The Ninth (22 page)

Brent was suddenly aware that he was being watched.  As he looked around, he found countless tripods speeding along in neat formation.  Despite whatever direction they were headed in, their glowing orbs were focused squarely on him.  The tripod that was carrying him ducked into a massive opening at the base of the Citadel.  Hundreds of tripods were pouring out of the opening, and Brent’s tripod nimbly ducked and leaped between them.  The path they were on sloped down at a steep angle.  He wondered if the Citadel extended as far underground as it did into the sky.  Finally, his tripod ducked into a side passage and left the stream of tripods behind.  The passage quickly emptied into a large room.  Images of the battle outside circled the walls.  Brent couldn’t see any monitors or video equipment.  It was as if the images were living things floating through the air.  Every now and then a trail of that familiar green light would carve a path through the free-floating images, outlining their edges.

“What’s this?” an artificial voice called out.  “There are no directives for prisoners to be taken.”

Brent watched as the glowing orb of the tripod drifted upward and started shifting through random colors with varying intensities.  Apparently, the tripod communicated through light patterns.  The tripod gently rested him down on the ground.  The sudden movement sent a surge of pain through his right side.  Brent cringed and curled into a fetal position.  As the pain receded, he noticed a soft clacking sound getting louder.  A small black cone was approaching him.  It moved on two treads that made a clacking sound as the plates cycled over the floor.

It stopped half a foot in front of Brent’s curled body and a bright green light enveloped the cone.  The green lights swam around it in random patterns.  He was so mesmerized by the swirling green lights that he almost forgot about the incredible pain in his side.  Brent realized with a start that the lights were drifting toward him and covering his side.  The cone seemed to draw the lights from the floor below and channel them onto his wound.  As the lights reached his wound, they extinguished.  After a few moments, the cone ceased channeling and returned to wherever it had come from.  The last few lights made contact and their glow extinguished.  As Brent sat up, he realized he wasn’t feeling any more pain.  Feeling the wound with his hand, he found only smooth skin.  Lifting his shirt, he couldn’t find a scar or even a scratch.

“This Slasher informs me that it failed to protect you,” an artificial voice filled the hall.  “Do you want to destroy it yourself?”

Looking up, Brent found the voice belonged to a massive mechanical squid-like creature in the center of the room.  Countless metal appendages reached out and tapped on the floating displays.  As the limbs moved along the images the tripods displayed mirrored the movements.  Brent was obviously in the command center of the defense force.

“Destroyed?” he asked as he stood.  “Why would I want that?”

“It failed you,” the voice rang out.

Brent looked at the tripod.  It stood tall; not even a hint of fear was visible.

“No, I don’t want to destroy it,” he called out to the metal squid.

“Then I shall have it scrapped immediately.”  The voice was emotionless.

“No you won’t.  I don’t want it destroyed by anyone.  It saved my life and I won’t allow it to be punished for that.”

“But . . .”

“No buts!  I am in charge of defense for this exam.  What I say is law.”

“Exam?”

“Never mind that.  The matter is settled.  Now, what is the situation?”

“Your will.  Bombardment commenced seventy-one point five hours ago.  The organics rained their warheads on the Citadels.  However, the Nanalite armor repelled the assault.  Our defenses were prepared, no damage was sustained.”

“Citadels?  Plural?”

“Of course.  All six Citadels suffered no damage whatsoever.  After seven point three hours of pointless bombardment, the organics shifted to secondary targets.  They managed to wipe out most of our surface infrastructure.  However, even the mightiest of their weapons have failed to penetrate the surface deep enough to prove a threat.  Our subterranean facilities have only suffered a four percent decrease in efficiency due to the bombardment.  Four point seven hours later they started to send down ground forces.  Our defense screen has been weakened but has still managed to shoot down fifty-nine percent of the landing craft.”

“What are their targets?”

