The Jammer and the Blade

by Edwardson, DJ

  There was no way they could outrun either the Delegation or Factor Ten forces if the conflict spilled into their part of the Scrape, but it felt better knowing that the cream would at least get them out of this area as soon as possible. Whether the conflict ceased or moved on into another part of the Scrape, the lights faded shortly before morning along with the two moons.

  The coming of the morning light brought another change as well—a break in the unending flatness surrounding them. The change was still a few miles away, but Sun li could make out some sort of canyon carved out of the rocky ground beyond them. The rocks there looked different from the charcoal ground they had been running on this whole time. They were a sort of burnt orange color. As she and Brit got closer, large pillars and buttes could be seen rising up from the canyon floor below the level of the surrounding flatlands.

  “That’s Torrid Canyon,” Brit told her. “Somewhere in there is the Factor Ten base of operations.”

  She ran up alongside him to make sure she was hearing him right. “Wait, you don’t know exactly where it is?”

  “They move it around all the time. If I knew the location, do you think I’d be working for Deliverance? I would have sold it to the Delegation and be jiving like a joker in my own private orbital yacht,” he answered. “A jammer can find it, though. We can track better than anyone.”

  “If you say so,” Sun li remarked. It wasn’t that she doubted his ability to track, it was that there didn’t seem to be anything to track. All they had seen were a couple of drones and some lights off in the distance. Otherwise, the Scrape had proved as bleak and deserted as the stories had claimed.

  “Factor Ten patrols the Canyon much more heavily than they do the Scrape. Even with the Delegation attack, we should start running into sentries soon,” Brit explained.

  “Do you have any information about what capabilities the sentries have?”

  “Mid range locus guns,” said Brit. “Typical automaton weapons.”

  Sun li scanned the formation in the distance as if she expected some of Factor Ten’s automatons to climb up out of it at that moment. Their vast automated armies were what made them one of the few groups able to stand up to the Delegation. Some even said they were the ones who had originally supplied the Delegation with most of its tech and that was why they were so good at exploiting it in battle.

  Sun li had seen a disabled automaton in the market once being parted out, but it was an older model and hadn’t been operational so she wasn’t sure what they were really like. She certainly had never faced one in battle, but since Factor Ten used them extensively in their army it was probably only a matter of time before she found out.

  When they arrived at the edge of the canyon Sun li stared down into the depths. Nothing moved out across the great expanse, but the rock formations within it were as jagged as an undersider's teeth and certainly far more dangerous. They were not uniformly orange as they had appeared from a distance. There were black veins and jutting yellow crystals mixed in with the brighter orange rocks so that the entire formation looked like it was made out of broken glass fused together by intense heat. Not only did it look like it would be extremely unsafe to climb down into it, but it was at least a thousand foot drop to the canyon floor.

  “There’s no way we’ll be able to get down that drop without the proper gear,” Sun li commented.

  Brit gave her a twisted smirk. “Who said we were going to climb?”

  He then produced a pair of canisters from his satchel and handed one to Sun li. “This is an altitude capsule,” he told her, “Just twist the ends to turn it on and then swipe your finger up or down the side, depending on whether you want to go up or down and the device will do the rest.”

  The canisters were about a foot long and had a cushioned handle running along their underside and a black panel in the middle. The ends were capped by flat pieces of glass. Brit, demonstrating what he’d just explained, swiped his finger down across the smooth black surface and the ends began to glow with a faint green light. He gripped the handle with both hands, took a running start and leapt off the edge of the cliff.

  Sun li gasped at the unexpected jump, but instead of plummeting to his death as he should have, he merely glided out away from the edge of the cliff in a straight path through the air. He was hanging down from the handle like he was riding an invisible zip line, the kind some of the undersiders used to jet around Bracken when they wanted to get away from the Delegation authorities. After a few moments, she noticed that he was losing altitude, but very slowly.

  There was nothing to be done, but follow him over the edge. Sun li was not particularly afraid of heights, but the jagged rocks did give her pause. She knew that if she slipped or if for some reason the capsule malfunctioned, it would mean instant death.

  She swiped her finger along the black panel the way Brit had done and saw the green lights flicker. Putting her trust in Brit’s words and the little green tint on the end of the metal tube, she dashed to the edge of the cliff and into the Canyon air. A moment later her feet were dangling below her with nothing but empty space between her and the array of spike-filled rock formations below.

  It took her mind several moments to adjust to the fact that she was floating through the air and not falling. At first she had wondered whether or not her grip would hold, but it looked like the handle had closed in around her fingers once her weight went out from under her. It was reassuring knowing that there was really no way she could fall since her hands were now more or less trapped inside the capsule and she would not have been able to let go even if she wanted to.

  The air rushed by as she zipped forward, but the rate of her descent was actually rather slow. Her fears gradually subsided as she dropped further and further into the canyon below. She cast her eyes about the stunning terrain, struck by how lifelike the rock formations seemed, like the giant fingers of some monster trapped inside the Kessian crust. But as forbidding as they looked, the light glinted off the crystals in such a way that it imparted an enchanting, almost mystical air to the canyon.

