The Loss Queen (Approaching Infinity Book 5) Read online

  In their postmortem, co-opted state, Raus’s troops could use whatever tools or weapons they could in life, though with far less accuracy and efficiency. Still, the corpse flies turned their machine-guns upwards into the sky to bring down their still-living former comrades. Raus’s use of the Resurrection Shock had thinned the fly army considerably, so much so that further uses would yield increasingly limited results—there were still thousands left, but the Shock was not a precision instrument, so the machine-guns, despite their wild sprays, were a broadly effective measure. Oppositely, the corpse flies did considerably better against their own projectiles, unless one of their lower limbs were entirely shot off.

  • • •

  Jav hadn’t intended to use Rommel as bait, but it worked out that way. Because of Rommel’s overall superiority to the skeleton army proper, Jav believed without a doubt that his lieutenant would not fall to anything less than a small group or to the crickets’ commander. And since their connection was much stronger and more direct than that shared by Jav and the other skeletons, Jav knew immediately when Rommel fell and where he was when he did. Jav turned about in an instant, applied AI, and was standing over Rommel’s fallen form, reaching out for a cricket to prevent him from leaping away. His fingers were wrapped around a chitinous ankle already at eye-height and he yanked, swinging the cricket man back down into the paved street.

  The cricket, however, was quick and strong, and managed to break its fall with its hands, using its arms like springs, to twist away, out of Jav’s grip. The insectoid man spun around to regain its feet, skidding to a stop some meters away to exhaust the momentum generated by its escape. It stood ready, hands poised, prepared to fight. Behind it, as if to provide a dramatic backdrop, the seas erupted deafeningly, giving rise to a vertical wall of water, which climbed fifty meters in places.

  DURAS

  LOSS INFILTRATION DIVISION COMMANDER

  A hum hung in the air, charging the atmosphere with a kind of urgency, and Jav realized now, with the Loss Commander standing in front of him, that this buzz was being generated singly by each of the enemy to create the composite noise. With his spatial awareness honed by years of active and passive use of Approaching Infinity, Jav couldn’t help but sense the discrete sources of the vibrations. Buried within the chitin armor, were thousands and thousands of micronized whirling gyroscopes, working in series to produce vast quantities of potential energy. The Loss Commander before him, Duras, was clearly producing more energy than any of his own troops—two had now flitted overhead—or any of the flies comprising the first air wave, though he imagined that their commander was producing a similar amount.

  There seemed to be a near infinite number of gyroscopes housed within what would equate with Duras’s quadriceps alone. A memory of Mephis Abanastar virtually reducing the size of several reactors to power a Prisma Shield against the Gun Golems flashed through his mind, but the scale required for the Loss Commanders staggered him. It seemed right, though, that these gyroscopes were woven through some extra-dimensional, space-tricking fabric sandwiched between layers of chitin. Though the design aspects and the question of this being a natural or engineered phenomenon were beyond him, Jav knew—and respected—the power the system was clearly capable of producing.

  “Jav Holson, First General of the Viscain Empire,” Jav said in the local Lossian language.

  Duras cocked his head slightly and relaxed for the briefest of moments. “Duras, Loss Infiltration Division Commander,” the other said in a voice that was like a shimmering echo, but human enough.

  Jav nodded and raised his hands in a defensive posture, fingers arched and implacable. He shifted his position, advancing cautiously with eyes ahead but his focus on Duras’s legs. He heard/felt/sensed the cycle-up almost simultaneously with the crashing of Duras’s shin against his crossed, upraised arms. Jav grabbed at Duras’s ankle with both hands, but Duras only bent his knee, driving down his other foot at the same time into Jav’s head. This succeeded in shearing Jav’s grip and sending him the short distance to the pavement, where he made a crater and sent up a rain of small black stones which together had once formed the roadway.

  Duras rebounded from the strike, landed several meters away, and began to bounce on the balls of his feet in anticipation of the fight to come. He hopped, patiently waiting for Jav to stand and brush himself off, then launched forward with a right roundhouse kick.

