The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by Mike Gullickson

  Kadir was insane. It had taken less than five years as a Tank Major before he heard voices. Some soldiers don’t take to the implants, and he was one of them. He was obedient though, even when he was crazy, so Chao didn’t mind him. He’d even had the judgment to report what Wesley had done to the boy. If Chao had ever asked him why he obeyed, Kadir would have said simply, “Your voice drowns out the others.”

  “Drop the woman,” a boy’s voice said. Kadir looked down. He was holding the remains of a woman. He let her go.

  “The giants have hydraulshocks,” another voice whispered. Kadir had used all of his hydraulshocks when the villagers had tried to kill him by immolation. Barely alive, burns covering his body, the right side of his face charred, his eye cooked through, Kadir came back and killed ninety percent of the population in two days.

  Five thousand villagers had run to the ship-base hoping for sanctuary, hoping for anything, even to be shot. But the gate did not open. Kadir trapped them on the bridge. And then he pounded them into an unrecognizable floor of meat and bone.

  Others ran into the sea, but Kadir was patient; he waited until they drowned or their will gave out and they crawled back to shore, their eyes cast down as his shadow approached. The gulls grew fat.

  The children were spared—Chao demanded it. But that was all Chao demanded. Kadir went back to his cave after the genocide, leaving whoever was left to tremble. He did not spare their lives; they would learn this soon enough. His soul was black now. The personalities in his head were ruthless and vile. And in this twistedness he had grown a taste for the exotic.

  He had kept the survivors alive for food.

  Devised from all his forms, a plan to kill the intruders coalesced in Kadir’s mind. The voices had come into agreement.

  V

  Haq, Renfro, and Aadil reached the northern cliff wall. It loomed over them, its jagged teeth pointed and coarse, scowling at the sky. The wall was porous; nooks and crannies burrowed into its depths, exuding a smell of copper and cinnamon. Kadir’s bunker was built into the wall. The door to it had been torn from its hinges.

  Aadil climbed off of Renfro. “Did he do this?” he asked.

  Neither giant answered.

  Aadil sensed a deeper worry in Haq. Haq was inspecting the blast door that hung awkwardly at the entrance.

  “What’s wrong?” Aadil asked.

  “I couldn’t do this.”

  Aadil looked at the blast door more closely. It was sixteen feet high and two feet thick. It must have weighed over five tons. “What does that mean?”

  Haq turned to Renfro. “Kadir is a Chinese Tank Major, isn’t he?” He had heard of that design, but he’d never seen one.

  “I don’t know, but he’s huge,” Renfro replied. “He was at least three feet taller than me. Quite a bit wider.”

  Though they were Coalition partners, in 2058 the U.S. and China had nearly gone to war over the King Sleeper, a computer hacker so powerful he could dismantle digital infrastructure, subliminally sway the masses, and even kill. And during that conflict, both sides had built Tank Majors. While the U.S. design was functionally superior and had the hydraulshock attack, China’s version was much larger and was equipped with a variety of weapon systems, including a constricting attack that used massive hydraulic cylinders lining the Tank Major’s back—enabling it to crush another Tank Major in a bear hug. It was a slow and painful way to die, taking upwards of fifteen minutes for the hydraulics to overcome the heavy armor, to slowly collapse it inward into the flesh it was supposed to protect.

  While the first Chinese Tank Majors didn’t have hydraulshocks, it was possible that Kadir did. If so, they had no chance. Not with his superior size and strength.

  Haq thought Renfro had exaggerated when he said Kadir had tossed cars out of the way like a weed whacker tearing through grass—but he had been literal. Diverting from the mission was a mistake. Whatever awaited them at the ship-base was less dangerous than the goliath insanity they faced here.

  Aadil walked ahead of them to a nearby cave.

  “We need to go. Now,” Haq called to Aadil.

  Aadil stood in the mouth of a cave. A pile of rags lay in the middle like a tongue. It was a woman, heavily decomposed; mold and bugs had made her their home. She grinned up at him through hollowed-out cheeks.

  He saw another body a few feet away, deeper into the cave. Beyond that a pile of three or four more.

  “Aadil!” Haq called out.

