acquiesce or be compelled.' 'The Feranites request additional time for consideration.' 'The Humans question which linear sphere will the Feranites use to acquire more time?' 'The Centurians object to the Human question on the grounds that it is flippant and counter-productive.'
'The Witiko call for either the immediate acceptance of these terms by the Feranites or the immediate sterilization of the Feranite race from both the root cosmos as well as all parallel cosmos.'
'The Feranite Deus accepts the offer from Voggoth on behalf of the entire Feranite race. May He who created us all have mercy upon the souls of my people.'
'The representative of Voggoth asks the Feranites to refrain from repeating fantasies of a being superior to the gathered and reminds the Feranites that any soul their race may indeed possess, now belongs to Voggoth.'
– Captain Dustin McBride lay on his belly with binoculars staring down at the dusty, almost barren water basin at the heart of Seminoe State Park in Wyoming. There along the featureless, rocky banks waited his quarry packing their wigwams and extinguishing fires.
For months the Red Hands eluded McBride's vaunted 1 ^ st Cavalry, remaining several days ahead and varying their movements so as to escape pursuit. In recent weeks, the hunter gained ground, fighting several skirmishes with Red Hand rear guards. Those skirmishes cost his enemy dearly, dwindling the Feranite numbers to nearly half their original size.
Of course those tribesmen still outnumbered McBride's fighters, but arrows and spears would be no match for assault rifles and grenades, especially with the Red Hands caught along the reservoir banks. Perhaps their chieftain had guessed that his pursuers fell for the false trail left outside of Sinclair. McBride, however, felt the signs leading south to be far too obvious for an enemy proven so coy.
After such a long hunt, McBride regretted that a slaughter would be his only reward.
'Agarn.'
Corporal Lawrence Brown crawled next to his commander and shared the view from the brush line at the basin ridge. A rumble marked the approach of a rare morning thunderstorm caused by the remarkable heat wave sweeping through the Midwest. That heat, as much as anything, had slowed McBride's horses and men in recent days. No doubt that same heat tapped his enemy's strength, a strength McBride had grown to admire. Regardless, a good storm might cool things down for a spell. 'Ooo, now ain't that a sight for sore eyes.' 'Yeah, man, it's been a long time coming. The boys ready?' 'Hooyah, roger that. We'z been spoilin' for a fight. 'Bout time you found us one.'
Dustin set his binoculars down and crawled away from the ridge. Waiting behind cover were two hundred horse soldiers with another two hundred hurriedly circling around to pinch the Red Hands from the flanks. All of them itched to finish a job started long ago.
A radio message broadcast to Dustin, 'Hope here, we're in position,' followed thirty seconds later by a woman's voice, 'Chambers speaking, we're all set.'
A bugler played 'charge' and three formations charged the trapped Feranites, including McBride and Brown leading the attack from the ridge. Enthusiastic hoots and hollers joined the stomping sound of horse hoofs that broke the morning calm. In the distance, a bolt of lightning reached for the ground and a veil of water fell on the lake, moving toward the slaughter like a curtain about to close.
Dustin led his warriors down the ridge, careful in steering his horse across the rocky slope and also careful to watch for incoming arrows. The Feranites never showed any fear of modern weapons. They would fight to the death no…matter…what…
The hoots and hollers quieted. Horse hoofs slowed.
The Feranites stood along the lake, trapped in the open with no chance of escape. They stood straight and still, the whole lot of them. No drawn blades, no raised bows.
'What the shit-nuts are these fellas up to?'
McBride did not answer his friend. A trap? Or were the Feranites-for the first time ever-ready to surrender? Had the pursuit broken both their backs and their spirits? Following McBride's lead, the other attacking elements halted some fifty yards from the primitives. Radio calls came in, 'Sir? Should we fire?' 'Am I seein' things?' Dustin dismounted. Agarn-Corporal Brown-told him, 'Now, don't be gettin' no stupid ideas.'
McBride first shot Brown a middle finger, then waved to him. The two soldiers descended the hill on foot with pistols drawn. No enemy weapons rose to greet them.
'Hold positions,' McBride radioed.
Dustin came within twenty feet of an elderly female Feranite standing perfectly still with her hands resting on the shoulders of a child. A ribbon in her hair made from a collection of nut shells and flowers fluttered in a gust of wind coming from the closing storm.
The woman…the child…all of the Red Hands appeared frozen in time, their eyes wide open but just standing. Dustin could not even see signs of breathing. Rain fell. A pitter. A patter. More. The Red Hands started to shake. 'Holy Christ, Dustin…'
It seemed to McBride as if every member of the Feranite tribe stuck their fingers into an electric socket, causing their spines to wobble…their eyes to roll white…and their mouths to open and stretch as if made of rubber.
'Agarn…back off…back off…'
A horrible moan came from the hundreds of aliens along the reservoir; a moan coming from mouths that grew impossibly wide on heads that tilted back…and then split. Split open in two.
'Holy fucking shit! Get outta here!'
Rain fell harder and harder. The moan grew louder. The bodies shook faster. And up from the torn gashes in the Red Hand necks rose iron-like bars supporting big spheres. Vein-like strands of metal flowed out from that bar and ran along the arms and legs of each of the Feranites.
The moan morphed from an animalistic cry into a digitalized sound seemingly born from computer speakers.
The orbs split open like metallic Venus flytraps sporting daggers for teeth. Skin exploded and out came a trio of shiny legs with hydraulic muscles and round pads for feet.
McBride's cavalry waited no more. Machine guns and carbines fired but they did not tear into skin, they ricocheted off mechanized units that had been born from flesh.
As the storm broke and the deluge fell and the lightning sent flashes across the gorge, the Feranite race completed their transformation into the very thing they despised: technology. They changed from creatures at one with nature to something built from metal and gears and lenses where eyes once watched.
Where their arms once hung came two metal pipes. No, not pipes; barrels.
The rat-tat-tat of counter fire came from the mob of mechanized warriors out toward the cavalry. Explosive shells detonated in the belly of horses, shrapnel decimated riders, more mounts spooked and dashed away, most throwing their owners to the wet ground.
As grenades fell into the mob of emerging monsters, two of the creatures died as the concussion from the explosives tore apart their new limbs and shredded circuitry. But those small victories proved no relief as the outnumbered horse soldiers suddenly faced a superior foe.
Corporal Brown grabbed his commander's sleeve and pulled him up the ridge. McBride fired his gun as the nearest Red Hand finished its transition into an artificial beast. The metal bar that held the round mouth bent and the mechanical legs chased the hunter as parts of torn clothing and the remains of discarded flesh dropped off like a snake shedding its skin.
Rounds from Dustin's pistol sparked off the chassis. A bear-trap-like mouth clamped down on the pistol and the arm holding it. Brown tried to help his friend and discharged his own gun at point blank range into the beast, to no effect. In exchange, the newly-born demon swung around one of its gun barrels and pumped ordnance into Agarn's belly. He exploded into upper and lower halves.
The shrapnel tore into McBride, eliciting a scream. The monster's mouth finished biting off his arm then chomped his head. Blood and gore drizzled along its shiny new metal chassis. As Dustin died, so did his cavalry; baptismal gifts for a newborn race. Away from the lake and across all the universes marched the children of Voggoth. Seven to go.
20. Erasers
