Mech

Twenty-One

Everything went smoothly until they got to the orbital station. Beneath the massive shadow of the Gladius, the orbiter crouched like a beetle hugging the boots of a giant. The Gladius itself was a wonder to behold. Glowing modules rotated slowly about the central torus seemingly disconnected from it due to a trick of light and shadow. It grew as they approached until it filled the observation port, overflowed it, expanded to devour everything they could see. The tiny orbiter turned from a beetle into something the size of a large building. Open docking bays yawned to meet them.

“Sir, the Gladius is heating the power coils of its laser batteries.”

Sarah looked alarmed. “I thought they weren’t armed.”

“The ship isn’t a battlewagon, but they have enough armament to destroy flitters,” said Jarmo.

“Do something before they fry us,” Sarah hissed at Droad.

“Increase our velocity,” ordered Droad. “Come in under full thrust.”

Jarmo barked into his communicator. The flitter shook and lurched. Power rumbled through the deck. In the endless night around them the other flitters emitted tongues of flame.

Without warning, the flitter immediately ahead of them gushed violet light from the cockpit area, broke into two burning halves, exploded in a rush of silent heat.

The lurching and weaving of the flitter increased as the pilot mech jinked hard from side to side, presenting a more difficult target.

“There’ll only be a few seconds before…” began Sarah, she trailed off as another invisible, stabbing laser beam incinerated a flitter at the edge of their formation.

“Let’s pull out. Let’s run,” said Droad.

“No,” said Jarmo, shaking his great head.

“He’s right, we can’t run now,” added Sarah. Droad turned to regard her, feeling out of his element. Space battles were beyond his experience. “We’re too late now,” she explained. “They waited until we were right on top of them so that we couldn’t run. The only thing to do is to try to close in and board.”

“Transmit our identity codes to the ship,” ordered Droad. “Perhaps they think we’re aliens.”

“We’ve been doing that since we launched, sir,” replied Jarmo.

Another strike came out of the blackness. There was a reflection this time that came in through the viewport. A blinding radiance lit up the cabin for an instant, Droad swore he could see the bones of his hand like an x-ray image. Everyone was left blinking at after-images, purple blotches on their retinas. Somewhere behind them another flitter tore apart. Heated gases burnt out quickly; the hot bubbling flesh of the troops was transformed instantly into frozen foam by the void.

Then they reached the docking bays. Flitters crowded one another into the open doors like hungry air-swimmers jostling over a fruit-laden branch. Even as they reached the mouth of their designated bay, they noted that the doors were sliding shut.

“We aren’t going to make it,” said Bili with remarkable calm.

“We’ll make it,” Droad assured him. He wiped a droplet of sweat from his temple.

Seconds later, as they made their final approach, it became clear that they would make it, barring another laser attack. But at the final moment, just before they reached the yawning docking doors, there was a gut-wrenching burst of thrust. The flitter swerved off course and roared away from Garm and the orbiter, toward the imposing bulk of the Gladius. More flashbulb explosions came from behind them.

“What the hell’s going on?” demanded Droad.

Jarmo was staring at his communicator in perplexity. “I’m out of communication with the other flitters. The last report I received indicated that the orbiter itself was under laser attack.”

“Well, get them back,” snarled Droad.

“But why didn’t we enter the docking bay?” asked Bili.

“Ask the pilot!” said Sarah. She busied herself fixing a vacuum-proof survival-bubble around herself. She handed another of the plastic bags to Bili, who worked it over his body with a grim professionalism that belied his years.

The flitter was now so close to the Gladius that they could have suited up and walked out. They braked hard and maneuvered between the stalks that led out from the central torus to the modules. The endless black spanse that was the hull of the central torus rushed to greet them.

“The pilot mech isn’t answering the intercom,” Jarmo informed them. He snapped off his harness and sped up the aisle between the seats, moving hand over hand between the plastic loops placed there for zero-gee travel. The door slid open and the pilot mech was visible from the rear.

Before Jarmo could enter the cockpit, however, the ship lurched violently again, braking and diving directly at the dark hull of the Gladius. Sarah gasped and Bili groaned aloud. When it seemed that impact was imminent, the observation ports suddenly blacked out entirely.

“We’re inside one of the big airlocks,” said Sarah in a hushed voice.

