The Empress

Twelve

Nina learned of the second ship incoming from the Nexus capitol world, Neu Schweitz, only a few ten-days before it was due to arrive. She was in her command tent at the time. The Droad army was out patrolling the Twilight Fells, a region of crags and broken rock along the border between Sunside and Twilight. As she was more than a full day’s ride from Droad House, she felt nervous to be leading her army so far from home.

After she emerged from her folding tent and collapsed it, the old knight Hans Droad came to inquire about the news. “I see trouble on your face, milady.”

Nina glanced at him, then looked away sunward. “There are two ships out there, coming to Ignis Glace.”

“Two?”

“We knew about Gladius and the horrors it is supposed to contain. But another ship is out there as well, a fast ship. It will arrive first. It has been a secret up until now.”

“Ah,” Hans said, nodding his white-haired head. “A great warship, I’m hoping?”

Nina mounted up, then turned to him. “No. The report indicated we should expect a light vessel with little armament. They could not build a large ship fast enough to beat Gladius here.”

Hans tugged at his mottled gray beard. “Hmm.”

“You wonder why my father would bother to send such a ship?” Nina asked. “Does it perhaps bring secret information? Something we can use against the aliens?

“I’m old enough to know your father well, Nina.”

She looked away from the sky to stare at him. While her mother had been alive, none in the fief dared tell her much about her father. He was an enigma to her.

Hans settled himself on his mount, and she wheeled hers to face him. “Tell me what you think,” she said. “My mother’s old proscriptions died with her.”

“Very well,” Hans said. “The ship is a small one, built for speed. There are few things worthy of such an effort. Possibly, it contains plans of some kind-something that they would not wish to broadcast via radio, lest the enemy listen in.”

Nina nodded. “But there is something else small and important it might carry. Passengers.”

Old Hans nodded in turn. “Only someone very important would be aboard such a ship. And there would have to be a critical reason for sending them.”

Nina shrugged. “I can think of such an individual.”

Old Hans finally caught on, and his bushy white brows rose high. “You think that-you think your father might be aboard? The Baron himself?”

“Why not? He’s coordinated the defenses of two planets against this enemy. Wouldn’t he want to come here, to defend his own homeworld?”

Hans frowned. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again.

“What is it?” Nina snapped. “Out with it, man.”

“I’m not sure he would come back, milady.”

“Why not?”

“You’re parents had-an arrangement.”

“What sort of arrangement?”

“She agreed to stay here, while he traveled to the Nexus, raising the status of Droad House. He has done exactly that.”

Nina narrowed her eyes and stared at the old man. He looked troubled, but she could not tell exactly why he should be. Such emotions seemed out of place on his face. Old Hans was always confident and self-assured.

“My mother was a witch, and she is dead. Tell me what you know.”

The old knight bowed his head. “I don’t know much of their agreement, beyond the details concerning their permanent separation.”

“But why would my father banish himself?”

Hans cleared his throat. “You said it yourself…your mother was-difficult.”

Nina sighed and nodded in understanding. Her mother had driven her father from the surface of his own homeworld-that was what the old knight was hinting about. But now the woman was dead, and her father had many good reasons to want to return, if only to defend his children. She reflected that if he knew the truth of the situation, he would surely have come. His shrew of a wife and his son were dead. Only Nina was left to defend Droad House.

“I want him to come. Surely, he must know that.”

Old Hans shifted uneasily on his mount. “I’m sure he means well, milady.”

“The rumor at the Nexus is he is coming. The ship was secret because he is aboard, and no one was to know of his arrival until it was too late. He did exactly that when coming to rule Garm, you know.”

Hans blinked at her. “That is the news from the Nexus?”

“Rumors,” she admitted. “But if he and mother had an arrangement, would he not return in secret? It only makes sense.”

Hans reached out and patted her arm. She almost pulled away, but allowed the contact.

“Let us hope it is true.”

Nina nodded and then called for her army to form ranks. Five hundred cavalry and another hundred mech transports scrambled to obey. It was a small force, but contained no mechs which could be immobilized and turned against them by the rebels at a crucial moment.

“Today,” she told her officers, “we will strike back at the enemy. We will make them pay for their raids. They will rue the day they struck down my dear Leon. We will, in time, wipe them all out.”

A cheer rose up from hundreds of throats. About half of them were Droads, but many other fiefdoms were represented. The Silures, the Treacles and the Mountebanks were all among her forces. Each day, more humans gathered to her banner, answering her call to muster against the mech rebels.

