Accessing the Aether network, he opened a link to the next Colossus in line. “Torgon—what’s the hold up? You’re over half a click behind us now.”
“Aye, sir—sorry—but the Riyahadi are using gravitic shields to block our path, and then hammering us with heavy artillery. They must not have been ready when you came through, but they have us hemmed in pretty good.”
Agrippa took this in, then cursed to himself. Checking the broadest-angled display he could access, he saw that their column of walkers was now strung out dangerously thin, their initially tight formation long since disrupted. “Alright—do what you can. We will swing around and hit them from behind, and spring you loose.”
“Thank you, General,” Torgon answered. “My apologies.”
Agrippa closed the link and issued terse and angry new orders to his helmsman. “You heard,” he barked. “Let’s help them out.”
Obomanu acknowledged the order and manipulated the controls. In response, the engine deep within the walker’s torso roared, sending surging waves of power down to the legs. The mighty beast strode to its left in a broad curve, one step at a time, Harker the gunner continuing to blast away at enemy targets all the while. As it advanced on Torgon’s machine in the distance, Agrippa activated the horn, blasting a nearly-deafening wail across the battlefield. “No sense trying to be sneaky,” he stated as Obomanu gave him a puzzled glance. “Nothing this big ever snuck up on anyone.”
The walker drew nearer and nearer to the position where Torgon’s machine was trapped. Agrippa studied the holo display intently, taking in the situation. Indeed the second walker’s commander had been correct: the Riyahadi in their inventiveness had positioned gravitic shield generators in careful alignment such that the legs of the Colossus were blocked from moving in any direction. And now the enemy—humans, but of a rival empire to that of the III Legion—were pouring everything they had, weapon-wise, into the attack, seeking to break through Torgon’s defenses and destroy the walker while it was held firm.
“The shields themselves are preventing Major Torgon from destroying their generators,” Harker the gunner reported, “but I can get a fine bead on them from here, sir.”
“Open fire,” Agrippa ordered, nodding.
The plasma tubes surrounding the Colossus’s forearm lit up like neon bulbs. Bolts of shimmering raw energy stabbed out, one after the other, striking the Riyahadi emplacements between Torgon’s position and their own. Explosions lit up the smoke-filled battlefield, great gouts of flame towering into the sky. The soldiers manning those sites looked to the men of the walkers like tiny ants scampering frantically around before dying ignominiously; their screams, coming from so far below, never reached the ears of the Phalanx officers, who towered far above them like grim and uncaring gods.
After fifteen seconds of bombardment by Agrippa’s walker, the last of the enemy gravity shields flickered and died. Torgon’s machine wrenched itself loose and blasted out of the trap that had held it, looking none the worse for the wear.
“Many thanks, General,” the Major sent over the Aether link.
Agrippa was already switching over to link to the infantry that trailed behind them. “Colonel Iksander,” he barked. “If you would be so kind, please have your men sort this mess out. Torgon and I will be pressing on.”
“Certainly, General,” replied the voice of Agrippa’s oldest friend and the head of the ground forces. “We won’t be a—uh oh.”
Agrippa frowned at this. He knew Iksander far too well to think the man would react so blatantly to anything that wasn’t a horrific threat. “What is it, Selim?”
“Check your reverse view,” Iksander replied.
Agrippa realized his machine was still aimed back the way they had all originally come. He spun the holo display around even faster than Obomanu could actually rotate the walker a hundred eighty degrees. What he saw gave him pause, to say the least.
“Shields to maximum!” he cried. “Divert all energy to the—”
The impact of the first shots rocked the Colossus back on its heels. The second volley, an instant later, knocked it off its balance.
The mighty machine teetered for a very long moment, its metal joints creaking as it fought for control. It failed. It fell.
Looming over it stood three Riyahadi walkers, identical in design to one another but somewhat different from the Imperial Colossus. They were a bit shorter and wider, and their main weapons appeared to be situated atop their shoulder units—almost balanced there, extending in front and behind them. Their gun ports all smoked from the barrage they had unleashed against Agrippa’s machine. The weapons flared to life again.
