Was Once a Hero

chapter Twelve





Fenaday’s fortified campsite stood on the southeast coast of an island almost twenty kilometers long. Near midnight, on the northern side of the island, a huge mechanical shape drifted down toward the rocky beach. The name on the immense floating platform would have translated as Industrial Seacatcher #14 had there been anyone to read it. Nothing warm-blooded had moved on the giant processing platform in nearly three years. Nothing since the nightmare of terror ended for her crew on its derrick and net-filled decks. Pitiful skeletons littered those decks, splintered and fragmented.

Seacatcher wandered with the current, much as her designers intended. A few functioning automatics and luck kept her from grounding. On her port side, a small ferry lay wedged and partially submerged—a companion in death also crewed by bones—collected on some unwitnessed occasion.

The heart of her automatics had now failed and Seacatcher, which floated over the horizon when Fenaday’s force landed, drifted into shore. High above, Sidhe orbited. The starship noted the approach of the derelict. Despite the upload of the attack at Belwin Duna’s home, it never entered Perez’s prosaic mind that the derelict could pose any threat. The chief engineer lived in a secure world of math and science. Imagination was not his strength. He noted the powerless derelict’s drifting approach, but ignored it. It was, after all, merely another dead wreck.

Seacatcher came to rest on the other side of the volcanic ridge that bisected the island. The pounding roar of the surf masked much of the grinding, metallic cacophony of its arrival. Distance and the heavy night air attenuated it further.

On the derelict a shape formed, taller than an Enshari, nearer the height of a man. It drew its substance from paper, plastic and bits of bone and metal. The shape canted across the deck, heading toward land. As it moved, pieces dropped off and new ones took their place. The gusting wind seemed to shred it at times, as if the energy or attention keeping it together waxed and waned. When it reached Seacatcher’s landward edge, it simply toppled over into the surf. Fragments washed up along the beach, and it took some time for the manifestation to collect itself. It moved on, pulling sand, driftwood and shell into its body. Down the wind-swept beach it danced, with only the rustling sound of wet paper and sticks. It slipped along lightly, now with greater speed, now with lesser. Sometimes, it came close to dissipating, as if its outraged component parts demanded rest, a return to their natural state. The shape negotiated the open areas of the island, avoiding the heavy forest where it could. Eventually, it reached a point on the headland, above the spacers’ encampment. It stopped in line of sight of the camp, but not near. Having reached its objective, the collection of bones and bits settled lower to the ground. Its substance became denser, whirling with less energy. It called.

On the deck of Seacatcher, unlife stirred. An army, resting from its previous mission of slaughter, reassembled. It incorporated its previous victims’ bones, metal, plastic, anything handy. They varied in size, but six giants made from girders and scaffolding stood like field marshals in the midst of the resurrected force. The ghastly army, its mission renewed, began to disembark. Above it, as if in cooperation, the heavens joined the assault with a rumble of thunder and a deluge of rain.

*****

Fenaday’s people slept comfortably, under cover from the rain and the lightning. This time only the robots stood out in the storm, on watch. Their airborne sister, the scout robot so useful on Mars, sat in a shuttle, grounded by the wind and rain.

The HCR Magenta detected movement and sound beyond the perimeter. A draw ran from the valley, and by design or luck, the Shellycoat army had marched down it. It allowed them to close to within several hundred meters of the camp without detection. The defenders had not been blind to this danger, lacing the small canyon with mines. At its end, the draw left any attackers facing a hundred meters of open terrain, under every gun of the camp. In a millisecond, the robot checked its target profile and came up with ‘Unknown.’ Fortunately, its programs contained a new instruction. ‘Unknown,’ meant hostile.

Magenta signaled an alert to Mmok back in the camp. In the same instant, she commanded the mines to detonate. Her steel sisters joined her in a blur of flashing metal, leading the reserve of crab robots to the section of barrier wire facing the attack.

In the camp, Mmok leapt to his feet, yelling warnings.

Fenaday sat bolt upright from a deep sleep, grabbing his jacket. Moments later he and Shasti stood on the ramp door of the shuttle, looking for targets in the driving rain. Troops spilled out from shuttles and shelters, running for firing slits and foxholes. Fenaday popped onto the net, hitting his command override button, “All section commanders, this is Fenaday. Hold fire until we have a target. Mmok, your robots may fire at will.”

