Dandelions: Chapter 5 of 9
"No!" Shkud hissed. "That is my final word on the subject."
His petitioner stared at him, perhaps a trace of frustration beginning to rise to her normally glacial surface. "If you do not wish her in your command anymore, then why--"
"There is no why!" he spat. "Since you are obviously so intent on circumventing my rightful punishment for her, then there is no discussion! You are not going to have this Solugi for your own purposes, Asaav. Do I make myself clear?"
"Quite clear." She began to gnaw on her lower lip. "Quite clear that you are wasteful with personnel and valuable evolved resources, Shkud."
He whirled back on her, his eyes two blazing slits. "More can always be evolved."
Asaav's temper had already frayed; now it visibly snapped. "Our resources are finite, brother! We were alotted them for a specific purpose: to convey what we need back to Our Mother. How will she see the way you obviously discard our brothers and sisters? YOU are obviously unfit to lead! How you were chosen to become Kulagi defies all logic!"
He froze, eyes wide, then made a noise that could only be characterized as half-growl, half-hiss. Suddenly, a bar of searing white light was in his hand, and swinging toward her. She stood as it whizzed toward her, the only visible reaction a slight widening of the silvery eyes.
A matter of inches before it made contact, Shkud made a spitting sound of disgust, and the blade of psionic energy disintegrated into random crackles of energy. He dropped his now-open right hand and turned away.
She had called his bluff and he knew it. Although there was no hive-loyalty lost between the two, the one immutable fact remained that Kulagi never fought Kulagi.
"No." he bit out. "Your Taf Gamun is refueled and waiting." Without another word or thought, he strode through the organic-looking doorway and out of the audience chamber of his orbital hive. She looked after him for a minute, then turned and left out of the opposite doorway toward the docking bay, her plans unborn.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Oryo'i had finished with that lunar cycle's protoculture inventory and shipment to the Orbital Hives and was leaving the shuttle bay when the vaguely familliar mindvoice contacted her through Living Computer.
Solugi Oryo'i...I regret to inform you that despite all my proposals and entreaties, Shkud is steadfast in his refusal to allow you to be transferred to my authority. He was quite...obstinate. I could do nothing, for which I offer my apologies.
Oryo'i paused in her progress for a second, the only external expression a momentary pulling back of her lips.
I understand, Lady Asaav. It is of no great consequence. All for the Hive.
Yes. I will see what I can do.
The connection was broken.
Oryo'i continued onward.
In my case, it doesn't matter, does it?
Promises are always insubstantual, especially if you have the power over keeping them.
All for the Hive, and all for the Kulagi and Mother. Nothing new in that, really, and nothing ever new in anything. At any rate, I have work to do, at least until Shkud finds a good reason to rid himself of me.
Shrugging her shoulders with an entirely new fatalism, Oryo'i continued onward.
August 2045
"Well, look, if we keep the policy on p-weapon usage tight, we ought to cut the energy-clip usage by about 20% percent..." Lieutenant Zinnert insisted. "Same ought to go for the protoculture usage of the Cyclones. I'm all for the idea of stricter frameworks for battle usage..."
Ulm groaned privately to himself. It was this sort of interplay between himself and Dennis that was alternately a vital and productive means of leadership and management and more often like now one of the banes of his existence. Ulm knew full well his flaws and his tendency toward un-millitary laxity, which was part of the reason he felt between himself and Zinnert a viable synthesis that worked in the command structure. On a personal level, however, it seemed to accelerate the disappearance of his already-fading hair.
Not to mention it was getting near three. He religiously checked up on any happenings related over the communications setup in the former video store and monitored the Invid encounters and other details the other local resistance groups related every three hours during the day. Monitoring such patterns had helped predict Invid purges before, despite the sharp and unexplained rise in the enemy's unpredictability in behavior. Unfortunately, Ulm could not very well ignore Dennis' nattering; this meeting on protoculture and ammo inventories had been long overdue. As Zinnert had rightfully pointed out, the stuff hardly grew on trees.
Matthew fought down the thought of the various sarcastic comments Kevin would have made about that remark. The last think he needed was to be seen smirking.
He managed to steal a look at his watch. Damn--it was 2:55.
While nodding, he looked mentally around the garage/mecha bay trying to find a good substitute for himself.
No, no--not Gerald, he'd just gotten back from his annual "trip" along with Kev as his escort, and was exhausted. Not Sherry or Miranda...both were occupied with a jacked-up Samson they were fixing. He heard a clatter from another direction...that would be Amanda, fine-toothing her millitary hardware with the quasi-paranoia so her these days. Fred was two-thirds along with a perimeter that was part of a high security guard "shell" that they had begun to construct last month in order to isolate the inner work centers of the base from the rest of the mall, so he couldn't be spared. Damn...
He called Amanda over, gesturing to Dennis to hold it for a second.
"Pierson, could you do a favor for me? Sorry to bother you with your overhaul and all, but I need the comm reports checked on."
She nodded shortly, her green eyes watchful. "Sure. Where's the clipboard, Lieutenant?"
"Hmm... the table in my barracks. Let me know if anything unusual's popped up." She nodded and left, trying to cool herself by flipping the bottom of her sweat-drenched T-shirt in the airless heat of the lower garage as she did so.
oooooooooooooooooooo
I'm a man without conviction
I'm a man who doesn't know
How to sell a contradiction
You come and go
You come and go...
--Culture Club, "Karma Chameleon"
Amanda was actually relieved to be back up in the mall level. While it certainly was not the most strategically secure base left in the world, it was definitely the best air-conditioned. Of course, that never played much of a part with how the enemy dealt with it.
I've got news for you..., she thought bitterly.
Since their arrival, the Elms had made continuous efforts to compromise for the place's obvious strategic liabilities; not only was there an outpost a couple miles south in the abandoned belowground library that had originally atttracted Zinnert's attention, there was now a tightly monitored perimeter about a hundred yards in radius that contained the lower level and garage, with the communications center at the dead center and quarters surrounding it in the zone. To create the barrier, a lot of the old mall furnishings had been ripped up, forever destroying the old Wonderland aspect. Amanda wondered if she were the only one who mourned that loss, a small one in a world filled with worse tragedies.
