Beware the Black Battlenaut

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  A chill rippled through Freak's body. "What?"

  "You were working for the rebels," said Gwen. "You tipped them off."

  "You knew?"

  "I do now. The Black Battlenaut knows all." Gwen laughed. "I also know you've been beating yourself up about it ever since."

  Freak clenched her hands around the joysticks and drove her Battlenaut hard. "You weren't supposed to die."

  "Did I or did I not save your life?" said Gwen.

  "You did," Freak said through clenched teeth.

  "Then I've got no complaints. I'd do the same thing all over again."

  Freak pushed the Battlenaut through the forest of close-set, mushroom-like mineral plugs. Geysers erupted right and left, spraying jets of hot steam that misted the viewports and cameras.

  The tear that rolled down Freak's cheek felt as hot as the steam outside. "I've missed you so much," she said. "There are so many things I've wanted to say to you."

  "I've got something to say to you, too," said Gwen.

  Freak continued to manhandle the controls. "What's that?"

  "Redeye Base to Redeye Squad," said Gwen. "Come in, Redeye Squad."

  *****

  "You've never really paid for what you did to me," said the voice in Raw's head, the voice of Braeburn Score. "You feel no guilt whatsoever."

  Raw watched the laser cannon outside the forward viewport, the weapon that his own Battlenaut was pointing at itself. "It was nothing personal."

  "How do you figure?" said Braeburn. "I reached out to you as a friend, and you murdered me. How is that not personal?"

  The hypo cuff squeezed tight around Raw's arm, shooting in more go-juice. "You would've done the same to me if you were in my shoes."

  "You know that's not true," said Braeburn.

  "I saw my chance and I took it," said Raw, his upper lip curling in a growl.

  "So you think it was fair, what you did? You don't feel any remorse for killing a man in cold blood so you could steal from him?"

  "It was war!" said Raw. "It was no different from war!"

  "I have a message for you from the other side," said Braeburn. "You will suffer for all eternity for what you did to me. And that's not all."

  "Get out of my head!" said Raw. "I don't want to hear any more!"

  "Redeye Base to Redeye Squad. Come in Redeye Squad."

  It took an instant for Raw to realize that the male voice he was listening to was no longer Braeburn's. The new voice was coming from the comm.

  "Redeye Base to Redeye Squad."

  Raw punched the comm button. "Redeye One here."

  The voice on the comm sounded urgent. "What is your status, Redeye One?"

  "Request immediate extraction. Repeat. Request immediate extraction."

  "Negative," said Redeye Base. "You have new orders."

  "No can do," said Raw. "We're falling apart out here."

  "Enemy squad is converging on your position." Redeye Base sounded even more urgent. "We're transmitting telemetry now. Prepare to engage."

  "Redeye Two and Three are off comms," said Raw.

  "Negative," said Redeye Base. "Comms have been restored."

  "Redeye Two here," Grist said over the comm.

  "Redeye Three responding," said Freak.

  "Redeye One is...out of control," said Raw. "I strongly recommend immediate extraction."

  There was a pause before Redeye Base spoke again. "Prepare to engage. Repeat, prepare to engage."

  The cuff squeezed Raw's arm again. He knew there would be no extraction.

  The only way they'll come for us is when we're dead. That was what he'd thought earlier. All they want's our autopsies and telemetry.

  Only one way out of this, and he'd known it deep down from the beginning.

  "Redeye Squad! Form up!" Raw's hands flew over the controls. The Battlenaut responded smoothly, with no hint of rogue action.

  At his command, the laser cannon that had been aiming at the cockpit window pointed away from it again.

  *****

  "Arm weapons!" Raw said over the comm. "Lock and load!"

  "Roger that," said Grist, playing the controls with new purpose and alertness. The need for battle readiness had snapped him back to reality.

  It didn't hurt that he finally felt at peace with his role in Cray's death. It was a burden he'd been carrying around for years, a burden that had slowly been crushing him.

