The look on my face betrays my decision.
“Perhaps your modifications effect more than your libido,” Sakura disparages me. “Perhaps the decision should be made by clearer minds, by those who still understand the sweetness of their own mortality, and that of their fellow man.” She turns back to the crest, looks up at the prisoners, and shouts: “Major Corso: Are you prepared to die for the oath of service you have taken?”
I can see her hesitate, agonize, knowing there’s a blade over her head, knowing that her next words may bring it down instantly, but that it may fall regardless. Is it better to die by choice or by…?
“I am!!” she shouts down at us defiantly, her voice breaking.
“Sakura. Don’t.”
“Then do so with honor.”
It’s too far away. And it happens in a fraction of a second. A quick flick of the straight blade—I don’t even see it meet any resistance of meat and bone—and Corso’s head tumbles off her shoulders and goes bouncing down the slope into the great pit. Then her body falls forward after it. The others recoil. Scheffe stifles a scream.
Sakura turns back to me calmly, and I’m sure she’s about to say something else she thinks is magnanimous and profound, but I speak first, my mouth twisted fully into a snarl.
“That was a stupid thing to do.”
In my own fraction of a second, I draw my pistol and shoot down two of the three Shinobi standing over my remaining people before they can react. The third—the executioner with the straight blade—drops out of sight before I can end him, leaving his victims behind.
My intention made clear, the others react swiftly and decisively.
One of Sakura’s retinue charges into me from my left and tries to cut my gun arm. I avoid the cut, catch his blade with my left hand and stick the muzzle of my pistol right in his mask. But I don’t pull the trigger, not until I point the gun down into his bladder and blow his testicles into the rocks. Then I shatter his sword arm and his jaw and his knee in the split-second before I have to deal with another one running into me, sword hacking the air like a whirlwind.
I drop my pistol back in its holster as I smoothly duck his blade like his best effort is less than a child’s, and I put the first one’s blade through his gut from side-to-side, liver-to-spleen. Then I tear his right arm clean off with my bare hands and stave in his ribcage as an afterthought. I glare at Sakura then, tossing aside the severed limb like trash, my face painted black with sprayed blood in the night, and let her know that when she predicted our meeting would go badly, she had no fucking idea.
All my rage floods me at once, whatever self-control I had left gone with her last act of casual calculated murder. This smiling bitch has proven time and again that she’ll kill anyone—even her own—in any number—for the slightest advantage, without mercy or remorse. Let her see what a real monster is; let her see what she was demanding to become.
There will be no honor in this, no dignity.
Sakura draws both her own blade and the gift katana, and squares off against me. But her posturing is distraction. Her brainless, loyal thugs wouldn’t let their mistress engage me directly. I get pelted by sharp projectiles from multiple directions as they circle and dance. The few that I let hit me do an impressive job of finding gaps in my armor, and my Mods tell me that the small throwing blades have been loaded with toxins and bio-agents. I pluck two out of my armor and send them back from whence they came, but with speed that gives them bullet-force. I sever a spine through a throat and pierce another liver. Then one gets desperate enough to throw a grenade, and I redirect it at their lady. One of the Shinobi between us catches it like this is a game, dives away and falls on it before it goes off.
Then they decide to show me their real plan. They’ve been leading and herding me into specific ground, and staying off of it themselves. I read the net just under the barren regolith an instant before they charge it.
It generates an impressive amount of current over an octagonal field about four meters across. I expect it was designed to disable my tech or at least provide impairing interference, but what it does is feel uncomfortable, annoying. I spread my arms and give them a shrug. I see their hesitation—even Sakura’s, despite her mask. They clearly expected it would do more than this; or maybe they were told it would, shown it would. They should have known better. But they’ve always been overconfident in their smug superiority.
But they do have a second line: Three more Shinobi appear out of hiding, deactivate their camouflage and aim rather large weapons at me. On their backs are containment tubes. (So this is Sakura’s Plan B, as expected: If I don’t give her what she wants willingly, she’s set me up to take it. Or maybe that was Plan A.)
