The Expanding Universe 4: Space Adventure, Alien Contact, & Military Science Fiction (Science Fiction Anthology)

by Craig Martelle

  The Kali line has always been a bit on the manic side. There are others that have just stopped moving, lost all will, until the techs ripped them apart and dug into the brains and found nothing, just dumb software running routine checks, the ghost of a pilot somewhere inside occasionally lighting up something in a poor imitation of life.

  The techs call it desyncing. We—those of us who fight—call it death. All we had to do, they said, was hold on long enough until they’d figured out how to make AI that could do the job.

  All we had to do was kill and kill and kill until we die, screaming, inside the metal tombs of our own bodies.

  A new voice penetrates my skull. “Vishnu, this is Command. Report for debriefing ASAP, over.”

  The waves wash against me in silence.

  “Vishnu, I repeat, this is Command. If you can hear me, report for debrief immediately, over.”

  I HEAR YOU, COMMAND, I say at last. I’LL BE THERE SOON.

  And in the darkness, my hands shake.

  ***

  Command is an old man in battle fatigues, tall but bent with age, surrounded by a rolling office of technicians and soldiers who all seem to have the same face. The only one in nonregulation uniform is the psychiatrist, a woman dressed in short, strangely utilitarian green. They make me go over what happened.

  I play back all my logs, explain my interpretation of the incident. The technicians make notes and parse the data, making incomprehensible noises to each other. The psychologist walks dangerously close to me, heels—who wears heels in a military base?—clack-clack-clacking against the steel, peering up at me. The old general is frowning. I have the strange feeling that I’ve seen him before, but for some reason—maybe because this place is shielded—my facial ID system isn’t working properly.

  “And you’re one hundred percent positive you saw no signs of desyncing before this? One hundred percent?”

  MY LAST DEPLOYMENT WITH HER WAS IN SEPTEMBER.

  “Dammit,” he says. “We’re losing them faster than ever.”

  “Perhaps it’s the upgrades, sir,” one particularly noisy technician volunteers. “The neural load on Kali must be very high already, and those six arms… It’s not like we’re built to operate six arms—”

  The general quells him with a look. She mumbles and falls silent. The psychiatrist, meanwhile, has come to a stop in front of my arm.

  “Vishnu-ji,” she says. “Why is your hand twitching?”

  BATTLE DAMAGE, I say automatically. NEURAL FEEDBACK FROM REPETITIVE GUNFIRE. IT HAPPENS.

  I don’t know why I said that. It’s not true.

  The psychologist doesn’t believe me. But I am a god, dammit. You will believe me. My twitching hand curls into a fist.

  “Leave us,” the general says to the psychologist.

  She hesitates. “Sir, I am mandated by the High Court—”

  “This is a military facility, Doctor Chaudury, and when I say leave, you can either walk out or be thrown out.”

  He waits until her clack-clack-clacking has died down, then turns back to me.

  “Lieutenant,” he says. “I’m talking to the man I once signed up and trained for this job. The man inside this tin hulk. You there, Officer?”

  I AM VISHNU.

  “Lieutenant Arjun Shetty,” says the general coolly, looking straight into my eyes. Eyes the size of his head. “They can put you in a glorified metal uniform, but you’re still the boy I took and trained into this.”

  I AM VISHNU, SIR.

  But suddenly I know him. And suddenly I can see the faces of the people standing around him. They’re not the same faces at all. The only thing they have in common is that they all look terrified.

  “I know you’re dying in there,” he says, not breaking his gaze. “I know you’ve fought for your country and you’ve done us proud. But there aren’t enough of you. Not enough Shikari, not enough soldiers like you willing to put their hearts on the line for our country. So I’m going to give you an order: if you’re going to crack, you’ll tell us. You won’t hurt anyone. You were built to protect. Vishnu. Shetty. You are protectors. You don’t fall apart on us the way that bitch did, you understand?”

  My fists clench and unclench. One of them is shaking, and I can’t control it, but I can still salute.

  SIR.

  They haul me into a metal coffin and take me home. On the way back, Sanjay keeps trying to tell me something.

