Beware the Black Battlenaut Read online

  Beware the Black Battlenaut

  By

  Robert T. Jeschonek

  *****

  More Science Fiction E-books by Robert T. Jeschonek

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  *****

  Beware the Black Battlenaut

  "Looky there," said Swindle, the leperchaun on Grist Halcyon's shoulder. He pointed with a crumbling green finger at one of the Battlenaut's cockpit video screens, and Grist looked in that direction.

  On the screen, Grist saw the barren, storm-swept surface of the rebel-held moon, Sangre. The latest flare of lightning revealed a towering black figure on the crest of the hill. At that instant, the very first instant he glimpsed it, Grist knew in his heart what it was even as he knew in his head it just wasn't possible.

  The flare of light faded, and the black figure faded with it back into the night. When the next lightning struck a moment later, the hilltop was deserted.

  "Begorra." One rotting nostril fell away from Swindle's leprous face. "It's him, ain't it, boyo?"

  Grist blinked hard and shook his head. "Can't say." Just then, his arm burned as the automated hypodermic cuff strapped to his bicep shot a fresh jolt of go-juice into his system. A ring of lights around the forward viewport flashed in a pattern designed to reset his body's circadian rhythms.

  Must've been about to nod off. Can't have that, can we? As the go-juice pumped through his arteries, Grist felt himself return to full alertness. The Battlenaut's sensors and computers had done their job again, intervening at just the right moment with just the right dose of meds to keep Grist awake and alert for yet another hour.

  Grist licked his dry lips and checked the video monitor again. Lightning spiked nearby, revealing six soldiers in Battlenaut armor facing off on a rocky battlefield...but no sign of the dark figure from the hilltop.

  Grist stabbed the comm button and spoke into his mic. "Hey, Freak. Ever hear of the Black Battlenaut?"

  When he didn't get a reply, Grist looked at the button he'd just hit and realized it wasn't the comm at all. He was just about to punch the real comm button when the cockpit rocked from a powerful impact. It was enough to crack his helmeted skull against the headrest and snap him back to the reality from which he'd taken a brief vacation.

  Fight. That's right. His hands flew back to the steering and weapons controls. I'm in a firefight.

  I'm fighting a war here.

  *****

  Sharon "Freak" Freemare laughed like a maniac as she cut loose her Battlenaut's main guns against the oncoming enemy. One slug hit home in a big way, punching through the enemy's armor and leaving a jagged, smoking hole at the top of one leg.

  Still shrieking with laughter, Freak swung a laser around and opened up on the damage. Metal and plastic melted before the onslaught, and the enemy Battlenaut's leg gave way within seconds.

  The damaged Battlenaut went down hard, flat on its face. The enemy soldier in its cockpit tried in vain to force the smashed war machine to get up and fight, but it was still lying in the mud when Freak marched her own Battlenaut over to meet it.

  "Hey, traitor!" shouted Freak, though she knew the downed pilot couldn't hear her. "Special delivery from the Redeyes for ya!"

  Freak used her lasers to disable the enemy Battlenaut's weapons systems. The whole time, the smell of baking bread was so strong in the cockpit that it made her stomach growl.

  Why she smelled baking bread in the cockpit instead of the usual sweat and stink, she had no idea, but she didn't let it trouble her. Better just to soak it in like the smell of roses that had rushed over her moments earlier, or the incredible smooth feeling of silk that had rippled over her skin moments before that.

  Better just to enjoy the ride.

  Eyeballing the display on her visor, she located the other members of her squad. Lieutenants Grist and Pellucid formed two points of a triangle enclosing the battlefield, with Freak as the third point. Four enemy Battlenauts were trapped inside the triangle, three still standing plus the one she'd just brought down.

  Freak cackled as she swung her Battlenaut toward a fresh target. These bums are no match for the Redeyes.

