The God Mars Book Five: Onryo (39 page)

He acknowledges me when he sees me, limps my way and
thanks me for my part in rescuing him. I realize very quickly by
the way he speaks that he doesn’t know who I am, that Straker may
have kept my secret from all but those she’s technologically linked
with, and so have the rest of the Modded. He’s probably just been
told I’m Peter Nagasawa, the accidental immortal, another of Yod’s
experiments or pawns.

I consider revealing myself to him, but don’t want to
risk my father getting wind of it. Not yet. Perhaps after the
battle is done, after Asmodeus is done, assuming what’s me manages
to “survive”. If not, it’s better kept secret. Let them mourn me
once, not twice.

As for my father, he continues to give me that
suspicious, disdainful glare whenever he lays eyes on me. I see
some of it in Rashid’s eyes as well, and in the eyes of some of my
people, including my adoptive mother Sarai. I take Straker aside
and ask her if she knows why they all seem to distrust and disdain
me so, my father especially.

“The PK who had your armor… He insisted that your
body was left where it fell, no matter how much he was tortured. So
did others.”

“So he thinks I consumed the body and I’m lying about
it,” I realize with a sinking in my heart. “I’ve robbed his son of
a proper burial.”

“You need to tell him the truth,” she insists again.
“He deserves to know. They all do. They’re your family.”

“I will,” I assure her, but don’t think I mean it.
“But not now. After this fight.”

Assuming Asmodeus is watching over the City not only
from his ship but also by hacking into the Unmaker satellites, Dee
does a convincing job of altering the feed to prevent him from
seeing the heat images of the evacuees filing into the tunnels,
while we simultaneously set the heater “decoys” and the false
warriors, which are comprised of spare armor and camouflage
“bonnets” set on frames of bound sticks, each one given heat
signatures by small home-brewed chemical heating packs.

When the majority of the population—except for those
volunteering to stay behind—have made it into the tunnels, we meet
one last time in the War Room. The Kings look dour, unwilling to
abandon their marvelous home to likely destruction, but Khan
speaks:

“What we have built can be rebuilt. Katar is its
people.” Then he turns to his daughter, and orders her like nothing
has changed between them. “You will lead the northern evacuation.
If the City is lost, you will take them to Pax, or to the Steel
Lands, and invoke the old treaties.”

She bristles at that, and looks about to protest
being left out of the main fight, but he pre-empts her.

“Your duty is to your people. And your new power is
best suited to their protection.”

“While you stay here, to die for show?” she argues,
holding back tears as if already mourning him.

“I do my duty. As must you.” He’s firm and cold.

“I’ll go with you,” Straker offers her own sacrifice
for duty. Ram nods his approval, but Terina is no more pleased for
her company.

Elias and Stilson agree to accompany Cousteau in
leading the southern evacuation. If they can’t reach the Pax Lands,
they will try to go south and shelter at Eureka. I provide them a
recorded message to smooth their arrival with the Civvies.

That leaves the rest of us to deal with Asmodeus.

“How do we contain him?” my father wants to know. “Or
his Toymaker?”

“Go for the head,” Bel tells us. “Destroy their
fucking brains. They’ll be helpless until it regenerates, reduced
to basic survival algorithms, like insects. Then we need to quickly
collect and secure all the bits—only the Modded can handle them, to
prevent contact infection or resource scavenging. The rest of you
need to stay well clear at that point. Then we’ll contain them
somewhere that deprives them of resources.”

“Like I was,” I speak as Peter.

“More so,” Bel assures. “And more secure.”

“One of us will always have to be assigned to watch
over the remains,” Azazel plans further, “to make sure they stay
put, stay weak.”

He smiles weakly at Lux, who doesn’t look too happy
with the possibility of taking a shift at such a dreary and
potentially endless duty, but I would think ensuring the eternal
suffering of such monsters would have its rewards.

“First we have to disable them,” Ram reminds us,
sounding like he’s looking forward to the various
possibilities.

“First we have to get to them,” Dee brings us back a
step.