  “The DRDO research guys made a huge breakthrough, Babaji,” he keeps saying, over and over. “It looks like those creatures are silicon-based through and through. Silicon-based! It’s not armor but skin! Just like you, Babaji. They say it looks like every inch of that body can suck up silicon, basalt, carbon, all sorts of material, and use it to heal and grow. Their neurons look like transistors! They say the skin samples even look like they can replicate! Sand, Babaji, sand!”

  THAT’S GOOD, I say, not really listening. I’m trying to keep my hands from shivering. Open. Close. Open. Close. There is a darkness closing in that is more than just the darkness of the transport vehicle.

  “Explains why they hit the Moon, yah? All that material just lying around. They hit the Moon, replicate, replicate, leap down the gravity well to the Earth, and we have so much more silicon lying around, our crust is like twenty-five percent silicon . . .”

  SANJAY. I DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING ON THE DAMNED MOON. JUST TELL ME IF THIS MEANS WE CAN KILL THEM FASTER.

  Sanjay, for once, ignores me, too caught up in his own excitement. He starts yapping on and on about logic gates and electromagnetic fields and disruption flows. All I hear is “EMP” and “bomb.”

  “That’s why that Japanese Shikari was doing so well, Babaji! The Matari, remember? Susanoo or some strange name like that. Electrical discharge weapons? Their Lightning Whip technology?”

  THAT’S GOOD, SANJAY, I say slowly, letting the darkness take me. Open. Close. Open. Close. THAT’S VERY, VERY GOOD.

  ***

  I dream. I dream of darkness and moonlight on the ocean, of thunder and lightning, of a man screaming in pain as his wife and children die.

  And in my dreams, the darkness rises and crashes into me, bowling me over.

  ***

  I wake.

  The ocean swells. My quivering hands: waves roll, I shake. Roll. Shiver. Roll. Shudder. Roll. Shake. There’s a voice in my ear and a terrible buzzing in my head.

  The moonlit ocean touches my skin, and I taste the ghost of salt water in a mouth that no longer has anything to taste with.

  Not far from me lies a dark and terrible shape, bleeding a thick ichor that turns the dark ocean silvery.

  It wasn’t a dream. I’ve blacked out. The ruins of my delivery vehicle lie twisted and mangled on the shore. There’s a crater of some kind there that I can’t process. The road is twisted, tangled.

  Am I desyncing? Is this fear that makes me shake? Fear is for ants. I am Vishnu. I get to my feet. Warnings, error messages. My servomotors are screaming. L3 and L4 command relay nodes are down; the backup routing system has taken over my entire left side. My secondary batteries have almost been ripped out of my ribcage. My cannon is almost out of bullets.

  “Baba-ji—” Crackle, hiss.

  The Enemy lies just a stone’s throw from me, bleeding but conscious. It reminds me of a time where I perused the Internet, looking at the bizarre crosses of creatures artists came up with. This one falls somewhere between a lobster and a scorpion. Four crustacean-like pillars support its bulbous body, all layered in glistening chitin. Segments of folded shell stretched out far behind its body. I can see where my bullets have blasted it to bits, gouging out silvery chunks of flesh the size of men. A pair of pincers, broken and shattered now, sit at the ends of knobby limbs protruding from below its flat skull.

  A great eye turns in its face and rolls to greet me out of that nightmarish bulk. Curved, sickle-like mandibles erupt in a terrible grin from what might be its face. Something thrashes behind it, stirring up ne
w waves that bow out to the sides before falling flat. Another of the appendages breaches the surface of the water, flailing alongside the first.

  Even in death, it challenges me. I fire once, twice at that hideous eye. At this range, the bullets explode with so much ferocity they reduce the entire head into silvery rice and curry.

  And suddenly there is a great thunderclap as a meteorite hits the ocean not far from where I stand, sending up a wave that smashes into me like the fist of God himself. I’m picked up and flung head over heels. For once, my thoughts are cold, analytical. A new Enemy, I decide immediately as I scramble to my feet in the mud.

  There’s no ceremony in its arrival. The creature shakes itself, sending beads of water back into the ocean. Its carapace is the color of burning rock. Ripples of red light dance over its shell, winking out of existence as it turns to face me.

  The fear drains away. Vishnu doesn’t do fear.

