Hawk_Hand of the Machine Read online

  As debris continued to rain down all around, Eagle leapt from the outcropping and landed solidly on his tree-trunk legs. Reaching to his hip, he drew forth his sword, a broad-bladed weapon seemingly wrought of solid gold but much stronger, and raised it high. “The Rao shield is down,” he shouted, his voice booming out and easily reaching every member of the assault army with little or no need for amplification over the Aether. He pointed with the sword toward the massive fortress that towered before them. “Your enemy awaits!” He charged forward then, the others rushing along behind him. “For the Machine,” he cried. “For the galaxy!”

  Falcon stashed the detonator components away in a belt pouch and, hoisting his massive firearm, hustled after the others. Ahead, he could see Hawk pause to engage a lifter-pack that he’d strapped to his back. Its long and narrow wings unfolded and stretched out to either side, quickly lofting him into the air. He zoomed over the heads of his legion and quickly caught up with Eagle at the vanguard of the assault, his ever-present pistol in hand.

  The battle for Rheinstadt was joined in full.

  And it went about as expected.

  Wave after wave of armored Rao warriors rushed out of concealment behind the outermost buildings that lay in the shadows of the great and ancient fortress complex. Firewings and Iron Raptors, following standard assault plans designed by Eagle and by absent Condor, sliced their way through them, quad-rifles and force swords blazing an arc of destruction. The Firewings, resplendent in their vivid red and orange micro-thin armored uniforms, drew the preponderance of the enemy’s attention—and they tended to like it that way. The Iron Raptors, meanwhile, in their grim gray and black body armor, stomped along on the flanks, heavy arm-cannons blazing death at their foes.

  At the rear, the recently-arrived armies of the Indonian Empire, whose government claimed the planet, could only look on in astonishment and awe. They had hoped to receive help from the Machine and its renowned Hands and their legions, whose reputations had grown in only a few decades to mythological proportions. They had trusted that such assistance would be sufficient to tilt the balance of the conflict in their favor. Seeing the Hands of the Machine in action, though—seeing them with their own eyes, blasting their way through forces that had easily overcome the planet’s defenses and then had held off their relief mission—that was something altogether different.

  Falcon watched them gather themselves and charge along on the heels of the Machine’s legions. He grinned. In some of their recent interventions, the local forces hadn’t even bothered—or found the guts—to join in. Many had simply sat back and watched. That sort of thing never really bothered Falcon. Truth be told, the indigenous troops often got in the way more than anything else. But he understood that, afterward, they would need to feel as if they had contributed something useful to the campaign, if only to make them easier to deal with during the mopping-up phase. So he deliberately held back and allowed two companies of Indonian infantrymen to flood around and past him before he himself started to trudge forward, his massive autocannon charged and firing, Rao defenders cut down and left in piles in his wake.

  3: HAWK

  As the Indonian ground forces finally managed to drive the Rao from their defensive positions outside the city and back into the shadows of the skyscrapers, Hawk found himself battling side-by-side with one of the higher-ranking officers of the Indonian Empire. Glancing over at the man even as he deflected a sizzling energy blast and returned fire, Hawk called out, “So, why was it you Indonians needed our help here? Couldn’t you have just blasted that force field yourselves, from orbit?”

  The officer returned Hawk’s glance and frowned in consternation. “We could have, yes,” he replied testily after a moment. “But we preferred not to demolish our own capital city and kill all of its inhabitants—a likely outcome of that approach. Perhaps you find that a quaint notion.”

  “Not at all,” Hawk said, swinging a fist wide to knock down an amber-armored attacker. “You will notice that we didn’t go that route, either.”

  “Exactly,” the man said. “A more surgical strategy was needed—one that we were unable to provide. Thus the call was made to the Machine.”

  “And here we are,” Hawk finished. “The surgeons of the galaxy. That’s us.” He laughed. “I’m sure Falcon will be delighted by that description.”

