The Lost (The Maauro Chronicles Book 3)

by Edward McKeown

  A flood of Seddonese soldiers came into the valley, some of them cavalry and we gladly turned over this grim duty to them. I made my way back to the mule, fatigue narrowing my vision even more than the smoke from burning trees. We had been lucky in that much, the wet spring had kept the forest from entirely erupting in flames, but the area where Maauro and the crab-robots had fought the Destroyer was burning. I prayed there were no wounded burning to death helpless in those woods. We had no time to fight a forest fire.

  Maauro, her face as grim and quiet as I had ever seen it, stopped me. “Wrik, many of these cannot be saved.” She gestured at the moaning field of bodies awaiting transport out of the valley. “There’s no medical technology present that can do it.”

  “I know.” I stared at the suffering. A few vehicles and horse drawn ambulances were loading the injured. More would be coming, but so was evening.

  Olivia paused next to me, her Confed fatigues matted with blood and worse, her eyes hollow. “What are you suggesting?”

  “For those who cannot be saved, we…I…should ease their passing.”

  Olivia lowered her head, her hair hiding both eyes this time.

  “We can’t, Maauro,” I said. “We don’t know these people or their religions, we don’t know how they would see such an act.”

  “Can it be viewed as anything other than a mercy?”

  “Yes, it could.”

  “I do not understand, but I will defer to you in this.”

  “Maauro,” Olivia said, not looking up. “You can do more than their medicine can.”

  Maauro shook her head. “What I can manufacture in myself is utterly inadequate to the need. I could do surgery, but I must prepare myself and the crabs for another battle.”

  “Perhaps,” Olivia said, “perhaps just a few of the children…”

  “All beings are networked to those that value them,” she replied. “How should I choose the few that I might be able to save? Olivia, you of all people, must understand military necessity. The fastest way to stop the dying is to win the war. I cannot be diverted into palliative measures.”

  “Yeah,” Olivia said.

  “She’s right,” I added.

  Olivia glared at me from her human eye. “I said, yes.”

  “Wrik, Olivia,” Maauro added. “Do not take out your anger on each other. You both did well—”

  “I did fuck-all,” Olivia snapped. “If only I’d had a Tiger VII tank, or a tac nuke. I’d have fried its ass.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “It might be a good idea for you to get the spare radio sets out of the mule, find someone with more brain than braid, and get them up on the prospect of lobbing shells at this thing from long distance and behind cover. I don’t care if you have to pound a general’s head into a breech, but explain to these guys how to use indirect artillery fire and radio. If the artillery can stay alive, maybe we can slow this thing up.

  “Get an aid-station set up at the base of the hill. If they don’t know med-evac and triage, teach them quickly.”

  “All right,” she said. “The whole Marine handbook in fifteen minutes and in a combat zone. Anything else?”

  “Tell them to abandon anything on this side of the river. They should have the bridges ready to blow. I don’t think the Destroyer can swim.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that. If you hear banging, that will be me slamming some brass hat into a tree.” She stalked off.

  We loaded the mule with two more wounded who might live and ran it back up to the valley exit.

  Seddonese military had finally arrived in force, aiding the exodus of the suffering. A military hospital was set up on the far side of the pass. Pape had set the sappers to work on the ridge above. Olivia grabbed the first senior officer she saw and began a crash course in modern fire control.

  After we unloaded the wounded at the field hospital, we returned to the overlook where we’d left the crab-robots and Seddonese field pieces on guard. I got some water and sat, exhausted, by the stone wall guarding the drop off. Maauro and I surveyed the valley below, occupied now only by the dead, the undiscovered wounded and the cavalry searching for them. The sun was setting behind the hills to the west. I had only enough energy left to wonder what would happen if the Destroyer attacked in the darkness.

  “God,” I finally said, “I would never have believed it, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

  “Indeed,” Maauro said, sitting next to me, “but I cannot understand why someone would build such machines. Formidable as it doubtless is, the weight and power requirements would seem tactically—”

  “Don’t think tactics,” I said. “Think terror. That thing was designed to spread fear and panic. It’s a bad dream come to mechanical life. They doubtless used smaller machines or better-designed ones against the native military. These things were created to terrorize civilians.”

  “Your analysis is sensible given what we know. Did you find it frightening?”

  “Hell, yes,” I muttered. “I’ll see that monster in dreams from now on.”

  “Further proof of your thought that it is a terror weapon.”

  “Well, we’ve seen it now. Did you gather any useful data?’

  “It has complex reactive and multi-layered armor, energy and projectile weapons. It is shielded, but clearly nuclear powered. I do not believe the Destroyer is functioning at its higher levels of awareness. Tactics were very basic. That may be because of its ingestion of the untrained Maximillian into its systems. I have estimated weight and probable maximum speed over ground from the way it moves.”

  “Why Maximillian?” I wondered as I slowly stood, dusting myself off. The temperature was dropping rapidly in the moist air.

