Authors: Rob May
‘Alright, well let’s try a different tactic. Let’s find some help.’
Brandon took the ship down, until they were hurtling through the maze of buildings almost at ground level. To Jason, it looked like a dark blur; but Brandon had the sharp eyesight and reflexes of the zelfs: he was more than a match for the best of their pilots.
Still, there were at least twenty enemy ships on their tail. The occasional laser blast hit home, battering their already weakened armour plating. ‘They’re getting closer,’ Jason said, letting loose a few ineffectual blasts of his own.
‘We just have to keep them busy long enough for Kat, Doo and the balaks to escape,’ Hewson said over the comm.
‘Oh great,’ Jason moaned. ‘So not only am I going to die anyway today, I’m not going to have time to hear how you all cooked up this secret plan!’
‘Nobody’s going to die today,’ Brandon said, cutting a sharp left down an alleyway. ‘Now hold your fire, both of you.’
Jason let go of the sweaty joystick and flopped back in the comfy gunner’s seat. There was silence in the turret as Brandon cut the engines and they drifted slowly down the dark corridor between buildings. Through the targeting visor, Jason could see a web of strange silvery cables criss-crossing across the alley. Brandon put the ship through some extremely careful manoeuvres to avoid them.
Their pursuers had no time to avoid the trap, though. Jason watched incredulously as all twenty zelf fighters hit and got snagged in the cables, which bent like they were elastic, and held their catch as if they were sticky.
Like a spider web!
Jason thought, looking around for proof of his theory.
It came from above, scuttling down the side of one of the skyscrapers: a giant black and blue tarantula-like monster that, from spiny leg to spiny leg, was large enough to span twenty floors of the building it was crawling on. Jason saw one of the zelf pilots on top of his stuck ship, looking for a way down to the ground. The spider was on him in an instant, stabbing him in the back with one of its spear-like fangs, injecting him with a venom that would presumably turn his insides almost instantly to jelly.
‘Where did
that
thing come from?’ Jason whispered, scared that he might draw its attention.
‘The force field does more than keep the balaks out of the city,’ Brandon said. ‘It keeps out the jungle too. There will be a lot of predators in Perazim tonight, looking for a fresh meal.’
Jason shuddered as they drifted around the next corner, leaving the gory spectacle behind. ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of this crazy city while we still can.’
‘No,’ Brandon said. ‘There’s one more thing we need to do. Come back to the cockpit, and I’ll tell you everything about the plan.’
Jason flung off the visor and extricated himself from the turret. He met Hewson on the return journey, and together they entered the cockpit. Brandon was stood facing them, a satisfied smile on his face. In his hand he held up the bone necklace Kat had given him.
Behind him, something moved outside the front windscreen.
‘Brandon! Get down!’ Jason shouted, rushing forward and pushing Brandon to the floor. Outside the glass, he caught a glimpse of the evil smirk on the face of the zelf captain, who was sitting at the controls of his own massive gunship hovering just a few metres across from them. Jason found himself staring down the barrels of a massive battery of laser cannons.
There was a blinding flash, a booming crash … then darkness.
* * *
When Jason came around, he was lying on his back in a smoking pile of twisted wreckage. He was in pain—incredible pain. More pain than when the Arch Predicant had set the bionoids on him. When he opened his eyes, he saw why: a great shard of glass was sticking out of his stomach. His legs were crushed beneath a twisted fold of metal, and one of his feet was sticking out at an angle that it definitely shouldn’t be able to reach.
Brandon, looking almost as worse for wear, crawled up alongside. ‘Ar
e…
you … alright?’ he gasped.
‘No,’ Jason said, his throat burning as he spoke. ‘I’m … bloody dying. Are you … happy you destroyed … the bionoids now?’
Brandon reached out and grabbed Jason’s hand. ‘Hang in there,’ he said. ‘It’s … it’s …’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Jason sighed. ‘I forgive you, alright? Kat and Doo and the others are safe. Now just … just let me die in peace.’
‘No I won’t,’ Brandon said. ‘Because it’s not …
it’s not over yet
!’
Two days earlier. The sacred grounds of Zaal, near the equator of the planet Corroza.
Brandon crashed through the jungle. It was dark, noisy and dangerous. The wedding had gone to hell; balaks and humans were falling over themselves to get to safety. A dragon roared nearby, and the trees shook and split as it smashed through them. The ground was wet, muddy and slippery, and when lighting flashed it was more disorienting than helpful.
Brandon closed his eyes.
Seeing the world through the bionoids was a lot less confusing. It was almost like a kind of augmented reality—as the nanoscopic robots spread out and delineated the environment, Brandon could see the world with stark clarity. In his mind’s eye, nearby lifeforms were picked out in vivid colour, obstacles such as oncoming low branches flashed as he approached, and the ground was patterned with textured overlays that guided his feet.
The bionoids alerted him to a secure hiding place—an empty cave in a nearby riverbank. He wriggled down a narrow, twisting entrance tunnel, ending up in a small chamber. It was dry, safe and quiet, but there was no time to rest: Brandon sent the bionoids back into the jungle, spreading out wider in a search for his friends.
