Metal Swarm

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “I know that. Take care of yourself, Mr. Steinman. I’ll miss you.”

  He felt a lump in his throat and wondered if maybe he should stick it out here in town just a little bit longer. But it was already almost sunset. The gathering shadows made the darkness of the solid walls extend forward, swallowing up the camp.

  Some of the Klikiss began a distant evening song, and Steinman listened to where they were located. The chirping was hypnotic, a celebration of the night. At dusk he doubted many Klikiss workers or builders would be moving about. Carrying the food, water, and supplies he thought he could use, he took advantage of a makeshift ladder and rough bumps to scale the stockade wall. It was the least obtrusive way for him to slip out.

  After scanning the shadows for unseen dangers, he dropped over the wall, landed on his feet, and caught his breath. He could not enjoy the exhilarating rush of supposed freedom. That was an illusion. His friends and fellow colonists remained within the stockade, for whatever purpose the Klikiss had in mind.

  Steinman gathered his courage and walked away, heading out of camp.

  57 KING PETER

  When the expected EDF ships arrived at Theroc, the Confederation was ready for them. The ten Mantas were stopped cold in space, and now Peter waited to see what the grid admiral would do next.

  Inside the white-walled throne room, newly installed screens displayed images from the orbital surveillance satellites Roamer captains had placed around Theroc. In the frantic days after Nahton’s warning, King Peter had asked the Roamers to install new technological hardware, preparing the worldforest and Theron settlements against a militarily superior force. Clan engineers had descended in a rush to make as many improvements as they could manage in the limited time available. The fungus-reef city would have to forego aesthetics for now. Even the green priests understood that.

  The Confederation had scraped together many vessels to make a convincing stand at Theroc. The Osquivel shipyards had responded with remarkable productivity, but Peter did not expect a handful of vigilantes to fulfill the role of an official space navy. Nevertheless, the show of force was quite impressive, possibly enough to make Basil think twice.

  Carrying green priests, Roamer scouts had set up a picket line around the Theron system, scattered ships circling farther and farther out. The moment the ten threatening Mantas appeared, the outlying picket vessels sounded an instantaneous alarm through telink, alerting the King hours before a traditional electromagnetic signal could have arrived.

  Newly armed Roamer ships positioned themselves all around the planet, ready for a fight. The worldtree battleships moved to intercept the Mantas well before the rapidly decelerating EDF cruisers caught their first glimpse of what was waiting for them. Even Jess Tamblyn and Cesca Peroni took their small wental vessel into orbit, like a supercharged teardrop.

  The admiral was quite surprised.

  Peter and Estarra sat together before a transmitter. Because of her swollen belly, it was hard for Estarra to sit very close to it. OX stood nearby, as if reprising his role as a formal ambassador to the Hansa. One of the Roamer engineers opened a channel for the King, using the standard EDF command frequency. “This is King Peter, the rightful leader of the Confederation. Identify yourself. Why have you brought this unauthorized military fleet into our space? We demand that you withdraw immediately.”

  When the screen cleared to show a deceptively maternal image, Peter frowned. “Admiral Willis, I did not expect you, of all of my commanders, to take part in this nonsense. I’m not surprised the Chairman would pull such a stunt, but why have you turned against your King?”

  “Not my idea, King Peter, but I have my orders.” She was struggling to maintain her composure.

  “Those orders do not come from a legitimate authority.”

  “That’s debatable. You’ve caused quite a stir back on Earth. Chairman Wenceslas has ordered me to impose order and put an end to your illegal rebellion.”

  Queen Estarra leaned toward the transmitter. “And how exactly do you expect to do that?”

  “I’m still working on that part.” Willis was obviously flustered. “To tell the truth, I wasn’t anticipating such an impressive show of force. You’ve been busy since our last surveillance images were taken.”

  “Obviously, with good reason.” Peter’s voice remained hard.

