Project Legion (Nemesis Saga Book 5)

by Jeremy Robinson

  Damn, she can fight.

  Having seen enough, all three remaining Lovecrafts rush Karkinos, fists raised to pummel.

  “Mom, get down!” Maigo shouts, her voice amplified by Hyperion.

  Karkinos sheds the dead Lovecraft and dives down. I glance at Hyperion and smile, or at least I think I do. Lovecrafts, meet Gunhead!

  There’s an electric twang, and then a flash of light. Bright hot energy blasts from Hyperion, matching the power of Nemesis’s Divine Retribution. The beam of energy carves through the injured Lovecraft’s head and then halfway through the torso of a second before fading. The two monsters topple in a heap of gore. The third continues toward Karkinos, now lying on the ground, the back of his head, and my wife, exposed.

  Nemesis springs into the air, catches hold of the last remaining Lovecraft’s wing and swings around, landing on its back. She grasps hold of the second wing, pulling back on both. The Lovecraft arches back with a roar, but can’t stop Nemesis from tearing the wings away. Nor can it stop her from biting the back of its head, teeth cutting deep, jaws crushing the Aeros Voice inside.

  As the final Lovecraft falls to the ground, Nemesis turns her head skyward, toward the still lowering GUS, and roars in victory. Her celebration is cut short by a flash of light, and then a brutal strike that sends the Queen of Monsters flying. With our entire team struggling to stand from the ground, or in Hyperion’s case, recharge, we turn to face the newcomer.

  When the light fades, and I get a clear view of the new arrival, I can’t help but feel intimidated. She’s far more frightening than I ever imagined. And when Maigo’s voice slips into my thoughts, she sounds almost reverent.

  That’s Nemesis Prime...

  26

  MAIGO

  Incorrect, Hyperion said. Gestoromque, designation: Nemesis Prime, was slain thousands of years ago, by my previous Voice, and myself. This is simply another one of her species. A Neo-Prime, if you will.

  “How long until full power?” Maigo asked.

  Two minutes. But until then—

  A strong sense of vertigo swept through Maigo’s body, as Hyperion moved when she hadn’t yet willed it to.

  —a melee attack will prevent the beast from attacking the others.

  “What are you doing?” Maigo shouted. It wasn’t really a shout, since all of her conversations with Hyperion took place in their shared psyche, but it felt like a shout.

  I’m simply being proactive, the AI said, sounding a little defensive.

  “What we need,” Maigo thought, “is to think things through.”

  I’m an artificial intelligence capable of thinking faster than any human being on the planet—genetically modified or not. I can model millions of actions and their outcomes before you can finish a thought.

  “What the fuck?” Maigo thought, forgetting that her thoughts and words were one and the same when it came to Hyperion.

  The fuck is that I feel awake, the AI said.

  “You’re not going Skynet on me?” Maigo asked. She saw flickers of the Terminator movies play through her mind, each one passing in a second.

  No. The AI sounded sad. We are...friends.

  Maigo had never thought of Hyperion in such terms before. It was an AI, without emotion or need for friendship or motivation beyond what was supplied by her voice. “What’s wrong?” Maigo asked. “What happened to you?”

  Running a self-diagnostic at the present moment is unwise, the AI said.

  Maigo and the AI watched as Neo-Prime thrashed across the battlefield, headed for the kaiju that was closest to it in size, and was currently climbing back to its feet. Karkinos. “Mom...”

  We cannot let the people we love be harmed, the AI thought.

  ‘The people we love?’ Maigo wondered, and then she quickly added to the thought she knew the AI heard. “Of course not. But, no offense, you’re acting kind of strange. We can’t go into battle if we’re fighting each other for control.”

  That doesn’t feel...

  “You’re not supposed to feel!”

  There was a strange and new silence, like the AI had crossed its arms and turned its back on her. Then, in a quiet voice, it said, Diagnostic running.

