‘Those things open up wide when they’re swallowing pray,’ said The Deathwind. ‘Let’s get them closer to the Orbital Guard, maybe Snake Eyes can sacrifice a few pilots.’
Ace Commander Ripley opened up a channel to the orbital guard as The Deathwind’s AI prepared the ejection process.
‘This is Ripley to Snake Eyes, Ripley to Snake Eyes, listen up!’ He ordered. ‘I need Arrowheads and Stymphalions to take a nose dive into those tentacles. These things are interested in resources. Give them over. I know it sounds crazy, but once they’ve swallowed a few strike-ships, I’ll have a clear shot to their guts. I need that shot!’
‘Roger Ripley!’ Said Snake Eyes. ‘I’m already coming in.’
‘Make a last minute eject,’ he reminded. ‘Don’t let those things grab you, slick.’
‘Good call, Commander.’ Said Snake Eyes. ‘Gold-Tail, Snake Eyes, Para Storm, I need all available wings for a kamikaze mission on the targeted Spydrone. Full throttle. GO GO!’
The Deathwind’s canopy remained lined up with the Xenotech as it fell through the thickening atmosphere of earth. The sky started to pale now and the heat of the sun seemed less benign. Explosions tore through the skies as Arrowheads soared ahead of The Deathwind, crashing explosively into their enemy.
‘On target, on target.’ One pilot’s voice came through the network. ‘Good job, Gold-Tail.’
‘See you on the ground!’ One of the Gold-Tail pilots returned.
Ripley watched the coiling and spinning tentacles shiver and reach out to swat away the various Arrowheads swooping down.
‘Lost control! LOST CONTROL!’ A voice called on the network. One of the Stymphalions spun into a roll, the air velocity tearing up the exposures. He watched the fuel spill and the whole thing catch fire, and he heard the pilot’s last screams as his failed attempt caused his ship to fulminate before the guy could eject. Soon, another came crashing in, and the Xenotech opened up its four large legs into a cross-section at last. The silvery tentacles reached far out behind it, and Ripley made sure he was at a fair distance. And between the skirts of metallic tendrils he saw his target, a glinting cold light shining powerfully upon him.
‘Getting some really strange readings from that thing.’ The AI reported.
‘We set?’
‘Ready!’
And as the antimatter slammed into the engine’s fuel stream, The Deathwind’s glorious long tail burst to roaring life, its ferocity now echoing through the sky, its light reflecting through the clouds. The scorching engines carried the Solitaire strike-ship on a tail of fire, driving the body up into the Xenotech’s midsection and as promised by the AI, the cabin ejected in the last possible moment, a last ditch effort to survive the impossible. An explosion bloated from within and nearby pilots gasped in awe as the thick black clouds transformed into solid foam, their state of mater changed by the venting gaseous coolant turbulently released from the shattered core. The Xenotech almost immediately became a falling ice sculpture with bloated gasses growing out of the freezing zone like black fungus, nobody had expected such a reaction from the collision. Suddenly, huge jarring knifes of crystal burst through the machine’s frozen shell, driving from somewhere within, large wedges of glass punching, growing rapidly into towers, amassing to almost the size of skyscrapers. Brilliantly, this falling sky palace of ice began to radiate until it shone like a star and fulminated in lustrous climax of fluxes, rippling through the vast welkin, pushing a hole through the local clouds for a hundred miles.
-63-
The leading Xenotech machine sprung like a reverse bear trap, the huge quadruped limbs spanning into an extensive X-frame behind the bulbous radial head, long knotting tentacles twisting far behind it. The machine began its transmission, issuing a message on all frequencies to Atominus Phalange. The message began with an anticipant breath and spoke the first word very clearly.
‘Malik…’ it said, a transmission scrambled from years of storage corruption, a sound that was laced with static interference, the hiss and crackle of its imperfections making the words sound like loud whispers. ‘I can feel you out there. Waiting for me. Waiting for our inevitable unity again.’
