⫸ [ TIME: 21:00 LOCAL PLANETARY TIME ]
⫸ [ LOCATION: HORIZON SEEKER – MAIN AIRLOCK ]
⫸ [ STATUS: DEFENSIVE PREPARATION ]
⫸ [ TIME TO CONTACT: 45 MINUTES ]
Elian stepped out of the airlock and into the humid night.
The sensation was disorienting. The air outside was thirty degrees Celsius and thick with moisture. To a normal human it would feel like a sauna. To Elian it felt freezing.
His new Thermal-Lattice Epidermis was working perfectly. The hexagonal scales on his skin were actively venting his body heat. They created a boundary layer of cool air around him. He shivered once before his metabolism adjusted to the differential.
He looked out at the ravine. The violet suns were long gone. The magnetic fog had returned. It swirled around the jagged slate walls of the canyon like a living thing. It obscured the stars and the hateful gaze of the orbital wardens.
[ A.R.C., ] Elian said. His voice was calm. [ Update on the hostiles. ]
◤ SENSOR SWEEP ◢
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
⬢ Input: Seismic Sensors (Triangulated)
⬢ Count: Estimated 150 to 200 Units
⬢ Velocity: 5 kph (Steady March)
⬢ Status: Tracking
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
[ They are not running. They are marching. They know where we are. ]
Elian looked at the datapad strapped to his forearm. The red dots were a river of heat flowing through the jungle. This was not a hunting party. This was an extermination force.
He turned to the six Giants huddled near the landing strut.
They were terrified.
They could smell the war paint of the main tribe on the wind. Grom sat on a crate and sharpened a piece of scrap metal against a stone. His hands trembled. To them the Tribe was an unstoppable force of nature. To fight the Tribe was to fight the mountain itself.
Elian walked down the ramp. His heavy boots clanged on the metal. The sound made the Giants jump.
He did not offer them comfort. He offered them physics.
"Grom," Elian commanded. The vocal synthesizer in his collar deepened his voice to a grinding bass.
The Giant stood up. He lowered his head.
"We die tonight," Grom rumbled. The translator matrix relayed the fatalism in his tone. "Many spears. Too many."
Elian grabbed Grom's chin. He forced the Giant to look at him. Elian's eyes glowed with the electric blue light of the isotopic energy in his blood.
"Numbers are irrelevant," Elian said. "Force equals Mass times Acceleration. If you control the Mass and you control the Acceleration then you control the outcome."
Grom blinked. He did not understand the math. He understood the tone.
"We are going to build a machine," Elian said. He turned to the pile of wreckage they had dragged from the ship. "And that machine is going to eat them."
⬡ ─── ⬡ ─── ⬡
⫸ [ STATUS: ENGINEERING PHASE ]
For the next forty minutes the crash site became a frenzy of industrial violence.
Elian did not try to build a wall to keep them out. A wall would fail against two hundred giants. He built a funnel. He used the natural geography of the ravine to force the enemy into a channel ten meters wide.
Trap One: The Molecular Severance.
Elian located the spool of high-tensile diamond filament used for the maintenance drones of the ship. The wire was thinner than a human hair but strong enough to tow a shuttle.
"A.R.C.," Elian said as he tied the wire between two iron-bark trees at the entrance of the funnel. "Calculate the kinetic impact of a three-hundred-pound giant tripping at a sprint in 8.5G gravity."
[ Calculation: Impact force equivalent to a 30 mph car crash. ]
[ In this gravity a fall is not an inconvenience. It is a structural failure event. ]
[ Bones will shatter upon contact with the ground. ]
Elian strung the wire at shin height. It was invisible in the fog.
Trap Two: The Chemical Payload.
He instructed the Giants to gather the remaining acid sacs from the dead Scuttlers. They treated the organs like unexploded bombs. They were right to do so.
Elian rigged the sacs into the canopy above the choke point. He connected them to a simple tripwire mechanism made from copper cabling.
