by Barry Kirwan
“We’ll see. We need to know.”
The leading edge of Mannekhi slowed to a walking pace, then stopped in front of the three warriors. Three Mannekhi attacked them, and were quickly dispatched by the Youngbloods. Petra could feel the tension all around her, as everyone drew closer to the barrier for a better view. As another three Mannekhi fell to the floor, a hissing sound arose on her side of the barrier, in Hremsta, an encouragement Genners used in sparring matches to cheer their fellows on. Petra took a breath and made the same noise between tongue and teeth.
Three more Mannekhi died, but the blood of one of them spattered onto a Youngblood’s face. He wiped it away, then buckled as if punched in the stomach, his face lined in pain. Petra zoomed in, and saw the first cracks of gold etch down his cheeks. She screamed a single word in Hremsta, cutting off the hissing, hoping her voice would carry on the breeze and be picked up by the Youngbloods’ superior hearing. Brandt glanced at her with a look of surprise, then echoed her command in his far louder voice.
A fellow Youngblood moved to the infected warrior and slit his throat. A roar erupted from the Genners, chanting the same word Petra had used. Many of the Steaders tried to imitate the word, neither knowing nor caring what it meant. But the two remaining warriors were set upon by the Mannekhi until Petra could no longer see them. The chanting ceased, the crowd craning their necks to see. After a minute, the two Youngblood warriors emerged from the Mannekhi horde, their skin golden. They walked towards the lip of the crater, as the Mannekhi drew back. Petra grasped Brandt’s hand, and squeezed hard. The turned warriors calmly disappeared into the crater. Five seconds later flame and dirt mushroomed from the crater up into the air.
Even before the dirt had come back to the ground, the Mannekhi from the last ship emerged. As one, the golden infantry advanced. Petra noticed armoured vehicles, several with serious-looking hardware and cannons of varying sizes.
She stood her ground. Everyone else did, too.
At last the invading army stood some ten metres from the shield. One golden man walked forward, only recognisable as Mannekhi by his eyes of pure black. He stopped at the other side of the barrier from Petra. At first she thought he was staring at her, that this was some other kind of pre-battle ritual. But it was always hard to know what a Mannekhi was looking at, and it dawned on her that he was studying Blake. The man returned to the front line, a mixture of male and female soldiers, all golden, and various vehicles and artillery.
“Now what?” Brandt asked.
“We see who blinks first.”
Within the hour, Kilaney and Xenic had landed on the opposite side of town, but there was no way to let them in. Petra still faced the unmoving wall of Mannekhi, who were by now thoroughly drenched from the rain. It didn’t bother them. Funny thing was, the rain seemed to be only on them, not on the shield directly in front of her.
Vasquez had informed her there were twelve hundred turned Mannekhi outside the barrier. Only a few needed to get through, and then the chain reaction of contamination would begin. She had to admit, this conversion ploy of Qorall’s was brilliant, since in most wars even the winning side usually suffered devastating losses to its numbers, but this way, battles actually swelled Qorall’s armies. Three ranks of heavily armed Genners and militia had taken up position in front of the horde, and the crowd of Esperian onlookers were ordered back to the town.
One of the Spiders nudged her hip, startling her. She tried to read its flickering comms band.
“What’s it saying?” Brandt asked.
She stared at it. “I’m not sure.” She whirled back to the cannons. They were silent. “Oh crap!” she said.
Brandt touched her shoulder, holding her in place. “Petra, speak to me. What did it say?”
She held his gaze while lifting her wristcom to her mouth. “Colonel, can you tell me the integrity of the shield? No? Can you detect if there is any energy signature from the cannons. Check all frequencies.”
She sighed. “It said three minutes until barrier failure.” She cursed herself. The Spiders assumed the humans knew; the cannons had probably been firing steadily since they’d taken up position.
Vasquez came online. “Sorry Petra, you’re right. It’s on a frequency we weren’t monitoring and can’t see or hear. Convergent beams from all six main cannons are focused on a spot right in front of you. You’d better move out of the way. I don’t know if the whole barrier will come down, or if it will only create a small opening for the soldiers to come through.”
