Battle Cruiser

by B. V. Larson

  “No, Miles,” I said. “You can go. I’ll get a ride in one of the Astra cars.”

  “I see,” Miles said. “May I have a word, sir?”

  I scowled lightly, certain I was about to be scolded for my actions, however gently.

  Sighing, I stepped outside the room. It was then that I saw something very unexpected.

  The elderly doorman, Tobias lay on the floor. His throat had been slashed open. His haunted eyes stared upward, dead but filled with horror. Why wouldn’t Tannish have mentioned this detail?

  Just then, I whirled toward Miles, who had stepped behind me. He was now armed with a stiletto. The narrow blade gave off a strange, gleaming light.

  -42-

  I lifted the tip of my saber just in time to catch his thrust. I deflected it and reached my free hand up to the clasp at my throat—but my cloak wasn’t there. I had no personal shield this time.

  Miles made another attack, lightning quick. I caught his wrist and twisted, but he kept hold of his weapon. We were in a clinch for a moment, struggling.

  He seemed alarmingly strong. He’d always been smaller than I, and though I’d assumed he was fit, I was surprised at his physical power.

  He threw me backward. I instantly upgraded my estimation of his strength—it was phenomenal. I was dashed against the wall.

  I regained my feet and managed to get my blade between us again. He dared not rush in as I would have skewered him. He advanced with caution instead. Putting my back to the stairway, I let him come on.

  He slashed methodically as he followed me down the steps. Now and then, I gave him stop-thrusts and hacking counters toward the head, which he ducked with agility.

  Continuing to retreat, I led him away from Chloe’s door. I wanted to get him as far from there as I could. I waited calling for the Astra agents—I wanted him away from Chloe first. If she heard me and came out now, he might take her hostage. Things would become infinitely more complex at that point.

  “Miles,” I said calmly, “you fight moderately well. Where did you learn to spar this way?”

  He showed me his teeth. His demeanor wasn’t entirely sane. He wasn’t behaving like the Miles I knew at all.

  He came on harder. I was truly impressed. I’d been taught how to handle myself with a great variety of weapons all my life, but I’d always preferred swords and pistols. With a saber in my hand, I felt confident I could best any man who wielded a knife—but Miles was surprising me. He caught my blade with his, despite my great advantage in reach. He ducked, whirled, and came back in, slashing after beating my longer weapon aside.

  Despite the natural advantages a sword has over a shorter blade, I found myself on the defensive most of the time. The vibrant glow of his weapon worried me too. I dared not let him touch me with it. I thought it likely that even the slightest tap might turn out to be fatal.

  He wasn’t so cautious, however. As I retreated to the bottom of a sweeping staircase, I decided to put his carelessness to good use.

  Disengaging our two blades with a twist, I managed to cut him. It was little more than a gash a few centimeters long in his right bicep. Blood ran, thick and red. He seemed not to notice.

  Growing bold, I stopped retreating, feinted in quatre and thrust. He took a stab in the thigh that time—but still, he kept coming. He showed no sign of pain, no hint of fear.

  Finally, the true nature of the situation dawned on me.

  “Stroj…” I said, naming him. “You’re not human at all.”

  “Not true, Earthling Basic,” he said, drawing back for a moment and grinning at me. “See the floor? I bleed, the same as you do.”

  “No,” I said with utter certainty. “You’re a soulless construct. A being without conscience. Your kind isn’t human anymore.”

  For some reason, my words upset him. I hadn’t known that Stroj could become angry. The first one I’d seen had moved like a robot. The second—well, Zye had finished the creature off so quickly I hadn’t been able to talk to it. But I’d been in the company of these beings before.

  “You merely fear that which you don’t understand,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll educate you.”

  “You bleed,” I said quickly, before he could attack again, “but that’s just dead flesh wrapped around an artificial frame. It’s like clothing, merely a vanity. Why don’t you creatures shed your flesh entirely? Why not stand naked, all whirring gears and buzzing belts?”

