Mech 3: The Empress (35 page)

“Our ‘rightful masters’,” Sixty-Two echoed thoughtfully. “And what gives one man the right to be the master of another?”

Nina made a sound of exasperation. “You are not
men!
Look at yourselves! I will admit, you are a singular case, Sixty-Two. You are different than the rest. Something clearly went wrong in your processing. But that doesn’t change things.”

“I believe that it does. I am a human with a metal body of your people’s design. I want to know why this has been done to me.”

“Because you are a criminal. You are all criminals. You were rightfully convicted and sentenced to this fate.”

“What then, was my crime? For I do not remember it.”

Nina decided to take this opportunity to get closer to her target. She thought it may be the only chance she ever got—and besides, she was curious. Who was this mysterious mech, who’d become a warlord and caused so much damage?

She dismounted and approached until she was close enough to peer at his chestplate. She tapped the serial number on the mech into her computer scroll and did a search. She wasn’t able to access the net from this maelstrom of geological activity, but all such public data had been stored locally on her computer in any case.

She studied the results, frowning. “Hmm, the serial number is listed as unregistered. It is listed as unused, and isn’t in the database. Did you alter it?”

“No,” Sixty-Two said. “I suspect my processing was never finished, and the ID was never logged. I’ve done the same search myself with the same results.”

“I see, yes, the processing must have been interrupted. That would explain a lot. But in short, I do not know who you are—who you
were
.”

“And you see no crime in
that,
Baroness? Your people have erased me, and cannot even tell me what it was I supposedly did to earn my fate.”

Nina looked troubled, but only for a moment. “The situation is self-evident. You are a mech, therefore you were previously a criminal. Only the most heinous of crimes earn people such a fate.”

“Really? Then let us indulge ourselves with a second test. Here is a girl named Lizett. Research her number, please.”

Nina stepped up to the towering mech female and scanned her breastplate. She waited a moment, then frowned at the results.

“Well?” demanded Sixty-Two.

Nina straightened her spine to stand as tall as possible among the towering mechs that surrounded her. If she were to die, it would not be in the posture of a sniveling liar. She read the report as it was written on her device. “Lizett Germaine. Age twelve. Daughter of shopkeepers Otto and Gisele Germaine, from Alsace fief. Family evicted for non-payment of lease and convicted as debtors.”

“Lizett Germaine,” Lizett said, pronouncing her last name carefully. “Do I have any brothers or sisters?”

Nina frowned. “It doesn’t say here.”

“Let me see if I understand the situation,” Sixty-Two said gravely. “She was a child of debtors, and the entire family was processed for non-payment? You call this justice?”

“You knew who she was before you had me look it up.”

“That changes nothing. Would you call this justice?”

Nina looked at the female mech and shook her head. “It would not seem to be a fair sentence.”

“Look at the date on the record, Baroness. When was the act performed?”

“Uh—sixteen years ago.”

“So,” Sixty-Two boomed, turning up the volume of his speakers. “Your people ripped her brain from her body as a child. Deprived of hormonal influences, memories, and until recently emotions, she did not develop. She still has the mind of a child and most likely forever will.”

“I concede her grounds for a grievance. Perhaps she can plead her case and receive restitution.”

Sixty-Two snorted in disgust. “No fief judge will consider a case brought by a runaway mech. We are slaves. We are chattel. We have been gravely wronged. Can you not understand our actions now? You are a fiery knightrix, a warrior at arms. Would you tolerate such dishonorable treatment in our situation?”

Nina eyed the hulking mechs around her, seeing individuals for the first time, rather than machines. Part of her wanted to break her chivalrous code and tell them an untruth, but she could not.

“No,” she admitted at last. “I would not tolerate such treatment. I would be angry, and I would most likely rebel.”

“Excellent. Now that you have admitted your guilt, we can proceed with our own justice.”

“My guilt?”

“You have confessed to mistreating mechs, to persecuting us with armed troops when we are the ones that have been wronged. That dishonor must be punished.”

“What kind of a parlay is this?” Nina shouted.

“It is the kind your people have often given us. You are the sole available representative of your government. You are to be tried and executed for the deaths of over five hundred civilian mechs at our base in Sunside.”