With the population boom, the old sleeping arrangements had also been altered. Amanda, as one of the elder members, now slept in a back room with four new recruits. Similar had happened with most of the other members. Of the lot, only Matthew and Kevin still slept together in the same room as before.
A twisted smile touched her thin lips.
The others assumed it was because of their personal relationship and preferences. As Amanda knew full well by now, it was considerably more...involved than that. She had found out that it was responsible for the fact that they were still alive and not dead along with the Quincy base.
"Kevin," it seemed, could detect an enemy attack coming in before the actual incident.
Takes one to know one, eh? she thought.
Clipboard under one arm and pencil in the other hand, she slouched into the communications center, where the schedule said a recruit by the name of Mark MacNamara was on duty. The place had originally been the TV room, but it seemed Matthew had had other plans on mind. However, it didn't preclude off-duty personnel from still utilizing it for entertainment purposes, as the noise of movie dialogue and the figure slumped in front of it proved.
Abruptly, the watcher shot to his feet and whirled on her.
"Whaddaya want?" Kevin snapped, his face angry. Mandy gasped.
Strangely, his eyes seemed to be focused on a point some inches above her head. Suddenly he blinked and looked confused. They tracked downward and found her face.
"Urk," he said, his feet beginning to shuffle. The expression on his face could be characterized only as scorching embarassment. He did not blush. He couldn't. It was not a matter of control, Amanda had found out; it was a matter of complete physiological incapability. It was all a matter of blood flow, Matt had said, and that considering the color of Kevin's it could not show without revealing Kevin's true self. The only rosiness that tinted Kevin's complexion was an opaque capillary pigmentation.
It did not take any petty blood flow for her to detect that he looked ready to crawl under a rug and die there.
"Uh..." he fumbled. "Sorry. I thought you were somebody else." His eyes shifted away from her astonished gaze.
"Who?" she asked unthinkingly. Mark had turned from his comm monitoring and was looking on with interest; a filthy look from Kevin made him change his mind.
"Matt. I got a bone to pick with him. Sorry."
Amanda nibbled on the pencil eraser, stretching her face into the protective, glassy smile that she had used around him for nearly three months. "Oh, well, then, that's okay. If you'll excuse me..." She turned and began her move over to the communications array, hearing out of the corner of her perception a sudden intake of breath, a huff, and silence. She took a step, then gulped suddenly.
Kevin tightened his grip on her elbow, his eyes narrowed. While the hold was gentle, he made it perfectly clear he was not about to let her go. It felt completely human. It scared her out of her wits.
"Matt can wait. Speaking of bones, you're another one."
"I've got to monitor the calls--"
Kevin made an obscene suggestion regarding the calls. Before she knew it, she was halfway up the stairs, towed by the scout.
"Let me go!"
"Like hell." Kevin made a perfunctory salute to the gawking guard at the perimeter and dragged her further down the hall. Thirty seconds later they were fifty yards outside. Only then did he let go of her arm.
"Look, Ishmael, I can't say the whole business with the Kraken didn't foul you up a tiny bit. But for three months?"
"What did you call me?" she screeched.
"Moby Dick, dammit! The guy on the whaler!" Amanda got the context and only got angrier.
"Because the Invid--you KNOW what happened!"
"Do I?" He smacked the side of his head. "I haven't intentionally touched the Hivemind in six years and I'm not going to start now!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah!" Even in the blazing glare of the August sun and under his sweat-blackened headband, his eyes were dilated in vented emotion. She stepped back and prepared to make a run back inside, the hive reference not having made things any easier for her.
He sagged suddenly, the anger gone.
"Oh God. Mandy...please..." The misery was so apparent that she halted. She turned back and saw him suddenly on his rear in the middle of the roasting afternoon parking lot, forehead on his hands, mindless of the heat. She stopped and stared.
After a couple of seconds, "Isn't that--hot on there?"
He shrugged. "What the hell matters anyway?"
She paused. "C'mon. At least the grass is cooler than that."
Kevin plopped down again in the open weeds after they had gone out past the trees lining the parking lot. After some internal debate, Mandy sat and looked at the utterly dispirited black head on the green denim knees.
"Sorry about that," he mumured finally.
"Hope they didn't hear us screaming at each other," she offered. He shook his head.
"Who cares anyway?" He sighed. "Right now, I'd rather be lynched than spend another six years like this. You're not...the only Ishmael here, Mandy."
She made a noise.
He continued. "Mandy--I've spent years pretending to be everything but--before the Elms, I was posing as Matt's "nephew," even before I got the concept down. The last other...person...like me I met was Sera. That was two years ago. I could be the only Terran sympathsizer left in the entire contingent of bloody glorious Optera. I'm alone, Mandy."
"Kevin, I--"
"Mandy, it wouldn't be so bad if--I don't know. If I wasn't in constant danger of being found and killed by Invid, by my own people, mind you. If I didn't have to worry about whether I get a paper cut in front of Gerald, or worse, Fred. You seen how his eyes change if Invid are brought up? That's not an entirely sane person. At least if you're a hemophiliac you don't get people trying to murder you if you start bleeding." He admitted softly. "Yeah, and if only...you'd understand."
Amanda swallowed. "Kevin. I can't."
He lifted his grayed features. "I know. Sorry, for thinking..."
"Kev, what was I supposed to think? I--trusted you. And then--Kevin, you don't understand what it was like to--to--" Suddenly, the memory, nine months old, was raw in her mind. "to see your friends rounded up, like animals, and my sister... I don't know what it's like, being you. But I know what it was like, being me. And finding out that..."
After a minute, he handed over a fairly clean square of cloth. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose gratefully.
"So that was it." he said. She nodded fitfully. He looked down at the ground, then back up at her, his gaze frank.
"Mandy, if it's any consolation at all, I spent weeks after that being literally eaten up with guilt. I'm ashamed to even admit I used to be that." He pulled up a blade of foxtail and studied it, the color of the leaves a couple shades lighter than Invid blood, then began to munch it ferociously. "And lying like a Persian rug to you the entire time didn't help much either."
She sniffled and blew her nose again. At last, she asked, "Kevin?"