Nina set out, leaving the Twilight Fells behind and journeying into the rolling dunes of Sunside. Several days ago, they’d located a mech encampment placed daringly close to Twilight. In an odd way, the planet’s build-up of space-based defenses had helped her accidentally. New satellites meant to scan for hints of alien invaders had found the mech rebels.

She had contacted the Nexus small air force, insisting they must strike in coordination with her. They had assured her their timing would be precise.

Nina glided over the sands, sending up a skittering, plume behind her. She grinned and ignored the grit that sifted into her face mask and the heat that beat down on her suit. This was to be her moment of triumph.

Father was coming back, she felt certain of it. She was determined that when he arrived, she would already be famous in her own right. If she put down this rebellion, she would be the sole subject of every conversation among the nobility of Twilight.

Her father would know with certainty she was worthy of his pride.

When the attack came, Sixty-Two and his mechs were taken by surprise. The humans came in the form of a large cavalcade of knights that swept into the ravine where Sixty-Two had built an important forward base. The mechs hid beneath protective camouflage webbing.

When the knights attacked, a terrific slaughter commenced. None of the mechs carefully prepared defensive measures worked. Always before, the humans had sent in perrupters-mechs built with a battle-class chassis. These had been easily disabled with EMP blasts and viral transmissions. Later, those mechs that were still serviceable could be reprogrammed to join Sixty-Two’s growing horde.

This was not the case today, however. The enemy brought no combat mechs, and seemed furiously determined to fight. Often, human forces fled when their mechs were disabled in their very faces, not having the stomach to fight alone. These knights were different. They wanted to fight, and fight they did. Sixty-Two was immediately reminded of the twin youths who had attacked him one day early in the campaign-in fact, taking a moment to examine the banners that streamed from their mounts-was that not the blue and white of Droad House?

“Mechs, rise up!” he broadcast to his confused army, only to find his transmission jammed. He shouted his commands through his speakers after that, with his volume turned up to the maximum, but in the din of battle, it was difficult to be heard. Without orders, his mechs fought without organization and only when directly attacked.

Still, he knew he had the numbers. He had a full regiment of four hundred mechs stationed here, and he felt confident they could take on at least twice their number in humans.

But then the air assault began. Combat aircraft swooped down upon them from above without more warning than the scream of their engines. A moment later, huge explosions blossomed. Any tight group of mechs was targeted and bombed, scattering their bodies as orange-white shockwaves rippled through the ravine and rebounded from the walls. Spinning chunks of debris flew past Sixty-Two as he ran out into the open desert. A severed gripper twirled by, missing his orbs by inches.

Sixty-Two paused at the rim of the ravine, gazing down in horror at the slaughter below. He had left his mechs behind, and without his leadership, they had no organizational skills on their own. Most were cut down where they stood, as helpless as the mechs they’d blasted and virally disabled. Such a weakness! It made Sixty-Two sick at heart to see it exploited against his own people.

A few engaged the human knights and took them down with guns and flashing grippers, but their defensive programming wasn’t good enough. The enemy was far better organized and every second they outnumbered the mechs more severely as the rebels fell. They did not even know enough to flee when the battle was hopeless. If Sixty-Two had been capable of tears, he would have cried at the sight.

Long before it was over, he turned and headed out into the open desert.

#

Nina spotted a figure high up upon an outcropping of stone. She recognized it in an instant. No other mech wore a cloak. No other mech stood apart and thoughtful.

“That’s him!” she cried, calling to her personal guard. “To me! Break off, and follow!”

She wheeled her mount and zoomed up a rocky path toward the rim of the ravine. Behind her, a dozen comrades flew close behind. Among them was Old Hans himself. The knight looked as if he was having trouble catching his breath due to the battle, but his eyes were still hard and ready to fight.

It took several minutes to reach the spot, and when they did, there was nothing there but a few footprints leading out into the desert. These soon vanished in the shifting sands of Sunside. No footprint lasted more than a few minutes this close to Twilight. The winds were omnipresent.

They rode hard in every direction, but found nothing.

“Damn,” Nina cursed when at last they gave up.

“What are we chasing?” Hans asked her.

“A ghost,” she said. “A mech who wears clothes like a man. A mech who thinks as we do. A cunning abomination that must be put down.”

“Who is he, milady?”

“I have no idea.”

“Is he so important as all that?”

Nina turned to him and nodded. “I think so. I think he may be the key to this entire war.”

“It is a war now? Not just an uprising?”

“It’s always been a war, Hans. There is no difference.”

The old knight looked troubled, but added nothing further. Nina stared out into desert from a high point with squinting eyes behind her goggles. Twice now, the mech had escaped her. She wondered that it had not killed her when it had the chance upon their first meeting.