In succession, the Shinobi fire their weapons. Each one is good for one shot, launching a rapidly spreading net that’s lined with long, fine needles, likely designed to sink whatever charge they carry deeper into me. The first one is easy enough to duck and swat away, but the next one catches me from my right and wraps around me very effectively, followed by the third that hits me from behind—I manage to duck enough that it doesn’t get full purchase, but it still adds to my entanglement. The nets immediately charge, their needles stabbing into me like I’ve fallen into a hedge of cactus, made worse as I struggle. But the current still does little more than annoy, even though it slows me down significantly and fuzzes my senses.
It does nothing to my strength.
I find my knife and start cutting, ripping. I tear myself up in the process, but in my rage I don’t care. The Shinobi start throwing things at me again, and one dares try a spear. I take it from him and impale him through with the blunt end, then break the blade off and throw it at another.
Once I do enough damage to the nets, they lose their charge, and I get my speed back in seconds. Worse for them, my tech has absorbed a significant quantity of the energy, so the first Shinobi I get hold of gets electrocuted. I smash his face in as he’s feeling his heart fail. Then I gather up a bunch of the torn netting and turn it into a whip made of needles, slashing at them in all directions, until I manage to snag one of them. My makeshift weapon chews him up as I drag him into my knife, and then I cut him much deeper, systematically butchering him.
I barely realize that the ground net has died under my feet, expended.
Absorbing the blood I’m soaked in, I face Sakura.
“Did Asmodeus tell you that this would work?” I ask with a sneer.
“When…” she stammers, the first time I’ve seen her really unsettled, “…when the pig kissed me, I subtly cut him with my claws, took a sample…”
“Then he either set you up with a false sample or he sent one of his inferior clones,” I tell her what she’s probably already understanding. But I have to rub her nose in her stupidity: “Did you understand nothing? The only reason things like me are here, the only reason history has progressed as it has, is because in our own timeline there was nothing that could harm us! We made ourselves too well. There is no magic weapon, no Kryptonite. The only thing that can remotely protect you against one of us is another one of us, and you’re long out of good will. I am almost tempted to give you what you want, just to see you rise as another one of us, another unstoppable monster who would happily destroy the very last of you.”
I’m raving, lost in my wrath. Every callous, treacherous act they’ve done since I met them floods my brain, perfectly preserved by my digital memory.
I am the sword of Yod.
Sakura signals her remaining few warriors, and they turn and run in opposite directions, as does she.
“Good fucking idea!” I yell at their backs. Then I charge after Sakura, knife in hand.
I barely see the shape shimmer in my path. His camouflage is better than the others. Then his thin straight sword goes through my chest, through my heart, artfully finding the gap between my breast and shoulder armor. He becomes visible as he pumps current through the blade to try to cook me.
But my Mods are already set
to deal with electricity, and I absorb it all, just as I begin to absorb his blade, dissolve it as I break it off inside of me.
He has another, and draws it with impressive speed. I catch it on my knife. This seems to surprise him—he was probably sure his weapon could cut any material. He gets his next surprise when I counter his fluid movements. He doesn’t use Japanese sword technique, as his fine light blade is better suited to a Chinese straight sword style. I am familiar with this style, and have no trouble riding his weaving, circular parries and slashes, and expecting his quick thrusts.
Initially, I stay out of reach, letting him pursue me. But then I harden my gauntlet and grab his blade long enough to slash his wrist down to bone. As he tries to keep control of his sword, I cut him above the knee, hobbling him. Then I eschew my usual sense of style and give him a good solid punt in the groin, hard enough to crack his pelvis.
He impressively tries to keep fighting, but I spin him around, get behind him, and very carefully break his spine in the right place to paralyze but not kill. He goes limp in my arms like a corpse, his blade clattering on the rocks. I’m tempted to leave him like this, but…
“You owe me a head,” I growl into his ear, pressing my knife up under his jaw. He thinks he knows what’s coming—I can feel him resign himself to it. This only inspires me. “I’ll accept partial payment.”
