by B. V. Larson
To a man with a rifle, the juggers did not seem overly dangerous at a distance. They did not have any form of ranged attack. They simply focused on a target and charged on those huge, bulging legs.
When they first came into view, milling and releasing throaty roars, snipers all up and down Aldo’s line began firing at them. They were easy targets, and they winced and shivered when their umber hides were burned and pierced.
Then they gathered themselves into groups of seven to nine beasts, and the charge began. Their muscles shivered and swelled with power. Their pace picked up as they came, and they were soon bounding down the streets toward the human lines, each stride taking them thirty feet or more.
Aldo could feel the cobbles tremor as each massive foot struck down and then pumped up again. Around him, men on the barricades began to show signs of worry. They fired a withering fusilade of laser bolts, but not a single one of the monsters fell. A new reality quickly took hold in everyone’s mind: these creatures were too large, too hearty, to be taken down by rifles.
Aldo was not quite certain what to do.
“Sling rifles!” shouted Baroness Droad as she stepped up beside him. “Draw blades and stand your ground!”
Confused, eyes wide and round, the men did as she said. But when the charging juggers were almost upon them, some finally did break and flee.
The juggers crashed into and bounded over the barricade a moment later. They hooted and cried to one another in excitement, dipping their great heads to snap up those that fled. The knights slashed and roared, but their voices seemed tiny in the face of a swirling mass of giant predators.
“Strike low!” shouted Aldo. His sword blazed with fire, as he had set it to its maximum power. Such was the thickness and weight of the beasts, he found it best to slash at the joints-ankle, knee and hip. His sword could not strike all the way through, but it was able to cripple the one he attacked while the monster busied itself with devouring a man who had been knocked flat by stacked crates. The barricade that the men had built up to defend themselves had now become a pile of falling debris. Crushed down and trapped under the crates, men howled as they were plucked apart by hungry juggers.
Aldo soon learned several techniques he was determined to remember, should he survive this phase of the battle. When facing a charging jugger, one had to keep oneself calm. Turning tail and running meant certain death. It was best, in fact, to stand in the open, motionless until the final moment. Then, by dancing aside even as the monster dipped down to scoop you up in your jaws, a man could avoid the charge. The momentum of the beast was such that it could not stop and turn quickly enough to catch you. As one leapt to the side, a well-placed slash at one of the joints did wonders. By the end of the bloody, terrifying ordeal, he’d personally brought down two juggers and driven his sword home into the brain and chest of a third. This had to be done repeatedly, before it finally died.
Nina came up and clapped him on the back. He flinched and turned to her, eyes narrowed. He panted and rubbed at the gore on his face. There was no telling whose blood it was. He suspected it was a thick mixture of fluids from the juggers and their victims.
“My knights stood their ground!” shouted Nina. She was grinning, and seemed elated, rather than horrified. “Did you see that, Aldo? Only a few cowards broke, and they were run down. In a way, they helped us by distracting them. We were able then to move in while the creatures fed.”
Aldo nodded, eyeing her with concern. He’d once been told by the Duchess that people considered the Droads to be a bloodthirsty lot. Now, for the first time, he thought he understood why.
All told, many men and mechs were lost to the jugger charge, but Aldo’s army was not broken. When a force of killbeasts advanced in the wake of the juggers, they didn’t find a shattered force. The survivors fought back and held their lines.
“Baroness,” Aldo said. “I think we should advance.”
“Of course we should!” she shouted back. “Mount up, man. I can barely hold my knights in place as it is.”
Aldo shrugged and climbed into his saddle. Around him, a hundred more men followed. They were wary now, naturally enough. They’d seen a fresh variety of nightmare today.
What might the aliens throw at them next?
The Parent dragged herself to the nife’s central nexus. Located in one of the observation modules of Gladius, the domed transparent surface overhead provided a panoramic view of Ignis Glace. The desert of Sunside was a bright yellow, striped with rust-colored, spiraling mountain ranges. The glare of Sunside was met with the velvet darkness of Twilight, a thin ragged band where shadow met light. Beyond was the frosted blackness of Nightside.
Directly below the great ship a battle raged, and the Parent knew it was going badly. This troubled her, but also gave her some level of pleasure as well. She tried not to feel guilty about her mixed feelings. The Skaintz, unlike humans, were not individualists. They lived for the betterment of the hive. They did strive and compete-but never purposefully to the detriment of all.
That made today’s mission all the sweeter. The Parent dragged her aching, flopping lobes into the nife’s command module with heaving tentacles. Her suckers were sore from pulling so much weight behind them, and her birth tracts were no longer capable of closing properly. They leaked fluids in a glistening trail behind her all the way down the long corridor. Why had the humans built such a large ship with such long, geometrically precise segments? The design was baffling and irritating to the suffering Parent.
In the command module, the nife was in a defeatist mood. “Ah, I see you have come to gloat,” he said when he saw the Parent drag herself into the command chamber. “Not very sporting of you.”
“And what do I have to gloat about?” asked the Parent.
“Why, my inevitable spacing, of course. You and I shall twist in the void together until our fluids boil out our orbs and freeze solid.”