  That was what Freak's squad called themselves: Redeyes, because they fought without rest. Computers monitored the alertness of this experimental squad and administered countermeasures, chemical and otherwise, to keep them awake and fighting. Such sleep deprivation techniques promised to limit downtime for deployed Commonwealth troops, giving them an edge in the ongoing civil war against the Rightfuls.

  From Freak's point of view, the experiment was the biggest success of all time. She and the others had been awake for days on end, so long she'd lost count, and still they suffered no ill effects.

  If anything, Freak felt better than ever. She'd never fought more fiercely or thought more clearly in her life.

  Who knew insomnia could be so much fun?

  *****

  Lieutenant Robert "Raw" Pellucid was convinced that the chronometer in the cockpit of his Battlenaut was broken, but he didn't have time to try to fix it.

  Even as Raw pounded two enemy Battlenauts with laser fire, he stole another look at the chronometer's readout. He growled like a dog and grimaced at the blinking red numbers.

  1805. 1805. 1805.

  Seems like it was just 1805 fifteen minutes ago.

  Unless the extreme sleep deprivation was affecting his time perception, the chronometer was running ten times slower than reality. What that meant was, the chronometer was definitely running slow, because Raw was running fine, sleep dep and all. He'd been awake for what felt like forever and hadn't needed even a single shot of wake-up juice.

  His fellow Redeyes might be running on fumes, but Raw was burning rich. He was just that kind of guy. Even before the program, he'd always kept a lid on, no matter how high the heat.

  Nothing but nothing could shake the S.O.B. He was fearless, poisonous, dirty, and smart. Smart enough to wonder if someone was screwing with him.

  He went over it again as he raced his Battlenaut, guns blazing, toward his closest opponent. If the clocks are out, we don't know how long we've been fighting on Sangre. We're on the dark side of this God-forsaken moon, so we can't even count the days by sunrises and sunsets.

  His opponent's Battlenaut stood its ground and sprayed defensive fire that splashed harmlessly off Raw's armor. At the last instant, the enemy leaped out of his path.

  But why would someone want us to lose track of time? Why keep us in the field beyond the three-day limit?

  Raw growled again, low in his throat. Because they want to see how far we can go. Because they want to push the redeye tech to the limit.

  Even as he spun the Battlenaut around and threw a missile at the enemy's belly, Raw ran a little mental self-diagnostic to make sure he wasn't being paranoid.

  Nope. Don't know the meaning of the word, folks.

  He checked the chronometer again.

  1805. 1805. 1805.

  How long would the researchers leave the Redeyes on Sangre? What had to happen before they pulled the plug?

  The answer came to him with a surprising lack of surprise, as if he'd always known it on some level.

  The Redeyes had to die. Only then would Command pull the plug.

  *****

  Just as Grist was running his Battlenaut headlong toward a downed rebel, another blast of lightning flared nearby. A burst of static crackled from his comm.

  It was followed by music.

  The signal was weak, but Grist recognized the music immediately: "Tried and True," an old battle anthem from his homeworld, Tack. At the academy on Ryot, so far from ho
me, he'd sung it to keep up his spirits. He'd sung it during many a night of drinking with fellow cadets who had also come from Tack and missed its jewel-capped mountains and fields of coppery glow-grain.

  Cadets like his best friend, Mallet Cray.

  Even as the rush of music and memories rocked him, Grist plowed his Battlenaut forward on pure momentum. He slammed it hard against the rebel, which seemed to be undergoing some kind of systems malfunction. As soon as he made contact, Grist wrenched back on the stick, keeping his Battlenaut on its feet while the rebel crashed to the ground.

  When Grist had crippled the rebel Battlenaut and disabled its guns, he traced the music signal to a source outside the battle zone. He rotated his Battlenaut's upper body to give him a clear line of sight to the location blinking on his visor display.

  Grist saw nothing until another surge of lightning washed over the landscape. In the split-second flare, he spotted exactly what he'd expected to see. What he'd dreaded.

