Alliance

by Bruce S Larson

  Tau did not realize his manner and awareness was more like an ant than a sentient engineer. He was much larger than an ant. No natural arthropods could part and reshape beams of mephitic steel. Tau’s kind existed for that task. Others stripped filaments that looked like—an ancillary memory comparison provided the image of nerves. Yet these nerve-like filaments were large with structure above their interstice than looked like crystal. Other workers built something else, nearby.

  Tau was jolted by a thought that seemed to come outside his mind. The work. It must be completed. The creator was coming. Soon. Tau focused back on parting and reshaping beams of mephitic steel. The remade structure reached upward as if to scoop the red sun from the sky.

  The close orbit of the Red Giant and vast, near blank expanses of the Iron Work were more peaceful than Hell, despite the violence of stellar radiation and the presence of demons. Peace was far from the mind of Ship Master Proxis as he watched repairs on his bridge.

  The hellship had run hard while damaged. The maindrive’s claw needed reinforcing. The hull of jagged beams, likewise. With Gin’s help and the intervention of Zaria, Proxis had control of the ship. However, combat looked ill advised. For the moment. Proxis grappled mentally with how close the ship came to destruction. The battle he sought with the Sword Wing had nearly shattered his only home. Again, death drew near to his Lord, the seemingly almighty Anguhr. His fellow demons faced annihilation, en masse. It was a series of unique experiences. Almost blasted from existence, was perhaps of greatest import. As information of ship repairs scrolled through his mind, it also worked to process his horde’s near total apocalypse.

  Gin appeared as a holographic head floating near the main screen. “It is an interesting place, the mind of the ship. And more so, its Ship Master.”

  “Stay out of it, or it will eat you.” Proxis said and glared.

  “Not enough data storage capacity, and I will make no byte jokes.” Gin smiled.

  “No what?” Proxis cocked a thorny eyebrow.

  “Never mind. Well, as we wait a while longer for completion of repairs, we can entertain more thoughts than morality of the once-thought invulnerable.”

  “Yes.” Proxis almost smiled as he recalled recent, theoretical alterations to ship systems. “The reactors for the secondary batteries can be tapped to power thrusters and more primitive but effective secondary force shields. In emergencies.”

  “Excellent!” Gin chirped. “But I had other ideas. Tell me, Proxis, have you ever seen any card tricks?”

  On Hell, Aekos slowed his charge. He saw the volcano spew a new form of demonic life and knew he would not reach the army columns in time. Bahl’s distant warriors already made combat formations. He rued not being there to give commands for the battle, but was glad he had saved Inaht. He would be very glad if she suddenly recovered and drew her sword. For now, he knew he would have to fight, alone. He focused on the enemies erupting from Hell’s depths.

  They ran with great speed created by their four sets of limbs. Their outflow looked more like a sea of ants, or onrush of dark, glinting lava. In true volcanic eruptions, molten rock flowed over the surface as boulders and lava bombs exploded skyward. As Hell’s upheaval released arachnids that surged down the slope, similar beasts shot skyward and arced down towards Bahl’s army.

  In the dimension of the Great Widow’s web, Octuhr proffered temptation. He wanted a witness to his creations in Hell’s labs and biologic generators. He called to the Great Widow, who regarded him with suspicion and growing fear.

  “Come, ancient one. See old genes made anew. Your genes, and those of your dead husband. His legacy of terror lives on. Amplified and multiplied. You both gave rise to horrors unleashed. So fitting then, they surge forth on Hell to kill our enemies. Allow the images into your mind. See what I have done in furtherance of my supremacy.”

  With great caution, the Great Widow tapped the resonance of Octuhr’s thoughts, as he took in observations by eyes unknown even to the Great Widow.

  “You may recognize kinship with my first wave. I call them slashers. I straightened and lengthen their left fang to form a long tusk or sickle weapon. Venom tipped, of course. It can stab as a spear or slash as a sword. Old style combat, but effective, I’m sure, when massed as a wave of poisonous knives. Large, self-mobile knives.”

  “The flyers. They too are spiders.” The Great Widow observed.

