The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are (49 page)

“Ra” joins Bly in hacking and smashing the Bugs, her
light apparently b;inding their sensor eyes. Azazel gets his guns
to helping them by shredding the reinforcements, but the big bots
are as resilient as the prototype. Then “Box” bots rise up out of
deck ports to join them, open fire. It’s all the ETE can do to keep
up shields against the barrage. The Boxes even manage to chase back
Azazel. I can hear him cursing his frustration, calling Fohat
creatively obscene names (he’d told me he was eager to meet the
designer of some of his favorite “game” toys, to show the toymaker
how good he’d become at defeating his best product).

I see Lux move in a flash, projecting light-based
decoys as she zig-zags at the gun bots, leaps high, lands on one
and gouges out one of its heads, his blade transmitting a
disruptive charge on contact. Leaps on another. Sinks her blade in.
Fries its systems. But this one is ready, spins its sections to
throw him off. She manages to dodge as it turns guns toward him,
then leaps away as another Box fires at her at the expense of its
fellow.

I’m instinctively moving toward them, ignoring the
Asmodeus clone, but he gets in front of me with his spear. He wants
my undivided attention. I try dividing his.

“Ground fire! Now!” I call out. A perimeter goes live
around the ship, as cloaks spring up roughly a hundred meters
out—Knights and Nomads—and start launching rockets at the
Stormcloud’s hull guns and launch ports, battering the drive
sections, sniping at convenient targets. I turn back in time to see
Chang get hit in the head, then in the torso with HE rounds. The
shells manage to rip him apart, but he reforms quickly, shaking off
the abuse. Then, through the Knight’s feed, I see him drop four
more Boxes onto the sand as his intact ship guns fire back into the
attackers’ lines.

I’ve got a dozen sets of eyes in my head, a dozen
“screens” of different views of the battle, but I can’t just play
general, not now. Asmodeus won’t let me—he knows I’m trying to
coordinate. I have to sidebar the feeds as he charges in with his
spear.

And he’s fast, even by enhanced-neuro standards. At
first, all I can do is dodge—I can’t even make contact with his
weapon—until I get his rhythm. Then I reach out and grab his spear
shaft with my left hand and start cutting before he can free it. I
lay his grinning face open to bone, stab him in the throat up under
his chin, try to carve his head off. But he drives his spear into
my chest, finds a gap in my armor, twists as his smile gushes
blood.

I chop down on his lead hand, but his armor holds. I
hack the side of his head. It’s enough to get the spear out of me,
get out of reach, heal. He’s already closing his own wounds (though
he has to push his ear and most of that side of his face back in
place to help the process).

I attack first this time, smacking down his spear and
going for the gap between shoulder and breast plate, but he stabs
me through above the right knee. I get my sword into flesh, feel
ribs, rip upwards to try to sever his arm at the shoulder like I’m
butchering a carcass. He’s stubborn, slams me in the face with his
spear shaft, tearing up my knee in the process, then pins me to the
deck.

His spear comes apart in the middle—just like his
original cane weapon did—and the free butt section flips out the
beak of a war hammer (his other favorite close-quarters murder
weapon). I manage to block it before he can drive it into my skull,
but then he drives himself forward onto my sword, all the way to
the hilt, contracts his muscles around my blade, then takes it with
him when he throws himself back off of me.

I rip the half-spear out of the deck and my leg, try
to get myself together enough to lunge into him. It’s more of a
stagger, but I block his hammer, hit him in his grinning face with
the short shaft, then return the favor by stabbing the spear down
into his groin. He gasps and groans, but actually looks like he’s
enjoying it as we wrestle each other for our weapons.

Then something big hits us. Hard. Knocks us apart.
It’s a Bug.

“
Fohat!
You asshole…!” Asmodeus coughs out.
But then I see Fohat still struggling to control his toys, his
crown looking like it might actually rip apart his skull. And
Lisa’s got partial control of his big bot.

On my back, I draw my pistol, put an HE round into
Fohat’s eye patch. It stuns him, but more importantly cuts off his
bot feed. Asmodeus is on top of me, knocks down my gun with his
hammer, and we struggle on the deck like a pair of drunks in a
sloppy brawl.

