The Ninth (21 page)

Owen put the map down and traced the patrol loops of the tripods.  Just as Owen had said, they formed four distinct groups, each one patrolling a single facing.

“That’s all well and good, but how does that help us?”  Erin was intrigued.

“It means we just have to sneak past them.”  The look on Owen’s face showed his mind was already formulating a plan.  “We can reach the Citadel without engaging a single one of them!”

“Hold it right there, all of you,” Elisabeth’s voice was loud and annoyed.  “First off, what are you all blathering about?  What do three legged death machines have to do with the stealth exam?”

“You weren’t there, but Brent guided us through the search lights by crawling through the underbrush.  The lights passed right over us without knowing we were there,” Dante explained.

“Perhaps that would work with an automated light, but these
things
are far smarter.”  Elisabeth shook her head disapprovingly.  “Plus, you might not have noticed, but this entire world is covered by metal plates, not a lot of foliage to hide in.”

“Foliage is irrelevant.”  Owen wouldn’t back down.  “And those Shards are not necessarily any smarter than the lights.  If Hiroko is right, these things are designed with one thing in mind.  They are mêlée units, not recon.  I’d be willing to wager the tripods that have attacked this encampment were doing so because it was on their patrol route.  Otherwise why wouldn’t the other three thousand have already over run us?”

“Maybe we are not that big a threat and they are ignoring us.”  Elisabeth took an angry step toward Owen.  “Or maybe those three thousand have standing orders to wait until an idiot like you does something
really
stupid before they wipe us out.”

“Or maybe there is another instructor behind them.”  Owen took an aggressive posture against Elisabeth.  “Like the instructor who was watching the monitors, maybe there is something above the tripods directing their actions.  With the constant bombardment, maybe whatever is controlling the Shards hasn’t noticed the few missing tripods that attacked the encampment yet.”

“It doesn’t matter.  Even
if
you are right we have no way to sneak past them.”  Elisabeth was still on the offensive.

Without another word, Owen gestured for his troopers to assemble and stormed out of the tent.  Surprised by his actions, most of the recruits in the tent followed, including Elisabeth.  Owen and his troopers quickly ran over the hill back to the valley where his drop ship had landed.  The other recruits watched carefully as Owen reached the remains of the tripod.  Owen and his group were too far off to hear, but it was clear Owen was giving detailed instructions to his troopers.  Four of the troopers opened fire on the corpse with their rifles.  However, the glow from the rifles was far less intense than it should have been.  The other six started opening fire on the ground around them.

“I think your boyfriend is crazy,” Erin quietly said to Hiroko

After several minutes, the four troopers pulled off the two long blades from the corpse of the tripod.  The other six pulled at the ground and lifted the massive section of metal.  Turning the massive plate over, the six started blasting its edges.  The other four carefully placed the two blades on either side of the plate.  Turning the first blade so the sharp edge faced away from the plate, the four troopers aimed their weapons at the plate.  Owen had apparently ordered his troopers to reduce the power output of their rifles, turning them from weapons to welding equipment.

After a surprisingly short amount of time, Owen had finished his project.  The large metal plate had been warped into a large bowl with two blades equally spaced within it.  With a great effort, Owen’s troopers flipped the bowl.  When they finished, it was apparent what they had created.  The flipping had transformed the bowl into a turtle shell of metal that blended into the surrounding plates.  The troopers easily slid the shell up the hill on the blade skids hidden underneath.  The shell moved almost silently, leaving only two small grooves behind it.

“Crazy like a fox.”  Hiroko beamed.

“Okay, so he’s good with his hands,” Elisabeth snorted.  “It’s still not going to fool anyone.”

“Excellent job, Owen!”  Dante took a step toward the approaching squad.

Dante offered up his hand to shake Owen’s.  However, Owen and his squad kept moving past the recruits gathered on the hill.  Giving Elisabeth a single defiant glance, Owen and his troopers started running down the opposing side of the hill.  Dante and the rest watched in amazement as the shell picked up speed as it slid down the hill.  As it reached the bottom, the troopers lifted it and gathered underneath it.  Owen and his entire group had disappeared inside the massive turtle shell.  The shell continued on its path.  Dante pulled out his pad and linked with Owen’s pad.

