The Loss Queen (Approaching Infinity Book 5) Read online

  Jav sent the quadrupeds in first, effecting a small-scale stampede. None of the Heavy Land soldiers knew what to make of the animate skeletons of a possibly extinct species galloping towards them. Some stopped, some continued forward, glancing towards their fellows or their commander, as if to confirm that this was or was not a hallucination. Others brandished their pole axes in anticipation of the clash, despite the disparity in their relative sizes.

  Even with their armor, the Heavy Land soldiers buckled under the force of the stampede, but the skeleton beasts could only penetrate through the first four rows of troops before getting caught up on the tangle of limbs and the press of bodies behind those they’d knocked sprawling. The beasts with horns, a very small fraction of them, continued to try to gore anything that moved, others simply stamped with their fore hooves or kicked with their rear anything they sensed behind them. With their momentum essentially gone, though, they became easy targets.

  The pole axes came down, and though it took several blows to splinter the bones, necks, backs, and legs indeed were cloven, effectively ending their short-lived careers in the Skeleton Army. One of the great, boney quadrupeds, though, had managed to trample the beetle soldiers before it without opposition, navigating the terrain of downed bodies with a nearly preternatural sure-footedness, and made a straight line for the as yet silent leader of the Heavy Land army.

  PORTAN

  LOSS HEAVY LAND DIVISION COMMANDER

  The dead animal bore down upon Portan, who merely cocked his arm and struck with his armored fist, shattering the meter-long skull to send a rain of bone fragments darting through the air. He stepped forward, through the sea of his own troops, grabbed another of the skeleton animals by the neck, and drove it to the ground, snapping the neck and expelling the semblance of life from it. Portan’s troops, seeing this, gave a collective cry and redoubled their efforts.

  The regular skeleton troops had descended upon the fallen Heavy Land soldiers, seeking to pierce the hard chitin with their pole swords, but found little success. One well-directed sweep of a pole axe, however, was enough to dash the regular skeletons to fragments, so Jav wasted no time entering the fray himself.

  He found that while he could cast the Heavy Land soldiers from him with relative ease, breaching their armor required concentration and the application of AI. He drove his claw hands through chitin, drawing them back each time red and dripping, but doing so on the scale that was required would exhaust him sooner than he’d estimated. His troops, too, were having some difficulty making effective use of the Secret Track Pole Sword, so he set about testing the Heavy Land Division armor by investigating the most obvious potential weakness, the joints. It was simple enough to engage a soldier, manipulate his limbs to gauge the stresses upon the armor and how the different layers interacted under extreme conditions. The coverage was impressive, but he did find two exploitable targets: the armpit, an easy target because of their stature and use of a two-handed weapon, and the throat, a more difficult target for the same reasons.

  Jav conveyed this information to Rommel, who in turn transmitted it to the skeletons—altering the basic tenets of the Secret Track Pole Sword system required Rommel’s direct intervention as he was the broadcast source of the martial skill. The skeletons focused first on those Heavy Land soldiers still on the ground. With mechanical precision, they drove their pole swords down and down and down again, raising splashes of blood with each thrust. Though, Jav wanted to maintain the illusion of great disparity between their forces, the general effect on the Heavy Land Division, of seeing their fellows’ armor painted red with blood when the enemy was bloodless, was crushing.

  Just as they had when first encountering the animate skeletons, many of the beetle soldiers were shocked senseless. They were obviously not accustomed to being struck down, perhaps their armor had never before failed them. Morale sank. Some soldiers dropped their weapons in disbelief or despair, some wailed at the loss of their fellows, some rushed headlong into waiting and well-aimed pole swords.

  “Enough of this!” Portan cried. “Prepare for sweep! Full battery!”