Soon, the flitter was brought to a rest on its skids. The centrifugal gravity of the Gladius took over and they felt the familiar pressure of weight again on their limbs. Sounds came through the walls of the flitter now that there was air to carry them. They heard the clanging of the air pumps, the grinding sounds of huge machinery in motion.

They rushed to the cockpit door, but the mech lieutenant beat them to the airlock. Jarmo had his black-barreled pistol out again, this time leveled on the mech’s sensory array. While they confronted one another, they barely noticed the thin form of the skald as he slipped past them and exited the flitter.

“Report, Lieutenant,” demanded Droad.

The mech turned to them and made an ushering motion with his massive bio-mechanical gripper. “I suggest we evacuate the flitter immediately, Governor. Whomever was operating the laser must know we’re down here.”

“Where is down here? ” demanded Sarah.

“We’re in the hold. I repeat: we should evacuate the ship.”

Behind them the militia troops were already pouring out of the main cabin exits and taking up positions amongst the towering boxes, cartons and drums. The Governor and the others quickly joined them. While they took cover, the mech Lieutenant made his report.

“I realized at the last instant, sir, that entering the orbiter would not save us. The enemy made the mistake of firing on the orbiter before all of us had entered. This, in effect, tipped their hand.”

“Did you signal your intentions to any of the other mechs?”

“Yes, but only I reacted in time and made it to safety.”

“What about the rest of my men?” blurted Droad. “What about the flitters that made it into the orbiter?”

“I’m sorry, sir. Of course, you could not have seen what happened to the orbiter from the forward cabin. It was destroyed.”

Droad stood stock still for a moment. The militiamen, Sarah and Bili looked equally shocked. The skald reappeared and stood behind the mech Lieutenant, looking at no one.

“You mean they’re all dead?”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is all we’ve got left to retake the ship with?” asked Droad, waving his arm at the others. He knew it was a mistake to sound so defeatist in front of them, but he couldn’t help it. “We don’t even have a full company here.”

“Correct, sir. Now, I suggest we get moving.”

Droad nodded dully and they all trooped after the mech. He seemed to be undisturbed by the loss that had stunned the humans. Only the skald seemed similarly unaffected. Droad noted that he was keeping quite close to the mech. Under different circumstances, he might have found the skald’s new found loyalties amusing.

“But why didn’t the other mechs figure it out?” Bili piped up.

It took Droad a moment to realize the boy was addressing him. “Eh? Oh, well, this mech is an officer. His capacity for independent thinking and acting on his own initiative despite his orders is greater than the others.”

“So he’s the smartest one, huh?”

“Right,” said Droad vaguely. He sought out Jarmo. “No contact?”

Jarmo shook his head. There was another of the giants next to him, Droad was pleased to note. It was Gunther. At least he hadn’t lost all of them. For perhaps the first time in his life, Droad felt the despair of harsh defeat.

“Our situation is critical,” said Jarmo.

“To say the least,” agreed Droad.

“We must shift our tactics from those of an assaulting army to those of a survival-oriented guerilla group. We must husband what resources we have left. We must bide our time.”

Droad heard little of it. He eyed Sarah and Bili thoughtfully. Although they were just civilians, they seemed adept at survival. Still, it had been terribly arrogant of him to bring them along on this attack. He had placed them in mortal danger. He had failed them.

“Sir?”

“Eh?” said Droad, realizing that the others were staring at him. There had been a question asked, and he had missed it entirely. A moment of hot embarrassment flashed over him. He shook himself, ordered himself sternly to retake the reins of command. He still was responsible for the survivors. He looked up and contrived to appear confident. He threw back his shoulders and adopted a serious expression.

“For all we know the laser attack was fired by the crew,” he said, addressing the others. “Perhaps they thought we were more aliens. Despite all our identity transmissions, they never did answer us. Then again, perhaps the laser was set up for auto-defense and attacked us while the crew was busy.”

Some of the men seemed to take heart at this suggestion. He could tell that they had assumed that the aliens were firing at them, meaning that the aliens were in control of the ship. Even the slim hope that there was some other explanation, that it was all an accident, uplifted their morale.

Jarmo waited until the men were out of earshot before pointing out a critical flaw in Droad’s theory. “This seems unlikely, given that the laser destroyed the orbiter at a critical point.”