  “Indeed I am,” came a booming voice from behind them. Falcon’s massive form stomped up alongside. “Though amused is probably a better term.” He directed the huge multi-cannon cradled in his right arm toward a concentration of Rao troops hiding behind some rubble and opened fire. Orange spears of energy lashed out, blasting the chunks of concrete into much, much smaller chunks of concrete—and the Rao into much, much smaller chunks of Rao.

  Hawk watched his friend devastate the foe, the grin on his face fierce and somewhat proud. Then, sparing a glance back at the Indonian officer, he suppressed a chuckle as he beheld the man’s astonished expression.

  “You wanted the best,” Hawk called to him as his lifter-pack carried him aloft again. “You got the best.”

  The soldier was still staring up in awe as he dwindled away in the distance. Hawk accelerated and began to fire down at the Rao in their defensive positions from his fifty-meter vantage point, instinctively dodging their return fire as he soared along in the direction of the city center.

  After a few minutes of battling his way through the Rao defensive lines by air, Hawk circled around a still-mostly-intact concrete building—and then it was his turn to stare in astonishment at what he beheld.

  At the center of a maelstrom of amber-armored Rao warriors stood Eagle, his golden sword in his right hand and a multi-cannon cradled by his left arm. As Hawk looked on in awe, Eagle slashed and blasted his way through wave after wave of the enemy. The pile of bodies grew rapidly all around him, soon nearly eclipsing him from the view of anyone who lacked Hawk’s altitude.

  “Do you need some help?” Hawk called down to his commander.

  “I trust you do not mean to insult me,” the juggernaut of a man shouted back up, even as he casually decapitated two Rao soldiers with one mighty swing and blasted another point-blank in the helmeted face.

  Cringing at his error and knowing he should say nothing more, Hawk simply saluted and zipped on ahead.

  He hadn’t advanced far into the city proper when he saw a strange sight: Rao and Indonian soldiers alike were hurrying away from a half-demolished building. They weren’t even fighting each other; it was as if they had somehow forgotten they were enemies here. As if something far more important—or far more deadly—had taken the field.

  Or was about to.

  Hawk swooped down and landed smoothly on the rugged pavement, the wings of his lift-pack folding themselves away instantly. The Rheinstadt sun had dropped below the level of the buildings ahead, so that long shadows now trailed out in his direction from the skyscrapers and ruins closer to the center of the capital. Just ahead, in the space cleared moments earlier by both armies, an almost cavelike opening gaped in the side of the nearest building, darkness filling it as if it were a doorway into the void.

  Hawk had been ignoring the standard-level chatter coming across his Aether connection, originating mostly with the always-talkative Firewing legion. Now, however, the alert status on the messages began to shade from yellow toward red. Keeping his eyes trained on the dark opening ahead of him, he mentally dialed up the Aether link and paid attention. What greeted him was a series of warning messages from both Firewings and the Indonian troops in the immediate vicinity. They were all pulling back, though none could say exactly why. They only knew—knew at a very deep, intuitive level—that something bad was happening.

  Something bad was coming.

  A flickering of light within the dark cave mouth brought Hawk’s attention back to his local surroundings. Frowning, he squinted in that direction. Standing about twenty meters away from the entrance, he was the only living thing within a hundred meters, as far as he c
ould tell, aside from a handful of Rao warriors only a short distance away—each of whom was ignoring him, focused entirely upon the dark opening instead.

  The flickering light in the dark passage vanished for a moment, returned, then strengthened. As it grew it oscillated across the spectrum of visible light—and beyond, as Hawk’s ocular implants revealed.

  A wave of palpable fear washed out and impacted Hawk. It felt as real, as solid, as an ocean wave feels to someone standing on the beach. The surviving Rao warriors gave way, scrambling aside as the light grew to near-blinding levels and then divided, now emanating from two separate and distinct sources.

  Hawk resisted the fear assault far better than had any of the others nearby, but even so he couldn’t help stumbling backwards, the shattered pavement crumbling beneath his feet.

  At that moment two bizarre figures moved out into view. Tall they were, yes, but extremely slender. Lightning-quick were their movements. They wore a kind of armor that looked as if it had been formed from colored glass. Waves of light of every color swirled in and around them, like some strange sort of eldritch energies trapped and contained within the substance of the armor itself. They carried long, straight, transparent swords that appeared to have been carved from pure crystal, and light danced in and around those weapons as well.