"When they hit the wire," Elian explained to Grom while he pointed at the trees, "the sky bleeds."
Trap Three: The Gravity Well.
This was the masterpiece.
Elian dragged the Gravity Drive Coils from the engine room of the ship. They were massive copper-wound torus rings that weighed half a ton each. With the help of three Giants he buried them in the mud in the center of the kill zone.
He wired them to the emergency capacitor bank of the ship.
"A.R.C., do we have enough charge to reverse the polarity?"
[ Capacitors are at 15%. ]
[ We can trigger a magnetic pulse for approximately 0.8 seconds. ]
[ It will not be a sustained field. It will be a hammer blow. ]
"That is all I need," Elian said. He covered the coils with magnetic slate and mud.
The preparations were finished. The trap was set.
The fog grew denser. The air pressure dropped. The storm was here.
Elian climbed to the top of the Horizon Seeker's fuselage. It was the high ground. He held his spear. He checked the Fabricator one last time but it was cold. The bug batteries were dead. He had no gun. He had no railgun. He had strategy.
"Grom," Elian shouted down. "Form the line."
The six giants stood behind the buried gravity coils. They held their makeshift shields made of hull plating. They looked small against the darkness of the jungle.
[ Contact in 3... 2... 1... ]
⬡ ─── ⬡ ─── ⬡
⫸ [ STATUS: ENGAGEMENT ]
They did not come with a war cry. They came with a tremor.
The ground vibrated. Ripples appeared in the puddles of mud. The rhythmic thud of two hundred heavy pairs of feet marching in unison echoed off the canyon walls.
From the magnetic fog the Homo-Feralis army emerged.
They were a nightmare of primitive power. The warriors in the front rank were covered in bone armor harvested from Class-II beasts. Some had the skulls of reptilian predators mounted on their shoulders. Others had ribs grafted into their forearms to create natural bucklers.
They held spears tipped with obsidian. They held clubs made of petrified wood.
At the center of the formation stood the Warlord.
He was massive. He stood nearly nine feet tall. His skin was not grey but black. His Totem was not a simple rib. His entire chest was a cage of external bone that pulsed with a faint red light.
◤ TARGET ANALYSIS ◢
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
⬢ Subject: Target-Bravo (Warlord Class)
⬢ Totem: Spinal Column of Unknown Class-II Predator
⬢ Energy: High-Frequency Neuro-Broadcast
⬢ Threat: Psionic Field Generation (Artificial Fear)
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The Warlord raised a hand. The army stopped.
They stood fifty meters from the trap.
The Warlord looked at the ship. He looked at the six traitors standing with their metal shields. He looked up at Elian.
He roared.
It was a sound that bypassed the ears and vibrated the water in Elian's cells. It was a challenge. It was a sentence.
The army charged.
"Hold!" Elian shouted to his team. "Wait for the math!"
The front rank of the enemy sprinted. They were fast. They covered the ground with terrifying momentum.
They reached the trees.
Trigger One.
The first ten warriors hit the invisible diamond wire.
It did not cut them. It stopped their shins instantly. Their upper bodies continued moving at full velocity.
In 1G gravity they might have tumbled and rolled.
In 8.5G gravity the ground was a relentless magnet.
They slammed face-first into the magnetic rock.
CRUNCH.
The sound was wet and sickening. It sounded like a bag of walnuts being smashed with a sledgehammer. Jawbones disintegrated. Necks snapped instantly. Ribcages collapsed under the weight of their own momentum.
Ten giants died without ever seeing the enemy.
The rank behind them faltered. They tried to stop but the momentum of the charge pushed them forward. They tripped over the bodies of the fallen.
"Now!" Elian signaled.
Trigger Two.
He pulled the cable in his hand.
Above the confusion the acid sacs ruptured.
Green fluid rained down on the stalled mass of warriors.
HISSSSSS.
