The Goddess Gambit

by B Michael Stevens

  "Out of the fire..." Jon heard Carbine start to say when he kicked his bike into gear and began to kick up his own rooster tail of dirt and sod, starting out first in the direction of the oncoming Beasties, then pulling his rider into a wide circle, aiming north.

  "Come on!" Jon shouted as he passed his squad. He glanced back and saw the beetle swarm gaining on them. One small Harvester was bad enough, but this is... Jon guessed that the giant bugs only possessed the simplest of animal intelligence, certainly not the cunning of a Harvester, but they were armored entirely, except perhaps on their hidden undersides, and they were legion, and they were stampeding. He saw clearly how easily and thoroughly the multitude of darting, pointed legs pierced and ripped the earth as they moved at near blinding speed, propelling the beasts forward like a cargo train. He gulped. That grinder would make short work of us. Jon quickly made sure his Rider was steady, its gyros functioning properly, then tapped the comm open.

  "I don’t think they are after us, they’re just running from something. On the move. Probably spooked by the Drop, by their arrival," he informed his squad, who was now close behind him.

  "Great. I'll try not to hold it against them when they turn us to hamburger meat," Carbine snarked back.

  Ignoring the dark humor, Jon pulled on the throttle and crouched into the acceleration. He scanned ahead for signs of dips or obstructions, and seeing none, he looked over his shoulder to ensure his squad was keeping up with him. They were all there, and all pacing him. Good, he thought. Farther back, just behind his men, the barn they had camped in exploded as the stampeding beetle tanks crashed into and through it. Splintered boards and posts flew up into the air like the outer shell of a detonated grenade, plopping down into the pond nearby. The dust cloud kicked up by the giant bugs turned to a misty spray as the moving wall hit the water. Damn, but they move fast!

  "We need to veer off, get out from in front of them!" Jon commanded and signaled to his left with his arm, then leaned his Rider into a sharp turn, bouncing over rocks and bushes as it flew across the uneven earth. If we can get over that ridge and keep banking left, we should be able to get to the side, or even behind them. Jon analyzed the situation, stealing quick glances to measure the width of the beetle swarm and comparing it to the surrounding landscape.

  "Follow me, guys!" Jon called enthusiastically, feeling like they were just about out of the woods when he heard a cry that deflated his hopes.

  "Shit! Quiteke is down!" Carbine called.

  "Sorry boss!" Quiteke managed through strained groans over the com. Jon looked back and saw that Quiteke had indeed crashed his Rider. His leg was pinned to the ground by the machine, and in his wounded state, he was struggling to upright the thing.

  "Leave him!" Max called. "He's already dead!"

  Fuck that. Jon kept to himself as he pulled hard on his bike, turning it around, then mashing the throttle, racing straight towards Quiteke and the onslaught of bugs.

  "Keep going! Head for that ridge, get to safety!" Jon ordered. Max did as he was told, speeding across the northern edge of the small valley and already beginning to climb up the western slopes of the hills they had come down from the night before. Carbine chose to ignore his friend and commanding officer, instead turning his bike around and slowing to a halt. Before Jon even realized what his friend had done, Carbine began to lob rocket-propelled grenades from the Rider's mounted launcher, one after the other, at the wave of approaching death, hoping to buy Jon some time at the worst, or split the wall into a V that would bypass them all, at best.

  Jon saw the first blast hit the ground between Quiteke and the living wall. The ground blossomed into a cloud of dirt and rock. Carbine’s shot had fallen short. The beetles slowed not a bit. Jon grimaced, doubled down on the throttle and raced towards his fallen man almost as fast the rockets that now flew in regular intervals over his head. Bits of carapace and liquefied guts mixed with fragmentation and flame flew through the air with each explosion. The grenades created small pockets in the living wall, but the swarm did not slow or deviate.

  It's going to be close. Jon watched with growing anxiety the closing of the gap between Quiteke and the bugs. There wouldn't be time for the rescue if he slowed down, so he didn't, instead making up his mind to ditch his bike and make their getaway on Quiteke's. His Easy-Rider jumped along at full speed, and as he neared the fallen private, Jon rose to standing on the pegs and leaped off, crashing into the ground near the pinned private. His bike rode on, riderless, maintaining its balance for another forty yards or so, and would have kept going, but struck a large rock and fell to its side. Jon scrambled to his feet and covered the short distance between him and Quiteke in a single breath.

