Survival Machines

by Ste Sharp

  How could that be? John thought. Falen maybe, but how could Peronicus-Rax have been part of the Ascent if he’d been in the dome with him and the rest of the army?

  John saw a group of Korax in the crowd on the other side of the fighting ring, talking inside a blue bubble similar to the one Yam-mit had used in their mine.

  ‘After what your ancestors did–’ Peronicus-Rax started but was cut off by another attack, which he defended, throwing Falen at the feet of the crowd.

  ‘Is that why you sought us out in the dome?’ Falen hissed back.

  ‘STOP!’ a voice yelled and all eyes turned to the group of squat, beetle-like Korax.

  ‘What is it, Korax?’ a guard yelled. ‘You’re spoiling our fun.’

  ‘This fight must stop,’ the Korax said and walked into the dusty fighting ring.

  With a lower leg, it scratched out the sign John had seen in the prison: a circle with three dots.

  ‘Three planets, one star,’ the Korax said, looking at Falen and Peronicus-Rax, who stared back.

  ‘In your time, maybe,’ Peronicus-Rax said. ‘But no more. The Drauw saw to that.’

  All eyes were on Falen, who shuffled away and said, ‘What my ancestors did was necessary for our continued expansion.’

  ‘You wiped my species out,’ Peronicus-Rax replied. ‘I was there at our final battle, before I was brought here. I found everything I needed to know from my extraction vessel.’

  ‘Was that why you returned to the dome?’ Falen asked. ‘After we met?’

  ‘After seeing you here, in the Ascent, I had to be sure,’ Peronicus-Rax replied, his eye turning dark. ‘I needed to know you were the last Drauw in this world.’

  John breathed in sharply. When the human army had met Peronicus-Rax, he hadn’t been observing battles and saving weapons for posterity – he’d been searching for Drauw survivors from his battle, burying every soldier to make sure everyone was accounted for. He must have collected weapons along the way, knowing they were currency here in the Ascent city.

  ‘Enough!’ Falen said. ‘One of us has to die.’

  ‘But what of the union?’ the Korax asked.

  ‘It was a lie!’ Falen shouted. ‘You had nothing of worth, so we kept you inhibited on your shrivelled, volcanic planet while the Drauw developed and grew.’

  The Korax were shaking, visibly upset as their spokesperson sidled back to the group and formed a new blue bubble.

  ‘And after you kill me?’ Falen said to Peronicus-Rax, stretching her long, armoured limbs.

  ‘I will escape this world and return to your planet to kill every last Drauw,’ Peronicus-Rax said in his deep, emotionless tones.

  ‘So be it,’ Falen replied and leaped at him and the knife fight resumed with greater intensity.

  John felt useless. He didn’t know what to think or who to support. Flashes of his old war came back to him; the futility of the fight and the loss of life weighed on him again. He was ready to walk away when he felt a tug on his shirt and turned to see Crossley smiling at him.

  ‘I’ve done it,’ the American said and gave a little laugh.

  ‘Done what?’ John asked.

  ‘Just follow me to that big pile of weapons and you’ll see,’ he said with a wink.

  *

  Delta-Six watched the battle with interest, noting how the Lutamek eggs’ fighting abilities had improved upon the Lutamek’s standard tactics. Being so close to the metal behemoths made him wary, and he knew every minute here was a minute lost… but something stopped him from leaving.

  Whether it was deep programming or something woven into his very bones, Delta-Six couldn’t leave his comrades behind. He’d seen Bowman die and, if the fight continued the way the crowd wanted, all the humans and Sorean would bleed into the dusty soil of the arena floor before the hour was out.

  He considered his options. Helping Olan and Gal-qadan’s men would be too risky and he couldn’t fire any weapons with so many alien soldiers around him. He looked to the exit, remembering the Lutamek station nearby, then turned to the looming tower – his goal. Maybe a distraction was what he needed? Something to keep the elite guards busy and to make sure the Lutamek stayed in one place while he completed his mission.

  An orange light flashed at the edge of his vision. He triggered the warning: his air filters had detected low pheromone levels; not one it recognised but the parts per million were slowly rising. He pushed the alert away and concentrated on the battle. Osayimwese had crawled away, trying to attract the tocka, while Gal-qadan and his men had spread out on the other side of the Lutamek, taking potshots through gaps in the defensive fences.