  “You’ve been listening to the Beta, haven’t you?” he asked. “We’re not all like that. We vary. Some, like me, have an organic brain still. I can no more shed my flesh than—”

  I used the Stroj’s moment of distraction to strike. As quickly as I could, I thrust for the head. His dagger came up—but he was a fraction too late. I laid open his scalp to the bone. Blood ran over his left eye, blinding it. Still, he stared at me. There was no pain in his expression, nor fear—but there was now rage. Perhaps he was more human than I’d thought.

  “You can’t penetrate my skull with a sword, fool,” he said. “It’s a poly alloy, harder than steel or stone.”

  I frowned. “It was worth a try.”

  We sparred another dozen steps. I was still retreating. At last, I passed the door I’d been looking for. Zye’s door. With a quick motion, I rapped the pommel of my sword on the wall.

  Miles—or the creature that had been posing as Miles—cocked its gory head. It was an almost human gesture. He was puzzling out why I’d rapped on the wall.

  The door popped open behind him a moment later. Zye’s massive hands reached for Miles. Her arms seemed impossibly long. They couldn’t be stopped.

  The Stroj ducked low, bending over backward, so that his legs were almost flat. The stiletto flashed at Zye’s unprotected leg.

  “No!” I roared.

  But it was too late. Zye took the blade in her thigh.

  That didn’t stop her, however. She grabbed his neck, and she wrung it, like the neck of a fowl. The spine snapped, and the thing that had been both Miles and a Stroj to me flopped on the floor, sputtering.

  Zye stumbled back, stricken. I rushed to her side. The Stroj, for its part, watched from the floor. Its eyes rolled around in its head, but it seemed to be paralyzed.

  “Zye,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “The lamp,” she said, croaking. “Don’t let them spread.”

  For a moment, I didn’t know what she was talking about. Then I laid eyes on an antique floor lamp that sat nearby. Knowing what she wanted, I grabbed the lamp in one hand, cut the cord with my saber, and ripped the two live copper filaments apart.

  “Show me the wound,” I said.

  Zye gripped her pants and ripped them apart. Two lengths of smart cloth flapped hopelessly, trying to repair the damage made by the ripping.

  Without thinking about it, I applied the exposed copper to her person, attempting to place each pole on either side of the wound in her thigh.

  There was a snapping sound and a tiny flash. Zye stiffened, gasped, and almost fell to the floor.

  “Take a seat,” I said. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  Mile’s eyes rolled around watching the two of us with interest. His mouth worked, but he could not speak. His throat had been crushed. How he was still operating at all was a mystery to me.

  “Again, quickly,” Zye said.

  “Are you sure—”

  “Immediately! I can feel the nanites entering my bloodstream. Already they—”

  Snap!

  I’d applied the cord again. She stopped talking, and a wisp of hot steam rose from her wound. I was effectively cauterizing it. The acrid smell of seared flesh filled the hallway.

  “Good,” Zye gasped several seconds later. She struggled to her feet. “We must take him to Lady Astra now.”

  I glanced at Miles. His eyes were like two bloody marbles. The lids no longer bothered keeping up with the pretense of needing to blink. His orbs rolled and stared alertly, following our actions.

  “I wil
l carry him,” Zye said. “You follow. Do not stray!”

  Baffled and beginning to wonder if Zye were in shock, I did as she asked. She picked up the bloody mess that was Miles and began to walk stiff-leggedly down the hall with him.

  “This isn’t the way—” I began.

  “Lady Astra is this way!” Zye boomed. “We will meet her shortly. Follow me. Do not stray.”

  Frowning, I followed along. A hundred steps passed, and Zye managed to make them all without collapsing. We approached the end of a long hallway, which terminated in a window and a balcony.

  “Where—?” I began.

  “The Lady contacted me. She’s on that balcony ahead. She wishes to examine this creature in person.”

  I caught sight of Miles’ eyes then. They seemed excited. They strained, rolling to the limits of their range of motion, almost as if he wished to look through the back of his own skull.