“All organic activity has been focused on the Citadels.  Their ranged weapons have proven ineffective against our armor, so they have been focusing on ground assaults.  Production was converted to Slasher Shards after the first ground attacks.  In the interim fifty-five hours the organics have launched seven hundred eighty-four massed assaults on the Citadels in varying number and tactics.  So far, all assaults have been repelled.  Minimal damage recorded.”

“How many units have we lost?”

“Eighty-one thousand six hundred twenty-one Slashers, fourteen thousand three hundred thirteen Seekers, six thousand two hundred forty-one Streamers, One thousand eight hundred fifty-nine Strikers, and five hundred seventy-four other various archetypes have been lost since the initial bombardment.”

“How many troopers have we killed?”

“Troopers?” the artificial voice asked slowly.

“Organics.”

“Seven hundred eighty-three thousand, nine hundred sixty-two organics no longer function.”

Brent stumbled as the number sunk in.

“Probability of defeat?”  Brent shook his head and focused.

“Negligible.  Less than a point zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero . . .”

“I get the picture.  How much longer can this siege last?”

“Based our intelligence on the organics, taking into account their rate of bombardment and ground deployment, it has been estimated the organics had the capacity for seventy two hours of siege.  In point five hours from now, the organics will be completely out of resources.”

“Three days.  They brought enough to duke it out for three solid days.”

“What are your orders?”

“Have the forces of the Commonwealth started retreating?”

“The Commonwealth?”

“The organics!  Have the organic ground forces tried to leave the planet?”

“Negative.  The ground forces continue to fight on.  No signs of retreat or evacuation have been detected.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Your orders?”

“Fortify.  In half an hour the troopers will be without support.  If they are going to make a move, it’s going to be soon.”

“Your will.  Recalling forces to the Citadels.”

“I want to check out the troopers, I mean organics, myself.”

“Your will.  I will assign a Seeker to your personal disposal.  Do be careful.  An organic fights its fiercest when cornered.”

Brent didn’t have to wait long.  Almost as soon as the squid finished speaking, a long, flat beetle-looking creature emerged from a pathway.  It had ten long thin limbs that quickly sped it along.  It had a low profile and was the same gray color as the rest of the world.  It was no doubt some kind of recon unit.  Brent approached it but could not figure out what to do.  Its back was smooth so he couldn’t ride it without slipping off.  There was no way he could keep up with it.  Scratching his head, he stared at the low, flat metal bug before him.  He placed a hand on the back of the Shard looking for any kind of groove he could use for a handle.  As he made contact, an image flashed in front of him.  Startled, he pulled his hand back.  As soon as he did, the image vanished.  Carefully touching the Shard again, Brent braced.

When he made contact again, the image came back.  It was a topographical map of the local area.  He could make out the base of the Citadel and thousands of Slashers patrolling nearby.  On the edge of the map, a Slasher disappeared.  Brent wondered what had happened.  As he wondered, the map automatically focused on his point of interest and zoomed in.  A side display replayed the last few minutes.  The Slasher was on its patrol route when it suddenly changed course and sped off toward a pair of large impact craters.  As it neared the southern one, it increased its speed but then suddenly stopped transmitting.  Brent was sure the recruits had destroyed it.  He wanted to get to the craters as soon as possible.  Without warning, the Slasher that had saved his life picked him up again with its coils and sped through a doorway.  He watched as the Seeker easily kept pace.  As the tripod that cradled him was about to join the flood of Slashers, Brent pounded on the central hub above him.  The tripod stopped and easily shifted the glowing orb inside the black sphere toward its cargo.

“We can’t go out that way!” Brent called up to the tripod.  “The troopers, I mean, the organics I want to observe are watching the Citadel.  It’s their goal after all.  If we leave that way they might spot me.  I can’t let that happen.  Do you understand?”

