Heart of a Traitor

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  “Try aiming manually,” Keiko ordered and the squad began firing blue bolts of particle energy down at the massive warheads. Their shots pulled upward in parabolic curves from their free-fall descent, the majority striking flotsam and jetsam on the way. The squad adjusted their aim, allowing the point at which the bolts passed the missiles to guide their fire.

  The first of the missiles took a hit to the nose cone, detonating the warhead in mid-flight and creating a flash of energy that momentarily concealed the other missiles in the flight, before they erupted from the top of the cloud and continued on their hunt.

  A lance of red energy shot up through the clouds and struck a dropship close to them. The vessel buckled and exploded, showering Shiro with a cloud of metal, fire, and bodies.

  Keiko felt herself being jarred from the shockwave of the explosion; ground and sky tumbled over and over as her battle suit spun out of control. Following the instinctive instructions from her inner ear, the suit’s legs extended and applied thrust, which slowed the descent and righted her. Keiko regained her suit’s vision just in time to see a large burning rafter strike her suit, sending it spinning backwards, spilling pressure and fluids out of punctures in the armor.

  Keiko managed to regain control of her descent and saw Sakurako’s suit tumbling limply.

  “She’s unconscious,” Keiko cried out as she sent a mental command to Sakurako’s battle suit to engage emergency resuscitation. Inside her bile-tank, Sakurako received a sharp electrical shock that jolted her nervous system back into consciousness. Responding to her mental impulses, her suit jerked its arms and legs as it tumbled, attempting to regain control of its decent and align its surroundings.

  Michi and Sorano separated, allowing a beam of white-hot energy to pass between them, before rejoining side by side and resuming their fire at the incoming missiles. One of the missiles took a hit along the side, causing its body to bend. Its flight path was wrenched to one side and it corkscrewed away.

  Keiko thrust upward powerfully to avoid a spinning dropship, its left side gouged deeply by a glancing hit. Another beam of energy passed near her to one side. Her suit’s sensors caught the remaining missiles for long enough to read their current distance.

  “We’re inside the warheads’ area of effect,” Keiko informed. “Take cover behind the dropship.”

  Shiro squad broke in all directions, looking vaguely like a swarm of insects as they each found a pathway that took them to where Keiko’s suit lay, placing the crippled dropship between them and the approaching missiles.

  The missiles exploded, creating an expanding sphere of white-hot fire that caught debris and ships in its wake, carrying them along like a wave before they disappeared into its fatal brightness.

  Shiro squad saw the light tear around the edges of the crippled dropship, which simply came apart in front of them, fire and light bursting through the expanding seams and crashing into them with a force that jarred their bones within their suits.

  Down on the surface of Bael’Eth, Warlord Grunteif raised his axe over his head, accompanied by the noisy rush of pistons from his crude, artificial right arm. He howled to the sky, to the gods and to himself. He had never felt so alive...EVER!

  He brought his axe down on another man-beast, cleaving it in two as it tried to affix some sort of grenade to his chest. Grunteif tore the device off and tossed it behind him. Green blood and red flesh splattered across his back as the grenade exploded among the Gunoi behind him, but he failed to even notice. He had found his prey.

  Among the man-beasts that they fought, one stood out as their boss, although it was hard for Grunteif to recognize him as such at first because he wasn’t any larger than the others, as was proper. His body was made of bronze, with red-hot rivers running between the fine cracks in his body. His head was that of a wolf and he carried an iron hammer in his grasp. The tattoos on his body burned brighter than any of the others.

  Suddenly Grunteif felt a heavy weight pressing down on his body, growing stronger and stronger. Glancing backwards for the first time since they had landed, he realized that only a few of his tribe remained. His armies had been without number, like the stars in the sky and yet he still hadn’t brought enough. They had been under constant attack by the ground, the buildings, the trees, and even the air itself as they fought the beast-men and now his tribe was finally collapsing beneath the pressure.

  Truly this was Kred-halla.