The Xenotech scanned the geographical features below, altering its direction now for a final approach, dropping through the sky fast.
‘They have come a long way to find you. They have reached beyond the limits of time. Crossed centuries and starscapes all to give you the tools you need to find me again.’
At an altitude of eighty thousand feet, surface to air missiles deployed to meet with the other Xenotech now tearing through the atmosphere, a long black tail of smoke left smouldering far behind it.
Submunitions blasted innocuously over the leader as it delivered its message, but its path was undisturbed. A fire of great immensity donned the attention of all who saw it as the raging flames cut through the lower atmosphere. The transmission had been sent. The four quadruped legs folded into a tapering point as the burning head buried into the thickening air. Fires raged across the machine. Shadows of city buildings dashed and leaned away from the passing object as it raced for the sands beyond civilisation. The cutting ferocity of the meteorite parted the desert sands.
‘Embrace greatness. Fear not destiny…seize it! We are not here to write the future, Malik. It is determining what we do now. It’s time to endure, to transcend, to become the gods we have dreamed of becoming.’
After a long angling descent the Xenotech found its resting place in the barren canyons of North Ameritropolis, arrowing down without any means of slowing towards solid rock.
‘It’s time for the Second Horizon.’
The Xenotech leader slammed into the red-rock at over a thousand miles per hour. From the impact zone, hydrogen particles fused and neutronium light flashed through the bones of lizards skittering too late for shelter under the fissures of melting rocks. A leviathan blast tore its way through the endless continent in a shockwave which shook apart the wind scoured walls, until they were swallowed in a nuclear dust storm that spread for hundreds of miles from end to end. And as the sky blackened, static cracks of lightning pronounced ephemeral networks through the bloating cumulous of deepest earth and firestone. Five minutes after impact, the shockwave’s sonic ferocity blew out windows of the closest municipality, before raining fire into the streets.
PART THREE
HYPERMEKHOS
-64-
The stars in the Novus were beautiful at night. They lit up a spectacular spray of light arching behind the lunar scape. Gus had unwrapped a night-cover for the jeep and drawn it across the cabin to hide the engine’s thermal readings and general visibility of the vehicle’s husk. Artex and Pania surveyed a suitable place to set up camp at the bottom of a large talus. The tent looked like a large boulder on first glance, just the way it was supposed to, one of many rocky deposits at the bottom of a hummock of stones. Artex was nervously checking the cliff face of the surrounding scarps for life but Cedalion found nothing larger than occasional small rodents. She’d dove through the night to make a collection for them, gathering meat for the journey.
‘There’s a lot of activity up there tonight,’ Pania said. ‘Wonder what’s going on?’
She’d been looking at the night sky where the long silvery streak of Starnavis engines flickered back. They saw flashes and pulses of light that were large and unusual for normal solar-commercial activities. Artex was concerned.
‘Hell, if I know,’ he said. ‘From all the way down here, that might look unusual and small, but something big is happening up there.’
‘How’d you know?’ Gus said, hooking down the dust cover.
‘They’re setting off phoenix explosives,’ said Artex. ‘Nukes and missiles designed specifically to fly and explode in space.’
‘You saying there’s a war up there?’
‘Looks that way.’
Pania had her hands on her hips. She sniffled in the cold air and Gus strolled towards the tent, patting the sol
id armadillo shell, complementing the job. Pania ducked and entered through the side and Artex and Gus joined her a moment later. They drank gin and smoked most of the night, their feet bunched up together in the middle. An LED kinetic hourglass was glowing above them, and as the sand drained away the thirtieth minute, the weight of the sand activated a spring and flipped the hourglass over, keeping the lights running.
‘When did you get this done?’ Gus asked Pania, pointing to the Otter tattoo on her side with his toe.
‘A while back,’ she said drinking back her cup of neat gin. ‘When I first joined the Otters-Clan military.’
‘I like it.’
‘Designed it myself.’