  It was at least three times the size of any Battlenaut he'd ever seen. Its gleaming black skin was festooned with weapons but not a single mark of identification. Writhing trails of electrical energy chased over it, as if the lightning had struck it and left a charge.

  The Black Battlenaut. And it was playing his song.

  Grist's best friend, Mallet Cray, had been singing that same song on the planet Yolanda a year ago, during an earlier battle in the civil war against Rightful forces. He'd always sung it in battle "for protection," and it had worked.

  Until the Battle of Enoch on Yolanda, that is.

  The song's magic hadn't done him much good when the friendly fire hit...the friendly fire from his best friend Grist. Grist's guns had hit a spot already softened up by rebel arms and had blown Cray's power plant. The explosion had caught Cray before he could eject and had not left enough of him behind to fill a shot glass.

  All because Grist had lost his head and fired wild during an ambush.

  Now, in the midst of another battle, Grist heard the same song his friend had been singing just before his death. Was it a coincidence that it seemed to be coming from the Black Battlenaut?

  "It's your turn to die-yi-yi," said the gleaming silver fish wriggling past Grist's visor. "Cray's come b-b-back for the one who killed him-im."

  Grist punched the comm button. The music stopped as he switched from "Receive" to "Send." "Freak? Raw? Either of you see the giant black Battlenaut?"

  Freak's wild laughter rippled over the comm. "No way, man! Where is it?"

  Grist's fingers fluttered over a keypad on the armrest. "I just fired you the coordinates."

  "Nothing there," Raw said after a moment. "You have video of this thing?"

  Grist spun through recent vid logs from the onboard cameras, cursing as he came up empty. "Missed it," he said, "but I eyeballed it twice. Black armor, heavy ordnance, bigger than our three Battlenauts put together."

  Freak stopped laughing. "Whoa! You saw the Black Battlenaut!"

  "That thought did cross my mind." Grist threw his helmet's optics to maximum magnification and gave the area a hard scan. The only Battlenauts he saw were the four downed rebels and the other two Redeyes.

  "Wait a minute," said Raw. "Do you have any telemetry on this thing at all?"

  "No." Grist took advantage of a lightning flash to make another scan but still saw nothing.

  "Then what if it wasn't there?" said Raw. "What if you're seeing things because of the sleep dep?"

  "Not a chance," said the silver fish as it switched past Grist's helmet. Without being told, Grist knew the fish's name was Lacuna.

  "But what if I'm not seeing things?" said Grist. "You know what the Black Battlenaut means, don't you?"

  "The end of the universe!" Freak whooped so loud, the comm filters cut her signal for an instant. "Everyone and everything!"

  "It's a legend." Raw's voice was calm. "A bedtime story for children."

  "I know I saw something." An orange and black butterfly with the face of a grinning human baby landed on the back of Grist's hand. "Why not look into it?"

  "Because we have a job to do," said Raw. "We have to push the Rightfuls off this moon."

  Suddenly, the lush green jungle that had sprung up in the cockpit parted over one corner of Grist's forward viewport. In that one open corner, in a fresh burst of lightning, Grist saw the Black Battlenaut walking off in the distance over a rocky plain.

  "There it is!" Grist gave one of the vines a tug, and his Battlenaut headed in the direction of the Black Battlenaut. "Hey!" said Raw. "Come back here!"

  *****

  At that moment, more than anything, Raw wanted to take off his boot and scratch the bottom of his foot. An itch had been growing there for some time, and it was becoming distracting.

  Now that Grist had gone charging off, however, with Freak close behind, Raw couldn't stop to scratch the itch. He had to follow the members of his squad and try to keep them from hurtling off the deep end of sleep-deprived insanity.

  Up ahead, Grist and Freak raced their Battlenauts across the rock-strewn plain between the wetlands and the foothills of the Prelate Mountains. Raw's instruments and visual inspection both agreed that there was no Black Battlenaut in the distance, that the Redeyes were chasing after nothing.

