There was a body seated in the chair. A familiar body, still and cold as death. His body.
He looked back down at the statue, a moment of fear rising up and threatening to break his intense focus. But there was no time now to wonder. He turned his back on his own body, metal eyes narrowing, and scanned the room for foes.
All around the chamber the alcoves flared into life, green brilliance bursting from them, illuminating the figures within. Each was the mirror image of himself, and he realized how godlike he must now appear. He wanted to laugh, but it was choked with bitterness.
Fear pushed the anger and hunger down as he felt his eyes widen at the sight of this new body. Had the city turned him into some metal monster? Had his consciousness somehow been transferred from his own body into this form of molten metal? Had he lost his Humanity completely? The irony of that was painful. To have learned so much of what it meant to be Human, and then lose it all?
And then the anger surged back to the fore.
He roared a vicious, hunter’s cry. The unreasoning hatred returned, the alien presence surged up in his mind again, and he lurched forward a ponderous, clumsy step. All around him, the statues emerged from their niches a single step as well. He looked at them, his eyes narrowed, and saw that they were all looking at him with glowing blue eyes.
He smiled.
With another atavistic roar he took a second step, and then a third. Each was easier than the last. Finally, he stood at the very edge of the dais. It was not nearly so high as it had first appeared. He leapt down, landing with a grace he felt he never could have matched in his natural body, and rose to stare down at the Ntja, gathered in stillness around his friends.
With wild, ferocious abandon he fell upon the soldiers. He was fully aware of the other statues following his lead, and soon there were screaming dog soldiers running in every direction, trying desperately to escape the doom that had risen up to consume them. He found that he could change the shape of his limbs at will; his hands could form any weapon he could imagine. He lashed out with spears, and whips, and swords with more skill than he ever should have possessed. At one point, curious to see what might happen, he formed an enormous cannon barrel with his left hand, leveled it at one tall soldier, and a mighty sapphire pulse leapt out and devoured the target’s head.
Marcus laughed, and the gruesome sound bounced off the surrounding walls with an evil sound.
Several Ntja, their cruel faces twisted with dread, swung their own rifles around and jabbed them at the statues.
Nothing happened, as the suppression field, managed by the entity living within the Relic Core, fine-tuned the energy to dampen only the weapons of the enemy.
Some of the soldiers, braver or more foolish than the rest, tried to rush the metal men, swords flashing. Falchions clanged off steel flesh, sending sparks and glittering shards of weaponry flying into the air. He relished the looks in the creatures’ eyes as realization dawned there. There was no hope to be found in resistance. Others tried to surrender, and found to their brief dismay that there was no hope on that path either.
He saw one statue rear up behind Angara and Nhan, its hands elongating and shimmering into two huge sword blades, and he raised a hand. “No!”
The statues, as one, paused in their mayhem.
“Tigan and Goagoi are inviolate.” The voice was affirming what he said, not asking a question. He recognized its buzzing tones from the early conversation he had had in his head, but this time it was echoing all around him.
The last few Ntja were scrambling for the door, metal statues following them, casually cutting them down with elongated weapons, spears, and an occasional blast of cobalt energy. Two or three made it away, disappearing through the antechamber and into the corridor beyond, but he found now that if he merely thought of them, he could see them fleeing, their weapons forgotten, their terror palpable in their filthy animal cries.
As he followed them, however, he saw them brought to an undignified halt, crushing themselves to the walls of the corridors to allow enormous, stooped shadows to pass. These newcomers were stalking down the high-ceilinged corridor toward the command chamber with a slow, ponderous gait.
The Ntja heavy infantry. He had seen them from afar, but had not seen them fight. They were much larger than a standard Ntja soldier, bulked out with armor and life support equipment, and an ungainly power pack on their backs that made them look liked huge hunch-backed gorillas.
He looked back to where Nhan was dressing Angara’s wounded shoulder, and tried to speak. He didn’t feel his lips moving, but the room echoed with a booming rendition of his voice, much like the voice that had spoken moments ago.
“Heavy infantry heading this way.” He felt certain that his cohort of giants would be able to handle the new threat, but he knew it was going to be much more of a challenge.
He was looking forward to it.
*****
Angara gritted her teeth against the pain. Her brain was wrestling with too many things at once, and she felt dizzy. There at the end she really thought she was going to die. She was looking up at that big ugly brute, the sword coming down, and knew it was over.
She had almost not recognized Marcus’s voice when it first echoed through the room, halting the beast above her and granting her a reprieve.
Everything in the strange chamber had paused, and they had all looked up at the statue that seemed to be addressing them from the dais. She had not known whether she should be terrified, horrified, or grateful. Something about the way the statue stood up there by the throne was unmistakably Marcus. But a quick glance at the throne had shown her Marcus’s motionless body, back on the giant seat. And as the metal figure had leapt down onto the floor and swept into the Ntja, it had moved like nothing she had seen before.
At first she had not even noticed the other automatons come to life. And then she had been in the middle of a swirling death machine, somehow spared each time a blade or limb or gaze came her way. They moved with an unnatural grace, their faceted metal skin shining, and there was nothing the Ntja could do to stop them.