He made an inquiring noise.
"What are you?"
He froze in mid-chew, eyes wide.
Oh mother. That was The Question that had haunted him for so long it seemed to be its own answer.
It took him a couple minutes before he looked over at her.
"Proof that Darwin was not up to it, I guess, Amanda.
"I look human, but bleed another color. I have psionic abilities to detect Invid, yet I think my own thoughts, make my own loyalities. And I'm still classified as an Invid." He started gnawing on his lip, face pained. "Invid don't fear, don't worry about dying, have a greater racial purpose to work for, have no selfishness, and complete, total harmony, something which I don't think humanity will ever attain without losing its nature.
"On the other hand, Invid don't feel. Invid don't laugh, Invid don't weep, were never able to laugh at absurdity." He looked off over her shoulder. "Except for maybe one case, an Invid never found a capacity to love. Everything's so wrapped up in hive-loyalty there's nothing left over." He sighed. "But I do that. And a lot more, as you know. And not much of what Invid are supposed to do at all.
"So what am I? I heard Marlene theorized we're something else now, both and neither, and not even the Regis knew what she was doing when she started to change us. We were evolved to replace you, you know."
"What?!" He nodded.
"Yep. Got into her head the human form was the most adaptable for this planet, so wipe out the natives and replace them with her own kids, just like those bad 1950's movies." A grin flitted across his face. "But whether we'd've been what she wanted is really in doubt, considering how the first batch turned out. Mandy--if you ever find something out about what I actually am, I want to know, because I just don't know at all what's talking to you."
She did not know how to answer that and sat there, her eyes reddened.
"So when I froze you out, it hurt you."
"Ripped my guts out and stomped on them."
"Kev, I'm sorry."
He gave her a tentative wink. "It's all right. I keep forgetting that although I've had a lot of time being like you, you--don't know what it's like to be what I was. Amanda--do you know what you are?"
She blinked at his question incredulously. "Of course I am. I'm Amanda Pierson, a human being."
He grunted. "Why Amanda? What makes you Amanda?"
She opened her mouth to answer, shut it incredulously and wiped a tangle of yellow sweaty strands out of her face. Kevin looked knowing.
"See? It's a hundred times worse for me."
"Uhmmm."
He sighed. "It wasn't just that that threw me off. I took a trip with Gerald yesterday. Found out some unnerving facts about him and his home life." He hesitated. "Swore he'd kick my teeth in if I yapped it around but you may as well know, considering you're already acquaintanced with somebody evolved from a slug." She managed a smile.
"His mother's a grand lady. His father's dead. As it happened, his name was Utan Shul-Marduk."
Her jaw dropped.
"My god. He's--"
"The son of a defector from the Botoru Battalion. Our Gerry's half-Zentraedi."
Mandy frantically scrambled through her memory of history taught to her in school regarding the events leading to the Robotech Wars. "Good god, you mean he's your enemy!"
Kevin looked peeved. "My verde-blooded ass he is. Yes, the Zentraedi defoliated Optera, but since I defected I've realized they were just as much abused by the Masters as the Invid were. My only argument with Gerald is he's a homophobe who knows more dirty lyrics to "Look Up" than any other being alive, not anything with his genes. The same goes for his father." Kevin's tone was wistful. "He seemed to have been a good person, actually. No, my being annoyed's with Matt."
"Yes, you did, ah mention..."
"Talk about an insult to my intelligence!" he burst out. "Does he think I'm that stupid, that I need to go out with Gerald on the chance I'd find out his background? What's he trying to do, foster Peace and Brotherhood singlehandedly? He had to have been the one to stick me with him." He began massacring another grass stem. "I've heard of preaching to the already converted but this is the first time I know what it means."
"Kevin, will you calm down? What happened?"
"Blazing Tzuptum toasting marshmallows, I've known Wilson for six years now. If he thinks that finding out--hell. Sorry. Basically, he's had this yearly trip he makes, for his mother. I didn't know until now for what. His mother had an abusive drunken idiot of a husband before she met and fell in love with Gerald's father and divorced the first. Amazingly enough they consider it an obligation to check up on him, despite the fact he pickles himself in alcohol and is going to be dead of cirrhosis in a couple years from the look of things. Gerald had to go tell his mother about his condition, and I had to follow to make sure he didn't get hosed on the way. That's where I found out. Actually, Gerald wasn't all that enthused either about my knowing. And he doesn't even know my history."
Two minutes passed. A hot breeze sprang up, blowing dust and thinning dandelion parachutes into the air.
"It occurs to me," Mandy said distantly, "that the Elms racial mixture is absolutely nuts."
Kevin began to laugh uproariously, then cut off as a sudden shrill beep cut the air. Amanda's eyes widened as he ripped the pager/ communicator off his belt and gave a hasty acknowlegement to Mark's voice on the other end. Suddenly, he stiffened as though electrocuted.
The next second, he was dragging Amanda by the arm again, this time back inside the base. Panting, she heard the klaxon come to blatting life and saw chaos as loiterers poured through the cracked glass doors towards the interior.
"It's urgent! They're trying to take Rantoul!"
She screamed a curse.
Kevin let go and was pressing his right hand against his side where the Kraken wound lingered; although healed, it still pained him occasionally. "I'll see you in the Cyclone bay!" In a second, he was gone in the scrambling crowds; Mandy spun and headed for the garage, where her CVR armor and equipment waited.
It was to be the first engagement she fought in as an active member, and she was very aware it could also be her last.
oooooooooooooooooooo
There was a wedge of them heading directly towards the besieged town some ten miles from their base, eight Cyclones of varying make in all. Still others were circling around so as to not allow the aliens a fix on the location they were coming from. Fortunately, the enemy was already engaged by another group, which had called it in to the Elms and had allowed the residents time to get to shelter, but considering varying strengths in forces, they would be in serious trouble without quick reenforcement. Amanda, Kevin, and Miranda were among the first wave.
A couple miles away and the battle was loud and visually clear, Cyclones dodging and juking with Attack Scouts, harrying Combat Troopers like grackles did hawks. The Apocalypse Riders were badly outnumbered, but many of them had relatives in the town and were not about to let the Invid ship them off to a slave camp without a fight.