“Yes. Hmm.” Droad glanced about to see if the men were listening. “This whole situation does look like a set up, a trap. Either the aliens or Mai Lee ambushed us, I’ll wager.”

Jarmo agreed.

For a time they followed the mech through the vast maze of the hold. He seemed familiar with every aspect of it. They encountered no one, except for a few dead security men. The mech explained that they had died trying to keep his mech platoon in this hold. Droad made a wry face at the twisted bodies, and the mood of the men dampened again. It seemed unlikely that the crew of the Gladius would warmly receive anyone allied with the mechs. Reaching one of the distant walls of the hold, they found a blasted-open portal that led into a service duct. Trotting in single file, faces slick with nervous sweat and speaking little, they entered the bowels of the ship.

As they climbed up further into the heart of the great vessel, the signs of combat increased. Bulkheads were sealed and had to be forced. Automated cannon were set to ambush anyone ascending the decks, these had to be disarmed or circumvented. Dead crewmen and dead aliens lay strewn about the darkened corridors. The metal floors were pooled with blood and other inhuman and less identifiable body fluids.

The central galleries were huge airy chambers that normally operated as open marketplaces. Now, instead of being thronged with traders the chambers were vast mausoleums: dark, silent and stinking of death.

It was when they had reached the central galleries of the ship that the skald attempted to talk with Droad.

Droad was resting with his head in his hands. His sides were heaving slightly from the harsh march through the ship. He looked over toward Sarah and Bili, who seemed more tired than the others did. He would give them another minute.

“Feasting…” said an odd, croaking voice. Droad looked up to discover the long pale face of the skald looking down at him. He had approached silently and without warning. Droad found his stealth and bizarre behavior disconcerting. He frowned.

“What do you want?”

“The lines of the feasting…” said the skald. His face worked with fantastic concentration. His hands rose up slowly from his sides, white palms exposed and spread flat. Large blue eyes seemed almost luminous in the center of a floating nimbus of flaxen hair.

“I don’t understand you. Are you trying to tell me something?” asked Droad. He leaned forward, eyes narrowing. His curiosity was engaged. Could this lunatic help him?

“You must follow the lines to the feasting,” replied the skald with great sincerity. He nodded to Droad slowly and smiled with relief, as if he had succeeded at an amazing effort of communication and imparted great knowledge. Still smiling vaguely, he began to step slowly from side to side, then to shuffle about in a circle. He hummed tonelessly. Droad thought of a corpse performing a strange flat-footed waltz.

It was clear that the man was utterly insane. Droad sighed, reseating himself. Had he sunk so low that he looked for answers for his problems from the deranged? He put his face back into his hands for a moment’s rest. Quietly, the skald shuffled away.

“We have a contact, sir,” interrupted Jarmo.

Droad’s head snapped up. He reached for the phone, careful not to touch the transmit button. It wouldn’t do for anyone to pinpoint them. He listened only. Unnoticed, the skald’s pallid form slipped away, heading toward the entrance of the aft duct system.

“Sounds like that witch of a senator, Mai Lee,” he commented. “All she’s doing is requesting my response. Can you get me video?”

Jarmo presented another handset with a tiny screen on it. In flat 2D a face flickered into existence. It was a metallic head of some kind. For a moment, Droad believed this to be some new and terrifying variety of alien as yet unencountered. Then he realized it was the stylized helmet of a hi-tech battlesuit.

He pursed his lips and grimaced in annoyance. “Where did she get that thing? Clearly against all Nexus proscriptions. Not that I’m surprised.”

Jarmo looked on impassively. Droad knew he was patiently waiting for him to make his decision. Communicating with the woman could mean a dangerous enemy would pinpoint their positions. Or it could be an opportunity for the last remaining human forces on the ship to rejoin.

Droad rubbed his chin and lips, eyeing the tiny metallic image with distrust. “Just a recording repeating the same message. Have you pinpointed her?”

“Bridge section,” replied Jarmo.

Droad smiled grimly. “So she did fire the laser.”

“Fire control could have been diverted at either the redundant bridge or the manual controls at the laser turret itself.”

Droad frowned. “We need information.”

Jarmo was silent.

“If we make a short transmission, can we be out of here quickly enough to avoid attack?”

“I don’t know the layout of the ship well enough to judge. Let’s consult the Lieutenant.”

