Metal Swarm

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Pym had easily accessible metals and a wealth of minerals. Its salt flats and crystalline deposits could come in useful in the Hansa’s rebuilding efforts. The EDF had to squeeze supplies and building materials from anywhere they could find them.

  Once Lanyan locked down Rheindic Co, then Pym, and then dozens of others, the Hansa could begin full-fledged industrial operations, shipping materials, or possibly even completed vehicles or ship components, through transportals to where the EDF most needed them. This could really turn things around.

  35 ADAR ZAN’NH

  As the Solar Navy bombarded the black robots on Maratha, Adar Zan’nh took care to protect the structural remnants of Secda, hoping that someday Ildirans would rebuild their resort world. He did not hesitate, however, to annihilate every one of the hive tunnels, half-made battleships, and alien constructions the robot invaders had assembled.

  The black Klikiss machines had been planning a massive offensive. Against humans? Against Ildirans? Zan’nh didn’t particularly care. Through painful experience, the Adar knew he could not trust the murderous robots. The Mage-Imperator had instructed him to recapture Maratha as part of repairing the Ildiran Empire, and he would not depart until he had achieved that goal.

  The first two passes of his warliners vaporized the embedded plasma cannons. Smoking craters and collapsed frameworks marked where the partially assembled spaceships had been. Curved alloy girders drooped in the heat and toppled like stalks of scythed grain. Hundreds of black robots had already been smashed to shrapnel on the ground.

  The large-scale attack had not caused sufficient damage to satisfy Yazra’h. When the Adar finally felt that the robots had been pummeled enough to pose a minimal risk, he turned his sister loose. “Go and clean up the rest. Be careful—and be victorious.”

  She flashed her bright teeth in a feral grin. “We will eliminate every last one of those traitorous robots. And our rememberers will tell you the story when we get back, Adar!” As soldier kithmen rushed to the cutters, Yazra’h bounded along, with the two uneasy rememberers in tow.

  “Are you certain you should bring that pair along?” Zan’nh called after her. “They are not warriors.”

  “We are observers.” Vao’sh’s words sounded forced, but sincere. “And we must be there to observe.”

  The Adar admired Yazra’h’s enthusiasm. In his younger years, he had trained against fierce soldier kithmen and skilled jousters. He could defend himself with a mirrored shield, and he could kill with a crystal katana, with hand lasers, or with his bare hands. However, Zan’nh could also command large engagements of ships and grasp tactics across a sweeping stellar battlefield. He was required to both strategize and lead, while his sister had the freedom to fight on a more personal level. Part of him envied Yazra’h for the mayhem of combat, but each Ildiran was born to his or her own place, knowing their duty and their destiny.

  He remained in his command nucleus, observing high-resolution images of the battleground. As the cutters landed on Maratha, Ildiran fighters spilled out, weapons ready. Transmission bursts indicated that the soldier kithmen immediately encountered furious fighting. The initial bombardment had left many shattered exoskeletons; other robots had been entirely melted into black polymer pools. But an unexpected number of still-undamaged robots swarmed up from underground tunnels that had not yet collapsed. What had they been doing here? And why on Maratha?

  “Klikiss robots mounting resistance,” Yazra’h transmitted. “But our weapons are more than adequate.” Explosions, high-pitched insectile squeals, and images of the aggressive machines filled the command nucleus screens.

  “Adar!” the sensor operator cried, startling him. “I have just received an alert from long-distance sensors. Incoming ships. Unknown configuration.”

  Zan’nh looked away from the pictures of mayhem on the ground. “Incoming ships? Expand the screen.” He feared that the robots had summoned reinforcements. At Earth, he had seen a large battle group of EDF battleships hijacked by the black machines. “Prepare to engage with all weaponry.”

  But he saw soon enough that these were not human-built Mantas or Juggernauts. Nor were they more robots.

  As the unknown vessels hurtled toward Maratha, they grew so large they would surely overwhelm the Solar Navy septa. The strange ships were actually enormous clusters of countless smaller vessels, interlocked geometric shapes. The communications bands filled with clicking and chirping signals, and Zan’nh’s officer was wise enough to run them through ancient translation protocols when he found recognizable points of reference.