Telisan and Duna joined them on the ramp, both with sidearms. Shasti left his side racing around the encampment. He heard her calling for everyone to look to their front. Mmok’s robots opened up on the prepared killing ground at the draw’s exit. Anti-tank munitions flashed and boomed, giving hints of what lay beyond the barrier wire. Fenaday saw something that looked like a crane toppling into the dirt.

The Shellycoat army, its size more than quartered by the ambush, burst out the sides of the draw. A wave of creatures charged at the barrier wire, far faster than a man could run over such ground.

“Weapons free,” Fenaday yelled.

Shasti called for fire and everyone, including the top turrets of the shuttles, opened up at once. The Shellycoats seemed to have no sense of survival. They hit the barrier line and flashed into nothing.

“Floods,” Fenaday shouted over the net. The downpour made it impossible to see clearly. Actinic bursts of light from explosions and energy weapons didn’t help.

The floods clicked on, revealing a scene undreamed of even in Dante’s nightmares. Beyond the barrier wire the ground seethed, alive with thousands of horrific, man-like shapes of all sizes. They lurched forward, made from metal, plastic, wood and rock. The most terrifying had skulls and ribcages whirling in their interiors.

The weaponry of the spacers cut huge swaths through the oncoming mass. Shellycoats exploded into mere debris. Barrier wire began to short under the press of material, throwing brilliant sparks to add to the confusion.

Fenaday moved to the front, flanked by the others. He saw Shasti repositioning the ground troops. He didn’t interfere; she knew more of war on planets than he did. Troops ran, slipping and cursing the mud and rain. Mmok’s utility robots began to scramble out from the shuttle area in response to some silent call for ammunition.

Fenaday turned to Telisan. “Get the doctors and the techs to passing out ammunition.”

Telisan nodded and ran off. Duna accompanied him.

Fenaday hit the net. “Pilots, fire up your engines. We may have to withdraw.”

“Karass, roger.”

“Fury, roger.”

“Nusam, understood.”

Fenaday, laser in hand, rushed forward to help in the fight. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Farriq-Dar’s turret swing upward. His eyes followed the gun’s track, and he saw the giant.

It stood sixty feet tall, in an ape-like shape. Behind it came four others, made of gantries, scaffolds and cranes. They strode out of the draw like colossi, eating up ground in huge strides. Weapons fire switched to them. Farriq-Dar’s chain gun tore the first one apart. Then the shuttle switched to the second, which was already taking fire. The giant exploded. Parts of it struck the barrier wire and scattered the defenders. Fire slackened momentarily under the shower of metal. Girders struck Farriq-Dar as the thing toppled forward. The sound of metal crashing on the shuttle added to the confusion of gunfire and screams.

A third giant fell to combined fire as the weapons disrupted the unlife holding it together.

The fourth stepped over the wire as lesser Shellycoats raced through the gaps. Magenta, Cobalt, Verdigris and Vermilion charged in, blazing away. The crab-like robot guns and utility robots also swarmed to the breakthrough engaging the Shellycoats. It gave some of the cut-off troops a chance to run for the shuttles or better positions. Shasti reorganized them quickly and the spacers’ enormous firepower began to contain the threat.

*****



On the Farriq-Dar, Pilot Officer Nusam looked out at the mass of wreckage on his canopy in dazed terror. Debris hadn’t penetrated the ceramic steel of the canopy and turret, but the concussion had. His gunner hung in the belts of her seat, unconscious. All he could hear over the communications net were screams and desperate orders. His shuttle sat where the breakthrough was worst. Outside the cabin he could see monsters made of wood, steel and bone skittering over the shuttle’s sides trying to reach him.

Nusam’s nerve failed and he rammed the throttles forward. Farriq-Dar began to lift. Its thrusters tumbled men and Shellycoats alike.

*****

Fenaday looked up in shock at the desertion. “Nusam,” he yelled into the headset. “Get that shuttle back down here. Nusam! Acknowledge!”

Farriq-Dar rose slowly, thirty feet, forty. Then the fourth giant struck at it with steel arms that had once drawn fishing nets through the deep ocean. Her armored hull withstood the blow, but the port engine nozzle did not. It crumpled, cutting thrust from the engine. Unbalanced, with the other engine running full blast, Farriq-Dar flipped over.

Fenaday was on his headset, still demanding Nusam’s return, when he saw the shuttle turn over and start down directly toward him. “Down, everyone down,” he screamed into the command override. “Everyone drop.”

