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.
Twenty-Six
It was the hatch that defeated Garth in the end. None of Ornth’s arguments had swayed him. He did not care if every being on the planet expired, save for himself. But once he understood the hatch was impossible to open from the inside for a person of his strength, he gave up. He almost allowed himself to slide back down the shaft and fall to his death. But instead, he wearily crawled back down into the steamy chambers beneath and