Nina drew her sword and powered it. The blade flared into life and plasma rippled over its length. “Sixty-Two, or whatever your name is, I would challenge you to a duel instead!” she shouted. “As one commander to another! Let this war be decided by a single death, rather than a thousand.”

Sixty-Two was taken aback. “You challenge me? I have ten times your strength of arm.”

“I’ve slain your kind before. This blade will cut through steel struts as easily as bone.”

“How would such an act change the course of this struggle between our peoples?”

“We’ll record the duel. We will record the terms. If I win, I walk freely from here, and our army retreats. You will have been executed for your crimes, and I will pursue the rest of your mechs no longer.”

“And if I win?”

“Then you will have gotten your revenge, and I will leave taped orders for my knights to retreat all the same. Either way, your mechs will no longer be hunted by this army. I can’t guarantee others will not come looking for you, but if you stay hidden in Nightside, I doubt you will be molested further. The aliens are going arrive at any moment from the skies giving us bigger things to worry about.”

Sixty-Two appeared to think over the offer. “I accept,” he said at last.

They recorded the terms solemnly, and when they were done Sixty-Two wasted no time. He took a sword into his gripper, and lifted it over Nina’s head.

Nina lifted her blade to parry. She knew he had the power to beat down her guard, but she could hope to deflect the first stroke. If she could then slash in, possibly low, she could take off one of his legs. If the rest of the mechs didn’t intervene, she might be able to finish the fight right then, and achieve her real goal: avenging Leon’s death. They would probably kill her afterward in a fury, but it would at least be a death with purpose.

“Wait!” shouted a voice from the shifting fog around them. Every head turned, looking this way and that.

“Aldo?” Nina asked in shock. For she knew that voice, and when he swaggered out into visibility, she had to smile. He looked calm and cocky—as always.

#

Sixty-Two took one clanking step forward, warily approaching the small, confident female. He felt he should be able to brush her aside and easily win this duel. But he did not have a sense of complete confidence. He was not a warrior at heart. He suspected he had probably been a technician who’d failed his lord, or an accountant who’d embezzled funds, in his previous life. He’d become a war leader, but it was a role that had been thrust upon him.

Now, facing this half-mad woman with her sparkling blade held at a precise angle over her head, he felt uncertain. She did not hop forward to the attack. She just waited. He knew she was waiting for him to make a grievous error.

When the voice of a second, unseen human rang out, Sixty-Two paused. He was not sorry to see the duel delayed. He’d only accepted these terms for the benefit of his people, who hopefully would no longer be hunted whether he won or not.

“Who are you?” he asked the man.

“Aldo Moreno of Neu Schweitz,” the stranger said with a slight dip of the head.

“Neu Schweitz? Did you come on the great ship with the aliens?”

“No. I came on another sleeker ship to aid in the defense of this world.”

Sixty-Two blinked his orb-shields. “What are you doing here? What business is this conflict of yours?”

“I am here to defend Ignis Glace. I implore you both to do the same. There is grave news. The ship has now reached low orbit.”

Nina watched this interchange with a growing frown. “Aldo, you should stay out of this. I am about to achieve my vengeance.”

“I ask that you put aside such bickering for the sake of all life on this planet. The aliens are here. They will kill us all, man or machine—and those who are both.”

Nina shook her head. “I know they took out our fleet, but—”

“The situation has changed further. I have the evidence here on my computer scroll. The reports are flooding in from Lavender City. The aliens have destroyed the gun batteries. They have landed troops. Even now, they assault the city and slaughter the populace. Your army is here in the field, but it has been recalled. This struggle must be set aside, Baroness.”

Nina and Sixty-Two both lowered their swords. Aldo strode forward and showed them the net broadcasts that were coming over the net. A fourth figure, the tall, thin form of the skald, joined their huddle. He peered with burning eyes at the images on the scroll.

There was no sound, but there did not need to be. The skies burned with white light as ships roared down to land at either end of the valley. Trapped between two forces, the city garrison was quickly overwhelmed by bounding legions of killbeasts. Juggers charged into the mix of any organized resistance, and even when the great beasts fell, the enemy was shattered. Killbeasts rolled in to mop-up, sweeping heads from necks with precise kicks of their bladed feet.

