by Dan Schiro
“Hit him again!” Zagzebski shouted.
The Briarhearts unleashed another barrage of pulse bolts, scorching the air. The creature took a few dozen at close range before it finally collapsed, twitched violently and fell still. Mercenaries panted all around Orion, and his dog stood tense against his side. For a moment, everyone remained still as if expecting the smoking shape to leap up with a roar. The wounded Briarheart — a human male — scooted on his backside away from the misshapen corpse, a hand clutched over the bloody stump of his elbow. Orion felt his spellblade yearning to drink from the young man’s life force, but he resisted.
“Let’s get this man some help, people,” Zagzebski shouted at the others, his voice echoing in the empty hanger. “Hattoir, Lomus, you’re Gold team’s medical sub-specialists, get to work!” A temba numbu and a great ape ran to their fallen comrade and started doctoring him with consulin putty and painkillers.
“Zag,” Orion said, “keep guns on both exits.”
As the big man grunted his assent, Orion glanced at his own team and motioned for them to follow. He crept toward the fallen creature in the light of his following datacube, a one-handed war axe ready just in case. Aurelia and Kangor moved to flank him, and Orion gave the prone lump of smoking flesh a gentle prod with his toe. When nothing happened, Orion vanished the weapon into his palm.
“Give me a hand,” he said to Kangor.
The two of them knelt down, taking hold of the pulse-scored flesh and twisted limbs. They rolled the terrifically heavy biped onto his hunched back, but Orion didn’t recognize him as any alien race he had ever encountered on the Maker Rings. His skin was uniformly light blue, and he wore only a soiled loincloth over a humanoid body deformed by grotesque muscles. Vacant black eyes with marble-like white pupils sat in a big-boned face reminiscent of Earth’s Neanderthal. He had gnarled white hair, and his skull crested back with a micro-encephalitic slope.
“What is it?” Orion muttered.
“Ugly,” Aurelia said, narrowing her bronze eyes.
Kangor sniffed. “An almost… plastic smell to him.”
Dalaxa jostled between them to get a look. “Oh no,” she gasped.
“You recognize this,” Orion said, more a statement than a question.
“Project Warflesh. We…” She shook her head, her pink eyes wide and her gaze transfixed. “I developed a template for growing biosynthetic soldiers. Amplified physiques, redundant organs, able to thrive on toxic battlefields.” Dalaxa put a hand to her temple and closed her eyes. “Programmed to follow orders, group into fighting forces, use anything they could get their hands on as a weapon. They could share information over the datasphere too, refining their combat algorithms with every fight. I was… quite proud of that last bit,” she added with a rueful note.
Orion glanced down at the biosynthetic creature and struggled to imagine how its poorly formed hands could manipulate a weapon, be it complex or simple. “And this is one of your biosynths?”
“We called them ‘manowars.’” She frowned and inspected the carcass again, this time with her usual analytical gaze. “And the blue skin was my signature. But…” She scoffed, suddenly indignant. “He’s butchered my design. They should have the bodies of gods, not this mess of vat flesh.”
Aurelia shook her head. “An army of unstoppable clones, and he only sent this one poor lump to greet us,” she said, voicing Orion’s thoughts almost exactly. “Just what is going on here?”
Kangor grunted thoughtfully. “Perhaps there is some sense to the Thinker’s madness. The Crimson Claw often used inhospitable worlds to harden vycart warriors.” He scratched at the orange tufts of fur on his wolfish face. “Though Tolomex takes that philosophy to the extreme.”
“Whatever this place is,” Orion said with a grimace, “we need to investigate.”
Zagzebski ordered two of the Briarhearts to take the wounded man back to the squad saucer and keep him stable. That cut their fighting force to 10 Briarhearts including Zagzebski, less than a third of the support Orion had counted on for their assault on the base. With cold dread spreading in his stomach, Orion called everyone together.
“Listen up,” he said as they gathered around him. “I don’t know why this place is wide open and undefended, one nasty science experiment aside, but we need to find out.” He gestured at the bent-back security door on the far side of the hangar. “We’re going to go in and sweep this place, and we’re going to stick together the whole way. If anyone even smells anything like a trap, speak up.”
