The next sensation is disturbing. I feel my skin crawl, and my own LA suit begins to pull me upward. Rios and Sakina get dragged similarly skyward. I look up and realize a large hatchway has opened above us, but it’s not into the ship. It’s through it. I see sky.
As we get pulled through the center of the main hull, I find myself wondering if the same equipment that’s lifting us could drop troops onto the surface. There are heavy hatches facing into the gap, but they remain sealed. Chang doesn’t want us getting a look inside his masterpiece, his labor of hate. But he does want us to get a good look over it.
We get pulled up into daylight and open air and set down on top of the forward section. From where we are, we can see his apparent command towers, his airship-sized landing pads and moorings, and recessed decks that look like they’re meant for troop staging, because they’re crowded with ranks of neat black uniforms armed with a variety of small arms. The dirigibles on either side of us have similar manpower lining their gun decks, all turned to watch us.
Looking toward the bow, I can see our mostly-buried base, our greenhouse beyond it, directly in line with his bow gun. I look to Rios and Sakina, who’ve been similarly sizing up our situation, and give them what I hope is a reassuring nod.
Then we hear boots. Lots of boots. Two ranks of black suits come up to the deck we’re on from its aft rail, climbing up from somewhere below. They form a semi-circle between us and the mid-ship, but don’t bother to point their guns at us, or move to take our weapons, as if we’re harmless. They simply stand at attention—a show of discipline or obedience. And after a few breaths of nothing happening in the wind, Chang decides to make his entrance.
His featureless shadow “pours” up right out of the metal deck in front of us, taking shape like ink filling up the mold of his humanoid form.
“Chang,” I take the lead in greeting, staying where I am as if completely unimpressed.
“Destroyer,” he gives back with equal cool. “A name you again live up to. I assume your display of bravery in choosing to face me on my own ground is in hope of bargaining for mercy, finally seeing your situation clearly.”
I don’t answer him.
“The supply drops from Earth are due this afternoon,” he gets to the point. “I have already detected their signals coming into orbit. We will take those supplies.”
“Or?” I challenge dully.
“There is no ‘or’,” he gets testy. “The last time I gave you a choice, it ended badly. All you had to do was accept the reality of your situation, be reasonable. Instead, you murdered over one hundred good men and women, men and women who only wanted to keep their homes safe from men like you.”
“We’ve seen their homes,” I let him know. “And the bodies of their fellows—more than twice as many as the lives wasted in that fight. That certainly wasn’t my doing.”
“But you made it necessary,” he blames. “We could have cooperated, secured this planet together, taken the ETE’s technology away, disarmed the Shinkyo. Negotiated with Earth for the sanctity of this world from a unified position of strength. But instead, you did something stupid and brutal.”
“Then punish me,” I dare him, as Sakina tenses at my side. “My decision. My responsibility. Who dies today is your choice. But then, you’ve been a lot more indiscriminate about slaughtering people than I ever have.”
My righteous monologue seems to have no impact on either Chang or his recruits (they could be robots under their breather masks).
“You have no idea, do you?” he almost growls at me. “When you shot me down, killed my men… Then your freak allies tried to hurt me… It took me time to heal, to reconstitute. During that time, my so-called allies took charge, tried to further my plans—our plans—in their own stupid way. Those people that died at Frontier and Zodanga, the attack on Shinkyo, that may have been Colonel Janeway and Captain Bly, but it was your fault. I wasn’t there to stop them. Because of you.”
“And where are Janeway and Bly?” I ask as if it’s an idle question. He doesn’t answer me immediately.
“Janeway has been… re-tasked,” he’s being theatrically vague. “As for Bly, he’s been eager to meet you again…”
“Captain Colonel,” an almost familiar voice comes from behind me. We turn. Standing on the bow is a ridiculous apparition of fantasy: It’s wearing gleaming black European-style plate armor from head-to-toe under a black knight’s surcoat. The mask of the helmet (which is gaudily crested with bat or dragon wings) is some abstract fusion of skull and insect. The eyes (of course) glow red. In his gauntleted hand is a European-style broadsword. “Good of you to bring your blade.”