She stared at the cannons, the Mannekhi soldiers standing in the rain, and the clear – and completely dry – barrier.
“The rain,” she said. “That’s why we can’t see rain on the shield in front of us!” Stupid! I should have seen that.
She and Brandt moved back, but she noticed the Spiders remained where they were. A thought struck her. “Vasquez, tell me the moment the cannons stop firing.” She switched channels. “Kilaney, Xenic, get ready to come through.”
There was a sound like glass cracking, then fissures appeared in the shield. They spread outwards like ferns, then cracks opened up, stretching until a crude arch formed.
“They’ve stopped firing, Petra.”
She whirled to the Spiders, gave them the command. “Kilaney, Xenic, you have five seconds.” The Mannekhi soldiers began filing toward the arch. She signalled to the Spiders to raise the shield, just as militia took up position in front of her, armed with pulse rifles. Vasquez must have ordered them to open fire, because suddenly the noise of constant pulse fire deafened her. Backlash heat seared her face as Brandt dragged her backwards, away from the fray, though she watched, horrified as a mound of charred corpses built up in the arch. But more soldiers continued to pour through, despite appalling losses.
Eventually one made it through and flung himself towards the militia. They caught him in crossbeams, igniting him like a flaming torch, but that allowed two more to try the same tactic. The front rank of militia fell back, as the second rank opened fire.
“It’s not working,” she said. Brandt held her tight while she gripped the handle of her pulse pistol. The ten metre distance between the arch and the militia was strewn with burning bodies. There was a surge though the arch, and even though the militia caught the front wave, the ones behind continued the charge, carrying their dying comrades, and fell upon the front militia row. The second row paused a fraction of a second then opened fire on their fallen colleagues, trying to stem the flow.
Kilaney arrived, out of breath. He surveyed the scene. “Petra, what are the Spiders saying?”
She looked at him, not understanding, then followed his gaze to the Spiders, who had remained exactly where they had always been, Blake still in their midst. She read their comms bands, then reached into her left pocket, and clicked the release. The Spiders parted, and Blake stepped free of his restraints.
Petra found the scene surreal. The yells, screams, the buzzsaw of pulse rifles in freeflow mode, solid beams of yellow streaming outwards, devouring the soldiers, the searing heat, the stench of charred flesh, frenetic animalistic fighting on a carpet of corpses and boiling blood, and a single golden man walking right into the melee. The Mannekhi seemed to ignore him. Until he touched the shoulder of one of them, at the edge, and the man flinched, then staggered backwards, falling in amidst other men, the golden sheen on his face giving way to mottled patches of grey. Blake touched another, then another. The fighters at the front remained oblivious to Blake, but those at the back were not; they began to notice him. Three of them faced Blake, and crouched. Before Petra could react, Kilaney snatched her pulse pistol and drew his own, and sprinted forward, while Xenic yelled at the militia to restrain their fire in that direction.
Blake glanced at Kilaney for a split second and – she was sure of it – the corners of his mouth lifted a fraction. Blake began fighting, Kilaney protecting his back as golden Mannekhi soldiers swarmed around them. Those at the front line stopped advancing, and joined this new fo
cus.
“Cease fire!” Xenic shouted, with such force and presence of command that the militia stopped, even though he wasn’t their commanding officer.
Petra couldn’t see. “Lift me up,” she said to Brandt, and he hoisted her up onto his shoulders.
Kilaney and Blake were back-to-back as the Mannekhi soldiers tried to stab them both without being touched. Kilaney used his pistols sparingly; the object wasn’t to kill them, but to convert enough to stem and then turn the tide. But each time Blake touched one and he began to turn, his comrades slaughtered him. She saw Blake shout something over his shoulder to Kilaney, the latter nodding, and then Blake dived forward, touching as many faces as he could reach, taking several knife thrusts in the process. Kilaney spun around and picked up Blake like a battering ram, his half-Q’Roth physiology keeping him upright long after any human or Genner could have survived, pile-driving Blake through the soldiers until too many knives in his back and legs brought him down. And then Petra couldn’t see; Blake and Kilaney were on the ground.
