Of Fire and Night (17 page)

40

GENERAL KURT LANYAN

W
ith each passing second, the stolen battle group got farther away.

General Lanyan leaned forward on the uncomfortable bench of the troop transport racing after the Grid 0 ships. “You sure this is our best speed, Mr. Carrera? We’ve got a tough job ahead of us.” Though the kleebs had completed plenty of simulations, he feared they weren’t ready for blood-in-the-face combat. Today, they damned well needed to be.

“Doing my best, sir.” Sweat glistened on his forehead. “But if we pull too far ahead of the others, our ship will be a vulnerable target. The Soldier compies could decide to do a little practice shooting with their jazers.”

Lanyan grumbled. “So noted. Keep everyone together, but keep hauling ass.” They’d been under heavy acceleration for an hour, and already it seemed like forever. His pulse pounded, his mind intense as he turned his full attention to the hunt.

While Ensign Carrera concentrated on flying, Lanyan activated the short-range comm and transmitted to all ships in his makeshift cavalry. “Somebody give me a full inventory. Ships and weapons. We need to make our first punch a knockout blow.” He could sense their uneasiness. “Come on, you’ve drilled this often enough! Power all jazer banks to full strength, even on approach. Make sure our shaped charges, fraks, and slammers are ready to go.”

“Is it going to be enough, General?” said the nearest kleeb, an innocent-faced redhead with a rash of freckles on his cheeks.

“Of course it is.”

Requests for immediate reinforcements had already been sent to the bases on the Moon and Mars, but the General did not intend to sit on the sidelines in the meantime and give the compies time to dig in.

“Targets detected ahead, sir,” Carrera said. “Intercept in five minutes.”

A glimmer of tiny dots looked as if someone had thrown quartz sand into a bright light. The stolen Juggernaut, Mantas, and Thunderheads were on their way out of the solar system toward whatever rendezvous the insidious compies had planned. As Lanyan’s rescue squad closed the gap, the twinkling spots resolved into angular silhouettes.

“How come I can see thrusters? God damn, are they turning about?”

“They’re slowing and pivoting, General. I think they see us coming.” Carrera ran another sensor scan. “Their weapons are preparing to fire! Railgun launchers and jazers pointed right at us.”

“Don’t give them an easy target.” Precision-controlled Soldier compies would be expert marksmen, regardless of how the response group distributed itself. Sensing the tension surge in the troop transport, Lanyan said, “Remember your training! This is exactly what you’ve been prepared to do.”

“Sir, we’ve only got small ships. None of us can withstand a direct hit.”

“Have a little faith, Mr. Carrera. Just get us closer. I need another second.”

The clusters of ships careened toward each other. Lanyan’s recruits were ready for a free-for-all. “Shall we open fire, sir? We’re in range.”

“Not yet.
This
is my opening salvo.” He manually switched to an elite communications band that was wired into the bridges of all EDF battleships and pushed the transmit button. “Confirm voiceprint: General Kurt Lanyan. Identification 88RI Alpha.”

His pursuit ships continued to close the gap. The hijacked vessels loomed closer and closer, weapons ports open and primed. The robot-controlled
Goliath
looked huge. Lanyan sat back and smiled.

Lifting his finger from the transmit button, he waited a moment until he received automatic confirmation. Then he said, “Engage guillotine protocol.”

The pilot barely squeaked out his words. “That’s . . . it?”

Suddenly the running lights on the compy-controlled ships dimmed and went out. The Grid 0 vessels froze in space. Their engines shut down, cutting all thrust. They drifted with only the momentum they retained.

“We’ve just pulled the plug on their little escape operation.” The General was amused at his stunned-silent crew. “They’re dead in space.”

Sensor technicians aboard the cavalry ships scrambled to take readings. A milky-skinned young woman looked at Lanyan from her cockpit station. “Confirmed. Their energy readings are fading to ambient, sir. Weapons systems are inactive.”

Lanyan threaded his thick fingers together and locked them behind his head. “Even if those Soldier compies killed our crews and took over our ships, the control computers belong to
me
.” The guillotine protocol had been specifically designed to stall a mutiny, to prevent anyone from stealing a ship.

The cavalry fleet glided closer to the Juggernaut, the most important target. “Now it’s time to take everything back. I want my ships!” He cracked his knuckles. “But be prepared—it might get a little messy. Every soldier will carry a sidearm. Distribute the heavy weaponry as far as it’ll go. Don’t expect these clankers to give up without a fight.”

Lanyan issued orders for his recruits to suit up in special body armor. Similar teams were getting ready aboard all the hastily called vessels. A few pilots and trainees would remain aboard the gunships as a backup measure, but most of the recruits were in for a long and sweaty day of hard combat.