I pull the blade upwards, splitting his jaw. I feel the knife go through bone, then teeth, then bone again as I drag it up through his upper jaw, his sinuses behind his nose, then finally through his eye sockets before I rip it out through his frontal sinuses, avoiding his brain. His mask and goggles drop free, then his severed face plops to the ground with a sickly sound. He never screamed once, but I could feel his agony in his rasping breathing, savored it. His blood soaks into my hands, feeds me. I let him go. He drops on top of his own face.
His suffering has given Sakura time to disappear.
Up on the crest, Horst has gotten free of his bonds and freed Lyra. He covers her with a Shinobi PDW while she frees the rest. I’m thankful for the darkness: hopefully they couldn’t see the full horror of my acts.
“Get back to the rig!” I shout at them. There are still Shinobi running around loose, and probably more I don’t know about, but Kel should be able help to cover their retreat.
I step over mangled and mutilated but still-living bodies, looking for sign of Sakura. A few try pathetic attempts to lash out at me as I pass. The one I initially shot through the balls is trying to end himself with a grenade. I stomp his remaining arm into mush before he can trigger it, leaving him to die with his companions, slowly in agony. No honor. No dignity.
Sakura seems to have dropped out of sight, possibly through another tunnel system. I could keep searching, but I hear bursts of gunfire from Kel’s chain gun from the plain above me. I will have to finish my business with the Shinkyo later, after I know that the surviving crew are relatively safe.
I run up the slope, run toward the gunfire.
My accidental companions are running for their vehicle, while Kel picks off the Shinobi that try to pursue them. I see the heat-shapes of three bullet-riddled bodies, none of which are Sakura.
They seem to have a clear path, but I’m concerned for traps, or for Shinobi that may have gotten past Kel (or me, when I was inside the ‘Horse) to lie in wait. Horst seems to share my fears, because when he pops the rear lock, he first sprays PDW fire inside, then reaches over Jenovec’s body, pops the inner hatch, and tosses in a frag grenade.
That may or may not be enough, I know. I’m about to signal them to wait for me, when I hear lift jets. I turn to see two Shinkyo pocket fighters rise up out of the pit, and start to kick in their thrust engines.
I draw my pistol and punch three explosive rounds through the hull of one, aiming roughly for cockpit and engines. It sputters and spins in, but the other is already burning fast west. But then Kel’s twenty flares, and the ship’s port engine explodes. A second shell misses, but the next bursts the cockpit as the aircraft passes over. The ship noses into the ground a few hundred meters from the ‘Horse, and the tanks burst and flare.
Assuming a loyal Shinobi pilot wouldn’t simply run if his mistress had just been shot down, I run for the ship Kel took down. As I’m getting with a dozen meters, the shattered remains of the cockpit blow off, and I see arms and then a torso claw up out of the smoking interior. Then a body flops out onto the ground. Tries to stand.
It’s Sakura. She’s badly hurt, kimono shredded, soaked in blood.
I don’t give a fuck.
I charge into her. She does her best to try to receive me. She’s still fast, still strong, but her right leg is badly damaged, and I think she’s been partially blinded by shrapnel. She goes at me with her claws and I let her. She slices into my ribs, my shoulder, my face. I punch her in hers, crushing her mask and her jaw. Then I hit her again. And again. She tries to stay on her feet, but soon I’ve got her up against the hull of her broken ship, pounding her into it, breaking her with my bare…
Her head explodes. I didn’t hear the shot. While I’m still stunned, another explosive shell blows through her torso. What’s left is shredded, pulverized meat and bone. I can see where her brain was, see down into her what’s left of insides. I’m wearing a good part of her.
Kel’s big gun is still smoking.
I’m about to demand Why? Why the fuck did you do that? But Kel turns and rolls back to the ‘Horse.