Something hit Fenaday, throwing him backward, the breath rammed out of him. They got me, he thought numbly as he hit the wet ground. Long, fine, black hair fell into his face. He realized Shasti had knocked them both into a partly rain-filled ditch. They lay face to face—for a second. Then the sky over her shoulder lit up with an orange flash; the ground bucked as the shuttle exploded. They clung to each other, gasping for air. For a moment, it was simply enough to be alive.

Shasti heaved off him and lunged out of the hole. He followed with less grace, half soaked. They hit the ground running, looking for targets.

The shuttle lay upside down and burning. Its blast must have hit Banshee badly; her top turret had stopped firing. Pooka and her gun still blazed away. Bodies lay everywhere. Fortunately, the blast did their enemy worse harm; Farriq fell on the main breakthrough. The giant that had struck the shuttle stood wobbling as if wounded. Fenaday ran forward, scooping up a fallen tri-auto. He fired a weapon from either hand. The laser set the giant ablaze as the tri-auto ate at its substance with explosive charges, bullets and energy blasts. Other fire joined his and the giant toppled. Fenaday turned, looking for targets. He saw the last giant moving toward Shasti.

She stood at the perimeter, gunning down a group of Shellycoats trying to surround survivors fleeing from the front trench. Her hearing, more sensitive than a normal human’s, must not have recovered from the blast. She did not hear the clangor of its approach, too intent on the enemy before her. She did not hear Fenaday’s scream as he raced forward, firing. He was too far away. Too late, she felt or saw something and began to turn. Forty feet tall and made of suspended debris, the giant swung down a girder arm.

Johan Gunnar sprang from a foxhole, almost at Shasti’s feet. The big Swede hit Shasti with a shoulder, sending her sprawling face down in the mud. The girder missed her by inches. It hit Gunnar squarely. He didn’t even scream. His body lofted into the air, flung like a child’s toy into the forest beyond the shattered perimeter.

Fenaday grabbed another weapon from the bodies on the ground, put it on full auto and fired. It emptied its ammunition in a rush; the particle accelerator spat out metal and energy fitfully. He continued charging, firing his hand laser at what he thought of as the thing’s face. The giant stood, its head a mass of flames as the laser refracted off metal, igniting anything flammable. Even the metal began to glow. The weapon, made for short bursts, grew hot in Fenaday’s hand.

The giant backed away as its girder arms came up to shield its face.

Oh my God, he thought, this one is aware. He shifted to fire around the shielding arms. Shasti appeared at his side, face bloody, eyes wild. Death’s Angel, the crew called her. Now she looked the part. She held tri-autos in each hand and fired them with a scream of hatred. Explosive bullets began to detonate in the giant. Cobalt appeared next to them, firing her heavier weapon. The thing continued backing, then came apart, its pieces thundering into the mud, splashing them with its death throes.

With all the giants down, the smaller Shellycoats’ attack became disjointed, as if the will or intelligence had gone out of them. They skittered around at random. A counterattack would rescue the situation. Fenaday turned to find Shasti, only to see her race through a section of downed barrier wire into the forest, heading for where Gunnar’s body had been flung.

Fenaday was torn. The camp needed him, but Shasti was running heedlessly into the dark. He heard Telisan’s strong voice and decided the Denlenn would take care of the camp. No one else could cover Shasti. He raced after her, leaping over a body he couldn’t recognize. He spotted movement heading for her back and snap fired from long range. A Shellycoat flared and disintegrated. Shasti’s long legs ate up ground. He lost her in the rain for a few seconds. Then a power gun flared in the distance, and he ran to the spot.

Shasti knelt over the crushed corpse of Johan Gunnar, cradling him in her arms. Fenaday saw from his injuries that he must have been killed instantly. He stood by Shasti’s side, trying to look in all directions at once. They were too far from the camp site—alone. In the downpour, he could not tell a Shellycoat from foliage.

“Why, Johan?” she asked of the corpse. “Why die for me?” To Fenaday’s surprise she ran a gentle hand over the bloody face. It flicked into focus for him. Johan had always been special to Shasti. He’d even heard a rumor of a romance but had dismissed it.

“We’ve got to get back to the camp,” he yelled. “We’re dead out here.”

“Fool. I told you not to come,” she scolded the corpse. “You had a good job on Mars. You could have had a real life. This is stupid, Johan. ”

Fenaday’s skin crawled at her too reasonable tone. He looked down at her through the pouring rain. He could not see tears. Her face seemed as calm as always, but her eyes were bright and strained.