  “He is the product of several lines of Engineered humans, most notably Shasti Rainhell, whose capabilities have never been completely understood. Yet we know her genetic code was so strong that even the Evolvers could not convert her to their use. Perhaps something in that code triggered the robot, some analogue with its original creators. While it is possible that it could have used any being caught inside it when it reactivated, I think that unlikely. Maximillian was very unfortunate to have been present.”

  “Do you think the poor bastard is aware in that thing?” I said as I stared at the returning cavalry leaving the miserable valley with the fading of the light.

  “I do not know, but share your fear for him. If aware, it seems Maximillian is unable to control its imperative to destroy all life it encounters on this world, unless he has been driven mad as well. We have seen such things before.”

  I remembered a space station where the Guild had recreated an Infestor brain and the horrors that had overwhelmed the crew until we destroyed it.

  Maauro seemed to divine my thoughts. “We may have to face the prospect that Maximillian cannot be recovered, as with those contaminated by the Infestors, there may not be enough of his original persona for him to survive, even if we could somehow free him.”

  “Do you really want to report to Shasti Rainhell that we found her grandchild and then had to kill him? I don’t fear much in your company, but Rainhell would make the top of that list.”

  “A formidable woman with a long tally of dead enemies,” Maauro agreed. “Not to be casually undertaken as an enemy. Nor do I wish to be the death of a young being whose only crime may have been curiosity. Yet, we may have no choice if we want to save the remaining people of this world and ourselves.”

  I sighed. “It seems we are not fated for easy days.”

  “I was not made for easy days,” she replied. “Perhaps this will change some day and I will want to turn my back on what we do. Maybe I will change and come to value peace, at least peace for me. Violence and terror will continue. I will just no longer be a part of it.”

  She tilted her head to look up at me. “And what of you, Wrik? You could have remained on Star Central
and had easier days than these.”

  “I don’t know, Maauro,” I said, as we started back toward the mule. I sealed my coat against the evening wind. “Now that I’m here, all I can think of is getting home alive, back to Jaelle, to warmth and light. I wonder why in God’s name I came. But it’s equally true that I was restless back at Star Central, that I knew I wanted to do this, that it gave me a purpose and a direction.”

  The wind slapped at me as if mocking my conceits.

  “We’re here now,” I concluded. “All we can do is our best.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Let us get back to the others.”

  Olivia declined a ride in the mule. We left her nose-to-nose with some Seddonese officers wearing artillery badges. Pape was nowhere to be found, doubtless off with what remained of his family. Maauro and I put three wounded and an attendant in the back of the mule. A dull rumble made us turn around. Above, we saw the ridge shake and then tumble into the cleft of road that we’d sped down earlier. The way was now closed and I felt less fear about the Destroyer catching the extended column of Seddonese on this side of the river.

  As the pall of smoke and dust spiraled up into the afterglow we headed back for the city, rolling alongside the column of refugees and military until we came to the defended bridges. We passed over and returned to Stardust after discharging our wounded.

  I found Dusko working on the Sinner II’s engine. He looked me over, shook his head and said there was food in the galley to microwave. The mere thought made my stomach clench. Maauro went into the hold to hook up her powertap to the engines to restore herself and then commence repair work on the crabs. I fell face down on my bunk. I was lucky. I slept for five hours before waking up screaming.

  Chapter 22

  I found Olivia in the morning, face down on her bunk in her underwear. I grabbed her clothes, which stank as badly as my own had and threw everything in the laundry hoping the machines could get the smell of burnt flesh off them. I tried to face breakfast, but could only manage a bagel and coffee.

  A noise made me turn. Dusko walked in with his usual witch’s brew of Dua-Denlenn coffee. “The Sinner’s engine is fixed.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “It was bad out there?”

  “I don’t even have words.”

  He nodded. “Should I fix something for Olivia?”

  “I don’t know. She’s got an iron stomach but…I’d wait.”

  “Maauro didn’t kill the thing.”

  “No. She slapped it around some. Made it cautious. But, well, you saw the crabs.”

  “Yeah she’s outside working on Number 1 now, trying to get it into some sort of fighting order. She’s got Number 3 reloaded, sent it down to the riverside. Told me to tell you that the Seddonese are pulling everything back across the river and getting the bridges ready to blow.”

  “Good.”

  “Will that work?”

  “Maybe. It came through the swamp and that was supposed to be impossible. If it is obliging enough to be on a bridge while we blow it…”

  He sipped his drink. “I don’t want to be the one to say it aloud, but it looks like you are going to make me.”

  I leaned back and looked up.

  “Has the time come to head back for the Confederacy? Run and get help?”

  I wiped a hand across my eyes.

  “I know you don’t think much of me—” Dusko began.

  “No. That’s not it,” I said. “I’ve been wondering the same thing. I couldn’t say it aloud because I’ve had too much experience with cutting and running. I’m sure the others have thought about it too, particularly Maauro. She’s too logical not to.”

  “Well?” Dusko pursued.

  “It could come to it. Thing is, would anybody be alive when we got back?”

  “Some would.”

