by Jay Kristoff
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Best results come from explosions maybe five hundred meters off the ground. So, we fly high, hopefully out of sight. When we’re over CityHive, we trip the timer and drop the bomb. Once it’s out the door, Deez Rifts us west and keeps Rifting, getting us far she can in those thirty seconds. Then boom.”
“How big is the blast?” the girl asked.
“Big. So Rift far and fast, or we’re all gonna be radioactive ashes.” Abe shrugged. “Or cancer patients.”
The girl pouted with painted lips. “No pressure, huh, Brotherboy?”
Abe smirked. “No pressure.”
“Right,” Zeke nodded. “We’ll give CityHive a wide berth, wait till nighttime and come in from the ocean. There’s bound to be Hunter-Killer patrols in the skies around the city, but hopefully they won’t spot us in the dark.”
“And if they do?” Diesel asked. “The whole thing will be blown, right?”
Zeke shook his head. “Well, CityHive doesn’t use radio. But if everything in BioMaas is interconnected the way Lemon says, they might not even need to. So let’s just not get seen.”
“I am in full agreement with this plan,” Abraham nodded.
The crew bundled into the flier, with Abe strapped in beside the bomb in back and Diesel in the copilot’s chair beside Ezekiel. Slapping on her seat belt, the girl held up a memchit and looked Zeke in the eye. “Mind if I play some music?”
Without waiting for an answer, she slapped the chit into the console and cranked the volume. The cabin filled with the earsplitting, blast-beat tempo of some truly obnoxious drudge. Ezekiel winced, shouting at Diesel over the ruckus.
“You call this music?”
“No!” Abraham groaned. “She calls it poetry!”
“Now you’re learning!” she cried, thumping the dash. “Come on, let’s go, prettyboy! Places to be! Cities to bomb!”
Ezekiel arced the throttle. Eased back the controls. A howl of motors. Screaming drudge. A moment’s weightlessness, tearing free of the earth’s grip.
And they were on their way.
* * *
_________
Lemon held Grimm’s hand as they drove.
It wasn’t easy at first, with Grimm crunching his way through the gears—at one point Cricket called out from the back and asked if he should maybe drive instead. But once they got on the freeway, hammering down those open roads across the empty stretch of the Yousay, Lemon found her fingers brushing Grimm’s, until finally, they were entwined in his lap.
It felt good to her. Quiet and right. Like maybe they were just two kids out for a cruise instead of barreling headlong toward a battle for the fate of the future. Somehow it didn’t matter to Lemon. The chaos waiting over the horizon, the thought of what they’d be facing. Somehow everything seemed okay with him beside her.
“This is nice,” she said, snuggling a little closer.
“Yeah,” he said, slipping his arm around her.
The kilometers ground away beneath their wheels, dust on her tongue, sun burning on her skin. The wasteland humanity had made flying past in a blur. West of Paradise Falls. East of Jugartown. She thought about all the places she’d been, the things she’d seen since she left home. Truth was, part of her still felt like that snot-nosed, punk kid who’d set out as the tagalong in someone else’s story. The sass on tap. The comedy relief. She wondered who she was to be standing up in a fight like this. To be counting on others to do the same. Despite her speech in the silo, she didn’t feel like any sort of leader.
Grimm looked at her sidelong.
“You got this, love,” he said. “And you got me. To the end.”
She smiled at him. Squeezed his hand.
“Not the end,” she said. “Not today.”
It was midafternoon when the first vehicles began passing them on the freeway—trucks and utilities, rusty buggies and motorcycles. Folk were driving on both sides of the road, and Grimm was forced to lay on the horn as the traffic got thicker, autos and people scrambling to get out of their way. Looking into the passing vehicles packed with people, loaded with gear, Lemon realized who they were.
“Megopolis citizens,” she murmured. “Running away from the city.”
“And here we are,” Grimm smirked. “Runnin’ right toward it.”