Droad agreed. He smiled slightly, noting that Jarmo, unlike everyone else in the group, always referred to the mechs by their ranks, never just as ‘the mech’ as the rest of the humans tended to do. He wondered if his lack of labeling had to do with his own genetic specializations. Although much less of a freak than a mech, some of the same technology, and hence the same stigma from normal humans, applied to Jarmo.

“If we maneuver down two decks using the aft conduit system, then double back into the primary filtration units, it is very unlikely any search party would be able to locate us,” the mech informed them.

“Ready the team, then. In one minute I want everybody on their feet and ready to bolt into the ducts again.”

Jarmo jumped up and everyone hurried after him and the mech. When he had them in position for a fast get away and had trotted back to the Governor’s position, Droad opened a channel to the bridge.

The connection was made and the face of Mai Lee’s battlesuit flickered into view again. This time it was a profile shot, however. The video pickup was limited, but Droad made out movement behind her. Large men in full body-shell passed back and forth with a sense of urgency. The dragon’s head of Mai Lee’s suit swung back to face him. He noted the eerie blue radiance that emanated from the jagged metal mouth.

“What is your status, Senator?” asked Droad. He endeavored to sound light and unconcerned. “Can we be of assistance?”

“You live, Droad!” boomed the hideous dragon’s head. “I suspected as much. You’re as hard to kill as these filthy aliens.”

Droad’s voice hardened. “So you’re behind the slaughter of my forces? Why would you ambush us when we’re coming to aid in keeping the Gladius out of alien hands?”

Mai Lee laughed. The amplified sound was so loud that the receiver’s speakers distorted it into a shrieking squawk of noise at Droad’s end. He adjusted the tiny volume knob in annoyance.

“The ship is in my hands now, Droad. You are only another contender for control of the only means out of this doomed system,” she said. Droad looked surprised, and she snorted derisively. “Don’t try to pretend that the thought of escaping this hell-hole governorship of yours had never crossed your mind, stripling. I won’t believe that.”

She broke off and shouted behind her. There was a commotion out of range of the video pick-up. Droad turned up the volume again and studied the image of the bridge intently, trying to figure out what was going on. She turned back to Droad and her amplified voice again overloaded the tiny handset. Droad twisted the knob downward again, grimacing at the noise.

“-Just to let you know what’s coming: The waste will be spilling down to your deck within minutes. You’ve given me long enough to pinpoint your location. You’re too far from your flitter to make it back in time. This entire conversation, by the way, was just to make sure you would have no opportunity to escape the radiation-” here she broke off again. There was the sound of gunfire behind her on the bridge. The connection fizzled and was cut off abruptly.

Jarmo was on hand, jerking the Governor to his feet and hustling him toward the ducts. The others were already gone.

“You must run faster, sir,” said Jarmo.

Droad’s every hurried step was painful. “The injury to my leg still hasn’t healed completely,” he said apologetically.

Without a word, Jarmo swept him up in his massive arms. Feeling the thick hard surfaces of Jarmo’s biceps against his side, Droad was thinking too desperately to feel the humiliation of being carried like a baby. Jarmo picked up his pace to that of an Olympic sprinter and they vanished into the dark hole of the aft duct system.

“They’re going to dump waste from the reactors, trying to kill us and the aliens, I imagine. Has the mech figured out a place to run to?”

Jarmo grunted as he ducked through a tight bulkhead. The metal opening skimmed by Droad’s head at a dangerous speed, but it didn’t so much as brush his sleeve. The giant had grace as well as speed and power. “The Lieutenant monitored the entire conversation. He has already selected a destination.”

“Could she be bluffing? How could she have attained the security codes required to control the Gladius in every detail so quickly?”

“A problem I’ve been working on for some time now, sir. The only answer is that she must have had the proper override key.”

“Like the one that Steinbach used to switch off the spaceport security and operate the space elevator with?”

“Exactly, sir. In fact, I think it likely that she has Steinbach and his bootleg set of keys in her possession. Such a technological piece of wizardry as those keys would be unlikely to have been duplicated successfully by two separate groups. If this theory is correct, I can only further lament my failure in regards to Steinbach’s escape. If I had been more attentive with Steinbach, she may never have gained control of the laser, and therefore many lives would have been spared.”

“Don’t take it so hard, Jarmo,” said Droad. He smacked the giant’s massive chest. “You’re too quick to judge yourself a failure, and I won’t have that. Your performance is mine to judge, and I say you have done exceedingly well. Besides, your theory about Steinbach’s codekeys has yet to be proven.”