The screams began. The acid ate through the bone armor instantly. It melted fur and skin. The warriors clawed at their eyes. The disciplined charge turned into a mosh pit of agony.
The Warlord roared again. He shoved his way through his own men. He crushed the dying under his boots. He pointed his massive obsidian sword at the six defenders.
"KILL," the Warlord bellowed in Proto-Giant.
The remaining warriors who numbered over a hundred surged over the bodies. They ignored the acid. They stepped on the dead. They rushed into the kill zone.
They reached the mud where the Gravity Coils were buried.
Elian watched the density of the crowd. He waited until the Warlord stepped onto the concealed trap.
"Physics lesson number two," Elian whispered. "Magnetism."
He pressed the detonator on his wrist.
Trigger Three.
The capacitors dumped their entire charge into the buried coils.
VVVVVV-THOOM.
For 0.8 seconds the magnetic field in the center of the kill zone reversed.
The iron-rich armor of the warriors was suddenly repelled by the earth.
Thirty giants were launched into the air. They flew ten feet up. They flailed in weightlessness.
Then the capacitor died.
The field collapsed.
Gravity returned.
They fell.
Falling ten feet in 8.5G is equivalent to falling eighty feet on Earth.
They hit the ground with the force of a meteor shower.
Legs snapped. Spines compressed. The Warlord landed on his feet but the impact drove his knees into his chest. He vomited blood.
The kill zone was a graveyard of broken bodies.
Elian stood up. He raised his spear.
"Grom! Advance!"
The six defenders charged. They were fresh. Their opponents were broken and blind and crippled.
Grom slammed his tower shield into a warrior who was trying to crawl away with two broken legs. He brought his club down. It was a massacre.
Elian did not join the melee. He watched the Warlord.
The massive leader was trying to stand. His legs were shattered. His bone armor was cracked. But he was not dead. The red light in his chest pulsed violently. He was healing.
[ Alert: Accelerated regeneration detected. ]
[ The Unknown Totem feeds on trauma to repair the host. ]
[ He is getting stronger. ]
The Warlord screamed. The bones in his legs cracked and realigned. He pushed himself up. He grabbed a warrior next to him who was his own soldier and bit into the man's neck. He ripped out the throat.
He swallowed the flesh. The red light flared brighter.
"He is metabolizing them," Elian realized with disgust. "He is eating his own army to fuel the totem."
The Warlord stood. He was twice as big as Grom. He swung his obsidian sword and cleaved Grom's shield in half. Grom flew backward and hit the landing strut.
The Warlord looked up at Elian. His eyes were red pits of madness.
He didn't climb the ship. He punched the landing strut.
CLANG.
The entire Horizon Seeker lurched.
Inside the ship the alarms screamed.
[ Warning: Seismic impact detected. ]
[ Cryo-Pod stabilization is compromised. ]
[ Alara's life support is fluctuating. ]
Elian went cold.
The strategy was over. The trap was spent. The enemy was at the gate and he was threatening the one thing Elian would burn the galaxy to protect.
Elian dropped the spear. He reached behind his back.
He unhooked the heavy and copper-wound bone club he had built from the first scout. It was the prototype Gravity Hammer.
"A.R.C.," Elian said softly. "Reroute all remaining power from the ship's lights to this hammer."
[ That will leave the ship in darkness. ]
"If he hits that strut again the ship is a coffin anyway. Give me the juice."
The floodlights on the hull died. The ravine plunged into darkness.
The only light came from the red pulse of the Warlord's chest.
And the blue crackling arc of electricity that ignited on the head of Elian's hammer.
Elian jumped.
He dove from the top of the fuselage. Thirty feet down.
In 8.5G he fell like a missile.
He didn't aim for the Warlord's head. He aimed for the ground in front of him.
"Terminal Velocity," Elian screamed.
He swung the hammer. He intended to use the magnetic recoil to break his own fall while crushing the enemy.
[END OF CHAPTER 7]