  Verdani battleships clustered around the ten Mantas, vastly larger and more dangerous than the cruisers. Roamer ships circled in, more than a hundred moving targets with weapons powerful enough to damage the Mantas.

  The small wental ship drifted upward until it hovered directly in front of the flagship’s bridge observation windows. Willis looked at the bubble with Jess and Cesca visible inside it. “Now what sort of stunt are you pulling, King Peter?” She seemed more curious than alarmed.

  Jess and Cesca, their expressions grave, emerged through the curved membrane and floated, crackling with a faint nimbus of energy that surrounded their bodies. They wore no environment suits, surviving in open space as they drifted over to the thick windows to peer in at the EDF bridge crew. The soldiers stared back at them. The men and women were already amazed and intimidated by the giant thorny treeships, and now they saw a pair of humans floating in cold vacuum with no life support whatsoever.

  Jess reached out with a fingertip and drew on the thick transparent screen, leaving a trail of backward letters traced in iron-hard ice. EDDIES GO HOME!

  On the next window, Cesca wrote YOU CANNOT WIN.

  “What is this?” Willis demanded. “What sort of power do these people have?”

  With a wave of Jess’s hand, a sheet of crackled, frosty ice covered the bridge windows, temporarily blinding the Admiral before her external sensors kicked in and projected clear views again.

  “We have many different allies, Admiral,” Peter said from his throne room. “I suggest you don’t make us demonstrate all the power we can bring to bear. You’re a reasonable woman. You know you can’t win here.”

  Nonplussed, Willis pursed her lips. “And you know the Chairman. If I return empty-handed, he’ll just send a larger battle group next time.”

  “Why doesn’t he ever see the real threat to the Hansa and the human race?” Estarra said, placing a protective hand on the curve of her belly. “Maybe he should pay closer attention.”

  Peter continued. “Because Earth’s only green priest has been killed—yes, we know all about that—you are unaware of major new developments. Even Chairman Wenceslas doesn’t know of the new danger he’s about to face. Therefore, it is your duty to turn and leave, so that you can brief him immediately. We will share the vital information with you.”

  Leaning back in her chair, Estarra made a disbelieving sound and said quietly, “He won’t change his mind, no matter what you tell him.”

  “Probably not,” he whispered, “but it’ll give Willis the excuse she needs to do the right thing.”

  “What sort of news are we discussing here, King Peter?” Willis seemed skeptical, already imagining the browbeating Basil was going to give her.

  “The original Klikiss have come back to claim their old planets. According to information we’ve received from the Ildiran Empire, Klikiss have overrun planets settled in the Hansa’s Colonization Initiative.” He explained in detail what they had learned through the worldforest from the green priest Nira.

  Sitting up straight, Estarra added, “If you still think you need to do something with those pretty EDF ships, try helping some Hansa colonies. Most of them have no defenses at all.”

  Nonplussed, Willis crossed her arms over her uniform. “General Lanyan is already in process with his inspection and assessment.”

  “Inspection and assessment?” Peter sounded dubious.

  “It’s a military term.”

  Willis blew out a long sigh, deep in thought. Her Mantas hovered in full battle readiness, all weapons primed and ready to fire. The verdani battleships loomed over them, while Roamer defenders swirled about like stingi
ng gnats just waiting to be provoked. She had to know her ships would be torn apart if she started shooting.

  “Please don’t make a mess of this, Admiral,” Peter said. “Take the critical information you’ve just learned back to the Chairman. He seems to have trouble identifying the correct enemy. Worry about the Klikiss, not the Confederation.”

  Willis squared her shoulders. “All right. First things first, King Peter. I’ll tell the Chairman about the Klikiss. I’m not stupid, and neither is he.”

  “Yes, but will he listen?”

  She didn’t answer. Without firing a shot, she ordered her cruisers to turn and head back out of the Theron system.