Even as they raced toward the locale, they could see a plasma blast go home, and one of the small armored figures erupted into a blaze of gas. Miranda said something foul.
"Bastards! Okay, kids, you know the drill. Buddy each other, watch out for your butts and your partner's, and keep 'em busy until the rest arrive. Good luck, and let's all meet this side of the valley of the shadow! Go!"
"Hail Mary mother of grace be with us now and at the hour of our death..." Kevin's voice fervently chanted over the tacnet. Mandy spared a second to be bemused by the fact that the Catholicism said by the rogue alien seemed to be sincere, and then the wedge split.
Miranda, Kevin, and two others shot foward, exploding upward and beginning the shift to Battloid, and the rest went off the road to the sides to come in from the ground, fusion engines still on to avoid detection.
Mandy was in company with Raymond Thieu, a skinny kid from the north who had come in June with tales of a crashed Shadow Alpha somewhere in the bombarded prairie and dreams of fighting Invid. The Elms had located and were trying to repair the first and had complied in giving him the second. He was now shadowing Mandy. Personally, she would have felt better with Kevin--even Kevin. Ray was too trigger happy.
"You know the spot we're to dive in, Ray!"
"Yeah!" he grinned verbally. "I'll buy the vodka!"
"Look, keep your mind on things. This is serious, Ray."
Abruptly, an annihilation disc fhwahmed in from nowhere, nearly dismounting them as it detonated a matter of yards away.
"I told you so."
"Yeah," he said, shaken.
A litlle more...A little more...please god if there was one, daddy if he was still able to listen, please help her, no more death marches for anyone. I want to live want to live let me live--
"NOW!"
She flicked the switch, in the last few seconds before the immediate conflict, with Thieu following.
She stood as the cycle erupted skyward, months of practice coming into play as the farings split and rose, shocks attaching to forearms, wheels sliding, and jets coming alive. As soon as the Forager encased her in battlesuit, she was back on the ground on fusion, Thieu following, and running toward what a sane person would have fled like mad.
An armored figure loomed out of the smoke at them, humanoid but far too large to be a Cyclone Battloid. Amanda barely had a split second to see the overdeveloped arms and shoulders that distinguished a Sentinel before a radiant blast obliterated its sensor eye in green steam. Amanda was reassured by the accuracy of Thieu's aim.
From what she knew from instruction, it was more likely that the troops actually used to round up Rantoul would be on the ground, which meant she and Raymond would have to deal with the Sentinels and Enforcers. This was good and bad: although the enemy's manuverability was limited, the castes occupying the Sentinel and Enforcer suits were a good deal more intelligent and autonomous than either Scout or Trooper, according to Kevin. Plus, there was the possiblity the airborne troops might make a potshot at one or both of them from above.
And one decision could mean the difference between being alive and being a corpse, she remembered.
Her reasoning was immediately destroyed when a red clawed arm whipped out of the turmoil at her, the rest of the Scout following after. Acting on raw instinct, reliving her first confrontation, Amanda rolled under the deadly swing and the following plasma blasts, raised her H-90, and fired.
oooooooooooooooooooo
They keep calling me...
--Nine Inch Nails, "Dead Souls"
The Scout's eye erupted as the missile plunged through it and into the iigaari's compartment, killing it instantly. The mecha shell had only begun to fall when the fragmentation missile completed its work and the mecha erupted into a glowing ball, spraying ceramic.
The Ferret whipped away and over to its next confrontation, the last cry of the Attack Scout still shrilling in its pilot's mind.
Forgive me, brother, he said. He began to target a Combat Trooper harassing a few Riders, trying to ignore how his eyes blurred.
The Invid think I'm dead as far as they know. Please send me out against the lower ranks if you can. If the Malarosm or the Solugi pick up on my thoughts and realize I'm alive and working for humans, I am dead. So are you. That had been the rationale for his explaining to Matthew back in '40 why he wanted to target the lower castes. Of course it was true, but the other half had been that murdering iigaari and gurab'pa was all he could handle at the time. Even after all these years, the silent chant rang through his mind every time he extinguished yet another part of the Hive.
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.
He aimed and loosed another missile.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Miranda heaved, the plunge driven by her thrusters pulling black edges over her vision as she dove toward a clutch of Enforcers with Sentinels. After the rising retaliation of the human resistance to the slave roundups, the Invid had intensified their forces occupying towns. What had been only a dozen or so Enforcers in Amanda's case was now six Enforcers, eight Sentinels, four Troopers and twenty Scouts.
Miranda did not care. All she could think was that the Invid had gone entirely too far now, in their recent history of breaking every vow of noninterference in the book. She growled within her helmet, targeting an Enforcer even as they started to take notice of her.
One exploded outright, one's sensor shattered, and one's firing arm exploded in green blood and alloy. Miranda hadn't been as long in the combatant game as her brother, but there was no sign of it in the strike that ended with half of the Enforcers dead or disabled as she reached for the air again.
She knew how risky the move had been and several Sentinels had to be aiming up her rear at that moment. She made a hairpin turn, only to see the hulk of a Combat Trooper plow into the ground with a shattering crash, flattening a building, a couple Sentinels, and the wounded Enforcer.
She could see the perpetrator weave around in midair and detected the acid-green armor. "Thanks for the assist, Kev!"
"You're welcome." He sounded strained. "Where's Gendt?"
"No idea. Lost him tangling with some Scouts. Yours?"
"Same. It's insane. You can't keep str--RANDA LOOK OUT!"
She cut out the thrusters, dropped, fired, and waxed the Enforcer she saw just then aiming, lifting again with a neck-wrenching jerk a couple dozen feet before she hit the ground. Kevin's quick eyes had saved her yet again.
"We gotta get the others." she said shortly.
The Scouts were beginning to regroup, presumably under the direction of the two remaining Enforcers. Miranda bit back a groan of horror. There were still twelve left. She didn't know about the casualties her side had sustained, but under no means was this a pretty picture.
The first Scout began to dive toward them, folded up in its clamlike attack configuration. The two Elms scrambled and blasted away from each other like repelled magnets as the Invid mecha screamed toward them.