The Kings say their hopefully very temporary
farewells to Khan. Khan then exchanges a few quiet words with his
daughter, but makes no physical contact with her. From what I can
pick up without prying into her head, she feels like she’s hurting
from the coolness of his treatment of her since she returned in her
Modded state, though I have no idea how much affection he’d shown
to her previously to compare. Perhaps he’s always been a distant
parent, but given the circumstance, it’s become more painful. He
almost lost her to her quest for the Companion, and now she may
lose him and not be around to do anything about it.

As she turns to leave, Terina catches my eyes on her,
forces a grin and a smile, and goes off to do her assigned duty
with her Companion at the ready. I think she’s realized that her
father’s treatment of her is actually his attempt to accept her
state, that he’s at least pretending that nothing has changed.

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Straker assures me
discreetly. “She’ll be fine.”

I thank her, and she heads with Terina toward the
northern tunnel door.

“Are you ready for this, lad?” Azazel asks me aside
as the rest of us begin to file up out of the War Room.

“I let him go once,” I admit. “Asmodeus. He actually
almost convinced me he was reasonable. Kindred.”

“Then you’re in good company,” Ram admits to me,
overhearing. “I let him walk away from me once myself.”

“
Once
,” Dee emphasizes, as if absolving.

Still in the cold of night, my father positions our
people at various key sniper points, to be best able to cover the
colony from a ground invasion and still be able to hit back at the
underside of the Stormcloud without too much exposure. Our layered
cloaks will mask us from heat detection, as they were designed
to.

The Ghaddar joins them in this with her Unmaker
bullpup rifle. I’m sure she’d rather fight up-close, which may
still happen if Asmodeus unleashes his Harvesters on the City
(though the higher risk is that her blades may need to be used for
mercy on our own). Until then, the ship and its guns are her only
targets, distant and impersonal.

The Katar, unfortunately, have nothing that can
strike the big ship, and they know it. They’re exposing themselves
to fire, ready to respond to ground attack, otherwise helpless. I
see Khan join their lines on the Wall. Their stone cover may shield
them against battery guns, but they are nothing against a
railgun.

Despite their situation, they all stand bravely,
“reinforced” by empty suits of armor held up by stick-frames.
Somehow the effect reminds me of how I found Peter: a skeleton
propping up his own armor.

Bel, Azazel, Lux and Bly go off quickly to prepare
their own parts. Dee is nowhere to be seen, probably gone to find
his own position. That leaves Ram, Erickson and I to make our
direct play. We move into the narrow gap of the Gate Wall, and wait
for sunrise.

By now, the rest of the population will have filed
into the oxygenated tunnels, to hold position until the battle
starts, so that Asmodeus will be distracted when they exit. I would
check their status—or at least the positions of their Modded
escorts—but I’m afraid calling up a map might also reveal the plan
to Asmodeus, and I don’t dare try to link with them. So I have to
trust, and focus on my own job.

“
GOOD MORNING CO-PRAY-T
… Aw, fuck it.”

This is how Asmodeus’ booming voice greets the dawn
as the sun breaks across Katar. But then we hear the thrum and hum
from his bow, feel the spike in EMR even from cover. Within twenty
seconds, there’s an explosion from the sky—from the Stormcloud—that
shakes the entire canyon. One “tine” of his forked bow erupts in
plasma flame as something screams over our heads so fast we can
feel shock wave of it through the air like a slap in the face and
the chest. We barely have time to turn our heads back west to see
the Oculus explode like it was made of dust.

The Katar duck for cover as a secondary wave of
billowing dust slams them in the back after washing over their
City. Then the sky rains grit. I can see them bristle and rage,
helpless.

“Now
where
are my virgins?!” Asmodeus demands
with theatrical rudeness, ranting like a spoiled child.

Ram gives us a quick but authoritative nod, and we
step through the Gate gap and onto the field beneath the
Stormcloud’s still-flaming bow.

The first thing I see are the bodies of the slaves,
sprawled as they fell, but turned paler by death and the cold of
night, blood dried dark. I know he’s put them there to stoke our
anger, just like his callous act of destruction. He’s trying to
goad us into doing something stupid. Aziz used this tactic. So did
the Zodanga. Bait in a trap, to throw us off balance, make us rush
in impulsively. But knowing that makes it no easier to ignore.