  "Come on, soldier, I got you." Jon lifted the bike, freeing the young man. It was then he noticed the front tire was bent and shattered. He must have hit a sharp boulder or... The thought found him like an enemy's laser sight and carried with it the same dread certainty. Not today! Not today!

  Jon pushed the wrecked bike onto its other side and knelt behind it, coming to a position nearly on top of Quiteke. He unslung his Lawnmower and aimed the rushing bugs, whose numbers were still being reduced by Carbine's barrage. Just not by near enough.

  With a flick of his thumb, Jon switched the machine gun to fully automatic and let loose. Moving the rifle in short, controlled strafing motions side to side, he tried to concentrate his fire on the part of the swarm that would surely overrun him and Quiteke in less than a minute. The whole time he fired, he pumped round after round of mini-grenade into the throng with the church-key as well, adding to the artillery assist coming from Carbine. Jon could see the digital counter on the back of the rifle’s upper housing.

  Seventy-five percent... Seventy percent... The L.E.D.s counted down the rounds pelting the beetles' armored shells. Sixty percent... Fifty-five percent...

  Jon knew it was hopeless. His teeth felt like they would shatter under the pressure of his tightly clenched jaw. A hot tear of frustration traced its way down his cheek under the helmet’s visor, which even now reflected the horrible visage of a giant insect as it bore down upon them.

  Forty percent... Thirty-five percent.

  "Carbine, go! It's not too late for you!" Jon screamed as he pumped the last mini-grenade into the wall as it loomed over him.

  "No way, Jon! Jon!" Carbine shouted back and opened fire with his rifle, the Rider having run out of RPGs.

  Twenty percent... Fifteen percent...

  Jon's rifle clicked just as the swarm reached his fallen Rider.

  Empty...

  His bike disappeared under the flashing multitude of the short, spindly legs that darted out from under the armored carapaces. This is it... Jon reached around behind him and plucked the single hand-held grenade off his webbing.

  Come and get me. Like a man on death row walking the gauntlet, Jon slowly and deliberately pulled the pin and held the handle against the grenade in his clenched hand. It would be his dying act. Time seemed to slow down; the giant bugs were so close that Jon could see a hundred images of himself, staring down his fate, reflected in the huge alien eyes of the beetles. And now... Jon closed his eyes and waited for the impact when a sound akin to a Republic transport lifting off began to wail. His body was rocked back, not by the crushing impact of a rampaging beetle, but by a blast of preternatural wind.

  He opened his eyes to witness a miracle. A glowing dome was forming not twenty yards in front of Jon and Quiteke. It was brilliant yellow and expanding outward, pushing the beetles away from Jon and Quiteke, like a large boulder in the center of a rushing river. The current of the swarm parted around this growing hemisphere of force. It seemed to be both the source of the sound and the wind. It continued to grow, nearly to the size of a Mecha hangar in the Ziggurat. Jon watched, mesmerized, forgetting even to replace the pin in the grenade, but thankfully maintaining his clutch on the handle. He stared in utter disbelief as the swarm parted and went by, leaving them all unharmed. By the time the glowi
ng dome had grown enough for its edges to reach and kiss the frame of the Easy-Rider Jon had been using for cover, the beetles had gone past and were disappearing into the northern hills, leaving only trails of destruction in their wake. Both the high-pitched whine of the force dome and the rumble of the stampede began to fade. Likewise, the light of the dome dimmed exponentially. A moment later, the dome, like the swarm, had vanished.

  "Oh my..." Jon failed to find the words. Blinking, he nearly forgot the grenade and then fumbled the pin back into its home.

  "I can't believe…" Quiteke uttered as he sat up and took in what Jon was gawking at.

  Standing in the field where the swarm had been moments earlier, looking as confused and lost as Jon and Quiteke, were the roughly one hundred missing villagers.