In an instant, there was a screech and it exploded.
Miranda heard Gwen's voice over the tac net, froze, and began a whoop of elation.
The rest had arrived.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Round here we talk like lions
But sacrifice like lambs...
--Counting Crows, "Round Here"
Mandy pushed back her visor, looking over the scene as the rest of the Elms dove into the fray, this time with the heavy weaponry that it had taken this long to set up. Behind her, she could hear the thump as Thieu landed behind her.
She shifted her position on the bank of the watering hole, and watched the general chaos over to the west. Matt had told her and her companion to withdraw, as both their payloads were nearly expended and it was now a matter of helping the Riders to mop up the mess. If the Invid were to take Rantoul, this day would not be the time.
She recalled with some misgiving the icy, remorseless accuracy she had dispatched three Scouts. Thieu had accounted for three others.
Thieu unhelmeted, his black hair dripping stringily onto his self-confessed quarter-Asian countenance. "Not a bad day's work, huh? You want a orange-drink screwdriver when we get back?"
"Ack." Amanda's face twisted. "Get your helmet on, Ray."
With puppy insolence, he teased, "Why, sweetie? We're done for the day."
"It's not safe, Ray. I've got the scars to prove it. Just do it." She with horror realized her own words; Raymond was no older than herself, and she was talking like Gerald or Dennis. What the heck?
"Oh all right, if you say so. Really, don't you?"
"Most disgusting thing I've ever dreamt of drinking. Flirt later, Ray, we've got--" There was a strangled choke behind her, and a wet noise. She whirled. And screamed.
Thieu was staring with blank astonishment. The crimson-slicked spike impaling his neck withdrew, a viscous gout of red fountaining out. The battloid suit and the figure inside stood for a second more, then crumpled to the ground, watering it vermillion.
The red optic of the Kraken Inorganic focused on her. The bloody tapewormlike tentacle arched like a cobra, and lashed forward.
Amanda tried to lift, was forced to stumble back by the strike, rolled down the slope and splashed into the rancid water, switching to public channel in her panic. "Pierson to Elms--Kraken, waterhole! We've been--"
The tentacle whipped and spat.
For a millisecond, Amanda's body arched in agony. Then there was an infinite void of time as completely beyond her control, her body began its slump, her eyes open on the hovering Inorganic as she folded into the water of the man-made pond. Then, there was only the lukewarm touch of the water as her armor dragged her into the shallow depths.
She realized as she sank that it had not been electricity it had been firing, but a sort of paralyzing bolt that shut down voluntary muscles. While it was not fatal of itself, she couldn't move a hair.
She wondered how long it would take for her to drown.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Targets eliminated, the Kraken's computer rasped to its guiding Brain. The Inorganic withdrew its tentacles and whooshed silently away from the bubbling water and the scarlet patch of ground with the still-warm meat at its center.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Is that it?" Matt asked worriedly. "If even one gets away we're in deep crap. And we're close by here."
"I think so," Kevin whispered to him in private communication. "I can't 'hear' any others." Ulm's helmeted head nodded over to him in recognition.
The Riders' CO made a thoughtful noise. "I think you guys have 'em cleaned up," she said, her visor peering over the landscape as her first-generation Saber Cyclone battlesuit hovered above them. She gave a huge sigh of relief. "I can't tell you how grateful we are, Lieutenant Ulm. We're going to have to stay in the underground shelters for a good long while, but it beats having Rantoul enslaved." She added quietly, "My sister and my nephews and niece live here."
"I understand, Giraldi."
There was a sudden shout. The ground seemed to open up as the Rider CO yelped and lifted away.
"Shit, Matt, I was wrong," Kevin gulped.
The Scout was missing a claw and leaking fluid heavily, but somehow it still lived. The red sensor focused, as the crippled mecha lurched upward.
Before the three could move, another Saber had leapt foward, CADS humming, and ended the Scout's break with fluid ease. Kevin watched, sourness rising in his thoat.
"First time for everyone," Ulm said on their private channel.
"I think," the stranger commented, "that's the last one."
Kevin was badly shaken. "I certainly hope so. God." He panted, feeling the adrenalin spit into his system.
"It is," the other assured them. There was something vaguely familiar about the melodic tenor or baritone, Kevin couldn't remember which. "I counted when we went in. Experience, I guess."
"Saved us this time," Commander Giraldi said, relieved. "I suppose we now--"
The scream pierced their eardrums even over the radio, the soprano in such an extremity of terror it did not sound human. It seemed to drive a ice spike into Kevin's soul, for he knew whose it was.
"MANDY!" he cried. Even as the voice gasped its few words, he was in the air, rocketing toward the only body of water he'd seen.
"O'Shea!" Ulm barked in shock. "What--" The terrified voice on the other end cut off short. The second Saber was already gone. He and Giraldi followed after.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Kevin's Ferret ripped the air as he plunged toward the hole, unaware of the fact that the two Cyclones behind him had split off to pursue a retreating disturbance in the grass. The only thing he was aware of was the glassy surface of the watering hole, seemingly undisturbed but for the vicious bloodstain at one end in which Thieu was sprawled. And deeply rutted grass and earth just beyond that...
Mother, mother, how long? How long since the gasping voice cut off in bubbles?
"I'll take him!" the Saber shouted. Kevin gave a distracted acknowledgement, and plummeted, cutting out the engines as he hit the surface and sank, his armor filling as he did so .
Dark, murky, opaque water was all he could see. Where? He whipped out a hand, felt on the bottom, the gauntlet searching the way his eyes could not. It hit something solid, he could feel...
Frantically, he dragged the arm to him, got the body, thank Mother his helmet was halfway water-sealed, and lunged for the bank.
Liquid flooded out of the cyclone as he peeled it away from him, out of the still body's as he triggered the transformation sequence. He peeled the armor away. Her lungs had to be full of water... He picked her up, tilted her so it ran out of her, wrapped his arms around her torso, and lunged upward. Water poured out of the nose and mouth. How many minutes? How long did he have?... There was still a thready pulse. Praying to whatever deity would listen, he laid her out flat, pinched her nostrils, and began to administer artificial respiration.
