Tethered Worlds: Blue Star Setting Read online

  "Can't Wixom at least secure the files Gaspar's trying to keep hidden?"

  "That's all core stuff, and he's not letting us in. Whoa, here come the tanks."

  "Three more simultaneous that fast? That's not right. Max, I need some firepower."

  Max was monitoring many thresh-related systems at once, taking in the entirety of the battle. Jordahk could feel the chafing between him and the Bitlord's creation. Wixom had incredible power, but Max had experience in this sort of thing.

  "Wixom..." Jordahk checked his emotion, centered himself, and let go of his anger. "I know you're powerful, but the battlefield is fluid. Take some advice."

  "I think you're getting through to him," Max said. "Okay, no static torpedoes yet, but Wixom unlocked traps."

  "Well, that's something." Jordahk examined the inner court with a hard, tactical eye. Judicum swooped to a spot, hovering over it with his arms folded. "Max, get a bastion proxy building there. That'll take care of one tank. Also—"

  "Wait kid," Max said. "That's about all Gaspar's compy can do at once in its depleted state. We can barely keep replacing lost troops."

  An ancient phrase came to mind. Jordahk felt like he was trying to win a battle with "stone knives and bear skins." He deployed dwindling troops to take full advantage of the once-only surprise factor, knowing Vanquo had not seen any traps used yet.

  The incoming tanks were arriving too soon. "Max, where's that trap?"

  "Not ready."

  The tanks came barreling into the hedgerows. His plan to annihilate all three evaporated. He had to let one go unimpeded, and delay the other two with grenadiers. But gray probe troops were escorting the tanks, and they picked off his grenadiers faster than they could be replaced. He ordered Max to stop replacements and pulled the remaining troops back to the best ambush point in the hedgerows, hoping the bastion proxy would finish in time.

  The first, unimpeded tank, made it halfway through the hedges before detonating. The hemispheric explosion cleared a swath, leaving an open path halfway to the block house.

  "Trap's ready," Max said.

  Jordahk sacrificed a squad of grenadiers to slow the central tank while the one on the right plowed right over the bastion proxy. The earth cracked beneath the tank, collapsing into a wide maw and swallowing it. A few seconds later it exploded sending a gout of flames into the dark sky. The remaining central tank steered away from the trap area, just as he hoped, and right into the ambush zone.

  "We got you, faux," Jordahk said. He allowed himself just a little glee.

  Good terrain benefited the defender. Jordahk used every bit of advantage it offered, raining all his troops' firepower down upon the tank and its escort. A handful of grenades scored direct hits on the tank, and the entire area was engulfed in an explosion. Everyone's troops were atomized, but the terrain funneled the explosion, minimizing damage to the hedgerows.

  "Oh bravo, bravo," Vanquo said. His demeaning voice dripped sarcasm. "Drawing inspiration from your little Thule-Riss, I see."

  "At least now, he'll be more cautious with his tanks," Jordahk said. "Max, pour everything Gaspar's got into three grenadiers ASAP."

  "You got 'em."

  Jordahk sent them all the way to one side and raced them to the road. Vanquo paid them no heed. The grenadiers represented pulses, and Jordahk pinpointed each one where Max thought Vanquo's first firewall was weak. They were solid hits, eating away substantially at the firewall, although not penetrating it.

  "Oh no," came Vanquo's mocking voice. "What ever shall I do? I'm under attack."

  "I'm really starting to not like this guy," Jordahk said.

  He started heating up more, and sweat trickled down his face. He needed to widen the connection. Gaspar's compy almost felt within arm's length, as if it could be grasped.

  "I told you, I don't need your help," Wixom said.

  Jordahk redirected the heat away from his own compy and up into the battlefield. Clouds darkened above Vanquo's block house, and a bolt of lightning cracked into it. Debris flew, and a number of its blocks look damaged. Jordahk slouched, breathing heavily.

  "Is he okay?" Nuria asked. "People are going to notice."

  "Impossible," Vanquo said. Finally, some of the smugness had drained from his voice. "I'm done playing with you, old man."

  Judicum turned to Gaspar's block house. "Now are you convinced? Let me help you."

