Thresholder

Perry flew through space, toward the dragon, which was receding into the distance.

“Figure out his top speed,” said Perry. “It has limits, doesn’t it?”

“His top speed in relation to what?” asked Marchand.

Perry thought about that. “If he could have slammed me into the space station at a thousand miles an hour, he’d have done that, right? Are we gaining on him?”

“The total distance between us is increasing,” said Marchand. “However, assuming that we can keep him within our sights, our acceleration means that we’ll catch up before we’ve gone too far. His speed in relation to our own appears to be constant — which is to say, if our acceleration stopped, he would quickly widen the gap.”

“Right,” said Perry. He was decidedly not a physics guy. “So what’s his top speed?”

“It’s a complicated question, sir,” said Marchand. “His speed in relation to us, to the space station, or to the planet?”

“Alright, fine, bad question,” said Perry.

“It’s not a bad question, sir,” said Marchand. “Only an imprecise one. At any rate, we do have some time until we catch up with him, assuming that his bearing holds.”

“Can we communicate with the satellites?” asked Perry.

“We’re quite distant from them, sir,” said Marchand. “Though with the lack of atmospheric interference, there’s some hope. The pings I’ve sent have not gotten a response, but I will try again as we close distance to the planet.”

“Fine,” said Perry. “I’m going to transform, heal up the foot, back in a second.”

Perry hated to use a transformation on something like this, but there was a chance that their battle would take them down to the surface of the planet, and he needed to be able to stand on two feet. If the skirmish had proven anything, it was that it was incredibly hard to score a decisive hit when there was nothing to push back against.

The transformation was painful, but it was at least relatively fast. While in mechawolf form, he tried to scan, but he was drifting through space, and every second counted. He tasted something though, a bit of blood that had been on the outside of his suit and which had been licked up by his metallic tongue, along with particles that had drifted into his nose.

It was the taste and smell of a sick, dying creature.

When Perry shifted back, again feeling like he was about to have his face peeled off, the impression of the taste lingered, if not the taste itself.

It didn’t make Perry as happy as he had thought it would. If Jeff was dying, if the Blue Boy serum and the dragon’s heart combined wouldn’t save him, then that felt incredibly dangerous. A wounded animal was like that. Jeff’s default was to behave like he had nothing left to lose.

Perry put the pieces of armor back on, one-handed with the sword in the other hand, which was no small feat. When that was done he had the laser rifle ready to go and pointed far ahead of him, though he was only tracking the dragon as a small dot in the magnified image. He wasn’t sure about trying for an AI-assisted shot, not until he got a lot closer, and he worried that Jeff would simply speed away in another direction. A protracted battle wasn’t something that Perry could afford, not with Marjut down there.

Marjut was going to try something. Maybe that something would be wiping out the Natrix. It would be a lot easier to kill her if he could get to her while she still thought that no one was on to her, but she had known that he was going up to fight Jeff, and maybe she would have seen that as her opportunity. Perry wasn’t sure, but the only thing he could do was hope that they could handle a thresholder all on their own.

Perry was pretty sure that they couldn’t.

It wasn’t too long before Perry had matched speed with Jeff, which still left considerable distance between them. The dragon was only a speck against the day side of the planet, invisible to the naked eye, just barely visible to March’s cameras and enhancement. The acceleration through space was slow, and Perry fretted over the laser gun and tried to plan for different scenarios. He needed the kill shot to end this whole thing.

“Any chance we can slam a satellite into him?” asked Perry as the gap began to close.

“The second generation satellites have very little propulsion, sir,” said Marchand. “Even if we could make a connection, and calculate the correct intersection, and time everything down to the millisecond — which we cannot, given the technology we’re working with — there is unlikely to be any intersection that we could achieve given the low levels of thrust.”

“Damn,” said Perry. “Would have been cool though.”

“I suppose so, sir,” said Marchand.

“Any chance that we hit a satellite by accident?” asked Perry.

“There is some chance, yes,” said Marchand. “That chance is, by my estimate, lower than the chance you die from a brain aneurysm in the next hour.”

“Good,” said Perry. The thought of a chunk of metal slamming into him at thousands of miles an hour wasn’t a great one.