Several cycles of eternity as he breathed for her, and he continued even after her chest began to rise and fall on its own. It was only after she began to cough that he stopped, panting, looking and not quite believing.Her eyes blinked.
"Mandy! Can you hear me?"
The light emerald irises focused on him, beginning to widen in terror. She was breathing, with liquid gurgles, her eyes were blinking, but the rest remained completely immobile.
The Saber shadowed them. "Is she--"
"Is Thieu--" Kevin began, remembering Amanda's partner at last. His heart sank when the helmet moved from side to side.
"Too late. His neck--was impaled. It hit the aorta. He was probably dead in a couple of minutes." Nausea shuddered the voice. The frantic green eyes below them closed in utter pain.
"She can't move. It's as though she were paralyzed."
The Saber pilot removed his helmet. "Can you understand us, Mandy? Blink once for yes."
The eyelids fluttered closed and opened.
The blue eyes, a couple shades darker than Kevin's own, glanced over at him, then down. "Do you know what attacked you? Blink twice if you don't." Another single blink. "Do you think it used electricity? Stun chemicals? Some other paralysis agent?" Two blinks for each of the first two questions, and one for the last.
"It was a Kraken Inorganic," Kevin supplied. "We've had a--tangle with one before. But I thought it was electricity at the time."
The other nodded. "It could be both. I have no idea who's creating them, but I've seen some--variety in attacks. This and other types."
"No." the barely audible whisper came from below. Both men gaped. "Paralyze bolt." Amanda's throat worked, emitting another gurgling cough.
"It's wearing off!" Kevin said hopefully. "At least it's not permanent, Mr.--"
"Belmont," the other supplied, his dyed hair plastered with perspiration. "Probably long enough for the Inorganic to take prey." He helped Kevin to strip the remaining armor off her body, the water trickling out as they did so. "I've seen the Invid use enough combat techniques to give me nightmares for a lifetime. Funny, considering..." He trailed off.
"Isn't it though," Kevin answered shortly. "Watch my back." He proceeded to remove his torso armor and slung Mandy over his shoulder, trying to get the remaining water out of her with gravity and whacks on the back. By the time he was finished, she was breathing more normally and her hands had begun to twitch. He got her back down, holding her awkwardly as he crouched on the ground, shaking and not about to loose his hold on her. She lay quietly, the only indication of her internal state of mind the spasmodic twitches and her dilated eyes.
In another couple of minutes, the two officers arrived back, mounted on their Cyclones.
"Yep, it was a Kraken. WAS a Kraken," Giraldi said grimly, patting her H-90 rifle. "The last time that son-of-a-bitch will--jesusmaryandjoseph." She began to heave as her eyes lit on the corpse of Thieu. "So--that's..."
Ulm saw as well and groaned. "God, I knew I shouldn't have let him operate that soon..."
"No, Lieutenant," Belmont answered frankly, "It's always too soon to start fighting. He just was on the losing side. But the other's going to be okay, I think." Mandy's head began to move a little. There was still a bit of foul water inside her lungs interfering with her breathing, but she was breathing. She was slightly surprised by that.
Giraldi demurred. "I don't know, to be honest. We're thankful for your help, but I know damn well what happens with animals drinking and wading in that water and God only knows what's in there in the middle of summer. She needs antibiotics as fast as she can. As soon as the Hos-Box gets here and it's free I'm injecting her." Ulm whistled. The hospital sidecars the Icarus had dropped were only wishful thinking for the Elms.
Kevin realized belatedly he was wet, filthy and smelt like a slurry tank, but that was minor compared to the knowledge whom he had gotten into it for was still breathing and now beginning to move her legs. Hearing soft wordless complaints, he adjusted his hold and supported her head, catching her eyes as he did so.
"You're going to be okay, Mandy. You better be okay, because I went to all this work--you understand me?"
She nodded, incapable of the strength to form words. She looked into Kevin's face, mustering all the understanding attitude she could.
Kevin blinked, and continued staring at her further, fear and confusion in his eyes. She did not quite know what was going on, but suddenly she felt completely safe, as long as he held on. Green eyes stlil fixed on the blue, her eyelids dropped and she felt only quiet.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Amanda had fallen asleep. He looked down at her face, blinking in black exhaustion.
What had happened? What feeling had been passed to him in that look that made him feel so strange and defied all words? Kevin fumbled for an explanation, and it felt like nailing fog. That single moment had transcended all human language and every elaborate mental-and-vocal construct the Invid had.
"Okay, thanks, Commander, Belmont. Let me know when the Hos-Box is free to treat mine. I've no words to thank you for that."
"Lieutenant," Giraldi said firmly, "You don't need to waste words. Saving Rantoul was more than enough."
"Yeah. And I've got to radio mine so we can--take care of--Thieu." He ended it bleakly. "C'mon, Kev, let's get her back to rondezvous."
Shakily, he got to his feet with his burden, the confusion slipping his mind as he began to occupy himself with the gritty business of cleaning up.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Hey, Mandy," Miranda said, sticking her wooden-beaded cornrowed head in, "You got a house caller."
Amanda sat further up in her bed in her living suite. "I do?" She winced as her still-balky muscles did not quite cooperate. "Who is it?"
Miranda made a face, her dark skin shiny with the heat from outside. "Wouldn't say except he helped with saving your butt, sweetie. You think you want to see him?"
Mandy shrugged. "Sure. It's been a couple days. I need to get active tomorrow." Miranda smiled and left, leaving Mandy in the darkened and empty room. Everyone else was out, leaving her with throbbing pains from the antibiotic injections and the residues of her paralysis slowing her responses, and occasionally, the company of the other walking wounded. Except for that and the grief and nightmares over Thieu's death, it had been a dull time.
Her caller cautiously entered the room. Amanda recognized him from the disaster at the waterhole, but he was obscured in the gloom she preferred at the time.
"You want the lights up?" she asked. He smiled and shook his head.
"No, that's fine. But thanks for asking." He held out a store vase and its contents, which she slowly took and placed on the table. "Just a gift."
She looked and smiled. "Where did you get them?"
He chuckled. "A lot of roses seem to have gone wild in the area. I hope you don't mind the color. It's for friendship. Turns out it's also a nice match to your hair. I've always been fond of yellow," he said with a wistful tone.
