The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are (48 page)

I get my first indication of bad trouble in what
should be good news:

Lisa comes back online. I see her vision shift—she’d
been staring at the steel ceiling of her cell—and lock on Star,
opening the shielded hatch. She’s still wearing Chang’s diadem, but
she’s alone.

“Move now. They’re coming.” Her voice is quick and
urgent. “Only so long I can block Chang convincingly. Your people
are in the port bow section, just opposite this one.” She flashes
Lisa a deck plan. Then she’s gone, leaving the hatch open.

Lisa looks down at a small piece of technology in her
hand, grips it tight, then takes her opening.

But if Star knows we’re moving, so does Chang.

We’re still minutes out. I signal the others to burn
faster. The Stormcloud is invisible in the dark, but then it’s a
blaze of light: The deck has gone bright, then spotlights lance
downwards from the underhull, lighting up the desert beneath
it.

In my head, I’m watching Lisa run, careful to check
for any of Chang’s bots in her path, taking the corridors like a
challenge maze.

In my own vision, I see movement on deck, zoom to get
the best look I can from so far away. Bots—Chang’s new crew—are
swarming on the upper hull. But I also see movement that looks
human.

“You’ve pulled the show-up-early strategy on me
before,” I hear Chang in my head, hacking himself into my feed
directly. “Fool me twice, shame on
you
.”

There are explosions from the port flank of his ship,
the side facing Melas Two. He’s firing some kind of missile, dozens
of them.

“A present for our mutual enemies,” he tells me
vaguely. “Presents, actually. Let’s call it an early
Christmas.”

“I’ve got a launch detected,” Azazel tells me from
the Siren. “
Behind
us!”

I look back, but get a better view from the Siren’s
long-range scanners. It looks like an old-school rocket launch,
burning skyward from somewhere far east down Coprates.

“If you ever wondered how I got my Disc drones in
space all those years ago, I had them hitch on unsuspecting
shuttles,” Chang feels the need to stay informative. “That won’t
work this time, of course, so we had to go the direct route.” He
sends me his own better view: The rocket’s nose-end is a stack of
Discs. He’s sending them after the UN orbital facilities. I flash a
warning to Melas Two—the ETE ships are doing the same on the old
channels—but we’re still blocked.

The missiles Chang fired from his ship thunk in the
sand, maybe five klicks short of the base perimeter, and do
nothing.

Lisa’s made it to the indicated section, but runs
straight into a squad of the soldier bots. They spin on her, raise
weapons, but then freeze. They stay still as statues as she walks
through them, starts popping hatches.

“Move!” she tells the people she finds. “Collect the
weapons from the robots.” She finds Anton in the third cell. “I
need someone to carry him! No time to find your chair…”

But the hostages are in plain shirtsleeves, no armor
or survival gear. They won’t last more than a few minutes outside.
I make sure my team knows this.

Richards is in the fifth cell with a small group of
unfamiliar faces in work suits, probably his scientific team. They
all look like they haven’t slept in days, but otherwise intact.

“We’re missing people,” he warns Lisa urgently.
“Chang came and took two just a few minutes ago: Major Corso and
Captain Thomas.”

I’m getting close enough to see the deck better. The
soldier bots have the missing hostages, making them stand at the
edge of the portside wing deck, facing outward, facing the base,
hands tied. I see Fohat’s white robes.

“Shit…” Lisa tells Richards where to head and where
to wait, tells them to start looking for survival gear. Then she’s
running.

The sun breaks the horizon behind me. I’ll be there
in one minute, full burn. The wind is screaming against my
helmet.

“I’ve heard in less-enlightened times that the lives
of women were somehow valued above the lives of males,” Chang is
pontificating. I can see his walking shadow now, standing behind
his victims. He walks casually over to one of his soldiers, takes
the ICW from its claws, shoulders it. He holds for a full two
seconds, then shoots Thomas in the back of the head. Her body
tumbles over the side of the ship.

“
NOOOO!!!
” Lisa screams. She’s up on deck, but
still dozens of meters away. Chang turns to face her, holding the
ICW lazily.

“Forgive me, Colonel. I should have thought to invite
you properly.”

His soldier bots turn on her as one. Several move to
swarm her, but then stop when they get within a few meters, just
like the ones guarding the cells. Fohat looks confused. She shows
Chang the small module in her hands.

