by Paul Lucas
The others wanted to go, too. Lerner made an especially impassioned case. The people in the Tower were his as well.
Amethyst shot that idea down, for two reasons. One, even if things went well for us, there would be a desperate need for medical attention after the Xique were driven off. Jackie and Lerner should concentrate on organizing supplies with that in mind and maybe help coordinate with us via radio. Second, if things didn't go well for us, Jackie and Lerner would act as a "Hail Mary" back up, whatever that meant.
She did decide to take Dumas, however. As Lerner pointed out, the Xique think very species-specific. They had never seen a Spider Swarm before, and would not recognize them as an enemy. Amethyst planned on using him as a scout, so Dumas busied himself by having his element-bodies gather equipment harnesses and mini-radios for themselves.
Strange, that you could think of Dumas in both the singular and plural and be right both times.
Lerner and I had only a few brief heartbeats to ourselves to say good-bye, as we shuffled away from the others. I could see the reluctant near-panic in his eyes at our separation. I felt a dull gnawing in my stomach at the thought that this could be the last time I would ever see him.
I could see in his eyes that he wanted to be with me. I said gently, "I'll be careful. Rescue me if I get in trouble, okay?"
He swallowed back his words, nodding slowly. We bent close, holding each other fiercely. We gently touched forehead to forehead and nose to muzzle, drinking deeply of each others' scent.
We reluctantly pulled away and rejoined the others. I grabbed up my weapons and headset radio, joining Amethyst, Louis, and Dumas as we stole out of the vehicle.
We quietly made our way across the half-kilometer distance between the helistat and the Tower. Of course the Xique would have ignored the enormous sky ship; it reeked of humans, and both the distance and the massive walls of the Tower would have prevented us from hearing any commotion within that immense structure. Still, the guilt ate away at me. I had been safe, laughing and gorging myself on exotic human food, as my people faced their greatest peril in living memory.
Both Louis and Amethyst carried large backpacks that they had hastily stuffed while I had said good-bye to my Mate. On the outside of these were three more of these "assault" rifles we carried secured with generous rolls of duct tape. Amethyst's basic plan was to fight our way through the Xique to whatever Myotans remained hearty and arm them with these guns and other weapons the humans carried in their backpacks.
Also on the outside of their packs, split neatly into two groups, was Dumas. His element bodies scuttled excitedly, one every once in a while alighting itself on the Orc's shoulder to see what was going on.
As we crossed the grass-covered no-man's land between the Tower and the helistat, I heard soft wingbeats far overhead. The sound would be too subtle for the humans to pick up with their limited hearing. I looked up and saw Myotan silhouettes against the Shards. First one or two, than more than a dozen.
At least some had made it to the upper levels, and had sent the children winging toward safety.
Toward the helistat, I suddenly realized. Brightwind wasn't the only one in the community with faith in our human friends and their technological power. I had to wonder if that would ever be a liability someday, but today I was grateful for it.
I whispered into the voice-activated radio at my lips. The gain on it was turned up enough that it could easily pick up the soft sound. "Lerner, husband, are you there?"
He answered immediately from the bridge of the sky ship, his voice loud in my earpiece. "I'm here, Goss. Are you okay?"
"Yes. There are more youngsters flying toward the helistat. Help them."
"Jackie's already heading up topside. Maybe you guys should wait and see what they have to say about the situation inside."
Amethyst spoke into the common channel. "Tell us as we go. We've wasted enough time on preparations. People might be dying."
"But once you're inside the Tower the UTSite walls will block our signal."
"That's partially the reason why I brought Dumas along. His element bodies are each fixed with a radio. He'll set up relays at least part of the way into the Tower. As we go up levels we’ll try to send at least one element body to a ledge so it can burst you an update."
My husband was quiet for several heartbeats. "Okay. I'll let you guys know as soon as we find out anything here."
