I stop, try holding up a hand to get them to cease fire. They don’t. I can hear screaming and shouting and more gunfire coming from behind me, from Bel’s direction. Then I feel an ETE field expand past me. It fills the tunnel, dissolves all projectiles (including a desperate grenade that would have been disastrous in this tight space).
“I’ve got it!” Paul lets us know he’s back in the fight.
The shooters in front of me freeze. A few—mostly the civilians—fall back in panic. The uniforms hold their ground. I finally realize: The PK I’m facing are wearing their original Mars-camo UNMAC L-A uniforms, with a few H-A suits among them. Looking back, the ones beyond Bel look like they’re all wearing Chang’s new black uniform.
“Hold fire!” I hear a firm female voice shout, see someone coming up from behind the ranks I’m facing. In the gun smoke haze I make out a familiar face under reddish hair that’s pulled back military neat, a scar under the corner of her mouth. She warily approaches the line, weapon leveled on me, and locks my eyes.
“Are you really who they say you are?” she demands to know.
“Lieutenant Straker,” I name her. Take off my helmet. “Good to see you’re still in the fight.”
“Colonel Ram?” she wants to be sure.
“Mostly,” I don’t help. But then offer to: “What’s your situation?”
“Don’t speak to them, Lieutenant!” a voice shouts from the opposite end of the tunnel. Her face hardens, and she ignores the command:
“Things have gone bad, sir. Chang has been putting us in harm’s way to no good purpose. He’s a bad tactician, doesn’t care about our losses, which I’m estimating are over three hundred and climbing. The Zodanga have lost even more. He came to rebuild his Stormcloud—his flying carrier—and started scavenging Pioneer. There… was some resistance. It was bad enough when he stripped Frontier… We… He ordered us to open fire on our own people. When some of us refused, he ordered his Shadow-Knight—that thing that used to be Captain Bly—to execute the ‘cowards’. Bly refused, took off. So he did it himself: crushed Captain Stiles and First Sergeant Jacobson to death. That got his loyalists back in line, got us slaughtering each other. When word got back here, we tried to make a stand, hold the colony, but too many are either afraid of him or still think he’s the only thing that can save us from Earth.”
“What happened to Colonel Janeway?” I need to know.
She looks shaken, unsure of what to say, then points a nervous finger at Bel.
“He’s like that one. Chang said he was punishing him… Colonel Janeway tried to take over the Joint Force, after we tried to take your Melas Two base. Chang went missing for a few days after the battle—we thought maybe the ETE had destroyed him. But then he came back. Pissed that Colonel Janeway had attacked Shinkyo without his order. Chang…put something in him. Told him it would slowly remake him into something better, something—someone—more useful to the cause, but it would consume his brain, his mind, except for useable memories. We listened to him screaming for a week, trying to fight it as he faded away. Now he’s… something else. Someone else.”
“Ragnarok!” Bel calls me by my codename. “Story time later! The meat are being stubborn…”
I look. The black suits are bringing up heavier ordnance, including launchers, not caring what will happen in the confines of the tunnels.
“I’ve got it,” Paul repeats, still hoping to keep the issue as bloodless as possible. He steps past Bel, draws a second Sphere from his belt, and repeats a trick I saw his brother do the first time we met: It looks like the black suits get hit by a wind, which quickly starts to look like a sand storm. But it isn’t sand. It’s their weapons, their armor, their clothing—everything inorganic—disintegrating, very much like sand against a wind. They’ve got the tunnel so packed they can’t retreat in time, start falling over each other as they get stripped naked. A few in the rear start firing, and unfortunately manage to wound a few of their own, who get dragged off by their fellows. But then I notice other casualties: Some of the stripped are missing limbs. One is missing part of his face, including an eye.
“Prostheses,” Straker explains after the black force has fallen back around a tunnel bend. “To keep the wounded in the fight.”
“Chang?” I assume.
“Janeway,” she tells me grimly. “Or what he is now.”
“How many are you?” I keep to priorities.
