The Blood Solution (Approaching Infinity Book 3) (36 page)

New shouts, these from further away, began to intrude on the quiet scene. A great and sudden whoosh through the mass driver made Stoakes flinch. He had about ten minutes, then, to try to clog the launch way.

Stoakes crossed the roof to the opposite side of the building and jumped down. He hadn’t been paying attention and so hadn’t heard the explosion, but from that perch, before he dropped, he’d seen flickering light and smoke that was indicative of a fire much larger and more intense than from just one ruined truck.

The street below was filled with identical trucks with identical loads. He didn’t know how to operate the vehicles, and though they were big, they weren’t too heavy for him to drag. He sank his Dark fingers through the front grill of a truck and started to pull, yanking with smoother and smoother results, bringing the vehicle up a curb, around the corner of the building, and around to its base on the public square side. Bodies half submerged in blood were everywhere here, and he slipped more than once in the mess, losing his footing while trying to heave the truck forward. He zig-zagged it by pulling, then got behind it to push it up against the building’s facade. Now satisfied with its position, he tapped along the truck’s side, listening for the hollow thump that would reveal the location of the fuel tank. Finding it, he punched his fist through the thin sheet metal containing the fuel and the liquid splashed out, mixing with and discoloring the blood on the ground. As before, Stoakes jabbed his Knife in the direction of the source of the spouting fuel. Again, a spark danced and set the fuel to burning.

He went back around the building to the opposite side and got ready. He didn’t know if it would help or not, if he had the strength or not, but he didn’t know what else to do, so he waited. When the series of explosions from the other side started, he crouched, gathering every ounce of strength he had, and shot himself, leading with his shoulder, into the side of the building, hoping to exert sufficient force upon the structure to tip it over on what he hoped was a crippled foundation. And, to his own surprise, he was successful.

The bridge suspended over the mass driver fell first, almost as one mass. It had cracked and the pressure had split it in two, but those two great halves fell exactly between two of the copper coils. The building, not so tall and not so close to the mass driver crashed down, filling one half of the launch way for the length of a city block. How the coils had fared beneath the rubble of the building was impossible to know, but anything coming down the launch way would go no further.

It was time to go. While he was pretty sure that he’d succeeded in disabling the mass driver, he didn’t think the end results would be quite so spectacular as those of his two previous outings. That was okay. There would be an explosion, sure enough, and he didn’t want to stick around for it. Plus, he had to at least try to knock out as many more of these installations as was possible. He leapt to the top of a building, heading back out of the city the way he’d come in from building top to building top. He paused for a moment, looked over his shoulder and was struck by a sense of. . . what? Foreboding? He wasn’t sure. But he saw that the Vine had passed this planet while he was at work, and he knew that it would be making planetfall very soon now. He thought again of Faaylin Olaff, really wondering now where the others like him were if not here to defend their mass drivers or to engage earthbound foes. They couldn’t
all
be on that other planet, waiting. . . could they?

He turned to resume his exit, and the mass driver cycled up, providing a prelude to the brilliant flash that lit him from behind as he bounded from one concrete island to the next.

“Blue Squad,” Witchlan said, “you have our apologies that, though you are retired, you will feature so prominently in this invasion. We will be landing close to the sea. Exact coordinates are impossible to calculate given our rate of descent and imperfections in the warp fields brought on by the planet’s gravity, but Mr. Set, immediately upon planetfall, you are to find your way to that sea. Accumulate as large a volume of water as possible and rejoin the main force on land.”

“Yes, Minister,” Set said.

“Mr. Lowe, you will support Mr. Barson from the air,” Witchlan said.

“Yes, Minister.”

“Miss Fan, you will join the other Shades following the main force.”

“Yes, Minister.”

“The main force will consist of gene soldiers, who will be dispatched en masse as soon as the waning influence the stitch drive allows us access to their containment cells. Their numbers are back up to quota levels, and they are expendable. As usual, the gene soldiers will be directed by Mr. Barson’s Coordinators. Support troops are to be provided by Mr. Holson and Mr. Kapler, should they prove necessary.