  The two strange beings stood atop the broken ruins of the building’s entranceway and gazed down at Hawk with unmistakable malevolence.

  “Dyonari,” Hawk muttered, mostly to himself. “Huh.” And then, louder, “What are you doing here?”

  The nearer of the two aliens, its head tilting slightly to one side, emitted a sound like dry leaves being crushed. At the same moment, a new wave of sensation washed over Hawk. He could tell it was some sort of psychic energy reaching for his mind, but this time it wasn’t composed of pure fear. Even so, he started to resist—or at least to attempt to—but then realized it merely carried a “voice,” speaking to him in a way that he could understand the words.

  “Pawn of the Machine,” the mental voice of the Dyonari before him said. “Why do you and your kind involve yourselves in this matter?”

  “I might ask you the same question,” Hawk said aloud, trusting that the translating effect worked both ways. “We assumed this was merely a Rao territorial raid. Your worlds are far from here.”

  “We now act for a cause beyond ourselves,” the strange being said by way of answering. “Our efforts contribute to a higher purpose than mere expansion of our empire.”

  “Oh, really?” Hawk frowned, even as he brandished his pistol and dropped into a defensive stance. “And what purpose might that be?”

  The two Dyonari lowered their shimmering swords and then each raised an empty hand, palm outward. They did this at a speed that was, for them, quite slow compared with their other movements.

  “Our selfishness of old has given way to something greater,” the psychic voice said. “All of our efforts are now directed toward the higher purpose we have found. We now serve at the command of—”

  A dark blur passed between Hawk and the two eerie aliens and he tumbled backwards, instinctively leaping out of the way. He rolled to his feet, pistol at the ready, only to behold a sight he hadn’t at all expected.

  His commander, the great warrior Eagle, had leapt into battle, engaging the two Dyonari in combat. His massive sword slashed again and again, sunlight flashing from it and lending it the aspect of a golden lightning bolt hurtling down upon his foes.

  The Dyonari moved now with a speed that put their previous swiftness to shame. Working in tandem as though each comprised only half of the same body, their movements perfectly coordinated, they unleashed their full array of skills and all their psychic fury upon Eagle, driving him back from the cave mouth.

  Hawk scrambled across pavement shattered by Falcon’s earlier explosives, leaping over chunks of debris along the way. He nearly tripped twice, mainly because he refused to take his eyes off the cataclysmic clash happening only a short distance away.

  Eagle gave way at first, falling back a step at a time. Soon, though, he gathered himself up and held his ground, his sword deflecting the attacks of his enemies, the heavy pistol in his left hand blasting away; it had replaced the multi-cannon at some point since Hawk had seen him last.

  For several long seconds that felt to Hawk like hours or days, Eagle battled toe-to-toe with the two Dyonari Swordmasters—and Hawk knew them to be so, now, beyond any doubt. The ancient and powerful empire of the alien Dyonari produced many fine warriors, but none quite like their rare and deadly Swordmasters, who blended expertise at edged weapons with well-honed psychic talents and martial arts skills. The Swordmasters could wear down your mind before they carved up your body, and they rarely lost a fight.

  Now Hawk looked on as his commander faced two of them at once.

  “Well now,” came a deep voice from behind him. Hawk recognized it at once and didn’t bother to turn. “This was worth the whole trip to Rheinstadt, all by itself,” Falcon observed, his voice remarkably casual.

  “Should we intervene?” Hawk asked, the effects of the fear-blast still not entirely dissipated from his psyche. “Shouldn’t we help?”

  “Are you serious?” Falcon asked, snorting a laugh. “If we tried that, he’d kill us himself.”

  Hawk could only nod slightly at that comment, knowing it was probably true.

  And so, instead, the two Hands watched as their commander continued to battle the two aliens alone.