  Something like fangs click together like a helicopter’s blades against stone. Something like arms bare. Something like a mouth screams.

  It’s a challenge. One I intend to meet. It rushes me, moving through the water with an ease that shouldn’t be possible for something with its body.

  I swing Padma around, operating with the efficiency only programming and nerves of fiber optics can bring about. I fire. Twin reports ring out, deafening my auditory systems to all other noises hanging below the explosions.

  The Enemy reels as plumes of fire blossom over its plate-like chest. Tails whip across the surface of the ocean in a frenzy. Silver collides with water, foaming on contact and sending up pillars of steam that vanish almost as quickly. The monster’s body cracks like it’s being pelted by a storm of river stones. But it doesn’t stop.

  I take it for what it’s worth: A minor problem. Solution: Destroy the Enemy without reservation. Maximum effort and energy expenditure.

  I re-prime my cannon, loading up all secondary barrels. I’m down to my last two uranium slugs. It’s too precious to fire. But I have my flechettes, tucked away somewhere in the terrible ingenuity of Padma. The gun spits once, twice, thrice, peppering the Indian Ocean with razor-sharp slugs of steel that rip through the air like a metal storm.

  The feedback is terrible. A lance of cold electricity rakes the inside of my left arm as I track the creature’s movements. It surges forward, tails beating across the ocean to the sounds of wet thunder. Calculations flood my mind to answer a problem I hadn’t even considered: How fast is it closing in versus the speed of my cannon and the resulting explosion radius?

  Answer: Too fast.

  A part of me pauses at the results. I see the numbers and know the exact measures I need to take, but the math doesn’t add up. My vision flares. The math always adds up. Not now. The numbers make sense, but not to a man who remembers a burning building, smoldering bodies, and that he’s tottering in place.

  Vishnu screams at me, clearing my vision, commanding me to fire. But I am Vishnu. And I’m torn. Something visceral manifests in my gut, knotting and writhing like a bundle of spastic eels.

  I lower the cannon.

  And the Enemy slams into me.

  I teeter, but something keeps me from falling over. My body pivots and I feel it grow farther away. One of my fists balls and crashes into the side of the Enemy. Another thundercrack as its shell splits from the impact.

  Vishnu screams at me. The cannon. The cannon. My hand shakes, and the cannon feels like a dream. I can’t make sense of it. It’s formless—an idea that a man who’s lost everything clings to. A tool for revenge that can’t come. My other hand forms a stiff shovel, plunging itself into broken shell as it tries to stitch itself back together.

  A terrible warmth spreads over my fingers as I root through its insides. Its silvery mass clings to my digits, registering a series of numbers related to bodily temperature, volume, and the chemical makeup of the Enemy.

  I push the data aside—push Vishnu aside. A primal scream builds in my chest, rattling its way through my throat. It’s the noise of a man who has lost everything. A man who’s nursing the fire of a burning building deep within him. The kind of fire that sets your marrow alight.

  I use it to drive my hand deeper into the Enemy, rooting around inside its body. A mass, like a bundle of roots, brushes back against me. I close my fingers around them and rip. The mass resists me, sending the crustacean-like monster into a twitching frenzy.

  It thrashes, trying to shake me free. One of its pincers clubs my side as it brays in warbling tones.

  The impact shakes through me, registering on two levels: Vishnu takes it in with a calculation reserved for machinery. Sensors, feedback, line failures, energy pathways recalculated, recalibrated.

  I feel like I’ve been hammered by clubs.

  The creature yowls, mandibles clicking in staccato beat.

  I ignore it as the heat inside me builds.

  “Vishnu— Babaji, come in. Your readings…all over the place. We think you’re desyncing, Babaji. Repeat—desyncing. Acknowledge? Return to base. Babaji!”

  Desyncing, me? My minds turn to Kali. Vishnu remembers her, a goddess. A destroyer. I remember what she’d been pushed to. What she’d done. And how she went out.

  I CAN’T LEAVE NOW, I try to tell the crackling line, but nothing meets me but the hiss of static.

  One of the Enemy’s tails lances overtop its body, coming down to drive the bony spear-end into my shoulder.

