The Goddess Gambit

by B Michael Stevens

  Although they might...

  Taylor wondered for a second where Umbra and his alien brood had gotten to, but quickly realized there wasn't fuck-all he could do about it. Shrugging, he turned his Heavy from the burning slum below to the smoking tip of the north-eastern obelisk.

  "There you are, you little faggot." The screen on the back of the Heavy’s cockpit hatch came alive with a super-zoomed-in image of the rogue Hopper. Cameras tracked the flying power armor flawlessly, and digital squares framed it on screen.

  "You gon' learn today." Taylor gripped the fire-control joystick and with a flick of his thumb sent a single high-powered laser blast out of the Mech's shoulder-mounted cannon and into the Hopper. Scowling, Taylor noticed that the rebel-jock had turned slightly at the last moment. The laser beam did not skewer the pilot as he had hoped, but it had blown a hole in the power armor's engines the size of a pre-Storm basketball. "That'll do," Taylor mumbled and nodded his approval as the Hopper raced to the ground like a falling star.

  Zoomed in as his HUD was, he had an almost perfect view of the base of the Ziggurat after the falling Hopper crashed, a goodly portion of it obscured by the highway he was on. To his amazement, the ground-level doors began to slide open. The doors had long been sealed off to prevent esoterrorist attacks on the supply chain and to stop unwanteds from gaining entry into the city.

  Have the goddamned terrorists hot-wired the city gate? Taylor wondered in shock. Out here, he could send them packing till the cows came home, but if the battle moved inside the city, Heavies would be taken out of the equation, and that would be no bueno.

  Then he saw the Spartans. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they filled the space that the open gate created. Once the doors were fully open, the Spartans rushed out into the Shanty, shooting everyone and everything they saw.

  "Well, hell's bells. Looks like the cavalry has arrived." Assuming that Chairman Warbak had decided on a scorched earth policy if capturing the souls of the filth in the Shanty was not possible, then wiping every living soul out seemed like a reasonable plan B. Taylor decided to join in on the fun. He walked his Mech back over to the edge of the highway and resumed teaching the rebels what 'Death from Above' was all about.

  020

  MAYA FOLLOWED Ratt inside the small antechamber and slid the door closed behind her. She heard the sound of fighting breaking out in the throne room, the telltale riiip of her guardian's over-sized pistol, followed by an explosion, and then the closing door jerked deeper into the wall of its own accord, made a hissing sound and sealed itself. All sound from the throne room vanished. Ratt noticed the change also.

  "Must be more than wood and paper," he mused aloud.

  "Mm-hmm," Maya agreed as she scanned the room.

  As expected, the room was small, roughly one-fifth the size of the total floor plan. Also as expected, the room featured a large computer terminal. The machine sat in the center of the floor, with just enough space around it for the pair to walk. From the computer, a large needle-like protrusion rose and passed up into the ceiling, possibly beyond.

  "Must be the antenna," Ratt said, adjusting his goggles with the tip of his index finger.

  "Indeed. That is exactly what it is."

  The voice was soft, deep and disembodied. Maya and Ratt both started and instinctively crouched, hands raising defensively. In front of them, just out of reach beside the computer terminal, a form began to materialize out of nothing. Before the dramatic entrance was complete, Maya recognized the figure.

  "Warbak," Ratt said. "But we left you back—"

  "Come now, young man. Do you think Miss Sapphire here— I'm sorry, Miss Maya here, is the only person that can shape Strange?"

  Maya knew this and had mentioned it to her inner circle back in the Vault, but shock still played across Ratt's face. He was no doubt struggling with the dissonance of a Strange-shaping tyrant who had waged a pogrom against anyone that came from a Drop or could shape Strange themselves.

  "Like finding out Hitler was Jewish?" Warbak asked Ratt, smirking and raising one eyebrow. Ratt's face paled another two shades.

  "It's over, Accoba," Maya interrupted, putting an end to his toying with Ratt. "We've come to fix what you've done."

  "I'm afraid that is where you are quite wrong. Even now, your guardian is being torn apart by my Spartans. She won't survive, of course. I do hope they leave enough of her intact that I may dissect her and discover how exactly you broke my hold over her."

