Chapter 6: Dancing in the Dark – 4

“What is this, confession time?” Psycho was outraged. “I save her ass, and she loves you? Wait’ll I tell Valkyrie!”

“Look out!” A spear flashed past my cheek and bounced off the stone floor. A rock hit me square in the chest, leaving me breathless.

A low wailing arose from the Scalers. Hysterical screaming, urgent shouting, someone barking out commands. The rain of stones slowed, and ceased. An evil silence fell on the great chamber. Scaler women and children ran frantically along one wall, illuminated by a flare. Grimfaced warriors with heavy metal tridents stood fast in the human flood, facing the direction from which the civilians were fleeing.

“It’s the Legion!” Merlin exclaimed.

Psycho glanced at his tacmod. “Negative. There’s nobody here.”

“Deadman,” I whispered. I could see something, in the inky black of a far corner of the chamber, behind the columns, hidden from the flares. I could see what the Scalers feared, what had drawn their attention from us.

“What is it?” Priestess demanded.

Something big, in the dark. Something dark and evil, writhing in the shadows. Something from Andrion 3, to break your bones and drink your blood.

“Death,” I said. “It’s death!” I was not too coherent, right then. I did not know if I could face another exoseg.

Two of them emerged from the shadows, illuminated harshly by the glittering light of our flares. Two grim, terrible, giant killing machines, heads snapping back and forth, antennas cracking out like whips, front legs probing ahead of them, awful empty black eyes reflecting only death. Another great exoseg appeared out of the shadows, behind them. And another. Their chittering filled the chamber, the only sound. It chilled my blood. I felt the hair rising on my scalp.

“To the death,” Merlin whispered reverently.

“My, my!” Psycho exclaimed. “Just look at that!”

“I can’t do this again, Thinker,” Priestess said quietly. “I don’t want this. Not again.”

“Lasers,” I said. We faced the exosegs. “Zap ‘em with the light, Merlin. Maybe it will help. All right, let’s do it.” I could not tear my eyes away from those giant, obscene beasts. Merlin flooded the creatures with light. My skin crawled at the sight of them. My heart raced, adrenalin shot through my veins.

We fired simultaneously at the first two exos, laser light ripping the air violently, dazzling our eyes, sizzling and burning, raw energy from the heart of a star. We sliced the creatures, from top to bottom, from front to rear. They disintegrated, quickly, screaming, a high-pitched squeal, grating to our ears. Their bodies, suddenly sliced into many pieces, simply fell apart, burning at the edges, smoking, the internal organs ripping out to fall among the rest of the wreckage. We ceased firing. A horrible stench suddenly hit us like a physical blow.

“Deadman!”

“It works!”

“I love it! I love it!” Psycho was ecstatic.

“Get the others!”

Three, four, more! More exosegs, picking their way in fast motion over and around the steaming carcasses of those we had killed, twitching and snapping, reaching out for us with their antennae. We had no real reason to fear them, despite their terrifying appearance. Our fighting lasers cut through them like paper.

Overcome with loathing, I fired again. Psycho and Priestess fired simultaneously. Merlin kept the light on them. It was a horrible orgy of death, a blind slaughter, a pitiless, deliberate massacre. I saw it through burning red eyes, and I loved every frac. I bounced the E up and down, and slashed from side to side and the creatures walked right into our firestorm and disintegrated, all those separate body parts falling down sizzling to steam and hiss in the water covering the stones of the chamber floor, yellow viscera suddenly free, spilling hot and steaming into nothingness.

A hulking, smoking pile of obscene exoseg parts lay scattered all around us. A head, lying on one eye, glared at us, mandibles still twitching. The lasers did it all, an elemental force, the power of the stars at our fingertips, as we stood fast against a tidal wave of nightmare, grotesque alien creatures from the edge of the universe.

I felt like a God. From the corners of my eyes I spotted Scaler warriors behind us, forming a human wall of tridents and spears, in front of their huddled women and children.

More of them, a new exoseg come to die, its antennae lashing out among the fallen corpses of the others.

“Take the Manlink, Merlin.” Psycho handed it to Merlin, who snatched it eagerly. Psycho stepped out to face the exoseg. He crouched, his black armor catching the reflections from the flares, his hot knife outstretched before him, already triggered, burning a blue-hot flame.

“Hold your fire!” Psycho demanded, “Let me take him.” The exoseg paused for an instant, focused on him.

“You maniac!” I gasped in horror, suddenly realizing his intent. “Fire! Fire! Fire!” I shrieked and pressed the trigger. The giant exoseg disintegrated in an irresistible, glittering stream of laser bursts, its burning remains showering down on Psycho.

“You subnorm earther reject! Get your ass back here, Psycho!” I could hardly believe he had actually done it. What a raving lunatic.

“Damn it, I had him! Why’d you fire?”

Two more exoseg soldiers jerkily picked their way over the great mound of stinking body parts, vacant compound eyes winking evil. We vaporized them, hitting them head-on with the lasers, slicing them up lengthwise. They exploded, green and yellow puss spraying outwards in an obscene halo of death.

We ceased fire. A great silence settled over the chamber. I heard my heartbeat, and the sputtering of Scaler torches, the whimpering of children, and the hissing of our flares. We slowly re-formed our fighting circle, without words. The great hall was littered with unconscious Scalers, the victims of our V bolts. Beyond the bodies, a strong, straight line of Scaler warriors faced us, stretching all the way across the chamber, shoulder to shoulder, behind a wall of long heavy tridents and spears. The women and kids were behind them, in the shadows, all talking at once, shouting at each other. They may have been debating whether they wanted us medium-rare, or well done.

“Don’t fire yet,” I said. “Let’s see what they do.”

“Can we fire after they kill us all?” Psycho was still unhappy because I had terminated his exo.

“Tenners, no more games. If they attack, we keep the E’s on laser.”

“I don’t think they’re going to attack us,” Merlin said. “Look!”

A Scaler warrior stepped forward. He was small but well built, with hard flat muscles and great scars on his chest. An ornament of gold glittered at his throat. He held aloft a heavy blackened metal trident, grasping it with both hands, keeping it parallel to the ground.

“Watch him…”

He walked towards us, fearless, and paused, almost arms-length away, the trident overhead. Three lasers pointed at his belly. He looked right into my eyes, and I knew he could see death, looking out at him. His eyes burned. He was not afraid. He had already decided what to do.

He knelt, and brought the trident down, slowly, holding it out, to us. Presenting it, to us.

“He’s surrendering,” Priestess whispered.

I reached out to take it, in a daze. It was heavy. A sun symbol engraved the metal shaft, a sun with a single rune on its face, radiating light. The long line of Scaler warriors carefully laid down their weapons on the flooded stones of the great hall. I could hardly believe it.

“Cease firing, Snow Leopard,” Psycho suddenly exclaimed. “The Scalers in the great hall have just surrendered to us.”

“What do you mean, Psycho?” For an instant, I did not understand.

“It’s Snow Leopard,” Psycho replied. “CAT 24 has broken through, they’re on the way. Engagement in the tunnel.”

Priestess’s arms snaked around my waist and she buried her face in my chest. I balanced the E on my hip and tried to comfort her. A great relief flooded over me. I was suddenly very conscious of her very naked body, pressing close to mine.

“Let’s see if we can find Priestess’s litesuit, guys, uh, and maybe mine and Merlin’s, too.”