The Empress

Twenty-Five

Baroness Droad’s knights swept up toward the rear of the alien garrison at the southern entrance to Lavender City. The aliens unleashed withering fire in every direction, but they were surrounded and badly outnumbered.

The raging army of mechs reached the lines first. Many had been damaged by fragmentation bombardment from the ship above. Some were dragging themselves or the ruined bodies others. The bombardment stopped the moment they reached the canyon entrance, and the mechs fell upon the alien lines in a frenzy.

The aliens sent out a wave of culus and shrade teams to soften up the charge, while peppering them with laser fire from killbeasts in the rear. The tactics were very effective against humans, but much less so against mechs. The mechs grabbed up shrades, which twisted and lashed like grass snakes in their grippers. The shrades were on average seven feet in length and tremendously strong. They were no match however, for steel and servos. They were torn into lashing fragments and tossed aside. Expert fire and sweeping power-blades cut the culus numbers out of the air as well before they could return to the safety of their line.

The killbeasts, working laser rifles with precision, did better. They soon realized a single hit might rock a mech back on its servos, but did not finish them. In fact, a dozen random hits on the chassis of a perrupter did little to slow it down. The Imperial troops quickly adjusted their fire downward and focused on the ball joints holding together the leg struts. Three or four hits there reduced a charging mech to one that only crawled over the ground, dragging itself with its grippers.

This adjustment to their aim came too late. The fast moving wave of mechs charged into them before more than a dozen were maimed. The mechs came into direct conflict with little fanfare or finesse. The laborers reached out, grabbed up killbeasts with one gripper and dismembered them with the other. The perrupters were even more effective, severing limbs with their flashing power-blades and firing lasers point-blank into the thorax of any exposed killbeast.

The vitality of the killbeasts was legendary, but in this situation that attribute just meant they took longer to kill. They slashed with their horn-bladed feet, kicking at the orbs and grippers. Steel being harder than flesh, bone or horn, they won very few of these fights once the mechs were in close. The mechs swept away the initial line and advanced into the streets. Every mech chassis was burned, scarred and dented, but they had not been stopped.

Nina watched all this with grim pleasure. She enjoyed every moment of the alien destruction. For years, she’d been watching vids of these creatures preying on helpless humanity-especially on distant colonies that had much lower mech populations. These creatures might be superior combatants when compared to other fleshly beings, but when faced with human-machine hybrids they could not stand.

Now, it was her turn. With a raging army of mechs assaulting their front line, Nina’s knights charged the alien’s flank. She felt a battle fury rising up within her. She’d come from a line of fighters, and unlike her father, there was a part of her that reveled in open conflict rather than quiet contemplation.

The knights encountered very little fire as they swept close. The enemy were too focused on the mechs that were destroying them so inexorably. Their lines were shattered completely when the knights were suddenly among them. Nina lay about her with both her swords, cutting down aliens from behind. Even though the fight was hopeless, she found they were still dangerous. When a killbeast recognized her presence and brought up a laser rifle, she ducked and more than once felt the heat of a passing beam. The enemy took such potshots in many cases, even if they were engaged with a mech in a final death struggle. Knowing their own doom was at hand, they switched to the easier human target and attempted a kick or an angled shot, even as they were being beaten to death by the mechanical monsters. One killbeast fired three shots at her, even at it was being dashed against the stone walls of a nearby building, spoiling its aim. Nina was alarmed at the quick viciousness of the aliens. They knew they were doomed, but there was no attempt whatsoever to run, or to beg for mercy. These beings knew nothing of surrender or fear. They fought like biological machines themselves.

The culus creatures however, did flee. Unlike the killbeasts, they understood the better part of valor when a battle turned into a slaughter. They took flight and a hundred circular shadows swept over the knights, making them wince and duck when their strange shadows passed by. The culus flock swooped, flying low overhead and then went deeper into the city. Knights and mechs fired up a score of lancing shots, and brought a few of them down to flop on the cobbles.

Nina, realizing the killbeasts were almost extinguished, fired with the rest. “Mechs, knights, form up!” she shouted, amplifying her voice with a boom mike in her helmet. “Come troops, after them! Kill them all for Twilight!”