  The sound of their commander’s voice rallied them. To a man, they cried out in the affirmative, and scurried to clear a path before him, turning their backs on the area that opened up. The branching horns atop Portan’s head crackled with energy. Electric arcs climbed up the channel the horns formed with greater and greater frequency as the hum of the power they were producing increased. Not all of his men were clear, some were still engaged with skeleton troops, but he fired anyway. The space between the horns flashed white, spitting a column of light like high pressure liquid to fill the area his troops had mostly evacuated. When the light dimmed, everything in its path had been reduced to ash—everything except the Heavy Land soldiers.

  This startled Jav. He saw instantly how the rear shells of the soldiers closest to the blast and those directly in its path smoked and shimmered surreally. Seven hundred and twenty-two skeletons were now gone—including the large quadrupeds—some to physical trauma, but most to the light cannon. Jav had his troops back off as he approached Portan. He casually walked the bed of destruction left by the cannon, mortally striking the two Heavy Land soldiers who remained there. He moved at a deliberate pace, taunting, challenging Portan to do again what he’d just done. And it worked.

  Portan grunted and the power build-up set his horns to sparking again.

  Jav showed no sign of deviating from his path, and every Heavy Land soldier who could see might swear that he had been obliterated by the light cannon when it discharged if not for Jav’s sudden and inexplicable presence behind their commander.

  Jav drove a savage Kaiser Kick to the back of Portan’s head, fouling the path of the beam and causing the Loss Commander to stumble forward to his hands and knees. Portan shot a look behind him to see Jav slowly descending to the ground, arms folded across his chest.

  Portan rose and charged at Jav with alarming speed, grappling with him, and driving him to the ground, where he proceeded to pound his great fists into Jav’s face. Though the Kaiser Bones held, Portan’s strength and speed could not be dismissed. For the first time today—and perhaps in the last twenty-two years—Jav felt a faraway pinprick of emergent anxiety. He was concerned. He was pinned securely to the ground, couldn’t match Portan’s strength to effect release, and was being knocked into senselessness with each successive blow. If he didn’t extricate himself soon, he would be pounded to jelly. He ignored the pain and the jolts to his brain, focused his thoughts and succeeded in using AI to “create” space between Portan and himself, squeezing out from under him like a slippery fish. He immediately launched another Kaiser Kick, catching Portan in the face, stretching his armored neck, and raising him back to his feet to scrabble back several steps before he gained his balance.

  Jav studied the effects of his strike and was disappointed. Portan’s armor had shown no sign of any damage. No chips, no cracks, nothing, not even after two AI kicks to the head from opposite directions. This was unexpected, but was for later consideration. His stalling efforts had paid off. The startled cries of the Heavy Land soldiers behind him contributed to a wan but tangible satisfaction.

  Jav leapt in the air, sailing over Portan and crying out as he went, “Gran Mid!”

  Portan followed his progress through the air with his eyes and was shocked to see Jav land upon the brow of a giant, rearing serpent composed of nothing but bone.

  “Fire!” Jav cried.

  Portan could do nothing but cover his face as the fire poured out over him and beyond. The shrieks and cries that rose up from the ranks of the Heavy Land soldiers were awful, gurgling things. The armor held, but the men within boiled like the contents of cooking pots. As the washing flames ceased, Portan looked out over a grim forest of smoldering statues, fused to the ground and made solid. Few who were in range had survived, and those who had would not last, trapped and baked as they were in their armor. He turned suddenly, aware of a presence too
close to not be dangerous. Jav placed a palm squarely upon the Loss Commander’s breast and pushed with what seemed minimal force. AI turned what would have been a light touch into a battering ram that sent Portan through the air, crashing through the remains of his own lost men, knocking some down, taking limbs from others, completely shattering still others. Portan struggled to his feet, a hand to his chitin-shelled chest which appeared unscathed.

  From back atop Gran Mid’s brow, Jav called out, “Run while you can or be burned where you stand. Run!”

  For a moment, Portan was silent. Everyone and everything was silent. His soldiers, clearly uneasy, looked to their commander for guidance. He surveyed those still living, looked back to the smoking dead, and finally, he shouted, “Retreat!”

  Jav folded his arms and called for Rommel.

  “Yes,” Rommel said.

