by Ste Sharp
‘You’re the Velluta,’ Isao said, remembering the box the Lutamek had taken from the Firstborn clan in exchange for food and weapons.
The Velluta cocked its head in what Isao assumed was an affirmative nod.
After being captured, Isao had stayed with the Velluta’s box, while the metal Lutamek eggs and the majority of humans and Sorean had been diverted to a different destination. Gal-qadan had glared at Isao when they parted – his usual look – but Isao couldn’t help feeling Gal-qadan was asking him to come back for him.
Peronicus-Rax had travelled with them too and left soon after arriving in the Ascent city, leaving Isao’s mission in disarray.
‘It’s all about gravity,’ the Velluta said and pointed at the hive of activity some twenty strides from their cells. ‘Of course, they find new methods of nutrition here, through their experiments, but the Lutamek are only interested in this world’s gravity.’
‘Why?’ Isao asked.
‘Because it’s the only thing they don’t understand,’ the Velluta replied, ‘apart from me, perhaps, and it looks like I’ve caused a distraction,’ it paused and seemed to sigh, ‘which is why the Lutamek are congregating now… returning from their various missions. They all need to be here. Their religion dictates it.’
‘Dictates what?’ Isao asked, wondering how a group of robots could have a religion.
‘They strive for perfection. We started adding components to our bodies when our planet grew inhospitable, but never thought it would get this far.’
‘We?’ Isao asked.
‘I was on their ship,’ the Velluta said. ‘We share the same home world. We are the same species… but I don’t consider myself one of them.’
Isao turned from the Velluta to the Lutamek and saw no obvious resemblance.
‘How did you escape the ship?’ he asked.
‘A handful of Lutamek bypassed the extraction protocols when the hibernation system powered down and so avoided being taken into the dome. Then, once the ship landed on this world, they blasted their way out and we escaped. I managed to hide, convincing the ship I was dead, so the free Lutamek were unaware of my existence until the new Lutamek escaped the dome with your army and downloaded my information.’
‘They said it had been destroyed from the outside,’ Isao said.
‘Of course! Your Lutamek were in contact with the escaped Lutamek from the second you won your freedom from the dome. The escapees had been busy… working their way into the Ascent hierarchy, gaining positions of power. I had managed to avoid them but…’
‘So why am I here?’ Isao asked, ignoring the Velluta’s self-pity.
‘The gravity and your ability are linked.’
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Isao replied, peering through a window, watching a large, dark quadruped pull a metal cart into the courtyard outside.
The Velluta shuffled away and said, ‘I know, but that’s what they told me to say.’
The cart was tipped into a metal-lined hole and what looked like body parts tumbled out.
‘What did you say?’ Isao looked at his drink and then at the Velluta. ‘Who told you to say that?’
‘He did.’ The Velluta pointed to a dark shape in the courtyard.
Isao recognised this Lutamek: Ten-ten.
*
Millok did not take her decision lightly but the Scion, as she had come to call her brood of young Brakari, had been in the forefront of her mind when she had finally decided.
‘We leave the Tathon to it,’ she ordered. ‘Maintain scout missions and double the guard.’
‘Yes, Millok,’ the officer replied and left without saluting.
When Millok had found them – the young Brakari army of Doctor Cynigar’s experiments – they’d been fresh from the battle against the humans outside the ruined fort. She had explained their creation story and why they needed to fight against their own species to ensure their survival. Eager to follow their shell-mother, even though few of the sky-blue shells had hardened properly, they had fought valiantly. After the victory, Millok had taken the Scion off the battlefield and refused to leave the dome until she had found all of her offspring. In the days that followed, she’d developed an informal authority over her new army.
A new scout scuttled in.
‘The contraption is primed and ready to fire.’
‘I will see for myself,’ Millok replied and signalled to her guards that she was leaving camp.
As she walked through her resting army, Millok looked at them through a mother’s eyes. They were all so different, which was to be expected with such a variety of father lines, but they were all half her. She was mother to all because there had been no other female soldiers in the Brakari ranks. She felt proud. The pain had been worth it.
