The God Mars Book Five: Onryo (31 page)

As I approach the crest-end, I can hear intermittent
gunfire, and see plumes of smoke rising up into the hazy sky from
inside the Katar canyon. It reminds me too much of another day,
when I ran to defend my people against a bot attack, only to arrive
too late to save too many, including my stepmother Fatima. It seems
like a lifetime ago, but it’s only been a few weeks.

I know what I’m hearing is bot guns, interspersed
with conservative rifle fire. As I get closer, weaving through the
thick green at the mouth of the canyon, I think I can also hear the
sharp sounds of metal on metal, metal cleaving metal, the
distinctive scream of Companion Blades. As I run, I come across the
familiar tracks of Boxes and Bugs. If I concentrate, I can hear the
coded chatter of their command signals. I try to hack, jam, but the
frequencies shift, slip away from me. Asmodeus is being smart. He
knows there are Moddeds at Katar.

I try calling out to Straker, and get no reply. I
have no idea if I’m doing it right, or even how exactly to do it
other than concentrating. I try again, calling Ram. I still hear
nothing back. Then Peter tries for me.

“You’ve missed a bit,” Straker tells me in my head,
her words hurried, pressured. “But the fun is still in full swing.
They’ve been trickling in steadily.”

“I’m coming in from the east,” I tell her.

“Then watch your back—there may be others rolling in
behind you.”

“Who’s with you?”

“I’ve got the Carter Brothers and Paul Stilson, and
Dee was here to check Murphy’s wounds. He’s currently playing a
game of command signals with Fohat, but Fohat’s getting better. The
rest are in a similar fight at the Pax Hold. He’s hitting us in two
places at once.”

I clear the green and race out onto the defensive
plain. I immediately see six active bots—four Boxes and two
gun-armed Bugs—and the wrecks of six more. The camouflage coloring
of the Gate Wall has been pocked and pitted by heavy weapons’ fire.
Fire is coming back from the wall in the form of the occasional
sniper shot, from several positions along the top of the wall, and
from the cleft of the main “gate”, where I see Paul Stilson’s
distinctive blue sealsuit hunkered behind stone with his heavy
rifle. The bots answer back in kind, chewing up the rock
battlements, forcing Stilson to duck and cover.

Then I see something confusing: First one, then two
of the
wrecked
Box bots starts to move, only to have their
intact fellows start shooting at them. A third wreckage heaves up
and advances at one of the Boxes. I wonder if this is Dee, or one
of the Companion-Bound, taking control, but then I see the wrecks
aren’t moving under their own motor systems. They’re being pushed,
lifted and dragged from within.

A Bug runs at one of the moving wrecks, and starts
hacking at it with its blade limbs. It tries to tear open the
destroyed Box, only to suddenly jerk and spasm. I see the tip of a
Companion Blade come through its torso, then hack off its upper
head and one of its limbs.

They’re using the dead bots as shields. Smart,
because if any of the Companion-Bound takes a head shot, they won’t
come back from it.

Two of the Boxes turn and concentrate fire, not
caring if they’re hitting their own. I understand what they’re
doing, what Fohat (or Asmodeus) is doing: They know the Blades can
redirect and absorb incoming fire, but maybe there’s a limit. If
they can overwhelm what the Blades can stop…

They haven’t seen me yet. I draw my pistol and
announce myself. My rounds probably won’t penetrate the bots’
armor, so I go for the sensor heads. I blind three before they
figure out where the attack is coming from. But when they turn, a
sniper on the wall takes out another head.

Taking advantage of the confusion, Elias Carter comes
dashing out from behind his bot-shield and drives his blade deep
into one of the Boxes. It tries to spin, to rotate a gun on him,
but he chops the barrel-cluster away. Then it just tries to roll
over him. He drives his Blade back in between the cube-like
sections, twists and wrenches, but the Box has him partially
pinned. The remaining Bug heads for him.

I run to intercept, and one of the Boxes hammers me
with chain fire. My armor hardens, but I still get hit hard,
knocked sideways. I get my feet back under me and keep running,
make the Box chase me as I close on the Bug, and get it between me
and the Box as I start hacking. But even as I do, I try reaching
out, blocking the bot’s command signal and connecting with its
organic core—the remains of the human inside.