  The combat had stretched on for over ten minutes now, though Hawk was almost certain his chronometer had stopped and a day or more had passed. During most of that time, neither side had gained an advantage, the three of them locked in a stalemate as Eagle deflected all incoming attacks but could never quite land a solid strike of his own upon either enemy.

  Then, at around the fifteen minute mark, Eagle scored a hit. A blast from his gun caught a spot in one Swordmaster’s glasslike armor, along the calf, where it had previously been weakened by a glancing blow from Eagle’s sword. The armor gave way, shattering to reveal the slender, bluish leg within. Pale blood flowed out and the Dyonari dropped to one knee. It raised its sword to ward off the blow it knew was coming, but it was too late. Eagle’s golden blade flashed down and the Dyonari’s head separated cleanly from its shoulders.

  Before the body could hit the ground, Eagle pivoted around in a half-circle. The other Swordmaster, taken momentarily aback by the sudden and violent end of its partner’s life, hesitated for only a tiny instant. That was more than enough.

  Eagle’s sword jabbed out, his powerful muscles driving in irresistibly upward, spearing it through the torso of the second Dyonari.

  The alien choked and stumbled backwards, transfixed by the golden blade.

  Eagle drew his weapon out with a sharp tug and then swung it around in a broad arc, like a baseball player swinging for the stands.

  The second Dyonari’s severed head tumbled down and joined that of the first on the ground.

  4. HAWK

  Eagle had allowed himself to take a seat on the remains of a concrete pillar, though he wasn’t happy to be spotted by the Firewings and Iron Raptors in such a sorry state. But his exertions—more than a quarter-hour of battling against two Dyonari Swordmasters—had taken a good bit out of him, giving him no choice but to rest for a time. It hadn’t hurt when Hawk had noted that, far from thinking less of the commander after this battle, the troops would only grow his legend all the more for what he had accomplished.

  Now he simply observed tiredly as Falcon barked out orders and organized the legions into ranks, preparing them to board the recovery shuttles that were even now descending from the Talon.

  As the first of the troop transports descended on pillars of flame over the ruins of the city, Hawk approached his commander and saluted.

  “What troubles you?” Eagle asked, even as he gazed up at the darkening sky. “And I know that something does. You’ve never been any good at hiding your e
motions.”

  Hawk hesitated a moment, then, “It’s the Dyonari, commander.”

  “Oh? Have they somehow reconstituted themselves? Must I strike them down again?”

  A chuckling sound behind him told Hawk that, once again, Falcon had approached without his notice.

  “They are still down for the count,” the demolitions expert reported with a grin. “Decapitation tends to cause that, I find.” He moved between the other two men and directed his attention from his commander to Hawk. “Perhaps you would like for them somehow to be more dead?”

  Hawk ignored this. He kept his attention focused on Eagle.

  “What do you suppose they were doing here?”

  “I don’t know, Marcus,” Eagle answered, using Hawk’s familiar name. “It looked to me as if they were helping the Rao.”

  “And that doesn’t strike you as more than a little bit odd?” He spread his hands wide. “When have the Dyonari ever helped anyone but themselves?”

  Eagle shrugged. He turned to the bald man to his left. “What do you say about this, Titus?”

  Falcon shook his head.

  “I can’t venture a guess,” he answered. “I don’t pretend to understand aliens or their motivations.” He chuckled. “Or their languages, for that matter.”

  “That’s just it, though,” Hawk interjected quickly. “I could understand them.”

  Eagle frowned at him. Falcon gave him a quizzical look. “What?” he asked sharply.

  “The Dyonari are telepathic,” Hawk said. “We already knew that, with regard to their Swordmasters in particular—and one of them was telling me something.”

  “Telling you what?” Eagle demanded, sitting forward.

  “It didn’t make a lot of sense,” Hawk said, thinking back. “Something about how they were cooperating with the Rao because they now serve a ‘higher power,’ or words to that effect.”

  Eagle stared back at him for a long moment, blue eyes locked unwaveringly onto him and seeming to slice into his very soul. Hawk returned the gaze, puzzled by its utter intensity but not backing down from it. Then the tension broke, with Eagle looking away, sitting back and relaxing again.