“Evasive!” Agrippa commanded, even as he struggled to regain his feet. When the walker had gone down, the control cabin had likewise been tilted back sharply at a ninety degree angle. The crash webbing that held all three of the crew in place had prevented any injuries, but the disorientation was severe—and particularly dangerous coming just as the enemy was pressing its advantage of surprise.
Obomanu worked the controls with frantic fury. In response the Colossus rolled rapidly to its right, just as concussion blasts from the three attackers speared down into the bare earth where it had lain an instant before, seeking to finish off the taller machine.
Taking advantage of the wave of dust and debris hurled into the air by the blasts, Agrippa ordered the walker to stay low as it scrabbled away from the trio of enemies. The next round of energy blasts missed by a wider margin; the Riyahadi had already lost their target lock.
“Now,” ordered Agrippa. “Bring everything we have on line and hit them—hard!”
Rearing up with a quickness that seemed impossible in anything so large, the Colossus brought its main plasma cannon to bear and fired directly into the chest of the nearest enemy walker. Any human standing on that battlefield whose eyesight was unprotected would have been blinded, likely for life, as the column of superheated plasma streaked out and impacted the Riyahadi machine’s shields—and shredded them. The last of the blast continued on and melted a hole roughly five meters in diameter directly through the walker’s chest. Sparks sprayed out, followed by a gout of flames, and then a billowing of noxious black smoke. The enemy walker rocked back and forth on its feet for another few seconds before creaking and slowly crashing to the ravaged surface of Eingrad 6.
Agrippa didn’t wait to see the walker fall. He continued to bark orders, one after the other, to his driver and his gunner. The Colossus leapt to the attack, charging toward the Riyahadi machine on the left. Agrippa was happy to see that Torgon’s Colossus had managed to extricate itself completely from the trap that had held it, and now it was fully engaged with the enemy on the right. Together the two Imperial walkers made short work of their foes, short-range blasters ripping them to shreds once the range became too tight for their plasma cannons.
“The path is clear again,” Agrippa called back to Colonel Iksander when the third of the three walkers had collapsed, flames roaring from its joints and explosions bursting from its damaged fuel cells. “Bring the Legion up.”
Then the Aether channel shrieked in Agrippa’s head with heavy distortion and he nearly lost his balance. Reaching out with one muscular arm, he steadied himself as he gritted his teeth and forced the volume down.
“What was that?” cried Obomanu, one hand off the controls and clutching at the side of his head.
The wailing noise faded somewhat as each of their internal links to the Aether struggled to contain the wild and unexpected interfering signal. Agrippa gestured with his right hand and switched the holo display from tactical to electromagnetic, searching for the source of the rogue signal.
“There,” he almost shouted, pointing to a spot on the three-dimensional map that hung in the air before him. “It’s coming from over there.” A low hill, just under a kilometer away, appeared to be the source of the signal.
“The Riyahadi did that?” Torgon called over the link, now that it was working properly
again and free of the awful noise. “How is that possible? No one’s ever hacked the Aether before.”
“I don’t know,” Agrippa replied. His lips were pulled back in a snarl. “Let’s go ask them.”
The Colossus stepped forward again, massive legs moving as quickly as possible. Torgon’s machine followed closely behind.
The procession hadn’t gotten halfway across the battlefield toward their new objective when the signal shrieked out again. Agrippa cursed and ordered his men to ignore it as best they could and continue on, reasoning that the best way to deal with it was to find its source and destroy it as quickly as possible.
As Agrippa looked up again from his men in the cockpit, he beheld a sight that nearly took his legs out from under him. At that same moment, Torgon’s voice over the link cried, “Look out, General! More enemy machines!”
Indeed, six more walkers had emerged from hiding places in the rubble, their guns already glowing with energy as they prepared to fire.
“All power to the shields!” shouted Agrippa. “Evasive!”