“Perhaps-and perhaps not.”
The nife perked up. His stalks rose a fraction as he regarded her. “You have a plan?”
“I do.”
“Well, delay no further! Our forces are being swept out of the human concentration. We’ve captured and processed no more than a quarter of the herd, and time is of the essence.”
“The enemy army seems to be the most effective force on the planet, so let’s be rid of it.”
“That is a goal, not a plan.”
“My plan is simplicity itself: burn the city to ash. Three nuclear devices should do the trick.”
The nife expelled gases in disgust. “That’s it? Did you think me such a simpleton that I’ve not already presented precisely that course of action to our Empress? In fact, when I presented it some hours ago, only one device would have been required. Now that they have retaken much of the city, three indeed represent the new minimum. Alas, the Empress has not given her permission to use even a single device to turn the tide. It’s so galling. There they are, all centralized and helpless below us. It is as if we’ve set the perfect trap. The high walls of the trench they reside in would rebound the shockwaves, ensuring total destruction. Not a single human, nor a single one of their cyborgs would survive.”
“Exactly,” the Parent said. “Do it. Launch your missiles and end this.”
The nife’s orbs stared at her fully now. “Did I not make myself clear? The Empress has forbidden such an action.”
The Parent shrugged her tentacles and arranged her fronds. “So, do it anyway. Is this not a military mission? Is the army below not under your command?”
“Yes and yes, but I fail to see-”
“What will happen to you, my favorite offspring, if you allow the Empress’ order to stand? When the humans retake the entire valley and remove us from the planet?”
“I will be spaced for failure. The Empress has made that abundantly clear. Afterward, perhaps we can mount another assault elsewhere. But we will have lost the element of surprise, and the enemy will be full of hubris due to their victory. The ne
w nife might well be unable to achieve victory.”
“Exactly. And on the other hand, if we destroy the human army now, what will happen?”
The nife pondered and began to pace. “Events are more difficult to predict. The Empress will probably space me anyway, despite the victory, for destroying so much of her precious supply of meat-creatures. Moreover, I will have disobeyed orders.”
“Ah, but you will not have. For I hereby give you the order to launch the missiles before it is too late. Destroy the human army and the population center before the battle is lost and they remember the ship that hangs over their heads in the sky.”
The nife peered at her. “ You order me?”
“I am your progenitor.”
“The authority of the Empress supersedes your own.”
“Yes, but in this instance, you can claim you had conflicting orders from two superiors. Following your own instinct in battle, you made your choice. In the end, it will prove to be the right one. You may even survive the Empress’ wrath.”
“But you will not,” he said.
“No,” the Parent admitted. “But I’m not in her good graces in any case. I’m more interested in seeing this invasion brought to a successful conclusion. For the benefit of the Imperium.”
“For the Imperium,” the nife echoed. He stood frozen in thought for some time. At last, he began pacing again, and as he did so his stalks rose to their fullest extension. “I’ll have to make a dozen preparations. The launch must happen swiftly, quietly, and all at once. I’ll have to supervise the action personally.”
The Parent watched him, understanding the bait had been taken. He would follow her plan. Endorphins flooded her system. She truly felt good for the first time in many months. The first stage of her plan had worked perfectly. The nife was an expert in military matters, but a newcomer to intrigue. She left the nife, having further detailed preparations of her own to make.
Twenty-Six
It was the hatch that defeated Garth in the end. None of Ornth’s arguments had swayed him. He did not care if every being on the planet expired, save for himself. But once he understood the hatch was impossible to open from the inside for a person of his strength, he gave up. He almost allowed himself to slide back down the shaft and fall to his death. But instead, he wearily crawled back down into the steamy chambers beneath and despaired on the hexagonal grid. Vapors rushed over him, blurring his vision and burning him in spots.
He’d almost fallen asleep in exhaustion, but something sent alarms through his tattered nervous system. Ornth was on the move, quietly burrowing nerve threads back into Garth’s spinal cord.
Garth’s eyes snapped open. He grabbed up the sliver of metal and pressed it against the back rim of his skull.
“Don’t,” he said. “Withdraw, or I will be rid of you forever.”
The stinging sensation at the base of his skull diminished. Ornth despaired. We cannot leave. We cannot survive. Why not help your species and mine survive in the future?
Garth considered the request. “I have only one act left within me,” he said. “I will decide what it will be.”
Repair the Great Machine. If you do so, I will exit your body. You may smash me with your boot upon the floor afterward, if you so desire.
Garth was startled and moved by this statement. “That does not sound like any Tulk I know.”
As I’ve told you, I’m not like most of my species.
Garth reflected on the past events with Ornth. He was certainly a creature apart from the self-centered Fryx.
“Perhaps I’ve judged you too harshly,” he said. “You serve not only yourself, but claim a higher purpose?”
Isn’t that abundantly clear?
Garth nodded slowly, wearily. “Very well. I’ll do what I can. But so much of the machine is damaged. I’m afraid my people’s miners have done their work too well. Possibly, I could shunt all remaining power to a single lens. If I could open the great shutters to expose it, and there is enough power to ignite the actuators…”
Yes! Yes! Try it!