"They're beautiful. Thank you. I didn't think you'd come, Mr. Belmont, what with you being with the Riders and all."
"Mnnh," Belmont said, sucking on a lip. "Actually, that was the reason why, Amanda. To be honest, I'm not a part of the Apocalypse Riders. I was passing on the way through and was staying with them for a couple days when the Invid attacked. Naturally I tried to help out. I'm going to be leaving tomorrow, so I'm paying my respects to you now. I'm glad to see you're doing fine, especially," he added slyly, "since you're a cute girl and the Earth needs a few more." Amanda grinned, blushing.
"Amazing you can think that after I took a swim in a cow spit resevoir. It wasn't the drowning so much as finding out what I'd inhaled," she shuddered in disgust. He laughed.
"Happens. I have a friend of mine I haven't seen for a few years now. She's about your age. I wonder what she's like now." He sighed and went silent.
"So why are you--passing through, then?" she asked.
"I'm...looking for people I know," he said at last. "They're scattered all over the continent. Besides...the Invid has taken an intense disliking to me."
"Ah," she said. "Should I ask why?"
"Better not. I want to leave as light a trail behind me as I can. Sorry."
"No matter," she affirmed, lapsing into an awkward silence. Belmont broke it after a couple of moments.
"Your friend is extremely brave," he said softly. "I don't think you realize how brave."
"Who? Kevin?"
There was a nod. "Anyone who'd go into a body of water of unknown depth in full battloid is either courageous beyond belief or stupid. Maybe both. Or..." he trailed off meaningfully.
"Or what?"
"Or he thought your life was much more important than his own. You'll have to look out for him, Amanda. If he places that much value in you..."
Amanda was beginning to understand the implications and did not want to. Belmont rose from his seat and shook her hand. "I've got to leave now, because I need to get away before the Invid start seeing connections in the assault. I don't know if I'll be back in the area any time soon, so take care, and maybe we'll meet again."
She squeezed back, her mind racing. "Will you be all right? It's not a pretty world out there anymore."
He managed a chuckle. "I've crossed some hostile land in my time, so I don't think you ought to worry on that score." He went serious again. "You'd be better to keep an eye on your own affairs. Also," he rubbed his forehead under his chevroned headband, "keep in mind what I said about Kevin. People like him aren't liked by the enemy. Especially now--there's a marked rise in the rate of purges, and resistance is attacked first."
"Are you implying something?" she asked blandly, removing her hand from his.
His voice dropped to a whisper. "Nothing more than what you already know." Her intake of breath was met with an eyeglint and a knowing nod as he leaned in. "I've--been around--enough to see the signs, Amanda, although in his case it took a long time for me to realize it. The way he responds to attacks so much more quickly than a normal person, the way he doesn't flush in this heat after fighting that long--it's there. You don't realize how dangerous his position is now. I don't think he does either.
"Amanda, he's not the only one to object to this occupation. I've known a few--others. Over half of them are dead now." Despite herself she gulped again.
"I don't mean to scare you, but if you at all care for him, you have to realize that you make him vulnerable in a way that makes things even more hazardous for him. It's a warning I'm giving you, because like it or not, it's the truth."
She was trembling. "Who the heck are you?"
"Me?" Belmont said, rising. "Just another fighter in this war, Mandy. That's all I am. Get better. People need you too."
Before she could protest, he was out in the hall. Rattled by his cryptic statements, she stared at the yellow roses in the vase and fought a losing battle with trying not to understand what he meant.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Fucking tires!" Gerald growled, attempting to find a leak to no avail. Malcolm, helping keep the Super Saber steady on the jack as Gerald looked and exercised his vocabulary, raised his eyes to the concrete heavens in plea.
Kevin, kibtizing nearby, said, "Hey, look now, tires don't reproduce. You never can even get them together long enough even if they did." He followed this profound statement up with a glass of water upturned on his head, flooding his already sweat-soaked white undershirt and turning his hair into dribbling stringlets. The entire garage smelt like an unhygenic armpit, thanks to the 90-plus degree heat filtering in from the outside.
"Oh aren't you the genius--" A shattering crash followed. "My hand! The son of a bitch almost fell on my hand!" Gerald bawled. "Kevin, you twinky bastard, you broke my concentration!"
Malcolm was still snickering. "Nope, he broke mine." Gerald gave him a slow, gray-hot glare of indignation.
"'Look down, your pants are falling!'" Kevin yodeled back derisively. Gerald turned the look times two on him, and was answered with a sweet smile.
A repressed snigger burst out into a snort that was not from either of the three. The visitor looked apologetic and stepped out.
Now really, Kevin thought, know I seen the guy before... Is this what they call deja vu?
"Could I speak to you for a second, Mr. O'Shea?" he asked him, still trying to hold in laughter. Kevin shrugged and complied, leaving the others to their work.
The air outside was thick with insects and cicada noise and was stifling, but at least there was a breeze. Kevin was thankful for that.
"Nice dye job," he commented.
"What? Oh, yes, thanks. I try and keep it up, although the ingredients are hard to get these days. Had to cut the length down," he said with some regret.
"Understand. What you want me for? Presume Matt wanted me to give you the recent moves over in this area. I've got a folder inside that I keep up in my glorious tradition as scout."
"Yes, that'd be nice. I'm going to pass the information on to the next group I meet and keep spreading it. It'll give us a way of comparing things regionally." Belmont looked over at the other. "With the way things seem to be going, there's been sometimes abrupt differences in how the Invid are running their campaigns in certain areas of the continent. What we need to know is why."
Kevin shook his head. "I haven't the faintest clue."
"Hmm," his companion said. Absently, he began to trace on the hot concrete of the garage entrance. "Do you realize that the Kraken Inorganic has only appeared in the area east of the Missisippi and north and west of the Shenandoahs and Appalachians?"
Kevin stared, stunned, and shook his head again.
"That's not normal behavior for distributing an Invid mecha."