  “Yes. As are they all, or a sort. They use webbing as a wing membrane between the lengthened legs of their streamlined bodies. They are strike gliders, or spider missiles. Their venom, if you will, is not a toxin but a high explosive held in their mouths. They leap, soar, fall and explode. They can slash and bite should they lose their warheads. Mostly they are living artillery, both gun and shell. Again, simple. But I am sure they will be found most annoying by those they blow to pieces.”

  “Even so, your forces are focused on ground attack,” the Great Widow observed. “That is not enough air power. If—”

  “I have already seen what you note, old one. But you are right. Soon I will fill the air with menaces I call venom hawks, after spider hawks, but made from spiders, not wasps.

  “Did you know the extinct Diptera insect order had both wings and a second, evolved set of tiny winglets that acted as gyroscopic, stabilizers called halteres? I suppose you did, of course! You likely ate them. But I have no flies, so I remade one set of spider legs as wings, and a second set as halteres. With wide, jumping spider eyes, you may see them as quite different from yourself. But they still have calipers, fangs, and two sets of legs for snatching and grabbing to vex the enemy.”

  “Creative,” the Great Widow droned.

  “And deadly, I’m certain.” Octuhr added.

  “You should hope so. You have made a force that requires massed attacks. Bahl and Anguhr know how to maneuver their warriors. Wherever you have hidden you body, I hope you can move. You may need to run.”

  Octuhr’s manic laughter echoed through the Great Widow’s mind.

  Red was often described to be the color of passion and rage. Both emotions fused into vengeance inside Bahl’s mind as he watched burning, red coals race closer. They were the multiple eyes of countless slashers. Bahl shouted commands. His eagerness to fight the battle so long imagined and now upon him colored his voice.

  Bahl’s forces obeyed. Their emotions ranged from elation to terror, but training guided everyone’s swift action. A vast, serrated phalanx formed from the army’s columns. Enchanted spears and swords of Khan warriors and their leaders glinted in the light of the looming Red Giant. Alien allies stood and hovered ready as support against the rushing horde. Each species were masters in its own methods of combat.

  The towering walls of spears framing Bahl’s phalanx appeared to be a military formation older than some planets, yet it focused a lurking power within his forces that Bahl held back until he saw the closely massed red of the spiders’ eyes. For now, he dealt with the threat sailing at him from the crimson tinged sky.

  “Unleash the falcons!” Bahl commanded.

  A separate unit of Khan warriors dropped their heads and began to think the code to unlock their true forms. Falcon was a more than ancient term for birds of prey and fighter aircraft. What appeared in place of the warriors was a fusion of both. Steel raptors launched into the sky behind from the phalanx. Bahl had concealed his air power within his greater force long hidden from view. Now, there was no need of cloaks or shadows.

  The strike gliders were the first in ages to perish from the falcons’ disruptor screams. The initial wave of airborne spiders falling toward Bahl’s army exploded before their warheads could hit their target.

  The Bandors quickly moved to assault the charging slashers. The leading edge of the large, altered spiders now ran on the flat, cracked surface as others still surged from Octuhr’s volcano. In an act terrifying to most parents across the universe, the gigantic, armadillos freed their oldest and self-aware young from their armor folds. The buds of othe
r germinal copies glowed with strange, explosive power. Ductile claws plucked these scaly shafts and hurled them over the front line of warriors. The bizarre barrage detonated across the charging terrors. Arachnid legs, bodies, and elongated fangs spiraled in the air with each blast.

  Where the narrow valley entered the wide, dead ocean plains, Aekos hewed a shallow trench in the arid, cracked ground. He could feel the rumble through the surface. The shaking of earth had stopped. This vibration was the rushing forward of countless spiders looking to take bites from him and Inaht.

  He placed her motionless form in the trench, withdrew her sword, and stood over his quick defense work that held his antagonist and ally. He could defend her there, without trampling her body. He picked up his spear and stood ready with both weapons, his teeth, claws, and slashing tail. He could already see the glint of light across many eyes and venom on their protruding fangs. Aekos smiled. Any observer might wonder who should be more afraid, the rushing spider-demons, or the chimera-dragon with the face of a grinning shark.