She told herself it didn’t matter why the phantom mech had passed by that golden opportunity. Her enemy had made a crucial error-one she was determined it would regret. She knew in her heart that if she was given the opportunity to avenge Leon’s death, she would do so without hesitation.

Sixty-Two returned to another hidden base, this one in the region of the various mines he’d liberated. He’d been careful not to stay at the mining facilities themselves, as that would be too obvious of a target.

He was angry and remorseful. He’d led his people poorly. Early successes had goaded him into a sense of invincibility. He’d been a fool. As solace, he sought out the companionship of the female mech named Lizett. She wasn’t a genius, even for a mech. But she had more life in her than most of them did.

“Lizett,” he called. “I wish to speak to you.”

She immediately set down a load of ore she’d been carrying, over a ton’s worth by the look of it, and trotted over on clanking feet. “You’ve returned. I’m pleased.”

“I’m pleased to see you as well. But I have bad news. We’ve lost the forward base, all the mechs there have died.”

“That is indeed bad news,” Lizett said.

Sixty-Two sighed. She knew it was bad news, and she could comprehend the fact, but there was no grieving in her. She did not cry out, as a human would. She didn’t scream or blame him for the loss, or demand the details of the story. She just absorbed the information and stood there, waiting for her next instruction.

Sixty-Two felt defeated in the face of Lizett’s relative indifference. Sometimes, strong emotions were critical to survival. They indicated to a life form when its current actions must be overridden and changed. Without emotional responses, how was a creature to judge what was more important and thus had priority over everything else it was doing? Programming the mechs with described responses for every single unexpected event that may occur was impossible. He lamented the thoroughness of the Ignis Glace mind-scrubs. He knew that mechs on other worlds were left with far more natural minds when the process was over. But here, as they were to be slaves, they didn’t have much in the way of free will. Judgment was the key to free will, and they weren’t left with much of that, either.

“What is wrong, master?”

“Don’t call me master. Don’t call me that ever again.”

“How should I address you?”

“Call me-” Sixty-Two felt a fresh wave of despair. He didn’t even know his own real name. He doubted he ever would. He thought of choosing a human name, perhaps a famous one from history. But wasn’t that simply glorifying past humans? Wasn’t that admitting they were superior to his kind? Sixty-Two made an odd sound of disgust that blared out of his speakers.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your instruction,” Lizett said.

Sixty-Two tried to collect his thoughts. “You should call me Sixty-Two. That is a good enough name.”

“Yes, Sixty-Two. Have I upset you in some way?”

“You’re responses are wrong. You have just learned of hundreds of your comrades dying in battle-and yet you seem to not care.”

“I care. I wish that event had not occurred.”

Sixty-Two sighed again and tapped his grippers together thoughtfully. “I suppose that will have to do for now. I wanted to ask you something: I left the group with a question before I traveled to the forward base. Have they made their decisions yet?”

“You asked if they wanted to be individuals, with free will such as you have exhibited.”

“That’s right. I told them to think about it. How many have made their decision?”

“All of them.”

“How many have decided to take my offer?”

“All of them.”

Sixty-Two felt crushing disappointment. “And their primary reason for this choice?”

“They’ve calculated it would be the best course.”

“Meaning it would please me, their master.”

“That term is now forbidden. They wish to please the mech known as Sixty-Two.”

Sixty-Two immediately went to his command center and contacted every mech in the facility via a broadcast link. “Fellow mech rebels,” he said. “I’m here to ask you to reconsider your choice. Take my wishes out of your calculations. I want your immediate responses this time, as they probably will not change with time for careful consideration. How many of you now wish to become free of mind as I am?”

The responses flooded in. None of them wished to have Sixty-Two’s gift. He was only slightly less annoyed with them than he had been the first time around.

“And what was your reasoning this time?” he demanded of them.

In the end, after talking to a dozen of them, he came to understand their reasoning was precisely the same: after the destruction of the mechs at the forward base, they believed the change would lower their odds of survival. Sixty-Two nodded to himself thoughtfully. After pleasing their master, their next highest concern was survival. Fair enough.

“Okay then, and what if I tell you that those mechs were slaughtered because they did not know what to do on their own? Because they could not write their own programming, and that fault made them easily defeated? With that new information, what do you all choose?”

Unsurprisingly, the vote was unanimous. They wanted their minds freed-every last one of them. Sixty-Two opened the broadcast connection again.

“Very well,” he said. “You have made your choice-as best you were able. You will get your wish. The humans will soon see what they have wrought in Sunside today!”