  58 SIRIX

  After his recent setbacks, Sirix went on the offensive—and reveled in it. He had lost Wollamor, and he had lost his long-anticipated base and fleet on the Ildiran resort world of Maratha. But with whatever weapons he still had aboard the stolen EDF battleships, he swore he would make up for those losses. At all costs, the black robots had to crush the Klikiss before they gained a foothold on other planets. Anywhere. That was the necessary response.

  One world at a time.

  Using the grid and starmap implanted within his circuitry, Sirix guided his EDF vessels, knowing the robots would have the upper hand against the Klikiss. His human-built ships carried a stockpile of carbon-carbon explosives, fracture-pulse drones, and collimated jazer banks, all of which had been designed to crack diamond-hulled warglobes. They would smash the insect race easily enough.

  Sirix expected to find another entrenched and reinforced robot base on Hifur, but when they arrived he saw that the enclave had already been conquered. Klikiss had flooded through the transportal and destroyed the black robots. Sirix felt anger and deep loss—seventy more irreplaceable units destroyed, unique robots with memories that spanned many centuries. Gone.

  Showing contempt for their own creations, the insect creatures studded the exterior walls of the resin-concrete towers with torn-apart robot components—a flat angular head, a black wing casing, bent claw-limbs.

  Judging by slight differences in their morphology, these Klikiss were an entirely different subhive from the one that had attacked him on Wollamor. He wondered how many new breedexes were sweeping back into the Spiral Arm, and how many had already gone hunting for the black robots.

  Sirix would have to destroy them all, and he hoped his dwindling EDF weapons would last long enough to complete that task. As he processed the remote images from Hifur, he wondered whose hatred was greater. From space, his ships destroyed the landbound subhive. Utterly.

  His battle group continued to wreak havoc on any world where the Klikiss might return. He swiftly learned that the insect race was more widespread than he had expected, and Sirix’s own prospects grew bleaker day by day.

  He and his battle group no longer exercised any caution whatsoever. He could not risk it. As soon as the prowling ships arrived at a former Klikiss world, Sirix ordered massive preemptive strikes to obliterate the long-abandoned cities and any Hansa colonies that happened to be in the way. Constrained to travel only via transportal, the insect creatures were vulnerable to a massive attack from space. And since each subhive was an enemy to all others, they would not spread a warning amongst themselves.

  In preparation for later battles, he decided to refine the skills of his two compies, so he assigned PD and QT to man the weapons stations and ordered them to open fire on the targets below. The compies did as they were told, now that their programming strictures had been erased. Though they were not Soldier compies, PD and QT were quite proficient at their tasks.

  Sirix’s battle group targeted and destroyed the transportal walls on Zed Khell, Alintan, and Rajapar. On Xalezar, he found that humans had established a colony, but the Klikiss had already arrived and seized the settlers. Seeing the EDF ships, the colonists screamed for help, but Sirix had no sympathy for the humans, whom he hated just as he hated his Klikiss creators.

  Sirix wiped out the transportal wall first. Next he destroyed the new Klikiss structures. Last, for good measure, he obliterated every remnant of the human settlement. Another planet cauterized. It was good progress.

  At Scholld, however, Sirix blundered into an unanticipated obstacle. The subhive breedex had grown stronger, more innovative. As Sirix began his usual bombardment from the skies, the enemy struck back in an alarming way.

  Rising up from the ancient city, numerous identical components flew at them to deliver a thousand devastating blows. Then the myriad components clustered together to form a powerful—and ever-growing—swarmship.

  The Klikiss had come through the transportals and established industrial bases quickly enough to build their own spacecraft! How long had this been occurring? If the Klikiss could move from planet to planet without their stone gateways, the infestation would spread faster than the robots could hope to suppress them!

  The Mantas responded by laying down a suppressing barrage to drive back the interlocking ships, but he couldn’t stand against such an overwhelming concerted attack. “All robots, withdraw.” He guided the Juggernaut into a hasty retreat. The swarmship swelled even larger as it incorporated more of the component craft; then it came after Sirix’s ships.

  PD and QT waited at the weapons stations. “Should we open fire, Sirix?”