Perry was almost within range to fire the laser and be confident of some sustained damage when Jeff made an immediate rightward turn, going far faster than he’d gone before.

“Did he know we were going to fire?” asked Perry. He frowned at the speck, which was again receding. The sword had a high top speed, maybe a top speed that could eventually get him across the stars with enough time, but it couldn’t do sharp turns.

“I don’t know, sir,” said Marchand. “Calculating … I have a theory as to how his flight speed is determined, one which fits the data.”

“Fine, go for it, but update the heading for an intercept,” said Perry. The HUD updated the direction that the sword should take them in, and Perry altered course.

“The dragon’s velocity, as measured from the space station, was perhaps six hundred miles an hour,” said Marchand. “Until the course correction that just happened, that was constant. However, the dragon now appears to be going much faster, but importantly, it is decelerating with respect to the planet.”

“Okay,” said Perry. “So … what does that mean?”

“It means that the technology he uses is keyed to the reference frame in which it is used, sir,” said Marchand. “I expect that it might be a deliberate limit.”

“I mean, what does that mean in terms of catching up to him?” asked Perry.

“It depends upon the specifics of the technology, sir,” said Marchand. “If he can change it at will, we have little hope, and would be better off angling for where he was heading. If he cannot change it at will, because there are built in limits similar to Miss Singh’s nanites, then he’ll still be able to avoid us, but he’s not so fast that we can’t see where he’s going and, potentially, beat him there.”

“And where is he going?” asked Perry.

A map came up on the HUD, one showing the entire planet and a cone of travel that represented where the dragon was heading toward. “I believe he’s flying toward the Natrix sir, though it will take him much longer to reach it than it will take us, on the order of perhaps ten hours compared to the two it will take for us.”

“Then … set a heading for there,” said Perry. “That’s where Marjut is, we need to kill her.”

The HUD updated, showing a new line, and Perry redirected the sword.

It was the same path that Perry had taken before, when he’d first come to the world, only now he was far, far better equipped for it. There was no worry that he would run out of breath, only the worry that he wouldn’t arrive in time. His enemies and allies were more or less known quantities, and he had infrastructure in place, satellites that would go whirling by and mechs he could pilot if it came to that.

“A ping to the satellite network succeeded, sir,” said Marchand. “It appears that an attack on the Natrix is underway.”

“Shit,” said Perry. “Marjut is on the move?”

“No, sir,” said Marchand. “The battle appears to be an aggressive and prolonged attack from the insects. So far as I can tell from the logs that have been transmitted, Marjut does not appear to be involved.”

“She has the power to control bugs,” said Perry, gritting his teeth. Jeff had revealed that only once, saying ‘vermin’ instead of bugs, and he hadn’t known if it would apply to the huge monsters of this planet. Apparently it did.

“If you say so, sir,” said Marchand.

“The Natrix is designed to defend against regular attacks, even the large, aggressive ones at the end of the bell curve, but they won’t survive the whole population of the region being funneled in toward them,” said Perry. “We need to get down there, execute her, then deal with Jeff.”

“Very well, sir,” said Marchand. “I should warn you that the course I’ve plotted will take us near the dragon, though we’ll be moving at a high enough velocity that the window of contact will be only momentary.”

“If he doesn’t move out of the way,” said Perry, thinking it through. “Odds we can do a drive-by?”

“A drive-by, sir?” asked Marchand.

“We’re going to be speeding past him pretty fast, right?” asked Perry.

“From my calculations, and given the course I’ve plotted, yes,” said Marchand. “We’ll be moving in excess of a thousand miles an hour relative to him.”

Perry looked out at the stars and at the dot on his screen. “How long did it take for him to get out here then?” asked Perry. “He’s a slowpoke.”

“I would guess that it took him between fifteen and twenty hours,” said Marchand. “There remain some open questions about how he found the space station and arrived there, but with proper instrumentation, it wouldn’t have been difficult.”

“He was naked except for the radio,” said Perry. “And the space station is in orbit, right?”

“Yes, very astute sir,” said Marchand.