“Lisa! Crown!” I tell her. She releases the Bug,
which staggers around as if confused, then turns all the guns of
her makeshift exoskeleton on Fohat, on his head. He tries to cover
himself, tries to dodge, but he’s too focused on trying to regain
control to move effectively. I see his fingers get shot off, his
face peppered with holes. He freezes, staggering, stunned, trying
to stand against the storm of bullets. Pieces of his crown fly off,
shatter, short out. I see bits of skull and brain go with them. She
puts a grenade under his chin. His headless body drops limp to the
deck.

But it doesn’t kill his toys. They just start lashing
out at whatever moves. Thankfully, Asmodeus is between me and the
closest Bug when it picks a target. Still, I get the sharp end of a
claw-arm digging into my chest when it goes through his body from
behind. He vomits blood in my face. I get hold of my sword, rip it
out of him (he gets to keep his arm). The Bug opens its claw,
expanding it in his torso, picks him up as he flails against it.
Then it tosses him away like a doll. (I don’t see where he
landed—he may have gone over the side.)

I take the split-second I’ve got before it turns back
on me to get up, get in close, chop off one sensor head, then the
other. I barely slip through before it snaps all its limbs inward
to crush me. It tumbles and flops on the deck, blind.

I finally have time to catch up on the larger battle:
On the main deck, the ETE are still managing to hold a shield-line
against the combined firepower of the Box and soldier bots, but now
the Cast and H-K have joined them, having been dropped by the ETE
ships. The H-K are firing HE penetrators from behind the ETE
shields while the Cast hack apart any soldiers that force through
or get in behind the line. I see a few bodies down on the deck.
Then one of the Boxes gets smart and tries blowing the deck out
from under their shields. It staggers two of the Guardians enough
that rounds get through, and I see more fall before they regroup.
Three of the Boxes look down, and two more are badly damaged. I see
the twitching remains of three of the Bugs. Lisa is moving to add
her exoskeleton to the fight.

But then something comes flying through the ETE
shield line from behind, charges the bots like a raging animal,
starts tearing into them, ripping them apart with clawed fingers
and bladed arms. It’s Kali, finally making her choice. Her people
rally behind her, taking on the damaged machines with axes and
picks and hammers. The H-K back them up with their guns. I see
Murphy and Two-Gun advancing side-by-side.

In the purpling sky, I see Azazel and two of the ETE
ships dog fighting with a handful of Disc drones. But then the
Discs break off, fly fast straight west.

Zooming, I see aircraft incoming. Shinkyo
fighters—five of them. Chang is up on the aft port deck, directing
the Discs, not chancing that the Shinkyo are laden with bombs—or
even a nuke or two—for a suicide run. His starboard hull guns are
all firing at the incoming ships.

Beneath us and around us, the remaining hull guns and
dropped Boxes have done serious damage to the combined Knight and
Nomad lines. The bots have all taken severe damage themselves, but
stubbornly keep firing. Then, one-by-one, the hull guns go silent.
Seconds later, twin balls of light fall from the ship like flares,
land on the Boxes and start hacking them apart. It’s Lux and
Star.

I hear Kendricks order the advance. The surviving
Knights and Nomads charge in, up under the ship, and use rappelling
lines to haul themselves up to join the boarding party. But then I
realize I’m seeing more lines than I see warriors. There are
motion-blurs on the extra lines as I zoom in. I shift to heat-scan,
see the shapes of lean, wiry climbers among the Knights and Nomads.
The ghost-fighters make the deck before the visible fighters, start
hacking and shooting bots, then hurl charges into gun ports and bot
ports, and down into the hole Star made in the railgun.

Shinkyo Shinobi. They’d salted themselves in with the
Knight and Nomad lines, practically invisible in their new camo
suits, taking their opportunity…

I look east, try to hack in to the UNMAC channels
again, get chaos from ground units sent out to help the base
batteries deal with the rocket bots, and confused chatter from
first-responders in the ruins of the Shinkyo camp. They’re not
finding any bodies in the blasted remains of the shelter-town.

I can’t help but grin. Burns and Jackson might have
shut me out over the past few days, but Sakura was listening,
probably snuck her people out during the night as she moved her
shinobi in with my allies on the ground. The warriors overrunning
the ship now might well be some of those “refugees”.

