Survival Machines

by Ste Sharp

  ‘Not those bastards,’ Olan said.

  ‘They only did what we would have done,’ Gal-qadan replied.

  ‘You, maybe,’ Olan replied, ‘but I don’t turn on my allies.’

  ‘Even for your own family?’ Cheng asked.

  Olan looked away. ‘That’s not a decision I’m likely to make here.’

  ‘All they have here is family,’ Isao said, still floating above the soldiers in an orange haze, with the young Lutamek.

  ‘Is that what your new friends told you?’ Cheng asked with a long glare.

  ‘Yes,’ Isao replied calmly, ‘but they recently changed their priorities.’

  ‘How so?’ Sancha asked.

  ‘I changed their thought patterns,’ Isao said.

  Euryleia looked at the young Lutamek, then at Lavalle. She turned her tocka towards him. ‘I will always choose family,’ she said, then shouted to her men, ‘Follow me or fight: you choose.’

  She took off without looking back. The silent hooves of her tocka threw up clouds of dust as she cut the corner of the plaza. She caught a glimpse of movement in her peripheral vision and instinctively armed and aimed both bows. A group of shelled creatures were rolling towards her like a landslide. Whoever they were, they were enemy. She wheeled the tocka round to face them and fired: an explosive arrow at the centre; two of Bowman’s wild arrows into the sky; three metal dart tips at the front-runners. Each hit its mark. In twenty fast seconds, Euryleia had slowed their advance and was wheeling around for another attack when a bolt of white light ripped from the sky, tearing a scar in the ground. Euryleia’s group had joined her, with Isao and the Lutamek floating overhead.

  ‘Cross this line and you shall die,’ Isao bellowed, catching the attention of two of the larger soldiers fighting in the distance.

  One shelled creature scrambled to the scar in the dirt and Euryleia fired an arrow into its shell. Seemingly uninjured, it paused before leaping forward, then exploded in the air, sending shattered shell and gizzards across the ground. Euryleia didn’t have time for this, so turned her tocka and continued towards Lavalle and the Lutamek, her platoon following her. Even Isao had followed her, suggesting his line in the sand would hold.

  ‘We need to regroup!’ Euryleia shouted as she approached the long line of huge robots defending the compound.

  ‘Agreed,’ a Lutamek in the guard wall replied.

  ‘But if you betray us again, I will personally tear you apart and burn your organs.’

  ‘Strong words for a human,’ Ten-ten said, walking through the defensive line.

  A blue light flashed.

  ‘You have no right to scan me!’ she shouted as Lavalle rode over to her.

  ‘Your biochemistry has changed,’ Ten-ten said, ‘along with your morphology.’

  ‘Let them in,’ Lavalle said, rushing forward. ‘We need everyone behind the Lutamek.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ten-ten said as Isao floated to the ground, flanked by the two young Lutamek. ‘We need to look after our offspring.’ The Lutamek turned to Lavalle. ‘As do you.’

  ‘What?’ Lavalle said, confused. His head snapped to Euryleia. ‘You’re…?’

  Euryleia sat up straight and glared back. She hadn’t wanted to do this in public, but she could use it to their advantage.

  ‘It gives us more reason to survive this battle,’ she said, resisting the urge to place a protective palm on her belly. ‘Now tell me what you’ve got planned – are we going to attack the leaders or wait here for them to attack us?’

  ‘Neither,’ Ten-ten replied, gesturing to the battle.

  Euryleia turned to see the smoke and more explosions as the battle raged on. The Tathon soldiers had moved ahead, sweeping away all Ascent and Firstborn resistance and absorbing attacks from Dakaniha’s platoon on the other flank. As they cleared a path, the three giant Tathon leaders glided through unmolested.

  ‘They’re heading for the tower,’ Olan said.

  ‘And they’ve stopped selecting soldiers,’ Sancha added.

  ‘The tower is the centre of the disc,’ Ten-ten said. ‘It’s the natural destination for all victors.’

  ‘And they will try to unlock it,’ Isao said as a tremor shook the ground.

  Euryleia’s tocka sidestepped to keep its balance, taking her closer to Lavalle, who glanced at her. She looked away, not wanting to talk about the baby, concentrating on Ten-ten’s conversation with Isao instead.