“What do you think you are doing?”  Dante quickly sent to Owen’s crawling shell.

“Brent saved my hide when my ident card set off the scanner,” Owen responded as the shell left the encampment.  “Brent showed me how to distract the instructor as we crawled under the brush.  Brent treated Hiroko’s wound when I panicked.  Brent pulled us all through a sandstorm while I blindly held onto Hiroko.  Brent switched doubles so we stood a chance.  Now it’s my turn.  For an entire day, I’ve been depending on Brent to pull my bacon from the fire.  I might not have thought up this plan alone, but I’m going to test it alone.”

Every recruit gathered on the far edge of the encampment.  They all laid perfectly still as their goggles zoomed in on the turtle shell far off in the distance.  It had been fifteen tense minutes since Owen had left the encampment.  The shell was just now entering the far edge of the tripod patrol route.  It was the moment of truth.  A single tripod was bolting along the path in the distance.  Dante had kept an open link with Owen and sent a transmission warning him of the approaching Shard.  The shell stopped and held still.

Dante groaned as he realized Owen was directly in the path of the approaching Shard.  The worked quickly to warn him, but it was too late.  If the shell moved now it would be spotted instantly.  The Shard closed rapidly with Owen’s mobile disguise.  It was too late now to do anything but hope the trick worked.  The tripod continued rushing toward the shell with increasing speed.  Just as the tripod was about to run into the shell, it swung one of its massive blades.  The blade sunk deep in the metal surface and stuck there.  Using the sunken blade as an anchor the tripod swung to the right.  Freeing the blade from the ground the tripod swung the opposing blade, lodging it in the ground.  Just as before, the tripod used the blade as an anchor and corrected its course back to the left.  Dante watched in amazement as the tripod sped off into the distance, back on its original patrol route.

“I’m not dead and the metal scraping sound is getting quieter,” Owen sent a transmission to Dante.  “I guess it worked.”

“Like a charm,” Dante replied.  “We are already salvaging the other tripods that attacked the encampment and the three that attacked group A.  We’ll join you as soon as we can.”

“Dante, I have a message for Elisabeth,” Owen sent back.

“She is right here.  What do you want me to tell her?”

“Tell her group C will take care of this.  She and the rest can watch idiots like us do something
really
stupid.”

Brent rubbed his temples.  His head was throbbing.  He couldn’t remember ever having a headache before.  If they were all this bad, Brent knew he never wanted to have another.  A sudden burst of heat distracted him from his throbbing headache.  He looked up in time to see the shockwave run into him.  The force of the wave sent him flying like a rag doll.  He was knocked up and through some sort of hole in a nearby structure.  Brent crawled through the debris back to the opening he had just entered through.  He was in what looked like some kind of city.  Peering through the hole in the crumbling wall, he could see shattered towers and smaller buildings arranged in neat rows.  The sky overhead churned unnaturally.

Instead of clouds, the sky was filled with countless square metal rectangles.  Blips of light would shine from them randomly.  Another blast of heat washed over Brent as the third building to his right exploded.  He realized those boxes overhead were battleships, and those blips of light were the launching of warheads.  They were bombarding the world, and he was sitting right in the center of a prime target.  He bolted through the opening and ran down the streets as fast as his legs could carry him.  The instructor had said he would be on defense, but Brent hadn’t expected this.  They were supposed to be testing his ability to command others.  If that was the case, where were his troopers?  Where were the other recruits?  Why was he completely alone?

A warhead impacted the base of the skyscraper on the corner he was approaching.  The metal screamed as the tower faltered before falling listlessly to the ground.  The tower was coming down squarely on top of him.  He thought to run from the falling mass, but it was too massive; he would never be able to get far enough away.  He watched as fragments broke free from the falling structure and fell like missiles to the ground below.  All around him the metal chunks sliced into the surface.  Brent didn’t budge.  If this was the end, he wanted to see it all.  The mass was only feet away.  If he had jumped he would have struck his head against the falling metal.  He refused to blink as the crashing tower was about to slice into him.

