The Goddess Gambit

by B Michael Stevens

  014

  CHAIRMAN ACCOBA WARBAK leaned in close and squinted his eyes, visualizing the change before he made it so. Yes, that will do just fine, he thought to himself as he imagined how, once cut off at this junction, the plant would sprout off in a new, upward direction. The sharp angle of the new growth would complement the look he was going for. A look of climbing, reaching. Slow spread at the bottom, followed by a dramatic turn towards the heavens. A look of Manifest Destiny.

  Satisfied with his decision, Warbak carefully reached in between the branches with his small shears, and, finding the spot he had focused on, trimmed off the branch. As he placed the scissors down on the small workbench near him, he first sensed the presence, then heard the approaching footsteps, of Matiaba, his most trusted aide.

  "Do you know why I cut off perfectly healthy parts of the plants, Matiaba?" Warbak asked without turning around. He picked up a small brush and an equally small lidless canister, filled halfway with sealant—a sticky, tar-like substance.

  "Because you can, sir?" the aide ventured, coming close yet stopping several paces away from his leader and the two Spartan robots that stood guard over him.

  Warbak laughed. "A good answer! Very true! But no, that is not why I do it." Warbak dipped the small brush into the black goo and then gently brushed the stuff onto the open wound of the newly severed branch of the bonsai tree. "I do not simply because I can, but because I should. Because I must." Finished with his task, Warbak placed the bottle of sealant and brush down next to the scissors and turned to face his aide, a wild look in his eye. "You see, Matiaba. If I were to simply open the rooftop, ignore this tree and all the others; if I were to let nature run its course and take over; if I were to let the plants run amok, then eventually they would not only make a mess of things around here.” Warbak gestured broadly to the greenhouse and the forested garden beyond. "They would disrupt the harmony of the garden, choke out the pagoda, making it uninhabitable. They would take over, and eventually, they would kill themselves, growing too big for their containers. Become too heavy in their ambitious growth and, unable to support their own weight, fall over. But, before they killed themselves off, rest assured they would kill off the other natural plants that occupied this garden before them. That is the true and vile nature of an invasive species, Matiaba. That is why I must guide them with my hand. Shape them, prune them. Cull them."

  Matiaba gulped unconsciously at the darkness in Warbak's words. He alone knew how far Warbak's plans went. It was a good speech, he'd give him that, and like his Chairman, he too believed that the Invasives must be strictly controlled. And, like a weed, if they became too difficult to manage, must be pulled up by the root and destroyed. A small thing when one takes into consideration the purity of the garden and the well-being of the plants that belong in it. But when one applied the same philosophy and methods to the human race... Are we going too far?

  "Enough idle chatter." Warbak's demeanor changed as briskly as the subject. He brushed his hands on a nearby towel hanging from the workbench, then asked, "I know you didn't come here to discuss the virtues of bonsai gardening. So, what is it?"

  "Well, sir..." Matiaba gulped again and nervously watched the closest Spartan as it shifted in place to study him. "Alarms have been sounded within the Ministry of Social Purity."

  Warbak raised one eyebrow while simultaneously narrowing the opposite eye. "Lily Sapphire? Has she somehow compromised the Cage?"

  "Um, no, sir. It would appear that a small group of heavily armed esoterrorists have infiltrated the Ziggurat."

  "Impossible!" Warbak hissed.

  "I assure you, sir, the situation is real. A Hopper unit is currently engaged with them. I can pull up the battle on the CCT—"

  "Do it!" Warbak seemed to close the distance between them in a single stride. He suddenly seemed taller, more menacing. Matiaba could smell the aroma of the plants he had been tending on him as he hastily produced his personal N-Tab and punched up the feed to the Ministry’s prison ward.

  Warbak watched the combat in icy silence, and when his eye caught something of specific interest, he touched the screen on the N-Tab, engaged manual control of the ceiling-mounted camera and, dragging his finger, redirected the focus of the surveillance.

