The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are (28 page)

I feel sick. Numb. Nauseous. Shaky.

I remember Kali, ecstatic as she consumed Palmer,
digging into him with her hands and…

“She said you needed resources.”

She watched me become a cannibal, a flesh-eating
monster.

I can’t even imagine what the conversion process
looks like. And then what I finally turned into looks nothing like
the man she served, the man she loved.

“I’m sorry…” It’s the best I can manage.

But she’s seen the conversion. She watched. And I’m
sure now she’s wondering what it was like for her father. Was he
alive? Conscious? Did he feel Bel consuming him, taking him over,
erasing him piece-by-piece? Did Chang feed him corpses to
supplement his conversion?

“I don’t remember any of it.” I’m not sure for whose
benefit I’m saying it. “Just waking up. Like this. I don’t even
remember saying ‘yes’ to Star.”

“You didn’t,” she tells me, sounding like she’s
letting go of something. “She didn’t wait. You were dying. Almost
dead.”

But she can’t look at me like she used to.

And I have an even more horrible thought: I’m still
carrying one seed. If I were to touch her, kiss her, ever become
remotely intimate with her again…

“Maybe I did die,” I say to the wind between us.
“Maybe this isn’t me. Or too little of me to count as the man you
knew, the man you believed in. So don’t believe in me. Not until I
earn it.”

I turn and walk away from her. Get back on my flyer.
Go kill who I need to kill.

11 May, 2117:

They attack at dawn, before the icing vaporizes off
the battered pad elevators, while the morning winds are stirring
the most dust to hide their approach.

They advance to within two hundred meters of Melas
Three from the west-northwest, then hunker down to avoid the
remaining base batteries, letting her take the lead, but ready to
move in fast, expecting she’ll breach them a way in this time,
having taken the days to maximize her grenade load.

Too bad I’m standing in her way.

“Nina Harper.”

I hear her chuckle over the wind. But it doesn’t
sound remotely human anymore. Broken machine. Buzzing and
crackling. Her bulky armored head and torso take shape first in the
haze, then the thick maw of her launcher arm. Finally, her legs:
frog-like prostheses protruding from a pelvis made of heavy
universal joints and motors. The only part of her that still looks
human is her left arm, clutching its own launcher.

“He said ye had such pretty hair now…” The voice is a
poor vox. I could be talking to any simple machine. But her body
language—if you could call it that—still sings of human malice.

I cover my pretty hair with my ugly helmet. Draw my
pistol.

Let her take the first shot.

She pops a grenade right at me. In the armored can of
her conjoined torso and kettle helmet, with only a thin eye-slit
where her face would be, I can’t see her reaction as I swat the
projectile away. It blows harmlessly in the loose regolith. All I
feel is the distant shockwave. I know this will piss her off, get
ready for it.

She does the stupid thing: Plants herself and starts
hammering me full-auto. At least she’s smart enough to aim low, use
the technique she used against the ETE, tries to knock me off my
feet or take the ground out from under me. I drop into a crouch,
having preset my armor to shift into a sloped shield, plant it in
the sand.

I take a pounding, enough that I almost do fall back.
Her grenades are blowing within a meter or two. I’ve picked soft
ground to soak up a lot of the blasts—an old desert-warfare
trick—and she’s quickly kicked up a blinding cloud between us. I
cool down my surfaces so she can’t target me on infrared, and she
apparently has no such cloaking mod: I can see her heat signature
through the smoke, her launcher blazing. Perfect target.

I get her firing rhythm and poke out between
explosions for a shot of my own. I’ve loaded my own rounds for
penetration and explosive effect. Hit true. Her launcher arm
bursts. I take the interruption in fire to hit it again.

She staggers. Screams like stripped gears. But she’s
quick: recovers enough to level her “live arm” launcher and answer
back. But I’m not there.

I’ve collapsed my shield and run a circle around her,
got a dune to hide behind while she wastes more grenades. Then I
take a shot at her “head” that feels like it makes it through her
thick helmet and does some damage where it counts, but it only
seems to stun her. She spins, pops a pair of grenades back at me
with impressive accuracy, but I’m already rolling clear.