“I guess if his eyes are really supernaturally good, he could have seen it,” said Perry. “And if he got out, he could what, intercept the orbit? Decelerate relative to it?” If he hadn’t had his helmet on, he’d have rubbed his forehead while he tried to think about that. He wasn’t entirely sure he understood orbital mechanics, and he definitely didn’t understand whatever magic Jeff was using.

“I’m uncertain, sir,” said Marchand. “Having made the heroic effort to fly to that meeting spot, it seems a shame he’s run away like a coward.”

“We can beat him to the ground,” said Perry. “You laced him with nanites, I hope?”

“I did, sir, but the range on them is poor, and they’ll give us little foreknowledge of his arrival.” Marchand seemed to mull this over, a small pause that either represented some heroic computational efforts or was a deliberate affect. “In fact, the radar aboard the Natrix will likely do better.”

“Then we race to the Natrix, kill Marjut, and we still have ten hours to deal with Jeff,” said Perry. “Does that sound right?”

“I suppose as plans go, I’ve heard worse,” said Marchand. “In fact, I believe I’ve heard worse from you.”

“Prep the flyby,” said Perry. “I want to go screaming by him, guns blazing.”

An hour later, having corrected his course, Perry was ready. He’d used the sword to get up to speed, and so long as Jeff didn’t change course, they would be passing within meters of each other. The incredible speed felt like nothing in the vacuum of space, because as Marchand had said, velocities only meant anything in relation to other objects, and in the void, the only thing to compare himself to was the planet down below.

If they actually collided with each other, there was a good chance that it would kill them both.

Instead, Perry began to release all the small objects he’d been able to grab from the shelfspace. There were bits and bobs, tiny pieces of things, and a full sack of what seemed to be small metal balls of unknown origin and purpose. These were all allowed to drift away from Perry, homemade flak moving at the same relative speed of a bullet. For good measure, as they approached even closer, Perry took three of the weapons and tried to align them, but the best hope for actually hitting Jeff with the flyby was the hundreds of small metal objects spreading out in a field. Jeff could sense people, and probably couldn’t be snuck up on, but objects were a different story, especially when moving at speed.

The flyby happened in a moment, too fast for Perry to comprehend. He flashed past like a bullet, getting almost close enough to touch. Even with all Perry’s focus on the moment, he didn’t see a single thing, and only after he had passed was there anything from Marchand’s cameras, still images that had been smeared by the motion.

“Did we hit him?” asked Perry.

“It’s difficult to say, sir,” said Marchand. “The cameras were not designed for such high relative velocities. We cannot actually sense a bullet in flight.”

“Can’t you tell from the nanites?” asked Perry.

“We were in range for an extremely limited amount of time, sir,” said Marchand. “But sir, I do have a question for you. If that had worked, and you had killed him in a single blow, a ‘portal’ would have opened, would it not?”

“I guess,” said Perry. He frowned. There were sensors inside the helmet so Marchand could read his facial expressions, but they were supposedly pretty crude, a ball of machine learning going off messy data.

“I must say, sir, that given everything you’ve said about these portals, having one open at high speed seems as though it might present some problems,” said Marchand. “Namely that we don’t know what frame of reference they appear within, and if we passed by one at great relative speed in the vacuum of space, we might not be able to find it.”

“I think it’s relative to me,” said Perry. “But a portal didn’t open, did it?”

“I didn’t see one, sir,” said Marchand. “If it had, would it be your plan to go through it?”

Perry thought about that. A portal in space, one that it was possible he couldn’t find again, set against the threat that Marjut posed to the people down on Esperide.

“I wouldn’t go through it until after I had dealt with whatever was on the planet,” said Perry, after too long spent in contemplation. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s my role to anticipate your plans and needs, sir,” said Marchand. “I appreciate the clarity in this matter.”

The rest of the trip gave Perry too much time to think. He was focused on his breathing, making sure that he wasn’t draining the oxygen tanks, ensuring that his body was in fighting shape and he was as fully charged as he could be. He was also looking for portals though, seeing them as phantoms against the stars, and sometimes looking back to see whether he had missed one, not that the cameras would pick it up. The rules, as he understood them, meant that beating Jeff would cause a portal to open. Marjut was a loser, dragged through by a winner. That shouldn’t affect anything, should it?

