by Morgan Rice
“It is not about being fast,” Purest Lux said. “Find other ways. The AIs are their strength, but what is their weakness?”
“Emotions,” Kevin said. “The computers… they want to keep their pilots alive, right?”
“Exactly,” Purest Lux said.
The Hive showed him the foolishness of that. There were weaker creatures and stronger ones. The pilots of their craft were not of the Purest. They could be sacrificed. What other advantages did the Hive have? They were not singular. They could work as a whole.
Kevin reached out to the Hive’s ships, spreading them out into a net to contain the faster ships of the enemy. He turned them in toward the center and started them forward, firing as they went.
They hit their own ships. Again and again, Kevin found the connection to ships cut. Again and again, he jumped to new ones, charging forward. Some of the silvery ships of the defenders charged back at him, but he didn’t pull up, didn’t stop. The computers there might have been able to pull out of the maneuver at the last possible millisecond, but what could they do against an enemy who truly wouldn’t pull back, because the Hive’s will meant everything?
As the defending fighters started to disperse or fall, Kevin turned his attention to the surface. The city ships were there, striking down with cascades of energy, viruses, and poisons that filled the air, yet great bursts of power came up from the surface too, and only the slowness with which they came stopped more of the city ships from being destroyed.
Some still were, and although nothing in the Hive could feel the pain of loss, Kevin knew that a city ship contained more creatures, and was harder to replace than any smaller ship. He saw the energy beams from the surface lance into them and through, leaving holes that could only be sealed by closing bulkheads and hoping to repair vital systems in time. He saw one of the great ships tear in half like a broken plate, another drop to the side and start to burn up as it hit the atmosphere at the wrong angle.
“We can’t lose so many,” Kevin said.
“We lose as many as we must,” Purest Lux replied. “The destruction of this enemy is all that matters.”
Even so, Kevin knew that he had to at least try to save the city ships. He took another of the Hive’s fast hunter ships, flying it and a squadron of others down beneath the shell of the atmosphere, seeing the red sparks fly up as they pushed in at a steep angle. He knew where the last of the blasts had come from, and he flew for it, twisting and angling the fighter craft as smaller weapons shot his way. One ship went down, and he switched to another, then another.
The great gun came into view, looking more like one of the radio telescopes that SETI might have used than like a weapon. Even so, Kevin could see the power thrumming on its surface, could feel the shields around it, meant to protect it. His brain found the codes to bring them down in an instant, translating automatically.
He slammed the ship he was controlling into the cannon’s side, the explosion ripping through it and spreading as the energy it had been building up rippled out, uncaged. He took a moment to look down on the beauty of it, spreading out like waves on a pond, but it was only a moment. He was already moving on to the next weapon, and the next.
How many ships did they lose in the attack? Kevin didn’t even try to keep track of it, but he was sure that the Hive would have a record of it somewhere and he was just as sure that the number would stagger anyone who didn’t understand the way the Hive worked. Losing so many to conquer a world like this didn’t matter. All that mattered was that the enemy was defeated.
Except… in spite of all of it, the enemy weren’t being defeated.
“So many of their defenses are down,” Kevin said, pulling out of the connection to look at Purest Lux, “but they refuse to give up. They should submit to the inevitable. Their computers—”
“Their computers are as individual as they are,” Purest Lux said. “They think in terms of a single, perfect partnership of creature and machine, creature and beloved others. They cannot understand what it is to be nothing, even when they are.”
Kevin was about to say that he couldn’t understand that, but he found himself thinking of Luna, and of Chloe. They were images from a past before the Hive that shouldn’t have mattered, because any life without the Hive was incomplete, but he still thought of them. Luna was the kind of person who would fight even though the odds seemed hopeless. Chloe was so filled with emotion that it would fuel her through any battle.
“They will keep fighting,” Kevin said, sounding surprised even to himself. “They will keep fighting right down to the last of them.” He thought of the Hive, and how it worked. “It will make it difficult to strip this world of its resources before it is destroyed.”
“With these enemies, it does not matter,” Purest Lux said. “They came as close to destroying us as anyone has. They found the secret. Eliminating that is more important even than acquiring more resources for the Hive.”
That was a huge statement, given that the world ships existed purely to gather resources for the Hive’s home world. Even so, Kevin had seen the danger that might be posed by the ideas the Ilarians had dreamed up, and particularly by the substance that they could not find: miridium.
“The destruction will take time,” Kevin said. “I am doing all I can, Purest Lux, but the battle is still difficult.”
Every enemy ship was dangerous, every soldier seemed to have weapons that could harm them. Kevin might have found ways to force them to fight on the Hive’s terms, but how many more surprises would their foes have for them?
“The battle does not matter, Kevin,” Purest Lux said.
Kevin frowned at that. “It doesn’t matter?”
“It is serving its purpose by keeping the enemy away from the world ship and letting us stay in position while power builds up.” Purest Lux moved away from the seat. “Come with me, Kevin. See for yourself.”
Purest Lux led the way to a viewing balcony on the side of the spire. There, the alien looked up, toward the glowing heart of the world ship. Kevin wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be looking at.