“We must return,” Nina said. “We must save the city.”

She looked up at Sixty-Two. “I wish to set aside our duel, if you will agree.”

“I will do as you ask. You are free to go.”

Nina looked up at him, her face troubled. “I must ask for more. You are not truly a man, but there is more human in you than these beasts from the stars. Will you stand with us?”

“As equals, or as slaves?”

“As allies of necessity.”

Sixty-Two looked around the group. He realized that he wanted peace, but this was not to be. This threat from the skies was far greater than he’d understood. Most importantly, he saw this as an opportunity to raise the status of mechs everywhere on this world, forever. Finally, he nodded. “The mechs will march after your army, but apart from it. I will retain sole command over my people.”

“There must be a commander, or there will be no army.”

“I will not follow the lead of a woman who has killed five hundred innocents!”

Nina drew in a breath to shout back at him, but Aldo stepped forward, holding his hands high.

“Wait!” he said. “I have a solution to propose. I am not from here. I wish only to destroy the aliens. I’ve never enslaved a mech, nor have I been wronged by one. As a neutral party, I offer to command the joint armies.”

Both sides grumbled, but they did so with haste. Aldo left the vids running between them, so they could see what was happening to the city as they delayed and discussed command.

“Done,” Sixty-Two said at last.

At that point, Aldo looked around for the skald who’d been watching the discussion. He was nowhere to be seen. Then he noticed the large hatch on the metal island in the center of the roiling geothermal mists. It was open. Lizett stood there, and he approached her.

“Are you the one known as Lizett?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, and an odd sound emitted from her speakers.

“Are you crying?”

“Yes. I opened the hatch, and he ran away! Why would he do that?”

“Who ran away?” Aldo asked, but he had an idea who she was talking about.

“The skald. My friend. I’ve cared for him for so long. I didn’t think he’d go down the hole and not come back.”

Aldo stepped to the open hatchway. It was pitch black inside. A series of grooves rippled the walls, perhaps meant to be a ladder of sorts. The crevices were thin, however, and did not seem properly scaled for human fingers. Going down there would be treacherous. One slip, and the fall looked infinite. He could make out nothing of the bottom. There were only smooth metal walls that formed a vertical shaft, and an inky blackness below.

Lizett called down the shaft for the man, who Aldo knew as the skald Garth.

“Can you get him back out of there for me?” she asked Aldo.

Aldo sighed and stood at the rim, staring down. “We’re leaving, skald! You’ll have no food or water. Every direction is a frozen wasteland. Come up now, or forfeit your life.”

There was no answer. Lizett stared at Aldo. “That was too harsh. You’ll scare him.”

Aldo grunted unhappily. “He’s a man, not a kitten! He’s made his choice, girl. Now, you must make yours. Come along, for it is time for us to depart.”

Making odd grieving sounds with her speakers, Lizett followed them into the mists. When they reached the rim of the crater, Aldo and Nina were the first to walk out into the open, signaling for the knights to lower their weapons. After them, thousands of mechs marched out of the roiling vapor. The knights of Twilight stared at the emerging mech army in shock.

Twenty-Three

Duchess Antoinette Embrak could trace her lineage back to the first colonists who stepped off the first ship to land on Ignis Glace. They’d been a hard-bitten people from the beginning, who’d worked as traders in the early years. Driving caravans of goods from one settlement to the next had proven very profitable, and they bought the canyon which now housed the fabled Lavender City only three decades after first setting foot on the planet’s surface. On Ignis Glace, ownership equated to nobility. Those that owned things were lords, and the value of their properties combined with their accomplishments achieved rank.

Duchess Embrak came from a long line of hard-nosed people bent on rising to the universal goal of becoming the planetary monarch. Thus far, no one in history had been crowned by the Ruling Council. The nobles on the council either wanted the prize for themselves, hated one another, or mistrusted one another too much to bestow that unique honor. Instead, they handed out lesser titles and offices to those who pleased or impressed them.