“Patch in to the Natrix, how are they doing?” asked Perry.

“Poorly, I’m afraid,” said Marchand. “Everyone has been moved to the interior of the Natrix, aside from the mechs that have been set up on the decks and on the ground for additional firepower, but the sustained onslaught appears to be running through their resources at a rapid rate. Mette has requested assistance when we arrive.”

“Shit,” said Perry. “ETA?”

“Fifteen minutes, sir,” said Marchand. They were decelerating, and Perry could see the green band of twilight. Soon they’d be skimming the atmosphere, slowed by the friction of the air rather than the sword tugging them in the opposite direction.

“You have contact with the Natrix?” asked Perry. “With the nanites that are up in the penthouse?”

“Yes, sir,” said Marchand. “You’re focused on the woman you’re calling Marjut?”

“Yes,” said Perry. “Find her, show her to me. We’re going after her.”

“Even though there’s no proof that it’s her, sir?” asked Marchand.

“Yup,” said Perry. “This attack is overwhelming, it’s beyond all expectations, and it showed up right when she did.” He’d been reading data from the HUD. “Jeff confirmed it, and I don’t think that’s worth a lot, but … we’re going for it.”

“Very good, sir,” said Marchand.

It was stormy as Perry descended, blocking the view of the Natrix, which was shown on the HUD by Marchand as a ghostly red image through the clouds. The descent was fast enough to heat up the armor, but not enough to burn. Up in one corner of the HUD, there was a ticking clock that Marchand had made, estimating the time it would take before Jeff would show up. It was at eight hours, which Perry desperately hoped would be enough time. If the fight with the bugs could be wrapped up, then maybe Jeff would be stupid enough to come within range of the cannons, and then also stupid enough to stay still enough for them to get a shot off. If not, Perry would do his best to fight against an increasingly crippled enemy.

When Perry broke through the roiling clouds, the ground was lit up by the firing of bullets and shooting of lasers. The dead bugs were piling up high, virtual mountains of them, with more flowing over with every second. The large lasers were firing non-stop, and two of them weren’t firing at all, which was a bad sign. Smoke was drifting up into the air, and it seemed as though part of the battlefield had been set on fire.

From above, Perry could see the hordes trickling in from all around, swarms approaching at speed, scrabbling along on chitinous legs. There were many more where the dead had come from. That the Natrix was toward the edge of a large canyon was the only reason they hadn’t been overrun from all directions.

Perry landed on the balcony of the penthouse, where the woman — Helge, Marjut, whatever her name was — looked out over the battle. Her expression was unreadable, which was a point against her. There should have been fear, concern, something, especially for someone with the background she claimed to have. She’d been a ballerina, she’d said, and while Perry had no illusions that life was an easy one, he didn’t think there was any good reason to be staring out at so much death and destruction without any obvious emotion on her face.

“You came back,” she said. “Is he dead?”

“No,” said Perry. “What is this, what’s going on?”

She turned to him. “What happened, up in space?” she asked. “He didn’t show up? Or … you lost?”

“He’s injured,” said Perry. “More injured than he was. He ran. I think he’s going to try to get me into a more favorable position, one where I have competing interests. I don’t think that’s going to work out for him.” He clenched his teeth. The victory had felt close.

“And this,” said Helge, gesturing to the dead insects and firing weapons, which were making it difficult to talk. “This is his handiwork?”

“I don’t know,” said Perry. “It’s possible.” His eyes were on her. With the helmet on, it was impossible for her to see that he was paying attention to her every move. It would have been great to wear while playing high stakes poker. “I want to get you out of here.”

“Why?” she asked. Her face had snapped into a different expression, brow furrowed and eyes sharp. They were looking over his helmet like there was some sort of clue to see there.

“He said he was going to come for you,” said Perry. “As soon as he saw me, he could see into my recent past, which meant seeing the ring, seeing you. He wants you back.”

“You have the ring though,” she said. She looked down at his hands, from one to the other.

“He wants that too,” said Perry. “If I don’t take you away, he’s going to come here, and either he’ll take you, or I’ll fight him and won’t be able to protect you during that fight. I don’t know why he wants you, but he does.”