“I took this from one of your toys. Thanks to you,
I’ve had days to play with it.”

She sticks the device to her forehead like a third
eye, spreads her arms. The bots closest to her go to her, climb on
her, wrap themselves around her, form an exoskeleton with at least
half-a-dozen free arms, several of them holding guns.

Fohat steps up to face Lisa, looking like he’s trying
to get control of his toys back. Through her eyes, I see the tines
of his “crown” move, extend, like he’s maximizing his antennae.
Lisa keeps control of her stolen machines. Fohat looks like a
frustrated child, his face twisting up and turning red.

“I may not be able to kill you,” she tells Chang and
Fohat, “but I’ll enjoy hurting you.”

Chang points his gun at Corso, a wordless warning to
rethink her plan.

“Lux…” I call discreetly, flashing him what I’m
thinking through my rage.

“Done,” she answers.

Then I fly over the port wing, drop myself on the
deck a few meters from Chang and Fohat. I haven’t bother to draw a
weapon. I pull away my helmet so he can see the look in my
eyes.

“You know you can’t stop me before I…” Chang starts
to drone the obvious. I draw my pistol in the blink of an eye. And
shoot Corso in the back. Her body tumbles off the ship. Out of
sight. Lux swoops in and catches her, then spirits her—unconscious
and still convulsing from the stunner charge I used—toward friendly
lines.

Chang chuckles appreciatively.

“Well played,” he praises, tossing his weapon to the
deck. “My move.”

I get feed of the missiles he’d launched—bulbous
torpedo-looking things—righting themselves, sprouting spider-like
legs from one end, climbing out of their craters. Then the
capsule-shaped nose cones pop apart, revealing clusters of rockets.
They start launching at Melas Two.

Seconds later, I can see the flashes of explosions in
the distance even without enhancements, but Chang lets me see it
from the missile-bots’ eyes. They hammer the bunkers, the tubeways,
the launch bay blast doors, but far worse: they blow apart the
Shinkyo refugee camp. The fabric structures disintegrate like party
balloons.

“I get more than one move,” Chang tells me dryly.

“Bug” bots rise up out of the main deck, six of
them.

Bel drops onto the deck near me, followed by Bly.

“The prodigals,” Chang discounts. “Welcome home.”

The railgun starts charging. But he’s not aiming it
at Melas Two. Or Tranquility. The Stormcloud is still pointed
south-southeast.

“Stop this, Chang,” Bel tries. “If Yod is using you,
then stop. Don’t play this role.”

“I’m doing one better. I’m going to
make
Him
show his hand. Even if I have to tear down his better world to do
it.”

The railgun fires. Too late, I realize he’s aiming at
Green Station, willing to endanger everyone by killing the
generators that provide air and water and fuel. The projectile
burns across the valley as the ETE channels flash alarms. I hear
the word “shield” for whatever good it will do, get feed from their
own sentry systems as the cliffside erupts…
below
the
Station. It’s a miss. But then I hear panic and rage on the ETE
chatter. Chang hit the feed lines, and worse: he destabilized the
supporting rock. He’s learned from the Shinkyo and his own drones:
he’s not hammering the ETE shields directly. The gun starts to
charge again.

“And in the interest of full disclosure, I have to
admit I’ve had some help with all this,” Chang gets my attention
back. “Setting the trap, letting Earth think they shot me down,
then setting up this little party. I can’t take credit. I’m a
scientist, not a tactician, but you know that. That’s why I brought
one.”

“Hello, sexy.”

I know the voice, cutting into my head.

“I believe you two are well-acquainted,” Chang defers
sweetly. An access hatch opens in the deck. A figure in red robes
climbs out, gold armor like Fohat’s underneath, and what looks like
a large dagger in one gauntleted hand, pointed at the deck.

“I’m not sure I like the new look. It’s very… Fabio.
Remember Fabio?”

I know the voice. But it’s impossible.

The figure shakes back the red cowl to show me
reddish hair pulled back over a high forehead, a trimmed beard, and
a hawk-like face with a heavy brow, cheeks hollow under large
cheekbones.

It
is
him. But that’s not possible.

“Surprise,” he says like this is a minor joke, an
idle prank, grinning like a fool.

Asmodeus.