The crush slowed them down, and the sun was well toward setting by the time they reached the Rim of the Daedalus capital. Lemon was a little awed to see it, talking true. The great Wall ringing its concrete Hub, the towering skyscrapers and polluted fog, filthy and mean and crooked. It seemed an odd thing to be saving, for a moment. But then Lem remembered her days as a kid in the LD sprawl. The crews she’d run with, the family she’d found with Evie and Silas. From a distance, the last great human city in the whole Yousay was big and gray and ugly. But if you looked closer, she supposed, Megopolis was full of stories like hers. People just trying to get by, find a place to belong, scrape out their own little piece of happy.
She squeezed Grimm’s hand again.
Happy, if nothing else, was worth fighting for.
A security checkpoint was set up across the Wall in front of them, manned by Daedalus troopers and the huge bulk of a Daishō machina—bipedal, broad-shouldered, its head flanged and crested like an old Asiabloc warrior from the history virtch. Rotor drones spun through the sky; a dozen different automated sentries pointed weapons at them.
The lanes leading out of the Hub were choked with tanks, heavy machina, artillery, but the lanes leading into the Hub were empty but for a few truckloads of soldiers. A couple of harried-looking, heavily armed troopers waved Grimm to a stop. The lieutenant leading them was tall, battle-scarred and looked like the kind that kicked kittens around for chuckles. Grimm pulled over obediently. The lieutenant looked them over with a scowl.
“You’re actually trying to get into this city?”
“Crazy, right?” Lemon smiled.
“We’re here to help, mate,” Grimm said.
The lieutenant glanced to his comrades, then spat on the ground. “Get outta here, kid. Take my word for it. You don’t wanna be here come nightfall.”
“Well, I’ll be goddamned….”
Lemon turned at the Southern drawl, eyes going wide. Cricket poked his head out from the semi’s trailer, optics burning bright. There, among the power-armored troops waiting to get into the city, stood a familiar figure. He’d traded his dusty black trench coat for a suit of black power armor, but he still wore his cowboy hat, and he’d painted the gauntlet on his right hand blood red. He looked Lemon square in the eye, lips twisting into a grin.
“Lil’ Red,” he said.
“Preacher,” she hissed, static crackling behind her eyes.
Kitten Kicker glanced at Preacher. “You know these three, Goodbook?”
“Yeah, I know ’em,” the man replied.
The bounty hunter looked at Cricket in the back of the rig, then the troopers all around him. Lemon wondered if every kind of trouble was about to start raining onto their heads. But as Preacher fixed her in his stare, irises glinting like pale blue glass, the man threw back his head and burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded, squaring up.
The bounty hunter wiped at his eyes, shook his head. “Only that I’ve spent what feels like forever hunting your narrow ass all over the goddamn country, missy. An’ here you are, deliverin’ yourself to the front gate without a care in the world.”
“I’m not ‘delivering’ myself anywhere,” Lemon said.
Cricket nodded. “AND IF YOU’RE THINKING OF CASHING IN—”
“Ain’t no point,” Preacher said, shaking his head. “BioMaas apparently got what they needed outta ya. Unless you ain’t aware of what went on down south.”
“I know what happened in Armada,” she said
softly. “I’m here to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Preacher looked her over carefully, but Kitten Kicker scoffed.
“You got any idea what’s coming this way tonight?” the soldier demanded. “What kind of help can you be, kid?”
Lemon opened her palms, let tiny arcs of static crackle between her fingers. Beside her, Grimm closed his fists, heat rippling in the air around them, tiny fires flaring in the depths of his eyes. Cricket loomed at their backs, all seventy-one tons of him, his armor blood red, his face a grinning skull.
Kitten Kicker’s eyes grew a little wider. Preacher seemed unfazed. Lemon looked about the defenses, back to Preacher’s eyes.
“Can’t help but notice you got no logika on your line.”
The bounty hunter shook his head. “Every bot in the city shut down, ran off or went insane when those snowflakes transmitted their virus.”
“Sounds like you’re a little shorthanded,” she said. “You want our help or not?”