Perry wasn’t sure what he was hoping for. He wanted to trap her, to get her to admit what she was, to remove the sliver of doubt from his mind. He wanted to give her a Grasshopper Punch with the full weight of the power armor behind it, end the threat where it stood, but to do that without being sure — and it would be just like Jeff to make the claim that it was Marjut when it really wasn’t, wouldn’t it?

“Alright, we can go,” said Helge. She crossed her arms over her chest. “But I’m not going into the ring again.”

“I don’t have a way to carry you otherwise,” said Perry.

“I’ve seen the mechs,” said Helge. She looked down over the side of the Natrix. “We can take one of those.”

“No,” said Perry. “Those are needed here, while the bugs are raging. This is a tidal wave of insects, the kind that they haven’t ever had here, and it’s anyone’s question whether the Natrix is even going to survive it. I need to be done there, actually.”

“Hrm,” said Helge. “Then we’re at an impasse, because I refuse to go into a place where I was held prisoner. How long until Jeff arrives?”

“It’s difficult to say,” replied Perry, eyes momentarily going to the counter that was ticking down on the HUD. “That’s why we need to move now. Look, if we can commandeer a mech, there’s a chance we can get it across the ravine, does that work for you?”

“Why am I important to you?” asked Helge. “Why would you risk anything for me, when these people are suffering?”

Perry turned away from her slightly, to disguise his movements. When he turned back to her, he was moving as fast as he possibly could, sword grabbed from the shelf in the same clean motion that he brought it around to slice. He had aimed right for her neck, but the explosion happened before he could make contact.

Perry was blasted backward, through the glass door, which had shattered, and onto the floor of the penthouse. He staggered to his feet, sword still gripped in his hand, as Marchand chirped warnings. Perry could taste fresh blood in his mouth, and feel an injury in his leg and hip, a place where he had clipped into the door’s metal frame.

Marjut was gone, not in the room and not on the balcony. The explosion had come from her, or maybe from her feet, and Perry could see all the scars from the blast, all pointing out from right where they’d been standing. His ears were ringing, but a flare of energy was quickly fixing that.

She hadn’t had a device, the cameras would have picked that up. It was magic of some kind, something unknown to him. There was a brief moment of satisfaction from having pressed the issue and been proven right, but it was fleeting, because she was getting away.

Perry tested his injured leg, then took off at a dead sprint, leaping off the balcony with his sword in hand.

He spotted her on the ground, running as fast as she could, which was quite fast, though she had nothing on Jeff. Her feet were barely touching the ground, and as soon as Perry landed, he was off after her. She was very much unexploded, perfectly fine, and Perry watched from a distance as one of her feet exploded beneath her, launching her high into the sky, still undamaged.

“March, aim the main guns at her, maximum priority, kill shot,” said Perry.

“Already in progress, sir,” said Marchand.

The reply was punctuated by the Natrix’s huge lasers swinging around and doing their best to burn a hole in Marjut as she ran across the open field, what had once been a farm and was now spotty earth that had been set on fire in places. She seemed totally unaffected by the lasers, and ran on as they were firing at her back. These were lasers that were powerful enough to burn through the bugs. A shot from one of the cannons whistled by her, just wide of her position, and only because she’d begun running in a more erratic way. A second one hit her, just barely clipping one arm, and that produced a spray of blood and sent her spinning to the ground like a top that had lost its balance. She was back up in a moment, bare feet pounding against the ground, trailing blood behind her.

She was running straight for the bugs.

“Fuck,” said Perry. He was following her, and that meant that he was running straight for the bugs too. If the bugs were there because of her, if she could control them, then she was running to sanctuary and he was running into a death trap.

Marjut crouched slightly, then lifted up into the air with another explosion, which sent her sailing over the piled up bodies of bugs and straight into the flow of giant insects that were coming over. Perry launched himself into the air, then flew after her, slower, with just the sword in front of him.

The piled exoskeletons provided her cover from the Natrix, if not from Perry, though she was moving between bugs that were the size of cars, and difficult to see. They were ignoring her, except when he watched closely, it was worse than that, because they were helping her, moving to cover her. All he needed was the kill shot, but she was faster on foot than he was in the air. Every time he saw her, there was a longer gap before he found her again.