A ragged cheer went up. A thousand throats and a thousand speakers took up the cry. The knights charged after the fleeing enemy-it was in their nature to do so.

As the nife traveled the ship’s tube-like steel corridors to meet with the Empress, his stalks drooped down below his maw. In his short life, he’d never had a worse day. He could barely open his cusps to reveal his orbs, which were sticky with dry fluids. His worries had grown by the hour. What had looked like a perfect assault on a reef packed with nearly helpless meat-creatures had turned into a pitched battle-with the Imperium troops on the losing side. They had every advantage, but could not employ many of them.

The biggest problem was the Empress’ rigid rule against bombarding the human city. With a relentless barrage of missiles launched by Gladius, they could have made short work of the human army. But instead, they’d only managed to score a few hits as they charged into the city itself, thus forcing the missile batteries to follow their rules of engagement and break off the attack. It was almost as if these humans knew what absurd restrictions the Skaintz were operating under.

“My Highest Lady,” the nife began when he entered her fetid den. “I have grim tidings from the battle below.”

“Due, no doubt, to your incompetence?”

“Due to unforeseen events. Warfare is rarely a mathematical exercise.”

“You are wrong…again. It is a mathematical equation, and in this case you have miscalculated. I expect an immediate return to balance. I barely have enough meat-creatures to provide my person with sustenance. There isn’t enough for a breeding stock as well. They breed so slowly, these humans. We must procure many more.”

The nife had prepared a ploy for this situation. His stalks rose a fraction as he presented it hopefully. “You are correct! These creatures aren’t really suitable as a dietary staple. There are many other animals to taste, however. The world below is a veritable buffet of fresh flavors. I would recommend-”

“Don’t,” the Empress interjected. “I don’t even want to hear it. I’ve tasted their beef stews and rabbit dressings. Garbage. Greasy, flavorless swill. Humans dine on the finest of all the other species. I must have human meat, and it must have been raised upon a rich, varied diet throughout its life to maturity. Possibly, to the unsophisticated palate of lesser beings such as yourself, these nuances of taste are insignificant. Not so to a higher form such as your monarch. Feed trachs, juggers and hests your slices of bacon and your ham hocks. I want nothing to do with any of it.”

The nife’s stalks dragged even lower. He could not soften the blow any further. He had to confess to the true nature of the situation below. “The humans are driving our forces back. This process will continue without full bombardment to support our troops.”

“I don’t see how this is possible,” the Empress said, puffing herself a full two feet higher than normal. Her vast bulk loomed over the relatively tiny figure of the nife. “Just hours ago, you assured me we were on the brink of securing the entire city!”

“That was true then, but no longer. It turns out the enemy army was in the field, not home to defend its city. The army was recalled, and assaulted our troops who were unprepared and spread out over the landscape looking for pockets of resistance. They now have a foothold in the south, and are pressing northward with alarming rapidity.”

“Very well. You are to be punished for this incompetence.”

“My High Lady, I hardly think-”

“Do not interrupt as I pronounce the nature of your death. A simple spacing is too good for you. Your genes are corrupt.”

“You have no other commander with my experience. I must advise you to stave off such action for the good of the Imperium.”

The Empress scoffed. “The good of the Imperium? I should have squashed you as you were being whelped to the benefit of our entire species.”

The nife fell silent and brooding. The Empress gathered herself-literally, pulling in swollen bulges of flesh that tended to spread when she grew angry. She finally sighed and relented.

“Very well, you shall be spared until this campaign has reached stability, or until a replacement can be matured.”

The nife came back to life. His stalks rose, but he did not begin to strut, his confidence being a fraction of what it once was. “You will not regret this decision! I will avenge our dead, Empress, and the price will not be too great, I assure you.”

“The price? What price?”

“The enemy will grease the streets with their body fluids-be they oil from the inner tanks of their mechs or the blood of the humans. I promise you a breeding stock of fresh humans within the day. Simply give me full control of all our assets, and-”

The Empress slammed her tentacle onto the deck plates with such force the nife’s feet tingled afterward. “What price?” she demanded.