“I see no other logical alternative.”

“Nor do I,” admitted Droad. He sighed.

The conversation lapsed as Jarmo saved his breath for running. Droad attempted unsuccessfully to sit back and enjoy the ride.

The last of Mai Lee’s simians were making a good accounting of themselves, but the aliens were too many, too fast and too vicious. Killbeast and culus squadrons charged the men in their body-shells, forming a wall with their dying bodies as explosive bullets shredded them. Almost too late, Mai Lee realized that they were all dying at a particular distance, in a line that crossed the bridge area diagonally.

“PULL BACK! PULL BACK NOW!” she boomed. Startled, intent on killing their attackers, only half of her men responded in time. Without warning, a hundred killbeasts vaulted the wall of quivering dead and rushed their lines in unison. The attack was lightning fast, there wasn’t enough time to mow them down before they reached close range. Half of her remaining company were pulled down screaming and hacked to death.

“STEINBACH!” she grated at the cowering figure that crouched over the control boards. “HAVE YOU RELEASED THE RADIATION?”

“The controls are damaged, Empress,” Ari said, wincing as she strode up and prodded his spine with her chest guns.

“YOU DARE TO DISSEMBLE NOW?” she demanded, incredulous. Her lust to see his lifeblood sprayed over the controls grew to an almost irresistible level.

Ari waved pathetically at the control boards. Numerous gouges and burn marks did indeed scar the surface. “The gunfire has damaged the master terminals. I am trying to access the engineering controls through the weapons section, but the codes don’t seem to match. Besides, isn’t it dangerous to release the radiation now, while the aliens are on us? They could pin us down for sometime yet.”

Inside her battlesuit, Mai Lee’s jaw sagged. Could this cretin truly be stalling to save his own skin? Did he not fear her more than a few thousand rads of gamma radiation?

She wasn’t given any more time to threaten Ari, however, as at that point, new combatants entered the fray. Taking advantage of the turmoil, larger, more ominous shapes entered the room. Vast humping shadows towered over the wall of dead. Inside her dented and scored battlesuit, Mai Lee felt a thrill of fear. She had not yet encountered the enemy’s juggers. She reformed her remaining troops on the main dais that surrounded the operators’ chairs. She mounted the Captain’s chair, which afforded her a clear line of fire. Dead crewmen, still strapped into their crash-seats where she had had them executed at their posts, surrounded her. She gave no commands to her troops; there was no need. She leveled her chest cannons and awaited the inevitable charge.

One of the juggers rose up to her full height. Astoundingly tall and massive, the others rose up after her and with a great reverberating cry of doom they charged the humans. The last survivors of the previous wave, a struggling knot of men and killbeasts, vanished beneath hundreds of tons of clawed feet. Carapaces and body-shell armor caved in, the victims squirming like crushed crabs beneath the treads of armored vehicles. The clangor of their charge across the short spanse of metal decking was enough to set everyone’s teeth to aching.

In unison the humans squeezed their triggers and held them there, emptying their magazines into the onrushing hordes. The monsters were too big and full of vigor to die easily. Ripped apart and dead on their feet, many took another dozen steps before falling among the humans, too stubborn to realize their own deaths.

Once among the humans, the juggers set to their work with deadly efficiency, resembling a pack of tyrannosaurs slaughtering a herd of lesser creatures. Huge claws crushed the humans down, massive heads dipped, jaws ripped loose limbs, heads, entire torsos. The top of the operator’s dais became a sea of flesh, a scene of wild confusion. Mai Lee fired her chest guns and gushed out her deadly blue breath, melting men, armor and aliens alike indiscriminately.

For a time, she lost herself to the slaughter. There was no thought of retreat or coordinated action of any kind. She and her battlesuit worked as a single entity, a deadly creature of living metal. Although the juggers were twice her size, she attacked them savagely, leaping onto their backs, clinging with steel teeth and titanium claws, firing her chest guns point-blank until the magazines were empty and still letting them rattle dryly long after. She tried to open the reserve magazines, but could not. There was a fault of some kind. The pink, blinking service-required light made her curse fluidly in Chinese.