She’s hesitating as I get a look at her over the
dune. I can see her launcher arm repairing, but there’s smoke
leaking out of her eye-slit. She staggers. But then springs into
the air, either trying to get a better vantage or make herself a
more slippery target.

She tries to keep her bounding random, but is
generally advancing on my last position. I stay prone, visually
cloaking myself in the haze, time her jump once she gets close.
Then I throw myself into her landing zone as she comes down, draw
my sword, hack her legs. I do her hydraulics serious damage, but
don’t manage to sever the tough robot limbs. She’s getting the
muzzle of her left hand launcher on me when I spring up and chop
it, cleaving the barrel, then destroying the action. She tries to
fire it anyway, and luckily fails—the blast would have cost her
remaining hand.

I consider taking that hand myself, but some modicum
of mercy holds my blade. But it doesn’t hold me from driving my
sword through her midsection, twisting it in her mechanical
insides. I feel no flesh. No blood flows from the wound. She tries
to get her launcher arm—now repaired—pointed between us, but I wrap
my left arm around it, hold it fast. I pull my blade out, aim the
tip for her eye slit…

And I get hit by something large and fast that throws
me sideways off of her. Metal and fabric. Black. I land on my ass
in a dune, get ready to roll to avoid a grenade volley, get ready
for another attack from who I’m pretty sure hit me.

But he steps between us. Holds a hand out to gesture
me to sit put. Points his blade at her.

Bly.

“
No!
” he yells at Harper when she tries to get
her shot. “
No more!
”

“…whatareyoudoingwhatwhatareyou…?!” Her voice is
almost unintelligible, the buzz of a broken child’s toy.

“
No more!!
” This time he’s shouting at both of
us. I decide to stay down long enough to see what this is
about.

“Good to see you didn’t get yourself vaporized,
Captain.”

“Four hundred and eighty five of our people are
dead!” he spits through his mask. The math seems dubious, but I
realize he’s not blaming me for that as he turns to face Brimstone.
“That number does not hold those ordered left behind when we had to
evac our homes!
Two thirds of our people are gone!
And Chang
only demands more! We’re just meat for his war machine!” He turns
to me. “He scavenges Pioneer Colony bare to repair his ship. Some
of the Keepers are trying to rise against him. He’s ordered me to
slaughter them, make examples of them.”

“What about Janeway?” I risk getting up.

“Janeway isn’t Janeway anymore. He’s like the one who
turned on us. Or Chang’s pretty emissary. Monsters like him,
wearing the corpses of honorable men. Is that what you are?”

“I’d like to think not,” I tell him honestly. “I
still seem to have all of what I was.”

“Then you’re better than me.”

He turns to Brimstone, lowers his blade.

“Look what he’s done to you!” he wails through his
mask. “Look what
I
did… I begged him to save you… Sold him
my body and soul and yours…”

“…nonoIwantthisIlikethisIamthis…”

He throws his sword down, steps up to her, sinks the
fingers of both gauntleted hands into her eye slits, and pulls.
Tears. Rips the top of her helmet off. Staggers back. Falls.
Screams through his mask like he’s just watched a loved one
die.

I come closer and look. Inside the can is… It’s
horrible. I’d guessed this but didn’t really want it to be true:
When she gets hurt, the mechanical tech replaces the injured flesh
rather than healing it. She has one eye, part of her face, half of
her skull. Cables are deep where her brain should be. A few teeth
stuck in bone for a mouth, the rest all metal…

“…nomylovemylovedonotcry…”

She tries to move toward him, only to have him
recoil, crawl backwards away from her.

“…nonononono…”

“Stop it!
Stop it!
You’re dead!
Dead!
You’ve
been
dead… all this time… you’ve…”

“…NONONO…” she’s bellowing, all distortion and
feedback. And then she turns on me, points her launcher arm. I
doubt she can even see me with her remaining, clouded eye…

Bly’s sword comes down on her exposed head. I get hit
in the face with blood or something in place of it, warm and thick.
She emits an ear-splitting wail. And he hacks. And hacks. Screaming
himself the whole time. He chops her “head” to pieces, then takes
off her “real” arm (it isn’t—it’s all cables and steel), drives his
blade deep into her can over and over again. Her remaining limbs
flail, kick, jerk, finally settle into a sickening automated
reflex, a motor short…

Bly is on his knees, sprayed with whatever was
keeping whatever was left of her alive. I can hear him sobbing
inside his helmet.