“Look closer, Kevin,” Purest Lux said. “Doesn’t it look… different, to you?”
Kevin tried to think what it had looked like when he first arrived, but even then, it took him a moment to understand. When he and Chloe had first arrived on the world ship, its heart had glowed like a miniature sun, radiating its energy in every direction in a golden glow. Now, the glow seemed tighter, but also brighter, white hot and focused, pulling inward as if preparing for something. Kevin started as energy crackled from the tips of the golden spires, feeding into the heart like lightning somehow forking upward.
“Soon the energy will have built up enough,” Purest Lux said. “And then it will be ready to unleash.”
“Unleash how?” Kevin asked.
Purest Lux gestured, and Kevin looked over to the spot he indicated. There, Kevin saw a whole section of the world ship start to curl back on itself, opening like the iris on a camera. There must have been some kind of shield or something there to hold air inside the hollow core of the ship, because a hole the size of… well, so big that Kevin couldn’t think of anything it might be the size of, started to open up into space.
Through it, like looking out through a single giant eye, Kevin could see the world below.
“It’s a weapon,” Kevin said. “The whole ship is a weapon.”
“It is,” Purest Lux said. “And soon, it will be ready to fire.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Luna stared at the advancing horde of controlled in horror. She hadn’t seen this many in one place before, even when they’d been at the NASA institute, even when they’d been on the docks trying to get to LA. There were so many there now that it seemed like a sea of them, all moving in concert, sweeping toward the canyon where the Survivors made their home.
Luna saw the others there just staring at them as they came forward, and that was enough to snap her out of her own horror.
“Do
n’t just stand there,” she shouted. “We have to fight them!”
The shout was enough to remind the Survivors of what they were meant to be doing. The ones with guns opened fire, the crack of them deafening against the silence with which the controlled advanced. The ones with tools and knives, improvised swords and other close range weapons moved to block the entrance to the Survivors’ camp.
Some of the controlled went down, brought down by the gunfire. The ones hit anywhere that wasn’t vital kept going, but the ones hit in the head or shot through the heart toppled over, just as anyone else would have. Luna winced with each one who fell, knowing that it was a person, and that it could just as easily have been her.
That it might still be her, soon enough.
“Try to use the weapons we’ve been making!” she called out, even though she knew that against so many of the controlled, they would have to use every weapon they could find just to survive.
Even so, she saw some of the Survivors do it, picking up dart guns and nets, doing their best to incapacitate the controlled without killing the people who were still in there somewhere, buried deep. Luna picked up a dart gun too, along with a stock of the sedative darts that had brought down Trey the first time. She fired down into the mass of controlled and reloaded, fired and reloaded. Beside her, Bobby snarled, as if he might be able to scare them off from her. Ignatius passed her darts as she fired.
“There are too many of them to stay here,” Leon said, and he sounded angry about it. Luna could guess why.
“We didn’t know that coming here would lead the aliens to you,” she said.
“The moment your bus driver turned, they knew,” Leon said. He shook his head. “That doesn’t matter now. We have to evacuate the people who are too weak to fight, but to do that...”
“We’ll hold them,” Luna promised, knowing what Leon was scared of: that the moment he wasn’t here, the entranceway would fall. Luna fired down again, bringing down another of the controlled. There were more. She suspected that there would always be more.
She ran down to the entranceway below as the controlled surged against it. She couldn’t help to push them back, because she didn’t have enough size or weight for that, but she could help to build up the barricade there, grabbing anything that looked heavy enough to slow someone down and dragging it into place. It wasn’t as easy as when she’d been controlled, and it hurt now, but Luna ignored the pain.
At the barricades she helped build, the Dustsides bikers and the Survivors fought, striking at the controlled with their improvised weapons, pushing them back and cutting them down even as they continued to push forward. Some shot at them with the dart guns, and so did Luna in the spaces between dragging in more materials to block the way.
One of the controlled broke through, running at her and grabbing her, faster than Luna could react. It breathed out a wash of vapor that enveloped her, seeming to fill the world, and for a moment, Luna felt herself remembering what it had been like the first time with the vapor running through her blood, taking her over. She remembered what it had been like to lose herself the first time, and fear flooded through her. Would it happen again now? Would she be nothing but one of the controlled again?
Bobby slammed into the side of the thing, knocking it away from Luna, and she lifted the dart gun, shooting it.
“Good boy,” Luna said, ruffling Bobby’s fur.
On the barriers, the other controlled were breathing out their vapor, trying to change the people fighting there. The bikers and the Survivors kept fighting though, unchanged. The bikers had already been infected and cured. The Survivors had Ignatius’s vaccine running in their systems. It meant that they could keep going, keep fighting, keep bringing down the controlled who came at them.
The controlled seemed to realize that something was wrong, or if they didn’t, the aliens controlling them did. They paused, as if thinking, or perhaps receiving new orders, and then they surged forward again, striking with renewed violence. They weren’t trying to grab people and change them now; instead, they were striking out with hands and feet, trying to hurt; trying to kill.