Covered from head to boots in gore and horror, I’m pretty sure I know why. And I should say thank you, but I’m still too angry, my righteous fury thrashing inside me like a spoiled child because a prize, a toy, got taken from it.
Thankfully, Horst and Simmons and Smith and Lyra and Scheffe are perfectly competent to check the ‘Horse over for booby traps, because I’d rather they not see me like this.
I’m shivering, almost convulsing. I know what happens next: I let my rage take me, let it take all of me, let it feed me the unbearable ecstasy that it’s always ready and waiting to offer. And now I feel the crash coming, shattering me, because my self—whatever pathetic thing I have that others might call a soul—has to come back, has to deal with what I’ve done here, what I let myself do, what I enjoyed doing. Again.
Again. For all the evil I’ve done, I’d like to say this was different, that I’ve never massacred human beings like they were so completely beneath me, like they only existed for me to destroy them, to enjoy destroying them. But that would be a lie.
I keep my distance from the others, the ones that I “saved” tonight. I hide in the darkness, and start eating what I’ve sown.
Chapter 10: Harm’s Way
From the memory files of Lisa Ava, 7 June 2118:
“You’ve done the best anyone could, given the situation, Colonel Ava,” General Richards takes a quiet moment to praise me. “I’ll make sure that’s known up the chain.”
“So far I don’t see how I’ve been successful, sir,” I deny.
“I haven’t done any better,” he admits, finally letting me hear his fatigue.
The sun is rising. We’ve been at this for nearly twenty-three hours now, but Orbit still won’t budge, nor will Earthside: Even with the proper code sets, they can’t trust that General Richards, or anyone that was with him at Melas Two, hasn’t been compromised. Having Jackson out of play only reinforces that for them. So that means there’s no one down here they’re willing to talk to. And they haven’t come back with any kind of solution of their own to this impasse.
It certainly doesn’t matter that I checked Richards and his team myself, and so did Dee, and are convinced they’re clean of any infection or tampering. Just like it doesn’t matter that everyone who was exposed at Melas Two is still reading completely clear now three days post attack. Earthside isn’t willing to risk that this isn’t just another part of Asmodeus’ grand plan (or Chang’s, assuming he was the black nano-mass we all saw).
So we’re still cut off from Orbit, and our sa
tellite eyes along with them; still lacking long range communications. We’ve spent the last daylight cycle planting more signal boosters so we can start to fly proper recons, to get eyes on what we did to Liberty.
(What we did to Liberty. Not Jackson. He just pushed the button. We sent the nuke, expecting to need to use it. Just like we stuck four more on a clumsy vulnerable rig that we still can’t find.)
When we do finally get flights out there, there’s no sign of life at or near zero, just a seared and scoured devastation zone hundreds of meters in diameter, still partially masked by smoke and dust. And no sign of the Warhorse Long Range Recon, not anywhere near the site, not even tracks that say it approached the survivor colony. (But the colony survivors had the rover. How did they get the rover?)
I’ve replayed Michael’s plaintive pre-blast calls over and over—he doesn’t mention if the vehicle is intact, or where it was when the bomb went off. He can be heard calling to the mission commander, calling the names of Major Corso and Lieutenant Horst who was on the crew, calling to his “companion” Specialist Jameson… But there hasn’t been a word since the detonation—the remote repeaters are sending back nothing but our own chatter. It could imply that the rig was inside the blast zone and we haven’t found it yet, and that he was as well. Or that he has another reason to maintain silence. I prefer to assume the latter.
If not, my small comfort is that he’s already walked away from a rail-gun strike. And we’ve all apparently seen Chang back after a close encounter with a far more powerful warhead.
(Potentially hundreds of innocent people killed by our unreasoning fear, and this is my wishful thought. But it’s not just for him. It’s for the people on that rig, including Horst and Captain Smith, fine officers that I’ve had the honor of serving with since before the so-called Apocalypse. And I feel sick about that wish, for caring about those few I know over all the others we’ve killed or injured horribly.)
The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming Page 37