We were silent when we found the first of many Xique bodies a dozen or so meters from the main entrance. They were piled thickly just inside, beyond the doors and barricade my people had erected after the first attacks. The Xique my husband mentioned guarding the entrance were not to be seen; most likely they had joined their fellows inside.
My people had not been stupid. After the Xique made it clear we were their enemy, we had barricaded all the entrances with solidly-constructed fortifications and doubled all the sentries, especially at night. As we slowly made our way in, the bodies and spent ammunition strewn about told the tale of what had happened. The Xique had not quite taken the sentries by complete surprise. They'd gotten close, though, before the sentries had spotted them and opened fire. Then a mob of Xique must have rushed the entrance.
As we advanced along the wide main corridor, we discovered many Xique bodies, but only a few Myotan ones. I recognized most of them; Skyeyes, Whisper, Ripplefur, Sunlight. Warmbreeze's face was ruined, but his wing tattoos of red-feathered birds, painstakingly rendered over the years by his Mate, Rainfall, were unmistakable.
Recognizing each one was like someone smashing a hammer to my stomach. I had grown up knowing them all. In a community our size, you could not avoid such a thing.
Upon closer examination, we discovered that each one's weapon was spent or nearly so, with few spare bullets on them. Yet, I knew for a fact that each sentry always carried a generous amount of extra ammunition. The defenders must have fought a fighting retreat against the invaders, giving the rest of the community time to rouse and retreat to the upper levels.
"Why didn't we hear the gunfire?" Louis' voice was barely a whisper.
"We were too busy laughing," I said quietly.
"The big question," Amethyst said, "is why aren't we hearing gunfire now?" She quickly directed Dumas to get busy setting up the radio relay with the helistat. She didn't want to go any further without establishing that.
As soon as his element-bodies scampered away, we all drew quiet, stopping in our tracks so as to minimize the noise around us. Even Dumas stopped the constant scuttling of his remaining element bodies.
"I can hear guns," I said. The others looked at me quizzically. "It's very far off, though. Many levels above us." I paused. "I think I can also hear Xique screeches. A lot of them. They must have pursued my people into the upper levels."
Louis shook his head. "Why didn't the Xique leave a sentry or two down here? You know, to cover their retreat or head off reinforcements."
"They did at first, remember?" The two humans grimaced at hearing my husband’s voice in their ear. "They must have been anxious to get in on the kills and left to join the fight."
I toed one of the Xique corpses, its head nearly blown half off by an expertly-placed bullet, as he continued. "The Xique aren’t soldiers. They are hunters. Everything they know involves felling prey, not invading fortified structures against a hostile force. They would have only a very rudimentary grasp of tactics, and that would only be for small hunting packs, not a huge mob of full Xique and all their crèche-mates. They would just attack and try to overwhelm through sheer numbers and ferocity."
Louis looked up and down the wide corridor, lit here and there by a still-smoldering torches. "Yeah, but after taking so many losses..."
"They are protecting their Prey Gods. I’ve had plenty of time to read up on them in the past few weeks, records from human expeditions who have peacefully contacted others of their kind. They worship the huge animals that they hunt. They believe the oxen and megabison and apatosauri willingly a
nd selflessly give up their lives to feed the Xique. After all, the Xique reason, their prey are so much larger and stronger than they are, and they number so many more than the Xique that they could easily combine their vast numbers and simply wipe out all the predators if they wished. The Xique believe they are allowed to exist only by the selfless martyrdom of their Prey Gods. Its the only thing they’re truly fanatic about. Anyone besides them who hunts the herds they are so dependent on are sometimes sought out and destroyed without mercy. They must think the Myotans were harming the herds, but I don’t see how. They must have been assembling this mob to attack us for months."
Amethyst nodded, speaking into our common channel. "Okay, we've reached the main community corridor. A lot of bodies, most of them Xique. No live hostiles yet. No Myotan survivors either. We think everyone retreated to the upper levels and the Xique pursued them."
"That matches with what we've been able to get out of the youngsters. The kids say that most of the community is holed up in the storage megaroom near the Tower's north edge on level thirteen. Remember where that is, Goss? It's large enough to hold everyone, but only has four entrances, making it somewhat defensible."