It’s Bly’s voice, muffled through the mask, but his broken speech patterns are gone, as if Chang has done much more to him than just provide a fancy suit of armor.
“As you can see, captain Bly has also been re-tasked,” Chang tells me, barely masking a sense of pride.
“What did he do to you?” I ask Bly (ignoring Chang).
“Nothing I didn’t want,” the bug-skull insists lazily. “I’m strong. Fast. True near invincible. Care to try me?”
“Like what he did to Nina Harper?” I try driving a wedge.
“You don’t get to speak her name!” he snaps it back at me, his sword now pointed at my face.
“Where’s Janeway?” I change the subject, still asking Bly instead of Chang.
“Not quite finished,” Chang discounts. I turn back on him.
“For someone who insists that nanotech and biotech like this destroyed our future, you certainly employ it a lot more liberally and dangerously than any of your so-called enemies,” I confront the obvious hypocrisy.
“The weapon of my enemy…” he discounts lazily. “This is war, Colonel Ram. And the stakes are high. Everything. The entire human race, our future. But you don’t believe. You didn’t really believe in my time either, even when you stood up against it. You still had hope. And that’s too bad.”
Beneath our feet, the deck begins to thrum, the whole ship vibrating, and I can feel heat rising. Then a hum quickly builds to deafening.
“Chang…”
And then a scream. Like a supersonic jet passing right under my feet, or a booster in liftoff. Or a meteor.
The bow behind Bly erupts in a fireball blaze of plasma. Heat washes over me like a blast furnace. And there’s an explosion. Rubble geysers skyward. From my base.
When I can see, the Aircom Tower is gone.
Metzger. Weiss. Li.
I want to draw my gun, draw my sword, but there’s no point. I catch Rios’ eyes—he’s as frozen as I am. Sakina’s eyes just tell me she wants orders, wants me to give the word. But it’s not time yet…
The rail gun starts building again under my feet. I feel the ship turn slightly, lining up on the Command Tower.
And then I hear the scream of jets.
Through the cloud of ruin, I can almost see the four small specks coming from the west, flying low. Shinkyo fighters, courtesy of Daimyo Hatsumi. Specially loaded.
“Down!” I shout to my companions as I hit the deck.
Bly turns to face the incoming threat like it’s nothing to him, and the big ship’s guns start to spit into the western sky. The Shinkyo ships are nimble, almost as nimble as a Disc, and they’re coming in fast. Still, I see one break up and go down just as it crosses over our base. The others smartly use the dust and smoke Chang’s rail gun threw up to mask them, and then they’re on us.
The reason why the hydrogen-filled Zodangan dirigibles don’t explode under fire is there isn’t enough oxygen for critical combustion. Two of the fighters shoot low over the airships and drop their loads: thermobaric bombs with an oxygen primer charge. They pierce the gas hulls and blow. And ignite. I have to cover up as massive twin fireballs wash over the big ship from each side as the smaller ships detonate. I manage to see some of Chang’s “guard” knocked overboard. Then something explodes beneath us, kicking me through the deck.
I roll to
see another fireball pour out of the bow—out of the rail gun’s maw—and I know what’s happened. The third Shinkyo fighter—without hesitation—dove straight down the gun’s “barrel”, packed with a bunker buster’s worth of explosives. The fact that the big ship externally looks none the worse for the violation (and the shockwave didn’t kill us) is a testament to its construction.
Let’s see what else it can take.
Without communications, everything happens by pre-plan: A half-dozen ETE ships come from the west and south. Chang has already launched at least a dozen Discs, which now have to turn from their pursuit of the remaining Shinkyo fighters to engage the new threat. I feel the big ship start to take a beating (literally: it feels like giant hammers are pounding at the hull), but it isn’t breaking up. Our few base guns add to the abuse, to similar lack of effect. Chang’s ship appears to be resistant to both conventional fire and ETE weapons. And then both the ETE and our turrets are busy with the Discs.