Too late. The train-car-sized blasters mounted on the shoulders of each of the enemy walkers opened fire virtually simultaneously. Twelve beams of violet light speared the two Imperial machines and met their shields. The defensive energy screens of Torgon’s Colossus lasted all of three seconds before failing and giving way in a blinding storm of lightning and concussive force. Agrippa’s shields survived for only two seconds longer. Now protected only by their thick metal hides, the two Imperial war machines held out for another ten seconds—ten seconds of failed attempts to dodge and evade—before the barrage of weaponry brought both Agrippa’s and Torgon’s walkers down.
The two man-shaped war machines crashed to the surface within a few dozen meters of one another. The Riyahadi continued to pound away at them, ripping into the armor with their many smaller weapons.
Inside the control room of the lead machine, Agrippa fought to extricate himself from the crash netting. The Colossus lay on its stomach, face down, and consequently the cabin was tilted at a severe forward angle, making it difficult for any of the three occupants to move.
With a roar, Agrippa ripped the main connector of his netting loose from its mooring and pulled himself free. He reached down and disconnected the corresponding portions of Obomanu’s and Harker’s netting, allowing them to pull themselves out of it.
Agrippa made one quick and futile check of the Colossus’s systems. The holographic display wouldn’t function and the main engine was dead.
“Evacuate,” the general ordered. “Out!”
Harker tapped a quick code into a panel set into the hull. Nothing happened.
“Uh oh,” the gunner breathed. He entered the code again. Still nothing.
“What’s wrong?” Agrippa demanded. The hull of the metal monster they inhabited rang with the sound of shells and blasts impacting the surface outside.
“It’s jammed—or blocked,” Harker replied, his expression growing frantic. “She won’t budge!”
“If the hull itself is warped there, we’ll never get it open,” Obomanu stated, anxiety filling his voice.
Agrippa’s own countenance soured. “Move aside,” he barked, and the two crewmen scrambled out of the way.
The hulking blond general reached down and grasped the manual locking wheel of the hatch with both his hands, his muscles bunching as he exerted his full strength. For long seconds the machinery resisted, as the sounds of enemy fire grew louder.
“They’re concentrating fire on us—trying to blow the fuel cells—to finish us off,” Obomanu observed, sweat blanketing his dark face now.
“This machine is already finished,” Agrippa grunted, his own face reddening as he continued to wrestle with the hatch. “But we’re not.”
At that moment the hatch gave way and popped open, swinging out into darkness.
Agrippa gasped in relief and let go, stepping back. He pointed to the newly-opened exit. “Go,” he barked.
Harker instantly obeyed, climbing through the hole, Obomanu hurrying closely behind. Agrippa took one last look around the cabin of the big war machine, frowned at the loss, and followed.
The battlefield onto which they emerged appeared apocalyptic in its devastation. A perpetual twilight hung over the landscape as clouds of smoke mingled with stirred up dust and fog; the sun was a tiny red dot barely visible through the haze.
“This way, General,” called Obomanu, motioning from behind a half-shattered wall nearby.
Agrippa glanced up, seeing the Riyahadi walkers turning and stalking away, lumbering as if they were normal-sized beings recorded in slow motion. Apparently they had decided the Imperial Colossus was dead and any human survivors weren’t worth their trouble. They were moving on to find other, larger targets of opportunity. Agrippa knew that didn’t mean he and his men were safe yet, though. The infantry and lighter armor would surely be following along in the wake of the giants, taking prisoners as they found them—or finishing them off.
The big general hustled over to where his crewmembers were crouching behind the wall. A quick look around, and then, “We can’t stay here,” he stated. “We have to move.”
“I’ve been trying to retrieve the emergency hovercar by remote,” Obomanu reported, frowning, “but it’s not responding. It may have been damaged when we went down.”
Agrippa cursed. “Well, that’s how it is, then. Maybe Torgon—”
At that moment, the Aether link crackled.
“Torgon. Is that you?” Agrippa fought to hear through the static. “I’m still getting interference.”
The voice of the other machine’s commander came to him faintly but just clearly enough. “We’re okay, sir, but the Colossus is done for.”