  Matiaba stole a glance down at the N-Tab which he held firmly for his leader. On the screen was a man, in Republic Army battle uniform no less, wielding a glowing hammer of some kind, dismantling the walls of the Anti-Strange Cage like they were made of paper and freeing Lily Sapphire, enemy of the State.

  "That hammer... Could it be? The one Umbra spoke of?" Warbak mumbled dreamily out loud, though more to himself than to his aide. Alertness and mad passion returned to Warbak with all the fierceness and swiftness of a lightning strike. "When was the last time Colonel Taylor checked in?" he demanded of Matiaba.

  "This morning, sir. Zero-six-hundred. Same time as always." Matiaba flinched upon hearing himself speak this last bit. It sounded worse than he had meant it, and if Warbak were of the mind to be offended, it certainly would give him ample ammunition to wage that war. He held his breath and waited for his Chairman's response.

  "And, where are they?" Warbak asked.

  Matiaba breathed a sigh of relief and reported, "They are still one day out from the southern sky-bridge checkpoint."

  "Patch me through to them. Now."

  Lucy backflipped out of the way of half the volley of missiles while shooting her BFG into the rest, causing them to explode prematurely. She landed on one knee and was pushed back across the floor by the concussion of the explosions in front of her, but she maintained her balance. Despite her uncanny talent at combat and having just dodged an entire volley of missiles, she didn't see the plasma disc come in from a different Hopper unit circling above, and it struck her in the left shoulder. There was no force from the disc’s impact, but it effectively cut into and through her cybernetic body, severing the hydraulic controls of her upper left arm and sending bits of her body scattering across the floor. Her body sent her brain messages to let her know she had been damaged, but she felt no pain.

  Carbine had been knocked out inside his suit from the impact of his crash. He came to just in time to see Lucy get hit. He thought the suit into action and came up into a kneeling position, drawing the attention of two of the Hoppers. He swiveled his railgun on one quicker than it could alter its current speeds and trajectories and squeezed a shot off. The railgun’s slug hit the Hopper square in its center of mass and crumpled it in on itself like it were an aluminum can. What was left of the Hopper went spinning through the air, leaving a spiraling, trailing mist of mechanical fluids and blood.

  "You're gonna pay for that!" Carbine heard Hegna's voice shout out.

  Damn. Carbine cursed his choice of which unit to fire upon first. He didn't have to look to know that he was being targeted from behind; his gut told him that death was coming from above, and coming soon. He braced for the impact of the missiles, but it didn't come. When he heard Jon's voice screaming Hegna's name, he turned around just in time to watch Jon leap from the catwalk of the floor he was on, near the ceiling.

  Jon flew through the air, hammer held high. His trajectory and timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Jon brought his hammer down in front of his falling body and struck his target. The flight pack mounted on the Hopper's back cracked open like a walnut shell. Jon himself bounced off the body of the Hopper like a ricochet while what remained of the Hopper unit spun, head over heels, straight into the wall-door of one of the holding cells on the far side of the courtyard. A white cloud of dust and smoke signaled the Hopper’s resting place.

  Jon landed on his back, denting the floor beneath him. He was stunned for a moment, but not broken, not by any means. A normal man, even a New Breed, would have been splattered from such a fall, but Jon only felt bruised. He lay there, skin glowing softly again as it had during his transformation.

  The glow faded, and Jon recovered enough to climb to his feet. He surveyed the roo
m and saw that two Hoppers remained, circling above. His leap of faith had worked to further distract the remaining Hoppers, and Jon could see in the corner of his eye that Maya and Wyntr were still safely high above the ruckus.

  "Jon, I think there is another lift behind that blast door!" Carbine shouted. He needn't explain further; Jon instantly understood the implications. If Carbine was right, they could make their getaway, right here and now, without having to backtrack across this level of the Zigg and possibly meeting heavy resistance. Jon knew that this Hopper squad was only the beginning and that they’d gotten here alone first only because they could move so much faster than the infantry, which, both light and heavy, were undoubtedly on their way.

  Another Hopper turned about and decided to pick up where Hegna had left off, moving in for a strafing run against the Mini-Mech.