  ‘There are changes in the alternate-matter reservoir,’ Ten-ten said. ‘What do you sense?’

  ‘The Tathon are drawing energy from it,’ Isao replied. ‘It will restabilise if given time but, if it doesn’t, the tidal strength will increase.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Euryleia asked.

  ‘We need to stop them if we are to survive on this world,’ a Lutamek answered.

  ‘Then we must pool our resources and attack!’ Lavalle said.

  ‘Interesting,’ Ten-ten said. ‘When you entered our compound, you were all sprayed with an agent to counteract the Tathon’s pheromone attack, yet you still wish to fight despite the odds.’

  ‘What pheromones?’ Cheng asked.

  ‘The Tathon sent a cocktail of chemical triggers ahead of their attack, designed to disturb the army’s thought processes and encourage them to fight.’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight,’ Euryleia said. ‘We can still trust our instincts.’

  A series of deep thuds made the group turn to where the three Tathon leaders had breached the final Ascent barrier. A hairy alien was wrapped in one of the Tathon’s long tentacles, while another had absorbed a stick-like creature into its jelly-like body.

  ‘They have the Ascent leaders. Time is short,’ Ten-ten said. ‘We must decide whether to fight or escape.’

  ‘How can we escape?’ Euryleia asked.

  ‘We have ships–’ Ten-ten started.

  ‘I don’t think we have a choice,’ Gal-qadan said, pointing to Isao’s line in the ground, where two large creatures now joined the waiting shelled army.

  ‘General Panzicosta,’ Euryleia said, recognising the Brakari despite his colour change.

  She thought of John and the pain this creature had caused him, and reached for her bow.

  ‘And he’s dragged up something from the ocean,’ Sancha added.

  Euryleia looked up at Isao and to the Lutamek guards, but they did nothing as the two large beasts strode across Isao’s line, bringing the small, shelled Tathon with them.

  *

  John came to, lying on the chalky floor of the mine, covered in dust and fist-sized lumps of rock. He sat up, sending debris rolling off him. He was alone, his ears were ringing and he was covered in lumps of some sticky substance. He probed the goo with his robotic forefinger and an odd sensation ran down his back. John chewed the saliva in his mouth – he could taste blood. That’s what it was – iron-rich alien blood. Not his own.

  John took a deep breath and pushed up onto his feet. A pile of stones nearby moved and he saw Crossley’s bloodied hand.

  ‘Crossley!’ John tried to speak but heard nothing as he stumbled forward to help his friend out. ‘What happened?’ he asked when their eyes met, his ears still ringing.

  Touching a cut on his forehead, Crossley mouthed something: more hour fool than I ought?

  ‘What?’

  Movement made John turn but there was nothing there. Just his jumpy nerves. He could hear strange scratching, tapping sounds now.

  John had to concentrate on Crossley’s lips, but he could just about make him out now. ‘I said, more powerful than I thought.’

  Alien blood was spread across the rock walls and there was no sign of the Firstborn guards.

  The penny dropped.

  ‘You didn’t?’ John asked.

  His hearing was coming back as a rumble shook more stones from the roof and walls.

  Crossley looked sheepish. ‘I thought I’d trigger the explosives remotely,’ he said with a smile. ‘Had to prime them firs
t, obviously.’

  ‘Obviously,’ John replied as flakes of stone crumbled off the wall beside them. ‘We have to get out of here,’ he said. ‘Get the weapons and explosives and defend the tower.’

  He could hear more rocks falling behind them. Looking for a way out as he helped Crossley up, he squinted at a series of holes in the lava wall, bodies lying in the rubble.

  ‘Oh my…’ John said and grabbed Crossley, turning him around.

  ‘How the fu–’

  ‘Just like the tocka,’ John said. ‘The blood must have brought them back.’

  ‘Water,’ one of the shapes croaked and John rushed forward.

  Samas looked up at him, covered in dust.

  *

  Isao floated higher to get a better view of the ever-expanding gathering of soldiers seeking shelter in the Lutamek compound. They came from various warring sides, all avoiding the Tathon onslaught. Dakaniha had brought his cavalry to safety as well as Millok, with her Scion of Brakari, who told stories of how the Tathon had broken free of the dome and consumed everything in their path. Beside them, Firstborn and Ascent stood side by side for the first time in an age. All leaderless and facing a singular threat.