Orion conjured a gleaming gladiator sword in his gauntlet-clad hand and brought Bully to his side with a whistle. Stepping through the door, he led the way into a bare corridor where white track lighting flickered along the ceiling. They tramped deep into the underground base, passing identical offshoot hallways every 25 feet, and then Kangor laid a heavy hand on Orion’s arm to stop their cautious progress.
“This too, I recognize,” he said, his voice a low growl as he leaned down to Orion. “A vycart occupation outpost.” He scanned the dented metal walls and high ceilings of the main corridor. “The factory planets used to pre-fabricate these units, all identical. An invading company could quickly erect these strongholds in a desert, on the side of a mountain, underwater.” Kangor raised his hands. “Even underground.”
“Well, buddy,” Orion said with a tip of his head, “you just got promoted to leading the way. Where’s the nerve center of this place?”
Kangor shot a nod down the dimly lit corridor. “The outposts were octagonal, upper levels for quartering soldiers, command levels deep beneath.” His lip curled as he seemed to think for a moment, perhaps trying to remember his own compulsory military service before the Crimson Claw faded from the galaxy. “If we keep on going straight, we’ll reach General Assembly. From there, we can make our way down.”
They moved faster now that they had a destination in mind, and soon they passed through a second smashed security door at the end of the corridor. Cautiously, they stepped out onto a mezzanine overlooking an octagonal space that stretched down several floors. Here too, lights flickered with the inconstant power of a dying generator. From the lower levels of the space, they heard guttural shouts, low moans and slapping feet.
“We can take the ramps down,” Kangor whispered, pointing at a hooded slope. “Four or five floors down, we’ll reach command.”
“Let’s go,” Orion said, his sword held at the ready. Yet as they neared the ramp down, another blue-skinned manowar came limping up it. He had the upper body of the god that Dalaxa had suggested, but his legs were shriveled and twisted. As the manowar propelled himself forward on huge hands, Orion realized the truth: these were the experiments that had fallen short, and that was why Typhus the Mad Thinker had left them behind.
“I got it,” Orion said as he dashed at the manowar, transforming his short sword back into a one-handed war axe. He hacked off the manowar’s huge fist as it swung at him, but the deranged creature seemed unfazed by the damage. Instead, the manowar threw a cross-body haymaker with his other hand. The unexpected blow cracked Orion in the side, and despite his bodysuit’s attempt to distribute the kinetic energy, he felt a rib give with an excruciating snap. He sprawled back, knocking two Briarhearts apart as they maneuvered for a clear shot.
“I’ve got it,” said Aurelia with a droll chuckle. A lance of green light blazed out of her extended index finger and poked a smoking hole through the manowar’s bulbous blue head. “There,” she said, propping her hands on her curving hips.
The manowar staggered for moment on his short legs and lone hand, and then he lunged after Orion before the Briarhearts could pull their triggers.
“The auxiliary brain,” Dalaxa cried as the dense blue flesh crashed down on Orion. “Kill the auxiliary brain, in the lower back!”
Oversized yellow teeth snapped inches from Orion’s face, and he gripped the biosynth’s neck
with all his strength to hold him off. He could smell burnt plastic from the hole Aurelia had bored in the manowar’s forehead, and viscous blue blood spattered him as the creature flailed at Orion with the stump of his wrist. As the weight atop him crushed the air out of his lungs, Orion morphed his spellblade war axe into a long rapier. He thrust the blade into the manowar’s stomach and out of his lower back, twisting until the biosynthetic soldier’s bulging black eyes fell still. Though his spellblade tried to draw life force from the manowar, Orion only felt a little sick, like a child who had eaten nothing but candy for dinner.
Orion took a shuddering breath as Kangor hauled away the heavy biosynth, and Bully nipped at his smartcloak trying to get him to his feet. Calling his weapon back, he stood and held a hand to his broken rib, scanning the half-light of the old vycart base. The noises from the shadowy lower floors of the octagonal assembly hall had grown louder, even frantic.
