CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jei
I waved Hulk and Professor Wordsworth down in the tall grass behind me. We were on our way to destroy the router in the comms tower so our wristbands would default to the universal data network instead—then, maybe, everyone could call for help.
My eyes shot around to every shadow; here, on the slight hill in the center of the base that supported the communications tower, the trees and shrubbery thickened. That didn’t just mean cover for us.
Below, behind us in the starlight, tanks rolled over rubble as some of their crews ran in and out of barracks trying to rescue people—and in other cases, just straight blew stuff up. Scattered evac vehicles posted at the perimeter, trying to escape the bubble wall that was now a prison. I couldn’t shake the sound of the little kids screaming.
Reise swiveled at a moving shadow. “Identify yourself,” Gideon hissed.
The shadow fired. Reise fired back; someone cursed, and gurgled. I waved Reise to stay hidden in position, and Gideon and I dashed to our attacker’s position.
A pink-haired pale man in prison uniform lay dead there, a wound through his chest smoking as blood seeped from a ruptured aorta. Gideon threw up a thumbs-up for Reise to see.
I took the man’s stolen flayer gun, barely noting the nametag Frank Zej on his chest. Shyte, the prison had opened somehow. Were they responsible for this whole mess? Had they somehow taken control of central computing? How did they possibly know the access codes?
Another flayer shot almost took off Gideon’s upheld hand, this time from closer to the communication tower. Gideon dove down under the bush by me and returned fire; I swiveled to block the laser knife plunging down toward my back.
Correction, the laser knives. A ten-tentacled prisoner jumped back as I parried his first blow with the staff of my mace and with the second blow made his number of limbs more equal to mine. With the third blow he didn’t have a head anymore.
“Sorry,” I said, not really sorry at all but still trying out this whole Paradox Warrior “respect for all life.” The body crumbled to the ground like floppy seafood, environmental suit hissing and sputtering water.
I ducked down beside the prisoner, searching for a communicator, my head on swivel watching Gideon’s back and checking Reise’s location—
Someone was moving behind Reise’s bush. I aimed Frank Zej’s pistol, breathed, and squeezed. With a cry a shadow fell to the ground.
I signed in Frelsi visual code for Reise to move toward the tower. He shot back a thumbs-up. “Cover Reise,” I told Gideon, still watching his back as a couple more prisoners tried to take the hill toward us. Aim, breathe, fire. Aim, breathe fire … both prisoners ate oxidized cartridge and tumbled down the hill.
The grass by the nearest tower leg rustled in the night breeze. I couldn’t see Reise moving—but that meant neither could anyone else. Lem or I would’ve done a quick dash, but it was probably best for Reise to follow protocol and take things low and slow in the tall grass.
I saw him when he reached the tower.
“Stay down!” I yelled. He lay flat. The crisscross metal leg wasn’t good cover, and someone would have to climb, exposing themselves more: I chose myself for that. “Cover me,” I told Gideon with a pat on his shoulder blade.
“Roger,” he said. I ran to the metal spindle, trying to see if I could draw fire with my glowing staff—
But the hill was quiet now; all the screaming and shooting was far away. I waved Reise to stay down here at the foot of the tower, and motioned with my head for him to watch Gideon’s location; the scrawny kid nodded back at me, moonlight glinting off his glasses by my boot. From here they could cover each other and my climb, with enough distance between them to stay hidden and report back to Cinta if something else went wrong.
I tugged at the rope ladder that dangled against the tower leg. Seemed solid—with one more glance around I started my climb. I just needed to smash this tower’s wireless router with my mace so our wristbands would fall back onto satellite data, and then our leadership could get orders out to us. And our communication tower didn’t use polymerwall protection. I’d heard plans for the past year to upgrade it, but our leaders had focused on safeguarding the kids’ barracks and fortifying the perimeter instead. So when I reached the top of the ladder I just had to push open the cold, dew-misted trap door above me—
Shyte. I’d forgotten about the sentry bot. It fired the instant the hatch opened; I felt the steel door reverberate against my arm as bolt after bolt thudded and twanged against it. I didn’t have a good angle to get out around the door without getting shot: I couldn’t spin my staff into a forcefield in the tiny, body-sized doorway.
“Grenade, please!” I yelled down.
Reise tossed it as high as he could, and a very weak em-pull on my part made sure it ended up in my hand.
Just the slightest em-pull effort made my head implode with agony again, like giant knives stabbed in all directions into my skull. I clenched my teeth, clicked the count-down on the grenade through blinding, pulsing white pain, and tossed the egg into the tower. As the explosion rocked the tower, I held the hatch shut above me, cringing into its vibrating heat.