“Barely three hundred. We’re outnumbered about two-to-one. And they have more weapons and ammo.”
“Maybe we can tip the scales for you,” I offer.
“They’ll never be able to hold this site,” Bel discounts. “Not without help. Unless you want to pop off down a romantic little side-tunnel with the pretty Lieutenant and cook up another ex-girlfriend.”
I actually feel myself blush, but it gets quickly replaced by guilt, and even fear of the unknown seed I’m still carrying. Straker gives me an uncomfortable look as it dawns on her that Bel’s implying I might be able to do to her what Chang did to Janeway. But to her credit, she doesn’t step back. I shake my head to try to reassure her I have no such plans, however dire the situation.
Then I’m thinking we’ll deal with the long term later, when we hear a cheer go up from the general direction of Chang’s loyalists.
I see a shadow come walking down the dimly lit tunnel toward us.
“Chang?” Paul worries (but it also sounds like he’s eager for another shot at the thing ultimately responsible for his brother’s death).
“I don’t think so,” Straker offers.
“Captain Colonel,” I hear the familiar greeting.
It isn’t Chang. It’s Bly. He walks into Paul’s fields, staggers slightly like he’s just walked into a strong wind, keeps coming, intact. Then stops. He doesn’t draw his sword.
“Can I be of any assistance?” he calmly offers. I think I hear apology in what comes through his helmet.
“I expect so,” I tentatively accept. I imagine Chang’s loyalists are starting to realize their celebration was premature. But then:
“You need to get these people well away from here,” he warns us urgently. “Now. Fast. You’ve got bigger problems coming.”
“The Stormcloud?”
“Toys. Bad toys.”
Chapter 3: Bad Toys
Bly reaches into a satchel he has slung over his shoulder, and plants a demo charge that collapses the tunnel behind us as we fall back with Straker’s group. As we come upon more of her people, we get more guns pointed at us until she orders them to stand down, then orders a neat pack-up and retreat.
The PK tunnels are all square-cut, with arch-supported hard-packed walls, a hallmark style of the heavy excavation equipment dropped by the early colony construction crews, sprayed with sealant to keep pressurized. The lighting is comprised of rechargeable efficiency survival lanterns, placed sparingly. The ground is packed smooth by generations of foot traffic. The air is thick and stale.
I try to imagine what it must be like to live down here, maybe to have lived down here for lifetimes. But the explosions get distracting: Bly blows a few branch tunnels as we go, as soon as Straker calls them clear. (I wonder if the charges—which don’t look UNMAC or colony construction standard—are keepsakes of his late lover, or stolen from Chang.) More of Straker’s forces have fallen in with our retreat, having held multiple chokepoints in this maze. But that makes the going start to slow.
“It won’t hold,” Bly discounts his own work as we get stalled for a few moments.
“What’s coming?” Straker asks before I can.
“Bug,” Bly tells her. “And Box.”
“The Box prototype I saw can’t fit through these tunnels,” Straker sounds like she knows first-hand, but still tensely chews at her scarred lip.
“The Bug can,” Bly insists. “The Box will be waiting for you upstairs. Expect him when you surface.”
His implication is these people are stuck between staying down here with a monster or
getting caught by one if they make the surface. Still, she orders her people to move faster, keeps her eyes and her gun pointed behind us, looks like she’s listening for something, something following us.
“What’s a Bug and a Box?” Bel wants to know.
“Ye’ll see soon enough,” Bly doesn’t take the time to explain.
“They were made for you,” Straker warns us vaguely. “But they’ll easily make quick work of us. Not much we have can hurt them.”
We eventually come to a small manmade cave, filled with even more people—civilian workers, families—and stockpiled supplies. The stacks form partial walls for semi-private living spaces, barely big enough a few bedrolls. It looks like a temporary camp, but I get the impression some of these are their actual homes, maybe just more crowded with the influx of refugees. (Or maybe not, maybe this is as dense as they’ve always lived. Perhaps denser, since they’ve lost so many in Chang’s crusade.) No luxuries, just necessities. I see other crowded spaces off branching tunnels, all protected with makeshift barricades.