  "We can all die up here, and we will still have won," Maya said.

  "Oh? You must be referring to that little stunt outside. Well, I have it on good authority that your boyfriend has just been shot down." Warbak tapped the side of his head and smiled devilishly. "And while he has freed the majority of souls from the orbs, a veritable army of Spartans is marching on the Shanty as we speak. No one will be spared."

  "What about the last gen? The loyal citizens you betrayed?" Ratt asked, shaking a clenched fist.

  Warbak chuckled. "Yes, yes. They are a bit of a problem. Luckily, they are all too stunned to understand what happened, what I have done. I can blame it on esoterrorists, like... you, for example. They will believe everything I tell them, of course."

  Maya found herself wishing that she had a weapon, something, anything that could take Warbak out. Rage bubbled up from within her and blurred her eyes with frustrated tears.

  "The only real loose end is you, my dear." Warbak stepped forward, smile gone. A look of anger shadowed his face, he frowned deeply and furrowed his brow. "Who are you? What is so special about you? What did Umbra want with you?"

  "You should know," Maya said defiantly. "You already raped my mind."

  "That?" Warbak stopped mid-step and burst out in a hearty belly-laugh. "That was just foreplay. A dainty caress. This, this my dear, is what mind-rape is." Warbak shot his arm out, hand open, fingers spread like a claw. An arcing tendril of white light shot from the palm of his hand to Maya's forehead. She was instantly paralyzed. The line of light between them began to retract back into Warbak's hand, effectively reeling Maya in. She was ever so slightly raised up, and her dangling toes scraped across the floor, only coming back down to the ground once she was firmly in Warbak's grip.

  Maya screamed as Warbak penetrated her mind. His Strange pierced her defenses like a dagger of ice. She hadn't had the time to prepare like before, and Warbak had told the truth: this time, he was much less gentle.

  Ratt yelled and bravely raised the multi-tool he had strapped to his wrist, hoping to use it as a weapon. Without looking or breaking his efforts with Maya, Warbak flicked out his other hand, casually, in Ratt's direction. The kid was lifted off the ground by an invisible hand and flung, hard, into the wall. Knocked unconscious by the blow, he slumped to the floor like a mudslide down the western mountains.

  "Now it's just you and me," Warbak leered and pressed his psychic assault. He wasn't probing for intel as he had been the first time. He wasn't snooping, or prying, or looking for anything at all. He was a rampaging bull in a china shop. Crashing into things, destroying things. He was trying to cause as much pain and damage as possible. Tears of blood began to warm Maya's cheeks; her vision began to fade into shifting streaks of buzzing color, and her senses betrayed her.

  The pain was so unique, so extraordinary, so unlike anything Maya had ever experienced, that she began to blissfully grow numb to it. Retreating from the pain, Maya found herself in her own mind's eye. Naked, fetal, floating in a void of protective nothingness. Some hidden and remote corner of her consciousness. The last refuge. She went inside herself and felt warm, safe, a million kilometers away.

  But somehow, she still knew what must be happening outside. What her body must be enduring. Without touching it, without letting it in, she pictured the scenes in the room and beyond. Ratt tossed aside like a broken plaything; Lucy outnumbered, battling the Spartans; Jon possibly dead or dying somewhere; Miller and her people being overrun; Warbak melting her mi
nd and laughing victoriously.

  It must not be!

  She began to sing.

  The notes, unknown before, came to her like a gift of starlight from the heavens, slowly winking into existence, one at a time, until eventually the entire sea of the Milky Way could be seen. The notes became a tune, the tune became a symphony, the symphony then became a tidal wave. She felt it surge within her, felt its raw power, its connection to something ancient and powerful, the gift she had been given by her husband so long ago, the mantle of godhood.

  The Anvil...

  All at once, and without warning, she opened her inner doors, burst the bubble of her sanctuary and sent the flood of song rushing into Warbak.

  The world of matter came rushing back to her. She opened her eyes and saw the shock on Warbak's face.