Luna saw one of the bikers dragged down. She saw Cub lashing out left and right with a sharpened length of metal, forcing back the controlled. She saw Leon further back, guiding a line of small children who had no hope of being able to hold back the controlled, trying to get them out of the caves. Another of the controlled ran at Luna and Bobby snarled, biting at one who had been an old woman before the aliens changed her. Now she rushed forward with the deadly silence that all of them did. Luna shot her with the dart gun, watching her fall, then went to reload.
“I need more darts!” Luna called out, looking around for Ignatius.
She saw him further away, running as if his life depended on it. Luna could understand the fear, but she needed him, they all did, and anger rose in her at the thought that he was trying to abandon them.
“Bobby,” she shouted, pointing. “Fetch!”
Maybe it was the fact that he was a sheepdog, or maybe he was as annoyed as she was that Ignatius was running away, but he raced off after Ignatius at the same time Luna did, pulling ahead of her and bowling the chemist over in a way that looked as much about exuberance as a meaningful attempt to stop him. Bobby sat in front of him, tongue lolling, just watching him while Luna caught up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Luna demanded as Ignatius stood, and it felt weird, talking to an adult like that, but right then she didn’t care.
“We have to get out of here,” Ignatius said. “They’re starting to break through.”
“We all need to get out of here,” Luna said, “which means that we need to hold them back. We need your vapor guns, Ignatius.”
“But—”
“You were willing to wade into a crowd of us to save me and the others,” Luna said. “There’s obviously a part of you that wants to do the right thing, so do it. Help us. Help buy time to get the little kids out of here.”
Ignatius looked around, and for a moment, Luna thought that he might run again, but Luna could see that he was looking around to where Leon was still shepherding kids out of there.
“All right,” Ignatius said. “All right, I’ll help.”
“Where are the vapor guns?” Luna asked.
“Still in the space we were using for a workshop,” Ignatius replied. “I was using the original to help with replicas.”
“Then we need to get there,” Luna insisted. She looked back to see controlled bursting through the barricades. “Now, Ignatius!”
They ran for the caves, dodging past people without slowing down. One of the controlled came at Luna, and she ducked under his grab, continuing to run. They made it into the cave, not stopping as they ran for the space where Ignatius and Barnaby had been working. Bobby loped along at Luna’s side, and she felt a lot safer with the dog’s presence than she might have otherwise.
When they reached the workshop area, Barnaby was there, looking distraught as he tried to throw pieces of equipment into a bag.
“I don’t know what to take,” he said. “If we’re going to find a real way to stop this, we’ll need equipment, but I can’t carry everything.”
“Leave it,” Luna said. “The materials lab will have plenty of equipment. Right now, the priority is helping people.”
It said a lot about Barnaby that he didn’t hesitate the way Ignatius had. “You’re right. I’ll help Leon get the others to safety.”
Luna looked around, spotting one of the containers that they were using for Ignatius’s vapor. “Wait. I have an idea. Do you have anything that we can get the vapor into? Jars, or balloons, or anything?”
“I’ll find something,” Barnaby promised.
Ignatius looked over at her. “You’re planning to water bomb the controlled?”
“Won’t it work?” Luna asked. She was worried that she might have misjudged how the vapor worked.
“I… guess it might,” Ignatius said. “And then more t
han just a couple of people could use it. Yes, it has to be worth a try.”
“You focus on getting the vapor guns,” Luna said. “I’ll help get jars and things.”
She gathered what she could, all too aware that just outside, there were people fighting for their lives. Taking one of Ignatius’s canisters of the vaccine, she started to siphon the vapor from it into jar after jar. Barnaby came back with his own jars, and with the balloons that Luna had suggested, filling them and putting them in the bag that he had been using for equipment.
“Right,” Ignatius said, standing. He was carrying his vapor gun again, looking as though he was strapped into a combination of scuba gear and weed sprayer. Another one sat nearby, and Luna struggled her way into it. It was heavy for her, so that she had to concentrate on keeping her balance.
She strode out toward the entrance with the others in tow, and waded out into what looked like a full-scale battle. Luna saw a knot of the controlled descending on a group of the younger kids, and she made her way forward, hoping that the vapor gun would work just as well on them as it had on her and the others.
She sprayed them with the vapor, and they stopped, turning to her as if they might attack… then they collapsed, blinking as the vapor started to take effect. Luna passed makeshift water bombs to the kids.
“Here,” she said. “Do you think you can throw these?”
They nodded, laughing and whooping as they flung them. The weapons burst as they hit, spraying liquid and vapor over the controlled and the Survivors alike. Luna saw the controlled pause, and then fall, twitching as the vaccine started to work. A few of the first ones she’d hit with the vapor were already groaning, starting to struggle back to their feet.
“There’s no time to explain what’s going on,” she said. “Grab water bombs and hit some of the others.”
Luna waded forward, still spraying the vapor. Bobby was with her, jumping up at any of the controlled who got too close, knocking them back long enough for the vapor to take effect. Around her, more and more people fell to the ground and slowly started to get up as themselves once more. She forced her way toward the canyon entrance, step by step.