“Do you have surface gear for everyone?” I ask her.
“You can’t take them topside,” Bly warns. “Not yet. We need to draw Bug away from them. Kill it. Then go deal with Box.”
“And the enemy PK,” I add in the threat I know. “Is there a tunnel exit close by without snipers all over it?” I ask Straker.
“That’s not the main threat,” Bly insists. “Box…” But then he turns back to the tunnel he just shut behind us, positions himself at the incoming barricades, plants his feet, tells the PK defenders to “Get back! Get out! Quick! You’re no good here!”
The civilians are scrambling to get on surface protection, breather gear, collect what they can carry. The PK soldiers gather up their packs and masks, grab ammo, grenades.
“We might be able to hold it here,” Bly plans vaguely. “But the tender meat need to be somewhere else. It may just target us, not go for them. Yet.”
“This is it,” Straker wrecks his plan. “The loyals have us cornered in these sections. No place to move but out. I can divide them, send them out multiple exits, spread out the targets…” But she doesn’t sound hopeful. I know the tone: She’s sure she’ll be sending some of her people to their deaths, best case.
I join Bly on the line.
“They’ll need you when they hit surface, Colonel Captain,” he dismisses me. “You need to deal with Box if you’re planning on taking any of these people out of here.”
“I’ve got it,” Bel mimics Paul’s confidence, then heads down the exit tunnel Straker shows him.
Straker is on-Link with her group leaders, coordinating an evacuation plan, trying to sound positive, even naming a regroup point. I’m hoping Chang’s “bad toys” do focus on us rather than hit Straker’s people. If they have simple AI like the Discs, they’ll prioritize, move…
I hear the rumble and crackle of something big, digging its way to us.
“Bug,” Bly identifies, drawing his sword, explaining. “Guns won’t hurt it. Neither will Blue Boy’s magic. Our blades might. But we have to get all of it. Both heads…”
“Go!” I shout at Straker.
Paul takes the rear as the last of them get out of the cave cluster and into the exit tunnels. He puts up a field to protect their exit route.
“Better move, Blue,” Bly warns him. “Ya can’t…”
Bly’s plug of rubble dissolves in a gush of rock and dirt, and something very bug-like comes scrambling through. It’s bigger than a man, with multiple jointed limbs that are strong enough to move rock and dirt like a backhoe. They’re tipped in massive stout blades that look equally suited to digging, demolition or murder. A cluster of red “eyes” glow from a small domed head. It gets free of the collapse, comes right at us. Its six limbs are so universally jointed that it almost tumbles at us. And there is another “head” on the opposite end of its almost skeletal three-sectioned body.
There’s no time to appreciate the design. Bly charges to meet it as it knocks aside the heavy barricade, but it leaps over him. He chops one of the legs, but another hits him in the back hard enough to send him flying face-first into the collapsing hole it just came through. I don’t wait for it to switch targets, but it’s already seen me (two heads), flips, and I’m hacking at multiple arms at once, trying to get a body cut in, trying to take away one of the heads. But it’s fast, and moves like nothing I’ve ever seen.
I do some damage (I hope) to the joints of one or two of the limbs, but then I get my legs swept out from under me, and have to roll as other arms try to pin me to the floor. I drive my sword into a joint between the torso segments, but it does little. Then I lose my sword when my arm gets swatted hard enough to break my reinforced bones.
“Stay down!” Paul yells, and I feel the familiar wave of a Rod blast. Above me, Bug shudders, gets pushed back, but stays intact. It flips, tumbles, starts scrambling for Paul. I get to my knees, reset my arm with a blinding crack, make my fingers work. Draw my gun. Too late. The thing has forced itself through Paul’s defensive fields, proving its materials are just as resistant to ETE tech as Brimstone and Bly. It swats him with a heavy arm, throwing him back into the escape tunnel as he loses his tools. It’s advancing on him when I manage to get off my first shots. I hit a “shoulder”, a torso joint, one of the heads. My rounds penetrate and explode, do damage, and then I watch the thing start repairing itself.
