by Brian Mansur
Slowly, the enforcer angled its arm to aim at Sarah’s face. She had a close-up view of the gun muzzle attached to its mechanical wrist. Her voice cracked as she said, “Please.”
For a cruel stretch, the Warden said nothing. It gave Sarah time to dread, to regret her boldness. Sarah’s knees threatened to give way. “Please don’t kill any more of us.”
Something flashed in the machine’s glassy, obsidian face. It lowered its arm. “Intercessor protocols invoked.”
Inter-what? Sarah thought with breathless apprehension.
“You will assist these Lakshmians to the distribution point at Joyti Park,” the Warden said. “Anyone here who chooses to join you may do so, but delay will not be tolerated.”
It took Sarah a whole second to realize she hadn’t been sentenced to an awful punishment. Her lungs gusted. While sniffing back the sting of emotion, she said to the marines, “Please, help me get them up.”
For a beat, they stared at her. Then their sergeant barked out names to serve as a litter team. They hefted bodies across their backs and marched outside without question. Sarah promised the wounded marines she would return as soon as possible. Afterward, she followed the others into the street.
While she hurried alongside her patients, she tried to intuit why the marines had been so ready to aid her. The Warden had tasked Sarah, not them. They also knew from their pre-mission briefing that Joyti Park lay kilometers away. Sending troops there meant weakening the perimeter in the office plaza.
Amidst the clamor of jostling people, she overheard one marine say to another, “I’ve never seen anyone do something that ballsy before.”
Location, Potato Field, Segment 5, Lakshmi Colony_
Lilith came to in stages. At first, she felt only pain: terrible, stabbing pain across an aching body. Next, she heard a voice speak her name. Her eyes opened to a blur.
What’s happened to me?
The world sharpened into focus. A tranquil field lay before her. She looked left and saw a man. He seemed familiar, but she didn’t know why.
The man asked, “Can you hear me? Do you know your name?”
His question sparked a painful memory. She recalled a woman once told her, “If you ever use your real name again, we’ll beat you. From now on, you are—”
“Lilith,” she said. “I’m Lilith.” Her eyes quested about. She was in a busted-up sky car. Then she remembered, Oh, we crashed. She twisted to look behind her and saw Markem’s empty seat.
“Where?” Lilith began.
Henry said, “He didn’t have his harness on. His body is somewhere outside.”
Lilith looked through the nonexistent windshield. She saw a dark, distant figure running at them.
“Who is that?”
Henry followed Lilith’s gaze and straightened. “An enforcer,” he said. His arm dropped to his restraints, and they loosened at a click. With sloth-like care, he opened the battered door and climbed out.
“I see Markem behind us,” Henry said. “He’s not moving.” He turned to Lilith. “You didn’t happen to be lying about having only one Warden assistance option?”
“No,” Lilith said, dazed. She paused for a breath. She gasped. “My chest and legs hurt a lot.”
Henry studied the crumpled dashboard covering Lilith’s lower half. “Can you move your feet?”
Lilith tried, and daggers of pain pierced her limbs. “I can’t move. It hurts too much.”
Henry cursed. “We don’t have a comm link. So even once Phase Three is fully online, we can’t use Natrix to make anyone obey us.” He stared off at the approaching enforcer. “You’d better hope we can convince them to help.”
Lilith, however, screwed her face in anguished fury and dismay. They’d warned her what would happen if she got herself badly hurt. When the mechanoid trotted to Lilith’s side, she addressed it with a groan.
“Enforcer, I—”
“Silence!” it boomed. The machine’s faceless head peered down at the Belian crime lord. “You are an embarrassment, Laila Kota.”
“But, Warden—” A fit of coughing seized her fractured ribcage. She wheezed and spasmed until tears fell from her eyes.
“You have demonstrated your ineptitude time and again.” Its words lashed Lilith with shame. “You have been deemed unfit. Your reign is ended.”