‘I was thinking of getting something too.’ Gus smiled. ‘I’m an Eagle, like Artex.’
She looked over to Artex who was smiling quietly and drinking some gin, but he hadn’t said much, as usual.
‘Where’s your Eagle?’ she asked.
‘Don’t have a tattoo,’ he said, ‘I’ve Cedalion. She’s something real to me. When I fly with the hawk…I feel free.’
‘I’ve been meaning to ask,’ Pania said, ‘there’s something behind your ear, a Scorpion tattoo. What’s that for?’
Artex was reluctant to tell. He sighed and put down his cap, both Gus and Pania now hinged with anticipation.
‘It’s old history,’ he told them. ‘Nothing more.’
Sensing he didn’t want to discuss it, Pania and Gus looked at each other, but struggled to change the topic of conversation.
‘Well…it’s fine,’ she smiled with a nod. ‘Hey, do you know why we have clans? I mean, we don’t do anything different from each other, do we?’
‘Sometimes,’ said Artex. ‘Eagles are usually scouts. Otters are land and water creatures, usually more nocturnal animals, could be secretive, I guess. The Bruin are usually very strong front line infantry. But we all learn a bit of everything. The Clans are necessary.’
‘Why?’ Gus asked.
‘When I was training in the Atominii, I was sent to a particular tribe in the Aborigines. They were a big tribe, they used Atominii technology and they had a lot of problems with tribal fighting. I was on a peacekeeper mission at the time. The Atominii originally hired us to protect some Anthropologists who saw these people as a potential playground for experimentation. They called it a social sandbox. We expected we’d have to murder them all to save those scientists. But interestingly enough, we got the tribal leaders to talk. We didn’t solve the problem, the Anthropologists simply made it possible for the tribe elders to solve their own problems. They wanted to see what would happen. The elders agreed to forge clan logic. Each tribe would foster the animals of the wilderness; they chose the tarantula, the scorpion, the snake and others. Every tribe in the region had a clan of scorpions, a clan of snakes and spiders. They solved their problems this way. Their tribes were different, but their clans had affinities. So, the mercenaries working on that project learned from this experience.
‘In Cerise Timbers, we know that many of the people are sociocratic, they have a shared interest. They don’t need this ideology. But the military need a way of sharing an interest in protecting the people without vying for power to seize the wealth of the city for themselves and dominate. That’s why each group requires a different approach. So, we applied the clan logic. We all work individually, but he have shared affinities. If one group decides to want to break the city values, the others will be ready to take them on. That’s the true meaning behind these symbols.’
Pania had never considered it. She’d never before thought about it. Looking down at the Otter now she was conflicted, she felt she was part of something, while also she felt controlled.
‘But why?’ she said.
‘To engage trust,’ he explained, ‘because to hold power requires a lot of discipline. It must be evenly distributed; too much power in the hands of too few people causes mayhem. Power is for power’s sake. That animal for you will be your guide, your conscience. She’ll remind you there are others out there who share the same family symbol. Love is a deep emotion.’
-65-
Gracing the cold stormy winds, Cedalion slipped above the barren landscape. Her keen eye watchfully befell the prison camp and observed its trainers who lifted their weights and ran the perimeter. Supported on a large and cinder burnt platform, she spotted the Perigrussia Skybus, then tilted her arched wings back to fall closer in towards the base. She saw the strange magnetic currants layered like onion skin, occasionally shifting pattern and causing her to break and glide around the confusing tesla waves.
Her eyes enhanced, lenticular layers fattening, focussing down on a large concrete building with only one entrance. A crowd of large men dressed in boiler suits and training outfits were walking from the entrance carrying rifles and bags and talking and smoking. She circled the building once, taking in everything it required. Cedalion wheeled and came to perch on a guard tower not far from the Perigrussia Skybus.
The hawk’s head twisted and she bowed to scrape clean her beak against the hard wet wood and fecklessly groomed and nibbled beneath her wings, preening the particles caught there from her flight. Distantly, thunder dropped through the clouds and rumbled dully above.