  It's do or die, Carbine thought to himself and aimed his railgun straight at the Hopper's torso, his line of sight flanked by the two synchronized volleys of missiles that had just sprung forth from the Hopper's wing pods. Carbine fired off a single round. The sheer ridiculous speed of the slug that passed right between the two volleys of missiles creating a turbulent vacuum that pulled the incoming projectiles close to each other and caused the missiles to collide and detonate each other before the slug itself continued on, into and through. The front of the Hopper suit collapsed in on itself, and an exit wound on the back became the egress for the human contents of the suit to follow the super-sonic slug and spray across the wall behind it.

  "Nice shooting, Tex," Carbine heard Lucy say as she rose from a kneeling position. She glanced up and saw her Lady and a little girl, who was hiding behind the goddess, peeking out from a jail cell. For the first time since he’d met her, Carbine saw Lucy smile a genuine smile of joy and relief.

  "Reinforcements will be here any second. We have to figure out a way out of this!" Jon shouted as he closed the gap between him and the blast wall. "Cover me!" he added, knowing that one more Hopper remained in the fight.

  Leave that to me.

  He heard Maya's voice in his head again, just like at the concert. He stopped his charge and looked up to her and watched as she held Wyntr's hand and helped pull her up onto the railing that Jon had jumped from.

  "Wait! Don't!" was all Jon could manage before Maya smiled her adorable smile and, hand in hand with Wyntr, stepped off. Jon put his free hand out as if to stop it or plead with the universe not to let it be and froze in awe and wonder as both girls floated gently down as if they rode an invisible elevator.

  "Carbine! Cover them!" Lucy barked as she emptied yet another clip of her BFG at the lone remaining Hopper. Carbine joined her, firing off two rounds, but missing each time.

  The Hopper's speakers crackled to life. "Try harder, punk!" Jon and Carbine both recognized the voice. The remaining soldier was none other than Chad.

  Abandoning the blast door for now, Jon ran over to where he anticipated Maya and Wyntr would land. He arrived on the spot just as they touched down, soft as an angel's kiss, on the cold steel floor of the courtyard.

  "You're... you're amazing," Jon muttered as he took her free hand in his. Then, more urgently, he added, "Come on. We have to get you out of here."

  Carbine and Lucy both continued to pummel Chad, and although neither of them scored a direct hit on the ace flyer, he quickly changed his tune from one of taunting cockiness to one of retreat and survival. In desperation, Chad loosed a wild volley of mini-missiles, which slammed into the ground near the entrance, kicking up shrapnel and dust, covering his escape as he sped off down the entrance corridor towards safety.

  "He'll be back, and with others," Jon announced. "Quickly, let's get that thing of Ratt's set up."

  Lucy grabbed her dangling and now useless arm with a good one and moved it out of the way so she could saddle her war-club. Once done, she fished the holo-device out of the dump pouch strapped to her left thigh. In one impressive leap, she hopped back up onto the now smoking landing near the entrance to the massive chamber. She knelt and went about setting up the device that would hopefully keep their assailants occupied while they made a clean getaway.

  Jon quickly made sure that Maya and Wyntr were alright and then raced back over to the blast door and began to hammer away at it. To his dismay, he not only couldn't punch through but was barely denting it.

  Lucy was finishing the setup of Ratt's device when she heard the deep bass rumble of nearby engines. "Get ready," she said to everyone.

  Jon stopped in his hammering and assessed the damage—or rather, the lack of damage—to the door.

  We're trapped in here, with an entire company of infantry and Hoppers closing in.

  Lucy leaped back off the landing just as holographic doppelgangers of Jon, Carbine, and Lucy appeared. Realistic not only in appearance, they were cunningly deceptive in their mannerisms and behaviors. The holographic heroes took cover at the corners of the chamber's entrance, just as Carbine had done earlier, and then took turns peeking out and shooting holographic ammo down the corridor.

  "That should hold them off for a minute," Lucy announced.

  "Yeah, but only for a minute. They are gonna figure out pretty quick that the incoming fire isn't hurting anyone or anything," Carbine complained, a hint of panic in his voice.