  Jav was prepared now, though, and caught Duras’s roundhouse before it could extend with a jabbing front kick to just above the knee. Duras recovered and without a break threw another roundhouse kick, this time the left. Anticipating, Jav pivoted, and parried the kick and the following flurry of alternating roundhouses with his hands. Each time, Jav tried to turn his parries into grabs, but Duras pulled his kicks back too fast. At least at first. He was persistent, and perhaps cocky, so continued in this manner, driving Jav back further and further, increasing his power with each subsequent kick, but also losing the tiniest fraction of speed with each increase in power. Finally, Jav succeeded in getting his fingers around Duras’s right ankle. He swiftly gripped it with both hands, held the leg high in the air, stretching it almost in line with the other, calculated AI furiously, and swung a kick of his own straight up to where Duras’s legs joined. A visible shock and resulting crack passed up Duras’s torso and the Loss Commander threw his head back in apparent agony. Jav let go and the other doubled and staggered back, limping uncertainly before falling to one knee.

  Jav approached Duras, who scrambled and attempted to rise. Duras, half-succeeding, backed away, but Jav pursued, his three-fingered claws—the eagle’s—shooting out like gunshots to snatch and crush bits of what he was sure was a helmet. He stopped Duras’s retreat entirely simply by stepping upon one foot, and proceeded to cripple the joints of the Loss Commander’s armor. Despite the damage Duras had taken, the gyroscopes were still producing phenomenal power, but not transmitting it where it needed to go. Satisfied that he’d eliminated the Loss Commander as a threat, Jav finished with a palm strike to the face that shattered what was left of Duras’s helmet and sent him streaking a hundred meters away to raise a cloud of dust and debris where he impacted.

  One of Duras’s troops foolishly lighted near Jav, perhaps to avenge his commander, but Jav merely flicked a back-handed claw—powered with AI—into the cricket man’s midsection. The strike shattered the armor and ruptured what was beneath. Blood fountained from the broken shell as the man folded and collapsed dead. Jav didn’t even look at him. His eyes were on the incoming second air wave.

  As the Heavy Air Division encroached, a lower, bass thrum—the beating of thousands of thick, glassy wings—started to drown out the ubiquitous buzz of the gyroscopes. These soldiers looked like flying tanks, if insects could be described so. A pair of forward facing stingers, each stretching one meter to wicked, barbed points, V’ed from over their shoulders. Smaller stingers jutted from their bulbous forearms. Their barrel torsos were striped black and blood-red. All their limbs were thick with chitinous armor, and bristling with short hairs. They moved ominously through the sky at a slow, steady pace that denied the possibility of defeat.

  When the first of the shoulder stingers shot forth, Jav paused to track them and assess their damage potential. The missiles passed without incident through the Prisma Shield, sank into the Palace as if it were made of soft clay, and desiccated instantly as they pumped venom which rotted tens of square meters of Vine fiber at a time.

  “Raus,” Jav said through his Artifact as Gran Mid arrived, “clean the sky again. You have five minutes.” Jav leapt up to Gran Mid’s brow, where a holographic screen appeared before him. “Lightning gunners. In five minutes, fire at will until no targets remain. Focus first on air threats.”

  “Yes, General Holson,” the man on the screen said before it winked out.

  Raus smirked at Jav’s curt recommendation, but it suited him just fine. Once again, the sky lit up with his power, raining four lightning bolts
down upon the western half of the city. Some of the airborne victims caught fire, plummeting to the streets below, some merely lurched, being transformed instantly into more of Raus’s soldiers. These latter sought out other nearby fliers who’d gone unscathed, seeking to wrestle them into submission and convert them by way of infection. Two more lightning bolts thinned the remaining ranks, but the Palace Lightning Gunners would have plenty of targets. Raus had enough raw materials now. His existing troops would spread the disease and beget more troops. It was just a matter of time.