“Is your hovercar alright?”
A pause. “Afraid not, sir. Lt. Brantley is just checking it over now, but it looks to be ruined.”
“Ours, too, I think,” Agrippa replied. “Break out the armor. We’re on foot—at least for now.”
“Will do. Be there in a moment, sir.”
Agrippa nodded and cut the link, then turned to his two crewmen. “This isn’t over, gentlemen,” he growled, gazing out at the smoking wasteland that had once been a major Imperial population center here on Eingrad 6. “It was my bad judgment to underestimate the Riyahadi here. It cost us two of our best machines. But we’re not finished yet.” He shook his head and flexed his fists. “No—it’s not over by a long shot.”
9
Amon Rameses, planetary governor of Ahknaton, stood on the upper balcony of the Heliopolis palace, overlooking the city’s broad main avenue far below. He clutched his staff with its crooked end tightly in his right hand and watched as the vast army of soldiers at his command, officially known as the Sand Kings but now also called by him the IV Legion, marched past in review.
The Sand Kings appeared resplendent in their dress uniforms of dark red and dark blue, with gleaming gold trim everywhere. The soldiers carried ornately decorated and very advanced-looking energy pistols and quad-rifles. Their shoulder plates bore emblems of coiled snakes and regal birds and other traditional Egyptian symbolism, emblazoned in gold and sparkling gemstones. Similar emblems adorned the robes of the newly-constituted cadre of sorcerers who strode alongside the fighters. The columns of hovertanks, sandcrawlers and troop carriers, likewise, shone in the harsh sunlight, their sides and decks adorned with the markings of the Sand Kings. There was no trace of the classic Egyptian eye, though; as soon as Iapetus and the II Legion had adopted the eye as their major symbol, Rameses had ordered it removed from his own troops’ uniforms and banished entirely from Ahknaton. For Rameses hated Iapetus, and hated him with a cold, burning fury.
Rameses had reason to hate Iapetus, of course, and he had a long memory. And if everything over the coming days and weeks played out the way he intended, Iapetus and his so-called Sons of Terra would spend their final moments of life wishing they had never gotten on his bad side. On the bad side of a
living god.
For that was precisely what Iapetus was intent on becoming: a god among men. The living embodiment of long-dead Amenophis, once the patron of the people of Ahknaton. And the equal of any of the ancient gods who once strode across the Above with power and glory and utter impunity.
At least, that was what he had been promised by the man—the very odd man— who now stood at his right hand. The man he had only just appointed as his vizier, or top minister and advisor. The cloaked and hooded man in dark red robes who called himself by a god’s name: Zahir.
Precisely how and why he had granted that lofty position and title to the man, Rameses was not entirely certain, and thinking about it too hard tended to give him a terrible headache. Much easier, he had discovered, to simply accept it—go with it—and not ask why. Still, something about it troubled him… And there came the headache again. He let it go, reluctantly but of necessity.
At that moment, as if overhearing his thoughts, Zahir turned and peered at Rameses with dark, hollow, black-rimmed eyes.
Rameses started. Much as he had come to accept the man’s value, or at least his constant presence, he could not quite get used to his sheer oddness.
“You are not enjoying seeing the full might of Ahknaton on display, Governor?” the hawk-nosed vizier asked.
Rameses returned his gaze to the legion marching below. “I suppose I’m merely impatient,” he replied after a few seconds. “More troops and more guns are all well and good—but how much will they truly matter to me when I have assumed the mantle of great Amenophis—when I have become a god?”
“Patience, O Rameses,” the vizier cautioned. “We will begin shortly, and then your time remaining in this frail mortal body will be brief indeed.”
Still not looking at the strange man, Rameses nodded. He said nothing aloud about it—he never did—but he found himself once again silently questioning who Zahir truly was and how he could possibly make good on his extravagant promises. He’d arrived days earlier with his two “gifts,” plus a promised third—what were they, again? He couldn’t quite recall. And with his grand talk of godhood and the Above and...
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