She quickly gave up on her guns and attacked the enemy directly. Although they loomed over her battlesuit, Mai Lee tackled and pulled down alien after alien, ripping out throats, searing their bodies with radiation, and opening their bellies with long strokes of her claws.

Finally, she realized that the attack was over. She raised the bloodied, dented muzzle of her suit, swiveled the head. Carnage surrounded her. Dozens of aliens lay thrashing upon a bed of body-shell-enclosed humans. There was no one else standing, neither human nor alien.

She looked down. In the grips of her great claws was the carcass of a jugger. The throat was tore open, the head tossed back. In her bloodlusting state, she had used her suit to claw and chew a great deal of the flesh from the creature’s soft throat area. A hint of exposed brain glinted up at her in the florescent lights of the bridge.

Breathing hard, she tried to regain her composure, tried to think. Could she truly be alone?

She strode among the squirming bodies, casually delivering deathblows to mortally wounded humans and aliens alike. Mentally, she thanked the wisdom she had had to have this suit built and maintained for so many years. The suit’s right foreclaw seemed damaged, it hung limply at her side, and the reserve magazines were decidedly jammed, but still in all, the suit had performed superbly.

Using the suit’s sensory apparatus, she attempted to find a useful survivor. The suit’s computer beeped, and a yellow indicator directed her to the door of the captain’s ready room. Inside, she discovered General Ari Steinbach, just as he was cautiously crawling out from beneath the conference table.

He jumped and backpedaled involuntarily at the sight of her grotesque, gore-drenched battlesuit.

“Ah, General,” she said. She was in a good mood now. Even his obvious cowardice in battle didn’t offend her in the slightest. A warm glow of contentment had settled in her guts. She hadn’t felt so relaxed, so sated in a very long time indeed, if ever. “You have again demonstrated your cat-like powers of survival.”

“I am pleased to see that you have done the same, Empress,” replied Steinbach with all the sincerity he could muster.

She chuckled. “I’m quite sure you had hoped I would perish even as I killed the last of the aliens, but you have not been quite so lucky.”

“What of your troops?”

She shook the battlesuit’s head. Ari took another step back, the human gesture, effected by the gross apparition of the battlesuit, clearly unnerved him.

“They are all dead. I am the last champion to exit the field.”

She twisted the suit, gazing back at the carnage that was the bridge. Within a few days, she thought idly, the stink would be amazing. She snapped her head back. Steinbach tensed and she enjoyed his animal fear.

“I need your help,” she told him. She explained about the jammed reserve magazines, and instructed him on how to open the external loading hatch. He followed her instructions with delicate precision, doing his best to avoid contact with the coating of slimy gore that encased the suit. While he worked, Mai Lee rested, closing her eyes and reclining somewhat in the cramped quarters. She wished now she could meditate peacefully in her castle, free of the loathsome discomfort of the suit, but the very idea of getting out of it was inconceivable now.

Suddenly, she was awakened from her reverie by a surprised squawk from Steinbach. There was a wild, scrabbling sound, which carried up through the body of the suit. With a snap and a clang, Steinbach closed the hatch. He stood before her, staring at the hatch and panting. Mai Lee regarded him with instant suspicion.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” said Steinbach, blinking and swallowing. “I just. I just about screwed up.”

“What do you mean?”

“The magazine started moving, but some of the rounds were loose. I could have blown my hands off.”

Mai Lee snorted in disgust. “Your cowardice is boundless. Did you fix the problem?”

“I’m not sure.”

Mai Lee brought up the diagnostic screen. She clucked her tongue. The magazine was still listed as jammed. Experimentally, she aimed at one of the juggers and depressed the firing studs. There was a brief whirring sound and the clattering of dry firing.

“You have failed,” she said sourly. The chest guns leveled on his face.

“Perhaps if you try the inside hatch. I wasn’t able to reach all the way inside. The jam appeared quite easy to remedy, if you would only give it a little push.”

With a sound of frustration, she released her harness straps and twisted the proper hatch release a half-turn. Then she stopped. She looked at Steinbach through slitted eyes. She noted the way that his hands were fluttering over the tool he had been using.

“You seem to be sweating more profusely than before, General.”

A smile flickered over Steinbach’s face. He tried to look unconcerned. “You’re scrutiny is quite imposing, Empress.”

She gave a growl of distrust. Her hand slipped away from the hatch release. “What did you do? Slip a bomb in there?”