The last of the enemy was down before she realized it, and the adrenaline abandoned her to the pain. She leaned heavily against a pillar as Nhan bandaged her shoulder with a strip torn from his own robe. He had been silent, throwing terrified glances at any of the statues that came too close, while he worked on her wound. The one time a metal giant had approached them, nearly cutting them down from behind, Marcus’s voice had stopped it in its tracks. Their guardians had not bothered to notice them since.
The warning of heavy infantry heading their way had seemed almost laughable. Marcus’s giant statues had had no difficulties with these regular soldiers. How much more dangerous could the heavy infantry be? She had heard stories, of course, of the elite shock troopers of the Council. Everyone had heard stories. But they were rarely actually seen, and almost never in action.
But as the first of them shouldered its way through the door, she realized she should have given more credence to the tales. The whimper that escaped her lips might have been from Nhan giving the bandage a last pull to tighten it, but then it might not have.
The thing was huge, enormous shoulder pads giving it even more width than it would have had. The thick armor plating gave it twice the bulk of a non-armored Ntja, and the hump of a generator on its back made it look like some giant, feral animal. The helmets were contoured to resemble a ferocious Ntja’s face, glaring implacably around the room with glowing red eyes.
The first one carried a huge pole in two hands, dull metal throwing back soft green highlights. There was no sign of any power generators or other force enhancers, but it was huge. With a grunting war cry, the beast took a powerful swing at the nearest statue, putting all of its considerable strength behind the blow. She realized in an instant that this monster did not need to wield a powered weapon. The armor it wore would provide all the power it needed.
The bludgeon went whistling in at the statue, and
the metal man straightened as it came, cold face uncaring. It raised a single hand to stop the blow, and for a moment she thought it would actually work. But the weight of the Ntja’s weapon shattered the upraised limb, turning the hand and arm to glittering dust as it carried through and caught the statue in the chest. The metal figure flew backward, shedding clouds of dust, and crashed to the ground with a hollow, empty sound.
It did not move again.
Another statue standing nearby jerked as if its awareness had suddenly shifted, and it turned to regard the armored Ntja striding into the room. Without preparation or warning, this statue leapt, and raised its arm to take the brunt of a hasty blow of the bludgeon on its forearm. The metal arm shattered much as the first’s had, but the metal pole lacked the force to sweep on through and strike the body, and so the automaton was able to sidestep the dropping weapon, sidle up beside the soldier, and raise its other arm.
From her vantage point on the floor it was hard for her to see what happened next, but it appeared that the arm changed into a massive piston shape, a heavily reinforced cage enclosing a huge, heavy striking arm. As the lip of the cage made contact with the helmet, the striking arm blurred into motion, battering against the reinforced armor again and again, faster than she could see. The staccato blows rang through the chamber as the helmet deformed beneath the punishing blows, finally crumpling down into the neck of the armored suit, which then collapsed into a loose pile of armor and splashed blood.
There was no time for celebration, however, as three more heavy shapes pushed into the room and the statues rushed to join them. This time the battle was not nearly so one sided. The one-armed statue that had killed the first trooper fell to the combined attention of two heavy infantry, while a ferocious duel on the far side of the room saw another statue locked with another suit of armor, both pummeling the other mercilessly. It quickly became clear to her that whichever survived would be of little use to its allies in the rest of the fight.
In the center of the melee the statue that had been Marcus roared another challenge. Wherever he had come across the knowledge, he was wielding the nanotechnology in his limbs as if he had been born to it. At the moment, one arm had taken the shape of a huge hammer, pounding at the cringing Ntja before him. The other was a long thin lance, and as his opponent winced away from a particularly telling blow, he plunged the lance between its helmet and shoulder, yanking it out in a spray of blood.
More shapes crowded into the antechamber outside, pushing their brothers deeper into the room, and Angara realized that their situation had once again deteriorated. The Ntja would not stop, despite the loss of their fleet. Even with the Variyar on their way, even with the aid of these enormous metal men, there was no way they could survive. The Ntja would never surrender.
Her head came up and she shot a look at Nhan. He was watching the battle with horrified fascination, but glanced down at her as her head turned toward him. She tilted her head at the crashing violence, and then jerked her chin to the ceiling. “Taurani!” She shouted over the sounds of brutal death all around.
His eyes were wide already, but managed to convey a surge of surprised energy all the same. He nodded, and then looked to where the statue that was Marcus had stepped up to take on the next Ntja through the door.
She understood. To get to Taurani, they would need to get through the crush of enemy waiting to face them. How would any of them, even the enormous statues, move past that crowd? And what would happen to her and Nhan if they did?
But it did not matter. Death here together, or death alone with the hope of victory against her enemies. It was no question at all. If anyone could get away from this death trap and hunt down the Ambassador, it was Marcus.
“Marcus!” She shouted, her voice cracking with the strain. “Marcus, Taurani!”
The Marcus statue looked back at her, and as it turned, another Ntja reared up behind it, another massive bludgeon raised high.