I’m about to say something I’m sure is poor comfort
when Aziz’s Nomads come up out of their cover, train their weapons
hesitantly on us. Bly leaps up, screams at them:

“RUN AWAY!! RUN AWAY, YOU STUPID ANIMALS!! RUN AWAY,
OR THIS WILL BE YOU! RUUUUNNNN!!!!”

They stay put, a mix of misplaced bravery and
confused terror under their layered cloaks and homemade armor.

“I would listen to the man if I were you,” comes
Bel’s voice, magnified over the wind, smooth and calm. He de-cloaks
himself between us and the Nomads, where he set himself as my
backup should they try to charge to their “champion’s” defense. He
just stands there, as if there aren’t a few hundred guns on him.
(Of course, he warned me earlier that his biggest concern was that
UNMAC would shoot me in the back in gratitude for defending their
on-planet assets.) Then he “charges” his armor, creating a
defensive field that’s a lot more theatrical than it needs to be,
turning his black armor and even his face and hair a blazing
red-hot.

“If not, perhaps you’ll listen to
Iblis
, to
Shaitan
.”

A few fall back, but then stop themselves when they
see how many of their fellows manage to stand put. So Bel draws his
sword, makes it glow scary, holds it up in front of him, displaying
it. Activates the “Wand” tech embedded in the long handle. Projects
a simple microwave field.

The Nomads feel their weapons get hot. Then they feel
their skin get hot through their protective layers. It’s a
variation on an old military/police “non-lethal” weapon, producing
a sensation of being on fire, hopefully sending the target fleeing
before the skin actually sears. This time, the Nomads do start
dropping their weapons and running.

A few brave souls try shooting the Devil, only to see
their bullets vaporize in hellfire. Then they also decide running
is the better option.

I turn to Bly, take off my helmet. With his still on,
I can’t tell if he’s watching the Nomads run or brooding over what
remains of his mate.

“Come with us,” I offer him.

He doesn’t move for awhile. I start to worry about
Bel’s prediction that Burns will take the opportunity while he has
us in his gunsights. I’m about to repeat my offer when he turns his
bug-skull mask to me.

“How are you better?”

He turns and walks off. I try following. He marches
about seventy-five meters with purpose, stops, and impresses me:
What otherwise looked like a dune swirls and morphs into a… What?
Some kind of dragon/hippogriff hybrid, body the size of a large
horse, a wingspan unfolding to many times that. He hops on, gives
me a last silent look, then spurs his mount to fly him away.
Northwest.

My alternate memories remember tech like this: “smart
hive” materials that could coalesce into pre-programmed shapes,
even complex machines—complex enough to mimic living things.
Consumer toys.

I look back at Melas Three, just long enough for them
to get a look at my face with their sentry cams. They can decide
later if I’m ally, asset or still nightmare.

“Huh…” Bel is walking up to me, back to his normal
non-hellfire self, watching Bly fly off. “Why didn’t I think to
pack one of those?”

“We should go,” I decide. Our flyers come on
command.

“I wouldn’t want to miss the party,” Bel grins.

Poor choice of words. Though I’m sure some would
agree with him.

Mohamed Aziz was supposed to be smarter than his
uncle Farouk, the greedy megalomaniac he replaced after Sakina
ended her former employment. Too bad what Chang dangled in front of
him proved blinding in its appeal. He’s made some lethal mistakes,
the last of which was sending the bulk of his army to take Melas
Three, leaving his camp poorly defended. Maybe he really believed
that Brimstone was unbeatable. Or that Chang would honor whatever
agreement they had and fly to his rescue if he found himself in
dire straits.

His next mistake was letting Brimstone show off,
demonstrating her ability at aggressive demolitions, and in
proximity to his camp. It drew too much attention. He was smart
enough to move once he realized he had defectors, but then he had
Brimstone whip up a morale boost with another pyrotechnics display.
He could be zeroed from fifty klicks. He should have moved again,
but he was too focused on taking the prize his uncle couldn’t. He
forgot about the old blood.