The nife recovered from his shock and stood as tall as he could. “We must level half the city. The southern sector shall be demolished to protect the northern half, which we still hold. A single low-yield warhead will do the trick, properly placed. The walls of the canyon will reverberate, throwing shockwaves back upon the point of initial detonation, magnifying the effect.”

The Empress was silent for a second or two. “Are you seriously suggesting we use a thermonuclear device on the city?”

“Yes, Empress. It is the best way. To use conventional warheads would be wasteful, and dangerous. Our own troops would be on the line with the enemy. If we simply nuke them behind their lines, the survivors will be rolled up easily by our counterattack on the ground. They will face our troops in front and a radioactive crater behind.”

“I had no idea you were insane,” the Empress said. “I’d thought you were going to ask to release the jugger reserves. Perhaps, in a wild fantasy, you might have believed I would authorize a conventional missile barrage from the ship. But nuclear bombardment? All that fresh meat destroyed? Never. I repeat, never shall that be allowed. I’ll see you on the front lines with a laser rifle in your mandibles first.”

The nife’s maw drooped again, along with his stalks. He didn’t know what to say. “I can’t defeat them any other way, my Empress.”

“I don’t care. If they retake the city, we shall breed a new army, and take it back again.”

The nife blinked his orbs in disbelief. He knew the Empress cared primarily about her own comforts, but to risk the entire campaign for her personal dining pleasure-he was appalled. “What can I use, then?”

The Empress waggled an appendage at him. “You may release the jugger reserves. All of them. But do not speak to me further about bombardments. That option is off the table.”

The nife knew enough not to argue further. He walked out of the throne room in the pits of depression. He ordered the last of the jugger reserves released to aid in the defense, but knew it would not be enough. He did not tell the Empress, but he’d already released most of the jugger units. They would attack soon. Hopefully, their weight would carry the day. It was not a strong hope, as the enemy were too numerous, and too willing to die to defend their city.

As the nife trudged down long, echoing corridors, he despaired. The solution was so clear! A few bombs would solve everything. It was as the oldest Parent had said: the Empress was selfish and impossible to reason with. She had the required self-confidence and commanding nature for the role, but none of the experience or wisdom to make appropriate judgments.

In short, she should never have been spawned.

Aldo, Nina and Sixty-Two pushed the aliens back block after block, driving ever more deeply into the canyon. In six hours, they’d retaken a quarter of the city. Resistance was stiffening, however, and there were reports of larger alien creatures moving up from the enemy rear ranks.

Every minute or two, Aldo’s eyes were drawn up to the great dark ship that loomed overhead. It looked like a large black moon up there, in the general shape of a spiny lobe of cactus. The spines were really large modules, rotating around the central torus, but from the ground such details were beyond the ability of the naked eye to make out.

At any moment, Aldo knew the ship could unleash a barrage on the city, destroying it, his army and the surviving civilians. He wondered with each city block they took if this would be their last-if the aliens would decide they’d gained too much ground and it was time to level the place.

The threat of the ship worried him greatly, but he couldn’t see any way to eliminate it. If they withdrew, they would simply expose themselves to missiles on open ground. If they stopped advancing, they would be effectively leaving the city to die in the hands of the aliens. Already, there had been a grievous loss of life and thousands more had been transported up to the ship for purposes he didn’t want to contemplate.

That left the sole option of continuing to press the attack. He took that option, but with each passing hour he felt a growing sense of doom. At some point, the aliens would have to realize they were losing and should unleash all their firepower to annihilate his army. What were they waiting for?

Aldo got his answer in the sixth hour. The enemy counterattacked then, with new monsters he’d not seen since he’d battled on the decks of the Zurich, the great Nexus battleship which had stopped the alien assault of Neu Schweitz.

Creatures twice the height of a man charged. They stood on two, powerful hind legs. Their maws were filled with huge teeth like daggers and their bodies and hides were thick in every proportion. Their heads were so massive, they required long tails to balance themselves as they ran.

To a man with a rifle, the juggers did not seem overly dangerous at a distance. They did not have any form of ranged attack. They simply focused on a target and charged on those huge, bulging legs.