First, though, he came across two balaks lying face down in the mud. They had been trampled by a dragon, and had terrible claw wounds gouged into their backs. One was dead—and there was nothing Brandon could do about that—but the other was still alive, barely. He directed the bionoids inside the balak’s body, funnelling them in through the nose, ears and mouth. Each tiny robot was equipped with an array of surgical tools—scalpels, needles and drills— that enabled them to cauterise internal bleeding and repair wounds. Brandon let them get on with their work, and continued scanning the jungle for more victims.
‘You are wasting your time, kid.’
Brandon almost jumped out of his skin. The voice was right next to him in the cave. He called up a visual in his head, but what the bionoids showed him made no sense at all. So he had them coalesce and produce light: a miniature lamp floating just over his head.
He still didn’t believe what he was seeing.
‘You … you’re dead!’ he said.
The President of the United States of America was sitting cross legged on the cave floor, his shirtsleeves rolled up and his collar open.
‘I’m alive,’ the President said. ‘And
you
saved me. You scanned my brain and stored it in the bionoids. I constructed this new body myself.’
Brandon was stunned. ‘You
made
it?’
The President nodded. And then, to demonstrate, he spread his palms …
… and dissolved into a dark cloud of bionoids.
‘You can’t
do
that!’ Brandon gasped. ‘I’ve accounted for all the bionoids … they’re mostly all out in the jungle …’
‘The bionoids are more powerful than you think, Brandon,’ the President said, reforming again. ‘They have the power to replicate themselves. It’s a built-in safeguard against damage, and your father placed limits on exponential growth, but in time I might be able to circumvent—’
‘Wait!’ Brandon said. He couldn’t quite believe any of this, but one question begged to be asked: ‘You still take orders from
me
, right?’
‘Yes,’ the President said. ‘Of course. You have ultimate authority.’
‘Then let’s stop talking and go help the injured. Get out there and find my friends!’
The President stood up. ‘Alright, but like I said: you are wasting your time. There are hundreds of injured balaks and humans out there. We—the bionoids—are stretched too thin. But there are only twenty zelfs here, flying the ships that are driving the dragons towards the stronghold. Kill
them
, Brandon, and you end this massacre instantly and save lives!’
‘I can’t,’ Brandon said. ‘I promised—’
‘You can
break
a promise!’ the President snapped. ‘There’s no shame in it. I made hundreds of promises during my time in office—promises that I meant wholeheartedly when I made them—but I had to break them … no, I had to
compromise
in order to move forward. You don’t want to let a promise or a principle hold you back to the point where it hurts you and your friends more.’
He had a point. Brandon was forced to question his standpoint for the first time. It was agonising. Things were so much simpler when he was safely ensconced on the moral high ground.
‘Using the bionoids to take out the zelfs would be as quick and clean a kill as a drone strike,’ the President said. ‘I had many sleepless nights when drones killed innocent civilians, but in the end I concluded that on balance, we were saving American lives by targeting those who would not hesitate to destroy us. It was
self defence
!’
‘But you’re not
him
!’ Brandon said. ‘You’re not the President. You’re a copy.’
‘A bit-perfect copy,’ the President argued. ‘And a bit-perfect copy is, to all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from the original. You can trust my advice. I’m the same person you knew when I was alive.’
‘I don’t know,’ Brandon said. ‘I can’t decide!’
‘Then let me,’ the President said, then dissolved and disappeared.
Brandon sat paralysed with indecision as the bionoids carried out their attack. He watched through their sensors as they took to the skies above the jungle. He felt them enter the hearts of the zelf pilots; he felt the electric jolt as twenty hearts were simultaneously stopped. He
could
have done something, and called the bionoids off, but he didn’t.
He just let it happen.
* * *
After the storm passed, a cool fresh breeze brought a strange sense of peace to the jungle. Brandon trudged wearily among the moonlit trees until he arrived at the stronghold. On the open ground around the balaks’ home, a great pile of twisted spacecraft wreckage sent a column of black smoke into the sky.
Hewson was there, giving orders: ‘Let the fires keep burning. Anyone looking this way from the city might guess that the stronghold itself is burning. Let them guess!’
Brandon scanned the crowds. He could have used the bionoids to search, but they were busy helping the injured. And right now, he wasn’t sure if he even wanted anything to do with them.
But Kat found him first. She came up behind him and put her hands over his eyes. ‘Guess who!’ she said.
‘I dunno,’ Brandon said. ‘I
could
probably guess though—there aren’t that many people left alive to choose from.’
Kat came around in front of him and gave him a hug and a kiss. ‘Don’t be so grumpy,’ she said. ‘Is Jason with you?’
‘No. Didn’t he come back?’
‘Nope. Well, hopefully he’s still with Doo; I saw them running off together. The balaks are getting ready to pile on over to the city for this big showdown with the zelfs that Jason promised them, so I guess we will all meet up there. Hey, was it you who brought down the zelf ships?’