“No!” She screamed, pointing behind her. The statue turned back, but it was too late. The enormous metal weight came crashing down on the statue’s head, smashing it to the ground. The metal figure staggered, going first to one knee and then the other as its head, shattered by the blow, ruptured into a cloud of glittering dust that cascaded down onto the floor. The bludgeon sheered through neck and chest to finally stop buried deep in the statue’s core.
The Ntja steadied itself, yanking the bludgeon out and raising it for a final blow.
The giant club caught the statue on its shoulder and dashed it to the floor in a flood of metal grit.
Angara heard herself scream. The statue was stretched out on the floor, lifeless. But beyond it she watched as another metal figure jerked upright as if shocked, and then turned to look at her. Something in the way this statue moved reminded her of the Human, and she breathed again. This statue nodded to her once, and then turned to the massive, armored Ntja that had destroyed the first Marcus statue.
As the heavy soldier turned toward the new threat, the statue grabbed its helmet with one huge hand. With a blur the hand became a solid block of metal and there was a muffled crunch. The headless suit of armor tumbled lifelessly onto its side.
The new Marcus statue turned to nod to her once again, and then made a sudden rush for the door. This time he was not trying to meet any of the suited Ntja in battle, but rather snaking through them, shouldering them aside as his body became a long, sinuous shape that wove through them like a serpent through tall grass.
The remaining statues formed up into a line before Angara and Nhan. There were only six of them left, and every one of them was showing damage from the battle. But even as she watched, their bodies seemed to be reforming, repairing themselves as they took up their positions.
Marcus had done what he could for them, and she was grateful. Now all he had to do was fight through the tunnels and find Taurani before these last statues were overwhelmed.
She reached out and recovered the knife she had lost earlier. If this was the end, she would not die whimpering on the floor without a weapon in her hand.
*****
Marcus flew through the tunnel, heedless of the obstacles in his way. He had pushed past the last armored Ntja, driving the thing’s head into a mosaic as he passed. Now he was catching up with fleeing foot soldiers who cried out as he gained on them. He wanted desperately to take his time killing them, but settled for those blows the urgency of his mission would allow. With his speed, strength, and the ability to turn his hand into a sword blade with a thought, that was usually enough.
Soon, however, he had outpaced even the fleeing soldiers, and found himself pumping through the corridor, his glaring eyes fixed before him, moving as fast as the metal body would allow.
He came tearing through the doorway in the rear of Sanctum like the ash cloud of a detonating volcano. He landed heavily upon the tiered surface of the floor and came to rest with one fist and one knee denting the floor plating. He rose, glancing around him, and found most of the Ntja soldiers at the wall, defending against a foe pressing them from outside. Most of the observation dome had come down at some point, leaving only a slow breastwork that provided little protection to the dog soldiers trying to fend off the furious Variyar assault.
None of the Ntja had noticed him in the heat of battle, and so he took his time surveying the situation. He knew Angara was right. He needed to find Taurani to finish this. Even as the thought settled into his mind, he saw two heavy-armored Ntja standing guard behind Iphini Bha’s brutalized shuttle. There, in the lee of the wreck, cowered Khuboda Taurani, his robes smudged, thin blood tracing a dark path down one gray cheek.
The creature’s noseless face was hard to read, its canted, metallic eyes glittering strangely in the dust-filled air. But Marcus wanted to think there was fear there, given the current situation.
Marcus stalked toward the two bodyguards and formed his arms into two monomolecular lances, weapons he had found most effective down below. The two Ntja turned to him a
s they sensed his approach, and as they recoiled from him, only raising their enormous clubs as he continued to close, he punched a lance through each of their necks. He felt his weapon extensions pierce the weak armor, and pushed blades of fine wire out of the lances and up into the helmets, where they flashed and scraped against the insides of the suits.
In less than a second, his weapons were the only things holding the dead weight upright, and he withdrew the lances back into metal hands, allowing the bodies to drop to either side. He straightened, looking down at Taurani, and smiled.
Those eyes were never built to widen in fear, but the way the lipless mouth opened and shut, there was no hiding the panic rising there. It tasted delicious.
The full weight of the hatred and distrust that had been heaped upon him rose up again, and he looked down at the creature responsible for nearly all of the pain and suffering that had occurred in Penumbra since Marcus had arrived. He saw the faces of a Diakk man and boy, he saw Iphini Bha, and Angara’s pained expression as she tried to ignore her wound in the command chamber far beneath their feet. And he saw Justin, countless scenarios flashing through his mind, each one ending in his best friend’s death by an Ntja sword.
Marcus took a step toward the Ambassador, a low growling shaking the scattered wreckage around them.
Taurani raised his arms, his wide, expressionless eyes throwing back a reflection of the statue reaching toward him with one enormous hand.
“No!” The voice was not Taurani’s, but it was vaguely familiar. With a snarl, Marcus looked up to see a huge Variyar running at him. K’hzan’s gravitic armor was shuddering as he ran, pivoting around his body to guard against the occasional blow aimed his way by the Ntja between them. The red king spun once on his heel, his battle staff flashing, its blade taking one enemy soldier in the gut before he spun it away, throwing up an arc of blood, and plunging it into the neck of the next as he sprinted past.
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