  "I... okay," Gaspar said. "I see your routine. It's growing, and I can't stop it. Fine. Someone wants to go down with me? I cede offensive control..."

  "At last," Jordahk said. "Max, we have to defend against the next wave of tanks. I need mini-tanks, or scout tanks. Can you make something like that?"

  "Yeah, sure. I can make half-power static torpedoes, but they won't be tough."

  "That's okay. We still have some terrain advantage."

  Jordahk was breathing fully, and part of him, still aware he was sitting at the table, tried to make it less obvious.

  The battlefield rumbled. From deep in the dark gray side, a bigger wedge of shapes appeared. They plowed across the road and through the mud, undeterred.

  "Six? Six tanks?" Jordahk said. "That is impossible."

  "We couldn't generate six simultaneous static torpedoes when we battled your father under ideal conditions," Max said. "I don't know if there's a scientum compy that can, outside of an octal's creation."

  Something gnawed at Jordahk. He hoped he would recognize it in time. "How about those mini-tanks?"

  "Two are done, a third about to come out. It's a little easier since Gaspar's not fighting us. But I had to drop everything else to zero, so we have no troops."

  Judicum reflected Jordahk's intuition and looked across the battlefield at Vanquo's distant block house.

  "Something's not right. I can feel it. I can... sense it," Jordahk said. Then he looked down at the desperate battle about to be fought. "Keep our minis hidden. Okay, let's deploy, here, and here." He pointed to good places for an ambush. "Keep the third in reserve."

  "Uh, kid," Max said. There was uncommon deference in his voice. "Conventionally speaking, our best efforts can only slow things down. Gaspar's compy isn't set up like our old rig. He has no library of exploits, no pre-calculated tricks. There're no cylinders and no number-crunching redundancies. It could barely calc those half torpedoes, and that was 100% dedicated."

  "Don't go all Highearn on me. You're no pessimist." The gray tanks split into two groups, and continued to roar in. Three out front, followed by troops, and then three more. "He's not going to slow down. Max, can you squeeze out any defensive structures?"

  "I'll have an impedance barrier ready in a minute. And there's enough left to set up one hot block."

  Jordahk moved two mini-tanks forward. Their small size was easier to hide. But all the preparation couldn't guarantee Vanquo would fall for their next trick. The large swath previously cut into the hedgerows was the first thing to protect. Jordahk couldn't afford to let it get larger and become a highway for enemy tanks.

  As expected, one of the mechanically-veneered static torpedoes raced down it, trying to get to the end where it could detonate and level more hedgerows. As it careened for a weak spot, a short term hot block appeared to bar its way. It swerved around, which brought it quite near the first hidden mini-tank.

  Jordahk only had to get the mini-tanks close enough for their explosion to detonate their larger brothers. Easier said than done with all the enemy troops around, but this first wave of tanks was ahead of the troops. The mini didn't even have to move before detonating. Both tanks were engulfed in a hemisphere of light and dirt.

  "You were right," Max said. "He didn't learn the first time."

  "He's in too much of a hurry, but I think he sees the pattern now." Jordahk allowed himself a brief smirk.

  The second tank worked its way through the middle of the hedgerows. Its cautious pace was sufficient to keep it from charging into a hidden mini-tank trap. Jordahk angled an impedance barrier in front of it.
Although the barrier was weak, driving around was a safer option for it than powering through. But the tank didn't drive around, nor bust through, instead it stopped and reversed back up to the start of the barrier.

  Perhaps believing himself cagey, Vanquo directed it the long way around, then turned it toward Gaspar's block house again. The maneuver ended up bringing it right next to the second mini Jordahk had concealed. Again, the two were so close, there was no escape for either. Another dome of light launched a shower of smoking debris.

  "He thought he was ready for us this time," Max said.

  "He was. But we were ready for his readiness." Jordahk relished the brief victory, thinking it might be their last in the thresh.

  A wave reaction crossed the restaurant balcony. Apparently, the goons and Polis were watching the match.

  "So clever," Vanquo said. His forearm was still locked with Gaspar, but his other fist slammed the old man hard in the abdomen, once, twice. Jordahk could feel the thuds down on the restaurant level. "I hope it was worth it, fossil. You're not going to have a 'next time'."