A giant metal blade thrust just inches above his head at the last instant.  The blade glinted in the sunlight, a red hue covering it.  A shiver ran down his spine as Brent felt three metal coils wrap around his midsection.  With a single movement, he was pulled out from the falling mass.  Brent looked up at his savior.  He did not find the face of a trooper or an instructor.  A single green glowing sphere looked down at him.  The figure pulled its blade out from the wreckage of the skyscraper.  With a loud grinding of metal, the wreckage collapsed.  The small space Brent had occupied a moment prior was gone in a spark of grinding metal.

The coils unwound from his midsection and retreated into the central hub of his savior.  It was some sort of tripod.  It’s central mass was a sphere of a black metal he had never encountered before with three long limbs extending outward.  He couldn’t make out any joints or connectors.  The limbs simply seemed to extend out of the central sphere.  It stood at exactly his height, but the limbs joined the central sphere near the top.  Brent wondered how tall it could get if it could lower its limbs all the way to the base.  The front two limbs were massive curved blades of the black metal that glinted in the light.  The third limb was much thicker and ended in some sort of three pronged claw that dug into the metal surface of the world with ease.  It dawned on Brent that the thing must have used its two front blades to shield him while its third limb had dug into the metal surface of the world.  To be able to support the entire tripod
and
the weight of a fallen building, the hind limb must have been incredibly strong.  In the center of the sphere, in between the two front blades, was a churning glowing orb of green hued light.  It almost seemed to be floating within the black sphere.

“Thank you.  I thought I was done for,” Brent thanked the tripod.

In an eloquent motion the tripod bowed, lowering its central sphere toward the ground while it gracefully swept in its front two blades to from what looked like an “X”.  With a sudden jerk the tripod lunged at Brent.  Its third limb grabbed Brent forcefully as the tripod curled up into a ball.  The two blades shielded Brent as a surge of heat washed over the pair.  The force sent the curled up tripod rolling down the wreckage-strewn streets.  Shifting its weight, the tripod avoided crumbling buildings and additional impacts.  When its momentum ceased, the tripod unwound and released its passenger.  Brent’s side was bleeding badly.  Shrapnel had managed to penetrate the rolling tripod and had sliced his right side.  He pressed his hands against the wound, his face contorted in pain.  He struggled to accept it was only a simulation against the agony.

Again the coils extended from its center sphere and picked up Brent.  With tremendous speed the tripod sped off toward the horizon.  The bombardment was focused on the city, and the tripod didn’t have to avoid incoming fire once it had left the city’s edge.  From high orbit the battleships had not noticed the single tripod escape the rubble.  Brent was amazed at the incredible speed of the tripod.  He couldn’t tell which hurt more, his side or his head.  Remembering the words of the instructor, Brent tried to convince himself it wasn’t real, that when the exam was over he wouldn’t have a scratch on him.  However, the reassurance that he wasn’t in any real danger did not stop his nerve endings from screaming with pain.

Every now and then the tripod would thrust a blade deep in the surface of the world to alter its course.  It was fascinating to watch.  If his side wasn’t pulsing with pain, Brent might have even enjoyed the ride.  In the distance Brent could make out a single tower.  Its strong black surface reflected the lights from the warheads and the plummeting battleships encased in flame.  It resembled a massive Egyptian obelisk.  He knew he had never seen one in person before, but somehow he found the sight deeply familiar.  Somewhere deep inside him a sense of nervousness started to grow.  He realized the structure had to be the Citadel he was supposed to defend.

As they got closer it reached higher and higher.  When they neared its base he could no longer see its top.  It seemed to extend on forever, an impossibly long spear standing firm against the battleships raining death upon it and the world it overlooked.  Etched in the shiny black surface were hundreds of grooves.  Green trails of light would flash along the paths, resembling electricity flowing through a massive circuit board.  Brent watched as a warhead impacted directly against the obelisk.  The green lights massed in the grooves at the impact point and channeled the heat and energy away from the Citadel.  When the light flash faded, the black surface didn’t have a single scratch or imperfection.