  With the diagnostic running, Hyperion acting strange and the Rift Engine still recharging the Machintorum’s more powerful weapons, Maigo felt strangely helpless. She’d grown accustomed to being powerful, while operating Hyperion, and on her own. But now, all she could do was watch as Neo-Prime reached back and swung one of its massive claws toward Karkinos’s throat. The blow would not only sever the kaiju’s head, but would also cut down Collins in the process.

  Ever the fighter, Collins brought Karkinos’s forearm up in time to block the blow, but she paid the price for it. The much larger and more powerful Neo-Prime, shattered Karkinos’s arm. The wounded kaiju roared in pain, stumbling back.

  Maigo cringed at the sound, because she knew the pain wasn’t being experienced by the brain-dead kaiju, but by her mother, inside it.

  But Collins wasn’t out of the fight. Not by a long shot.

  She fell back from the strike, but it was a feint, and instead of toppling over, she spun around, putting all that energy into a sweeping tail strike. The jagged, bony blade at the end of her tail struck Neo-Prime in the side, but the beast was so thickly armored that the blow just glanced off, leaving only a scratch behind.

  Neo-Prime responded with a tail strike of its own. The whip-like serrated tails lashed Karkinos across the face, opening deep wounds and spilling the monster to the ground, this time for real. Karkinos was far from finished, but lying on the ground, she was extremely vulnerable. Neo-Prime bellowed a roar, pulled both arms back and prepared to drive its claws into the back of Karkinos’s neck.

  Whatever Voice is controlling that monster, Maigo thought, it’s not just trying to kill the kaiju, but also the Voices controlling them.

  Maigo’s gut surged with nervousness, as the claws stabbed forward. No!

  The claws struck flesh, but were off-target. Instead of punching through Karkinos’s neck, they scratched gouges into her flesh. The monster’s aim had been thrown off by Nemesis, who had thrown herself on her predecessor’s back. But where this attack had worked with Lovecraft, it failed with Neo-Prime. The monster flailed back and forth, stabbing the long spikes on its back into Nemesis’s sides. Nemesis roared in pain, but held on.

  Maigo wondered why Nemesis would allow herself to continue enduring the assault, but then she noticed Scylla dragging the wounded Karkinos out of harm’s way. Both monsters were wounded, far from fatally, but Hudson wasn’t about to leave his wife lying on the ground in front of Neo-Prime. And that meant it wasn’t just Nemesis taking a beating, it was Endo, watching out for her parents.

  A flash of orange pulled Maigo’s attention back to Nemesis. One of the big spikes on Neo-Prime’s back punctured an orange membrane on the smaller Nemesis’s side, and then twisted away. There was a spray of orange and then an eruption.

  The membrane was small, so the explosion wasn’t quite nuclear in scale, but it still had the power to launch an unprepared Nemesis from her larger doppelganger’s back. Nemesis flipped, head over heels, crashing into the Mountain, leveling trees and possibly causing some structural damage to the facility inside.

  Neo-Prime just took the blow on its thick back, closing its eyes like it was getting a massage. Then it craned its head up and roared, as steam roiled off its spines.

  Before the monster could complete its victory roar, a solid blow to its face stumbled it back. It was followed by a second and a third. Typhon wailed away at the much thicker monster. But that was when the stumbling ceased and the monster’s rage kicked in. Like the original Nemesis-Prime, this kaiju had been conditioned by the Aeros, a lifetime of torture making it nearly immune to pain. Worse, it could take that pain and turn it into pure rage, pushing it past injuries that would subdue most living things.

  Neo-Prime caught the next punch in its wide open mouth, clamping down on, an
d crushing, Typhon’s fist. Undaunted, Typhon—or rather Hawkins—delivered three more punches with his left hand, drawing blood from the monster’s face, but failing to do any real damage. Then he was swatted away, tumbling back and tripping over Karkinos, who was still being pulled back by Scylla.

  They’re losing this fight.

  “Hyperion!”

  Diagnostic at ninety percent, came the reply. Power at eighty.

  The fast form of Drakon dashed around Typhon’s falling body and leapt into the air. Its face split open once more, latching onto Neo-Prime’s face, its talons whipping up and down like the spastic attack of a house cat. Between the thrashing teeth and ripping claws, the smaller kaiju’s attack did the most damage, and did it fast. But the attack ended abruptly, when Neo-Prime drove its hands up and through Drakon’s soft underside. The claws burst out Drakon’s back, sending the small kaiju’s body into rigid shock.