Behind them, he heard more firing and screams.

“Shasti, I realize he was something to you but we’ve got go.”

She didn’t react, only stroked Johan’s face as the rain poured down.

“The living before the dead,” he shouted at her.

He reached down, seizing her arm, hauling her back from the body. Shasti fell backward as he dragged her for a step. She convulsed with a scream of rage and blurred into movement. Fenaday doubled over as the barrel of her tri-auto slammed into his stomach and stayed there.

She stood, glaring. Death’s Angel, with her weapon leveled, white knuckled, at him. “Never,” she snarled, “never touch me like that. You go too far with me.”

Fenaday fought for breath. “Apparently, I went too far in relying on you.”

He straightened, backing away from the barrel. She leveled it at his face. He saw hate and death in her eyes, and a coldness spread through him. Her finger stayed tight on the trigger. “Our crew is fighting back there,” he said. “Dying. They need us. But you stay. You fight your private war with the universe right here. If any of us live, you can tell us how it went.”

He spun and ran back to the embattled campsite, wondering if he would feel the one that hit him. They say you don’t, Fenaday thought, but he no longer believed in even small mercies.

He came up on the campsite. Telisan and Duna were forming the survivors into a square, firing volleys in all directions. The robots became the ramparts behind which the spacers stood. Three of the HCRs stood shoulder to shoulder in the thick of the attack, fighting with palm blades and kicks against the man-sized Shellycoats. People raced toward the square, firing as they ran. Mourner and Yamata fled from the side of the burned out Farriq-Dar, Shellycoats in pursuit. Fenaday realized that Telisan could not see them from his position. He sprinted forward, firing the last shots in his laser. Shellycoats flashed and melted into fragments. He reached the doctors, covering them as they ran for the square.

The Shellycoats came straight on at the spacers, only to be mown down by disciplined fire. Finally, the last one fell; the wood of its substance burning. The spacers stayed in the square for some minutes as the rain tapered, making rushes to recover any wounded they saw, or to check bodies lying nearby. More spacers appeared, breaking out of cover, yelling out their names as they ran for the safety of the square. The explosion had not caught as many as Fenaday feared. Firing pits and bunkers protected most from the attack and the blast.

Fenaday felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to face Telisan. Smoke stained the Denlenn’s face and blood trickled from his hairline. “Thee lives. Good. When I could not find you, I feared my poor service ended. What of Shasti?”

Fenaday turned away. “She’ll show up. She always does.”

Telisan blinked, too startled to respond.

“Get that barrier wire restrung,” Fenaday shouted. “Mmok, position your robots on the perimeter to cover the wire crew. Connery, form a fire team to back them up. Rigg, pull two teams together. Collect all the wounded. Fury, Karass, grab what you need and check the shuttles. I need barrier power and shuttle guns.”

The camp came back together quickly. After reestablishing minimal security Fenaday grabbed Mmok’s arm. “Shasti’s out about a hundred meters that way. Send an HCR to bring her in.”

“What the—” Mmok began.

“Shut up and do what you’re told,” Fenaday snapped. For once Mmok had the good sense not to push further.

Cobalt returned in a few minutes with Shasti. She carried Gunnar’s body on her shoulders, wrapped in a poncho. Fenaday suddenly remembered another day, when she had carried him in over some dangerous miles on Morok. Now all he felt was a coldness and a distant relief that she still lived. The big man’s corpse joined nineteen others stretched out beside the overturned shuttle with its two corpses.

Telisan walked up to Fenaday. “I have the list,” he said. “Twenty dead: Gunnar, Dr. N’deba, Nusam and his gunner, nine from the Landing Force, six of Rigg’s people and an engineer. Fifteen seriously wounded, a quarter of the robots and Magenta were destroyed.”

“God,” said Fenaday, “God.” He turned away so Telisan could not see his face. I am supposed, thought Fenaday, to shrug it off. Tough privateer captain, that’s what I am supposed to be. Twenty dead. Twenty dead people. A mother’s pain, a father’s hopes, all gone. But gone to where? Where do you go to when the dark comes? Did a kindly god greet them? Or is it just the dark?

“Captain?” Telisan asked, concern in his voice.

“I’m all right,” he said, his voice thin and strained.