  “It is a Klikiss signal, Adar!” Ages ago, the black robots had shown Ildirans how to interpret the language of their creators. Those translation routines had not been used in thousands of years.

  “But the Klikiss are extinct.”

  As if to disprove Zan’nh’s assertion, a huge creature with a spiny carapace and many segmented legs spoke via a blurred communications link, apparently assuming that the Ildirans would understand it. “We detect our robots here. We come to destroy them.”

  Zan’nh recovered quickly, standing firm and replying to the Klikiss. “Then we share the same purpose. We have already devastated their new hive. We thwarted their defenses and destroyed the fleet of ships they were building.” He struggled to remember any history he knew about the ancient insect race. If only Vao’sh were up here instead of on the ground! The rememberer would know. “Klikiss and Ildirans were not enemies in the past.”

  The insect creature clicked and chirped, and the translator spat out in a flat voice, “We will find any remaining robots. Our warrior breeds will tear them limb from limb.”

  The gigantic swarmships broke apart in a flurry of many hundreds of smaller craft. The detached Klikiss components flew past the Adar’s warliners as if they did not exist, and streaked like angry hornets toward Maratha.

  “Wait!” Zan’nh transmitted. “I have many Ildiran troops down on the surface. They are not your enemies. They are also fighting the black robots. Do not let them be harmed in the crossfire.”

  “Instruct them not to get in our way.” The Klikiss broke off the contact.

  Zan’nh whirled to his comm officer. “Contact our soldier kithmen down there. Warn Yazra’h that the Klikiss are coming.”

  36 NAHTON

  The Moon Statue Garden was one of the few places Chairman Wenceslas allowed Nahton to go. There he could breathe the open air and feel unfiltered sunshine on his skin. The Hansa had kept him from his treeling for nearly two weeks. He had received no news from Theroc, nor had he been able to tell anyone what had happened to him here. He was cut off.

  Here, at least, the green priest could spend time with the flowers and ferns that surrounded the sculptures of heroes and stylized representations of abstract concepts. King George had originated the garden, offering a competition among sculptors for the privilege of having their works displayed at the newly completed Whisper Palace. Crimson roses were in bloom around a graceful chrome piece made of reflective sine waves and disc-shaped mirrors. Light glinted off the strips into his eyes as spinning moebius-strip pendants distorted the illumination. The title, ironically, was “Variable Truth.”

  Usually when he was out among the statues, hedges, and flower beds, Nahton was very much aware of the royal guards, who observed his every move. This time, though, his watchers were conspicuously absent.

  He heard voices and looked up to see Sarein and Captain McCammon talking with each other, their voices loud, expressions intent. The green priest assumed they were coming to find him, but the two pointedly did not look in his direction. Stepping behind a bristling hibiscus hedge whose trumpetlike flowers shone red and orange, they spoke in normal voices, seeming to argue, though they must have known that Nahton was within earshot. He felt like an eavesdropper in a clumsily staged play.

  “Theroc is my home planet, and this imminent invasion is illegal,” Sarein said. “The Hansa can’t simply order the EDF to attack. If Chairman Wenceslas ins
ists on this course of action, we must warn King Peter and Queen Estarra.”

  “How can we do that?” McCammon sounded as if he had rehearsed this conversation. “The Chairman has already gathered the ships. I heard him give the order to Admiral Willis. The attack force will launch within five days.”

  Nahton frowned at what they were saying. An invasion of Theroc? Even the Chairman wouldn’t dare do something so bold and foolish. But as he paused to reconsider, the green priest knew he was kidding himself. Basil Wenceslas would certainly dare.

  “Once Basil makes up his mind, there’s no changing it,” Sarein said. “Maybe we can ask a trader to get a message there somehow. A courier could go directly to Theroc.”

  “That would take days. There’s no way to send a warning soon enough.”

  Nahton held his silence on the other side of the hedge. Their intent could not be more painfully obvious. They needed to deny ever having spoken to him, and perhaps this awkward show was the best they could do. But he could not send a message unless he touched his treeling. He already knew it was kept in Queen Estarra’s conservatory. Had that been an intentional slip from Captain McCammon?