  ‘This won’t last long,’ a bulky humanoid a few seats ahead of Delta-Six said to a companion. ‘We’ve paid good credits for deaths and what do we get?’

  ‘One headshot,’ a gangly grey mass of wires and hair replied.

  ‘And a burning,’ a scaly soldier covered in red spikes and belts stringed with weapons replied.

  ‘The Sorean died slowly and loudly,’ the first one said with a laugh.

  ‘I’ve heard we’ve got new gladiators from the mines, so they’ll finish these humans off soon.’

  ‘Today, I was told,’ the grey mess replied.

  Delta-Six had heard similar chatter throughout the crowd and could see the guards grouping together at the arena gates. He watched Gal-qadan’s group, who were fanning out, keeping low. Zooming in, he could see that each soldier carried a number of small grey objects. That’s what they’ve been doing! he realised. But why were Olan’s men wasting their time with the tocka? Maybe there was a way to help?

  Delta-Six stood, drawing a few looks, and clambered to the top row of empty seats. From here he had a good view of the ramshackle city outside and the farms and desert beyond. Past them, the behemoth shapes of the domes dominated the landscape.

  The orange light flashed again. The parts per million had doubled. But what was the chemical designed to do? He set a portion of his system’s energy to analyse the chemical components while he searched for any signal from Lavalle and Euryleia.

  Nothing.

  Wait. Smoke was rising from a building close to where the small army were stationed. Delta-Six ran a spectro-analysis on the smoke and compared it to the predefined communication chart – an idea from Euryleia. The composition was high in phosphorus and heavy metals, which meant the attack was imminent. Delta-Six had to move fast to complete his mission! But first he could help events here a little. He carefully slipped the chamelo-cloth off his shoulder and launched two silent missiles into the sky, then walked back down towards the exit.

  ‘A waste of credits,’ he grumbled, using the Rhil voice, and slipped away.

  *

  Olan held his arm across his mouth as smoke poured from the tiny grenades Gal-qadan had lobbed at the Lutamek. A smokescreen wouldn’t stop the Lutamek from seeing, Olan thought, so what were they up to? The crowd weren’t sure either and had started howling even louder.

  ‘Get close!’ Olan shouted to the nearest soldiers. ‘Power up your weapons!’

  A series of explosions shook the ground and set Olan’s ear ringing. He peeped through a gap and saw dark holes in the floor around the Lutamek.

  ‘That was my idea!’ Olan shouted, feeling the urge to run out and fight again. ‘Aim for the ground around the Lutamek,’ he shouted, controlling his instincts. ‘Throw everything you have at it!’

  He pushed the muzzle of the weapon Bowman had died with through a gap and fired energy pulses at the ground. Lutamek laser fire replied, melting the gun and rendering it useless.

  ‘Fire at the ground!’ Olan shouted, his voice sounding muffled by the whining noise filling his ears.

  A second later, two enormous explosions tore into the arena floor and Olan felt the ground dip towards the Lutamek. Smith was looking at him, probably shouting, but he couldn’t see his face, and Osayimwese was behind him, keeping the Lutamek busy with a mortar launcher.

  ‘Keep firing!’ Ol
an shouted, his throat hoarse now.

  The sound of battle was coming back to Olan, along with Osayimwese’s voice.

  ‘It’s going!’

  Olan grabbed the nearest free weapon. The smoke was still thick but he knew where to shoot. The ground was moving, he was sure, so he kept firing until, with a deep groan and an earthquake, the section of ground the Lutamek were standing on finally gave way, crashing into the void below, taking the robots with it.

  The crowd hushed as a cloud of dust and smoke rose from the giant hole.

  ‘Where have they gone?’ Steve Smith asked.

  ‘Wherever the tocka came from,’ Olan replied. ‘They were on the ramp – a false floor.’

  A lazy wind stirred the thinning smoke and Olan’s bare arm touched his chest plate, feeling its warmth. He didn’t remember being hit by a Lutamek shot, so why was it warm? The last time it had felt like that was just after the Draytor shape-shifter had blasted him with some godforsaken weapon.