  Isao had always been able to detach his thoughts from his emotions but, since his immersion in the shadow matter beneath the tower, he had felt less emotional. Since healing the young Lutamek, he’d made changes to the robots with a cold eye, knowing it was for everyone’s benefit, making them less isolationist. He had tried the same trick on the Tathon leaders, but their subterranean fungal links to the shadow matter created a form of barrier he couldn’t break.

  Isao focussed on the turmoil tearing through the Ascent city and on the waves he felt rushing through the deep shadow matter, creating tremors across the disc. He focussed on the three Tathon leaders and phased between worlds, observing the true nature of their bodies. Their main oversized jellyfish–octopus bodies projected masses of translucent hyphae in every direction, wafting in the air, releasing potent chemicals, grabbing soldiers and delving deep into the ground, where they stirred the shadow matter. Some strings broke away to delve independently. Many fizzled out but some returned to their host body. This was how they’d undermined the dome shell before shattering it.

  Isao felt a sense of weakness wash over him as the shadow matter that powered him ebbed away. The Tathon leaders were pooling and diverting around the tower. One had fixed itself to the base of the tower and pulsed a rainbow of flowing colours. The other two took a flank and absorbed attacks from the factions on the other side of the tower. When one Tathon reached the Platae flatworms, it absorbed them in a thick protrusion, then spat them out renewed and recharged. Now the Platae hurled themselves at the tower with greater fury than before, tarnishing the tower surface with acid.

  A tickling sensation ran through Isao as Panzicosta and his small army crossed the mark in the ground.

  ‘Now it’s our turn to draw the line,’ Panzicosta growled, flicking his shelled head at an equally large and vicious-looking creature beside him.

  ‘Cirratus, form wall,’ the serpentine beast hissed and the shelled octopi that had attacked Euryleia rolled and hopped to create a curved line between the Lutamek front line and the tower. Behind, myriad soldiers who’d been turned by the Tathon lined up in defensive positions. They were defending the Tathon leaders.

  ‘Defend all you like, but you’ve missed some of our army!’ Lavalle shouted at Panzicosta with a hearty laugh.

  Panzicosta and his companion twisted sharply, searching for enemy soldiers, their gazes locking on a distant shape.

  ‘Is that a Lutamek?’ Olan asked.

  ‘Negative,’ Ten-ten replied.

  ‘But it looks like one,’ Sancha said.

  ‘They call him Troy,’ Millok said as the huge armour-plated humanoid jogged into the Ascent city, towards the Tathon army’s rear, leaving a trail of grey smoke in its wake. Nearby, Isao saw a flash of movement and recognised Althorn.

  ‘I didn’t mean that one,’ Lavalle’s deep voice cut through the chatter, ‘I meant him.’

  Isao followed the knight’s armoured finger to where the gnarled and giant tree shape of Mata leaped from an Ascent building, onto the back of one of the Tathon leaders.

  Isao moved forward and, through his shadow eyes, studied the Brakari and his large ally and saw energy blockages much like those he’d fixed in the Lutamek, only these were blue and had a vibrating frequency linking them to the Tathon.

  ‘I can help you both,’ Isao said, hovering above Panzicosta.

  ‘Are you telling me I don’t have to fight, human?’ Panzicosta spoke sharply and clacked his shell.

  Isao felt another wave surge through the shadow matter beneath the ground. Time was short.

  ‘No,’ Isao said. ‘I’m offering you the same thing I offered the young Lutamek.’

  ‘We won’t accept your peace,’ Panzicosta said, rising up on his back legs. ‘I’ve promised Praahs the sweet taste of human flesh, and I never break my promises.’

  ‘I do offer you peace,’ Isao replied, dodging a barbed dart fired in his direction. ‘Peace of mind and freedom from your constraints.’

  Isao switched more of his body to the shadow world and reached out with delicate tendrils into both creatures, to untie the blue knots, but a jolt of energy flashed through them, sending Isao reeling back.

  What do you want with our subjects? a hollow voice echoed around Isao’s mind.