  The entire setup seemed so contrived as to be unbelievable. Suspicion drew his lips down in a frown. The Chairman was an insidious man, willing to consider any action if it met his strangely defined idea of “the right thing to do.” What if this was a trap, and McCammon and Sarein were trying to lure him into taking desperate action? But to what purpose? The Chairman was untrustworthy, but predictable. This made no sense.

  Nahton knew that Captain McCammon had always been loyal to Peter, passing messages through the green priest even though it was strictly against the Chairman’s wishes. And Sarein was the Queen’s sister. Though she had long ago left Theroc, Nahton could not believe that Sarein would betray her own planet, even though he had seen her as the Chairman’s apparent ally.

  He contemplated confronting the two and demanding answers, but he decided to take their news at face value. He wouldn’t put it past the Chairman to launch an ill-advised assault on Theroc. So he had to find a way to get to the Queen’s conservatory.

  Late that night one of the usual guards was stationed by the open doorway of his quarters. Nahton meditated, considered his options—and waited. He could not possibly overpower a trained guard.

  The guard’s collar comm pinged, and a crackle of orders burst through. “Are you certain, sir? Acknowledged.” Glancing in at the green priest, the man left his post without offering any explanation to Nahton.

  With anxiety chewing him up inside, the green priest went to the door and looked nervously into the hall. Guessing that this was part of Sarein and McCammon’s plan, whatever it was, he bolted from his chambers. He had been in Estarra’s conservatory several times, but not since the King and Queen had escaped. With his emerald skin and bright tattoos, scantily clad in the garb of a traditional green priest, Nahton could not be unobtrusive. Fortunately, at this time of night, few people roamed the Whisper Palace.

  He did encounter a late-working bureaucrat who carried a stack of documents. The man blinked in amazement upon seeing him, but Nahton ducked down a corridor and picked up the pace. He bumped into a cleaning crew of four older women and a beak-nosed man. They stared at him as if they had never seen a green priest before. Someone would sound the alarm soon. He didn’t have much time.

  Running now, he ascended a set of stairs, bounded down an open corridor. His bare feet made slapping sounds on the cool tile, and a sense of urgency overwhelmed him.

  At last he reached the dim conservatory, and he was still alone. Overhead, lights shone through the glass panels, reflecting the night sky. The place had a strange mixture of smells, loamy richness with caustic chemicals. He could see that something was wrong with the plants—the ferns, the flowers, the dwarf citrus trees. All the Theron botanical specimens had been uprooted and left to rot, like corpses on a battlefield.

  Nahton paused to regain his balance. Caustic chemicals had been poured on the plants. This had been the Chairman’s doing, a way to punish Queen Estarra by destroying something she loved. Such willful devastation, the killing of all those delicate plants, seemed so spiteful, so . . . evil.

  But the treeling . . . The treeling was still alive! Someone—Captain McCammon, perhaps—had placed the potted tree where it would receive sufficient light during the day. The fronds looked healthy, the thin gold-barked trunk was straight. He hurried forward.

  Suddenly, he heard shouts from the hallway, and lights flared. Gruff, approaching voices called out. “The treeling is in the conservatory. Hurry!”

  Nahton ran to grasp the potted tree, touching the fronds even as he heard booted feet come running. In a rush of words, he spoke into telink. He told the little tree everything, warned of the impending attack on Theroc, explained how he had been held prisoner apart from his treeling. He poured his information into the worldforest mind so that all green priests had access to it, everywhere.

  Royal guards burst into the room along with armed Palace security troops. Nahton recognized none of the men, none of the special guards that Captain McCammon regularly assigned to him. He picked up the potted treeling and held it in front of him. He did not want to relinquish it yet. It didn’t matter, though, because these men were too late.

  Nevertheless, they raised their guns and shot the treeling out of Nahton’s hands, shattering the pot. The small worldtree splintered. Nahton let it crash to the floor, staring in astonishment.

  Captain McCammon charged into the room, his face flushed. “Halt! All of you!”

