"To victory!" the soldiers repeated her cry.
Tanks and infantrymen charged.
Shells flew toward the colossal cyborgs. The creatures swatted the shells aside as if they were mere flies. The many-legged creatures screeched, louder than missiles. They raced forth, and their clawed legs slammed into soldiers, piercing them, ripping them apart. Ben-Ari howled from atop her tank, firing her assault rifle, emptying magazine after magazine, but bullets glanced off the cyborgs. She might as well have been tossing pebbles.
The infantry charged at them with valor Ben-Ari knew would become legendary should humanity survive. Yet they could not harm the cyborgs. The creatures grabbed soldiers, lifted the screaming men and women, and feasted upon them. Soldiers screamed as the cyborgs pulled out their entrails, guzzling them down. Blood rained. And the cyborgs charged onward.
The tanks fired again. Shells burst against the cyborgs, denting armor but not harming the flesh within. One of the monsters reared before Ben-Ari's tank.
God, the size of it, she thought. She had thought it the size of a whale before. It was larger. It was a god.
The cyborg raced toward her tank, and the cannon fired, and the creature barely slowed as the shell slammed into it. It reached the tank, stretched out claws the size of oak roots, and lifted the vehicle overhead.
Ben-Ari clung on, firing her rifle, trying to hit an eye.
The cyborg hurled the tank through the air.
Ben-Ari screamed, spinning.
She fell off the tank.
She still wore her light suit, though her jet pack was cracked open, badly damaged. In midair, she ignited the pack. It sputtered, sprayed out a burst of fire, and she soared. She fired down a volley onto the cyborg. Below her, her tank slammed down and exploded, and the shock wave tossed Ben-Ari into a tailspin.
She had no time to mourn the dead inside.
She stared down at the cyborgs. One had cracked open a tank, was picking out the soldiers from inside and devouring them.
Ben-Ari sneered.
This ends now.
Her jet pack gave a last flicker, then died. She fell. She managed to kick-start it again, to fly, to sputter a kilometer away, passing over the line of battle. Her pack finally gave up the ghost. She fell and landed on a pile of corpses. Thousands of dead spread around her. There they lay: the noble men and women of the HDF. Privates and corporals, most of them. They couldn't have been older than eighteen. Some were barely old enough to shave.
She knelt by the corpses. She placed her hand on a boy's cheek. The dead private looked so much like Marco that for a second Ben-Ari was sure it was her friend. But no; Marco was ten years older now, a lieutenant, and far from this world. How had so many years passed so soon?
"I'm sorry, friend," she whispered to the fallen boy. "I need you now. Even in your rest."
A chariot stood overturned nearby, the grays inside slain. Four mechanical horses had once pulled the chariot. The tanks had smashed three, but the fourth horse still stood. The robot was larger than a regular horse and forged of black steel. Levers thrust out from its neck.
Ben-Ari slung the dead private, the one who looked like Marco, across the horse. She added two more corpses, then strapped them down. She climbed up and sat between them. She grabbed the levers.
It was a crazy plan. It was a crazy war.
She pushed on a lever, and the robotic horse burst into a gallop.
It took a few moments to get used to the controls. But soon Ben-Ari was driving the mechanical stallion with ease. The robot was fast, far faster than a tank. Its metal legs blurred, and it could leap several meters in the air, vaulting over corpses and the husks of armored vehicles. Ben-Ari kept riding, galloping toward the front line. The corpses she had slung across the horse jostled.
She galloped toward the cyborgs. The three massive beasts stood in a sea of human soldiers, rearing, roaring, feeding upon men. They stood like titans among mortals. Cannons were firing at the cyborgs, unable to take them down; their armor was too thick.
Ben-Ari rode closer, charging between lines of infantrymen. She tugged a lever, and her horse reared.
"Angels of Nefitis!" she cried. "I am Einav Ben-Ari! I am the Golden Lioness! And I have come to worship you!"
Each of the three cyborgs sprouted three heads. All those heads turned toward her. The black eyes narrowed.
The colossal beasts ran toward her, stomping over soldiers and tanks. The battlefield shook.
Ben-Ari struggled to calm her racing heart.
She unslung the corpses off her horse.