Ange Apollyon. Codename: Asmodeus. Assassin. Sadist.
Psychopath. Trained by the same deep-immersion VR program I was,
designed to cram lifetimes’ worth of tactical experience into
months. Except he was made to do secret wetwork by the conspiracy
inside the original UNACT. He’s a brilliant, skilled killer.
Obsessed with me, as some kind of mirror-image of himself.

And dead. Almost a hundred years ago. In
both
timelines.
Decades
before Chang’s splice.

“Confused?” he plays with me. “I was, too. Probably
more so. Of course, I didn’t remember my death. But they showed it
to me—a virtual reconstruction, anyway, since you conveniently
forgot to record your little act of justice for posterity. So
bizarre to know you’re dead, know you’re not really you… But then,
Chang’s been whining about his own identity crisis these last few
days. I’m just ahead of the curve.”

I look at Lisa. She remembers him, thankfully not
from meeting him face-to-face. But Star… Ange Apollyon was her
partner, her mentor before he threw himself into his own darkness.
(Where is Star? Did she know?)

“I’m just like you,” Asmodeus continues when I don’t
have anything coherent to say, clearly enjoying this moment. “Some
salvaged essential DNA, a stack of memory files. Except mine was
from an experiment, the boredom of immortals… Someone figured if
they could restore even the most destroyed of you from backups, why
not re-create the dearly departed? All you’d need was a viable DNA
sample and enough memories to fill the back story of an identity.
You’d be surprised how much of our personality is in the wiring…
They figured they’d have a hot new product.”

“And you…?” is about all I can manage. He grins
broader, spreads his arms.

“I’m for
you
, sweetie! Somebody that
apparently doesn’t like you very much found what they needed in the
sealed Beta Project files, grew and programmed themselves somebody
for you to play with…” The dagger extends into a Japanese-style
spear, a weapon he’s used before. “It’s been a long time.” But then
he turns to Chang, prompts: “Don’t let us interrupt anything. Just
old friends catching up.”

Chang takes his cue, and the railgun fires again,
blasts another massive divot out of the slope below the Green
Station.

Fohat sends his “Bugs” after Lisa. Bly runs and jumps
to her aid, taking advantage of the way even the bigger robots
begin to hesitate when they get in her control range, starts
hacking and stabbing. Bel starts circling Chang, drawing his sword,
charging his armor. Asmodeus points his spear at me, challenging,
still grinning like this is all good fun.

“Ange…!”

I hear Star’s voice. It gets Asmodeus to look with
me. She appears up on the main deck, near the “breech” end of the
rail gun. Something’s wrong with her. She staggers, looks blank,
stunned. But it isn’t seeing Asmodeus resurrected. She…

Explodes. In a blaze of blinding light, her body
disintegrates. The blast came up through the deck, pure energy,
like the railgun misfired somehow, or was sabotaged. The shockwave
slams us. Passes. But the light barely fades. Another figure steps
out of it, spreading arms like a performer on a stage as debris
rains on the deck. Making an entrance. In the glare I make out a
familiar helmet.

Ra.

Her hands gracefully produce her weapons: her
sickle-sword and her tri-flail. She moves fluidly, like a dancer.
Poses.

“You have
got
to be kidding me…” Asmodeus
grumbles.

“Broke your toy, Shadowman,” Ra taunts with a boyish
voice, striking another theatrical pose. “Happy to break them
all.”

The way Chang is standing, I expect his jaw would be
on the floor if he had a visible face. Even without, he looks
stunned, incredulous.

“Me first,” Azazel’s voice booms. The Siren’s Song
slides across the port side, rakes the decks with its turrets,
chopping up Chang’s soldier bots. Chang starts launching Discs.

“Me, too!” I hear Lux come back, leaping off her
flyer and actually onto a Disc in flight, driving his sword into it
before jumping to the deck. The Disc blows.

Azazel is flinging the ship through evasive
patterns—he’s made improvements on the propulsion and maneuvering
systems—picking off two of the Discs as they come after him. Then
four more just get swatted out of the sky. The ETE ships rise into
view, having slid in below the line of the starboard deck. The
Guardians start boarding, advancing to meet the robot defenders,
heading for the railgun section to make sure it’s as broken as Star
assured. I flash them the location of the hostages so they can
secure a dust-off point.