  Grunteif forced himself forward and charged at the wolf-headed leader, screaming his bestial war cries. He swung his axe aiming for wolf-head’s midsection. His opponent stepped backward, allowing the axe to pass by him. Wolf-head then swung his own hammer down, striking Grunteif in the left shoulder. Grunteif felt the thrill of life that comes when a Gunoi finally meets the greatest challenge.

  The wolf-head leader spoke to Grunteif, speaking in one of the weak chittering languages of men and leaned in close to say a few final squeaking words.

  Grunteif snapped out and bit down onto the snout of Wolf-face. His opponent yelped and tried to pull back, but Grunteif bit down even harder, his teeth grinding and breaking as they gripped the bronze skin of the beast. The wolf-leader flailed his arms and tried to raise his hammer above his head with one arm, intending to deliver a killing blow.

  Grunteif twisted his artificial arm and stabbed his attacker, plunging the metal claw into wolf-face’s throat. Wolf-head brought his hammer down clumsily, smashing it into Grunteif’s bony skull and shattering it. Bone fragments shot through the thick gray material of his brain and he groaned as his mind began shutting down. He twisted and thrust the rod at his enemy’s throat again.

  The wolf-head broke free and fell to the ground, several broken teeth still lodged in its face. Its glowing tattoos flickered and then faded away.

  Grunteif looked up and saw that the great rivers of molten metal had broken up in the sky above him, dissipating like clouds in a storm. The living metal beneath his feet had become dry and cracked.

  The sea of bestial soldiers were scattering, dropping their weapons and running in all directions in fear.

  Far above him in the sky, at the very edge of his vision, Grunteif could see a swarm of black creatures spreading out and descending. Everything about this place was withering and dying around him. He fell to his knees and began to laugh. Softly at first, then louder and louder, until his bestial sounds seemed to fill up the very air around him.

  He had done it. He had brought down the gates of Kred-halla and shattered the heavens themselves. He would no longer be a champion of the gods, for he no longer had any need for them. He had surpassed them. Grunteif collapsed to the ground, a toothy grin on his dead face.

  Taka howled in joy as the feet of her suit slammed into the thick viscous flesh that coated the upper roof of the withering fortress, her armor steaming and crackling from the heat of atmospheric entry. Quick as thought, her suit jetted to the left, avoiding a particle blast that spat out from one of the endless, squat pillboxes that lined the roof like a great field. Taka responded by sending a stream from her suit’s flamethrower that poured through the firing slit. Flames erupted from vision slits all over the pillbox and burning beasts wiggled out from the portholes, trying to escape the inferno inside.

  Taka switched her suit’s vision mode to infrared. “The majority of the pillboxes are empty,” she said, sounding a little disappointed. Fully manned, this fortress would have been truly impregnable.

  Keiko landed next, her focus on a strafing fighter that had her in its sights. She jinked her suit sideways, effortlessly avoiding the stream of bullets and energy blasts that churned up the dried fleshy ground where her suit had stood. Keiko turned her suit and fired at the fighter as it flew past her, tearing into the plump fuselage and breaking off the port wing. The fighter spun lazily before crashing into a pillbox, exploding in a ball of fire.

  “Come on Ami, where are you?” Keiko asked herself as she back flipped away from an incoming missile. She still had not picked
up any homing signal.

  “Inami did too good of a job,” Taka complained as she catapulted her battle suit into the air, a red beam passing harmlessly beneath her. Her suit came crashing down on top of the pillbox, her rifle firing into the fractured roof, causing the hard tissue of the ceiling of the pillbox to collapse on top of its screaming occupants. “It’s no fun unless we can at least have a challenge.”

  Keiko’s suit fired the jets in its back, leveling out and speeding along the surface, releasing a volley of missiles that sped off after a passing fighter.

  “Nonsense,” Keiko defended. A macro-cannon tracked her path and she brought her suit’s legs forward, breaking her speed just as the cannon fired. The beam passed directly in front of her suit. “Inami did it perfectly.” Keiko thrust again and flew up to the side of the cannon, the hands of her suit already pulling out a demolition charge. “Never attack a prepared and healthy opponent when you can attack them when they are weak, sick, exhausted, and unconscious.”