  “Defensive blasts only.” He had immediately calculated their odds, and he knew they could not target them all. “We cannot stand against a swarmship of that size.”

  Sirix transmitted detailed commands, and the EDF battleships urgently pulled away. The situation was worse than he could have possibly imagined. As they retreated from Scholld, he said, “Our viable options grow fewer and fewer.”

  59 ORLI COVITZ

  Sitting atop the wide resin-concrete wall, lonely without Mr. Steinman, Orli watched the insects continue their incomprehensible but manic work. She wondered if she should have joined the few dozen colonists who had slipped away to join Davlin Lotze. She had seen the breedex, and the experience had disturbed her greatly. She sat with her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands.

  The Governess compy UR had brought along the seven children she guarded. Orli was much too old to be watched over by the Governess compy, but too young to be considered one of the adults. UR continued to gather information to instruct her wards and safeguard them, or at least prepare for what was to happen. The children, meanwhile, amused themselves trying to make sense out of the bugs’ activities.

  Workers scuttled up a large ramp that ran along the outside of the wall, dumping more of the questionable food into the stockade. Roberto Clarin and Mayor Ruis rationed their hoarded supplies so that the settlers weren’t entirely dependent upon what the Klikiss gave them. Even so, Orli’s stomach constantly growled. Right now she would even have eaten Dremen mushroom soup.

  The wide wall was an excellent place for the anxious, and paradoxically bored, colonists to gather. DD and Margaret Colicos approached the group, and DD seemed to perk up when he saw Orli and the Governess compy. He and UR had formed their own bond of friendship.

  “It is a fine day,” DD said. “The weather is well within pleasant norms for humans. Are you enjoying the view, Orli Covitz?”

  “The view would be better if there weren’t so many Klikiss in the way.”

  “Oh, dear, have I upset you?”

  “Yes, DD, you probably have,” Margaret said.

  “I did not mean to.”

  “It’s okay, DD,” Orli said. “I’m just worried. Always worried.”

  “And that’s before seeing what you’re about to see.” Margaret gazed toward the alien city. She seemed to have come up here on purpose. “Watch.”

  A commotion occurred inside the ancient structures that held the old transportal. Warriors rearranged themselves, and workers scuttled out of the way as the transportal hummed. Over the past week, Orli had watched the breedex’s raiding parties disappear through the stone portal to one unknown destination or another. Diggers, engineers, const
ructors, and other sub-breeds had all followed. Now some of the Klikiss were marching back home.

  Many of the returning warriors looked smashed, battered, and scuffed; several had cracked shell casings, as if from a great battle, while others showed conspicuous stumps where segmented limbs had been snapped off or yanked from their sockets.

  “The breedex discovered a black robot infestation on Scholld, one of their old planets. It sent warriors through and captured the old city, built new industries and ships, and expanded the subhive. And took prisoners.”

  Orli spotted other ominous black insectile forms among the returning Klikiss. One of the children by UR cried, “Look—those are robots!”

  Margaret wore an unreadable expression. “These three are intact captives, a gift for the breedex.”

  “What will the breedex do with them?” asked UR.

  “It will torment them, and enjoy every moment of it.”

  “Those robots are evil,” Orli said bitterly. “They deserve whatever’s going to happen to them.”

  “The robots were designed and built to react exactly the way the breedex wished them to. The Klikiss are far more cruel than the robots. You’ll see that in a minute.”

  The three captive black robots seemed extraordinarily agitated. In front of the old alien buildings, they flailed their metal limbs and swiveled their geometric heads as if gibbering in absolute terror. Orli could see the tiny red flashes of their eye sensors. “Why are they so scared?”

  “Because they know what is about to happen.”

  UR rounded up the seven boys and girls and said in a stern voice, “Perhaps the children shouldn’t see this.”

  “I want to watch!”

  DD hovered close beside UR, like a bodyguard. “We can protect them. Can’t we?” The Governess compy didn’t answer, but quickly hustled her wards out of sight.