  We stepped out onto the balcony. A drop of a thousand feet was revealed. House Astra clutched a mountaintop, and the morning view might have been lovely under different circumstances.

  “Lady Astra, are you here?” Zye asked loudly. She kept walking toward the balcony’s edge.

  A gust of wind blew up into our faces. Zye’s long black hair formed a wild, flying mass.

  I stopped walking, and I shook my head. “Clearly, you’re in some kind of shock, Zye. I don’t think—”

  Zye ignored me. She walked to the carved stone railing and without any warning or ceremony dropped Miles over the edge.

  I caught one last surprised roll of his eyes—then he was gone.

  “What in the holy—”

  Boom!

  A flash rolled up from over the railing. Zye and I were staggered, but uninjured.

  “What was that?” I demanded. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Zye turned to me pridefully.

  “I told you,” she said. “I am a rogue. A master of deceit.”

  I looked over the edge while Zye shuffled painfully back into the house. The cliff face was scorched and decorated with shreds of flesh.

  “Miles blew himself up?” I demanded, still confused.

  “Of course. The Stroj often do so as a final act, when they calculate they can’t cause more damage any other way. I had to fool him. I indicated falsely that we would take him to Lady Astra.”

  “Ah…” I said, catching on. “You wanted me to stay close, so Miles would imagine he could take all of us out at the same time.”

  “Exactly. Were you impressed?”

  I blinked at her for a second, then I recovered. “Oh yes, of course. Very much so. That was excellent trickery, Zye. I was totally taken in.”

  She nodded, clearly very pleased with herself, and continued limping away.

  Shaking my head, I followed her into the mansion.

  -43-

  Chloe met us inside. She was surrounded by a trio of her agents. They snarled at Zye and myself, lifting weapons distrustfully.

  “They’re friends,” Chloe said.

  “They let the assassin into the House,” the agent leader argued.

  I thought I recognized him, but I couldn’t be sure. They were all the same breed.

  “The assassin?” I asked. “Are you talking about Miles? He’s dead. Zye here killed him. Did he injure anyone else?”

  “Seven of my men lie dead around the house,” the leader said. “They were taken by surprise in most cases. He wandered the halls, indicating he needed help. The moment anyone turned their back, he struck without hesitation.”

  “That must be why security never came to my aid,” I said. “I’m sorry for your losses. He was probably searching for me. He did find me in the end, but at that point he paid for his evil with his life.”

  The leader of the agents was clearly unsatisfied. He stepped between Chloe and I.

  “Why did a man from your House attack Astra agents, Sparhawk?” he demanded.

  “His plan was to kill government officials. As several of them were here tonight, he wanted to slay both the Lady Astra and myself. More importantly, however, he wasn’t a man of House Sparhawk.”

  “Nonsense. We have on vid file—”

  “He was an infiltrator,” I said, interrupting. “A Stroj assassin like the one that ambushed Lady Astra the Elder or the one that attacked my father during his speech months ago.”

  The agents were understandably upset, but Chloe managed to placate them in time. After several minutes of explanations, they allowed her to accompany me to the kitchens. They followed us in a pack. Zye walked among their number, watching them even as they watched her.

  “I’m sorry I left you,” I told Chloe.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I understand your motives. You wanted to lead the Stroj away, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but the plan almost didn’t work. These creatures are very difficult to destroy.”

  “You shouldn’t have left my room without this,” she said, returning my cloak.

  I took it and swept it over my shoulders.

  Behind us, the agents and Zye listened to our words in dismay. I don’t think any of them were happy to learn Chloe and I had shared a bed last night—but no one complained aloud.

  We ate in the kitchens, serving ourselves as the mansion had largely been abandoned by the staff. There was no one in the breezy building other than agents, dead men and us.

  Before I could finish my meal, I was contacted via my implant. With some degree of irritation, I answered the call.

  “Lieutenant Commander Sparhawk?” a familiar voice asked. “You’re to report to CENTCOM immediately.”