Many of her young couldn’t communicate and some had trouble walking long distances, but they were all formidable fighters, thanks to Cynigar’s tweaking, which had come in useful when facing the new enemy. The Tathon – these soft-bodied, bulbous octopeds – had appeared without warning, spreading across the vast landscape like a flood. Nothing stood in their path.
Not even General Panzicosta.
Millok climbed the incline with speed, up the well-worn path created by her scout’s claws and walking legs. It wasn’t good to stay in one location for too long – it would attract that freakish fish creature the Tathon had summoned from the lake and its legion of tiny, round-shelled warriors who had hounded her almost as well as she and the Scion had hounded the Tathon army.
Slowly, the view revealed itself to Millok. She crouched low and stretched her long-distance eyes on their stalks. The view had changed little: the huge contraption the Tathon had been building had shifted forward and was still moving forward… if her vision was correct. It was hard to tell at such a distance.
Now she was in charge of a team – and responsible for their very lives – Millok found she was always thinking. The feeling was similar to when she had looked after John, she thought, remembering the journey from Abzicrutia to the allied army, when she had had to think of every possible scenario ahead of them. She had succeeded, and they hadn’t treated her well, but John had repaid her generosity. If he hadn’t, she doubted she would still be here. Where the victors had gone, nobody knew. But now, having seen the Tathon’s plans, Millok felt sure she could follow in their wake.
Let them do the hard work.
Millok scanned the almost-barren hillside for signs of movement. Just three of her personal guards as far as she could tell, which meant she could wait a little longer and watch.
On the valley floor, the huge contraption of metal and rock loomed tall; its strong, criss-crossed structure was starting to disappear behind the mist that fringed the landscape. Around its base, scores of creatures heaved and jostled, under the orders of the Tathon leaders, whose shapes could be seen some distance back, ringed by various levels of defence. A flash of lightning spat down from the heavens but dissipated on the enormous, clear shell, leaving the machine to roll on, into the thick fog. Then the contraption shuddered to a halt, followed by a deep thud a second later.
Shapes moved frenetically, and the huge machine started to twist and stretch, like a giant preparing to leap. In the centre, Millok could see an immense block of metal rising and pulling out of the mist. When it couldn’t stretch any more, the mechanisms clunked to a halt and, following an unseen order, the nearest soldiers backed away as the contraption released its harnessed energy. With a flash of raw power and a crack that ran through the ground and made the clouds shake, the block swung and thrust into the mist, where it hit its intended target. Immediately, the mechanisms jumped into life, pulling it back, setting it up for another hit.
For the first time in many weeks, Millok felt genuinely scared.
*
Isao hung upside down by his ankles, fixed to a wall by metal clasps.
‘Now, I want you to try to slip into your “shadow world” again.’ The deep tones of Ten-ten sounded detached
and emotionless, but Isao had learned to follow the Lutamek’s orders during the several hours they had been experimenting.
Isao wanted to know as much about his ability as Ten-ten did, although he wouldn’t have chosen these methods. So he persevered and, although he answered Ten-ten’s questions accurately, he didn’t tell him everything.
So far, they had discovered several depths to the shadow world that Isao could access. Most, like when Ten-ten had been able to see Isao in the shadow world, were shallow and involved little effort to access. But others were deeper and, if Ten-ten was to be believed, out of his extrasensory sight’s range.
‘Of course, my sight doesn’t use photons or radio waves,’ Ten-ten said, ‘but I have extrapolated a method using the readings from the mines, where mass and gravity are strongest.’
‘And this is the alternatematter you mentioned?’ Isao asked, using the Lutamek’s terminology for what he called shadow matter, hoping to keep Ten-ten engaged so he could learn as much as possible.
‘Affirmative,’ Ten-ten replied. ‘Which is why I have placed concentrated supplies of it around this building to inhibit any plans you have of escape.’