  Jordahk sensed the activity in Gaspar's block house drop to automatics.

  "He's too old to take that kind of punishment," Max said. "His organs are messed up. He's semi-conscious, but out of it."

  Gray troops poured into the hedgerows. A huge number to maintain and constantly replace. Vanquo's grenadiers hurled their single grenades before disappearing in methodical explosions. The cacophony of destruction was like an oncoming tidal wave, slowly flattening all since there was no defense.

  Jordahk felt anger and heat rising. The coat could no longer keep him cool. Another part of him came alive and reached out toward the battle. The environment distorted subtly in his eyes, and Gaspar's compy seemed closer suddenly.

  "I don't know how, but we have faint resonance contact," Max said.

  Nuria looked alarmed. "How can you?" Some sort of physical contact was necessary to be the medium through which resonance transmission could flow. She looked around as if she might spot a filament strung up to the balcony. "Who can—"

  "Max, send as many probes and pulses as you can to this spot." Jordahk indicated the last possible choke point in the hedges before the block house. "Wixom, get in that block house and find those files."

  His eyes stung with sweat, and his heart pumped in great beats. It took effort to concentrate. The troops he ordered arrived just in time to fight for the choke. Though they were vastly outnumbered, their effectiveness was multiplied by the terrain, and every shot counted as the enemy was funneled into the narrow passage.

  By the time the final tank of the lead trio arrived, its troop escort was decimated and it fell victim to his last grenadiers. The tank explosion, a static torpedo, was less spectacular swallowed up in the canyons of the choke.

  Gaspar couldn't even stand without the goons holding him up. It was obvious, now, that someone else had joined their little game.

  "Where are you!" Vanquo yelled. Jordahk could hear it on the battlefield and distantly in the restaurant. "Who dares? Find whoever it is, you dolts. Hurry! The data is within my grasp."

  "I can give you a little more over the resonance contact," Max said "but Wixom's using most of it to infiltrate the core."

  Jordahk began to weaken, the heat slowly sapping his strength. "Just use... Just use whatever Wixom leaves." He wasn't even sure how he was doing it, but he knew he couldn't hold the connection for much longer.

  In the real world, someone grabbed his hand. Though his vision was far away on the digital battlefield, he recognized immediately the strangely intimate contact. Again came that extra-sensory, empowering connection with Khai.

  "What're you doing?" he asked.

  "Let me help you." She added a word for their ears alone. "Jorh-Dahk."

  He couldn't deny her connection brought wonderful cooling. Suddenly, he felt twice as strong, and able to hold resonance contact.

  "Wixom's at the files," Max said. "Like expected, very heavily encrypted."

  "I doubt that'll slow Wixom down," Jordahk said. Clarity was returning.

  "It didn't. He's decrypting them as fast as he can transfer them back across our resonance bridge."

  "What are they?"

  "Incomplete," Wixom said. His cool demeanor seemed at odds with the ferocity of the encounter. "The files were also ciphered. Rather large keys are missing. Until we have them, this is just random data I can assemble a hundred thousand different ways."

  The second trio of tanks was bearing down on Gaspar's block house.

  "Can you totally wipe Gaspar's original files so they can't be forensically recovered by Vanquo?"

  "He doesn't have a nano destruct system," Wixom said. Security-hardened compies like Max—like Max used to be —had a central seed of quadnapse-destroying osmium nanos. They could be released as a last resort to totally destroy core and information. "He had a conventional tacked-on system, which was rendered inoperable. I can scramble the files manually, but I'll need some time across our thin contact."

  "Should I send out our last mini?" Max asked.

  "No. It won't do enough good. See if you can hide it. I may think of something. Put up a hot block to protect the core at the last second."

  Jordahk felt strange, a strangeness both familiar and not. He had never operated on this mystic level with such mental clarity. He no longer felt completely in the restaurant. Where had all the pain and heat gone?

  The image of Judicum hovered protectively over the core block house while Jordahk successfully used a small squad of troops to delay a tank. At least he prevented them from detonating simultaneously. The first two plowed within range and exploded. Right before their staggered waves of destruction hit, a thin glowing wall rose before the core structure. Max's hot block.