“Down,” she said, then turned to Xenic and the militia. But Vasquez had arrived. A pulse cannon hanging from his shoulder.
“Ready, people,” he said.
All the militia and Youngbloods stood in a single rank, weapons raised. Petra watched the crowd of Mannekhi soldiers. They shuffled this way and that, and then collapsed to the ground. No more Mannekhi pushed through the arch, and she saw the mottled grey affecting others outside the shield, spreading backwards through the Mannekhi ranks like wildfire. The antigen was working. She walked forward, shaking off Brandt’s attempt to hold her back. By the time she reached the throng, most were on all fours, gasping, retching, all of them losing their golden sheen. She walked through them until she found the two men she’d been searching for.
Kilaney was dead, his eyes wide open but a grimace on his face she felt sure concealed a smile. Vasquez, Xenic and Brandt arrived, but she didn’t look up. Instead she rolled Blake onto his back. His blood, still warm, soaked her tunic. Three knives were driven into his torso up to the hilt.
To her surprise, he was still alive, just. Blood oozed from his mouth, and his breath came in short sharp rasps. She knelt down next to him, no longer caring what happened to her. She tried to speak, but her throat choked up. But he looked at her, and the words came forth.
“You did it Blake,” she said. “Like you always said, break the infantry, win the war. The tide will turn now.”
He smiled, and made to speak, but blood poured from his lips. He looked up to the sky.
Petra bent forward and spoke softly into his ear. “Go to her, Blake. Go to Glenda.” She kissed his forehead, and as she lifted away from him, saw that he was gone, and closed his eyelids with her fingertips.
The Spiders gathered around her and Blake. Petra bowed her head, as drops of rain coursed down her cheeks.
Pierre stood on the surface of the Machine asteroid as it hurtled through space. He was on an intercept course with one of Qorall’s Orbs, standing inside a small bubble of tailored atmosphere shielding him from cold vacuum and hard radiation. The asteroid-sized Machine remnant – all that was left of the race after Hellera’s deception – was solid metal, so there was nowhere else for him to go. The ground beneath him was flat and featureless. Since his childhood, he’d always looked to the stars; they had been his friends, the constellations a landscape sketching his hopes and dreams. But it was different seeing them this way, with the naked eye as opposed to via a screen or porthole back on Ukrull’s Ice Pick, or through layers of atmosphere back on Earth. Now the stars looked starker, stabbing at him through silent space. Somehow they felt hostile, accusing, as if they knew what he was planning. He started walking on the grainy metal surface. There was nowhere to go, but he needed to move to help him think this through one last time, before there was no going back.
He started from when Jen had dropped him off, literally.
Jen had come back up from the lower part of the sliver that remained from Darkur’s ship. As soon as she entered the cockpit, water dripping from her overalls and hair, he sealed the hatch, blocking the Hohash from entering. Frowning, she stared at him.
“Please don’t tell me you want privacy, Pierre, because I’m really not –”
“The Machines, they’ve been in touch with me.”
She froze, and glared at him through her wet, mouse-coloured fringe. Pierre had known her long enough to realise that she thought things through before she spoke – jumping several steps ahead. He wasn’t disappointed.
“Your nannites? That’s how they made a connection?”
He nodded.
She moved over to her chair, swung it around so she was facing him. She closed her eyes. “Dimitri – is he somehow..?”
He didn’t answer. She opened her eyes again.
“Okay. So, some of them got away from Hellera’s trap. What do they want?”
“Me,” he said.
She cocked her head to one side. “How did the interview go?”
He decided to play it her way. “I got the job.”
She folded her arms. “What’s the pay like?”
“With their help I’m going to try and destroy the Orbs. All of them.”
She studied him. “What do you want me to say to the three women in your life, Pierre? You remember them, right? Petra, Kat… Hellera?”
“I’ll miss them.” He cleared his throat. “Well, not Hellera, obviously.”
She leant forward in her chair. “I don’t think she’s the forgiving type.” She got up, tried to pace, gave it up as there was no room. “I’ll need to give her a reason not to hunt you down, Pierre.”
“Bishops.”