Lilith gasped for air. Her mouth gaped to utter a furious, “No,” but spat up bloody phlegm instead. The enforcer turned away from her.
“Commandante Wilkinson,” it said. “The New Belian Empire is yours.”
“Hen—,” Lilith tried to say, but the racking coughs wouldn’t stop. The Celesian and Warden ignored her.
Stone-faced, Henry said, “You’re most gracious. Are there any special conditions I should observe?”
“Succeed where this woman failed. Build your empire. Conquer. Disappoint us, and you will suffer her fate.”
“What is her fate?” Henry asked with a quirked brow.
“Our displeasure.” The machine turned its head toward Lilith. She shrank in her seat. Her once haughty facade had crumbled into the coarse features of an angry, frightened and hurting woman.
“What are you going to do to her?” Henry asked.
“What would be more appropriate?” the machine responded. “Should she live out her life in a brothel wearing a re-sculpted face? Or shall we leave her here for the Mykonians? They will arrive soon after Phase Three’s completion.”
Lilith’s hands trembled. Her eyes burned. She hiccuped, which shot needles of agony into her broken ribs. “I fought for you!” she shouted. “This isn’t right! Your mechs were too stupid to protect me!”
The Warden regarded her with metallic dispassion. “Your enemies will have you, then,” it said.
Henry took a half-step forward. “Why not remove us both from the colony?” The Warden continued to glare at Lilith. Henry huffed. “She knows too many secrets.”
“Yes,” the Warden said. “She does.”
“At least let me kill her,” Henry said.
“What!” Lilith cried.
“You will be silent or face greater punishment!” the Warden said to the woman.
“Security failures are why she is in this mess,” Henry insisted. “For me to succeed—”
The enforcer whirled on him. “Our decision is final! The Mykonians will have her!”
Henry didn’t dare object to Lilith’s sentence further. “What of me, then?” he asked.
“You will depart Lakshmi in our transport. The situation on this colony is too unstable.”
At that, Henry noticed a Warden police wagon trundling toward them from a nearby road. “I appreciate your generosity.”
“That is wise.”
They waited in silence then, mindful of the soon-to-be captive Lilith. When the truck pulled up, Henry stepped to its open rear door. He stopped at its lip to take one last look at the deposed empress. The quivering, half-dead bag of flesh peered back at him from the sky car. He recalled seeing the same forlorn expression on Karen’s face hours before.
As the door shut, Henry muttered, “You had this coming.”
He plopped his sore body into a stainless-steel seat. The reality that he had not betrayed Lilith fueled a smirk.
I’ll need to have a little discussion with Command about how General Parashar got an unlocked Arbiter. Henry leaned back as the truck bounced over the uneven terrain. Come to think of it, now that I am Belia’s emperor, Command and I will need to talk about a lot of things. But first—
“Warden,” he said to the enforcer who’d joined him, “I need to speak with Natrix, please.”
“Link established,” the machine said.
The first words out of Natrix’s vocal algorithms were, “How may I serve you, my Emperor?”
Location: CIC, MSV Tsunami_
Rafe seethed.
“What is happening down there?”
Lilith’s tracking dot continued to pulse red. News had arrived that the Wardens were gatherin
g the citizenry in all eight of Lilith’s colonies. And the executions had been hastened to a merciful end without explanation.
What are those mechanical monsters up to? He felt almost as unnerved by the silence on the net as he had been by the screams. It worried him that the Wardens might help Lilith again before the strike team reached her.
He studied a feed from one of the scouts in Lakshmi. A human mass funneled between the enforcers along a street. Here and there, the machines lashed out at someone moving too slow for their tastes.
It’s like they’re on a death march, he thought with a chill. And why would the Wardens be so keen to keep non-residents indoors? Is it for crowd control or do they not want us to see something? Given that even the ground force’s drones had been locked down, Rafe favored the latter, unpleasant possibility.
A change in the immunity map diverted his attention. He blinked. Lilith’s red dot had faded out. For a few seconds, he stared to make sure it wouldn’t return. When it didn’t, the commander spun his chair about.