She looked around the assembled soldierboys, static crackling in her eyes.
“Because let’s face it. You kids need all the help you can get.”
Diesel didn’t like it when things went smooth.
It was the superstitious part of her. The part that told her the universe only made good things happen so it hurt worse when the bad stuff arrived. Diesel was a girl who was always waiting for the other boot to drop, but so far, there was no damn sign of it, and that just put her on edge. The flex-wing had cut across the desert, endless kilometers of rolling dunes and busted freeways and little scum-water towns flashing away beneath them. Zeke flew low at first, engines cruising to preserve their power. It was a long trek to CityHive, and they were going to be flying all day.
The Glass stretched away off to the north—an endless expanse of black, irradiated sand. She felt a stab of guilt at the thought that they were about to make more of that hellscape, that if everything went well, there’d be nothing left of CityHive but radioactive silicon by morning. But even if these weren’t the bastards who killed Fix, truth told, Deez knew they were in a war here. And Fresh was right—it was well past time they started winning.
They flew on, not speaking much, blast-beats for company. Diesel kept her eyes fixed on the long-range scanner, watching for telltale blips. The wastelands rolled beneath them, the Glass a black shadow at the corner of her eye. But ahead, Deez could see ocean: endless black capped with white chop. The sun was sinking now. Bloody red smeared along western skies. Diesel reached out, turned down the sound sys.
“How long to CityHive?” she called over the engine drone.
Prettyboy’s plastic blue eyes were fixed across the waves. “Hour. Maybe less. I’m gonna take us up higher. They’re bound to have aerial patrols, but Hunter-Killers generally don’t fly too high. With luck, they won’t see us till it’s too late.”
Ezekiel pressed on the throttle, and the flex-wing began ascending, the air growing colder as they rose. Gray above. Black below. There was precious little cloud cover, but the light was dying, the shades of night descending. The cabin was bathed in the soft glow of the instruments, the pulsing scanner.
Diesel blinked. Squinted at the screen. “Is that…?”
Ezekiel glanced down at the screen, cursed softly.
“What’s up?” Abe asked, climbing forward to peer into the cabin.
“Incoming,” Ezekiel said. “Moving fast.”
“So much for luck,” Abe sighed.
Diesel looked out into the growing dusk, her pulse running quicker. There was no way to avoid BioMaas patrols forever, but they were still over an hour from their target. Getting spotted this far out was going to mean capital T….
“Can’t see jack,” she murmured, peering into the dark.
“…There,” Ezekiel pointed. “Hunter-Killers.”
Diesel looked to where the lifelike was pointing, couldn’t see anyth— No, no, prettyboy was right, there they were. Six sleek figures, flying a few hundred meters below. The constructs were two meters long, organic lines and insectoid shells. They looked like giant wasps, dark, semitranslucent wings almost as wide as the flex-wing. Their multifaceted eyes and the patterns on their abdomens glowed luminous green. They might not be as maneuverable as the flex-wing, but they looked faster, and they were rising quick.
“How can they even see us?” Diesel murmured.
“Thermal, maybe. Or sonic.” Ezekiel arced the weapons systems, locked the first creature in his sights. “Hell, maybe they can smell us.”
“Don’t miss,” Abe said. “If they get back with a warning, we’re going to be fighting a running battle all the way to CityHive.”
“Maybe CityHive already knows we’re here,” Diesel said.
“Well, first things first,” Ezekiel said, poised over the guns.
The lifelike waited patiently. The H-Ks cruised in closer, curious, eyes aglow. And when they were a few hundred meters away, Zeke opened up.
Tracer fire cut through the gloom, luminous red, arcing away into the darkness. The shells struck home, bursting two of the H-Ks apart in seconds. The other Hunter-Killers broke, split away, weaving through the dark. Ezekiel banked hard as the creatures peppered the sky with luminous green spit, Deez clinging on for dear life as the flex-wing rolled through the spray, the brackets holding the warheads in place groaning. Ezekiel fired again, killing another, the cabin shaking with the thunder of their autocannons. Corrosive fire hissed past them; a tiny speck hit their portside wing and ate a small hole right through the metal.
