by Brett Patton
Ideal tool for use on desert planetoids, one report said. Where humans struggled to survive for weeks, HuMax had an “acceptable” average life span of fourteen years.
Petition for Entry into United Planets, was another popular document. More than a hundred and fifty years ago, a provisional HuMax government had gone through proper channels and tried to join the United Planets, which was the precursor to the Union. The United Planets had responded by dropping nuclear weapons on the most populous HuMax world, Prospect. When the HuMax fought back—harder than the United Planets had expected—they took over several of the Core UP worlds. Desperate, the UP absorbed several new neutral worlds and transformed itself into the Universal Union. The promise: eliminate the HuMax menace and usher in a supposed new age of peace under enlightened leaders.
In the end, nothing had changed. The Union monsters just wore new masks.
All fabrications! the Union media shouted.
But the damage was done. What had been set in motion by Matt’s awkward transmissions now overflowed the banks. Hundreds of thousands poured out of the cities to see the remains of the breached labs on Geos, Utopia, and Aurora. They sent their own video and photos onto the UniNet, confirming the “Corsair” transmissions.
Aurora was the first world to burn.
At the office of the supreme chancellor of Aurora University, students flowed in, took over the hallways, and pressed close around the building by the tens of thousands. They yelled for explanations. They demanded all the archives be opened. Sprinkled throughout the crowd were the characteristic violet eyes of genemod. A tearful interview with a pretty blond genemod woman put words to fears ricocheting throughout the UniNet:
“If they torture HuMax, what’s to stop them from doing the same thing to me?”
The chancellor appeared briefly to tell the students to go back to their classes. His voice could only barely be heard above the chanting of tens of thousands of students, despite the powerful public address system.
Tell the truth! Open it up! Tell the truth! the crowds chanted.
Five minutes after the frustrated supreme chancellor left the stage, the Aurora University Security forces came out. Except they weren’t dressed in their friendly gray-blue uniforms, and armed only with stun sticks. They marched in behind carbon-composite shields, dressed in formfitting black body armor. There was no negotiation, no demands. They simply sprayed aerosol incapacitator into the crowd and marched forward, pushing them away from the chancellor’s office. Video of writhing students being trampled by heavily armed police joined the media on the UniNet.
It was probably a student who lit the first match. Analysis of satellite images, in some future time, might pinpoint it. But it didn’t matter. Less than five minutes after the Aurora Security force waded in, the chancellor’s office was burning.
Raging flames shot out of the tall, first-story windows, curling outward in streamers of destruction. Cheery banners reading AURORA UNIVERITY/UNIVERSAL OPPORTUNITY caught fire and disappeared in the blaze. More windows blew outward as the fire grew.
For a moment, students and security both paused to look at the burning building. And, at that moment, one of the last images to run across the Auroran FTLcomm link was taken: a group of bloody and bruised students, their eyes reflecting the light from the fire, their expressions a mix of uncertain triumph.
Then the Union began taking big steps.
It severed the UniNet FTLcomm links to Aurora, Utopia, and Geos. Takedowns hit hundreds of tertiary media sites screaming about the Union’s deception. The primary media started running nonstop refutations and propaganda. Union loyalists came out to fight with the millions already in the streets, on all twelve Core Worlds.
But the word was out. Views on all media of the HuMax liberations kept climbing—to the billions, then tens of billions, then hundreds. Messages poured into the Senate on Eridani, overloading their capacity. And, as on Aurora, crowds began to gather. Their chant reflected the students:
Open it up! Tell the truth!
But they added their own spin on it too. A spin fueled by the violet-eyed among them.
Open it up! Tell the truth! Right the wrongs!
Matt smiled. Right the wrongs. People’s faces burned with rage or crumpled in confusion. Until this day, they’d known the Union only as a force for good. They knew they were on the right side, fighting the evil Corsairs.
How was it, then, that the ones labeled “Corsairs” had exposed the Union’s own terrible experiments, its own buried secrets?