‘Yes, I feel those,’ Isao replied but held back the truth.
He’d long learned the secrets of how Ten-ten had hidden the soldiers on the border with the Firstborn and he’d drifted deep into the shadow world, where Isao felt the barriers with normal matter thinned to almost nothing. In that state, he was sure he could swim through any normal matter – go through living rock or the metal shackles if he needed to. The raw power he was harnessed to lifted Isao’s spirits and he longed to test it out fully, but not yet. When it was time to escape he would glide through Ten-ten’s gravity mass traps.
‘And the cause?’ Isao asked.
‘I have gone through the recordings from the dome cap,’ Ten-ten replied. ‘It appears a safety system shifted the bodies of you and your companions into the new-matter range at the point of death, then shifted you back to regain physical form as we know it.’
‘What went wrong?’ Isao asked.
‘The organic part of me suggests it was a system glitch, but my processors disagree,’ Ten-ten said. ‘A system this complex would have many fail-safe mechanisms. My theory is your DNA was still in a state of flux following the work of the Synchronisers, so it confused the system.’
‘And only when it settled were we allowed physical form?’ Isao asked.
The thought made him feel hollow. He, Masaharu and Hori had been convinced they were regaining their honour with each battle.
A light on Ten-ten’s arm flashed and Isao rotated back to an upright position.
‘Why did you do it?’ Isao asked the question he’d held back. ‘Why did you turn on your allies?’
It was the first time Isao had seen a Lutamek hesitate.
Ten-ten turned to face him. ‘Despite what you think, Isao, the Lutamek are an honourable species. We have rules. Codes of conduct were created when we first took the path to automation. A belief burned in the very core of every one of us that we were an improvement and that we owed it to our ancestors, our kin, our comrades to constantly strive to be the best.’
‘So you betrayed your allies for the sake of your kin?’ Isao said. ‘It’s been done before.’
‘We may have become more machine than animal, but we haven’t lost the instinct to survive.’
‘I see,’ Isao said.
‘Now I want to measure your sensitivity to the waves I have sensed in this alternate energy field,’ Ten-ten changed the subject, ‘before you become tired.’
‘Yes,’ Isao replied, knowing the Lutamek’s apparent concern for his well-being was no more than anxiety for the validity of his experiments.
‘The sensor array we constructed shows an alternate matter flow towards the tower, in the centre of this disc. The movement of currents distributes the gravitational force evenly across the disc and in one direction.’
Isao remembered the tidal pull he and his comrades had felt when they had first entered the shadow world. It was weaker here, but he didn’t know if he should tell Ten-ten everything. Any clue to his real abilities would risk damaging his escape strategy.
‘I have felt these waves,’ Isao said.
‘I need you to partially step out of this plane and inform me of each wave you see, while I take my readings.’
‘Sure,’ Isao replied. Confirming they were seeing the same thing shouldn’t harm his plans, he thought, but one thing was on his mind. ‘Just one question before we start.’
‘Yes.’
‘The Velluta… it said the Lutamek are convening for a purpose. Your religion dictates it?’
‘Yes,’ Ten-ten answered, focussed on a metal device with a black cone pointing to the ground.
‘Will the Velluta become your leader?’ Isao asked.
Ten-ten emitted a sound close to a Lutamek laugh, then said, ‘No, we need to sever our links with our past.’
‘What will you do?’ Isao asked.
‘The most obvious course of action – we will kill the Velluta.’
*
Panzicosta hadn’t felt this invigorated since he’d expanded into his first adult shell. How many seasons ago had that been? So many battles won and lost since that day. So many memories, which felt clearer now, as though a window in his mind had been cleaned of decades of smudge and grime.
These Tathon truly were miracle workers. Panzicosta didn’t have to look at his transformation to see that – the whole army the Tathon had formed was full of enhanced, confident soldiers from scores of warring species. The Tathon were far greater scientists than Doctor Cynigar, that malicious, shrivelled turd, not just in their abilities but in the way they boosted each individual according to their skills and powers, rather than just sticking on new abilities because their cause demanded it.