The signals keep shifting frequencies, slipping away
from me. I chop away two of the six limbs and damage a third,
getting hit hard in the left side for my trouble. I feel my armor
dent inward and then spring back, my ribs crack and re-knit, the
air knocked out of me. I stab the bot through the torso and shove,
lifting it. And then I run with it impaled on my Nagamaki, the
remaining legs trying to batter me as I charge at the nearest Box.
The Box turns a chain-gun on me, shredding the Bug’s torso and
pinging off my armor. I slam into it, pinning the Bug to the Box
with my blade, twisting it in both their guts. I reach up with my
left hand, grabbing the Bug by the “neck” of its remaining sensor
head, and I start draining it—power, fluids, proteins. I use the
renewed strength to drive my blade deeper into the Box. The Box
tries to get its gun back on me but can’t with the Bug blocking it.
So it tries to shake us off.

I finish the Bug by ripping its head off, then
ripping it in half with the damage done my my sword through it. Now
I can concentrate on the Box. I push my blade until it rips out the
side of the machine, through the sections, leaving it cleaved it
halfway through. Then I bring my blade down between other sections,
and push down to the ground, shearing and snapping the innards of
the machine as I go. Finally, I use my gloved hands to wedge
between the sections and rip it apart, rip it open, then put a fist
through the shell containing the organic aspects. I ignore the
exposed mutilated brain and spinal nerves, and reach further into
the machine, find the breech of the still-intact main cannon, and
get my hands on it.

The destroyed bot becomes my personal gun turret. I
wrench it around, point it at one of its fellows, and fire. I punch
three 20mm explosive shells into one of the other Boxes. Its
partner turns and starts firing at me. My Box-shield takes one big
round for me, then a second, before I realize it’s done. Battered
by the shockwaves of the first two hits, I jump clear as a third
round blasts through it, and go tumbling in the dirt. I get my feet
under me as fast as I can, ready to dodge another shot.

But the remaining Box jerks and wavers, as if
fighting with itself.

“Got it,” I hear Dee in my head.

Whatever he means, Straker comes running out from
behind her own shield and chops away the bot’s guns, then takes its
heads. The machine spins and rolls around, blind and helpless.
Straker backs away from it. I realize she’s staggering, clutching
her side. I can also see a ragged wound in her right thigh.

Erickson and Elias come to join her. They’re also
wounded, bloodied, exhausted. Straker drags herself over to the Box
I’d ripped open, reaches around inside the blasted wreckage, and
grabs hold of what’s left of the brain. It shrivels in her grip.
She looks like she’s going to be sick, but after a few moments, she
can stand up a little straighter.

“Dee?” she calls out. “Any more?”

“Three contacts,” he answers. “Seventy five meters
east-northeast, advancing.”

We turn to look into the green, see and hear it
rustle, moved by something big. Three more Bugs come walking out of
it, almost casually. They turn their gun arms on us, but don’t
fire.

“
Impressive
, Skeletor,” I hear Asmodeus now.
His voice is transmitting from the lead bot. “You’re shaping up
into quite the badass. But what did I tell you about wasting your
time hanging out with the wrong crowd?”

“If you really want my company, why don’t you tell me
where to find you?” I dare him.

“I don’t think you’re ready for that yet. You may
have finally gotten bored with hacking up Gandalf’s former minions,
but you still think you can care about the meat.
Save
them.
Protect them from
bad
men like me. Maybe I should ask the
Eureka PK: who protects them from
you
? And don’t give me
that shit about only killing the killers. Ram’s been spouting that
lame-ass excuse since before he killed me.”

“Ram didn’t kill you, Ange,” I hear Dee interrupt
with his usual calm. I look back at the Gate Wall, see a lone
figure in Nomad cloaks standing atop it. “I did.”

Before Asmodeus can answer, the bots jerk and stagger
like they’re fighting something, or having some kind of seizure.
Then they start thrashing at the empty air. I hear screams as their
human minds begin to reassert themselves. Then I hear Dee, on their
channels, soothing them, carefully exerting just enough control to
calm them and keep them from hurting themselves or anyone else. I
don’t hear Asmodeus anymore. Or Fohat’s command signals.