“They’re getting away!” Abe cried.
The remaining three H-Ks had broken off, tucking tail and sprinting back to CityHive. But Zeke shook his head. “They’re not going anywhere.”
Prettyboy was a mean flier, hot on the H-Ks’ tails, cutting down one, then another. The last of them swung around, spraying a burst of ooze right at them. But Abe held up his hand, and the air rippled like water, and the incoming acid spattered against some invisible barrier and fell away harmlessly. With another burst of fire from Ezekiel, the last H-K was smeared across the sky.
“Top job,” Abe said, patting Zeke on the shoulder.
“You too,” the lifelike smiled. “Now hopefully, we—”
“Prettyboy…,” Diesel said, pointing at the radar.
“Oh, holy crap…,” Abraham breathed.
The display was lighting up. First a few scattered dots, then dozens. Red and pulsing, closing in on them from the edges of the screen. Diesel watched them mustering: a legion of BioMaas fliers, waaay more than they were expecting. Deep down, she’d been hoping CityHive had sent most of their muscle at Daedalus. But it looked like they’d left some juice in the tank to protect the home fires, and that tank was getting emptied right at the freak show.
“Guess that answers the question of whether they know we’re here or not…”
Abe glanced at Zeke. “Can you handle that many?”
The lifelike tightened his grip on the controls, jaw clenched. “We got trouble.”
Diesel didn’t like it when things went smooth.
But she’d take smooth over rough any day.
* * *
________
Preacher stood atop the Wall and looked out on the hissing, drooling horde below him. He could feel the familiar tingle of adrenaline in the few meat parts he had left, the tang of combat stims ripping through his system. The armor on his back felt like the hand of God, and the assault cannon in his arms felt just like home. He spat his mouthful of synth tobacco onto the concrete beneath him, stuffed a fresh wad into his cheek and shouldered his weapon.
“All right, boys,” he drawled. “Let’s send these bugs right back to hell.”
“Some of us aren’t boys,” muttered lil’ Red beside him.
He looked sidelong at the girl and grunted. “Everyo
ne’s a critic.”
Danael Drakos hadn’t been too impressed with Preacher’s efforts to catch Snowflake and his family, the carnage Zekey and his sibs had wrought inside the Spire. For a while, Preacher wondered if Drakos was gonna recycle him for parts. But truth was, at this stage Daedalus needed all the bodies they could get. The unit he’d been put in command of had good people. Well trained, better equipped. They were first wave, positioned on the Wall beside a strike force of Tarantulas. The machina were basically walking missile emplacements—like massive dish plates on eight legs, bristling with missile pods.
Past the Wall, the swarm was approaching, aglow in his thermographic vision. An endless sea of slakedogs came first, scampering into the outer suburbs of the Rim, through the abandoned streets. Behind them came the towering forms of behemoths, protected from on high by wave after wave of Hunter-Killers.
“There’s so many,” lil’ Red breathed.
“Gonna be a lot less in a minute,” Preacher growled. He glanced to his men. “All units, prepare to fire.”
He glanced to the heavens, up to the God who’d always looked out for him.
“And if you could spare a miracle, big fella,” he murmured, “now’s the time.”
* * *
_______
“More H-Ks incoming, nine o’clock!”
“I see them! Hold on!”
“Zeke, watch the—”
“I’m on it, I’m on it!”
The skies around them were alight. Sprays of luminous green spittle. Burning streaks of tracer fire. Glowing blood and glittering shell casings. The noise was pummeling, the unearthly, chittering shrieks of Hunter-Killers as they died, the roar of the engines, the droning hymn of endless wings, shrieking ruin, and the deafening sonic assault of drudge through the flex-wing’s sound sys.
“Diesel, will you turn that music down!” Ezekiel roared.
