Parker Interstellar Travels 4: The Trilisk Hunt

by Michael McCloskey

  “Acknowledged.”

  I don’t have a death wish. Not anymore, anyway. I kind of like my new life.

  Arakaki helped her attendant back out, then she launched herself into the sky toward a distant building. She had one of her attendants give her a slight boost.

  Amazing how quickly one gets used to jumping around like a superhero.

  She opened up her mental workspace where she saw the updates on the data Cilreth and Shiny were using to try to find the Trilisk. Things were quiet at the moment, but she picked a different spot that had shown bursts of activity earlier in the day.

  Ten minutes later she was near another area with clues. It was one of the hot zones. According to Shiny, there was about a 20 percent probability the Trilisk was within five kilometers of her position. A scout robot was about two kilometers away from her, jumping from building to building in a slow search pattern.

  Let’s see. It likes big buildings. Probably needs lots of supplies for whatever it’s cooking up. It had to have come here for some reason, probably needed some technology it could find here.

  Arakaki caught some movement from the corner of her eye. A Terran walked away from her on the edge of a distant building.

  Shit! It’s Magnus… Magnus2, anyway.

  Arakaki watched just long enough to be sure. There were no Vovokan spheres orbiting the other Magnus. They had probably been destroyed, since they would give away the position directly to Shiny unless they had been suborned. Magnus2 slipped into one of the trap doors gracefully.

  I have to tell the others. Maybe get some distance first.

  Arakaki used her attendants to veer away. She marked the map with her find. As she flew away, she considered the ramifications of what she had seen.

  Shit. This means Caden2 could be alive as well. We assumed they were dead. But they’re still slaves! And they’re in the improved bodies.

  “Magnus? This is Arakaki. You’re not going to like what I’ve scouted.”

  Chapter 25

  Magnus sat alone in his large quarters aboard the Clacker. He had been disturbed ever since learning that Magnus2 still lived.

  He is just like me—except a slave to that thing. Unless it killed his mind when it took over.

  It made it easier to consider that perhaps the mind of Magnus2 had already been expunged. If they had to face Magnus2, he had to be ready to treat him like any other deadly enemy. That was only the first problem, getting his head around killing his copy. The next problem was harder: how?

  Faster and stronger than me. With all my knowledge. Right now, is he trying to outthink me the way I’m trying to outthink him? Or is it only the Trilisk mind, rummaging through his memories like a drawer full of odds and ends?

  Telisa let herself in. She walked across his room and joined him on the bed.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” she said.

  Magnus had no idea what a penny was, but the inquiry was clear.

  “Magnus2 and Caden2 are bad news,” he said. “They’re fast. We may just have to overwhelm them with some heavy firepower. Something of Shiny’s.”

  “Grenades are useless,” Telisa said. “The targeting signature would have to include you. Even our weapons are going to be dangerous because we have to remove you and Caden from our target blacklists. Our weapons will fire at you. The rounds won’t avoid you.”

  Magnus nodded slowly. “I trust you and the rest of the team,” he said.

  “We’ll use stunners again. And set the rounds for glancing hits.”

  “Too risky. This is serious business. We’re going to have to shoot to kill. We know they will be.”

  Because they already did it once.

  “You can shoot yourself?”

  “He’s not himself, not anymore. We were so crazy to use the Trilisk machines.”

  “We had no idea. I don’t think we have to kill them, though. Maybe we can use sleep gas.”

  Magnus got link requests from the others. He saw in his PV that a group was forming to discuss the attack plan. Magnus linked in.

  Caden and Siobhan were arguing about whether or not they could defeat Caden2.

  “Let’s back up,” Magnus said. “We have three enemy combatants. All Terrans. We have them outnumbered. We can bring all the soldiers we have.”

  “They have their own army of robots,” Caden said.

  “The whole army probably isn’t there,” Cilreth said from the Clacker. “We could detect that pretty easily. They may have a few choice ones nearby, though.”

  “We should strive for surprise,” Imanol said. “That’s as large of an advantage as their superbodies.”