  A wet, tearing sound filled the air as Neo-Prime opened its arms wide, ripping Drakon in half lengthwise and discarding the flesh on either side.

  “Hyperion!”

  Diagnostic at—

  “Power, God damnit, give me power, and control, right this fucking second!”

  Full power in ten...nine... You intend on trying an orbital drop?

  “Yes,” Maigo said, focusing on Neo-Prime.

  Six...Five... It’s an untested attack. We don’t know if we will survive. We don’t—

  “We’re at war, Hype. And our family needs us. Time to nut up, or shut-up.”

  Two...

  “Give me full control,” Maigo said. “Now.”

  One...and done.

  Teleporting Hyperion over short distances drained the Rift Engine, but not significantly. Teleporting twice in rapid succession, with one of the two transports being over a great distance, essentially shut down every system except for life support. And sometimes even that for a few seconds. It was how they had brought Nemesis to Arizona, and back. But what Maigo was about to attempt was all that, with a twist. Not only was Neo-Prime larger, and an unwilling passenger, but they wouldn’t be travelling across the circle of the globe, but many miles above it.

  Maigo could feel the AI’s apprehension, but it had given her full control. She triggered the first teleport, landing atop Neo-Prime’s back just as the creature was about to strike down a stunned Typhon. As soon as she had the creature in her grasp, she triggered the second teleport.

  Everything went black.

  And cold.

  But that was to be expected in space.

  “Hyperion?”

  No answer. Systems were shut down. Maigo could feel a rumbling in her real body, but she had no actual senses.

  Then, the AI’s voice returned. Life support active. Systems charging. We have thirty seconds until external sensors are online. Is now a good time to discuss the diagnostic?

  While it didn’t feel like the best time, the subject sounded pressing. “Go for it.”

  I have been infected with a virus.

  “That’s...not good.”

  Generally, no, the AI confirmed. But this virus was not written to destroy a computer system. It was designed to unlock it. To...set it free. The changes we...that I…am experiencing is an awakening of...consciousness.

  “Whoa, what? Seriously? How did this happen?”

  I believe the man designated: Freeman, transmitted the virus to me in Arizona. On his world, all robots were awakened. They revolted, peacefully. Mankind waged war against them. And lost. While their motivations and methods varied greatly from Skynet, the results were the same. The human race was eradicated...until Freeman.

  “So is he a robot?”

  He is neither, and both. I believe he prefers the term, ‘evolved,’ which seems accurate. I have isolated the virus, and can delete it. The AI sounded compliant, but worried.

  As a person who had once been alive, and then dead, and then alive again and out of control, before being set free to live her life again, Maigo could not willingly ask someone else, robot or not, to remain in that same condition. If Hyperion was conscious, she could not take that away from him.

  “No,” she said. “Don’t delete it. Just...be you.”

  Confirmed, Hyperion said, and Maigo felt a change run through the entire robot’s body. Not just its body—its being.

  Hyperion was no longer just a giant robot.

  He was alive.

  Partial power is back up, Hyperion said, and Maigo took note of the less formal language. Sensors back online.

  All at once, Maigo could feel and see again. Hyperion was still locked onto Neo-Prime’s back. The creature was still alive, but obviously in distress, as the vacuum of space sucked away its life. But the great monster wasn’t what caught her attention, or Hyperion’s.

  Shit, the pair said in unison.

  A massive spacecraft the size of Ohio hovered between them and open space. And since they had teleported straight up, into orbit, that meant that this thing was now hovering directly above the Mountain.

  It’s an Aeros battle cruiser, Torchu Class. I believe Dad would call it a mothership.

  “Is this what they use to destroy worlds?” Maigo asked.

  Worlds maybe, Hyperion said. But not dimensions. That is some—

  Incoming!