When they first came into view, milling and releasing throaty roars, snipers all up and down Aldo’s line began firing at them. They were easy targets, and they winced and shivered when their umber hides were burned and pierced.

Then they gathered themselves into groups of seven to nine beasts, and the charge began. Their muscles shivered and swelled with power. Their pace picked up as they came, and they were soon bounding down the streets toward the human lines, each stride taking them thirty feet or more.

Aldo could feel the cobbles tremor as each massive foot struck down and then pumped up again. Around him, men on the barricades began to show signs of worry. They fired a withering fusilade of laser bolts, but not a single one of the monsters fell. A new reality quickly took hold in everyone’s mind: these creatures were too large, too hearty, to be taken down by rifles.

Aldo was not quite certain what to do.

“Sling rifles!” shouted Baroness Droad as she stepped up beside him. “Draw blades and stand your ground!”

Confused, eyes wide and round, the men did as she said. But when the charging juggers were almost upon them, some finally did break and flee.

The juggers crashed into and bounded over the barricade a moment later. They hooted and cried to one another in excitement, dipping their great heads to snap up those that fled. The knights slashed and roared, but their voices seemed tiny in the face of a swirling mass of giant predators.

“Strike low!” shouted Aldo. His sword blazed with fire, as he had set it to its maximum power. Such was the thickness and weight of the beasts, he found it best to slash at the joints-ankle, knee and hip. His sword could not strike all the way through, but it was able to cripple the one he attacked while the monster busied itself with devouring a man who had been knocked flat by stacked crates. The barricade that the men had built up to defend themselves had now become a pile of falling debris. Crushed down and trapped under the crates, men howled as they were plucked apart by hungry juggers.

Aldo soon learned several techniques he was determined to remember, should he survive this phase of the battle. When facing a charging jugger, one had to keep oneself calm. Turning tail and running meant certain death. It was best, in fact, to stand in the open, motionless until the final moment. Then, by dancing aside even as the monster dipped down to scoop you up in your jaws, a man could avoid the charge. The momentum of the beast was such that it could not stop and turn quickly enough to catch you. As one leapt to the side, a well-placed slash at one of the joints did wonders. By the end of the bloody, terrifying ordeal, he’d personally brought down two juggers and driven his sword home into the brain and chest of a third. This had to be done repeatedly, before it finally died.

Nina came up and clapped him on the back. He flinched and turned to her, eyes narrowed. He panted and rubbed at the gore on his face. There was no telling whose blood it was. He suspected it was a thick mixture of fluids from the juggers and their victims.

“My knights stood their ground!” shouted Nina. She was grinning, and seemed elated, rather than horrified. “Did you see that, Aldo? Only a few cowards broke, and they were run down. In a way, they helped us by distracting them. We were able then to move in while the creatures fed.”

Aldo nodded, eyeing her with concern. He’d once been told by the Duchess that people considered the Droads to be a bloodthirsty lot. Now, for the first time, he thought he understood why.

All told, many men and mechs were lost to the jugger charge, but Aldo’s army was not broken. When a force of killbeasts advanced in the wake of the juggers, they didn’t find a shattered force. The survivors fought back and held their lines.

“Baroness,” Aldo said. “I think we should advance.”

“Of course we should!” she shouted back. “Mount up, man. I can barely hold my knights in place as it is.”

Aldo shrugged and climbed into his saddle. Around him, a hundred more men followed. They were wary now, naturally enough. They’d seen a fresh variety of nightmare today.

What might the aliens throw at them next?

The Parent dragged herself to the nife’s central nexus. Located in one of the observation modules of Gladius, the domed transparent surface overhead provided a panoramic view of Ignis Glace. The desert of Sunside was a bright yellow, striped with rust-colored, spiraling mountain ranges. The glare of Sunside was met with the velvet darkness of Twilight, a thin ragged band where shadow met light. Beyond was the frosted blackness of Nightside.

Directly below the great ship a battle raged, and the Parent knew it was going badly. This troubled her, but also gave her some level of pleasure as well. She tried not to feel guilty about her mixed feelings. The Skaintz, unlike humans, were not individualists. They lived for the betterment of the hive. They did strive and compete-but never purposefully to the detriment of all.