  But the men had other orders. Stricken, Nahton raised his hands in surrender. That didn’t stop them from opening fire.

  37 DAVLIN LOTZE

  In the afternoon, Klikiss scout parties returned to the Llaro settlement carrying five human bodies. The victims were refugee farmers who had fled when the Klikiss razed their fields. Without any guidance or safe haven, they had wandered the countryside, hiding themselves wherever they could. Without sufficient food, they had become careless. The Klikiss had found them.

  Standing on rooftops and makeshift scaffolding inside their walls, the trapped townspeople watched the scouts march toward the main alien city. They shouted questions and challenges, insults, curses. But the Klikiss didn’t attach any particular significance to the bodies they carried, the innocent people they had killed.

  Davlin knew he had to do something to ensure that it didn’t happen again. He had to keep more of the desperate human fugitives from being killed just because they had no place else to go. He had to give the colonists an option, offer them some way to defend themselves. Margaret had told him everything he needed to know so that he could start forming a plan.

  He had interviewed the colonists, compiling a mental list of their skills and expertise. They were talented farmers, miners, and true pioneer types. Very few were EDF veterans, and none of them was a crack soldier. Those willing to accept the Hansa colonization stipend were usually disenfranchised, cut off from other opportunities.

  None of the original Llaro colonists or Roamer detainees knew much about the EDF weapons the soldiers had possessed before their barracks were wiped out. However, because Llaro was a holding zone for so many reluctant Roamers, Davlin hoped that the paranoid Chairman had stocked the armory well.

  Outside the wall, the main EDF hangar and a few maintenance sheds were far enough from the alien city that the Klikiss hadn’t touched them yet. But with the rapid expansion of the hive, those buildings would soon be in the way. Davlin knew he had to raid them as soon as possible.

  He waited until the pastel sky deepened into darkness before he slipped away with nothing more than a small handlight, using it only when absolutely necessary. With good eyesight and an excellent grasp of his surroundings, he made his way to the remaining EDF supply shacks and the hangar. He broke in using Hansa override codes he had memorized long ago.

  Davlin studied everything the hapless soldiers had left beh
ind. He found the locked armory, complete with fifty weapons, mostly wide-dispersal scatter shots and twitchers used for stunning crowds (no doubt intended to keep Roamer prisoners in line). He found explosive projectiles, grenades, shoulder-mounted jazers, and old-fashioned smoke canisters. Another bunker held bulk explosives earmarked for mining and construction. He didn’t know exactly what he would do with everything, but he intended to cache all the weapons for later use. He was sure the colonists would eventually need them.

  The next bunker was a fuel depot containing three barrels of in-system fuel, enough to keep the camp’s Remoras flying, though not with stardrive engines. Next Davlin shone his light around in the large empty hangar. One of the dedicated Remoras had been destroyed when faeros fireballs had arrived in the skies; one was undergoing maintenance, its two engines dismounted for cleaning and by-the-book inspection. Davlin cursed under his breath. He wasn’t sure anybody on Llaro had the engineering background to reassemble the craft and make it flightworthy again.

  The last Remora, though, was fueled up and ready to go. Davlin’s plans quickly fell into place.

  For the next several nights, while Klikiss scouts prowled the darkness, he slipped out, went to the bunkers, and moved out explosives, weapons, and the three barrels of fuel. He hid them in fifteen separate caches, marked the locations carefully, and drew up several maps.

  Later, he met with Mayor Ruis, Roberto Clarin, and some of the more prominent Roamers, including Crim and Marla Chan Tylar. Davlin explained what he had done and where to find the weapons should they need them. “And groups of people have to start sneaking away from here. This town is not defensible if the Klikiss decide to come after us.”

  Ruis was alarmed. “Do you really think they’d do that? We don’t plan to provoke them.”

  “I don’t presume to understand bugs,” Clarin said. “But it doesn’t sound like a good idea to have people just wandering around the countryside. Look at the bodies that were just brought in . . . helpless farmers caught out in the open. If people escaped from the town, how would they survive out there, even if the Klikiss didn’t get them? They’d need food and shelter.”