She tossed them to the ground before her.
"Accept my offerings to your glory!" she shouted. "Feed upon this flesh, oh mighty lords!"
The cyborgs paused for a moment, staring.
Ben-Ari only hoped that they were less intelligent than their masters.
Thankfully, their hunger overpowered their prudence. The cyborgs took the bait. They leaned down and devoured the corpses—flesh, clothes, and the explosives Ben-Ari had planted inside them.
The cyborgs rose, gulping down the meal. They stared at her again. Still hungry.
Ben-Ari sat astride her horse, facing the giants. She smiled and lifted a remote control with a large red button.
"I am the Golden Lioness," she whispered. "And this is my world."
She pressed the button.
Inside the cyborgs, the explosives detonated.
The cyborgs' bellies bulged. Smoke blasted from them. Their armor cracked, and fire burst out from within. Grenade after grenade detonated, and even though Ben-Ari wore a helmet calibrated to protect her ears, she instinctively raised her hands to cover them.
Before her, the cyborgs burst open. Their armored plates flew. Their soft flesh splattered across the battlefield. Their spines rose like morbid trees, dripping blood. Still the creatures lived, shrieking, lashing their claws.
Ben-Ari fired her assault rifle into their exposed flesh. Across the field, hundreds of other soldiers fired too.
The bullets tore into the wretched monstrosities. Their spines shattered. The creatures fell with thuds that cracked the ground. They rose no more.
Ben-Ari rode her horse up a hill, and she gazed upon the battle. Flares hung in the night sky, keeping the field as bright as day. The human fighter jets were battling the saucers above. Tanks were still crashing into chariots. Hundreds of thousands of warriors battled on the fields: human soldiers in dusty fatigues and grays in ritualistic armor. A soldier lay fallen beside Ben-Ari, but his radio still operated, speaking of other battles around the globe.
War is hard, but we are fighting harder, Ben-Ari thought. We can withstand this enemy. We can win.
Rumbles sounded above.
Ben-Ari looked up to see a huge black saucer descend, ringed in fire. It came to hover upon the hill before her.
She sneered. Her horse reared, and she loaded her rifle.
A hatch on the saucer opened, and a ramp extended toward the hilltop.
A cyborg emerged. No—not a cyborg but a mecha suit, a wearable machine. The suit was shaped like a scorpion, all spinning gears and clattering chains. It was three times the size of Ben-Ari's horse. A stinger rose behind it, large as a cannon, and two claws extended from the machine.
Inside the mechanical scorpion stood a gray, operating the machine with levers and buttons. Half the gray's body was burnt away, and half his face was shattered, chunks of skull clinging to raw flesh. A chain of hearts beat around his chest.
"Abyzou," Ben-Ari spat, prepared to fire.
The Gray Prince laughed. "Fire your gun, Einav! But then watch him die."
Abyzou moved his right arm, and the scorpion extended its right claw.
Ben-Ari frowned. The claw was holding a human prisoner. Inside the mecha, Abyzou opened his hand. In tandem, the mecha suit opened its claw, and the prisoner fell to the ground. The man was clad in rags, beaten, haggard.
"Look at her, slave!" Abyzou said to the man. "Look at your Einav."
Slowly, the bloodied prisoner raised his head and gazed at Ben-Ari.
Her heart shattered.
Tears filled her eyes.
"Father," she whispered.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Marco and Addy swam in their spacesuits, their oxygen slowly running out. Behind them, their shattered starship was already too far to see. All around them spread the endless ocean of Taolin Shi, this flooded world at the edge of the unknown. Ahead they loomed—two dark figures in the distance, towering from seabed to the ocean's surface.
"These better be the mechas," Addy said. "And they better work. Or we're fucked."
They had only an hour of air left. After that, they'd be forced to swim on the surface, to try to breathe there. But what if this world's atmosphere was toxic to humans? And even if they could breathe the air, there was no land. They would have to swim until exhaustion pulled them to a watery grave.
"Unless we can find a mechanic crab," Marco said. "One who knows how to fix Thunder Road."
Addy nodded. "And one who tastes delicious. Because after he fixes Shippy McShipface, I'm eating the fucker. I'm starving."
"When are you not starving?"