Erickson looks the most sickened by the display, his
hand gripping the hilt of his still-sheathed Blade like he’s trying
to crush it. He has the least battle experience of the three of us,
I remember. Not that long ago, his world was his secure Station, a
relative paradise of plenty and comfort and everlasting youth and
health. Now he watches women raped and tortured to death, innocents
massacred, civilizations destroyed, all by a monster who was once a
man. And worse: he knows there’s an even more powerful being out
there somewhere, probably all around us right now, that could stop
it on a whim. But that same being made this happen, let this
happen. All of it.

The other bow “tine” tilts downward, aims at us, and
I hear the weapon begin to charge.

“You’re not my type,” Asmodeus grumbles from the
safety of his flying fortress.

“And using that gun to vaporize me would ruin your
fun,” Ram challenges him casually. “You said this was all for my
benefit, after all.”

“I could vaporize you and remake the planet in my
image while you get yourself back together,” Asmodeus counters.
“That could be fun, too. Like planning a surprise party. Imagine
what you might wake up to.”

“Those guns are awfully big targets,” Ram idly
changes the subject.

Before Asmodeus can react, the crests of both the
north and south canyon ridges erupt with rocket fire. The first
volley—two dozen warheads—concentrate on the railguns, bursting
into them and tearing them apart. Twisted, smoldering wreckage
tumbles down onto the field just in front of us, close enough to
feel it slam the ground, feel the wind of it, but Ram doesn’t back
away. He just watches it defiantly. I watch as it gives the
murdered slaves a burial of sorts, and take a modicum of solace
along with my satisfaction.

A second volley of rockets flies before Asmodeus can
begin firing back with his battery guns, raking the crests,
hammering the rocks as his deck and broadsides get chunks blown out
of them, raining more junk, including severed cannons. I can hear
his ship creak and groan.

“Hendricks!” Ram calls on a dedicated channel. “Job
done! Get your men down!”

“The party doesn’t end until we end the demon!” I
hear a familiar voice call back. It’s Grandmaster Hendricks of the
New Knights of Avalon. I had heard he’d taken a compliment this way
in search of his own lost brethren. Apparently Ram has kept in
touch with them and called on them in Katar’s hour of need.

Asmodeus launches his compliment of Discs, but a good
quarter of them get holed and crippled by sniper rounds as they try
to clear their launch racks, and tumble into the slopes to shatter.
Asmodeus spreads the rest against the City and the crests, and they
fire at will as they dart and flip. The City “defenders” simply
duck for cover behind their Wall, unable to do much against the
flying drones with bows and arrows. Our snipers have made sure to
pick nests with heavy boulders to hide behind, and the Knights have
even better positions: they simply duck below the crest while
they’re being fired upon. The Discs try emptying their grenade
launchers at them on the next passes, but their shells either blast
rock or fly clean over the crest, missing the Knights entirely.

The Discs get smart, fly up over the crests to try to
catch the Knights from behind, but now they have company in the
air: Bel, Lux and Bly come over the Spine from the west, riding
their flyers, distracting the drones away from the ground positions
by offering more tempting targets to their algorithms. So begins an
aerial dance of bullets.

The Discs get drawn back into the bowl of the canyon,
away from the hunkering Knights and over the open defensive field,
into a circular chase around the Stormcloud. They’re flying so fast
that Asmodeus’ turrets can’t keep up, so fire meant for our own
manages to lag and accidentally hit a few of the Discs.

Then, closing the trap, a bigger ship comes flying in
behind them: Ram’s Lancer-Class Siren’s Song, restored and up-armed
by Azazel, who’s probably also flying her. He uses the ship’s
multiple turrets to pepper the Discs as they’re too busy chasing
his fellows. And when the survivors turn on him, he ignores them,
burning fast and straight at the Stormcloud’s bow, and sinks
rockets between the shattered railguns, strafing the deck as he
passes over. Then he uses the ship’s superior speed to outrun his
pursuers, leading the main force of them away from the City.