“We have to move,” Dalaxa hissed at him. “They’re programmed to rally to sounds of battle. Even as damaged as these manowars seem to—”
Before she could finish, a long-limbed, exceedingly skinny manowar clambered up over the half-wall that ringed the inside of the mezzanine. He had uneven arms and legs, an obscenely wide mouth stuffed with too many teeth and two beady, close-set black eyes. The manowar wailed at them with primal anger and leaped for the nearest Briarheart.
“Weapons free,” Zagzebski shouted, and the mezzanine lit with blue bolts as they drove the lanky creature back.
“You heard her, let’s move,” Orion yelled over the blazing pulse rifles. Conjuring his one-handed war axe again, Orion dropped into the White Room and placed his mind beyond the ache of his broken rib. “Go, go, go!”
He dashed for the mouth of the hooded ramp and the others followed. They fought their way down through the tiers of the assembly hall floor by floor, encountering one defective super soldier after another, each a new distortion in the funhouse mirror of black science. Orion, Kangor and Aurelia led the way in a devastating wedge, a fury of blade and claw and emerald energy that mowed down the biosynthetics in their path. Bully stayed close behind them, guarding the s’zone weapon scientist in case anything got through their wedge. Zagzebski and his Briarhearts brought up the rear as they ran from one ramp to the next, firing frantically to hold off the growing crowd of manowars pursuing them. As they neared the lowest level of the octagonal hall, the way ahead finally looked clear. Then, as Orion charged toward the final ramp, a pair of manowars leaped from a dark hallway and grabbed one of the Briarhearts behind him.
The young mystskyn man screamed and Orion spun back, his coiled body ready to sprint into the fray with his blue-spattered axe swinging. Yet as the manowars tried to tear the Briarheart limb from limb, he reached into his vest and yanked out a small black cylinder. The manowars chasing them joined the tussle over the screaming mystskyn, and Orion saw him pull a pin from the cylinder with his teeth before he disappeared in the pile of blue flesh.
“Get down, get down,” Orion cried as he dove and knocked Dalaxa to the floor.
The thunderous explosion splintered the prefabricated mezzanine and filled the air with choking dust. For a few moments, Orion heard only a high, keening ring in his ears. Then he felt the body beneath him wriggle, and he realized Dalaxa was screaming. Orion scrambled to his feet, yanking her up with him.
“You’re okay,” he shouted at her, holding her by the shoulders.
She coughed for a few moments and seemed to compose herself. “What?” She looked around, squinting at the cloudy air. “I’m okay, I’m okay,” she said as she shook away his grip.
Orion scanned the clearing mezzanine, his broken rib flaring with renewed agony as his mind lost its hold on the White Room. Kangor helped Aurelia up off the ground, and Bully threw the dust from his black wrinkles with a few vigorous shakes. In the other direction, the grenade had rocked the prefabricated mezzanine out of joint and shredded biosynthetic and organic bodies indiscriminately. It seemed the Briarheart’s desperate gambit had killed all but one of the mob following them, and that manowar crawled in the other direction with his exposed ribcage trailing spindly synthetic organs. The explosion had also claimed two Briarhearts as collateral damage, a young man and woman who had plunged into the pile to rescue their squad mate. As for Zagzebski, he lay face down a few feet from the bodies of his blasted troops. Two of the remaining Briarhearts were turning him over when Orion made it to his side.
“Zag,” Orion said as he knelt down. “Zagzebski, can you hear me?”
“What?” The big man coughed weakly as his troops steadied his neck. “I can’t hear shit, OG.”
Orion patted him lightly on the chest, and Zagzebski groaned. He looked up at the six mercenaries who stood around them shaking their heads, dusting off their assault armor and checking their weapons. “All right Briarhearts, rally to the big man,” Orion said, raising his voice. “Haul him up to the saucer and get him out of here, now.”
“No, no,” Zagzebski said, struggling to raise his head a millimeter. “We’re seeing this through with you, OG.”
“You’ve done enough,” Orion said with a chuckle that pained his side. “Now go — hopefully the path we cleared will stay clear long enough for you to get to your ship.”