  He was feeling rather pleased with himself when his back erupted with what felt like hundreds of hot, popping blisters. He bent under the assault, dropping to one knee and nearly touching his brow to Gran Pham’s, but stopped himself just short through force of will. Fueled by rage, he turned to look over his shoulder, between the many raised steel bolts jutting from the skin of his arms, and saw what he assumed to be the commander of the Light Air Division. She was magnificent. And familiar. He calmed himself, rose again to his feet, and turned to face her properly.

  SACY

  LOSS LIGHT AIR DIVISION COMMANDER

  “Milla Marz,” he muttered to himself in a breathless whisper.

  She was armored like the other Light Air Division flies, but lighter in color—a pearlescent gray—and quite a bit bigger. Her figure, however, was in no way concealed by her otherwise inhuman appearance. Though encased in a chitinous shell, her slim waist contrasted sharply with her large bosom and her long, powerful legs curved elegantly. Her glassy wings, thinner and more delicate than those of the Heavy Air Division soldiers, buzzed at her back keeping her perfectly still in the air.

  She regarded him without any apparent fear, the features of her insectoid helmet impassive, enigmatic. She brought both hands together, lacing her fingers, and Raus clearly saw the barrels over each wrist aiming directly at him. She cocked her head, conveying something like disgust, and the barrels flared, pumping out more and more shells, machine-gun fast.

  Raus, transfixed by this haughty incarnation of Milla Marz, could do little but raise his left arm to block his face from the onrush of projectiles, some of which clanged off the line of bolts, others sank into his pale, discolored flesh, ripping it to shreds and spattering his greenish blood. His expression, one of awe, did not change despite the punishment he received. Indeed, the wounds closed almost as quickly as they opened up. He unconsciously adjusted his footing as Gran Pham turned to face the Loss Commander and drew them closer together.

  She balked slightly at this, retreated a few meters, and renewed her assault. She sprayed shells with abandon, opening up wounds all over Raus’s body, but he ignored them as they healed. He simply stared at her with a lust he hadn’t experienced since his youth so long ago.

  Suddenly they were eye to eye. Raus had unconsciously, and with as yet unknown precision, activated Gran Pham’s Charge to cover the few spare meters that separated them. This shocked her and for the first time she showed the beginnings of fear.

  Raus reached out, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her close. “You will be mine, Milla Marz,” he said.

  “Here, I am Sacy, Loss Commander of the Light Air Division. I belong to no one.”

  “Not until now. But I will bridge the gap of years, of strife, of endless death and bring this cycle to a close. You will be my mate. Together we will rebuild and repopulate Sarsa.”

  “You dream big. Too big for a dead man.”

  Raus felt her abdomen grow hot against him. She shifted within his grip, freeing her right arm with a swift snapping motion. One barrel she placed against his left temple, one he felt squeezing between his ribs. Fire wiped out his vision and jetted through his chest cavity in successive pulses. He went slack, crumpling down upon Gran Pham, senseless. Or nearly so. Though she’d escaped his embrace, she now found her right wrist firmly clutched within his blocky left fist. She pulled and pulled, jerking his arm this way and that, but she couldn’t free herself from the lock of his fist. She raised her left gun and fired the flaming projectiles into his blank, slack-jawed face. Ragged holes opened up. Hair and skin burned. One of his useless eyes popped. But none of the trauma took. His skin mended itself and the fire couldn’t compete with the repair. His eye became whole again and both regained focus. The lustful expression returned as he stood again.

  “Come, Sacy. Milla Marz.”

  He reached out and took hold of her other wrist in his right hand and drew her to him once again by holding her arms behind her back. He towered over her and her guns were useless. He bent, as if to kiss her, but paused. The air around them lit up with flecks of arcing electricity. She arched her back as the current passed through her. Her shell began to smoke and cracks spider-webbed variously. With this one short, powerful jolt, he succeeded in shattering her helmet, revealing a beautiful face, perfect skin of an unsettling, but not unappealing gray, and short, tousled hair the exact shade her armor had been before being subjected to his current.