  “Follow them but be stealthy,” Jav said.

  “Stealthy.”

  “If you start to pull out of range of the Kaiser Bones’ influence, chain yourselves. It is imperative that we locate whatever it is they’re trying to protect.”

  “Yes.”

  • • •

  The 4th Perimeter bunker continued on towards completion, but with the jump deck now operational, Jav could communicate with the other Perimeters as well as the Palace, despite the continuing malfunction of his tether launch control.

  “Raus,” Jav said, speaking at the small inset screen over the jump controls within the kiosk.

  After a short pause, Raus’s image filled the screen. “This is Raus.”

  “Report.”

  “We’ve encountered and defeated the Light Land Division.”

  “Defeated?”

  “Best guess based on numbers. There may be some stragglers, but the 3rd Perimeter is secure. How are you faring?”

  “Similarly. Have eliminated a percentage of the Heavy Land Division. Allowed them to retreat to track them back to their hiding place.”

  Raus’s eyes widened. “That was fast.” Something else passed across his features, but Jav was ignorant of it. “Although, I suppose I should have anticipated as much.” He sighed and this time, combined with the subconscious recognition of the last, Jav did notice.

  “What is it, Raus?”

  “I. . . I don’t know. It feels like something is coming. Don’t you feel it?”

  “No. Might it be that we’re one step closer to retirement, with you returning to Sarsa?”

  Raus didn’t respond right away. How could he when all he could think—though he had no idea why—was that there would be no retirement for Jav. There would be for him, for Icsain, for Scanlan, even for Vays and Karvasti who’d done nothing here to earn it—but not for Jav. Somewhere, buried deep inside, Raus nursed a morbid sadness that he didn’t quite understand and which was somehow compounded by Jav’s mention of Sarsa.

  “Yes,” Raus said coming out of his brief reverie. “That must be it. You likely have preparations to make and may find yourself under attack at a moment’s notice. I’ll check in with Icsain and report to the Palace.”

  “Understood.”

  “Good bye, Jav. And good luck.”

  Jav cut the feed, but Raus continued to stare at the blank screen, unable to move and not sure why it felt like he was really saying goodbye to Jav for the last time.

  10,923.023.0400

  Planet 1612 (Loss)

  4th Perimeter (Barcos Basin)

  Jav took stock of his troops. Six thousand, four hundred and thirty—all but the hundred and eight he sent with Rommel—were arrayed in neat, even ranks, surrounding the bunker. Attack could come from any direction, but his troops faced west, ready to march. He was getting regular reports from his lieutenant and logging the route with the bunker’s computer which in turn updated those at the Palace on a regular schedule. If Tether Launch remained untenable, then his jump deck might prove invaluable in whatever was to come.

  Whatever was to come? That was a strange way to think. Might he fail? Did he think that others would have to tread the road he’d paved and finish what he’d started? He recalled Raus’s words. Did he in fact feel something coming? He was suddenly aware of being exceedingly anxious, suddenly aware that he’d been unconsciously fighting that anxiety since he’d arrived here. Something long-forgotten tickled maddeningly inside him.

  “It’s a lie,” he whispered to himself, over and over again, and he realized with unexpected and unaccustomed fear, that the walls that had built up, that he hadn’t even been aware of, were starting to fade in some places. He found himself wondering at his behavior over the last twenty-two years. But the image of a girl exploding before his eyes and raining down to the ground in pieces brought the walls firmly back into place.

  “It’s a lie,” he told himself, and thought no more about it.

  • • •

  Jav logged the final leg of the route into the computer and queued the information to be sent to the Palace during the next update cycle. He engaged the Farmington system, but found that while the weapons tracked moving targets, they were somehow incapable of firing. For now he would have to depend his personal efficiency against the Loss armies and the physical integrity of the bunker itself. He made sure that the deck bay door was secure and sealed the kiosk. He leapt up to Gran Mid’s forehead, tested the holographic controls that appeared before him there, and once satisfied, urged Gran Mid west. The ranks of skeletons moved in perfect synchronization, following.