  At last, he felt free of it. So what if his forgiveness had been granted by an hallucination?

  Why not use a little insanity to inoculate himself against a greater madness?

  *****

  "Armed and ready, Lieutenant," Freak said over the comm. "Fit to fight, sir," she added, and she meant it.

  She hadn't slept for what must have been days, but she felt fitter than she had in years. She felt like a new woman since her encounter with Gwen.

  Freak only wished the visit could have been longer. There was still one thing she'd left unsaid, one thing she'd wanted to say more than anything else.

  She switched off her comm just long enough to say it. Gwen was gone, but Freak said it anyway.

  "I love you, Gwen. I'll never love anyone the way I love you."

  *****

  "Here they come," Redeye Base said over the comm. "They're coming right over the ridge."

  "Stand by, Redeye Squad," said Raw. He kept his weapons aimed in the direction of the enemy, ready to unleash the Battlenaut's full fury at any moment.

  When he checked his visor display, however, his resolve faltered. The telemetry he saw there wasn't at all what he'd expected.

  Not for ten seconds anyway.

  After ten seconds, the telemetry data completely changed, lining up with Raw's expectations--namely, that a squad of enemy Battlenauts was marching over the ridge.

  A squad of enemy Battlenauts instead of a convoy of civilian vehicles.

  "Redeye One to Redeye Base." Raw peered out the forward viewport for visual confirmation. Lights glided over the ridge and beamed back at him, the glare washing out his view of whatever was coming. "You sure about that telemetry?"

  "One hundred percent," said Redeye Base.

  "But first read on the visor was that those are civilian transports, not Battlenauts," said Raw.

  "That was a hiccup in the network," said Redeye Base. "Current telemetry is confirmed."

  As Raw watched the viewport, the oncoming lights drew closer, and the shapes behind them began to resolve themselves.

  There wasn't a single Battlenaut among them.

  "Abort!" Raw's hands flew over the controls as he powered down his weapons. "Redeye Squad, abort! Those are civilian transports! Repeat, abort!"

  "Really?" Freak said over the comm. "Telemetry says they're hostile Battlenauts."

  "Telemetry's wrong," said Raw. "I have visual confirmation."

  "Negative, Redeye One," said Redeye Base. "Visual is unreliable. You're hallucinating."

  Cold sweat trickled down Raw's back. The itch on the sole of his foot flared up again. "No hallucination! These are civilian transports!"

  "Fire when ready," said Redeye Base. "The order is given."

  "Abort!" said Raw.

  "Redeye Two and Three," said Redeye Base. "Prepare to receive new orders on a secure channel."

  *****

  "I heard what you said about loving me," Gwen said over the comm in Freak's cockpit. "I want you to know that the feeling was always mutual."

  Freak's heart pounded. Tears ran down her face. "G-Gwen?"

  "I love you and I want to help you," said Gwen. "I'm going to help you do the right thing."

  "What's that?" said Freak.

  "Listen," said Gwen, and then she told her what to do.

  *****

  "I've got some good advice for you," Cray said over the comm. "Consider it a thank-you gift."

  Grist wasn't as startled to hear the dead man's voice as the first time Cray had spoken to him. "What's the advice?"

  "I'll let the chicke
n-fish tell you," said Cray.

  *****

  It was then, in the seconds after he realized what was about to happen and the seconds before it happened, that Raw fully understood.

  They're interested in more than our physical limits.

  It didn't take a genius to figure out what Redeye Base was telling Grist and Freak on the secure channel. It wasn't hard to predict what was going to happen next.

  Redeye Base had ordered the squad to fire on the civilian convoy. Raw, the squad leader, had failed to comply. So Redeye Base was moving down the chain of command to try to get the job done.

  They wanted to see if Grist and Freak were so bombed from sleep dep and go-juice that they'd do what Raw wouldn't.

  They want to know how far we can be pushed in every way.