Addy thought for a moment. "Sometimes when I'm asleep. No, actually, even then I dream about hamburgers. Once I dreamed that you turned into a pizza! You were delicious."
He rubbed his shoulder. "So that's why you were biting me in your sleep last night."
It felt good to joke. To banter. To forget the terror. Death loomed. The grays were heading to Earth, perhaps were already attacking.
Maybe humor is like Deep Being, he thought. A way to stave off the horror of existence.
As they swam closer, the two towering smudges came into focus. Finally some hope filled Marco. The obelisks began to take form. Barnacles, moss, and seaweed covered them, and their forms were rough—but yes, these were humanoid shapes. One seemed to be male, and he held a great hammer, its head the size of a house. The other was female, and she held a sword as long as a skyscraper, the blade coated with barnacles and seaweed. Both male and female had lion faces, and both seemed to wear armor.
"The mechas," Marco whispered. "They're real."
"I call the boy one!" Addy said.
"Addy! I'm not flying in the girl."
She bristled. "What's wrong with girls?"
"Nothing! But—oh, shush, Addy. Let's find a way inside these things and see if they still work."
They swam closer, passing through a school of fish. Below, ancient pagodas lay fallen on the seabed, and eels nested in smashed starships. Finally they reached the mechas. They were massive. They could dwarf the Statue of Liberty. If these things could still fly, still fight . . .
Marco tried to curb his excitement. All the starships they had encountered here were ruins, far too rusty and broken to ever fly again. The war had ended centuries ago. Odds were the mechas wouldn't work. Odds were they would die here. Earth would die. And—
Breathe. Don't let your thoughts control you. You are not your thoughts.
The baba's voice spoke in his mind. Marco breathed and observed. He continued swimming, no longer hostage to his fear.
Marco and Addy both swam toward the male mecha. They came to float before its head, only a few meters below the surface of the ocean. Just the mecha's head was larger than the Thunder Road. It gazed back at them, coated with barnacles and moss, its features barely visible. Starfish clung to its eyes, and limpets filled its mane.
"Now this looks more like me," Marco said. "Noble and strong. Not like those blobfish."
Addy patted his helmet. "Sure, my sweet little blobfish."
"Let's look for a door." Marco's excitement was slowly growing. "I imagine that the command center would be inside the head. Maybe we'll find an airlock. Let's start chipping off these barnacles and clearing off all this moss."
"It needs a shave." Addy nodded. "But don't you think the airlock might be by the feet? After all, these things were meant to land. The Taolians would have entered from below, then taken an elevator up to the head."
Marco nodded. "Yes. That's smart, Ads. Let's check the feet."
They began to swim downward.
"You mean I'm smarter than you?" Addy said as they sank.
"Let's not go that far," Marco said.
"But you admitted it! You thought the airlock would be on the head. I had the smarter idea! Which means I'm certainly smarter than you."
He groaned. "Addy, you once thought my thesaurus was a book about dinosaurs."
"Oh yeah?" Addy said. "Well, you once didn't believe me that green apples existed."
"That was you!" Marco said. "I had buy a crate of Granny Smiths to convince you, remember? And even then you kept insisting they were pears."
"Well, how should I know?" She scoffed. "I only eat apples if they're in a pie. With a big slice of cheese on top. And there's ice cream on it. And somebody scooped out the apples."
Finally they reached the statue's feet. The grime was even worse here. A thick coating of barnacles, coral, and moss covered the mecha's legs and feet. Marco and Addy both had their rifles. They chipped away with the barrels, cutting off centuries of buildup.
"Crustier than a whore's crotch." Addy slammed at a cluster of limpets. "This is worse than that time we had latrine duty at boot camp. Remember that, Poet?"
He nodded. "Yeah. We got latrine duty because you were mouthing off to Sergeant Singh."
"I did not!" She gasped. "My mouth is always polite and clean like a—" Her barrel slipped off a stubborn limpet. She growled and began slamming the gun against the cluster. "Fuck you, you fucking pieces of goddamn space shit!"