I nodded. "Makes sense. We store some supplies there. Did the children say how many are injured?"
He was several heartbeats replying. "Blackfur says they were mostly able to stay ahead of the Xique. They were sent on ahead while the adults occupied the Xique with their guns, giving them time to reach upper-level ledges and glide here."
"How many Xique do they think there are?" Amethyst asked.
Another pause. "Well over a hundred full Xique. Maybe twice that many."
Amethyst grimaced. However marvelous or lethal she believed her weapons to be, even she was hesitant at taking on hundreds of vicious killing machines in the tight corridors of the Tower.
But what choice did we have?
TWENTY-FOUR
I had no idea that such horrible weapons could exist. Or, worse yet, that they had been mass-produced by our human friends.
I had run across mentions of wars again and again both in the histories of the Known Nations and on old Earth. But those had been abstractions, mere historic facts that were easy to glaze over.
But to see these Assault Rifles in action added a horrific reality to those tales. If these were real, if these weapons were so destructive, then what of the other, more powerful weapons I had read about? Grenades and missiles and nuclear bombs?
A loud chuff sounded behind us. I twirled around to see a Xique barreling at us from behind. Dumas hissed a warning into our radios, but I was the only one who was in a position to do anything before it was on us. Spirits, those things could move so fast! My finger squeezed the trigger on the assault rifle, already held at the ready, leveled in my hands.
The weapon jumped in my grip. It was not designed for Myotans, and it was hard to compensate for the recoil with my slight mass. I gritted my teeth and did my best to hold the stream of death bursting from its barrel steady. My teeth rattled.
Fur and flesh exploded in a half-dozen locations on the Xique's body. It kept coming, roaring its defiance at me the entire time. The wounds would have been instantly fatal on any Myotan or human, but the Xique was barely starting to stumble. I only had half a heartbeat before I would be in reach of its claws.
But my shots had slowed it down enough for the others to take action. A near-deafening roar erupted behind me and to my right, adding another burst of fire to my own. Another sounded to my left, reaping the Xique' crèche-mates just a few strides behind their now-dying master.
The full Xique crashed to the floor and skidded to within centimeters of my foot. My toes were splashed with the blood of his last, shuddering breath. I shivered away a chill.
What truly terrified me most about these weapons was not that they existed, but how grateful I was to have one in my hands.
"Dammit, Dumas!" Amethyst growled. "You're supposed to warn us about attacks from the rear. That's why we have some of your element-bodies trailing us!"
"I don't know where that one came from!" Dumas said through the radio-link. "He must have snuck by me. They can be very stealthy when they want to be."
"Just pay better attention next time."
"I am doing what I can."
"Shh!" I said.
Amethyst nodded. "She's right. Our chattering's going to give us away..."
"No!" I snapped. "I hear something. Some kind of vibration. I can just barely make it out."
They stopped in their tracks and looked at me expectantly. Louis' brows shot up. "I hear it too. Kind of like a low hum very far away."
My ears twitched one way and then another, trying to locate its source. The sound was almost subsonic, and seemed to be coming from everywhere around us. Myotans had superior hearing to humans, but our ears were oriented more toward the higher end of the sound spectrum. At the lower end we and humans were almost equal.
"What is it?" Amethyst asked. "Is it like a machine hum?"
"No," I said. "Not machine nor musical either. It is hard to describe. It is like, um,--"
"Like a million bugs buzzing miles away," Louis said.
"I would not put it quite like that," I said. "But I guess that is close enough."
Amethyst looked at Louis in alarm. "A million bugs? Do you mean that literally? Is there something wrong with the Nanotech Matrix?"
Louis and I locked gazes for a brief second. We had not thought of that, yet we were supposed to be the experts.
Louis tucked his gun onto his shoulder. "Give me a second and I'll check with a Matrix Analysis spell."
My ears perked up. "A what?"