Matt remembered his amazement at El Dorado, Captain Gonsalves’s Corsair ship. Full of people. Normal people. Just doing their jobs. Some nice. Some dicks. The Union had never seen the Corsairs as people.
Just like themselves.
Outside the Senate Building on Eridani, black-armored Union Security forces appeared, trying to push the growing crowd of citizens back. In the bit-rotted FTLcomms view, it looked like a razor-thin line of black ants, trying to hold an opposing army at bay.
And this citizen army wasn’t like the Aurora students. Eridani was the oldest world in the Union, fiercely proud of its customs. Many of its citizens were heavily armed.
It wasn’t long before shots rang out. The security line parted, and the masses stormed the Senate.
Matt nodded, still deep in his Demon, deep in Mesh. It was time. Time to join the fight.
“Displace!” he barked.
* * *
Despite the chaos outside the Senate in the city of Newhome, the hills above Eridani rose peaceful and yellow-green, carpeted in the alien spring flowering of the world. The bay was calm and glassy, deep blue under a clear sky. Local time was fifteen thirteen, and the sun was falling toward another perfect sunset. Pleasure boats still churned the canals, full of eager Union citizens out for one of the first warm days of the year.
In the hills above Newhome, a kilometer-wide, silvery planetoid snapped into existence.
The thunderclap of displaced air echoed across the valley, reducing windows in Newhome suburbs to shards. Far away, panes rattled in the mirrored high-rises of the city proper.
Dirt and rock fountained outward from the bottom of the planetoid, where it impinged on the crust of the planet. The roiling dark cloud of debris charged outward toward the city like a deck of thunderclouds. Immediately the surface of the asteroid sprang to life. Tens of thousands of Lokis scrambled down the dark armored surface, their auxiliary thrusters flaring to drive them ahead of the onrushing debris.
Matt smiled as he watched on his Demon’s screens. The hundred thousand Lokis came from former Last Rising worlds, now part of the Free Stars Alliance. His whirlwind tour of the last weeks had paid off, even though some of Rayder’s worlds remained loyal to his memory—and some had rebuffed his diplomatic overtures with antimatter force.
The Mecha Dock hatch sprang open in front of Matt, revealing flattened grassland and a chaos of dust. Through the miasma, the silver spires of Newhome were just visible. The Loki barrier was already falling to ground and swarming toward the city.
“Only overwhelming force will work,” Dr. Roth had told Matt. “Your proof may win the rest of the Union, but you won’t win Eridani without Arcadia.”
Arcadia. Roth had referred to it both as the “lab of labs” and the ultimate stronghold of the Union’s deepest secrets. Located directly below Newhome, it was also the most heavily guarded. An orbital approach wouldn’t work. A deep atmospheric insertion might not even give them enough time before the Eridani defenses countered. Only dropping Helheim down right on the surface of the planet had any chance.
Matt’s viewmask lit with vector outlines reaching toward Newhome—his guide toward the hidden shaft leading down below the city.
On this point, Roth had been completely clear: “only you can win Arcadia.”
Matt leapt out of
the Mecha Dock, firing his thrusters in furious pursuit of the Lokis. Above him, the first missiles from Eridani defenses were streaking in across the clear blue sky, leaving bright white contrails. They arced down toward Helheim.
“Displace!” Matt shouted.
Helheim disappeared in another furious thunderclap. Now the only thing behind Matt was a shallow crater and flattened grassland. Ahead of him, Lokis, suburbs, and the city. Less than five kilometers. All he had to do was maintain course, find the shaft, and descend into Arcadia. Mesh high filled him as he shot forward over the narrow streets and single houses of Newhome suburbs.
Conquer these people, he heard a voice inside the Mecha command him. Rule them. Make them what they could be.
Matt ignored it, knowing it was the Mesh speaking. He was here to bring justice, not more tyranny.
Firefly missiles flared at the edge of the city, impacting harmlessly on the Loki storm. Bright explosions sparked off Newhome’s tallest, glass-walled skyscrapers, like gigantic camera flashes.