Now Straker and the Carters are looking back at
him.

“I told you I had it.”

Dee comes out to join us on the field, along with
Stilson, Sagrev Khan, and my father. I don’t react to his presence,
try to act like I don’t know him, but Straker’s eyes are on me,
concerned. My father stares at me as well, with a mix of shock and
unexpected rage. I’m sure he recognizes the armor from the DQ,
knows I must be that immortal regenerated, but why the anger?

Khan is followed closely by a squad of his warriors,
led by Cousteau. They’re definitely wary of the bots, including the
smashed and chopped and blasted ones. I wonder if they took
casualties before I arrived.

But before we can assess our losses and our next
steps, we’re all confronted with an odd problem: We have four
still-active but disconnected bots on our hands—the three Bugs and
the Box with the missing guns and heads. Dee steps up to the
helpless Box and puts a hand on its battered sections.

“We may be able to scavenge enough parts from the
others to get this one at least partially operational,” he
suggests. The others look at him like he’s gone mad, but I think I
understand.

“If these bots are separated from the network ,
Asmodeus has no control over them,” I speak with Peter’s voice.
“They may choose to serve you, if for no other reason than to
avenge what’s been done to them and their fellows.”

“Who are you?” Khan asks directly.

“My name is Peter Nagasawa,” I tell a partial truth.
“I served on that ship your people found. Until the crew was
killed, and I became this.”

“Dee, can you guarantee these things are no threat?”
Straker refocuses us.

“I can work on them outside the wall. If Fohat
manages to hack back in, I can set a failsafe to shut them
down.”

“Would that kill the organic aspects?” I ask, like I
care about the lives of butchered enemies. Dee doesn’t answer.

“I’ll help,” Stilson offers. Dee nods.

“You need to eat,” Straker tells me what she must be
reading.

“You three more than I,” I correct, nodding back at
her and the Carters.

“Then you will eat,” Khan insists, though still
clearly wary of me.

“Nothing else is incoming,” Dee assures. “I’ll call
if that changes.”

We put away our weapons and let Khan’s guards lead us
in through the Wall. I have to move like I’ve never been here
before without overselling it. But before we make it across the
inner clearing, Negev comes running from the colony, and speaks
with Khan urgently and discreetly. I’m afraid I can’t help but
eavesdrop, and then I have to force myself not to react.

Terina is missing.

Negev explains that he was gathering the colony
elite, taking them to the shelter of the cliff rooms, when Terina
proved nowhere to be found. Khan asks if there has been any sign of
incursion, and I desperately want to know what that means, but
Negev insists there has been no sign of entry. Khan orders him to
search again, up into the “higher houses,” and he runs off.

Khan doesn’t explain anything, but the others all
look at him with concern. He says nothing, keeps his face
absolutely stoic, and we’re led up through the colony and to the
Oculus.

But instead of being taken to the main chamber, we’re
taken through it, behind it, down through narrow cut corridors that
have to be lit by small burning sticks in order to see without
night vision enhancements. The passage seems to take us
underground, where we come to a large chamber, also lit with small
flames. In the center is a long table, gathered around which are
the other Kings and their advisors. Laid on the table are hardcopy
maps, lists, notes. I see handmade technical drawings of bots and
Harvester modules.

This is a council of war.

Khan steps around the table to join his fellows, who
all eye me nervously. I’m surprised they decided to bring me here,
put me in close proximity to their leaders. Apparently they’ve come
to trust my Modded fellows in these few days, and I’m being given
the benefit of association, or maybe for the service I’ve given
today. I listen while Khan gives his casualty report: Two of his
warriors were killed and three seriously injured by bot fire as
they defended the Wall.

Then Khan turns and addresses me formally:

“You will tell us your life. Who you are and where
you came from.”

It’s to be a variation of the newcomer ritual, only
for a more intimate audience.

I let Peter tell his story as mine: His mission,
coming to Mars, his family. His visit to the Barrow. Thel’s
madness. The flight of “some of his crewmen in a recon ship” (he
does not name them Drake, as my father would know that name). The
murder of his family. His unexpected resurrection and conversion.
His acts of vengeance. His entrapment.