"It's a low-level casting that'll tell me what's happening with the Matrix in about a one kilometer radius. It'll tell me primarily if there are any Weirds or Dead Zones or major programs in effect in the radius. I’ll show it to you later, if we live through this."
Amethyst nodded, looking around nervously. "Hurry up. I don't like staying in one spot for too long."
Louis closed his eyes, relaxed his shoulders, and began whispering to himself. Very minimalist compared to most spirit-callings I had been taught, but that was not surprising. My people, and most peoples in the Outlands, my husband has told me, view the simple spells and other Matrix phenomena that survived the Great Cataclysm as true magic or as some spiritual manifestation. Windrider and I call our spells spirit-callings, after all, for that was what we were taught that we do, call out to the souls of objects and creatures to do our bidding.
But the Known Nations discovered the true nature of the Matrix shortly after their industrial revolution of 70 years ago. They had the unique opportunity to develop Matrix Manipulation as a science and have dispensed with a great amount of ceremony that less advanced cultures indulged in.
But not completely. I noticed his fingers dancing at his sides, reminiscent of the elaborate hand-gestures that many of the KN's Mage Guilds employed before the Matrix’s true nature became apparent.
His gestures stopped and for more than a minute he was silent, unmoving. Amethyst, Dumas and I were quiet to allow him to concentrate, peering into the corridors around us for any sign of our enemies. We had been lucky so far, in that we had only encountered a few stragglers in the past hour and had avoided the main mob of Xique that was surely in the Tower somewhere, perhaps clustered around where my people were making a stand on the thirteenth level. But then the Tower was so huge--nearly five cubic kilometers of volume--that it is difficult to look for anything specific, even a large mob of taloned killers, in such a space.
Louis' eyes snapped open. "Holy shit."
"What?" Amethyst and I shot at him simultaneously.
"There's a Weird in the Tower. A big one, too, almost a ten meters in radius. It's centered on a Dead Zone above us somewhere. Hold on, let me check my map." He pulled out his wrist computer and tapped a few keys, then ran his thumb furiously over the trackball. "I'm only guessing on this. The spell gave me a sense of approximat
e distance and direction, but not any definitive measuring units. But I'd say it's centered about there, on level forty-five or fifty. Somewhere in the center. And it's been there for about several weeks."
"About the time the Xique attacks started," I said.
Amethyst looked from the small computer display to me. "Do your people use that part of the Tower?"
"Rarely. We only bother with the upper levels for the gliders or with children playing. We rarely go into the interior where there's no light. The last person who did that extensively was Lerner when he did his initial surveys of the Tower four years ago."
Amethyst clamped her massive jaw tight as she thought furiously for a few moments. A Weird could mean serious trouble. The nanites that made up the Matrix numbered in the uncountable trillions, and though they were heartier than any organic microorganisms, they often wore out after a fairly short time. That meant, that like other microbes, they had to replicate themselves constantly. And like anything that reproduces, bit errors in the replication process can occur, resulting in mutations. Most nanite mutations simply cause the machine to break down or not function altogether. If a surviving nanite has a noticeable mutation, the other, "mainstream" nanites have been programmed to hunt it down and annihilate it without mercy. But every once in a great while, a nanite will mutate in a subtle enough way that it won't be detected, allowing it to replicate. This continues until it and its offspring has some noticeable affect on the environment, at which point the mainstream nanites notice something is wrong and begins attacking the mutants in force. However, depending on how successful a mutant strain of nanites is, the area that they could affect could be from a few centimeters to a few dozen kilometers across. This area is what KN Magi call a Weird.
Weirds are dangerous not so much as they'll actively cause harm to organisms in the area, but that they are virtually undetectable by normal means. If a spell is cast in a Weird, the mutant nanites will interpret the commands in unpredictable ways. If I were to summon a fire-spirit in one, it may function normally, it may just a generate a barely-perceptible spark, or it may cause the entire Weird to ignite into a fiery holocaust.