Sidewinders quickly followed. As they found their targets, Lokis flared in dirty orange explosions and fell out of the sky, crippled or destroyed. Other Lokis dove toward the weapons emplacements, switching seamlessly to their segmented, insectlike forms. They flowed over the broadening avenues like a carpet of angry centipedes, surrounding the Sidewinder arsenals before they had a chance to retarget. Reinforced concrete exploded upward as the emplacements fell to the Lokis’ missiles, opening a path into the city.
Matt’s Demon passed over into the city proper. The late afternoon sun cast his shadow ahead of him, like the form of an avenging angel.
Sidewinder fire fell away behind him. Lokis swarmed on the roads, over ground cars, past terrified pedestrians, well in advance of Matt.
On the stone facade of a building ahead, doors opened to reveal a Hellion. Down the city’s main street, more doors snapped open. Hellions stepped from their hiding places and launched Sidewinders at Matt.
Matt swore and dodged, firing his own missiles at the closest Hellions. Stone and tarmac disintegrated as the Hellions took direct hits.
A splash from the city’s broad canals made Matt look. Something speared up, impaled a Loki, and took it down into the water. Bubbles boiled up as dozens of dark shapes roiled just below the surface of the canal.
Eels, Matt thought, as more of them leapt out of the canals to strike at the Lokis. The small semi-Mecha were only armed with pikes and depleted-uranium slugs, but the meaning was clear: Newhome would do everything in its power to stop them.
The Lokis separated—some fighting the Eels, and some moving farther ahead of Matt. They hit the emerging Hellions and immobilized them long enough for Matt to put strategically placed Fireflies in their visors. Even if they could regenerate, it would take many minutes—and he’d be at Arcadia by then.
It looked as though they were past the defenses now. An endless carpet of Lokis surged ahead, straight down the vector pointing at Arcadia. The stronghold was now less than a half kilometer away. Matt arrowed along the glowing green line, his lips skinned back in Mesh high. Nothing could stop them! Not unless the Union wanted to fire an antimatter weapon at their own capital city. And they weren’t that crazy, no matter how incensed they were.
Matt’s grin grew wider as they rounded the last curve toward Arcadia. Directly ahead of him was the Capitol Complex he’d visited with Michelle, its vast parklike grounds unchanged, dotted with timeless neoclassical buildings and monuments to battles long past.
Directly ahead of him lay the Senatorial Apartments, set just below the Prime Residence. A grassy hill rose behind those buildings, dotted with native Earth oak trees. Beyond were the Plaza of Technology and the Expansion Museum. Farther off, a thin streamer of smoke rose from the Senate Building itself.
As they passed over the ring road surrounding the Capitol Complex, three Lokis suddenly shot skyward, disintegrating into shattered segments. Matt pulled back on his throttle, looking for their attacker. There’d been no Mecha, no missile flash.
Two more Lokis got shredded. Matt jagged to avoid the debris. What the hell was happening? Where was the attacker?
But there were no gun emplacements, nothing that could possibly be a weapon. The closest thing to the destroyed Lokis was a delivery truck, abandoned in the middle of the road.
No. Wait. Behind the truck, black metallic tendrils shot from the ground. Some of them wrapped around something that looked a little like a Sidewinder missile. Some of them wrapped around the truck. As Matt watched, the truck shuddered and crumpled in on itself as the tendrils seemingly sucked the life out of it.
The Sidewinder missile fired, tearing through the tendrils and annihilating more Lokis. Another began growing as the van shivered down to nothingness.
Oh, shit.
All around Matt, metallic tendrils continued to shoot from from the ground, wrapping cars and trucks in their embrace. Where they touched, metal shriveled. Where they grew, weapons blossomed. Matt saw Sidewinders, glowing fusion ports, even something that looked suspiciously like a Zap Gun. One growing mass even seemed to be forming itself into a crouching figure, a proto-Mecha. Where Lokis passed, the tendrils tracked. Weapons flashed. Segments of Lokis cartwheeled through the air as explosions echoed hollowly through the city.