  Now he was frozen in place, unable to pull his hand away from her. Without pity, without joy, Maya parted her lips and filled the room with the song of a million voices, the sound of creation itself. Reality bent and warped, oscillating with the preternatural tones. A light of pure white, made from all the colors in the spectrum, visible or otherwise, grew from inside Maya until she shone like the sun itself.

  Warbak screamed a soundless scream and then vaporized, fading away to nothingness as the bright, white light washed him out of existence.

  Abruptly, the song ended, and Maya collapsed to the ground, just as Ratt was coming to.

  He groggily shook his head and called out, "Maya?"

  Mustering every ounce of strength she had left, she tilted her head up slightly and whispered hoarsely, "Do it. Hurry."

  Understanding, Ratt pulled himself up and approached the terminal, cracking his fingers.

  Lucy danced atop a pile of metal bones, but still more skeletons came.

  There's too many of them!

  Her supplemental processors were in overdrive, enabling her six limbs to work in glorious, synchronized harmony: ducking, leaping, dodging, parrying, and counter-striking with everything at her disposal. With every second that passed, at least two more Spartans fell. Never stopping, never pausing, Lucy whirled and fought, like a force of nature, with all the fury and power of an avenging archangel.

  But still more came. Her tail was the first piece to go. A Spartan standing next to one of her targets sliced it cleanly off the second after it had pierced its victim. She felt no pain, but sensors registered the structural damage and made her aware of it, and quickly recalibrated themselves to adjust for the missing limb. Unyielding, she pressed the attack, spinning and rolling, avoiding as many of the Spartans’ attacks as possible. Still, several got through and hit their marks.

  A laser blast disabled one of her arms, one of her war-clubs dropped to the floor. Dammit. Lucy mourned the loss of yet another weapon, but soon another blast got in, penetrating her torso armor. She stumbled and slowed, diverting processor power to reroute full-body communications around the damaged parts and severed wires.

  The enemy kept coming. She knew she couldn't last much longer. Already the damage she had suffered had taken enough away from her that the Spartans were tipping the brawl in their favor. As if to prove the point, a Spartan managed to get behind her and rake its chrome claws across the back of her leg, even as she was decapitating another with her remaining Macuahuitl.

  Without cry or expression, Lucy fell to one knee. She took advantage of the motion and tucked herself into a roll, twisting as she came out, shooting the offending robot with her BFG. Its skeletal chest exploded, and it fell to the ground in three pieces.

  The small victory proved to be her last. Seeing her on the ground, with only one good leg, the Spartans nearest her jumped on her from all sides. Throwing their entire bodies against hers, effectively tackling her and pinning her limbs, preventing any counter-attack. The jaguar had been declawed.

  Lucy struggled for a moment, not feeling, but registering the claws as they cut into her metal body. She knew it was hopeless.

  Forgive me, my Lady, she thought and then ordered her processor to begin her self-destruct. A prompt appeared in her field of vision: BEGIN SELF DESTRUCT? YES? NO?

  Yes, she commanded, and instantly the prompt was replaced with a timer, counting down from sixty.

  She stopped her struggle and waited, satisfied that at least all the Spartans in the pagoda would be eliminated, and hoped that was enough for her Lady to escape safely.

  26, 25, 24, 23—

  Suddenly, the attacks stopped. The Spartans still lay piled on top of her, pressing her down, but they stopped their clawing and raking. Even from her cramped point of view, Lucy could see their red eyes begin to flicker. Then they began to twitch and shake, convulsing in epileptic fits.

  They did it! she realized. Abort self-destruct, abort self-destruct!

  Having stopped herself from detonating, Lucy pushed and pulled her way out of the dog-pile. She crawled out of the tangle of skeleton robots and watched in sheer amazement as they began to visibly blur. It was as if her eyes were having trouble focusing, except everything else in the room was perfectly clear. She first noticed the color change, in patches, and then, unbelievably, flesh seemed to grow out of thin air around the Spartans’ bones.

  Thank the goddess, only the intact ones revert, she thought as she studied the piles of Spartan parts that she had created. That would have been gruesome, even for me.