  The crowd were getting louder now, which meant Olan was getting his hearing back.

  ‘Prepare to defend!’ Olan shouted, feeling the urge to run out and leap into the hole.

  Nothing came.

  Olan felt his breathing speed up. What was going on? He touched his chest plate again. Warm still.

  ‘We must finish them off!’ Osayimwese shouted.

  Humans and Sorean were appearing from Gal-qadan’s side, weapons raised, sidling up to the huge hole in the arena floor. Their eyes were wide, almost manic.

  ‘No!’ Olan shouted. ‘What are you doing?’

  Movement caught his eye as Smith walked around the palisades, into the open. The crowd were cheering and jeering, and Olan could see the guards were busy keeping the peace where fights had broken out. Olan felt strange, then a wave of calm washed through his stomach and he felt focussed. The battle rage had gone and he could think clearly again. Smith was hopping from foot to foot, firing his rifle into the hole, and Osayimwese was beside him, also acting wild. Why was everyone getting so worked up?

  A yellow blast of sunlight ripped out of the hole and Smith dropped to the floor.

  ‘Get back!’ Olan shouted, but knew it was too late.

  A net of blue light flashed across the hole in the ground, trapping the young Lutamek in their new prison, and Olan rushed to Smith’s body. The Lutamek shot had blasted him through the neck, severing his head instantly. Olan knelt and picked up the masked head, seeing his own reflection in the face mask. He wondered what Smith had looked like and felt the urge to pull the mask back.

  ‘Did you know him well?’ Gal-qadan’s gruff voice asked.

  Olan looked up to see that all the humans and Sorean were here now. He shook his head and said, ‘No better than anyone else here.’

  ‘The humans are victorious,’ the voice crackled over the arena speakers. ‘Reversing the fate of history.’

  Olan placed Steve Smith’s head on the ground beside his body.

  ‘But we feel the bloodlust,’ the voice continued. ‘So, to honour our leaders, we open the doors to any warrior wishing to prove their prowess.’

  ‘What?’ Olan looked around for someone to speak to but the noise from the crowd was rising.

  Wild screams mixed with manic howls as the bizarre menagerie of scores of alien soldier species – many hyper-evolved beyond natural limits – clambered over the barriers, onto the field of war. Many were fighting each other but some only had eyes for the humans.

  The tocka had moved to the centre, huddled near the humans, who Olan thought still looked crazed.

  ‘We must fight them all!’ Osayimwese shouted and leaped forward.

  ‘We must defend ourselves!’ a Sorean replied, signalling for its kin to form what looked to Olan like a shield wall.

  ‘You are acting hastily. What the hell is going on here?’ Gal-qadan asked with his usual growl and scowl, looking to Olan. ‘What are these mind tricks?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but we can’t trust our instincts,’ Olan replied.

  Gal-qadan stared at Olan. ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘We must think and act logically – or we won’t make it out alive.’

  Osayimwese pointed at the circle of alien warriors closing in around them. ‘I don’t think we’re getting out of here alive, Olan. They want our blood!’

  Olan eyed up the nearest enemy soldier and saw the guards had joined their ranks. He looked at his men and cursed their lack of decent mutations or abilities. Even the weapons they had were limited.

  ‘We will do our best,’ Olan replied and grasped the hammer amulet hanging around his neck.

  Visions of his countless battles rushed past him, of warriors and victories past. Time and time again he’d stayed alive and fought again. He let out a wild laugh.

  ‘After all,’ he said, facing his men, ‘what else can we do?’

  *

  John followed Crossley through the crowd of miners, checking each one for a neck or body pin as he passed. Many had their pins in place, and he checked that the false pinhead was still stuck on the back of his head.

  Looking back, he caught glimpses of the fight between Peronicus-Rax and Falen. The knives had been discarded and they were now using the mutations they’d evolved during their time in the dome: Falen’s limbs were glowing red-hot and Peronicus-Rax emitted a white aura every time Falen attacked. They skirted around the back of the group and John caught a glimpse of Yarcha. He grabbed her arm, beckoning for her to follow.

  ‘The guards!’ she said with wild eyes, searching.

  ‘It’s okay,’ John said and ushered her to follow Crossley.