“Mr. Barson, from atop Gran Kwes, you will lead Icsain, Mr. Abanastar, Mr. Kalkin, Mr. Holson, Mr. Vays, Mr. Kapler, and as already mentioned, Miss Fan. Miss Winn and Miss Karvasti, you will remain within the Palace in case the planet’s defensive force should somehow break through our offensive line.

“While we may be operating at close to full capacity, it has been made abundantly clear that we are expected, and that we ourselves can expect resistance, likely of a different character, than we have so far observed.

“Our projected landing site is close to a population center. Impact will no doubt ruin that center’s infrastructure, but we should anticipate a swift response to our arrival. If such is a premature concern, it hurts us little. If it is an accurate assessment, we must be able to meet with whatever force they have prepared for us. We will
not
underestimate them. Is that understood?”

As a group, the Shades gathered around the low, glass-topped table in the war room, responded in the affirmative.

“Excellent. You are all dismissed from further duty today. Return to your quarters and prepare for landing. Mr. Barson, have all the necessary precautions been taken with Gran Kwes?”

“They have, Minister.”

Witchlan nodded. Moments passed before he finished by saying, “That is all.”

Alarms sounded through the halls of the Palace for the duration of the day. Technicians and Palace personnel locked down everything that wasn’t already. Except for certain access ways that provided express exit for the Shades from their quarters, all doors and apertures were sealed with viscous resin excreted from the very walls, which dried and hardened in seconds, further strengthening the internal latticework that supported the Vine against all intrusions of external force.

In their quarters, Jav and Mao cuddled in their bed, which for landing purposes had been converted to its alternate configuration. The mattress was now filled with a thick fluid designed to substantially reduce kinetic energy. They were enfolded within the mattress, which held them like a womb, and which was open only at the top.

He would hold her there, pressed close to him, for as long as possible, confirming every second that she was with him, that she was alive, that she was warm and breathing and not somehow getting away from him and winking out of existence.

Preceded by the jump lens, the Vine raced towards the sixth planet. Their orbits had taken the other two planets out of firing position, but the sixth planet continued to make use of its mass drivers. Unfortunately for the natives, though, the jump lens was working. Everything the sixth planet sent out was being returned. Just as soon as a projectile came within the operating disk of the jump lens, it passed through folded space and was directed back at the source. The plan was a complete success up through its conclusion when the jump lens made contact with the planet’s surface just before the Vine touched down. The earth there, for kilometers around, was tilled on a grand scale in an instant, and made suitable for planting.

The Palace crashed down like judgement, half upon the dry land and half upon the water. With the added momentum provided by the Stitch Drive, the impact cracked the planet all the way through. Quakes and tidal waves radiated out to spread until those mighty ripples met themselves on the opposite side of the planet, creating another riot of unending temblors which competed for devastation. Black clouds of dust and debris were raised kilometers high to blot out the sun and choke the inhabitants of two continents. Hundreds of millions died, but those Entitled by God were ready and on their way.

When the heavier bits of rock and soil blown high up into the air had settled back down upon the ground, a streak shot from high up on the Palace, making for the sea. From points all around the Palace at a similar height, what looked like a particulate fog spilled out. From a distance, it looked like clouds of gnats, but these were in fact the winged gene soldier harpies that made up Tia Winn’s army. From the base of the Palace as well, Mefis Abanastar’s gene soldier army of mermen spewed forth in shocking numbers, covering the upturned ground like liquid.

Again at the base of the Palace, a great bay opened up, and from this came the four-legged mechanized tanks that turned Barson’s Coordinators—all that would be used of his own army—into steely centaurs, each backed by its own atomic power plant. A great shadow fell upon these five hundred as Gran Kwes bowed to clear the upper reach of the bay and stepped out onto the earth with a bass thunderclap. Upon Gran Kwes’s giant equine head stood Wheeler Barson, Dark, his head a smaller reproduction of his Gran’s but with a twisted horn of what looked like black soapstone that gouged at the sky. The Gran took more thunderclap steps, clearing the Palace bay and wading—harmlessly—through the gene soldiers.