  “We have something they don’t,” Arakaki said. “The attendant spheres. They don’t have them.”

  “The Trilisk must have destroyed them to keep Shiny from spying,” Imanol said.

  “Or hacked them to serve it,” Cilreth said.

  “If it’s that powerful, we’ve lost,” Siobhan said.

  “It’s doing something here. It has its own agenda. We need to disrupt its plans,” Telisa said.

  “We’ll go in with more attendant spheres like Arakaki said,” Magnus said. “They make a huge difference. They can intercept projectiles, scout for us, everything. It could be the edge we need.”

  “They’ll expect it. They know what we know,” Caden said.

  “They don’t know we have a Trilisk-vulnerable Shiny copy. And the old us thought Cilreth wasn’t copied, either. That’s a stroke of luck,” Telisa said.

  “We have to do something to fool ourselves. How do you do that?” Imanol said.

  “You select a strategy at random,” Maxsym said. “Or we can select from a different pool of ideas. Magnus2 is out there. Maybe Caden2 as well. So the rest of us, excluding those two, need to come up with possible plans. Then we randomly choose from them. That would be hard for Magnus2 and Caden2 to anticipate.”

  “Let’s eliminate what you expect, Caden,” Siobhan said. “What would you expect us to do?”

  “Run away. Because I know Caden2 can defeat all the originals put together. He’s too fast, too strong.”

  Siobhan rolled her eyes. “Such modesty.”

  “I’m saying it like it is. I’m the best, the Blood Glades champion. Then you made me superhuman.”

  “How about you, Magnus?” asked Siobhan.

  Magnus was silent for a moment.

  “I would expect Shiny to come fight this time. Like he did on Chigran Callnir. He has enough powerful battle machines to kill Magnus2 and Caden2 just like he defeated Arakaki’s UED force.”

  “Then we’ll borrow some. But he’s not coming.”

  “We might have another small edge,” Siobhan said.

  “Yes?” Cilreth prompted.

  “There was something when Magnus2 shot me,” Siobhan said. “Or when he shot Siobhan2. A surviving attendant caught an image of a look on his face. He didn’t want to do it. I could see it.”

  “So you mean they might have been forced to shoot, but they’re still on our side?”

  “Exactly. I don’t know if the Trilisk can read their minds just because it can control their bodies.”

  “We have to assume the worst,” Magnus said. “The Trilisk is capable of amazing things. Obviously this one is a bit down and out, not having an AI to pray to and all, but it still has a lot of amazing tricks.”

  “What you saw probably doesn’t mean anything,” Maxsym said. “How could you tell between a look of defiance against an order from a look of hatred, or from the random look a body taken over by an alien might have? The look could have been a random spasm as the brain function changed. Or it could have been a brilliant immortal alien deceiving you.”

  Siobhan shrugged. “Maybe it was nothing.” Her voice said she did not believe it.

  “We can use the Clacker’s weapons. Carve up the habitat. Then go into the debris and pluck the Trilisk out of there,” Caden said.

  “We most certainly will not destroy this civilization to grab that one
alien,” Maxsym said.

  “We can’t destroy the habitat,” Telisa agreed. “But I’m willing to smash a couple of the houses if we have to. The Trilisk is worth so much alive, but maybe we should resolve ourselves to just blowing them up. Surely Shiny can make us some bombs.”

  “We have a lot of stunners in our hands. The soldiers have more. Even our faster selves can’t outrun a sonic blast.”

  “They’re wearing Veer suits that can deploy countermeasures. They’ll have their stun protection deployed all the time. My chain lightning gun—”

  “You can’t bring it,” Magnus said. “I thought that over. I know how deadly it is. If you showed up with it, I would close with you and steal it. Use it.”

  “The stealth sphere can hide me,” Telisa said.

  Magnus shook his head. “The Trilisk might defeat it.”

  “Well no one said this was safe. Nothing near safe,” Caden said.