And with a soft hum, my wristband shone green with new messages.
Lem
Seated now at the onyx table in the Growen meeting room, Lem folded her hands in front of her with the poise of a general.
But adrenaline pulsed through her temples. Sweat stung her palms; she could barely hear over the unbearable galloping in her chest as Diebol talked through the video embedded in the middle of the table.
The video where Fort Jehu’s machines were slaughtering its inhabitants.
Lem didn’t bother fighting the intense emotion. How could she? Best to reframe it in her thoughts as excitement. She was excited. Excited. She was General Johnson, speciesist against Bichanks, and she loved this.
You hate this lie, you’re terrified—
She. Loved. This.
“I don’t understand,” said a shy-voiced human with curly white hair and wide green eyes. General Cabalero, read his uniform. He tapped on the video on the center of the table, switching it from grainy feeds of carnage to a full real-time strategy map of Fort Jehu. Assets under Growen control shone blue—and the entire page was a wave of giant blue squares and circles eating little red Frelsi dots like candy. “This is amazing, but how is she doing this? Is she a computer program?”
Diebol smirked. “What She is, is a Stygge matter, for Bricandor and myself alone. What you need to know is that we’re cooking the Frelsi like mollusks in their own shell. And I need you to strategize logistics and reconnaissance. For tonight, we need to clean up stragglers and bolster supportive forces around Fort Jehu, and then we need to find access ports for Her on other bases.”
“Why couldn’t we do this during the siege?” interrupted a gruff, deeply critical voice, from the general with the large purple-black beard. “Seems like someone’s been holding out on us, gentlemen.” Lem couldn’t see his nameplate from here, but this general clearly didn’t like Diebol: the purple beard seemed to flare like a wolf’s scruff as the man leaned forward to shoot eye-daggers at the young Stygge across the table. “It almost seems like you cost us billions of drachma in resources for no reason.”
Diebol scowled and crossed his arms. “Take it up with Bricandor,” he said. “She wasn’t ready until Bereens destroyed the transport camp; we needed the right Frelsi computer system.”
Jei? What did Jei do?
“So you’re not really in charge of Her.” Purple-beard smiled. “As usual, you’re just the messenger.”
“So shoot me,” Diebol growled, leaning forward like he really, really wanted the other man to try.
It would have been interesting, but Lem’s eye strayed to a crescent-moon shape chasing ten red dots on the table, her vision tunneling as it grew closer, closer …
“You couldn’t find a Frelsi computer?” Purple-beard jeered as the half-moon ate someone—maybe someone Lem knew. “Aren’t you the one who cares so much about the working conditions of our men? But you let Bricandor hold out on us, and we lost thousands this week on Luna-Guetala alone!”
Diebol spat some retort about research that Lem didn’t hear as the half-moon rolled over two more little red dots.
She couldn’t take it.
“Gentlemen!” General Johnson thudded his fist down on the table. Lem didn’t know if this was how he normally behaved, but this was how he was going to behave today. “Are we here to talk solutions with this brilliant weapon, or did you get me out of bed to watch you two compare laser-staffs?” She threw in a huff and a dramatic hand-wave.
Everyone stared at her for a second. Yeah, she sounded weird. But the half-moon had eaten five little red blips now, and she had to make it stop. Think, think: “Have we completely shut down their evac platforms?” she asked.
“Yes,” Diebol pursed his forehead and blinked, as if very pleasantly surprised by Johnson’s reaction. He traced the perimeter of the base with his finger on the screen. “They can’t get out.”
“Wait,” White-haired Cabalero sounded panicky every time he opened his mouth. “Wait, why did those just turn green?”
Everyone leaned over. The red dots were flashing emerald in waves across the screen.
“Because they got communication back up!” Purple-beard snarled. “They can call for help from other bases now!”
“It means nothing,” Diebol shot back. “All the help in the universe means nothing if they’re dead before it gets there.”
“What do you mean, nothing, comms is everything! Comms is what cost us the siege!” Purple-beard sprayed angry spittle across the table.
Lem massaged her temples, trying to shut out the argument. Focus. You’re here for Her. Focus! Sure, the dots were green now, they had comms up. But the crescent moon had eaten all the little dots in front of it, and now it started down the street toward … shyte, the boys lived there, and Juju lived over there …
“How are we getting Her into the next base?” Lem asked. “If She attacks the nearest base at the same time, there won’t be ‘help’ for Fort Jehu at all, right?”