  In the phalanx, warriors braced for the arachnid demons assault. The frontline of each side’s weapons and warriors were forged and grown in Hell. Reengineered genes and alloys beyond temporal metals clashed with savage impact. Steel and fangs collided.

  “Now!” Bahl shouted over the sound of steel versus exoskeletons.

  A blast of unseen force exploded from the phalanx as the warriors deployed energies within their weapons and themselves. A field of force threw back and crushed the wave of Octuhr’s horde. Arachnid bodies and limbs flew skyward and back over the next wave of charging spider beasts. The war on Hell had begun.

  Aekos was from a world of brutal ecology grown large. His kind evolved from massive predators to city assaulting warriors. They refined the savagery of teeth, claws, and slashing tail into a disciplined form of combat. Not that battles were ever disciplined. Combat was the discipline of mind over enemy. And use of teeth, claws, and slashing tail, modified with cutting blades. Such were the benefits of technological evolution. Aekos was effective brutality made large.

  Red eyes locked in on Aekos. Sickle fangs lunged at his scales with lightning speed. They were too slow. The surge of arachnid demons appeared to hit a land mine as their bodies became pieces, and blue-tinted blood splattered the next wave of eight-legged victims. There was no blast. The spray of parts came from the sweep of Aekos’ spear in one hand, Inaht’s sword in the other, and his armored tail striking between them. If his teeth were not otherwise employed, Aekos would smile.

  Zaria appeared in her emerald armor beside Bahl. He glanced at her, but kept his focus on the battle.

  “Bahl, they will surround you!” Zaria shouted over the sounds like electric arcs as Octuhr’s slashers struck and died against the phalanx’s energy.

  “Half-mother, I have been at war with Hell for as long, if not longer than you.” Bahl said with a sideward glance revealing a face lit with both shock and hope that resolved into determination. “You come to us now in this moment of revelation, this reckoning for your sister, our other, dark mother. These are the final hours of Hell, or me.

  “But I will not fail those who serve with me now, or all those who perished under my command. Hell made the mistake of opening a door near my army. It may have been to unleash doom, but it will serve as the portal of its own death. My army will cut through these beasts and I will cut the throat of their maker!”

  Bahl gave a longer look at Zaria. “Once I knew you only as sunlight, now you take a warriors form. So use your sword for our cause, or leave to watch us fight. You will see our victory, in whatever form you choose and whatever action you take. In these hours, justice comes to Hell!”

  Cheers echoed through all as the phalanx pushed through the sea of fangs. The slashers began to run around and envelop the phalanx, but the formation kept surging through the arachnid horde and towards the volcano that spewed more slashers and a new wave of gliders. Falcons cut through their rising numbers. The weapons and warriors were bizarre, but the strategy was clear. Zaria nodded to Bahl. She drew her sword and joined him.

  Greater numbers and surrounding spiders forced Aekos to deploy the energy shields within his weapons. He used them as invisible, crackling brooms. The searing walls forced the slashers to charge around the force field, only to be cut by the spear, sword, or slashing tail. Aekos spun too fast for slashers running around to attack at his back. Their sprint only placed their flanks in the whirl of steel and teeth.

  A wolf pack might break off their attack and regroup, but not a wave of mindless spider-beasts. Their only purpose was to attack, and Aekos was far from wounded prey. Yet he could no longer see the ground, only red eyes, sickle fangs, and surging spiders.

  The numbers became thick and the arachnid grue flew freely. Aekos began to worry Inaht might drown in the trench he dug to protect her, a being not typically in need of defense. He swung and struck a think mass of slashers. Their blood crested the crackling force field and splattered his arm. A slickened handle and slight creep of fatigue loosened his grip. The sword shot out of his clawed fingers on the next impact. He reached to grab the twirling weapon from the air as he slashed with his tail and crushed other attackers with the spear’s force shield. He didn’t find the sword. Other hands did.

  Inaht shot from between Aekos legs and leapt into the air. She grabbed her sword and rolled across his back to the wet ground. Her immediate attack opened a new front beside the reptilian giant. Of course, Aekos wanted to smile. But first he needed to spit out spider parts.

  “Keep fighting!” Bahl shouted.