"No it wasn't--in the last war. But then again, nor was cooperating with EBSIS factions, new mecha popping up all of a sudden, sudden enslavement operations, or weird hybrid mecha. This isn't the only case, Mr. O'Shea. Several other unique types of unpiloted mecha have shown up in other sections of the continent too, confined to certain areas. I don't know what's going on, but this is very worrisome behavior." His finger began to tap, then trace again. "If I were you, I'd watch out for new improvisations. A really nasty type popped up in an adjacent area, a little probe-spy droid. I gave its specifics to Lieutenant Ulm, but keep your eyes open."
Mouth a line, Kevin nodded.
That tapping and tracing was really annoying, he thought. Half against his will, his eyes were drawn to Belmont's finger.
"To be frank, I haven't understood what's been going on since '43, since the new mecha started to show up..." Kevin trailed off, trying to keep his train of thought with that tapping distracting him. Suddenly his eyes widened as comprehension hit him.
Belmont's index finger, now tracing again, was doing it in a specific manner.
Kevin glanced up, around, and listened in on the conversation sifting from inside the garage. There seemed to be no notice of them. He looked around for any hypothetical probe droids. He already knew for a fact there were no living Invid in the area, present self excepted of course.
"I'm a Friend," he said softly, emphasis on the capital letter. Belmont's eyes widened, and he nodded.
"I figured you would be," he said. "There was evidence."
"Any other Friends you've seen in the last six months?"
Belmont said, "I've seen only one, but heard of two others. They--had to leave."
Kevin inhaled, closing his eyes, and let out a breath that was half sob. "That many?"
"Yes. I'm sorry. They didn't leave easily, though." Kevin nodded.
"What about the other friend of ours?"
"Still alive, but hiding. Their family doesn't like them. Have you seen any?"
"Two years ago my elder sister came by."
A spark lit in the other man's care-aged eyes. "Which one?"
"The third one."
Belmont's face went so still that Kevin had a shock. At last, he said, "At least her family won't know where she is, if that's the most recent report."
"I haven't seen any other Friends of mine. Sorry, Belmont."
"It's just as well. The two that left were closely involved with each other. How many 'other' friends here do you have?"
Kevin's brows hiked. "Two. The second one was an accident, but she's not fair-weather."
"That's good news. Any other friends you got from elsewhere that came around? I'm looking for a couple for a reunion." Kevin shook his head, leaving his questioner looking disappointed.
"Hope you find them, though. Good friends are hard to find these days."
The intent look was gone as Belmont's eyes rolled up to the heavens. "Tell me about it." Kevin snickered. "Well, take care. I'm always glad to hear about the family. I've got problems of my own with them, and don't want to visit some on you. Show me your information and then I'll be on my way."
"Sure." They shook hands, leaving Kevin standing alone by the wall, watching the other's lavender-tinted head disappear down the ramp.
"Tell me about it," Kevin said flatly to himself, shaking his head. He then came back to himself and dashed down the ramp and back inside.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Six months had passed, long enough for the glassy hole in the ground to gain the first few tentative holds of plant life sprouting from the caved-in walls and passageways. A tangle of weeds straggled in the brooding heat of late summer over the blasted, hundred-yard wide depression, assuming strange and bizarre shapes in the gathering gloom of an August evening, lurching in the sporadic hiss of breeze. Except for the flitter of bats awakening overhead and the day's-ending complaints of robins and other feathered life settling in, there was no other sign of living movement.
Humans, despite everything, are poor observers, and it would have taken one a couple minutes to realize the strangeness in the atmosphere was the complete cessation of that movement, leaving nothing but the wind.
The breeze shifted, and shifted again, into unnatural directions, as though struggling to escape. It became omnidirectional, began to blow into the clearings from all angles. Then it began to blow outward in the same manner, carrying a hot breeze that stank like ozone and cooked dust and metal, the focus a section of space near the collapsed complex.
There was a sudden hidden rush as all the small nocturnal life in the area scrambled away, and then the sound began.
Or rather, it had already been there, in the sullen cyclical depths shared by earthquake vibrations and thunder, but had finally decided to rise to a point where limited human hearing could understand it, if only as a dull rumble. The creatures of the night, though, had made it out much earlier, and ingrained genetic memory classified it immediately as Bad News.
The rumble grew, in pitch and volume, so a low roar filled the clearing.
And then, there was light.
It split in a jagged rip, suspended and described in a manner that even if it was not so bright to blind, it would have caused nausea to try and understand; it was not the normal dimensions of height, depth, and width it was occupying. Reality was being torn apart like a piece of tissue, and it was not so neat.
The tear grew, and widened, until a second sun seemed to occupy the river-valley woods. In the middle of it, something dark and more understandable moved, walked, and somehow identified with the space the reality-rip had entered. The roar grew to a freight-train pitch.
And then, there was silence.
To describe the lack of noise after an overwhelming quantity of it is not possible. Silence gonged with aftervibrations as though the air molecules themselves hadn't gotten used to it. The same, perhaps, could be described of the darkness.
Some wind came up. Tree leaves rustled.
There was suddenly a crash, and yipes of pain. Then, human language filled the clearing:
"Aw shit, who turned out the lights?"
There were more collisions. At length, there were a few grunts and the source of the noises heaved itself out of the collapsed passageway into which it had tripped, whimpering.
Then light sprouted agian, this time reduced a hundredfold. It came from a small sphere that hovered, disregarding gravity and conventional means of production. There was a sharp intake of breath.
"Toto," the voice said, "I don't think we're in San Francisco anymore."
Limping, the figure began to wander around, making bemused noises at the wreckage. "Not only there's a big lack of streetlights, everything's had a nasty meltdown, and somebody's really been into a reforestation project. Either that, or--" There was a dull chunk, and another filthy word, breaking off the sarcastic monologue.
"And the trolleys they make were really interesting in design. In fact--" It bent to study the source of the toe-stubbing.
There were no noises at all.
A minute passed.
"Oh. My. God." A sudden rise in breathing. "Don't tell me I, oh no, curse you, you little fool, you've you yourself into a fine pickle now..." There was a grunt, and then a stumble. "Have to get out, if they've picked up..." A pant, and then the lightsphere was gone, and there were crashes and gasps that distanced themselves into the woods..
Behind, the claw lifelessly dug itself into the ground, as the night covered all.