  It wasn't enough to create Battlenaut jockeys who could fight without rest. They wanted Battlenaut jockeys who doubted the evidence of their own senses.

  Battlenaut jockeys who could be completely controlled.

  *****

  "I don't know if I can do that," Grist said after the chicken-fish told him Cray's advice. "Raw said those are civilian transports."

  "Raw's a cuckoo, boyo," said Swindle the leperchaun, twirling a green index finger alongside his rotting temple. "Who'd ya rather trust? A nut who's gone without sleep fer who knows how long, or cool-headed authority figures with all that tech at their disposal?"

  Grist pinched his eyes shut to try to stop his head from spinning. "They look an awful lot like civilians to me."

  "Remember," said Cray's voice over the comm. "The Black Battlenaut wears many faces."

  Grist opened his eyes and stared at the forward viewport. What he saw there looked like a cluster of six-wheeled transports, the kind regularly used to carry miners between worksites on Sangre.

  Was it possible that what he saw had nothing to do with what was really out there? That his senses were deceiving him?

  As the orange and black butterfly with the head of a human baby fluttered past him, Grist knew he had his answer.

  *****

  "But I don't want to kill him, Gwen," said Freak. "Lieutenant Raw hasn't done anything wrong."

  "Oh, honey." Gwen's voice over the comm sounded loving and sad. "Redeye Base had a good reason for giving that order."

  The cuff squeezed in another burst of fiery go-juice. "What reason?"

  "I'm alive again, sweetie," said Gwen. "That's right. They grew a clone of me, and we're going to be together...but the lieutenant wants to keep us apart."

  Freak felt like she was floating and sinking at the same time. The fog in her head was getting thicker and stickier. "He does?"

  "Please, darling," said Gwen. "Please save me this time."

  *****

  Raw was never sure exactly when he became the Black Battlenaut. Was it before he died? Or after?

  He remembered Grist and Freak opening fire on him with everything they had. He remembered thinking

  This is the only way it can end and I knew it from the beginning.

  That was why

  (He remembered the giant golden eyes gazing down from above, gazing down upon him like the golden eyes of God.)

  That was why he made no move to defend himself. Maybe, his sacrifice would be enough to satisfy the scientists. Maybe, having learned the limits of one man, they would spare Grist and Freak.

  But he doubted it.

  Even if they let those two live, the civilians were doomed, of that he was certain.

  (A dark shape huge as a mountain, blocking out the stars, black metal body glinting in the glow of those giant golden eyes.)

  The scientists had to know if Redeyes would gun down innocent civilians on a whim from Command, in defiance of the evidence of their own senses and the dictates of their own consciences.

  (Was this what Grist and Freak had seen, this gleaming behemoth, this legendary destroyer?)

  There would be innocent blood on Grist and Freak's hands. At least Raw himself wouldn't add to it when they finished killing him. His blood was far from innocent.

  (He had never expected it to be so beautiful.)

  (So terrible.)

  The cockpit filled with the sounds of damage...the pockety-pock of slug impacts, the boom-whoom-thoom of missiles exploding one after another, the crackle and screech of metal gashed by lasers. The hiss of air escaping the broken Battlenaut, the whoops and pings and whistles of weapons alerts and systems failure alarms.

  (Most beautiful thing he'd ever)

  The ear-splitting whine that signalled a breach in the fusion reactor.

  (Beautiful and powerful. Reaching down with a hand as big as a building)

  Déjà vu.

  (Splitting open the shell, the chrysalis, extracting him)

  I know you.

  (When the halves of the broken Battlenaut fell to the ground, they exploded in a wave of glittering golden butterflies.)

  (He watched from above as Grist and Freak bombarded the civilians in a shower of fire and light.)

  Or was he already there by then, inhabiting the leviathan? Or had he always been a part of it?

  I am you.

  The moon trembled as he turned his eyes from the flurry of smoke and flame and dirt at his feet.