  Keiko thrust her suit backward as the shaped charge exploded, sending a jet of superheated metal into the cannon melting through the armored siding and detonating the energizer coil. The macro-cannon tore apart in a shockwave that threw Keiko’s suit careening like a rag-doll.

  “I don’t remember that line from the field manual,” Sorano commented as she pulled at a heavy ferrocrete hatch, tearing it off of its hinges with a shriek as a pair of fighters strafed at her. Sorano sidestepped their weapons and tossed the hatch up into the air in their path. The fighters rolled and turned sharply, but the hatch caught the lead fighter on the tip of its wing, shearing it off and sending the stricken vessel careening to its death. Sakurako and Sorano jetted above them in the air, finishing off the other fighter with bolts of blue energy.

  Michi landed next to the ruined hatch and looked down into the exposed silo, where an enormous defense missile sat ominously.

  “I think it’s written somewhere in the back of the field manual, right before the index,” Michi commented as she affixed a demo charge to the warhead of the missile inside the silo.

  “I think you just made it up,” Taka commented as she fired off a flight of missiles at an active pillbox.

  “Yeah, well, I think you’re an idiot,” Keiko kidded as she brought her suit back up from the gooey rubble of a ruined bunker.

  Michi indicated that the charge was set and Shiro squad jetted away, speeding along the surface of the fortress, putting as much distance between them and the silo as possible. The warhead detonated within its silo, tearing up the structure around it and throwing hundreds of tons of ferrocrete, flesh, metal, and thick yellow fluid up into the air. When the smoke and dust began to clear, a deep weeping crater had been cut into the top of the fortress spire. Keiko took a moment to survey the battlefield. Distantly, she could see the other three spires, where the last of the macro-cannons were also being silenced. Their melted corpses burned faintly in the distance.

  The first of the dropships were making their final approach to land on top of the fortress itself. Above them were hundreds more, an astonishingly high number of them having survived the hell of the approach.

  The corner of Keiko’s heads up display came alive. Ami had finally triggered her homing beacon.

  “All right,” Keiko said, relieved. “Everyone watch your ammo reserves from here on out. I want short-controlled bursts, Sorano.”

  “Why are you singling me out?” Sorano complained, the barrel of her rifle glowing red-hot.

  Confederate troops began pouring out of the dropships, setting up firing lines and efficiently clearing out the remaining pillboxes, one by one.

  Keiko could feel her blood pumping with excitement. She knew she was not a great leader and she decided she was okay with that. She would do the best she could and protect those close to her.

  “Stay together when we are in there,” Keiko instructed. “If I get separated from you guys, don’t even think about completing the mission. I expect you to come looking for me instead.”

  Taka chuckled.

  “No, I’m serious, don’t you dare leave me behind!”

  “Or me,” Michi added.

  “Or any of us,” Sakurako confirmed.

  An Ormen Gunship landed heavily and the black armored figures of the Angelus Noctem poured out, their movements quick and clean.

  “With purity, clarity, and longevity!” their lieutenant cried.

  “For the Luminarch and the Goddesses!” the Angels responded.

  Shiro squad jetted into the air and began making their way toward the crater that they would use to gain access to the decaying fortress.

  When the airlock on the Onikano opened, Mai Bowed deeply, despite the pain the movement caused from the priestess purity armor she was wearing. Jenther took half a step back, a look of shock on his face. His silver eyes raced with conflicting emotions, then he seemed to resolve something within himself and a calm serenity fell upon him.

  “I am Sister Katherine Mary,” Mai said in introduction.

  “No,” Jenther said kindly. “Your name is Mai Takaya, but you were born under a much different name.”

  Alarm flickered through Mai’s face, but she maintained her composure. Her priestess attendants in the hallway gripped their weapons tightly, waiting for the order to strike. Much to Mai’s surprise, Jenther bowed deeply to her in return and handed over his staff. Mai accepted the offer cautiously, the staff feeling far heavier in her grip than it had been in his.

