“Oh, but it will,” Singh said. “Now, or rather after the baby is born, and if it is whole and healthy, we will need to reevaluate the entire progeny program.”
“You want to mix human and Nel programs,” Seo-yun guessed.
Singh nodded. “If everything goes well. There is no reason not to do it; we are currently randomly matching seeds and eggs, but are keeping Nel and human separate. What we need to decide is whether we want to have a rule that matches a human with a Nel, or just keep the randomness and only merge the programs,” Singh said.
“If we use one of each, we will eventually see only people with mixed heritages, no pure humans or pure Nel. We will see that anyways in the long run, once it comes out that it is possible, no matter what we do,” Seo-yun said.
Tomas raised his head to the ceiling. His life was so much stranger than what he’d imagined it would be when he had created Olympus. He turned to Singh.
“Alright, tell me everything…”
Chapter Thirteen
February; Guxaxac – Seven days later
Platoon Leader Mira Johannes stepped on a Sowir tool-soldier with her mech as she entered the platform carved into the side of the former Guxcacul city. Her turrets were constantly firing at the waves of enemies charging the broken gate of the city, killing them in such numbers that soon a wall of the dead was formed some twenty meters in front of her and her troops. The tool-soldiers were climbing their dead and charging to their deaths while they fired the turrets on their backs that did nothing to falter the slowly moving line of mechs. From time to time, one or two would get close enough to try and use their melee weapons, but they were always either killed by a mech stepping on them, or by soldiers that had taken cover behind the mechs.
Eventually, they cleared the platform and moved to its edge, with the mechs firing on targets in the distance. The mechs themselves were ill-equipped for fighting in the cities—they were too heavy and wrongly built to move on the Guxcacal pillar-bridges—so aside from clearing the gates, their job was to fire on targets of opportunity with their long-range weapons.
Mira targeted a group of enemy tool-soldiers that were just exiting one of the buildings suspended in the air in the center of the city. She fired three missiles and blew it apart, along with any other enemy tool-soldiers and hopefully some Sowir.
The fighting had been hellish; there was no end to the numbers that the Sowir could throw at them. And they had started pulling back before the Empire troops could get to them, choosing to sacrifice large numbers of their tools for escape and time. And every time the Empire’s troops tried to follow them, they ran into traps and ambushes that often ended in the Sowir’s favor.
The Sowir might have had inferior technology, but there was not a lot that the Empire’s troops could do when their enemy placed hidden explosives and collapsed several tons of rocks on their heads, or when they sent a hundred times the Empire’s numbers to confront them.
Mira and her other mechs stood at the edge of the platform, covering the rest of their troops as they moved into the city. To date, the Empire had taken five Sowir bases, while the Guxcacul had taken two, with this one being the one that they had coordinated to attack together and join the two forces, as this one was deep enough that the Guxcacul could reach it from their last city.
As Mira provided covering fire with her mech, her battle map updated with signals from the Guxcacul, who had just breached the gate on the other side of the city. She used her visual sensors to magnify and watch as the Guxcacul troops attacked.
They went in with their counterpart to human tanks, their combat walkers, which they had designed and built during the Sowir invasion, but too late to actually help. The combat walkers cleared the platform and Guxcacul troops in their armor suits entered with their transport walkers.
She knew that it would be easier for the Guxcacul to fight. This was their home turf; everything inside the city was designed and built to accommodate Guxcacul and their tech. The Sowir had adapted a lot, but there was no way that they could change the entire structure of the city.
As another target presented itself, Mira changed focus and fired on the group of tool-soldiers moving over one of the pillar-bridges. It would be a long couple of days as they cleared all the Sowir from the city.
Sahib held on to Riss’s back as he raced up one of the city pillars, and then into one of the buildings suspended in the air. As soon as they entered, Sahib dropped down and readied his weapon as the two of them moved through the building in pursuit of two Sowir. They knew that the only reason the Sowir would run to this building was if they had some of their tool-soldiers stashed and waiting on orders.
And as the two of them moved through the first chamber into the second, three tool-soldiers dropped from the ceiling onto Riss’s back. Sahib immediately dropped his plasma weapon, as it would be useless in the situation, and extended the two mono-blades on his forearms, which were much more effective in close quarters. He jumped onto the first enemy, slashing and stabbing as Riss tried to shake them off. The big arthropod’s build and combat suit made it very hard for him to turn and take care of his attackers.
Sahib took care of the first enemy with a quick stab and slash into the main body, then moved towards the second, who had already noticed him and moved towards Sahib in an attempt to stab at him with his own melee weapon. But Sahib was faster. He raised his left hand to block and prepared to stab with his right when he froze. He knew instinctively what had happened, and shook it off immediately. The Sowir telepathy was not as effective on intelligent beings as it was on their tools, and Sahib had fought against them before and could recognize when they were making an attempt on his mind.
But the slight moment gave the Sowir tool-soldier a precious moment to move out of the way of Sahib’s blade. It wrapped one of its limbs around his right hand, then pulled him forward to where it could wrap a few more limbs around him. Sahib managed to bring his left hand and cut into one of the limbs that it used as a foot, but he didn’t have enough strength to push through and cut it off.
Just as he was about to try once more, his opponent pulled him closer, and then in an impressive effort threw him into the side wall. Momentarily stunned, Sahib raised his head, only to see the enemy rushing at him with two of its limbs—which carried their versions of Empire’s mono-blades—raised high. Sahib reached to his thigh and pulled out his pistol, angling it from his hip upwards towards the tool that was mid-jump towards him, aiming carefully towards the ceiling so as not to hit Riss by accident.
Three bullets flew and punched through the enemy, and Sahib noticed a slight shiver that probably meant that he had hit one of its brains. Then, as it was coming down, he raised his hands and let it impale itself on his blades. The enemy struggled for a moment or two before Sahib turned the blades and widened his arms, cutting into it. Once it stopped moving, he pushed the heavy thing off of himself and looked around the room.
Riss had dispatched his enemy as well and was moving into the next chamber. Sahib stood and moved quickly to follow him. The next room was empty, as was the one after that.
“They got away,” Riss said regrettably.
“Yes,” Sahib agreed, “but they will never escape the city, not with two forces hunting them.”
Riss remained silent, and simply moved to the small terrace and another pillar-bridge. He waited until Sahib jumped on his back, and then started moving back to the action.