Stafros Lowe came buzzing through the air from the bay, his legs vibrating invisibly with the power of his Lead Cloud Steps, to take up his position as Barson’s personal back-up. Though he seemed like an insect in the air, when Dark Lowe was encased in a metallic electric blue shell and actually was more like an anthropomorphic frog. Pods that dwarfed his head adorned each shoulder and were the source of but one of his secret weapons.

Almost unnoticed upon the ground, the remaining Shades fanned out on either side of Gran Kwes to bring up the extreme rear. To the Gran’s right were Jav, Kalkin, and Abanastar. To the Gran’s left, on the sea side, were Icsain, Raus, Vays, and Bela Fan.

When Vays inquired of Dolma Set to Bela, she pointed with her chin to the sea and let her eyes linger there. First Vays regarded her, impressed with her Darkened state. She was armored as he was, but her armor was white enamel with cobalt blue markings instead of polished silvery steel. Where in appearance Vays was sharp and angular, Bela was smooth, round, and stout. This included her writhing tail—an artificial extension of her spine—which was twenty-five centimeters thick at its origin, two meters long, and tapered to a one-centimeter point.

Vays’s attention was suddenly wrested away, taken to where Bela had indicated, where the ocean was rising up, the waves thrashing eighty meters into the sky and not falling. The tons of rushing water made a sound that was eerily like that of some primordial beast, like a thing that had been born out of the chaos of creation when the universe was still young, a thing that might have crept into the husk of cooling planet in search of refuge, a thing left alone to cry in the night simply for being.

“What the hell. . .?” Vays whispered in awe.

“Hmph,” Bela breathed, a smile evident in her tone behind her concealing faceplate, which was featureless save for eye marks. “That, Mr. Vays, is Un Azameio. With a large enough volume of liquid, Set can match any Gran, new or old.” Obvious pride joined her unseen smile.

A great, rounded crest blotted out the horizon above the already tumultuous sea. The wall of water rolled forward towards the beach upon which the Viscain army now marched, and when the water touched dry ground, bass shudders rippled outward, recasting the sandscape in intricate waves. When Un Azameio cleared the ocean, its shape was more discernible, but as it was comprised of nothing but water, its shape was ever changing. Its great head probed, appearing to sniff at the air like a dog, as the thing pulled itself along the beach with two massive arms that separated from and were reabsorbed into the main body at intervals. After a fashion, it altered its orientation so that its upper body rose erect, and it slid along the ground upon a pseudopod like a giant tread that was at least eighty meters in diameter. As the behemoth drew closer to the Viscain army, Dolma Set could be seen suspended, with his arms folded authoritatively, within its head. Soon Un Azameio drew up beside Gran Kwes and kept pace with it. Icsain took a position between the two giants, while Raus, Vays, and Bela shifted their positions to the outside of Un Azameio.

As the line advanced, Jav watched Abanastar who was busy consulting a series of floating lenses stacked in a way that suggested a telescope.

“What do you see,” Jav asked.

“The opposition,” Abanastar said matter-of-factly, without looking away from the lenses.

“The opposition? Already? And in force?”

“Yes, yes, and yes.”

“How many are there?”

“Hold on, I’m about to broadcast.”

And Abanastar did. Through his Artifact to theirs, he spoke to every Shade at once. “A ground force, consisting one hundred percent of human foot soldiers, is approaching from the population center. There appears to be a steady wave, like an orderly exodus, making it difficult to assess their numbers. This, I believe, is immaterial, however.

“In the forefront there are those who I believe will offer us our only real challenge. They are variously arrayed with the heads of animals or with some other fantastic adornment. While I can’t quantify it exactly, they are possessed in varying degrees of some intrinsic energy which may put some of them on par with Shades. I count two hundred and thirty-three of these.

“At our present speeds, I estimate contact in ninety-seven minutes. Give or take.”

“Understood,” Barson said through his Artifact. “Since we don’t know exactly what we’ll be up against and since they’ve proved to be ready for us so far, I don’t want to split us up, even though some of us could close the gap in moments. We’ll meet them together, in force.