  They deserve freedom, Isao replied, turning to the three Tathon leaders, whose hive mind talked to him.

  They are ours. We made them.

  Isao reached out to the Tathon this time, stretching across the remaining section of the destroyed city to the tower base, where they pulsed and writhed. He sought patches of energy he could divert, something he could manipulate to stop these single-minded creatures from destroying their world.

  Destruction is inevitable, came the voice again, reading Isao’s thoughts. We are untouchable and death inescapable.

  All true, Isao replied. So why not release those who have served you well?

  While he waited for a response, Isao hoped his plan would work. Surely these two would turn on their former masters if released?

  So be it, came the reply. Our work is nearly done.We have no use for them. But they will always be in our debt.

  Isao closed the communication down and returned fully to the normal world. The whole conversation had taken less than a second.

  ‘You are released,’ the samurai said and watched as the blue patches within the large warriors stopped pulsing and faded away.

  ‘What is this trickery?’ Praahs said, looking at Panzicosta.

  ‘Not to be trusted,’ Panzicosta replied, keeping various eyes fixed on Isao. ‘There is always a price, is there not?’

  ‘You are no longer needed,’ Isao said. ‘But you now owe the Tathon a debt.’

  ‘What?’ the red Brakari roared. ‘We owe a freedom debt to those who enslaved us?’

  ‘Of course,’ Isao replied, sensing a boost to Panzicosta’s emotions – he had been freed. Just one push and he would turn on the Tathon. ‘But you will never owe a debt to the dead.’

  ‘Yes, we should kill them,’ Praahs said, turning to the tower and the three large Tathon.

  ‘Clear the debt now?’ Panzicosta replied. ‘No, we wait until they are weak…’

  Isao left them to it and returned to the Lutamek compound.

  ‘They will not fight us,’ Isao told the waiting army.

  ‘Well done,’ Euryleia replied.

  Isao watched a Lutamek in the distance he hadn’t seen before. ‘Who is that?’ he asked the two young Lutamek.

  ‘It is Alpha,’ Ten-ten replied for them.

  Isao felt a flood of annoyance wash over the young Lutamek and sent a wave of energy to soothe them.

  ‘Alpha requires assistance,’ Isao said and floated towards the strange Lutamek, whose energy signals mimicked a mishmash of the other rob
ots’. It was weaker, with a full set of inhibitors distributed across its conduits. ‘What has been done to it?’

  ‘It’s our ancestor,’ a white Lutamek with blue stripes said.

  ‘He won’t understand, Nine-four,’ Ten-ten said.

  ‘I can fix it,’ Isao said.

  ‘Alpha was organic. It will take time to adapt to its transformation.’

  Isao saw a flash of yellow within Alpha and recognised it. ‘Alpha was the Velluta?’ he asked, remembering the creature that had been in the cell next to him after Ten-ten had captured him. ‘You didn’t sacrifice it?’

  ‘We honour the Velluta with our bodies,’ Ten-ten replied. ‘We gave it immortality and strength.’

  ‘Or an eternal life of torture,’ Isao said and floated over to push a wave of energy through Alpha to wash away its pain.

  ‘Don’t disrupt the programming!’ Nine-four shouted and fired its arm-laser at Isao.

  The pulse passed through Isao and he tilted his head to study Nine-four, then sent a wave of shadow matter back to cleanse its priority matrix. At the same time, another tremor shook the world.

  Isao concentrated on the swirling mass beneath the bedrock. The shadow-energy container had been breached and was leaking. It was too late. The Tathon had won.

  *

  John scrambled up a bank of fallen rocks lit a ghostly blue by a bubble Yam-mit had formed with his antennae.

  ‘Are you sure they went this way?’ John asked, picturing Das and Pod scrambling down the tunnel.

  ‘I can smell them,’ Yam-mit replied, holding an insectoid claw out for John to grip.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘We should have brought more explosives,’ Crossley said, looking down the narrow tunnel.

  ‘Let’s concentrate on water,’ Samas replied as he climbed over the rise. ‘My head is aching.’

  ‘And mine,’ Rar-kin said. ‘But the chances of finding a natural aquifer are–’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Samas replied.

  ‘If Das and Pod went this way there must be a way out,’ John said. ‘So let’s keep moving.’