The Briarhearts nodded or grunted assent, and they snapped together an emergency nanofiber gurney to haul Zagzebski’s great weight. Orion bid them good luck and rejoined his crew at the ramp to the bottom floor.
“Was that wise?” Aurelia asked him quietly as they started down the final ramp together. “Dismissing them? One can never have enough cannon fodder, can one?”
“Come on, AD,” Orion muttered as he conjured his battle-axe again. “We’ve spilled enough of their blood for one day. Too much.”
They emerged on the open floor of the assembly area, a flat space the size of a gladiator arena. As Orion led them to the middle of the chamber, the echoing space fell silent but for a faint, distant moan. Squinting through swirling dust and flickering light, Orion spotted a double-wide security door along each of the eight walls. Cobwebs festooned most of the doors, but something had pummeled one of them open from the inside.
“The path of least resistance, then,” Orion said with a nod at the broken-down door.
“It could be a trap,” Kangor said.
Dalaxa Croy stepped between them. “I don’t think so.” She started for the security door with long strides. “And I think I know exactly what’s back there.”
Bully rushed to Dalaxa’s side, still protecting her as ordered, and Orion, Aurelia and Kangor scrambled to get in front of the weapon scientist before she reached the threshold. The s’zone scoffed indignantly but petted the dog, and soon they stepped into a hollow carved into the bedrock of War Blight. The cavernous room was dark, and it was eerily silent but for the slow drip of water. Using the light of his datacube, Orion found a large lever on the wall and hefted it up. Floodlight glowglobes flared to life on the ceiling.
“That’s profoundly disturbing,” said Aurelia.
“That’s my life’s work,” said Dalaxa.
Long rows of glass tanks stretched to the distant back of the room, Orion guessed a thousand if not more. Some still brimmed with light-blue fluid, while others had cracked and pooled on the rugged stone floor. A few still held floating, light-blue fetal masses. To their right, Orion saw a round alcove that might have functioned as a control center at one point. Unfortunately, most of the terminals around the large holo-stage had been torn out or smashed to pieces. He approached the alcove with a sigh, hoping some shred of a clue had been left behind when Typhus the Mad Thinker had abandoned the base.
“What…?” Orion muttered, stopping short in front of the holo-stage as he noticed the emitters in the base glowing. A holographic interface flickered open, and a snowstorm of pixels resolved into a huge, wolfish face. The vycart had black hair and unnervingly pa
le eyes, and he wore the intricate manacite twists of an ancient neural crown on his head.
“So,” he growled, his lip curled with anger. “You are the human who killed my son.”
“Are you talking to me?” Orion glanced back at his team as they crowded behind him with wide eyes. “I think he’s talking to me.” He puffed up a little and faced the hologram again. “So you’re Typhus, huh?” He shrugged. “Sorry about that. I gave your overgrown durok a couple of chances to surrender.”
“I’ll admit, human,” he said, chewing on every word. “I was incensed when I heard my son had fallen to such a puny creature. But then… someone tripped the silent alarms on the Warflesh factory.” He raised his bushy black eyebrows with a twitch. “I never thought you would make it through the hellscape above or the lesser of my humble servants.”
Orion opened his mouth, closed it, waited a moment. “Are you done? ‘Cause I thought you were going to—”
“What I’m trying to tell you, you child,” Typhus spat, “is that I am almost impressed. Perhaps you are slightly more than an annoyance after all.”
“Thanks.” Orion smirked up at him. “But I’d say I graduated to pain-in-the butt a while ago. We’re going to stop you, you know.”
“We’re going to kill you,” Dalaxa Croy added, her tone cold and flat. “We’re going to destroy you.”
“Hello, Doctor. It’s nice to see you again, even if it is unexpected.” Typhus grinned at her, his fang-baring smile dripping with malice, then shifted his piercing eyes to Kangor. “You, vycart — from which clan do you hail?”
Orion glanced back to see Kangor’s face twist with rage. “I am Kangor,” he snarled, “of the Clan Kash.”
“Ah, Clan Kash, I should have recognized it in your surly hunch.” Typhus’ gaze became thoughtful for a moment. “Your grand-patriarch was Kodax, was he not?”