  She got so caught up in the beauty of the canyon’s rocks that she didn’t notice that she had taken off at a slightly different trajectory from Brit. They were growing more and more apart and she wondered just how far away from each other they might be when they landed.

  While she was worrying about this, however, a massive pillar rose up directly in her path and she realized that she had more important things to worry about than where she was going to land. The formation was coming at her a lot faster than she would have liked and she was terrified that she might get impaled on the sharp rocks.

  She twisted and swung her legs back and forth, but could do nothing to change course. All she could do was stare in terror as the rocks of Torrid Canyon rushed toward her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Failure

  Plans to save herself flashed through Sun li’s mind. She thought about using her blades. The jagged crystals were mostly no thicker than her arms so she could easily use her glaives to cut through the rocks once she got close enough. The only problem was that she had no idea how to override the safety lock to get her hands free. She wondered if she should call out for help, but Brit was nowhere to be seen and even if he had been there wasn’t time. The pillar of rock was coming too fast.

  As she sped towards impact, a desperate idea leapt into her thoughts. She held her breath, waiting until the last possible moment, and then swung her feet forward. She kicked at the crystal furthest out. The tip of it was jagged with spikes, but by timing it just right, she managed to plant her foot against the smooth, glassy side. Then she shoved with all her strength and went flying off and to her right, narrowly missing the serrated crystals surrounding the pillar.

  This maneuver saved her from the rocks, but now she was headed even further away from the direction Brit had been going. Ahead of her she saw another cluster of pillars. This new section of the Canyon looked even more dangerous than the one she’d just escaped
from. The pillars were packed together like sticks of incense in a tray. Even if she managed to time it just right and push away from one of them again, she would slam into the columns next to it before she could swing her legs up for another kick. She had to figure out a way to override the safety on the capsule and free one of her hands.

  “Brit!” she shouted.

  She had about a hundred feet before she hit. Brit was her only chance.

  Her voice echoed across the canyon but there was no answer. She panicked, wondering what had happened to him. Perhaps he had slammed into one of the rocks somewhere else in the Canyon and was either wounded, trapped, or dying.

  “Brit! I’m in trouble! How do I get my hands free?”

  The rocks were getting closer and closer. She could not believe that this device which had saved her from falling was about to impale her on these spikes.

  “Why do you need to disengage the safety?” Brit’s voice echoed from somewhere off to her left, but she still couldn’t see any sign of him.

  “Just tell me how to do it—now!” she screamed.

  “Double tap with both thumbs on the canister body and hold down,” came his voice, distant and muffled.

  Immediately, she did as instructed, tapping and then pressing her thumbs tightly against the surface of the cylinder. She waited a moment, then heard a click. She was no more than a dozen feet from the jagged rocks when she felt the handle drop down and release her fingers.

  With a flick of her right hand, a blue light flared out from the vambrace on her arm like an icy talon extending three feet beyond her fist. The locus energy blade flashed across the width of the pillar. The pillar was narrow enough that she cut clean through it with a single swipe. The hundred feet or so of rock above her dipped to the side and slid off towards the canyon floor as she lifted up her feet and passed to the side of it. The mighty beam of rock shattered into a cloud of dust below with an enormous boom which echoed across the cavern.

  But Sun li had only time to glance down and see the impact before another pillar loomed up ahead, its stony claws ready to pull her into its embrace.

  “What’s going on?” Brit shouted, but she had no time to answer.

  A blue flash of her blade sent the next pillar careening off its base. This one pitched forward unexpectedly and caught the canister, batting the device downward. She nearly lost her grip and went down with the column, but she managed to hold on and slide out from under it.

  Another massive stone formation lurked just beyond that one. It wasn’t as spike ridden as the others so all she had to do was hack off the stone spurs in her path, and then at last she was clear the rest of the way down.

  She continued to drift for several more moments, scanning the canyon for any sign of Brit, but she saw nothing.

  “Where are you?” she shouted.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, his voice sounding more distant than before. “We’ll find each other when we land. For now, stop making such a racket. You’ll alert every automaton in the sector.”

  Sun li decided to take his advice and didn’t reply. Instead, she twitched her wrist so that the blade disappeared and then glided silently downwards for the remaining five hundred feet or so. She landed safely at the foot of one of the massive buttes.

  Shoving the altitude capsule into her satchel she turned and scanned in the direction where she thought Brit would have landed based on the last time she’d seen him. There was nothing there but an arrangement of pillars and a scattered assortment of orange and black crystal shards, the same kind which everywhere littered the cavern floor.

  She caught something moving out of the corner of her eye. Her head snapped in that direction and for a brief moment she thought she saw the shadow of a tall human figure moving along the base of one of the pillars, but then it was gone.

  She considered calling out to Brit, but if there was someone else in the canyon, she didn’t want to risk giving her location away. Instead, she headed off in the direction of the movement.

  Keeping as close to the pillars as she could, she crept up the slight rise towards her intended destination, picking out a path that was relatively free of shards and debris so that she made as little noise as possible.