“Ya need to amputate!” Bly shouts, having dug himself out, charging the monster before it can restore full mobility. This allows him to get a good swing, take off one of the limbs.
I make my sword jump back to my hand and join him.
The trick to fighting a multi-armed opponent is to not get between weapons. Stay to the side, so only one arm can reach at a time. Disarm, disable. Bly knows this, too, and we keep the thing between us, fencing with it, hacking at the limbs.
But it’s smart. It flips, throws itself at Bly, expects I’ll move in after it, then bounces itself back at me. It feints, then flips as I go for a tempting limb. The next thing I know is I’ve got four arms wrapped around me, crushing me in a super-human embrace. I’ve got my sword between my torso and its torso. I find a place to get my edge and push, one hand on the back of my blade. Bly sees what I’m doing and hacks the thing’s body from the opposite side. I feel it start to come apart. (I also feel my ribs give way as my spine threatens to sever.) Then Bly starts hacking off one of the heads.
I push for all I’ve got, hard enough that I almost dislocate my own limbs, and finally cut through. I drive my sword inside the opening of one half as Bly goes for leverage, tosses his sword and uses a stout dagger to cut and pry the head he’s been working at. He succeeds in a blaze of sparks, and that half of the robot goes dead.
That still leaves the larger half (actually two-thirds) and three functional arms, one of which decides to forgo crushing me in favor of trying to stab through my armor, right between my shoulder blades. I can barely hold on to my sword.
Then I’m face-to-face with Paul, his mask knocked away, face still repairing a nasty cheekbone gash. He sees what I’m trying to do, shoves one of his Rods down into the exposed innards of the bisected robot, discharges a cutting beam…
The thing weakens enough to let me get out of its pincer grip. I weakly hack at the limb that tried to impale me, feeling like everything from neck to pelvis is broken and crushed inside me. Bly jumps in and finishes the job. I fall back onto the packed ground. Coughing on blood. Seeing spots. Getting flashes of warning graphics behind my eyes: Damage reports. Depleted resources. Crashing energy levels.
Bly is hacking apart the other half of the monster now, like he needs to be thorough. I see Paul staggering away from the mess we’ve made of Chang’s “toy”. He’s also hurt, needs time…
“Ya need to move!” Bly prods us. “Half done!” But he’s staggering as he runs for the exit tunnel. “Move yer lazy asses!”
Just need to lay down here for awhile…
Fuck…
Somewhere far down the tunnel, I hear gunfire. Explosions.
Paul and I don’t speak as we limp and drag down the exit tunnel. I’m sure he’s thinking what I am: Chang’s toy was very effective at defeating his defensive technology, and could have done him severe physical damage—maybe torn him apart—if Bly and I weren’t armed with nanostructure swords. Even then, I doubt we could have handled more than one of them. Chang, or whoever Janeway is now, is putting some serious thought into beating us. Maybe it’s a good thing that the Guardians have withdrawn, whatever the reason, at least for now.
More explosions bring me back to the immediate. We manage to catch up with the bulk of one of Straker’s groups—a hundred or so men, women and children—huddled into a cave space barely large enough to fit them and what little they’re carrying. They start when they hear us coming, then relax—barely—when they realize it’s us and not Bug.
A large explosion shakes us from somewhere close above, and bits of the packed and sealed roof come down.
“Everybody seal up! Now!” It’s Straker, warning her people to get their masks on, either expecting the need for a prompt evacuation or a loss of atmospheric integrity. But she’s shouting. She’s not using her Link. I realize no one is—all channels are static. Jammed.
I also realize I don’t see
“Bly? Where’s Bly?” I ask Straker when I get through the crowd to her. She’s standing at what must pass for airlocks in their hidden sally ports: Seal-fabric “hatches” ingeniously repurposed from emergency shelters, gooped into narrow passages.
The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are Page 23