That made today’s mission all the sweeter. The Parent dragged her aching, flopping lobes into the nife’s command module with heaving tentacles. Her suckers were sore from pulling so much weight behind them, and her birth tracts were no longer capable of closing properly. They leaked fluids in a glistening trail behind her all the way down the long corridor. Why had the humans built such a large ship with such long, geometrically precise segments? The design was baffling and irritating to the suffering Parent.

In the command module, the nife was in a defeatist mood. “Ah, I see you have come to gloat,” he said when he saw the Parent drag herself into the command chamber. “Not very sporting of you.”

“And what do I have to gloat about?” asked the Parent.

“Why, my inevitable spacing, of course. You and I shall twist in the void together until our fluids boil out our orbs and freeze solid.”

“Perhaps-and perhaps not.”

The nife perked up. His stalks rose a fraction as he regarded her. “You have a plan?”

“I do.”

“Well, delay no further! Our forces are being swept out of the human concentration. We’ve captured and processed no more than a quarter of the herd, and time is of the essence.”

“The enemy army seems to be the most effective force on the planet, so let’s be rid of it.”

“That is a goal, not a plan.”

“My plan is simplicity itself: burn the city to ash. Three nuclear devices should do the trick.”

The nife expelled gases in disgust. “That’s it? Did you think me such a simpleton that I’ve not already presented precisely that course of action to our Empress? In fact, when I presented it some hours ago, only one device would have been required. Now that they have retaken much of the city, three indeed represent the new minimum. Alas, the Empress has not given her permission to use even a single device to turn the tide. It’s so galling. There they are, all centralized and helpless below us. It is as if we’ve set the perfect trap. The high walls of the trench they reside in would rebound the shockwaves, ensuring total destruction. Not a single human, nor a single one of their cyborgs would survive.”

“Exactly,” the Parent said. “Do it. Launch your missiles and end this.”

The nife’s orbs stared at her fully now. “Did I not make myself clear? The Empress has forbidden such an action.”

The Parent shrugged her tentacles and arranged her fronds. “So, do it anyway. Is this not a military mission? Is the army below not under your command?”

“Yes and yes, but I fail to see-”

“What will happen to you, my favorite offspring, if you allow the Empress’ order to stand? When the humans retake the entire valley and remove us from the planet?”

“I will be spaced for failure. The Empress has made that abundantly clear. Afterward, perhaps we can mount another assault elsewhere. But we will have lost the element of surprise, and the enemy will be full of hubris due to their victory. The new nife might well be unable to achieve victory.”

“Exactly. And on the other hand, if we destroy the human army now, what will happen?”

The nife pondered and began to pace. “Events are more difficult to predict. The Empress will probably space me anyway, despite the victory, for destroying so much of her precious supply of meat-creatures. Moreover, I will have disobeyed orders.”

“Ah, but you will not have. For I hereby give you the order to launch the missiles before it is too late. Destroy the human army and the population center before the battle is lost and they remember the ship that hangs over their heads in the sky.”

The nife peered at her. “ You order me?”

“I am your progenitor.”

“The authority of the Empress supersedes your own.”

“Yes, but in this instance, you can claim you had conflicting orders from two superiors. Following your own instinct in battle, you made your choice. In the end, it will prove to be the right one. You may even survive the Empress’ wrath.”

“But you will not,” he said.

“No,” the Parent admitted. “But I’m not in her good graces in any case. I’m more interested in seeing this invasion brought to a successful conclusion. For the benefit of the Imperium.”

“For the Imperium,” the nife echoed. He stood frozen in thought for some time. At last, he began pacing again, and as he did so his stalks rose to their fullest extension. “I’ll have to make a dozen preparations. The launch must happen swiftly, quietly, and all at once. I’ll have to supervise the action personally.”

The Parent watched him, understanding the bait had been taken. He would follow her plan. Endorphins flooded her system. She truly felt good for the first time in many months. The first stage of her plan had worked perfectly. The nife was an expert in military matters, but a newcomer to intrigue. She left the nife, having further detailed preparations of her own to make.