The Tathon were great leaders as well, far more intuitive than Belsang, yet more ruthless than Panzicosta could ever have imagined. They had swept up every single surviving soldier in this great, bizarre land and either transformed or killed them. Everyone had a purpose, either as a soldier or as food, and he was no different. Panzicosta had more power than ever before, yet he had dropped his title. General no more, but his potential was almost limitless.
He flexed his new shell, catching a shimmer of red reflecting in one of the protective bubble-glass domes the Deron insectoids had created for the Tathon. A hundred strides away, their immense contraption towered into the clouds, where lightning licked the shield. The hammer bit into the ground with its screw foundations and groaned and vibrated as it drew its power, then released its powerful thrust into the mist, shaking the entire world around them. This was the weapon of the gods that Panzicosta’s Brakari ancestors used to pray to.
Panzicosta felt the urge to talk to his leaders – to learn more. He had served them well, but surely there was more he could do? Not only was he faster and leaner than before, but his mind was sharper too. He had fewer pincers but those he retained were more lethal than his previous ones. His red shell felt stronger and lighter.
The pain of change had been worth it.
Panzicosta moved towards the Tathon High Command and focussed on the three shapes of ’Xit, ’Brin and ’Kno-lib, whose large, globular masses stood tall over the nearest line of Tathon warriors. Panzicosta had learned that the Tathon, like their monstrous contraption, extended underground as well, with their mass of fungal hyphae, and he wondered what they could sense right now. As he drew closer, he caught a glimpse of Praahs’ long body weaving through the Tathon commanders. For once she was free of her irritating mass of Cirratus, who seemed to shadow her every move.
Panzicosta diverted his walk accordingly.
‘Praahs,’ he called out as he neared, taking her attention from the huge battering ram overhead.
‘Panzicosta,’ she responded. ‘Now is not the time for our duel.’
Panzicosta felt his scales rise, ready to snap down with annoyance, an
d took a moment to control his emotions. ‘Indeed,’ he replied, ‘maybe another time.’ His red scales relaxed and silently slipped back into place. ‘I simply came to offer any advice on your pursuit of the rogue Brakari guerrilla force,’ he said with clenched mouthparts as he thought of the turncoat, Millok.
‘Your help is appreciated, but our venture has been postponed,’ Praahs replied and turned to view Panzicosta with all her open eyes.
They may have been different species, but something drew Panzicosta to Praahs. He’d seen her in battle – a formidable sight – and respected her in a way he’d never felt for a comrade or enemy before. This wasn’t lust. It was something else.
‘Your improvements were successful?’ Praahs asked as the giant ram flew above them, shaking the ground and vibrating the clouds.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I’m looking forward to the next battle.’
Panzicosta remembered seeing Praahs before his final procedure and the look she’d given him… that was it! She was a kindred spirit, an orphan who had endured the same humiliation he had.
‘And the chemicals?’ she asked, lowering her voice.
‘Chemicals?’ he replied and noticed one of her eyes had shifted in the direction of the Tathon leaders.
A soft haze wafted from a pair of antennae on the back of Praahs’ neck and the sounds around Panzicosta became muffled.
‘We can talk freely for a short time,’ Praahs said. ‘The Tathon give more than just new weapons and skills.’
Panzicosta remained silent.
‘Do you think great warriors like us would be satisfied with a place in the ranks of an enemy army?’ Praahs asked.
‘No,’ Panzicosta replied, ‘but what they offer is–’
‘What they offer,’ Praahs cut in, ‘is control. We have been conditioned into loving our captors.’
Panzicosta felt weak. His fighting eyes flicked open and he searched for imminent danger. Had he been fooled? Were these gifts just tricks to subdue him?
‘Your defensive mechanisms still work,’ Praahs said. ‘Some instincts remain deep and must be trusted.’