  “And how many not?”

  “If we fight and lose here, it will be more. Maybe all.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I finished my coffee. “We’re not ready to give up on Maximillian until Maauro gives up. Then it’s a question of, can we destroy it? If we lose, I want to preserve Stardust for whoever is left, most likely you, to go for help.”

  “Me?” The Dua-Denlenn’s face was a study in surprise.

  “Olivia can fly the Sinner, but not the Stardust. If the thing gets Maauro, then it will have gotten me too—”

  “She won’t like the sound of that.”

  “You won’t repeat it.”

  After a second, he nodded.

  “I’m not looking for death,” I said, “but it will be she and I trying for Maximillian. We’ll likely live or die together.”

  “She won’t permit it.”

  “I told her once and I’ll repeat it now, I can’t be preserved just to be preserved. If my life has any meaning, I have to…well I have to face things. No running away. Not again, ever.”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t arguing.”

  “Anyway, you have the best chance of surviving. If Maauro and I are gone, it will fall to Olivia to use the Sinner and the crabs. If that fails, grab the surviving kids from the expedition and get back to Star Central. Come back with Rainhell and enough firepower to do the job.”

  “OK,” he said and turned to leave, then stopped. “You’ve changed.”

  I put down the coffee mug. “Yeah. You too.”

  “Not so much, Human.”

  “Enough.”

  “People who knew us from before would laugh.”

  “Sure would.”

  He nodded and ducked out the hatchway.

  I found enough appetite to have some more breakfast. Olivia came in an hour later. Looking at her, hair perfect, cleaned up, even her ship coverall creased and immaculate, it was hard to credit yesterday’s filth and death. Maybe it was just her way of dealing with it.

  “Dusko said he’d rustle you up something,” I offered.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “Ran into him. Told him to hold it for dinner. Nothing will taste good this morning. Toast and coffee, maybe juice that’s all.”

  “Sit,” I said. “I can manage that much.” It took only a few minutes.

  I slid the plate and mug in front of her and then followed with juice. She gave a wan smile. “Not the first time,” she began. “But the first time with so many civvies.”

  I nodded. “Same for me.”

  “God,” she said.

  “I always wonder where he is at moments like that.” I poured more coffee for myself. “The priests never seem to have a good answer for that one.”

  “What the hell do we do now?”

  “Depends on Maauro,” I said. “We can’t blast the thing down. Even if you can get the Seddonese military to work out indirect fire, I don’t know that they have any weapons big enough to do the job. Maybe with a lot of massed guns…”

  “Be tough,” she said. “I think a lot will depend on how many missiles that thing has in it. It had to have used about twenty in this engagement. It’s not Maauro, surely it can’t be making them? But if it has any missiles, well it’s a good battle computer, it will counter-battery anything the Seddonese fire at it. Missiles airbursting over their artillery will make short work of them, game over again.”

  I relayed some of what Dusko and I had said. Olivia gave a bitter laugh. “Great plan. So after Maauro, you and I are killed, he runs for help? Nice of him to volunteer. Bastard.”

  “Not his fault,” I said. “If you could fly Stardust, I’d put him in the Sinner.”

  “Nah,” she said. “He wouldn’t press the attack like I will. Dusko’s too much about Dusko.”

  “I’m going to check in with Maauro,” I said.

  “I’ll check in the Seddonese high command in a bit. If General Romus will back me up, I can get these artillery guys to follow my lead. I can’t blame them for being c
onfused by adding a new doctrine in wartime, but the side that adapts wins. The others die.”

  I smiled “Cheerful as always.”

  That drew a real laugh out of her. “Let me know if the Princess of Death comes up with something new. I want to see her put that thing’s head on a wall.”

  “I’ll do it.” I dropped the dishes in the machine and headed out.

  Chapter 23

  A staff car pulled up as I climbed down the ladder to the ground. Pape got out of the ornate vehicle and walked over to us. His usual energy was absent today and his face had a haunted look. He walked up to where Maauro and I were working on crab 3 in the shadow of the Stardust. We hadn’t seen the young special forces operative since the evening before in the valley. I doubted he’d slept any more than we had.

  “Hey Enso,” I said, putting aside my tools and welding mask. “I’m sorry about your mother.” I stuck out my hand.

  He took it firmly. “I have you and Maauro to thank that I didn’t lose everything.” He looked at her seated up on the crab, where she’d been welding with the plasma torch in her right hand. “Thank you, Maauro. If there is anything I can ever do for you, just tell me.”

  She looked at him for a second. “I am pleased to have you as a new member of my network.”

  He looked at me.

  I smiled. “That means you’re officially a friend now.”

  He faced her and bowed. “I’m honored.”

  “Any word on your brother-in-law?” I asked.

  Enso nodded, relief on his face. “He’s alive though pretty badly banged up. What was left of his unit took the long way around. They made it to the river in the early morning hours. A lot of people did. We’re keeping the bridges up in the hope more will, or that we can catch the thing on one.”

  “Good,” I said.