  His army’s surges began to slow against increasing numbers of slashers and explosive gliders. One careening spider missile finally escaped the falcons’ constant attacks. It struck the upper edge of the force shield. It detonated and rocked a small arc of the phalanx. For an instant, spear and sword points impaled spiders before the force shield reformed and blasted them back.

  “Cut through them! Cut them down!” Bahl shouted. He knew fatigue would cut focus before spiders slashed his warriors’ limbs. “We’ll kill a path straight through them. We must take that volcanic rupture!”

  Zaria glanced backward at Bahl. Her power had sealed the breach faster than the tiring warriors had.

  Bahl’s intended strategy for the ages spent hidden was to use his eclectic warriors as a large commando force when he found an opportunity to slide into Hell. The rebellion he now knew Anguhr had fought changed the surface dynamic and disposition of Hell, and so he took what he saw as an opportunity to march to a swift victory. Yet, he began to see his commando tactic as superior logic. Now his forces fought as an army in the open against an enemy that seemed to have no limit in number. That seemed impossible. Then he recalled he fought on Hell.

  Far from Hell and around its star, Gin assumed a physical form next to Proxis on the bridge. He attempted to make a joke. Again.

  “How many demons does it take to screw in a light bulb?”

  “What is a light bulb?” Proxis asked.

  Gin was shocked the Ship Master bothered to ask for qualification, but attempted to answer. “I’m not sure. Both the phrase and imagery of installation are artifacts of code written long, long ago. I once thought it a defective line.”

  Gin shrugged. Proxis focused on the new side screens and data integration throughout and outside his ship. It lagged. Gin became silent. That finally brought him to the attention of Proxis. He found Gin useful, but noisy. What had caused him to shut up? Proxis saw it on the main screen as sensors finally noted is proximity. It was still distant, but unmistakable. A red glow different from the star colored their faces as both stared at the magnified image.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  More gliders struck the upper edges of the force shield. It stayed intact but, but each explosion caused a wave across the outer phalanx. Bahl cursed, mentally. The opening to Hell came closer. His invasion into the Forge seemed possible, but more slashers and gliders spewed from the volcanic
maw. His forces were becoming mired by enemy numbers.

  Hell appeared to have no strategy beyond an assault of arachnid mass and harassing air attacks. Bahl had fought battles across star systems. Here fought across an arid wasteland facing only monstrous, mindless bugs. But their sheer volume and weight was doing enough to stop him. He felt like a single warrior fighting a stormy ocean as the beach slide away.

  Another vibration through the ground grew stronger. A new hellquake shook Bahl’s phalanx. The ground began to spilt beneath his boots.

  “Move!” Bahl shouted. “To the west and fast! Before Hell swallows us!”

  The phalanx reformed into a wedge to drive through the flanking slashers and away from the new volcano forming beneath them.

  “Hell can do worse, Bahl!” Zaria said moving with the westward surge. “We need to break off this battle here on the shallow crust!”

  “This new vent will be closer. It serves us better than it will serve Hell!” Bahl countered as he moved with his forces.

  Bandors hurled another explosive barrage to clear the path, timed between falcon strafing runs. The rear of the phalanx began to run down the slope of the emerging mountain. The rising peak began to spew rock and gasses. A louder, menacing buzz overcame the noise of the eruption. The phalanx slowed as fear of what was to emerge made all warriors want to turn and face its threatening noise.

  “Advance!” Bahl ordered. “We will turn and kill what comes over solid ground!”

  As the volcano still rose, the winged arachnids Octuhr called hawks burst from the cracking summit in a red-glinting, black and purple column. The column spread into a cloud that hid the sky. Prayers and curses rolled through the army who turned to see the new element of the arachnid demons that flew at the phalanx with speed.

  Falcons strafed the western mass of slashers. Their disruptor screams cut a long channel of carnage. Some of the demonic arachnids leapt as the unleashed hawks swarmed the falcons. Several arachnid demons gripped and bit one of Bahl’s metallic warbirds. It tried to soar higher, but the weight of Octuhr’s spiders was too great. The falcon tumbled at great speed as fangs and spider limbs impinged its wings and wrestling talons. The embattled warbird finally struck the waves of slashers. The impact blasted spider parts and barren rock skyward.