But as the flaming husks of the Zodangan ships sink to the ground (taking what looked like his full complement of “kite” fighters with them), all the smoke and chaos lets our next line move into position.
The ridge lines to the north and south sprout hordes of cloaks: A mix of Nomads, Knights and Ecos. They throw a number of rockets into the underside of Chang’s hull, trying to damage his lift engines, his guns, while others lend small-arms to picking away at the Discs and any of Chang’s troops exposed on deck (and several that managed to survive jumping or falling from their blazing vessels).
I manage to get up on my knees. The battering is shaking the ship, but not destabilizing it. But it isn’t moving, either—it’s just holding position. Hesitating. Chang is still standing where he was, watching the battle silently. Without any facial expression, I can only hope he’s in shock. I can’t help but drive it in:
“The drops arrived days ago on silent running. What you picked up were decoy signals. And we’ve had satellites in place that saw you coming: you kick up enough dust to be seen from space, even without all the EMR. The ground sensors you passed were decoys. We saw you as soon as you lit up: Coprates North Rim, ten klicks east of the Tyr ruin.”
“But… There were no significant supplies of weapons or ammunition on those drops…” he tries to wrap his head around what we’ve done under his radar.
“But there was plenty of food, medical supplies, survival gear. The true currency of this world. And you’ve made as many enemies as we’ve made friends.”
More blasts rattle his ship, but still don’t really hurt it. His own guns start pounding back in a massive show of force, raking the ridges, busting our turrets. One of our pads is blown open. Smoke is rising from the Command Tower. Ground rockets manage to pop some of his guns, but this fight is far from done. And I don’t know how to hurt Chang.
And I’ve forgotten about Bly.
I stay low to keep from getting hit by friendly fire, but Bly doesn’t seem to care. I see him take several good hits, but he barely flinches as the shells ping off his armor.
Sakina and Rios take their opportunities: Chang’s remaining troops have apparently forgotten about us, letting my companions—my friends—pick them off with little resistance. Chang lets his men fall as if they mean nothing to him, just stands there in all the violence. But we’ve gotten Bly’s attention.
I draw my sword as he comes at me—and he’s coming directly at me, even as more bullets smack him. But Sakina jumps between us, throwing torpedoes for his eyes, only to have them swatted away by his blade. He is fast, almost faster than I can see.
“No!” I try to command her, but she doesn’t listen. She blocks Bly’s blade and lands a series of brutal blows, but it doesn’t even stagger him—she could be fighting a statue. And I think the only thing that saves her life is that Bly sees me charging him. He throws her away, almost sending her over the side.
I don’t hesitate. I engage his blade, try to ride it and find some gap in his armor.
But he is strong. He slaps my Shinkyo blade away, then chops down on it, breaking it like a twig. The impact is hard and shocking enough that I don’t realize what’s happened next until I feel sharp steel scrape up under my ribcage. It didn’t hurt—I barely felt it. But then I do.
By then he’s pulling his sword out of my gut—enough length to prove it went right through me, right through my liver—and I’m hit with a shock of pain that feels like my body is split in two and my legs are melting and I can’t breathe and already I can feel blood surging up my throat. I’m vomiting into my mask as I manage to draw my sidearm and stubbornly empty it into his face. He just stands there and takes it. Watching me die.
Sakina is screaming over the wind and gunfire and explosions. I think I hear Rios yell “Get down” or something like it, and I decide to fall down, fold, curl up, let the cold metal deck catch me. It’s slick with my own blood. I think I see a grenade round fly over me at Bly, but he just swats it away, and I feel it blow up somewhere over the side of the ship.
I hurl up more blood. My insides are all liquid and razors. I can’t inhale…
“NO!”
The protest is deafening, echoing, screamed out of the loudest PA imaginable. I think I recognize the voice, but that only makes me think I’m hallucinating, done. I look for the mythical light even though I fully doubt such things. And I see it.
It’s coming from behind Chang. Flying at him, like a huge flare.