  007

  THE SETTING SUN silhouetted the mountains in the west and cast long shadows across the prairie where the 51st made their camp. Amidst the deepening gloam, two infantrymen stood guard on the southern perimeter, maybe a half-klick away from the main group.

  "Got any plans for Holiday?" one asked the other.

  Bart, the taller and older of the two men, looked at his companion with amusement on his face. "Plans? What? You been making day trips to the Shanty for Weaver or something? Boy, we deployed, we ain't got time for plans, or Holiday. The best we can hope for is to see some of that good action when the Purge happens. Give me some of that jerky."

  The younger soldier offered his colleague the plastic pouch of dried meat. "What do you mean?"

  "Shiiiiiit, you ain't heard?" Bart scoffed. "Word from the Colonel is the Chairman means to finally do something about the refugees. Clean house, so to say."

  "Clean house?"

  "Man, you dumber than you look. It means—" The older soldier stopped talking and whipped his head to the south. "You hear something?"

  As if they suddenly remembered that they were meant to be on watch, they replaced the beef jerky in their hands with their rifles, raising them to firing position.

  At first, they saw only dim shapes in the silence, then they both heard it. Voices. Human voices, it sounded like. Soft murmuring riding in on the cold night wind.

  "Sounds like someone's coming!" Eric hissed, nervous excitement in his voice.

  "Yeah..." Bart mused, then lowered his rifle. He looked at Eric and nodded. Knowing what to do, the two men silently moved into action, putting distance between themselves and working to both find cover and establish a crossfire.

  Once in position, Bart returned his rifle’s optics to his eye and proceeded to scan the growing darkness for the source of the on-again, off-again voices on the wind. Then he saw movement in the periphery. Finger edging to the trigger, he moved his gun to focus on the motion.

  "I'll be dunked in honey and rolled in shit," he mumbled to himself in awe. Then, calling out to Eric over the com, "It's a couple of ours. And it looks like they have the missing villagers with them."

  "The villagers? How many?"

  "From what I can tell, all of them."

  When Jon and his squad escorted the villagers to the 51st's encampment, they were met by two soldiers. One of them, the older of the two, approached Jon, who was leading the throng, with open hands, mumbling half-formed questions. "What…? How…?"

  Ignoring his ramblings, Jon saluted the man and gave him some orders.

  "Sergeant, please run on ahead and alert Command of our arrival. These people are hungry, cold, and tired. They have been through hell. So have we. We have several wounded among us, civilian and otherwise."

  The man gaped at him.

  "Go on, Sergeant."

  Jon's force of presence motivated the man out of his stupor. "Come on, Eric!" the man yelled to his companion, and they rushed off ahead.

  Half an hour later, Jon led the people into the camp. As they approached the perimeter and the ring of Heavies positioned along it, Jon waved at the men standing here and there, all looking at him with confused faces. He’d been expecting a bit more of a hero's welcome, to be honest.

  "Why is everyone looking at us like we just walked out of a Drop?" Carbine asked quietly as he moved up alongside his friend.

  "I was just starting to wonder the same thing myself."

  Leaving the Heavies behind, they soon entered the rows of tents that constituted the camp proper. The commotion had drawn a crowd, and soon Jon was approached directly by two men. He recognized them both; one was the older sergeant from the perimeter, Bart, and the other he knew from two days earlier. It was the officer who had been manning the grill in the Colonel's command tent, Captain Jackson.

  "What's going on here, soldier?" Captain Jackson asked.

  "Captain, Lieutenant Jon 310-257 reporting in. My team and I have successfully rescued the missing villagers and have also dispatched the Invasives responsible for their disappearance," Jon reported proudly. Jackson gave Jon a look of concern. Not understanding the man's confusion, he continued, "We require medical assistance—we only had so many medi-bots—as well as blankets and food."

  The man made no move, nor did he speak. Concern and confusion began to replace pride and urgency within Jon.

  "Sir?" Jon begged for a response.

  Finally, almost smiling, the man spoke. "I think you’d better come with me." The man stepped to the side and gestured for Jon to follow him.

  "With all due respect sir, we have wounded among us. And it was a long walk. There are thirsty—"

  "I said come with me, Lieutenant," the man barked without looking back.