  The itch on the bottom of Raw's foot flared. He ignored it with sheer force of will and punched the comm. "Grist? Freak?" Neither one answered his call.

  Raw changed the frequency and called again. "Redeye One to Redeye Base. Over."

  Redeye Base ignored him, just like the last dozen times he'd called.

  He finished the message anyway. "Request immediate extraction of Redeye Squad. Repeat. Request immediate extraction."

  Still, there was no answer.

  The only way they'll come for us is when we're dead. All they want's our autopsies and telemetry.

  "Redeye One out." Raw punched off the comm and checked the chronometer.

  1805. 1805.

  He puffed out his breath and shook his head at the obviously incorrect readout. The funny thing was--and it was more funny strange than funny ha-ha--that particular time meant something to Raw. It was the exact moment, in fact, five years ago, when he had done the most important thing he'd ever done in his life.

  It was the moment when Raw had murdered Braeburn Score.

  *****

  Freak was halfway across the dry plain when she smelled smoke. She recognized it immediately as the smoke from melting plastic and metal, the smell of a burning Battlenaut. In a panic, she checked the instruments...but her Battlenaut wasn't on fire.

  As far as Freak could tell, the burning-Battlenaut smell was coming from the same place as the smells of baking bread and roses that had filled the cockpit earlier...in other words, from thin air.

  The burning smell wasn't pleasant like the others had been, though. It turned over a rock and sent things scurrying in her mind.

  For example, she thought of the day when Gwen Tuileries had died because of her.

  Right after the missile had hit, Gwen's Battlenaut had had that same burning smell. The only difference was, Freak remembered the added smell of frying meat when Gwen had cooked inside the cockpit.

  All through Freak's first tour of duty, Gwen had been her guardian angel. She had always been ready to haul Freak's rookie ass out of the fire, even if it meant disobeying orders or bunging up her own Battlenaut. Or losing her life.

  One night on Gallop, when their unit was pounding a Rightful garrison, Freak's Battlenaut had been crippled by a land mine. Just as enemy artillery had pumped out a missile to finish her off, Gwen's Battlenaut had leaped in to take the hit and save Freak's life.

  Maybe Freak wouldn't have felt so bad about it except for one thing: she'd been working for the other side all along. Even as she'd betrayed the Commonwealth, she'd always planned to save Gwen...and hadn't counted on her own allies being willing to kill her in the bargain.

  Freak had worked for the Commonwealth ever since.

&n
bsp; As she followed Grist forward, the stench of melting Battlenaut and burning flesh in the cockpit intensified. Finally, it got to the point where it made her gag.

  It was then that it occurred to Freak that maybe she'd come across a sign of the Black Battlenaut...and maybe, she had more of a personal interest in the Black Battlenaut than she'd expected.

  After all, it couldn't be a coincidence that just as she was searching for the Black Battlenaut, the smell of her dead, betrayed friend rose up to greet her.

  Could it?

  *****

  Grist brushed a blob of pink foam from the controls of the spellcaster and programmed it to grant his Battlenaut added speed and virility. He would need every edge the magic beans could give him when he took on the destructive might of the Black Battlenaut.

  Pink foam from the cockpit ceiling splattered over his visor, and he wiped it clean. He was glad the foam wasn't quite smart enough to hurt him, but it was definitely more aggressive than the green swirly-gas that had filled the cockpit a moment ago.

  When the hot go-juice spurted into his arm again, everything wavered and turned red...then straightened out and became a more soothing pale blue. The ring of circadian lights flickered around the front viewport, only they weren't lights anymore but darks.

  His co-pilot, Broom Thornapple, who lived in Grist's armpit, nudged him and whistled. "Wow," said Broom. "Nice welcoming committee."

  Grist looked in the direction where Broom was poking. Through the viewport, he saw a line of Battlenauts lit up by the beam of his searchlight.

  The six Battlenauts stood across the mouth of a pass in the foothills, shoulder to shoulder, blocking the way. Each of them was painted red and festooned with bones and skins.