“Close your eyes,” I hear that voice in my head, familiar but not, soothing but insistent. I don’t want to close my eyes, I don’t want to miss this, but I do it. And I think I see Sakina doing the same—covering, like she got the same order—and then even with my eyes shut tight the whole world goes bright as the sun.
I can barely see when I open them, all retinal spots and shock taking me too fast. But someone is kicking the hell out of Bly. All white and gold. A jeweled multi-tailed flail in one hand almost smashes his helmet off, staggering him. A sickle-blade short sword in the other hooks Bly’s weapon out of his hands. Then another burst of light between them sends Bly flying back over the side of the ship.
My vision is mostly gone. I can’t move—I don’t have the strength. I’m choking on my own blood, drowning, but it doesn’t matter because I can’t get a breath in through the pain anyway. Everything is going numb.
But I can see the white and gold figure coming to me, grabbing hold of me, and I think I can feel it lifting me.
“Don’t you die on me,” I think it says. “Don’t you dare.”
Its face is a gleaming golden hawk. There’s light all round its head.
And then we’re flying. Or running or jumping. I’m not sure.
I barely see us go over the edge of the ship in a blur, feel us falling. But then we land on something, something catches us, something that flies and you can ride on it like a small boat and I’m folded up like baggage on the small deck, coughing my insides loose. And something lands on us.
Red. Fluttering. Metal.
I hear violence. There’s a fight happening on top of me.
Sakina. It’s Sakina. I can smell her.
She’s all over Hawk-Face, pounding and stabbing, and I try to tell her no it’s okay but I can’t speak and Hawk-Face grabs her, restrains her, talks to her like she’s a child having a tantrum.
“Stop it. Stop it this instant. If you insist on coming, you will behave yourself. You can’t hurt me, but I’d appreciate it if you’d stop hitting me. You can come if you stop hitting me.”
No. Go back to the fight. They need you. I’m okay. I’ll be okay.
But I can’t say any of that, and Sakina stops fighting. I feel her embracing me, covering me with her armored body. Her hands press into my gut, try to stop the bleeding.
Wind is whipping over us. We’re going fast.
I look back, try to focus. The battle is getting farther away, but it’s still happening. I need to go back. I can’t leave…
I think I see shapes come up from the
ground to the big ship. That would be the New Knights and Rios’ troopers, rappelling up, trying to take the ship.
What happened to Rios?
Spots take my vision as I hack up more blood. But not so much now, like I’m running out…
“Don’t you dare die on me…”
I don’t think I ha…
Chapter 8: The Devil You Were
“…stable for now, but he won’t last much longer, not like this…”
How am I supposed to go into the light if it keeps walking around?
Pacing. Like it’s upset with me.
“He’s awake…”
Sakina. I can’t really see her, just a shadow, but I feel her hands on my face. I know her hands.
The light comes toward me.
I see stone all around. I think we’re in a cave. It’s cold, but it’s lit up white-bright like the sun is in here with us. I think I’m laying on rocks, my head on a rock. It doesn’t feel bad. It’s nice.
Until I try to breathe and I feel like I have a pole through my gut. And I taste a lot of blood—my mouth is gummed with it. But I can breathe. Ragged. Shallow. Hurts.
The light stands over me, kneels over me. I don’t want to go.
“You need to listen to me.”
It’s Hawk-Face. Ra. In the light. Making the light. Being the light. But I know the voice. I can’t place the voice. I know the voice.
“That sword made a hell of a mess. I stopped the bleeding, but I’m sure I destroyed what little was left of your liver in the process. And you’ve got a bad case of peritonitis from having your large intestine split open. And you’ve lost way too much blood.”
I try to move, touch my gut—my jacket is open, my shirts torn away. There’s something sticking in me, something warm. It hurts to move, to breathe, to swallow.
“Nothing you’ve got on this planet will fix you. There isn’t much time.”
I understand that. And I would accept it if there wasn’t a fight going on right now. I need to know what’s happening. I need to be there. Not here.
The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds Page 35