Suddenly the tripod lurched in a new direction.  With incredible speed and dexterity it flew through the Citadel.  The various rooms and chambers were all dark with
things
moving about the shadows.  With the speed of the tripod and the darkness of the rooms he couldn’t make out any details beyond an occasional glowing orb focused on him.  Eventually Brent and the two Shards emerged from the opposite side of the Citadel.  The tripod made a wide arc around the Citadel, giving as much space as possible to the two craters.  The tripod came to a rest inside a smaller crater to the northeast of their target.  Brent patted the central sphere of the tripod and smiled.  The tripod almost seemed to purr.  It sounded like an odd, rhythmic static.  The tripod took a low profile, scanning the horizon while Brent climbed to the edge of the crater.

They were a fair distance off, but he could still make out an encampment, a single large tent in the center surrounded by organics watching the horizon.  Brent was shocked.  Had he just thought of his friends as “organics?”  Shaking his head, he blamed the stupid squid that couldn’t figure out that’s what he meant when he called them troopers or Commonwealth forces.  He could only make out crude shapes at this range and wanted desperately to be able to get a closer look.  As if answering him, he felt the Seeker rubbing against his leg.

Hesitantly placing his hand on the Seeker’s back, he found he could see through its eyes – assuming it
had
eyes.  The Seeker focused on the encampment and zoomed in close.  As Brent moved his eyes from side to side, so did the Seeker; apparently it gave him complete control over what it saw.  When he wanted a closer look, the view zoomed in on the tent automatically.  It was easy to spot the recruits among the troopers.  Not only were their uniforms different, but the fear was easily readable on each recruit’s face.  Scanning from one recruit to another, Brent realized he didn’t recognize a single one of them.  Not one in the entire encampment was from group C.  Something else struck him as odd.  The troopers were intently watching the horizon, presumably on the lookout for any attacking Shards, but that was
all
they were doing.  The recruits weren’t discussing battle plans or rehearsing attack maneuvers, they were all just – waiting.

“Could I see the map again?”  Brent asked the Seeker.

Before he had even finished his question, the view changed to an overhead map.  He stared at the map, hoping for a clue of any kind.  He remembered the map replaying the events of the Slasher to the south.  He thought to ask how far it could rewind when the map started reversing.  As Brent watched the patrolling Slashers moving backwards, he realized the interface must respond to his thoughts.  He thought of the motion speeding up, and it obeyed.  He watched as the units moved backwards at quadruple speed.  At the accelerated rate he noticed something odd.  All the Slashers moved in perfectly straight lines.  They would speed along their assigned route, only turning at the edges of the route to begin another sweep.  However, the patrol nearest the encampment seemed to pulse.

He wanted a closer view, and the map automatically zoomed in.  He watched as the Slashers would swing out of the way of large metallic bumps in the otherwise smooth surface.  Brent suddenly realized that the bumps were
moving
.  As soon as the Slasher had passed the obstruction, it would move forward.  He sat back for a moment and laughed.  The recruits were sneaking right under the noses of the Slashers.  He tried to tap on one of the Slashers, only to watch his hand wave pointlessly in the air.

Remembering he had to think his commands, Brent focused on a random Slasher.  A second display popped up, listing the condition of the Slasher.  He looked through the information until he found a log.  It was a gruesome affair, filled with the brutal eliminations of countless troopers reduced to raw data.  Scrolling to the end of the log, he found it filled with dozens of similar entries.  “Path obstruction: Blast damage – corrected.”

Brent smiled to himself.  The Slashers had assumed the warps in their path were caused by the orbital bombardment.  Not one of them had paused to investigate, and that annoying octopus inside the Citadel was completely oblivious to their approach.  For a moment, Brent considered ordering the Slashers to attack the recruits, to overrun the encampment, and complete his mission and the exam.  However, his hand subconsciously moved to his side.  He knew this was only an exam, but it felt real.  That small bit of shrapnel was an unbearable pain.  What would it be like to be sliced in half by a giant tripod?  Shaking the thought from his mind, Brent wondered how he could prevent the recruits from destroying the Citadel without harming them.  He thought to return to the zoom view, and the Seeker complied.  The metal domes were getting closer and closer to the Citadel.  A Slasher was approaching quickly.  The metal domes paused, waiting for the Slasher to pass.