  But Aadil ignored him. He found more bodies as he walked along the cliff wall.

  Haq turned to Renfro. “We need to leave.”

  “I’ll get him.”

  Aadil sensed Renfro’s presence, but he didn’t turn. He was too shocked by what he was seeing. At the mouth of another large cave, bodies were piled together like picked-over chicken bones.

  “He eats them,” Aadil whispered in disbelief.

  He finally looked up at Renfro. “Kadir eats them.”

  Renfro saw the bite marks, the half moon shape of someone digging in. It appeared that Kadir ate them like watermelon, burrowing down to the good stuff and tossing the leftovers to the ground like a rind.

  And surely while they screamed for mercy.

  “We’ll kill him, Aadil,” Renfro said.

  A massive metal collision came from behind them. They turned just as Haq stumbled and collapsed through a house. A rock the size of a car lay on the ground where Haq had stood.

  Kadir appeared out of the dark and fog. He was running full-tilt, kicking up clumps of sand like a shovel. He was massive—Haq and Renfro’s big brother—and he charged toward the cave, toward Renfro and Aadil, screaming the entire way. It wasn’t the sound of one man—it was the sound of many, a demonic chorus of pain and hate.

  Renfro’s body shuddered to life, the drive chains around his waist spinning up even more furiously then before. The hydraulshock on his shoulder made a clicking sound. He widened his stance.

  “Get in the cave!” Renfro yelled over his body’s whine. The Moldy Giant was a hundred yards away.

  Aadil stood petrified. He waited for Haq to get up, to put an end to this, but Haq stayed inside the crumpled house. Aadil looked up to Renfro.

  “The hydraulshock blast will kill you! Get in the fucking cave!” Renfro yelled.

  Everything slowed down then, and Aadil’s senses heightened. He could smell Renfro’s fear; he could see the sweat pour down his face, the intense focus in his eyes. He could hear the mechanics of the approaching beast, the hiss and groan, the sound of unlubricated metal against metal.

  The Moldy Giant was fifty yards away and closing in amazingly fast. Renfro said something else, but Aadil couldn’t make it out; it was too slow, too low, like a record barely spinning.

  Renfro turned away from Aadil and lowered his body, his good arm cocked back. Kadir was ten yards away. Aadil ran into the cave, keeping his strides high so as not to trip over the bundles of half-eaten bodies.

  The hydraulshock blast filled the cave with heat and sound, noise on every level. Low, high, unbearable. The shockwave pushed Aadil from behind, and he stumbled over a body; his toes dug in under a rib, got entangled, and he fell. Outside the cave he heard the primal struggle for life as the giants collided.

  Aadil hoped, as he continued to crawl and scramble away, that Renfro had hit his mark, but he was too afraid to turn around and look.

  = = =

  Tank Major Jeffrey Marcus Renfro knew that death was finally here. He had felt its approach during the year of exile in his borough, and he welcomed the opportunity to embrace it. Born in Lubbock, Texas, he was raised pragmatic and raised tough. His father used to say to him that you always have to deal with reality. If you don’t, you lose your path.

  And now Renfro faced a reality. He could not beat the giant ten yards away. He was going to die. So what should he do? Just die?

  No. He aimed for the knee. Not the body—Kadir would expect that. Tank Majors were designed to finish. So he went for the lead k
nee, which in two more strides would be on his right.

  The rock that had knocked out Haq was huge, but it wasn’t lethal; Tank Majors were designed to destroy buildings. Haq would wake. Just not in time to help. Aadil was hopefully far away, in some crevice the Moldy Giant couldn’t reach. And so it was just Renfro and Kadir, face to face for the last time.

  Renfro was going to die, but he would take this chess piece off the table before he did.

  Kadir’s eye rolled and his mouth frothed. He had hydraulshock mounts but no cartridges, so he was charging in to constrict and dismember.

  Renfro aimed for the knee and fired.

  His damaged body buckled under the stress of the hydraulshock. To his right he saw the metal seams in his arm compress from the intense heat and energy contained within it. The noise erupted like thunder. He lunged forward, his balance off, but Kadir was too close for it to matter. The punch connected just as the leg began to rise, and 3,500,000 foot-pounds of energy transferred from Renfro’s fist into Kadir’s knee.

