The Trilisk Supersedure (23 page)

A
bright flash of light burned his retinas. For the next second the only thing
that really registered was a vague impression of Telisa rolling away to the
corner to get back to safety.

Thunder
rolled through the building; then everything became quiet. That, or his ears
were damaged. His Veer suit’s diagnostic reported its ear-protection dampening
system was working. Magnus checked the probe data. The connection had dropped,
and it refused to come back.

“Magnus?
Cilreth? Are you alive?” Telisa asked quickly.

“Yes. I’m
still here. In one piece, I think,” Cilreth said.

“I’m
alive,” Magnus said. “You took a lot of them out. But you must have also
destroyed the sensor I was using, because I’m not getting data from it anymore.”

“What
now? Will more of them come?” asked Cilreth.

“Maybe
you could take a peek,” Telisa said. “You and Magnus.”

Magnus
realized she meant he still had the stealth sphere. Sheepishly, he rolled it
over to her across the fire corridor. Then he sent his attendant ahead to take
a look.

“It
saved my life,” he said.

“I was
a Konuan,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m
just going to check around,” Cilreth said.

“Send
an attendant,” Magnus told Cilreth on his link.

“A
Trilisk machine turned me into a Konuan,” Telisa continued. “There’s another
one, a technology-using one. It has a stash of weapons and equipment. Maybe
even Trilisk things. I was there in the building with you and that woman.”

“Arakaki,”
he said. His attendant darted into the farthest room ahead, where they had
entered under fire. There were blackened spots on the wall where men had been.
Only two men remained, untouched but obviously shell-shocked. Magnus judged the
entire left side flanking force must have been taken out. Then some remaining
missiles must have come into the main room he saw. But they did not get
everyone there, so the UED right side flanking force was still intact.

Magnus
changed positions. “The threat is from the right now,” he said. “Fall back into
that room.” He indicated the room where Telisa had launched the weapon. “Then
we face this direction instead. Their right flank force is untouched, I think.”

“Wow,
that weapon did a number on the guys,” Cilreth said. Magnus saw more evidence
of dead UED soldiers through her attendant’s feed. His own attendant returned
to cover his move to the other room. Meanwhile, a thread of his mind was
working though what Telisa had said.

“You
were seriously a Konuan? You were put into an alien body, for real?”

And she
has a jealous streak for a UED soldier I just met?

“I was
trying to save you from the other one, the dangerous one,” Telisa said. “But I
just got myself shot.”

What
the…?

“You
were there! We killed
you
?”

Now
Telisa stole his full attention, though he knew distraction during a battle was
foolhardy.

“Then I
came back to my original body,” she said. “I guess it’s a kind of default.”

How is
that possible? The Trilisks…
“You had no link, then? I had
no idea. I’m sorry—”

“Of
course I don’t blame you. Not consciously, anyway,” she said with a hint of a
smile.

“It’s
insane. So the dangerous Konuan hunter is still out there.”

“Yes.
What happened to Arakaki?”

“Once
the hunt was over, she took off. I don’t know why she didn’t capture or kill
me. Maybe it was her way of tossing me a favor for helping her kill what we
thought was the Konuan that’s been hunting them.”

“She
must have told them about us. Why do they want us dead?”

Magnus
thought about the close miss and the lack of heavy hardware being applied in
the attack. “Maybe they want to capture us,” he said. “They have more than they’ve
used. Unless they’re desperately low on munitions.”

“Team.
Enemy not pursuing.” The new message came from Shiny.

“Not
pursuing you or me?” Telisa asked.

“However,
target of intense interest spotted in ruins,” the alien continued. “Prepare to
assist with capture of possible Trilisk in lower tunnel system.”

Magnus
swore. Shiny’s announcement was most unexpected, though at this point Magnus
stayed focused on the danger. He doubted Telisa would be able to ignore the
mention of Trilisks.

“It’s
good to hear you, Shiny,” Telisa said. “We’re fighting for our lives, will
assist if you get us out of this.”

Good
call! He pulls us out of the fire; then we help the sucker.

“Battle
machine outside neutralized,” Shiny reported. “Enemies moving in to flank,
trap, surprise you from below.”

“Below
us? Which direction are you? Should we make a run for it?”

“Proceed
south. Will cover retreat, withdrawal, emergence from building.”

Chapter 24

Keziph
scurried over the landscape rapidly. There were bipeds nearby, running, hiding,
or dying. For the moment, Keziph and its broodmates were safe. It crawled into
a breach in the rocks and covered under a dense group of native plants. Once
safe, Keziph felt less inclined to remain in control.

Keziph
prepared to change stances. Deprived of its natural body or a suitable robotic
equivalent, the act was no longer effortless. It required a transition delay.
And of course, there was no longer any physical component. The body it occupied
merely paused for a moment.

Finally
Micet came to the fore.

“The
test worked perfectly,” Micet told its broodmates. “Though hardly more than
this Wehhid body, the newcomer species is capable of receiving us. The test
subject was successfully transmitted and reset.”

Micet
considered the other, more complex creature that had assaulted the bipeds. Its
hardware was somewhat more advanced, but Micet lacked the preparation.
Supersedure into that form was more tempting but carried huge risks. Micet
prepared a summary for Cayach and changed stance.

Cayach
came to the fore in the slow, troubled way of this body.

For the
thousandth time, Cayach felt loss. Loss for its own bodies, loss for its god,
and loss for its home to the methane breathers.