  Not tired anymore.

  He tipped his head back, each eye the size of a cathedral, and looked up and out at the same flickering membrane of stars that lay reflected on the polished ebon plate of his face.

  Good night.

  *****

  Special Preview:

  Resist the Red Battlenaut

  Lock and Load for The Next Explosive Chapter in the Battlenauts Saga!

  *****

  Chapter 1

  Corporal Solomon Scott held his gray-plated Mark VI Battlenaut armor perfectly still in the thick white mist. Around him lay the broken armor of two opponents, dead pilots who'd fought to the last for the cause of the Rightful rebels. Scott had killed them both just moments ago in a firefight that had left his own armor damaged.

  Unfortunately, the larger battle going on around him was nowhere near finished. According to comm traffic and the telemetry displayed on the visor of his helmet, dozens of Battlenauts were still smashing the hell out of each other in all directions. The battle for the Commonwealth outpost on planetoid Chelong III was still raging, the outcome up in the air.

  But the big picture wasn't the main thing on Scott's mind at the moment. He was more concerned about where the next attack on his own armor would come from and how he'd survive it with a breach in his belly plating.

  Tapping buttons on the left armrest keypad, he switched views on the visor, superimposing the telemetry data over feeds from the onboard cameras. As far as he could tell, there was nothing nearby...but the mists of Chelong swirled with crystalline particles that played tricks on sensors as well as eyes.

  As he stared at the feed from his aft cameras, the smell of sweat and metal in the cockpit grew sharper, and the hairs on his neck stood up straight. He thought he glimpsed a flicker of movement and gripped the stick tight, ready to fire his rear-mounted guns.

  But nothing bounded out of the mist back there, and he didn't shoot. No problem; he was good at keeping a cool head.

  Not that anything else in the cockpit of his Mark VI was cool at that point. One of the topside cooling vents had taken a hit, and the whole rig was overheating like crazy. Sweat ran down his sides and soaked every part of him. At least the padded halo mount inside his helmet kept the sweat from running into his eyes and burning the crap out of them.

  He was flipping between camera views again when Captain Rollins got on the horn. "Echo Charlie Bravo!" The man's gravelly voice burst from the comm speaker. "Stop standing around, Scott! Dewar and Shen need backup! I just flashed you the stats!"

  As promised, Dewar and Shen's telemetry appeared on the visor. They were thirty meters to the right, both taking heavy hits...but from what? It didn't look like there was anyone else in their immediate vicinity. Was the
mist screwing with their sensors?

  "Damnit, Scott," snapped Rollins. "Get your ass moving!"

  Suddenly, something caught his eye on the feed from the rightside camera. He played the armrest keypad, clearing the telemetry data from the visor screen and punching the rightside feed to maximum magnification. "Stand by, sir." He saw nothing...nothing...

  Then something. A glint, a spark, a flicker in the fog.

  "The hell with stand by!" Rollins' voice became a roar. "Shen just went down!"

  Scott brought the telemetry back up and saw Shen's specs crashing hard. She was alive, but her armor was fried.

  And whatever had fried it was out there somewhere in a rightside direction, exactly where Scott had seen the glint.

  Rollins was still roaring over the comm, but Scott blocked him out. His neck hairs were still up, his gut was twisting; telemetry said nothing was out there, but his instincts told him otherwise.

  Jaws clenched, he ran spectral overlays on the feed, scanning the full range of infrared and ultraviolet frequencies. Still nothing.

  He cut his audio mic so he could talk to himself. "Come on, you piece of oosh. I know you're out there."

  Scott threw all five feeds on-visor at once--rightside, leftside, frontside, backside, topside--and hit them all with the spectral overlays. Still, he saw no telltale signs of an enemy Battlenaut in any direction.

  His instincts were usually good, but maybe they were off this one time. He'd been in battle before; even without actual fog, things could get confusing in the thick of it.