Matt fired Fireflies, but they exploded harmlessly against the tendrils. He tried Sidewinders. Bright white blossoms bloomed around him. But there were just too many. All around him, metal reshaped into biometal. Missiles launched. Fusion guns spat. And Lokis erupted in fire.
Matt’s mouth went dry. This was another trap. And they were so deep in there was little chance of getting out. His only chance was to charge through to a final assault on Arcadia, deep in the Capitol Complex.
But even in that vast park, other things were happening. The tendrils wrapped war memorials and crawled over the ground and through the decorative lake. A giant mass of them convulsed, extruded insectoid limbs, and scuttled toward Matt and his Lokis.
This was Newhome’s final barrier. Matt had come in expecting to sweep through the city with a hundred thousand Lokis. Now the city was transforming itself into its own implacable force, all around him. Lokis fell by the thousands as Newhome fought back.
But he knew how to deal with this. It was the same as on Jotunheim. Biometal called to metal. All he had to do was Merge with the city and take out all the opposing Mecha at one go.
Matt arrowed his Demon at a building at the edge of the Capitol Plaza, and embraced it.
Merge! Matt thought.
Strands of biometal fused deep with its steel structure, searching for the invisible control lines that ran through all of Newhome. Data surged through Matt’s mind, infinite gabble on the point of insanity. All he had to do was give the command.
No, an irresistible voice spoke in Matt’s mind, over the feel of static and the smell of dust. You will not contravene here.
An immense force struck Matt like a sledgehammer, driving him right out of the system.
His biometallic tendrils shattered to dust, and he fell helpless off the side of the building. He landed on his back on the hard concrete, whooping with the force feedback from the impact. Around him, Lokis were being sliced to bits by the newly transformed Mecha. In moments, they’d be on him.
Merge had failed.
20
ARCADIA
For what seemed like an infinite time, Matt couldn’t move. With his Perfect Record accelerating, calculating every possible action he could take and instantly weighing the outcome, he searched for a path that led to success.
He could simply try to escape. Fire his thrusters and blaze for orbit. But he’d seen the plot of orbital countermeasures around Eridani. Any path he could take led to the fireball of his Demon exploding in an impenetrable maze of antimatter fire. No amount of crazy mane
uvering would change that. And even if he somehow avoided being annihilated, there was no El Dorado waiting for him. No Free Stars ship at all. The Union would chase him down to a cold death in empty space.
Or he could try again to drive deeper into the Capitol Complex. But there, the tendrils were busy converting every piece of metal and glass into Mecha and weapons. Hundreds of them. Soon to he thousands. All well armed and aimed exclusively at him. Every course of action led to the same result: Matt’s Demon impaled under the city Mecha while the segments of the shredded Lokis twitched impotently on the carefully maintained Earth grass.
He could head back into the city itself. But there, madness reigned as well. His enhanced sensors showed every building coated in thick ropes of biometallic muscle. Some skyscrapers shuddered, as if they were coming alive. Others swiveled new-made gun turrets at him. There was only one conclusion: his Loki outgunned, his Demon overcome by Newhome itself.
Every path led to his death.
Was that what Roth wanted? To see him twisted and broken in the middle of the Union’s most powerful city? Had he set this trap for him?
No. That made no sense. Roth might have a hidden agenda, but he wasn’t a Union stooge. And these tendrils, this defensive system, was acting different than anything Roth had shown Matt. And if it was Roth’s, why would he need Matt to get past it? This was something bigger than Roth, something to protect a great secret.
How close you are, the static-dusty voice grated, close in Matt’s ear. It seemed amused by him. In so many ways.
The voice of the thing in the Mecha was louder and closer than he’d ever heard it. Matt bit back his response.
Because it didn’t matter if the ghost in the machine was a reflection of his own mind, or some artificially intelligent thing in the Mecha. Not now. Not when he was so close to uncovering the truth behind the Union. Even if there was no way out, he’d at least finally know the truth. And maybe everyone else would too.