  But luck was on Kadir’s side. His leg wasn’t planted. The impact flipped him in the air, pinwheeling him twice before he slammed down. The Moldy Giant rolled over onto his back and tried to stand.

  Renfro thrust through the punch and tumbled to the ground, rolling end over end. He tried to stand, but what they had feared had now happened: the force of the attack had torn his body apart. The support beams splintered out, puncturing through the makeshift armor; his massive arm was dislocated from the chassis. Renfro waited, unable to tilt his head to see if his choice had paid off, if he’d given Haq and Aadil a chance.

  Renfro heard Kadir get up. Unable to move, he waited for the sound he wanted, and when he heard it, he laughed. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but he laughed.

  It was the sound of a two-ton leg dragging in the dirt.

  = = =

  Deep in the cave, Aadil heard Renfro’s laughter silenced by metal-on-metal blows as Kadir finished what he had begun a year before. He hammered fists down on Renfro’s body, crushing the helmet, destroying the chest, dismantling the giant that had damaged his leg and then laughed about it.

  Against every impulse in his body, Aadil edged closer to the mouth of the cave. He could see the shadows of Kadir’s arms rising and falling, again and again, as he pounded what was left of Renfro into the sand.

  The bludgeoning finally ceased, and a moment later Kadir’s silhouette filled the cave entrance. Aadil fled deeper into the cave as Kadir entered.

  If the giant knew Aadil was in here, it gave no sign. In fact, from what Aadil could tell, the Moldy Giant had stopped moving altogether. Aadil looked back and saw a vague shape outlined against the light entering the cave. The giant shuffled back and forth, like a man deep in thought. He was talking to someone that Aadil couldn’t see.

  “We did it,” the Moldy Giant said.

  “It’s not over. There are the others,” a boy answered. Aadil squinted, trying to find a small silhouette.

  “He never got back up. The rock was heavy,” the giant replied.

  “He will,” the boy said. He sounded impatient.

  “Move deeper into the cave, Kadir,” an old woman said. Aadil’s mind raced; he had seen no one alive when he’d entered.

  “Quiet, Mother,” Kadir responded. “The giant won’t come here. He won’t dare.”

  “The old man is in here, Kadir. Haq will come,” the boy hissed. His voice had turned reptilian.

  “WHAT?” the giant screamed. Two spotlights built into Kadir’s chest ignited like white lasers.

  “He’s down there watching, Kadir. He’s watching us! He’ll try to kill you. Just like the others,” the boy said.

  Where the hell was the boy?

  Aadil stumbled backward, and when the beam of light revealed his location, he spun around and ran. A howl chased him.

  Aadil ran deep into the cave. He couldn’t see anything, and he stumbled forward with his hands out like whiskers. Adrenaline coursed through his veins and amplified his senses. He could feel the slight movements in the air, the faint kiss of a spider’s web. He heard everything, even his heartbeat. His feet bumped into soft objects, and in his mind he could see the pickled faces of the dead staring up at him.

  He was in hell.

  He stepped over hundreds of bodies as the giant pursued him. One caught his foot and he fell. His face was saved from cracking against the rocky floor by a corpse’s stomach. As his nose sank into its belly, the flesh broke, filling the cavity with juice. Aadil retched, and a moan escaped his lips, but he had no time to stay still. He kept running.

  Adrenaline kept Aadil’s body moving, but he was almost seventy, and even with death trailing him, his body began to fail. His lungs burned, his stomach cramped. He had to stop. He wedged himself into a crack in the cave, hoping to squeeze far enough out of reach, but he had chosen poorly: the crevice was shallow. He was only a foot deep into the wall.

  Aadil held his breath while the giant approached. This was the end, surely. But just as Kadir came into view, he stopped; his chest lamps flickered. His head drooped and rolled back and forth as if he was in a trance. Aadil realized that Kadir was shaking his head like something was out of order.

  “Oh, dear, you look sick,” an old woman said. The voice came from Kadir. He moved out of view.

