The Goddess Gambit

by B Michael Stevens

  He had reached the girl but had yet to pick her up. He turned slowly to face the lights, all the hairs on his neck and arms rising. In the door, he saw the dark outline of a man with strange, narrow, tube-like objects protruding from his head, a powerful floodlight in his hands.

  Scrubbers!

  The man outside shifted slightly to the side, revealing the outline of several large canine creatures. Lazarus heard the clunk-clink of their metal-clawed paws scraping on the broken plane's wing as they took their first steps into the fuselage. The next sound he heard was the humming buzz of the beast’s artificial teeth, speeding up to the proper cutting vibration. The last sound he heard was Wyntr's scream of terror and the wet rip of his own flesh tearing from his bones.

  Reuben paced the inside perimeter of the container, anxiously awaiting the return of the Minister.

  "You’d better make it right!" he had told the Minister. "I did exactly what you said to do, and your dumb dogs destroyed all my shit! A lifetime's worth of collecting! An entire museum! Gone!"

  "I feel obligated to remind you that your... shit, as you put it, is all illegal contraband. Possession punishable by law," the Minister had said coldly in his croaky, electronic voice. Reuben could see his horrid reflection in the glossy black lens that served as the Minister’s face. Try as he might, his pink eyes couldn't penetrate the depth and darkness of that sinister mask, though Reuben did think he caught flickers of lights in there, so small and faint they seemed to be several klicks away.

  "You wouldn't dare," Reuben bluffed bravely. The Minister had said nothing.

  "I want my reward. I'll need enough to replace my home, my stuff, and more. This isn't some kinda break-even deal, got it?"

  "Wait here," the Minister ordered, then, with a slight adjustment of the narrow strip of leather that crossed his chest diagonally and attached to his belt, he’d turned to go.

  That had been three hours ago. Reuben had gone from angry, to worried, and then back to angry. Just what exactly was taking them so long? All they need to do is print my Ziggurat citizen card and bring me the keys to my new place. A place inside...

  The snap-hiss of the container door opening broke Reuben away from his nervous and greedy thoughts. Where he had expected to see the Minister re-appear, he instead saw a single Handler: the human half of the human-canine Scrubber unit and foot-soldier for the Ministry—though ‘human’ was perhaps a bit of a stretch in this instance. The man, if you could call it that, stepped in and immediately stepped aside, allowing someone else entry.

  "You?" Reuben said, shock and bewilderment pushing out all other thoughts and emotions.

  "Yes. Me." The new man entered the room, smiled and gave a mocking half-bow.

  "Ch-chairman, sir," Reuben stammered, not knowing what to say. He had expected the State to come good on their end of the bargain and admit him entry and citizenship to the Ziggurat, but he’d never expected that his reward would be personally delivered by the leader of the free world.

  "Please, call me Accoba," the grinning man said. Accoba Warbak, Chairman of the Human Republic, walked over to Reuben and offered his hand. "You have done us a great service. For that, we thank you."

  Hesitantly, Reuben took Warbak's hand and shook it. "You-you're welcome?"

  The Chairman's grin faded as quickly as electric lights being switched off. "Did you tell anyone about what happened tonight? Anyone at all?" he asked.

  "No! No sir!" Reuben answered a little too quickly. "I only spread word in all the Resistance haunts that this girl knew the location of the Morning Star legend!"

  "Good, good." Warbak's smile returned, though not as strong as before. His eyes narrowed, forcing the wrinkles in the corners of his steel gray eyes to reach up and touch his temples. Between the spray of deep lines there and the perfectly symmetrical patches of white on an otherwise head of jet black hair, the Chairman's eyes stood out like holographic reticles on the sights of a military rifle. Piercing, intelligent, dangerous.

  "But I'm sure you understand that we’d better check to see if you're telling the truth. Perhaps you had a slip of the lips and just forgot about it. I'm sorry, you understand. Thank you for your cooperation, citizen."

  The Handler near the entrance closed the door to the container, just as Chairman Warbak gripped Reuben's forehead in his right hand. The door sealed again with a hiss-pop, trapping the hysteric screams of the albino inside.