  On the far end of the hallway, Chad regrouped with the new arrivals—two packs of Scrubbers, sixteen fire-team infantry guards and two more six-man Hopper squads.

  "They are down here. One of the traitors is in a Pre-Storm Mini-Mech suit. It's thick and packs a punch. Hit it with your missiles. The other only has a hammer. Damn fool. With them is some kinda robot bitch. She looks mean. Five or six of you engage her at once and take her out in a crossfire. They have two prisoners with them. A girl and—"

  "Sir!" one of the infantrymen cut Chad off, just as a shot rang past them. "They are on us!"

  Chad spun and saw the trio of terrorists at the far end of the corridor, each quickly popping in and out of view and taking shots at him and his reinforcements.

  "Engage! Fire at will!" Chad shouted and took cover himself, denying his men one of the two corners.

  "I'm never going to get through this," Jon grumbled out loud. "Carbine, you think maybe you can?" Jon let the question hang in the air. While Jon had no doubt the railgun could penetrate the shielded door, he did doubt whether or not a super-sonic slug, even a sequence of super-sonic slugs could create a hole big enough for a person to squeeze through, let alone the Mini-Mech itself. Besides, all those sonic booms may throw disbelief on our illusion quicker than we want.

  Before Carbine could respond, the party were all surprised as the shield door slid back open of its own accord. As the heavy plate retracted into the ceiling once again, it revealed the large service doors, which too were opening, exposing what looked to be a janitorial worker.

  Always on guard, Lucy brought her pistol to bear, taking the new arrival flat-footed.

  "I surrender!" the man said meekly, not putting up a single ounce of fight. A mop and bucket rested on the lift floor next to him, and his hands reached for the ceiling.

  "Out, now," Lucy ordered, and she trailed the man out of the room beyond with her pistol. "Lay down, face first, cross your hands behind your head," she barked. The man complied. Jon was shocked that Lucy seemed intent on letting the man live, but he dared voice neither complaint nor compliment, just let it happen and ushered the rescued women towards the service door.

  The room beyond the door turned out to be what Carbine had originally suspected: another lift. Jon made one last look over his shoulder to the standoff between the Republic forces and the holographic copies of him and his companions.

  "They haven't figured it out yet," Jon said. "Now is our chance."

  Jon was tense the entire way down; with every breath he drew he fueled the nervous anticipation of the attack that was sure to come. In contrast, Maya seemed cool and calm.

  Maybe it's just an act for the child. Maybe not.

&n
bsp; Three times. Three times Chad had watched Rene poke the bulk of the Mini-Mech out from behind the shattered corner and duck back behind. Three times he had failed to properly anticipate the timing and therefore get a shot off. This time he would be ready. This time he would stay in the open and already have his sights on the spot just to the right of the ruined wall. When the reject traitor showed up, he would light him up with a massive volley of missiles. He knew it wouldn't matter if the punk managed to get back around the corner before the missiles cleared the hall, for all he needed was a visual target. Once set, the Smart-Lok missiles would follow Carbine around the corner and into the depths of hell where traitors like him were destined to spend eternity.

  This one is for you, Hegna.

  Chad bravely moved his Hopper unit out into the open, eyes forward, Smart-Lok up and ready, finger barely pressing the trigger, hungrily waiting to finish its purpose. However, when his eyes caught motion, it was in the periphery, and not directly ahead where he had anticipated. From the corner opposite of Carbine's place of peekaboo, the black-clad ninja bitch popped out, massive pistol in hand. Before he could even pull his eyes away from the empty space they were focused upon, Chad registered the flash of Lucy's muzzle. Shifting his gaze slightly, he caught the blur in the air directly in front of him, just before the round impacted his faceplate. Or should have. The blow never came. What?

  Unable to shake the conviction of his hypothesis, Chad threw all caution to the wind and turned around. Had the shot missed him somehow? Based on the angle, if that were true... To Chad's left, in front and behind, the smooth, unbroken wall of the hallway stretched out before him. No bullet hole or damage at all. The realization in Chad's mind exploded like a flash-bang of clarity.