Steinbach looked offended. “Of course not, Empress. Check your diagnostics. Any dangerous weaponry would trip a dozen alarms, I’m sure.”

Still distrustful, she did as he suggested. The diagnostics only found some kind of obstruction. No explosive devices were detected.

“So why don’t you want to do it?”

“Empress, I am no technician. A man could lose a finger in there, with all that moving machinery. It would be so easy for you to reach the obstruction.”

“You really are a coward,” she said, snorting. Not liking him too close, in case something did go wrong, she marched the suit out into an open area of the bridge, between the line of dead aliens and the corpse strewn operator area.

She loosened her straps again and took a firm hold of the hatch release. With her other hand, she grabbed the ejection lever. She experienced only a moment of indecision. She chided herself for exhibiting cowardice akin to Steinbach himself. Had she not just bested an army of savage aliens? What could be wrong? The whole thing was ridiculous. Steinbach was a whimpering cretin.

She twisted the hatch release another half-turn and it popped open. Coiled up inside was the skinny, half-starved shrade that had hidden there since it had taken refuge in the suit while it was under maintenance beneath the castle.

Mai Lee’s eyes bulged. She attempted to close the hatch again. It was a testimony to the weak state of the shrade that it was even a contest. Only the berserk fear of death gave her a chance. But slowly, relentlessly, the hatch was forced open.

She remembered the ejection lever too late, the shrade already had a loop of flesh around her calf and was winding its way up her body quickly. She pulled the lever anyway and the head of the battlesuit popped off, landing on the deck of the bridge with a loud clang. She struggled to get out of the suit, got her head and shoulders into open air, then halted and began a pitiful wailing.

The dark, snake-like shape of muscle enveloped her. The ghastly sounds of feeding began.

“The door goes on three,” said Jarmo. He counted off. On three, he depressed the firing stud on his plasma cannon. It took several seconds, but the blast doors finally burnt away. Jumping through the orange glowing ring of metal, a dozen militiamen entered the bridge.

Jarmo and the mech Lieutenant stood marveling at the mounds of dead when the Governor, Sarah and Jun followed them inside. Sarah clapped her hands over Bili’s eyes, telling him to wait in the hall.

“It’s too late, Mom. I’ve seen it,” he said in a dead voice.

Droad watched them, frowning. Sarah looked as if she might cry. And well she might, he felt like crying himself. The carnage was awful. Tangled bodies lay strewn everywhere.

In the center of it all was Mai Lee, dead eyes staring forth from the top of her gore-encrusted battlesuit. The shrade that enveloped her was dead as well. The group naturally gravitated toward her.

“This must have been a fantastic battle,” said Droad. “But who won?”

“I’d say that we did,” said Sarah. She pointed to the blood trail of claw prints that traced the battlesuit’s progress to its final resting point in the middle of the chamber. “It looks like she was on her way to walk out, when she opened the suit to maybe get a breath and that shrade got her. She wouldn’t have done that if we hadn’t won the battle.”

“We, huh?”

Sarah frowned. “When it comes to these aliens, I would even claim kinship to this witch.”

Droad nodded. Despite himself, he was impressed by the dead old woman. “She was the most vicious and cunning human we had to pit against the aliens. Even though she embodied the worst of our tendencies, I have to admit that she did a good job on them.”

A few moments later, Jarmo walked up to make his report upon examining the room. “The good news is that the radiation was never released. It appears that the aliens attacked before they could manage it. The bad news is that there are still hordes of aliens on this ship according to the computers. And, well, look at this, sir,” said Jarmo, holding up a leather bag of some kind.

Droad examined it. “Isn’t that Steinbach’s satchel?” he said after a moment.

Jarmo nodded his head. His jaw was tight, his face grim.

“Any sign of Steinbach among the dead? Or of the codekeys?”

This time Jarmo shook his head.

Droad looked him in the eye. “I’d like to give you your second chance at Steinbach, Jarmo. But the Mech is better for solo duty. Lieutenant?”

Lieutenant Rem-9 reported instantly for duty.

“Go retrieve the General, please.”

Moving with sudden, unnatural speed, the mech raised his plasma cannon and vanished through the cooling ring of melted metal that had been the blast doors. Droad looked after him, wondering if he had done the right thing. He trusted Jarmo’s judgment more, but without Jarmo at his side, things wouldn’t have felt right.