The incoming Shinkyo ships have taken evasive action
of their own, picking away at the Discs, allowing the ETE ships to
break off and rescue hostages. Azazel has come back around and is
helping to finish off the Box and Bug bots on deck. Lisa is leading
the combined ETE/Cast/H-K force to the hostages, as the ETE ships
come in to land.

I look back toward Melas Two: The launch bays are
damaged, but they haven’t even tried to launch a single aircraft. I
try calling out to them again, to let them know we’re evacuating
their people.

“…Colonel…” I get snowy feed from a voice I recognize
as Rios. He’s using his armor Link, using the same channel Anton
used. Defying orders. “…just mopping up the droids Chang launched
our way…” I get long-range visual as the machines get picked off by
battery missiles, but they’ve already expended their own loads.
“…no casualties back at base, not even the Shinkyo—looks like they
all snuck out sometime last night… smart…”

“Why aren’t you launching any flights?” I want to
know.

“…pulled all the ships out two nights ago, sent them
orbital…”

Could be a smart move, anticipating that Chang would
bombard the bays. And it might be saving them up in orbit against
Chang’s Disc launch.

“We’ll have your people clear in a few minutes,” I
tell him, not that he can pass it along without busting himself.
“The General is alive. But we lost Captain Thomas.”

“…I know…” he lets me know he saw it. Chang made sure
they saw it.

I stand over Fohat’s headless body, take some
satisfying precautions by hacking off his arms and legs, cleave his
torso at the waist, scatter the parts. I’ll find a nice fire to
roast them in later. Bly watches me, nods his appreciation for my
impulsive butchery. Then I go looking for Chang. And Asmodeus.

Chang is still up on the aft deck. His form has gone
semi-liquid. He’s lashing his arms out as tentacles at invisible
pests—Shinkyo—who riddle him with small arms fire, pound him with
grenades, even hack at him with their nano-blades. The Knights and
Nomads can only watch from a distance, afraid to hit the Shinobi if
they join in. Bel is watching, too, just standing there. But then
he steps in through the invisible line, charges his armor
orange-hot, and plunges his blade into Chang’s center-of-mass. And
burns. Fire against shadow.

Chang struggles, tries to smother him, crush him, pry
him off. Bel looks like he’s trying to get inside Chang—he’s
already up to his blazing elbows in what may or may not be Chang’s
torso. Chang starts to re-form, wrestle with him as a man-shape,
strangle him (or maybe he’s trying to break Bel’s neck, rip his
head off). Black fingers snake up for Bel’s eyes. Then Chang’s head
blows apart.

Paul steps up, his Rod-Gun leveled. He fires again as
Chang’s head tries to re-form. And again.

Bly and I get there. The Shinobi become visible, pull
back with the Knights and Nomads, all guns on Chang.

Paul blows apart another head, then takes out Chang’s
legs. Bel’s fire is beginning to weaken.

“
How do we kill this piece of shit?!
” Paul
demands, nothing but rage. I realize I no longer recognize the man
who walked out of the desert only a few years ago, offering help,
valuing life absolutely.

Star (still dressed as Ra), Lux, Lisa and Kali have
joined us. I step in, sink my own hand into Chang, try to do what I
did before. The shadow convulses, but I feel like I’ve put my arm
in a swarm of hornets.

“Put a field around us!” I tell Paul. He does. Two of
his fellows come and lend their tools to his effort. Chang won’t
get away, not this time, even if I have to stay in the cell with
him.

Chang starts to re-form again, but I can see
details—he’s no longer absorbing all light. He looks like a man
dipped in tar, or like he’s wearing some kind of fetish skin-tight
body suit. Bel has him by the wrists as I keep my left arm inside
him, then dig the fingers of my free hand into his skull. I think I
feel actual tissue, bone…

The ship dips under us. I’m not sure if Chang is
losing it or if he’s trying to shake us.

“You always hold back,” Kali growls at me, stepping
into the field. “You can’t win this by holding back!” She sinks her
claws into the opposite side of Chang’s head, her other hand
stabbing into his back. She convulses, eyes rolling up in their
sockets, but doesn’t let go.

She’s trying to absorb him.

“I’ve got incoming!” Azazel interrupts. He flashes me
what he’s getting on radar: Something’s coming down on us from
orbit, three blips, but not fast enough to be projectiles.