“Attention in the CIC! Lilith has dropped off the immunity tracker!”
A stunned instant later and most of the crew began clapping their hands. Despite the vacuum, Rafe could have sworn he heard the applause. A lump formed in his throat. They finally got her.
Part of him wanted to cheer, but his conflicted heart held him back.
The captain let her crew bask in their victory for a few beats before saying, “Well done, Commander. Well done all.” She cleared her throat. “Scopes. Comms. Keep monitoring for any sign of automated retribution. Claire, I still want a body. Once the Wardens let our people move again, how fast can the strike team reach Lilith’s last known position?”
“Captain,” the A.I. said with a foreboding tone, “a Warden notice just arrived advising that Lilith has been deposed. The message also says that the Wardens have already installed a successor. The new ruler’s name will be announced at a later time.”
The smiles fled from the crew. Paulson’s face turned ashen. “Keep a close eye on those Lakshmian warships.”
The plotting chief snapped to his console. “Aye, ma’am. They’re still station-keeping a little outside the ten-thousand-klick line. No change in aspect.”
Seems they didn’t get orders to back down. He returned his gaze to the ground video and suppressed a shiver. What are the Wardens going to do with the colonists?
Location: Joyti Park, Segment 5, Lakshmi Colony_
After almost an hour of walking, Sarah and her companions ambled into their destination. It stiffened the hackles on her neck to find an enormous electric fence circling a field inside the park.
That can’t have been here an hour ago. Already it penned in tens of thousands of Lakshmians with more flowing through its gates every second. The enforcers at the park had outfitted themselves with mini-Gatlings, like the ones on Lilith’s mechs. Sarah glanced at the pale office worker who lay across a trudging marine’s back. We’ve taken these poor souls so far and for what?
Some of the women and children behind her raised a cry. Sarah twisted about.
“They’re closing the gates!” she said.
At each of the entrances, the Wardens slid fence pieces together like curtain panels. Only a few, well-guarded gaps remained for stragglers to enter.
Maybe they’ll let us leave that way?
Seeking to soothe her fears, Sarah jumped upon a bench and scouted around. A bulldozer stood in the park’s center next to a mound of freshly gathered dirt. Behind it stood tree-height poles with white projection screens dangling from cross-beams. More fencing stretched in a line from left to right with dozens of regular gaps that a person could walk through. At each entryway, she saw stacked crates.
The enforcer said this was a distribution point, she thought. What in heaven’s name would they want to distribute?
No sooner had she stepped down than a cluster of Wardens atop the knoll announced, “All residents will remove their clothing. If you do not comply, you will be punished.”
Muted noises of disbelief, outrage, and panic rippled through the crowd, Sarah included.
Someplace where Sarah couldn’t see, a brash man said loudly, “Are you serious?”
In response, a muzzle flashed from one of the Wardens on the knoll. The crack set off screams. Their cacophony kept Sarah from hearing anything further for several seconds. When the air quieted, she could discern a single male crying in pain.
“You will comply immediately,” the Wardens said.
The rest of the people, either silent or whimpering, shucked their clothes where they stood. Anxiety and sorrow furrowed Sarah’s young face.
Remembering her patients, she busied herself with helping them undress. She produced shears and clipped off what the wounded couldn’t remove themselves. When she got up from the last of them, she scanned the crowd.
Around her stirred a sea of bare bodies. She glimpsed a child clutching her mother. An elderly man who’d stood tall moments before now hunched over. A sobbing wife huddled against her husband’s back. Everywhere, people positioned their arms and hands in a futile effort to assuage their shame.
A live video of those gathered up front appeared on the jumbo projection screens. Sarah gasped as a dozen enforcers pushed into the crowd to pull kids off their parents. Hysterical adults screamed their children’s names while the youths squealed. The desperate cries sent Sarah quaking. She experienced a flashback of when, helpless, she’d watched Corporal Horvath die.