Jen sat back in the chair. “Excuse me?”
“It’s like chess. She knows chess. There are four enemy layers: rooks, bishops, pawns, and the king.”
Jen folded her arms. “Let me see: the Nchkani are rooks, the Orbs are bishops, the turned races pawns, and Qorall, well, that’s obvious. Hellera has just wiped out the rooks, and you think together with the Machines you can eliminate the Orbs. What about the pawns? And for that matter, who is Qorall’s queen?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure who the queen is.” But a name arose in his mind: Louise. Could it be? She was a lowly pawn, and yet… no, he had insufficient information, and it was too unlikely. He got back on track. “As for the pawns… not my jurisdiction any more. If the Machines go after the pawns – the organics as they think of them – they’ll do more damage than Qorall.”
Her smile faded. “What about after? What’s your endgame, or for that matter, that of the Machines?”
That was the big question. If they survived the first Orb contact, the Machines would grow and attack others. But afterwards, they might decide to purge the galaxy of organic species again.
“Thought so,” she said. “How much of a head start do you need? And on that subject, how are you going to get to work?”
He smiled. “An hour. And, out the airlock. They’re outside. I’ve been working furiously to stop the ship’s immune systems attacking them.”
She raised both eyebrows. “Won’t need a suit, then?”
He shook his head and stood up. Without warning, she got up and embraced him.
“I’ll tell Petra and Kat that you did it for them, for all of us.” She released him.
“It’s not exactly true... But you understand my decision, don’t you?”
She walked him to the airlock hatch. “Sure. Dimitri would have been tempted to join a hyper-advanced race. You scientists value intellect and exploration above everything else; it’s your heroin.”
She activated the hatch, which slid open without a sound. “But I’ll lie to Kat and Petra, because they won’t fully understand otherwise.”
“I’m not sure –”
Her voice became firm. “Kalaran once told me that perception is the only reality that matters.”
He acquiesced. Who was he to disagree with Kalaran?
She held out her hand, shook his. “Now, go and destroy all the bishops, and when you’re done, take the Machines out of our galaxy, and never come back. Hard code it into them, Pierre, they must leave and never return.”
He stared at her a moment. “You’re a dark horse, Jen, far smarter than you let on. Only now can I begin to see why Dimitri loved you, and why Kalaran spent time with you.”
“We all have our moments. Now, get out of here.”
That had been an hour ago. He stopped walking, squatted down, and touched the hard surface. Did he trust the Machines? Of course not. That made no sense, they were logical creatures. Jen had used the right words – it needed to be hard-coded into them. But how? The Machines were in survival mode. Kalaran had awoken them, Hellera had used them and tried to eliminate them immediately afterwards. But the Machines would not feel anger, nor would they feel any remorse if they took over the galaxy by killing a few trillion organics, and not just those turned by Qorall. For the Machines, it was all about utility, propagation, and logical order rather than chaos. The idea of a new galaxy was an enticing prospect, and they had originally been designed by the Tla Beth to explore remote galaxies, but there was a lot of risk, and why should they leave this galaxy when they had what they needed here? The Orbs were a significant threat, but if they could be destroyed, then the Machines could sit and wait out the final battle between Qorall and Hellera and then make their move. Pure, cold logic.
The ground beneath his fingers rippled, and he glanced upwards, and saw it, a star that looked brighter than any other, with a golden light. He stood up, and opened his mind.
He tensed. This was the agreement. He wouldn’t sign the contract with blood, but with his DNA, and his organic mind’s force of will. That’s what they needed to survive and defeat the Orb, which was nothing more than a super-virus that worked by re-writing organic software. Most organic species – following Kalaran’s ankh template – had strong will, but their emotional and intellectual ‘software’ was beneath their conscious control, and so was vulnerable; their coding was weak, so re-coding via the Orbs was easy. In contrast, the Machine race’s coding was very strong, ultra-disciplined, and had inbuilt intelligent monitoring and resistance. But the Machines lacked any organic sense of will; they had been designed by the Tla Beth to be servants, and so it was only a matter of time before the Orbs exploited such a basic flaw, a trap-door in their metal-clad coding.
