The survivors huddled at the other end of the clearing, a wretched gaggle of ragged terrified children clutching frightened mothers; a few old men, watching the American Rangers and the Kronarin commandos through eyes that had seen much, and one very fat man, shirtless beneath his big straw hat. Behind them, the smoke drifted lazily from their ruined homes out over the Amazon’s slow reach. The fat man walked over to them, hands spread imploringly. “Por quê?”
Blaster leveled, Sarel pulled the trigger. The weapon shrilled, red fusion beam punching through the great gut—a gut that resolved into a slender green thorax as the Scotar died.
The tall insectoid was still falling when the firefight broke out—the illusion of huddled refugees dissolving into a tight formation of bulbous-eyed bugs firing with trained precision, indigo blaster bolts slamming into the human line, a withering fire that would have killed but for the thin silver miracle of warsuits gentling the fusion fire into multicolored lightning, quickly gone.
No warsuits for the Scotar—most died, survivors scuttling for the swamps as the humans charged, their ability to teleport dying with their leader.
“Crap,” said Sutherland, the target between his sights suddenly shrouded in black—the wind had shifted inland, bringing the smoke from the village.
“They won’t get far,” said Sarel, kicking the firefight’s first casualty. “Not with their transmute dead.” The corpse was thinner, taller than the rest, a six-legged horror lying face-down in the mud, tentacles still clutching a blastrifle. Like its warriors, it had mandibles, though not serrated weapons, but sheathes hiding probes that slid into its prey’s brains, taking their memories, their personas, drawing what it needed to become them. Soul takers, the Kronarins called them.
Telepathic, telekinetic, and blessedly dead, thought Sutherland, looking down at the Scotar.
“Bill, take your Rangers through the village, then circle into the swamp from the east,” said Sarel as the air cleared. “I’ll take my group in from here. We’ll trap any survivors between us.”
As Sutherland went looking for the Ranger commander, Sarel spoke into his communicator. A moment later the shuttles rose, moving slowly at treetop level into the swamp.
Three hours and they’d killed another three Scotar—and almost lost Sarel. “What was that reptile again?” asked Sarel, turning from the window.
“An anaconda,” said Sutherland. “Largest snake on the planet.”
Hearing splashing and a muted cry for help, Sutherland had hurried through the brackish waist-deep water, blastrifle above his head. The sounds of the struggle briefly stopped, resuming louder than before as he penetrated the thick mangrove swamp, emerging into a shallower area where trees were fewer.
The Kronarin was waist-deep in the muddy water, his free hand just keeping the tree-thick, olive-colored coils of the great snake from making the final turn around his neck.
Cursing, Sutherland twisted the M32’s muzzle to minimum aperture, set the selector switch to continual fire and moved toward the struggle, water, mud, and tangled roots slowing his pace to a maddening dreamlike crawl. “Hang on!” he shouted to Sarel, whose pain-contorted face was inches from the anaconda’s great fangs.
Placing the rifle’s muzzle next to the glistening mottled-brown skin, Sutherland pulled the trigger, sending a thin red beam knifing through the snake. A shudder rippled down the long yards of flesh as its neatly decapitated head splashed into the river. The air smelled of roasted flesh, fecund jungle, and fear.
After dropping the rifle, Sutherland dragged Sarel free and helped him to the shore, where he sat gasping for air.
“You may not have gotten all the Scotar,” said Sutherland, looking up at the Watcher. “You’re leaving because it’s politically expedient—declaring a victory and going on to your next triumph.”
Sighing, Sarel sank into one of the Director’s red leather armchairs. “Here’s how it looks from FleetOps, Bill. We fought the Scotar for ten years, lost millions of people, hundreds of planets. We were about to lose it all when Detrelna and Implacable stumbled onto your planet and found—”
“And found the Scotar were organically manufactured—biofabs, created beneath our moon by a demented machine set there by your Empire.”
“But don’t forget why. To toughen us as a people, prepare us to face an invasion from another reality—an invasion of artificial life forms—AIs—that happened once before, a million years ago, and was repulsed by the Trel.”