  The path took them on what might have been a straight-line course if not for the warp traps leading to never-ending loops or who knew where else. The skeletons weren’t smart or perceptive enough to find these out themselves. They simply followed the exact course the enemy had. Jav could sense through his mastery of AI what might happen if the exact course were abandoned for what seemed a more direct route. The danger was in being ignorant of the traps: wandering blindly through the mist and finding oneself stepping into the cup of an active volcano somewhere else on the planet, or stepping into a raging whirlpool where four major ocean currents converged with all the violence nature could conjure. They moved up the foothills, into the range, picking up skeleton soldiers who waited like milestones until joining the march. Every thirty minutes or so, Jav reached out, digging into the ground with his power and raising whatever he could find. He was certain that by the time they reached their destination, he would have a full complement of troops, twenty thousand strong. Among those twenty thousand would be at least a thousand of the two types of quadrupeds he’d incorporated previously.

  In between raisings, he thought about Portan and the challenge his armor posed. Jav was almost certain that Portan’s retreat was for the safety of the remaining Heavy Land Division soldiers, and not for his own. His speed and strength could be avoided, but if Jav could not breach the armor, there would be trouble, especially if the light cannon were turned on Gran Mid. The beginnings of an idea danced around in his head, and as they progressed, it took on the hard edges of potential reality. He was ready.

  • • •

  A black tower, disappearing into the vault of the sky in a strikingly familiar way, loomed ahead. It rose perfectly straight, was dotted with glossy black flecks—windows—and stood before the weak, yet still blazing white sun, a dying star trapped in perpetual dusk. Besides the windows, there were no seams or breaks, and the tower showed no sign of having been constructed. Indeed, Jav thought, it had grown, just as the Root Palace had. At its base, as if instantly and forever petrified when the tower erupted from the earth at its birth, were crystalline shards of cyclopean stone, rising at perfect forty-five degree angles in all directions. There had been no indication that the tower continued into space, but if it was true to its name, if it was The Place with Many Doors, and of this, Jav was certain, then such was unnecessary. On seeing it, Jav couldn’t help thinking of it as the Loss Tower.

  Gran Mid reached a lip of rock overlooking a wide, shallow valley half-filled with the impressive base of the Loss Tower
and further occupied by the ten thousand or so remaining Heavy Land Division soldiers. Portan stood before the Tower gate. Jav halted Gran Mid, but his troops continued onward, flooding over the lip into the valley, finally stopping and forming a line a mere ten meters from that made by the Heavy Land Division. The valley couldn’t hold them all, though, so most skeletons covered the tortuous approach to the Tower for nearly a kilometer. Portan waded through his men when Jav hailed him from above, his voice carrying easily, echoing off the various angles of rock.

  “We each have the means to destroy each other’s troops,” Jav cried, “but mine are already dead. There are plenty more buried in the ground here for me to take, enough to replace all of these,” he said with a wave to indicate his entire army, “should you destroy them. I have prided myself on my skill, have tried to rely little on the army at my disposal, but I must confess that you have forced me do something I haven’t had to in a very long time.”

  “And what is that, skeleton man?” Portan shouted, indignant and impatient.

  “Adapt. And in some ways, I think, revert to old ways of thinking. Which is why I offer you a choice: we set our armies upon one another, you and your men ultimately fall to superior skill and numbers; or you face me in single combat.”

  Portan snorted. “And if I win?”

  From the front line of the Heavy Land Division, a cry rang out, “Long live Commander Portan!”

  A contingent of Heavy Land soldiers broke off from the main group. Skeleton soldiers immediately fanned out the short distance to meet them, but in a very specific manner. Portan cried for his men to stop, but it was too late. Five skeletons, only two of whom were armed, engaged each of the attackers. Three of the skeletons sought to slow and otherwise entangle the beetle soldiers, while the two who were armed jabbed their pole swords with unerring accuracy into the armpits or throats exposed by their fellows.