  “Why did they keep Magnus2 around?” Siobhan asked. “Wouldn’t the Trilisk just want to kill them when it was done using them against us?”

  “Perhaps it wanted to use that body,” Telisa said.

  “Yes, it may well be in Caden2 or Magnus2 by now.”

  “Your idea is interesting, Maxsym,” Siobhan said. “But there is another way to fool them. We can do the impossible. Then they won’t anticipate it.”

  “We’re listening,” Arakaki said.

  “Oh, I have no idea. Just saying.”

  Telisa smiled. “We have their position.”

  “How? Blackvine monitoring?”

  “Actually, their links. They did not turn them off. We picked up their signals near where Arakaki spotted Magnus2. Both Caden2 and Magnus2, it looks like.”

  “Could be a deception,” Imanol said.

  “A trap,” Arakaki said at the same time.

  “That’s weird,” said Siobhan. “Why wouldn’t they turn their links off? They know we’re coming.”

  “They’re not afraid of us,” Caden said. “I would use the link to draw us into a trap.”

  Magnus nodded. “The Trilisk may even want us to come in and fight them instead of it. So it makes them easy to spot. The situation is probably amusing to it: we used its machines to duplicate ourselves, and now we have to pay the price.”

  When the PIT team had copied themselves, they had ended up with cloned links as well. They all had to reconfigure their links with new authorizations and IDs so everyone could be correctly identified and have security and privacy.

  The conversation continued, but Magnus drifted off in his own thoughts. He had been brooding for a long time about what to do against himself. At first he thought it would not be possible, going down the rabbit hole of strategy and anticipation of strategy. But what Siobhan said stuck in his mind.

  Her statement can serve well enough as a random seed to my thought process, since Magnus2 does not have Siobhan2 around.

  The impossible? That could be the impossible to accomplish, or something you would never do no matter what.

  So that’s exactly what I’ll do, if it comes to it.

  Chapter 26

  Telisa stood on the outside surface of an alien building, looking out toward the center of the habitat. She brought up her link map. Cilreth and Shiny had plastered huge amounts of data all over their working layer, but Telisa filtered it to the bottom line: there was the building that held the Trilisk. And according to link transmissions, it also held Magnus2 and Caden2. It was less than ten kilometers away.

  She switched to a view of the lock entrance PIT used to enter and exit the habitat. It had turned into a bridgehead. Vovokan war machines walked along the “sky” around the depression while squads of spherical machines flew off into the air around the houses in waves.

  This is not really us, Telisa thought. We never set out to be a military unit.

  “I hope you’re not really taking that stunner,” Magnus said from behind her.

  “Do you really think I can shoot you with anything else?”

  “Magnus2 has killed before, and he’ll do it again, under the control of the Trilisk. Take a real weapon. There are some over there in that case,” Magnus said, pointing to an equipment cache they had loaded off the shuttle. “And answer your own question before you come along.”

  Telisa looked at her stunner. It felt tiny and powerless in her hand.

  “You won’t have the chain lightning gun anymore, either,” Magnus pointed out. They had disguised the weapon and put it into a soldier machine nearby. Siobhan had devised the plan, and Magnus thought it was good. No one would suspect the chain lightning gun was so close. Siobhan could activate it in extreme circumstances. Even if Caden2 and Magnus2 got a good look at the group, they would not spot the weapon and would assume it had been left behind.

  Telisa walked over to the weapons cache. She asked the case what it held, and it gave her a manifest. She opened the case and took out a powerful laser rifle. She slung the new weapon over her shoulder and put the stunner back at her belt, just in case. But as Magnus urged, she had made her decision. If she had to shoot, she’d do so with a lethal weapon.

  Within minutes the assault was ready. The PIT forces had moved in from several angles, including Magnus’s soldiers, Shiny’s attendants and walkers, and the team members themselves. Telisa could see their approach path in her tactical.

  Whump. Whump. Whooosh.

  All around, the Vovokan walkers started shooting.

  “What are they shooting at?” asked Siobhan, alarmed by the noise.