  A moment later, silence again having returned, Warbak turned to the Handler, shaking his bloody hand.

  "Can you get me a rag or something? This one leaked."

  "Of course, sir," the soldier answered, as cool as a serpent’s slither.

  Warbak glanced back over his shoulder at the remains of the man slumped on the floor. His brain had liquefied and run out his face, ears, and eye sockets and was now pooling around him on the cold floor.

  "When will they learn to just relax and let it happen?" Warbak frowned, shrugged, and then accepted the offered rag, wiping his hand clean.

  "Come now, let's see if they take the bait."

  001

  PLANNING a battle is a lot like planning the delivery of a rocket or grenade. One can aim the missile, direct it at whatever or whomever they intend to destroy, but one cannot plan well what comes next. The shape of the fiery explosion, the direction in which the shrapnel will fly, the pitch and volume of the screams coming from the wounded. The total number of dead, the amount of collateral damage. And, most importantly, the nature and severity of the subsequent counter-attack. One could try to plan for this, using mathematical probability, statistics, historical precedence, military think-tanks. But time and time again, the god of war, whose name is Chaos, will come down in his fiery chariot of pain and suffering and smite your best-laid plans into the dust like so much insignificant chaff.

  Jon, designated Jon 310-257 by the State, was learning this axiom the hard way.

  "On your six! On your six!" Jon heard the warning come over the comm and realized that the words were directed at him. Without looking to see what they were warning him of, Jon willed the Hopper into motion. An impulse from his brain activated a short burst of the power armor's boosters, propelling him forward and lifting him a few inches off the floor of the corridor. The cramped confines were not the ideal place for such aerial maneuvers, and so forced Jon to call on every ounce of piloting skill he possessed.

  Focusing on not crashing into the walls or ceiling, Jon turned and twisted, bringing his forearm-mounted weapons to bear on whatever was creeping up behind him.

  In the space he had just navigated, a spiraling shadow accelerated towards him.

  "Harvester!" he shouted into the comm and opened fire with both arms’ plasma launchers.

  A dozen tentacles that served as the creature's locomotion reached out, sticking to the surface of the floor, wall, ceiling and then wall again as it pulled itself along, continuing its spiral towards Jon. The brute's torso and arms resembled that of a man's, except for their massive size and obscene purple hue, lending it the look of a boiled turkey neck. Crowning this chimeric demon was an almost aquatic-looking sloped head, devoid of eyes and split in half horizontally by a slavering hinged jaw, lined with two rows of razor-pointed teeth. In one of the creature’s man-type hands, it bore a club of intricately carved resin or stone that ended in a half-moon blade.

  Two streams of glowing plasma disks flew from Jon's Hopper's guns, lighting up the corridor with an ember glow and casting the Harvester in a demonic light. He tracked the Invasive’s incongruous movements, missing at first, laying waste to the passageway and making circling back impossible. Then, quickly catching onto the thing’s trajectory and anticipating where it would be, Jon moved the streams of death in front of and then onto the rapidly approaching creature.

  An unearthly wail erupted from the alien foe, and its forward momentum ceased. It brought its massive man-shaped arms up to shield its eyeless face and writhed in agony as disk after disk of superheated matter splashed over it
s body.

  Jon wanted to turn and bolt, wanted to put distance between him and the demon, but he dared not break the flow of hits he was scoring on the monster, not even for a second. His Hopper suit was well-armored and well-equipped, but on an even playing field, one Hopper alone, even operated by a talented soldier, seldom survived a head-to-head fight with a Harvester. The demon could be killed, but it might take every ounce of plasma his suit could produce to do it. These creatures were intelligent and could Shape Strange. They often did just that before a raid or battle, bestowing on themselves mysterious protections that rendered them practically invulnerable to conventional attacks. Jon either needed to land a lucky shot in the thing’s alien vitals, strike when its enchantments wavered, get some help from others, or—and this was the smartest strategy—get the hell away from it, and fast.