  “You’ll not have me. Not now. Not ever. You broke whatever could have been long, long ago.”

  He grinned, bending closer now fully intent on kissing her.

  She looked up and grinned herself, but this instantly sobered him.

  Her jaw worked. Blood pumped from the sides of her mouth, painting her chin, her throat, the cracked shell covering her breasts. She took a deep gurgling breath, then coughed a spray of blood into Raus’s face. Her eyes closed and her body went limp.

  • • •

  Despite their disparity in raw ability, the skeletons were systematically cutting through the crickets. Jav, too, ended every native soldier he encountered, whether on the ground or in the air. None were capable of matching his speed or strength.

  The Lightning Gunners had begun their work as well. Jav noted that their groundward shots were cover fire for Scanlan’s growing factories, spread out all over what was left of the city. Besides the machinery girding the Palace walls, several self-sustaining facilities would begin producing machine troops, automated defense systems, and ordnance. All was going smoothly. There would be no need to call in the Titan Squad, but Scanlan and his fellow generals weren’t finished just yet.

  Jav had caught sight of the Heavy Air Division Commander, but only because of his striking skill. He was otherwise indistinguishable from the rest of the Heavy Air troops, but twice now, Jav watched him turn Lightning Gun flashes back upon the palace. Just before being struck himself, the Commander gave a dramatic flourish, setting himself to spin in an intricate and non-repeating pattern, somehow catching and reflecting the crackling bolt back to scorch the Palace.

  Jav commanded Gran Mid to guard the nearest machine installation and set off, himself, for the Heavy Air Division Commander. Just before leaping, though, he sensed something rapidly approaching him. He had just enough time to raise his arms to block, but was only partially successful. He managed to remain upright, skidding away several meters, his toes dragging ruts in the pavement, but his head rang with what had transmitted through. He shook his head to clear it and saw Duras standing before him.

  If there had been any doubts, they were gone now: humans indeed lay beneath the chitinous insectoid armor. Duras’s face was lightly lined and bearded. His hair was fair, almost yellow, and his black eyes radiated hate. He didn’t advance. He heaved with labored breaths, and crossed his arms before him with a jerk. This caused his double set of wings to spring from his back, the first set parallel with the line of his shoulders, the second down at a thirty degree angle. They blurred almost instantly, scraping together to produce a low whine that pierced Jav like a knife, seizing every nerve and holding it captive.

  Jav had never felt anything like this. Though his body shook, he could not move it, could not force the slightest twitch. The shaking settled into a rhythmic pulse that radiated from his spine through his every nerve. He wasn’t sure if he was feeling pain or not. There was pressure everywhere, but not from any one discernible source or direction. With each pulse, the
pressure grew, which made it harder and harder to. . . breathe? He didn’t need to breathe, could not suffer from a lack of oxygen, but that’s what it felt like. With the next pulse, he felt something pop inside him, but the sensation was dull, and still there was no pain, just a feeling he could only compare to asphyxiation, being crushed from within somehow. He began to feel very languid, very tired, very sleepy, as if the pressure was squeezing the consciousness right out of him, and it seemed okay except that they weren’t done here. With the next pulse, Jav lurched involuntarily, blood sprayed from the mouthpiece of his skull helmet. No, they weren’t done here yet.

  He focused his foggy eyes upon Duras and exercised the only muscle of which he still had control: his mind. With the effort, the grogginess cleared slightly, giving way to sharp anger. He calculated AI far and away beyond what was necessary. Duras bent unnaturally, his unprotected head crashing suddenly and violently with the pavement in a riot of red, white, and gray. The Loss Commander collapsed dead, and Jav regained control of his body.

  Now he hurt. The inside of his body felt is if it had been shaved raw. He took a step and it felt like he might fall apart. He didn’t, though, and pain alone could be negotiated. He padded gingerly past Duras’s corpse, taking time to ensure that his own body was in fact still whole, focused once again on the Heavy Air Division Commander, calculated AI, and leapt skyward. He would take no chances this time.