It was slow work, and it used up lots of precious oxygen. Marco kept one eye on his oxygen meter. Pretty soon they would have to rise to the surface, hoping to find enough oxygen in the atmosphere. Yet even if they could breathe this planet's air, how long could they possibly drift at sea before exhaustion killed them? Perhaps death by asphyxiation would be kinder. He shoved the morbid thoughts aside and concentrated on his work. Finally they carved their way through the thick layers of moss, barnacles, and mineral buildup.
They reached stone.
They frowned.
No metal hull. No airlock. Just polished stone.
"What the actual fuck?" Addy said.
They kept working, chipping off more layers of crud, revealing what lay beneath. More stone. A giant foot of stone standing on the seabed.
"It's . . . a statue," Addy said. "It's another goddamn statue! This isn't a mecha at all, Poet!" She grabbed him and shook him. "Poet, it's a fucking statue like the ones on Durmia. We wasted our time! We lost our ship! We're going to die here underwater for a fucking giant stat—"
"Addy, wait," he said. "Breathe. Let it be. Remember Deep—"
"Fuck Deep Being!" she shouted. "Poet, we're dead. We're fucking dead! These aren't mechas. Mechas are metal machines!" She let out a wordless howl and fell to her knees. "Fuck!"
"Addy, conserve your air."
"What's the fucking point! We're dead!" She yowled and slammed her fists against the seabed. "We're dead, Poet. Oh fuck. Oh fuck."
Marco too felt the panic rise. It tugged at him, threatening to claim his mind. Without much air left, breathing was difficult, but he forced himself to take deep breaths, to try to clear his spinning head.
A few months ago, I would have fallen apart, he thought. Let me examine this from Deep Being.
He returned to the stone surface, which they had cleared of barnacles. He placed his gloved hand on it. His flashlight was already fading. The light was dim. The air was almost gone. He squinted, struggling to see better. He tapped the stone with his gun's muzzle. It was hard to breathe. It was hard to think. He forced his mind to keep working.
Just a statue, he thought. Another colossal statue. Like the ones on Durmia. He frowned. But why would they build massive statues here—in a spaceport?
Addy rose to her feet. Howling, she began slamming at
the stone with her rifle. "This goddamn fucking thing!" She stepped back, cocked her rifle, and fired a bullet at the stone. "Fuck you, you asshole statue, I'm going to—"
"Addy, wait!" Marco said. He gasped. "Gun down. Look!"
She lowered her rifle, and Marco examined the bullet hole. He fished out the bullet, then tore out a chunk from the statue. He looked at her.
"It's not stone," he said. "It's clay."
"Same difference!"
He frowned and crumbled the clay between his fingers. "You wouldn't build a statue this size from clay. You'd use clay to waterproof something."
He slammed his rifle again, tearing out clay, and used his hands to rip off more chunks.
Behind the clay, he saw it.
Metal.
It was made of metal.
"The mecha," Marco whispered.
Addy gasped. She rushed forward, pressed her helmet against the metal surface, and began kissing it. "I'm sorry I hit you! I'm sorry!"
Their air was almost gone. There was no time to keep chipping away with their barrels. They stepped back and opened fire. The water slowed down their bullets, but they stood close enough to shatter the clay. Great chucks of clay, a foot thick, crumbled off the mecha, revealing the metal machine within.
A giant machine. A starship shaped like a Taolian warrior. They only saw its foot, but it was real, and it stood before them, tall as a skyscraper.
Their air kept dwindling. It was agonizing work to chip off more clay, to find an airlock. Marco was lightheaded. At one point, Addy fell and he had to help her rise. He breathed deeply, but his breaths felt empty. He saw stars.
He fired on automatic, ripping off chunks of clay, not even caring that he dented the metal beneath. And finally—there. A doorway.
They pulled it open. They stumbled into an airlock, flooding it with water. They couldn't breathe. They gasped like fish out of water. They had to wait, sucking up the last drops of oxygen, until the airlock drained of water and they could stumble through the second doorway.
They found themselves in a dark, dry room. They fell to the floor, pulled off their helmets, and gulped down air.
For a moment, Marco was worried. After being sealed up for centuries, would the air be breathable? Had the Taolians even breathed the same air as humans? Yet it felt good in his lungs. It cleared his head. For long moments, he lay in the dark, just breathing.
Earth Honor (Earthrise Book 8) Page 21