Colonel Ram and the rest of you are nearby,” Erickson tells Azazel. “Some of the bots went north. They may have chased after.”
“Bly’s here, too,” the Unmaker adds. “Also headed north. But he’s in bad shape.”
“Go!” my father is already ordering us, waving us north and down into the green. “GO!!”
No one of us hesitates, not even Terina—she must know that any bot force chasing us would find her home next. Lux and Azazel pledge to take care of our wounded—Zayed, who has a bad chest wound, and Hamad, who’s taken shrapnel to his eyes—and bring them and our dead back to our people as soon as they’re strong enough to travel. That leaves only myself, my father, Ambassador Murphy, the Ghaddar, Rashid and Terina. We gather what we have left, leave Zayed and Hamad in the care of Lux and Azazel, and run.
The sword-wielders pace us initially, then fall back as if to cover our rear as we all weave through the green. Terina’s taken the lead, finding us a path of least-delay. But we have to run single-file to follow her, and we can’t spread out as far as we should for fear of getting lost from the group.
I’m not happy to be back in the tall growth, but as long as Terina can keep us moving, we may be able to stay ahead of the bots. I assume the plan is for our protectors to use whatever disadvantage the forest density inflicts to neutralize the machines as they pursue, and hopefully before they manage to target us. But what we don’t know is how many bots Chang (Asmodeus?) has to throw at us. How long and how far do we have to run?
I’m questioning whether the bots are even following us (or have they gone after our main group, now left nearly disarmed after Terina’s delivery?) when I hear the rattle of a Box gun behind us, cut short by the distinctive scream of one of those swords. We don’t stop running.
Within two minutes, I hear another Gatling spray. Bullets slice through the air and the green around us, but it’s stray fire, not directed. Another sword-song stops it. I try to guess how far they are behind us, but the thick growth muffles sound.
I need to concentrate on the running.
And I’m lost in that—weaving between trees, hopping ground vines, ducking branches—when I realize that the Ghaddar is no longer in front of me. But Terina is. And she’s stopped.
I almost run straight into her back, and then my father almost collides with me. Terina has pulled her sleeve up, baring her forearm at the green in front of us. I know what it must mean, but I don’t see anyone in the growth.
“Run!” she shouts to the forest. “Machines! Run now!!”
Nothing moves in there. Murphy’s come up on our rear. He has perhaps a second to realize why we’ve stopped, and then he grabs me and my father by the shoulders and jerks us down. As I drop, I reach out for Terina, miss…
A mass of flailing metal comes tearing through the treetops just over our heads. Terina was fast enough to duck it, but it doesn’t seem to be aiming for us. Past us. Which means there are better targets ahead…
…or it wants to be in the middle of us. It hits ground between us and whoever Terina was warning, stands. It looks like a Bug, but the limb-blades are heavier. I realize they’re mounted with light guns just as they open fire into the brush.
A volley of arrows answers back. Just as I’m thinking it’s a pathetic and suicidal gesture, one of the shafts jams in the works of a limb-gun. Then Murphy rolls sideways and fires, bursting another gun, and then a sensor head. A bigger gun blows away its second head from somewhere off to our left—I recognize the boom of the Ghaddar’s fifty caliber bullpup.
The thing is blind, but still lethal—it flails its limbs, firing wildly. Rounds tear my cloak and smack me through my shoulder armor, making my right arm go dead and making me
lose my grip on my rifle as I roll on the vine-covered ground. Everything is pain and electricity from the side of my neck down to my fingers. I don’t think the shells penetrated my plates—this thing’s guns are light, small arms, not the heavy weapons of a Box—but I don’t have time to check.
Something—someone—comes flying out of the green and lands on the flailing Bug from behind. The figure is wearing a green and brown patterned camo suit of some kind, including a hood and mask that covers his whole face, but no cloak. There’s a bow and a quiver strapped across his back. He’s hanging on for dear life as the Bug tries to shake him off, digging into the machine’s joints with a big stout knife.
The Bug flips and throws him into the undergrowth, then slashes and stabs at him blindly. He’s drawn his bow and launches a shaft at close range into a shoulder joint, but barely slows the thing down. Then a red blur flies and leaps on the bot. It’s the Ghaddar. She stabs and pries into the Bug’s torso with one of her heavy throwing spikes, then uses the gap she’s made to wedge in a charge, letting the machine throw her off before it explodes.
The bot staggers and collapses. More green suits come out of the growth, descend on it and start hacking and prying, tearing it apart like a brutal salvage crew. I see blood and blackish fluid—the scavenged brain and nervous system of what was once a human being, “recycled” in Chang’s service, now set mercifully free.
I think my collar bone is broken. I can’t move my shoulder.
The trees rustle and crack again, and another of these “Gun Bugs” comes jumping into our midst. But it’s barely set its guns before a second blur comes right behind it and cuts it in half with a welcome scream.
It’s the Unmaker girl. She chops the machine apart, roaring with rage, her face splattered with other kills. But then, as she stands over the wreckage and drives her sword into the cleaved torso, I see the green growth underneath her feet shrivel, dry, turn brown. It’s doing the same under the body of the bot, at least the main body that has the sword driven down through it. And she’s screaming with a sound that I’m not sure is pleasure or agony.
The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades Page 21