  “They’re launching seeker missiles that patrol the area,” Cilreth said. “They don’t need a target yet. It’s just part of how Vovokans control the battlefield.”

  “Wow. I guess I’m glad he’s on our side,” Siobhan said.

  “And that’s not their specialty,” Telisa said. “I believe Vovokans are much better at subterranean warfare.”

  Siobhan nodded. “In their case, I guess subvovokan would be a better word,” she said.

  Magnus signaled everyone, so they jumped off on the approach path. Here and there, each of them took nudges from attendants nearby as they flew toward the next building. Everyone had a set of cylinder fans, but they had planned to save the fan energy for emergencies.

  “They must know we’re coming,” Arakaki transmitted. “I believe Cilreth and Shiny said they would cover our approach as best they could, but the task would be difficult. Once it’s clear that the attack has been seen, they’ll forget about masking the robotic forces and concentrate on keeping this team off the Blackvine sensors.”

  They may have other ways of seeing us coming, Telisa thought. Especially if the Trilisk is actively helping.

  They hopped past the first building and onto the next. Everyone was already vigilant, since most weapons used on both sides could theoretically strike from kilometers away.

  “Any resistance?” Maxsym asked.

  “Nothing,” Magnus said. “Cilreth?”

  “It’s all clear so far. Nothing,” Cilreth transmitted from the Clacker.

  They arrived at the building from which they planned to cover the assault. The target building was just beyond. Everyone landed on the far side, then trekked up toward the edge. There, they hunkered down and watched their feeds.

  Some of Shiny’s assault walkers dared to show themselves on the faces of surrounding buildings facing the target. Though the machines could carry a Vovokan like Shiny in the cockpit, they operated well on their own, too. They were smarter and more powerful than the PIT machines in every way, though less numerous.

  Zip. Zing.

  Magnus’s attendants intercepted an incoming projectile. Then another.

  “We’ve been spotted. Probably Caden2 sniping from a window on the right side,” Magnus transmitted. “Caden, Arakaki, double-team him.”

  The two coordinated between themselves for a moment, then they ran toward opposite faces of the building’s right wing.

  “Do you think Magnus2 is near Caden2?” aske
d Telisa.

  “No. I think Magnus2 is on the left,” he said.

  “I’m surprised that Caden2 is the only one shooting so far. I guess I thought they would have another army of Blackvine machines to use.”

  “I guess we killed most of those off already. Or maybe the Trilisk just left these two to behind to fight on their own.”

  “Shiny and I think the Trilisk is in there with them,” Cilreth said.

  “Yes, but the Trilisk is so smart I think it’s a trick,” Magnus sent to Telisa privately.

  “This is Arakaki. Caden2 moved into the building. Without attendants, he just can’t sit there and let us take shots at him.”

  “Good to know he’s not all-powerful,” Siobhan said. Her voice held a bit of sarcasm, probably a poke at Caden.

  A Vovokan walker moved sideways to cover the area where the PIT team suspected Caden2 had been shooting from.

  Kabooom.

  The next second, the walker exploded.

  Kabooom.

  Another Vovokan walker exploded on the opposite side.

  “Dammit! What’s hitting them?” Magnus demanded.

  “I have no idea,” Cilreth reported. “We did not spot any objects in flight.”

  “Perhaps a beam weapon?” asked Arakaki. “Or maybe these buildings have been mined.”

  Telisa watched the tactical. A massive wave of Terran and Vovokan machines launched toward the building in response. At first there was no counter fire to the assault. The machines were shooting at the building as they flew in. The windows were destroyed quickly, then more ordnance poured into the holes.

  “Enemies from above. The polar axis,” Cilreth said.

  Telisa took a moment to orient herself on the tactical. They lay on the far side of a building toward the outside of the habitat, so she looked into the sky in the proper direction.

  “The turtle machines! More than… more than eight of them!”

  “Twelve,” Cilreth said. “And we have more of the other robots, too. But Shiny’s walkers will handle them.”

  Booom. Booom. Krump.