  She was almost near the pillar where she’d seen the movement when she felt a shadow fall across her right shoulder. Instinctively, she rolled to the ground in the opposite direction just as a massive set of metal legs slammed into the ground where she had just been standing.

  Both of her vambraces burst into light, coursing with locus energy. She swiveled back around so that both blades struck the place where she knew the thing attacking her—whatever it was—must be. She watched as both blades passed through the pillar-like legs of some giant humanoid figure encased in metal. But as they did so the locus beams disappeared in a flash of light.

  Sun li glanced at the discharged vambraces. She had never known them to fail before and it was almost unthinkable that they would both fail at once. They should have cut right through that metal; locus energy could cut through almost anything. But she had no time to figure out what had caused them to malfunction. The automaton's arms, as thick as Sun li’s entire body, slammed down towards her from above but she flung herself backwards just in time. Even so, one of the fists grazed her thigh and that was enough to knock her off her feet and sent her tumbling backwards.

  She winced, but shrugged off the impact and found her feet, fear quickening her reactions. Her father’s training had not taught her to suppress her fears, but to channel them.

  Her enemy reacted quickly for an automaton. It took two steps and then sprung into the air, leaping high over Sun li’s head and then down again, straight towards her.

  Sun li smiled to herself. It looked like this automaton was as unintelligent as everyone had said they were. Flicking her wrists again the blades flared to life. She slid between the mechanical warrior’s barrel-like legs just as it was about to strike her, thrusting her arms upwards and slicing through its torso. But once again, the blades winked out of existence and when she whipped back around her opponent was completely unscathed.

  Not since her first month of training had she been this lost in a battle. If her weapons were of no use against this thing, how could she fight it? For a moment she hesitated and in that moment the automaton spun around and swung both its arms towards her. This time, her instincts couldn’t save her. The arms were too massive and came in too fast to be avoided. She felt her body wrapped up inside its unyielding limbs. All she could do was stare into the mirrored visor which wrapped around the front of its head.

  She expected to be instantly crushed but instead she heard a sizzling crack and what sounded like a thousand garbled voices shouting in unison. The next moment the automaton’s head disappeared, replaced by a cauterized lump of twisted metal. The arms around her went slack and Sun li crashed to the ground. The air leapt back into her lungs but she lay there writhing in pain as the rest of the metal frame slumped to the ground.

  “You ok?” asked Brit, breathless, as he came running up to her side.

  Sun li nodded, turning to look at him. He held an odd-looking gun in his hand. It had a short squat barrel that extended just past the end of his hand. Firearms were forbidden in Bracken and she had only ever seen them on Delegation soldiers.

  Brit seemed rather pleased as he glanced over the mangled automaton. As always he had the look of a scoundrel about him, but at that moment she was glad that he was on her side.

  “What’s that weapon?” she asked, “Is that what you used to kill it?”

  “Yeah, it’s an anti-mech device Cheddar slipped me; it’s called a mantid gun. He said it was an experimental prototype he got from Deliverance. Looks like it’ll come in handy, huh? Only has six shots though—well, five now.” He pressed a panel on the stock and it collapsed down to about half its size and wrapped itself around his wrist in a thick band.

  Leaving Sun li to pick herself up he walked over to the metal husk of the autom
aton.

  “I’ve never seen this model before,” he remarked. “Must be new.” He flipped several assembly clips recessed in between the joints and unlocked several of the panels on one of its arms. He watched and grinned as a large tapered cylinder popped out. “My my, it had a locus pulser on it too. Wonder why it didn’t use it?”

  “It probably knew locus weapons are no use against blades,” Sun li told him as she pushed herself to her feet. She dusted herself, feeling a sharp stitch in her sides. She didn’t think she had sustained any major injuries but she knew she’d be sore for a few days.

  “But how could it have known you were a blade?” Brit replied, moving over to the metal torso which looked wide enough to house the two of him inside. “These metal monsters aren’t that smart. There has to be some other explanation.”

  Sun li shrugged. Brit had a point. As far as she knew automatons didn’t have the ability to process information all that well. Unless it was specifically programmed to fight against blades, it probably wouldn’t have known what it was up against.

  Brit continued dismantling the mechanized warrior. He removed a panel from its chest and pulled out a cylinder from the thing’s body the size of his fist. It had silvery rings running along the outside of it. “Well what do you know. This looks like some sort of energy dampener,” he remarked and pressed the top of it. It clicked, but nothing else happens. “Unfortunately it looks like it got damaged when I shot the automaton.”

  “What was it supposed to do?” asked Sun li. She’d never heard of anything like that.

  Brit’s mouth started twitching and his eyes dilated. She could tell he was once again deep in thought.

  “It projects a field that will dampen any energy source it comes in contact with.”

  Sun li stared at the small device. “That must be why my blades discharged,” she said.

  “Well, this could certainly come in useful. It might even increase the favorable outcomes for this mission.” Brit pressed on the top of it so that the whirring went away. He shoved it in the satchel hanging at his hip. “Let’s hope we don’t run into any more automatons fitted out with this, though. A blade’s not much use without her choppers.”