  ‘Have you had your pin removed?’ Yarcha whispered back to John, who couldn’t keep his eyes off the circular hole in the back of her shaved head.

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered, wondering if he should give her his sticky disc.

  Crossley was chatting as he led them to a pile of weapons, ‘…and we can take them all.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear,’ John replied.

  ‘Forget the bloody fight, okay?’ Crossley stared at him, then Yarcha. ‘This is our chance to get out of here. We distribute the weapons while Peronicus-Rax and the guards are distracted, then we blast our way out of here, okay?’

  ‘But… the pins,’ John said, turning over the bulky brown pistol Crossley had handed him.

  Crossley’s eyebrows rose as he said, ‘I’ve taken care of it.’ He nodded at the fight. ‘If Falen survives we can thank her, but we need to get these distributed now.’

  John nodded and felt a tap on the shoulder. A Sorean looked up at him and gestured at the brown weapon, but John pocketed it and handed the Sorean a short, serrated sword. Another Sorean followed, who took a lethal-looking sword. Again and again, the diminutive furred warriors appeared to deplete Peronicus-Rax’s stash.

  Yarcha was helping to hand the guns and blades out but hadn’t chosen a weapon for herself.

  ‘What are you going to use?’ John asked her.

  ‘There’s nothing like my Urumi here,’ she said with a shrug and handed a rifle to a Sorean.

  ‘But you must fight,’ John said, feeling concerned, ‘or at least have something to defend yourself with.’

  ‘I…’ Yarcha started and looked away. ‘I’ve never fought in a battle before.’

  ‘What?’ John said a little too loudly. ‘How’s that even possible? You… who did you kill to get here?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Everyone brought here has killed hundreds of warriors in battle,’ John explained.

  ‘My father was at war. He was a great general,’ Yarcha had pride in her voice, ‘and he sent many trophies back home as he expanded his kingdom: treasure; weapons; elephants; and captured soldiers.’

  ‘And the soldiers taught you to fight?’ Olan asked.

  ‘Some,’ she said with a tilt of her head, ‘but mostly I defeated them in one-to-one combat.’ Yarcha sighed, seemingly weighed down by her memories.

  ‘Tha
t’s incredible,’ John replied, genuinely amazed. He’d killed his enemy from a distance, with his Lewis gun, and didn’t have the stomach for any close, bloody fighting. ‘You deserve to be here,’ he said. ‘What you’ve learned can easily be put to use in battle.’

  Yarcha gave a solid nod and said, ‘Their deaths taught me many things… how to defend, how to control one’s anger and how to never underestimate even the smallest enemy. Especially the daughter of their enemy’s king.’

  ‘You’re a princess?’

  ‘Not out of choice,’ Yarcha snapped, grabbing a long sword by the handle and testing its weight.

  ‘Yes, but–’

  ‘Okay, that’s everything gone.’ Crossley cut John off and checked his rifle. ‘Let’s watch the fight.’

  ‘Right,’ John replied, and he followed Yarcha back to the crowd.

  John eyed up the nearest Bensha guard and kept his distance as he slipped into the crowd, but everyone was focussed on the fight. The first thing John noticed as his own gaze turned to the battle was one of Falen’s arms on the ground. And she looked exhausted, while Peronicus-Rax looked as strong as ever.

  ‘Finish her!’ one of the guards yelled.

  ‘And then back to work!’ shouted another.

  Peronicus-Rax wore a look of determination. John couldn’t tell whether he was enjoying it or not but, from what he said earlier, this was vengeance for his entire species.

  ‘Do you think it was chance we met on the battlefield?’ Falen asked, clearly trying to enrage Peronicus-Rax and make him charge her.

  ‘We had fourteen days,’ Peronicus-Rax replied. ‘And so did you. Our meeting was pure chance – unless you had already won a battle and waited for us?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Falen replied.

  John could see the Korax in their blue bubble, antennae wafting and flicking as they talked in private. One of the guards had spotted them and pushed through to the front.

  ‘Cease!’ he shouted and kicked the Korax apart, bursting the bubble. ‘Get on with it,’ he shouted at Peronicus-Rax.

  Peronicus-Rax breathed in deeply and said, ‘In my own time, unless you wish to be next?’