  “You were wise to keep me from you until now, or I would have seen it sooner,” Jenther explained, “You see, you have only just met me, but I have known you my entire life.”

  Mai could only stand and look at him, speechless. Jenther broke the silence by motioning for her to lead him. They walked slowly down the corridor together for some minutes in silence, Mai’s attendants following cautiously behind them.

  “I admit I am always impressed by the abilities of witches,” Mai said. “Sometimes their powers seem limitless.”

  “Even without my sight, I can guess your thoughts,” Jenther said, chuckling, “You are trying to ascertain whether or not I plan to attack you.”

  “Do you?” Mai asked frankly.

  Jenther paused at an external viewport and looked out at the stars.

  “When I was a young man, I’d planned on fighting my way out of this situation. I wore concealed weapons and prepared special scrolls of protection. When I was a man, I’d planned on attempting to bargain with you, bribe you somehow. I used to carry precious stones on me at all times so I would be prepared the day I met you. But, now I am an old man. I have lived my life. It is my time and I have no wish to fight against it.”

  Mai’s dark-blue eyes slanted in thought for a moment.

  “Is fate set, then?” Mai asked, curiously.

  “In its own way, it is. There are precious few decisions we would change if we knew the outcome. We make decisions based on the person we are, not the knowledge that we have.”

  It was then that Jenther made a most unusual request. He asked if they could take the time to walk up to the observation deck. Mai could think of a thousand reasons to deny his request, but found herself agreeing.

  They walked slowly, Jenther sharing stories and memories and Mai listening politely. She found him to be unusually cordial for a soldier and extraordinarily sociable for a witch. When they finally reached the observation deck, they spent a few minutes in silence taking in the stunning view. They marveled at the purple mist backdrop of the Uragan and the chunky Confederate vessels and Kuldrizi clustered around the ship, sporadically illuminated by the lightning flashes of the particle lances that rained down toward the planet like a meteor showing passing by. Looking down at the planet below, it was easy to forget that they were in the middle of an enormous battle. If it weren’t for the vibrations that accompanied the beams of energy streaking down toward the surface, they might as well have just been watching a holo-vid of some ancient battle.

  �
�So, you could use your foreknowledge to alter today’s course if you wanted to?” Mai asked.

  “Yes and no,” Jenther affirmed. “I could react in dozens of different ways. I could rail, I could cower, I could plead, I could flee, but in the end it would make little difference in the grand scheme of things.”

  Jenther slid his hand along the handrail.

  “In the end,” he continued, “I think I will choose the path I first saw when I was a boy.”

  Jenther turned to Mai and gave her a paternal wink.

  “I think I like that one the best.”

  Mai thought on this for several moments. “So, what you are saying is that it is fruitless to fight against fate. If my people are destined to be slaves, then nothing we can do will ever change it.”

  Jenther placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. She did not recoil.

  “What I am saying, young one, is that you don’t know what your fate is yet, so fight on.”

  Reluctantly, Mai indicated that it was time and produced a small silver injection gun from her belt. Jenther’s eyes locked onto it and perspiration glazed his forehead.

  “That is something else I have seen all my life,” he said, trying to hide his fear. “You know, it’s funny. You think you’ve prepared yourself for something you’ve always known would come. But, once you come to it, you realize that there is nothing that could have fully prepared you for it.”

  “This injection gun contains a machine-enzyme that will cause the Luminari blood in you to coagulate and collect in your liver, allowing us to harvest it,” Mai explained. “It is fatal, but painless. After a few moments you will simply fall asleep.”

  “I know,” Jenther said quietly. “Now that I retrace the steps that brought me here, I realize that your commander was wise to choose us for this false crusade of yours. Our secret heresy made us easy to manipulate. I doubt there is another order that you could have so easily entrapped as you did us.”

  Mai said nothing, but she lowered her gaze, speaking volumes to Jenther.