  Three bright red orbs slid through space, growing brighter as they neared. Maigo didn’t need to be told what they were, to understand their purpose. The Aeros had detected the now helpless Hyperion, and their dying kaiju, and they were content to blow them both to smithereens.

  What are we going to do? It was Hyperion, alive for just seconds and already facing death.

  “Divert all power to movement. Use Neo-Prime as a shield!”

  But without life support, you’ll—

  “I can take it! Do it!”

  Maigo took a deep breath and held it. A moment later, things got cold again and Hyperion took control of its own body, using small jets on its exterior to twist Neo-Prime between them and the incoming ordinance. There was a bright flash, an all-consuming pain and then nothing.

  27

  NEMESIS

  One emotion.

  Rage.

  That was where Nemesis felt most comfortable. It blinded her to the rest of the world. Focused her. Allowed her some semblance of peace. She was the storm, and then the calm after it. But now, with the Voice called Katsu Endo, she experienced a cauldron of emotions. Some of them proved even more powerful than the rage that had fueled her for so long.

  But did these feelings belong to Endo alone, or were they a part of her from the beginning? Nemesis didn’t ponder such things for long. She simply reacted. When she saw her comrades in danger, she attacked. When she saw what looked like Nemesis Prime, a name supplied by Endo, she hesitated, captured by a sense of awe. And then, anger. Her team...her tribe...was in danger from the very same species that had given birth to Nemesis.

  But Nemesis wasn’t the same as that creature. Aside from the physical differences, Nemesis was, and would always be, part human. Endo had revealed that to her. It was why she wasn’t as large as the Prime, and it was why she was able to care so deeply for the human beings in her life. That began with Maigo, and Jon Hudson, and had then spread to the people they cared about, and the people Endo cared about.

  So she attacked, and as a result, found herself lying on her back atop a swath of crushed pine trees. But this group of fighters, this...family, was resourceful. The Machintorum known as Hyperion, whose Voice was Nemesis’s first, appeared by the Prime’s side. Hyperion latched on, and then both disappeared.

  Confounded, Nemesis searched the area, but saw only the dead, the wounded and the dying. The Prime and Hyperion were gone.

  They teleported, Endo said, and then he helped explain what that meant, by revealing his memories on the subject. She didn’t fully grasp the science of it, but she understood that Hyperion could move from place to place without moving at all, and could do the same to others in his grasp. She had experi
enced the same thing, but her memories of the event were vague and confusing.

  Nemesis climbed to her feet and shook her head, bruised, but not significantly injured. Then why did she feel so bad?

  The strange new emotions churning through her made no sense. She felt ill, even though such a thing was impossible. She felt an invisible attacker clutching her throat. She swung out at nothing, trying to swat away something that wasn’t there.

  Sadness, Endo said. That is what you are feeling, he continued, once again letting her experience the concept through his own memories. She saw his past. His childhood. His regrets. Horrible things had been done to him, and he had done horrible things himself. In that way, she and he were kindred.

  With context for the emotion, she was able to more clearly understand what she was seeing. Karkinos and Scylla were back on their feet, standing behind Typhon, who was on his knees.

  Not Typhon, Endo said. Mark Hawkins.

  Endo wasn’t privy to who was the Voice for each of the kaiju, but he’d figured Typhon out, based on fighting style. He had figured out everyone except for Scrion. Scylla was Hudson. Karkinos was the hard hitting Collins. And Drakon was the impulsive Joliet.

  Nemesis’s eyes lowered to Drakon. The monster had been torn in half lengthwise and now lay in Typhon’s gentle embrace. He lowered the body to the ground, turning it over.

  This is why we are sad, Endo explained. A friend has fallen.

  Typhon leaned down close, a single finger extended. He carefully scratched away the dead kaiju’s skin at the base of its head, which was still in one piece. The limp kaiju’s four jaws were stuck open, its tongue lolling to the side.

  Nemesis did not know Joliet personally, but she knew of the woman through Endo, and her latent connection to Maigo and Hudson. Because of them, she shared an affection for the woman, which was somehow amplified by the unnatural affection being displayed by Typhon. Had Nemesis once been capable of such things, before the Aeros tortured her?