  “Admiral Cunningham?” I asked in surprise. “What’s this all about?”

  She didn’t answer. The channel had closed as quickly as it had opened. I frowned into the distance.

  “What’s wrong?” Chloe asked.

  “I’m not sure, but I’ve been summoned by the Guard.”

  “Must you leave so soon?”

  I turned to her and smiled. “I don’t want to, but I must.”

  Zye shifted uncomfortably. Her eyes traveled from Chloe to myself and back again.

  “Allow no one unexpected to enter the house,” I told Chloe. “Have your Guardians check the identity of every visitor. I would go so far as to suggest you invest in a fluoroscope. You may be able to penetrate the veneer of these creatures. Unless they copy every bone so accurately—”

  “They don’t,” Zye interrupted. “There are bulbs on their bones at the joints, protuberances…you can detect them that way.”

  “All right then,” I said, standing. “I must take my leave.”

  Chloe embraced me suddenly. Zye and the agents shifted uncomfortably. None of them liked to see us touch. I felt self-conscious, and I found myself annoyed that the Stroj had decided to reveal themselves right when I most wanted personal privacy.

  A few minutes later, I was flying up into the sky aboard my air car. It was odd to think that I was piloting a vehicle that had so recently been driven by an alien being.

  “The Stroj seem to be everywhere,” I said to Zye. “How can we defeat them if they are already hiding among us?”

  “There aren’t many,” she said. “I would guess there are no more than a few thousand in the star system. According to reports on the net, many have already struck. Seventy-nine of your Public Servants were attacked in the last twenty four hours.”

  I turned to her, stunned. “Seventy-nine? How many survived?”

  “Six, including you.”

  “They must be finishing their mission, then,” I said. “Moving into their final phase. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have revealed themselves all over the globe.”

  “I agree.”

  We flew on toward CENTCOM at the air car’s top speed. In less than an hour, I landed on the roof. A dozen guardsmen, cloaks flapping, came out to greet me. They encircled the aircraft with their pistols drawn.

  Stern faces regarded us through the canopy from every direction.
r />   “Zye,” I said, “do not reveal your weapons. Do not behave in a hostile fashion. They’re paranoid after all the attacks.”

  “I understand their motivation, but their attitude is upsetting me as well.”

  “Act as naturally as you can—wait, on second thought, act like a normal Basic human from Earth.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that.”

  “Try,” I ordered, releasing the canopy and standing up with my hands on my head.

  Zye followed my lead. The guardsmen recoiled upon seeing her great size and stern demeanor.

  After a period of confusion, various methods of identification were employed. We were led at gunpoint into the bowels of the building.

  The elevator hummed, taking us down with sickening speed. It moved almost as far and as fast as the sky-lift itself.

  In time, Zye turned to me in alarm. “We’re below the surface of the Earth,” she said. “We have to be.”

  “Yes. CENTCOM is like an iceberg. It’s much larger underground than it is above.”

  “I thought the Guard had no budget.”

  I shrugged. “Most of the building is empty,” I admitted, “but we still use as much of it as we need to. Ships cost much more money to maintain than buildings, so this place was never dismantled or reassigned.”

  “When was this structure built?”

  “CENTCOM predates the Cataclysm. Back then, there was a lot of traffic to manage and protect. Thousands of naval vessels were directed from this building.”

  Impressed, Zye stopped talking. We finally reached the level the elevator had in mind, and it slowed.

  The truth was, I was as impressed as Zye herself. I’d been to CENTCOM of course, but never below ground where the brass lived exclusively. The upper levels were dedicated to equipment and to the Academy. These institutions were the pride of Star Guard. They exhibited the last vestiges of the power that Earth’s military had once wielded.

  When we exited the elevator at last, we were searched again. I was weaponless, and I felt naked. What if the Stroj had penetrated this, our only fortress?

  Making the best of it, I walked out into the tactical galleries. Most of the big chambers were dark, but one had been lit. Inside, Admiral Cunningham and a circle of her officers stood around a sparkling display.