Diebol made that face again, the surprised, almost appreciative face, but shook his head. “At this time She can only take out one fort at once.”
“Can’t She just lower intensity or whatever?” Purple-beard argued just to argue. “Half-strength on two bases, instead of full strength on one?”
“You sound stupid right now,” Lem muttered with the Growen part of her brain: a flying anaconda succeeds by targeting one guinea pig, not chasing two at a time. But Lem’s almost subconscious whisper of a soul latched onto the idea; dividing Her attention might save some little now-green blips. “What does She need to get into a second base?” Johnson asked.
“We need an access port. Any access port. Any stolen computer, any kidnapped Frelsi soldier who remembers their login from the system you’re targeting,” Diebol said. “That’s how powerful She is.”
Shyte! Lem almost choked, and turned the choke into a violent cough. Three blue squares devoured another huge handful of little Frelsi greens.
“Are you alright, Johnson?” another general leaned over and whispered while the others kept talking. “That cough is getting nasty.”
Lem waved him off, trying to sort out the assets on the field. If no one could get out, could something match Her strength? “What happened with the Bereens kid, again?” she asked. “I must have zoned out—”
Purple-beard practically roared in frustration. “Pay attention, Johnson! That was the first thing we discussed! Crazy Stygge-kid blew up an entire transport camp on his own but for some reason didn’t kill anyone. Millions of drachma in damage!”
“Money is what’s most important, isn’t it,” Diebol sneered.
“No, we can fund a war with heart and magic, Diebol,” Purple-beard snapped.
Dang, Jei. A whole camp on your own? Lem pursed her lips and nodded, deeply impressed and not hiding it. A Growen general could be impressed with raw power, why not? A pang shot through her chest: she would’ve liked to see that.
And Jei was a master at strategy. He should be here, not her. He should be doing this weird sneaky-around stuff, lying to himself—
I’m not lying to myself. I am a loyal Growen dangit how do we make this stop?! The green blips were drowning in a blue ocean, fading to black in clusters as She ate her way across the map. Lem hadn’t been this flustered since the interrogation center. Agh, like that stupid triangle-map game they’d forced her to play against Jei then … that pure, distilled strategy she sucked at. When Jei and Diebol played, they would often give up smaller pieces to each other to trick each other into losing large swaths of territory.
Okay. So what smaller pieces could she give up?
“Everyone wants to get Her into a second base, before or after we finish with Jehu,” Johnson said, thinking aloud. “And the Frelsi have a central hiding place in that sector where they evacuate their forces for every loss …”
“They do?” Everyone looked at her.
“Yeah,” she choked. Shyte, they didn’t know that? Filking shyte! “It’s why they bounce back so quickly, and the same threats seem to recur again and again.” Lean into the Growen general role: “Like cockroaches. Where there are two, there are two hundred. Because they have a nest.”
“How do you—”
“We need to call a cease-fire,” Lem blurted. “Need to give them a chance to set up their evac platforms. Then we follow those platforms to the Hiding Place. If you can get Her in there, every Frelsi base in the area will be vulnerable.” Welp, she’d done it, she’d played her cards. She felt her underarms getting hot and wet. Maybe she’d ruined everything and killed everyone.
The generals stared at her, then at each other. Purple-beard thought this was the stupidest idea he had ever heard, but the others argued with him. “They’ll suspect something’s up if we just call off an attack while we’ve got the upper hand,” Purple scoffed.
“I like the idea of finding their evac nest, though.”
“No, we should eliminate this base completely first. If She really is that powerful it’ll be a piece of cake to find Her an access point for the next target. Take no chances.”
“But it would be faster if we could use this victory as a stepping-stone to the next target, especially if we wouldn’t otherwise be able to access the Hidden Base—”
“Is the intel good, Johnson?”
“Yes,” Lem heard herself rasp. “Local contractors and bounty hunter data.”
“It certainly explains the challenges in that sector.”
“It’s not worth slowing down an almost certain victory.”
“The victory’s clearly certain anyway!”
Diebol said nothing as the other humans argued. He, like Lem, watched the table, his fingers stroking his chin.
More little blips blinked and disappeared …
“We have to do it soon,” Lem snapped, trying to stifle what was starting to feel like panic. “If they’re all dead there won’t be anyone left to lead us to their hidden base.”
Dead. Holy crap, that really made it real. Another handful of green flickered and disappeared. Who? Who were those dead blips?
She felt him watching her …
Yeah whatever anyone else said, whatever trouble these generals gave Diebol politically, he was still the most important voice in the room.
She knew what to give Diebol to make this thing stop.