‘Yep,’ Brandon said. He had to take ultimate responsibility, despite what had happened. ‘That was me.’
‘So you’re going to join us in the battle then? No more trying to be as neutral as Switzerland?’
‘I’m not neutral, Kat! I’ve never been neutral. I want to win this war as much as anyone. I just wish there was a way to do that without using the bionoids as a weapon, but …’
He left it there.
The bionoids might join in this war whether I like it or not!
he thought, but he didn’t want to reveal his fears to Kat just yet.
If it comes to it
, he thought,
I’ll destroy them first.
Hewson approached, dragging behind him a body pulled from the wreck. Brandon averted his eyes as the lieutenant proceeded to strip the zelf of his armour.
‘If this guy hadn’t just keeled over and died,’ Hewson said, ‘his armour might have saved him. It appears to be made of some kind of regenerating material. I tested armour back on Earth made out of polymers that can reform over bullet holes, but this is something else.’
Self-replicating material
, Brandon thought. Designed by his father for his friend, Dravid Karkor. A technology that, if combined with the bionoids and allowed to spiral out of control, could spell disaster for humans, balaks and zelfs alike.
A massive shadow fell across Brandon, snapping him out of his thoughts. It was a giant grizzled balak, with one arm and one leg. He was supported across the shoulders of two younger balaks.
‘Hello,’ Brandon said.
‘Well met, shaman!’ the old balak said.
‘Shaman?’
‘Oh yes indeed,’ the big balak said. ‘Your powerful magic healed my wounds and saved my life tonight. Our old shaman got eaten by a dragon while trying to cast a spell that would turn it into a pebble. Like it or not, you are his successor!’
Brandon smiled. ‘I’ll try and do a good job.’
‘I know you will. I am Bung, uncle to the king, and heir to the throne if Doo and the king do not return from the city. I’m too old and useless to join the fight myself, so I’ll be leading our young and elderly to the safety of the sacred Firebath Caves, a hundred miles south of here.’
He indicated the two balaks holding him up. ‘But my sons, Brug and Bunk, will accompany you. They will fight to the death to protect you!’
Brug and Bunk exchanged a worried look, then both burst out laughing.
‘Yes,’ one of them said. ‘But hopefully not
our
deaths!’
* * *
They walked along the highways formed by the interlocking branches of the lightning trees. Three hundred warrior balaks, the handful of surviving humans who were able to fight, and Brandon: the one zelf among their midst. He walked side by side with Kat; sometimes they held hands, sometimes he shook her grasp off and walked alone, thinking. As they walked, they munched from bags of blue seeds that the balaks had brought with them: some kind of superfood that apparently had been the staple of the balak armies for centuries.
Brandon probed it with the bionoids. The seeds were packed with lysine, calcium, phosphorus, protein and iron. The closest match to Earth food was quinoa.
The food that fuelled the Aztec armies
, the President said, speaking in Brandon’s head.
Early civilisations had to fight to flourish. If humanity wants to rebuild—
Yes, I get the point!
Brandon thought back.
‘—cloak made of strips of bark!’ Kat was saying to him, oblivious to his inner conversation.
He looked up. ‘What?’
‘Brug and Bunk say that there’s a force field around the city. But what if we made cloaks from the bark from the lighting trees? They would stop us getting a nasty shock, right? Rubber is an insulator, and these trees are made out some pretty rubbery stuff.’
‘No,’ Brandon laughed. ‘It’s the conductive cores of these trees channelling the lightning down to the roots that stops us from getting hurt when it strikes. Simply wearing rubbery clothes isn’t going to help—after all, lightning has travelled through miles and miles of air—which is also a great insulator, by the way—to get here. Your rubber cloak isn’t going to make much difference.’
Kat looked disappointed. ‘Oh well. We’d better think of something, though. I doubt that Jason will have had any better ideas. The balaks are counting on him, so we don’t want to get to the city and find him waiting for us without a plan for getting in.’
‘We need more than just a plan for getting in,’ Brandon said. ‘We need to figure out how to get to, and take down, the Arch Predicant. He sounds like one hell of a scary dude, and apparently he never leaves the temple on top of the highest tower.’
In front of them, one of the balak cousins held up a hand. ‘Hold up. There are zelfs ahead.’
They had just started across one of the branches that connected the trunks of two lightning trees. Across the branch, near the opposite trunk, stood a small group of zelfs. They weren’t soldiers wearing armour and carrying weapons, however. They seemed to be a mix of men and women, including a lot of younger zelfs that looked like teenagers or students.
‘Well, they look friendly,’ Kat said.
‘Could be religious fanatics, all wired up to explosive belts,’ Hewson warned.
‘That’s a nice thought,’ Brandon said. ‘Well, let’s find out.’ He sent the bionoids over to briefly touch the zelfs’ minds. Since the incident at the wedding, the nanobots hadn’t exerted their independence again. He was sure, though, that it was only a matter of time.
The bionoids had barely touched the thoughts of the lead zelf when Brandon pulled them back in surprise.
‘Oh wow,’ he said out loud.