“Launch the drone, we can’t lose her,” said Perry.

“Launching,” replied Marchand as the drone shot up from Perry’s back.

The bugs were getting thicker, moving to where Marjut was, but they weren’t just getting thicker there, there was also a steady stream moving to what was clearly a rally point. Perry kept one eye on that as he searched for Marjut, who had slipped beneath one of the large beetle-looking ones.

“Sir, there appears to be a major coordinated attack on the Natrix,” said Marchand. “The surge has intensified.”

“We kill her, it goes away,” said Perry. He checked the picture-in-picture and saw that the massed insects, crawling over each other, had started to move. This wasn’t the steady onslaught that had come before. It had dropped all pretense of being even remotely normal behavior.

Without Perry’s help, the Natrix was going to be overrun. Once inside a certain radius, the main guns couldn’t get an angle on the enemy, and that would leave only the mechs, which wouldn’t be able to withstand the onslaught. The bugs weren’t stronger than steel, but the mechs weren’t made of only steel, and could be knocked over and crushed. Once that happened, the ship would be crawling with the insects, and as much as it had thick walls designed for such an assault, it wasn’t impregnable either. That went double if someone was controlling them.

Marjut disappeared among the insects, and March’s tracking lost her. Perry waited for her to pop back up again, looking through the main screen and the drone’s viewpoint, but she didn’t show.

“Fuck,” said Perry as his eyes scanned the ground. “Where is she?”

“It’s possible she disappeared down a tunnel, sir,” said Marchand.

“Tunnel?” asked Perry.

“The juvenile form of the insect burrows when presented with this sort of soil, sir,” said Marchand. “With the activity, it would be difficult to see an entrance, but it would be large enough for a person.”

“How deep?” asked Perry.

“At most, five meters, sir,” said Marchand. “Though the tunnels do tend to connect, and if, as you say, these insects have been modified to allow her some control of them, it’s very possible that she’d made them tunnel deeper.”

“You’re saying that we’ve lost her,” said Perry.

“If we land, I should be able to do a sonic scan,” said Marchand.

Perry looked down at the swarming bugs, then at the Natrix, where the swarm was heading. He hissed in aggravation, then took off back toward the moving city, whose lasers were lit up.

“We’re not going down?” asked Marchand.

“Keep the drone up for as long as you can,” said Perry. “Try to pinpoint her if she comes back up.” He was angry, blood boiling, one opponent who’d run away leading right to a second who’d done the same damned thing. He was going to crush her once he got his hands on her, rip her flesh off her bones. He would turn into a wolf just to eat her.

He landed on top of one of the largest insects, pointing his sword down, driving it straight into the creature’s neural center with his full weight. From there he hopped to the next, another downward strike, blade sliding cleanly through at a point where the thick armor wouldn’t deflect the hit.

He was only doing the work of a single gun, each sword strike no better than a laser pulse or a high-velocity chunk of metal. As he was moving between them though, he was trying to put together the piece of a technique he’d spent the last two years attempting on and off: the same one that Grandmaster Sun Quiying had done. Perry hadn’t spent that long at Worm Gate, but the principle wasn’t all that different from drawing on the moon for power. He had practiced on small insects held in captivity, and it had taken him six months to get the first.

It was a slippery thing, and maybe harder because they were so much larger, but Perry had successfully done it on one of these larger bugs only a single time. That was good though, because it meant that he could do it a second time. It wasn’t faster or better than simply going for their vitals with his sword or having the Natrix burn through their shell with a laser, but that was because the insects were usually in such small groups that there was no point.

The main point of drawing power from the insects wasn’t to kill them, it was to power him up, and normally, all the insects in the area would be dead by the time he’d managed to accomplish the technique.

Perry landed on one of the largest beetles, its massive horn a genuine threat if only because of how much the monster weighed. He placed a hand against the thick chitin and focused on the energy that was sitting just beneath the surface. The chitin was a barrier between them, but also a container for the energy within, a shell that held the creature’s internal alchemy.

Perry was rocked and bucked as the insect raced forward.