Cayach
heard one of the clumsy bipeds stomping by within the sensitive Wehhid audial
sphere. The biped cursed aloud. And Cayach instantly recognized it. The leader
of the original biped explorers.

Cayach
decided on a final change of plan. Rather than superseding one of the worshipers
who had traveled here to serve it, a superior option stood ready: the leader of
the primitive soldier beings. Its status would make the seizure of a starship
simple, and would allow for a smoother transition into dominance among any
others of their kind. The only problem Cayach saw would be the lack of neural
shackles: its followers were free to think and act however they chose, and the
recent defeat made them likely to choose desertion over obedience.

“That
one. We will use that body to escape.”

Micet
replied slowly, submerged: “That race can only hold two of us conscious. But
those two could be in-stance at once!”

It was
a strange compromise. The original Trilisk body allowed all three broodmates to
observe and express, though only the in-stance one could control the body, and
with such control came temporary dominance. The flat, native creature allowed
all three relative equal status, though they retained their accustomed mode of
operation: it was second nature to switch stances and operate with one
broodmate dominant at any given moment.

The
bipeds were another flavor: their minds were split into halves, allowing two
in-stance entities at once, a concept half-amusing, half-horrifying to the
Trilisk broodmates.

“I
leave it to you two, then, to take us to the world of the Holoeum where we can find
a new body and a fresh god,” Cayach said. “That is our objective. I will
submerge until you have brought it to pass.”

Micet
took control and issued the final commands. The process was almost
instantaneous: Micet found himself with Keziph, together in the body of a
biped.

“Really
this creature is—” Micet stopped as one of its limbs moved, though Micet did
not command it to do so. “Ah! So disturbing!”

“I see
what you mean,” Keziph said. “This could be very bad. If you interfere while I
am in combat, our effectiveness will be compromised.”

“We are
in combat,” Micet said. “There are enemies about. We should find our servants
and organize them for the journey to Holoeum. Forward, Keziph,” it urged. “Destroy
any who do not obey.”

Then
Micet tried to de-stance, though it was not fully successful. Broodmates often
sought to remain in-stance, and the idea that someday it would be unable to
de-stance had never occurred.

Keziph
felt it, too, but did not complain. It tested the biped’s arms and legs. Then
it puzzled over the communication device it found in its head. It was
definitely very different, very not-itself. The primitive race had only
recently fused themselves to their machines. The results were less than
satisfactory.

The
device reported a lower-ranking companion nearby. Keziph found the other biped
within the minute. It was covering behind some rocks with a few scavenged
backpacks and weapons lying about.

Keziph
started to communicate, then realized it didn’t have the ability.

“Micet…”

Keziph
instinctually tried to change stance, but Micet
was already there
.

Micet
supplied the words. Keziph and Micet spoke them together.

“Take
what you can. We’re headed for the ship,” they croaked.

“We’ve
lost, Colonel,” the Terran said. “They have an alien on their side. Ships in
orbit. And they’ve destroyed all our hardware planetside.”

“We’re
taking what we have and getting onto the last assault transport.”

“No,
sir. It’s over.”

Keziph
raised his Terran weapon and shot the demoralized soldier in the head. The
Terran fell back, utterly dead.

“What
in the hell are you doing? You brought us to this, and now you’re killing your
own men?” came an urgent communication from another Terran. “You bastard!”

Keziph
looked around with the Terran body’s binocular vision. The communication device
in Keziph’s head identified the speaker: Captain Arakaki.

Keziph
brought up the host’s weapon again.

The
creature who had challenged him dove for cover. Keziph opened fire. It was as
if the primitive device in Keziph’s tiny manipulators had been designed to
miss. The projectiles flew almost straight from the barrel. They only angled
slightly toward the prey. Once the projectiles had flown past, missing, they
did not return to try again.

Keziph
tossed the puny weapon away. If only its god could hear it, destroying the
attacker would be such a simple thing. But it had been reduced to this.

The
creature it had tried to kill was running away. It turned as it ran to point
its own simple weapon at him. Keziph grasped a red rock and charged forward.

The
Terran’s coherent light weapon lanced out. Keziph interposed the rock. The
moisture within the obstacle heated rapidly, causing the rock to crack and pop
into several pieces. Keziph turned aside to keep the incoming radiation from
hitting him cleanly, but the attack was already over. The Terran weapon didn’t
have enough energy to keep it up.

The
Terran turned to run. It couldn’t match Keziph’s speed.

Suddenly
an explosion threw Keziph high into the air. It tucked and spun, riding the shock
wave gracefully.

One of its
two large legs was leaking red fluid. A shard of metal was buried inside it.
Keziph tried out the leg. It still worked for now, though it was weaker and the
fluid continued to erupt.

The
device in its skull announced medical attention was necessary. It instructed
Keziph to staunch the bleeding. The primitive battle suit it wore seemed to
sense the danger, and it tightened around the wounded limb.

“Are we
dying?” it asked, feeling Micet was still there.

“No.
The link says we can block off the wound and continue. Forget that one,” Micet
suggested. “In fact, forget them all. There may be a few aboard the ship eager
to flee with us. The ship is this way.”

Chapter 25

Telisa
and Magnus sheltered inside a Konuan building to await the outcome of the local
battle. Confident in Shiny’s superior weapons, Telisa figured it was only a
matter of cleanup. She did not want to get dropped by a stray round now after
making it through so much. Cilreth had turned on her stealth suit and returned
to the
Clacker
with a few new Vovokan battle drones in orbit around her.