*
Kyo’s head hit the floor with a heavy thump, but screaming the way he was did not deter the violence, it did not frighten his enemy. The bastard just kept coming. There were yells, voices gabbling and in the darkness all around him, a radial blur of sweaty multi-coloured faces and thrashing arms producing tickets to one of Krupin’s shitty ilk at the front taking bets. Taking bets on how he was going to get through this alive. Taking bets on whatever animal side was supposed to be within him.
‘GET UP LYCAN!’ Someone screamed.
‘Heet beck you feggut!’ Another, much closer voice tore through the clamour, ‘beya man, two, one, nine! Man up!’
Man up two, one, nine…or I’ll show you how. What did it mean to be a man? Kyo wondered as he lay on the rotten smelling concrete and tried to climb back to his feet again. Was it to feel pain, was it to be fine with hurting others and accept pain from others? His opponent now stood in the other corner of the ring, his face bleeding, his eyes puffy and his knuckles blotted with blood through the bandages.
‘Go gene-freak!’ Krupin’s voice manifest from the cackling abyss. ‘Tear him apart, boy.’
Sweat poured from Kyo’s brow as he pushed to his knees and gradually progressed to his feet. He heard the laughter of inamtes around him; those who he had come to learn were professional cage fighters. But to Kyo, there was no dignity here. The fight was not voluntary, it was not willed by anyone; it was pure survival.
‘COME ON!’ He heard the other boy scream, fists raised, already thrashing the air violently, trying to show Kyo he was not tired when in fact they were both exhausted. And Kyo knew from his own wretched experience it wasn’t fear that was driving his opponent, it wasn’t hatred, but it was desperation. He had something to lose from this. Cut, aching, sore all over, Kyo stared with his good eye and stumbled to keep his balance. He flashed his fangs and faced his opponent, tail swaying with hypnotic and distracting motion just behind him. His opponent roared, screaming with rage, tearing his vest in half, throwing his momentum forward. He hauled himself at the gene-freak. The first two punches landed hard, throwing Kyo off his feet. But he pulled his opponent down with him. This was good. He worked better on the floor. Kyo twisted him over, pinned his knee into the other boy’s neck, and brought down his fist like an Armand hammer digging for blood. Screaming with anger, allowing the rage to fill his heart, Kyo felt something disturbing stir within him. Something that thirsted for violence, an urge that threatened to overwhelm his morality, an urge that demanded more. Kill him.
KILL HIM
And his fangs pealed, his eyes paled, his face tightened like assured leather to an expression of acrid savagery. Looming over his bleeding, defensive opponent, Kyo heard his calls for mercy, barely a whimper in the v
itriolic racket all around that called for more bloodshed.
‘FINISH IT!’ Called Krupin, as if to echo his own instincts.
But Kyo backed down. His savagery placated, his face loosened to one of sympathy, remorse, regret, loathing. No. How could this happen? He hated what his new environment was doing to him. He despised what his new home was turning him into. He was becoming a violent monster, and learning that this was the only way to have a good life here.
He offered his bleeding hand to help up his wounded victim, but the union was not returned. Instead, his opponent kicked Kyo hard in the groin and forced him back. Before he could recover, he was over him, laying punches to the cheer and jibe of the surrounding audience. And Krupin threw in the towel before Kyo was killed in the attack.
‘HE’S DONE! STOP!’ He ordered, having the referees pull the young fighter back.
All was a spacious blur for Kyo. The yammering and utterances and shouting of disappointed voices filled the space all around as the bell rang, and the crowd dispersed. He lay still on his side, tired eyes locked onto some distant point in the camp’s cage fighting arena, some dark gantry in the higher elevations that, from this angle, looked like a chrome L shape in the poor light.
‘Stupid little fucker,’ Krupin’s voice croaked as his feet came stomping over the cage platform. ‘It sickens me that you make me protect you.’
Chaos Cipher Page 55