  With the plasma splashing off the Harvester, throwing bright lights and casting sharp shadows all over the tight space, Jon almost missed the motion behind the beast. A small glass orb, one of the Strange-shaping weapon-tools employed by the Harvesters, floated around the broad side of the chimeric nightmare. Jon's mind, soaked in the electric juice of battle-born adrenaline, quickly identified the new threat, but before he could react, it flashed with a bright lime green color.

  Shit! Jon's hopes sank as he realized what the effects of the Strange were. A bubble-like shield of soft blue had appeared around the Harvester, and now his plasma disks were glancing off the shield and not the creature itself.

  "I'm in a real bind here!" Jon shouted and watched in horror as the Harvester's tentacles once again began to propel the beast toward him.

  "Jon, move along your previous trajectory, stat! Coming in hot!" an order came over the comm. Knowing he didn't have enough time to even stand before the Harvester's sickle-like blade would be in reach, he fell backwards into a reclined position and, throwing all caution to the wind, fired the Hopper's boosters wide open. On his back, the suit didn't perform as intended, but the gambit did succeed in putting distance between him and the alien demon. Jon flew like a missile down the corridor, his butt, back, and head all taking turns skipping and bouncing off the ground as he went. He tried to maintain firing at the Harvester's shield, hoping to weaken it, but the speed at which he traveled made it impossible for even the keenest of sharpshooters.

  To his shock, Jon quickly discovered that the distance between him and the Harvester barely grew; the Harvester was nearly pacing him. Jon's mind began to race, fumbling to find something, anything that resembled a plan of action, a way out.

  Then the corridor exploded. Where there had been the Harvester, framed on four sides by an industrial hallway, now there was a whirling cloud of debris. Jon began to mouth his relief, but before his lips had even parted, he slammed head-first into a wall he had not seen coming.

  "310-257? 310-257? Jon, are you all right?" Jon's eyelids fluttered open. The Hopper's HUD instantly sprang to life as the suit’s sensors registered the operator’s return to consciousness. Looking past the floating holograms that told him where his squad was, how much power he was diverting to what, be it boosters or plasma launchers, Jon gazed out the Hopper's shielded faceplate and looked upon the face of a teammate, a kid named Rayn 496-494.

  "Rayn," Jon mumbled, blinking rapidly as he came to. "What happened?"

  "Well, you used your head as a battering ram, went through one whole wall. It slowed you down enough, and you stopped when you hit the far wall of the room you penetrated," Rayn explained. "The Heavies managed to get a lock on that Harvester after it shaped Strange. Good move, making it do that."

  Jon didn't tell his teammate that 'making it do that' had been basically him losing the fight and had nearly cost him his life.

  "Anyway, the machine didn't count you out just yet, but it did put you under for a few." Rayn paused then, pulling Jon up into a sitting position, and asked, "So, what's next, sir?"

  Before answering, Jon took in his surroundings. He sat on the floor of a large room, one of the largest he'd seen so far in this raid on the pre-Storm factory. This must be a place where they stored the goods they manufactured. This version of the room, however, was empty, save for the squad of six Hoppers that stood in a ring around their Lieutenant.

  Anytime Jon laid eyes on a Hopper suit, his chest swelled with pride. They were, in his opinion, the flagship of the Republic. Sure, the Mechs, the walking battle tanks commonly called Heavies, were bigger, better armed and better armored; but they were slow. In contrast, the Hoppers could move. It was their speed, their maneuverability, their ability to fly, that Jon really loved about them. If there was a sensation better than flying, Jon wasn't aware of it. If he ever were to become aware of it, he would believe himself bewitched, for nothing, nothing, beat flying.

  The power armor, when worn, made men roughly two feet taller than they would be out of it, retained the human shape, and bore not only two large weapons mounted on the arms, but missile pods on the wings and a large booster unit on the back that provided the limited flight ability. Besides the mounted plasma and missile launchers, Hopper operators had their hands free to manipulate most anything an infantryman could, as well as carry a rifle, such as the standard-issue 'Lawnmower,' a souped-up version of a pre-Storm conventional weapon with a church-key mounted micro-grenade launcher.

  "SITREP," Jon said, wanting all the facts before issuing his order.