In the troop transport’s cold rear compartment, the General suited up, attaching powerpacks to his alloy-reinforced garb. Finished, he stood before the breathless kleebs, and his speech was piped to all the waiting armored trainees. “Those compies took over our ships and slaughtered unarmed crews.” He smiled inside his helmet, clicked his faceplate into place, and activated the suit microphone. “Now let’s go start stomping some robot asses!”

It would have been a lot easier just to destroy the crippled ships so the compies couldn’t fly off. But Lanyan wasn’t about to give up all those armored vessels without a fight. He had an uneasy feeling that Earth might need them.

Demolitions techs were the first to emerge, drifting over to the disabled Juggernaut and planting explosive charges against the cargo bay hull. “Proceed,” Lanyan said. “Assume that everyone on board is dead.”
Or expendable
.

The demolitions techs jetted out of the way. As the shaped explosives ignited, the Juggernaut’s cargo bay cracked open, decompressing the lower decks. Atmosphere vomited out, sweeping dozens of Soldier compies into the cold vacuum, where they flailed and drifted. Lanyan watched them float away, knowing it wouldn’t be so easy to get rid of the rest.

His group of suited fighters adjusted their acceleration packs, checked air tanks and weapons charges, and prepared to jump across the dizzying gulf.

“Let’s get started,” Lanyan said. “We’ve got a lot of ships to take back today.”

41

ROSSIA

T
hough he continued to send reports through his treeling, Rossia could see that they had lost the fight, lost the Juggernaut, and lost the whole Grid 5 battle group. The compies kept coming and coming. He hadn’t heard messages from any other EDF green priests in a long time now.

Outside the
Eldorado
’s bridge, blood painted the corridor walls in red abstract patterns. Though the Soldier compies could easily have yanked a few still-charged weapons from their victims, instead they used their metal- and polymer-sheathed arms as bludgeons. They were in no hurry now.

Grid 5’s Mantas had been subsumed, and the cruisers had withdrawn, waiting for the inevitable end. Soldier compies controlled all command bridges except for the
Eldorado
. Rossia could see it would not be long; he communicated as much through the treeling. By now the delicate gold-scale bark looked worn from his insistent touching.

Long ago, when the wyvern had snatched him from the Theron treetops, Rossia had been sure he was going to die. Now he had the same feeling.

But Admiral Eolus wasn’t done yet. He prowled the barricaded bridge, his shoulders squared, his thick arms swinging from side to side. “Come on, then,” he snarled at the compies, using his loudest voice. “Or are you afraid to get a little dented?”

The bridge defenders had put up a valiant fight, but it was a hopeless last stand. As they saw death approaching, one by one the soldiers volunteered to throw themselves against the massed Soldier compies, protecting Admiral Eolus for just a few minutes more.

Rossia squeezed his eyes shut, unable to bear seeing any more blood. He gripped his treeling. “I just received word from Nahton. Even the Palace District compy factory has turned into a battle zone. I’m the only green priest still alive in any battle group—unless the others are just separated from their treelings.” He blinked his eyes and looked around for reassurance. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe they’re still alive.”

Now only the green priest, a station officer, and the security chief remained alive alongside the gruff Admiral. As compies tossed the last of the uniformed corpses aside, Eolus apparently decided enough was enough.

“Screw this, by God. Cut off access to the bridge! Sergeant Briggs, grab the repair kits and start welding around that seam. We’ve got enough epoxy solder to hold the doors together.” He knotted his fingers together, glowering at fate. “And I was looking forward to retirement with a beer on a beach, but I guess we’re not going out for any moonlight strolls.”

The security chief was already rummaging through an unsealed storage bin at an empty station. “Epoxy solder won’t last long, Admiral.”

“Doesn’t have to last forever, Sergeant. Just long enough. It’s time to make these clanking bastards pay.” The Admiral looked at the viewscreen, saw his eleven overthrown Mantas hovering nearby, like hyenas waiting to close in on a carcass. “Those tin soldiers haven’t just defeated us. They stole our own battleships—and that makes me very angry!”

Briggs was on his knees in front of the sealed bridge door, squeezing epoxy weld into all the cracks. He jumped back as compy hands began to batter the metal barrier until it bowed inward. The gap between the sliding doors widened enough for one compy to thrust fingers through. Briggs squirted the armor solder, filling in the seal and welding the compy’s hand into the gap.

At the navigation station, a grim Eolus began to move the
Eldorado,
easing it toward the group of hijacked Mantas.

Briggs looked up. “It’s holding, Admiral.” He had used up his tubes, slathering the fast-hardening substance all around the entrance. The survivors knew they would never get out. This bridge would be their tomb.

One of the wall plates buckled. Unable to break open the welded door, the compies began to rip their way directly through the bulkheads. “Oh, for crying out loud!” Briggs blurted.

“This is really messed up,” said the station officer, shaking her head. “Really messed up.”

“How long did you say this barricade has to last, Admiral?” Briggs asked.

Hunched over the command chair, Eolus gradually accelerated the Juggernaut. “Easy . . . easy . . . not enough to scare them. Nothing to worry about, little robots.” As the
Eldorado
approached the waiting Mantas, the compies would assume the flagship had been captured as well.