  It lasted for about a second before shattering like glowing crystal. Though it blunted the destruction, the block house shuddered. The bricks along its front blackened with damage. The third tank didn't bother trying to find the weakest spot, it just detonated along its original path. The force slammed directly into the damaged bricks, darkening some completely. The result was a core wall that looked like a dirty chessboard.

  "Wixom, how's that wiping coming?"

  "The transfer's almost done," Max said, "but the wiping is going slowly. Gaspar's compy is failing."

  "How am I going to stop the next set?" Jordahk asked.

  "Next set? I don't know about the next one. Wixom's co-opting of the systems is the only thing holding the core together."

  "Thank you for trying," Gaspar said. His voice was weak, and gurgled with fluid Jordahk hoped was not blood. "I'm going to chalk this up to drug-induced hallucination. But it wasn't all bad. I got a reminder of something for which I've labored many years."

  "Who are you talking to, old man?" Vanquo shouted. "How have you forged a connection?"

  "I don't know where you're paying attention, kid," Max said, "but Vanquo's looking down at the restaurant level. His goons are walking around, and the Polis just stopped a couple groups trying to leave."

  "Don't do anything. Stay nonchalant." Jordahk noticed Khai's grip had increased to an almost painful pressure. "Khai-aLael?"

  "As you would say, finish the mission." She spoke unnaturally slow and steady.

  "Max," Jordahk sub-whispered privately, "I feel disconnected to what's going on down there. But I think if I come back, we'll lose the bridge to Gaspar's compy. What's Khai doing?"

  "Her eyes are open but glassy. She sitting stiffly upright and sweating down the sides of her head."

  "Radiated ingots! We've got to end this. What about our compy? Is it visable?"

  "A little."

  "Wixom, can you put a little shine on? Try not to look so much like ceramic and more like metal please."

  "That worked a little," Max said. "But they'll still see you're using a bracelet and not a ring."

  Although fashionable among retro crowds and purists, bracelets were the old, uncommon form of compi
es. Rings were, by far, the great majority in common use.

  "Take these, too," Gaspar said. A handful of encrypted files highlighted. "They're not for eyes such as his..."

  "Grab them, Wixom. Same wiping procedure."

  "It will take time," Wixom said.

  Jordahk and Judicum looked across the battlefield as another great rumbling vibrated the earth. From out of the mist tanks appeared in wedge formation. He could see two, then four, then six. They passed the muddy road and rumbled onto Gaspar's side of the mismatched war.

  "This guy's no thresher. He just knows brute force."

  "I think that's what's worked for him up to now," Max said.

  Jordahk could ask Wixom to relinquish more of the dwindling computational resources of Gaspar's compy. Generate some sort of feeble defense. But could he even put a dent in six more simultaneous static torpedoes? And as Khai reminded him, that was not the mission. He felt his connection with her strengthen, almost as if she understood his thought process. Her hand felt hot upon his.

  The ground rumbled again, and this time stayed rumbling. Behind the closing wedge of tanks, a wall of six more appeared simultaneously out of the mist.

  "Six... six more. Twelve simultaneous? For Khromas sake!"

  Something gnawed at Jordahk too strongly for him to get despondent or mad. He saw the connection with Vanquo's compy. It was scientum. Yet he knew of no single scientum compy that could exhibit such power.

  "Heh-heh..." Gaspar coughed. "We blunted Vanquo good."

  "Who's we, old man?" Vanquo shouted.

  "I hope Thule-Riss Quext really does come back someday," Gaspar said, "and sets Beuker free. For me, the battle's over. Avere, traveler, whoever you are."

  The tanks rumbled closer. Jordahk shut his eyes, whether physically or mentally he didn't know. But he pulled away from the universe for just a few seconds to think. He could try reaching out harder, but perhaps lose himself in that mystic place. And what would be the cost to him? Or to Khai-aLael?

  He felt her reach down into his imposed isolation. "There is mystic in it." she said.

  He came back to the surface. "What? It's scientum. An Omar."