  Aadil heard a wet sound, like a pile of soaked cardboard getting pulled off the floor, and he realized the giant was playing dollhouse with a corpse.

  “Your hair is filthy,” the old woman said. “We’ll have to clean you up.”

  The monster walked past Aadil and went deeper into the cave. Aadil could hear the dead woman’s feet dragging on the ground.

  He counted twice to a hundred before he crept out of the crevice. The beams of light from Kadir had given Aadil a false sense of awareness. He was now completely blind and lost. While running for his life, he had veered off the main path to escape the spotlights. But now he had to find his way out, and he wasn’t sure which way to go.

  VI

  Movement woke Abdul Haq. He rocked back and forth like driftwood on an ocean wave. Haq had felt the weight of an entire building collapse onto him, but he had never felt an impact like what had knocked him out. He still wasn’t sure what had happened. He was groggy.

  Through his faceshield, it looked like he was lying underneath a faucet. A smell accompanied it. Fuel. The grogginess vanished. He heard the shuffling of feet and the murmuring of voices. A team of donkeys protested his weight in front of him. He tried to sit up, but he couldn’t. He was tethered to a cart with steel cables.

  The liquid ceased pouring, and an old woman with a spigot stared down at him. When her eyes connected with his, she muttered in Arabic, “The devil must burn.” The rat people were dragging him into the square.

  Tank Majors weren’t waterproof. Liquid could creep between the seams and get to his body. Some of the designs for colder climates had heat control to keep the core warm, but not Haq’s; he had never been intended for that. The fuel felt cool against his skin as it evaporated. They were brining him like a pork chop.

  Fire pits surrounded the city square. They pulled the cart to the center, and the villagers circled Haq, taunting him. Murder filled their eyes. They bared their teeth like rabid dogs. The anger in their screams made their words indecipherable. It was clear their humanity was gone. All that remained was the desire for revenge.

  They prepared Haq like a bomb. Tanks of petrol, old and thick, were placed beneath the cart. When they lit him up, the hydraulshocks alone would leave a crater a hundred feet wide. The villagers yelled for Kadir, teased him; a crackling PA system magnified their taunts in order to lure him in.

  The villagers dug a trail off to the side and poured more fuel in it for the wick. They left the open space but continued to call Kadir’s name from the alleys. That’s what had brought him down on the people before, when they first tried to end the giant’s reign.

  “Let me up! I will kill Kadir for what he did to y
ou!” Haq yelled. They stopped chanting and stared at him. A hard-looking man—their leader—pushed through the crowd and walked over to him.

  “You are no better than him,” the man said.

  “I govern two boroughs over. We are peaceful,” Haq said.

  “By using violence and fear. That isn’t peace. You take our children.”

  “I do not.”

  “We can’t even see the sun!”

  “I have nothing to do with this borough!”

  The man jumped on top of Haq and unlatched his helmet. With a grunt he threw it off.

  “You’re a part of it. You are just a man, and you lord over us with your steel and armor. How many of us have you killed? The ones who were forced from their homes, who were beaten when they asked a question? Who were imprisoned because of the godforsaken oil? How many have you killed?”

  Haq knew it was no use. He turned his head and remained silent. The man pulled a knife from his boot and cut off Haq’s left ear.

  Haq cried out in pain. The tip of the blade pressed against Haq’s right eye.

  “Kadir won’t be here for a while. How many?”

  “Three thousand and twenty-one,” Haq said. He knew the number like he knew his own age. To Haq, each kill was justified—a means to shepherd in peace. But they wore on him all the same. It wasn’t the act of the kill that burdened Haq; it was the ease. Those that died at his hands were kittens attacking a lion.

  “We were promised rights and due process. Did yours have a trial?”

  “No,” Haq said softly.

  “We were promised diplomacy. Did yours have a chance to lay down their arms?”

  “No,” Haq replied.

  “Does the fact that we had hopes and families and lives matter?”

  “No. It hasn’t for a long, long time.”

  “Kadir will continue to take us when he pleases, and the others will take whatever children we bear. But—” The man leaned in so that he was face-to-face with Haq. “We will have this one victory. We will kill two of your kind today. Two for the thousands. For the millions.”