With a twist of his wrist, palm held flat, he took all the energy for himself.

It felt like he imagined being high on crack felt, like he could conquer the world or punch a hole through a freight train, every meridian suddenly filled, his vessels overflowing. He leapt down from the enormous beetle as it fell dead, running straight into the swarm. It felt as though his body was on fire, alight with power, and his sword cut easier now, empowered by the energy within his body, which was seeking anywhere it could go.

The power lasted for half a minute, most of it vented uselessly, but Perry had found another of the large ones, and with as much energy as was in his system, doing that same technique a second time was much easier. He held his hand against the creature for only a moment, then with a twist took the entirety of its lifeforce, which washed over him like the hot wind of a nuclear blast.

If Marchand’s clone hadn’t been in charge of the weapons, Perry might have worried about being directly in the line of fire, but as the insects swarmed around him, cut down with sweeping strikes that cleaved through mandibles and compound eyes, the Natrix was nothing but a partner. Sometimes Perry would sense something behind him only for a slug to drive straight into its gooey center, and once he was bowled over and landed on his back, only for the chittering face of his attacker to be burned and melted with laser fire.

They weren’t quite winning, even with Perry’s killing touch and the raw power he was drawing on. He was getting better at the technique as he went, using the power to take more power, and after the tenth time, he didn’t even touch the one he was targeting, only held his hand up to it from a foot away.

If he could do it from a distance and kill them en masse, the whole swarm would be finished in a heartbeat, and he would briefly feel like a local god.

All at once, the insects stopped coming. They didn’t just stop, they turned away, and Perry leapt after them in hot pursuit, killing them while their backs were turned until it was clear that they were scattering like roaches.

He loped back to the Natrix as the power faded from him. The drone landed gently next to him, and he folded it back up to slide into the compartment on his back, its battery low. There had been no update from Marchand on Marjut’s whereabouts. It was entirely possible she was miles away, or with how fast she could run and the explosive jumps she’d done, a hundred miles away, off into the wind.

“Sitrep,” said Perry as he ran.

“We’re fucked,” said Mette after a moment, the request for status apparently routed to her. “What the hell was that?”

“Marjut,” said Perry.

“We overheated the guns, which is better than getting swarmed, but not by much,” said Mette. “They were probing us, testing us, they’re not supposed to be smart like that, what’s going on? Perry, we can’t survive another onslaught like that, we must have killed every single insect within a twenty mile radius.”

“I’m working on it,” said Perry.

“Work faster, whatever is going on, end it now,” said Mette.

“There’s no way to do that though,” said Perry. “She’s spooked, and she’s going to take her time. We don’t have a way to track her. And we don’t have time for this, because Jeff is coming back within the cycle, either here or there.”

“He’s not dead?” asked Mette.

“No,” said Perry. “And I’m worried about what he’s going to do when he shows up. If he knows that we’re under pressure, he might just come by and rip the guns off.”

“The engineers are working on fixing the guns, cooling them down,” said Mette. “You do what you can to stop these maniacs.”

But there wasn’t anything that Perry could do, now that he’d lost track of Marjut. He’d made the decision to go back and help with the fight, and he couldn’t say whether it was the right one. Maybe he should have dipped down into the swarm and had Marchand send out a pulse.

Once he was back to the Natrix, he gave what help he could give, which wasn’t much. Marchand interfaced with his clone, Esper, but there was practically nothing that could be done with computing power on such a short timescale. The real work had to be done by people moving pieces of machinery around, swapping parts and milling new ones, using mechs and cranes to get large assemblies in place.

They were preparing for the next assault. There was no question that there would be one.

The timer on the HUD ticked down. Jeff was approaching. It had been a fuzzy timer, and the lower bound passed by, then the upper bound. If he hadn’t died up in space and then burnt up while falling to the ground, he was still out there somewhere. Maybe he was trying to heal up more, to bide his time and strike when the moment was right, which was really not what Perry wanted. Having a single thresholder building up power out there would be bad enough, but two would be much worse.

Long after the timer had expired, Perry got a priority call from the Crypt, which was still marching across the snows to the planet’s second twilight band.

It was Jeff, and he wanted to talk.