“Even though defeated,” said Sutherland, pointing a finger at the Watcher, “those machines exterminated the Trel. And they’ve killed or enslaved humans throughout their huge empire. They’d have swept into our own universe again and wiped us out as they did the Trel if Implacable hadn’t stopped them at Terra Two.”
“The AIs claim we’re their creation, escaped slaves they’re coming to punish.”
“A bit late—it’s been 100,000 years.”
“A million, the way they count it. Whatever. It hasn’t diluted their hatred. They’re essentially immortal—time touches them lightly.”
“Is that a gift or a curse?”
“It’s FleetOps opinion,” continued the Watcher, “that the Terra Two incursion marked the end of the AI threat. Our priority now’s to purge our planets of any remaining Scotar and rebuild shattered lives and broken worlds.”
“FleetOps is wrong.”
“Sacrilege,” murmured Sarel.
“The Trel warned that the rift they sealed to the AI universe would be opening now. The Terra Two invasion was a fluke, maybe even a feint. The Fleet of the One could be coming through that rift—coming to destroy every man, woman, and child in this galaxy, this universe. And what are you people doing?” His voice rose. “You’re doling out t’ata and comfort and congratulating each other on having survived the big green bugs, when you should be mobilizing every ship that can mount a fusion cannon!”
“If it’s of comfort, I did argue the same, Bill, though without your passion, and was overruled. Things aren’t well in the Confederation. Details of the Scotar occupation have emerged. It’s horrific. Our government’s in survival mode.”
“Your people are in survival mode. Your government’s in self-preservation mode.”
“Correct,” said the Watcher. “We have so much in common, don’t we?” He smiled. “And FleetOps is more prone to political influence now than in the past.”
“What about Detrelna and Implacable?”
Sarel shrugged. “Implacable was sent to check out the Trel’s invasion warning—into Quadrant Blue 9, from which no ship’s returned since the Fall. It hasn’t been heard from since.” His communicator chirped. Sarel listened, then said into the communicator, “Set Alert Condition One.” He said to Sutherland, “An AI battleglobe’s entered the Terran system. It may have come from our space.”
The battle klaxon brought Repulse’s Captain Poqal from his bed to his bridge half-dressed, pausing only for a quick commlink call.
“Status?” he said, taking the command chair, eyes on the big board. Behind him the doors slid shut with a faint hiss.
“Target just appeared at jump point,” said Sojat in her usual low, unruffled voice. She nodded at the board. “It’s headed insystem and on present course will reach here in nineteen point five talars.”
“And pass right through,” said Poqal brusquely. The emergency wasn’t improving his notoriously short temper. “She’s not decelerating.”
“What little data we have indicates AI battleglobes can decelerate almost instantaneously.”
“Absurd,” said the captain. “A violation of every principle of astrogation and physics.”
“As we know them,” suggested his first officer.
They stared at each other, the short bald man and the tall, thin brunette. “I’m not going to debate epistemology with you. I always lose.” His eyes shifted to the tacscan data threading across the board. “About the size of a small moon. Endless, monstrous fusion batteries, citadel-clas
s shielding.” He looked up. “We should run while we can, Number One.”
“Terra has no defenses.”
“And we do? You’ve alerted them?”
“Didn’t have to—they detected it—have to be blind not to. They want to know what to do.”
“Invoke their gods—it’s an AI battleglobe. And FleetOps?”
“Knows nothing. The battleglobe took out our skipcomm relay as she jumped in.”
“I see,” he said, eyes going back to the board. The AI war ship had passed Saturn. “Where in all the hells did it come from?”
“The implications are disturbing.”
“Dawn—Captain Syatan. Battle priority,” said Poqal. He glanced at the tacscan—the battleglobe was almost at Mars and not slowing.
“Captain Syatan, sir,” said the comm officer.
“Close the portal,” Poqal ordered Syatan.
“Done,” said the younger man whose image appeared on screen. “Where did it come from?”
“Let’s go ask. Man your battle stations and follow us.”
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The AI War Page 26