Out-of-control robots continued to batter the walls, ripping away the plates, thrusting their metal hands through. A crack appeared in the fresh polymer weld, and the whole main bridge door began to shudder.

“It’s not going to hold.” Briggs looked down at his empty tubes of epoxy.

Rossia repeated the words to his treeling, sending out a continuous message. He felt detached from everything that was happening around him; it was the only way he could keep functioning. “It’s not going to hold.”

“Now, worst part in a commander’s career.” Admiral Eolus looked at the three survivors with him. “You are not stupid. You all know what we have to do. We can’t let compies seize our battle group, and I don’t believe in a completely hopeless situation.”

Eolus expected and received no argument from his comrades. He paced, ignoring the battering sounds of compies on the other side of the wall. “Mr. Rossia, inform the rest of the EDF what we plan to accomplish here. That way at least they’ll know.”

After the green priest sent a last message through his treeling, he turned his cockeyed gaze up at the man. “Did you know I’m the only person in the history of Theroc to survive a wyvern attack? Everyone thought I was very lucky.” He paused, the silence broken only by the clamor of Soldier compies. “I’m not going to survive this one, though.”

“No, Mr. Rossia. None of us are.”

As the
Eldorado
eased in amongst the waiting Mantas, Eolus input the command string that every commanding officer knew and hoped never to use. The Juggernaut’s computers accepted the emergency verification, and the massive engines grew hotter and hotter, building to a swift overload. The swarthy man muted the countdown. “Damn thing’s too melodramatic.” He sat back in his command chair, thick arms crossed over his chest.

With a coordinated surge, the Soldier compies broke through the doorwelds and ripped support bars out of the bulkhead wall, knocking aside plate sheeting. Now with nothing to stop them, the military robots streamed onto the bridge. Alarms began to sound at all stations, warning of imminent danger—as if any bridge crewmember could possibly be unaware that a truckload of crap had just hit a turbine-powered fan.

Briggs threw himself bodily against the compies, but the robots swept over him like a tidal wave overwhelming a bit of dandelion fluff. The compies were covered with blood.

Admiral Eolus swiveled his chair. The countdown on his panel reached the last few seconds. “Here’s something special for you, you wind-up bastards,” he said. “Bend over and smile.”

Self-destruct routines turned the
Eldorado
into a small-scale supernova, and the shockwave swept outward to engulf all eleven captured Mantas.

42

NIRA

T
he flight to the Dobro settlement was torture. Designate Udru’h would never have gone to such great lengths unless he had some dark plan in mind.

Wrapped in her own misery, Nira wasn’t fooled when the Ildiran noble attempted to show concern. Once more she noted that his features reminded her of Jora’h. “I am Designate-in-waiting Daro’h,” he finally said. “I will soon assume the administration duties of Dobro and replace the current Designate.”

Nira’s eyes flashed. Udru’h was going to step down!

Daro’h pressed. “I still do not understand why you fled. We are taking you back to the splinter colony, back to your home.”

“It is not my home! It was never my home. And it’s not the home of those human descendants you keep caged there, either.”

Clearly discomfited, Daro’h fell silent. They rode the rest of the way without speaking another word.

When the guards dragged her out of the hatch, Nira felt a discordant wash of joy, a flood of giddy relief, a foreign outburst that sang through her thoughts. It was a symphony of love, relief, and longing. Confusingly, the nonverbal images seemed to be reflections of her own memories.

She stumbled, and her eyes focused on a young girl, older than she remembered, but still more familiar than any other person: a part of her and a part of Jora’h. Her daughter, her princess! Osira’h ran forward to embrace her.

As soon as she made contact with her daughter’s skin, Nira expected a wash of new memories, an exchange. She remembered the sudden bursting of gates within their minds during the last—and only—time mother and daughter had been in contact. She had been so desperate then, crying out with her thoughts.

Now, however, Nira was afraid to push too much. This time, the contact was not the same as she had previously shared with her daughter. Only silence rang inside her head.

Osira’h, too, seemed to be holding back. “You don’t need to know everything yet, Mother. You can’t know everything.”

Nira just held her more tightly. “I don’t need it all at once. I just need to know that I’m back here with you.”

She felt a sudden chill and looked up. Hard-faced Designate Udru’h walked forward, flanked by two guard kithmen just like the ones that had beaten her nearly to death. Cool and aloof, he said, “The Mage-Imperator asked me to find you. By trying to escape, you made it more difficult for all of us, including yourself.” When he looked at Nira, she recalled again the pain this man had caused her, all the hatred she still felt for him. Nira held her daughter protectively; Osira’h hugged back, offering her mother strength and confidence.

Dismissively, Udru’h turned toward the Designate-in-waiting. “Good work, Daro’h. I will soon be ready to relinquish my duties to you.”