  Despite the loss of his engine and ability to thrust, Jon managed to glide his Hopper into a reasonably soft crash-landing, controlling his fall in a way that would have made the Academy instructors proud. Like a derailing train, the power armor plowed into the soft earth, piling dirt and stone up around it as it slowed to a halt. He pushed himself off the ground and stood. The action took more effort than it should, signaling that his Hopper was non-functional; he was fighting it every step of the way like a suit of lead. He pulled at the armor, unable to open it from inside as the HUD, the mental controls, everything was offline. Eventually, he managed to peel himself out of it and stepped into the smoke-clogged streets of the Shanty. Once free of the suit's confines, he scanned his surroundings and got his bearings.

  Evidence of the battle was everywhere. Smoking craters dotted the streets; flaming and collapsed buildings broke up the endless stream of hand-built and recycled dwellings. He looked up to the sky. One lone Hopper remained, although it only hovered in place, neither shooting nor being shot at.

  Hegna.

  Jon recalled the moment before he had been shot down. He had dropped the last payload of Weaver, hadn't he? He looked back at the remains of the Hopper and frowned. Both wings were missing. The wings must've broken off during the fall. Damn. Remarkably, however, his hammer was still attached to the broken Hopper's waist. He gave thanks, undid the lanyard and picked up the weapon.

  He remembered dropping the Weaver, but did it hit its target? He was shot out of the sky before he could confirm. Going to have to try to see from down here, he thought and began to jog down what was left of the street, hoping to get a better vantage point. He needed to see that the Weaver had hit its mark with his own eyes and find a way to destroy the orb.

  He heard the commotion before he saw it. Coming around a corner in the street where two relatively tall buildings—by Shanty standards—intersected, Jon beheld a bizarre scene that gave him pause.

  A plaza, or more accurately, a gap in the slum, lay before him. On the side nearest him, several citizens, mostly human, with one or two Displaced, crouched and huddled behind various objects, some behind cars, some behind chunks of ancient buildings. None of it was adequate cover to protect from plasma discs or missiles, but enough to stop conventional bullets. It was why they were taking cover that Jon didn't understand. Not at first.

  On the far side of the plaza stood the only apparent threat that the people were cowering from, only it wasn't much of a threat. Lined up, and looking incredibly confused, stood close to one hundred naked, unarmed humans.

  "What the heck did I miss?" Jon asked out loud, trying to wr
ap his brain around the incongruous scene.

  Then his eye caught a familiar face in the crowd, and he understood. His heart skipped a beat as he realized what it meant. Ratt had done it! He had somehow found a way!

  Carbine.

  Carbine could be alive, somewhere out there. Jon ran across the plaza to a person he recognized, drawing the attention of the cowering people. They murmured in confusion as they peeked out from behind their covers, and found the Spartan army replaced by naked men and women.

  "Quiteke!" Jon called as he approached the man.

  Quiteke looked up, eyes wide, hands covering his crotch. "Lieu-Lieutenant?" he stammered. "What is going on? How did I get here? I was in the motor pool—"

  "No time to explain. Do you trust me?" Jon looked straight into the young soldier's eyes without blinking.

  "Y-yes," Quiteke admitted. "You saved my life, sir. Twice. I'll never forget that."

  "Good." Jon nodded. "Listen. Warbak is insane. He is working with the Harvesters and needs to be stopped. He was going to kill everyone except New Breed. And all of them got turned into machines," Jon explained. "He is using Harvester orbs. Giant ones. There's one left, holding the souls of innocent people, Republic, and refugee alike!" Jon pointed to the last obelisk and the sphere atop it. Quiteke followed the line of Jon's finger, shrugged, and then asked, "What do we do?"

  For a moment, Jon said nothing, deep in thought. Then his face animated.

  "Where is your bike?"

  Vision returned to Miller ten times quicker than it had faded. It was as if someone had dimmed the lights slowly, then with one flick brought them back on to full in an instant. The Handler was still there, flanked by the two remaining Sniffers. The Handler had held the beasts back, so as to relish the psychic torture he was exacting on the leader of the Resistance. But the pain was gone; the presence of the Other was gone. Judging from his stunned and awkward body language, Miller assumed the Handler was as confused about the situation as he was.