Garth groaned and struggled to his feet. By shunting every functional source to this single branch of the great network-the branch he currently stood within-he was able to gather sufficient power to expose one set of lenses.
This heartened both the beings that resided in Garth’s body, and they set about gathering as much power as possible into a central reservoir of capacitance. They would charge it as long as they dared before firing. If they failed, they would have revealed themselves to the enemy. Once located, they could not survive for long.
As Garth worked, he found he felt a new freedom and energy in accepting he was not getting out of this place alive. Knowing that, all his nagging worries slid away and his mind operated unfettered by thoughts of survival. He worked the controls like a man possessed, and with each passing minute, he began to believe the ancient device would fire-at least once.
There would not be enough power to reach the stars, not even a fraction of it. But that wasn’t necessary, as the enemy was right here in the system. Yes-it might just work.
The Duchess Embrak soon wished with all her heart and soul she’d taken her own life. Nude and badly wounded, she was transported on the heaving, warm back of a trach to a waiting landing ship. There she was shoved aboard with a hundred other screeching, weeping individuals. A few of them seemed to recognize her, but none addressed her. They were all female and mature of age, but not elderly. The Duchess tried to reason out why they would been sorted into such a category-none of the reasons she could think of were positive, so she stopped thinking about it.
When the ship launched, it did so with such sudden force the captive women were hurled back against the rear bulkhead. They screamed and groaned in pain. Bones snapped audibly, and some vomited. A few at the bottom of the pile died, crushed to death.
The liftoff thrust soon subsided, and they found themselves floating briefly. She realized in shock they must be in orbit. A few of the women sought to open the exits, but it was hopeless. The Duchess worried that even if they succeeded, they would all be sucked out into space, but she didn’t try to stop them. Perhaps mass asphyxiation would be for the best at this point.
A thumping clang signaled the docking process. The sounds of heavy machinery rang and whirred all around the huddled women. At last, the hatches opened and trachs began collecting them for transport. Having learned her lesson the last time, the Duchess went willingly. The trachs were far from gentle, but they were brutal with those who resisted. Extra limbs were often snipped off and placed beside the squirming, bleeding victim.
The next stage of her journey was far from heartening. She’d expected the ship to be cold and metallic. But the walls were festooned with fleshy growths and the air was warm and humid. She rode on a long train of trachs to a larger chamber. There, at the entrance, a fresh horror met her eyes. She contained her screams only by clamping her lips shut over her mouth.
This new thing resembled a giant, bulbous squid, complete with tentacles and eyes on stalks. It had a grossly bloated body behind its limbs and sensory organs, and there was a terrifying intellect evident in its manner. Somehow its intelligence was the worst part of it-knowing she faced a thinking creature with cruel intentions of its own.
The swollen monster tapped and probed at each woman as they passed. Many who screamed were silenced with a powerful thump of a tentacle. Sometimes, this blow cracked the skull of the victim. Duchess Embrak endeavored to make as little noise as possible when her turn came. She endured those groping, probing tentacles as quietly as possible. She whimpered and squirmed, but kept her eyes shut and did not scream.
She felt a sharp pain in her abdomen. Gasping in shock, she tried to see what it was-there was as lump attached to her. Similar to the gray thing that clasped her wrist stump to stop it from bleeding, this thing plastered to her belly seemed alive and it pulsated. Inside it, she could see a metal box of some kind. She peered in the half-light, but could not id
entify the box. It did seem to be of human origin, however, not alien. She had no idea what it was, or why it had been attached to her person.
Riding on the trach’s back, her body was racked with quiet sobs.
The Parent fluffed herself as best she was able and summoned two trachs to help transport her to the throne room. She’d been urgently summoned into the Empress’ presence, and she wanted to look her best.
She knew she might be experiencing the final moments of her existence. She did what she could to erase that reality from her mind. She could only hope her preparations had all gone well, and that her moment of triumph was near.
When she arrived at the throne room, her estimation of her odds soared. There was a new throne present-a fifth throne. All of them stood around the Empress’ nest in a semi-circle. The other Parents had already taken their places when the eldest Parent arrived.
“There you are,” the Empress boomed. She’d grown even larger now as a result of her diet of continuous fresh meats, and her pronouncements were commensurately louder when she broadcast them. Her vast person now overflowed the nest she squatted within.
“Please, eldest Parent, take your place on the newest, largest throne. Feast with us.”
Proudly, the Parent did so. She noted with relish the other younger Parents were silent today. None of them twittered at her obscene body. No matter how things turned out today, this single victory was sweet enough to be savored.
“Please note our sixth guest,” the Empress said, gesturing toward a broken stick-figure that stood before her.
The Parent peered, then recoiled in horror. At first, she’d thought it was a human, being of more or less the same general size and configuration. But now she recognized the fallen stalks and permanently closed orbs. It was the nife, and he’d been staked in front of the Empress.
“Too bad you missed the first order of business,” the Empress said unconcernedly.
“I take it the campaign is not going well?” the Parent asked.