  "Max, you and Quiteke stay with the civilians. See what you can do. Carbine, come with me."

  They followed Jackson into the command tent, which looked about the same as it had the other night and headed towards the backside.

  "Captain, if I may?" Jon began but stopped short when the officer raised his open hand, again without turning around. The man reached the far end of the large pavilion and held open the flap.

  "The Colonel is here. Report to him," Jackson said. He watched Jon and Carbine coolly as they moved past him into a grassy field beyond, then released the flap and moved in behind them.

  The field was small, not really a field at all, just an open space in the center of the camp, the backs of a dozen large support tents ringing the perimeter. Opposite of where Jon stood was a path leading into the clearing wide enough to fit a tank, which contained a primitive wagon along with four strange-looking hairy beasts of burden. Jon was instantly reminded of over-sized cows, only with hair that draped off them like curtains and dragged on the earth, causing the tips to become dread-locked and clumped with mud. Standing in the center of the field, illuminated by a handful of halogen light-plants that drowned out the rising moon, stood the Colonel and a dozen armed and armored infantrymen. At their feet kneeled six or seven humanoids, dressed in animal skins with empty burlap provision bags over their heads, save one. The unhooded creature instantly repulsed Jon. Clearly an Invasive, its skin was rippled in huge fat rolls and was a sickly shade of pale blue, and embossed with large boils and tumor-like bulges. Its face glistened in the bright light and Jon could see that it was slick, covered in a waxy mucus.

  The soldier standing closest to the Colonel held an N-Tab in his hands, and as Jon approached, he could hear a robotic translation of the creature’s froggy babbling projecting from the device.

  "We have not committed any crime. We are simply traders. We mean no harm." The digitalized monotone of the N-Tab contrasted with the frantic croaks and physical agitations of the Invasive, who was clearly in a near panic. "We only wish to trade our goods. Please."

  "Goods that you stole from human lands. Unless you think I'm dumb enough to believe you brought all that fish and firewood with you through the Drop?" the Colonel responded to the Invasive, not having noticed Jon and Carbine’s presence yet. "Now, I'm gonna ask you one more time: what did y'all do with the farmers? Did you bury them after you stole their wares? Or did you savages eat them?"

  "No. Please." The cre
ature raised its webbed hands in a conciliatory gesture and began to shake. The N-Tab continued to translate its pleas in short, stabby syllables.

  "That's what you did, isn't it? You killed them all so you could sell the fruits of their labor!" The Colonel now leaned over and grabbed the creature by one of its slippery neck rolls, pinched hard with his entire fist and twisted. The blue frog man croaked in pain; the N-Tab, trying to translate the cry, said, "Error."

  "Sir. I don't mean to interrupt, but I'm happy to report that these... beings, are not the ones responsible for the disappearance of the farmers. They are innocent, of that crime at least." The Colonel and several of the infantrymen looked up as Jon closed the distance. Smiling with satisfied pride, Jon continued, "Lieutenant Jon 310-257 reporting in."

  "Well. If it ain't the new guy," the Colonel said, releasing his vice-like grip on the Invasive’s neck flesh. Jon saluted formally, but the cocky grin remained on his face.

  Ignoring the salute, the Colonel asked, "Whaddaya mean, these Drop-trash are innocent?"

  "Sir! My squad and I have rescued the missing civilians. A new type of Harvester had captured them, we believe."

  "New type, eh?" The Colonel's face screwed up like he smelled something rotten.

  "Yes, sir," Jon continued. "The Harvester had trapped them somehow in a small glass sphere." At this, Colonel Taylor stiffened. His brow crinkled and his lips pursed.

  "I noticed the phenomenon and was bringing the sphere back to you when we had a run-in with some Drop-Beasties. Two of our Easy-Riders got destroyed by the stampede and, well, I assume the sphere got smashed as well. The next thing we knew, there was a glowing light. When the light faded, all the civilians that had been trapped inside were free. Cold, tired, and hungry, but otherwise alive and healthy. They are on the edge of camp, with my men. I have requested that they receive medical attention, food, and blankets. One of mine is wounded too. And... we lost Private Lunk."