  "We lost 561-348 and 561-890. I saw them go down," Rayn said. Jon could not see the kid’s face behind the Hopper helmet, but he heard the disappointment in his voice; those two were friends of his. "761-354 and a few more are missing."

  Jon nearly choked. Carbine. Rene. His best friend. This can't be happening. Suddenly the comm crackled to life.

  "Jon 310-257. This is Hank. My Heavies are in position. Move your men out of the factory, and we will bring the whole thing down."

  Jon wanted to flip the visor of his helmet up but restrained himself. The air inside his suit was becoming stuffy.

  "The idiots want to destroy the whole damned building!" Jon explained through pained gasps to men he knew had heard the communique as clearly as he had. He was fighting to take full breaths; it felt like his suit was suddenly two sizes too small, crushing him. First I knock myself out, and now Carbine is missing! This is not going good!

  "Hank, Jon here." Jon swallowed his gulping breaths and forced his heart beat to slow. He had trained his whole life for today. He had to keep a cool head; that was what officers did. "I read you loud and clear, but I need to ask: Have we recovered the shipment yet?"

  As soon as he finished his question both Hank over the comm and Rayn in front of him started to answer. Jon swung his arms out wide and shook his head, saying, "One at a time! I can't hear either of you!"

  "What's that?" Hank came back.

  "Sorry Hank, go ahead."

  "We haven't recovered the transport, no," Hank began again, "but we have to cut our losses, Jon. We've suffered too many casualties to justify a truck's worth of food. There are more Harvesters here than Intelligence thought. We should pull back and level the place with artillery."

  "That's what I'm trying to tell you!" Rayn interjected before Jon could reply. "Carbine and the others went in after the transport. They haven't come back yet. If we bomb the place, we'll eliminate them for sure!"

  The crushing feeling that came with each breath vanished instantly, for Jon had stopped breathing entirely. A cold sweat broke out over his body, soaking the synthetic undergarments he wore beneath the power armor. Slow and measured, like perfect, short, knife-stab attacks, Jon's breath returned.

  "Carbine, you copy?" Jon asked, his eyes darting side to side, capturing and sliding the holograms in his HUD with his moving gaze, activating different features. Switching channels, he repeated his question. "Carbine! Rene 761-354, do you copy?"

  No answer came, but Jon could see Carbine's blip in the holo he had just pulled up. Carbine was still alive; deep in the complex.

  Jon looked at Ra
yn and the other soldiers around him. Temporarily muting the comm with a focused drag of his eye, he said, "We leave no man behind. Right?" The squad of Hoppers all nodded vigorously, some adding a "Hell yeah" to their approval of Jon's assessment.

  "Hank," Jon said, switching the comm back open, "we have eyes on the prize and men in there. We are going in. Hold your fire, repeat, hold your fire. There is still time to salvage this operation and come out on top."

  "Strongly advise against that, Lieutenant," Hank came back. "This isn't the time for heroics. Your Hopper's strong suits are practically handicapped in such tight quarters. Let us Heavies do our job; get your men out of there."

  "Heroics is my middle name," Jon bragged, "and besides, my men, at least some of them, can't get out. We are going in to get them and the transport. After that, you can cover our tracks and have at it. This is my OP, I call the shots." I'm coming for you, Rene. I won't leave you behind.

  "Suit yourself," Hank replied, obviously irritated but not pushing it further.

  Ignoring him, Jon gave his Hopper squad a thumbs-up.

  "Let's fly," he said, then, "Heads up!" as he let loose a single stream of plasma-discs. They tore into the ceiling, harmlessly raining shards of half-melted corrugated metal roofing and charred splinters of roof support beams down on them. When he had finished strafing the warehouse ceiling, there was a hole large enough for the Hoppers to exit, two at a time.

  "Hank's got a point," Jon explained. "The corridors are too tight to maneuver well. That last one nearly got me. We approach Carbine's position from the rooftops. Follow me." With a thought, Jon launched up through the hole he had made, his men following. A minute later the whole squad was bouncing over the rooftops of the factory complex.