  Instinct, not programming, drives me to reach overhead and grab hold of the monster’s tail. I dig fingers of steel, driven by man’s iron resolve, into the armor-skin. I hold tight, remembering my other arm—remembering Vishnu. I prime my cannon, load my last uranium slug, and fire point blank.

  The explosion knocks me back like a ragdoll. Sensors in my arm scream. Brilliant light, too many shades for me to make out, wash over my sight. The heat prompts a series of numbers to scrawl over my vision. I tune it out, feeling the inferno instead. I’m reminded of the first time I touch my hand to a gas burner, despite my mother’s warning. The heat is of a temperature where all I feel is just the first flash. The rest is a numbing weight I can’t process. My skin is heavy. Too heavy. The Enemy is screaming. It is reeling.

  I stagger back, planting my feet as Vishnu’s thoughts echo in the background.

  “Babaji—” Static crackles behind his words. “—desyncing. Return—”

  The words fall away, carrying no meaning to me.

  Water plumes in the distance. A second pillar erupts next to the first formation. Two more creatures, mirroring the one in front of me, emerging, skins glowing red and steaming from the heat and the water.

  Vishnu runs a calculation on the odds of survival.

  I ignore it, fixing my gaze on the thing that staggers and screams. My chest aches. Vishnu tells me, us, that our plating is scorched. Bits of my torso are slagged to near unrepairable status. My cannon tires to prime itself, failing. The weapon’s mouth is the sort of orange you find in volcanos and metal shops. The metal warps in front of me, losing the hot and violent color as bits of globular steel fall into the ocean to send up gouts of steam.

  I twist, jamming the burning and ruined weapon into the dying Enemy’s face, pressing those terrible snapping mandibles into the ocean, holding it down until the tail stops whipping and the arms stop ripping at my skin.

  “Babaji, disengage. Babaji, come home! Desyncing— You’re—”

  Maybe I am. But I have a duty. Then they made me Vishnu, The Protector. I/we won’t fail. Can’t fail.

  “Babaji, your mind…the signals. Come back!”

  I/we force my/our wrecked cannon deeper into the shattered shell, twisting the arm back and forth until it buries well within the Enemy. The weapon still pulses in accordance with our will. The knots in our stomach, the molten anger, the cold crackle of Vishnu’s resolve… We channel it all.

  Electricity arcs through us, making its way into the weapon, where it all goes wrong. Everything within our arm expands. The
power falters for a wink, flashing out before coming back to scream. Fire builds within the cannon and finds its way out. Metal warps and gives way under the explosion. Carmine light, tinged with smears of vermillion, blossom across our vision and deep within the Enemy’s body.

  I stagger back from the force. Hydraulic fluid, along with an assortment of other viscous liquids, stream from the remnants of my arm. The Enemy before me is a ruined and smoking shell. Noxious white bubbles out from what’s left of its shell, spilling onto the ocean.

  I ignore it all to focus on the two creatures closing in. Vishnu is screaming that his systems are shutting down. His systems? My systems. We’re supposed to be one. I’m not sure what changed.

  “Babaji…”

  Vishnu’s screams are distant now, growing further away. The darkness swirls on the moonlit sea. My limbs are like grains of sand, loose and crumbling before me. I stagger forward a step, sinking deeper into the ocean.

  “Babaji, disengage. Come back. Come back!”

  Flicker. I can see them. I can see my wife and daughter. There they are, standing on the water. She’s running to me, leaving her mother behind. Something’s wrong with the way she runs.

  Flicker. My daughter closes on me, mandibles clacking a discordant and percussive beat. Except she’s not my daughter anymore. She’s the Enemy.

  Enraged, we right myself, twisting to launch an uppercut with my remaining fist. I fall short. Pincers slam into my shoulders. The pain drives Vishnu back into me, or me back into him, like two lightning bolts striking each other. The world becomes a pixelated haze that takes its time to clear. I/we can feel it, the steel skin tearing, the servomotors dying, the energy delivery subsystems winking out in showers of terrible sparks.

  Our ruined forearm hisses spitefully, still steaming. It punches through the air-water almost of its own accord. The metal catches the moon’s light in full for a passing second, looking like it’s made from pearls, not steel, and then it buries itself in a mouth full of shredding teeth and is ripped from me.