The plaintiff shrieking lasted almost a minute. By its end, the Wardens hauled six naked children to the top of the little hill. Their distraught faces shone on the screens: three boys and three girls. Sarah guessed they were primary schoolers, ages five to ten.
An enforcer moved to clutch one child’s neck with a claw-like appendage. The boy’s legs danced weakly, then stilled. For a terrifying instant, Sarah thought the robot was crushing his throat. When it released the balling child, she saw that the Warden had left a thick, black ring about his neck.
A marine asked, “Is that what it looks like?”
“It must be,” Sarah said, mortified. “They’re putting slave collars on them!”
Before anyone could speak further, a female voice, very similar to Lilith’s, blared from the enforcers’ speakers. “Lakshmians, welcome!” it said with incongruous cheer. “I’m Natrix. I’ll be your host for these proceedings. In fact, I’ll be your close, personal, ever-present A.I. overseer for the rest of your natural lives. Today, you become slaves of the New Belian Empire.”
Wails and muffled screams echoed across the park. Sarah instinctively raised a hand to cover her mouth but slapped her helmet bubble instead. She made a quick deduction.
Lilith! She got the Wardens to gather everyone to do this to them! Others in the crowd who’d come to the same conclusion cursed the empress’s name.
After the Lakshmians had spent a few seconds assimilating their fate, the A.I. said, “Now, now, I know you’re all excited about these new changes, but credit must go where credit is due. First off, Lilith has been replaced as your empress. You have an emperor now, but I must say,” and the A.I. lowered her voice to a whisper, “he’s very upset that you rebelled.”
“Oh no,” Sarah breathed, dreading what would happen next.
The A.I. resumed a normal tone, “So, we’re going to demonstrate on these children the price of disobedience.”
The left screen flipped to a view of the parents reaching out for their children. The anguish in the adults’ faces mirrored Sarah’s own. She heard one woman begging the machines to let her take her daughter’s place.
Sarah wanted to rush forward and tell the Wardens to stop. With Natrix working through the enforcers, however, Sarah knew it would probably be suicide.
The A.I. said, “You’ll notice the collars on their necks. Shiny, fashionable. Don’t worry, you’ll all get one before we’re done. Now, if you fail to obey any directive, we have five shock settings with which to repriman
d you. We’ll start with the child on the left and go up from there.”
A hand gripped Sarah’s arm and turned her from the obscene drama. Startled, she looked up into the eyes of the corporal who’d led their small detachment.
Amidst the horrid sounds of tortured children, he said, “Ma’am, it’s time to leave before they outfit these people and send them after us.”
Sarah’s lower jaw quivered. Those babies. My patients. How can I just leave them?
“Lieutenant,” the corporal said, “you’ve done your job.”
Hearing her rank broke through Sarah’s mental block. She willed a semblance of composure back into her face. “We have to warn the brigade,” she said. “Let’s go.”
As they moved to the nearest gate, she heard Natrix say, “Of course, if you try to take the collar off without permission, or interfere with it, this will happen.”
A sharp crack hushed the masses. It stopped Sarah’s heart. She knew without looking that the sixth child’s neck had been shredded by a slave collar’s explosives. She also knew she would never forget the mother’s screams that followed.
Holding back tears, Sarah fled the park with the others. As the weary squad jogged away, she kept praying for the living nightmare to end.
Some minutes later, the “No Signal” symbol on her HUD vanished. The chat icon for Sean glowed green once more.
Sarah slowed her pace, suddenly breathless. Before her eyes, text appeared: “From LT Merrick, Sean: I’m okay. Back on Tsu. Are you safe?”
She read the words and noted the time stamp. They’d been sent half an hour before. Then she read them again.
Something inside told her that she should be happy about this news, but she felt nothing. She’d cut off her heart so that the horrors would stop hurting.
I’m in shock, she realized.
Claire said, “Incoming call from Lieutenant Merrick.” In a daze, Sarah clicked open the line.