Fenaday drew a deep breath and turned to Mmok. “I remember Creda saying something about the things regenerating, about coming back from being killed. Put your crab robots in the middle of the Shellycoat debris. Order them to fire on any pieces of material that rise off the ground but shouldn’t lift under the ambient wind. Maybe they are easier to disrupt if they are shot early.”

“Hope you’re right,” grunted the older man. Mmok turned to subvocalize to the HCRs and stopped, clearly startled. The movement caught Fenaday’s eye. He looked in the same direction.

Verdigris, Vermilion and Cobalt stood behind them, looking down at the remains of their sister, Magenta. The wind stirred their monofilament hair. It was macabre, as if they were mourning.

Fenaday and Mmok walked over to the battle-damaged robots. The HCRs should have been on the perimeters, per their last order. Apparently their programs were more flexible than Fenaday realized. The HCRs looked up at their approach. Smoke stained the artificial faces and the hair they used for antenna and for cooling. They might resemble dolls, but the spacers owed their survival to them.

Mmok stared at them, as if having difficulty believing his eyes.

Fenaday called out to one of the nearby LEAFs. “Morgan.” The man, dirty and bandaged, but otherwise whole, hurried to him.

“Yes sir.”

“Magenta goes into the grave with everyone else,” Fenaday said. “Handle the body properly.”

Mmok snorted. “You’re a proper maudlin Irishman, Fenaday. It’s just a machine.”

“You heard me,” he said.

Before Morgan could do anything, Mmok turned to the HCRs. “Vermilion, retrieve Magenta then follow this human. Take his orders regarding disposal of the parts.”

Vermilion bent down to retrieve the identifiable parts of Magenta with apparent gentleness.

“What the hell,” said Mmok sardonically, “she ought to be carried by her own.”

Fenaday turned and nearly walked into Shasti. They stood eyeing each other for a few seconds. Her face betrayed nothing, remaining icy and remote. He nodded at her. She said nothing. He did not know when she’d arrived, but realized she was back in her accustomed place behind his left shoulder. It might be a tacit apology. Still, all he could remember was the look in her eyes and the whitening of her hand on the weapon’s pistol grip. His ribs still ached where she had slammed the barrel into him. The cold spot in his chest did not warm either.

Fenaday moved about the camp, resetting their defenses, checking on the wounded. Dawn broke. Its warmth brought relief from the night’s cold rain. Shasti and Fenaday traveled the camp in frozen silence. Seeing this, Duna and Telisan exchanged troubled looks.

*****



Far above the embattled camp site, the frigate Sidhe had watched the battle, helplessly. Perez heard the panic and confusion over the tactical net and cursed his inability to help. The fight was far too close to the camp for the starship to fire. Scanners could barely cut through the storm. Flaring weapons fire was all he could see of the battle. Then one of the shuttle’s engines gave off an infrared bloom. The bridge crew sat spellbound and watched as Farriq-Dar exploded. As the battle ended on their screens, casualty reports began coming. All three shuttles had been hit.

At the back of the starship’s spade-shaped bridge, one of ASATs standing security watch slipped out the pressure door. Sergeant Diron Naks quickly made his way to the quarters of Lt. Katrina Micetich. He buzzed insistently.

Micetich opened the door. “Diron, what are you doing here? I thought you had watch?”

“Let me in,” he hissed. “It happened. They were attacked.”

Micetich paled. She grabbed his arm and pulled him into her cabin. With so much of the crew off the ship, the remaining spacers had moved into unoccupied cabins for the rare pleasure of privacy. The two young people embraced fervently and kissed. They’d fallen in love on the outbound voyage. Both volunteered for the mission, but now, in love, they were reconsidering the risks of the voyage. While only the landing force stood at risk, they were content to sit it out in orbit.

“What happened?” she breathed when they pulled apart.

Naks described the disaster planetside.

“You know what this means,” he finished.

“Yes,” she said, “with the shuttles damaged, Fenaday is going to bring us down.”

“The fool,” growled Naks. “It’s probably a trap to get him to do just that, to bring us in range to be finished off. If we go down, we’ll be wiped out like all the rest. We’ve got to protect ourselves. This isn’t our fault. No one said anything about Enshar when they asked for volunteers. They tricked us.”

“Yes, darling, they did,” she agreed. “Get our people together. We’ve got to move now. We have to get Perez first. I’ll call him here as soon as you get back.”

He raced out the door, and the mutiny began.